The Twelve Steps of Weight Loss Surgery

Happy Wednesday Everyone!

So I have really been struggling lately. My weightloss has been stalled for what seems like months, I have not been able to go to the gym because of the pain in my hip that I have been having (which has been extreme this past week), and I am emotionally coming to terms with my POTS diagnosis, which has been harder than I would have thought. I will go in to detail about exactly what POTS is in a later post, but for now just know that it is a nervous system disease.

Between all of the emotional turmoil I have been going through lately, I have been frustrated with the lack of weight loss and wondering what is going on. One of the members of my Surgeon's Facebook support group posted the "Twelve Steps of Weight Loss Surgery" the other day, and it really hit home with me.

According to the National Association for Weight Loss Surgery, these are the WLS Stages of Transformation:

1. Decision Point - You decide to have weight loss surgery (CHECK)
2. Shock and Awe - You feel "buyer's remorse" or are in awe of how little you can eat (CHECK)
3. Grief and Loss - You feel sad about the loss of some foods, rituals, or even friends (CHECK)
4. The Miracle - You feel invincible, like you'll never overeat again (CHECK)
5. Testing Limits - You go back to foods that used to trigger you to overeat, like sweets (OK Hold on...)
6. End of Invincible - The "honeymoon" ends and your eating can be more easily affect your weight loss or weight maintenance (And Here I am)
7. Give Up or Change - You realize if you don't make changes, you will gain weight or stop losing
8. Learning - You open up and learn to pinpoint what your real problems are (not what you assume they are)
9. Experimenting - You go through a trial and error process to discover what really will work for you
10. Self Trust - You develop a sense of self trust and self care that was previously nonexistent
11. Mastery - You regain some control and begin to experience some peace of mind with food, your body, and the scale
12. Freedom - You see that what you really want to do, and what you must do to stay healthy, are one and the same

Right now, I am currently between step 6 & step 7. I know that I have passed step 5. I had gone back to eating junk that made me overweight in the first place, and have been finding myself more and more hungry lately. Luckily, I haven't gained any weight, but I have not lost anything either. I really needed to see these steps to know just what was going on with me.

So here it goes. Starting Monday I am throwing out the bad and going back to basics. The only reason that I am waiting to start until Monday is that I have already done my grocery shopping for the week and need to use up the food that I have purchased. It will be good for not just myself, but for my family as well to go back to clean eating.

Who's with me?

Jenelle