June 2012

In the years that I have been blogging, I’ve not received a request from someone asking me to blog about a particular topic until now.

I really enjoyed After (The Before & After) and got a lot from it. Thanks for writing it. I couldn’t find anything on your blog about your gallbladder experience and wanted to suggest it as a blog topic. I am waiting for a diagnosis but am pretty sure that is what it is. I have yo-yoed with weight and feel ashamed and embarrassed and blame myself for making myself ill. And I delayed seeing a doctor. So besides having pain, I am beating myself up emotionally and I wondered what your experience was like. ~ Phoebe in Toronto

[Phoebe is referring to this passage in my book: "Of course I knew the health risks associated with being overweight. My mother often told me she was concerned about my health and so that became another thing I had to prove – that I could be overweight AND healthy. For the most part, I was. Yes, my cholesterol was high, but under control with medication; and yes, I had my gallbladder removed; and yes, my back ached, but I rationalized that those things also happen to 'skinny' people."]

Phoebe, I know exactly how you feel. I want to start by saying that shame, embarrassment, and blame will not make you healthier, thinner, or happier. At least that’s not been my experience. Shame, embarrassment, and blame only served to perpetuate overeating/bingeing, weight gain, ill health (physical and mental), and unhappiness. But for a long while I didn’t know any better…shame, embarrassment, and blame seemed to be an inextricable part of myself.

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My gallbladder “experience” started some time in 2003, when I was 41. I was experiencing episodes of pain right below my breastbone that I attributed to severe indigestion. I had about four or five of these attacks over the course of a year.

One night in January of 2004 I woke up in intense pain. I tried Tums, I tried breathing it away, I tried lying and sitting in different positions. Nothing relieved the pain and I got scared, thinking I might be having a heart attack.

I asked my husband to take me to the Emergency Room and the intake nurse said my symptoms fit the “4 Fs” of gall stones: 40s, female, fertile, and fair. Later, when I went back home I did a little research, I discovered a fifth F: fat. Was the nurse being nice or did she not consider me to be fat?

At the time I weighed about 230 pounds, so yes, I was overweight, but I was also (partly) in denial about it. I didn’t want to connect being overweight with having gall stones (or any other health issue, for that matter), and even though being overweight is a risk factor, I knew that thin people had them too.

At the ER I was given pain killer and was x-rayed, confirming the nurse’s hunch. I was told that it wasn’t an urgent case and that I could schedule surgery, but that if I had another bad attack, they could do it on an emergency basis. I was also told to avoid fatty food. The night before that last attack, I’d made a pasta dish with a tomato cream sauce and bacon! Thankfully, in the weeks before my surgery I didn’t have another attack.

The vast majority of gallbladder surgeries are laparoscopic, but I was told that there was a chance the doctor might use an open surgical method that would require a much larger incision, not to mention a much longer recovery. Again, thankfully, the laparoscopic method was just fine, there were no complications, and I was discharged from the hospital the same day. I used prescription a painkiller for a couple of days, but was able to switch to acetaminophen fairly quickly.

While the surgery wasn’t, by itself, a turning point in the way I regarded my health and/or weight, it was certainly one point along the way. At the time of the surgery I may have even been a member of eDiets (if not, I was soon to become a member). I remember for sure that I had a gym membership and was proud of the fact that I was able to go back to the gym about two weeks after the surgery.

But as I said, I was in denial because, deep down inside, I was afraid of facing the shame and self-loathing that existed within me. And although I was unhappy about my weight, it was not the cause, it was a symptom. Acknowledging my weight – at least for me at the time – meant admitting that I wasn’t happy, not to mention that I didn’t really know myself, accept myself, or love myself.

I was resistant to seeing myself more objectively  because I wasn’t ready to do anything about it. I was living my life in reaction to everything and everyone around me, and “being fat” was a series of complex mixed messages that lived inside of me.

It was about a year later, in early 2005, that I decided I was ready to make a change and I discovered, for the first time, what it meant to love and accept myself.

Have you ever had a health issue that proved to be a significant turning point for you? Did you beat yourself up over it? Did the shame/embarrassment/blame help or hinder?

And by the way, in case it hasn’t been clear until now, I’d be happy to answer any questions you may have!

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So it’s been a few weeks since I figured out why I’d been so compelled to stuff my face (for three months). Since then, I haven’t mindlessly stuck my hand into a bag of anything salty/cheesy/snacky and my relationship with food is slowly returning to the place where I like it: food doesn’t control me and I don’t have to control food.

That, along with consistent kettlebell workouts, walks to the beach, and yoga/stretching/mobility work, has brought me back to center.

It feels good. And easy.

But I’ve also been engaged in a bit of magical thinking:

No, I am not “dieting” and no, I am not striving for “skinny” but this captures the gist of my thoughts recently. Things are definitely moving in the right direction and my clothes are a tad more comfortable than they had been, but not as comfortable as I’d like them to be. And that’s okay. I’ll just keep on keepin’ on.

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Something dawned on me earlier this week as I catching up on various blogs: with very few exceptions, almost every blogger I “know” who has reached goal weight has regained. Either just a little or a whole lot. I don’t say this with my finger pointed in judgment, but with empathy.

I have come to accept that each and every time I lose and then regain, I receive a wonderful gift in the form of a lesson. And each and every time, I regain less, the time it takes for me to catch myself is less, and the amount of time in between regains is greater.

Do you engage in magical thinking? Have you ever reached goal weight and then regained? How did you handle it?

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I’ve been enjoying reading The Weight Maven. In her words, her focus is on “weight, diet, and the current hysteria around the obesity ‘epidemic’ — especially as it relates to both policy decisions and the demonization of fat people,” as well as about “figuring out the best way for me to eat to get to and be able to maintain a healthy weight.”

She brings a more scientific/analytical bent to the mechanics of the process, which I appreciate. She’s lost more than 125 pounds and says, “More importantly, I have peace of mind about my eating. I’m not ravenously hungry, I am mostly craving free (save when triggered by major stressors), and I feel like this is something I could do for the rest of my life.”

Hmmmm…sounds like something I’d say.

Anyway, in her recent Quote Of The Day, she provides a link to a Psychology Today article entitled “Why Are We Eating So Much More Than We Used To,” which, in turn, provides a compelling take on the role of omega-6 fatty acids on our appetites.

“It’s the high levels of omega-6 from vegetable oils (most notably corn and soybean) in our diets that act like a consistent drip of THC to our brains: ‘We are also learning more about how omega fats influence the appetite-regulating cells in the hypothalamus. These cells are rich in receptors for endocannabinoids, our body’s form of the ingredient in marijuana that increases appetite. Because these are made from the active form of omega-6, arachidonic acid, more omega-6 in the diet means more munchy-promoting endocannibinoids’.”

Also from the Psychology Today article:

“And there are two “essential” types of polyunsaturated fat in our cells, omega-3 and omega-6, that can only come from our diets. If we compare the current American diet with our diets forty years ago, we find similar levels of sugars, amino acids, and total fats, but the amounts of the two types of omega fats have changed very dramatically. In a natural diet of grains, meat, dairy foods, fruits, and vegetables, there is a bit more omega-6 than omega-3, but today there is more than twenty-times more omega-6 than omega-3. This shift in the proportion of these different fats is by far the biggest change in our diets over the past forty years.”

Might my recent bout of emotional overeating been partly fueled physiologically by the omega-6-rich snacks I was consuming?

I have also read that the increased use of omega-6-rich oils has affected mental health, notably depression, bipolar disorder, and violence. New Science Links Food and Happiness discusses the research of Joe Hibbeln, M.D., a Captain in the United States Public Health Service. He is the acting chief on the Section of Nutritional Neurosciences at the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. He is also a psychiatrist, a lipid biochemist, and an epidemiologist.

Might reducing omega-6 (especially in the winter) help with my anxiety?

For further information, along with some really great tips, read The Conscious Life’s Anti-Inflammatory Diet: How to Balance Omega-3 and Omega-6 Fatty Acids. Omega-6 in and of itself isn’t a bad guy as long as it is in proper ratio to omega-3. From what I’ve been able to gather, modern Western diets typically have ratios of omega-6 to omega-3 in excess of 10 to 1, some as high as 30 to 1. The optimal ratio is said to be 4 to 1 or lower.

I’m thinking it will be easy to make a conscious effort to reduce the amount of omega-6-rich foods I eat.

NOTE: This post has been edited to include additional information.

When you understand information like this, does it make it easier for you to avoid a certain type of food because you know that it’s bad for you? And in this case I don’t mean “bad” as in naughty.

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There’s a poster that’s been making the rounds on Facebook, Pinterest and various blogs. It shows the back of a fit, muscular young woman wearing a sports bra and a pink boxing glove. It says:

Losing weight is hard.
Maintaining weight is hard.
Staying fat is hard.
Choose your hard. 

I have a visceral, negative reaction every time I see it. I recognize that when I have a visceral, negative reaction, it’s serves me well to understand why. I need to know why.

So here’s what I figured out:

It comes from years of hearing things like, “Life’s a bitch and then you die” and “Life is hard. Suck it up.” It’s one of those words that doesn’t work for me.

It also comes from my belief that having a healthy body (which, for some, means losing weight, maintaining that loss, and being physically fit) shouldn’t be hard – it should come easily and naturally. If it’s not coming easily and naturally then figuring out why – while sometimes hard – is totally worth it.

It also comes from my belief that having a healthy body goes hand-in-hand with having a healthy mind and spirit.

And for that, I am willing to deal with shorter-term, periodic episodes of “hard” because it is worth longer-term “easy.” The “choose your hard” poster, on the other hand, pretty much says it’s going to be hard forever and invokes fear in me.

Another blogger who remains anonymous recently wrote about her journey as being analogous to an archeological dig. She wrote: “Food/fat have always been ‘the parts I can see’. They are one component of many, many components. Most of the time they have been the easiest parts (for me) because they are pure science – numbers, balance, meal times, portions. The food/fat have been almost a relief (to me). The other components are much harder (for me) to see and therefore require so much more effort. The food/fat might be brushing off the sand, and the rest of it is the archaeological dig. But I do think we have to brush off the sand, get past the food/fat, to begin the real work.”

In response, I wrote, “For me, the deep dig has been the easy part…and brushing off the sand has been hard. Both parts of the process are needed and necessary. I have tended to operate based on the belief that doing the deep work will make the surface work easier, because I really didn’t want it to be hard. In fact, I believe that taking care of oneself should be something that one WANTS to do and that it should come easily. It never did for me, although I’ve had glimpses of it. I am having a glimpse of it now.”

So I “choose” to reframe it as choosing my easy.

Some more food for thought:

In Our Bulimic Society, Annabel Adam asks: What does a “healthful environment” look like? Should we be building a society that teaches that “health” is based predominantly on body size and accessed via restriction and prohibition? Or, should we be teaching that our health is much more than what our bodies look like; that it’s not accessed by restricting one particular indulgence; that, instead, it’s about being empowered to make the right choices for yourself.

THAT’S what I’m talking about! Make sure you read the rest of her post…she’s been hitting it out of the park lately!

“Only when we’re brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.” ~ Brené Brown

“I believe that by being the best and most healed version of ourselves we can truly make a difference in the world. I’m not an activist or politician, and I’m not able to have any direct impact on the areas of the world where help is needed. But what I can do is make a difference in the small pocket of the world I call home.” ~ Susannah Conway

Do you choose easy or hard? Why?

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