An online friend started a thread on a message board for adjustable gastric band patients. She asked how we define success within the context of our banding. Here is my reply:

I feel successful and grateful. My experience with my band is shaping up to be everything I'd hoped, with a few surprises (many of them quite happy!) to keep me from becoming smug. Actually, my experience since surgery has been markedly less difficult than I'd imagined.

I'm an information hound (ya think?) and I learn more about myself, weightloss, band, eating, resting, exercising, my body, my primary relationship, spiritual components of healing, etc., every single day. I find myself fascinated, though not obsessed. I see my life becoming both broader and deeper. It feels like a miracle.

For me, having surgery was one step of a healing course that I embarked upon consciously ten years ago. It was at that time that I decided that I wanted, needed, and deserved to live a rich, whole life. Honestly, this surgery is not even the most profound part of the process, though it is one of the most joyous. Why? Because I was absolutely ready for it.

One of the things that drew me to adjustable gastric banding was something I read in one of the Wench's posts back before there was a separate board for bands. She talked about pausing in her weightloss from time to time to integrate the changes that had taken place so far, deal with what was coming up for her, etc. Inside I heard a resounding, "Yes! THAT is what I want!" Everything changed for me in that moment.

A treasured piece of learning I've gained about myself in the last decade is that my body, my mind, my heart, my spirit, my self responds wonderfully to gentle teachers. I've got my own attention now. I no longer require the same level of drama I used to in order to force me to attend to my needs. Instead, I have come to value myself and to choose nurturance as a matter of habit. This is hard-won learning, but it makes a tremendous difference! SO worth the effort! I swear, if you had met me ten years ago, you would not know me now.

(Am I rambling yet? )

When I got my band, my inner voice told me to take my time before I had it filled. I was moved to allow myself space and experience to integrate the fact of having this thing inside me, to practice new habits around the physical process of eating, to tune-in in new ways. I waited seven-and-a-half months and it was perfect.

I feel in synch with myself even though I'm early enough in my restriction that there are plenty of unknowns. I'm loving the gentle nature of the MIDBand and I feel validated for selecting it above other options. Each week brings me new ways to think about things, new information, new questions, new answers.

This week, I started logging how my weight moves throughout a month so that I'll have a better sense of real gains and losses. It helps me keep a sense of perspective because I can see, at a glance, how the intra-month movements are happening within an overall downward trajectory. Suddenly, I get why the word "average" is in the predictions (e.g., "Expect to lose and average of 4-6lbs/month," "Expect to lose an average of 1-2lb/week," etc.) Really cool.

Also, I use Fitday pretty regularly because I find that if I don't, I don't tend to get in enough protein for sure, and sometimes not even enough calories. I've started to break down favorite recipes into their components and am creating quite a roster of custom foods. It's fun! Even exciting sometimes. For example, today, I created a yummy curried tunafish lunch for myself. One serving packs about 165 calories, delivers 18 grams of protein and tastes great! It's neat to enter that into Fitday and see what a good job I'm doing feeding my body!

One thing I need to really beef up is my water intake. I've noticed that I am inconsistent. This week I realized that if I bring coffee to work with me, I nurse that all morning and drink little to no water (though I do drink my Pulse breakfast). Worse, if I haven't started my water in the morning, I'm less likely to drink in the afternoon. I know that sounds strange, but on days when I drink plenty of water in the morning, I'm much more likely to continue drinking it in the afternoon. So, I've decided to either not bring coffee with me, or drink X amount of water before I leave the house. Small changes. They add up.

So, back to the question. Do I feel successful at 30 pounds down? You bet! Successful and grateful. Not a bad place to be.

Thanks for the terrific topic!

~M

Copyright 2003 Seasmoke All Rights Reserved

There's a website I go to that's got several message boards related to weight loss surgeries of various kinds. Plenty of the people who post there have enough spare time on their hands to keep the place lively. And, because they spend so much time at the site, threads that are more personal than informational spring up in abundance.

Recently, one caught my eye and though I didn't reply, it both gave me pause and something to ponder. It was started by a man who is a NYC firefighter and military veteran. He worked at the rubble field where the WTC used to be. He fought in Desert Storm. He's no stranger to witness trauma. I think this may have quite a lot to do with why he wrote what he did.

A significant percentage of the people who read and post at that site are deep in their process: some using the healing crisis to mature, grow, become empowered; others using it as evidence of their consisten victimhood. It can be heart-breaking and irritating to read words written by people who have no sense of their own power or accountability; often it's both.

The thread in question boiled down to the following piece of advice: Stick to your post-op instructions for the sake of those who died on 9/11/2001. The thread was pages long and filled with posts of fervent agreement. The people who died on that die were canonized for their sacrifice.

My immediate response was to recoil and not just because it smacked of the "think of the starving Armenians" exhortations of my mother when I turned my nose up at various offerings--brussels sprouts, ham loaf, Aunt Alice's renowned zucchini/cheddar/tomato/bacon casserole, etc. That was part of it, to be sure, but the overriding feeling I had was sad, fascinated horror.

My mind teemed with pithy responses intended to shake some sense into the posters and readers. I paused, took some deep breaths, and remembered that a post like the one I had in mind would not succeed. Instead, I would be rounded upon and chastised. Invested egos blazing, certain among them would label me insensitive, un-American, and clueless. Some people might validate my words, to be sure, but they would represent a tiny minority voice.

So, instead, I've had the ideas rattling around in my head for more than a week and have concluded that some form of regurgitation is necessary if I'm to be rid of them. Here goes...

I think my job is to be the best me I can be as a way to live a great THANK YOU to the creative force(s) responsible for my existence and to make myself was capable as possible to attend to the business of supporting and assisting others in their own journeys.

If I were to contemplate doing right by myself in honor of dead people, why limit it to the victims of 9/11/2001? Why not live well for those who died during the Children's Crusade, who have perished from AIDS, who've been killed by vipers, who've died at the hands of loved ones, who had first names that began with the letter T, whose lives were taken by natural events? What makes the lives of the people killed on that particular date through the acts of those particular men more worthy?

I'm not hard-hearted--I have my own roster of grief attached to that day of that year in this country--but I am sickened by the lazy emotional act of turning those events and those people into symbols of collective guilt. Doing so devalues their lives and our own. Nuclear families are still living the reality of the terrorist's attacks in vivid relief. Iraqi families are living the aftermath.

My MIDBand hasn't got a thing to do with horrible events of that day. Nor does my health. To impose my self on them would require a level of perversion that I hope remains beyond my grasp.

Why not treat myself and my body well because they are precious to me? Why not strive for the benefit of my own health because I'm grateful for the blessing of my body? Why not live my life as though it has some inherent worth?

Why not?

Copyright 2003 Seasmoke All Rights Reserved