N0VA

I suppose I should just focus on tracking my food intake.. that should probably get rid of the guilt. I definitely still have the diet mentality. I can't even imagine not having that. I feel like I've been dieting most of my life. There is work to be done there, for sure. I appreciate the perspective!

However, I'm not sure that I agree that food isn't supposed to be enjoyable. I just want to be thin, not miserable! That doesn't mean we should engorge ourselves.. but even animals enjoy their food and have preferences (at least, higher intelligence animals do). I have no desire to binge eat or anything, I never really had that type of relationship with food, fortunately. At this point, it's just frustrating when I want something (let's say Salmon) and I'm super excited to finally get what I wanted... but then I'm full before I really got the chance to enjoy the fact that I just had Salmon.

Having said that.. I think I figured out what my issue was today. I think I was eating too quickly. I slowed down, even more, today at lunch and actually got to savor each bite. I was even able to eat more than a few bites!

Oh, I LOVE the taste of food now, I really DO enjoy my meals. I didn't mean everything had to taste like cardboard.

What I meant was the difference with preop. Before, if I liked the food, it was always a call to have seconds. It didn't matter that I was no longer hungry! It was good, so I always wanted to continue experiencing that goodness.

Now you've discovered the secret. Slow down, savor every bite. You'll get to experience the goodness for as long as you like (taking your time with every bite), but only consume a couple ounces.

A recommendation I read is to cut food up into pencil eraser sized pieces (those ones attached to pencils). 2oz of food cut up that small can last quite a while! Lol.

lol it definitely would last a while. I considered buying some of that diet flatware to take with me everywhere. The first time I saw them I thought they were funny... now I realize they'd actually be useful! (They're just much smaller utensils and hold much less food.)