Don't be single-minded when fighting your own obesity!

 Very well said!

Amen!!!! I tried to tackle my regain a few months back & failed miserably. Why? Because I simply tried to go on a crash diet. I wasn't in the right place in my head yet. Now, I'm focusing on living my life healthfully, and mindfully. I feel soooo much better! You are right on the mark.

Obesity won't get me again! I have every tool I need in my arsenal. I have the RNY gastric bypass, I have the education on nutrition and exercise, I have discipline, supportive family, and the power I feel from my faith. Obesity is a battle I will fight forever no matter how "skinny" I am. It's a mindset, not a number on the scale.....

The mental aspects are the worst.  I have went through the breakup of a 4 year relationship and have come unglued. 

I am in therapy because I realized I was on the verge of an eating disorder which I find oddly ironic.  So even at 3 years out the mental crap can come back and bite you in the ass.

Christy

I really agree with this.  I found it hard to understand that surgery is a tool prior to having the surgery.  Everyone could tell me verbally but I wasn't getting it until living through it.  The surgery is helping me get control of the food intake while I work on all the other factors that contributed to the eating in the first place.  Obesity is so multi facetted.  Finding alternatives to emotional eating has been a challenge for me.  Starting a routine exercise program had always been a challenge because of my size - everything HURT to exercise.  The surgery is allowing the opportunity to exercise and to recognize emotion eating and stop myself with another distraction. 

Good post.

Nik, I agree with with your original post 100 %.  But I do exception with your comment about husbands!

Jim

  You definitely could have wrote that to me!! I know it's going to be a life long fight to keep myself mentally and physically in top shape.  Why I hate to exercise is beyond me because it makes me feel so amazingly better!!  And I can see instant rewards...maybe not on the scale but in my mental attitude and especially stamina...took that walk again today that left me sore and wore the hell out a week ago...but today I'm a little sore but nothing like last week.  Life is definitely going to get better and better! 

Thanks Nik!! 

Sherry

 Well said. I think often to myself with the visualization of a person filling a car with gas and letting the over full fuel take spill out everywhere.

Only it's me feeding myself with food.

Hopefully you won't get the really nasty PM that I got from someone the last time I posted something about the importance of people working on the psychological and emotional issues that contributed to their obesity.

This person was tired of me (and some unnamed other vets) telling "everyone" that they needed "therapy" just because they were fat (which is not something that I have ever said, because not everyone who is overweight needs formal therapy) and assuming that everyone has "mental issues" behind their obesity (again, I have never said that everyone has a psychological component to their obesity... but I do believe that probably 90%+ do). 

I blocked that person, so they won't see this (if that person is  even still here... the ones who send the nasty PMs overreacting to something rarely stay very long.)

Lora

 I got help when I realized that my body was setting me up to fail big time.  Depression is a big problem for me, and it wasn't until I realized that I was sad when I couldn't eat the food on my plate that it could actually impact my weight loss.  

It's done so in other ways... depression makes me move slower and in established non-thinking patterns that can rob me of choice.  

Therapy is going to be a big deal for me in helping me be successful with surgery.