Once you make it past the gastric bypass diet and your first year following surgery, life goes on and for many that is where the work begins. Anticipating surgery, even though there will be challenges, many people will be on a “pink cloud.” You have such optimism because you know your life is going to change for the better and you may be getting ready to enter a stage of your life that you have only dreamed of.
But you must keep in mind that the “pink cloud” phase will pass and if you had problems before your surgery that were not dealt with, they will still be there. Weight loss surgery can give you your health back, but it is up to you to do the things it takes to keep it. This means dealing with your problems and life situations. You have to try to eliminate stress and any reasons to self medicate by whatever means possible. I have seen people that no longer have binge eating as an option turn other things, such as; drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling or shopping.
There will be situations that will be difficult to control. Despite having had this surgery and finding it a challenge to make wise decisions, I have done reasonably well. One thing I really struggle with is food in the workplace. I sit in an area that is close to where many important meetings are held and around here, meeting are synonymous with food. Many times that means very high calorie doughnuts, catered lunches and high calorie, sugary snacks.
Despite how angry this practice makes me, that only adds to the problem. You can avoid buying things for your home that are problems foods. You can avoid walking down aisles at the grocery store that can be tempting. But it is kind of hard to avoid foods that you have to walk by just to get to the restroom or foods that are walked by you as they are moved from one location to another. This has been a challenge I have been dealing with for more than five years and it is not getting any easier.
I can go for walk at lunch, but I still have the afternoon to deal with and sometimes I tend to get bored. And food and not enough to do can be a lethal combination for person like me. Making it from after lunch to the end of the day is my biggest challenge. It seems like that is when I have the greatest amount of idle time. I have noticed that I struggle a lot less when I do not have idle time and I am working at keeping my time managed so that I do not have ample free time. Weight loss challenges come in all forms. What are your challenges?