No Quick Fix

Last night I was watching a program on TLC about an almost 800-lb. man in England.  The story chronicled his struggle to eventually have gastric bypass surgery which was believed to be the key to saving his life.  It's always sad - and very sobering - for me to watch someone who has become totally bed-bound due to their obesity, because I understand how that could happen.  Even at my highest weight of 268, I was fairly active, but one of my fears was that, as I continued to gain weight, I would reach a point where I just gave up and completely gave in to my eating.  I knew if that happened, if I gave up all hope of ever getting to a healthy weight, my weight could skyrocket.  All it would take would be some kind of injury to immobilize me and I knew I could end up like one of the individuals featured on these programs.  It was a scary thought for me, and it's still sobering.  I never watch these programs and think "how could they do that to themselves?"  My heart breaks for them and I also realize that, but for the grace of God, that could have been me.

One of the things that hit me last night was a comment by the bariatric surgeon who said, just prior to the surgery, "This surgery will forever change his relationship with food."  If only it was that easy!  I wish there was a way, in an instant, to forever change our relationship with food.  The surgery this individual underwent forever changed the way his body would metabolize food, it changed forever the amount of food he would be able to eat at any given time, but I know that the surgery in and of itself didn't change his emotional relationship with food, and that's where the real battle lies.

We all are emotionally tied, on one level or another, to food.  For some of us, the attachment is deeper than others, but it's there.  If it wasn't, the vast majority of us wouldn't need to lose weight (the only exception are those RARE individuals with a true metabolic disorder).  If we didn't relate emotionally to food, we would use food strictly for nourishment, stop when we're satisfied, and maintain a consistent healthy weight forever.  But that's not the case.  Somewhere in our lives, usually beginning in childhood, we began to connect food with comfort or reward.  If we had a bad day at school, Mom may have comforted us with milk and cookies.  If we brought home a good report card, we celebrated with a trip to the ice cream parlor.  If we didn't eat our broccoli, we were threatened with no dessert.  All of those experiences slowly but surely formed our own emotional attachment to food, and that attachment will never be completely severed.

In Maintenance, I am continuing to learn about my own emotional attachment to food.  For one, I know that while many of my food issues were addressed while I was on 5&1 and are no longer driving me, there is still the tendency to reach for food when I'm not hungry.  There is still the inclination to ignore the "satisfied" signal from my body and just keep eating because it tastes good.  There are still times when, once the plate is empty, I recognize that I've eaten too much and regret it.  I recognize that it will be an ongoing challenge for me.

I am also learning that my emotional attachment to food doesn't have to rule over me.  I recognize that it is still there, weaker than before, but there, but I understand that I have the ability to choose.  Sometimes those choices are really easy and sometimes they aren't.  For me, it is a daily choice as to whether I'm going to focus on pursuing optimal health in my life or allow old patterns to get a foothold.  Just as I recognized early on that I could not lose the weight on my own and looked to my Heavenly Father for the strength I needed, I recognize that I cannot maintain on my own, in my own strength.  I need God's strength on a daily basis to help me make the choices I need to make - it's still a day by day, meal by meal choice.

Staying on plan isn't always an easy choice, and relearning old, ingrained habits and changing how we relate to food aren't easy choices, either.  But they ARE choices, and we have the opportunity today to take another step in a new, healthier direction.  The choice is ours . . . choose wisely :-)