Help! I am about a month out from my surgery and I am looking for a psycologist, councelor, that specializes in weight control. I live in Ft. Worth but I would drive to big D because i feel this is an importan part of my theropy. I really want this to be sucessful and I feel that it may help to reach down into my inner thoughts to find the root of what makes me a emotional eater. I have a very positive attitude and no fear of the operation ( because I've done my rearch), but I want to go the stepp further and really make this work. Any help is welcome Please comment

Go out to ganeenroth.com website and check out what she has to say. You may be able to order some cd's to listen to what might help you get through some issues. She also has a e newsletter. Of course you can always call the medical society or call a surgeon office in ft.worth for referral to a fw psychologist. Read article below.

Feeling Fat Today?

You don't know it, but that's not all you're feeling

They'd been tight since Passover, the holiday that celebrates the liberation

of the Jews from slavery and their exodus from Egypt. During Passover, we

acknowledge this freedom by telling the exodus story at ritual gatherings

called seders. We also acknowledge it by consuming astonishing amounts of

food that people who are trying to free themselves from strokes and heart

attacks wouldn't consider eating.

For the Passover holiday, I ate matzo balls made with chicken fat, fruit

compote made with pineapples dipped in heavy syrup, and pudding made with

butter, brown sugar, and sour cream. For dessert, I ate cheesecake and two

kinds of flourless chocolate cake.

I did this every night for 5 nights. During the days, I ate leftovers from

the night before. Although I make it a practice not to weigh myself, my fat

jeans always tell me when I've gained weight. I figured I'd put on 4,

possibly 5, pounds, and, for the umpteenth time, I was convinced that my

brain had truly snapped and I was 5 minutes away from being as big as a

house. Or at least a small cottage.

I thought about getting liposuction, flogging myself, or buying a bigger

pair of jeans. They were all out of the question--especially the buying

bigger jeans option. I'd rather have a root canal without Novocaine.

Of course, I have another choice. I can always decide that I'm not going to

go around feeling (and declaring that I feel) fat. I can disengage from that

alluring drama with its attendant sweeps of emotion, even though it's like

separating yourself from Krazy Glue. I know how to do it, but I'm also quite

fond of drama.

All Hail, Drama Queen

I'm most familiar with myself as an insecure, anxious, bingey type of gal

who could gain weight or fall apart at the slightest provocation. Replacing

this woozy self-image with one of solidity and strength has been, and

continues to be, a struggle. I've always had to be very careful about how I

talk to myself, and whether my one-person dialogue is kind or mean. So I

know that when I'm using "I feel fat" language, I am in trouble.

In the 27 years I've been listening to myself and other women talking about

weight, I've learned this much: Feeling fat has nothing to do with being

fat. I've heard women who are a size 16 talk about how thin they feel, and

I've heard women who are a size 4 talk about how fat they feel. I've also

heard women talk about feeling fat one moment and thin the next.

In one of my recent classes, someone said, "If I woke up tomorrow and this

whole issue with food was gone, I wouldn't know how to judge myself. Right

now, being thin is how I know I'm good. Feeling fat is how I know I'm bad.

If I didn't have this system of fat and thin, I would feel terribly lost."

We wouldn't resort to a constant state of feeling fat if it didn't serve us

in basic, primal ways. No one keeps eating and overeating and feeling

miserable unless it has a benefit. Maybe it makes you feel safe. Maybe it's

because feeling fat--even if you're not--connects you to the millions of

other women in the country on constant diets. It allows you to fit in, to

feel the same as everyone else.

The problem is that it also cuts you off at the knees. No matter how much

you weigh, when you feel fat, you take scissors to your life and cut it down

to the size you think it's supposed to be so you'll be loved and accepted.

I've known women who greet every compliment--on their hair, their skin,

their most recent accomplishment--with an "Oh, but I'm so fat." Like the

woman in my class, "feeling fat" is the handy scapegoat for all the bad

feelings they have.

And that's why it's so dangerous. When you tell yourself you feel fat, you

make it impossible to figure out what is actually going on in your head.

Perhaps you really are uncomfortable with your size and are ready to lose

weight. But perhaps you're actually lonely, excited, happy, or threatened.

You'll never know what you're feeling, or what you need to do, as long as

you translate uncomfortable or unfamiliar feelings, positive or negative,

into the familiar refrain "I feel fat." And you will never be happy until

you stop thinking happy is a synonym for thin.

Don't Fight Your Feelings

Do you really think that what you want from being "thin and gorgeous and

happy" will ever be achieved by telling yourself that you are fat and ugly?

When the women I work with contact the power, strength, and joy inside of

them--even if they're 70 pounds overweight--they have an "Aha!" moment..

"This is it! This is what I wanted all along, what I thought I could only

get by being thin." After arriving at this understanding, they are no longer

fighting the voices in their heads that tell them they are fat and ugly and

simultaneously want to deprive them of the only sweetness left: food. Losing

weight is no longer a struggle because all parts of them--their mind and

body--are now on the same side. They realize that you can't love yourself by

hating yourself.

Now is the time to stop and ask yourself what the goal really is. Is it to

be thin at all costs? Or is being thin the means to self-love? Because if

it's the latter, then you can start today, right now, this minute.

Begin by changing the language you use when you talk to yourself. Disengage

from the drama of feeling fat. Treat yourself with kindness, curiosity, and

humor so that everything in your life becomes Fluid, unfettered, and easy.

Including, of course, your jeans.