Sorting through it all.........

It's a real wonder why there's so many of us who struggle with weight. With all the diet foods, diet products, diet advice, diet doctors, diet experts and diet miracle finds---we should all be bikini ready 24/7/365. And, if we aren't, we should be able to get there without doing much work, thinking too much or making any huge changes. Yet, the battle of the bulge continues--reaching epic proportions. So much so that even with all of the so-called help out there--a smart girl like me just couldn't do it without surgery. And, I'm not alone....that's for sure. And, even with surgery--it's not like losing weight is child's play. No, it's real work. Yes, it does make the quest a much more reasonable one. And, having went through all of the prerequisite testing and learning, anyone who has weight loss surgery becomes very aware that they are making a major life change. And there's the surgery itself--if they weren't convinced that things will change...even as they were wheeled into the operating room--they knew it when they woke up. And, when they woke up, if they thought for one moment that they didn't have to make any changes--the next few weeks and months will prove them wrong again and again. And, if they are smart--they won't fight it. They will go with it. Unless, of course, they want to spend the majority of their time hunched over a toilet or vomiting at the dinner table. Then again, if they're smart--they could easily find a way around it all and end up with little to no weight loss. But, as any life long dieter will tell you--we are all pros at sabatoging eating plans. We know that ice cream and milk shakes and creamy soups and custards and cheesecakes will slide right through that Lapband of ours. It might take us awhile to come to that conclusion and it might take a little longer to work up the courage to pad our diets with those foods--but, damn we can do it. After all, we're smart.

Now, I'm not bitching or moaning or trying to garner sympathy or using this as an opportunity to toot my own horn. No. No. I'm just thinking. You see, for years, as I drifted from one diet to another, I often used the internet to uncover the latest and greatest pieces of information to help me in formulating a sure fire way to develop a wieght loss plan that would work for me. Now I'm left with the remnants of all that diet surfing---the emails from the internet diet gurus. (What did I think--by merely subscribing to lots of daily emails, I'd somehow lose weight? Probably not. Like I said--I was looking for "the cure". I had tried every method on air, land and sea. I was expanding my search to cyberspace.) It's not just one email---it's lots of emails. It's SPAM. No, not that nasty lunch meat stuff in little cans. It's junk email. Well, I suppose they could argue that I asked for it.....

So, what's the big deal, you ask. Why don't I just hit delete, delete, delete, delete, delete.....? Well, I'll tell you what the big deal is (as if you thought I wouldn't...). How can I be so sure that there's not a nugget of information in one of those emails that just might be really important or helpful or life changing or miraculous? And, more importantly, if someone like me--who has been there, done that and had surgery to boot---asks this question, what is everyone else thinking? Are all those other recipients wondering the same thing too? I mean, I'm sure those emails are going to more people besides me. Honestly, I know I'm important and all. But, gosh darn it, I can't imagine I'm keeping the entire internet diet emailing industry busy. I can't be the only person they are writing to. Or, am I? Because if I am....there's another reason why I just can't NOT read the stuff. It just wouldn't be very neighborly of me.....

Alright. Alright. So, none of that makes any sense whatsoever.....Back to the matter at hand.

Anyway, like I said--I've been known to read these emails. But, considering that I don't have an infinite amount of time on my hands to read through every damn email, I figured I had to come up with a method (that actually made sense) to discern which emails may be worth my time. So, over a period of let's say...ah...a few days...I opened each one and quickly read through them--making notes on which ones I consistently felt connected to. That didn't go so well. I felt connected to all of them. Apparently, life long dieters don't just shed their life long dieting wiring just because they have weight loss surgery. So, I embarked on a new plan. I decided that I'd start again...this time reading through each one and making note of which ones actually gave me information I thought that I would actually use. Yep, you guessed it....that didn't go so well either. Mostly because I could imagine using any and all information....maybe not today.... but maybe next week or next month or next year or maybe when I'm desperate. My weight loss surgery didn't take away my fear of being fat again. Perhaps that's the key to it all. I have to rid myself of that fear. I have to exercise the fear of being fat out of me. Then, perhaps I'll be able to take on the emails that clog up my inbox each day. I wonder if there's an exorcist out there on the internet that does that type of thing......?