Diet Coke will not make the world a better place.
This I often have to remind myself when I try to barter with myself against considering bariatric surgery.
But the world does suck and drinking Diet Coke makes me happy. I’ve suffered some tough blows in life, I am overwhelmed with the daily struggle, and I deserve some happiness, right?
Okay… I need help.
My mom was fat I watched her battle with it and hate herself for it until she died. She measured her whole life according to how much she weighed and I despised how her yo-yo dieting and jumping from weight-loss fad to fad impacted so much of our daily lives. What we ate, where we shopped, how she framed her self-worth, how she felt physically and mentally, and subsequently, how she treated the rest us because she could never stop the cycle.
My father was fat and I watched him care nothing about it at all until he died. He measured his whole life according to what he accumulated and I despised how he was never satisfied with what he had. Food, time, drugs, money, someone’s attention – he never had enough. And worse, it was never his fault. He would take and take all while complaining he didn’t have enough and doing nothing about it. Just wait for change.
I have always been fat and in all my efforts to avoid copying my parents’ unhealthy attitudes towards food and weight, I developed my own. I tried a few weight- loss programs, but I refused to keep trying new trends that I knew I would ultimately quit. I convinced myself that maintenance was better than constantly losing and gaining. But I didn’t do nothing. I went out, I kept up, I worked hard. I put on bathing suits and went swimming, and played racquetball with my friends, I sat in teeny-tiny theater seats even when I could barely breathe. I told myself that I was balancing being fat and living life well. I loved me for me and all that.
But life changes, and even if we don’t believe it, so do we. My relationship with food has been terrible since I was diagnosed with Crohns’ Disease in 1999. I’ve been on countless medications, with the effects of some still lingering, and cannot find a diet plan that meets my needs. I’ve fallen victim to my own excuse that “the healthy foods are the ones that hurt me the most”. And while that may be true, I realize that all the bad foods I eat aren’t helping me, either.
I also realize that I have been using food as an emotional crutch and I need to make a clean break from that perspective. However, when I’m honest with myself, I know that I cannot do that alone. I am truly lost and I can either choose to stay lost and alone and watch my health deteriorate, or I can call out for help and actually accept it.
Change is scary but stagnation is death. Fearing change is natural, but accepting a status quo that leads to the grave is stupid. I need a new status quo. If I can get the help I need planning meals, shopping for appropriate foods, and exercising in ways that don’t hurt, then I can take the second chance that surgery would provide me to make better decisions. The right decisions.
I am fat and I’ve always been fat. And I need to do better than my parents. For myself, for my husband and children, and for the many people I am blessed to have care for me in my life. Bariatric surgery represents a commitment to these life changes.
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