Wow. Just WOW.
Carnie had gastric bypass years ago and now she just had the lap-band surgery. Her top weight was 300 pounds. She lost 150 pounds post-gastric bypass. Then she gained a lot of it back. I know she yo-yo'd, battled alcoholism, and also appeared on a celebrity weight loss show, losing 20-something pounds. Apparently on Dr. Oz's show, she weighed around 218. She lost 30 pounds her first month after lap-band.
She's a public reminder that I cannot fail this surgery. Notice how I didn't say this surgery cannot fail me. This is all about me and figuring out why I do this shit to myself. Not why this surgery isn't doing it's job. It did it's job. Now it's my turn. And it has been my turn for a very long time. Somehow I've been sitting with the game piece in my hand, unmoving, allowing everyone and everything to pass me by. Time to get in the game.
The article, written by Tricia Greaves Nelson, made some great points (check out The Nelson Center For Emotional Eating HERE):
While Carnie’s desire to lose weight is a good thing, anyone who has been obese or struggled chronically with food addiction knows that having a high resolve to lose weight doesn’t ensure permanent weight loss. Even going to such desperate lengths as having lap-band surgery after gastric bypass surgery most likely won’t do the trick.
Having surgery for a food addiction problem is like having one’s leg amputated for athlete’s foot. In fact, it’s worse: at least with amputation you will no longer have athlete’s foot. With bypass surgery, you will still struggle with food addiction and will still likely be overweight, if not obese. Nothing is being done to address why a person is gorging themselves to the point of obesity. That is why Carnie’s first surgery was not a solution to her weight loss woes. And her second surgery won’t be either.
Carnie is a self-professed food addict. But it matters not what a person calls it—emotional eater, compulsive overeater, binge-eater—having any kind of compulsion with food means that a person cannot control how much she eats. That is worth repeating: She cannot control how much she eats. Carnie overate even when her stomach was shrunk by surgery. Carnie has an addiction to food that no physical impediment, apart from a jaw-wire, can curb (even then, there’s always Starbucks’ Caramel Frappuccinos). And no matter how many surgeries she tries, or restrictions she places on food choices, Carnie will not be able to control what and how much she eats. That is the nature of an addiction.
I have only recently actually come to terms with my food addiction and wrote about it HERE. I am talking more about it in therapy. We have spent the last two years really focusing on not spending money that I really didn't see the food thing sneaking up on me. Well, it sneaked up and passed me by without me even realizing...
I feel so hopeless. If Carnie Wilson, with all of her money to hire a chef and personal trainer and free time to be at the gym 8 hours a day, cannot do it, how do I do it? Or is it because she has all of the added advantages that she can't focus and doesn't want to knuckle down and do the work?
Food addiction is hard to fight. With alcohol or drug addiction, at least you can abstain. There is an anecdotal saying among Overeaters Anonymous members that "when you are addicted to drugs you put the tiger in the cage to recover; when you are addicted to food you put the tiger in the cage, but take it out three times a day for a walk."
I hate my tiger.
And, for some reason, I hate Carnie Wilson for having a second surgery. Maybe it's just because I'm jealous. Maybe I'm worried that a second surgery is in my destiny? I don't know. A few years ago, I started noticing a phenomenon of pre-op patients looking at lot like two or three month post-op patients. Meaning...they are handing surgeries out to almost anyone who asks. No longer do you need to be 100 pounds plus overweight. If you have maybe 60 pounds, they'll squeeze you in. That means I would qualify for surgery right now!
Weight loss surgery is (or should be) a life-altering event. I still take it very seriously, although I realize that my surgeon has done all that he can for me and now I need to spend more time with my therapist to alter my brain.
How do you feel about Carnie's latest life choice? I mean, she's a big girl (no pun intended) and can make her own decisions, but if you are a weight loss surgery patient, would you consider a revision or second surgery??
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