Addiction! Pay attention…

It sorta hit me today that it is really difficult to explain what lies in the future for the weight loss patient. Some people take years to research the surgery and then there are hasty ones (like me) that decided in fifteen minutes! I have explained many times that I didn’t care if I died during weight loss surgery because I was so miserable that I didn’t want to live. I had just lost my mom a few months before and was deeply depressed.

Regardless of how long you took to make the decision, when you have the surgery you are ready to get that weight off quickly! How can we not believe that our lives will become magically perfect? It seems an impossible task to actually get this across because we are brutally aware (as an obese person) just how difficult life is. Carry one hundred extra pounds on your body for a week straight and it will take a toll. On top of that you are treated much differently than the “normal” person.

When I first became thin I was really hyper aware of how many people would speak to me that would have never even noticed me before. Deciding that I must move on and not resent them was one of the best decisions I ever made. I felt like I had so much negativity in my life as an obese person…why would I want even a little bit more?

I think losing weight is sort of like getting something new in your life. It doesn’t matter if you think about getting a new toy when you were a kid or as an adult. At first this “new” thing is exciting but when you’ve seen it every day for a period of time, it’s just not as exciting. This happens with your weight loss after surgery so we call it the “honeymoon period”. About the time you are feeling like “is that all there is?” you better start looking for a new toy. It isn’t quite that simple but I’m saying that we need to find the joy of life and be proactive in our recovery from obesity. I totally believe the reason we do so well during the honeymoon period is because it is a new “high”. We have switched from food to a new life. What happens when the honeymoon period is over?

If we haven’t dealt with why we were obese in the first place, we will reoffend and if you don’t return to food, you might pick something else that’s bad juju.

“If you don’t learn….you will return.”
quote by me

I’d love for you to read an article in Psychology Today.

CLICK HERE FOR ARTICLE

Good info regarding what it takes to elevate dopamine release. I’ve also read that music helps as well.

With all the opportunities available on the internet or in your community, there are plenty of things to choose from to give new attention to. We are just starting to understand this thing…this weight loss journey we take….and if you are reading this and you don’t think addiction is part of it, check out a list like “the top ten characteristics of addiction” and there’s one term that always makes the list.

You’ll always see denial…so before you deny, make sure and learn as much as you can about this obesity thing or you might be right back to where you started.

Denial…
not just a river in Egypt.

Leave a Comment on Facebook
Leave a Comment on BariatricGirl.com
Guidelines: I reserve the right to delete off-topic, inflammatory, or anonymous comments. XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>