3 Mindsets, and 3 Tricks That Serve Me

As I type this, I’m lying on a beautiful plush king-size hotel room bed, 8000 kilometers from my home, in a world verydifferent to my own. (My husband is Persian, and we attempt to visit hishome as often as we are able). I left a sweltering Summer yesterday and flew with my family into a veritable Winter of snow-capped mountains and crisp frozen air. We landed, fought through hours of Tehrani traffic, had a frustratingly long check-in process, and I’ve just finished unpacking; something I’m fastidious about doing. I don’t really feel ‘on holiday’ and at ease until I’ve created some sense of order in my surroundings. 

I was recently asked to prepare an article about BARIATRIC MIND MASTERY when on HOLIDAY. How does one keep on track when so dramatically out of routine, feeling relaxed and festive, and probably having food and eating as a reference point for countless social engagements? It’s a challenge. 

And then there’s the other side of the coin, as well – where holidays might actually notbe much fun at all… When they are anticlimactic. When the lull in the chaos of ordinary life shines a spotlight on relationships and situations that are sub-optimal. Or when wide-open spaces, literally and figuratively, simply make a person anxious.

And so I’m going to take a few moments now to write up how I think about holiday bariatric mind mastery… And the strategies I employ that assist meto return home at the end of the trip feeling strong, replenished, healthy and mentally well.

 In writing up what I do to keep on track, on holiday, I am by no means implying, assuming or overtly stating that any of this will necessarily be right for YOU… It may be, and if it assists you and guides your thinking, then it’s been my privilege to serve. But I take a very particular view on knowledge, advice and opinion, even in my physical private practice… I often say to my patients, “please fight with me”; “please argue with me if this isn’t true for you”. Because I believe that one function of new information is to demonstrate to a person through their gut feel that they completely and utterly disagree. This wholesale disagreement serves to clarify and crystallise their own position, and their ultimate commitment to that. 

I am deeply respectful of each person’s journey, and the truths they have discovered for themselves along the way. And so when I share mine, even when superimposed upon my professional clinical training, I’m in no way asserting it’s the only way. Not by miles and miles.

So agree, or disagree, with pleasure. But think with me. Explore your experience with me, and discover, with me, what is true FOR YOU. 

Mindsets That I’ve Embraced That I Find Useful:

1. I’m always a bariatric patient. Even when on holiday. And even when I’m mad, sad or bad.

I remember, in my pre-surgery life, consciously and unconsciously giving myself permissionto overindulge, and justifying such permission along all sorts of nuanced lines: “You’re on holiday; you can lose it when you’re back”. “This meal is expensive, go mad to justify the cost”. “Your father has died; you’re traumatized… It’s natural to need comfort”.  “You’re incredibly anxious about a professional crisis or a knife’s edge circumstance; cut yourself some slack and nurse that anxiety by pushing it down with food”. 

Unfortunately, life just IS hard, and the road to obesity hell is paved with platitudes such as these. Because there will always be something to nurse, if you take that view.

I cannot do that anymore.

I cannot do that because I now know better. 

I now know the end-point of such self-deceit is ruin. Self-loathing, social withdrawal, and a sense of debilitating personal failure and disappointment.

So there’s no free pass anymore… There’s no instance when it’s ok to fall off the wagon. Not when I’m feeling fun and festive. Nor when I’m feeling angry, sad or guilty.

Having said this though, I must offer to you the dialectic to this; the “opposite balancing equal” that is so important in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), and in life. What I’ve just spoken through will likely sound harsh, Gestapo-esque and militant.  It isn’t. It will sound like I'm dramatically rigid and inflexible, and stick strictly to a very particular eating plan. I don't. Because I’ve learnt, since reaching goal weight, not to follow a dietas much as to live and eat well. And so I do indeed aspire to apply the commonly accepted basics of bariatric nutrition in which we are all well-versed. And 80% of the time I get this right. But my non-negotiables are less around food choice than portion size (for the sake of sleeve preservation), and are, again, less concerned with food choice than calorie content and daily calorie intake. 

2.  A Bite Tastes Better (or at least as good as!) The Whole Tray!

Tied in to Point 1 is the notion that mindful, conscious enjoyment of a morsel of something delicious can be better than consuming everything in sight… If we can be in the moment, choose the treat, savour it and appreciate it. Then move away and get on with our days… We can experience peace, calm and liberation around food.

I joke with a very non-bariatric Facebook friend who I went to school with… I remember sitting with her during recess, as an eating-disordered teenager, and watching her open and nibble on a chocolate bar. Roughly half-way through, and mid-conversation, she folded it up and put it away.  I actually stopped her, incredulous and in awe. “What on earth are you doing...?”.  “I’ve had enough”, was her non-compulsive answer. Nearly 30 years on, I still think of her, and aspire to such a healthy and nonplussed relationship with food. In recent years, I’m closer than ever before.

And it’s this philosophy that I employ on holiday, and always. My Persian in-laws greeted me at the airport with a tray of “shirini”. Basically about 24 slices of various handcrafted specialty cakes that melt in one’s mouth and seem to have been baked by a host of angels. Never in my life have I tasted confection like this, in any other part of the world. Pre-surgery, I’d have been derailed right there, despite the best of good intentions. I’d possibly have been done,before even leaving the airport. But today I looked at them. I chose one that I particularly fancied. I sat down with it, so as to be mindful and non-compulsive (we tend to gobble when we feel guilty about eating it at all, right..?). Then I broke it in half and enjoyed a tiny little piece.

It was beautiful. It was.

But that was all I needed. My husband partook, bearing in mind that these are the flavours of his youth… My kids had one or two. The in-laws ate. And the rest are now sitting in the hotel-room bar fridge. And I can say with confidence that I certainly won’t have more.

It’s a revelation, and a life-changing mindset shift.

3. Memories are Important. Ambience Is Important. Family Is Important. Food is a Minor Part of That.

I think, in all truth, that the inverse of this used to be true in my life. I was sharing, at some point, with a great friend of mine, how different my relationship with food is now, to how it was in the past. She and I were curled up, chatting, on a comfy sofa, and our husbands were opposite, having their own discussion. Between us was a table of snacks. I confessed to her how, in the past, I may have battled to focus on what she was speaking about, for the fixation in my head on the available food, and how to either resist it, or inhale it…

I’m so pleased this is no longer the case… Somewhere in the course of writing this article up, I paused for dinner with my family. We lay around in a traditional Persian restaurant ‘cubicle’… (Persians recline on big opulent cushions, on top of oriental carpets, rather than constrain themselves with tables and chairs. It’s wonderful). We chatted, we laughed, we expressed gratitude for the moments… And then we ordered food, as an aside. It was GOOD… Delicious, in fact. But it was just food. The memories, the bonds, the laughs and the entrenched connections enhanced on holiday are far more important. As is the scenery, the ambience, the smells, the sights and the sense of being in a different place.

Practical Applications I Employ To Keep Me On Track

Those are mindsets that work for me. What follows are strategies that I find work:

1. I travel with a scale and weigh myself daily.

I have spent my entire life restricting, almost theatrically,for the first part of a holiday. Then losing the plot at some point, usually as a direct consequence of the massive initial deprivation, and in proportion to it. And then ending the holiday 10-20 pounds heavier, but mostly heavier in spirit, in lack of replenishment, in being tormented by a problem I was ultimately powerless to solve.

So I understand the knee-jerk response that travelling with scale in tow is obsessive, and encourages obsession, and I understand that this could be the case for some people. I know that, for some, the scale creates undue anxiety and derailment. But in my journey, where I’m coming from, it really is the lesser evil. For me, when I’m weighing myself, I’m well. I’m mindful. I’m aware. I’m accountable. And I’m tuned in to cause and effect… Of how my behavior has consequences. (In fact, I’m off track when I’m not weighing). 

When I'm weighing regularly, I’m also then observant of trends, and able to predict and pre-empt them… Like the notorious menstrual cycle, both from a mood, compulsion and weight perspective. I’ve tracked and measured so many variables for so long that I ‘see that bitch coming’, and I can build in extra self-care and management techniques to mitigate risk, rather than being stormed by disaster.

Am I ruled and governed by the number on the scale...? Yes, to some extent I am. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t matter, or that I’m not pleased to see that number remains stable, and that I’m not concerned to see it rise or fall. This is essentially the point, I would think.

But the truth is that I can adjust for fluctuations immediately, on a daily basis – countering each day with the next… And thus attain equilibrium. Rather than checking in once in a blue moon to ascertain where things are quantitatively at, as I probably did in the past, in 15 pound increments

In the main, I’m not governed by the scale, but by my commitment to myself. And to honoring my journey and taking seriously the things I have endured at the hands of obesity and compulsive eating. The scale is not my god. The scale is my tool. 

2. I drink a lot of coffee, cappuccino, water and other non-alcoholic beverages.

I’m a shrink. And, to some small extent, I see where Freud may have been coming from when he spoke about certain types of people being afflicted with an ‘oral fixation’. His views are so outdated and debunked that my adherence is in no way purist or fundamental. But let’s be honest: anxious-y, compulsive-y people spend a lot of time putting thing in their mouth and experiencing some form of (short-lived) momentary relief from this (food, alcohol, cigarettes, fingernails, etc). Whether it’s anecdotal or accurate, the fact remains for me that having something to consume that is soothing and non-calorific is a useful antidote to overeating… And I am often quite satisfied sipping on a cappuccino rather than eating a meal, when the only reason to actually eat is that it’s an ordained mealtime. 

3. On holidays, more than ever, I count calories rather than sticking to a meal plan.

We all know the bariatric basics of nutrition. We all know that we need to take our vitamins, eat nutritionally-dense foods, prioritise protein, manage carbohydrate intake, and drink a good deal of water.  And if these ideals can be fulfilled more days than not, even on holiday, you’re winning at life. But on days when this just isn’t going to happen, I don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. I preserve the integrity of my sleeve (I don’t stretch it out with overeating). I keep calories within a bariatric range, or at least similar to what a never-ever-struggled-slim-person might consume.

So there you have it! I could, and may well, write more extensively on each of these points individually… But as a starting point goes, this is it

I’d love to hear your thoughts, and your own experiences, whether via email, or into the Facebook group.

Much love,

Debbie