Quit Yer Complainin'

It's time for me to fess up. I have been complaining and obsessing over my weight for the last 6 months. But, I wasn't doing anything about it. I still weigh myself every day and watch my weight fluctuate as much as 5 pounds a day, terrified that I will regain all that weight back.

I was very disciplined with my eating habits until just after Christmas. That's when my life spun out of control (more so than it had already been). I allowed myself anything and everything my big a$$ desired. I told myself that it was ok to comfort myself with food because of what I was going through, never giving much thought to what I was doing to myself. When I did become aware of the fact that I was much like an alcoholic in regards to my addiction, things became worse. I found myself doing things that were unhealthy and just down right idiotic. If I tried even slightly not to cave, the craving became worse until I finally gave in.

Strangely, in the past, I had found that I was not a stress eater. Before weight loss surgery, I would stop eating all together during stressful times. For some reason, this all changed and I'm not entirely sure that it was because of the surgery. This has been and is the most chaotic and unpredictable time in my life and I believe that has more to do with why I am eating.

About a week ago, I realized that I was not feeling physically well and my mental state was in the proverbial crapper. I felt exactly the same way I had when I weighed 384 pounds. I was the fat girl all over again, searching high and low for her next fix. Believe me when I say that nothing I was putting into my body was healthy. I was running on pure sugar and feeling like a meth addict, living life in a cloud. Recognizing the behavior made me feel out of control and hopeless. My scale told me that my weight was almost 20 pounds above my lowest weight (I was only there for about 4 hours) and 17 above my most stable weight.

I can hear some of you nodding your heads thinking that you knew I was going to gain the weight back. Trust me when I say that I will NEVER go back to that place in my head. I don't like it and I don't like me when I'm there. I worked way too hard to lose over 200 pounds to ever go back to those old habits. There's a fat girl in my head and I'm trying to kill her, but she just won't die!

Something changed in my mentality. I don't know if it was that I was feeling so emotional about myself and only seeing the ugliness, but I decided finally to do something about myself. I reloaded my daily food intake program and set about journaling what my recent day's intake of food looked like. I had stopped journaling in October when my computer crashed.

Let me tell you, the first day was eye opening. I ate over 4000 calories! 2500 of those were homemade chocolate chip cookies (I make the best according to the girls). I nearly threw up when I realized what I had been doing to myself. In order for me to continue to lose weight, I need to keep my calories at 1500 if I don't walk and 1700 if I do. I could see now how I had regained the weight.

The next day, I buckled down and kept exact track of what I ate and kept my calories at about 1200. Low and behold, when I jumped on the scale the next morning, I was down 3 pounds from the day before. I did great all week and this even continued on through the weekend. As of today, 5 days into it, I'm down 9 pounds.

So, I have new, old goals of continuing to lose weight at 2.5 years after weight loss surgery. I continue to work out 5 days a week and have been walking 2 days.

No more complaining without taking action first. I plan on keeping my head above water and enjoying the swim.

Super Size Me?

Eating out (I'm not talking about sex here. Get your mind out of the gutter, Wendy!) has become an interesting adventure since weight loss surgery.

The first thing we have to think about is the kind of food a place serves. It's strange to me to think about healthy eating since I spent the last 15 years eating whatever crap sounded good.

I have to admit to becoming a slave to fast food. Out of sheer laziness, we ate fast food almost every day. I attribute much of my weight gain and carbohydrate addiction to "plastic food". It's so readily available, cheap and fills that "I need it now" (again, with the dirty minds) mentality of instant gratification. These are the places I now avoid like the plague.

Once I finally find a place that serves something decent, I have to figure out what I think is not only healthy, but will agree with my new stomach. Not always an easy endeavor.

Mr. Sign and I went to lunch at a steak house chain. We decided to order one meal and split it. The waitress looked at us like we had genitalia growing out of our foreheads. You see, we are still good sized people even though we have each lost over one hundred pounds.

Imagine the waitress's surprise when we asked for boxes to take the remaining half home with us. The two of us ate less than half of a meal that was meant to serve one. Of course she thought something was wrong with the food. (Why would I want to take it home if something was wrong with it? To have it tested, lol?)

Mr. Sign has a need to explain to everyone he meets that he's had weight loss surgery. I, personally, don't think it's anyone's business why I can only eat 1/4 of a regular portion of food. I'm training him to keep things to himself. I'm sure that once we are normal weights, people won't give us the freak look when we share a meal.

This leads me to portion size. Americans expect to be served enough food to feed a small family with one portion. When I was a kid, the average meal from McDonald's was what is now the Happy Meal consisting of a regular hamburger, small fry and small Coke. No wonder we are a fat nation. If offered a smaller portion, the average American feels cheated. As a weight loss surgery patient, I'm amazed at how much food people can eat. I'm even more horrified knowing that I used to eat like that.

T.G.I. Fridays is now offering smaller portions. I hope this is the beginning of the a swing back to appropriate sized meals. After all, our children have no idea of what an acceptable food portion looks like. They've always know the Double Big Mac, super sized fry and 64 oz. Coke as a normal meal.

Weight Loss Talk

A conversation over lunch with my stepdad, Ted, yesterday sparked some thoughts about losing weight. Obviously, I have no clue about what really works since I had to cut into my gut to make a change.

My mom and Ted have been on a diet for the last three weeks.

Ted has a metabolism like a hummingbird. He eats constantly to keep up with his intense physical movements. He's small but works out voraciously to keep himself at a constant weight. He has lost 10 pounds on their diet.

Unfortunately, I got my metablolism from my mom. My poor mother has only lost 3 pounds. I tried explaining to Ted that when someone follows a diet and doesn't see results, it seems like it's the end of the world. He insisted that someone on a diet needs only to think about the moment, not the rest of their life. I disagreed because when I'm on a diet, that's all I can focus on, what I'm depriving myself of.

I should explain that Ted is a recovering alcoholic (28 years of sobriety). He has always equated overcoming alcohol with being able to lose weight. He says that addictions are the same. I have tried to explain to him that it isn't the same. We have to eat in order to survive. Just trying to eat a little is like telling an alcoholic to have one drink.

Another major difference in trying to lose weight is that almost everything we do in life is based around food. All gatherings revolve around what's being served. Just walking up to someone's desk can be difficult if they have a huge jar of candy in your face.

What has changed for me since surgery is that I can no longer eat huge quanities of food, even if I wanted to. I have been forced to change my eating habits. If I don't, I must suffer the immediate consequence of throwing up. Even if my head tells me to eat more, I can't. Why couldn't I just eat smaller portions before surgery? Because my brain wouldn't let me. If food was there, I would eat it.

I'd love to say that I've overcome obsessing over food, but I'd be lying. What surgery has taught me is that I must now focus more on what I'm eating as well as how much. I have to get enough protein and water every day or I will suffer for the rest of my life. Being aware of every single morsel I put into my body for the rest of my life, is the only way I will overcome obesity.

Food Addict?

Weightloss surgery has made forced me to look at my past eating habits. Most obese people will tell you that they eat food for comfort. They are emotional eaters. Food is the one and only friend that doesn't treat them poorly (at first, but then the pounds are packed on). The vicious cycle is that the more one eats, the worse they feel.

Given my somewhat turbulent childhood, one would think that I should fall into the above category. What I'm realizing is that I'm not an emotional eater. I never have been. I have never found that food eased my pain. In times of stress, I go into starvation mode.

I had a hard time convincing the weighloss center behaviorist that I was not an emotional eater. Instead of individualizing each patient, he was using stereotypes that I did not fall into.

The behaviorist wanted to know how someone could become morbidly obese without being an emotional eater. I explained that after giving birth to two children and taking care of two terminally ill in-laws, I had focused on everyone except myself. As a mother, I gave every ounce of myself to being the best I could be always putting the babies first. This meant that I didn't really put much thought into what I was putting into my body.

I had to take a look at genetics as well. I come from beefy stock on both sides. I found a picture of my great grandfather's sisters. I am built exacly like the herd.

Metabolism needs to be factored in as well. My best friend eats twice as much as I do and can't believe how little I actually eat (she has travelled with me for days being with me 24 hours a day watching what I eat).

I'm not saying that I don't like food, because obviously I do. I have found myself eating because I was bored and the food was there. I grabbed whatever was easy and close by. I have a bad habit of going all day without eating anything until 7 o'clock at night. At that point, you better get out of my way because I'm going to eat anything and everything. When you wait so long to eat, you just stuff the food in and have no idea of when your body is actually full until it's too late.

Weightloss surgery has given me the chance to make friends with my body. I'm learning to listen to it. I now eat slowly and savor every bite.

I was told that the disconnect from food would be hard after surgery. One woman told me that life after surgery was the hardest thing she had ever done. She feels cheated that she can't eat whatever she wants to. What I've found is that don't miss the terrible things I was putting into my body. I feel a sense of relief for not feeling guilt about what I choose to eat. I know I need to work hard now as the weightloss window is only about 18 months. In this time, I have to set good eating habits that will follow me for the rest of my life.