Video - Vision is Vital: Challenging Falsely Acquired Thoughts

• Deciphering between the truths of others can cloud our ability to see our own reality.
• Holding onto the things that weigh us down can create debilitating physical FAT and emotional Falsely Acquired Thoughts (F.A.T.) Change the brain, change the body, and find out how to fight F.A.T. for real. Presented by Merrill Littleberry, LCSW, LCDC, CCM, CI-CPT, a licensed psychotherapist and understands the debilitating effects of emotional and physical weight.

Do you obsess about your BODY or APPEARANCE? Your brain might be different.

It's not uncommon for those of us who have lost massive amounts of weight with bariatric surgery to have major issues with body dysmorphic disorder or problems seeing ourselves the way we really look.

Some post weight loss patients suffer terrible with body dysmorphia -- some to a much lesser degree.

But, could brains actually be different in those who have BDD?

“If you are overweight or obese, are you pleased with the way that you look?” Fat-Shaming for social change? WHAT?!

This, this will work, SURE!  Shame the people!  Make them feel bad!  We all know what happens when you make someone feel bad about things they already feel bad about!

The party!  The cycle of shame! and  "Varieties of Social Pressure!"

"Our best long-term possibility is to find ways of inducing a majority of the population to do what a minority now already do: working to stay thin in the first place and to lose weight early on if excess weight begins to emerge. That will take social pressure combined with vigorous government action."

WAIT - WHAT?

NBC - 

Unhappy with the slow pace of public health efforts to curb America’s stubborn obesity epidemic, a prominent bioethicist is proposing a new push for what he says is an “edgier strategy” to promote weight loss: ginning up social stigma.

Daniel Callahan, a senior research scholar and president emeritus of The Hastings Center, put out a new paper this week calling for a renewed emphasis on social pressure against heavy people -- what some may call fat-shaming -- including public posters that would pose questions like this:

“If you are overweight or obese, are you pleased with the way that you look?”

Full text here -  Download Obesity Paper  With fancy rounded fonts!

Related articles

Coca-Cola + OBESITY + Bad PR.

Fat-shaming may curb obesity, bioethicist says

People Magazine - Half Their Size - No Surgery! No Gimmicks - A Rant from a Bariatric Patient.

Obesity Larger Health Crisis Than World Hunger?

Top 50 Emotional Eating Blogs - cue thud and human puddling.

I found this list  of the "Top 50 Emotional Eating Blogs 2012" through a blog I found via fitbloggin' this year.  This. list. is. amazing.  I'll share half - you can visit the link for the rest. 

1. Life with Cake â€“ Greta Gleissner is a psychotherapist specializing in the treatment of eating disorders. Life with Cake is a personal blog about her recovery from an eating disorder and includes advice about addressing urges to eat emotionally.

2.  Karen C.L. Anderson â€“ Karen C.L. Anderson writes about what happens after achieving “weight-loss success”. She talks about self-acceptance, how to truly feel your feelings, and eating mindfully.

3. The Begin Within Blog â€“ The Begin Within Blog is a blog for individuals recovering from eating disorders. The blog covers a wide range of topics from binge eating to intuitive eating to kindness and compassion.

4. Savor the Blog â€“ Savor the Blog expands on the themes found in Savor, the popular book by Thich Nhat Hanh and Dr. Lilian Cheung. Many of the posts are about mindful eating, while others address the emotional reasons we make our food choices.

5. A Weigh Out â€“ A Weigh Out is a blog written by a number of contributors — all of them professionals in the field of nutrition, emotional eating, and eating disorder therapy. While some of the posts are personal reflections by the coaches and therapists, a number of the posts include advice about addressing emotions in our lives that can affect health — and diet.

Photography Project Explores The Dark Side of Weight Loss - LOVE!

Yes, this!  Realistic!  

Jezebel - 

Julia Kozerski is a photographer who explores themes of beauty, body-image, and identity. As you can see in the image above, she makes photographs that are starkly beautiful and brutally honest; pictures that can make the viewer feel painfully uncomfortable. Here, a fleshy woman lies naked on a bed in a gray room, her gaze turned toward letters on the wall. It is daytime. She is alone. The sheets are rumpled. The word is "LOVE." The title of the work is "Hunger." And that is Julia Kozerski, in the photograph. She is her own subject.

In a project titled Half, Kozerski documents the results of dramatic weight loss. The photographs are stunning, in the true sense of the word: Causing or capable of causing emotional shock. We are flooded with media messages and images about losing weight: PSA campaigns, sneaker ads, reality shows, before and after commercials, in which celebs beam with joy in photos proving that they've slimmed down. They're often perfectly toned, in a bikini, grinning ear to ear.

NSFW Photo after the jump -  

Beautiful as I am ...

Beautiful as I am May Faith Photography - Click for FULL SIZE

Leslie Carpenter, owner of May Faith Photography in Vancouver, WA, created this powerful photo on Saturday, August 11th. Carpenter said, "I did this from my heart. I did this so every woman, every girl will know it is OK to BE YOURSELF. Be beautiful as you are." Her photo has gone viral in only 3 short days, with the goal of having the original image shared 10,000 times. 

"Will you stand up against bullying?"

Read more: http://www.wild1075portland.com/pages/kristina.html?article=10343745&fb_comment_id=fbc_10150987259776230_22403889_10150988286866230&comment_id=22403889#f31b4a765faf588#ixzz23i9ygFFV

 

Article - Have Surgery, Lose Weight, and Start Drinking

No, really?  When will you start listening and not just suggesting it's .... someone else's problem? Put down the glass for a minute and read.

Farting On A Date

NSFK, but HILARIOUS and Quite Appropriate for our ... um... community.  <POOT>

OWN's Addicted to Food

From the Oprah Network, "Meet Tennie McCarty and her eight new clients at Shades of Hope, a Texas treatment center specializing in eating disorders. Addicted to Food airs Tuesdays at 10/9c, only on OWN."

Did you WATCH? What did you THINK?

Curiously, I noticed on Facebook, several of my peers mentioned that they got the the insane URGE to EAT during this show.  How does that make you feel?

I did not watch. I have a hard time with "reality" shows -- that aren't realistic.  I am looking to see if it's online, though.

" Now we've started a real discussion about this. That's a healthy thing. Always investigate any program and get your questions answered fully. Don't buy into a promise that is without proper credentials and evidence-based practices. There are good programs out there to be found. Contact the National Eating Disorders Association for ideas."  - A Facebook Poster on the ATF page

What will I do if she finds out I lied about my surgeries?

What do YOU THINK?  I know there are many of you out there who have "not shared."

 

From 'Ask Amy' --

Dear Amy: I'm about to be engaged to a wonderful woman. I have known her for three years. I have been wondering whether I should tell her that I had lap band surgery seven years ago when I was 45. The surgery allowed me to lose 100 pounds. I had a subsequent tummy tuck that I lied to my lady about (to explain the scar from the surgery).

My problem with food was volume eating; the band only allows me to eat small portions of food that need to be chewed well, and no fluids can be taken until after meals.

I have never told anyone else, including my family, about this.

My lady is 5 foot 10 and at a good weight, but it took her some time to get used to my eating habits — which include eating less than she does.

But I'm worried. What if some medical issue comes up down the road, and she as my wife finds out about my secret? What will I do if she finds out I lied about my surgeries?

— Perplexed

Dear Perplexed: 

You won't have to worry about your secret, because you are going to tell your lady the truth now — and then you won't have a secret.

Your situation is akin to an alcoholic who doesn't want to disclose this vital piece of information to a partner.

Binge eating: Is it a form of addiction?

Beth says, probably.

LA Times:

The notion that binge eating is a form of addiction comes up frequently in experts' discussions of the diagnosis.

Many binge eaters themselves talk about "cravings," "benders" and "hangovers," often describing a dynamic in binge eating that is eerily familiar to an alcoholic's descent into oblivion, as the first drink -- or the first after-dinner cookie -- leads uncontrollably to another and another. Rina Silverman says a binge "numbs me."

Like many who struggle with the problem, she attended Overeaters Anonymous meetings for a while. Modeled on the 12-step program of achieving abstinence, Overeaters Anonymous urges its members to -- among other steps -- identify and abstain completely from foods that seem to trigger powerful cravings to overeat.

Refined sugars and processed foods are a common ingredient.

But this approach, Silverman says, left her more depressed and discouraged. Many researchers and others who identify themselves as binge eaters are similarly critical of such advice.

Chavese Turner, who last year founded a national advocacy organization called the Binge Eating Disorder Assn., found that Overeaters Anonymous simply felt wrong. Identifying certain foods as "bad" and therefore off-limits, said Turner, seemed too simple and off the mark. There were always other, allowable foods to eat in excess. And racking her brain for what she could eat, rather than dealing with an anxiety or noticing that her stomach already felt full, seemed to miss the point.

Having grown up with an alcoholic mother -- now sober for 23 years -- Turner was open to the idea that her eating benders might be an inherited form of addiction. But alcohol, Turner knew, was something you could live without. Food was not; the temptation to binge was unavoidable at least three times a day.

The notion that binge eating and addiction are linked is supported by brain imaging studies that show significant overlap between the brain circuits activated by a drug addict's "craving" and those of a binge eater pondering an eating jag. Researchers also find that the brains of overeaters and those with substance addictions share a common shortage of receptors for the neurotransmitter dopamine, a key chemical in the activation of reward-seeking brain circuits.

"Those are fascinating studies that might yet establish that binge eating and substance abuse and addiction share common origins," says Steven Wonderlich, a University of North Dakota eating specialist who also serves on the American Psychiatric Assn.'s work group on eating disorders.

But Wonderlich cautions that such evidence so far falls far short of doing so. The brain's far-reaching reward circuitry is involved in lots of behaviors that involve motivation, learning and emotion -- not just pathological cravings. And dopamine imbalances are implicated in many neurological disorders, including Parkinson's disease.

"I think the case for the addiction model is extremely weak," says Rutgers University psychologist Terry Wilson. In addiction, the abused substance is the focus of urges, cravings and a high. Those who binge eat are not so focused on their substance of abuse, Wilson noted.

In time, however, the brain studies that have spurred interest in an addiction link may help refine the diagnosis of binge eating. So too will work that has found a role for genetic inheritance in the development of binge eating.

Says Turner's mother, Donna Underhill, who has struggled with eating disorders herself: "Getting sober was probably one of the hardest things I've ever done."

But, Underhill says, she looks at Chavese and thinks "alcoholism was a piece of cake compared to this. She can't not eat."

Feels like

From this week's Postsecret.

Remember to send YOUR Weighty Secrets in!

At the risk of offending, it has to be done.

www.weightysecrets.com

Ssh!

I thought I told you?  Weighty Secrets finally has it's own name.

Go HERE to read your Weighty Secrets

Don't forget to send yours.

Weighty Secrets is now...

Weighty Secrets is now easier to find!  www.weightysecrets.com 

Bookmark it now and subscribe to the RSS feed!

From this week's Postsecret

From this week's Postsecret, is a secret that is something RIGHT out of WLS'ers mouth.  *sigh*

Me.

^{From this week's Postsecret.}

Have a Weighty Secret?

Share your secret, anonymously.

The best part about being fat...

From Postsecret today:

I urge you to send in your WEIGHTY SECRETS!

Share your secret, anonymously.

From Postsecret February 22, 2009

From this week's Postsecret.

From this week's Postsecret - CPAP

I never had to wear one - but many of you do - pre WLS.