Last month I watched The Shrinking Woman on Discovery Health. I taped it so I watched it again tonight and I find it very insightful regarding the topic of emotional eating.
The show is about a woman, Connie Jackson, who used to weigh 630 pounds. She had most of her stomach removed in order to get down to 210 pounds, and then the show documented her surgeries to remove excess skin.
Connie is an emotional eater, and she clearly stated that she would turn to food when angry, upset, etc. What I found very interesting was in the last few minutes of the show she was feeling angry after being turned down for another surgery. She went back to her hotel room and started eating because of her feelings. After losing 420 pounds, she had not healed the reason that she had gotten up to 619 pounds in the first place.
She stated that nothing had changed, and that she still turned to food whenever she was upset. She said that the only difference now was that she could only eat “so much” since her stomach couldn’t hold very much food, however she still was using food for her emotions.
Here’s the thought that I got from this: what if instead of getting life threatening surgery, that you go through the process of healing the reasons for emotional eating? If you’re an emotional eater like Connie (and myself), what if you learn other ways to cope with your emotions instead of using food? Besides the money you would save on the surgery, you wouldn’t have to risk your life (any surgery is life threatening), and you would have a permanent solution to your overeating and food abuse.
Update 2012: As you already noted, I wrote this article February 5, 2008, over four years ago. Today as The F.A.T. Release Coach, I mentor smart, spiritual, high-achieving women in my permanent weight loss coaching practice. Hear one of my coaching clients tell you in her own words about her experience with weight loss surgery and how nothing worked for her until working with me in my step-by-step proven System to permanent weight loss.
Read about my weight loss coaching clients’ success which I published at Stop Hiding Behind The Fat and also listen in to hear her tell you all about her experience in her own words!
The reason that the quick-fix of weight loss surgery (note: it’s actually not such a quick fix) is still so seductive is because it’s painful and difficult to face those emotions that are driving you to the food, and it can also be difficult to learn new ways of dealing with your emotions instead of using food. Does this sound harsh? Well, it’s clear that we’re living in a quick-fix society, and going through the process of healing past (and current) pains and upsets takes longer, and it can hurt! However, I believe that this is the path towards not only better, lasting health, but also spiritual growth. If you opt for surgery to lose the weight but you still use food to make yourself feel better, have you really grown out of that crutch? Like Connie said, nothing would really change.
That’s what I’m going for: a real change in how I live. It is true that a great deal of the reason I’ve overeaten is because of sugar addiction, but at the same time I am an emotional eater. My challenge is to learn new ways of responding and reacting to my emotions instead of reaching for food. At the same time I do not have the experience of ever weighing 500 or 600 pounds, but I honestly feel like the kind of mind games we play regarding food are the same no matter what the weight. Yes, it’s certainly true that when you weigh a certain amount life becomes much harder, but I really believe that you can have lasting weight loss success without surgery.
What do you think about this? Do you think that weight loss surgery is fabulous and perhaps should be covered by insurance? Or do you think like I do, that the only way out is through, that by going through the process of uncovering all of those negative hurts and learning new ways to handle your emotions instead of using food is the healthy (and permanent) way to go? Or, do you believe that there are some people who could never lose weight without surgery?
You betcha it’s no cure.
The emotional eating comes back, with a venegance!
JoLynn,
Interesting post. My passion is helping people overcome emotional eating and I work quite a bit with individuals who have chosen to have weight loss surgery. I have to say that it is an extremely complicated issue and I have come to feel that there is no one right answer that fits everyone. That said, emotional eating difficulties after weight loss surgery are a HUGE issue (as they can be with all weight loss). Emotional eating can continue to undermine efforts at weight loss and ongoing emotional eating tends to lead to huge amounts of unhelpful shame and guilt which can also get in the way of successful change.
Weight loss surgery is a tool, but, it is only ONE tool. Just like you can’t build a house using only a hammer, you can’t lose weight if you don’t have the tools and resources you need to do it—no matter how motivated you are.
We may choose different paths to our goals, but realizing our commonalities and supporting each other in common struggles only increases all of our power and capacity for success. I think we all have to make our own choices, but it helps to be aware of their limitations.
Not only does weight loss surgery not cure what is often a psychological problem where one uses food as a coping mechanism, weight loss surgery can be very dangerous for someone who has binge eating, compulsive overeating or emotional eating problems. Now, should the sufferer not withstand the urge to binge again, they run the risk of blowing out their staples, stretching their bands or suffering other irreparable physical harm and even death.
And as for weight loss surgery itself, I think it ought to be offered and used only as a last resort. I cringe when I hear of people who are only 50 pounds overweight or of children undergoing the procedure. And as my friend Lisa who recently underwent the Duodenal Switch tells me, many people who’ve had WLS come to a WLS surgery-related blog she frequents and admit that they didn’t research the procedures available to them or of the health risks associated with them.
On a final note, I think there are so many more markers of improved and good health we could and should use instead of the numbers on our scales.
Hi everyone, thanks for your very insightful comments!
@MM, I really appreciate your comment because if I’m not mistaken, you’ve experienced this first hand (correct me if I’m wrong about that). Thank you! 🙂
@Melissa, you’re so right that weight loss is a complicated issue, it’s not as simple as telling someone to “eat better and exercise”. The mind and therefore emotions play a large role, especially if you’re an emotional eater. Actually, I think that most of the weight loss and food issue is in the mind, and that’s the same no matter what a person weighs. I’m glad to hear about the positive work you’re doing to help people. 🙂
@Rachel, wow, thanks so much, I never thought about the possibility of a person “blowing out their staples”. I remember learning that even when you have your stomach basically cut in half, that you can stretch it back out, but that sounds serious (and painful!) if a patient were to open up those staples.
I also agree with you on the point that the scale isn’t an end all be all indicator of good health. I prefer to focus on my increase in energy and positive attitude that I gain from getting off the processed foods, exercising regularly, and taking positive, helpful actions instead of using food for my emotions. 😉
I agree that getting to a desirable state doesn’t eliminate the emotional apsects of why someone became obese in the first place. But I have heard through stories that people who have received gastric bypass or lap bands have learned how to eat, since it is physically impossible to binge. They learn a new, healthy way of eating; only when hungry and to the amount where one is full. But I do believe that if someone is planning on weight loss surgery they must first complete extreme psychological testing to figure out what triggered a reliance on food.
I feel I am an emotional eater. I eat when I am sad, happy, bored, but I still can’t figure out why I do it. I have had a generally happy life and have received limitless love from my parents. Thanks for sharing your ideas! Very informational and enlightening!
The hardest road is to find root of the emotional eating. Not so many people demonstrate willingness to do that much work.
It seems this stomach restriction solution is the ‘magic pill’ solution Americans seek most often. We want a pill to be smart, to control our emotions, to increase our sex drive, to put us to sleep, to stop us from smoking, etc. My goodness…
I think coaching through good decisions is a great investment of money & time.
Susan
Hi Jennie,
You’re not alone in that, I’m an emotional eater, too. For me, there are a few reasons I do it: habit, if I eat trigger foods containing refined sugar and flour (and added salt and unhealthy fats like fried foods), and not trying a different way of coping (i.e.: it’s easier to eat). The biggest thing that has helped me stop the emotional eating is getting off the processed foods, and journaling. It could be that you’ve just got a habit of using food instead of coping in other ways…you don’t have to have had a horrible childhood to be an emotional eater. 🙂
Re: the wl surgery, there definitely could be people who have had weight loss surgery who worked out their food issues along the way, especially if they had a good counselor who helped them address why they gained the weight in the first place, and then helped them work through those issues.
As far as it being physically impossible to binge, from what I’ve learned that is the case in the beginning, but it’s possible to “work back up” to larger portions of food. I’ve also found it interesting to hear in my weekly dose of inspiration and motivation from Richard Simmons on Sirius that he’s received more personal accounts from people who have not fared well by taking the surgery route than from those who have had a good experience.
I still think that the cause of the overeating and weight gain needs to be addressed in order to solve the issue for life, and if we only address the physical (what you eat, how much you eat and exercise) and ignore the mind, emotions, and motivators for overeating, then we’re only putting a band aid on the problem. 😉
Hi Susan,
Wow, I’m loving all of the great comments here, I’m not able to keep up! 🙂
“The hardest road is to find root of the emotional eating. Not so many people demonstrate willingness to do that much work.” – yes, yes, yes, that’s so true Susan. I’m not saying that anyone is “wrong” for not going the route of personal discovery and healing the cause of the problem (obesity, overeating, emotional eating), but it’s the same with any problem that you troubleshoot – you must find what caused it so that you can “fix” it. The overweight isn’t the cause, it’s the symptom.
If a person can use the weight loss surgery in conjunction with therapy, coaching, or counseling to work on the mental and emotional aspects that caused the obesity, then I think there’s a good chance of a whole body/mind/spirit healing, but when we only look at the physical, we aren’t addressing the whole problem.
Thank you Susan!
I hate the idea of surgery and ‘quick fix’. It fits right in with our culture’s ‘be unkind to your body’ message, which goes along with ‘indulge yourself’.
I do think it is difficult to get to the root of emotional eating. And I want to be a bit contrarian and say that eating should be emotional in some sense – experiencing delight. Being an unemotional eater sounds a tad puritan to me. I know this is in some sense just arguing about words and not the real issue.
Thanks for an excellent post.
Hi Evan,
I’m right there with ya on the “quick fix” topic…..I just don’t think it works.
That’s interesting what you said about being an unemotional eater, I never thought of eating in that way before. I do love the food that I eat, it’s very tasty and I couldn’t eat foods that I don’t like or that didn’t taste good. What’s different though, when I’m not eating emotionally, is that I’m eating when I’m physically hungry and stopping when full. If I eat emotionally I turn to food as an attempt to make myself feel better, out of boredom, to procrastinate, but mainly emotional eating for me has been to try to make myself feel better.
Hope that explains emotional eating better. Thank you for your comment Evan, you gave me another way of looking at things. 🙂
The “blowing your staples” off thing is freaky! That would be enough reason to think a hundred times before you signed on the papers for your surgery. What if you can’t stop bingeing even after the surgery?
It does seem like a one time fix. I think it’s one more of those quick fixes that we’ve come to rely on. Anything worth having (like a fitter body) takes hard work and commitment, and unfortunately, not everyone wants to puts in that effort to attain long term weight loss. Although there may be a few exceptions where it’s the only solution…
Hi, it is freaky, I never thought about that before Rachel mentioned it.
Yeah, putting a staple on your stomach, bypassing it or cutting it in half won’t change your thoughts or your emotions. If a person were going to have that surgery I think it should be mandatory that they have full-time therapy in conjunction and be willing to heal the driving force behind the overeating.
Better yet, why not forget the surgery and check in to a clinic for food addiction…..then you can get to the bottom of the physical addiction as well and the mental/emotional reasons that are driving the overeating. Then if you need surgery later to remove excess skin, you’d have money for that that wasn’t previously spent on the weight loss surgery. That’s my 2 cents today. 🙂
You know, it’s interesting …I’ve never had a weight problem but I’ve had a chronic acne problem and it’s a lot to do with the food I eat. So just because I’m like ‘yeah whatever’ when it comes to weight loss, really it’s EXACTLY the same thing, because emotional eating for me, chocolate and sugar, causes an acne breakout.
This article is great, you are SO right about needing to fix the emotional bit first. That goes for all bad lifestyle choices, there is always an emotional reason behind it.
I’m not surprised that the staple didn’t deal with the deeper issues. But, that’s our narrow-minded medical system at work. And, I have tremendous compassion for people who are struggling with food addiction. I’ve never been obese or been addicted to food but I’ve had my share of impulsive eating to bury feelings. I wish this woman well.
Hi Fran,
You’re so right, you don’t have to even be overweight to be an emotional eater, or to be addicted to sugar and flour! It just depends on whether that emotional eating carries into overeating and then overweight and for some people, they thankfully aren’t overweight, but can still be dealing with the angst of the food issues.
It is harder to go through the pain of uncovering the emotional aspects of what is causing our emotional eating and motivations to eat over those emotions, but I just don’t see any other way that the “problem” will be resolved for good. That’s what I’m working on myself right now.
Thanks for you comments Fran! 🙂
I believe weight loss surgery is extremely overused and there isn’t anywhere near enough pre-surgery or post-surgery counseling. More than a few of my friends have had either gastric bypass or lap band surgery, and they either continue to eat emotionally or they swap alcohol or other addictions for their food addiction. I’ve observed those of my friends that keep eating don’t seem to binge, they graze all day.
The grazing could be used for healthier eating, like substituting raw vegetables and fruits for high calorie foods. Grazing all day on a raw food diet would result in weight loss. I don’t know if you follow Steve Pavlina’s blog, but he did a 30 day trial of eating all raw food in January 2008. His blog contains a daily journal of his experience. At the end he commented on the huge amount of food he had to eat to keep from losing a lot more weight than he did. Note: he’s a vegan and went back to some cooked foods at the end of the raw food trial. He has adopted eating more raw foods than he ate before this trial diet.
I believe some people do need the surgery to survive in the shorter term. Anyone who weighs 600 pounds and is 400 pounds overweight is in a medically dangerous situation, and surgery should be an option. It shouldn’t be covered by insurance unless it’s performed to save someone’s life, like arterial bypass surgery for your heart. Other methods of weight loss should be covered to encourage their use and decrease the use of weight loss surgery. Gym membership as part of a deductible, Weight Watchers membership, other similar eat-less-exercise-more methods. It could be deductible from your HSA. You have to have a receipt that you paid for to get the deduction.
The current number of pounds overweight required to be considered for the surgery is only 100 over normal weight. I believe that to be too low of a threshold. I know people who were 60-70 lbs overweight who gained the extra 30-40 lbs to qualify for the surgery instead of eating better, exercising and going to counseling. The required limit should be somewhere around 200 lbs over a person’s first obese weight, or at least 220-250 lbs over normal weight. If you’ve always carried 40-60 lbs of extra weight, it would be extremely hard to make yourself gain over 140 lbs just to qualify for the surgery. It seems that once you hit the “I have to gain over 100 MORE pounds” that people seem to realize how insane the idea is. Gaining another 30-40 pounds just doesn’t seem that bad to most people. This would stop a lot of currently marginal people from gaining the extra weight. At 250 extra lbs, weight loss surgery isn’t a quick fix, especially if you have to go to the trouble to gain 140 extra pounds or more to qualify.
Women need to be evaluated for PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome). This condition can often cause a lot of life-long weight gain, and treating it often brings weight within normal limits. It’s more common in women who started out large as babies and continued to gain excess weight from the time they were toddlers. Toddlers normally lose their baby fat during years 2-5.
But after saving someone’s life, the reason for the weight gain must be addressed. The addiction or medical condition must be dealt with. You can’t give a drunk a drink and expect him/her to remain sober. Unfortunately, food is required for life, but the addiction to food must be solved for anyone to experience long-term success.
I am an overeater, but not an emotional one. I grew up in a time when you were expected to eat everything on your plate. That was fine when I was little, the plates were small, and my metabolism was very high. It’s not okay now. I’ve been able to combat this habit by using smaller plates and giving myself smaller servings. I eat what’s on my plate, but it’s not too much, and I’m satisfied. I’ve also learned to eat only when I’m hungry, and I’ve often skipped lunch or supper, or substituted a light snack for a meal. I’m still about 30 lbs overweight, but it’s stable. I don’t yo-yo. If I lose, it tends to stay off because it’s the result of increased activity or eating less because I’m not hungry (too busy to eat means I’m not really hungry).
The biggest problem I see is food addiction isn’t considered as serious an addiction as alcohol or smoking or gambling or drugs. Until it is, it won’t receive the attention from an addiction standpoint that the other addictions receive.
Food addiction could also be better treated if it were viewed at the same level of seriousness as suicidal thoughts. Psychiatric and psychological intervention would probably be more successful because it would be seen as a much more urgent problem requiring aggressive care.
I suffer from long-term clinical depression. Some antidepressant drugs, like Wellbutrin, cause the cessation of many addictions. It’s the active ingredient in a weight loss drug and in an anti-smoking drug. When I started taking Wellbutrin I lost 20 lbs in 9 months and stopped drinking even one beer at social events that I attend. It had an immediate affect on my appetite, but it only went so far because another of my medications increases appetite. I seem to have reached equilibrium between the two.
What I believe would help, too, is better mental health coverage on medical insurance policies. Mental health is often covered at far less the number of annual visits, number of hospital stay days, higher co-payments, etc., than physical illnesses. Better mental health coverage and better usage of it would help solve a lot of physical symptoms like weight gain just as it helps gain control over other addictions. But it’s not a quick fix and food addiction needs to take its place along side the other addictions considered serious in our society.
Well. . . I had gastric bypass surgery on January 18th and it is not an easy fix by any means. I have gone through 18 months of eating disorder therapy and was fully prepared going into the surgery. It was a procedure I paid for myself, so there was no insurance requirement for therapy. It was something I knew I needed to do. Even with that much therapy, the bypass is incredibly difficult because THERE IS NO CHEATING!! If you are dieting you can cheat. ONce you take away the option it becomes a form of mental cruelty to look at foods you know you will probably never eat again; however, it really does cause you to examine all the reasons you eat and want food. Would I recommend the surgery? Only for people with a BMI of 50 or higher who have really tried other ways unsuccessfully. My BMI was 62 and I was on the border of some serious illnesses. . . I decided it was a good choice for me. It should not be viewed as a quick fix because it is more difficult than any diet and is very hard on the body. I have lost 40 pounds in a month and it does take quite a toll on the body.
Hi Sherri, thank you for your comments! 🙂
Yes, I know Steve’s blog, I think it’s great. It was very interesting, his raw food experiment. I don’t know if I could do that for a whole month (I’m not a vegetarian, I do eat lean proteins), but I did do a cleansing experiment before that included only fresh fruits and veggies. It was good, I did it for 3 days.
You know what, I also know someone who had the surgery and now drinks quite a bit of alcohol, that’s very interesting that you mentioned that.
I totally agree with you – 100 pounds overweight isn’t much to qualify for the surgery. Heck, I could do that to myself if I really wanted to (I wouldn’t ever do that, though)!
“The addiction or medical condition must be dealt with” – 100% Yes! You are so right on that. 😉 You are also spot on that food addiction is just as serious as alcoholism, drug addiction, or any other addiction. In fact, it’s just like drug addiction because when you get off the refined sugar and flour (and sometimes other foods also trigger uncontrolled eating, like salt and even dairy), then you can work on the emotions and whole health of the addict. Taking out the sugar and flour takes away that constant craving, just like alcoholics must stay away from alcohol. However, the mental, emotional, and spiritual health of the individual must be healed for a total lifestyle transformation.
Thank you for sharing about your experiences Sherri. You’ve made excellent points, and the part about your depression reminded me of the connection between the food and the brain……food causes a chemical reaction in the brain, in fact refined sugar creates the same reaction as heroin. Makes so much sense that the 10’s of 1,000’s of people who suffer from depression also have food issues.
If you just give an obese person weight loss surgery and don’t address all of these other complex issues, where are the important changes being made? Those changes that bring peace of mind and the feeling of joy for life, changes that won’t come about just by rearranging your stomach and/or gastrointestinal organs.
Hi Michelle,
I really appreciate you leaving your comments since you’ve got the first hand experience, thank you!!
You know, you’ve brought up 2 points that I didn’t even consider – that it feels like mental cruelty to look at food that you cannot eat because you’ve had the surgery, and also that the rapid weight loss is so very hard on the body. So many people want to lose weight as fast as possible (and I think that is one reason they want the weight loss surgery) but don’t realize how that affects the body.
Thanks again for your comments Michelle. I trust that with your eating disorder therapy and the weight loss surgery that you’ll get out of the danger zone with your health soon. I think it’s really positive that you’re doing the therapy. 🙂
JoLynn,
Thanks! I have become an even bigger proponent of diet and exercise and feel that no one should have this surgery unless their BMI is 50 or above (unless they have major health risks). It’s so difficult, especially if there are complications. I had some minor ones, but this is NOT easy. My body is going through tremendous stress trying to adjust to the deprivation and weight loss. I know the end result will be worth it for me, but I worry about people who don’t have that much to lose. Is it worth it? Maybe I will feel better about it after six months or so. Who knows.
Hi Michelle,
Sure, no problem!
I hope that the complications ease and that the surgery truly benefits you. You’re right about six months from now….you might just look back on this time and remember how hard it was but be glad that you are where you are after having gone through it.
I think you’re right that it should only be for those who are seriously at risk like you were. Maybe your experience will be an example for others and can influence the guidelines for weight loss surgery in the future, raising the weight and/or BMI limit like you mentioned.
Keep the faith, I’m wishing you all good with this. 🙂
Update. . .
I am at 4.5 months and have lost 102 pounds. I am in so much better health and have 120 pounds left. I work out two hours a day six days a week without pain for the first time in my life. I decided that there is no food worth going back where I was. I eat protein, veggies and fruit. ONLY. I don’t miss any of the other junk I used to shove down my throat. I feel all my emotions now and deal with them instead of stuff them back down with food.
The best news is that I am also dating a great guy!!He liked me before but once he saw me losing weight and my new hot hairdo, he decided if he didn’t ask soon, someone else would and he would miss his chance.
I had no idea life could be so fun and that I would enjoy an active ife. I can’t even sit through a television show anymore because I love MOVING.
Michelle
Hi Michelle!
Thank you so much for your update, sounds like you’re doing great! 🙂
You know that I don’t advocate weight loss surgery but I’ve also never been in that position. But, you said it yourself in one of your other comments, and I think that you’re a good example of someone who obviously benefited.
And with all of the great stuff you’ve got going on, what I like best is what you said here: “I decided that there is no food worth going back where I was.”
Sure, we need to eat to live but we don’t need to live to eat. You’ve got so many positive things you’re focusing on now and they don’t involve food. Keep going girl, and please keep me updated! 😀