Any binge eaters who had sleeve?

[reallyrosy 161]

I have been in therapy since I am 17. I am 66, now. I do NOT believe there is something more I can learn about controlling my eating.

[Tiffykins 673]

I'll just say that immediately and in the first few months post-op, you'll have major restriction. As time progresses, the stomach adjusts, and stretches to some degree. No amount of restriction, no amount of loss of physical hunger, is going to stop us from sucking down a huge milkshake, or other carby/junk/slider foods. Lil gave the best description of what happens when we don't address the behavioral and habitual issues behind what led us to have surgery. I can't say that I was ever a binge/compulsive or even an emotional eater, but I would eat out of boredom, and I personally loved that totally "Thanksgiving day" full feeling pre-op. Because of the mental work I put in during my losing stage, undereating my sleeve, measuring portions and really learning to listen to my body, I hate that feeling, I hate to feel full, I hate the way overload of carbs make me feel. I admit that I have allowed some of my fat habits to creep back in, and I knew if I didn't address them, I'd see a significant gain. Being self-aware of the issue is a big step, seeking proper counseling to help finding other coping mechanisms, and learned behaviors will benefit you greatly. The sleeve will only do so much long term. There's lots of stories out there where people get 2-3 years out and see a gain, it's simply an issue of getting back to the behaviors of what got us fat in the first place.

None of the surgical choices beat poor food choices. There's RNY and DS failures out there, or those who never got to goal with those options because none of the surgeries beat carbs and junk food. The main issue with malabsorptive procedures is that you have to be way more diligent with vitamin/mineral/nutritional supplementation or you'll gain an entirely different set of issues post-op.

[swizzly 901]

I have been in therapy since I am 17. I am 66, now. I do NOT believe there is something more I can learn about controlling my eating.

I believe you, it's a life's work for sure.

(PS--I wasn't responding directly to you in my post above, just to the original poster and then pontificating in general, as I am wont to do. Due to the adjacent-ness of it, may have seemed like I was lecturing you directly -- totally not the case. )

[Escape_Pod 358]

Just putting in my two cents here as a binge/emotional eater with a bit of painful honesty.

I'm eleven weeks out from surgery today, and I'm finding my sleeve to be pretty darned tolerant of whatever I feed it. Nothing has come back up, and I've only felt discomfort a couple of times in the early weeks from eating too fast.

Yesterday I apparently lost my mind, and I ate a mini chocolate bundt cake - about 600 calories! (And no, it didn't take me an hour and a half to consume it). Did I enjoy it? Not really after the first couple of bites. In fact, the sugary-ness of it made me a little queasy, but darned if I didn't eat almost all of it anyway. Honestly, I've had several incidents over the past couple of weeks, either eating things I shouldn't, or eating more than I should, just because I thought I wanted it, and then regretted it. I've gotten sloppy. But yesterday was the worst. I'm SCARED, feeling like I'm standing at the edge of a HUGE cliff, that this is a warning sign that this isn't going to work for me, that I'm going to regain it all a few years down the road.

Frankly, I wish I had spent the rest of the afternoon / evening heaving it back up or coping with some other kind of physical misery, but it just didn't happen. I was certainly miserable about it in my head and heart though, and I haven't felt much like eating today.

I got myself right back on the wagon, got in a longer than usual workout yesterday afternoon, and an extra workout this morning on top of my yoga. I'm re-dedicating myself today to watching what I eat, both quality and portion, and listening to my body and what it wants, and what makes it feel good, and strong, and healthy. And I'm sure as heck not going anywhere near that bakery downstairs.

I'm still working on the emotional eating issue. I'm doing much better than I was a year ago, but it's going to be an ongoing struggle for me.

This surgery is a huge help, particularly at the beginning, restricting how much you eat, giving you really important health reasons for making sure what you eat is healthy and nourishes your body, and if you're lucky, punishes you when you make bad decisions. But it's not a fix for the mental / emotional reasons behind food issues. Weight loss surgery will practically guarantee you'll lose a lot of weight, and you may even make it to goal and beyond, but if you're like me, you'll have to continue to battle those demons in other ways if you want to keep the weight off.

In some ways, I'm finding these early post-op months to be counterproductive in practicing the strategies I'm learning to fight emotional eating, because the physical signs of whether I'm hungry, or full, are a lot more subtle. I've never been very good at reading them to begin with, and it's a lot harder at the moment. I have my work cut out for me, but I WILL succeed in this.

Never let success go to your head, never let failure go to your heart...

[reallyrosy 161]

Thank you for your honest response. I see where I have to determin if spending 25,000 and risking complications at my age is going to be worthwhile for me. You've been loud and clear saying exactly what I feared. But you have shown hope, too, and it is exactly what my fat doc hastold me all along...u fall off the wagon, u get back on.

Thanks again