Gastric Bypass Surgery Support Group
Gastric bypass (GBP) is any of a group of similar operative procedures used to treat morbid obesity, a condition which arises from severe accumulation of excess weight in the form of fatty tissue, and the health problems ("co-morbidities") which result. If you are considering gastric bypass or have had it, join the community where we share our experiences and find support.
I) WHY WLS:
Long-term 66% (typically only 5-10% excess or 5-20 pounds) on a diet program will regain all in 2 years. 99% regain all by 5 years post-diet.
Those MO not only regain the wt but MORE! Conventional therapies fail because obesity is a disease a progressive and life-threatening disease.
Bariatric surgery helps to break many of these obesity-promoting cycles, improving the need for medication, normalizing hormones and some of the weight-promoting eating behavior regulators, increasing physical activity and calories burned, improving metabolism, and resolving disease and the need for medications that can cause weight gain. The interruption of these vicious weight gain cycles with bariatric surgery, coupled with the restriction that the surgery imposes on nutrient intake, induces massive weight reduction.
Studies have found that 5 years after RNY most will have maintained 48 to 74% of their excess weight loss. 14 years after surgery, average excess weight loss for RNY exceeded 50%.
For continued maximal weight loss success, the bariatric patient must realize that their surgery is not a cure for obesity but rather a tool that can assist in keeping the disease suppressed. The surgical tool is effective in inducing and helping to maintain weight loss by substantially reducing total calorie intake. And, as mentioned earlier, the surgical tool breaks those obesity-promoting biological cycles that contribute to the progression of the disease and prevent the afflicted individual from gaining control over their body weight.
What can you as the bariatric patient do to keep you disease under control?
First, recognize obesity for what it is a progressive and malignant disease.
Second, know that your surgery is a tool, rather than a cure for your disease that can enable you to lose massive amounts of body weight.
Third, recognize that the surgical tool can help you to keep your disease suppressed and enjoy long-term weight loss maintenance, provided you are willing to make lifestyle changes necessary for long-term weight loss success including:
o 1) regular physical activity
o 2) good nutrition and appropriate vitamin/mineral supplementation,
o 3) assistance in improving emotional status
o 4) continued involvement in a bariatric support group and in your clinical program.
II) HOW TO PREPARE???
Maybe not what I wish I knew but what I wish I could of accepted and let go of!
The little things I so worried about (such as what to bring, if I needed a fan, if I could bring extra pillows or having the perfect plan postop etc really were attempts to soothe my anxiety and fear of the unknown (death especially!), now I see that but the lesson just keeps coming up until I master it, the lesson is acceptance, letting go, making a decision and being ok with the outcome regardless if it turns out as I hoped because my plan is not always what is best for me!
Making an educated and informed decision is important, for myself though letting go of the need to be perfect, rigid thinking (all/nothing), needing to control everything and in doing all the thinking avoiding the feeling and life, being consumed with WLS in general so much I 'lost my life/identity' to a LABEL (I was a WLS person) when in fact I am much more than that.
That despite the OPERATION the need for myself to do personal growth (therapy, 12 step work, develop supportive network, learn to take care of me FIRST) around my personality/character traits of codependency and how they are so intertwined into my obesity no tool can fix those (although I wish it could of, that would of been magic as many of us hope WLS will be!).
That in acceptance of myself at any moment, healthy boundaries, taking care of myself I could succeed or at least learn to reframe success as something more than a number on a scale or if I ate enough that day in protein or didnt eat too many carbs or drank enough fluid or got exactly enough exercise in etc.
III) Surgery was the easy part looking back although going through it I thought it was the hard part living the lifestyle after in a consistent, self responsible manner is the most CHALLENGING thing I have ever chosen to do, I did not realize preop the immense effort it takes each moment to be healthy! It is so worth that energy though the freedom it brings!
I wish I had accepted vs. known intellectually that Happiness and Success will NEVER EVER come from an external source (person, object, number on the scale). It can and will ONLY come from internal self-discovery and love. Listening to my BODY is key, my natural physical hunger, my body knows and will not let me down
Sometimes we consume our lives with food, thinking about what we can and can not have, when we can eat or should eat, how much, how often, how it should be cooked, when to buy it, how much, etc that we occupy so much time and do not even realize that we have no time left to feel (the point) in an addiction, it takes over us so we can forget us and what we are scared/fearful of feeling/being.
IV ADDICTIONS/EMOTIONS:
I think the WLS lifestyle can be a sort of addiction and escape for a while (until life overwhelms the beauty of the honeymoon!) and for myself exercise became an obsessive addiction as well.
I wish I had known thatWLS is one of the million steps on my lifes journey *it is not the destination*!
1. Writing all the reasons why thiswas mychoice, what myexpectations and goals were (*considering those beyond wt loss itself), whatI was sofearful of. All my core fears (Death, Failure, Making wrong decision, not being accepted and loved/abandoned, not perfect enoughetc)
2. I recommend those preop consider trying to fill their minds with as much optimism and positive thinking as possible! Basically, become more conscious of what you are thinking and feeling, and start preparing yourself to think of food and your life in a different way. This is a courageous step for you to take, and it's not just about weight changing -- it's about life changing. This is why so many of us are challenged by the enormity of the decision.
3. Have the support system needed to create the healthiest environment as well, willpower fades, the tools robust effects fades as well as the honeymoon closes...
YES THIS IS NOT THE EASY WAY OUT! It takes extraordinary courage to make the decision and live w/ the choices we make to consciously limit food choices for the rest of our lives (and potentially limit social opportunities built around meals) among all the other potential complications it can bring short or long-term....
#1) Establish your mindset to accept that weight loss surgery is not a cure/quick fix for morbid obesity, it's a very effective/powerful/wonderful tool that can be used lifelong to combat the chronic/lifelong disease of morbid obesity that has NO *current* CURE (*So at 1 yr out when many say 100# gone forever I sometimes shudder, it is never gone forever it is gone for now but the work has just started at 1 yr out IMHO).
#2) The tool is flawed and can be defeated as well (emotional eating, grazing, drinking calories, eating/drinking together, alcohol use, high calorie dense foods, too many simple carbs, overfilling pouch, carbonation, no consistent exercise routine).
#3 Considered WLS as part of a life-long process & commitment to challenge your personal awareness/responsibility/consistency/accountability and that a life-long requirement to follow up with physicians, a regular exercise program, and healthy eating.
#4 Accept it will come w/ potential challenges & imperfections (risks, side-effects, complications, challenges such as plateaus, not meeting goal, regain, possible depression, grief over the loss/safety of food/obesity may of offered/invisibility it offered although may of been unwanted at the time/the new attention you get, possible anger or anxiety w/o comfort of food as it used to be/limits it may impose, effort it requires to be healthy etc.) that these frustrations are part of the process to make you healthier see them as challenges not difficulties, positive self talk helps!.
Your mindset will be the most important tool for success, as all the challenges of traditional diets/exercise plans for health will be present after WLS as well *Yup so many say I will never diet again, well let me say diets don't work *because people go off them* correct but you will have to be mindful of food and pay attention to intake and exercise for life, so in a sense your dieting for life! Even after WLS....
The surgery won't make a person change, but the beauty is YOU HAVE COMPLETE control over those changes/choices needed after surgery for success, the choices are there and the best use of the mind/psychology will harness those. Surgery is such a drastic choice that so many are successful due to a recommitment to healthy living and choices that is one reason it works and we say it is a 'rebirth'.
#5 Harness your enthusiasm and mind for 6 months doing all you can to influence (not only wt loss) but the healthy lifestyle you want to adopt for maintenance, that elusive animal no one has mastered pre-wls. Exercise can become more routine after 6 months as well. Again the mind is just as/more useful than the pouch...it is the operator of the tool! Stress inevitable, so see each issue/stressful time as an opportunity to use your new tool/mindset! (Like I say use things as excuses or opportunities because holidays come and go each year as do parties, office food/celebrations, hurt feelings, sadness, losses, etc)
#6 Get a good journal, start writing today all the reasons you are COMMITTED to this change, what your expectations are (hopefully realistic for wt loss 50-80% of excess not an ideal body wt) and that the goals are not wt related alone, the functional ones how you can integrate into life easier, (clothes fitting, less medical co morbidities or risk of, less meds, less pain (physical/emotional) the benchmarks you are setting, take measurements and photos each month along w/ weights to document the journey. the mind is powerful but may be challenging to change so the photos/measurements help when the HUNKAMETAL doesn't register a loss. We are much more than a number on a scale, free from the numbers and see how much you are more than that as a person, your abilities etc....The journey is full of hills and valleys, some bumps and many more pleasures to see, it can be an awesome ADVENTURE!
The letter you may write/journal entry today may save you from backsliding at your first plateau or at 1 yr out, a recommitment to those thoughts, and how you have grown over time. These are the things I recommend.
Food cravings typically are in relation to or emotions. Different things signal different needs, as long as we focus on the gut to meet that need of the spirit/heart/head it will never be filled and instead we go around hungry still. Reframing the importance of eating to live vs. living to eat is helpful for me.
Ask yourself, what am I REALLY hungry for? Many of us find in the quietness of our mind the heart says it is not food.... We used to meet all our needs with food, now is a great opportunity to discover other ways to get out needs met w/o food, to realign food in a new way, refocus and reframe its place in our lives. Taking the emphasis off it we once had. In that we are free to be, discover and live fully!
SOMETIMES OUR wounded child cries, who is attempting to find happiness/peace/safety/control by using food as a way to soothe emotions such as: fear, loneliness, sadness, anger, shame, guilt, hurt. When this happens for me I look within myself asking what am I FEELING and why? I just know for myself the road of my destructive emotional eating as a dangerous and unhealthy/unfulfilling one that leads me further down a path of self-destruction/hate.
I am wrapping my brain around: DIETS NEVER WORK, they always lead to a binge.
Over/under/controlled eating is a symptom of the internal out of control feelings we have...We want to be happy and healthy yet we can not if we continue to punish ourselves w/ food (by restricting or permitting)..We can move out of the victim role, and heal and thrive! It takes work to look within, feel our feelings, see how we are involved in areas of our lives that reinforce our victim personality, healing the inner child, seeing how that hurt has permeated our current lives/personality and relationships w/ food and others.
Those that have goals that are health focused and functionally focused do the best (vs. those that are scale or weight/number focused). I am such a firm believer in not allowing the scale (or hunkametal that it is) to rule or dictate ones life/thoughts/feelings any longer, I agree we want to lose wt but gaining our health and ability to function in life are far more important than any number the scale can read; otherwise if it never reads the number we think, others say, a chart suggests we fail and that is simply not true!!!
Most of our lives we have set RIGID, UNREALISTIC WEIGHT LOSS GOALS for ourselves that are BOTH UNATTAINABLE and CHRONICALLY DISAPPOINTING and lead to DEVASTATION & the slippery slope of self-sabotage...Review the UNDERLYING lifestyle change such as exercise, food choices, self-awareness/monitoring, avoidance of emotional eating, adherence to living self responsibly in a CONSISTENT way that is the foundation to our long-term success. For me I keep telling myself daily that***THE GOAL SHOULD NEVER BE A NUMBER*** These choices are what makes WLS work long-term and not be another failed diet attempt (and believe me it is for MANY! So I use that fear to keep plugging along)..
It is a wonderful tool to build the foundation and sadly one that has ways to be defeated/broken down as we all can discover (grazing etc).
Consider writing all the 'supports' of diet/exercise/lifestyle changes, coping skills etc for non-emotional eating (i.e through individual therapy, support groups) you have worked on, now where do you need to add reinforcements?
You now are seeing it can collapse and the WLS tool if not used properly/consistently can be defeated w/o the extra supporting structures...Like having only one wall of your basement in place before putting the house on top.. what happens? it can crumble w/ the weight of the house (your life/the worlds challenges), but if you have the 4 walls in place (food choices/planning/healthy and consistent choices, exercise, self awareness/monitoring, support); then the WLS tool can just reinforce that foundation and make the house stand strong for a long long time! :-)
In closing I would not be who I am or where I am without my past, I am choosing to be grateful today for all my struggles/challenges, as they were only lessons and opportunities that presented themselves and that I have been able to embrace and learn and grow from. I needed those things such as my exercise addiction to be able to see that balance is possible, that feeling is okay, that I am perfect the way I am, that I am loveable, that I can make decisions and live with the outcome!
ALTHOUGH I MAY NOT HAVE TOTAL CONTROL OVER WHAT HAPPENS IN MY LIFE, I CAN ALWAYS CONTROL MYSELF AND HOW I RESPOND TO WHAT HAPPENS
(i.e. complications but how I manage them if they happen is up to me
Long-term 66% (typically only 5-10% excess or 5-20 pounds) on a diet program will regain all in 2 years. 99% regain all by 5 years post-diet.
Those MO not only regain the wt but MORE! Conventional therapies fail because obesity is a disease a progressive and life-threatening disease.
Bariatric surgery helps to break many of these obesity-promoting cycles, improving the need for medication, normalizing hormones and some of the weight-promoting eating behavior regulators, increasing physical activity and calories burned, improving metabolism, and resolving disease and the need for medications that can cause weight gain. The interruption of these vicious weight gain cycles with bariatric surgery, coupled with the restriction that the surgery imposes on nutrient intake, induces massive weight reduction.
Studies have found that 5 years after RNY most will have maintained 48 to 74% of their excess weight loss. 14 years after surgery, average excess weight loss for RNY exceeded 50%.
For continued maximal weight loss success, the bariatric patient must realize that their surgery is not a cure for obesity but rather a tool that can assist in keeping the disease suppressed. The surgical tool is effective in inducing and helping to maintain weight loss by substantially reducing total calorie intake. And, as mentioned earlier, the surgical tool breaks those obesity-promoting biological cycles that contribute to the progression of the disease and prevent the afflicted individual from gaining control over their body weight.
What can you as the bariatric patient do to keep you disease under control?
First, recognize obesity for what it is a progressive and malignant disease.
Second, know that your surgery is a tool, rather than a cure for your disease that can enable you to lose massive amounts of body weight.
Third, recognize that the surgical tool can help you to keep your disease suppressed and enjoy long-term weight loss maintenance, provided you are willing to make lifestyle changes necessary for long-term weight loss success including:
o 1) regular physical activity
o 2) good nutrition and appropriate vitamin/mineral supplementation,
o 3) assistance in improving emotional status
o 4) continued involvement in a bariatric support group and in your clinical program.
II) HOW TO PREPARE???
Maybe not what I wish I knew but what I wish I could of accepted and let go of!
The little things I so worried about (such as what to bring, if I needed a fan, if I could bring extra pillows or having the perfect plan postop etc really were attempts to soothe my anxiety and fear of the unknown (death especially!), now I see that but the lesson just keeps coming up until I master it, the lesson is acceptance, letting go, making a decision and being ok with the outcome regardless if it turns out as I hoped because my plan is not always what is best for me!
Making an educated and informed decision is important, for myself though letting go of the need to be perfect, rigid thinking (all/nothing), needing to control everything and in doing all the thinking avoiding the feeling and life, being consumed with WLS in general so much I 'lost my life/identity' to a LABEL (I was a WLS person) when in fact I am much more than that.
That despite the OPERATION the need for myself to do personal growth (therapy, 12 step work, develop supportive network, learn to take care of me FIRST) around my personality/character traits of codependency and how they are so intertwined into my obesity no tool can fix those (although I wish it could of, that would of been magic as many of us hope WLS will be!).
That in acceptance of myself at any moment, healthy boundaries, taking care of myself I could succeed or at least learn to reframe success as something more than a number on a scale or if I ate enough that day in protein or didnt eat too many carbs or drank enough fluid or got exactly enough exercise in etc.
III) Surgery was the easy part looking back although going through it I thought it was the hard part living the lifestyle after in a consistent, self responsible manner is the most CHALLENGING thing I have ever chosen to do, I did not realize preop the immense effort it takes each moment to be healthy! It is so worth that energy though the freedom it brings!
I wish I had accepted vs. known intellectually that Happiness and Success will NEVER EVER come from an external source (person, object, number on the scale). It can and will ONLY come from internal self-discovery and love. Listening to my BODY is key, my natural physical hunger, my body knows and will not let me down
Sometimes we consume our lives with food, thinking about what we can and can not have, when we can eat or should eat, how much, how often, how it should be cooked, when to buy it, how much, etc that we occupy so much time and do not even realize that we have no time left to feel (the point) in an addiction, it takes over us so we can forget us and what we are scared/fearful of feeling/being.
IV ADDICTIONS/EMOTIONS:
I think the WLS lifestyle can be a sort of addiction and escape for a while (until life overwhelms the beauty of the honeymoon!) and for myself exercise became an obsessive addiction as well.
I wish I had known thatWLS is one of the million steps on my lifes journey *it is not the destination*!
1. Writing all the reasons why thiswas mychoice, what myexpectations and goals were (*considering those beyond wt loss itself), whatI was sofearful of. All my core fears (Death, Failure, Making wrong decision, not being accepted and loved/abandoned, not perfect enoughetc)
2. I recommend those preop consider trying to fill their minds with as much optimism and positive thinking as possible! Basically, become more conscious of what you are thinking and feeling, and start preparing yourself to think of food and your life in a different way. This is a courageous step for you to take, and it's not just about weight changing -- it's about life changing. This is why so many of us are challenged by the enormity of the decision.
3. Have the support system needed to create the healthiest environment as well, willpower fades, the tools robust effects fades as well as the honeymoon closes...
YES THIS IS NOT THE EASY WAY OUT! It takes extraordinary courage to make the decision and live w/ the choices we make to consciously limit food choices for the rest of our lives (and potentially limit social opportunities built around meals) among all the other potential complications it can bring short or long-term....
#1) Establish your mindset to accept that weight loss surgery is not a cure/quick fix for morbid obesity, it's a very effective/powerful/wonderful tool that can be used lifelong to combat the chronic/lifelong disease of morbid obesity that has NO *current* CURE (*So at 1 yr out when many say 100# gone forever I sometimes shudder, it is never gone forever it is gone for now but the work has just started at 1 yr out IMHO).
#2) The tool is flawed and can be defeated as well (emotional eating, grazing, drinking calories, eating/drinking together, alcohol use, high calorie dense foods, too many simple carbs, overfilling pouch, carbonation, no consistent exercise routine).
#3 Considered WLS as part of a life-long process & commitment to challenge your personal awareness/responsibility/consistency/accountability and that a life-long requirement to follow up with physicians, a regular exercise program, and healthy eating.
#4 Accept it will come w/ potential challenges & imperfections (risks, side-effects, complications, challenges such as plateaus, not meeting goal, regain, possible depression, grief over the loss/safety of food/obesity may of offered/invisibility it offered although may of been unwanted at the time/the new attention you get, possible anger or anxiety w/o comfort of food as it used to be/limits it may impose, effort it requires to be healthy etc.) that these frustrations are part of the process to make you healthier see them as challenges not difficulties, positive self talk helps!.
Your mindset will be the most important tool for success, as all the challenges of traditional diets/exercise plans for health will be present after WLS as well *Yup so many say I will never diet again, well let me say diets don't work *because people go off them* correct but you will have to be mindful of food and pay attention to intake and exercise for life, so in a sense your dieting for life! Even after WLS....
The surgery won't make a person change, but the beauty is YOU HAVE COMPLETE control over those changes/choices needed after surgery for success, the choices are there and the best use of the mind/psychology will harness those. Surgery is such a drastic choice that so many are successful due to a recommitment to healthy living and choices that is one reason it works and we say it is a 'rebirth'.
#5 Harness your enthusiasm and mind for 6 months doing all you can to influence (not only wt loss) but the healthy lifestyle you want to adopt for maintenance, that elusive animal no one has mastered pre-wls. Exercise can become more routine after 6 months as well. Again the mind is just as/more useful than the pouch...it is the operator of the tool! Stress inevitable, so see each issue/stressful time as an opportunity to use your new tool/mindset! (Like I say use things as excuses or opportunities because holidays come and go each year as do parties, office food/celebrations, hurt feelings, sadness, losses, etc)
#6 Get a good journal, start writing today all the reasons you are COMMITTED to this change, what your expectations are (hopefully realistic for wt loss 50-80% of excess not an ideal body wt) and that the goals are not wt related alone, the functional ones how you can integrate into life easier, (clothes fitting, less medical co morbidities or risk of, less meds, less pain (physical/emotional) the benchmarks you are setting, take measurements and photos each month along w/ weights to document the journey. the mind is powerful but may be challenging to change so the photos/measurements help when the HUNKAMETAL doesn't register a loss. We are much more than a number on a scale, free from the numbers and see how much you are more than that as a person, your abilities etc....The journey is full of hills and valleys, some bumps and many more pleasures to see, it can be an awesome ADVENTURE!
The letter you may write/journal entry today may save you from backsliding at your first plateau or at 1 yr out, a recommitment to those thoughts, and how you have grown over time. These are the things I recommend.
Food cravings typically are in relation to or emotions. Different things signal different needs, as long as we focus on the gut to meet that need of the spirit/heart/head it will never be filled and instead we go around hungry still. Reframing the importance of eating to live vs. living to eat is helpful for me.
Ask yourself, what am I REALLY hungry for? Many of us find in the quietness of our mind the heart says it is not food.... We used to meet all our needs with food, now is a great opportunity to discover other ways to get out needs met w/o food, to realign food in a new way, refocus and reframe its place in our lives. Taking the emphasis off it we once had. In that we are free to be, discover and live fully!
SOMETIMES OUR wounded child cries, who is attempting to find happiness/peace/safety/control by using food as a way to soothe emotions such as: fear, loneliness, sadness, anger, shame, guilt, hurt. When this happens for me I look within myself asking what am I FEELING and why? I just know for myself the road of my destructive emotional eating as a dangerous and unhealthy/unfulfilling one that leads me further down a path of self-destruction/hate.
I am wrapping my brain around: DIETS NEVER WORK, they always lead to a binge.
Over/under/controlled eating is a symptom of the internal out of control feelings we have...We want to be happy and healthy yet we can not if we continue to punish ourselves w/ food (by restricting or permitting)..We can move out of the victim role, and heal and thrive! It takes work to look within, feel our feelings, see how we are involved in areas of our lives that reinforce our victim personality, healing the inner child, seeing how that hurt has permeated our current lives/personality and relationships w/ food and others.
Those that have goals that are health focused and functionally focused do the best (vs. those that are scale or weight/number focused). I am such a firm believer in not allowing the scale (or hunkametal that it is) to rule or dictate ones life/thoughts/feelings any longer, I agree we want to lose wt but gaining our health and ability to function in life are far more important than any number the scale can read; otherwise if it never reads the number we think, others say, a chart suggests we fail and that is simply not true!!!
Most of our lives we have set RIGID, UNREALISTIC WEIGHT LOSS GOALS for ourselves that are BOTH UNATTAINABLE and CHRONICALLY DISAPPOINTING and lead to DEVASTATION & the slippery slope of self-sabotage...Review the UNDERLYING lifestyle change such as exercise, food choices, self-awareness/monitoring, avoidance of emotional eating, adherence to living self responsibly in a CONSISTENT way that is the foundation to our long-term success. For me I keep telling myself daily that***THE GOAL SHOULD NEVER BE A NUMBER*** These choices are what makes WLS work long-term and not be another failed diet attempt (and believe me it is for MANY! So I use that fear to keep plugging along)..
It is a wonderful tool to build the foundation and sadly one that has ways to be defeated/broken down as we all can discover (grazing etc).
Consider writing all the 'supports' of diet/exercise/lifestyle changes, coping skills etc for non-emotional eating (i.e through individual therapy, support groups) you have worked on, now where do you need to add reinforcements?
You now are seeing it can collapse and the WLS tool if not used properly/consistently can be defeated w/o the extra supporting structures...Like having only one wall of your basement in place before putting the house on top.. what happens? it can crumble w/ the weight of the house (your life/the worlds challenges), but if you have the 4 walls in place (food choices/planning/healthy and consistent choices, exercise, self awareness/monitoring, support); then the WLS tool can just reinforce that foundation and make the house stand strong for a long long time! :-)
In closing I would not be who I am or where I am without my past, I am choosing to be grateful today for all my struggles/challenges, as they were only lessons and opportunities that presented themselves and that I have been able to embrace and learn and grow from. I needed those things such as my exercise addiction to be able to see that balance is possible, that feeling is okay, that I am perfect the way I am, that I am loveable, that I can make decisions and live with the outcome!
ALTHOUGH I MAY NOT HAVE TOTAL CONTROL OVER WHAT HAPPENS IN MY LIFE, I CAN ALWAYS CONTROL MYSELF AND HOW I RESPOND TO WHAT HAPPENS
(i.e. complications but how I manage them if they happen is up to me
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GastricBypass-InfoCentral/
" I recommend those preop consider trying to fill their minds with as much optimism and positive thinking as possible!"
i.e Once someone has truly evaluated all the other stuff, weighed risks, gotten a firm grip on what is involved and what to expect, and then commited - at that point, focusing on the positive - on the benefits - is highly appropriate and beneficial. I did this myself - I just never put it into words.
Much more to think about here. This is a very good post. Not sure I agree with everything 100% (I seldom agree 100% with my own thoughts) but there is much here I do agree with as well as some things I hadn't considered. Thanks again for finding and reposting here. Definitely recommended reading.