The Emotional Journey is Tough

The crazy thing about WLS is that the doctor does surgery on your stomach and intestines. He doesn’t touch your brain at all. But the hardest part of this whole process is dealing with the emotional issues that go along with everything else. Head Hunger Emotional Eating Trigger Foods Relationship Issues Balancing Stress Hormonal Imbalance And that’s just the tip of the iceburg. Who knew that so much of our eating, exercise and hunger issues were tied so closely to psychological issues! It was a tough weekend for me in this department. For the past few weeks I’ve been dropping weight pretty steadily. About 3 pounds a week and probably another 3 on my weigh in day tomorrow. And with every pound I lose the hormones that are stored and produced inside my fat cells are being released into my system or being moved to different production spots. So I’ve got that crazy emotional PMS feeling and it just seems to be getting worse. This is the first time since surgery that I’ve really noticed a prolonged period of time when my emotions have gotten in the way of life. I argued with my best friend for no good reason at a time when he was hurting and needed support. I was grouchy with my family because they didn’t do what I wanted them to do at the time I wanted it done. My car needs a repair and I’m stressed about the cost and whether or not it’ll be worth it to fix the car or call it dead and shop for another. I bawled all over the place when I got an email from a dear friend struggling with her battle with cancer. I felt a bit depressed and just wanted to hibernate and be left alone. Then this morning while driving to work (got lots of thinking time with my long commute) – I started thinking about my behavior and mood over the weekend. And suddenly realized the advice given to so many new post-ops. It’s the crazy hormones that are doing all this to me. I’m not losing my mind after all! I’ve also reaffirmed my initial analysis that I am not a stress eater. When things get rough for me emotionally I actually don’t turn to food for comfort. In fact, I turn away from food, it seems. Meals this weekend were weak and very simple and I only ate because I knew I had to. Instead of having a real meal yesterday for lunch, I had some soy chips instead. High protein snack, but not exactly a well balanced meal of protein and veg. But the soy chips were easy and didn’t require thought or planning. It supported my hibernation mood. I suppose this is just as unhealthy of a behavior as stress eating for comfort. Who knows. So yeah…. Been an emotional weekend (and part of last week too). Maybe now that I recognize what’s going on, I can deal with it better. ~Pam