History Repeated

I just went back and read a post from this very blog from January 2, 2016. At the end of the post, I make a desperate plea (to myself?) to not be in the same boat in January 2017 as I was at that very moment. Fast forward to now - that moment in the future I was speaking of. It's here - and guess what? Not only did I not meet the goals I had wished for myself to meet that year, but I happen to be in even deeper shit than I was the day I wrote that post.

Funny how life works. Well, maybe funny's not such a great word in this case.

In all of my blogs (and there have been many), I blame myself for all of my failed attempts at weight loss. My lack of willpower or my love of sugar were always culprits. My inability to portion control anything that tasted good. Not to say these things aren't true - of course you can't have it both ways - eating anything and everything you want with reckless abandon and still expect to lose weight. It doesn't work like that. Not that I thought it did, but I so badly wanted it to be so. And while my attempts at weight loss were always well intentioned, as soon as I had some success, I'd fall off that wagon and it would be months before I'd even realized I was in serious weight gain trouble.

Needless to say, I have a totally fucked up relationship with food. If food were a person, I would have rightfully left its ass long ago because of how abusive we've been to each other. It's a damn shame you need food to live, but I guess until someone comes up with a way to simply exist on love and air alone, I have to make my relationship with it better. Otherwise the rest of my life is going to be pretty freaking miserable.

Not unexpectedly, I've been doing a healthy amount of research on the gastric sleeve surgery I'm proposing to have. I say proposing because ever since I made the decision to do it, I'm all over the place mentally about my decision. One day I'm about as gung-ho as a person can get, and the next I'm shitting a mountain of fat bricks convinced it's the worst idea in the world. I have read this is relatively normal, considering it's no small thing having two-thirds of your stomach cut out and thrown in the trash (or whatever it is that they do with it after surgery). Anyone and everyone who is either a doctor, nutritionist, behavioral therapist, or actual sleeve recipient will tell you the surgery is only a tool that works as well as you allow it to work. Meaning, it's not a magic solution to your weight woes, especially if you don't follow the rules. One article even went so far as to say that if you think you can continue on with the way you were before the surgery and maintain your weight loss, you're in for an even bigger heartbreak than you can imagine.

I get it. I really do. But when I go back and look at my history I have so much fear of failure, it's crippling. I've never had what I would deem real weight loss success - at least none I've been able to maintain. Every time I've lost weight, it's found me again, and it always brought lots of asshole friends along. I have no iota what it even feels like to shed weight permanently. I only know what it's like to be disappointed to lose and then gain, lose and then gain more, lose and then gain even more until you find yourself at a number on the scale that you just cannot allow to get any greater. To think that this unhealthy cycle can actually become a part of my past is so foreign to me, I'm not really sure how to wrap my head around it because in 45 years, I've never, ever been able to do it.

I do know that my brain needs to change along with my body. It actually needs to change BEFORE my body goes through this whole thing. I'm tired of being Debbie Downer about being fat. Ok, so I haven't had success long term but that's why I'm having the surgery in the first place, right?  I've made up my mind that the negative thoughts need to be put to bed, and I need to start believing this is the fresh start I've been wishing for all these years.

And if you don't believe I'm going to do it, come read my blog posts next January. ;-)