Over the years, there have been many things Doctors have told me that went in one ear and out the other. The above statement is one of them. I really didn't see a problem. Afterall, I wasn't a person who hid in the closet everynight with a bucket of ice cream and 2 bags of chips. Honestly, I really didn't even know what that statement meant.

When I first met my sleeve surgeon, he told me this...and again, it fell on deaf ears. I pretended to hear it, but I knew in my mind that I would do nothing about it. Then I met the nutritionist. The first thing she did was ask me about my most successful weight loss period in the past. I told her I had lost 110 lbs back in 2005-2006. She wanted to know if I had kept any food logs from that time. Luckily (or unluckily) they were all living eternally online on fitday.com. Well, we looked at them together. Over the course of a year I had lost 110 pounds eating about 2200 calories a day. But she pointed out something to me...something that has meant more and more to me the farther out from surgery I get, and the more I learn. I was averaging about 300 grams of carbs a day, and they were not the good carbs. They were not brocolli, asparagus, apples, zuchinni...and so on. They were wheat bread, Protein bars, Pasta, potatos, more bread....in other words, all processed food and starches.

One thing I remember most about that time period, I was always starving. I thought about food every second of every day. If I didn't eat something every couple of hours I just about fell out. I got shaky, confused and irritable. Wow was I irritable. How I ever convinced my fiance to marry me during that period I will never know. She deserves some sort of a sainthood or something. It's no wonder I couldn't maintain that lifestyle. I eventually gained it all back of course. I also quit logging my food on fitday about the same time the weight started to creep back up. Funny how that happens. At least I wasn't irritable any more.

Somewhere in there with the nurtritionist, things started to click. I finally started to understand what they were talking about. For me, food did not have to be about entertainment. It did not have to be about comfort. I did not need a treat. I did not need to indulge myself "every once in a while". The occasional treat was not going to keep me sane. I needed a new definition of what sane really was. I needed a new definition of what "eating normally" was. Is it "sane" or "normal" to eat something that I know is going to kill me, even in moderation? Just because I see some skinny person eating Whataburger every day, does that mean I deserve to eat it? That I should be able to eat it and still be skinny?

The answer is...no. Food is just fuel. It is not my comfort blanket. It is not my friend, my partner, my crutch or my reward. It has been a one way relationship all my life. I loved food, it never loved me back. Who needs that?

Now I know, I need more than just a weight loss surgery. The sleeve will give me portion control, but that is just another obstacle that I can easily get around. Ice cream, sodas and chips are like kryptonite to my sleeve. They will walk right through it. I'm learning that I need to fuel my body with the best fuel I can get. Afterall, I didn't have surgery just to see the scale go down. I did it to feel better, be healthy....and to live. I want to live a long life. If I get hit by a bus tomorrow, it will be while jogging 2 miles. I will not die a slow, agonizing death in a hospice bed because I'm too fat to breath or walk, and can't wipe my own butt.

Is it easy? Obviously no. I still have work to do. Maybe I always will. Maybe it will always take effort to live like this. I don't mind. I spent many years not putting any effort at all into my health, and it was way harder than this.

Thanks for listening.

Butter bean, my name is story, I'm new here, and ran across your post, I have never read anything so heart felt, so full of truth, you really made mr cry! God bless you for sharing with us! I would love to talk to you more. I'm getting sleeved in oct, my jurney is yet to start. If you would like to talk, you can find me here or at storywelch@yahoo.com. Thank again

If that was your problem, then I wholeheartedly agree. But when I said that there was nothing wrong with enjoying food, I never mentioned pizza, ice cream, or whatever was your junk food of choice. I was never a big junk food fan, nor did I endorse eating them by what I said. So please don't infer that from my statement.

I was put on pretty strict post-op diet and I've been sticking to it, and I will continue to. That doesn't mean I can't enjoy the healthful food that I do eat. And I no longer miss the food that I can't. If you still mourn the loss of eating Taco Bell or whatever, then that's more of a "you" problem.

My food mourning period is long over. I left it in the dust. I did want some tater tots the other day, I had 4 and threw the rest away. I guess that's my little bit of moderation right there.

My whole point is that it feels good not to be a slave to those cravings any longer. I'm finding what works for me...as have you....as have we all. I wish nothing but success for everyone here.

Butterthebean, thanks for posting reality. I havn't been sleeved yet, so I keep asking myself if I can do it. I was banded in 2010 & am having it taken out on Sept. 12th, then switching to a sleeve sometime in October. I keep asking myself, however, if I should have the sleeve surgery. What will make it different than any other diet I've tried? I know that I won't be able to eat as much volume, but I REALLY NEED TO GET THE FACT THAT THE SLEEVE IS NOT THE ANSWER-ALL TO MY WEIGHT ISSUES. I need to read posts like this to get to that "AH-HA" moment. One moment I'm excited to get the sleeve, & the next I wonder if it's a mistake. Thanks to all sleevers who remind us newbies that it is a journey (for many of us, of the mind) in which we must be activly involved. It is not a cure to our obesity. Although I want to blog with long-time sleevers to see how they're doing, if they don't get that they have to change their eating habits, they will gain the weight back. Thaks for listening.

Ahhh I loved re-reading this thread with some new posts...

The funny thing i want to mention is that my mum cannot and probably will not ever get over her ingrained philosophy of eating. She is all or nothing and has blatantly said it feels like if she eats a piece of fruit or a donut (any sweet thing with carbs really) that she goes into a binge cycle. She simply cannot eat in moderation she is 100 kgs and fluctuates +-10kgs yearly. She can see how her all or nothing mentality contributed in some way to my eating disorder but for the life of me i cannot convince her to seek help and try a new way... Very unfortunately for out enture family, she has been told she will very likely die soon, set in her ways.

I definitely won't try and convince anyone who is on here that being strict is a bad thing- in fact if it's working for you it would be an awful sabotage on my part to lure you off-track! I would feel mortified if I said "try this naughty food in moderation and see..." and it affected you adversely... That is not my intention, please follow your own journey and be at peace!!!

But for some people who have tried that trail and can't stay with it and automatically fall into the binge crevasse I will advocate trying what has started working for me, something advocated to me by psychs and dieticians alike...

I try to follow the rick kausman and Michael Pollan and rosemary Stanton philosophies... I try to eat real food, mostly greens, some meat and complex starches/wheats... Plus that occasional thing that I simply cannot avoid in the society in which I live: junk! Oh and Protein shakes, I'm pretty sure they fit in there somewhere...

Anyway, I'm not perfect, never will be, so for me personally, I need to take out the guilt I sabotage myself with and add understanding and moderation its hard, I still get feelings of disgust at myself (last night I had a fun size timeout bar and cried myself to sleep over it!) but today I keep going knowing I didn't drink 2litres of soda, KFC, McDonald's, pizza hut, Krispy Kreme and so on... They are minefields to be avoided but I have growing confidence that I will survive and eventually they will have power over me NO MORE, they will just be food...

Yep Cookeeeez, there is certainly no one approach that works for everyone. If I thought my plan worked for everyone, I'd package it up and make a million bucks.

Lol @ butterthebean- maybe you should !!! People make money that way all the time and i reckon you would really help some people!!! There's obviously a big market out here just waiting to be filled with your knowledge!!! And I bet the before/after pics on the cover would be priceless!!!

Hmmm that gives me an idea....

Oh and did you know mel Gibson's brother Chris has a book out (and a fiction one he's writing now) called "memoirs of a fat bastard". It's a fun and easy read regarding the alternative therapies that helped him change his life, including reiki & NLP...

Over the years' date=' there have been many things Doctors have told me that went in one ear and out the other. The above statement is one of them. I really didn't see a problem. Afterall, I wasn't a person who hid in the closet everynight with a bucket of ice cream and 2 bags of chips. Honestly, I really didn't even know what that statement meant.

When I first met my sleeve surgeon, he told me this...and again, it fell on deaf ears. I pretended to hear it, but I knew in my mind that I would do nothing about it. Then I met the nutritionist. The first thing she did was ask me about my most successful weight loss period in the past. I told her I had lost 110 lbs back in 2005-2006. She wanted to know if I had kept any food logs from that time. Luckily (or unluckily) they were all living eternally online on fitday.com. Well, we looked at them together. Over the course of a year I had lost 110 pounds eating about 2200 calories a day. But she pointed out something to me...something that has meant more and more to me the farther out from surgery I get, and the more I learn. I was averaging about 300 grams of carbs a day, and they were not the good carbs. They were not brocolli, asparagus, apples, zuchinni...and so on. They were wheat bread, Protein bars, Pasta, potatos, more bread....in other words, all processed food and starches.

One thing I remember most about that time period, I was always starving. I thought about food every second of every day. If I didn't eat something every couple of hours I just about fell out. I got shaky, confused and irritable. Wow was I irritable. How I ever convinced my fiance to marry me during that period I will never know. She deserves some sort of a sainthood or something. It's no wonder I couldn't maintain that lifestyle. I eventually gained it all back of course. I also quit logging my food on fitday about the same time the weight started to creep back up. Funny how that happens. At least I wasn't irritable any more.

Somewhere in there with the nurtritionist, things started to click. I finally started to understand what they were talking about. For me, food did not have to be about entertainment. It did not have to be about comfort. I did not need a treat. I did not need to indulge myself "every once in a while". The occasional treat was not going to keep me sane. I needed a new definition of what sane really was. I needed a new definition of what "eating normally" was. Is it "sane" or "normal" to eat something that I know is going to kill me, even in moderation? Just because I see some skinny person eating Whataburger every day, does that mean I deserve to eat it? That I should be able to eat it and still be skinny?

The answer is...no. Food is just fuel. It is not my comfort blanket. It is not my friend, my partner, my crutch or my reward. It has been a one way relationship all my life. I loved food, it never loved me back. Who needs that?

Now I know, I need more than just a weight loss surgery. The sleeve will give me portion control, but that is just another obstacle that I can easily get around. Ice cream, sodas and chips are like kryptonite to my sleeve. They will walk right through it. I'm learning that I need to fuel my body with the best fuel I can get. Afterall, I didn't have surgery just to see the scale go down. I did it to feel better, be healthy....and to live. I want to live a long life. If I get hit by a bus tomorrow, it will be while jogging 2 miles. I will not die a slow, agonizing death in a hospice bed because I'm too fat to breath or walk, and can't wipe my own butt.

Is it easy? Obviously no. I still have work to do. Maybe I always will. Maybe it will always take effort to live like this. I don't mind. I spent many years not putting any effort at all into my health, and it was way harder than this.

Thanks for listening.[/quote']

I love ths! Thanks

I think I would be amiss for not telling a person that is 3 days out of surgery that if they are wanting to know when they can have Doritos' date=' mac & cheese, milkshakes and other junk foods it might want to speak to a nutritionist.

It was not a criticism. It was advice that was not rudely given. I think that people confuse difference of opinion or disagreement with meanness or something.

I steer people to TheworldaccordingtoEggface.com constantly. She does not eat any Pasta, sugar, potatoes or bread, She won't even touch crackers. I don't go as far as she does, but her recipes like pastaless lasagna are staples at my house and she gives me great ideas.

I personally did not give the poster of the mac and cheese thread an alternate mac and cheese recipe because she was 3 DAYS OUT and not nearly ready. I did talk about ways to make Protein shakes taste like milkshakes and only got "Protein Shakes make me gag."

I felt that perhaps she needed to learn how to deal with the head hunger first or no control is even possible.

If you see a thread where someone has given polite advice that they think is sound:

"instead of criticizing them or making them feel bad, either choose to simply keep the peace by passing up that thread, or perhaps offer some healthy alternatives like many have chosen to do."

Actually I would never tell someone not to post. Just making a point.[/quote']

How do you make the Protein shake taste like a milkshake???!

So very true, I've only had the surgery for a week and I am finding myself a little depressed because I have lost my one true love, food. I am becoming more aware of how awful society is with the constant display of food. I never broke my relationship with food before surgery so I am forced to do it now. Although I am very irritable I know it will get easier one day at a time and in the end all worth it.

So very true' date=' I've only had the surgery for a week and I am finding myself a little depressed because I have lost my one true love, food. I am becoming more aware of how awful society is with the constant display of food. I never broke my relationship with food before surgery so I am forced to do it now. Although I am very irritable I know it will get easier one day at a time and in the end all worth it.[/quote']

I had surgery 4 weeks ago Butterthebean you are awesome! Your words really hit me and I totally agree with you! I've lost 20 lbs as of last week! I'm still feeling tired but am doing good otherwise! Glad I found this group! Good luck to all having surgery this week!

So very true' date=' I've only had the surgery for a week and I am finding myself a little depressed because I have lost my one true love, food. I am becoming more aware of how awful society is with the constant display of food. I never broke my relationship with food before surgery so I am forced to do it now. Although I am very irritable I know it will get easier one day at a time and in the end all worth it.[/quote']

I didn't truly break my relationship with food until after surgery as well. And in some ways it's still an ongoing process. But it no longer feels like an overwhelming battle. It gets easier as you get stronger. After a while you realize you are in control without obsessing about food all the time.

Thanks for the motivation much needed

This is really great post!

You are soooooo inspiring and motivational! I always enjoy your opinions and people like u make this make more sense. U r amazing and thank u for all ur input. Keep burning away that fat.