Today I've realized I'm really glad I'm on this journey and that it's been so easy for me thus far because things could have turned out much differently.
Over the summer, probably around June or July, the husband and I were taking a walk. It was a cool night (the only reason I wanted to go) but by the end of the .74 miles we were hot and exhausted. During the walk, I revealed that I was sick of being overweight. It's not something we talked about much in our household growing up, and that carried over into my own household. I criticized our lifestyles and scoffed at our inability to walk less than a mile without hurting and becoming so winded. And I mentioned having serious considerations about lap-band surgery. I had recently watched a friend go through it and as hard as it was for her the first few weeks, it was nothing compared to my mom's ordeal. It was something that would keep my mouth from eating too much or I would suffer the consequences. Husband decided he was on board with it also and told me to call our doctor's office and schedule an appointment to get the ball rolling. Something that was just an idea rolling around in my head had suddenly become very real. So I spent hours researching it, scaring myself to death. Did I really want to survive on a liquid diet for several weeks? To cause myself to be ill if I ate too much? I've never had surgery and I have a huge fear of dying (so huge I've had panic attacks.) That risk really worried me. Was I really okay with putting my life in someone's hands just to be thin? They also wanted to know what types of things were done beforehand in an effort to lose weight. I had done nothing! And then there it was: they wanted adherence to a diet before surgery that would result in weight loss. I can't find now where I was looking, and it may have only been 10 pounds or so, but I remember thinking "if I have to diet to lose weight before the surgery, why have the surgery?"
I vaguely remember my mom going in for Roux en-Y gastric bypass surgery (it's been at least 15 years). But more vividly, I recall her not being able to go upstairs, her inability to eat more than a couple tablespoons without being sick, the restrictive diet that she's since gotten around. After all that struggle, all those times she'd sit miserably, clutching her stomach, telling us how she ate too fast or ate too much or even ate the wrong thing, she's gained it all back. Sure, she might be down a little bit from her starting weight but she has a bunch of loose skin now so it's hard to tell. And on my journey, I've just come to realize how little they taught her about proper nutrition, portion control, and exercise. Even though she ate barely anything in the beginning, her stomach pouch eventually expanded and with it, her appetite. I remember her getting up in the middle of the night because she was hungry, grabbing snack cakes by the handful and taking them back upstairs with her. Nothing about that surgery made her re-evaluate how she ate or lived. She didn't stop buying junk food or take walks or join the local community center. Nothing set her up for continued success. The weight was coming off regardless of what she did or didn't do, so there was no need to change for the long-term.
When I logged into MyFitnessPal this morning and noticed one of my friends posting about how excited she was to be back down to her pre-Thanksgiving weight, everything sort of hit me. I realized I should be hugely thankful to weigh less than I did on Thanksgiving. It was the holiday weekend and I lost 2.6 pounds. I didn't have to worry about eating and making myself sick (something my mother still does on holidays), or eating the wrong foods, or not chewing enough.
So today I am thankful for my journey. I've learned to eat properly, to take care of myself, and to listen to my body for signs of hunger or satiation. Even on days when a weigh-in doesn't go as planned, or I feel like eating something that will set me over on calories for the day, I never feel like giving up. I'm thankful I have much more self-determination than I ever gave myself credit for.
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