Describe your behavioral and emotional battle with weight control before learning about bariatric surgery.
My behavioral battle has involved a long history of dieting, beginning at age 8, followed by weight regain when my hunger drive would finally overcome my self-discipline. Eventually my body became so efficient at conserving its calories that more and more severe diets were require to achieve wieght loss. Exercise did not enter the equation until age 26 or so, and taking diet pills was added to the pattern at age 38.
I took a long hiatus from dieting from age 40 through 48 during which time I did not experience ANY change in weight, and felt strong, comfortable and healthy, albeit fat. I only returned to dieting after repeated pressure from a new PCP (after the death of my previous PCP). This resulted in an initial loss of 20 pounds followed by regain of 30 pounds, in conformance with my previous experiences. However, this last ten pounds pushed me over the limit of comfort and accommodation into the scary realm of super morbid obesity and related health and lifestyles issues.
Even though this process of lifelong yo-yo dieting resulted in net weight gain over time, I developed a preference along the way for healthy foods, fish, whole grains, unprocessed fruits and veggies, both raw and cooked, and lost my taste for chips, snack foods, and most sweets. These preferences do not result in weight loss for me, but my nutritional level has been great! I have never gotten used to the discipline of eating less than I want to eat.
The emotional battle was much more devastating. I cannot bring myself to go back over all of the pain, shame, ostracism, and self-loathing I experienced during my adolescence and early adulthood, but I will try to give an overall picture by telling of the passage out of that hell on earth.
At age 26, after many diet failures, and weighing in the high 200s, I began a medically supervised Protein Sparing Modified Fast (PSMF). Although I eventually gained all the weight back, and with interest of course, it took many years to return. This was one of the most profound experiences of my life as the five years of slimness and another five of being overweight (just veiwed by others as a fat person, not as a freak) gave me an opportunity to find a place for myself in the world, to develop social skills and self-confidence, and the bravery to go out in the world and accomplish things.
As I gained the weight back I never lost the sense of myself that I learned during those years. This gave me the ability to function in the world even after I regained weight and began to feel ashamed and guilty again. I never felt the same level of self-loathing or complete unworthiness after the PSMF as I did before, although I felt despair at my regain and subsequent dieting failures and the discovery that I could not repeat that weight loss as hard as I tried. At least I know how to "act" in the world and could function well enough that I no longer felt apologetic for taking a share of the world's common supply of air. Although I still had difficult emotions I no longer had the need to withdraw from participation in life or to destroy my own interpersonal relationships. Once I gained back up to the high 200s I started to feel a lot of apprehension again about meeting new people or making public appearances, but I had now mastered the art of convincing others that I was actually outgoing and confident, and to postpone my negative obsessing until I was alone.
The next really profound thing that happened for me was reading an ad in Ms Magazine for Radiance magazine. Radiance really set me on the path so learning to love and accept myself as a real and valuable person who happens to be fat. This released me from the emotional extremes associated with weight loss and gain: when losing weight I had super high feelings of pride and power, and unrealistice fantasies of how beautiful and desirable and thin and fashionable I would be, and how everyone would love me; when regaining I would be so overwhelmed by the guilt of my failure and disgusted with myself and my body that I would wish to die until I imagined other people having to deal with my repulsive fat corpse and then I would be as afraid of dying as I was of living.
After Radiance I was able to view my own size and fatness, as well as changes in my weight, as physical events, that did not detract from my value as a person, or as a friend, lover, mother, employee, trainer, speaker, writer, or even client and customer. So I believe that I became psychologically healthy (well, more or less so!).
I eventually succumbed (after resisting for about a year) to pressure from my PCP to diet with him, using pills. I had such a hard time finding a doctor with a location and schedule that fit in with my work needs, and who took my health insurance, and was accepting new patients. (Things are a little different in the non-urban areas of Puerto Rico than they are in the in the cosmopolitan area, or in the continental US.) I just got tired of fighting with him and I had some other issues that I was trying to work out with him.
So I took the pills, followed the diet, more or less, and lost weight which I enjoyed. I actually liked the pills because they helped me to stay awake at work. (During the pre-op studies for WLS I discovered that my daytime sleepiness was related to the very low levels of oxygenation that I have while sleeping, which should improve after WLS.)
I didn't take the loss or subsequent regain too seriously on an emotional level. However, this last regain, took me into a whole new level of obesity. With my weight now in the 300s it has exacerbated my arthritis and sleep disorder, and is causing me difficulty in mobility, reach, excercise, personal care, etc. The prospect of dieting my way up to a future of disability and dependency is so disturbing to me that even though I no longer feel ashamed or unlovable, I am determined to stop this harmful cycle.
I am grateful for these two experiences, the PSMF and the Size Acceptance movement for helping me to develop self-confidence and a sense of self-worth. Without them, I know that I would not even be able to give myself the opportunity of WLS, and I beleive that those same qualities will not only enhance my ability to benefit from WLS by working with it as a dependable tool, but will help me to avoid the psychological pitfalls that can accompany such a major life change.
What was (is) the worst thing about being overweight?
This is a hard question to answer because there are so many horrible things. So I will have to give three worst things, but the order of badness changes everytime I think about it!
Here they are:
1. Physical discomfort. The worst is being hot and sweaty under the belly and between the thighs, with the belly sitting on the lap covering the thighs, and getting yeasty rashes where the air never circulates. See, I had to say "the" and not "my" because it is sooo hard to own that yuckiness!
2. Physical limitations. I can't keep up with my husband and kids. We have always walked and hiked together and now everyone has to slow down and wait for me while I huff and puff along behind them wondering if I will have enough stamina to get back afterwards.
3. The harsh judgment of other people who believe that being fat is the result of lack of character and some kind of really bizarre behavioral defect. It is more acceptable in our society to be a crack addict or ex-con than to be fat.
If you have had weight loss surgery already, what things do you most enjoy doing now that you weren't able to do before?
I like working more than I did, mostly because I have enough energy to get through the day now. I like getting dressed for work in the morning a lot more now. I am looking forward to doing more active leisure activities with my family soon. Perhaps there will be some vacation time available for this in a while.
samba
