2goldengirl

Sometimes when we are hurt, we shut ourselves off from everything. This saves us from the bad stuff, but it also prevents us from really knowing and having the good stuff.
Vulnerability in order to experience love and tenderness is a wonderful thing.

RJ,
You are a strong woman, I've always suspected that by just seeing the strength and grace you have exhibited while going through the hardships of this surgery...
After reading your background I realize your strength is born from adversity and survival..
We are survivalists in the truest sense.
As you said, our siblings are or were scarred in different ways yes?
As my brother was..
In his death, I realized my strength, my ability to survive.
I'm looking forward to the days ahead of not just surviving and being strong, but having joy.
Joy and vulnerability..

Oh, RJ, how heartbreaking, but you are right, what you lived through has made you who you are today. I pray that God will continue to help you overcome the demons you struggle with. Hugs to you

LV, while I love to see your before/afters, I'm honestly SO glad you never post anything like that, because even pre-op (surgery tomorrow!), I know I'll never be "cured" from this obesity. The physical ailments stemming from my obesity might go away, but the demons that drove me to overindulge will be over huffing and puffing in a corner. I'm buttoning down for a year or so of what I anticipate will be a significant amount of upheaval and internal chaos, and if/when I reach the point that my spare 120 dissipates, I honestly doubt I'll be all, "yay, I'm thin," but rather, "yay, I have the upper hand -- for now."

I haven't yet a clue what "maintenance" should look like for me. In my dreams, it is "eat whatever I want, just smaller amounts" but I suspect the reality for maintenance will more likely be "eat very carefully so as not to regain." I wish I knew.
My hope is that with tons of practice, eating very carefully will eventually feel like eating whatever I want, just in smaller amounts. Because with my "naturally skinny" friends, that is what I observe. It's not that they never indulge, but if I am paying attention they indulge in a very measured way.

Thank you for starting this thread, Rev. I've also been thinking a lot about the food messages I received growing up. My grandmother fed the people she loved copious amounts of food, but she spent her entire life gaining and losing the same 20 lbs. My mother is a pretty terrible cook, so my sister & I were fed a continuous stream of packaged, heavily processed crap food from my mom & heaping helpings of southern-fried deliciousness from my grandmother. Neither way of eating was an example of a healthy (or even a moderately OK) diet.
My first husband was a seriously talented cook & he made incredible meals every night. His food was rich and delicious, and he never made healthy or lighter alternatives. In fact, when I would try to lose weight, he complained that he didn't see why he should compromise the quality of his food just because I had a weight problem (he has always been very lean). I never learned anything about proper portion size, and I took a daily medication with a side effect of increased appetite. Naturally, my weight ballooned.
Now, I feel like I am gradually getting a better handle on my eating. It's taking some time & it's definitely a process. I'm trying to keep myself prepared to make changes when something stops working, since I've heard so many vets say they found they had to make more changes as they got further out. I enjoy the NSV's, markers, and milestones of my weight loss, but I'm trying to keep most of my focus on the long term changes rather than the short term "woo hoo" moments.

I was always a very healthy and athletic child. I definitely took after my Italian side, short, "solid" and muscular. I was never the skinny teen, with more curves and boobs, but I never got larger than a size 1/2 up until college.
My mom was a terrible cook. We lived on hot dogs, pot pies (Swanson!), Gordon's fish sticks, and spaghetti. Every once in awhile, my mom would make some effort and we would have hamburger helper or tacos but she never enjoyed cooking so it was rare. Add to the fact that she was cheap as the day is long, so if a meal cost more than $0.03 per serving, we weren't eating it.

I'm not fat because my mom fed me with love, I'm fat because my (size 2/4) mom was ALWAYS on diet. She drank TAB by the caseload. She tried smoking for about a week because she heard it would make her skinny. She was always on the cabbage diet, or a cleanse diet, or any other 70s/80s fad diet you can imagine. She never tried to put me on these diets, but she was the queen of denying me food because she was denying herself unless she was on a between diet binge. As far as goodies were concerned, it was feast or famine at my house and believe me, feasts were few and far between.
We didn't have good nutritious food and we didn't have snack food. We ate high carb, processed, full of fat food three times a day (Spam anyone?). Period. That's it. Everything else was forbidden so it made it all the more delightful when I was out at a friend's house or somewhere else I could get by greedy little paws on food. ANY food. And when I could, I ate. And ate. AND ATE. (One day I will tell you about the time I found the Bacos stash in home ec.)
Fortunately, I was a very active teen. I played travel soccer, I was a cheerleader, I swam and was a year round lifeguard and it was only these activities that saved me from blooming like a pig once I could get around by myself. We lived in the middle of no where so there wasn't much for fast food except a McD's, a Taco Johns a a few pizza places in town.
When my parents divorced, I had a bedroom at both houses, but my mom moved to town. I stayed with her most nights but at that point, she stopped cooking and any food she bought, she kept in her room or on "her shelf" in the fridge, and I was not allowed to touch it. By this point I could finally drive, and I ate out all the time. My portions were always big because I knew I wouldn't be eating at home but because we never had food at home, I never really plumped. While my mom never pointedly fat shamed ME, she did constantly make fat comments about herself and others I knew were directed at me in some bizarre passive aggressive way. I matched her diet for diet as far as she knew while eating crap anytime I could to spite her.
Enter college and say hello to fatness! I went to college on a very urban campus. I had a meal ticket and lived within walking distance to several restaurants and even better, A GROCERY STORE!! I never went home for holidays or weekends unless the college was closing, preferring to stay at my dorm/apartment/with a friend. I made it a point to eat every bit of forbidden food that I could afford. I ate it by the bagful, binge after binge. Never did it occur to me to eat anything healthy because we didn't do that at home. I never developed too much of a sweet tooth because when my mom would binge, it was Cookies and ice cream so those foods didn't hold the forbidden appeal that everything else did.
I could go on and on, but you get the idea. I ate because I finally could. I ate processed shitted because that's all I knew. I ate in HUGE portions because that was my habit. I ate in secret because I knew what I was doing was "against the rules" and wrong.

My sleeve keeps me from doing that for now. FOR NOW. (And yes, that scares me.) I am working really hard to relearn portion size and healthy balance. I cannot deny myself anymore because since college, I've been on deprivation diet after deprivation diet, only driving myself to binge more once I couldn't take it any more.

I have got to convince myself that nothing is forbidden anymore and that I am not on a "diet". I have to teach myself that I can have whatever I want, whenever I want, as long as I make good healthy choices first. I have to teach myself that there will always be more food later and that there is no need to binge now. And I have to teach myself that no one is judging me so there is no need to eat in secret.

This is why I can not and will not say NO NEVER to any food because I know exactly where that will drive me. I've had enough shame instilled in me and I refuse to do it to myself. I purposefully keep candy and Snacks and chips and crap in my house for my kids and they could care less about it. I'm trying hard to break the cycle I learned growing up and my sleeve is helping me maintain control while I heal my mind...
PHEW. I hope all that made sense. I think I just verbally vomited all over myself but I am too tired to go back and read all that shitted to see if I was at all easy to understand.

Beautifully put, honey.
You definitely got what i said. I'm glad about that, because most of it was a random stream of consciousness! Or is that unconsciousness!
Oh sod it. I was having a whinge!
The line in the sand- as you so eloquently put it - is a milestone of significant fear for me. Glad I'm not alone in trying to fathom it out before Armageddon hits... and I realise (worst of all fears), that this experience was just a 'sticking plaster' for a festering boil still un-treated...
-x-

I agree with Rev. Laura, you are more in tune with the meaning of all of this I believe. You are in no way more fucked up than anyone, you are just one of the few that are bringing the darkness into the light. I personally think that's what will make you successful in the long run. Not only that but you are helping others along the way. You admit you don't know it all but you open up the conversation to important issues. That's what I and many others admire about you. Your threads have hundreds of responses from people who have similar issues.

What?! You don't love me every day, LV?!!!
As for being here - we all need the humorous; but it has to be tempered with a deeper level of exploration as to how we got into this mess. Surely?
If people need 'social' outlets - then start threads which have nothing to do with bariatric surgery and dietry constraints. Hell, I wouldn't mind if threads were entitled 'my kids are driving me bonkers' or 'my husband is as useful as tits on a bore-hog'! It would certainly break the monotony of pseudo relevance to what we've elected to do to ourselves or what people are considering electing to do to themselves. It might also make people seem more 'human', too.... But would this invalidate the purpose of the website? I don't know...
I endeavored to touch on the 'emotional' with the 'dirty' little secrets thread as an attempt to furnish people, without condemnation, the ability to say 'hey, I'm human!' As it stood, it was completely misread, undermined and misrepresented by those who don't see further than their own noses and their own self-promulgating/promoting interests.
So, I shrug and attempt to move it on... By spreading my own insecurities, weaknesses and vulnerabilities out there, for the world to see, I hope it encourages those to acknowledge why they are actually here. Not just focus on the gram-count that seems to engulf peoples' worlds for the sake of seeing smaller numbers. We are whole human beings. Not calculators.
I hope this moves it on....

No thanks required, honey.
It was borne out of a need to evaluate where we all came from, why we're all here and how we're going to conquer more than our immediate fat-laden desires.
It is also a deft side step from the banality of pseudo 'helpful' statements which are fundamentally originated from individuals' need for self congratulation and reciprocal pats on the back.
So you manage to eat 100grms of cottage cheese and fresh air for the day? Yes, marvelous. How about those demons that brought you to this place, you ever-so-slightly-patronising and supercilious individual? Still hiding in the closet - along with those 'extraneous' size 26's you still have left to throw out?
Yeaaah.. It's one of 'those' days...

Revs,
Thank you for a thought provoking thread

I SOOOOOOO hear ya, Lauren. I haven't talked to my father in over 16 years. For pretty much the exact same reasons as you...
I proffered the analogy to those disgusted in my isolationist actions 'Okay, if you were forced to meet someone sporadically who every time they met you, annihilated every shred of confidence in you, constantly reaffirming that you were 'lesser' than they desired - would you keep talking to them?'... I cut those conversations dead....
With that being said - my mother was and is, an emotional mess... I only 'forgave' her, her 'sins', when I got a bit older. I realised, she was a product of her abusive environment...
It took this last weekend for my to realise that with age, my perception of my mother has been tempered with time and affection (I have massively redacted my story for the benefit of this thread). It took for my future husband to state in his broad (and I love it so dearly) southern drawl... 'Either way you look at it.. It was child abuse.. But you rose above it and now they want to use you as a trophy - despite doing nothin' to deserve the reflected glory.'...
Sometimes it takes a HUGE dose of objectivity to realise that after all.. you're okay... and you're doing your best...
I'm okay. I'm doing my best. I'm just finding the banality of Protein measurements, Water consumption, calorie counting and lofty statements of 'ooh, look at how much I've lost!' but the mere tip of the iceberg as to why I (and we) are here now and why I am struggling to conquer my demons.
They're deep and I know where they lurk.... and I don't believe I'm alone.
But on the plus side.. (scuse the pun)... I am a size 16.. one size bigger than my blonde-haired, blue eyed, supercilious, lesser educated, millionaire marrying and over-ovary stiumlated sister ;<sad and petty, but true>. I am also, smaller, better educated and better traveled than my millionaire brother. <sad, petty and true>.
What are the measurements of success - outside the dropping of physical inches?
Happiness without weight and freedom of conditional emotion? Yes, I'll take that.

Okay, I've been forced to do a lot of soul-searching recently.
Despite sailing through any pre-operative psychological assessment (in fact I was so convincing and probably 'cause I was self pay I wasn't actually referred for the full tests), there is a nagging truth which keeps tapping me on the shoulder and making me uncomfortably aware of the reasons as to why I found myself in this position. The position whereby I felt bariatric surgery was my only viable option to lose weight and take control of my diet. Or more accurately and for me; my portion size.
Although I can intellectualise my way out of a paper bag (as was stated by the psychologist when I finally met them), I had, and have, to be honest as to the reasons I ended up this big.
The answer, as painful as it is, was; my mother.
My mother is a tough cookie. Born in a depressive era in Ireland, with enumerate siblings. She was poor and although educated, she was curtailed in her life choices and was always shown that 'if you love someone, you feed them'. I assume this was their truth, as to feed a very big family was difficult at this time, and was the only example her poor long-suffering and abused mother could muster under extreme circumstances. It was also the only expected long-term outlook for women of childbearing age.
The impact of this, was clearly passed down the genetic line. That in this, the nature/nurture argument for our food weaknesses becomes more pressing. This was exemplified not only in the way my mother behaved generally, but how she administered herself in her marriage and how she behaved with her children.
The extent of this dysfunction only became apparent in how skewed my food choices (and more appropriately: portion sizes) were - and how I was born into those food choices - when recently cooking for my mother. She skipped anything resembling a vegetable, ate her body-weight in meat, potatoes and fresh bread (despite my making from scratch; Hummus, Baba Ganoush, Fatttoush and Lamb kebab). She was a wonderful cook herself and we never went without anything (all food groups represented) and it was never out of a packet. However, I got a rude awakening as to how a mothers preferences in showing affection and her deeper psychological state, totally influenced us kids.
When pressing me on my weight loss, she conceded that she'd always focussed too much on the carbs ('tis an Irish thing) when we were children and how she'd misrepresented the importance of bread and potatoes in our diet. This was also, and sadly, tempered with how her inability to show affection, manifested itself in the reward system she'd assigned for herself. In that by feeding her offspring, she'd aligned this with the ultimate expression of love....
As much as I love my mother and as much of a wonderful cook she was; I realised that the burden of responsibility for the reason I was so overweight as a child, which then carried on into adulthood, was as much her responsibility as it was mine. I, too, now feed those I love. Not because I have an incapability to show love, but that these deeply engrained examples have become the example I work from. Despite these factors changing - because of the surgery - I can see where these behaviours are hard cycles to break and have left me with a mental quandary over identity and 'healthy' expressions of love and affection.
I have no idea as to the extent to how people evaluate the impact of bariatric surgery on their lives. Tactical and strategic analysis is difficult to do when everyone is so enraptured by the immediate gratification gained from losing pounds and having all those non-scale-victories (lest we talk about the 'my cats blacker' self affirming attitudes which occasional pervades this website).... But has it forced you to re-evaluate the causes for your issue?
Have you searched your soul and now have a better handle on how you ended up in this position? 'Cause lets face it - most of us can sit in a psychologist's chair for hours at a time, spinning the wheel - but unless you're willing to strip back your insecurities to the bare-bones truth, doesn't it all feel a bit, well, empty?
Have we learnt anything other than to count the carbs, count the Protein, measure the Water consumption and count the calories in order to be fitter, tighter, healthier, smaller, more socially acceptable?
I truly believe our surgical endeavors absolutely force us to re-evaluate our lives, our succor/comfort systems and our behaviour. Consequently and because of how hard it is (emotionally), do we not sneer with derision at those who proffer 'surgery is the easy option'. Out of the curtailment of our ability to chow down and eat our way to 'happiness'; is there not something more emotional and scarily deep, that we've had to confront every time we look in the mirror?
i know I'm not an island unto myself. We were weak. We are, still, weak.
Outside of the victories in maintaining a life of low fat, cottage cheese virtuous goodness. There is a deeper significance to combating the external expression of our hurt.
What are yours?
With utmost respect and affection,
Revs x

Drink it from something with a lid (shaker bottle, sippy cup). A lid will help block the smell.

My surgery was March 31,2015 and to date I am 110 pounds down. I started at 341lbs and today I weigh 229. Now I should be over the moon happy. My weight loss has been awesome, however I realize more now than ever there is so much more to losing weight because I feel more alone today than I ever felt at 341lbs. I'm sharing this to help anyone thinking about bariatric surgery to understands that the reality of not being able to eat through your feelings is hard. Worth it but hard. I just have to sit in the feeling of loneliness or whatever it is until it passes or I can sleep it off, even exercise helps but once the coping mechanism of overeating is gone things get real......fast. I knew this was a component of surgery and I thought I was prepared but I wasn't. Soooo one day at a time. But the struggle is real.

I realized something today. In the past (aka, "before surgery"), I would look forward to meals. Like, "oh yum, we're having ribs tonight, I can't wait!!!"
I noticed that I don't do that, or think that, anymore. My mother moved in with me a couple of years ago, and she makes dinner every night (it's so awesome). She texted me earlier today to see if I was working late, and said "it's meatloaf night." In the past, meatloaf-night meant a happy dance. Today, it was more like, "oh that's nice."
OH. THAT'S. NICE.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. Who in the blue blazes thought "oh that's nice." WHO?????
Me, that's who. It seems that food has lost its hold on me. It's a completely strange feeling. Like an alien has taken over me.

I know how you feel. I haven't dressed up on Halloween for years because I could never find anything that looked good on me. The last time I bought a costume, I was around 165ish and I was so convinced I looked cute. I had this super cute purple and black tutu, and lacey stockings, and this black corset top. I put so much effort into perfect outfit- the fat ballerina. Then the guy that I thought I was going to go out with on Halloween stood me up and went out with other people...dressed like a big stupid banana. That was around 5 years ago I think. I kept a picture of myself in that costume to remind myself that I would never, ever be stupid again and think that I could go out looking cute for Halloween. Babbs if you are reading this, I hear your voice in my head telling me that this was a silly thing to think!
Funny enough though, he and I are still friends and now that I am thin and fabulous, he would love to go out with me and yet I have zero interest in him.
You will get your turn...maybe not this year, but next year is coming. All of the misery of the surgery and losing the weight will be worth it when you slide your hot, sexy self into next year's costume.
I am going as a ballerina this year... a hot damn ballerina that never needed that big ugly banana anyway.