A Lot to Lose

It's been two years since I last blogged and during my absence I have fallen off and on the "dieting wagon" more than once. 

I started and stopped Weight Watchers, Fooducate, bi-weekly visits with a personal food coach and veganisn.  During my failed dieting attempts I gained and lost the same 30 pounds over and over and in the end I still sport the same weight as a very healthy female adult grizzly bear.

Recently I read a meme that said, "I would do anything to lose weight besides exercise and eat healthy."  For me, there has never been a finer truism.  

Sure, I would prefer to be slender and sexy and have optimal health, but the reality is that I have not learned yet to not equate food with love and comfort and thus I continue to battle weight.  Deep down in my soul I crave and yearn for sweets and rich highly processed fatty foods. Even though I am a vegetarian I rarely eat fruits and vegetables.  And since I do not hibernate during the winter months there is no way my body can burn all of the junk food and soda I consume.  Once again I am realizing that I am going to have to feel the temporal pain of junk food deprivation and embrace a whole food eating lifestyle for the remainder of my life....if I want to stop the damaging effects of morbid obesity and the rapid march towards an early demise.   

The funny thing is....whenever I start a healthy eating plan within days I start to freak out and have panic attacks and most of the time I run for the Swiss Roll laden hills.  I try to live in the moment and not think about the fact that I am NEVER again going to have xyz food! I know logically I will be healthier and happier eating whole foods, but, on a base level, my mind is frantically wanting to cling to the unhealthy way of life. 

Health wise my back is against the wall and the clock is ticking away. Almost everytime I visit the doctor, which is all too frequently, I discover I have a new comorbidity.  I am to the point that because of weight I am unable to have some diagnostic tests ran at the local hospital and unless I want to start getting my MRIs ran at the zoo, I better start paying attention to what my body is telling me.  While many of the comorbidities are reversible with weight loss, some of my health issues, such as compound fractures due to the excessive weight on my spine, will leave painful lasting mark.  

Thankfully in my life I am blessed with an amazing set of loving and selfless friends and family who care more for me than I care for myself.   Recently one of these friends accompanied me to an appointment with one of Houston's top bariatric surgeons.  The reason for the visit was to the discuss complications from a previous unsuccessful bariatric surgery that was preformed 12 plus years ago by another surgeon.  

During our office visit with the doctor, he emphatically said I needed a radical 2nd bariactic surgery to fix my first unsuccessful bariactic surgery.  I told him that I did not want to have another surgery, but instead wanted to start a healthy vegan eating program and to work hard to emotionally get to the root of my compulsive overeating.    He looked me straight in the face and said "it's IMPOSSIBLE at your size for you to lose your weight by healthy eating!"   And he went on to add that, "at the rate you are going you have about five years to live."  

WOW!  Never had a doctor told me I could NOT loss weight and the strangest thing happened....I left his office motivated to show him wrong.  My friend who had accompanied me to the appointment, together with her husband, graciously offered to open their home to me for a month to help me start on a real food healthy eating program.   Despite it being two weeks before Christmas I took them up on their offer and on December 7th I started.   

The company is amazing and the food has been yummy but emotionally it has been very hard...I am grieving my old comfort foods.  But I am actively working on my emotional issues and ready walk through the pain, sadness, anxiety and panic I experience while adjusting to new lifestyle...because I know it is going to open up a whole new world for me.

Next week during this journey I want to delve into and blog about all of the things in life I will be able to do at a healthy weight. 

Love and peace!