Through Thick and Thin #13 (January 30, 2003)
Why I'm Succeeding With Weight Loss Surgery When Nothing Else Worked
This may seem to you to be a self-evident question and answer, but it isn't for me. When my wife, Kari, posed this question to me recently, I found myself needing to look deep within, and with searching and fearless self-honesty, to come up with my authentic answers, as opposed to the quick and glib responses that tempted my tongue. I want to share with you now my thoughtful responses to her question.
- Because I now have a well-functioning appetite regulator. Before my surgery, my appetite was voracious and without limit. I'm not sure how and when my natural, built-in appetite regulator stopped functioning (or maybe it never did work right), but my appetite for food was a hole that was literally never filled. I never ate to the point where I was so full that I vomited, but I was always able to stretch my stomach to accommodate my insatiable appetite for food. When I stopped eating, it was because my mind made a judgment that enough was enough, and I consciously "acted as if" I was and felt full, even though I wasn't and didn't.
Today, and ever since my surgery, my appetite regulator works exceedingly well. And I've discovered that my body needs very little food to fuel my activities and keep me well. I feel real hunger pangs when my stomach is empty and I need food to maintain or raise my healthy blood sugar levels, and I've learned that I can trust those cues — unlike the pangs of emotional hunger that I used to feel incessantly.
I've learned to recognize what a full stomach feels like and, by behavioral conditioning, I've learned to stop eating instantly when I feel full. - Behavioral conditioning works for me. Like a dog in one of Pavlov's experiments, I've become conditioned by adverse consequences to avoid overeating. A very small amount of food fills me to the point where even one more bite would make my stomach feel queasy, stuffed and uncomfortable and possibly prompt vomiting. This is a very unpleasant physical sensation, and vomiting adversely affects my physical state of being for hours afterward, so I have learned to do whatever it takes to avoid it. Which means I stop eating instantly, or pay the painful and unacceptable price.
- Positive feedback works for me. Every day when I feel and experience my incredible shrinking body, when clothes fit, when I receive compliments and encouragement from others, my declining weight and measurements, when I can walk faster and farther than ever before, when I feel like a thin man — all of this positive feedback encourages me to divest my energy from obsessing about or craving for food. Instead, I bask in the satisfaction of finally, after all these years and all these unfulfilled commitments, moving toward my goal of health and fitness. Interestingly, I don't often feel deprived or denied about the severe present constraints upon my food choice and eating. Instead, I think I've made a conscious intellectual and emotional decision and commitment to relegate food to a very minor role in my personal hierarchy of pleasure sources.
I balance, on the one hand, my relatively sparse, bland and boring food plan, against, on the other hand, achieving so many of my penultimate personal goals — becoming healthy and fit, eliminating my co-morbid conditions, living without so much pain, and prolonging my life. The contest isn't even close.
Other veterans of WLS advise me that my stomach pouch will expand, that there will come a time when I can eat enough, and with glorious variety, to restore some of the emotional excitement formerly associated with food. But honestly, for myself, and for today, I am very happy to be bored with my food and thrilled with my life.
Glenn
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