an other Lisa

toothpastefordinner

I finally changed the name of my blog. The title of the upcoming book will most likely be 'Halfway to Skinny'. I figured the blog should reflect that. I also found a blog very similar to mine and I wanted to differentiate mine.

There's another Lisa with a The Skinny On Life After Weight Loss Surgery blog (click here). Remember the other day when I posted that video of a woman showing us how to give ourselves a scalp massage to encourage hair growth? That's her. That's other-Lisa.

Her blog is great.
I recommend it highly especially
her post about what she wishes she knew before the surgery (click here).

She's really being honest about her life and I admire her for that.
The other Lisa and I have lots in common.

But...and everyone loves a big BUTT...
I want to reply to a post of hers called:
"How Gastric Bypass Patients Can Lose 35% More Weight"
(click here).

I still love her blog. I still think she's awesome. I just need to disagree with her a bit.

Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to reprint some of what other-Lisa wrote and respond to it. I'll put what she wrote in italics...

You have gastric bypass surgery, for the most part, because you want to lose a whole lot of weight. Sure, there are benefits beyond weight loss. But let’s face it: the number one reason for rearranging your insides is to dump as much fat as possible.

Yes.
I would list 'losing weight' as my number one reason for having the bypass.
But...and I cannot stress this enough...the number two reason was because I wanted to stop my eating disordered behavior. Eating to the point of physical pain on a daily basis was killing me spiritually, putting a strain on my heart, destroying my self-esteem and damaging my overall health in MORE ways than just making me morbidly obese.

I constantly see people - both in my everyday life and online in various weight loss surgery chatrooms - who just simply refuse to do it. Then they whine and complain because they’re not losing weight as fast as others they see.
What is this simple, common-sense thing you can do that will bring such great rewards?
Listen to your doctor.

I love my surgeon.
He's so awesome.
He was the 6th doctor I saw when I was looking for a gastric bypass surgeon who could take down the old, adhesion ridden, gastric band.
He took my difficult case when no one else would (or could).
He is an expert surgeon.
However...
He is NOT a shrink,
nor is he a nutritionist,
nor is he an expert at eating disorder recovery.
Learning to listen TO MYSELF has been more important to my overall healing than listening to someone who is an expert at surgery.

I have never understood why anyone would put themselves through all the trouble of having gastric bypass surgery, then stubbornly refuse to do the simple things their doc says will make them successful.

Well, other-Lisa there are many reasons for this ranging from self-sabotage to eating disordered behavior to resistance to being controlled by someone who does not understand us. If you do any research on eating disorders, one of the prime motivators in binge eating or starvation is to maintain some control over ourselves.

We resist being controlled by others. We resist obeying 'rules' that we feel don't address our deepest emotional needs. We may not even be rebelling consciously, but we stubbornly refuse to be controlled out of a sense of self preservation...even if it kills us.

Drinking with meals.
When you drink liquids at the same time as you eat, the food washes out of your pouch sooner. You eat more. Which kinda defeats the purpose of the smaller stomach. Yet I constantly see people whining on message boards that it’s just too hard to not have some tea with your chicken. You know what? Get over it! This is one of the simplest things to do.

Maybe that's how my "pouch" (I hate the word 'pouch' and pefer to call it my stomach)
got so stretched out. I drink with meals. I don't salivate properly. My food gets stuck in my gullet. It needs to be washed down. Yes, this means I can eat more. No whining on my part, just taking responsibility for myself when it comes to drinking with meals.

But guess what. Non-gastric bypass folks and non-eating disordered folks drink with their meals. Why are they not morbidly obese?

I'll tell you why.
They're not binge-eating crappy foods while they drink, that's why.
If we're eating good, whole, high fiber, low fat, fresh foods, it won't matter if we drink with our meals. Eating too much won't really be a concern.

If we heal our eating disorders, it won't matter whether or not we drink with our food.

Drinking carbonated beverages.
My psychologist told me in my pre-op interview that every single person she’d ever seen gain their weight back had gone back to drinking carbonated beverages.The carbonation continues to bubble inside your pouch. It can stretch it. It can stretch the opening into your intestine. Which means you can eat more, you get hungry sooner. YOU GET FAT AGAIN. It doesn’t matter if your Coke is diet or not. It’s not the sugar or the calories - it’s the bubbles. Drink them and you fail. It’s that simple.

Oh, now, nothing is ever that simple.
I drink carbonated beverages.
I have not gained back any weight and I'm two years plus out from my surgery.
Hey, I'm not advocating for soda drinking. Soda is evil. It rots tooth enamel. It leaches calcium from our bones. It's full of chemicals. It's not great for digestion. It's bad for everyone, not just gastric bypass patients.

But once in a while, I enjoy it. So, I drink it. I'll let you know if I start gaining weight.

Eating crap.
Just because you’re more than a year out and your pouch will tolerate pasta, bread and other carbs, doesn’t make them OK. Personally, when my pouch feels pissy absolutely nothing calms it down better than cheese-its. But if I ate cheese-it’s all the time, I wouldn’t keep losing weight, now would I?Your new life has to be about moderation, restraint, and wise choices. Except for carbonated beverages, it’s unrealistic to say that any particular food will never cross your lips again. But any time bad stuff happens more often than “once in a blue moon” you’re headed for trouble.

Mmm, I'll have to disagree. I'm over 2 years out and I still dump (get horribly nauseated) if I try to eat certain things. This may not be true for everyone. A certain gastric bypass blogger talks about her penchant for bacon. I'll never eat bacon again. The nausea is just not worth it. That goes for KFC, fast food burgers, most bakery products....the list is too long to go into, but the point is, I will never be eating those things again.

Listen to your doctor. Do what he says. Go to your support group meetings so you always have those recommendations fresh in your mind.

I really hated the support group meetings. All the women did was talk about food. They did NOT want to discuss having an eating disorder. It seemed like just a meet up to complain and talk about protein shakes. Some groups may be better than others. I do not feel compelled to attend the one offered to me.

Of course I've ranted before about how protein shakes make me feel sick to my stomach. I simply will not drink them.
Force feeding myself vitamins all day is just more disordered eating behavior so I refuse to do it.
Pill taking happens twice a day for me. That's it.

And, just so we're clear,
I will be the first to admit that I am an arrogant asshole who thinks she knows better than the rest of the world about how to manage my own body.

So, what's my plan?

I want to solve the problem once and for all.
Fat is not the problem, though it's a symptom, a big bad dangerous symptom...for me.

Disordered eating is my problem.

I know in my heart, in my cells, in my blood
that there is a once and for all cure for my binge eating disorder.
The cure is multi-faceted. It involves recovery in many different areas.

My latest attack is on my gunked up gut.
Even before the bypass, I was not absorbing nutrients properly.
Now, post-op, my malabsorption of nutrients is nearly lethal.

One of the things our VERY SMART bodies tell us to do when we're malnourished is to eat.
How else would be get nutrients into our bodies?
When we don't absorb nutrients our bodies go into FEED ME mode.
We crave.
We devour.
We're always hungry.
Desperate for nutrition our bodies signal us to eat more and more. We absorb the calories but not the nutrients. We get really, really fat.

One of the ways to overcome overeating for good is to nourish ourselves.
I'm working on that right this second as I cook up a nice pot of tofu, brown rice and vegetables.

Like the asshole that I am, I'll probably be drinking some Coke Zero with my dinner.

Let's hope it doesn't cause me to fail.

*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
It's important to know why we do what we do.
It's important to express our emotions.
Journaling helps.
Blogging too.
All this blogging is part of my recovery.
Thanks for agreeing, Kristin!!
click here or click below