So, today sucked.

Forgive me a moment while I whine a bit.  After making a solid attempt to brain myself this morning in the gym (earlier post) I ended up having a thoroughly miserable Monday.  Projects not working out, major problems with former staff, and then about 1PM the food.  Someone bought what must have been 50 boxes of girl scout cookies and was passing them all around.  Someone else had boxes of chocolate.  Someone else still brought in cake.  It's freaking Monday people!  

I've had head hunger a little, but today it hit me like a ton of bricks.  I could have chewed through my desk if there was a cookie in a locked drawer.  I went through 2 24 ounce bottles of water in under 3 hours trying to kill it and couldn't take it. I went to the vending machine and bought myself some jerky. 

I spent the rest of the afternoon staring at that unopened bag so mad at myself I could spit.  I couldn't believe I'd let myself do something so counterproductive. I'm still ticked off about it tonight. 

Ah well.  The day's nearly done and I have behaved myself.  Fortunately there isn't any of that stuff here in the house, but my head is still screwing with me.  My wife even tried to help and got out one of my favorite tuna steaks for me to sear, but it wasn't enough.  I'm hoping a good night's rest will ease this burden a bit.  Stress makes for terrible head hunger. 

I thought jerky was ok? (Not trying to be smart but my NUT said it was ok once we were past 4 weeks) Just curious. 

I'm sorry you had such a crummy day.  But I also thought jerky was okay?  

You had a rough day but you stuck to your program.  The jerky is fine and the tuna is excellent.  Sometimes it's hard to make the best choices and stress really makes it so much tougher.  You did it and tomorrow will be a new day.  Great job.

Way to hang in there Michael. It SUCKS being around people eating all our old go to foods. Cakes and desserts will always make my heart hurt.

You did a great job. Jerky was a good choice, especially considering the situation. As I said in a similar post, that stuff happens to me at work ALL THE TIME. It helps to have some healthy snacks around for when that happens. You should be proud of yourself for not giving in!

Nothing profound to give you but hugs, Michael. I hope tomorrow will be so much better!

Whine acknowledged, logged and recorded. 

But you did nothing wrong other than have impure thoughts.  I don't believe that's an actionable offense.

Is jerky not acceptable on your plan?  It's okay on mine and high in protein.  I think it's a great snack because it takes so long to chew.  My NUT thinks it's magical when you eat something and it activates your salivary glands.

Please don't beat yourself up.  As I was told recently,  the mental habits we had as compulsive overeaters do not disappear just because we had our gut sliced open.

You and I are both at three months post surgery.   I think something must trigger at this point.  I had a horrible experience with food last weekend.   I gave in.  You did not.

Ergo, you're better than me. 

Hey everybody, good morning!

Thank you all for the kind words and support.   I thought I should explain a couple of things that raised questions.  First off, beef and pork aren't part of my surgeon's plan until July unfortunately.  I can't say I understand why exactly, but following the rules has been going fairly well for me so far so I'm trying to stick to it.  Other docs have different rules and that's totally cool. So I was frustrated that out of desperation I bought something I knew I shouldn't be eating.  It wasn't a candy bar or anything, but it was still a potentially broken rule.  I'm not judging anyone but myself here, but it just strikes me as somewhere between lying to myself and giving up on this process if I break the rules.  I felt the same way when I messed up on that toffee a few weeks ago. 

Next, and the reason I was really upset most of all was not so much I bought beef but that I bought anything.  I was so compelled to act on the same stupid urges that got me up to 495 pounds, so desperate to treat my stress with dessert that I violated a promise I made to myself.  I've been doing so well (for me at least) that it hurt to see how stress convinced me to throw it all away.  I'm definitely one of those that's alot harder on myself than on others.

So, what am I doing about it?  Well, today I brought in enough protein powder to make 5 shakes to give me some sense of saity in case I need it.  I also brought in some canned chicken that I can have handy. I also brought in some vicks vapo rub so that if the smells are killing me, I can put just a touch under my nose and kill the smells altogether.  I may whine, but that's just because I haven't had time to make a plan of action to resolve the situation and prevent it as well. 

I totally get the being hard on yourself, because I do the same thing. I think any sort of violation throws us into a panic because we see how easy it is to do some real damage. I can't emphasize enough how frightened I get when this sort of thing happens.

Good luck today. I know you can make it through with flying colors, Michael!