Life Changing Events

Usually when we think of life changing events we think of births, death, marriage, or divorce just to name a few. Last week we celebrated a life changing event for my beautiful daughter, Jennifer DeMoss. Yes, having weight loss surgery is one of the biggest life changing events that either of us have gone through since her birth.

Thinking of surgery as such a big event can only be understood by someone who has undergone this kind of event. It is the end of a lifetime of being inside a body that is not in our control.

In my personal life, I always wonder if after being sick for a year and gaining 20-30 pounds as a 10 year old child what would have happened if I had not been put on that first diet? What would have been different in my life? Would I have become the yo-yo dieter of a lifetime? Or would my body have healed itself and possibly as my activity level got back to normal so would my weight?

Don’t know and never will, but looking at where my daughter was before her weight loss surgery, I think that her weight problem may have been a residual from my weight problem.

Genetics, maybe? We come from a long family line of hard working farm families. None of which were considered overweight until in their 50-60 when they began to slow down on their activities on the farm. I grew up working in the field alongside my Mother and Dad. When my Mother passed away at age 52 she was 5”10’ in height and 182 pounds. Only about 25 pounds overweight. My Dad was 6”1’ and was 178 at 82 when he passed. He was never more than twenty pounds heavier in his whole life and he ate bread and ice cream at every meal with a coke and snickers bar for breakfast. Why were they so able to maintain their weight? Genetics? Or could it have been really simpler. No fast food on a regular basis, no boxed food items, no added salt or hidden additives in 90% of the food they ate?

I am one that truly believes our environment is a huge factor. My Dad walked miles of peanut rows and watermelon fields. He rode a tractor that bounced and bumped for hours. I, on the other hand, worked in an office and sat at a desk for hours. My exercise was doing laundry in a machine, cleaning house, and chasing children in the few hours before their bedtime. And sporadic rounds of going to the gym. I gained 26 pounds with my first child, 10 with each of the other two so I can’t say that childbirth was really a problem. I always joked that being a good cook was my downfall. Maybe it was, but now that I look at cooking I realize that the information I had was working against me - not the fact that I was cooking good meals.

The information I am talking about is the information that we have been taught for years about eating lots of carbohydrates and less fat and meat. Isn't it amazing that now we are learning that fat is not necessarily the bad food we were taught? And that so many of the processed carbohydrates we were taught that were okay, we are finding they are not really as good as we thought.

If I had ate and taught my children early on to eat like my parents I know we would have not had to have this life changing surgery.

My parents ate out of the garden, they ate beef, pork, chicken, and fish, they fried their food and ate bread, biscuits and gravy! They worked hard and burned the calories and carbohydrates. I find it interesting that the beans I grew to hate as a child are now prominent in my diet. The butter I gave up in 1970 is now a food I can eat without worrying about my cholesterol. Granted the portions I eat are now more normal portions than ever before. You see I think I fed the problem by eating the wrong things and craving more food because I was not feeding my body, I was eating…….just about anything that would fit in my mouth!

These are the thoughts that have been going through my mind as we celebrate this wonderful occasion. We have both changed our bodies and are working on changing our minds. We have learned to let the kids eat when they are hungry but provide food that is not “filler” but nutritious meals and snacks. We have learned that balanced diet does not mean something from every food group at every meal. And that balanced, for me in my diet, might not meet the needs of the rest of the family. And that this is OKAY.

Thank the Lord that he has given the medical community the tools to help us who have struggled with our bodies and have had to live with the discrimination, pain, anger, and disgust that has surrounded us for so long. Thank the Lord for this wonderful day and age when we can become in control of our bodies and minds and do great things for others with our new found freedom. Thank the Lord lastly for families that have supported us in this life changing event and pray that we continue to pass on to others the positive thoughts and prayers for success with their surgeries.

I hope all of you reading this find peace in knowing that your path has been trod by many others and we hope we can help you through any of your struggles with weight loss surgery. And for those of you reading this that may not have had surgery but are struggling to lose weight by portion control and nutritional changes I hope we can give you encouragement also because you may not have our “tool” but the mind changes are the same for any weight loss lifestyle change.

Last I want to congratulate any that are at their surgiversary (Jen's was on the 11th! 2 Years!!). You are just at the beginning of a new wonderful life as a person in control of your body and mind!