"Why don't you just get surgery?"

OK, this is a question I've gotten a couple of times from people. 

"Why don't you look into gastric bypass/lap band surgery?  It would be easier than the diet."

There are many answers to that.  The first and foremost is I am terrified of surgery.  I've had ONE surgery in my entire life, and the whole concept of being under anesthesia and cut open and worked on scares me, plus the risk that I might have complications or simply just never come out of the anesthesia in the first place scares me.
The second is I have looked into both options.  If I was going to go with one, it would be lap band because the idea of totally taking out some of the route the food goes through is abhorrent to me.  Making my stomach space smaller would work better, but it's not necessary.
Thirdly, it's not easier than a diet.  You have to go through all sorts of counselling before you have either operation done.  You have to follow a very restrictive diet leading up to the surgery, so you get used to the diet you will be eating AFTER the surgery. Yes, you will still be on a diet after surgery.
So, given my terror about surgery and the fact that I would still have to follow a diet, why go for the surgery at all?
Fourth, and this one is important, I don't medically NEED the surgery.  While I have some co-morbidities such as high blood pressure, asthma, a family history of heart disease and diabetes, and am also pre-diabetic, most of those things are under control with diet and medication.  Actually, since I went to hypnosis my blood sugar has stabilized, my blood pressure is a nice 118/78, and my allergies and asthma are manageable.  The edema I was experiencing has dissipated, and I'm feeling pretty healthy right now.

I have family members and friends who have had gastric bypass and/or lap band surgery.  Four have gained back a lot of the weight they lost.  Three have kept off the weight and greatly improved their health.  I truly feel without the behavior modification involved in the counselling or hypnosis, it doesn't matter what people do, they will not be successful in the long run.  Sure, they will lose weight and need new clothes and that will be exciting. It's when it's no longer exciting and people aren't commenting any more on how nice you look and how much weight you've lost and that extra donut hole looks so good...and another won't hurt... and another...and then you are back where you started from.

I don't want to lose weight to fit into an imaginary size I've never been.  I want to be the healthy, active woman I used to be before I started substituting food for love.

"Food"

I used to be proud of the fact that I had about 2 months worth of "food" in my house.  My pantry was full to bursting with "food". 
Now I've started cleaning up the pantry and shelves from the "food" I am no longer eating, and I found some pretty amazing things.
I had THREE bags of walnuts, ready to make into banana and pumpkin breads.  I had two packages of dates, and no less than FOUR packages of chocolate chips.  I had 2 grocery bags full of assorted cake, cookie and brownie mixes.  I had several different instant pudding mixes.  I had 6 pounds of confectioner's sugar and 4 pounds of brown sugar.
I had a couple of bags of dried cherries, Craisins, raisins, currants, plums, and two packages of dried ginger.
I found the chocolate covered espresso beans.
I had apricot jelly, applesauce, and other jams.  All unopened.
I was asked to leave the graham crackers for my husband.  It's a half-package, and I don't eat them like he does, so I acquiesced. 

What does all this hoarding mean?

Well, it means I had a worse sugar problem than I had realized.  I had NO clue I had that much "food" in the pantry.  There are two shelves that are almost completely BARE.

I have come to realize I have spent a lot of my life living with the idea that there will never be "enough" in my life.  Probably from growing up with grandparents who lived through the Great Depression, some of it from a Father who was one of 12 kids (and one of the youngest at that) who also grew up poor.  Some of it from a Mother who was the daughter of the Depression Era grandparents, and who was very good about making sure we had enough to eat.  We didn't get a lot of sweets, and when we did, it was a special occasion, or someone was trying to say "I love you."

So I, with my low self-esteem, started substituting Sugar when what I really needed was Love.  Not the kind of Love that comes from outside, but the kind one has within for oneself.  I didn't love myself, so I tried to show myself I loved myself by making and eating sugary snacks.

(and right now a bunch of folks are shaking their heads and saying "Huh?")

I never thought of myself as a pretty girl after about age 11.  That's when I started puberty.  Once I started to develop, I got a lot of messages that told me it was "dangerous" to be a pretty girl.  I could be molested or raped for being "pretty".  Add that to the hormonal stew most of us are in around that time of our lives, and this really doesn't do good things for the self-image and self esteem.

I used to be athletic.  I used to ride my bike all over town, to school, to the library, to visit my friends, to go to the park and play.  I used to roller skate all over town.  I walked places if I didn't have a ride and the weather was nice.  I did all those things alone, or with a friend, or with my sister.  Mostly I did them by myself.

And then I started hearing about how girls on their own could get kidnapped, molested, raped, or killed.

So I got scared.  Boys were starting to notice me.  Men were starting to notice me.  I needed to comfort myself and let myself know I was ok and I wasn't going to be hurt.

Thus a sugar addict was born. I started eating more sugars, and I stopped doing most of the things I had enjoyed doing.

It has taken my husband 13 years of telling me every single day that I am beautiful for me to believe him.  13 years to believe him and not say in my head "Well, I have beautiful hair, and beautiful eyes, and a beautiful singing voice, but the rest is crap."  I had to accept the whole package.  I had to finally love myself for who I am.

So now I'm doing the hypnosis program, and doing pretty well.  I'm finding it's ok to let go of the "food", because it's not really "food" in the first place, it's sugar.  It's not Love, or Self-Esteem, it's sugar.  I have had enough "food".  Now I am filling up on real love.  I'm taking care of myself.  I'm taking guitar lessons and belly dance classes.  I'm creating more with fabric and jewelry and yarn and less with "food".

Day three, Post-Hypnosis.

Today I am purging most of the sugar snacks from the house.

Not by eating them.

I am bagging them up and taking them to a potluck dinner, where there will be LOTS of other people to eat them.

I will be bagging up other stuff and taking it to the food pantry.

I can't just throw the stuff away, because my Grandmother (the voice of her that lives in my head) will not allow me to throw away "perfectly good" food, even if it's not good for me.  I have to use it or give it away.

In other news, I'm on day three with no sugar.  I've learned a few things so far.

1.  I don't drink coffee without sugar.
2.  I love unsweetened iced tea.
3.  Teriyaki sauce has a metric ton of sugar.  I won't be eating that again.
4.  I am uncomfortable walking down the grocery store aisles containing sugar, baking goods, soda, snacks, and cookies.  It made me nauseous to do so today.
5.  I do not have the gastrointestinal issues I used to have when I was drinking coffee. 
6.  I am still experiencing the "you know what that tastes like, so you don't need to eat any" messages when I see snacks and sweets.

This is the best I've felt in months.  My blood sugar was a little high this morning (116 fasting) but I had forgotten to take my Metformin yesterday and I ate late last night and had Teriyaki Steak tips for dinner.  A lot of sugar in that glaze.

I find I am telling people who try to tell me anything about my food choices to "back off" and stop talking, because it will mess up my program.  I am going to have to not talk about my program at all at social functions, because inevitably there will be someone who always knows better, always has to be right, and they will dog me and make me miserable until I agree with them and then my program will shut down and I will have wasted my time and money.  

I'm feeling good.  I'm not having stomach issues like I was just a week ago.  I'm happy and I'm able to stick to this.

The day After.

Wow.
Just wow.

I had my first hypnosis session last night.  I've spent 24 hours without sugar or sweets.  I don't really miss them.  I feel free for the first time in years from the compulsion to eat sugar. I didn't get mad when my husband ordered mashed potatoes at dinner.  I didn't touch the 72% dark chocolate squares in the office.  I gave my favorite yogurts to another girl in the office since I can't eat them right now.  I cleaned a bunch of sugar and starch stuff out of my pantry.  I made plans to get rid of the rest of it.

I started making plans for my new wardrobe.  I realize I'm going to have to work with my wardrobe as I metamorph my fat into something different, as it disappears from my body and my life.  I can't just replace the whole thing when I drop enough size to need to do that.  I have to make it work for as long as I can until I'm down to my goal size.
Thankfully most of the shoes will still be ok as I do this.

So glad I did this!

The Day Before

Tomorrow I have my first session of hypnotherapy for weight loss.  This is not a decision I came to lightly, nor is it going to be easy for me.  I'm putting my trust in someone I have never met, and I'm trusting she's not going to totally screw with my head and make me even more messed up than I am now.
A year ago a local radio show host (Mike Baxendale from the Bax and O'Brien show on Rock 102) went to the same hypnosis center.  I've met Bax in person a couple of times, once about 5 years ago and once about a year ago.  He's a year younger than me, and we probably both had the same BMI at the time.  He's funny, he's married and has three lovely daughters, and he had some health problems that probably were related to his weight.  I've been listening to the show for the entire time he's been on it, and I like the dynamic between him and John O'Brien. 
One of the things I remember very clearly is Bax's love of food.  Another thing we have in common.  So I was very suprised one day on my drive to work on hearing him turn down some cookies that the wife of the guest on the show had baked for them.  Bax never turns down cookies.  He then mentioned he had gone to a hypnosis center and was following the diet and was no longer eating sweets. I thought to myself, "yeah, that's gonna last.  I give it a month, maybe two."
That was almost a year ago.
I became a Facebook friend of Bax's and I started checking out his pictures.  I started seeing how much thinner and healthier he was looking.  I listened as he mentioned he'd lost 8 inches around his waist.  He wasn't complaining about not eating sweets, he merely made observations that he didn't eat them.  He didn't sound unhappy or cranky about his changed eating habits. He has sleep apnea, and he had to dial his machine down to accomodate his changed breathing patterns while he sleeps.
I thought, "Holy Cow!  It really does work! I have got to look into this."
I called in January and I got put on a waiting list.  The cynical part of me says the waiting list is bull, it's a gimmick to get you to really buy into it before you get there, and then they are gonna sock you for a huge amount of money, which you will pay because you have waited SO LONG to get your appointment.  The hopeful part of me says "shut the hell up, you!  Of course there's a waiting list, because it WORKS!"  I was told the basics; there will be three sessions, the sessions are 3 to 4 hours long, we do them at certain times of the day.  I said I would need to do evenings, and that I can't do Tuesday nights (that's when my guitar lesson is).  They took the information and said they would call.
I got my call at the end of June, and set up the appointments for mid-July.  I have arranged my life around these three appointments. 
The money doesn't bother me, because I spent 4 times the money at another weight loss program,  I bought a lot of cookbooks and branded snacks and I lost nothing but money.  I also know that this money is far less than the cost of surgery, recovery time, lost work, and possible medical issues arising from surgery.
What I hope to do is come away with a healthy idea of what food really is.  It's fuel.  It's not love.  It's not self-esteem, the food doesn't care about me, and it never will.  Sugar will not heal a broken heart.  Ice cream will not bring back my lost puppy.  Cookies can't cure whatever I have, fill any void other than space in my stomach and fat cells on my body.
I know this in my head.  I need to feel it in my heart.
I've met with a lot of encouragement.  I was afraid to mention hypnosis to some people, afraid they would laugh and say "Yeah, right, you're just throwing away more money and you are NEVER going to lose weight."
I'm even more afraid they would be correct.
I don't want to "lose weight".  I want to be healthier.  I want to be in better shape.  I want to be able to bend over and tie my shoes without having to spread my knees apart to accomodate my belly.  I want to buy a size LARGE dress again.  I want to wear high heels without my toes going numb.  I want to wave my arms and then stop and not have my bat wings keep waving.  I want to go up and down stairs without worrying about my knees giving out.  I want to sleep better and I want to not feel silly buying sexy clothing.  I want to get off my blood pressure, diabetes, and cholesterol medications.
In short, I choose to live.

Sunday Night Snacking

I got caught today.  We made an agreement that I would not have more than 1 snack that was an "indulgence".  That includes any desserts.  I had a bag of Oreos I was planning to use to make Slutty Brownies with to take to a pot luck that I actually missed.  The bag was sitting there, taunting me.  It taunted me for almost a month.  So, with three days left before I go for hypnosis and am on a carbohydrate restricted diet, I opened the bag.  I had 4 cookies, and told Eric they were open and he could have some.  I then had 4 more cookies.  And after taking a nap from all the housework I did over the last two days, I woke up and had 4 more cookies.
So, a few of things have become clear to me.

1. I can not have Oreo cookies in the house.  Once the bag is open, I have no self control.
2. While I may not lie about how many cookies I have eaten, I won't disclose that I have had more than 1 indulgence snack unless I am directly asked if I have.  I also won't disclose how many times I've cheated unless I am directly asked.
3. I can be absolutely stupid about cookies.

We ate dinner, and I reflected on the fact that I had eaten 1/3rd of the package in one day.  Sundays tend to be a bit more relaxed here, and after a lot of work the day before I guess I felt I was entitled to have some cookies, which is why I opened the package in the first place.
Which comes to the real issue, treating food as a reward.
This is nothing new to a lot of people.  Food as a reward, specifically sweets as a reward, has been going on since people discovered they could catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.  As a child there weren't a lot of sweet snacks in the house.  My family just couldn't afford that kind of food, so I didn't have cookies readily available in my house.  My mom made some pretty fabulous cookies (Orange cookies are still a favorite of mine even though she has lost the recipe) and we all looked forward to the days when she would bake cookies.   I had an E-Z Bake oven when I was small, and I made chocolate cakes over a light bulb up until I used up all the mixes that came with the oven, and then it was put away because we didn't have the money to buy more of them.  The first thing I really learned to bake in the real oven was chocolate chip cookies.  I had the recipe for that and banana bread memorized.
We get our favorite cake on our birthdays.  If we are good at the dentist, we got a lollipop, sometimes even given by the same dentist!  If we don't cry when we get a shot at the doctor, we get a treat.  When things go wrong, we don't get the part in the play, the boy we have a crush on doesn't like us, we skin our knees, a cookie or some ice cream makes the pain go away.  So we learn to numb emotional or physical pain with a food palliative.  What we fail to remember is that there is always some pain in life, not everything goes our way.  But we continue to eat the sweets to "cure" the pain, and all we do is not feel the pain and put on the pounds.