Thursday 9 September 2010

Come in Sweet Spot Number 2!

Have you ever climbed a hill and thought that you could see the top because you were straining your eyes so hard that you imagined it – and then realised that there was more than one mountain top, and that you just had to keep going?

It’s been dawning on me that when you have a lapband there isn’t a sweet spot – there are two.

It turns out that it’s not just a question of reaching your optimum fill level, when small quantities of food satisfy you and enable you to lose weight steadily.  That’s SS1 - Sweet Spot № 1.

Then there’s the mental sweet spot, that nirvana when you’ve reached this perfect restriction - SS1 - and you have been able to achieve the fine balance of being able to eat vegetables and high protein (tasty) foods comfortably and feel good enough about yourself that you can resist the high calorie sliders and perhaps even manage a bit of exercise as well.  That’s SS2 - Sweet Spot № 2.

SS1 is between your own judgment and your doctor's, SS2 is down to you.

My definition of what makes the lapband work as a successful tool to lose weight – SS1 + SS2 =

The right restriction
which allows small but sufficient
quantities of protein and fibre through the band
to give a feeling of early satisfaction and to keep healthy,
in balance with
the will of the bandit
to avoid undermining its effect
by resisting high calorie sliders.
The degree of success
and the speed with which it is achieved
can be improved by exercise.

I think… cautiously… that I’m at SS1, but SS2 eludes me most of the time because due to other external factors my will comes and goes.  In the two years since I was banded I’ve lost 50lb odd – 3.5 stone, 23 kg, I haven’t binged, or piled weight back on again – and that for me is a modest achievement in itself. 

But I long to be within the normal range, to feel happy in jeans, to wear pretty dresses unselfconsciously, and that longing must translate itself into working towards SS2, or I shall never achieve that which I have joked about in the past – to be heavy or old, but not both.

-oOo-

Photo Finish:
From Lonicera's non-digital archive

Flowers and butterflies
(late addition:  apparently they're moths... thanks Tina!)


















-oOo-

8 comments:

Sara said...

Your photos are amazingly beautiful. And I believe you will reach SS2 when you least expect it.

Tina said...

Keep plugging away--it is a bit of a balance the physical and the mental I agree. Now add in that ss1 and ss2 also change as you go and you might lose either and have to reconfigure it and it is one long and bumpy ride. I am at ss15 or so :) and looking for another...

I LOVE the moth with a reflection pictures!! How did you do that?? This week I have to go take some pics of a natural spring for the newspaper I am volunteering with..I hope there is something fun to capture.

Zanna said...

Although I'm not a bandit - I still have to strive constantly to get to where I want to be and then strive even harder to stay there - but the way you feel about yourself when you get there is well worth the struggle. Love the photo through the balustrade! Zxx

Lonicera said...

Thank you...

Oops - I clearly don't know the difference between moths & butterflies! I'd love to say I was crouched in a hide for three days waiting for them to come down to the water, etc etc.... but actually I took these pics at a butterfly sanctuary attached to a stately home in Gloucestershire (Berkeley Castle), and these creatures were all perched on a mesh (you can see it in the picture) which had water underneath. The light source must have been angled just right, because I noticed the strong reflections and just snapped away. As someone has once commented here, the pictures you see are the tip of the iceberg: when I find a subject I like, I snap till the cows come home ('scatter gun tactics', John calls it) and there was usually a good one in there somewhere. These days with a digital camera I still take a lot, but not quite as much because I can reframe or level the horizon on the computer.

Zanna, I didn't realise you weren't a bandit! This makes you even more extraordinary - you're losing weight by hard graft and willpower (I'm standing up to type this). What an example to follow...

Caroline

Debi said...

I really love this post!! I feel as if I am currently at SS1. But like you, I have trouble controlling myself and SS2 is eluding me! But we just need to keep on plucking away!!

The photos are all fabulous!! I couldn't pick just one to say it was my favorite!! The colors are striking.

And I nominated you for an award!!

Andrew said...

Great photos as always

THE DASH! said...

I am always full of wonder at your incredible photography. We have a real live professional right here among us.
Yay for sweet spot no.2.. thats just brilliant - really happy for you that you have reached a level of contentment. xxx

Lonicera said...

Thank you very much for the kind comments.
Caroline

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