Inspiration, Depression and Weight Loss

Often us website writers run into days and even weeks when the words just don’t seem to appear. The last 2 weeks have been like that for me. I’m the kind of guy that asks for help when I run into a road block, so I posted a message here on WL&S Support asking for some ideas. I got two really good ones. Janice suggested writing about “inspiration”. That got the juices flowing! I know about motivation, attitude AND inspiration. As a Life Coach, it’s hard to see the world as anything else than being at least half full. Then right behind Janice’s post was Heather’s post. She suggested the “bitter truth”. All the awful, dirty secrets associated to weight loss and the surgery alternatives for weight loss.

I must say – these two ideas seemed mutually exclusive. In fact for a few days, I’d say I was even more stymied that when I asked for help on the discussion forum. The good thing is that Janice and Heather have caused me to think and think hard! In the end, it all seems so crystal clear, maybe even a revelation!Being over weight or obese and trying to do something about it through traditional weight loss methods like dieting or actually choosing an alternative like WLS (weight loss surgery) is one of the most difficult journeys any one could embark on. My experience tells me that with all things that promise great rewards, come terrible hardships and so it is with weight loss and WLS..

So, inspiration AND depression will be no stranger to everyone on this journey. Yes, I said EVERYONE! It’s like Fire and Water, Ying and Yang, good and evil. They’re opposite yet go together. YOU can’t have one without the other. Expect it, Embrace it and learn to live with it. You must for in order to travel this journey, inspiration AND depression will be your constant companions.

Observing people has convinced me that few of us live in “today”. The vast majority of us spend most of our time in the past, berating ourselves for choices made or not made and wondering about what might of been or could have been. Another large group spends all their time planning for the future, saving money, pressuring themsleves and others around them to be something different than they are. Although we’re forever hopeful, we have no actual promise of tomorrow.

Now I’m not saying that saving money is bad or that time spent on personal reflection of who you are won’t benefit you. What I am saying is that all of us can only change today – this moment we are living in right now. It’s the only time we have control of. YOU can choose right now to eat that doughnut sitting on your computer table while you read this or to tell the people you care about how much you love them. Choice is made moment to moment. Once eaten, that doughnut is in the past and added to the the other calories around your waist.

Accepting the past and moving on with your choices today is the first key step in making decisions that will lead you to success in your weight loss fight or for that matter, any personal demons your struggle with. Stay in the moment. Cognitively think through each and every choice you make today. I promise you’ll be more successful. Yes, there will be choices you make that you’ll later see as poor, but I beleive there will be less of them AND once done, if you leave them in the past, you’ll go on to better choices in the moment you’re currently in.

Attitude goes with choice. What we think and our attitude that goes with our thoughts is one of the very few choices we have complete control of. I have talked to so many people, in so many workshops and seminars about this one choice around attitude. SO few people seem to “get it”. I know that your job might suck, that your boss is an idiot or that your life partner just doesn’t get what you need. It may be that you feel you don’t have control over these challenges, but YOU can choose you attitude about them. Victor Frankl, a great man who figure out choice and attitude said; “they can take away everything I have, including my life – but they can never take away what I choose to think”.

Now I wouldn’t be true to Heather’s request if I didn’t talk about the dark side of the struggle. Personally I fight my weight every day, even now 5 years after my own weight loss surgery. My battle started in my mid-teens. I now know that it will not stop until my last breath. There have been days – weeks and longer when I felt like all hope was gone.

I have had complications from the surgery including bone mass loss, calcium deficiency which has resulted in spontaneous fractures and is now affecting my teeth. I get cold easily and in fact as I write this article, my fingers are freezing! (so if there are errors, I’m blaming my cold hands). I’ve experienced “dumping” more than a few times. My mind still wants pizza, burgers and other wonderful comfort food. Some days I absolutely scream in my head; “Why did YOU have this surgery!! You Idiot!” becasue I now can’t physically have all those foods I still crave. There are many, many more – but I think you get the idea.

If you’re considering WLS, there will be days after, when you regret it – remember, Ying & Yang. It goes with the choice. Still, even on my worse days, I’m alive. I would not be, if I had not had the surgery. For this reason AND becasue I choose my attitude today, I would not change my decision. Should some complication finally “get me” , I’m way better off than I would have been with out surgery.

I say to everyone. Lose weight through traditional means if you can. Make choices to “LIVE’ in the moment you’re in. If you must have surgery, embrace it with the same fever that taking control of your attitude gives you for life.

After all, Life Begins Today!

Author
Ron Merk
WL&S Support

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