Hey gang!

I just wanted to throw it out into the universe that I'm having surgery in 1 week!!!!! It all came together very suddenly for me, so I'm having a bit of a hard time letting it sink in & feeling lilke it's real. I've struggled with my preop diet a bit lately, so I will be soaking up all the support on this board to get me through this week!

I need a mantra to help me with my sugar addiction. Something to remind myself why I'm doing this when I start to get the chocolate cravings. Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,
Somayeh

Hi. I'm Somayeh, and I'm a food addict, compulsive overeater, and disordered binge eater.

Well, being a binge eater, I struggle with periods of restrictive eating followed by binges/binge periods (several days of binging daily). I'm in therapy for it, but it's a long, agonizing process to recovery. Part of it involves being mindful of the physical discomfort/pain that comes with my binges. Part - and this is the hardest part - involves forgiving myself my slips. That's not to say that I should excuse, or accept that binges are OK. But the guilt cycle that usually follows binges fuels self-punishing restrictive periods that only lead to further binges. This means that moving forward with VSG, I sometimes have to look at things a little differently than most post-ops. 

I've been doing really well with my preop diet over the last week, but I failed to plan ahead today and after returning from an exhausting shopping trip where I had to drag home nearly 50 lbs on an empty stomach, I broke and binged. Not a little slip, either. I jumped in head first. Having followed a reduced calory, low fat, low carb diet for the last week, I am in quite a bit of discomfort following the binge. Which is good. My body is telling me: "Don't do that. That **** ain't funny anymore. Are you crazy? Do you want to die?" No. I don't want to die. I don't want to binge. I want to eat like a normal person.

But I can accept incremental growth. I can accept that sometimes, I go back to my old eating habits. I can also accept that part of this process involves reinforcing new neural pathways that give me different options than restrict->binge->guilt-trip->self-hate->restrict, etc. As much as it seems to go against approaches I usually see on these forums, my journey invovles a calm and loving acceptance that sometimes it's 2 steps forward, 1 step back. So as much as I want to beat myself up and throw myself into a guilt cycle for the binge, I decided it would be healthier to come here and share with others who can empathize with my story. 

So here goes: I binged today. I didn't like it (even during the binge), I didn't even enjoy the food I binged on (funny how you can notice how processed foods taste differently after a week on healthy fresh foods). It was uncomfortable and unnecessary. But I can accept that it happened. I can forgive myself for it. Now, I can move forward thinking about how I can better fuel my body for a more comfortable eating pattern for the rest of the day.

Step 1: Don't starve myself for the rest of the day in retaliation. I think I'll make that Green Chicken Soup Elina's mentioned. I've been wanting to for some time. It sounds healthy, hearty and yummy. 


Somayeh

 Great job! I can see the difference. You're looking good! Keep it up!

Somayeh

 Hot tea, hot broth, extra vitamins and carry a blanket wherever you go this weekend. We're not gonna let it get us down! Plenty time time to reocup =D


Somayeh

Me too! We have the same surgery date! I'm really excited. You're going to rock this, Surgery Sista'!


Somayeh

 Hey Gang. 

I'm having my VSG in 11 days and guess what? I woke up this morning with a cold! I swear, I see like 50 of these "I have surgery in ____ days and I just got a cold!" posts every month. Maybe it's a combination of pre-op stress & anxiety plus being extra busy (preparing for post-op needs added to the normal daily responsibilities) equals compromised immune system. Bah. Math sucks.


Time to take care of myself! =D
Somayeh

 There are a couple of large muscle clusters that you could focus on that will keep your lmm% up without feeling like you're getting too bulky. I'm still pre-op, but because I have heart palpitations due to thyroid issues, my trainer had me focusing on building up lmm to increase my metabolism to promote weight loss. 

She focused on my my:

1) Back muscles (trapezius & lattisimus dorsi)
2) Butt muscles (guteus medius & maximus)
3) Core

The exercises are pretty simple & for the most part, super popular. Rows, pull downs, (weighted) squats, etc. 

I'm still pre-op (2 weeks left!) and will probably have to wait until mid-summer before I am getting enough nutrients in to start lifting again. I am by no means an expert, but my rearch leads me to suggest focusing on exercises that activate multiple muscle groups and keep moving up in weight. When I am weight lifting, I follow the rule of thumb that if I can do 12 of them without experiencing muscle fatigue, I'm on too low a weight. When I make adjustments to my resistance, I look for a weight where I struggled to get to 4-6 reps. Once I could make it to 8-10, I'd up the weight.

There are lots body building forums that talk about various rep/set methods (you can see a brief outline of some types here). Experiment and see what works for you. Or you could cycle through them, since the body seems to respond well to change-ups!


Good luck!
Somayeh

Nope. Not even a little bit. Not for one second. Knowing that while I was pushing the food in my mouth, I was putting myself at risk for:

1) heart problems
2) reproductive problems
3) gastrointestinal problems
4) insulin & pre-diabetic problems
5) depression
6) looking like a fat girl & all the angst that comes with that


didn't stop me. Why would skin at #7 have tipped it over over the edge? I have a problem, pure & simple. I have an eating disorder, and it would have taken/is taking a lot more than that to make me to suddenly stop the behaviors that got me here. For me, for right now, it's all about treatment, treatment, treatment. My brain is full of stinkin' thikin' that concerns about excess skin couldn't even begin to combat.

But that's me & that's my disorder.
Somayeh

 I was just reading a book my therapist wrote when I came across the following exerpt: 

"...remember that the more times the marble rolls down the groove in the sand, the deeper the groove will get. That’s why practice makes progress (notice that I did not say perfect). The more you think or behave in a certain way, the more ingrained the pattern becomes. Neural pathways are reinforced every time you perform an action such as chewing slowly, stopping eating when you are no longer hungry, or walking right past the mirror without checking out your body. The more you do something, the easier it becomes, forming the positive feedback loop that promotes ultimate transformation." ~ Karen Koenig, The Rules of Normal Eating


It made me think back on this post and reaffirmed my hope. Thought I'd share with others who found this post helpful.

Thanks again for posting it!
Somayeh

You know, I never knew what a hiatal hernia was before I read this post & googled it. Now I think I have one. =D

I'll keep you posted on what the doc says on May 10th! 

 I didn't realize weight training was 3 months out. I was planning to start about a month out. Good information!


Thanks,
Somayeh

 Krissy,

There is nothing wrong with you! You're doing exactly what you need to be doing. Your body just underwent a major trauma. It has to heal. Healing means inflammation. Healing means water retention. Healing means stuff shifting and rearranging while your body takes the time to realize it's not in mortal danger anymore. 

As pre-ops, we read SOOOOO many posts about people experiences, and we grow to expect that our journey will follow some kind of clear, pre-determined model. The truth is that individual metabolism is complicated, and unique. Don't compare yourself to anyone else. It's tempting (I know!) but all it does is distract you from being in touch with what your own body is doing/needs. Eat (/drink for now) according to plan. Get up and move as often as you can for as long as you can. Focusing on the scale means constantly comparing yourself to unreal expectations, and that is a recipe for frustration, self-doubt, and stress, all three of which are not condusive to weight loss/healthy lifestyle.

It's easy for me to say this as I'm still pre-op, and I know I'll probably feel the same way early out, but it's important to remind yourself that at its core, this is a numbers game. At this stage, it's very difficult (not impossible, but man, drinking heated up lard does not sound like fun) for you to eat enough to push you up over 2000 calories/day. 

If the scale is stressing you out, stay off of it for a few weeks. Maybe a month. Just stay on plan and focus on feeling better and living better. 


Somayeh

Congradulations on both your progress and your wonderful self-insight.

I've known for many years now that there are many psychological issues that facilitated my developing disordered eating patterns, and being a yo-yo dieter taught me just how potent self-sabotage can be. I'm starting psychological counselling twice a week the week before my surgery, to help me deal with the emotions leading up to and after surgery, and I plan to continue at least once a week after about 1 month post-op. I am trying to treat this as a mutli-disciplinary approach to my health, with surgery being medical, therapy on the psych side, and "working out"/"getting out"/"getting moving" on the biological/physical side (also psych side, as many studies have shown!).

It's been posts like yours that I've been reading over the last 7 years that has convinced me of the value of keeping psych as much a part of my equation as the post-op diet.


Thank you for your bravery & for sharing!
Somayeh