I was just reading on Yahoo about a woman who had WLS, they didn't say which one or I missed it. She wrote a book, Refinery29 by Jen Larsen. She lost 180 lbs. and isn't happy. She is happy she is thin but not happy that she never addressed why she was over weight and depressed. She felt the surgery made her healthier but didn't address the other side. I totally understand. I know I over ate because I made bad food choices like eating a loaf of wonderful bread and a pint of ice cream, but I don't know why or what inner me caused me to do this. How about all of you, do you know why you made these bad food choices?

Very interesting subject to be addressed.

Because I liked the taste and feel of good food in my mouth and tummy.

I may have ate more when I was stressed or depressed but that wasn't very often since I'm a happy guy anyway. I just like some flavors of food.

tmf

Interesting topic indeed!

Granted this is strictly my opinion, but I do think it's important to get the root of why our relationships with food are so unhealthy we ended up with WLS. That's not to say you can't lose weight and maintain while figuring it out, but I do think it's necessary to understand and confront so old behaviors don't come back and sabotage all our hard work.

A perfect example- how many posts do we see here a day by someone eating out of control? Or someone who's lost a ton of weight just to regain it because they regressed back to old behaviors? Until we deal with our food demons we're just biding time until they rear their ugly heads in our lives again.

Just my opinion.

I'm with tmf on this one, I just like food!!! No emotional issues, just good times and good food always go/went hand in hand!

I read the article:

"Magazine articles about body image talk about loving yourself despite your flaws. Sometimes they get really radical and they talk about loving yourself because of your flaws, and that is supposed to be empowering. And it pisses me off, because we’re talking about flaws here."

I think she's just plain pissed all the time and gets off on being pissed. jmo

tmf

I know why I gained weight, and I hope to use that knowledge to maintain my weight loss. That is the major part of any weight loss journey.

We all have issues that drive us to overeat. It may have started out being trained to clean our plates and even forced to eat food we didn't like. "I'm a good girl for cleaning my plate or rebellion and eating everything we like when someone who's controlling you is not there. covering our bodies with fat to protect us from sexual abuse, loneliness, being bored, fear of not getting enough:love, attention, etc. There are lots of books that help deal with the food issues. I decided to see a therapist to get to the core of why I overate even though I did do some work on my own. I want this to be the last time I have to loose all this weight. I'm working on a list of my beliefs about food. It's interesting when making the list how it started off as I like the taste and it is a pleasure to a way to relax, punishment when I was a child also good and bad memories during life.

It's interesting when making the list how it started off as I like the taste and it is a pleasure to a way to relax, punishment when I was a child also good and bad memories during life.

That's a great point. I grew up on southern fried cooking and to this day chicken fried anything is like a magnet to my tongue. Looking for that warmth of my younger days of no pressure, no worries.

tmf

I read that article too.. she sounds like she had some issues that she should have worked on prior to her surgery.. like all of us reasons for over eating are varied.. I love food, grew up on fried chicken, gravy and banana pudding.. still love those things and I relate to those kinds of foods , it brings memories of Sunday dinner at mama;s and special holidays all involving food.. but I would rather be thin and healthy then fat and unhealthy... the girl in the article is young and has had some tough breaks but losing 180 lbs is a big feat...so she needs to fix her head before she regains it all...

After many years in and out of therapy, and an in-patient eating disorders program, I pretty much know what my issues are; who, what, when, where, why....all of it. I haven't been in therapy for many years now, but what I do know is that we are never cured of this problem. Understanding the reasons and identifying the triggers is very important, so we can try & find other ways to deal with "whatever", when we are feeling pulled toward food. The problem with food addiction over any other, is that we must eat to survive. We can never put it down & say that we'll never eat again. What we can do, is fill our arsenal with alternative activities, instead of eating. There are times when this is easier than others, and the desire to overeat, or eat for the wrong reasons, never really goes away. We just have to learn different behaviors to deal with it.

I had always hoped that one day I would have this epiphany, and my compulsion for food would simply disappear. Therapy is a really good idea to help get in touch with what's really going on emotionally, but it doesn't take away the addiction; just provides better tools to deal with it.

After many years in and out of therapy, and an in-patient eating disorders program, I pretty much know what my issues are; who, what, when, where, why....all of it. I haven't been in therapy for many years now, but what I do know is that we are never cured of this problem. Understanding the reasons and identifying the triggers is very important, so we can try & find other ways to deal with "whatever", when we are feeling pulled toward food. The problem with food addiction over any other, is that we must eat to survive. We can never put it down & say that we'll never eat again. What we can do, is fill our arsenal with alternative activities, instead of eating. There are times when this is easier than others, and the desire to overeat, or eat for the wrong reasons, never really goes away. We just have to learn different behaviors to deal with it.

I had always hoped that one day I would have this epiphany, and my compulsion for food would simply disappear. Therapy is a really good idea to help get in touch with what's really going on emotionally, but it doesn't take away the addiction; just provides better tools to deal with it.

thank you for sharing this. I always have said that drug and alcohol addiction is nothing like food addiction because we all need food and not the others.

love all the different answers.

i understand reasons people gain weight.....we all have had bad things happen and makes us depressed/miserable/turn to food/drink for comfort...i accept that....understand that.....heck i did that......that bag of doritos wasnt gonna hurt my feelings.......but what i know is that everyone who is (fat/obese) got that way the same way.....by eating more calories than they burned off. that is how i did it...i have lost a zillion pounds numerous times and always gained it back by me eating more then i burned off.....i am not putting down anyone and years of therapy helped me with issues.....i have no idea why i wrote this. thanks eye candy for putting this article on here. i read it yesterday.....to lose weight is easy,,,its the mind change that is a b i t ch