I'm warning you now. This one's a doosy. I guess I have a lot to talk about today. It's not my most concise writing, but sometimes a girl just has to follow a few tangents.
Everywhere I turn in life I find that there is some sort of hump I have to work to move beyond. Whether in figuring out geometric theorems in high school, understanding the theatrical design process in college, in learning to live in community with others in JVC, or in navigation of the working world; there’s always a wall I have to climb over in order to succeed at whatever task is at hand. I figure this is fairly typical for most people. It takes work and dedication to become fluent at any task; no matter how smart one is, she always starts out knowing nothing.
Currently, I feel I am fighting the largest learning curve of my life. Life became radically different when I got the lap band, and three months later I am still just starting to see how this is going to take an immense amount of commitment and work to reach my goal.
Two weeks ago, I started to notice that my loss was slowing down. I was able to eat more than a cup of food in one sitting without any feeling of fullness. I also found that the edge of hunger was showing its face a little more often than it should – only 2 or 3 hours after eating.
To give you a little background info, the lap band is basically like a ring with a saline balloon inside of it. It is connected by a tube to a port that is sewn to my abdomen muscle. To adjust the amount of fluid inside of the band, saline is injected through the port. As I lose weight, my stomach will decrease in size and the band will start to loosen. When that happens, the symptoms I described above can occur. This is one reason the band actually works quite well. When my stomach shrinks, the band will be tightened. To make the band work, I have to work it.
Last week I even noticed a slight plateau and a half pound gain, so I decided that it was time to go into the office for a fill. (“Fill” being the common term used to describe the injection of more saline into the port to tighten the band around my stomach.) Everything went well in the office, but a few days into this new tightness I am starting to wonder if I got the nurse to make the band too tight. I will avoid most details to prevent from getting too gross, but since my fill I have been dancing the line in between eating and regurgitation. Two bites into any meal, and I start to feel pressure. Many times, a good percentage of food is flat out rejected.
This is where it gets hard. With this new adjustment, I am able to eat a little as long as I do it very carefully and slowly. When I’m able to get a few bites down using the super slow method, I get overly confident and start eating more and faster – which invariably means that the food does not pass go, does not collect $200, and gets returned to the place from where it came, unchanged. This has now put me into a great debate with myself. Should I ride this wave, consuming less than 800 calories a day (unless I get a little over-indulgent with the pudding cups) until the band eases up a bit? Or should I be responsible and go in and reduce the amount of fluid in the band? I will say that there is something immensely rewarding in realizing how little food I need in one day in order to function. On the flip side, it is extremely inconvenient and uncomfortable to eat sometimes. Sometimes I even fear eating in public if there aren’t any restrooms nearby (to reject food). My practical side knows this is not a good modus operandi, and in all reality I will likely call in to have some fluid removed from the band this week, but there is still another part of me that just wants to lose a lot as quickly as I can. It’s hard to know where that sweet spot will be for my band, and it is a major challenge to be patient with everything that is going on.
There are so many bites from my past that I regret, so many calories I consumed in the name of sadness, or boredom, or anger, or self loathing. I think there is something in the back of my mind that feels like this is my chance to take all those bites back. To keep going without consuming anything so I can force my body to reclaim and burn what was put into storage in my face, in my stomach, legs, arms, hips. Now that I have learned to care for myself again, learned my own innate value, learned that I am worth more than I give myself credit for, I want my outside to reflect what I know is inside.
This is part of the battle in having the band. It is a tool, and in my impatience I want to abuse it. I want to find ways to take shortcuts with it. But alas, I have to work through my mental and emotional barriers in order to make this a life change. I have to change some major behaviors and ideas that are rooted in the core of who I am. It is in these changes that I’ll be able to find the truer version of myself, one without the burden of obesity. Hopefully I will be able to find a way to accept myself when I get there. I guess that will be another thing to put on the “to do” list, right after "buy smaller sized jeans".
