Looking for the Magic Pill

Have you noticed how many advertisements there are for a pill that lets you "eat all you want and never get fat", or "dissolves away the fat stored in your body overnight"? Thousands of people struggle with their weight and are always looking for fast, easy ways to lose the unwanted excess pounds. Many of these people, though, are looking for a magic pill-something that can be done immediately and without any work or feelings of deprivation. People looking for this magic pill don't really want to change the way they eat, they just want the excess weight to magically disappear.

Many people have tried a variety of diets and eating fads only to fail them over and over again. But one option that has become quite popular in the last decade is Gastric Bypass surgery. For many severally obese people, this procedure has literally saved their lives. But for other people who are not in a life-or-death situation, gastric bypass surgery has become a magic pill of weight loss.

What people fail to realize is that this procedure is not a life-long cure. I have several friends and a family member who have had gastric bypass surgery and, yes, they all lost a large amount of weight during the first year. Betty lost 120 pounds; Karen lost 100 pounds; and my own family member lost 85 pounds. But then something happened. The weight started creeping back on until all of them were quite heavy again. What went wrong?

The weight returned because gastric bypass surgery does not deal with the underlying problem: emotional eating. Indeed, none of the diets available really get down to what is causing people to overeat. I have watched as people tell me they have a problem with their thyroid, or it's a hereditary condition while they continue to put junk food into their mouths. People can try to excuse it all they like, but it still comes down to the fact that they are eating to cover up the pain of deep emotions. The issue of emotional eating needs to be explored, brought to the surface and dealt with. This is where individual therapy comes into play. Individual therapy can be done a couple of ways-you could go to the bookstore and check out the self help book section and try to do it on your own.

A more successful way is to participate in individual therapy. With therapy, you can discover the reasons why you are an emotional eater, to understand what is really happening and to work through whatever those deeper problems are. In this way, you can make better choices in your future, not only with food, but with all aspects in your life. I would encourage anyone who is considering gastric bypass surgery to seek out individual therapy first before committing to this life-changing procedure, for if the emotional eating problem can be solved, then the weight loss should occur naturally, for you will no longer be using food to comfort the pain, sadness or anxiety in your life.

Individual therapy is an important and useful way to discover a deeper part of you, to explore why you abuse whatever substance you abuse, whether it's drugs, alcohol or food. With therapy, you might just discover that the magic pill you need is you.

© 2010 Lisa Duvall