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Enabling

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Main Entry: en·abler

Pronunciation: \i-ˈnā-blər, -bəl-ər\

Function: noun Date: 1615:

one that enables another to achieve an end ; especially : one who enables another to persist in self-destructive behavior (as substance abuse) by providing excuses or by making it possible to avoid the consequences of such behavior

food ADDICTION

Food addiction manifests itself in the uncontrollable craving for excess food that follows the ingestion of refined carbohydrates, primarily sugar and flour substances that are quickly metabolized and turned into sugar in the bloodstream.

Due to those uncontrollable cravings, a food addict's quality of life deteriorates when he or she eats sugar, flour or wheat. It can deteriorate physically, emotionally, socially and/or spiritually.

If any of the following symptoms are familiar to you, you may be a food addict:

Physical Symptoms of Food Addiction

• Do you think you cannot control your intake of food, especially junk food or high sugar foods?

• Have you tried different diets or weight loss programs, but none has worked permanently?

• Have you found yourself vomiting, using laxatives, diuretics, or exercising a lot to avoid a weight gain after you have eaten a lot?

Many food addicts are obese and have tried numerous methods for weight control (diets, drugs, surgery, etc.) yet nothing has created a permanent solution. Other food addicts have never been obese. Their physical weight has been controlled by extreme measures such as excessive exercise, purging through vomiting or laxatives (bulimia), or the severe and unhealthy limiting of food substances(anorexia). No matter which version of food addiction fits you, all of these symptoms become more severe with time and eventually lead to physical problems that can create an early and sometimes painful death.

Emotional Symptoms of Food Addiction

• Do you find yourself feeling depressed, hopeless, sad or ashamed about your eating or your weight?

• Do you find yourself eating when you are upset or reward yourself with food when you do something good?

• Have you ever noticed after eating sugar, flour, or wheat that you become more irritable?

Food addicts notice that their emotions become more severe, intense, or unreasonable when eating the addictive substances. For many food addicts, emotional life may deteriorate into despair, depression, or thoughts of suicide.

Social Symptoms of Food Addiction

• Do you eat in private so no one will see you?

• Do you avoid social interactions because you feel you do not look good enough or do not have the proper fitting clothes to wear?

• Do you steal other people’s food?

• Are you more interested in what food is served at social gatherings than looking forward to the warmth of being with the people attending?

A food addict’s social life is affected by intense obsessive thinking about food. Making eye contact with people and taking an interest in developing friendships or intimate relationships become secondary to locating and eating addictive foods. Food addicts often hide or steal foods and eat in secret.

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  • Butterthebean
    Butterthebean

    What a great thread Laura. Yes, this place is a hot bed of enabling. All the "I ate a snickers bar one week post op and I don't feel bad about it....." Yeah, those people see that as a victory ov

  • AmandaRaeLeo
    AmandaRaeLeo

    May I be so bold to suggest that those who justify and seek permission/absolution with regards to their drug of choice are the same ones who thought WLS was a cure? That the sleeve would do the fighti

  • Ms.AntiBand
    Ms.AntiBand

    You're right. Depending on what support you're looking for this site can be either good or bad for us. For me, I need the slap in the face, tear me apart reality that slipping up is not an option.

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Lol laura!!! I'd be growling too. :) cutting out my stomach made more sense than the others to me also. Idk maybe I have issues!!! ....oh wait then I just meet a whole site full of people who have my same issue. Weird. Anyway night enjoy sleep. I know I wont my almost 3 year old keeps yelling in my face...mom mon mom mom mom gah :)

  • Popular Post

I know, I don't want to bash or get nasty (cause they'll just copy and paste our link the way we did theirs) but the whole reversible thing gets me.

It's like the people with any WLS that think fat is their only issue. Oh yeah, I eat too much so if I eat less I'll be skinny and if I'm skinny I'll be happy.

Excuse me while I laugh my tush off.

Cause really, that's just plain delusional. And we see it ALL THE TIME, even here with sleeves.

No. You are likely not only fat because you eat two helpings of mashed potatoes. You are here, considering a drastic surgery after many failed diet attempts because you have disordered eating, poor habits and possibly food addiction. And that's not considering whatever issues you might just be hiding under food and fat that started you on the path to disordered eating in the first place!

Being skinny makes a person happier but it does not make a person happy. There is a difference, one many fail to realize.

A reversible surgery? I've seen what happens to people that unfill for whatever reason. They pack it on. Why? The WLS you choose is only a TOOL and it only works if you USE IT. You can eat around anything. If you're essentially dieting yourself to skinny, you darn sure better have a plan on how to stay there.

I don't need reversible. Easily done away with diets are things like Medifast, Optifast, Weight Watchers and Nutrisystem - things I dumped thousands of dollars into prior to finally breaking down and admitting to myself I needed some type of WLS.

Maybe I'm just a "bad patient" but seriously, my sleeve is a great permanent reminder that I like cheesecake a little too much and that more than 2 cups of popcorn is bad. Because I have more than 20 years of disordered eating behind me. Three years with a sleeve sure as hell didn't replace that, no matter how many good habits I've picked up and tried to enforce during that time!

~Cheri

And Laura, that SGT best have had a good reason for being late. We ain't on Air Force time in the Army, ya know...

:P

Clk.... I do enjoy reading your posts. So much knowledge and thoughts in them all.

Plus, they're long.

So if you track how many books you read in a year (doesn't everyone? I do that, don't mock me) you can probably count reading my posts for six weeks as a book.

~Cheri

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And Laura, that SGT best have had a good reason for being late. We ain't on Air Force time in the Army, ya know... :P

Girl I wanted to tell him off! But my daughter was like "mom nooooo" so I had to settle for giving him some dirty looks, but that bastard wouldn't make eye contact to get the full wrath of a tired laura-ven :P

Night people :)

Girl I wanted to tell him off! But my daughter was like "mom nooooo" so I had to settle for giving him some dirty looks, but that bastard wouldn't make eye contact to get the full wrath of a tired laura-ven :P

Night people :)

Is she military or in R.O.T.C? My husband did 4 years in the corp and 4 in the army! My ol'man had to give me the run down on not speaking my mind. So disapointing! Sigh lol

I think it is a mistake (and I just added to it) to try to defend the sleeve. I had a lapband for 10 years and it is a very personal pain point to see that of the people looking into wls and are attracted to the benefits of the band (sounds less invasive and lower risk) - most of them will not have long term success. In my nonmedical opinion, it was VERY invasive. The scar from that port reminds me how weird it felt to have that thing in my side. May sound odd, but I don't feel like a WLS patient with the sleeve wheareas i always did with the band - due to that port.

Anyway, we all make our choices and lets me honest, there are sleevers who do have significant regain etc too. Just let that crazy lady rant and let everyone come to their own conclusions.

Girl I wanted to tell him off! But my daughter was like "mom nooooo" so I had to settle for giving him some dirty looks, but that bastard wouldn't make eye contact to get the full wrath of a tired laura-ven :P

Night people :)

When I was taking my son to meet with his recruiter a couple of summers ago I would constantly be waiting around for them to decide to show up. Most frustrating!

I just added my two penneth worth to the referenced thread. Not by calling anyone out (because I cannot be bothered with the aggro), but by cutting and pasting some relevant and recent scientific academic journals - as I do.

This is not 'cause I want to stir up a hornets nest. But I often feel sorry for visitors seeking experiential and scientific data who could be lead by people who by dint of having a 'strong voice' on this website, promulgate conjecture as fact. Often responding to the merest enquiry as to the source and legitimacy of their hypotheses with infantile and inappropriate personal attacks.

No doubt I'll catch some crap as a consequence.. but I'm about to have a cider, seeing as it's Saturday evening. Consequently, this could prove amusing, folks! :blink:

Yeah.....but let's talk about what's really important here people..... cheesecake.

Don't blame me....Cheri brought it up.

INCOMING!!!!! <scampers off to the bunker with her body armour and helment>

Can I ask....why do you guys even care what's happening in those forums? I don't think I'd like it if someone came to our forum and told us how VSG was all wrong.

It just seems a bit rude to me to go there and tell them that their choice is not right. Is that really our job, even if we think we may be helping someone comparing surgeries? I expect, when I speak to someone who has a lapband that they will tell me how it's working for them (if it is), and when I talk to someone with a sleeve, the person will say the sleeve is the best.

Posting in their forum to criticize their choice doesn't seem very nice.

CGJ, I thought you did a good job of presenting a fair view on both sides, and your 10 years of LB certainly qualifies you to post your experience on it, but other than that, to be honest it bothers me that we have threads here criticizing them.

There's one utterly irrational person on that side who is completely unpopular. But even with her, it bothers me that we're starting threads complaining about individual members which is very much against forum rules, isn't it?

Sorry I know I'm ranting there are so few new threads all together since the changeover, that I hate to see some of them be on contentious topics.

Really unless we've been banded, we have no business telling them what we think about it. We ourselves complain when pre-ops tell us what to do. How's this any different, right?

Let's get back to food porn instead! or Enabling.

I'm fighting myself from reading the thread. Just from what y'all have said, I'd be wasting my words and time. I know I would not reach the unreachable and therefore... I'm going to go shopping for some new boots ;)

2013-11-16-13-17-51.jpgSpeaking of food porn....I've been craving pizza for days. Finally made it on flatout bread with pepperoni, cheese, onions, mushrooms and tomatoes.

OMG. Happy tummy, happy girl.

http://sleevers.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/2013-11-16-13-17-51.jpg

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