kmaas21605

everyone has a ass hole....and apparently this lady had a serious case of diarrhea of the mouth that day...just remember to always rise above what people say and the no comment back to such things to me speaks volumes....well done on the weight loss GF.....i think i was a size 4 once in my mom's pregnant stomach .........oh the memories

Are you a member of the clean plate club? Perhaps a lifetime member? Perhaps even its president?


I belonged to the CPC (Clean Plate Club) for over 50 years, so I consider myself something of an expert on it (and I am, after all, The World’s Greatest Living Expert on Everything). I thought it was a lifetime membership, but my bariatric surgeon rescued me from the CPC Cult – oh, excuse me, Club - and deprogrammed me so that I’m able to function more or less like a normal person now. Here’s my story.
I was inducted to the CPC as a child, when I was too young to realize that the promise of going to heaven if I always cleaned my plate was a bit more complicated than it sounded at the time. All I wanted to do at the time was to please the cult leaders: my mother and my grandmother.
I have reason to believe that my grandmother, whom I called Dranny, was the original founder of the CPC. Orphaned as a small child, she was passed around the family like a piece of unwanted furniture, and she raised her own children during the Great Depression. Through the combination of those circumstances and her own peculiar (and wonderful) character, Dranny was a pack rat. She didn’t live in filth and disorder (just the opposite, actually), but she couldn’t bear to throw anything away, especially not food. If three green peas were leftover from a meal and she hadn’t been able to persuade someone to eat them, she would lovingly place them in a custard cup covered with a shower-cap style cover (this was in the days before Glad Wrap), and store them in the fridge, where they would remain until someone ate them (or my mother threw them out while Dranny was in another room).
I’m a lot like my grandmother in various ways, and also something of a pack rat. So after eating my way through hundreds of childhood meals with Dranny and my mom (who was not a pack rat, but who was offended by the idea of wasting food that she’d worked so hard to procure and prepare), I emerged into adolescence with warring impulses – part of me still wanted to clean my plate, and part of me wanted to starve so that I could lose weight and be as skinny as the British supermodel, Twiggy.
101 WAYS TO CLEAN YOUR PLATE
One of my problems with meal planning and storage is that it's hard for me to predict how much food I'll be able to eat at a future meal. Often I don't know that until I've eaten several bites. My basic strategy for dealing with this unpredictability is to keep my plate clean from the very start so that the food I leave behind doesn't overwhelm me or provoke an attack of guilt that could bring down Dranny's loving wrath upon me.
A simple way to keep your plate clean is to prepare smaller batches of food so you won't be tempted by serving dishes overflowing with food or burdened with an excess of leftovers. I can't speak to recipes for baked goods (not my department), but most other recipes can be easily cut in half, thirds, or even quarters through the use of simple arithmetic.
Sometimes I prepare the whole recipe, subdivide into 2 or 3 batches, serve one batch immediately and freeze the other 2 for future use. When we lived in the northeast, the elderly widow who lived next door was delighted when we shared excess food with her. Sharing food with family, friends, and coworkers can yield multiple benefits. When I'm craving a food or recipe whose leftovers would be a problem for me to store (or resist), I prepare a big batch of it for whatever social event is on the horizon and keep only one or two portions of it at home so that we get to enjoy it without having to worry about to do with all that food. I use cheap, recycled, throw-away packaging so that no one can insist that I take my corning ware, Pyrex or tupperware container of leftovers home with me.
You can also keep your plate clean by using the portioning technique I recommend for bandsters who are still learning their band eating skills, food portion sizes, and stop signals. Here's how it works for me. When planning my day's food (which I commit to my food log and my accountability partner every morning), I might decide that I'll eat 4 ounces (by weight) of chicken thigh and 1/2 cup of barley and veggy salad for dinner. Come dinner time, I grab my small plate (a salad plate) and put half of my planned meal on it: 2 ounces of chicken and ¼ cup of the salad. If I'm able to finish that, great. If I'm still physically hungry when I'm done with it, I go back to the kitchen and dish up the remaining 2 ounces of chicken and ¼ cup of salad. At the end of the meal, I'll probably have only 1 or 2 tablespoons worth of food to save or throw out instead of a plateful of food, therefore much less guilt to deal with.
When I do have a plateful of food leftover, I usually scrape it into a small plastic container that I can quickly grab and stick in my lunch bag when I go to work the next day. Fortunately, we actually like leftovers at our house, and arguments occasionally break out over unauthorized consumption of leftover food ("Who ate the rest of the eggplant Parmesan?!?"). The same approach works with restaurant meals. We're happy to take leftovers home in what used to be called a doggy bag (as if I'd share my Maryland crab cakes with a dog!).
My sister-in-law used to scrape leftover food into a bucket to add to her garden compost pile. I have no idea if that's a good practice. We'd have to have a 40' high electrified fence dug 20' into the ground and topped with razor wire in order to keep dogs, cats, deer, rats, raccoons, and other critters out of that kind of compost pile. I've also known people (including my mother) who fed leftover food to their 4-footed garbage disposals (dogs & cats), another practice that we avoid because why would you want to cultivate a fussy eater? Our pets have survived eating (stolen) candies (complete with foil wrappers), latex paint, and kip tails (fishing flies), and at our house, a fussy eater will end up starving because someone else is always willing to clean your plate for you, sometimes long before you've decided you're finished with it.
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE STARVING CHILDREN?
After over 6 years of post-WLS life, I'm now better able to detach myself from my emotional attachment to the food on my plate enough to throw out what's left. If it didn't taste right because my tummy was in an odd mood, if it caused me eating problems, if it wouldn't reheat or store well, I let it go. I haven't been struck by lightning for doing that, nor has God punished me with plagues, floods, or infestations (apart from the dog infestation, that is).
Like many, I was raised to eat every meal while listening to a chorus singing the Children Are Starving in (fill in the blank) hymn. I agree that in world where so many children (and adults, and animals) go hungry, it is just plain wrong for an overfed middle-class person like me to waste or throw out food. But the fact is that me eating more food than my body needs (rather than throwing out) is not the solution to the problem of world hunger. The solution to world hunger, and to diminishing global food resources, is far, far more complicated than that. Working in your community (be it a village, a city, a country, or a planet) to solve that problem is a worthwhile effort, but you taking personal responsibility for causing the death of a starving, unknown child in India or Appalachia because you threw out a chicken wing and 5 green Beans last night is (in my opinion) a misguided and foolish use of your energy.
And you eating that extra bite of food just because you can't bear the thought of throwing it away is also foolish from a medical standpoint. If that extra bite causes you to PB, get stuck, or over-pack your pouch, it could lead to messy and expensive medical complications like esophageal or pouch dilation and/or band slips, especially if you eat that way on a regular basis.
Finally, as long as overeating endangers your health through co-morbidities and through disrespecting your band, you may never be able to help deal with the hunger problem, whether on an individual, local, or global basis. So, first things first: make a top priority of eating sensibly for your own sake before you tackle the rest of the world.

Just like with adults, a case by case issue. Based on what I see here, there are a lot of adults who aren't mature enough for WLS, and I am sure there are some kids who are.

How do you feel about kids under age 18 having WLS? I hate to see kids growing up obese, suffering bullying and health problems and social problems, but I'm not sure I was mature enough as a kid to make all the lifestyle changes that WLS requires. What do you think?

Taking a drink is the last thing I would do. Drinking just increases the episode in my opinion and experience. I have had my share of stuck episodes and the two times I did add Fluid it made the pain worse and the vomiting more forceful. Vomiting should be avoided at all costs just as stuck episodes should. It increases chances of a band slip 10 fold.
I would suggest talking to your Doctor about stuck episodes and the recommended action but in my opinion adding Fluid to an already plugged funnel is a no brainer.
What happens when you keep flushing a toilet that is plugged?

This is Memorial Day weekend – a time of picnics, cookouts, and other food-centered fun – and a time to remember the past sacrifices of fellow Americans who serve(d) in the military, and to thank them for their service to our country. It’s also a good time to remember the fat girl or guy we once were.


I used to cringe when I saw photos of Fat Jean, but now I want to hug that unhappy girl and tell her that life is good. When I look in the mirror now, I see a "normal" sized woman who strangers would never guess had once been morbidly obese. I think we all need to remember where we came from, and to forgive ourselves for our pre-op weight loss failures. But halfway through the first sentence of this article, I thought of an equally important aspect of Memorial Day that turned this article's theme upside down.
The meaning of "lest we forget" is more complicated than you might think. It represents more than three sappy words and planting a flag and a geranium on your grandfather's grave. It expresses an important message for a bariatric patient like me and you.
The phrase "lest we forget" forms the refrain of "Recessional," a poem by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936). It warns about the perils of hubris and the inevitable decline of British imperial power. After World War l, "lest we forget" passed into common usage as a plea not to forget past sacrifices and was often used on war memorials and as an epitaph on tombstones. So it’s an appropriate title for a Memorial Day article.
Hubris is the extreme haughtiness, pride and arrogance that makes us think we're as invincible and all-powerful as Great Britain thought it was back in the days when it was taking charge of big countries (India) and small (Singapore) all over the world. One of my jobs in life is to resist the urge to be conceited about my weight loss success and to remember that I’m not invincible. I don’t ever want to lose sight of the fat girl deep inside me who's just waiting to get out again.
Losing 100 pounds is such an enormous accomplishment that at times it seems like the most magnificent and significant achievement of my entire life. I'm justifiably proud of that achievement, but having weight loss surgery is not a guarantee of continued weight loss and weight maintenance success. As a boss once told me on the occasion of my promotion to management, "Remember, you're only as good as your last act." In other words, my great performance won me a place on the stage, but I'm going to have to repeat that performance over and over again in order to stay on the stage. WLS is a wonderful tool that will improve my ability to manage my weight for another 30 or 40 years, but it doesn't make me bullet-proof.
Weight loss is no longer the centerpiece of my life, and I think that's a healthy thing. Some days I even ask myself why I'm still writing about eating, obesity and weight management. Why can't I let go of it? What will happen to me if I run out of things to say about it? But while I'd like to know the future, or at least know it will be a happy one, a long, straight road with the same scenery for mile after mile sounds boring to me. I'll stay on this road, with its twists and turns and steep hills, and trust God to keep me from getting too far off course. Writing about obesity is one of the things that keeps me going in the right direction. When other bariatric patients ask me questions about how to live and succeed with the adjustable gastric band, it forces me to think, and being forced to think is much healthier, and more interesting, than switching on the cruise control for the rest of my life.
Along the road to your weight goal, I hope that you, too, will be able to acquire new interests and activities that you can take with you into your new life as a "normal" weight person, but don't forget to look backward every now and then. Don't throw out all the fat photos and fat clothes. They're memorials to your past obesity.

Well, I am coming up on 5-year anniversary and it was recommended by Alex that I update everyone. It has been an amazing, life-changing journey for me. There have been some ups and downs along the way but it all was well worth it.
I went to a seminar with Dr. Eric Pinnar in Reston VA on April of 2008 at 5'4" and 234 lbs. and immediately knew that I wanted to get this done. I had been overweight since I was a small child. It was always hard for me and my self-esteem was always so low. I remember the psych asking me what my goal weight was. I said 150 pounds thinking that was aiming much too high. I was already 160 pounds in the sixth grade and my lowest adult weight ever was 175 and that took a lot of starving and so it was short-lived. The psych’s response was “You can do better than that”. So I chose a goal that would put me dead center normal BMI which for me was 137. I was sure that I would never reach it though.
Within 3 months of surgery I had already hit “one-derland” losing 35 pounds. Within 5 months I was half-way to my goal and in less than a year I reached my goal. At that point I was thrilled with the new me but kept saying one day I will reach 120. I settled in happily at 137 and maintained that weight well for a year and a half then got another adjustment to see if I could finally do 120 and I did around 2 years ago, I had stayed at that for two years.
During that time I felt like I probably could have my band loosened just a bit but unfortunately, right after my last fill, Dr. Pinnar closed shop and moved to Florida so I was left without a doctor. I managed the two years eating smaller more frequent meals and usually skipping Breakfast (I have always and still am tight in the mornings).
But my thyroid has been giving me fits for more than a year now. I wondered if perhaps I was not absorbing my meds fast enough due to the tight band. So just a couple months ago, I found a surgeon who would take me in and he ordered a barium-swallow and blood work. My blood work was fine, Iron just slightly low. The swallow was scheduled first thing in the morning when I am at my tightest and the radiologist gave up trying because the barium was just flowing too slowly. So yes I got an adjustment. That was 5 weeks ago and I am starting to feel like my thyroid is back in business though my weight is up to 130 and it is more of a struggle to keep it from going higher.
I will go back on June 6th. I hope to see if we can’t tweak my band a little more to make it easier to maintain my weight without being too tight. So five years later I continue to require band maintenance, good diet and exercise but with the band it has been possible and I am so grateful for having it!
So I am happy to be celebrating my 5-year Bandiversary! (Oh and I also quit smoking the night before surgery so I have two successes to celebrate!)

my major fear was getting so big they'd have to cut me out of my house and my baby granddaughter..that motivated me to do what i had to save my life..its probably not the answer you wanted but its the one i wanted to give.

I love the Viactive chocolate chews.

If you continue to tell yourself you "just can’t lose weight", you will start to believe it.
Once you believe it, you will start to live up to it. You can do it. Giving up is an option for dead people only. Accompanying the "I can't do it" is a raft of very sneaky, tricky and ultimately self-tripping excuses. Here are some common ones:
· "I can't lose weight. I'm just too tired.": Your tiredness is sourced in those Cookies, chocolates, fast foods and processed meals. Your tiredness is sourced in being sedentary all the time, from the office to the couch. Your tiredness is sugar-filled. And your tiredness as a result of these things is a bit of a vicious circle––too tired to plan healthier food, too tired to plan a diet program, too tired to get up and exercise, and on and on it goes. Wake up to the reality that bad food and little movement create the fatigue.
·
· "I can't lose weight. It's too boring to go without food.": Do your eyes glaze over every time you see the word diet or read a fitness schedule? Does "nutrition" mean "something dull people care about" to you? Are you stuck with visions of eating "rabbit food" for the rest of your life? If you see weight loss as a dent in an otherwise fun and exciting life, you've fallen into an excuse that losing weight will make life boring. This is an unfortunate excuse that blinds you to seeing the good things about weight loss (more energy equals more fun) and the fun and innovative things you can do with diets and fitness.
·
· "I can't lose weight. I don't do deprivation; it's just not pretty. Anyway, who cares, I'd rather die young and happy than old and deprived." This excuse is fallacious; nobody wants to die in agony from disease and nutritional deficiencies. It's a short-sighted attitude that sounds hip now but will definitely land all around your hips later. Lifestyle dieting is not about deprivation; it's about managing food and exercise to ensure you lead a happier and more energetic lifestyle overall.
·
· "I can't lose weight. I tried before and look, it all came back again." Sadly, most diets do this because fad diets and a diet frame of mind are destructive rather than helpful. What is important is to eat healthily for the long-term and to find a diet program in discussion with your health professional that is attuned to your lifestyle, not a temporary fix that you can only see an end for in a few months. Yo-yo dieting teaches little and actually ingrains bad habits by assuming that when the set diet time is up, the junk food can move on back in. It doesn't work like that––changing your eating habits is for life and moderation in all things becomes your new mantra, not "a little diet now, a lot of stuffing later"

Ever notice how some people spend more energy telling everyone what lap band surgery WILL NOT do and DID NOT do for THEM.....and therefore WILL NOT and CANNOT do for anyone else?
As opposed to what Lap band Surgery HAS DONE for them therefore WILL DO for everyone else?
It's as though, just because they do not have something, no one else can have it.....Mind Boggling! Is it the haves and have-nots?
That is Negativity....No One should get in your way and tell you no....tell you not to try to acheive your goals, your dreams, aspirations....
For myself, as well as many others I'm sure, this was a once in a lifetime chance...a last resort...after years of dieting and failure, resulting in ill health.......I'm going to do all and not let anyone tell me it is impossible....others have acheived it, so can I....
Aside from unavoidable medical complications, the only people who can get in our way is ourselves.....not because other people say I can't....
If you want it...go for it...

i feel most people are mentally stronger then they think they are
all the inner demons we all face and the yo yo dieting, its no wonder we are scared to let the band work...why should it as everything else failed..
once we face it head on, my moment was the biggest number i ever weighed on a scale
that gave me the gumption to face it head on...no more crossing the street for me...i say bring it.
as for head hunger, its true......i realized it during pre op
all comes down to mind over matter...i want to get healthy bad enough to do whatever i have to make it happen...something i dibbed want power..

its not to hunger pain its the endless ta pe in my head talking about food. When my band has the right fill it goes away. It seems once a week that tape is the worst. If ignoring worked I wouldn't have need the band

jean, i hope the people that need to read this do and let it sink in...as its true..
i feel those who read this and balk at the common sense aspect are the ones will who not do well.
as always jeannie, your words inspire me to do better

"NO WEIGHT LOSS SURGERY OF ANY DESCRIPTION WILL KILL THE EATING DEMONS IN YOUR HEAD"
Darn!

Yet another great article,Jean.
I needed to hear 5 & 6 the most, thats where I'm at.
Again, I hope everyone banded or considering banding will read this and know the truth when they read it.
Thank you!

Want to know what no one else will tell you about life with the band?


The NITTY GRITTY of WEIGHT LOSS SURGERY
Nobody can predict the course or outcome of your weight loss surgery, but I’m going to try anyway, starting with a simile that most of us can understand.
WLS is like a marriage, with your band as your lifetime partner. At times you’ll thank your lucky stars you found each other. At other times you’ll wish you’d never met, never mind married. You’ll never walk alone again, but you alone will be captain of your ship. You will lose weight and gain a new lifestyle, but some of your losses and gains will be bittersweet. You’ll wonder what on earth you got yourself into, as well as why on earth you didn’t do this a long time ago.
Most of all, you’ll scratch your head and say, “Why didn’t anyone tell me how much work this would take?”
I’m not telling you all this to scare you. A little fear is fine if it makes you a compliant patient, but I don’t want fear to rule you. I just want to remind you that like every other human endeavor, the WLS journey has ups and downs. I believe that my band surgery saved my life and I’ve never regretted my decision to do it, but I can’t claim that every moment of my journey has been sunny and carefree. If you don’t want to hear about the tough stuff, that’s fine. You have my permission to move on to another article (preferably one by me). But if you want to hear about some of the things I wish I’d known at the start of my journey, read on. Knowing these things in advance wouldn’t have changed my WLS decision, but it sure would have helped me stick it out more easily when my weight goal seemed a million miles away.
1. The band is not magic. There is nothing in it that – hey, presto! - will make you lose weight. Changing your eating behavior and lifestyle, plus dozens of other factors that vary from one person to the next, will make you lose weight.
2. Your band won’t do all of the work. If you don’t (metaphorically) grab hold of it and use it as a tool, it will be about as useful as a cordless drill without a battery.
3. For most people, the band doesn’t start working right away. As a new post-op, surgical swelling and/or a small “primer” fill may or may not kill your appetite (desire to eat) and physical hunger (physical need to eat), but most bandsters need several fills to get the weight loss going, and more fills after that to keep it going.
4. If you don’t eat carefully, will you will suffer temporary, extremely uncomfortable side effects that can, if ignored, turn into permanent, expensive, and unhappy complications.
5. Once you achieve an optimal fill and restriction level (which will last for 30 seconds, 30 minutes, 30 hours, but probably not for 30 years), your restriction is very likely going to vary, for reasons too numerous to explain here. In this area you must remember that the human body is alive and always changing, whereas the adjustable gastric band is inert and changes only with the addition or subtraction of Fluid. One day you can hardly eat, the next day you can eat anything and everything, and the day after that, you can eat just the right amount (remember Goldilocks and the Three Bears?).
6. Restriction may also vary according to the time of day (or time of month, if you’re of the female persuasion). Morning “tightness” is very common, and it may limit your morning food choices. That is not, however, a good excuse for skipping Breakfast and thereby depriving your body of the fuel it needs, and doing so can set you up for a monster binge when hunger suddenly hits you at 11:38 a.m. So you will have to be willing to stay flexible, try new foods, and practice patience (which is something I have to practice every day in every way anyway).
7. You will have to deal with restriction even when you wish you had none at all, when you’re at a party or on vacation or sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner at Mom’s overloaded dining table. At times you will want to go on eating because the food tastes so good, but you’ll have to stop because you physically can’t eat more, and because eating more would cause uncomfortable and undesirable side effects (to say nothing of weight loss plateaus or regain). That experience of food “deprivation” has been very frustrating for me. Not every day, not at every meal, but often enough to remind me again and again that my upper GI tract is no longer the free and easy party girl it once was. That reminder is often a good thing, but sometimes it makes me want to put my fingers in my ears and chant, “I can’t hear you, Stomach!”
8. This next piece of WLS Nitty Gritty is such a big, important one that I left it for last so that it will (I hope) stay burned into your brain a good, long time. NO WEIGHT LOSS SURGERY OF ANY DESCRIPTION WILL KILL THE EATING DEMONS IN YOUR HEAD. Vanquishing, subduing or managing those demons is something you’ll have to do yourself, possibly with the help of a counselor or support group, with daily practice for the rest of your life. But that’s OK, because you are worth all that effort.

I drink right up till I eat (it goes right thru so I don't understand why you have to wait 30 minutes) then I can feel when I can drink afterwards (I've had my band for 3 1/2 yrs, you will learn to feel it soon), usually 30-45 minutes later. I CAN'T drink while eating - it'll all come right back up. I guess that good. No wanting to drink while eating!
Marci

Okay so I returned back to work today and found that one of my co-workers was saying really nasty things about me because she failed her Lap-Band 3 Years Ago and I Look Great!!
I Heard she said that some really Nasty Things about me and my weight Loss, I Stopped for a Second and figured what should I do?
Should I be Mad, Upset, Angry, Then I stopped and went to the bathroom to gather my emotions and I looked in the mirror and smiled!!!
It Hit Me!!! I Look so Good!! Why Not Talk About Me!!! I Hope she does it some more tomorrow, beI realized that I am a Topic and I Love When People Talk About Me!!! Keep Talking!!! I Look Good!!!!!! Laughing, Smiling!!!

Does the reward & punishment approach really help your weight loss?


REWARD & PUNISHMENT
Yummy food rewards for good behavior, and severe punishment or deprivation for bad behavior, go back a long way in my psyche. With every good intention, my mom trained me using the classic reward-punishment technique from the time I was a very small girl. As soon as I was old enough to think for myself – at age 40 or so (just kidding!) – I applied the same technique to managing (or should I say mismanaging) my weight. Even a tiny infraction of whatever diet plan I was following at the moment was punished severely with hours, days, or weeks of self-loathing and recrimination which would be followed by much bigger eating crimes (I’m a hopeless screw-up because I ate a donut yesterday, so I’m going to eat a dozen donuts today) or by extreme deprivation (I ate a donut yesterday, so I’m going to eat nothing at all today, and if I’m a very, very good girl, I’ll earn half a carrot stick as my reward tomorrow).
I learned a bit about behavioral science in college, and goodness knows I’ve read enough self-help books and articles to have picked up a thin smattering of knowledge about it, but none of it meant very much to me until the past five or six years. As I moved towards my weight loss surgery decision, I had to admit that the good girl, bad girl system had not been working very well for me. I just couldn’t seem to responsibly give myself one “cheat” a week as recommended in women’s magazines. The authors of these magazine articles claimed that one serving of cheesecake on Sunday would keep me from bingeing out of desperate deprivation for the rest of the week, but one serving was never enough for me. I guess I’m an all-or-nothing kind of gal, and for me, the only alternative to eating an entire cheesecake was to (mentally) beat myself with heavy chains and a medicine ball covered with spikes. Neither approach yielded the results I wanted, but what other way is there to live as a responsible, law-abiding adult? Without laws and law enforcement, don’t we suffer the chaos and degradation of anarchy?
POSITIVE & NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT
Sad to say, I’ve learned more about reward and punishment from living with dogs than from living with myself. I can plainly see that screeching at them for bad behavior is more likely to get them cranked up than to get them to behave. They have taught me that a positive or negative response to a behavior, be it good or bad, reinforces the behavior. We humans are not doing ourselves any favors by punishing our own “bad”, negative, or counter-productive behavior with more negative behavior. All that does is reinforce the bad stuff and use up all the extra energy we really need for the good stuff. When all we hear is an internal voice crying, “bad girl!” (or “bad boy!”), eventually we become resigned to being a bad girl (or boy, as the case may be), and the bad stuff goes on and on.
Nor are we doing ourselves any favors by molly-coddling ourselves after an eating infraction. You say you don’t do that? Well, I sure do. I eat five Cookies off the plate on the break room table at work, sigh, and grab a sixth cookie while thinking, “It’s just too hard to resist those cookies, you’ve had such a trying day, you deserve a treat, you poor thing.” That kind of response also reinforces the very behavior that’s can keep me from maintaining my hard-won weight loss goal.
The reward-punishment cycle is hard to stop when it’s so deeply ingrained in us, but it is possible to end or at least reduce the occurrence of the negative stuff. One of the things that’s helped me regain control over my eating behavior (on many levels) is keeping a food log.
Entering my food intake (including time of day, amounts, the eating environment, my physical hunger, any eating problems, and how I felt emotionally before, during, and after eating) has forced me to put on my scientist hat. I’ve always thought of myself as an intuitive, creative person, not a scientific one, but sometimes when I act a part, I become a part. When I’ve written down all this data about my eating, it’s easier for me to see it with an objective eye. Patterns that are invisible to me when I’m in the middle of a situation become clear when I’ve backed far enough away from it. Things that I didn’t understand when they happened to me yesterday have new meaning when I study them today.
Things that I don’t really want to understand also become clearer to me when I see them in my food log. For example, after my weight loss surgery it became increasingly difficult for me to eat when sharing a meal with my elderly mother. Twenty years earlier, eating with her was a joy because we both loved food and the conversation that surrounds a meal. As she grew older, fussier, more confused, more demanding, the joy drained away and I found myself in the middle of painful stuck episodes every single time we ate together. A few hours after each incident, I would find myself seeking comfort in food, like stopping at Baskin-Robbin’s for a 670-calorie Cappuccino Blast after leaving Mom in the capable hands of her assisted living facility staff.
I loved my mom, I loved our old ritual of enjoying meals together, but it just wasn’t working any more. Time to make a change, Jean! After that realization, when it was time for a family meal, I spent the time fussing over Mom instead of trying to eat my own meal. I ate my meal later, when Mom was safely tucked in bed.
The take-home message here is this. Try to avoid the extremes of “good girl, bad girl” thinking, not just in your eating but in your exercise, work, parenting, and anything else you undertake. Sometimes a little bit good can be good enough, and a little bit bad doesn’t necessarily signify the collapse of western civilization. Try to be a kind, tolerant, but firm parent to yourself. Instead of screaming, “Bad girl!” when you fall off the bandwagon, give yourself a boost back up onto the wagon by saying, “That wasn’t good, but I know you can do better, so go prove it.”

As I was reading this, I was thinking to myself "Gee, I don't really see a whole lot of that." Then I remembered... if the title of the post is really negative sounding, I pass right by it without clicking
I like to help those that have a legit question because we all have had those! But the ones that are upset because the band just isn't making them skinny... I breeze on by!

It's 4 am, having my coffee before heading off to the gym...checking all my e-mails, weather, news headlines, etc, which I also do each morning....
Then I come here, check all the "New Content" since last logging in.....WOW...seems just about every post is about someone needing help...someone struggling....not happy, having a tough time...totally confused...falling off the wagon .looking to get back on track.....and the people who are having issues are prone to attack other people! (misery likes company?)
and on and on it goes....
I'm glad I do not come here for inspiration and motivation....because there are days it just isn't visible!
Not a good way for some to start their day......

Happy to report that today I weighed in at 179.8.
As a 5'5" person that brings my BMI to 29.9 - officially OVERWEIGHT instead of OBESE.
Looking forward to reaching HEALTHY at 149 or BMI = 24.8
And then a bit more to reach mid-healthy range.

Funny, I had forgotten about the post surgery dreams because its been over 2 1/2 years since I was banded but your post brought it all back. I don't know what the cause of the dreams was, whether it was the lack of food, sugar withdrawal or what, but I most definitely was scared of failure. I think all of us are...
Hang in there. Hopefully once you get back to real food and have some success, the dreams will end.
Just do all the things your doctor tells you and you will do fine!