I have been doing ok on my 3 month supervised diet... not great, not too sucky. The first month I lost 5.6 lbs, everyone was happy happy joy joy. The second month I stayed exactly the same, and the surgeon's team gave me really bad guilt and made me feel like I was not doing a great job and was in danger of not being approved. I'm an emotional eater, and I haven't quite broken that habit yet, although I've been working on it very hard. My boyfriend is very helpful, and listens while I fight myself almost daily not to eat crap. I win a huge majority of the time. However, the guilt they laid on me (and I accepted, I admit) really caused my eating to get out of control again. I wrote about that and got the great reply to call my insurance company to find out my actual requirements.

So, I called my insurance company and found out that as far as they're concerned, I only need to show no gain in three months. That made me feel much much better, and I got back on track, and in the last month I lost another 5 lbs. Tomorrow is my last weigh in.

But.

My boyfriend went away for the weekend, and I binged. I actually put back on the 5 lbs I lost. I'm so ANGRY at myself. I'm projecting the reaction from the team when I go to the office tomorrow to weigh in.

And now I'm playing all kind of games, the kind that I hate, to try to lose the weight again by tomorrow. I'm drinking coffee, which I usually don't, cause it makes me poop. I brought two apples with me to the office and am planning on eating nothing else during the day. I've got my Water pitcher filled up on my desk, and will flush myself out as best as I can.

I was in such a good place on Friday, and now I'm a friggin mess. I don't want to hear anybody tell me that I may have trouble after the surgery since I can't stop self-sabotaging now, please. It was very hard for me to lay this out there in public, so please think twice before you reply with any negative thoughts. I just want to be as honest as possible here on the boards because I believe that every post has the potential to help someone.

God, I can't wait for this fakokte journey to be over.

Hello! I'm not here to say anything bad to you. But it seems that you are buying stuff that your not suppose to and bringing into your house. If you don't buy it and bring it into your house then there isn't anyway you can be eating it..correct?

Just going to put a list of items that I have in my fridge to eat when I want to eat or when I'm really hungry.

Protein shakes, boiled eggs, cheese sticks, turkey slices, sugar-free pudding, sugar-free Jello, yogurt, salad, sugarfree drink powders, lots of Water, chicken salad, tuna salad, etc.

I know its hard believe me ive been there and I think we all struggle w/our eating habits. But I believe in the phrase "It's me time" and you have to begin love yourself enough to chose the right choices when it comes to eating and exercise. If we don't take care of our self who is going to take care of us? There will be times that we fall off the wagon but we must get back up, dust our self off and get back on the horse. (as they say). Good luck and God Bless!

@@cutlass6521, i absolutely love you.

@@nora72814, thanks for sharing. i only buy healthy food at the grocer, and i'm too lazy to go out and buy crap when the mood hits me. but when the demon takes over, i order in, and sometimes i do it practically in my sleep. it's like i'm in a trance, or actually inhabited by an evil spirit. seriously, that's what it feels like. the only way to stop myself is to sleep it off, and the hunger and cravings are so bad i have to sometimes medicate myself to sleep. i want to be post-op so much!

@@jessiquoi don't give up! Many of us eat for emotional reasons. It doesn't matter if we are sweeties or salties or just volume food lovers. We all here have an unhealthy relationship with our food.

We have used it to medicate ourselves for various reasons, and it has become that demon in our lives. You are seeking medical intervention because you have a sickness my friend. Obesity has been termed a disease, and no amount of not buying something or not having it in the house is going to stop you from eating it when you want to.

I had been known to get in my car in the middle of the night and drive out for ice cream or chips because the cravings were that bad there was no sleeping it off 7-11 is open 24 hours! Even if I did manage to sleep...let me tell you the next day would be that much worse. Where if I had eaten what I wanted when I wanted it I might have had some self control but after a couple of days of fighting it and myself it won and I could devour the Lay's truck!

Your Dr. office needs to work with you in a compassionate way, a way that can reach your soul because that's where this eating comes from. I know many people think that tough love and strong stance is the way to go with us..but remember we are "emotional" eaters. The way to help us is through emotion and understanding. That is not to say by any means to enable us, but to help us to understand our behaviors and why we have them.

We know we have them and if we could do this ourselves we would not be here or surgical patients.We need help to unravel all the emotions that are hidden under the bags of ruffels vats of ice cream and chocolate. (those are my demons everyone has different ones even too much broccoli can be bad especially if it's breaded and deep fried like my Aunt used to make.)

The place to start is with you my friend. When the demons rear their head ask yourself what that is about? In that moment when your BF left, was it because you were lonely, or felt maybe a sense of freedom that now you were back in control of what and when you would eat something without judgement? That could be scary! You have to trust who...? Yourself? What?!

If we can figure out the W's we can reach the W! The Win..or rather the loss!! When something is driving at me and gnawing at me now I go through the who, what, where, why, when, exercise with myself. Then if it comes down to it and there is no other reason for it then because I want to have something. Then I have it no guilt, no pressure and I feel better and I enjoy it and I'm good and I'm done. Oddly enough this stops the "binge" because I allowed myself to enjoy the ice cream bar, or the chips and didn't make myself feel bad about it so once I had my fill it's enough.

Yes my friend all of this learning has come post op for me, but for a banded patient until we have that level of restriction in our bands that helps us to eat smaller it takes all this learning up front. If you can do this now...what a GREAT sleever you will be!

Don't do it because your doctor is forcing you to, or because you want this surgery now, but do it for YOU. Only for YOU because only you can make be the change you want to see.

All my best to you.

Breathe. Give yourself a break. You're going to prevail. This may be the "bottom" you had to hit before letting to of binging. So there's nowhere to go but up, right? Make the next right choice. Find another means to self comfort today. Search something out. Then do it. And keep connected here. This place saves my sanity daily.

@@JustWatchMe this place keeps me sane daily too! and that may be why i have problems on the weekends, i'm not as comfortable with the tablet app (at home) as i am with the web version that i use at work. i think i have to work on that and get onto the forums over the weekends as well. thanks for your reply!

@@lisacaron, thanks for your thoughtful post. i appreciate your words.

It's so good to see such support when someone is struggling. I can't say it enough times how lucky I am to have found this site and to have gotten to know so many wonderful people.

Edited September 22, 201411 yr by gowalking

I agree, @gowalking. i'd be lost without the people on the forums. you all rock!

When I was a new bride in 1971, I was still suffering from anorexia. If you click on my little picture and go to my gallery, you will see in my wedding picture how absolutely boney I was. This was intentional, because if you look at my family picture you will see how heavy everyone else was, and I did not want to be big too. Later in life the pounds multiplied to the point that I had bariatric surgery last December.

One of the challenges that I have had post-op is exercise bulimia. The original poster reminded me of that by mentioning how she is beating herself up over losing conrol over the week-end. My dear, I so understand how you feel. With exercise bulimia, I feel the need to punish myself with exercise to burn up every calorie I eat. When I hit a long plateau it's even worse because there is no tangable result for all the hard work of measuring and weighing food and then exercising every day.

For anyone who calls this the easy way out - I would like to smack them upside the head. Our post-op lives are a job in themselves. Every day can't be perfect. You are not the only one struggling to find the balance. One thing I like about this forum is that we can open up and confess or rant and then feel like someone is really listening to our exaspirations and successes.

Jessiqoi, hang in there. As you progess through this journey you will become able to help those who come behind you. This is a wild ride. Even though opinions and tact vary, there are friends here.

@jessiquoi Short term solution -- can you postpone your appointment for a week? Say you're sick or something.

And then stop beating yourself up (that DOESN'T count as exercise! ) and get back on track. After surgery, you have something helping you stay in control, so even emotional eating is easier to manager.

Best wishes

G

@@cutlass6521, i absolutely love you.

@@nora72814, thanks for sharing. i only buy healthy food at the grocer, and i'm too lazy to go out and buy crap when the mood hits me. but when the demon takes over, i order in, and sometimes i do it practically in my sleep. it's like i'm in a trance, or actually inhabited by an evil spirit. seriously, that's what it feels like. the only way to stop myself is to sleep it off, and the hunger and cravings are so bad i have to sometimes medicate myself to sleep. i want to be post-op so much!

@@jessiquoi ...

I think you're in for a world of disappointment post-op.

Cutting your tummy off isn't going to solve this problem for you.

Identifying what's "making" you behave in this way and learning how to not let it "make" you do this is how you're going to succeed long-term.

Your cravings won't end after surgery. Really. They won't.

You're a smart girl. I've read your posts. So ... ?

Just chiming in to send best wishes your way. Pat yourself on the back -- gently! -- for everything you are doing to address your health issues. Tell yourself how amazing you are. You ARE! Choosing weight loss surgery is choosing yourself and your healthy future first -- that is an amazing accomplishment in itself. The pre-op process can be so stressful, and for those of us who are stress eaters that can be a particularly difficult time. And as others have said, if we could lose weight through dieting why would we elect surgery? Duh! You are strong and you are on your way. Just keep reminding yourself of that. I am a big believer in positive self-talk these days. For me weight loss surgery stopped the constant chatter in my head about food and for whatever reason now I am able to walk away from whatever it is, or have a tiny amount (versus being a "finisher" or the old, "I screwed up so I may as well go all the way"). Good luck with the process -- and so glad you're here on the forum.

I did not read the other replies, so I apologize ahead of time if this is repetitive.

They did not invent the light bulb in one try and you're not going to get this eating thing in your first, second, or however many tries it takes for you to get this right. For many of us, this is why we opted for the surgery: we needed a tool to help us get our eating into control. I too was a binge eater. I would do great all week or all day, and then I would bing on the weekends or at night. The sleeve surgery definitely help me get through the binging part. It cut it out, period. Couldn't bing even if I tried.

In my past, before marriage and kids, I was an emotional eater. The above description of my binge eating is very accurate of how my life went. However, once I was a wife and a mother, I got over all those insecurities and issues; but, I liked to eat and so I did...a lot.

Your pre-op diet is difficult. It is like an addict of cigarettes or alcohol going "cold turkey". Your body and mind crave what is comforting to you. I cheated on my pre-op diet. I cheated in my one-year post-op, but yet here I am at goal (reached it today!). I do not advocate, by any means, cheating. But, realistically, it happens. I had to teach myself to eat right. I had to "detox" my body from the bad carbs and foods. My first 10 months post-op, I was really good at planning my cheats. I am 15 months post-op now, and I no longer track because I make healthy choices 90-95% of the time. I still eat small quantities and I do eat "cheat" foods if I am at a party without healthier options or on my cheat day (Saturday). However, I will say that on my cheat day I do not binge. It is just a taste and I work out harder and longer on Sunday's. Getting to where I am was a process. It did NOT HAPPEN OVERNIGHT!

We cannot dwell on our failures, we have to dwell on solutions: how are we going to fix the problem; what is the resolution; what can I do better the next time; what do I have to do to avoid this? My soloution to many of my problems was not to have those foods in the house! The bad foods, the finger foods, the snacking foods...ELIMINATE them!

You need to wipe off the dirt from your knees, Honey. Get back up. We all fail. We CANNOT SUCCEED WITHOUT FAILURE. But to find success from failure, we try and try again until we get it right. It took Thomas Edison 10,000 tries to bring us light; it's going to take several tries to get the "eating right" correct as well (hopefully not 10,000 tries, though--LOL!).

Don't be so hard on yourself! Just do what you have to do to get it right! Good luck to you!!!

@VSGAnn2014... so...

i continue the therapy i started just before i started this journey.

i continue to practice the better behaviors as often as possible.

i look forward to the time when i lose just enough weight to allow me to get back to being the gym rat i used to be before my body became too painful to move.

what can i say? i believe i will be successful, because i don't know how to believe anything different. i have to believe that the honeymoon period i've been reading here about will give me the time to cement the successful behaviors. i refuse to believe that i don't stand a chance because i am still struggling pre-op to overcome my addiction.

i can't give up, and this is my last resort. if i fail, i will not live as long as i want to.

i don't expect the head hunger or cravings to go away, i really don't. i expect to experience anguish at facing the things that make me eat now, as i do most days when i am successful in my eating. i expect to mourn the almost immediate anaesthetic effect eating gives. and i expect i will survive and get through it... maybe with a little more trouble than most, maybe a little slower or less successful than others. but i'll get through it.

Good answer, @jessiquoi.

I did not know that you are already in therapy. Very best to you.

You know something. You can ask them if any of them even have one inkling of what you fight with. How you are starting from the ground up to rebuild yourself. Ask the thin and always been thin folks on your team if they have any knowledge about how you are fighting and struggling to win this war of obesity.

Then as long as you don't gain. Which you probably haven't, pick yourself up, dust yourself off and go forward. It will never be over for us. We will work at it a long time. It is a journey not a sprint!

No one really gets it until they have to battle it like us...We really have a battle on our hands. But most of us win in because we never see a mistake as the finish line and you can't either. Okay hun!