When I decided two years ago that I wanted to finally lose
the weight, it wasn’t just because I was tired of being fat. I had an emotional revelation in which I
realized that I was not in control of my own happiness and thoughts. I knew that I needed to improve my mental
health and went on a spiritual mission to change my perspective on life. I took 18 months to really figure out why my
life seemed so difficult, and in that journey I discovered that my mental
anguish was the root cause to my weight gain. I had a long road ahead of me in changing the
beliefs I held about myself and the beliefs I held about other people. Once I discovered and changed those beliefs, I
decided it was time to let go of the weight that seemed to be holding me
down.
Most people go the opposite route with their weight. They think that if they let go of the weight,
they will also be letting go of the emotional issues. Many times those people find that the weight
is hard to keep off too. I fully believe
that weight loss surgery should require life improvement therapy too. The problem is that in our health system, our
doctors are only concerned with the physical aspect of our weight, and not the
mental. The treatments have been
improving over the years, but I think there is still a long way to go in
changing how we look at weight loss, and the benefit of surgery.
I have spent a good amount of time in the past 11 months
since my surgery date really looking at the mental changes that I’ve had to
make to be fully successful with my progress.
I have since reached my original goal of losing 130lbs and improved that
goal to being physically fit and healthy.
I composed this list of what I believe are the 10 most important actions
you need to take to be successful with your weight loss surgery. I hope you can learn from this, and please
feel free to share any additional things you find important in your long term
success.
1. Take
responsibility for your choices. You
may have had an upbringing that caused you to have a weak belief structure, but
you are still responsible for the way you take care of your body and mind. Blame and shame are easy distractions for
your mind to give up on your responsibility in how you got to the point you’re
at. Embrace your mistakes and love
yourself. You can’t get better until you
embrace your responsibility and make a promise to yourself to do your best. You cannot do your best when you make excuses
for yourself. When you take
responsibility you are not making excuses for yourself. Responsibility is a total acceptance of who
we are, and focusing on self-love and improving our lives.
2. Be honest with yourself. It’s easy to avoid thinking about how you
take care of your body every day. Being
honest with yourself is uncomfortable, but your “comfort” is what has lead you
to the current state you’re in. Progress
is impossible without discomfort and anyone who’s had weight loss surgery can
tell you that “comfort” is not part of the process. Ask yourself if the choices you’re making are
truly making you happy. If not, change
them.
3. Keep a food journal. This goes along with being honest with
yourself. An honest food journal will
keep track of every bite, taste, lick, and sip.
Everything that goes into your mouth should be on that page. This isn’t to feel shame or guilt, but to try
and find each and every trigger in what is causing your weight problems. You can’t change your appearance without
changing your habits. So for this, you
must understand that writing these things down is only to help boost your
progress, not to make you feel ashamed.
You’re already eating these things, so looking at them on a page isn’t
going to harm you. It’s going to help
you see what you need to be more focused on. This is to help teach you how to treat your
body well.
4. Remember that being “skinny” isn’t a solution to
emotional turmoil. It is not going to
fix your relationship, make people like you, and get you a raise or a better
job. Your life will not improve because
you are thin. Your life only improves
when your outlook improves, and you don’t have to be thin to improve your
outlook. You have to really figure out
what in your life needs to improve and work on that separately from your
weight. Weight gain is a side effect
from many emotional issues, and you can’t treat a problem by only treating the
side effects.
5. Meditate.
You need to learn to calm your mind in moments of extreme stress. I’ve learned that when I feel overwhelmed I
fall back into my old habits of comfort food and inactivity. Now that I’ve discovered meditation, it helps
me get back to the inner calm I need to make better choices.
6. Educate yourself on proper nutrition. Many people I’ve spoken to, myself included,
try to fit our comfort foods into the list of what we should be eating. I can tell you that even if you take the bun
off a burger, it’s still a burger.
Really learn what your body needs to stay healthy and fit, and realize
that food is not strictly for enjoyment, but fuel and nourishment for our body
and soul. Remember how guilty you felt
just writing a food journal? Now if you
ate foods that benefit your body, it would be EASY to write a food journal every
day. The one thing I was told in my
pre-op class was “Oh, you don’t like to eat _______? That’s too bad. But I’m telling you that you need to eat it.”
7. Don’t deny yourself anything in moderation. I don’t eat healthy 100% of the time. No one does, and if they do, they have more
self-control than anyone I know. The key
is limitation. You can indulge in a
craving, but if you don’t nourish your body with proper foods more often, you
are not going to be successful. The
benefit of surgery is that a lot of the unhealthy foods are difficult to eat,
or cause severe discomfort, but that doesn’t last forever for some of us. We have to keep in mind that head hunger and
cravings are not an excuse to treat your body poorly.
8. Be present.
Every time you make the decision to eat, you have to be present in the
decision of what foods you’re going to nourish yourself with. Imagine what each food choice you make is
going to do to benefit your body, and how much of that food is nutritionally
valuable for your health. Picture what
your goal is and decide if that food choice is beneficial to your goal.
9. Move your body.
Physical inactivity is proven to cause anxiety and depression, both of
which are difficult to handle while dealing with weight. When you move your body, in any way, you are
not only aiding yourself in weight loss, but in boosting your mental
health. When we make excuses and stay
inactive, we are taking away from the progress we could make. Find a physical activity you enjoy and do it
as often as possible. Also remember that
exercise isn’t easy, and it isn’t supposed to be. That physical strain is actually physical
improvement. The burn is growth. Embrace it instead of fearing it.
10. Get help.
If you find yourself struggling with making good choices you need to
talk to someone about it. If emotional
turmoil or pain has deterred you from your progress, you need to seek out a
professional. Get a therapist, go to a
support group, read a self-help book, or find a coach that can guide you
through it. When you internalize and
refuse to move through your emotional pain, you cannot successfully utilize the
weight loss tool you have chosen. This
is why so many people regain the weight.
They have not dealt with the emotional and mental side of weight loss
and used the surgery as an ineffective solution. You have to improve your thoughts before you
will ever improve your body.
Lauren Vento
The Happiest Woman Alive
The Happiest Woman Alive
