New here. I'm Kim, 6 mos post. Sleeve
- Thread starter Vuksmom
- Start date
Healthier Me
Member
Hi Vuksmom & welcome. Get back to the things you did early on to be successful - food diary, drinking your water, exercise. Do activities that you enjoy to keep your mind busy.
dianeseattle
Member
I want to add my endorsement of what HM said: FOOD DIARY. Part of what makes an eating disorder so strong and successful is DENIAL. "Gee, how can I be gaining weight when I barely ate a thing?" I remember hearing a weight loss group member telling the group that she always volunteered to clear the table and load the dishwasher. While she was alone in the kitchen and everyone else was enjoying their nice full bellies, she'd be eating every crumb left on every plate, pretending to scrape it off into the garbage can. So she was not only screwing up her own progress, she was lying to herself about how much she ate.
If you keep a journal, stick it in your fanny pack and commit to writing it down before you even take a bite. In other words, plan what you're going to eat and make it a real contract by writing it down. Then you can check it off as you go along and you'll see what and how much is left on your list in real time.
This is hard to do because another part of your eating disorder is believing you have the right to control your food. Nope. If you could control it, you would never have become obese to begin with.
Wipe the word CONTROL out of your vocabulary. Accept that you're as helpless as an infant and someone else (or something else, like a journal) is going to be the boss of you.
Let yourself be grumpy and bitchy and complain about it to anyone who you trust to listen. But give up control. Obey your journal or diary.
This is actually the reason why groups like Weight Watchers works so well--at first. I remember getting little cards from the group with check boxes, and when you ate your allowed amount of veggies or protein, you checked the box. If you wanted to violate the guidelines, the little card was there, in your face, to argue with you.
Probably 90 percent of the people here are familiar with WW and know what I'm talking about. And that's the easy part. You still have to deal with your obsessions and compulsions, and man, is that hard.
Do yourself a favor and use a journaling device. WRITE IT DOWN. And when you write, don't lie to yourself about how large or small your portion was. It's a killer, but so much easier to deal with if you have a successful surgery to give you a head start.
As to your feelings, your emotions, your drive to sabotage yourself, well, pray or meditate or sit quietly and think or journal, or all of the above. It was so easy to get fat, and it feels so hard to stop that behavior. You're going to suffer, but just let it happen. I wasn't kidding when I wrote a long time ago that I cried so much, I had to sit down with a dishtowel to catch my tears.
But I'm 15 years out from surgery and the compulsions are still there, but they can no longer be in first place and drive me to destruction. I didn't go through all this horrible surgery and recovery and sacrifice so I could be back there. I love my body, I love pretty clothes that fit my figure, i love the compliments (though I do have trouble accepting them) and I love that I did something no one else in my family could do (5 sisters, two brothers, now two are deceased from obesity, diabetes, heart failure, self-destruction) and maybe it seems petty that I love lording it over them, but that's me. Petty and fit. So there.
A coin has two sides. You can call heads or tails. Same with overeating or healthy eating. Which side do you want to call?
If you keep a journal, stick it in your fanny pack and commit to writing it down before you even take a bite. In other words, plan what you're going to eat and make it a real contract by writing it down. Then you can check it off as you go along and you'll see what and how much is left on your list in real time.
This is hard to do because another part of your eating disorder is believing you have the right to control your food. Nope. If you could control it, you would never have become obese to begin with.
Wipe the word CONTROL out of your vocabulary. Accept that you're as helpless as an infant and someone else (or something else, like a journal) is going to be the boss of you.
Let yourself be grumpy and bitchy and complain about it to anyone who you trust to listen. But give up control. Obey your journal or diary.
This is actually the reason why groups like Weight Watchers works so well--at first. I remember getting little cards from the group with check boxes, and when you ate your allowed amount of veggies or protein, you checked the box. If you wanted to violate the guidelines, the little card was there, in your face, to argue with you.
Probably 90 percent of the people here are familiar with WW and know what I'm talking about. And that's the easy part. You still have to deal with your obsessions and compulsions, and man, is that hard.
Do yourself a favor and use a journaling device. WRITE IT DOWN. And when you write, don't lie to yourself about how large or small your portion was. It's a killer, but so much easier to deal with if you have a successful surgery to give you a head start.
As to your feelings, your emotions, your drive to sabotage yourself, well, pray or meditate or sit quietly and think or journal, or all of the above. It was so easy to get fat, and it feels so hard to stop that behavior. You're going to suffer, but just let it happen. I wasn't kidding when I wrote a long time ago that I cried so much, I had to sit down with a dishtowel to catch my tears.
But I'm 15 years out from surgery and the compulsions are still there, but they can no longer be in first place and drive me to destruction. I didn't go through all this horrible surgery and recovery and sacrifice so I could be back there. I love my body, I love pretty clothes that fit my figure, i love the compliments (though I do have trouble accepting them) and I love that I did something no one else in my family could do (5 sisters, two brothers, now two are deceased from obesity, diabetes, heart failure, self-destruction) and maybe it seems petty that I love lording it over them, but that's me. Petty and fit. So there.
A coin has two sides. You can call heads or tails. Same with overeating or healthy eating. Which side do you want to call?