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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – One of the most common things I hear patients say after weight loss surgery is “Why do I still feel fat?” This may be said years after the patient has lost weight. They continue to wear baggy clothes and judge themselves as inadequate. No one can fully comprehend how obesity affects people. Many don’t realize how obesity can cause not only self hate, but also self incrimination. It is easy to understand how society and well-meaning family members may have hurt the obese person’s sense of self. However, little is known about how the obese person tortures themselves due to their weight. In a sense, they have become numb to how cruel they have treated themselves. Research suggests that people who undergo major weight loss may experience improvements in appearance satisfaction, though not necessarily as much satisfaction as someone who was never overweight. Negative tapes are not easy to extinguish, and most overweight people have lots of negative tapes.
Experts say part of the problem in our body-obsessed culture is that many women (and increasingly more men) have very unrealistic expectations of what weight loss can do for them. Too often people think hitting their ideal weight will make them look like a movie star or a model. They are then disappointed when that’s not the case. Add to that the fact that many overweight people were told things such as “You have such a pretty face, if only you lost some weight” or “If you don’t lose weight, no one will want to be with you.” Weight, rather than whom you are as a person, becomes the focus. When you begin to think this way, you project all of your faults or weaknesses onto your weight. When you lose the weight and your life isn’t perfect, you focus on your body and become critical of the way it looks. Maybe your buttocks isn’t plump or you have more of a boyish look and aren’t curvy. You tell yourself you need to lose more weight because you are not perfect yet. The issue has nothing to do with you weighing less; it has to do with adapting to your changed body and developing other areas of interests.
Along with this idea of perfection being a certain weight are the past attempts of weight loss these patients have gone through. Most patients that are overweight have experienced several weight fluctuations. They first experience a sense of success and then the incredible impact of failure. After bariatric surgery, they are very aware that this tool can fail if they aren’t vigilant in regards to their lifestyle. Most of them have great difficulty giving their “fat” clothes away. They ask themselves, “Is it safe? Will I go back?” This is a rite of passage. Some patients go through it quickly while others evaluate every pound before giving their clothes away. Some of these patients are more comfortable dressing in big clothes for a long time, just in case. They are unsure that they are as thin as the scale claims. This takes time. It is like walking on a thin plank; falling is a step away.
How can patients learn to adjust to their new size with a greater sense of confidence? Below are a few suggestions:
1. Counseling will help you realize where you have been. Knowing this will offer you greater understanding of why you are feeling this way. Making changes will be easier if you understand yourself more completely.
2. Tracing your body once a month will help you visualize the true reality of what your body looks like.
3. Writing your thoughts or starting a journal will help you understand how you used denial in the past to cope with your weight. This will make it less likely that you will see your body unrealistically.
4. Taking photos of yourself each month will help you see your body more clearly. When people are obese they begin to look at their body from the neck up; rarely do they see their whole body.
5. Praying and praising your body for what it can do will help erase some of those negative tapes in your head.
6. Attending support groups offer you objective advice from many people who struggle as you do with their weight. There is knowledge and power from being with others who share the same journey.
The journey of weight loss is a challenging one. It involves the mind almost exclusively. Most journeys have a beginning and an end. The weight loss journey is unique in that it is ongoing and takes on a life lesson all its own. How you view your body affects how your children will view their body. Begin today to make a peace with your body. Choose to celebrate your body in all of its incredible abilities. The only person who knows when you are perfect or no longer “too fat” is you. Give yourself permission to be perfect today. –Mary Jo Rapini
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