Traction Control

Today finds me in a state of re-evaluation. Over the past couple of weeks, my scale has not moved to show any weight loss. I know this could just be a signal of another stall, which is very normal on the bariatric journey, but this did spur me to really pay attention to my food intake for a few days.

Recently, I have noticed a marked difference in the amount of negative food-related consequences I am experiencing if I eat something I should not eat or eat more than my new stomach can hold. Don’t misunderstand, I don’t want to experience a lot of nausea or discomfort, but I have come to rely on some of these physical signs to guide my bariatric path. For example, after getting back to eating solid foods after surgery, my new stomach has regularly screamed “Do Not Eat Another Bite!!” when I have eaten enough.  However, there have been fewer of those times lately where I have felt my pouch signal “enough”. In general, I have felt like I could eat more recently than in the past months. Additionally, I am not getting that icky oh-so-sick feeling if I take a bite of something too sweet. In the past, if I ate more than just a little bite of something containing too much sugar or too many carbohydrates, I would end up with terrible dumping symptoms (cold sweats, heart racing, nausea) and I’d have to lay down until the episode passed. I have not had any dumping for awhile now.

As the saying goes, hindsight is 20/20, and looking back at these past two weeks I can see how the lack of some physical consequences has affected my eating choices. I have strayed a bit from my strict control of food quality and portion size. Even though I have continued to be very conscious of my protein consumption and water intake, I have allowed myself to indulge in a few bites of things that I know are not the best choices for me. Having a taste of a treat occasionally is fine, and I need to allow myself to do that from time to time…especially on special occasions. Eating a delicious homemade chocolate chip cookie that my daughter made with love is a nice treat, but eating a second cookie because the first one didn’t make me sick is a slippery slope. In addition to making a few questionable food choices, I have stopped weighing/measuring food amounts because I could rely on my little stomach to tell me when to quit eating.

BIG A-HA MOMENT (through this introspective analysis)…I have been relying on consequences to shape my post op eating habits rather than using this time to REALLY make long term lifestyle changes that will enable me to maintain my weight loss going forward into the future. 

In my defense, the natural fallout from eating too much or eating the wrong thing is actually one of the reasons I chose gastric bypass surgery rather than the other surgery options. I perversely wanted to suffer some kind of repercussion for making not-so-good choices so that I could learn how my new tummy was going to respond to different types of food. Also, it’s important to understand that “bad foods” are not the only foods that cause bariatric patients to feel some ill effects. Some patients can no longer tolerate eggs or dairy after surgery, while others (including myself) develop an aversion to meat. Eggs, dairy, and meat are not bad food choices for bariatric patients post op. In fact, they can provide wonderful protein options. But weight loss surgery does a number on the body as a whole, not just the stomach.  Hormones, metabolisms, and even taste buds change. These changes can drastically affect a person’s taste preferences as well as what food a person can physically tolerate eating. Physical side effects are a natural part of the bariatric post op journey, and I have become very comfortable (ie. lazy) in relying on those side effects to gauge my food choices.

During counseling prior to weight loss surgery, bariatric patients are told to expect most surgery-related weight loss to occur during the first post op year. Also, regardless of what a person does after weight loss surgery, there is a honeymoon period where a patient WILL lose a large amount of weight without much effort at all. I know this is a generalization and there are variables that can affect this for any individual, but in theory, this is the case for most patients. Ergo (love that word), if patients do not use the first year post op to make lifelong sustainable changes, even bariatric patients can gain all their weight back. Newly redesigned stomach pouches adjust overtime and learn to take in more food. Eating does become easier as a patient gets further away from surgery. Stomach pouches can be stretched, within reason, by not controlling the amount of food that is eaten in one sitting. Hormones and metabolisms find a new balance, and the body settles into the new reality. At that point, the “reset” that occurred at the time of surgery is over and patients are on their own to maintain weight loss by sticking to the lifestyle changes they have made during the journey.

I refuse to become a statistic of bariatric “failure” going through all this hard work just to revert back to old behaviors and lose the life I have gained during this process. Therefore, this epiphany was HUGE in my personal journey of discovery. I don’t think I fully grasped how huge of an impact this discovery will have on me going forward until I started writing this blog post. For my own sake, I am going to restate my discovery here…

I have been relying on consequences to shape my post op eating habits rather than using this time to REALLY make long term lifestyle changes that will enable me to maintain my weight loss going forward into the future. 

I now feel a renewed sense of purpose as I look ahead to the next six months. I am halfway through this post op year and am now on the downhill side of my first year journey (wow, that’s hard to believe). Since I began writing this post a few days ago and paying close attention to how/what I eat each day and how I spend my time, I am learning that I can’t EVER slack or let my guard down. It doesn’t matter how many times I say or think in terms of this “lifelong journey”, there are still times that it is so easy to look no further than today and slip into the pre-op misinformed thought pattern of believing weight loss surgery produces drastic weight loss…the END!” These few days have shown me that the fight to make right choices is going to be a day-to-day battle FOREVER!! Food, and the way I have always used food, will always be a struggle for me, and surgery has not changed that truth!! I must continue to maintain traction as I travel this road to health.

Thank you for taking this journey with me.