Addiction is a Very Bad Thing

Design by Anne Taintor

One of the biggest steps for me was admitting that I have addictive behavior. That was not something that I truly admitted to myself until after I got the lap band. I've also learned that I can transfer my addictions from one thing to another and this is my next step to recovery.

The day before my lap band surgery the surgeon visited with me in the pre-op appointment. He asked me how I felt and he asked me how much weight I realistically hoped to lose. I told him eighty pounds. He told me that it was a good number. Then he said something that stayed with me since. He said, "Just remember, some people get the lap band here (pointing at stomach) but they don't get the lap band here. (pointing at head)"

I feel like I am still working on getting that lap band in my head.

At the beginning I went on the lap band discussion groups and I read so many horror stories and negative comments. I also read some good comments and I saw some amazing before and after pictures.

After a while I decided to stop reading these discussion groups because there were so many negative comments out there. I kind of wish I had kept reading them for incentive from the before and after pictures. But I resolved to just follow all the rules.

I've followed the main rules for the most part, but I am the first to admit that I haven't followed all of the rules. If I had I would have lost eighty pounds by now.

That's the part that's hard about the lap band. Some people get it and think that it will do all of the work. It doesn't. It does control the quantity that you eat. You will never overeat in one sitting again. But it doesn't control you from eating the rest of your food two hours later. It doesn't control you from taking in liquid calories or fat. It doesn't make you exercise.

The lap band is put in place to remind you that you shouldn't overeat or do any of those things. That's another thing I've learned. But does it stop the addiction? Especially my addiction to carbs? Honestly, no. That's something that I have to cure myself.

The Two Year Lap Band Adventure

In December of 2007 I decided to have lap band surgery. It was a huge decision that I really thought about. The main reason for my decision had to do with the history of diabetes in my family. Not only did my mom die of complications from diabetes, so did my aunt and my grandmother. There are also several family member's on my mother's side who have or had Type 2 diabetes. I knew that at the rate that I was going I was well on my way to follow in the family tradition.

Another reason I decided that this was the best option was the fact that both times that I lost weight I had to place myself in a radical situation. Both times that I lost thirty pounds I was pregnant and I had gestational diabetes. I had to be strict because my baby was counting on me.

The lap band was a lot like that. It placed me in a drastic situation that forced me to stop eating certain things and to control my portion size. Since I've had the lap band I haven't had a carbonated drink. Carbonation is really bad for the band because of the gas that expands in your stomach. It can cause the band to stretch and complications can arise. I also haven't had bread because bread also swells and can get stuck in the band. I haven't had breakfast in almost two years because I'm always tight in the morning. I can only have coffee and a protein shake for breakfast.

If you don't understand how the lap band works look at the illustration above. The band goes around my stomach, causing the opening to tighten. Because of this I can't eat things like bread that get backed up at the opening and cause me to stop eating everything. Instead I have to eat small bites and I have to chew them really well so that the food can go through. I've learned to eat less, to eat slower, and to really chew my food well. I've also learned to NOT eat certain food and I never thought that could happen. I've also learned not to drink when I eat. Drinking with my food can cause two things. Either my food will get backed up with all the fluid or it will push the food through causing me to eat more. Sometimes I can feel tight from hormonal changes. In the morning I'm very tight and I loosen up as the days progresses.

I lost the majority of the forty pounds in the first year. This year I've only lost and gained around ten pounds and I am completely responsible for that. I didn't read my body in order to make the right decisions regarding when to go in to the lap band clinic to have the lap band tightened or loosened.

I got thrown off of my path close to a year ago when I got sick. I won't get into all the boring details of what happened, but I learned a lesson. For six months I was super tight. I could hardly eat during the day so I was eating too much at the end of the day. My body probably thought it was starving during the day so it started just hanging on to the food I was eating. On top of that I'm sure I was over-eating in the evening or eating things that were bad for me, like chips. For some odd reason I can eat chips really well. There's something about crunchy things that makes the texture a lot easier to digest.

I got sick a couple of months ago and I had to have the band loosened. That was the second time that happened to me in one year. Then I went in a couple of weeks ago to have the bad tightened a bit, but I wanted to ease into it so I only had them tighten it a little less than half of what it was loosened last time. Apparently that was not enough. Now I have to go in to have it tightened a tiny tiny bit, but enough to give me some restriction. I haven't found exactly the right restriction since I was thrown off of my original schedule.

So this is where my blog will pick up. I've gained and lost ten pounds with the back and forth and not having very much restriction. On top of all this I had abdominal surgery for a umbilical hernia back in August and I couldn't exercise for around 8-12 weeks. It has been VERY hard to get back on track, but now almost 16 weeks later I have got to get back into the gym and on to the track walking/running.

This blog will be very instrumental in keeping me on track and keeping me honest. I invite you to join me on my adventure as I work on losing forty more pounds in another year. My goal is one pound a week!

The tools? 1. Tracking my food on livestrong.com, yes as in Lance Armstrong. It is one of the best places to track your food and it's FREE for basic services. 2. I'm also weighing myself every day, because studies have shown that people who weigh themselves on a regular basis are more likely to lose weight and to keep weight down. 3. And finally... finally I am going to put my gym fees to good use. I am going to make it a point to work out for at least 30 minutes every day.

There. Are you ready? Join me and let's see how much we can accomplish doing these three things.

So the Introduction Continues

When my mother died I had been married for two and half years. I was putting off having a baby for many of the same reasons that some women do. I wanted to be settled in a new career and I wanted to wait until my husband and I had been married for a good period of time. My mom told me to have a baby before it was too late because she feared that there was a chance that I wouldn’t be able to have children like two of my older sisters.

Shortly after she passed away I had a great desire to become a mother. I wanted to replace that same relationship that I’d lost. Seven months later I found out I was pregnant and twenty weeks into my pregnancy, when everything happens at the same time, I found out that I was having a little girl and that I was gestational diabetic.

I instantly thought of my mother and how she was gestational diabetic when she was pregnant with me when she was thirty-nine. I was only thirty, so naturally I worried. I did the math. My mother was thirty-nine when she had me and thirteen years later when she was 52 she was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. So if I was thirty and diabetic I could very well be diagnosed with Type 2 by the time I was forty-three.

I was very strict with my diet and I walked on a regular basis. The results were that I was able to control my blood sugar with the diet and exercise and I had a healthy baby girl. I even lost thirty pounds in the process after the baby’s birth and breast feeding. Sadly, the weight came right back.

Four years later I became pregnant again and the same thing happened. Only this time I couldn’t control the sugar with diet or exercise. The endocrinologist put me on insulin injections almost immediately. I was devastated, but the gestational diabetes had come back a lot stronger this time and that’s all that I could do.

I continued to keep a strict diet and to check my sugar daily. But now in addition to all that I had to give myself insulin injections three times a day.

So did I learn? No. After I had my baby boy I lost the same thirty pounds and two years or so later I gained them all back.

The interesting thing about telling this story is that it was not that I didn’t know the simple rules of weight loss. Eat right and exercise. It was that I chose not do them. I knew from past dieting experiences that when I made the right food choices and worked out that I lost weight.

Both of my pregnancies I met with a dietician as soon as I was diagnosed and I learned all about the right way of eating. I actually learned new things with them that I had never learned before in my thirty years.

So when people assume that I gained weight because I didn’t know how to lose weight or when they offer advice it cracks me up. Of course I know how to lose weight. It’s not about not knowing. It’s about not wanting to do it. Very simple. I’m not saying that’s right but it’s true. That’s basically the reason many of us gain weight. We don’t feel like working out. We don’t feel like eating right. I knew that I was in danger of becoming a diabetic like my mother. Yet I still continued to eat the wrong things.

Three years after having my little boy and gaining back all my weight I was listening to npr one day. There was a report about weight loss surgery, like lap band and gastric bypass. The segment discussed a new study by The Journal of the American Medical Association. This study found that people who had some type of weight loss surgery were most likely to control their diabetes or get rid of it.

I thought back to the two times when I had the most weight loss. Each time I lost weight I did so because I was forced to do well. I had a living being inside of me and I was the main person responsible for their health. I had to be good. The thing is, I should have been doing it for myself too and I didn't. I thought about all this and I also realized that both times I had to be put myself into a radical situation in order to lose weight. Maybe I had to do that again.

That’s when I really started thinking about lap band surgery. Next I’ll discuss my two year adventure with the lap band.