My Fat Butt

Had my appointment the other day.

I'm down 32 lbs in three months.

He said he wasn't gonna ask me about my homework from the previous month, nor give me any more homework. Said it would be like "punishing the honor student".

Apparently, percentage wise, I've already lost in three months what most patients will lose in six months on this treatment plan.

Yay me!

So he asked me what advice I would give other patients.

The only thing I could think of is to trust your body & listen to what it's telling you.

See, with the way this insulin disorder causes your body to process food, you get hungry sooner & don't feel as satisfied as a "normal" person. My doctor has explained the "how" to me, but I won't go into it here, partly because I'm sure I'd be lacking as I try to explain it. Anywho... so when I told people that I promised I was only eating when I was hungry, and was stopping as soon as I felt satisfied... I was telling the truth. It's just that my body was lying to me.

So when you start the medication, and your body normalizes, and you're not hungry as often, and feel satisfied sooner than usual, it plays a mental trick on you.

The first six weeks or so I would eat lunch, stop when I was satisfied, but keep the rest of my lunch on my desk all afternoon. Why? Because I was convinced I would be hungry later.
To me, in my experience, it wasn't possible that a lunch that small would suffice. Everything in my experience told me that I needed to either eat more now, or save it for later, in order to avoid real hunger in the near future.

The doctor found this interesting, and said that fear of hunger is a common theme among people with any sort of eating issue - medical, mental, or emotional. The fear of hunger is such a primal feeling, such an instinctual reaction, that it's very difficult for patients to overcome. He said this is just as true for the person who grew up in poverty and truly did struggle for food at one point, as for the person fighting obesity their entire lives and getting a handle on their eating for the first time. And everyone in between.

So that is my advice, to anyone else going thru this treatment, or anyone struggling with any sort of eating issues - listen to your body, and trust it (assuming you've got any medical issues straightened out that might cause your body to "lie" to you).

It's hard. It really is. There are still times when I think I need to eat more. Need. Not want, need. But most of the time, it's a lie, a mental trick.

Now that my system is getting straightened out, it's getting easier & easier, a little bit at a time. I now stop eating as soon as I feel satisfied (95% of the time anyway), and can trust that if I feel hungry, then yes, I really do need to eat. It's a game though. Playing a game with yourself.

So far though, it seems that I am winning. Finally.