Denial

[PdxMan 4,292]

As we have seen threads on food addict for if I could eat like a normal person, I would eat a lot.

I think denial transcends the need to admit we are addicts. I know people with a drinking problem who are not alcoholics. I think I have or maybe had a totally false reality of how I got to be a morbidly obese person. How many times did I get my thyroid tested and when elevated felt it was justification to abuse food because I had something else to blame it on. When told I had a motility issue, I could also excuse my obesity. How high on my horse did I sit when I was able to lose weight "the hard way" judging those weaker than me, then excuse my weight regain because of a family tragedy or extra work load at the office?

Addiction? HAH! Only the weak are addicts. Every addict has the ability to choose not to make poor decisions. It is their own personal responsibility to take care of themselves. I can lose weight if I want to. I've done it before ... it is just all these other circumstances in my life which trip me up along the way.

Right?

For me, denial is huge. Paired with a self-righteous ego ... I can be deadly to myself and downright mean to others. The drug addict could stop their abuse if they wanted to ... the person smoking a pack a week just needs to stop buying cigarettes ... the obese person just needs to eat less and move more ... you can have just one drink at the party ...

Really? Is it really just that simple?

For some, it may be and I think the further out I get, the easier it is to slip back into this type of thinking as it relates to food. If I forget where I came from, it is easier to deny I ever had an issue with my relationship with food as I did when I was in the thick of it. Only you can decide whether or not you are a food addict, but I know my journey on my sleeved life has revealed a long tale of denial.

Anybody else relate?

[Ms.AntiBand 2,984]

Absolutely. Although, denial was a long ways back for me. I've always known and accepted I was an addict. It took what I thought as hitting bottom to do something about it, though. I never want to be that miserable again NEVER.

[No game 14,437]

Here I am, I have a food addiction no denial here.

If there wasn't an issue with food then why the LAST resort of surgery? I am a food addict to this day. The further I get out from surgery, the more I realize that will always be a recovering addict. I am trying to change my behaviors and relationship with food. But I must be honest with myself and work on it everyday.

[NMJG 1,266]

Count me in. In fact, I just discovered a few days ago that my denial was creeping up on me again, even logging everything in MFP. I ran the monthly report on calories and discovered that I ate over my 800 calories 8 times in the last 30 days. That's almost a quarter of the time. And here I thought I was doing so well. No wonder I'm only losing 2 lbs. a week. Sleevette helped me in that I wasn't able to eat even 1000 calories on those days, but those days wouldn't have happened if I hadn't convinced myself that a little bit of wine before bed was OK or some other stupid self justification. I will fight this forever and I'm so grateful I have Sleevette to help me, but she can't do it alone.

[Ms.AntiBand 2,984]

Just like a recovering alcoholic, I'm a recovering food addict. It's going to be a life time addiction that I will have to manage forrrrrrrreverrrrrrrr.

[gamergirl 4,609]

What a wonderful post! The sneaky thing about denial is you don't know you were in denial until you have accepted the truth. I would have denied a food addiction up and down until I got sleeved. And I would not have thought I was lying to myself.

In fairness, I don't think I was actively lying. Lying is when you know the truth and choose to disregard it. I didn't know I had a problem. Sure I knew I was eating sugar. Yes I had metabolic and inflammatory issues. Yes it is true that I have the ability to put on weight with a lot less food than my friends. Yes it is accurate to say that the last time I put on weight, it was faster and with fewer calories than humanly possible in a well-functioning body. It is also true I never binged, sneaked, or lied about my food. I also ate extremely healthy meals. It was the sweets that killed me.

But until I was sleeved, and until I had spent a long time on The Artist Fomerly known as VST, I had no idea I had an addiction. I dont regret my sleeve at all. But I do regret not ever trying to eat low carb and better controlling my insulin response. I do regret never accepting that the sweets were making me PHYSICALLY if not mentally addicted to more sweets. Could that have made the difference for me? I don't know. And now I will never know whether my current eating regimen, albeit at higher calories, would have helped me lose weight.

I do know I refused to accept that I needed to give up simple carbs before. And now, I accept that they will never again play a starring role in my life. I have an addictive personality. This is why I never did drugs, alcohol or gambled. Because I was fairly sure I'd get addicted. But I didn't think of food like that. It never occurred to me to stay away from unhealthy sweets because you could get addicted.

Isn't that denial of a sort? Because how can we live today without being aware of sugar addiction? How can one know about the chemical cocktails food companies create that make you crave more junk, and yet deny that I was a willing participant in that game? I was well aware of all the facts. But somehow I didn't relate the facts to my own situation.

Isn't that denial of a sort?

I started smoking at 14. I continued for years where I limited myself to 3 cigarettes a day (not packs) I'd start, I'd quit. I'd stay quit for years, then I'd start again. The last time I quit was 5 years ago. And I will stay quit. You know why? Because now I accept that I am a nicotine addict. One is too many, and 1000 aren't enough. I don't believe I can EVER smoke a cigarette again--unless I want to be a smoker.

The sugar thing--I haven't accepted I can never have sugar again. That's what scares me. Against all odds, I find myself wondering if I couldn't just have sugar once in a while?

My husband accepts he can never have it. He quit a several pack a day habit overnight. Yup, 40 years of smoking and quit cold turkey the day before we met. He knows what addiction is. And he knows we were addicted to sugar. He never wants to get started again.

I do. I still very much want it. I want to believe I can do it in moderation.

Isn't that denial of a sort?

Sorry for the long ramble!

[ReDbEaN 654]

Thanks for this PDX

[sophiepants 489]

GG.......It scares me how much you speak to me. When I read your posts about your habits it's me! Creepy I know but there it is! Sugar was my drug of choice. I would eat a whole cake and not think twice about how bad it was! gah it'll take me a very long time to control that .

[healthbound1 69]

Great thread pdx, thank you. I have an addictive personality and of all the vices, I think sugar is the worst. We can not avoid it the way we can avoid drugs, alcohol, cigarets etc. If we are addicted to alcohol we can avoid liquor stores and parties. But we can not avoid grocery stores and meals with others.

Support becomes extremely important then. And daily reality checks to keep us from falling back into denial.

I'm not sure if I should abstain from sugar or try moderation after surgery but I think it would probably be best for me to abstain. Haha, the fact that I'm even thinking of moderation is a sign that my denial comes and goes. The addict part of me is smarter and stronger than the rest of me if I am eating sugar. I truly want to take full advantage of the sleeve and use it as an opportunity to course correct.

Anyway, it's great to know that other people relate and I am not alone.

[kvlasy 195]

Denial is me. How could it not be? I never "thought" of myself as being obese, despite the truth of the scale and in the mirror. I was thin growing up, getting married and having children. I put on weight when I started working. It was the job. It wasn't ME being less active. I was successful at Weight Watchers...once...for 40 pounds. I just needed to find the right type of diet. I just needed to try the right combination of foods. It wasn't ME eating large amounts of salty junk, followed by sweet junk. Many, many examples come to mind.

It IS me. food addict. Good at denial. Great at avoidance, denial's ugly cousin. And it's a day-by-day, an every day decision NOT to be "that" me that I got so comfortable with. Some days it's easy. Some days I battle myself. Trying to make a new truth.

[Seela 1,187]

Yup

[Arts137 1,811]

PDX, thanks.

So I am in a (normal I know) stall and today after getting my coffee at Wawa at 4:00AM the Philly soft pretzels called to me. WTF? I do NOT indulge in simple carbs, but my evil brain ("Skippy") said that it's not a biggie, 'hell, you're in a stall, so why not?'

Just like the Before Time. As Laura said, I have to wake up day and fight the battle. Every day. Every day. I am a food addict and life ain't fair.

[Fluffnomore 1,235]

I am really toying with the idea of not drinking wine again, even when cleared, for this very reason. I am happy that I've had no urges toward it this month (since starting the pre-op diet), but it's one thing that I was pretty darned consistent about prior to surgery. Is it denial to say I don't know about whether or not I was addicted? Maybe. Butterbean and I had this sub-discussion on another thread. I am merely saying I really don't know yet. Maybe I haven't come face to face with what got me here. And part of it is that my pre-op life reads very much like GamerGirl's, except swap out sweets with wine. Metabolism: definitely didn't allow me more than three very small meals if I wanted to lose weight. But no bingeing, no hiding or secret behaviors. And I exercised, like a demon, at least 3 times per week. (Physically, it was too hard on my knees and ankles to do more!) What did I do? Have at least 2 glasses of wine a night, most nights. Calorically speaking, should that have tipped me over the edge? Maybe, maybe not.

But I also can't deny that even starting in the low-ish BMI range, I've lost 30 pounds since October 2 (my high weight in my ticker.) So it's starting to be hard to deny that my body maybe didn't WANT to hold on to this much weight, since it has wasted very little time letting it go. Much more quickly, I might add, than I ever expected.

My CrossFit coaches really wanted me to give up the idea of surgery and just go over to the Paleo diet. Even though I think that's going to be my default when I'm done (albeit much less than most of them eat), I couldn't take the plunge before. I didn't trust myself to follow the guidelines strictly, not drink wine, etc. It is so much easier to do the right thing when I worry that I might hurt myself if I don't. I struggle with thinking this makes me weak. On the other hand, at the same time I believe that for whatever reason that when I qualified and it worked out for me, it was a lifeline I could grab. Maybe it would have been "better" for me to swim to shore on my own power, but I'm on my way to shore and maybe it's the final destination that matters the most.

[gamergirl 4,609]

On the other hand, at the same time I believe that for whatever reason that when I qualified and it worked out for me, it was a lifeline I could grab. Maybe it would have been "better" for me to swim to shore on my own power, but I'm on my way to shore and maybe it's the final destination that matters the most.

My husband gave me a really good perspective on this. I am a problem solver, that's my personality and that's my occupation (and I suspect yours?) He says, why can't you look at this just like that? You wanted to control your weight, you tried a hundred different things, and you finally troubleshot your way to success. You finally found something that works.

Take out the emotion, the stigma, the feeling of having failed on our own, take out all of that.

Aren't we to be counted as successful because we finally solved the problem that has plagued us for most of our lives? Doesn't that make us a success?

We are lucky there are tools to help with our addiction. If there was something similar for alcoholics, I suspect there would be a long line at the hospitals.

[Fluffnomore 1,235]

Yes, GG. I work on the production side of the arts and most of what I do is anticipate, plan for and solve problems. (Really.) One of my most used phrases is, "Okay, this is what we're going to do…"

It is crazy to me that this approach hasn't worked on myself. Except isn't WLS a big freaking Plan B? There's no wiggle room in the early days. Here is what you are allowed to eat. Here is the amount you have to drink. And even as the new stuff starts creeping in now, I can see that it's all going to come down to anticipating, planning and corrective action. I'm extremely good at winging a lot of things, and I think that's what gets me in trouble in my own health. At the same time, I wouldn't dream of showing up to a production without putting as much work in beforehand as I could, and without thinking through all of the things that could go wrong and trying to anticipate minute details. Like, might I need a stapler at this venue? The littlest things can make a huge difference.

So I completely empathize with people who I've seen stating that they want to be able to eat whatever they want, just less…but I think that for me the real lesson is going to be in learning how to plan my life out, at least my life in food.

And you all can laugh at me in 6 months when I think people are too rigid. I'm just trying to change some deep-seated behaviors in myself here.