Do you accommodate or transform?

 Here me out here. I may go to the basement in the bottom of the ocean here but this has been on my mind.

 

So…on the day that my mother passed away I was actually in a gender awareness training. I learned some interesting stuff that day and the overall themes are some that I think could apply to many situations, including our household lives after WLS.

Our facilitator shared with us a model of looking at change. When going into a situation where you hope to create change you can go into it with a few different strategies that could be represented by a continuum: on one end there is “accommodating" and the other extreme is “transformative."

 

Accommodating is basically going into a situation and “playing within the home field rules." In gender based work this would be represented by, say, a program that seeks to help with family planning but recognizing that the men make all the decisions with regards to birth control, so working through the men to get to the women.

 

Transformative is looking to change the rules, thereby creating change. In the same situation it would be to convince the men that women should have a say in family planning and then help them access it.

 

This stuck in my mind the last few weeks as I think about how we approach eating post-op. I think many of us go into our home lives thinking on one of either end of this extreme. Either we go in being accommodating (“I had surgery, my family didn’t. So I’m not going to change the way I eat. I’m just going to eat healthfully and maybe they’ll follow suit.") or transformative (“If I can’t have it, they can’t either. It’s not good for any of us!")

 

In real life we mostly operate somewhere between those two points. But I just thought that way of thinking was interesting. For my part, I have places where I am accommodating (there are certain revered family dishes I have never and will never try to make healthy and we don’t eat perfectly 100% of the time by ANY stretch of the imagination) and some ways that I am transformative (I simply do not buy junk food in my house. If it isn’t there we can’t eat it so I don’t buy it.)

 

What do you all think? Do you veer in one direction or another? 

I guess I would say I do both, depending on the issue at hand and what works best at the time.

For instance, talking about post-RNY eating, I live with a partner and he did not have surgery and is not interested in making all the changes in his diet that I've chosen to make in mine.  I do most of the cooking, though, and my philosophy has always been that the cook decides what they want to make and everyone else can eat it or they can fix their own meal.  So I cook healthy meals (transformative).  However, we do have junk food in the house sometimes because my partner wants it sometimes.  Sometimes when it's here I eat a little of it, sometimes I eat something else healthier instead (accommodating).

 Both my husband and I are post op's.  He had the surgery 4 months before i did.  Obviously we both eat the same way  (transformative)and plan to raise children ( if we are blessed with them) to eat the same way we do. When we have guests over we accomodate.  

I do often wonder how people handle eating/meals when they have people in their hosuehold who are not post op's.  I wonder if I would have the will power that I do if I had temptations around the house or someone not eating just as I am.  

My daughters (18 and 12) are vegans and cook for each other.  My son (20) is away at school, and when he's home he and my husband cook for each other.  When he's not home my husband cooks for himself.  (Usually Stouffers, hotdogs, frozen pizzas, etc.) I take care of myself.  Occasionally someone will make something others can eat, but for the most part we all cook what we want or will eat.

I've never enjoyed cooking, and now I don't need to.

I think I also fall somewhere in the middle. I have always cooked separate meals because my oldest son is such a picky eater. So it was either I eat his same boring 6 food rotation or make something that I want to eat also.

In terms of accommodating or transforming after wls for my other 3 children, I'm transforming. My younger son, my husband, & my twins will try anything. They seem to actually like most of the new menu items. For the twins especially I strive to transform because ALL of the women in my family are fat. I'm trying to spare them from having the same weight issues that have plagued the rest of us but I started that before wls. Since my girls are only 3 what they eat is completely up to me. So I've always fed them tons of fresh fruit and veggies. I only order pizza and such about 2x a month. The girls call fiber one bars chocolate bars because thats all they know.

 Um... I think I'm about 40/40 Accomodating/Transformative, with about 20% of conditional compromise thrown in. 

If I've made a lifestyle change, it's usually for a solid reason, and unless that reason applies ONLY to me (ie: changing my wardrobe or signing up for a class, etc)  then I usually see benefit in it for those in my household as well, and so I try to get everyone on board, but also recognize and accept that my changes might not sit as well with my family as they do myself. So I try to strike balance. 

When I had surgery, I recognized that, for my 6 year old child, a sudden and complete 180 change in diet would be a tough adjustment. BUT, I also don't want him to fall victim to relying on convenience foods for his meals, either. So certain things changed.

There are certain things I have to have in my house.  I have to have candy and chocolate and cake and frosting and hot fudge in my house. It's part of my job, it has to be there. And because it doesn't tempt me, it's not a problem. But because I didn't want my son scavenging my business supplies when he gets a sweet craving, I put them away in my workshop instead of in the kitchen.  More work for me to get everything together when I'm filling orders, but less temptation for him. I replaced his usual dessert items with fresh fruit, sugar free puddings, and fruit popsicles, and we went to a "once a week" rule on dessert, instead of every night. 

I still take the kids out to eat at fast food places now and then, because I want them to learn how to order something healthy wherever they are. Too many people rely on excuses. "Well, the only thing near me was a McDonald's, and I was starving, so I had to get a double cheeseburger. I didn't have a choice."  It'll be good for them to learn what constitutes healthy, and how to choose better options amid junk. 

When my husband comes home, he's a grown adult. If he wants to have junk food in the house, that's fine with me, as long as he doesn't eat it in front of the kids. But he's rather chameleon, so chances are good he won't since I'm not. But I wouldn't make an issue of it if that's what he wanted. The only thing I might have a problem with is if he whined about my gym-going.  It's hard to schedule enough "us time" when he's home. Our time together is so limited, he tends to get attached at the hip and gets put out when I do stuff by myselkf or with other people. So I can see him getting frustrated that, while he's home, I'll still have to work and go to the gym and everything else. That could get frustrating because, as much as I adore him, I still need to make time for me. 

I tend towards accomodation. My husband is quite dedicated to junk food, and while I have cut back some on what I buy, he gets testy if he doesn't have what he wants. For the most part his junk isn't anything that tempts me.  If it is, I put it directly in his work van and it never makes it in the house.

I have some transformative tricks in my bag though. For example, I make recipes that include more vegetables and less meat. A lot of the time he doesn't realize I've skewed the recipe to be better for us. I also don't buy ice cream for him like I used to. Now it really is a treat instead of a staple.

Since I do all the grocery shopping and cooking, I could have stricter rules. I don't because he and I don't have the same food issues. There are some dishes I just won't make anymore, because the temptation would be too great. Goodbye chicken parmesan. Hello waistline.

I accommodate mostly because I have always cooked healthy meals for my family.  I refuse to cook a different meal for them unless it is something I like that I know no one else will eat.  For example I love grilled salmon so when my husband grills hamburgers outside I throw some salmon on for me.  No one else likes salmon and it is an easy fix.  BUT, I will not cook my kids chicken nuggets while I eat grilled chicken.  My husband wants me to cook healthy meals so it really isn't an issue.  I accommodate them by adding some rice or potatoes with their meal.  I also have some food in the house that I won't eat like nutra grain bars and frozen waffles.    There is no way I am going to expect them to drink a protein shake for breakfast.(  Actually, my husband can't drink protein shakes etc.  Long story.)  As far as junk food and treats I don't keep it in the house.  I accommodate them by allowing them to have it outside the house.  We may go out for ice cream every now and then etc.  I also accommodate them by letting them fix a special treat every now and then.  The other day we made chocolate chip cookies for a sick friend.  They got the extras.  Or I might let them order a pizza on a night that I have a meeting. 

Hubby and i had perhaps 50% of our food likes were aligned pre-op.... so we were used to often having separate foods when we ate, though we ate together. After surgery that became, for a while, nearly 100%... I had my food he had his, and I was grossed out by the sheer truckload of food he could consume.

I didn't expect him to eat like I ate though, and so we didn't have much frction, though I have encouraged him to "drop the whites".... Cut back on volume and on the rice, potatoes, flour, sugar.

but since it was just both of us, and we'd already established eating paradigms that were somewhat different, it wasn't a big deal. I did, however, claim "eye level" as MINE. If he was going to eat junk it had to be NOT at eye level. top shelves in the cupboards, bottom shelves in the fridge, top or bottom in the freezer. It works for us.

I think we've moved back to about 70/30... 70% of our foods are mutually exclusive, and 30% dovetail

I sometimes eat less "strictly" when on vacation (though I often feel like I'm in a deprivation zone even though I try to plan ahead)

We have two trips planned out of the country, and I have no idea how we will fare in those situations.