Pound Down, an extra Pilates day this week, You and I Gotta do the Work to Change (surgery or not) so View It as An Adventure, Not A Chore... and Gonna Go Vote....on Day 85 of Phase 5

Tanita-San: 202.0

Holy smokes. 1 pound down in two days. Good fasting workout result from yesterday.  I scheduled an extra (ie, third) Pilates session for tomorrow. I want to get to under 200, and if one more session burns more fat, here we go.

I have my walking shoes on and I'm gonna go vote. Mayor and City Council members to choose. Then I'll come back and have my breakfast. :)

It seems like two or three times since the weekend, I've come upon blogs that mention the TOOL aspect of bariatric surgery. Tool. Not cure. Not forever fix. Tool.

I do believe that's what it is. A helper. (And I decided not to rejigger my innards, but I did consider it!) I've seen a couple of bypass bloggers who make the point that the honeymoon period--that first year plus post-surgically-- is a time you're given to get your head/emotions/eating/exercise in order; and when the honeymoon is over, if you didn't learn how to eat, move, and address stress/emotional eating, you're gonna regain.

We've seen it happen. Carnie Wilson, anyone?

So, maybe take a look at this blog post by Dr. Berkeley (author of REFUSE TO REGAIN and owner of one of the more helpful blogs, imo). Interesting liposuction study results. And she says this about bariatric surgery:

As drastic as bariatric surgery may seem, it alone is not enough to create permanent weight loss in many people.  What it does do, quite effectively, is buy patients about a year and a half to change eating  habits.  During the early period after surgery, pain, nausea, vomiting, dumping syndrome and extreme fullness are enough to make the surgically-altered disinterested in eating.  But over time, many people regain their tolerance to larger amounts of food and to the toxic food elements of the SAD (standard  American diet).  If, during the first 18 months, the surgerized have jettisoned S Foods (sugars and starches) and fatty combo foods from their diet, the operation will help them stay slim forever.  If, as is often the case, they have learned to eat "through" the surgery, no amount of restriction or bypass is enough to keep weight from returning.  

A nice window of time to learn new habits and get necessary therapy or do the inner work, to establish an exercise habit, and meanwhile lose a boatload of weight. (Yes, VSG, RNY, they'll get you some serious fat off. Lapband will, too, maybe less.) But the work, you can't get away from it. To be healthy and keep that weight off, the work HAS TO BE DONE.

We're doing the work now, we challengers, blogging fatfighters, etc. We're struggling (or breezing, depending on what phase) through the slimming and we're working on establishing new habits and liking different foods and avoiding junk foods. Some of us have to have radical reprioritizing. Some of us lose our comforts and have to find other, non-food ones.

Surgery or the old-fashioned system of willpower, structure, strategy, exercise, meal plans, etc. Either way, change is hard. Change takes work.

But I've decided to look at it as an experiment and an adventure and new intriguing doors exchanged for old stale rooms....

It makes it more fun that way....

Happy Tuesday...be well...