Hi friends and family,
The theme I've been seeing here a lot lately is that people are having trouble maintaining their goal weight, or haven't reached their goal weight, or are struggling and starving themselves out of fear of gaining, or are terrified of eating normally, or snacking, or.... just a whole lot of fear of failure.
Please don't tune me out when I say this: You are not eating normally. You are not tracking your food. You are not planning your daily diet. YOU ARE NOT BEING HONEST WITH YOURSELF.
If you've had the surgery and you're following a nutritionist's guidance about what to eat and how much to eat, you should be losing weight pretty steadily, even if you have occasional plateaus. It is physically impossible to have had any of the successful bariatric procedures and then fail to lose 40, 50, 60.... 100 pounds or more. Doctors aren't even supposed to offer this surgery to people unless they are morbidly obese, and that generally means you need to lose 100+ pounds.
The pounds you are carrying around and want to lose are not the real focal point of your Eating Disorder. You have an Eating Disorder. You may not be fully anorectic or bulimic, you may not be riding the rapids of self-loathing, you might not have been hospitalized for obesity-related disorders including diabetes and cardiovascular damage, but those big things that are obvious are not usually the thing that's pushing you closer and closer to the grave.
It's in your head. You have a "fat brain." It's more powerful than dragging 50 pounds of lard up a hill. It's cunning and sneaky and it hates you and wants you to fail. You are truly in a battle to the death with this compulsive, destructive, evil force that lives in your brain and fights against healthy body image, self esteem, wild success and peace of mind.
The irony of all this is that you have the power to defeat this evil being. You may not know this because it's SO easy to stuff your face, pig out on desserts, slather on the fats and sweets and gain, gain, gain weight as your health deteriorates. But it's just as easy to decide to allow your healthy brain to send positive messages that will take control of your life in every way.
I'm 20 years out and the reason I'm successful is that I made the decision to reprogram my Fat Brain. I'm just a regular person and there are many ways in which I struggle, including occasional food failures. But that's the key. It's OKAY TO STRUGGLE. But the difference between an "oops" and an "I SUCK" was my decision to give myself more love and allow myself to succeed and feel PRIDE instead of letting myself be cloaked in SHAME.
I
could go on and on about this, but let me recommend a book: The Only Diet There Is (a diet from negative thinking) by Sondra Ray. This is not a book you read and just magically feel better. It's a tool that allows you to redirect your thinking, to fight off the nasty messages, to relax and calmly believe you are deserving, amazing, wonderful, without acting all goofy about it. Don't start reading it if you aren't willing to believe in yourself. This book is a gift to you, not to be skimmed or put down because there's something good on tv. If you devour the messages in this book like you ferociously go after a gooey snack, you'll change your life and cure your Fat Brain.
Please give yourself a chance to be happy. You deserve to love yourself. And you have the power to do that, right there in your heart and mind.
