An afternoon with my friend, another food addict and an important question

Yesterday, I spent time with a dear friend who is also a food addict.   She is in her late 60s, in failing health, and lives alone.  She is morbidly obese and has a number of health problems.  I arrived at her house to pick her up for lunch at the appointed time.  It took her another hour to get ready because she moves so slowly and is in so much pain.   After we arrive at the restaurant, it takes a while to get her meal ordered.   She wants the dinner menu, not lunch, because she wants the additional choices and portions.  She orders a combination of three (seafood) but then orders three additional kinds of fish to go with it.   I order shrimp.  During the meal, our conversation is odd because she spends most of her time in bed and is now confusing dreams with reality.   She thought I chased my DH around the house with a sandal, among other things!  Two hours after our meal arrives, she is still not done.  My meal has been long finished and she comments that I "didn't get much."   (I  have not yet had my surgery and ate most of my meal.)  She still has food left and we pack it up to take home.   When she pays for her meal, she orders two pieces of cake to take home.  (These are GIGANTIC pieces and really should be considered two pieces each.)  After we get back to her house, we begin to play a game called Sequence that we both enjoy.   She is ready for her cake at that point and begins to eat it.   (She is diabetic.)  Most of her health problems are caused or worsened by her obesity.  She had bariatric surgery in 1975 but gained all her weight back, plus some.   She is a very dear friend, but don't want to be her in the years to come.   I am hoping to have my surgery in August.   What do you all do to keep your food addiction at bay?

I'm sorry to hear of your friend's failing health.  Dealing with food addiction is an everyday thing, some days are harder than others.  Choices; life is a series of choices and for me, I have to weight the consequences of poor food choices.  I was sleeved just last month.  I know that if I were not, I would have eaten many things that are poor choices since then.  I thought about this last night, I didn't realize just then that I gave up sugar.  I haven't been trying, per se, but since I count my carbs it has just worked out that way.  I hadn't really thought about it. 

For me, I rationalize my way through a tough time.  My sleeve is an amazing tool that enables me to do so, and not give in to my addiction.  Can I eat a doughnut or cheesecake?  Yes.  But I choose not too because I know that I need to get my proper nutrition and there are very severe consequences if I don't.  Besides- I like watching the scale move in the opposite direction for a change!

Therapy is a great thing, I always joke that at least 2 years of therapy should be mandatory for everybody.  But it can be a life saver if you put the work into it.  Best of luck to you and your friend in the future, just remember- we are only responsible for ourselves and the choices we make.  You cannot control another person's actions or feelings. 

**That is my .02, I am not a doctor.**

The first major stumbling block I hit was a couple of months after my VSG when I had a big family birthday party at my house and bought three different kinds of ice cream--the favorites of the three birthday "kids" (all adults), assuming they'd take them home. But they all forgot. And one of them was so damned good... the next day I found myself eating more.  And more.  And more.

I grabbed the OTHER two--the two cartons I hadn't sampled yet--and carried them outside to the trash can and dumped them in. I went back in the house and ate a little more of the stuff I was loving (yes, I was that bad) and carried it to the trash can outside, eating all the way.  And when I got there, I tossed it in, too.

When we have people over and have chips or other things that would be a trigger to me, if I can't get people to take them home I throw them out immediately.  If my husband wants something of that nature I tell him to take it to work with him, and if he doesn't, it gets tossed.

It doesn't make any difference that in that afternoon I probably threw away $10 worth of ice cream.  It doesn't matter that I'm throwing away expensive chips--unopened bags.

No amount of money is worth triggering my appetite.

The other thing is, when I slip, which happens, I get right back on board. I don't beat myself up over it. I just look in the mirror, enjoy what I see, and move on.

 

I pray and STAY on these boards.  I am ONE choice away from going back.  My 25lb regain SHOWS me that I am one meal away.  Everyday I smell food and salivate, I know.  Everytime I want to cry because I want a certain food, I know.  It's hard but I want to be healthy more then I want the food 99% of the time.

Ms Shell

Thank you, Ms Shell, for saying what you just said the way you just said it. I needed to hear that.

I'm right there with you Ms. Shell, I mourn food that I shouldn't eat.  I'm at the beginning of this journey, so I sincerely hope these new choices will become second nature.  Keep fighting the good fight!!

I have been mourning food loss in a very strange way. I have had two dreams in my third month post op about a food that was very important to me in my childhood. It is hard to get in the region of the country where I live. In one dream, I had to travel all over town to find it, and once I found it and sunk my teeth into it, I realized it was made out of plastic and tasted terrible. I ate it anyway, complaining bitterly the whole time.

2 weeks later I dreamed about the same food. This time it was readily available. I reached for it, bit into it, and discovered it was made from the wrong ingredients and tasted terrible and had the texture of a cross between a biscuit and a cellulose sponge. I was crushed and dismayed. And then I woke up.

People, I have never dreamed about food before in my life. I will be fifty in a couple months! I have used food to numb myself for decades. I had surgery and lost my anesthesia, along with 45 lbs. so far

My counselor says this is grief and I need to process the loss of my comfort substance. I am so not excited about that. But grief is patient. It just waits. It takes all the time it needs whether I am willing to give it or not.

So, guess I am going to be feeling some pain instead of anesthetizing it with food. DAMMIT!

 

Omg....just remembered I dreamed of Cracker Jack last night....dreamed ended with a montage of the history of how it was packaged and sold. I'm such a weirdo.