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April 5, 2005
A Milestone
So I have passed the 50 pound mark and am well on my way to the 60 pound mark. It hasn't been as fast as I'd hoped, but most days I can be reasonable about how much faster it is than it would have been WITHOUT the surgery. I won't lie, though, and say it's easy...because it's not.
You have to entirely re-learn how to eat, and quite often you have to re-learn it every day. Foods that work well one day will give you problems the next, and vice versa. You spend hours at a time wishing you would just pass out because bad food reactions leave you doubled over, but then again there are pleasant surprises when you daringly try something you thought you would never get to eat again and you find out that you CAN have it in limited quantity.
Depression is still a major factor, but that's fine. The doctor said that it would be. Which means that if someone DOES get depressed, sometimes it's not exactly helpful to scold them or lecture them. It's going to happen, so let them work through it. If they need to vent, then they need to vent, and they need support...not people adding to the depression by telling them that they shouldn't be depressed. It is natural to mourn when you lose something that is a big part of your life, and with most people in America, food is a HUGE part of our lives.
Think about it...just about every major celebration in our lives revolves around food. Birthday cake, Easter candy, Valentine's hearts filled with chocolate, going out to dinner for anniversaries, Thanksgiving dinner, Fourth of July cookouts...you name it. They all have food as a centerpiece. Family and friends gather around a table of some sort and share company, and appetites, to celebrate whatever the occasion is.
It isn't a criticism of our culture that this happens. After all, there's nothing wrong with combining the things that you enjoy, but it is something that people should be aware of if they know someone who has had gastric bypass surgery. Not so that they'll change things, because most of those of us who have had the surgery would never dream of insisting that everyone around us change their lives to accomodate our choices. No, people should be aware of it just so that they don't unthinkingly make it harder for us. Don't ask if we want another serving of your Aunt Tilly's World Famous Pecan Pie recipe. If we had any, we probably had the limit of what we CAN have without ending up curled in a ball on our bed, sobbing from pain, nausea, and dizziness, while wishing we could die because it would be over faster.
Be gentle with us. We're more fragile than we may seem. Yes, we're happy that we're losing weight and feeling healthier than most of us have felt in a long time. Just remember that a lot of us have also lost something that allowed us to cope in our lives. We're struggling to find out who we are again, and we're desperately trying to do so without letting anyone else know just how much it hurts because it's not supposed to hurt. We're supposed to be dancing with joy every moment of every day. After all, it's just food, right?
I wish that everyone who ever thought that, even in the privacy of their own minds, could experience our lives for just one day.
Anyway, this came out as a much more critical post than I meant for it to be. I AM happy that I'm losing weight, and I DO feel physically and mentally better than I have in years. I'm impatient that it's not going faster because there are so many things that I want to do, but I know I'll get to do them in time. I definitely appreciate all of the support that I've gotten so far, and I hope that everyone understands that my venting is just that...venting.
Hopefully we'll have new photos and measurements up sometime this week. It's a tough time of year for us to find the time for such things, what with Faire and all, but we'll see what we can do.
Love and dark chocolate kisses to all...
Posted by Lys on April 5, 2005 10:15 AM
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