A Bout of Rebellion

Rebellion - (re⋅bel⋅lion) 1) a refusal of obedience 2) resistance to or defiance of any authority, control, or tradition 3) defiance: intentionally contemptuous behavior or attitude, insubordination Sometimes I just get tired of being good, tired of following the rules and having to be perfect all the time. Sometimes I get tired of thinking about WLS, about what I eat and how much I exercise. I get tired of counting everything that passes my lips, following rules with protein first and moderate carbs, exercising religiously, taking two or three handfuls of vitamins, drinking enough water and just in general having to be perfect every day. I literally get tired of listening to myself think about WLS and all that goes with it. For much of July I've been in the mindset of rebellion. I'm sure you noticed that my eating hasn't been the greatest -- the discovery of having reactive hypoglycemia is a direct result of eating wrong. If I'd continued eating protein-forward meals like I should have been, I never would have known that my blood sugar bottoms out when I eat a carb-forward meal. I guess it's good that I know the diagnosis since it forces me to eat properly. I'm just pissed at myself for being so bad with my eating that it ever became an issue for me. I've also been slacking on exercise. I had one race scheduled for July and it got rained out, but I've put no effort into registering for any other races to hit my goal of 2 per month. And now it's July 28th and I have no hope of meeting that goal. I've also skipped out on a couple Tuesday night training sessions with my group. Once because I wanted to go to my photography group meeting instead and once because I just didn't feel like going so I went home and wallowed in my self-pity. I've also been neglecting my mid-week training workouts. Tonight we're scheduled for 8.75 miles and I'm not sure I'm really ready for that since I haven't been keeping up with my training these past few weeks. I continue to wear my GoWear Fit (and I'll do another review of this in the next day or two). So I know how many calories I'm burning and I almost always (95% of the time) hit my daily targets for calories burned, activity and steps. Although I'm not religiously tracking my food intake, I've never eaten more calories than I've burned - so I know I'm still in a calorie deficit every day. You've heard me preach about vitamins until I'm blue in the face. I know how essential they are to our post-op life. Vitamins are not an optional thing for us. I know this. My head knows it. So why do I let my rebellion get in the way and skip vitamins sometimes? Not often - maybe once a week or so - but it's enough that it bothers me. There's no excuse for this. It's stupid and dangerous. It might be an every-once-in-a-while thing right now, but it's too easy to let it become a bad habit and I need to nip this in the bud immediately. Confession is good for the soul, right? It's hard to say all this stuff out loud. Especially to you all. It's hard to realize that I'm not perfect (yeah right, like I ever believed that anyway!) and that it is very easy to fall off the wagon just like anyone else. Folks often come to me with questions or asking for advice about their own journey - which is fine, I'm happy to help. But sometimes it's hard to give support to others when I'm dragging my butt on my own journey. The diagnosis of reactive hypoglycemia was a wake up call for me. And the issues I'm having with ferritin and prealbumin is a concern too. Although none of these is serious at the moment, if I don't stay on top of stuff they can become serious. Thankfully my bout of rebellion hasn't lasted long and it's mostly been in my head and not too serious with the rest of my routines. Yes, eating and exercise has suffered, but it's not as back as it could have been if I'd gone totally off the deep end. It's good that I'm recognizing my behavior now and correcting it before it really got out of hand. I'm still working to get my head on straight today. I'm a lot closer than I was a week ago and it might take a bit more time to "find my religion" again. But I'm determined to get myself fully back on track. I never really strayed that far away from the straight and narrow -- but knowing how easy it is to let rebellion take over is sobering and scares me a bit. And it makes me all the more aware that I need to be vigilant at all times to keep myself on track. When I had WLS I signed up for life - it's not something I can turn on and off on a whim, it's a 24/7 operation and I can't let my guard down. Most of what I've written here is for my own benefit - saying it out loud to make it real and to set the goal of "being-hav." But I also want to make sure newbies and pre-ops understand how difficult this journey is and that it takes constant attention to the rules we all must follow forever. This thing is hard! But the rewards are great. Thanks for listening. ~Pam