(PART 2) BEYOND THE SCALE:
NAVIGATING LIFE AFTER BARIATRIC SURGERY
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Episode 244:
Show Notes
Episode 244:
Transcript
Dr Mary Barson (0:04) Hello, my lovely friends. I am Dr Mary Barson.
Dr Lucy Burns (0:09) And I'm Dr Lucy Burns. We are doctors and weight management and metabolic health experts.
Both (0:16) And this is the Real Health and Weight Loss podcast!
Dr Lucy Burns (0:21) Good morning gorgeous ones, how are you again? Dr Lucy here. I'm not with Dr Mary because I am continuing the second part of our conversation that we had last week with the gorgeous Tash Jarrett. Now if you missed last week's episode, we talked all about Tash, who is a wife, a mama and an advocate for people living in bigger bodies who have had bariatric surgery. She herself has intensive lived experience and today we are continuing the discussion where she is going to tell us what she has learnt.
Tash Jarrett (01:00) I think one of the first things that I started to do differently was I would start learning to ask myself when I would be dancing in front of the pantry. And it's it's funny how often I used to randomly find myself in my pantry staring at the shelves going hmm what can I have in here now? And then I would think oh actually I'm not hungry. I am sad. I am feeling stressed. So what I started to do was be mindful I suppose. I started to intentionally practice mindfulness and when I would feel that overwhelming urge that I wanted to eat, I always asked myself am I hungry right now or is it something else? And I'd sit with my feelings. That has been a huge help to me and it is one of the things that probably took a year or 18 months for me to start to consistently do and now it's just become a way of life. But it was certainly not easy and it took a lot of practice because the default setting was turning to food. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. And I'd practised that for 40 years. So it takes some time to unwrap that.
Dr Lucy Burns (02:35) What I love there is you're describing the concept of increasing your distress tolerance. And again as our society doesn't, we don't like seeing people distressed whether it's our children, anybody, or our loved ones. We don't want them distressed so we go well what can I do to fix your distress? Oh here's a cake, here's a biscuit, here's ice cream. And then you're noticing that distress and actually just sitting with it which is hard to do at first.
Tash Jarrett (03:03) It is. It really is. It feels horrible at the start. It was such a strange concept and it brought up so many feelings because oh my goodness I actually do turn to food all the time and then when it wasn't there, holy shit. Yeah, now what? What do I do? So yes I learned to sit with it. I learned to feel uncomfortable which was very very odd. Uncomfortable? Very uncomfortable, odd feeling. Then I started working out how I actually replace my old coping strategy. What am I going to do differently? And after I learned to sit with it I then realised okay well I could I could go for a walk. I could you know write which is another thing that I really enjoy doing. I can do my other hobbies. I can distract myself and if I am genuinely hungry then I eat and there's nothing wrong with that at all. But a lot of the time for me it was just a habit. I was just in a habit of soothing myself in that way and it was not a habit that was leading to an optimised life. It was a habit that had gotten me to the point where I needed a bariatric intervention or a procedure. Then I needed to work on how do I optimise myself for the future. Yeah absolutely. That I think was the start for me.
Dr Lucy Burns (04:49) Yeah yes I think you're absolutely right. There are and again there's this phrase that I hate and I think you probably do too called failed bariatric. What are your thoughts on that?
Tash Jarrett (05:05) My thoughts on that if you're listening and you feel like you have failed you are not a failure. You have not failed your sleeve. You have not failed your bypass. You are not a failure. You have had a procedure and perhaps this particular intervention has not been as effective as you wanted it to be. But it is not about you being responsible for that. It is about looking at where we're at and going okay well this has happened. How do we move on from here? What can I do in order to feel better about myself? Because one thing I've learned over the last six years is even with all of the weight loss it did not change how I felt about myself. Just because we lose weight we think that it's going to be the silver bullet. We think when I lose weight I will feel. But let me tell you that unless we work on the relationship that we have within ourselves with ourselves and we learn to actually be kind, compassionate and care for ourselves we will find something else to loathe about you. And that is the part of the bariatric journey that I see as a missing piece. Because until I learnt to care for myself until I learnt to put away the toxic, completely toxic self-talk that I had going on on the inside, nothing changed.
Dr Lucy Burns (07:00) Yes, yes, absolutely. And even that toxic self-talk that we can do that can be habitual. Like it's us, you know, we have a little phrase, the ant, the automatic negative thought. It pops in before you've even realised that you're doing it.
Tash Jarrett (07:17) It does. The ants were rampant. I had a whole picnic of them. And it took time for me to learn what it is to actually have compassion for me. So many of us, and I can be compassionate to others so easily. But when it came to myself, I was cruel. I was harsh on myself. I felt like I was a failure because I was living in a bigger body. I felt, you know, all of these really awful negative things that I would never say to someone else. But I was more than happy to just heap that on myself on a daily basis. And I had to start unpicking that and work out why I, why do I do this? Why am I doing this to myself? And until I stopped sabotaging myself in that way, even at my thinnest, I still did not like myself. So don't think that just because you have a bariatric procedure, you will suddenly love yourself and it will be fantastic. Of course, that can happen. And it does happen for some people. But if you've struggled with feelings of self-worth, you won't necessarily just magically find them in bariatric surgery. It's an inside job. And your weight, your success or failure is not about a number. You just because of who you are, you're loved and valuable and acceptable and all of those things. That is the real message behind, I believe behind being able to walk out a bariatric journey that is optimised is understanding that the relationship that you have with you is the most important one you'll ever have.
Dr Lucy Burns (09:10) Yeah, absolutely. I love that. And I think when you get that, that self, you know, and again, Australians really hate the phrase self-love, you know, love loving yourself.
Tash Jarrett (09:25) It's it makes us love ourselves. Yeah, love yourself.
Dr Lucy Burns (09:29) I know. I know. And that's it. It was used as a slur when we were, you know, younger, or you've got tickets and you know, you don't want to be don't get ahead of yourself. There's all of that. I think that when you get to that point where you're at peace with yourself, so even if the phrase love yourself doesn't resonate, if you're at peace with yourself, then what enables you to do is work on the maintenance of your health. Because it's not it's actually not a destination, even though, you know, we always talk about like your weight loss goal, like you get there, and then you're done.
Tash Jarrett (10:05) Yeah, you're not. Something that I see a lot in our support group anyway, is there can become this real sense of even just sort of, I'm lost when we do achieve the goal because the number isn't the destination. It's the ongoing, healthy, empowered life that we want to achieve. And that does require ongoing maintenance, it does require ongoing self-love and care. If you don't prioritise self-love and care, then it's very easy, particularly after a bariatric journey, to get off track. For me, anyway, if I don't pay mindful attention to nourishing myself properly, it's very easy for my blood test results to go awry. That can happen very easily. And just this year, we've had some challenging times as a family with, you know, with the cancer diagnosis for my mum and with my dad having a quadruple bypass. So that was a lot to process. I had two parents in the hospital at the same time, and both were very, very unwell. And I found that during that time, my negative self-talk, and my ants came back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. All of a sudden, the picnic buffet was open again. And I stopped doing the things that I knew I needed to do for my own for my own health and my own life. It's an ongoing journey. And it isn't just a number on the scale that that will be the destination. It is that that is ongoing every day choosing ourselves. And it's not wrong to choose yourself. It's not wrong to choose your health. And that's the real thing about bariatrics, about metabolic procedures that I love. It's the ability to be able to live a full life. And that's why we do it. Yeah, nobody goes goes into bariatric surgery, hoping to have a poor outcome. We go in it because we want to dramatic change. So I would encourage you that if you want to have that health and wellness for the long term, then we need to not just think I'm having a procedure, we need to think I'm having a whole new way of living.
Dr Lucy Burns (12:37) Yeah, yes, yes. And that the biology, psychology, and societal aspects, they will all will all need to change.
Tash Jarrett (12:46) That's right. And hopefully, we work out how to mesh them all together. And it does create a powerful change that lasts. Which is obviously what we really want.
Dr Lucy Burns (13:01) Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, at the end of the day, every human wants, you know, good health, nobody ever wakes up every morning going, Oh, I can't wait to be sick today. Great. Exactly.
Tash Jarrett (13:11) Exactly. I mean, we all want that great health. And sometimes we don't really value it until it's gone.
Dr Lucy Burns (13:23) No, no, no. Or we put it off thinking, Oh, well, I can get to that tomorrow.
Tash Jarrett (13:30) I'll do or you know, start on Monday or that'll come later or it'll be fine. But no, it's in the small things. I mean, I know, for me, I felt really overwhelmed at the start but really overwhelmed by the whole thing. But it's just in making those small little changes that eventually add up to a changed life. If it all seems too hard, like if it seems too hard to overcome the, you know, like the overwhelming food noise that can still happen even after we've had a bariatric procedure, even if we just deal with one thing at a time, break it down, don't even worry about all of the rest of it, but just work on the relationship with yourself. And that self-love and everything else comes easier when that self-loathing isn't driving everything.
Dr Lucy Burns (14:23) Yes. Well, you know, one of our favourite sayings is you can't hate yourself thin and you can't berate yourself well.
Tash Jarrett (14:30) Yeah, well, I completely agree with you. It is something that I wish I had understood years and years ago.
Dr Lucy Burns (14:39) Yeah, it's hard. We think that by, you know, giving ourselves a good kick up the pants, a good, you know, slap around the chops that somehow that's going to magically motivate us. But I often say, you know, if you've got a really harsh boss at work if you've got somebody who the only reason you move or do anything is because they're riding you, it's not for a long and happy life. So Tash, you're now, as you mentioned, seven years down the track. And, you know, obviously a huge, you know, the health of experience and information and wisdom. And you're now sharing that with other people. Tell us a little bit about that.
Tash Jarrett (15:26) I do share that with other people. I hope it's helpful.
Dr Lucy Burns (15:33) I'm sure it is.
Tash Jarrett (15:34) Sometimes I wonder. But yeah, I love to be able to share with others. And really, I'm passionate about community. I'm passionate about being able to see people coming together who all share just common challenges, common struggles, but also so that we can support each other and uplift each other. And my brother and I actually have a support group on Facebook called Bariatric Support Australia. And we've been doing that for a long time now. And we're just very, very passionate about people having access to great information. But also, like I said, just having that community, the community supports other people who have been through the same types of things. I mean, I often say, we are all in the same storm. We are not in the same boat. All of our boats are different. Some of us have a rowboat. I feel like I had a rowboat. Other people might have a superyacht. I did not have a superyacht. But we are all in the same storm, which is that bariatric type of a journey or that metabolic type of a journey. And I've found that the community is a really powerful place to be able to learn and grow.
Dr Lucy Burns (16:57) Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, what you're able to offer your community is a combination of some of the things that have perhaps not gone as well as you might have liked or hoped, you know, various complications. And we all know that there is no surgical intervention that is without risks or complications, but… Hundred per cent. And, you know, hopefully, people know about those. But also, it means that if something's not going right for them, they've got a place where they can ask without feeling like an idiot, because that's always the worst thing as well, you know, and without feeling dismissed, they're validated and heard. So I love that you're doing that for your community.
Tash Jarrett (17:40) Thank you. Yeah. My journey has not been without its challenges, without complications. I would actually say that I've had a very complicated journey post-bariatrics, and I've shared all about it because it really is important to know that while most people do have a relatively complication-free time post-op, not everybody does. And it is important to, I think, in the interest of being properly educated or understanding what can potentially happen, to read all different types of accounts and all different stories. But also, it really is important to keep in mind that usually when people reach out to a support group, it's because they need support. And we usually only need support when something bad's happening. It's pretty unusual for people to reach out and go, hey, guys, I just want to tell you I am great. I mean, I wish it happened more. Like, I would be totally here for that. I think that that would be amazing. But generally speaking, online, we can think that, I personally think anyway, that at times it can look disproportionate, the amount of complications, because when people need support, that's when they're reaching out and, you know, something might have gone wrong. But honestly, overwhelmingly, most people have a really good experience. And I love that we do hear about that as well. So we try to keep Bariatric Support Australia a positive, helpful and uplifting place where we are free to share all of the challenges, just knowing that we can be there for each other, regardless of what it is.
Dr Lucy Burns (19:38) Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And I guess, you know, resources and all of those things to know what to do when things don't go when you're not in your superyacht and the world's not smooth sailing, what do you do?
Tash Jarrett (19:49) Yeah, that's right. If the rowboat has a hole, then we know how to plug it. Or at least, we'll be able to resource ourselves with someone that does.
Dr Lucy Burns (19:59) Yes, indeed. Indeed. I love that. And you've got a podcast as well because you know...
Tash Jarrett (20:03) We do. We do have a podcast.
Dr Lucy Burns (20:05) Yeah. Tell us about your podcast.
Tash Jarrett (20:07) So our podcast is called The Bari Chronicles. And we love to chat with, well, our own lived experience people, you know, part of our community. We love speaking with doctors, surgeons, exercise physiologists, dietitians. We talk to everyone, psychologists, and we just love to be able to provide the story, the chronicles of the bariatric life. And we're actually hoping, Dr Lucy, that you'll come on ours.
Dr Lucy Burns (20:40) Of course. Of course, I would be delighted. And I think what you're, again, with all of those guests, what you've absolutely just described is that you know, you're not a one-trick pony either. There's not just one thing. It's, as we like to say, it's not this or that. It's not lifestyle or surgery. It's not lifestyle or, you know, injectable weight loss medications. It's not, well, all you need is a meal plan. Like, it's not one thing.
Tash Jarrett (20:06) It's all the things.
Dr Lucy Burns (20:08) Yes.
Tash Jarrett (20:08) All the things together. And even though I've talked a lot about bariatric things today, metabolic surgery, I'm also very aware that that is not the be-all and the end-all for each person. Whatever the journey is, you should feel empowered and supported. And that's really what, I guess, the spirit behind what we hope to foster is just an inclusive community that is giving access to the very best advice for the individual because we actually care about them.
Dr Lucy Burns (21:45) Yeah, beautiful. I love that. Well done. Well, I think amazing on, you know, again, not just your health journey, but the way that you're showing up, the way that you're showing up for yourself, for your community, the flow on effect, the ripple effect that you're creating. I think it's amazing and I love it.
Tash Jarrett (22:05) Thank you, Dr Lucy. We think you're amazing, too.
Dr Lucy Burns (22:09) Well, you know, let's all be amazing together. You know, to quote a bit of Tay Tay, haters are always going to hate, but there are plenty of people out there who aren't in that hating camp. So yay for us.
Tash Jarrett (22:20) That's right. Yep.
Dr Lucy Burns (22:22) All right. Lovely ones have the most spectacular week and I will see you next week on the Real Health and Weight Loss podcast. Bye for now.
Dr Lucy Burns (22:33) The information shared on the Real Health and Weight Loss Podcast, including show notes and links, provides general information only. It is not a substitute, nor is it intended to provide individualised medical advice, diagnosis or treatment, nor can it be construed as such. Please consult your doctor for any medical concerns.
