Diets in vain
I am now 55 and since puberty I have been yo-yoing with my weight. I am not talking about 5 kilos but 20 or 30 kilos heavier or lighter. Except for one diet (the sherry cure, I don’t like alcohol), I have tried everything to lose weight. I always succeeded in losing weight, but not in maintaining it. I wasn’t guided in that either. Apart from the diets, I also had a gastric band for 6 years and with that I lost weight up to 90 kilos. But I also gained weight again.
Finally, the gastric band was removed and I had gastric bypass surgery. My weight then was 127 kg. I lost 10 kg before the surgery and another 40 kg after. Many people who have had such an operation cannot tolerate sugar and fat well afterward. I have virtually no problems with that, I can eat anything. Which is nice on the one hand, but on the other hand it comes down to willpower.
Clarification through PRI
After the gastric bypass, I also started taking PRI therapy with the help question of why I feel such a need to snack. When I started observing my eating behavior, we noticed that I was snacking between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. I was snacking. And we found out that I was literally and figuratively swallowing everything and not expressing myself. By not expressing myself, both at home and at work, I built up tension in my body during the day. Then when I got home that tension had to come out and my way was to start eating and especially sugary foods. In therapy, we discovered where this behavior came from. I am an only child and my parents had their own business. When I got out of school no one was home and I made sure dinner was on the table at 6 p.m. when my parents came home. After dinner they went to sleep for a while and I took refuge in eating. I didn’t express myself because I was afraid of rejection. I wanted to be loved and liked. I needed that then. I also glued the fear of rejection to the present. And therefore I denied my own needs and started eating.
Dieting again after all
A year after the operation I started to gain weight again and with the help of Weight Watchers I lost 50 kg. To this day, staying on weight remains difficult for me. I am someone who loses weight very quickly. On the other hand, I can gain 4 kg in a weekend. Once a fellow student said to me in the past that every month you look different, one month you’re slim and the next month you’re fat again, which was true because in one month I could have lost 10 kilos, only to gain more a month later.
Staying on weight
What I learned during and from therapy is that the fear of being rejected in the now is not real, but comes from my childhood. Sometimes this is not yet fully understood because I am experiencing the fear now. And I am learning to express myself, which is not always easy when you have kept your mouth shut for 53 years. But it’s a choice now. I’ve lost 50 kg and I can express myself and stay on weight or build up tension, start eating again and gain weight again. By doing it, so by expressing myself, I now also experience how people react to it and that is often different than I expected. I experience a more positive reaction while I was actually afraid of criticism. So it turns out that my fear was wrong. I really don’t have to keep my mouth shut anymore. After losing 50 kilos, I am literally and figuratively lighter.
Mariet D., 55 years
Are you also looking for help with an eating problem you just can’t get a grip on? Then read the book Loving life, free from eating problems by Ingeborg Bosch. Or contact one of our therapists.
