Mindful Eating? It's a Whole New World

Jul 18, 2013

My friend Anne Marie has a close colleague, Lisa, who recently underwent weight loss surgery. The experience prompted Anne Marie to ask lots of questions: How long would her co-worker be away from work? Would she be able to return fully focused on her job? What might be different as her weight loss got underway? What could she do to offer support?

All good questions! But by now, Lisa's surgery was 5 or 6 months ago, and I opened an e mail from Anne Marie this week that asked a different question. "Lisa is talking about the Paleo diet," she wrote. "But isn't the fact that she had surgery enough of a diet plan in itself? Shouldn't she just be able to settle into a pattern of eating mindfully, making conscious choices about what she eats? I worry about her  going in a "diet."

My reply probably surprised her. For a person who has spent a lifetime being obese, the only way we know of to approach "normal" eating is to be on a diet. Of course, our hearts and minds know that diets don't work. But we don't have any other baseline of what normal eating might look like or feel like. Our eating patterns haven't been normal. Our eating has not been mindful or conscious. Quite opposite. Our eating patterns have lulled us into a state of unconsciousness. Food is our drug of choice, our means of self-medicating. And our post surgery journey includes a hefty dose of learning what normal food intake might look like or feel like. 

And so I told Anne Marie that Lisa may cycle through several "diets" as she adjust to her slimmer self. That its probably okay. And, by the way, that my naturally trim Paleo-eating daughter claims that its the rare person who can live a Paleo lifestyle more than 80% of the time. 

I  often see posters in OH express frustration with their rate of weight loss or the challenge of maintenance, and resolve to try a "diet" to get "back on track." Just this week I have read of the Cambridge Plan, the Ideal Protein Plan, and the ever present 5 Day Pouch Test. Some post ops follow Weight Watchers and count points, as we have done many times before surgery.  My own personal role model in post op living uses My Fitness Tracker religiously to track her food intake (and oh by the way, she's also a runner, and now doing cross fit! Talk about success!) For me, my post op eating isn't structured around any of these formal diets. I struggle, now, with 10-15 extra pounds of regain. But whether I tackle those pounds by replacing a meal or two with a protein shake, or following South Beach or Atkins or Paleo or whatever....the real task is learning, for the first time in my life, what "normal" eating is. 

 

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07/15/2009
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