White-knuckling It

I'm 3 1/2 weeks out from surgery and doing well. Still on pureed foods until the end of this week.

Today I went down to the employee canteen at work to get ice. They had beef brisket, BBQ pork and mac and cheese. In the past, I would have immediately grabbed a plate, loaded up and gorged on my favorite foods. Today, I had to almost force myself out of there. I kept trying to convince myself that "just a little" wouldn't hurt, even though I know it would. I'm now white-knuckling it until 2 pm when the canteen closes and I won't be able to tempt myself.

And now I feel awful. I WANT that food. I'm craving it. My mouth is watering. It's depressing as hell that I can't eat it. I just finished my chicken broth for lunch, and feel as though I didn't eat anything. I know this is head hunger, but it is depressing me to an extent that I haven't experienced since surgery. I'm questioning why I took the huge step of RNY, if it means depriving myself of the foods I love to eat. A future of chicken broth, yogurt and protein shakes just doesn't do it for me.

Any ideas on how to get past this? I'm trying to focus on the part where I DIDN'T give in to the food, but it's a small comfort, and it's scaring me that I feel such a pull.

I totally get it.  I have felt those exact same feelings.  I went through a sort of depression immediately post op about not being able to consume large amounts of food at once.  I never realized how much of a binger I was.

I really think you have to just go through the feelings.  You will be able to eat all kinds of foods eventually.  This is a temporary stage to get you to a healthy point.  It is taking away our best friend, and one of our main sources of comfort for a very long time.  It is a big deal to have it all taken away from you.

I have found that allowing myself to feel depressed/sad/regretful, but continuing through the day/event is important.  Eventually I pull myself out of it and look at all the benefits this surgery gave me, and will continue to give me.  It is similar to mourning a loved one.  But I think part of becoming healthy and removing our addiction to food is going through those feelings and learning the ability to pull ourselves out.

You put it beautifully....exactly. This is so true!

Yep, as KBB said it is like losing our best friend.  Pre-op, I would convince myself that I deserved just a little and I worked hard and it will make me happy, and isn't that what we want for ourselves, Happiness????  but the reality for me is that food does not make me happy, it numbs the pain, but that does not equal happiness, at least for me.  Post-op, I now convince myself that what I deserve is good health. So, when I have those feelings now, I immediately think of all the good outcomes I have had since surgery (5.5 months ago).  If I am able to,  I go for a walk.  I also focus on my breathing. It will pass, eating off plan will not help, but the feelings will pass and like you mentioned you did not give in, so you know You can do this!  Hang in there.

What they said :)  You have to give it time.  You're healing and you knew this surgery would require some sacrifice.  You didn't go through major surgery to eat massive quantities of high carb, high fat foods (I mean, that's what got us to the point of needing surgery, right?  LOL)

If it cheers you up, you will eventually eat an awesome and diverse menu of foods.  Today I had a coffee with fat-free half and half, a delicious Chike protein coffee shake, a few slices of peach, a couple of raspberries, a salad made of kale, goat cheese, dried cranberries, sliced almonds and grilled chicken, and then a few shrimp as a snack.  And it's only 3:45 pm!  Deprivation isn't forever, and once you lose weight and feel (and let's face it, look) better, you won't feel deprived.  Furthermore, you can eat meats, once you are healed.  Hell you can eat mac and cheese if you want to, but that won't get you to goal.  So white knuckle it and know that it's gonna take a hell of a lot more than 25 days to get over a lifetime of binging and craving.  But you've got this if you put your mind to it!

:)

Everything you are feeling is totally normal at your stage. You have lived many many years giving in to your every craving without even thinking. Three and a half weeks is not nearly enough time to make a new habit yet. You will get there though! As you begin to lose weight and feel more energetic resisting those temptations will be much easier. You come to realize that eating all you want does not make you happy--it just makes you heavy and miserable. Eating all the food I wanted is what got me diabetes,high blood pressure,high triglycerides,and constant knee and back pain. I don't want to go there again! You will soon get to eat those foods you were craving today. This boring diet will move on to the next stage I promise. You will eat brisket and all kinds of delicious proteins again just in smaller amounts. But because of your amazing little pouch you will get full on those small amounts and all while wearing smaller more fashionable clothes! You can do this my dear,and we are all here cheering you on!!

A future of yogurt and chicken broth!! OMG!!  I'm 14 yrs out I can assure you that is not your future!! It is like the road signs say " a temporary inconvenience for  a permanent improvement". That was my mantra. It was true. Did you need that ice so badly that you had to go to the canteen? Could you bring a small cooler and pac**** in it to take yourself away from that position? I couldn't even read a magazine or watch tv without the remote control in my hand, food was everywhere. As you start to lose more and more you may develop other  replacement obsessions,shoes, hair, makeup, skincare, nails, clothes, botox , fillers, plastic surgery, oh, wait, that's me, LOL! Yep I went from sweat shirts with cat and dog pictures on them ( at age 50) to complete fashionista, I'm 64 and I still haven't stopped. 

One thing that always helped me when I started craving was take a breath, and in vision your after picture posted here. If you have access during the day to a computer come here and quickly look at a few afters. It really helped me.

It's NORMAL to go through a grieving period.  Those feelings will very soon be replaced with all sorts of other things much more important--like which color new shoes you should buy ;)   

I don't know why I have those *'s in my post? I'm must have hit the wrong key it was supposed to say ice. Strange!!

Rose, sounds like you might have adult content turned off in your settings.  I used to see those *'s all the time.  The OH filter seems to ignore spaces and word boundaries when determining which words are inappropriate, and it must have decided that your use of ice was part of a bad word (though I can't for the life of me figure out which one).  I used to make a game of trying to interpret the *'s until I figured out how to turn them off.