My son happened to glance at the computer while I was writing this and he pointed out that the initial title is rather cheesy! He is right, it is. But it is also true isn’t it, so I am leaving it cheesy. Apols in advance! I hope the content of these blogs is a lot less cheesy and you’ll find a thing or two of use to yourself. Before I even begin this blog - just know it is going to be a long one. I’ve used ‘pages’ (see right at the end of this entry)for easier reading but even then….! I began it meaning to get it out sooner, as several of my friends had written to me expressing some worries about this very challenge that we are facing. I’m sorry it took longer than I thought it would, but I wanted to really cover the topic as intensively as I could. Anything about carbs is my own personal heartfelt mission and boy can I go on about it! Be warned. This is one for reading with tea or coffee by your side.
If you are pressed for time and just want the nuts and bolts without my experiences colouring it in - I’ve tried to summarise it on page 3: ‘The short of sorting out carb addiction’. Same thing - but quicker to read! 
Please bear in mind as you read that what I write is based on my own experience. I’m not a pro nor an expert in any way. I’m just a WLS patient with a very big gob! 
I carry on with blogging and trying to help out where I can because I was once a DSer-in-learning (still am!), but I longed for the older Dsers guidance so I thought - when I get there I’ll try to be around. What I write might come across as ‘advice’ - but I mean for it to be suggestions only. Expand on it as you please.
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What is it about Christmas that it is so often a time of falling into dire straits with carbs? Obviously, food takes center stage. We plan the menu’s, we walk past aisles of beautifully packaged edible goodies. We have memories of comforting rituals around the family table. Or not so comfy ones! It’s cold and wintry and carbs are easy to eat. Drinks flow freely. In the often mad pre-christmas rush it is easier to eat a pie than make a meal. We stock up on the goodies sometimes well before Christmas. We hit the mince pies early - or at least, I do! Then there is the subliminal stress. The ‘to do’ list is long and extensive, we have to have Auntie May over for tea, even though she is a rude obnoxious cow. And we have to behave and be gracious when in reality we’d like to knock her block off! The commercial fervour is upon us, money can be skint, a mince pie or two or three 
is cheap energy and easy eating. We need the energy and the comfort. In the past Christmas has derailed me at an alarming speed.
Breaking the carb habit is a subject close to my heart. I’ve blogged about it often before. I’m no saint when it comes to carbs. Although I find things like white bread completely tasteless, I have a taste for sugary foods. One christmas, a while back I found myself in an addictive cycle with them that began with the mince pies and seemed to never end. It was a scary time of facing my own demons, yet again. I was upset with myself, I’d seemed to have made such big strides out of my food related issue and there I was facing them all over again. I felt out of control and the truth is I was.
The other truth is I needed to eat a little humble pie. I had got complacent and a tad arrogant. This can happen as one fully adjusts to a surgery and the years go by. I got a little blase there & lost my edge for a while. It was not an easy time. It’s never easy to face ones own little facts and failings in life.
I have since rewritten my carb addictions, to the point that recently I moaned and groaned because I needed to eat them to gain a little weight. This was a huge turn around for me. Again I have needed to work on these issues too, but that’s another tale! The good thing is I did increase my simple carbs. My weight is still stable at lower end BMI and increasing the carbs has not meant that I am lost in an addiction with them, as I had feared might be the end result. I have applied a couple of my little damage limitation techniques and I’m pleased to note that everything is holding nice and firm right now & has been for a while.
It took me an age to try to figure this stuff out for myself. I’m no expert on nutrition matters, but I’m willing to learn as much as I can. It’s seems like forever that I have been studying and grappling with my behaviour regarding food. Long before my DS I had tried various approaches, which failed for me. After my DS I realised my addiction was not all in my head. I’d not had a satiety signal at all. One only knows what one has not had, once one experiences it.
My DS took me back to an amazing place where my body was working more optimally than ever before, but I still had times I cycled into sugar related addiction. I realised my DS would take me a very long way, beyond my dreams but I had to work on the 10% that reoccurred. 10% addiction does not sound dire but it grows into huge percentages very fast with the risk that left unthought about, it could begin a process where I could lose my satiety signal by over riding it. That’s a risk I am very aware of and although it can take place via behaviour initially, the problem is that it then starts to set up a bodily physiology. Then I’d be in very deep waters. So I intensified my research as a pre-emptive approach. None of us want to revisit our original severe obesity if we can help it.
I’ve read through mounds of info pertaining to food addictions searching for answers. Some made sense to me. I tried a few ‘techniques’ and had a little success here and there. But mostly I got so tired of ‘generalized advice’ on the subject. All food behaviour addictions are treated pretty simplistically imo. One gets the go to the therapist approach. This might well help, but the therapist may lack insight into how it is to live with a WLS and all the little and bigger issues we deal with. Many have never had a severe weight problem. On the other end of the scale is the dietician approach, but again too often the dietician has little training in WLS matters and may not have the pyschological insight to help a person with any emotional factors.
Before I had WLS I tried both approaches and had little breakthroughs. So I’m not saying one should not try these approaches at all. The problem was that I relapsed. Which is why I ended up looking into surgery. But still, any insight is better than none, and who knows you might just find the right person to guide you at the right time.
The addiction aspects work differently for many of us, which is why it can be so hard to combat carbs, and why one answer does not suit all. There are many variables. Physically we may have varying factors at play in our obesity. One person might have no satiety signal. Another might have type two diabetes, or thyroid imbalances. When research into the chemistry of obesity started 7/8 years ago, we learned of certain hormones controlling the body. Now we also know there are genes involved too.There are many forms of so called ‘comfort eating’. There are perfectly okay levels of it, there are reward based comfort eating behaviours and deprivation based behaviours. There are self hatred based behaviours. Some of us eat out of frustration or anger. Some of us, and I am one of them, never ate for comfort because I knew food did not comfort me and that it only hurt me more. But I still persisted and for me it was related to self destruction and an odd drive to punish myself with food…guess I fell in the self hatred camp more predominantly. Other factors did interplay in my case and probably do in most cases. We don’t know the full story yet by far, but I think it’s time to try at least to quit generalising so much.
KNOW YOUR TIGER!
Part of why we generalise is because it’s a huge challenge. Where do we even begin to decipher all the variables? If you read my blog you’ll know of my intermittent grapples with it! I just think I have cottoned onto something when I get a new perspective - this makes the process a slow evolution. Or a patient mentions something that resonates with me and I have to rethink my previous thoughts. Or I fall apart due to something and have to work on it all over again!
I hear the panic so often on the forums…and I know that panic. The way I see it is that there is a logical way forward. In 99% of cases first port of call should be the physical body. WLS does put right many old physical problems - it can put right things like how the signalling system in the body works, but it’s not always instant. Or the restriction imposes minimal intake, but if the prevailing food remains carb based one’s health can fall apart. While WLS rectifies some ‘base’ issues and weightloss can occur at last, it can also unbalance the body in the process.
Restriction is a powerful little number, but body chemistry is more powerful. Much more. It can alter restriction, it can also over ride restriction by sending very strong prompts to our brains. For example how many times have I not heard purely restricted patients complain of hunger. Too often. How many restriction based surgeries are being revised. In my opinion, too many.
It’s not that a restrictive surgery won’t or can’t work, but by gosh we need to get our bodies and heads around it for it to endure. Sometimes even with every attempt a patient makes, with every effort it will be impossible…because like it or not the body rules. And very often it has the power to rule beyond restriction and beyond willpower.
So what to do?
Try containing a wild tiger in a box. You can make the bars strong, but that tiger is going to always be trying to escape the constraints. If it struggles a lot, damage will occur to itself potentially, as well as to it’s confines. It is a good idea to try to condition the tiger through appropriate training. I kind of see my malabsorption as the trainer. Restriction can also be viewed this way. But even with these added benefits, it still may not be enough.
With a ‘behaviour modifying trainer’ the dangers are less. Bars & conditioning can go a long way. But one will always need to be vigilant. At any time, deep down the tiger is unpredictable. The signs of change can be very subtle. Ask any tamer of wild animals. Sometimes the animal seems so docile and the trainer is lulled into thinking the risk of danger is low. The animal is so compliant, so ‘loving’…the trainer starts getting conditioned. Next thing all hell breaks lose! The trainer is in grave trouble. If he survives he will often state that he noticed a little change but he was not fully cognisant of it.
Same with the body - it operates on levels beyond us…even science cannot yet explain the intricate process of obesity. We don’t understand it totally. But it will put out subtle signals. So we must be vigilant. We must watch for subtle changes and act fast. We should be pre-emptive at all times. With a restrictive based surgery the vigilence must be on track more often…where malabsorption is present it usually does not need such intensive work, but no surgery is exempt from effort.
With our bodies we can run into a bit of trouble. I don’t know about you, maybe you are different than me. But I did not want to know my body when I was obese. I hated it. I only had mirrors that reflected me from the shoulders up. I was beyond my body, I thought. I liked to think of myself as ‘intellectual’ despite my lack of schooling/education. If I was ill I only saw my GP when my body was being a misery, not because I should have been looking out for it. I made no effort to KNOW it. Only to control it.I had no respect for my body. 
To try to control a tiger is an act of suppression. A good trainer won’t use control methods as a first approach. He will take the time to get to know his tiger in order to tame it. He will know what foods it best responds too, what fears it has, it’s type of personality, it’s strengths. It must be well fed. This means regular meals. And the right types of food. A tiger fed bread and chocolates will become highly unpredictable. An attack is inevitable.
A lot of energy will be spent just observing the creature. He generally does not need a big stick to threaten it with. If a stick is used, it is used with proper timing and never to harm. He treats it with respect. Always.
If you want to know your body - it can be very interesting to study a little on the side about the nature of wild animals. Or to look at the fundamental training methods used in the training of dogs with behavioural problems. I know it sounds totally barmy at first call. But there are analogies in many ways. Loads of them. A dog in ill health for example - in pain of any kind is not going to respond very well to any training. That’s a given. A dog on a poor diet will often exhibit poor behaviour patterns too. Many dogs are on high carb prepackaged ‘junk’ foods (sold as ‘balanced’ Grrrr!)…various illnesses occur, including a scary rise in animal obesity. Dogs deprived of a secure puppyhood struggle with unconsciously motivated behaviours. If you want a dog to change an entrenched behaviour the snack you offer it must have high leverage - it must be tasty! Just some little examples.
Tigers differ too. What is right for one tiger may be entirely the wrong approach for another.
So my dear friends, if you do nothing else, start getting to know your tiger. 
This blog continues onto 3 pages:
