perfection
I've seen a number of posts lately where people are feeling really guilty about eating something they feel they "shouldn't" have eaten and are really beating themselves up about it.
I'll let you in on a little secret. You're not perfect. Neither am I. None of us are.
I'm not sure why so many of us seem to think this (myself included), but it's like we thought having surgery would make us perfect. We would eat perfectly healthy all the time and never mess up after surgery, although we messed up all the time before surgery. Unfortunately, surgery on our tummies does not make us perfect. There is no surgery that installs perfection.
People always post about how they think they are doomed to fail because they ate a bite of cake (or several bites of cake) or something like that. You won't fail at WLS because you ate some cake. But if your goal is not to lose weight and be healthy and enjoy life, but is to be perfect, you are gonna fail at that. You are not gonna be perfect all the time. It's impossible.
Don't be surprised when you find out you're not perfect. All you are learning about yourself is that you are a normal human being. That's not a bad thing.
I'll let you in on a little secret. You're not perfect. Neither am I. None of us are.
I'm not sure why so many of us seem to think this (myself included), but it's like we thought having surgery would make us perfect. We would eat perfectly healthy all the time and never mess up after surgery, although we messed up all the time before surgery. Unfortunately, surgery on our tummies does not make us perfect. There is no surgery that installs perfection.
People always post about how they think they are doomed to fail because they ate a bite of cake (or several bites of cake) or something like that. You won't fail at WLS because you ate some cake. But if your goal is not to lose weight and be healthy and enjoy life, but is to be perfect, you are gonna fail at that. You are not gonna be perfect all the time. It's impossible.
Don't be surprised when you find out you're not perfect. All you are learning about yourself is that you are a normal human being. That's not a bad thing.
Kelly
Please note: I AM NOT A DOCTOR. If you want medical advice, talk to your doctor. Whatever I post, there is probably some surgeon or other health care provider somewhere that disagrees with me. If you want to know what your surgeon thinks, then ask him or her. Check out my blog.
I think most of us probably wanted to have surgery so we could be "normal," whatever that means. I think sometimes, at least for me, that problems sometimes arise because what I was doing before surgery wasn't really normal. Before surgery I allowed myself to eat as many cookies as I wanted and I kept eating them even when I was full. Then after surgery, I knew I didn't want to do that again so I tried to allow myself to eat no cookies ever, even if I was hungry. But I don't think that all-or-nothing thinking is really normal. At least it's not very healthy. I'm having to learn what normal is now.
Kelly
Please note: I AM NOT A DOCTOR. If you want medical advice, talk to your doctor. Whatever I post, there is probably some surgeon or other health care provider somewhere that disagrees with me. If you want to know what your surgeon thinks, then ask him or her. Check out my blog.
That is a cool thing to learn. I have to remind myself of that a lot. I don't know why I used to think I had to eat as many cookies as possible, like as of tomorrow all cookies would be gone forever. But somehow I was thinking that.
Kelly
Please note: I AM NOT A DOCTOR. If you want medical advice, talk to your doctor. Whatever I post, there is probably some surgeon or other health care provider somewhere that disagrees with me. If you want to know what your surgeon thinks, then ask him or her. Check out my blog.
LIKE! LIKE! LIKE!
You are so wise, and this is a much needed post. Perfection is an unnecessary goal, and a guarantee of failure.
All of us at one point thought "I'll never eat that again". And we were wrong. Many of us learn though that there can be balance in life, where no food is "illegal" and with the right balance of good eating and exercise, we really can have our cake and eat it too!
I have learned that in my life, I will fall face first into a bag of Oreos occasionally. AND THAT IS OKAY. It isn't license to go bat **** crazy and "give up" and just eat crap all day every day. It is, however, something that happens and life goes on. I also learned that when I stopped thinking of certain foods as "forbidden fruits" they lost much of their appeal.....
In maintenance I live by the 80/20 rule. 80% of the time, I follow the food rules (100% of the time I follow the rules of my surgery....no sodas (I can't tolerate the carbination.....I've tried!!), no drinking with meals or for 30 mins after, etc). When I overindulge, I exercise a little more....most of the time. When I don't, the scale goes up a few lbs. Then I become more diligent for a week or two, and it goes back down.
I have no clothes in my closet bigger than my current size. My "tight" jeans are a good reminder that I better "shut the pie hole".
This is a lifelong learning process, and I thank all of my OH friends for riding along with me--Kelly, you've been such an inspiration and a great source of knowledge!!
Kim
You are so wise, and this is a much needed post. Perfection is an unnecessary goal, and a guarantee of failure.
All of us at one point thought "I'll never eat that again". And we were wrong. Many of us learn though that there can be balance in life, where no food is "illegal" and with the right balance of good eating and exercise, we really can have our cake and eat it too!
I have learned that in my life, I will fall face first into a bag of Oreos occasionally. AND THAT IS OKAY. It isn't license to go bat **** crazy and "give up" and just eat crap all day every day. It is, however, something that happens and life goes on. I also learned that when I stopped thinking of certain foods as "forbidden fruits" they lost much of their appeal.....
In maintenance I live by the 80/20 rule. 80% of the time, I follow the food rules (100% of the time I follow the rules of my surgery....no sodas (I can't tolerate the carbination.....I've tried!!), no drinking with meals or for 30 mins after, etc). When I overindulge, I exercise a little more....most of the time. When I don't, the scale goes up a few lbs. Then I become more diligent for a week or two, and it goes back down.
I have no clothes in my closet bigger than my current size. My "tight" jeans are a good reminder that I better "shut the pie hole".
This is a lifelong learning process, and I thank all of my OH friends for riding along with me--Kelly, you've been such an inspiration and a great source of knowledge!!
Kim
awesome post Kelly!!
First ultra: Stone Mill 50 miler 11/15/14 13:44:38, First Full Marathon: Marine Corps 10/27/13 4:57:11, Half Marathon PR 2:04:43 at Shamrock VA Beach Half-Marathon, 12/2/12 First Half-Marathon 2:32:47, 5K PR Run Under the Lights 5K 27:23 on 11/23/13, 10K PR 52:53 Pike's Peek 10K 4/21/13, (1st timed run) Accumen 8K 51:09 10/14/12.
Thank you for posting this and thank you for responding to my message yesterday about this topic. You are very wise and I feel so lucky to have your advice on all things WLS related.
I mentioned in the message I sent you that the hardest thing is finding a balance. I know a lot of people have a hard time with that. It's setting what rules are correct for ourselves. How many carbs should we let ourselves have? How much sugar and white flour and "bad starches". It was easier for me to be "perfect" when I was sick every second of the day and could only eat a few things.
On the boards here people are always talking about limiting themselves and not letting themselves have white flour and stuff they think they shouldn't have. It's hard looking at all the forum posts when people SEEM perfect even if they aren't. For me I think the problem is I don't really have many rules for myself. My rules include eating less than 1200 calories a day (which I easily do), getting in all my water, and getting in my protein. Other than that I really don't restrict myself of anything. But then people at my support group say that people don't succeed if they don't make strict rules for themselves.
Dieting my whole life and struggling with self esteem and weight regain has definitely taken a toll on me. It irrationally makes me terrified of failure. And I can see that other post ops who are less than a year out are also dealing with this too. It is so difficult getting a healthy relationship with food.
It is really nice to hear that a lot of people don't think people have to be so strict or perfect and they will still succeed.
I mentioned in the message I sent you that the hardest thing is finding a balance. I know a lot of people have a hard time with that. It's setting what rules are correct for ourselves. How many carbs should we let ourselves have? How much sugar and white flour and "bad starches". It was easier for me to be "perfect" when I was sick every second of the day and could only eat a few things.
On the boards here people are always talking about limiting themselves and not letting themselves have white flour and stuff they think they shouldn't have. It's hard looking at all the forum posts when people SEEM perfect even if they aren't. For me I think the problem is I don't really have many rules for myself. My rules include eating less than 1200 calories a day (which I easily do), getting in all my water, and getting in my protein. Other than that I really don't restrict myself of anything. But then people at my support group say that people don't succeed if they don't make strict rules for themselves.
Dieting my whole life and struggling with self esteem and weight regain has definitely taken a toll on me. It irrationally makes me terrified of failure. And I can see that other post ops who are less than a year out are also dealing with this too. It is so difficult getting a healthy relationship with food.
It is really nice to hear that a lot of people don't think people have to be so strict or perfect and they will still succeed.
Height - 5'8 - SW - 292/ CW - 177.6 /GW - 150 - BMI - 27.1 - 114.4 lbs lost!
"The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore" Vincent Van Gogh
"The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore" Vincent Van Gogh
Think about it like parenting for a minute. Some parents have more rules for their kids than others. Some are more strict than others. Both can be good parents and their kids can turn out OK. I think the best parents are probably the ones that decide how strict to be and what rules to have based on their kids' needs, not the ones that just decide on a set of rules before they even have kids and then think they have to stick to all of those.
I believe there are people out there that never ever eat white flour, although I think many of the people who make that a "rule" for themselves probably slip up once in a while. But even those that really never touch it still aren't perfect. Not all the time. Their slip ups might not involve white flour, but they still do have slip ups once in a while.
Not only is it impossible to be perfect, I think some of us have a perception of "perfect" that is always somewhere beyond our reach. Like, if you decided to never eat sugar or white flour again and really stuck to it, I bet one day you'd be posting here feeling guilty because you thought you ate too many carrots. I think our feelings of guilt and not being good enough are not so much related to the food we eat but are rooted much deeper inside ourselves.
When I was in college, my GPA was 3.96. The reason it wasn't a 4.0 was because I only earned a B in Algebra. The whole time I was in college, I only earned less than an A one time. Do you know how upset I was about that stupid B? I think you beating yourself up because you ate a little cake and a white flour tortilla is kinda like me beating myself up for only getting a 3.96 GPA.
I believe there are people out there that never ever eat white flour, although I think many of the people who make that a "rule" for themselves probably slip up once in a while. But even those that really never touch it still aren't perfect. Not all the time. Their slip ups might not involve white flour, but they still do have slip ups once in a while.
Not only is it impossible to be perfect, I think some of us have a perception of "perfect" that is always somewhere beyond our reach. Like, if you decided to never eat sugar or white flour again and really stuck to it, I bet one day you'd be posting here feeling guilty because you thought you ate too many carrots. I think our feelings of guilt and not being good enough are not so much related to the food we eat but are rooted much deeper inside ourselves.
When I was in college, my GPA was 3.96. The reason it wasn't a 4.0 was because I only earned a B in Algebra. The whole time I was in college, I only earned less than an A one time. Do you know how upset I was about that stupid B? I think you beating yourself up because you ate a little cake and a white flour tortilla is kinda like me beating myself up for only getting a 3.96 GPA.
Kelly
Please note: I AM NOT A DOCTOR. If you want medical advice, talk to your doctor. Whatever I post, there is probably some surgeon or other health care provider somewhere that disagrees with me. If you want to know what your surgeon thinks, then ask him or her. Check out my blog.
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