No food police needed

At any given time, there are approximately 10,000 food “rules” running through my mind: Drink 64 oz. of water a day. Eat 9 servings of fruit and vegetables. Eat whole grains. Avoid sweets. Avoid fats. Eat lots of soy. Don’t eat trans fats. Don’t eat fast food. Avoid fried foods. Don’t drink soda. Don’t eat foods and drinks made with artificial sweeteners. Don’t eat red meat. It takes more calories to chew celery than it has in it. An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Avoid fats that are solid at room temperature. Don’t eat movie theater popcorn. Green veggies are healthier than white veggies. Don’t eat pizza with cheese and meat. Avoid caffeine. Don’t eat too much seafood (mercury). Don’t eat eggs. Eat eggs every day. Drink a glass of wine every day. Choose olive oil. Don’t eat processed foods. Eat blueberries (antioxidants). Don’t use too much salt. Drink orange juice (folic acid). Don’t eat dairy. Eat nuts before dinner. Don’t eat veal. Avoid organ meats. Eat yogurt with active cultures. Don’t eat chips.

And now that I am banded, I can add a few more: Chew food 30 times before swallowing. Don’t drink for 30 minutes after meals. Watch out for high calorie drinks that can sabotage weight loss. Watch out for bread, pizza, bagels, hot dogs and other foods that aren’t band-friendly. Eat at least 50 grams of protein a day. Eat no more than 3 meals a day. Don’t eat more than a cup and a half of food per meal. Eat protein first. Take a daily multi-vitamin. Don’t eat “sliders”. Take small bites.

So with all this information in my mind at any given moment, you can believe that I do not need anyone looking at what I am eating and making “helpful” comments about whether or not I “should” be eating that particular food. In fact, many a binge has been triggered by the “food police”. If there exists a food law, believe me, I am well-aware of it and do not need someone to point it out to me.

3 week post-op update

Today is my official weigh-in day and I am down another 3 lbs. this week! This brings my total to 18 since my first weigh-in four weeks ago. Tomorrow I will be three weeks post-op. I’m supposed to be returning to regular foods tomorrow, but I’m afraid I jumped the gun a bit and started eating regular foods last weekend. Oh well!

These are the things that I am doing well:
1) No drinking with meals – I thought this would be harder, but so far it has been pretty easy. Except when I forget to look at what time it is when I get done eating and then I realize a bit later that I don’t know when I can drink again.

2) Journaling – I have a cute purple notebook in my purse that I am using to write down what I eat and track my protein.

3) Exercise – I walk every morning with my dog for about 30 minutes.

4) No soda – Oh how I loved my daily diet cherry Pepsi, but I’ve only thought of it a few times since being banded. I’m drinking Arizona Diet Green Tea with Ginseng (sweetened with Splenda) instead which is very yummy.

These are the things that I am not doing so well:

1) Eating slowly – I had a couple “stuck” episodes early on (like last week – LOL), but now everything is pretty much going down no problem. I think I sort of want something to get stuck so I know for sure my band is there and working.

2) Eating no more than one cup portions – I have been eating about a cup and a half for dinner which goes down fine, but maybe ten or so minutes later I get that weird pain in my neck/shoulder. It’d be nice to get that WHILE I am eating so I’d know I was eating too much.

3) Resting – I was back to work a couple of days after surgery and I’ve been running on full speed ever since. About a week after surgery, I developed this horrible cough and I’m just now starting to feel better. I know my body is still recovering. I don’t know why it is so hard for me to take it easy.

So this is my three week evaluation. I made it through a minefield of birthday parties last weekend and I feel great about how I did and especially that I still lost three pounds this week. Overall I am really happy with my weight loss (the last time I dieted, it took me six months to lose 25 lbs.).

I am also wondering if there are any other vegetarian “bandsters” like me? I’ve been a lacto-ovo veg since I was 19. So far I am not having too much trouble getting the protein in, but I feel like I’m really working at it. If you are a veg or know of one, please let me know.

So hungry!

I am five-days post op from my lap band WLS and today I am soooooooooo hungry. I really haven't been hungry until the last couple days. Yesterday I was hungry and I had some soup for lunch and I was completely stuffed for the rest of the day. Today I had the same soup about an hour ago and now my stomach is growling away.

I liked not having to eat. I liked feeling full and not needing to eat. I felt great and had plenty of energy. If I start eating regular food again, it could take control of me again.

I have come to realize that my life is really out of balance when it comes to food and my relationship to food. I guess eating too little is just as out of whack as eating too much, but can't I have a little more time to live without being crazy about food?

Please tell me that the lap band is going to work! I know it is a tool and not a solution on its own, but isn't is suppossed to make me feel full by eating only small ammounts? I also realize that I am only eating liquids right now so they can just slip right down through the opening. Can anyone relate?

Surgery DONE!

I had my surgery on Friday and I feel really, really good. Hardly any pain. I am back to work this morning. I even took my dog for a walk this morning. I didn't walk fast, but we made it around the track twice before I had to get ready for work.

I am processing a lot of things, but I am not quite ready to write them down yet, but I wanted to post that I came through okay.

I'm not having any trouble with the liquid diet except I keep thinking of certain foods that I'd like to have for dinner or whatever and then I remember oh yeah I'm not eating. It's kind of like several years ago when I quit smoking and I walked around for two weeks feeling like I forgot something.

Actually I've long felt that if I could just quit eating, it would be so much easier and it really is. I'm afraid of starting regular food again. I'm afraid I won't be able to stop again once I start. Hopefully the band will work as designed and help keep me in check when I do resume eating.

I am going to weigh myself once a week so I haven't done that yet, but I am already nervous about it. I am afraid that all the fluids and whatnot that they pumped into me at the hospital will leave me with dissappointing results from the scale. I will keep you posted!

A little history...

I have had issues with food and disordered eating since I was a child. I remember binge eating when I was 8 and stealing change from my dad to buy four or five candy bars to eat in my bedroom. I was never overweight as a kid, though, due to my child's metabolism and my high activity level. I did develop early, however, and I viewed my curves as fat. The other girls my age were small and child-like and I had the body of a woman. I was self-conscious. I was also treated like an older person - often in inappropriate ways. I looked 16 at the age of 12. I was over-sexualized. When I was 13 or 14, I began to starve myself for a couple days at a time and I dropped weight. I was skinny. My doctor even told me once that I shouldn't lose anymore weight. I loved it.

Living that lifestyle took a lot of work and after a couple of years I was more interested in my boyfriend and my job than I was in being so skinny. An unhappy relationship caused me to become overweight for the first time at the age of 17. I joined a commercial weight-loss program and lost 45 lbs. I was thin once more. The problem was that I lost weight by binging for three or four days and then starving for the two or three days before my weigh-in. I remember going through the McDonald's drive through and ordering enough food for two people and ordering a pizza delivered to my apartment and then shouting to the non-existent person in the back that the pizza was there. I didn't want anyone to know that I was going to eat the whole pizza myself.

This went on for awhile until I discovered a 12-step program for compulsive eating. I became abstinent from compulsive eating for the first time. I wasn't binging and I wasn't gaining weight. And then I fell in love.

I met Eddie in a meeting and I loved him deeply. But my feelings of insecurity and strong emotions brought about a relapse in my self-destructive behavior. For the first time, I began to actively engage in purging behaviors. I also stopped eating for the most part. I wasn't fat. Looking back, I don't know what the hell my problem was. I guess I just couldn't handle the idea that I was worthy of being loved. I reached the lowest weight I've ever been at as an adult during this time - 119. I am 5'8".

I went through a group-counseling program to pull myself out of this situation. I quit purging. I saw a therapist. When I was in group, all I could think about was how much I envied all the other skinny girls with anorexia and bulimia. Their neurosis fueled my disordered thinking. But Eddie said he'd leave me if I didn't knock it off so I finished the program and quit purging.

For the next several years, I managed to maintain a normal weight, but at times my eating habits were still pretty messed up. I didn't want anything to do with diets or being told what to eat. I was rebellious. I was tired of how screwed up my relationship with food had become. Mostly I ate what I wanted, but exercised regularly so I didn't gain weight. After four years, Eddie and I broke up. I gained a bit of weight in the next few months and jumped right through a new relationship and into a second new relationship. I married the second guy after four months of dating. For those who are wondering, I don't recommend this to others.

I got pregnant within six months. I gained 60 lbs. during my pregnancy. For the first time, I was significantly overweight. My daughter was born and I was yet again about 40 lbs. overweight. I went back to the weight-loss program when she was 10 months and was back at my pre-pregnancy weight by her first birthday.

I kept the weight off until I became pregnant again with my second daughter. I decided I wasn't going to gain so much weight this time around and I exercised as long as I could physically do so (until about two weeks before she was born). I gained 20 lbs, in the first six months of my pregnancy and 40 lbs. in the last couple months. Crap. I guess that is just how my body "does" pregnancy. Not discouraged, I went back to the weight-loss program right after she was born. I was 29 years and 9 months old. I dieted for two months. I didn't lose one ounce.

Beyond frustrated, completely exasperated, I quit the diet program and ate whatever the hell I wanted. I decided that it was too soon. I was still recovering from pregnancy. I was breast-feeding. Controlling my weight through periodic crash dieting had always worked for me in the past and now it didn't work anymore. I didn't know what to do. For the next six years.

I did have two periods of weight-loss during the ensuing time. The first happened when I spent a summer abroad. I walked a lot and the weather was hot. I was also sick from the dietary changes. I lost at least 25 lbs. that summer without any effort at all. It was awesome. But then I got a divorce from my husband and finished college and the stress was too much. I gained the weight back.

In 2008, I went back on that same diet program for six months and lost the 25 lbs. again. It was excruciating to lose so slowly and when I hit a weight-loss plateau, I became frustrated and quit. I've gained the 25 lbs. back since then. Maybe more.

I am at least 100 lbs. overweight. Although I hate being so fat, I am generally a happy person. I have a good job and two beautiful daughters. I am active in my church. I have good friends. I graduated Magna Cum Laude from college. I exercise every day. I seldom binge anymore. When I track my food intake, I usually eat about 1,800 calories a day. That's not a crazy amount.

What I really hate is that I am not a fat person on the inside. I value health and fitness. I have always exercised regularly. I have been a vegetarian for 17 years. I hate the idea that I take too much for myself, especially when there are people in this world who have nothing. I don't know how it is that my outsides so poorly match my insides.

So I guess this is my last resort because I have to do something. I am miserable being so fat. If I could just quit eating and never think about food again, I think that might be okay. I hate that I have to deal with it over and over throughout the day. Sometimes I make good choices. Sometimes I make bad choices. Why isn't there any evidence at all of the good?

WLS in 10 Days

I will be having the lap band weight loss surgery in 10 days. I am not sure how much I weigh right now, but I am guessing it is right around 280. I am planning to weigh myself before I check into the hospital.

I've got several reasons for having the WLS. I've tried to lose weight many times through various diet and exercise programs. Before I turned 30, it was pretty easy for me to lose weight. I was never more than 40 lbs. or so overweight and I could lose that in two or three months by following a diet plan. Since turning 30 and having my second daughter, my metabolism has changed, I guess.

I haven't told very many people about the surgery. My mom and sister know, my boyfriend knows, my kids know a simplified version of what is happening, my best friend knows and my pastor knows. I don't plan to tell anyone else. I'm not sure why it is a secret, but it is.

Maybe I'm ashamed. Maybe I think that I should be able to lose weight without WLS. Maybe I think that if I just tried harder, I could finally lose the weight. Maybe I'm afraid it won't work for me. Maybe I'm afraid other people will think these things.