35 days ago I could eat like a horse. I remember not two months ago being able to put away a whole pizza if I was hungry, a huge sub sandwich. Anything you gave me I could finish and the fact that there wasn't anything left to eat was my signal to stop eating.

Hahahahahahahaha.

It is such an odd new world. I am now an abstemious eater. This morning I poured a normalish looking bowl of Cereal for myself and ate a whopping three mouthfuls before I was done. I left the house, went swimming(yay), went to get my oil checked and then got a car wash because my car looked like it had just returned from Islamabad, Then I had this weird bill that I had to straighten out. It was 3 PM. I had not eaten anything but three swallows of Special K Protein cereal six hours before. I was starving, driving around, thinking I had to get to food at some point and then I realized I could stop *anywhere* to get *anything* to eat. So after my scheduled argument with customer service I went across the street to Jimmy John's and ordered a turkey sub. Now I knew there was no way I could eat even half of it but it seemed like a brilliant option to my hungry, clueless doggy brain.

Okay. When I got home I ate the following: Two pinches of turkey and provolone and a tear of bread. The whole damn sandwich was sitting there and I did not want anymore. I ate a small tomato. Done.

4.25 I paid for that thing and it would feed me for a week.

I put the rest of it in the fridge with all the the other stuff I've tried to eat this week and could not finish. Imagine making a Lean Cuisine and having it sit through three mealtimes until it was spent. Can you believe that? I can't. I was standing there perusing the rapid acquisitions my fridge was making and then I realized something.

I forgot to weigh myself.

I've not been weighing myself at home, will not check my weight if it seems like part of a compulsion, and refuse to obsess. But I do jump on when I'm at the club. Before surgery that scale gave me the highest weight so I decided to go with it. I figured it was telling the truth. But I forgot!

The health club I go to is full of normal Midwestern people. A lot of them have nordic backgrounds and I think this is why they have this odd custom of running around naked, even the old women. It is a trip. I have always been kind of a modest person and when you're fat, you know, the last thing you're going to do is go bouncing around a locker room without your drawers on. But these women just wander around with nothing on, in all their Midwestern not-so-perfect glory. I know it sounds strange but as I was averting my eyes from a 55 year old female who was not my relative I started to giggle to myself. I have been feeling utterly hideous for at least two years but I look just like everybody else there, pretty much. Suddenly my perspective shifted. I was not the ugliest, fattest human being on the planet. Not that I was looking for other candidates in that locker room but it was a quick hit of reality: I'm just a normal, overweight middle aged person, like these people here.

Still can't bring myself to run around in the altogether like these women though. I'm always in my suit or something and demurely step behind a shower curtain for the full monty. One thing I can tell you though is that when you start to feel like you have more control over something as unconscious as your relationship with food, you just have no idea what other little neuroses are going to resolve along with it.

So NSV I guess: I forgot to weigh myself and forgot to hate what I look like today. Go Team.

Yay on not weighing yourself!!!! I am a big fan of only weighing once every week or two, it really helps me stay positive because I have never really seen a stall. There was 2 weeks where I only lost one pound, but it was still a loss :-)

Isn't it great to get to that point where you start to feel human again? You can buy food (even though you don't eat it) and walk around like a regular person!!

yay!

Lara

Hallelujah sista. When i'm am bouncing around in my belly dance class, for the first time in my three years attending, I don't think about myself as "FAT". Now don't get me wrong, i am still over 200 lbs, and the others are pretty well living in athletes or dancers bodies, but I don't feel like I am TOO FAT. And I think this is not as much my size as the feeling like its not permanent or really me somehow. I'm on the move and so is my fat. We look at mirrors in that class... and I can see myself along with everyone else. Im OK. Hurray! IN my Tango class, its the same, I am the largest person in the class, but I still feel kinda hot. I am confident I guess, that my fatness is not the ultimate definer of me.

And the food thing. I feel like I must have opened some Genies bottle or something... When is it that 4 corn chips are enough? When you live in the world the Genie answered your wish in. It is such a relief. I am so happy you have found this too. I can relate.

Thanks for sharing crosswind. It is good to hear-I am only 6 days post op and I called my surgeon today to ask him if the damn sleeve worked because I am able to eat like 6 oz of fat free cream soup in like 10 minutes. He told me that once I graduate to solids, it will be different..the food makes you full very fast. Your posting also helped clarify for me...thank you!