Ever since I decided to have WLS I've been trying to answer this question. Because I knew that until I identified the issue I wouldn't be able to fix it. I have a lot of things I feel like I'm addicted to but I kept coming back to sweets. I have observed in my house that when we have sweets around, they call to me but no one else. My kids will have a brownie when I make them and then totally forget about them. However, I'll sneak a bite while I'm doing the dishes, or come down after they're asleep to eat one, or have one for breakfast before they come down the stairs. So clearly I have a problem.

But it didn't really click until I was watching an episode of My 600lb Life the other night. In the episode this woman was showing all the places in her bedroom where she hid candy and chocolate. And all of a sudden this memory came flooding back to me...

I was in Jr High, so probably 12 at the time. With any money I had from chores I would go to the store on my way home from school and buy kool-aid packets. When my parents weren't home and my brother wasn't around, I would mix one kool-aid packet with a cup of sugar in a ziploc baggie and hide it in my room, on a shelf behind my dolls. I would cut one of the corners off the baggie and just eat the flavored sugar. Like a pixie stick but in a major quantity. I can now remember that at one point I had four flavors in my room...that's four cups of sugar I was eating probably over the course of one week. I don't think my parents ever knew. I didn't see it as anything other than a fun secret because I was super skinny as a kid. It didn't matter what I ate, I never gained weight. But now I can see this is where my problems started, even if it took another 10 years for the weight to start pilling on.

I don't even know yet what to do with this realization but confessing this is definitely a start. So, what have you all been truly addicted to?

You know what's really strange? I think gastric bypass physically broke a large part of my addiction to food because almost all of the foods that I used to enjoy pre-surgery now taste awful and make me physically sick. Yesterday I had a carefully crafted Qdoba burrito bowl. By carefully, I mean I had no carbs/starches. I just had black beans, ground beef, cheese, and salsa. Well let's just say it was something I used to enjoy. I am still sick from it today and I it wasn't the overeating kind of sickness.

Edited April 27, 20188 yr by Mattymatt

7 minutes ago, Mattymatt said:

You know what's really strange? I think gastric bypass physically broke a large part of my addiction to food because almost all of the foods that I used to enjoy pre-surgery now taste awful and make me physically sick. Yesterday I had a carefully crafted Qdoba burrito bowl. By carefully, I mean I had no carbs/starches. I just had black Beans, ground beef, cheese, and salsa. Well let's just say it was something I used to enjoy. I am still sick from it today and I it wasn't the overeating kind of sickness.

that sucks! I remember when I was your stage... I hated thinking about going to the grocery store because nothing tasted right. Luckily for me, that went away. I don't have many aversions to anything now. So give it some time, you may enjoy it again.

[emoji20] that sucks! I remember when I was your stage... I hated thinking about going to the grocery store because nothing tasted right. Luckily for me, that went away. I don't have many aversions to anything now. So give it some time, you may enjoy it again.

You really hit on it. I don't even want to go to the grocery store.

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2 hours ago, allwet said:

I have taken left over combo pizza and peeled everything off the bread and dropped it into a skillet and added 2 scrambled eggs for a very nice Breakfast scramble that always ends up being lunch also cause it turns out to dam big every time . Nice weekend treat for breakfast but only if you can resist not eating the bread

That is awesome. There is some pizza my family likes and I think the crust is just soggy and gross the next day. I think I do miss the toppings more than the crust sometimes. Maybe a turkey pepperoni omelette would work.

21 minutes ago, Mattymatt said:

You know what's really strange? I think gastric bypass physically broke a large part of my addiction to food because almost all of the foods that I used to enjoy pre-surgery now taste awful and make me physically sick. Yesterday I had a carefully crafted Qdoba burrito bowl. By carefully, I mean I had no carbs/starches. I just had black Beans, ground beef, cheese, and salsa. Well let's just say it was something I used to enjoy. I am still sick from it today and I it wasn't the overeating kind of sickness.

I actually look forward to this. I think it could help reset my brain to the healthy foods I actually should be eating.

So the other day I had my 2/6 mandated diet visits and she was talking about leptin signals telling you when you are full and kept pointing to her stomach. I pointed to my cheeks and said this is where I get hungry. I can feel good n my throat and still feel hungry. Glad to see some post op posts that this “feeling” seems to be deleted.

11 minutes ago, GettinSkinnywithit said:

So the other day I had my 2/6 mandated diet visits and she was talking about leptin signals telling you when you are full and kept pointing to her stomach. I pointed to my cheeks and said this is where I get hungry. I can feel good n my throat and still feel hungry. Glad to see some post op posts that this “feeling” seems to be deleted.

I don't believe I ever experienced "full" like she was talking about. Not even on Thanksgiving. I think I'm leptin-challenged!

Maybe you are hyper-ghrelin as well,as leptin-challenged ?

On 4/26/2018 at 2:26 PM, SleeveinIL said:

I am a bleu cheese girl. I love bleu cheese, can't get enough blue cheese! That being said, we can still have cheese but I have changed to reduced fat or fat free. I still feel like I am getting cheese, but I am not going to eat something that is 95% fat anymore. Do I still want it? Heck yeah, but I am doing really well curbing my head craving.

Totally none of my business but this journey has shown me in black and white that fat doesn’t make me fat. So while I completely avoid sugar and sweet tasting things (for the first 6 months I did not touch fruit even), I ate full fat meat and dairy and cooked with olive oil and coconut oil. I write down everything I eat in an app (I use Lose It). Every single day of 9 months of weight loss, I have eaten over 50% of my calories in fat. I had heard fat doesn’t make you fat, but I didn’t really internalize it as a fact until I saw it didn’t make ME fat!

Not trying to get you back on the cheese Jones at all, lol, but I thought you might find that interesting. Daily eating a ton of fat, while daily losing weight. I’m sold. Good fats don’t make us fat. But I do watch the carbs.