Showing posts with label therapy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label therapy. Show all posts
Thursday, May 15, 2014
What's on your coping list?
When I met with the psychiatrist for the mandatory pre-surgery consultation, she recommended that I write a list of alternatives to eating for when I am tempted to eat emotionally and carry the list around with me all of the time. I have been thinking about what could go on my list but haven't actually written it yet. It's not a new question for me- I spent many therapy sessions over the years bemoaning the fact that I hadn't been able to find satisfying alternatives to emotional eating. Exercise? No way- feels like a punishment. Writing in a journal? Helpful for sorting out my thoughts but not a realistic option on the go and not immediate enough. One therapist suggested that since emotional overeating was a learned behavior from very early on in my life, I needed to find something else that would feel primal and soothing. I bought a giant stuffed teddy bear and tried hugging it tightly when I wanted to eat but I just felt foolish. So I guess I am still searching.
Sunday, May 4, 2014
Welcome to my new blog!
Thank you for checking out my new blog about my weight loss journey and the gastric sleeve! I've been in the process of getting ready for my surgery for about 4 months. My insurance approval just came through and so I should be getting my surgery date very soon!
How I got to here: I have struggled with my weight and yo-yo dieting my entire life. I don't even remember a time when I didn't need to think about what was ok to eat (vs. what was fattening) or when I didn't feel pressure to eat less than I wanted to eat. Obesity runs in my family and it has always felt like I'm running towards it or away from it at every moment. Food and overeating have been my best friends and my worst enemies- the things I turn to when I'm sad and often the reason why I'm sad. I've been on every diet under the sun and successfully lost a lot of weight multiple times, always to gain it all back and then some. I've spent years in therapy trying to understand why my relationship with food and eating and weight is so difficult and intellectually I totally "get it", but changing my behavior in a sustainable way has always been just too hard. I think of my inability to gain control over my emotional overeating as my biggest failure and it is a source of great shame and pain for me. Currently at my all-time highest weight, my feelings of shame and frustration are coupled by major concern about my long-term health and the dangers the extra pounds can pose.
Last October, I did something that I rarely do- I asked for help. I told my endocrinologist that I had lost faith in my ability to lose weight and re-gain my health on my own and asked her to prescribe whatever medication could help me achieve my goals. Her answer surprised me- she said that all of the medicines out there for obesity are lousy and have terrible side effects and that if I was really serious about losing weight, I should consider bariatric surgery, especially now that the "new" gastric sleeve surgery option was available.
Surgery? I had never considered it. Isn't it dangerous? Doesn't it cost thousands of dollars? Wouldn't it lead to a lifetime of serious digestive problems? In her office and the weeks that followed I learned that all of my assumptions had been wrong. Bariatric surgery performed by an experienced surgeon on a mostly healthy patient is actually quite safe. Most insurance covers it. For people who are obese but not extremely obese, sleeve gastrectomy is a great option with lower complication rates and MUCH fewer long-term side effects because they don't touch your intestines. The more I researched, the more I began to believe the the sleeve might be a tool that could help me reach my goals and maintain them and that I owed it myself to seriously consider it. And that, my blog friends, was the beginning of this journey.
How I got to here: I have struggled with my weight and yo-yo dieting my entire life. I don't even remember a time when I didn't need to think about what was ok to eat (vs. what was fattening) or when I didn't feel pressure to eat less than I wanted to eat. Obesity runs in my family and it has always felt like I'm running towards it or away from it at every moment. Food and overeating have been my best friends and my worst enemies- the things I turn to when I'm sad and often the reason why I'm sad. I've been on every diet under the sun and successfully lost a lot of weight multiple times, always to gain it all back and then some. I've spent years in therapy trying to understand why my relationship with food and eating and weight is so difficult and intellectually I totally "get it", but changing my behavior in a sustainable way has always been just too hard. I think of my inability to gain control over my emotional overeating as my biggest failure and it is a source of great shame and pain for me. Currently at my all-time highest weight, my feelings of shame and frustration are coupled by major concern about my long-term health and the dangers the extra pounds can pose.
Last October, I did something that I rarely do- I asked for help. I told my endocrinologist that I had lost faith in my ability to lose weight and re-gain my health on my own and asked her to prescribe whatever medication could help me achieve my goals. Her answer surprised me- she said that all of the medicines out there for obesity are lousy and have terrible side effects and that if I was really serious about losing weight, I should consider bariatric surgery, especially now that the "new" gastric sleeve surgery option was available.
Surgery? I had never considered it. Isn't it dangerous? Doesn't it cost thousands of dollars? Wouldn't it lead to a lifetime of serious digestive problems? In her office and the weeks that followed I learned that all of my assumptions had been wrong. Bariatric surgery performed by an experienced surgeon on a mostly healthy patient is actually quite safe. Most insurance covers it. For people who are obese but not extremely obese, sleeve gastrectomy is a great option with lower complication rates and MUCH fewer long-term side effects because they don't touch your intestines. The more I researched, the more I began to believe the the sleeve might be a tool that could help me reach my goals and maintain them and that I owed it myself to seriously consider it. And that, my blog friends, was the beginning of this journey.
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