Okay, so, since I've been frequenting this virtual bariatric world, there appear to be a few issues which seem to ignite much debate and throw the most meekly devised threads into huge ego-centric 'flaming' exercises.

Not only do I, personally, find this predictably boring; it is also deeply unhelpful. We all know that this process changes or should change, how we do and view things to do with food and wider health issues, forever. As such, it takes a bit of getting used to.

The prospect of having to adapt our long-held behaviours is scary and our little food related rituals? They are tough bleedin' Cookies to break. (My apologies for mentioning the 'C' word there)

Consequently, I'm a big believer in the adage that 'skeletons in the cupboard' are no longer 'skeletons', if they are dragged out into the light of day. (Normally kicking and screaming with the neighbours looking on in horror)

So, roll-up, roll-up. Consider this an online bariatric confessional!

There'll be no 'Hail Mary's' or 'Our Fathers' and flagellation will NOT and should not be forthcoming.

I want you to tell us your 'dirty' little bariatric secrets.

What did you do? Why did you do it? (and I will refrain from asking 'with whom?' you did it!) How did it make you feel afterwards? Did you resolve to never do it again - or indeed, did you think that actually, everything in moderation is not so bad after all?

Did you chow down on that hot-sauce laden and cheese encrusted beef taco 2 days post op? (No one can tell I'm fantasizing about anything that does not constitute a 'fluid' much, can you?!!!) Did you sneak into the fridge and eat all your kids chocolate bars, happy in the knowledge that your Protein Pump Inhibitors would prevent you from getting indigestion? Did you swallow 10 vodka martini's to see if your pouch and your legs could take it?

Come on, tell Aunty Revs and lets see if we can put these beasts to bed once and for all x

As is only fair, I shall go first.. Tonight, I, 8 days post surgery, ate a fair amount of cheese frosting off the top of a red velvet cupcake (and maybe a couple of mouthfuls of the sponge, too). Why? Because it was there. Did it make any sense? No, because I have never craved sweet stuff. I'm a savoury kind of girl. What did I learn from it? That damn, I'm an emotional eater (which I never thought I was) and that shockingly, that **** went down a little bit too easily. Consequently, I learnt in that way lies grave danger...

See, if I can do it, anyone can. So, step forward and lets hear the 'worst' you've got. Everyone is welcome and all are equal here x

Ugh. Feeling a touch guilty' date=' and naughty. We had "Thanksgiving Dinner" with my son, who leaves Nov. 3 for boot camp. I ate 2oz turkey, 4 green beans in bacon, one small bite of mashed potatoes with gravy, maybe four cranberries from homemade sauce.....and a really big bite of strawberry rhubarb pie. Ugh. And it made me HUNGRY. I feel like I failed (I know I didn't), but some days, some circumstances become too much. Blah![/quote']

This sounded delicious lol.

Ugh. Feeling a touch guilty' date=' and naughty.

We had "Thanksgiving Dinner" with my son, who leaves Nov. 3 for boot camp. I ate 2oz turkey, 4 green beans in bacon, one small bite of mashed potatoes with gravy, maybe four cranberries from homemade sauce.....and a really big bite of strawberry rhubarb pie. Ugh. And it made me HUNGRY. I feel like I failed (I know I didn't), but some days, some circumstances become too much. Blah![/quote'],

But if you think to previous thanksgiving meals and what you ate then and what you ate now it sounds like a victory to me.

Ugh. Feeling a touch guilty' date=' and naughty. We had "Thanksgiving Dinner" with my son, who leaves Nov. 3 for boot camp. I ate 2oz turkey, 4 green beans in bacon, one small bite of mashed potatoes with gravy, maybe four cranberries from homemade sauce.....and a really big bite of strawberry rhubarb pie. Ugh. And it made me HUNGRY. I feel like I failed (I know I didn't), but some days, some circumstances become too much. Blah![/quote']

That sounds to me about how much a toddler would eat. It doesn't sound like too much? Apart from the pie, it just sounds like a regular meal.

I think my dirty little secret is I have thrown away entirely the concept of good and bad foods. Just entirely. A donut is as good as asparagus is as good as a baked potato is as good as some lifesavers candy. Yesterday I had 32 ounces of orange juice and an entire baked potato and a quarter jar of peanut butter and my body felt super-good at the end of the night, carbs and calories whatever. I knew I'd be running today anyway, and I ate some candy while I ran to stave off hypoglycemia since I'm tired of nearly passing out after I work out because I didn't want to have too many carbs.

Attitudes and behaviors may be "bad" or disordered but that's not the fault of the food. I'm tailoring my eating to my body which means trusting myself and trusting my body which means it can't be bad.

Eating food that I don't like because it's "good for me" is actually bad for me because it makes me dislike the food even more and rebel against doing what's good for me, which means rebelling against my own body. I will try all kinds of foods now but no more forcing. I'll never have a milkshake again because it gives me the runs now. I loved milkshakes but I'm ok with that. And I won't eat avocado no matter how much it's pushed on me as a superfood because I don't freaking like it. That's the only way I want foods to be good or bad, what do they do for me, specifically? No one else can tell me that. Cutting out entire categories of food in order to "maximize weight loss" has been pointless (my scale doesn't seem to care at all how "good" I've been by depriving myself) and unsustainable and leads to binging.

Dirty secret: for the past few weeks I have been using a computer script on myfitnesspal so I can't see the calories of food. I don't eat according to calories anymore. Myfitnesspal tracks them but I can't see them until the end of the day when I complete my entry. No more throwing in some last minute exercise so I can bring my calories down (does that even work?), no more planning my meals around any calories at all.

More power to you, sister! This is how I got fat in the first place.

I crave salt so bad that this morning, I sprinkled salt on a plate and licked it off. Really, how insane is that?!

you didn't follow it with a shot of tequila and some lime?

That sounds to me about how much a toddler would eat. It doesn't sound like too much? Apart from the pie' date=' it just sounds like a regular meal.[/quote']

It wasn't too much, just wrong stuff for me. Too much carb and sugar.

In reflection, being focused on the people rather than the good was an awesome! Really hearing the stories people were telling. Watching my 5'10" 148lb (who leaves for boot camp in a week) son put away two HUGE plates of good, and THREE pieces of pie. Knowing he's ok, knowing that he was filled to near EXPLODING (love that he has an ubber metabolism). The laughter was worth everything. Even when they were laughing at the sheer ridiculousness that accounted for my meal...not at me, but that it's so much better/healthier for me...and tiny...still funny though.

I have to learn a better way for me, just taking more time than I want.

Thanks for listening!

First, I applaud you for spilling your dirty secret. Are you pre or post-op? If you are post-op- How much have you or do you expect to lose base on your mantra about food? Everyone has foods they don't like, for me it's broccoli. However, throwing out foods that are "nutritionally sound", doesn't help you in the long run and is clearly contradictory to the reason most of had surgery. Eating the things you did in the quantity you did, means there are some food issues you may need to address. Unless you are running at least a half marathon, it will take a lot more than a simple run to burn off what you consumed. If this behavior works for you or anyone who wants to take a similar path, good luck to you all. Maybe 6 months from now you'll be 80+lbs down and I'm wrong but skirting everything and dismissing it may not be the best thing. No matter what you reason for your mindset, I wish you well on your journey.

Thanks for the well-wishes. I'm six months out! I don't dismiss anything except the concept of good or bad foods for anyone but myself! I also realize that I am not and have never been addicted to food which definitely has an impact on my philosophy. I do track protein and make sure I'm getting in at least 8 glasses of liquids. When I don't do those things it slows down my weight loss, the lack of fluids impacts my digestive system and low protein starts to affect hair health. Because I have problems with low blood sugar after physical activity I keep small things on hand to help with that. I eat a diet high in fiber and note how that effects my body, because after surgery I've found there is a delicate balance between a better-functioning digestive system and dehydration from too much fiber. I have a lot of structure in my eating.

I definitely think we should be very mindful of what we eat but to me that means paying attention to how eating makes you feel and putting yourself in optimal situations to encourage your best eating behavior based on that. This is based on Ellyn Satter's Eating Competence Model, which I've known about for a few years since before surgery I worked with a nutritionist who advocated it, but I never felt the freedom to implement it before because I was certain I would just eat everything. This led to the standard overthinking-deprivation-mindlessness-binge cycle a lot of us have gone through. When I saw it was still happening after surgery, the same "I can't eat this because it's high carbs" or "I have to eat every three hours precisely no matter how I feel" and "every meal must have a vegetable or it's not really a meal," I knew I couldn't live like this forever even if I was losing weight. I would eat too much on my "reward day" (another diet concept) and feel crappy.

Reading this thread and getting fed up with the concept of guilt being connected with something as wonderful as food inspired me to get Satter's book "Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family" about a month ago. I read bits at a time and started incorporating elements into my life. The overall philosophy of making meals satisfying, delicious and important and allowing the body to adjust clicked for me, but I still didn't trust that I wouldn't just eat a bunch of donuts or something. But that didn't happen at all. I am highly aware of what I eat and why, it's just that nothing is forbidden unless it makes me feel poorly which at the moment I don't tie one way or the other to weight. I'm still losing weight, another seven pounds in the last couple of weeks.

I do work out six days a week and am training for a half marathon. Since I don't track calories I don't eat back my exercise calories, but if I check the myfitnesspal reports at the end of the week I am eating a caloric deficit. The calories consumed on a day of peanut butter and bacon are followed by the calories consumed on a day of chicken and spinach.

I got the surgery because I hated the feeling that my body had betrayed me, which is how I felt when I was diagnosed with diabetes. I felt the surgery was my hope for being freed from that because it would go a long way to fix my body and help resolve the diabetes and remnants of PCOS. But it was my attitude about my body that was the betrayal.

I can't believe this thread is still going strong, LOL!!!

Going to the renaissance faire with my hubby and some friends this weekend. I'm sure I will return with a ton of debauchery to report come Monday

Funnel cakes. Turkey legs. Scotch eggs. Cider. Beer. Mead. More cider. Pirogis. Even more cider. Some more mead ... LOL ...

I made the mistake of buying SF Ocean Spray packs on amazon pre-op. I now have about 450 packets that I finde undrinkable. My family glares at me every time I tell them to finish them up. HA! I need to find the singles before I will buy them in mass quantities again. Thank you' date=' though![/quote']

If you have a store called dollar general near you that's where I found mine.

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Oh my word this is so freaking funny... I take it easy on weekends.Last Saturday,after my weekly weigh in, I had 100ml of red wine (yummy , plus I felt fine..not even light headed) and later after dinner, I had one block of chocolate.. mmmmmm

I can't believe this thread is still going strong' date=' LOL!!!

Going to the renaissance faire with my hubby and some friends this weekend. I'm sure I will return with a ton of debauchery to report come Monday

Funnel cakes. Turkey legs. Scotch eggs. Cider. Beer. Mead. More cider. Pirogis. Even more cider. Some more mead ... LOL ...[/quote']

What the heck are scotch eggs? I like scotch and eggs Im imagining an egg pickled in scotch maybe?

What the heck are scotch eggs? I like scotch and eggs Im imagining an egg pickled in scotch maybe?

A scotch egg is a hard boiled egg wrapped in breakfast sausage, rolled in breadcrumbs and deep fried. So, so good. So so BAAAAAD but so so GOOD! LOL.

That being said ... An egg pickled in scotch doesn't sound half bad, LOL!!

A scotch egg is a hard boiled egg wrapped in breakfast sausage' date=' rolled in breadcrumbs and deep fried. So, so good. So so BAAAAAD but so so GOOD! LOL.

[/quote']

A way back I posted a recipe for gluten free scotch eggs baked.. Not fried!! It's delicious!!! They're delicious.. Give them a try!!

A way back I posted a recipe for gluten free scotch eggs baked.. Not fried!! It's delicious!!! They're delicious.. Give them a try!!

I've done them in the oven before - and they're just as good!

It's 337 am and I get so hungry at night. I just had 3 bowls of chocolate chip cereal. 3 bowls it's ridiculous how much I can eat in 9 post up and with no problem and fast I ate it. I don't think anyone can do that. I deff stretch my pouch or something else is going on.