I have come to a very scary realization that I don't know how to eat like someone that isn't dieting. Years and years of dieting have left me overweight and completely lost. I am supposed to get banded in about 6 weeks. I've just had my 1st educational class where they talked about diets and how they don't work. SO...I am supposed to listen to my body and eat accordingly to my body signals. I just don't know where to start. Has anyone else had this problem ? What did you do?

I am re-learning how to eat and what to eat. the group that I go to has a binder and there are support groups that have sample meals at various stages of being banded. I followed them and learned to listen and feel what my body was telling me about when to stop eating.

There is no one particular way to do this process.

I am not the normal skinny person, so I don't even try to convince myself that I know what they eat. I focus on a day at a time and monitor my portions while cutting back on carbs, i.e. processed breads, rice, etc....

I have been banded more than two years and I have improved to a near normal state in terms of how I eat but I still have the crazy thoughts, just much less of them. I assume it is a lifelong process. A small part of me wonders if I might wake up in the morning obese again and a small voice criticizes what or how much I eat but I would say that voice is 90% less. I dont diet, I never eat low fat, low calorie, or diet food, and other than walking my plump dog, I dont exercise. I just eat tiny meals of whatever I want, focusing on protein and it seems to quiet the fat/crazy voice I think we all have!

I am continually astonished how it seems to me the vast majority of people on this site who are banded continue to diet and try to work out like mad and continually feel bad about not being good enough at either....I got my band (cash out of pocket) to stop that insanity which only made me fatter anyway!