how do you think of food? spin-off

Hi Carrie,
I certainly can relate.  I absolutely despise meal time now.  And I'm mad about that.  I used to enjoy sitting with my family and eating but now it just ****** me off.  And the different surgeon plans...what's up with that?  I'm over 4 weeks out and just now can have softer type foods.  I know it is being cautious and trying to make this work for me.  I should be happy and so grateful.  I've lost more weight than I would have ever on my own, so what's the problem?  I don't see me making peace with food for a long time.  The only good thing that I can say right now is that occassionally, I have good food days.  I don't like the taste of anything.  There is nothing appealing about it.  I'm not sure this will ever go away.  In a way, I hope it doesn't but I find it affecting my attitude completely.

Like Nate Food is Fuel for me and what I do.  I really don't have any emotional ties to any specific food. I admit there are foods I like over others but these are foods or types of foods I would probably eat anyway. 

I don't venture to far out into foods at this point, still being less than a year out but do eat things that aren't on my Surgeons list.

The simple fact is that if you let your emotions for food rule your world you will be a very unhappy person, and possibly fall back into old ways.  The fact is at this point in time you don't have a sensation of physical hunger, every hunger pain and craving you get is in your head.  The day will come where your body will say "WTF! I am hungry give me something", but when that day comes your body won't say "WTF! I am hungry and really need a Big Mac and Fries".  Your body simply doesn't care as long as it needs are being met.

You don't have to let go completely or adopt the Food is fuel mentality but you do need to take control of your mind.  Surgery was the easy part, living a healthy life is the harder part.

There are substitutes for most cravings you will have.  Want crunch?  try cheese crackers dozens of ways exist to make them, in a fry pan put a slice of cheddar and let it get bubly and brown on bottom then flip it, or you can take an itlatian cheese blend and bake it and you have CRACKERS! 

Again take control now because if you are pushing your surgeons plan to it's limit now where will you be in 6 months?

This is something YOU CAN DO  you just need to believe you can do it.  Almost everyone of us have been where you are at some point and have pushed through so it can be done.

Good Luck

 You are so early out, still.  I promise it does get better.  It really will.  You surgeon does seem to have one of the strictest plans I have seen and I admire you for working so hard to stick with it.  My surgeon didn't really have much of a plan.  I had some guidelines but mostly I used common sense and played it by ear and went by my individual preferences.
I promise by the time you are a year out none of this will be an issue.  Working with a counselor will help you come to terms with your eating issues.  At this point I have no food intolerance's at all, except that I dump, which I found out by accident and I am not upset about because I had planned on staying away from sugar anyway.
I already had one WLS which I failed with so in a way I was lucky because I have a lot of experience at what not to do.  I examined why I failed with it and my conclusion was simple.  I failed because I didn't change what I ate and how I ate.  I saw that my biggest problem was eating refined carbs.  I also saw that I had a problem with quantities.  Having a smaller stomach takes care of that.  I saw how I was undisciplined with my eating, eating whenever I felt like with no planning ahead and no thought about what was good for me.
Today I enjoy eating much more then I used to because I actually like what I am eating.  When I was shoveling food into my mouth before I didn't enjoy it, I did it almost because I felt compelled.  I wanted desperately to be freed from my obsession and compulsion to eat and I feel like I finally am.
I wish you much luck and peace.

I wouldn’t say I’ve “found peace with food" per se. But then I also wouldn’t say I had any discord with it. I had discord with me. Food was the way I tried to negotiate that discord, which is how the problems began.

 

(Grab a cup of coffee. I could go long on this one.)

 

So ok…in the beginning of my journey I thought a lot like you. Food is the ENEMY. Must get protein! No carbs! Anything I like MUST be bad! (Cuz really…my decision making up to that point made any personal preferences seem suspect)

 

True story: I reamed someone out on this very board for eating strawberries. Cuz they were carbs.

 

Part of this stemmed from my desire to totally change my relationship with food. Part of it was my individual food intolerances (damn near everything made me sick at first) and part of it was me drinking the Kool-Aid. There are some sayings in this community that make no sense to me. Such as:

 

• “Nothing tastes as good as thin feels" – Yeah…anyone who’s ever had a buffalo wing may beg to differ. Apples and oranges. Thin feels good. Donuts taste good. Neither negates the other.
•  
• “Food is fuel only." – Yeah. No. If food was fuel only we’d seek out the most nutritionally beneficial things we could find (which, by the way, don’t always taste so good). We have food preferences. Likes. Dislikes. That’s ok. There is NOTHING wrong with liking food.
•  
• “I eat to live, I don’t live to eat." I’m a foodie. So I do kinda live to eat. My whole life isn’t hinged on eating anymore. It isn’t my coping mechanism (most of the time) anymore. But when I go someplace new among the first things I think is “what’s good to eat?" That, too, is ok.

 

These are phrases you don’t see me using with good purpose. They trick us into thinking there is something wrong with liking food, enjoying our eating experiences. Heck, railing against these things is what got me started on Bariatric Foodie. I wanted to prove I could eat anything I want and still be successful. So far, so good.

 

Now…as my post-op experience progressed I began to change my outlook. This coincided with my plateau. Now some people get an “eff it. I’m not losing weight anymore so whatever!" attitude. Me? By this time I recognized that some food makes me feel good and some food makes me feel like hot turd on a stick. I’d rather feel good. So I eat what makes me feel good.

 

These days my latest revelation is that I have a good amount of control over my “appetite" (I define appetite not as hunger, but the will to eat). I can eat on a schedule and eat X calories a day. And I can also eat three meals a day. It depends on what I have the will to do. I generally don’t skip meals. Ever. But if I need to pull back, it’s nice to know I CAN. That is the longevity of my tool. For a long time I didn’t trust my tool so I tried to eat and eat to PROVE to myself that I would eventually get sick. That there would be consequences to bingeing. That didn’t work out so well.

 

Right here where I am standing right now, I eat when I feel like eating. Sometimes this is predicated by hunger. Sometimes not, I won’t lie. Hunger is different now. It is no longer a growling stomach. It’s more like shaky hands and wooziness. But I rarely let myself get anywhere near hungry. I tend to eat until I am full, not simply satisfied. This may be why I plateau’d at a high weight. Might not be.

 

But in the end, food doesn’t torture me anymore. I no longer need to wander around grocery stores looking at food to have contact with it. I no longer need to watch hours of Food Network. I can eat. And quite normally. Not my old normal, which was way too much. I eat about as much as any fit person who hasn’t had the surgery. And I’m ok with that.

 

So all that is to say this. Your relationship with food has a LOT to do with your relationship with YOU. If you haven’t already, I’d recommend reading Women, Food and God by Geneen Roth. It’s eye opening.

 

But still, I would not classify my relationship with food as peaceful. Amicable maybe. Adventurous? Yes. Peaceful. No. And it probably never will be but then again I don’t aim for peace. I mostly aim for acceptance.

I so appreciate this post. I needed to hear everyones comments. I am 6 weeks out and am having some real mind game issues. I find myself being angry at food. I am mad that nothing taste good.  I think I am in mourning! LoL with my relationship with food. We went away this weekend and I wanted to be on the hunt for food. I knew the best local restuarants but when I realized that I wouldn't enjoy them it made me upset and the week is half way over and I am still upset.  Learning how to live and be fully engaged in the moment is a new challenge. Food was an escape reality is work. My nutritionist said they are giving us a tool with RNY but how we got here and what goes on in our heads we have to figure that out ourselves. Don't feel alone I am learning how to cope and will be making an appointment with a counselor real soon also. I know losing 40lbs  in two months is more than I have ever done on my own.   So I choose to trust this process and continue this journey just as you have.

I don't think you can compare yourself to others. I did that at first and then I reasoned with myself, "When have I EVER lost this much weight, ever?" So anything is progress. Of course we'd all like to lose more, and faster....but our body does what it does.

I understand about the veggies. Early on, I just wanted to have a piece of fruit, my old diet standbys like Special K and a banana, or squash and zucchini, or even just a huge salad with grilled chicken. And I couldn't. That seemed the most unfair of all.

I'm not sure how your plan is. I do know that as of 12 weeks my doc lets you "try" most anything other than fatty beef and things like celery (stringy stuff) and obvious bad things - fast food, etc. I've been eating salads for a few weeks now, I had ONE green chicken enchilada and refried beans last night, etc. As you can eat a few of the things you love, it will get easier and you won't feel so deprived. I have to be careful but the pouch has worked for me - I won't eat myself into miserableness and I do stop when I am full.

As far as calories go, if I have an over day, I make up for it over the next few days by always making sure my calories average out to 825 per day. Honestly, zig zagging your calories and NOT eating the same way is a proven way to keep your body guessing and keep your weight loss going. (Google 'zig zag calories' and read about it.) I used it before RNY when I dieted, and it worked.

I keep my protein at 80, my carbs under 50, my fat and sugar under 25 and I am doing well. 80 ounces of water a day. Exercising 5 days a week and twice a day some days. You have a few more weeks and you'll be able to add a myriad of things to your plate.