Step Three: Habits - No Free Lunch

As I wrote in my previous post, the good news is that we can change our eating habits. We can substitute good habits for bad ones. However, that takes time, experimentation and patience. Just as we build bad eating habits over many years, we have to slowly dismantle those habits one baby-step at a time. But, as we’re working toward breaking a bad habit, we have to keep substituting and reinforcing the good one. Consistency is the key. We are literally retraining our brains to think, act and react differently to food. We are simultaneously retraining our brains to find new ways to constructively deal with emotions without reaching for food. Because these changes are so difficult and time-consuming, we have to have patience with ourselves, learn from our mistakes and remain dedicated to the task at hand. Yes, we can do it, but it takes time and effort.

I’d like to share a story with you about what happens when someone who is struggling with emotional eating refuses to work on his bad habits. I used to swim with a man, we’ll call him Bob, who had a serious weight problem. After we got to know each other, I told him about the individual programs that I create for emotional eaters. Each time I explained my plan, he nodded in agreement. Yes, he was an emotional eater. Yes, he ate when he was stressed. Yes, he had terrible eating habits, and he knew it. He listened attentively, agreed with me and asked me a lot of questions. I got really excited about his interest because my passion is to help people to lose weight, especially people who’ve gotten to the point where they believe it’s impossible. They’ve tried the diets, the groups, the pills, but nothing has worked. That was exactly how Bob felt. He’d tried everything, but he’d only wound up fatter and more depressed than ever. He’d come to the conclusion that his situation was hopeless. I believed that I was offering him hope.

Did Bob ever decide to become my weight loss client and work with me? No, he did not. Why? He did not want to do the hard work to truly change how he used food to help him cope with his emotions. Instead of heeding my words of encouragement and my free advice, he continued to eat. His weight continued to climb. It made me sad to see him at the gym because despite his vigorous workouts, he was heavier than ever. For me, as a weight loss coach, it’s like watching someone who is drowning. I’m throwing them a lifeline, but they keep refusing to grab on.

Eventually, he needed knee replacement surgery His doctor told him that his knee had worn out due to his obesity. Then, the cartilage in the other knee wore out. Finally, he required back surgery. His doctors told him that his weight was literally killing him. He had Type 2 Diabetes, high blood pressure and he’d already suffered a minor heart attack.

I did not want to give up on my gym buddy, so I talked to him again. At that point, after so many trips to the operating room, I was certain the last thing Bob would do is to elect to undergo bypass surgery for weight loss. Well, I was wrong. Bob did exactly that. I do realize that for many morbidly obese people, this surgery is a lifesaver. It does seem to cure Type 2 Diabetes almost overnight. For some, it is a medical necessity, but for Bob? Well, he thought it was not only necessary, but his only logical choice.


Prior to having bypass surgery for weight loss, all patients, including Bob, were required to have physicals, blood work and all of the medical tests necessary to prepare them for the surgery. In addition, all patients were required to undergo many months of counseling to learn about nutrition and how to control emotional eating. However, despite all of the counseling and group discussions, Bob continued to eat more and more and more. Why? Because he’d learned, through his counseling, that he’d never be able to eat the same way again. No more pizza nights with his extended family where he ate almost an entire pepperoni pie by himself. No more porterhouse steaks and beers with the guys on a Friday night after work. Everything was going to change. The closer his surgery date came, the more he stuffed himself. By the time he had his bypass surgery, he’d gone from 304 pounds up to 365 pounds. He was so focused on being deprived, that he was determined to eat everything he knew he’d have to give up after his surgery.

Like most bypass patients, that first year was a honeymoon. The weight just melted off. He lost about 85 pounds. He looked like a different person. But, he was still struggling. Some days, he’d subsist on crackers, popcorn and diet Jell-O. Other days, he couldn’t stop his urges to eat whatever he wanted simply because he wanted it, which resulted in severe diarrhea or vomiting. Although he continued to receive nutritional counseling and psychological support, his brain, his hard-wired brain, had not changed. He still saw food as a source of comfort, as a way to relieve boredom, as a way to cope with life’s ups and downs.

Once he returned to the gym, he attacked exercise with a vengeance. He was determined to keep losing weight. But, because he alternated between starving himself and stuffing himself, he got sick, so sick he wound up in the hospital. The doctors questioned him about his eating habits, but a friend of his said Bob lied to the doctors because he’d signed a contract at the clinic that he would stick to his eating plan. After that episode, he decided to simply starve himself. No more bingeing one day and then barely eating the next. He was a combat veteran. He was tough. He could survive on popcorn, diet soda and an apple a day. That would prove to the doctors as well as to himself that he was capable of losing weight once and for all. He was determined to get the weight off and turn himself into the buff guy he’d been in high school decades before.

What happened next was truly frightening. One day, after a hard workout at the gym and very little food, he had a seizure. He was taken, by ambulance, to the hospital. The doctors did not want him to drive, so he stayed at home unless one of his friends brought him along to the gym. The next time I saw Bob, he looked haggard, sick and depressed. Yes, he was much thinner, but not healthy-looking. His skin was pallid, his eyes sunken in.

Instead of facing himself and his emotional issues, Bob continued to focus on the exterior instead of the interior. A few months later, Bob had another seizure. He could not heed my words that, “Change starts from within.”

Eventually, as a result of starving himself, he lost so much weight that he had a lot of excess skin hanging around his midsection. After a trip to Vegas, where a young bikini-clad girl teased him about it, he decided to have a tummy tuck. His bypass doctors tried to discourage him, but Bob insisted that after all of his hard work, he’d earned this. He could not exercise away the loose, flabby skin around his midsection. The first doctor Bob saw refused to do the surgery because of Bob’s seizure history. He told Bob it was better to be alive and flabby rather than dead from what was essentially a cosmetic procedure. Instead of taking the doctor’s advice to heart, Bob continued to search until he found a doctor who would do a tummy tuck on him. After the surgery, Bob developed a severe infection and almost died.

Despite everything Bob had endured, he still felt he was making wise decisions. Wasn’t he down over 100 pounds? Didn’t he look great? Well, no, he looked as though he’d aged 10 years. He seemed exhausted. The sparkle was gone from his eyes.

After not seeing Bob at the gym for a while, I asked a friend of his how he was doing. He told me that Bob had had a stroke and was no longer able to come to the gym. He’d suffered extensive brain damage. I felt terrible and sad. Bob was a man of extremes who’d sought out what he thought was going to be an easy solution to his weight problem. What he found out was that he’d actually chosen the hardest path possible.

Obviously, there are many people who have bypass surgery and do well. Again, this is a very personal decision. But, why would someone choose this surgery when there truly are other, safer, non-surgical options? When it comes to weight loss, there is no free lunch. Either a person is going to acknowledge their problems with food, or they will keep trying to find the quick fix, the easy answer, the instant result.