it would be SOOO easy

  • to slip back into old habits. are you surprised? hmmm.

    there are times i'd like nothing more than to curl up with a good book and some cookies, and just escape. for a long time.

    but i can't. it would be so easy to go back to weighing 500 pounds, but i was miserable.

    a wise woman once told me that very overweight people tend to live in their heads, not in their bodies. and that once they started living in their bodies, they hated it, and that was the breaking point. some can't stand it and do whatever they must to lose the weight, and others go back to ignoring their physical beings.

    at some point during just about every single day, i take a look around myself and realize that i'm doing stuff that was impossible at 500 pounds. i'm walking around the office, or talking and walking at the same time, or hiking or riding a bike, or shopping. just normal everyday stuff.

    and then the gratitude hits. and i realize that no matter how much i want to backslide, it's just not an option.

    it's not always an easy choice, though.

    <sigh> i know you all understand this...
  • Wow, your post just got me off my butt and on the elliptical machine. Seriously. I was reading your post, with every intention of skipping exercise today... "I don't have time, I'm too tired, I just don't want to, I don't really need to" yada yada yada

    Well, I just did my 20 minutes and I feel so much better. Monday I committed to myself to do 20 minutes every day this week, just as an experiment. LOL Thanks for reminding me of the good things.

    Now I think I will consider that 20 minutes every morning as a *celebration* that I CAN go for 20 minutes on ANY piece of exercise equipment. And who knows, maybe next week I'll celebrate for 25 minutes!

    Thanks!

    Julie
  • I understand it and I live it, day after day.
  • geez julie - i really appreciate your words, and am going to hang onto them. i wrote that when i felt down in the dumps. i didn't exercise last night, even though i knew i needed to. on the other hand, i was stung by a bee on sunday [massive allergic reaction, complete with trip to the ER], and was still feeling the effects. so maybe exercising really wasn't the right thing to do.

    but as i was RESTING, and remembering how easy it was to REST, i also remembered that i was unable to move, and that i can't go back there.

    so, all in all, this is a big lesson for me. rest when you NEED to. move because you MUST. bodies in motion tend to stay in motion. bodies at rest tend to stay at rest.
  • How awful about the bee sting! Sounds scary! I'm glad you are ok, though, and yes, resting at this point is a good thing. LOL

    At nearing my 4 year post-op mark, I'm finding myself in a lot of deep thought about all of this. I'm needing to re-think some things about the surgery that I took for granted my first couple of years out. Not to mention the emotional junk that came with losing the weight. 42 and never had a boyfriend... need I say more? LOL

    I'm finally in a place, where I think I can *honestly* say I'm doing this for me. That has been a hard place to come to. It is a hard place to stay AT, too.

    Last night, as I was standing in the kitchen in my pjs (I live alone with my two cats) I looked down at myself and just smiled. I like myself and I think I'm attractive. MAYBE that is enough???? Hmmmmmmmm. A foreign idea, but I'm pondering it.

    By the way, guess what I was making while I was standing in the kitchen? Jiffypop popcorn! No lie!!!!
  • oh you're so cute!!!! i have never been a popcorn fan... the name jiffypop comes from my initials - jfp!!!!

    and you're so right about that 'deep thought' thing. and that emotional junk. oh my. what a major pile of ... of .... well, you can fill in the blank!

    that statement that you can now honestly say that you're doing this for yourself - and that it's a hard place to come to and STAY AT. oh baby. have you EVER hit the nail on the head!

    why oh why do we have such a hard time doing things for ourselves????? it's almost as if we have to start from ground zero and relearn EVERYTHING we ever did - every choice we made, every coping mechanism, every emotion.

    but overall, i believe that the effort is well worth it as we figure out how to live in our new skins as 'normal' people, in every sense of the word.!!!!

    i live with the alzheimer's mom, an 85 pound rottweiler lab mix, and two black cats. are you and i related or WHAT!!!!??>>>
  • Jiffy, I have a story about a Rottweiler that I need to share with you... and a picture! LOL

    Good news! I've done my 20 minutes every day this week and have dropped 3 pounds! I know it is just water or something, but after inching up on the scale for the last 9 months, it is nice to see it go down a bit. Thanks again for your encouragement.

    I love chatting like this!

    Pookie, your journal sounds like an excellent idea! It really is so easy to forget what we are eating and to sort of ZONE out about what goes in...

    Julie
  • Jiff take it from me you DON'T want to slip back into those old way, no matter how easy it is.

    ole Alvin has to fight that every single day! Some days he wins, and some days he doesn't. But it is definately a struggle!!

    I had lunch with my friend Pam who is just now one year post-op yesterday and we talked a lot about that. How when you are first out of surgery everything is so new and exciting to be loosing so fast and feeling so good about yourself, then the longer it goes and weight is harder to get off and life steps in , etc etc, etc. It is a real struggle, but one you have to keep on fighting, because, yes it is worth it. I too look at ole Alvin and see him doing things he could not do before, and it's almost amazing!

    Question??? I was at my Rheumatologist yesterday and we were talking about weight loss and when/if I was ever going to actually have the surgery and he told me something I had never heard before (and I thought I knew it all). Have any of you heard this?

    He said they have just discovered that there is a hormonal change when you have the surgery that helps with the weight loss and breaking up of the fat cells in your body. He said it was not just the smaller size of the new stomach/pouch. He said that this is the reason the just following the "WLS" diet doesn't work. (Remember I tried that!!) so is this just something I missed, or is something that has just shown up?


    Barbg
  • jif as you probably remember I did not have WLS -- I've lost 170 pounds, though, and I often read these boards because so many of you started in the same place that I did and I think we share many of the same issues.

    I started my weight loss in Sept, 2001. Right now I am almost exactly half my starting weight, and hope to lose 10 more pounds. In some ways I feel that this new way of eating is an ingrained habit now -- I pretty much move through to day making choices on automatic. Yet, there is ALWAYS a voice in the back of my mind tempting me ... "Go ahead and put some more mayonnaise on that sandwich" ... "You won't blow your week if you have one of those doughnuts on the break table" ... "Let's go out for lunch" ... "Let's have a little bowl of cereal for a nighttime snack" ... and on and on. I guess what keeps me on track is the fact that the other voice, the one that says, "Don't be silly! We can't do that!" has gotten stronger and more in charge.

    But, there are days .... even weeks and months ... where that voice weakens, and the Old Voice becomes louder. I've worked so hard to recognize the situations where I used food/abused food and to find alternatives, to learn to live without whatever the food provided. Most of the time I do feel pleased to be free of those chains. And yet, and yet ... sometimes I remember those times with not a little nostalgia. How much I enjoyed cooking -- and eating -- all kinds of high-calorie stuff over a weekend. How a long busy day would send me to one of my favorite restaurants for a full-course meal "because I deserved it." The fun of curling up with a good movie and an endless supply of snackies. And, dammit, I MISS IT. My logical brain will not let me go too far with these reveries, but they will lead me to eat more than I should. And the pull gets even stronger! I have to remind myself how far I've come, how much better my life is overall, how I don't want to go back, not even a little bit.

    When I started, I had a (new for me) attitude of, "OK, you're going to have to do whatever the rest of your life. Treat it as a disease you can never be cured of." I was finally willing to give up the habits and preferences of 39 years in order to have a healthy, reasonably active body. While I suspected I would never be completely free, I never guessed that 4 years into it I would still have these periods of deep nostalgia. It's hard. It's HARD. But I just keep on keepin' on.
  • I hear ya Jiffy, damn, it would be SOOOOO easy to slip right back into my old ways. This knowledge smacks me right between the eyes every time I catch myself mindlessly nibbling and picking at things I know very well I shouldn't be having. If only we could flip some magic switch in our brains and all of our food addictions/issues would just disappear, sigh! Thank goodness we have the ability to remember where we came from, so we know exactly what we're not going to allow ourselves to go back to. So keep remembering Jiffy, and believe in yourself that you're never gonna let it happen again.

    Beverly
  • This is a very good, thought-provoking discussion. I think that anyone that has had problems with food can relate. That little voice in my head is what I refer to as my 'food junkie'. The crave for carbs, etc. is almost a mirror of the crave for drugs that addicts experience. If I can keep in mind that that my 'food junkie' suffered from the disease of carb addiction then it helps me resist what it is saying. I'm not always successful but I work at it everyday - and I'll most likely have to for the rest of my life.

    Well, anyway, thanks for making me think and helping me to not feel alone in my struggles.

    (Hi to Jiff, Ageoldie, Pookie - I've been missing you guys)

    Kel
  • What a wonderful topic. I particularly liked the reminder of how difficult it is for many of us to live in our bodies-not our heads. I think I use my head as a defense mechanism to try to plot and plan. Also, as I've gotten large, my poor body has so many aches that it is hard to get back to living in it and moving it. Today while swimming on a trip out of town, I had such a nice time stretching and enjoying the water. I have vowed to do more. Thanks for the topic. Deevs