Ok, so I've never started my own thread but I'm looking for support or someone who has been in my situation. I started the journey for surgery in 2011 and insurance was the final barrier which I overcame by getting a new job with great health benefits. So I have 3 medically supervised weight management visits and in each one I gain weight. The weight I started in was 411. Then I got down to 368 with diet and exercise. But as I got closer to the surgery date and I just kept eating and eating and now I'm 451!! I was looking forward to the surgery but my actions say otherwise. Let me very honest when I say food is like my best friend, companion and my drug. That moment of euphoria is great but my weight increasing and affecting my clothes amongst other things is really getting me down. I'm searching for the magic to push forward but I just feel it coming. Quite honestly, I'm eating like a jerk. I wonder if someone out there has gone through this. I've tried OA for like 7 meetings and I didn't feel like a connection was developed. It didn't feel organic at all and I have two jobs now working 8-4pm, 6-10pm, Monday - Thursday. Friday just 8 - 4pm. I feel so sluggish and lonely because it just feels like I'm quitting on myself. I started taking baby steps to do the right thing again such as drinking black coffee now for Breakfast with some breadsticks and a fruit. I stopped eating fast food in the night and now I eat Fiber one Cereal. But I am super sedentary!

Anyone experienced something like this?

This is my burden.

Looking for any enlightenment.

- Erwin

When I had my first appointment with my surgeon I asked him how much weight I would be required to lose during my six month nutrition and weight loss classed (required by my insurance). He told me I was not required to lose any weight but I could not gain one single pound or he would not do the surgery.

I did not diet but I did cut my food intake in half. I still ate fast food but instead of fries with a burger I would eat a pickle spear and a few olives or grape tomatoes. My weakness is sweets, especially at night so instead of Cookies (my fave) I ate fresh fruit and that helped satisfy my sweet tooth.

I was a soda junkie and drank 2-3 cans of diet coke every day. He wanted me to stop drinking soda immediately but I just couldn't do it. I drank soda up until my surgery.

I ended up losing 37lbs pre-op and since I had the surgery I have not had soda nor do I even crave it. The surgery itself gave me great motivation to eat right and every time I weigh and measure it propels me forward to continue to follow the plan.

Don't beat yourself up. Forget the word " diet". Try cutting your food portions in half. If you want to snack, try fruits, veggies and maybe some nuts.

Today is a new day. Pick yourself up and move forward. Best wishes as you continue your journey. Keep us updated and let us know when you get a surgery date.

It might be worth charting every bit you put in your mouth for a week. I know I have been a victim of "Eating Amnesia" in the past. It can really railroad you.<br /><br />These days I am being very consious about my protein intake. For breakfast my options are Kashi GoLean cereal, eggs with hot sauce, or a protein shake.<br /><br />I eat every three hours like clockwork. Snacks are cheese, yogurt, nuts, or Protein To Go drink.<br /><br />Lunch is either a protein shake or soup with atleast 15 grams of protein and not over 300 calories.<br /><br />Dinner is meat and veggies.<br /><br />I don't know where I read this, I'll have to find my book, but for every gram of carbs you take in, you will hold four grams of fluid to aid in it's digestion. When you reduce your carbs you lower water weight and force your body to start using the Glycogen stored in your liver causing more weight loss.<br /><br />So I would suggest really looking at your carb intake and promoting more protein as it feeds the muscle.<br /><br /><br /><br />

I am sorry you are going through this. I understand being my own worst advocate in life! For years I would lose just to gain back as soon as life threw me any curve ball! I found great comfort in food and liked that it was the one thing I could control! Even if it was bad for me!!!

I found my weight hitting a high of 347 and was done justifying my behaviors by others actions or circumstances.

So I made the leap of faith to pursue WLS. I was so worried to tell my family because I had always put on a front that I was fine with myself...

I tried my own diet to only gain and lose the same 10 pounds until I met with my NUT. I would say she was send from God to teach me about eating!

Since then I have lost 52 pounds in 4 months. I will not say it was easy it has been very hard with a lot of tears and fights with my will!!!

I believe you have to come to a place that you are going to save yourself! Fight for you and only you!

I believe you can do this!! If I can I promise you can!! I gave up my comfort (food) and am finding myself...and how to take care of myself because I am worth it!

You are worth it too!

Ok, so I've never started my own thread but I'm looking for support or someone who has been in my situation. I started the journey for surgery in 2011 and insurance was the final barrier which I overcame by getting a new job with great health benefits. So I have 3 medically supervised weight management visits and in each one I gain weight. The weight I started in was 411. Then I got down to 368 with diet and exercise. But as I got closer to the surgery date and I just kept eating and eating and now I'm 451!! I was looking forward to the surgery but my actions say otherwise. Let me very honest when I say food is like my best friend, companion and my drug. That moment of euphoria is great but my weight increasing and affecting my clothes amongst other things is really getting me down. I'm searching for the magic to push forward but I just feel it coming. Quite honestly, I'm eating like a jerk. I wonder if someone out there has gone through this. I've tried OA for like 7 meetings and I didn't feel like a connection was developed. It didn't feel organic at all and I have two jobs now working 8-4pm, 6-10pm, Monday - Thursday. Friday just 8 - 4pm. I feel so sluggish and lonely because it just feels like I'm quitting on myself. I started taking baby steps to do the right thing again such as drinking black coffee now for breakfast with some breadsticks and a fruit. I stopped eating fast food in the night and now I eat fiber one cereal. But I am super sedentary! Anyone experienced something like this? This is my burden. Looking for any enlightenment. - Erwin

Well Erwin,

You're not alone as this is a burden much like all of ours and here you can find the support that may help you through. I gained weight up to my surgery date as well. I think it was part anxiety, part usual stress coping. Think of this as a lifestyle and each day as new beginning. You won't be perfect, so don't expect that of yourself. However, no excuses.

If you log your food, you take ownership of your actions. You are responsible for what goes in the machine. Some days it will be healthy choices and some not so much. One interesting thing as you progress, as least for me, is cross-referencing my moods, energy level, weight loss, etcetera with my diet logs. Sure does make a difference.

Take time for you, be good to yourself, spoil yourself with things other than food as practice. Get a massage, or something that is just for you. I think we are all so hard on ourselves, so critical with all these expectations of perfection. You are worth all of what you're doing for yourself right now. You will have more energy and you'll be inspired. You're already making healthy choices, this will work.

i know that 12 step groups suggest giving it 90 days before you make a decision about the meetings. there are also lots of online resources for OA, so you can access support 24/7.

if you are eating breadsticks and fruit for breakfast, it sounds like you have a problem with sugar. here is a good article from NPR. try going paleo for a few months to break that addiction.. good suggestions in the article too. http://pinterest.com/pin/75716837459097661/

focus on Protein, Water and veggies, tracking all your food and walking! with the OA support, you can do this!

Thank you all for responding!! I feel so great to know I'm not alone and that there are people who genuinely understand me. I'll tell you all that what I have found out recently is that I hate myself. I don't know when it happened but I stopped loving myself and I invest in everything and everyone but me. I think anxiety absolutely played a role and sugars is an absolute addiction for me. I can eat a whole pack of Cookies and a pint of ice cream and feel just terrible afterwards! I know I shouldn't but nothing other than my job and my kids gives me that kind of pleasure.

Thank you for the article on sugar. I do feel better when it is out of my system. But starting that road will be my first step. My birthday is this week so I think I will accept that I will probably have some drinks but I will start tomorrow but cutting off soda and juice from my daily routine. But if not breadsticks and a fruit for breakfast, what do you suggest moonlite?

I'll probably give OA another shot. All your responses really helped and caused me to second guess my decisions today. I have a fitness tracker so I'll start using that again too. At leanmeanfightingmachine, I'm definitely going to invest in massages instead of my binging. It sounds like a good idea!

At teacherlady, thank you for your kind words! I don't love myself and I need to do that again. I'm trying to rediscover myself and look for me. I lost "me" a long time ago. But today was a better day because of all of your encouragement and kind words.

Wildgrits, I've been told to go on an all Protein diet. So maybe just meat and veggies I guess? Thank you for the breakdown. I'll be using my fitness pal app to document.

Finally, Jeana, thank you for being the first to respond to my thread. Today was a new day and all of the posts helped me making wiser choices today. I will work on getting the surgery date again with each day as a new day. I have a mentor who suggested I take two big steps this week with one of them being linking back up with Bariatric pal and I'm glad I did. The second big step was exercise but I still have to figure that out since my day starts at 6am and ends when I get home at 10:30pm.

I can't to hear from you all again and even more people. I've just felt disconnected in this whole ordeal. But I feel like this was the start of something momentous in my life. Again, thank you all.

- Erwin

i would try something like 1/2 cup low fat canned refried beans, 2 poached eggs, 1/4 avocado with a dollop of salsa and plain greek yogurt. you probably arent going to be able to go no carb, but just start with cutting out sugar. try protein and sweet potatoes for lunch and big salads with beans and protein for dinner. make sure you plan snacks. apples, berries, premeasured packages of nuts, cheese sticks, greek yogurt. planning and premeasured portions are key. track everything you eat on a food tracking app like my fitness pal, and read labels obsessively. no fast food, no fried foods, dont drink your calories, try cutting out, little by little, added sugar sources. the suggestions in that article are really good. walk as much as you can.

GOOD LUCK....

It sounds like you can address this from several angles. The supervised diet really exposes the areas that will challenge us postop.

That being said, you're getting in touch with how you feel about you. That will go through a massive transformation on the losers bench; still, I suggest you get with a therapist now. I suspect you will experience some significant depression in the month postop if you don't have the opportunity to work through this now. There's a lot of grieving for some people. Maybe you're going to do that now as you break up with....your demons.

I completely agree with tracking. These things help us self-correct when we get off our path: tracking, WL community, exercise. Ppl who are successful at 3-5 years do these three things. Start now. Also increase your water.

Congratulations on taking control. You are doing this. You're on the Hero's Journey!

CBT,

I'm definitely on the most difficult journey I have ever encountered. All these responses in this thread have been so real and really touched closer than anything else has in a while. I need this kind of support sob I can change my current mindset. food is my companion, my drug, my tool of pleasure and destruction and it is the only sustained relationship I have going today (besides my kids). It's truly hard to let this go and empty this crap from my life without having something to fill the gap.

Thanks for the encouragement and trying to play the role of "Hero" is definitely something I look forward to because there is some magic attached to being "the Hero".

-Erwin

I'm glad the site support is working for you. Keep coming back! The Hero ALWAYS has a trusty sidekick to help with the villain. Eventually they get the elixir

It's perspective.

What have you decided to work on?

Honestly just stopping the bad food habits I switched to black coffee and an omelette for Breakfast. I cut soda/juice out this week. Next week I'm going to start my DDPYoga program and walking. Then the week after that I'll look to make another small adjustment to my diet.

For now, it's all about breaking the connection.

I just wanted to pipe up and admit that I ate like a jerk a few months before my surgery. I had lost about 20 lbs and then around Halloween I went nuts. I went through a lot of food funerals and guilt while gaining back 30 lbs. :-). Anyhow, during this time I was avidly researching everything about post surgical eating. I paid attn to my binge eating classes. I had planned on my surgery being in early December, but my insurance approval took too long. I'm a college teacher, so I had time off for over a month into early January. knew I couldn't take time off again until May, so I'd comfortably resigned to postponing surgery until then. I ate like a jerk. Imagine my surprise when the surgeon called and fit me in on New Year's Eve!! -- I was supposed to start the pre-op diet the very next day. How could I not have a chance for one last stuffed meal??!! I started a day late -- really saw how addicted I am -- and committed. I didn't cheat once pre-op after that and lost 20 lbs in two weeks.

Since surgery, the greatest gift I've found thus far is a break from constantly wanting and thinking about food. When people day over and over that this is a tool -- I really get what they mean. This must be how typical people feel about eating -- and that tool makes making good choices a lot easier. I'm using this time to really learn how to eat and to develop a healthy relationship with nourishing myself.

I guess my long winded point is that you're not alone. A lot of people here have suffered the same way and have come out the other side.

So I apparently lost 16 pounds in the last month. I'm pretty excited but getting sick this week might have helped My appetite is changing and I'm not binging or wanting to binge in the last 2-3 weeks. I find myself driving around fighting with myself about buying and not buying food. I would like to continue the current trend and my biggest problem is cutting juice/soda from my daily/weekly routines. I will make this my unofficial blog and update this every 2 weeks because all the people on this post collectively gave me strength and I have faith that this "blog" will get me over the top.

Food is my lover and my comfort. It is my Achilles heel and my pain. It is the last hurdle in my life and this year it will end. This is my manifesto.

Love ya all!

Erwin

So I apparently lost 16 pounds in the last month. I'm pretty excited but getting sick this week might have helped My appetite is changing and I'm not binging or wanting to binge in the last 2-3 weeks. I find myself driving around fighting with myself about buying and not buying food. I would like to continue the current trend and my biggest problem is cutting juice/soda from my daily/weekly routines. I will make this my unofficial blog and update this every 2 weeks because all the people on this post collectively gave me strength and I have faith that this "blog" will get me over the top.

Food is my lover and my comfort. It is my Achilles heel and my pain. It is the last hurdle in my life and this year it will end. This is my manifesto.

Love ya all!

Erwin

Soda is extremely hard to give up im not going to lie I slip up from time to time its not the end of the world im 9+ months post op rny