The End of Overeating?

My weight is coming down a bit. I've been able to be a bit more intentional about my eating lately, which surely has helped. Oddly, I've taken the last 2 weeks off from running because my right Achilles tendon was sore. Last night was the first time I had run in over 2 weeks, and my weight was already down 2 pounds by then. It's encouraging, but I want to see more movement than this.

I am reading a new book called "The End of Overeating" by David Kessler. It's a promising title...too promising, of course, but the premise is basically that America's overeating problem is (at least partly) caused by the manipulation by the food industry of the proportions of sugar, salt and fat in foods we commonly eat. The author argues that certain proportions of these basic ingredients trigger our brains to eat beyond our satiety. The book seeks to explain how we lose control over our eating, and promises to reveal how we can regain it. (I am thinking the answer will be in preparing more of our own foods, from scratch.) It is interesting. I'm not sure it's going to tell me a lot that I didn't already know, but even reading about overeating helps me be more conscious about what I do, so even that helps.

From the outset, this book reiterates what recent research has confirmed over and over: that we gain weight because we eat too much. It's such a simple idea, but we have fought the idea for a long time. I fought it, before I had WLS. Now I realize that I did eat more than I realized, even if the amount I ate might not cause another person to gain weight. It wasn't massive amounts, but it doesn't take much of a calorie excess to cause a lot of weight gain over time.

The book also talks in the beginning about the "setpoint" theory, that our bodies naturally maintain a certain weight range and somehow that setpoint gets messed up in people who are overweight. In fact, the author states, the setpoint, or homeostasis range, is only one factor in our weight. A lot of other things happen that override our body's weight homeostasis, and when we gain a lot of weight and then try to lose it, our setpoint often gets moved a little higher than it was before. We've all noticed that in our yo-yo cycles in the past. We blame it on dieting. It might be the actual weight gain that causes it, not the diet that revealed that changed setpoint.

I'm still fighting this seeming "setpoint" that I have reached of about 170 pounds. My body seems to want to stay here. Interestingly, it's exactly where my surgeon said I would land. But I could easily stand to lose another 20 lbs, and even 10 would make me happy. As tempting as it is to try to get there quickly through a "diet", I am resisting this urge, partly because I was always a terrible dieter, and partly because I want a more lasting weight loss. So I still work on this every day.

On the school front...I have 10 1/2 months left and I am very happy about that. The hardest part is behind me. It's nice to realize that by this time next year I will be graduated and will already have taken (and hopefully passed) my boards. We are finishing up our bioethics class next week. It's been a very interesting class. Then we will take Law and Medicine in July. Meanwhile, we are working about 30 hours/week in the OR. Tonight I am on from 3-11, which should be in OB rather than the OR--placing labor epidurals and providing anesthesia for C-sections. I enjoy OB anesthesia, and I also enjoy not getting up at 5am.

I am thinking of making an appointment to see the surgeon sometime this summer, just to check in and make sure everything is okay. I don't know if I need a fill or not. Sometimes I think I do, sometimes I don't. Since it's been over a year since my last appointment, I should go in either way.

Hope everyone is enjoying the summer!