Take Ten Seconds

I used to work with a woman who was a brilliant seamstress. She would whip up all kinds of things in no time. We were both quite overweight and I was grateful to have her in my department. We understood each other without having to say a word.

She was kind enough to use awesome sewing skills to take a dress I wore from a summer wedding and put long sleeves on it so I could wear it to New Year’s Eve. When it was ready I went to her house for a fitting and fine tuning.

It was just before Christmas when I went to her house.  She and her mother had fresh baked cookies everywhere. It smelled like heaven on earth! They were preparing for a holiday cookie swap and had already baked 30 dozen cookies!!!

One thing I noticed during that afternoon was that every time my friend went by the cooling racks she would eat a cookie. I wasn’t even sure if she knew she was eating it. The day went on, the sleeves were added and the cookies were being consumed by all of us.
When I went home I kept thinking about her trips to the cooling racks. As I was criticizing her in my mind, I realized that I ate an entire family size bag of Doritos!

You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. Matthew 7:5

How easy it is to clearly see faults in others yet not them in ourselves! I was so busy judging her actions and feeling sorry for her that I didn’t even see my own actions or my own poor behaviors!  Although it took many years down the road before I addressed my mindless eating, it was definitely in that moment that I knew it existed.

When I first had surgery I didn’t even want to eat. I put myself on a schedule and kept it. When time drifted on and more foods options became available to eat I had to be careful. I know my history of backsliding all too well.I took the Ten Second Rule to eating. Before I ate anything I would pick it up and give it ten seconds and ask myself these questions:

Am I hungry?

Is this the right food for me?

Is this the proper serving size?

Will it honor my food plan?

If I couldn’t answer yes to these questions I would put it down and walk away.

This began in earnest when I learned a lesson the hard way. I went into my husband’s office and had a piece of Ghiradelli chocolate in my mouth before I even realized I took the wrapper off! This mindless moment was quickly followed by feelings of HORROR(see Dumping Syndrome). Dumping was a good deterrent but I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. When you’ve spent decades eating at will for pleasure these types of behaviors aren’t easily stopped.

One of the biggest misconceptions about weight loss surgery is that you have it and the work is done. Reality dictates that surgery is merely the beginning. There are skills that I had to learn for success. Putting 10 seconds of distance between me and my choices made a huge impact for me!