How do others handle this. I’m allowing myself to eat the bad foods again - aiming for moderation of course - but am scared by how much I want it and how hard it is to say no to myself.

Strategies anyone?

I’ve lost 100lbs and bmi is 19. Don’t need to lose more but terrified of gain!!

First, congratulations on your weight loss, you should be proud of yourself.

Next, how often are you eating junk food? Are you still hitting the gym and staying active?

I eat junk food but in moderation and by that I eat it only on Wednesdays (This is the day when I reset my carbs but with one snack). As I workout 5 days a week, I will have one high carb snack which is reasonable in calories one day out of the week. This, in turn, helps me stay focus but also feed my craving and carries me over to the next week.

I know I have not reached my goal weight but I do a lot of lifting so, I need the snack a week for the energy boost.

Also, do not have it in your house. When I do not have junk food in the house, I am less likely to eat it.

Not exercising how I'd like to - been ill lately but will get back to it. I like the idea of a regular treat.

Really as always it's a head game I suppose.

Thanks for your response ?

Congratulations on getting to a normal BMI! Now just stop eating junk food, go back to the basics of protein first, and start getting activity again. I know you don't want to be in the regain category. The easy part is over now. Maintenance is the most difficult part of the whole journey and it is where I (and many others) have failed repeatedly. Go back to tracking what you eat and look at your food log before you eat - when you see how well that you've done, junk food becomes unsavory.

Thanks - good advice

Just now, myfanwymoi said:

Thanks - good advice

It's all advice given to me by dietitians that I failed to heed, hence I never made it to maintenance. Had I heeded this advice, I most likely would not have been able to get back up on the horse and resume weight loss. Of course, I also have some significant psychological issues that I never dealt with. I am grateful for the surgery because it is virtually forcing myself to confront the demons and how they interact with food.

4 hours ago, myfanwymoi said:

Strategies anyone?

I'll be blunt.

Grow up and do the right thing.

Why **CK UP a process that has helped you so much?

Write your food-diary entries as soon as you eat. Stay under your quotas as often as possible.

The waste of time and money if you bring back old bad eating habits should scare the 5h1t out of you!

Thank you. Matty Matt. It’s psychology with me too. And clearly I’m scared rainbow or I wouldn’t be asking for advice. Just want to hear how people successfully maintain. Just filled in my food diary.
What I’d also be interested to hear is how people find healthy ways of creating a wider diet. I’ve eaten little actual junk - a couple of squares of 80% choc is an infrequent treat but we had a buffet at work yesterday and i made fairly healthy savoury choices... chicken skewers, scotch egg slivers but then found my self eating three brownie bites and three small cookies. And that was scary because the control disappeared in a way it doesn’t wit dark choc.
I’ve thrown out some stuff I had at home: low-fat rice pudding etc but I have some other stuff I’m not sure of - blueberry and vanilla rice Cakes, Germán rye bread - the dark brown stuff..

I'll be blunt.
Grow up and do the right thing.
Why **CK UP a process that has helped you so much?
Write your food-diary entries as soon as you eat. Stay under your quotas as often as possible.
The waste of time and money if you bring back old bad eating habits should scare the 5h1t out of you!

And yes of course it does - see message below but the ‘grow the eff up’ feels shaming. I’m being grown up asking for advice and other people’s experience strength and hope.
That comment triggered all sorts of unpleasant ****. I am grown up enough to recognise that and put the stuff to bed, but please be aware some people aren’t aware of their triggers and if there’s a a way to say something without denigrating or judging it’s generally more productive.
May your rainbow [emoji304] shine [emoji3]

@myfanwymoi I am glad that you made good choices but it is still possible to eat too much of the "good choices" and gain weight. A good choice not only takes into account nutrition but calories and amount as well. Believe me, I learned that one the hard way. Those "healthy" chicken skewers may have all amounts of added sodium and are most likely cooked in a sauce loaded with sugar to improve flavor so they really aren't all that healthy after all. It's okay to have these but they need to be in an even smaller portion size than the dietitian told you to account for the unknowns of how the food was prepared. The devil is in the details that the catering company is not giving you.

The catering company wants repeat business so it uses any and all manner of ingredients to enhance the flavor while simultaneously adding calories. Suddenly that chicken skewer only looks marginally better than fast food. The same goes for those brownie bites and small cookies: you would probably be shocked just at how many calories that tiny bite has. At least with fast food, the law mandates easily accessible and accurate nutrition information. Purely for example, if you know that a cheeseburger at Super Fast Food, Inc. has 800 calories, you could slice it in half, and have the second half as a snack later on while being reasonably certain of the accuracy. And you would have made a a relatively good choice, assuming you have the control to wrap that second half up and put it out of sight and mind. Ironically, it may be a better choice than the chicken skewers and the sweets

The bottom line is that it is a slippery road to go down and I speak from plenty of experience in this because it is why I have been up and down 100+ pounds twice in my life. I wish that kind of yo-yo on nobody. I believe that to be a real reason why I developed diabetes and other maladies. If I've learned anything it is that I must face all of my mental health demons on this road to recovery. I cannot work only on weight loss and expect to be healthy. I must work on the "entire me."

Edited March 17, 20188 yr by Mattymatt

4 minutes ago, Mattymatt said:

@myfanwymoi I am glad that you made good choices but it is still possible to eat too much of the "good choices" and gain weight. A good choice not only takes into account nutrition but calories and amount as well. Believe me, I learned that one the hard way. Those "healthy" chicken skewers may have all amounts of added sodium and are most likely cooked in a sauce loaded with sugar to improve flavor so they really aren't all that healthy after all. It's okay to have these but they need to be in an even smaller portion size than the dietitian told you to account for the unknowns of how the food was prepared. The devil is in the details that the catering company is not giving you.

The catering company wants repeat business so it uses any and all manner of ingredients to enhance the flavor while simultaneously adding calories. Suddenly that chicken skewer only looks marginally better than fast food. The same goes for those brownie bites and small cookies: you would probably be shocked just at how many calories that tiny bite has. At least with fast food, the law mandates easily accessible and accurate nutrition information. Purely for example, if you know that a cheeseburger at Super Fast Food, Inc. has 800 calories, you could slice it in half, and have the second half as a snack later on while being reasonably certain of the accuracy. And you would have made a a relatively good choice, assuming you have the control to wrap that second half up and put it out of sight and mind. Ironically, it may be a better choice than the chicken skewers and the sweets

The bottom line is that it is a slippery road to go down and I speak from plenty of experience in this because it is why I have been up and down 100+ pounds twice in my life. I wish that kind of yo-yo on nobody. I believe that to be a real reason why I developed diabetes and other maladies. If I've learned anything it is that I must face all of my mental health demons on this road to recovery. I cannot work only on weight loss and expect to be healthy. I must work on the "entire me."

Thanks for this. The buffet was made on site at school and the chicken appeared to be actual chunks of chicken breast with peppers. But I hear what your saying. I'm eating tinned salmon, a little cheese and oatcakes for lunch. Only a couple of tablespoons of the salmon and about 20g of cheese.

Been having problems with abdominal pain and it's hard to find things that don't make me feel a little nauseous...

Just now, myfanwymoi said:

Thanks for this. The buffet was made on site at school and the chicken appeared to be actual chunks of chicken breast with peppers. But I hear what your saying. I'm eating tinned salmon, a little cheese and oatcakes for lunch. Only a couple of tablespoons of the salmon and about 20g of cheese.

Been having problems with abdominal pain and it's hard to find things that don't make me feel a little nauseous...

Those are probably better choices. I say probably because I have no idea about the complete nutritional info. Navigating the post-WLS waters will be a lifelong challenge.

It is common to experiment to find which foods you can tolerate. But keep in mind that the goals in the Maintenance phase is to maintain the weight loss that you have achieved. That can be the most difficult part of this surgery. The following article describes the approach that I am using in the Maintenance phase. http://www.breadandbutterscience.com/Surgery2.pdf

Guidelines for avoiding dumping syndrome. Be aware of your individual pre-triggers.

Generally your body will tell you just before you reach dumping syndrome. These are called pre-triggers. They can be many things such as hiccups, sneezing, excessive mucous forming quickly, the taste of food changing instantly from good to terrible, and others. Individuals are different and their pre-triggers vary. So when you experience the pre-triggers, stop eating immediately - not one more bite. It is extremely difficult to lay horizontal when you experience dumping syndrome. That means trying to sleep is out. Normally you will suffer for several hours. Generally I will sit and watch TV for several hours. You can find some relieve by forcing yourself to vomit. Emptying your stomach will help bring you rest. As a result I highly recommend that you not eat during the couple hours before bedtime.

James Marusek has a breadth of knowledge and wise advise. I always appreciate his pitching in! :-)

Sorry, but this just seems so highly illogical. Like, gah, I know we're all human, but dang. Ok, walking out of the thread and closing the door before my mouth writes checks my brain can't cash.

I feel like my NUT is the only one that wants you to get to a diet that is healthy and maintainable. They said they have actually seen people develop eating disorders because they are so scared to eat anything “bad”, where they want you to get to a point where you can eat normal. The thing is, for many of us, our diet was not normal to begin with, so this is new to us.

Once we get to maintenance, we are encouraged to eat proteins and healthy foods first, but also to allow ourselves to indulge in “bad” foods once in a while. As long as we are working out, tracking macros and not going overboard, we will be ok. The key is to not fall into an entire diet of carbs and sugars.





Age: 37
Height: 5’6
BMI: 37
VSG scheduled for 4/16/18
GW: 160
MFP: Fit4LifeAR