Out of Control?!?

 Before surgery, I spent a lot of time feeling like food controlled me. I felt like I wasn't in control, and driving to McDonald's was something that I did while part of my brain tried to convince me not to. It was like I could not say no to the cravings. I could not say no to my mouth salavating at the thought of food.

Since surgery, I had not experienced this...until today. Last night I made tuna casserole that I could eat, and took some of the leftovers and left the rest for my brother. (I made it with whole grain noodles and healthier ingredients, but there was still some butter and such involved. This was the first pasta I have had since surgery). For those that experienced these feelings before surgery, did you have them after? And if so, how did you handle them. Any help would be great, because I do not feel like I did myself any favors by overeating the leftovers today. But I couldn't stop craving them, so I ate them over the course of the morning and afternoon until they were gone.

Again, any help would be GREAT!

Steph

Can't help you there - I'm just glad that my pouch fills up so fast that I can't eat very much at any one time, and if I have too much, I feel yucky for the next 8 hours. 

I do crave crunchy things!!!

 You can't help it if you are the BOMB at making great Tuna Casserole !!!  
I say, keep making things that are wholsome and good for you, so when you do have leftovers it isn't like eating a 1200 calorie burger from McD's.
You can also go to some over eaters annonymous groups to figure out why you give away the control over food...

Your posting doesn't say how far post op you are but I know it was hard to me to acknowledge post op that I did have an unhealthy relationship with food that was pretty deep rooted in me. Food called my name, food was the answer to my emotions (whether sad, happy, bored, mad, celebrating etc) and that food should not be my friend. It also should not be my enemy. I did a lot of reading and soul searching and eventually found my way to 1:1 counseling to work through things. Because I too realized while my pouch limits my intake at one sitting grazing is still possible and some things do go down very easily.

We all have different trigger foods-the tuna casserole sounds like it is one of your trigger foods. I firmly believe I need to learn to make peace with all food and this means nothing is off limits but some things I shouldn't keep in my house.

I have expereinced that and I found the best way to manage this is to stay away from any food that triggers it.  There arew many foods that I never cook or have in my house even though they may be allowed on my plan.  The surgery does not change your brain....it just makes you less likely to eat huge amounts at one time, so it is best to just stay away from things that trigger overeating. 

My surgery was 5/6 and I'm finding that I can eat more that I use to right after surgery. I'm starting to realize that my love for food is not gone. I do not keep the bad foods in my house. I keep something to drink with me at all times. I strictly stick to the rule of nothing to eat until 30 minutes after I've had something to drink. When I crave a GOOD tomato sandwich, I drink my water (or crystal light drink) to give me 30 minutes to think about it and get busy doing something else. I associate everything with food. Snow days- hot sandwich and hot chocolate, foot ball game - hot dogs, chips and soda. Sunday dinners every week, mall - slice of pizza. You name the activity, I can tell you what food I like with it. Now I'm trying to do activities I wasn't able to do before and not have any food associated. When I want food (in a bad way), I'll do a new activity instead. Good Luck. If you find something that helps you.... please share. I have the same problem.

Were you expecting those feelings to go away after surgery?  Why would they?

Yeah, I had them pre op and yeah, I've had them post op.  To help myself deal with them, I avoid buying certain items like crackers and pretzels that I know I will have a very hard time resisting.  Sometimes my partner buys those things, though, and I think I'm gonna have to start telling him to leave whatever he doesn't eat in his car or something.  Because he brought home some pretzels the other day and he ate some of them but I finished off the bag in two days.

I am 2.5 months out and have things pretty much under control, but I know my weakness is carbs. I actually had a strong response to my first whole wheat small-sized tortilla (the ones smaller than fajita size). Anyway, I had a half of one and it triggered all of the "over eating" feelings/thoughts. It scared me bigtime, but I calmed down and realized that carbs are my triggers and that the return of those feelings is not going to be the end of me. I thought about it for a long time and I am going to seek counseling for these issues, probably even going to OA, but the good news is that I did not panic when those feelings returned and I am going to seek some assistance. but for now, I am avoiding carbs but at least I have this item under control now, they no longer bother me or trigger for me for some reason. My point is that when we feel these feelings we need to first, be calm about it, work through the feelings - be it with counseling and on our own. Hope this helps.

Thank you ladies for all the responses. This process is hard, and I feel as though tuna casserole very well may be one of my trigger foods. Thank you for helping me realize that, and it is great to know that I am not the only one struggling with this. 
Kelly, yes, I believe I thought that surgery had taken away that feeling LOL. I know that sounds crazy! But I believe I had many unreasonable and unrealistic thoughts about what surgery would be like. 
Steph

i had my surgery 7/29. and, i feel like you do about "OMG, why can I eat so much more than 3-4oz!  I think that our pouch does get larger, but, I rained myslef in very quickly, starting weighing and measuring everything and I now can not hold more than 4 oz.  Don't worry, you are still losing and eat a WHOLE  lot less than you used too!