jellybean12

I have/had the same experience. I've always thought of myself as addicted to sugar and only until it was out of my diet completely did the cravings go away. I'm doing better but still feel like I've good a few more days of major temptation to get through before it will be easier (but still hard!!!) to ignore all the sweets around me. Thanks everyone for the support.

Yes, you guys are 100% right. I guess I am surprised how much those "slider foods" don't fill me up. Bummer! LOL. I'm re-focused! Thank you.

I am only 2 months out from sleeve surgery. My experience has been positive so far. I've lost a good chunk of weight. I'm feeling good, eating pretty well and looking good. But, my personality has always been to to follow instructions 90% of the way. Never 100%. A teacher, a doctor, a boss.... I feel the need to have to have a little bit of control so I do things "mostly" right, or "mostly" the way I'm instructed. Always a rule follower but never exactly. LOL. And it turns out I'm doing this program the same way. I get in my Protein and my Water and my veggies, but I tried a little bit of sweets after about a month and enjoyed the fact that I didn't overeat them, just had a nibble. So over the holidays, the nibble turned into eating about 10 of my favorite Cookies over the course of a day. And doing this multiple days in a row. It turns out that for me, 4-5 oz of protein fills me up to where I stop eating so I don't get over full. However, a homemade chocolate chip cookie doesn't fill me up at all. Neither does 3-4 of them. That is VERY disappointing as I now realize that it is up to ME, not the surgery, to control my overeating of sweets. Ice cream. Chocolate. My two favorites. And they go down easy. I am very aware of the importance of focusing on my emotional eating / eating for soothing, etc. and doing the work there. But I confess that it's disappointing to me (and a bit scary) to realize that I can already put away 10 cookies in a short period of time, and that I better get my act together around this NOW. Guess I just wanted to share this and get it out there. I would benefit from just taking sugar out of my diet completely.

Hello - My closest friend has surgery about 10 years ago.Lost a lot of weight. About 4 years ago one beer became two, two became 4, and so on. Just like you are describing. Sad to say that a rough home life expanded the situation and she became a very unhappy alcoholic and still struggles. I know this is not uncommon, for all the reasons others have said. Plus I think our bodies are just wired for "addiction" sometimes. It truly sucks. And I am sorry you have to struggle with this. But, like someone else said, you have done it once. You can do it again. Don't let shame keep you from getting the support you need. Life is too good. Don't give up on having what you want.

That's a very good question, MickeyKat, and I have two answers. First is the easy one... replace it with knitting, crafting, talking to friends on the phone, exercise, reading, biking, gardening, and all those other things you can "DO" to keep your mind/fingers/body occupied. The second one is harder. For me, I have always eaten as a soothing mechanism. To soothe sadness or frustration or anger or boredom. Basically, I'm soothing some feelings and making myself feel better (temporarily). An important person in my life, who is a recovering addict told me that recovery is hard, because you have to learn to sit with your feelings and not numb them away, and that it's okay to have uncomfortable feelings and just HAVE them, and not try and make them go away. So my 2nd answer to "what did I replace food with?" is that I am replacing it with learning how to live with uncomfortable feelings, learning how to just sit with discomfort and feel it and move through it and then out the other side. It's hard but I want to practice it as much as possible. I feel like if I don't, I will just end up back in my original spot 3-5 years out. And I don't want to do that.

Hi everyone - This is my first post on the forum. I was sleeved on 10/24. I've lost about 20 pounds since then. I'm happy with the weight loss. Had a stall for 2 weeks where the scale wouldn't budge and then I dropped 5 pounds in a week. I am back to eating real food and have tried a bunch of different things. Nothing is really bothering my stomach. But my issue is that I feel hungry about 1.5-2 hours after eating. I'll have a premier Protein shake (30g protein) or yogurt/fruit/protein power or baked chicken and broccoli and 2 hours later my stomach feels like an empty pit. I don't have hunger "pains" the way I used to when I was hungry. It just feels like my stomach is empty and hollow. I used to have acid reflux that was painful. During the surgery, I had a hiatal hernia fixed. The acid reflex pain (acid coming up) is 100% gone and I'm not taking any meds for it. My dr. suggested that the "empty stomach" discomfort may still be acid, but it seems weird as there is no pain. Just a hollowness. (It's pronounced enough that I wake up at night feeling what I think is "hunger".) I can eat way more now than I could a month ago. So not sure what is going on. Anyone else experience this? Meanwhile, I love feeling my hipbones again when I lie down!