Bariatric Breakthrough Challenge:
Dothan, Alabama

The Doc, The Guru & The Post-Op:
Does this shirt make me look short?

I just got back from an amazing trip to Dothan, Alabama, where I was fortunate enough to participate in the Bariatric Guru’s Bariatric Breakthrough Challenge (Presented by Erin and Ben Akey) with my incredible friend and business partner, Dr. Connie Stapleton. This was my first time to Alabama, and I assure you, it will NOT be my last! – (Roll Tide) – I met extraordinary people, with extraordinary stories, and found myself in the company of more than a few kindred spirits. All I can tell you is, compassionate support is alive and well in local bariatric communities, thanks to generous souls like Alta, Matthew, Sharon, Gene, Talli, Mandy — and a bunch of other folks whose names escape me, but whose faces and hearts do not.

In case you didn’t know, A Post-Op & A Doc have been involved with Erin and Ben since the first Challenge (through video), but this was the first event we got to PHYSICALLY attend. Let me tell you, it was unbelievably gratifying and energizing. I can’t say enough how much we enjoyed the event — and how much I learned! That’s the beauty of these things; it doesn’t matter if you’re a presenter, an organizer, or a participant – you WILL take home at least 5 new things you didn’t know before, you WILL come away with the sure knowledge that you are NOT alone, you WILL believe that you can live a healthy Bariatric After Life™ and you WILL recommit to gaining, regaining or maintaining a healthy weight management program!

In other words, this is exciting now matter how you slice it! (If it sounds like I’m gushing, I am.)

Basically, if you haven’t done so already, you really must make a point of registering for and attending at least ONE Challenge event this year. Your investment in yourself is guaranteed to pay dividends!

Here’s a link to the program page, so you can see where events have already been scheduled.

BARIATRIC BREAKTHROUGH CHALLENGES
COME spend the day with us.
LEAVE a certified Bariatric Guru!

The Bariatric Guru & Chef

TOPICS:

• Accountability (To yourself and others)
• Recommitment to a Healthy Bariatric After Life™
• Healthy & Active Living through Exercise, Nutrition & Supplementation
• Healthy Eating with the Bariatric Chef (It actually tastes good, and you’ll get to sample yummy foods and product samples!)
• Mind|Body Synchronization (Bariatric Help for Your Head, Heart & Health with A Post-Op & A Doc) – Food Addiction, Relationships, Body Image

If you DON’T see one in your area, contact Erin and see what it takes to get YOUR Bariatric COE (Center of Excellence) to host an event

I’ll leave you with this: Since I participated in this event, I’m renewed, reinvigorated, regenerated and reenergized to live a healthy and active life in 2012 (and beyond). 

Are you?

When I was about three years old, my grandfather gave my brother and me a handful of sunflower seeds to plant in the backyard. He thought it would be a good learning opportunity for us, especially after my horrific experience with the tomato plants that got eaten by those scary, fat, caterpillars that looked like bright green grubs with little red feet and horns. Not that I remember them too clearly, or anything…

But, back to the happy part: We chose to plant our seeds in a place along the brick wall, just beyond the patio behind the house. As I recall, it wasn’t a very big area, but apparently, big enough to sprout some massive sunflowers. Now, in my mind, it only took a couple of days for them to grow, but I’m sure it took longer…like, at least a week. Anyway, they quickly overtook all 3 feet of me and grew to the height equivalent to the Coastal California Redwoods. Yes, I am certain of this fact. They were TALL. I adored those massive brown flower faces that craned to soak up the sun each day. They made me very happy and I felt quite accomplished at having grown something so beautiful. It had been my job to water them and weed them and till the soil with the little garden spade, and I took my tasks quite seriously.

But then…one day…while I was watering…I looked up and noticed something tragic. My happy sunflowers were now hanging their heads in shame. They were drooping like shower heads…and something strange had appeared in their faces. I was devastated because I knew that they were dying, so I immediately ran and got my big brother.

To my surprise he was not in the least bit shocked. On the contrary, he seemed…downright giddy as he grabbed the pair of red-handled lawn clippers and began to HACK MY SUNFLOWERS DOWN!

I was shattered and ran into the house crying.

Naturally, my mother responded by yelling at my brother (because he had obviously done something to hurt me. Again.)…until she saw exactly what I was crying about. Much to my dismay, she gently explained to me that this was the normal life cycle for sunflowers! According to her, sunflowers were just a fancy way to get sunflower SEEDS! I had to think about that for a long while.

So, (a full) two minutes later, I joined my brother at the dining room table to carefully pluck the seeds from the faces of my beloved (now dead) flowers. Once we had collected a very large pile, we spread them out on a foiled cookie sheet, salted them, and let them bake for awhile.

What emerged that day was one of the tastiest treats I’d ever eaten and I quickly forgot about my “old flower friends.”

Until today, when I remembered my backyard giants and how I could apply that lesson to my Bariatric After Life.™ (You knew it was coming.)

I believe that sometimes we have to die a little in order to come back as something better. For example, as I’ve learned in therapy, I had to give up long-held beliefs when I learned they weren’t true. Or, I had to let go of old friends in order to make new ones.

I also had to change my relationships. I had to change the way I interacted with my daughter and my mother and my grandmother.

With my daughter, it was challenging, because her “fat mom” had been replaced by a “skinny mom” and she was not happy about it. She felt threatened and cheated, which made for some trying times. They were particularly formative years – spanning from age 17 to age 20 – and in that (short) time, I had to learn to relate to her as a young woman, instead of a child. I had to embrace the fact that she is (wildly) independent, and must be free to make her own mistakes. I’ve had to realize that I’ve done my job of modeling “the good stuff” and it is now up to her to decide what she will use and what she will leave; which seeds she will plant, and which she will set aside.

With my mom, I learned to have compassion for things I could never know or understand. Two and a half years ago, she lost my dad after 47 years of marriage. I would have thought she’d be permanently wilted, but she proved herself to be made of stronger stuff than I ever imagined possible. She HAD BEEN a drooping sunflower, but NOW, she joyfully shares her seeds of hope and love with everyone who lives at her senior living complex. One of those “seeds” happens to be her little dog, Guido..who also spreads a little SOMETHING around the place…but, I digress…

With my grandma, I had to accept the fact that she could no longer crochet a doily or play penny bingo on Sunday afternoons, because senility had robbed her of her faculties. That was a hard transition to make, but 5 years ago, we were certain she was on death’s doorstep and called the priest to give her the final sacraments. We all prayed and said our goodbyes, and then we told her she could go in peace and we would understand. But something strange happened…she DID let go, but not to death. She let go of her FEARS and moved into a wonderful place where angels come to her everyday on earth. I believe that her sunflower died, but she continues to plant little seeds with the people at the home where she lives. She is a miracle at 99 — no doubt about it.

So you see, we all die a little, but we are reborn in the form of seeds that we lovingly share with others. Which is, (by the way), why I’m here. I now know that I am not meant to bloom as a single flower in a garden; I am here to plant seeds of personal growth in other people’s hearts.

The funny thing is, I am a terrible gardener, but fortunately, the people I help do their own growing and I just have to remind them to get plenty of water and nutrients!

We hear it all the time: Life is about choices.

In my case, perhaps the biggest CHOICE of my life was the one I made when I CHOSE to have gastric bypass surgery in 2007. At the time, I didn’t really know that I was choosing more than just surgery or weight loss; I was choosing a complete and total lifestyle change, as well as emotional upheaval that would expose a food addiction and require intensive therapy.

I can already hear you asking, “Okay, so if you knew then what you know now, would you still make the same CHOICE to have surgery?”

• Absolutely
• Unequivocally
• Certifiably
• 100% YES

“Even if you KNEW it was going to be this hard?”

(See above answers and add exclamation points)

So, I CHOSE to enter the Bariatric After Life™, and then I CHOSE to start a blog…and then I CHOSE to start a Youtube Channel (remember Gastric Bypass Barbie?) and then I CHOSE to start a Facebook page. Of course, since I’m “all about excess,” I also chose to attend Obesity Related conferences around the country and become a motivational speaker. All of those things are commitments that take time…time (it might and HAS been argued) that I really don’t have.

But I am PASSIONATE about my Bariatric After Life, and I am PASSIONATE to help others thrive and ACCEPT the CHOICE they also made when they had surgery. Interestingly…I don’t view my commitment to inspire, motivate and educate others as a choice at all. At least, not a choice *I* made. No. I feel that the choice was made for me…on some deep level that is super hard to explain (so I won’t even try, LOL).

Alright, so recapping, I made a choice to have surgery, and then I (did or didn’t) CHOOSE to share my Bariatric After Life with the world. Got it.

But, then I CHOSE to return to graduate school.

Oh boy…Now, there’s a choice I’m still questioning. But that is not exactly the reason for my post today.

Since I CHOSE all of these things, I have NO RIGHT to complain to anyone about the time that they take. I am not entitled to lament that I “have no life” and don’t get to “relax and enjoy my weekends with MexiKen.” It is not okay for me to snipe and whine about how “tough my life is,” or how “nobody understands.”

You know what? It’s not anyone else’s job to understand, tolerate, or indulge the choices I make. While it IS super important for my family to support me, even they can’t entirely grasp the true meaning (or wisdom?) of my choices…but they love me, and do their very best to be patient while I CHOOSE to chain myself to my computer — LOL.

So, the point is, I hear a lot of complaints from a lot of people — the very same people who claim that life is about choices — and it’s withering.

You know what? Life IS about choices, but it’s YOUR choice to live with those choices; it is not my responsibility to make you feel better about your burdens, because you know what? I’m going to tell you the same thing I tell myself: If you don’t like the choices you made, change what you can and accept the rest.

Does this sound harsh and uncompassionate? It shouldn’t. It SHOULD sound like someone who supports anyone who lives up to their own promises.

If you CHOSE to have weight loss surgery, then you CHOSE to live with all of the consequences. Anything that you add to that super-teeny-bariatric-sized plate is up to you, and if you find you’ve piled too much on it, then it might be time to take some off. But, please…don’t tell me how miserable you are about what’s on thta plate; scoop some off and enjoy what’s left.

Life IS a choice. So is a positive attitude. I CHOOSE both…even on those days when life has piled a bunch of lemons on my plate.

CHOOSE LIFE, people.

I now return you to the celebration of your BARIATRIC AFTER LIFE!

At some point in our Bariatric After Life™, we learn that our goal is to stop being defined by our surgery and start living life. And yet, we can never forget that we had surgery, because we don’t want to return to our old habits. I’ll admit, this concept has really tripped me up, because I spend my days reading, writing and talking about bariatrics!

How, on earth, do I stop thinking about food, when all I think about is food? Throw in a food addiction and, by all rights, I should have a barrel of monkeys on my hands. Only…I don’t.

How can that be?

Well, in the past few months, I’ve had the strangest feeling wash over me. It’s something akin to “normalcy” – or, as normal as a surgically-altered person can be – and then, not quite normal at all. If I had to define it for you, I believe I would call it: PEACE. Yes, that is it. I am at PEACE within my body. The warring factions have laid down their weapons of mass disruption, and I am now living life on life’s terms. Not to confuse PEACE, with PERFECTION, or CALMNESS — because neither of those things comes even remotely close.

To be clear, what I am feeling is a reunification or reassociation with my SELF. I have been torn apart for so long, I’d forgotten what it was like to actually BE ME — if I ever really knew at all.

Thanks to therapy and the support of good friends, I now know what it’s like (at least as far as anyone can determine) to be ME: It’s crazy, fast-paced, gung-ho, exciting, outrageous, magical, frustrating, disconcerting, energizing, exhausting, invigorating, maddening, brilliant, radical, awesome, mellow, unlimited, liberating, compassionate, honest and everything in between. It’s like a zoo and a circus and a day at Disneyland, all rolled into one.

For the first time in – probably EVER – I am at home in my own skin, and I like the way it feels. I know what makes me happy, and I know what frustrates me. I know what triggers a binge, and I know what recovery feels like. I know what being fit does for my emotions, and I know what being sick does to my heart. I am in touch with myself and…I like me.

Guess what? I am not really about food at all. At least not today. Or yesterday. Maybe I will be tomorrow, I don’t know. One thing I do know is, I am hard-pressed to find someone who is not struggling to maintain (or lose) their weight (whether they’ve had surgery or not); I am hard-pressed to find someone who does not think they *could* workout at least one more day a week (whether they have had surgery or not), and I am hard-pressed to find a person who doesn’t wish they hadn’t eaten a certain food today (whether they have had surgery or not). So, you see…I’m really NOT that different from anybody else, and yet…I am.

How? I surround myself by like-minded, successful post-ops. I get filled up daily by reading inspirational blogs, hearing from my Facebook and Twitter friends, and just chatting it up with healthy, balanced folks. Like me I remain a staunch advocate for the disease of obesity, and I speak to whoever will listen.

If you were to take away one thing from this message, it would be this: The further away from my surgery, the more normal I feel. It’s like swimming away from the shore. I can’t touch the bottom with my toes anymore, but I’m not freaking out; I’m actually wondering what’s beyond that next wave. I never thought that could happen….

Have you ever experienced this?

Have you ever watched one of those shows about people who survive, despite the odds? They become better people than they were before the event — even if they lose a limb, are constrained to a wheelchair, or suffer brain damage. I am always amazed when I see the story of someone who loses two legs, but ends up running marathons or climbing mountains! I’m awestruck by someone who is wheelchair-bound, yet manages to roll themselves cross-country. I think of the injured military vet who serves another tour of duty, even though he his horribly disfigured or permanently disabled – all because he can’t imagine doing anything less for his country.

I remember Christopher Reeve – always a good-looking guy and talented actor, but not someone you’d look to in a philanthropic way. He, arguably, touched and changed many more lives AFTER his accident, than he probably would have BEFORE. He turned his disability into a super-ability.

For Christopher Reeve, and those like him, failure is not an option. So often, they achieve mind-boggling things, far beyond the imaginations and expectations of doctors and loved ones. They not only BEAT the odds, they blow them away. I’m pretty sure none of them ever put “surviving a catastrophe” on their bucket list, yet once it happened, they found a way to dig deep and flourish. They managed to do things no one would EVER expect of them, and yet…they expect nothing LESS.

Most people don’t plan to be in a plane crash, explosion, horse accident, massive earthquake or tsunami. They don’t wake up one day and say, “After I get my degree, I’m going to lose my leg in a deadly car crash and then join a ski team,” and I don’t think anyone would consciously CHOOSE the life of a survivor. But, my guess is, they wouldn’t CHOOSE to live it any differently, once it happens.

Extraordinary survivors make a conscious decision to thrive, instead of survive. So, what is it about people that causes them to not only rise TO the occasion, but rise ABOVE it? Where does that phenomenal character trait come from?

Did they know they had it?
Do you think you have it?
Do I believe I have it?

When I was a kid, and people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said things like, “I want to become a famous cartoonist”, “I want to be a stand-up comedian,” “I want to be a teacher,” or “I want to get married to a handsome man and become a mom.”

I never said, “I want to become so obese that I will put my life on hold for 25 years, make my poor (handsome) husband miserable, not take any pictures with my child while she’s growing up, and then have bariatric surgery so I can lose weight and create a new life.”

Not that I am comparing my Bariatric After Life™ to literally surviving a plane crash, but in a sense, that is exactly how I felt. My plane was crashing and I had no parachute. I was bracing for impact, yet somehow, I survived. It’s like my world had collapsed and I was under a pile of rubble. I saw a pinhole of sunlight, then used every ounce of my strength to claw my way out and reach the light of day. I was being swept away in a tsunami, drowning in my obesity.

I DID think I was going to die, and at times, I almost WILLED it to happen. I WANTED something to put me out of my misery. Believe me when I say, I did not have the mentality of a survivor. If you’d asked me then whether I wanted to live to be 100, I’d have told you I didn’t even want to live to be 40. It doesn’t help to feel guilty about that now; I was captive to a catastrophe – one I believed was of my own making.

But here I am, more than 3 years post-gastric bypass surgery and I AM A SURVIVOR. I am doing things I NEVER imagined I’d be doing with my life. I am somehow maintaining a healthy weight, active lifestyle, and balance eating program. The miracle of all is: I survived and am doing the things I was created to do; I’m becoming the person God created me to be.

I believe there is a hero in each of us; that we have the capacity to survive whatever we set our minds to. I am not perfect; my arms have big, long scars (faded, thank you), and my body is shrinkly and droopy, but I have survived drowning, being buried alive, and crashing — all in one lifetime.

That’s not the same as losing a limb, but you might say I lost an entire person and found myself.

MexiKen doesn’t understand what it feels like to be addicted. At least, he doesn’t *think* he does. He’s one of the lucky ones who is able to turn a negative behavior on and off at will. Substances have no power over him, unless he chooses to allow them to. This is how he explains it, anyway.

You can imagine my frustration over the course of the last…oh…22 years.

• He doesn’t understand my fibromyalgia, because nothing “shows” on the outside, so what could possibly be wrong?
• He doesn’t understand my food addiction, because he doesn’t feel the compulsion or obsession I feel around food.
• He doesn’t understand chemical depression, because he can just talk himself out of it and do what needs to be done.
• He used to think it was all in my head, and I almost believed him.

I remember after my precious baby girl was born (oh, so many years ago). I was a basket case. I had severe postpartum depression – almost psychosis. I felt like I was losing my mind, I beat myself up for my weakness, I criticized myself for being such a rotten mother and wife. I began to see how a woman could be pushed to the edge of insanity and do crazy things to her children. No one was really talking about it, so I figured I was crazy. I certainly wasn’t going to harm my baby, but I understood how someone could get to that point. I was out of control and scared. MexiKen will tell you that he didn’t understand my problem because his own mother had 12 children and never seemed to miss a beat with the birth of each one. We used to joke that she could give birth in the kitchen, then finish the mole and heat the tortillas before anyone would even notice the new addition.

I, on the other hand, was broken. I was not normal. I wanted to die. I hid in the closet while my daughter cried her lungs out in her car seat on the bed. It is a horrible memory, but I no longer feel the shame of it.

Of course, it wasn’t that easy for MexiKen. It was a bone of contention for many, many years in our marriage because he viewed me as weak. He thought I just wasn’t trying hard enough, or that I was seriously deranged to feel that way about my own flesh and blood. He wondered why I wasn’t more like his mother?

It was only after many, many years that he was finally able to “forgive” me for my behavior. That’s really what it came down to; Forgiveness. Though, I know that I wasn’t in control of my behavior, I did apologize to him for the pain my untreated condition caused for the entire family.

After all that, you’d think I’d blame him for his inability to understand the complexities of my damaged psyche, but I don’t. Mostly because *I* struggle to understand the complexities of my damaged psyche…

I don’t blame him for NOT knowing how to show me compassion. Neither one of us knew how to do that.

Which is why education is so important for everyone in the family. As with weight loss surgery, people don’t automatically *get* why we choose to have it. They think you should just eat “as if” you have had the surgery, but not have the surgery. They think you are a cheater, or that you will be cured, or whatever “excuse” you want to plug into the criticism. They think you are weak and lazy and are seriously flawed.

The point is, for someone who does not have a food addiction or weight problem, it is virtually impossible to comprehend the torture of someone who DOES.

I guess it’s like trying to explain menstrual cramps to a guy.

Girl: “Well, it hurts *here* and I only feel better if I lay on my side…with a heating pad. And my back hurts, but you can’t really massage the pain away. And I just feel irritable and sad.”

Guy: “Is it like getting kicked ‘down there’?”

Girl: “Well, since I don’t know what that feels like, because I don’t have *those* parts, it might be like how it feels when you fall on the crossbar on your bike.”

Guy: “Yeah, it’s probably close to that; It’ll pass in a few minutes. What’s your problem again?”

Which is pretty much the same dialogue me and MexiKen had all the time about my “issues.”

AGAIN, I don’t blame HIM for not understanding, because you can only truly empathize with someone if you’ve actually EXPERIENCED what they are going through. Fortunately, I learned that I really just needed support – not understanding. So, a few years ago, I started helping him help me. I’d say, “Hey, you don’t need to understand *why* this is the case, but I have a problem with “X”, and if I see them, I go crazy and eat uncontrollably. I am NOT telling you that YOU can’t have them, but would you mind hiding them from me? Could you put them somewhere you can get to them, but I won’t find them?”

He agreed, but it didn’t keep him from getting that puzzled, “I don’t get it” look on his face. The good news is, he did learn that hiding stuff was a good way to support me (as I’d asked). But that little technique only lasted so long before an addict like me went “looking…”

Ultimately, I had to deal with my addiction, not find ways to make it more acceptable! I had to stop looking for the “WHY” of it all, and just work on the “HOW” — as in, “How will I put an end to this destruction I’m allowing?”

Easy (or not so easy, depending upon how you look at it.) I just had to STOP bingeing. Of course, that’s where those 12-Steps come into the picture, and they are NOT easy, but they ARE possible.

Here’s what I have learned: In the final analysis, even if no one else has ever suffered with my addiction, it is still valid. Even if no one else understands my condition…my frailties, they can still show me compassion.

I could be addicted to mint dental floss but, as long as someone takes a moment to be human and say, “Hmm, I don’t understand this fixation with dental floss, and I don’t have a problem with it, but I see that you do, and I see that you are working to overcome the addiction, so I will support you however I can.”

Perhaps that is the message of this posting. Even if no one else suffers from my particular brand of binge-eating disorder, I do, and I know the tremendous toll it has taken on my soul. That is why, I have asked MexiKen to support me in my endeavor to choose recovery. (This does not include hiding food, by the way.) He will tell you that he doesn’t get it – but he will also say that he understands that I am suffering and doesn’t want me to hurt anymore. That’s big progress for both of us.

Gone are the days of suffering alone. Gone are the moments where I feel crazy and scared. I have my rock — even if he doesn’t know why he is supposed to stand completely still so I can grab onto him when the current gets too rough (LOL) – He does it, with a warm and generous heart (and a good sense of humor). He still has to stop himself from making critical, offhanded remarks, but I understand…because I know how hard he is trying. Hey, sometimes I’d have a hard time being married to me.

Here’s the bottom line: Find your peace and run to it. Never let anyone tell you you don’t deserve it, because you do. It is possible to find compassion — even in strangers.

SEEK FIRST TO UNDERSTAND, THEN TO BE UNDERSTOOD
(7 Habits of Highly Effective People)

By the way…Today is Day 11 of My Recovery (In case you were wondering!)

My journey of recovery did not begin when I had weight loss surgery, anymore than it ended when I chose sobriety over my binge eating addiction. Actually, I began my journey of discovery and healing when I my daughter was 2-years old, which means that I have been working on myself for a long time (more than 18 years). Of course, when I set out on this mission, I was doing it because I had hit rock-bottom and couldn’t imagine living life anymore. I wasn’t going to “do” anything to end it, but I certainly didn’t want to wake up to another day of hell.

And so, at the ripe-old age of 26, having been married for 3 years and being a lousy mother for 2, I decided to get help. I was prepared to be beaten up. I was ready to be told that my fat and sickness was my own fault. I was prepared for the worst.

But, something strange happened; a compassionate doctor recognized something of value in me. She saw a spark of hope and perseverance. She saw someone who was ready to get better.

And so began my journey. I was diagnosed with late luteal phase disorder with major depressive disorder. That was a fancy way of saying I suffered from really bad PMS and got depressed for longer periods than would be considered “normal” or “average.”

I was prescribed Wellbutrin and a whole new world opened before me. For the first time, I heard SILENCE in my brain. I stopped hearing voices (my own), telling me all of the things I HAD to do, WASN’T doing, SHOULD be doing, needed to STOP doing; could be doing BETTER. It was a constant chorus of ME, but it was no Hallelujah chorus.

So, the drugs helped, and I lost weight (70 pounds), and I stopped feeling crazy.

But then…like everything else, the “drugs” stopped working. Or, I decided I didn’t need them anymore, or I decided that the side-effects weren’t worth the benefits. I don’t know. Whatever it was, at about age 28, I stopped the anti-depressants, and determined that I was “cured” and could “do it on my own.”

BIG. MISTAKE.

But, who wants to ADMIT that they have screwed up their own recovery? Who wants to admit that they need drugs to function? And that, if they DON’T take them, they spin out of control?

Not me – that’s who.

And so, I went about my business. Frantically distracting myself with a more-than-full-time job, full-time college, and extremely part-time wife and motherhood. Not surprisingly, I got fatter and fatter.

Doctors would tell me to move more and eat less. But I hurt. Inside and out. I couldn’t do what they wanted.

I learned that I had Fibromyalgia. Now, you’d think a diagnosis like that would be a relief, but 15 years ago, no one knew what fibromyalgia even WAS. Most people — including my husband — believed it was “all in my head.” That I was lazy, didn’t want to feel better, or worse, that I was making it all up for attention. The treatment at the time was sleeping pills, pain pills and depression pills. A ’round the clock cocktail of attitude enhancers. Did I mention the side effects of the meds? Yeah, one of them was actually shown to increase cravings for CHOCOLATE! What!? I did NOT need that.

So, I stopped the drugs. Again.

And I didn’t sleep. So I hurt when I awoke. But I dragged myself to work and school, leaving NOTHING for home and even LESS for myself.

And then I turned 30, and I thought, “I like this. I’m not 20-something anymore. I believe I am supposed to have the answers now.” (Nothing like positive-thinking to motivate change.) But, nothing DID change. I earned my degree, but the angels didn’t sing, and the gates of heaven didn’t fly open for me, I was still fat, my marriage was in trouble, I was an even WORSE mother, and I still HURT.

Enter: My very best friend on the planet (Jan). God sent her to me when I needed her the most. She reached out to me and offered me hope – something I hadn’t dared to expect. After all, I’d determined that I wasn’t worth it. I was a smart woman with a wicked sense of humor. I was creative, talented, attractive. I had a lot going for me, but I had NOTHING — because I didn’t believe in my own value.

Over the course of the next few years, my best friend patiently tutored me in the fine art of living, loving and thriving. To be clear, her style is pretty unconventional. That is because she is a choleric and I am a sanguine. She is like my father, and I am like…well…pretty much no one ELSE in my family. She is like my husband. I am…again, like pretty much no one ELSE in my family. Our daughter is an interesting combination of both Sanguine AND Choleric, but choleric usually always wins.

I could go into great detail about what these personality types mean, but this is not the time or place. What you need to understand about these two, very different personalities is this:

The Choleric KNOWS he is right, doesn’t consider any other opinions on the matter and needs no vote of consensus. He is completely FLOORED when someone says they are HURT by a his actions or statements. The idea of someone being hurt by words is simply is NOT on the radar because FEELINGS are not part of DECISIONS. This is NOT to say that a choleric has no feelings. They do…but they aren’t gonna let YOU know what they are, and they certainly won’t be ruled by them.

The Sanguine, on the other hand, HOPES he is right, considers everyone else’s opinions (to the point of exhaustion), and is completely FLOORED when someone says they are HURT by his actions – especially when he tried so hard NOT to hurt them. Feelings rule the day and a choleric can very quickly SQUASH a sanguine with a withering look or offhanded (read: insensitive, thoughtless, mean) comment. Okay, that’s the sanguine determining that the comment is anything other than what the choleric intends it to be, but that is beside the point.

Needless to say, CHOLERICS and SANGUINES approach circumstances very differently.

So, my dear friend (you know, the *PATIENT* choleric?) would beat into me what needed to be done and I would sweetly tell her that I couldn’t do *it* (whatever *it* was, because what she was advocating was MEAN, and I was NICE.)

Which brings me to a critical part of my story of RECOVERY.

There are a LOT of reasons it has taken me 18 years to get to this point. If sheer will or desire had been enough, I’d have chosen recovery a LOT sooner. But, just because I KNEW something had to be done, didn’t mean I was ready or capable of doing it.

Recovery is a decision tree that looks a bit like this:

1. I have a problem.
2. Here is the solution.
3. Am I ABLE to do that?
4. Do I WANT to do that?
5. WILL I do that?
6. What WILL I do?
7. What CAN I do?
8. Will I choose to fix the problem?
9. If not, place on back burner until later date.
10. Rinse. Lather. Repeat.

Quite often, I KNEW what I had to do, but couldn’t do it yet, or couldn’t keep doing it. That was because i needed to grow in strength of character, confidence, experience — whatever — to have the SKILL to accomplish it. I guess you could say that simply KNOWING what to do does not assure that it WILL or CAN happen. Recovery is like a muscle. You have to work at it; build it, break it down, rebuild it and maintain it or it will atrophy.

For example, I learned that I could treat my Fibromyalgia with regular chiropractic care, massage therapy, vitamins and adrenal supplements and…A DIET FREE OF YEAST AND SUGAR. My symptoms were greatly diminished for 2-years, while I following this strict program. I even lost weight. But, I wasn’t ready to do this for the rest of my life. I didn’t have the strength or willpower…mostly, I didn’t have the BELIEF that I could do it. I wanted the reward, but I wasn’t willing to do the work.

Now, think about recovery as being an athlete. Perhaps he or she dreams of becoming an Olympian and winning a Gold medal. Well, at age 10, that athlete doesn’t possess the strength, skill or experience to win the medal. He or she may have the DESIRE, but isn’t ready to accomplish the task at hand. The athlete can choose to give up (because it’s too hard, he or she wants it NOW and isn’t willing to wait), OR, he or she can choose to continue working hard to one day win the medal. Some activities will have to wait until enough strength is built, while others can be accomplished in anticipation of reaching the next level

In my case, I had to learn when to attempt different things in my growth. When would I be experienced enough to clear this obstacle? When would I be wise enough to avoid it? When would I be strong enough to muscle through it? Simple desire wasn’t enough. I had to understand my ability and accept the fact that some obstacles would not be cleared until I was ready to clear them. Quite often, the block was MENTAL, because I truly DID possess the skill…I just didn’t believe it.

So, my dear friend (remember her?) would tell me what i needed to do in any given situation, and I would tell her if I thought I could do it, and if so, how I could accomplish it (in my OWN, Sanguine way, of course)  There were many, many times when I told her that I KNEW she was right, and I KNEW what had to be done, but I KNEW I wasn’t ready to do it. She respected that, but persevered, as she knew one day, I WOULD be ready.

Just like you have to be “this tall” to ride the “big people” rides at the amusement park, I had to wait until I was “this tall” (emotionally and spiritually) to clear some major hurdles in my life. And, I guess I needed the little sign to prove it.

I’d like to think that I never stopped running or trying. But that’s not true. Sometimes, I sat down, put my head in my hands, and cried. Sometimes, I threw tantrums and screamed that I couldn’t do it; that I’d NEVER do it. Sometimes, I wondered why I even tried.

And then, it happened. I began to see progress. I experienced success. I was stronger, I had experience, and I BELIEVED I could achieve it. I realized that, if I waited for it to come to me, or if I waited for it to be EASY, it would never happen.

No, I was going to have to stretch far beyond my comfort zone. I was going to have to be willing to fail. I had to be willing to get back up again — every time I fell. Oh, and I had to wiling to do this ALL in front of EVERYBODY. That’s because, once I had weight loss surgery, I threw the doors and windows of my life open for all the world to see. When you do that –  when you put yourself out there – you’re saying that you understand you will be criticized, ridiculed, vilified and attacked, BUT, you are HOPING that, in avoiding, clearing or muscling THROUGH the obstacles, you will be able to encourage, motivate and inspire others along the way.

Life is a risk – Not something to avoid. I finally figured this out.

So, you see, recovery is a combination of things: It’s deciding if you even NEED to do it. Then, being mature enough to recognize when you’re ready, learning what’s involved, determining that you WILL do it, proclaiming that you CAN do it…and accepting that you may NOT succeed on your first….second…or even fifth time.

Recovery is a process.

When people say that I’m brave or wise…or stupid — I take it all in stride. In reality, I’m stubborn and I’m blessed. I have worked hard to accomplish my recovery so far, but this is not a journey with an end. On the contrary, recovery will never stop for me, though, the sanguine in me HOPES it will become a little easier.

FOOTNOTE: And..about my marriage? C’mon, you’ve read about MexiKen…he stuck by me through the whole mess, and even worked on his own stuff. he’s better and I’m better and we’re better together. You need a good partner to help you over the hurdles. And my daughter? Well, that’s a work in progress. After all, the things that happen to us when we are young are a lot more influential (and lasting) than the things that happen to us as adults. It takes a lot of work to recognize the problems to even begin fixing them. But, that’s what therapy and love are for. We’re working on it, and she is an amazing young woman.

For a long time, I thought my obesity was my own fault. I thought that it was a horrible character flaw that led me to make bad choice after bad choice and become “grotesquely” overweight. I wondered why I had no will-power, why I didn’t like broccoli, and why I hated working out. I looked around and saw ambitious, healthy people doing all of the things I knew I was *supposed* to want to do, but didn’t. And so, the condemnation continued.

It was my own damned fault that I was fat.

And then I had gastric bypass surgery, and I learned that my obesity was not entirely my *fault* at all. I learned that it was a biological, physiological, emotional and spiritual disorder, which meant that I was contributing to it, but not necessarily causing it; that many of the things I thought or did exacerbated the problem, but didn’t create it.

And so, I went about the business of changing my behaviors; doing things that a healthy person did; thinking the way a healthy person thinks. Or, at least, I THOUGHT I did. As it turns out, I was doing a lot of self-sabotage by refusing to acknowledge 2 simple facts:

1. I am a FOOD ADDICT
2. Addiction is a Disease

Now, I know a LOT of people who steadfastly disagree with that second statement. They disagree to the point of anger, resentment and even hatred. They say that anyone who can CHOOSE “not” to have something, can’t possibly have a disease, because, well…you can’t *decide* not to have cancer.

Here’s what I’ve got to say about that: I didn’t choose to be a food addict, anymore than a cancer victim chooses to have cancer. BUT, I did do things that contributed to the severity of the problem; I made choices that inflamed my condition. I did things to make my condition worse.

If I were to draw a parallel between cancer and food addiction, I would say that, by my thoughts and actions, I made my condition worse. I refused to admit I even HAD it, and then I refused “TREATMENT” (almost like a cancer sufferer refusing chemo or radiation.) I believed that I had caused my problem (much like a lung cancer victim could believe they deserved their disease because they smoked, or a liver cancer victim could believe they deserved it because they drank.) I’m not going to say that smoking and drinking are good ideas, or that they don’t CONTRIBUTE to the disease, but I believe we are either predisposed to cancer, or we aren’t; we are predisposed to obesity and food addiction, or we aren’t.

It is immaterial whether you agree with me or not that obesity and addiction are diseases, for I have chosen to treat both conditions for what they are, instead of believing the misinformed and beating myself up for being a bad person.

Perhaps that is why choosing to abstain from addictive behavior is called RECOVERY. Like a cancer survivor who is in REMISSION, I will never be cured of my disease. It could come back at any time, so I must be ever-vigilant. I don’t know when a trigger will pop-up, or someone will inadvertently do something to encourage a relapse, but I cannot live my life fearing that the addiction will return.

Today, I choose RECOVERY. I choose NOT to allow my disease to rule my life. I choose to live my Bariatric After Life™ to the fullest and embrace all that life has to offer. But, just as a cancer survivor might have to take medication or participate in therapy, so must I.

At the end of the day, I could lament the fact that I am an addict; that I will have to fight obesity for the rest of my life. I could complain and ask “WHY ME?” — OR, I can be thankful that there is a treatment for my condition. I can have gratitude for the gift of recovery, and I can rely upon God for His healing touch. After all, RECOVERY is not something you do alone. You need the support and guidance of others who have gone before, and the power of someone who is much greater than yourself.

Thank GOD I have both

With the holidays safely behind me, I naturally started thinking about GIFTS. Perhaps I should have thought of this BEFORE the holidays, but this year, I was about as prepared as I ever am in that department (which means that I never really made a list, and only barely shopped, thank you, Amazon.com). Even though I had an excuse, many might say that this sort of “I’ll-figure-it-out-later” attitude was a major contributor in my becoming morbidly obese in the first place. I, on the other hand, prefer to think of it as an endearing quality that makes people love me more.

We’ll argue about that later…

Back to the topic at hand: GIFTS.

In the 3-years since my gastric bypass, I’ve met many post-ops who, like me, describe their bariatric surgery as a miraculous gift they wish they’d received sooner. Now, don’t get me wrong, we didn’t always feel that way – especially not in the beginning. I remember wishing that I could return my “gift” for a full-refund because I was quite clear it DIDN’T FIT (and never would!)

Perhaps it’s the fact that Thanksgiving and Christmas have whizzed by, or maybe it’s because the New Year (full of promise and possibility) is just around the corner, but I’m feeling a little nostalgic for that December day in 2007, when I unwrapped the greatest gift I ever gave myself: Gastric Bypass Surgery.

I remember it vividly. I was over-the-moon-happy – utterly ecstatic at my progress.

For about 24 hours.

BUT, I could walk all the way up the hall and back, I had zero interest in food, and I still had the benefit of pain medication any time I needed it.

Yes, life was good.

Until the gas pain set-in and I thought I was going to die. Okay, that wasn’t fun. Then I got home and couldn’t sleep in my favorite position. I didn’t like that either. I couldn’t get in my requisite “40 grams of protein” (no matter how hard I tried), and to cap it off, the scale actually registered heavier after surgery! What had I gotten myself into? I felt lousy, I looked lousy, and everyone in my house was lousy. One day, a week after surgery, I looked in the mirror and said to myself, “What the HECK were you thinking??? You didn’t NEED this surgery! You only had to lose 100 pounds. Why did you slice yourself up like this? The surgery was elective!”

Can you imagine uttering those words and actually believing them?

In my defense, at that point, I had hit that phase that so many people talk about: Buyer’s Remorse. I wanted to wrap this package up and return it (without a receipt!) I felt like someone had given me a puppy, instead of a lovely bottle of perfume.

What do I mean by that? Well, when you get a bottle of perfume, you either like it or you don’t. If you like it, you use it; if you don’t, you regift it. Easy and no strings attached.

Now, when you get a puppy? That is a whole different animal. The puppy is the easy part because EVERYBODY loves a puppy…for the first day. Then the puppy poops (on the carpet) and piddles (on the kitchen floor). The puppy cries all night, and wants to play when you want to sleep. The puppy chews on everything, and now you have to buy it food, pay for its shots and get it licensed. The puppy quickly becomes much more than you bargained for. But you have become attached to the puppy, so you can’t send it back.

Bariatric surgery is a LOT like a puppy. You have to feed it healthy food, your sleep will be affected for awhile, you’ll have to do a LOT more walking, and you’ll never be able to leave home without planning, packing and preparing.

You know what? I got a bariatric bulldog for Christmas 2007, and I couldn’t send it back if I wanted to.

The good news is, over time, I decided that maybe this wasn’t such a bad gift after all. I learned to focus on appreciating and taming my “puppy pouch” so that we could live in peace. After a lot of training and regular exercise, I’ve learned to love the gift I gave myself. Of course, just like any “puppy,” I have to pay close attention to my bariatric gift. I visit the doctor at least once a year for a check-up, I feed it right, praise it, and give it the respect it requires. Oh, and I keep it on a short leash so I can rein it in when it gets a little wild.

Like puppies, bariatric surgery is NOT for everyone. But in my case, though the price tag was a little higher than I expected, if I had it to do over, I’d ask Santa to bring me the very same thing.

Happy New You!