How can you lose 130 pounds and feel fatter than ever before? Worried I'm done losing. ...

OK, I am not going to slap you, but I am going to go Dutch Uncle on you.  Any time I hear this message, I know it is my addiction talking to me, the monkey on my back.  He is trying to get me to eat.  That's all my addiction cares about, and it wants to kill me.

"...but I just can't totally shake these feelings of being totally fat, totally a failure, and totally wanting a gigantic bowl of popcorn and just forget the whole thing."

I have been stuck for a while, it's a head thing, but here's the truth:  getting better means learning to accept, live with, and ultimately ignore the monkey's rant because for many of us the monkey doesn't go away. 

I'm serious as a heart attack.  There is as much recovery - more even - in learning how to tolerate the frustration of being stuck without giving up and eating over it as there is in losing weight.  The monkey tells you you're a failure *just so* you'll give up and eat.  I have to use a lot of self-talk to counteract that, because those feelings of being a failure are like poison to me - they send me right back to the food.

I tell myself, I cannot go back to the food *even if* I don't lose anymore weight.  I have to tell myself that clean eating is its own reward.  That I cannot control how much I weigh, only how much I eat. 

Also, I had a shrink who told me that research shows it takes two full years for our body image to adjust to the new body.  All of us have fat and ugly days.  It will take *years* for that to change, and it's just another thing we have to learn to accept.  You aren't a failure for feeling this way, you're *normal.* 

Thank you so much, what a great post! 

You know, I've always been very very very resistant to calling myself a "food addict".  I never thought that term applied to me.  I gained the vast majority of my weight due to a rare endocrine disease (cushing's disease) and so I thought my weight was basically attributed to that.  

Well, along the way I've had some eye openers.  I posted not too long ago about chewing up some cookies and spitting them out before swallowing.  Yeah, NOT NORMAL behavior!  And now, with my obsessively thinking of popcorn. 

I think I was all too comfortable to blame my medical condition for my weight gain rather than owning up to the fact that I have some serious food issues as well.  

I have a book loaded on my kindle that I haven't read yet about mindful eating and food addiction.  Maybe it's time to get crackin on that...  :)

I was very happy to see this post today, not because you are feeling this way, but because I can relate to what you are saying.  I am almost 5 months out and down 70 lbs.  I for the past 2 weeks I have been having overwhelming feelings of inadequacy and "feeling fat".  It upsets me that I am feeling this way because I know it is not true!  I spend 9 months going through COE treatment before deciding to go through with surgery.  I worked on all these things during my treatment and hoped I had conquered most of those old body image issues and not feeling good enough.  But I have realized in the past couple of weeks that I still have underlying issues that I need work on.  I don't thing they will ever go away for me but I do know I can quite the negative internal thoughts and turn up the positive thoughts.  I also have had an increase in my anxiety in the past couple of weeks and I know the negative thoughts, my eating and anxiety are closely tied together. 

I need to contact my therapist again and get back to work!  Best wishes to you in your journey, thanks for being so honest.

Kristin

Wow, that's great that you did all that groundwork in dealing with your COE before surgery.  Very smart.  Sorry to hear those negative thought and anxieties are still being a burden.  70 pounds in 5 months is amazing!!  I hope that you can see your success soon and enjoy it. 

Sorry you are feeling in the same boat, but thanks for commiserating!