VSGAnn2014

I see a counselor (well, I haven't for a few months, but I was) and she counsels me over and over again to just sit with the bad feelings. Try to learn to experience it rather than always feeling like you need to numb them, hide them, surpress them or comfort them. It is not always easy, but i suspect it is the right path.You might try counseling. You might also try just sitting with the bad feelings and consciously making the choice to NOT snack. It might not feel good, but I think with practice, it gets better.
Also, do things food wise to support yourself - ie be sure to get enough Protein, eat enough and stay hydrated so that you are not truly hungry and tempted to snack.

This is part of my confusion with feelings today.
My fat, I know it well I know most of the reasons I got here..
I have been open book most of the time here (sometimes laying too bare and fragile)
This thread, it's timing and it's participants have had a great great affect on me today.
I cannot say that it was all positive.
I am raw, tired, worn....
This is just my emotions today.
Time of year? I am not immune to the holiday blues..
Who knows really,
But I relate to this passage above. As it seems to be an ongoing theme to which I am faced with daily.
I'm not sure why it has to be a debate everyday..
Or maybe just not today.
It made my feel like will the real ugly fat person please stand.

I truly believe this is a chemical imbalance and there are studies out there looking at this. Pre-op, I was obsessed with food. Nothing ever told me I was full even when I was so physically full, I hurt. My brain kept telling me I wanted more more more. The only thing that kept me from hitting the 300s and the only time I felt completely NORMAL about food was when I took Phentermine. This drug blocked all appetite (I know, not normal) and the only time I ate was when I was physically starving and even then, nothing appealed to me. I dropped 80 pounds in three months the first time I went on Phentermine, then I got preggo.

The second time I went on it, I lost 75 pounds in 5 months and my doctor made me quit taking it. I
The third time I took it, I lost 25 pounds but my neurologist said I couldn't take it more than a month, so that was the end of that.

I did WWs each time so that I would actually eat enough. Why can I be so successful on an appetite suppressant when no other diet has worked? It can't be all emotional, there has to be a physical difference between me and someone who is naturally thin, too.

This struck such a chord with me. My mum has always had a lot of control over my life (even now at 23 years old she opens and inspects my bank statements) and ever since I can remember I had sneaked food out of the cupboards and hid the wrappers in places I didn't think she would find. She has always been very slim and really controlled everything I ate because she wanted me to be just like her.
I was always bigger than average because of this but my weight didn't get so out of control until she coerced me into doing something when I was 20 that I have hated myself for ever since. I thought that my weight gain was the emotional fall out of what I did, but you have really got me thinking that maybe it was my way of rebelling against her. Definitely something to consider.
Thank you (and everybody else) for sharing so much in this thread. I am very much a lurker rather than a poster but you have all helped me feel so much less alone. I think you're all amazing.

Every once in a while the liar demon rears it's ugly head and says these things. Overall though, I think a person will never find peace if that demon isn't mostly quiet. I don't care what you weigh or how beautiful you are - if you let the liar convince you that you are ugly and not good enough, that is what you will see. Everyone else will see the attractive and worthy person, but you (we) will still see the "not good enough".

I have only read some of these posts, but do have two observations.
I found myself feeling... jealous is the closest word I can come up with... of people who didn't have a lifelong obesity problem. Honestly, sometimes I read the whole comment "I was thin until I had kids" as a slam against people like me who was overweight or obese or morbidly obese basically my whole life (except for short lived periods). Like somehow people think that they don't deserve this obsesity thing .. it is just something that showed up later in life... unlike a "real" fat person. I don't blame anyone, simply observing my own feelings.
My second observation is that there is an inherited tendency toward hunger/bottomless pit stomach. This is NOT all emotional issues. My son who is a little heavy, but has never been obese shared with me that he never really feels too full. He can eat ALOT and have seconds and then eat another meal 2 hours later. I was like that pre surgery - my drive for food was nearly constant. I realize that I certainly do have emotional eating issues too, but that is my 20% issue; 80% was physical hunger. My son is young and male and much more self aware so he controls his weight by following the sleever rule "eat to absence of hunger, full is NOT the goal". I didn't have that understanding and also was raised to eat very high carb and low fat which also triggers huge appetite. My ex sig other and my other son (not genetically related to me but raised by me) do NOT have the bottomless pit stomachs - get full / satiated in a very reasonable way.
Don't discount the physical differences between people. I struggled more to maintain in the 275-300# range presleeve then I struggle to maintain at 150 post sleeve and the primary difference is that I am no longer hungry 24/7.

So I've been meaning to respond to this thread all day, but I got sidetracked. Is it too late cause I have more to share.
RJ...my wife would agree with you. She comes from a rather large and highly dysfunctional family. I was going to write about their dysfunction, but not sure it matters to this thread now.
But as to my brother....when I say I disconnected from family....I mean the bonds of shared DNA mean almost nothing to me. I decided long ago that if someone won't treat me with honesty, respect and decency....I don't need them in my life. Blood relatives are no exception. I wouldn't have a friend in my life who would steal from me....who would deny his parental rights of his two kids....who would steal from his mother who lay dying in the hospital of cancer, and then profit from her death. Just because that person shares the same gene pool with me doesn't mean I can excuse or accept that behavior. Perhaps that makes me a cold fish. But on the other hand I'd give the shirt off my back to any friend in need. They don't have to be blood related.

At the risk of beating a dead horse named "we are all different" let's not discount the very mundane but real stomach size differences.
My husband grew up happy, had a very close relationship with his family all their lives. No issues, traumas, abuse etc to speak of.
HUGE appetite. Huge.
When the surgery was over, 2 separate surgeons came to talk to us and unprompted they both said my stomach was "very, very big" and that my husbands stomach was "really, really huge."
Of course I asked if we had stretched our stomachs from over-eating. They both said they didn't think these were stretched stomachs, just much bigger than normal. Kinda like our shoe sizes.
Our doc has done at least 5000 surgeries and yet this was different enough to call out.
I don't know why my "very very big" stomach allowed me to stay thin for 30 years, but Roger has been overweight almost all his life except for brief periods where he won the battle.
I want to believe that sometimes a spade is just a spade. That it can be that simple. Am I deluding myself?

My life, the one that got me here, sometimes it doesn't even seem like it could of been a reality.. The only other witness to it my brother didn't make it.
But we have created a new life (you and I) complete with husbands and children!
Lol if you would of told me back then this would be my future? I would of laughed in your face.
In fact my brother when I was pregnant with my daughter told me we should not pass down our genes we are doomed and should let the bloodline die out.
I bet your children are pretty "normal" as are mine
that is our love, our ability to be vulnerable and let others in, shining through.
It gives me hope.. Which I need in the dark hours that still can creep in from time to time.

I had a very hard time with my husband a few years back. I pulled myself together pretty much by sheer will and powered through everything. This was also the time period when I was sick and didn't know it, holding down two jobs, and finishing my master's degree.
I was also brittle, angry, and bitter, even with some of my dear friends. To be fair, they didn't provide me with a soft landing place. On the other hand, when someone negative is coming at you constantly and demanding your support, not everyone can handle the dance that is required to manage that and keep oneself sane.
One of my dearest friends, in particular, went through what I essentially see now as a detox period from me. We are friends again, 5 years later, but it took a long time. And forgiveness has been required, on both sides.

Here is some honesty for you...I will regret this after it is out there because it has totally made me who I am today.....Okay lets get started!
As a child I was in an emotionally destructive home with my father and mother and 9 siblings...My father constantly beat my mother and us up all the time...We were poor and they hardly ever provided us with nourishment or anything else...The rivalry that was between them never stopped them from reproducing in their crewed up way they got a long there...So I don't remember ever having a cookie or cake or any food for that matter...At the age of 5 my mother decided she had had enough and moved all us kids and herself into town and the poverty really began. I don't know what my mother did with the money she collected from welfare but the hunger remained...
I remember sharing one box of Kraft dinner with 9 of us and feeling like my guts were cut in 2 because instead of satisfying us it made the hunger worse. We ate a lot of Beans, Kraft dinner and Soup made from dog bones we got at the local grocery store for free. The children started to steal apples and fruit off of neighboring trees, and relied on strangers who saw our plight to give us something to eat at times....I can't remember a time that I was ever full..or any of my siblings remember that either...
A few years past and my mother married again..This man brought a bit of stability into our lives and was a gentle soul at first....We had food!!!! We hid food every where we could think of because we did not trust that it all would not happen again...
A few years have past and my mother convinced him that if he did not learn to discipline us she would end the relationship....The abuse cycle soon began again and continued until all of us eventually left home....It was abuse of every kind and all of us are scarred in different ways...
Me I built a wall that would not allow anyone to get close to me because I did not trust anyone including my brothers or relatives.
I started to gain weight in grade 5 and this was because I could not trust that there would be food tomorrow...So we were like a pack of dogs...feast or famine.....
I lost the excess when I was 15 and the extra attention I was getting was not welcome and I made the decision that if I was fat no one would bother me or try to give me that kind of attention....I started to regain the weight at 18. At nineteen I married my husband and then the whole world imploded....A man in my life...my mortal enemy... i went nuts and put weight on fast I could not handle marriage at all.
Mean while the abuse continued with my parents who instilled in us such fear and loyalty that we could not break it...it was a fear of the unknown...Know the devil your with then the one your not...you get it!!!
I tried so hard to keep normal and raised 2 kids and somehow kept my marriage together...the pain was so great and my life felt empty as it did when I was a child...we were all married and had children and my parents never answered for anything....At 40 I started having repressed memories and went for counseling....The only benefit from that was that I learned that I was a victim not the perp as my mother always said what did you do to him for him to do that to you.....
In 2000 I went home and traveled through my memories and that night I went into a nervous breakdown....followed by a major depression....Years have past and I have been working on every single issue that haunts me from my past and I have come a long way....I do not think I will ever be totally healed...I think that I am doing amazing considering I was raised by wolves...My mother is a psychopath and my step father was her lap dog....he did all her bidding!!!
So here I am today struggling with the last part of my inner and outer torment and working hard every day to find the good in myself and as I bring this wall down the fear of someone noticing me again is paralyzing..I might not have that issue since I am a lot older now...who knows...
I must beat my demons..the ones that brought me to this place and never allow them to hurt or damage me again..
This story is an over view of what I have gone through and my siblings are as scarred as I am but in different ways...
For me the numbers frighten me.. They are mere factors in a broader spectrum of life!

Hi everyone....I used to come on to this forum every day the first year; for support and I also thought I could encourage others especially older people (I was 58 when I was sleeved). I wrote a weekly blog called Queenofcrop.com for my first year. I just started getting updates again (maybe with the change to bariatricpal?). I had forgotten what interesting people hang out here!
My second year was full of adventure....I moved from Hawaii to Amsterdam, bought a house and got involved in fixing it up, met new friends and had a ton of company over the summer. My entire second year I simply felt like a normal thin person....all of our new friends in Amsterdam never knew me as heavy and as most people know, most Europeans don't have a weight problem, so the subject never came up.
I honestly don't follow the rules all that well; but I eat healthy, always have a cookie in the afternoon with a cup of coffee, usually a glass of wine at night with dinner and I move a lot (we don't own or need a car here). So I walk or bike everywhere. I never look at labels in the store (most items here don't have the nutrional information on them anyway, and if they did, I still can't understand enough Dutch to read them.
It's been the most freeing time in my life....I have been at goal for a year, I don't stress about food, I don't count calories, and I eat like a thin person. I feel very lucky. But I must not forget the road I have come down and be reminded that I still need to understand how I got so heavy in the first place. I think little things can start creeping back in.....especially now with the holidays here. Last year I still had much restriction; now, not as much.
I have heard from a number of people recently who followed my blog and some new ones who just found my blog (thank you!), and I will post a 2 year update soon.