So, my recovery has been really smooth and I've been super successful so far. But I also find that I can eat way more than half a cup of something. Most of the time I don't. I measure and weigh religiously. But the past few days I've been slipping back into old habits. My roommate has been making really yummy food (first a Thai tofu curry and then tabbouleh salad). Eating healthy was never the problem, but volume definitely was, and with these two dishes, I've been grazing all day and way overdoing it on volume. Especially with tabbouleh! I've been so strict about no starches, and the bulgur in the tabbouleh really threw me for a loop - it's like crack! I think I'm ok on calories and everything, and like I said, I know both dishes were pretty healthy, but I am worried about the general trend of eating too much. I know there are always these "I think I stretched my sleeve!" threads, and I feel bad making another one, but, sh*t! I'm worried I'm stretching my sleeve!

I know its hard I think I stretched mine...I am only 4 months out...not sure what I need to do unfortunately the surgery hasn't fixed my mind....Its hard

Well, here's the deal ...

The sleeve only restricts us for the amount of time we are eating and shortly thereafter. This works out fine if we limit our eating to 3 meals and 1-2 Snacks each day.

But if we graze all day, once the food in our smaller, sleeved stomachs passes through the pyloric valve into the intestine, we can put more food into our sleeved stomachs.

For example, if you got into a pattern of eating 1 Breakfast and 3 lunches and 3 dinners throughout the course of 15 hours (which one could certainly do if they were determined to do it), you'd stop losing weight and start gaining weight.

I guess that's what some people who regain all their weight back do.

It's time to remember that our sleeved new tummies are weight loss tools -- not a silver-bullet solution for all eating temptations and disorders.

Now you have to:

* Diagnose the problem.

* Design solutions for your problem.

* Put those solutions into effect.

* Be accountable for your actions.

I wish you the very best in resolving this.

Edited September 14, 201411 yr by VSGAnn2014

One more thought ...

This is why some people choose to work with a therapist as part of their WLS journey. They find that helpful in identifying all kinds of temptations and triggers for over-eating and in developing more successful responses to those triggers.

I'm an optimist and think we can solve a lot of our own problems, even long-term eating problems. But we probably can't solve them just by wishing we could solve them. We have to actually come up with different, better solutions -- since most of our old solutions haven't been that effective.

I actually know exactly what the problems are: 90-95% stress eating (I'm in the middle of writing a very complicated term paper in a very short amount of time) and 5-10% the fact that the bulgur in the tabbouleh was starch and I am and always will be a sugar/carb addict. I have been so, so strict since surgery in terms of scheduling and measuring all my food, and yet it hasn't seemed restrictive. But it was a weird give an inch take a mile kind of thing the past couple days. I guess that's how addiction works. I think working from home has also been a problem. It's given me more opportunity to mess up. I'm definitely going to go back to packing up my meals/snacks and heading to work at the library. I think that will help.

As for therapy, I dunno. I've had such terrible luck with therapists. It's made even harder because of the fact that I live in Germany and I don't feel like I can do therapy German (also, getting my insurance to cover it would be quite a process, with no guarantee of finding anyone I like).