This week's, "My 600 lb Life - Where are they Now" featured a lady who lost most of her weight and ended up in the 180's after skin removal surgeries.
Interesting
to note was the massive loss and new style of eating, took its toll on
her relationship. Sadly it was a "common law" marriage i.e. they were
living together as husband and wife but not legally married (common law
marriages are no longer acknowledged as legally binding in most states).
And
one might ask "why". There are hints in the show. First of all, the
husband has Multiple Sclerosis, a serious neurological illness which
only a few years before TV checked in on the couple, paralyzed him at
one point. The show said Laura had "nursed him" back to health but he
obviously was disabled to the point of not being able to work - always a
strain on the marriage to begin with.
Second,
Laura was very addicted to food and had used food all of her life to
"feel better" in the presence of adversity and certainly, having the
burden of supporting the couple and other stresses she alluded to
(probably connected with her partner), were difficult for her to deal
with, without the help of the food which had helped her in the past.
Her weight loss had come to an standstill, so the good doc revised her
gastric sleeve to a gastric bypass, which, of course, zapped her
strength because of the non digestion of nutrients (we need some 100
micro-nutrients a day and that's in addition to macro-nutrients, most of
which cannot be digested by gastric bypass patients since the very
important digestive organ, the duodenum, the first several feet of small
bowel, is bypassed in this surgery.)
Less
than 25% of surgeons still do the bypass because of not only, the short
term repercussions, but long term ones as well. The inventor of the
gastric bypass, stopped doing them in the early 90's, pointing out the
numerous issues with this surgery. But of course, the 72 year old
doctor "Now" on "My 600 lb Life" is likely not up with the current
science and doesn't realize that people who get pretty sick (as Laura
DID after her bypass - she suffered a lot of nausea and most things she
ate didn't stay down), may need a takedown immediately. I'm sure that
she felt badly did not help her patience with her husband.
The show put out a note that 85% of bariatric patients end up divorcing their spouses.
Let's
hope Laura gets herself to a doctor who is more up with the science of
digestion and realizes she badly needs a takedown NOW.
4 comments:
The show said Laura had "nursed him" back to health but he obviously was disabled to the point of not being able to work - always a strain on the marriage to begin with.
Second, Laura was very addicted to food and had used food all of her life to "feel better" in the presence of adversity and certainly, having the burden of supporting the couple and other stresses she alluded to (probably connected with her partner), were difficult for her to deal with, without the help of the food which had helped her in the past.
"Addicted to food". All living things require a food source to live, therefore are all physically dependent on food. There can be no such thing as addiction to food as no-one is unaddicted.
What you are describing are symptoms of hyperfunctioning or hyperactive hunger. People use this term because they are told it by the same liars that told us that we weren't dieting all these decades.
Hunger is literally the body's demand for energy. The psychological demands on those in a caring role can be intolerable, yet they must for those they love. In the susceptible, this can drive the body's demand for energy upward stratospherically. It is not a choice or 'turning to food'.
Eating is the first stage of digestion.
I can't say exactly how the body translates extreme and unrelenting emotional (and physical remember) draining of energy, into a loss of energy/need for more energy.
Recently I've begun to wonder whether this sort of stress makes energy unavailable in some way. Sort of holds onto it. Perhaps this leads the body to increase the demand for energy (hunger) due to that possible unavailability.
I experienced this myself and the reversal of it effectively was down to retraining my system in a constant calmer state -after years of being off the charts stressed.
Thank you for your well thought out comment. One thing... You wrote: ""Addicted to food". All living things require a food source to live, therefore are all physically dependent on food. There can be no such thing as addiction to food as no-one is unaddicted." There I must disagree although I agree I probably could have explained my point better (to put it mildly!). No one I know, craves "green beans"! So I guess an addiction to food would not be to healthy foods but rather to those which taste really good and are probably NOT veggies - like you know we are really good cooks these days and then, there is fast food which is both calorie dense and can be addictive. Having fought a weight problem all of my life (and still fighting), been there, done that. Anyway, I think there are folks who crave fast food and the like. Again, thanks for your thoughtful comment and for reading my blog!
You're welcome. I think your blog is fantastic and has helped me to understand more about an area that I find hard going. More power to you.
Some people use food to self-medicate in the way that others use gambling, TV, or shopping to deal with stress. Fatty, sugary food may not be "addictive" in the physical sense, but, the behavior, seeking a pleasant distraction from stress, could be called an "addiction," if the consequences are bad enough. Just about everyone "eats their feelings" occasionally to cope with a rough patch in life. For a lot of people on this TV show, food seems to be the only thing in their lives that gives them any satisfaction or relief. What helps them even more than the surgery, IMHO, is the therapy they get, which gives them other ways to cope with the tough things in life. You don't have to drown your sorrows in a Froot Loops milkshake (GAK!)
Thank you, Sue, for your reporting on things that very seldom get told in the ad-controlled media. Showing an objective look at WLS on My 600 lb. Life might be bad for Dr. Now's business. The show is basically an infomercial produced by his son.
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