I wonder if this is what it's like to be a "normal" person

[LapNYC 3]

Since I've found some level of restriction I still totally look forward to meals, enjoy eating out etc. It's just that I don't eat giant portions, wish there were more to consume and count down the time until my next meal. It's such a pleasure being able to eat what I want (ok not really - but you know what I mean - eat what I can) and have it not be the biggest deal in the world.

I think this is what life has always been like for my two skinny sisters and only now am I realizing how unfair it is. They LOVE food, but they're NORMAL about the whole production. If they eat everything on their plates they're not consumed by the french fries sitting on someone else's plate that they can't have. Besides always having the pleasure of looking great (and virtuous), their minds have always been free to think about LIFE, not just dinner.

The thing that bothers me the most is that people really believe that going on a diet for me feels exactly like going on a diet for them. They don't realize that their ability to be moderate is as much a gift of a gene as being a brilliant athlete.

Thanks for listening to my vent. I post on an anonymous parenting website and according to everyone there, we're all fat, lazy, don't care about our children and are something to avoid like the plague. I haven't found this is real life but maybe on an anonymous board the real truth comes out.

[cwm812 11]

I agree with you 100%.

I was always a great dieter, but couldn't keep it up forever. I had willpower, but the hunger was unstoppable. I never realized that normal eaters don't feel this way. They have the ability to eat one cupcake. Now I do, too. I may get blasted for this....but I really believe there is something physically wrong that makes some people this hungry. Some believe that overeating is purely a psychological problem, but I think they're wrong. Being obese is not about being lazy, weak and stupid. It's a real physical issue and maybe someday, the medical community will realize that WLS is a corrective, not cosmetic procedure.

I still get hungry and I enjoy eating, but after a small meal, I'm full. I'm not planning the next meal or my dessert or even tomorrow. I'm normal and that, in and of itself, makes my life better. Those "normal" people have no idea the gift that they have been given.

Cindy

[Froggie D 1]

Wow, I feel exactly like you all do! I have the band and one fill and I have found with some restriction I am not thinking about food all the time and planning my next meal while consuming this one. I can so relate to your observation about obsessing about the french fries left on someone else's plate. I have always felt there was something sick and wrong about me, not just being overweight, but obsessing all the time about food.

If the problem were only psychological, I could not have changed my attitude and approach in such a short time. The band has made a physiological change in me. Sure I have issues with food, but I think maybe those are a result of my intense hunger and need to eat all the time, not the cause of it. It makes me so hopeful that there is a life for me not controlled by food!

I do think this is what normal people feel like. I have actually experienced not thinking all afternoon about food, but being hungry and enjoying what I eat at dinner. What a change!

Congrats to both of you for your weight losses. You have done wonderfully.

This last week I have gone back toward the obsessing and I am feeling much less restriction. I go in next Thursday for another fill. I am really looking forward to it. I have always been a good dieter too, but with the band it has been different - so much easier to make a decison of what to eat and stick with it.

It is a shame that skinny people do not understand what it is like, that they think we are lazy and have no will-power. I have never been lazy in any other thing I have tackled in my life. I have always been one to set my goals and reach them, except with regard to my weight. My skinny friend who occasionally has to lose 5-8 pounds tells me I am the best dieter she has ever seen. She really struggles with not eating if she thinks she needs to lose a few pounds and has to "diet" for a week or so. She is amazed at my will-power, but the losses never stick.

The band is so wonderful. A new life and a new focus for me!!!!!!!!

Edited June 6, 2010 by Froggie D

[LeighaMason 19]

You know, I have always been offended when someone said I had "head hunger" because no, I was physically hungry. I could eat a plate of food and still be hungry. I would be physically hungry an hour after I ate. I think I had an abnormally large stomach pouch. Now that I am banded I eat my little bit of food and I am no longer hungry. I believe my problem was more physical than psychological. But maybe I am just fooling myself....:thumbup:

[Froggie D 1]

No you are not just fooling yourself - with the band it truly is different!

[monkeymama 0]

You are so right about it not just being a psych issue. I was adopted and raised by a skinny family... when I met my birth mother I discovered she was obese just like me! It wasn't how I was raised it is genetics!! There is something wrong with our stomachs or metabolism or something yet to be discovered. It is amazing how much we are looked down upon by the slender... I hope that I become one of them soon but I also hope I never forget what it felt like to be hungry all the time either.

[SunD1 0]

I'm so glad you guys brought up this subject. I always thought I must be crazy because physically. . . I am always starving! Everybody talks about head hunger. I understand that and I recognize when I'm feeling emotionally hungry. But this is one of the reasons, I have chosen to have the LAP-BAND®® (9 more days!) because the past 6-8 months, I KNOW I have been physically hungry... ugh! Anywhoo. . thanks for the validation peeps!

[Jachut 487]

You know, THIS is why I have worked so hard to not "diet" in any way, shape or form since being banded. We've had so many debates on here about "eating what you want" but I will go to my grave declaring that if you live your life journalling, avoiding food groups, counting grams of this and that and toting up minutes of exercise at x pulse rate you are just never going to be "normal".

I may be wrong, afterall, its as impossible to know someone else's experience in this regard as is for your sisters to understand why its so hard to eat just one cupcake. But for me, it was my major goal -ditch the food obsessions. Sure, I may worry if I eat nothign but sugar for six days straight (I never have by the way) but really, if its what I want for one meal, its what I have. I dont care that there's so much crapola out there about running wasting away your muscles, I dont want to do some scientific mumbo jumbo exercise program worked out to the exact pulse rate, rep and weight, I just wnat to move for the joy of it. I love to run, so I do.

It was very hard to avoid all that dieting behaviour and yes, it took me 2 years to lose 100lb. But I feel very normal now. I think about where I've come from, so I guess I probably still think about food more than the average person, but I'm not afraid to eat what I want, when I want. It doesnt make you fat if you dont OVEReat.

I'm sure someone will point out that thin isnt necessarily healthy, but strangely, when you really listen to your body, you want healthy food a lot of the time.

But you know, normal people still have fat days, thin days, hate how their ass wobbles, obsess about the size of their breasts - I dont think there's any escaping that if you're a female.

[vlp1968 83]

I agree, obsession about food is much reduced with restriction. However, I do believe that it takes some planning to eat the right things all day; making sure you get in your protien yada yada. In the morning, I pretty much plan out what I will eat for the day, and even what times, depending on what I have going on that day. I want to make sure I don't make a bad choice in the "heat of hunger" or let myself get to hungry. I eat 3 meals and 2-3 Snacks a day. I have steadily been loosing 2-3 pounds a week for a little over 6 months. Best wishes to all!

[Veronda 30]

My surgeon and/or insurance required family members to write letters of support for my getting the band, and my husband, who has always been slender, wrote that he wishes he could give me the feeling of satiety that he automatically feels and that I never seem to. I believe it's true that our bodies have a different sense of hunger. I was always hungry. Always. I used to wish that a skinny person who felt she could say, "Just diet and exercise," could get into my body and try to lose the weight...it just didn't work like that for me. I have almost always exercised, and it still would do nothing for me but make me even hungrier. Since getting the band in December and more specifically since finally having some restriction after my third fill in April, I finally feel normal about food. I get hungry, but I feel as though I get hungry appropriately, which I can't say before the band. I still make some poor choices, but I also make some great choices. Jachut, you've been an inspiration on these boards because you always post my beliefs about the band...and those techniques have clearly worked for you. I'm glad to see that you continued to lose over two years. I have lost 40 pounds since starting my pre-op diet two days before Thanksgiving, and I expect to keep losing slowly (and I feel as though that's one of the plusses of the band...the body has more time to adapt!). I try not to get too upset when I'm at a plateau (like I am now after a steady 1.5-pound loss each week for eight weeks) because I know I have this new normalcy to help me through, and I know I can keep going. I get a little down sometimes when it seems like it hurts to eat anything, but I also feel lucky that I have this built-in mechanism to keep me from eating too much. I'm also happy to know that I wasn't alone in being hungry all the time...though it would have been nice to know at the time!

[sld21 26]

I agree with everyone.

Some of my hunger before was perhaps emotional or a "craving". But overall, I ate a lot of the right food just a lot of it because I was never satiated. My blood sugar was raging and when I would have it under control, I was starving most of the time and living on twigs and berries.

I have had this band now for 5 months and have lost about 10lbs per month (which I am happy with). My blood sugar, cholesterol are now normal and off of some of the meds. The other difference is that I don't have that growling ache and emptiness of food. Before the band, I dwelled, salivated, thought of it often, now the cravings are low (besides wanting a diet soda) and I am satisfied with very little; for example:

Before band:

Breakfast(yogurt with granola)

snack (Nuts or cheese)

lunch (Leftovers or sandwich and chips)

Because lunch is so early I would be starving at 3:00 so I might stop and get something from fast food liike 10 nuggets)

dinner, the entire plate until I was stuffed

Post band:

Nothing has changed except Portion Control

Breakfast: Probably the same or a Protein Shake, not 2 burritos from McDonald's.

Snack: The same but maybe 10 almonds not almost the whole can.

Lunch: Lefovers but maybe a half cup or if I'm hungry, or Protein and green. I usually force myself to eat something small to keep my sugar normal or so I don't want to overeat later(I can eat more at night)

Dinner: meat and green but maybe a spoon of each and two or 3 bites of meat.

That is the biggest difference for me, portion. Choices were always okay though I had my weaknesses but portion was my killer. Now that I can't eat very much my choices are even better because I figure that it should be healthy stuff if I can't eat a lot of stuff.

Today's menu:

Breakfast: A Soy Joy fruit bar(being Sunday, I would have had a country style breakfast(the works)

Lunch: 1/2 cup of Wendy's chili(I used to eat the large and some chicken nuggets) over a side salad(like the taco salad)

Dinner: One salmon croquet, a spoon of green Beans and a spoon of blackeyed peas(all on a saucer)(I would have ha a regular place with 2 croquets and more sides)

Dining out has been interesting though, more appetizers or Soup and salad because the dinner is a waste of money. We went to a Rooster last night(chicken wings). I ordered a 10 piece(which before I could have easily put down) I was able to eat 3 drummetes and a bite of my husband's potato skin. He finished my wings for his Breakfast this morning.

Long I know, sorry.

This is all of the stuff I would have ate before just a lot more of it.