My butt, January 2009

My butt,  January 2009
(who could miss it)

My butt, January 2010

My butt, January 2010
photos by Tom Peal

Welcome to You and All your Brilliant Parts!

In 2009 I lost 40 lbs and I got a new butt. How? Diet and exercise, that's the short answer. But all of the things I learned that made it emotionally possible, that allowed me to succeed when I had failed before - that will take longer. This blog celebrates the intelligence of the body. Please leave me a note to let me know what you think of this writing, if it's been helpful. I welcome your input and experience.

Monday, February 8, 2010

There's drastic and then there's drastic.

All kinds of doctors advertise on billboards around my town - heart specialists, dentists, children's medical specialists.  The kind of medical billboard I see most often these days is gastric; lap band or stomach by-pass advertising.  Those obesity treatments seem pretty popular.



I've heard some first-hand accounts, and one of the things I learned from a friend is that he had to go on a liquid diet for a period of time before his surgery.  This was to shrink his liver, so that the surgeon would have more room to operate.  He knew that after his surgery he would have to eat smaller amounts but wouldn't be as hungry, and that he would have to avoid certain foods, including all fatty or acid-causing foods, afterwards.  He looked forward to the health benefits this would bring.

So that really impressed me.  I thought, what if I just pretend to have stomach by-pass surgery?  I could eat like I was getting ready for it, then eat like I had it.

Gastric surgery is pretty radical, pretty invasive.  But through my years of refining a balanced whole-food diet I'd shied away from "drastic" approaches like temporary fasts, juice fasts or monodiets.  Because I didn't really trust myself, because my power dynamic with food placed me as the loser, I was afraid of such things.  What if it set off a horrible week, month, years long binge?  Or my hair fell out?  Or I freaked out and became anorexic?
Later, Jenni

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