I belong to another chat group of bandsters....and sometimes I have to scratch my head in bewilderment about how obsessed they are with food!!

On one hand they are talking about "woe is me" I'm not loosing!!! Then the next thread is "What's for dinner"

Yes, there should be a healthy relationship with food...we need it to live! But we don't live to eat.

For the past 35 years every Dr. I ever saw kept telling me "You eat too much....you eat to much...you eat to much....." better diet...better diet....!

Which I did many, many times, and eventually I failed at every diet, because I could not stop eating!!!

That was when my PCP said, in that case, perhaps you need surgery to help you stop eating...and that is exactly what the band did for me.

It took conrol of not only what I can eat, but how much AND also when by curbing my hunger cravings.

So why would I want to spend my time thinking and talking about food? I rather talk about weight loss, the band, fitting in new clothes, getting fit, etc, etc...

Bottom line...."Food is not my friend" It has done me wrong for many, many years and now I have to approach it with caution lest it stabs me in the back when I'm not looking.

Food, and the love of it, has always been my weakness....and I have to realize that at all times.

I agree, B-52- why spend time talking or thinking about something that made me so fat for so long?!? B-52, let's talk about our awesome workouts or how I just fit into a size smaller work pants or how much more energy I have now that I'm 45 lbs lighter.

I actually am not at your point yet- not quite to restriction- and am doing this a lot by willpower, but absolutely know the day is coming when I am not hungry for several hours. Right now, I just ignore it. I know what I am eating because I planned it out and have it in my lunch box. When the time comes, I just eat it. When I think about all the time and money spent on crappy food eating out for lunch!!!

I was just thinking yesterday about how when I would have a few hours alone in the house without kids or DH how I would think about what I would eat while they were gone...it makes me so sad to think about how I used to be, but then I am glad I'm not that way now, nor am I interested in going back to that. Yesterday I realized that now if I have time alone in the house I get up on my elliptical, or I have energy to tackle a house project or two!!

Sorry for the ramble..........eating is just not the most important thing to me anymore.

Exactly....I smoked cigarettes for most of my life, and even though I knew they would kill me...I Enjoyed them. Took me a long time to stop, and it has been 6 years now. Had to put it behind me.

I'm surely not going to spend my days talking about them with other people who have., or are trying to quit.

Yes, we need food to nourish ourselves and be healthy...but that's about it. I'd rather talk about how good it is to be skinny and fit, or how to get there!!

I too am not quite in the "green-zone", but I'm closer than before - so alot of this is will-power for me. Which means, I've got to make changes with my relationship to food or I'm not better off then before surgery.

I know I'm a food addict, but unlike other addicts that can move on from their habits - mine is in my face everyday and I struggle. So I choose to surround myself with people that understand my journey (whether they've had surgery or not) and support me. I can't talk about food all the time, it makes me want to eat. I can however, talk about my surgery, the reasons why I took this step, what I'm doing to reprogram my mind, and what I need for support. That said, I do like to give and receive recipes I've tried that are beneficial for people with the band (I even bought Eating Well after WLS-which is a great cookbook). I think it's helpful if someone's tried something and suggests it. HOWEVER, it is not the only thing I think about - I just can't function that way.

I was on Pinterest last night (not a member, just browsing). Anyway, I have never been one to browse around for new recipes to try but it seemed like it was all the food posts that jumped out at me. Yes, we all had this surgery to lose weight, get healthy and fit. But it takes awhile for the mind to catch up to the fact that our relationship with food has been drastically changed, that maybe talking about it helps some to cope with that fact.