The nutritionist versus my own choices...?

[esskay77 785]

I think that what they call "meals" might not be how we envision meals.

I would suggest attending Overeater's Anonymous meetings as a place to get some support. Does your surgeon's hospital have support groups? Mine has 2. One is led by the nurse and, actually I'm not sure who he is--lol He may be a therapist. He mostly talks about us being food addicts and what that all means, etc. The other is led by the NUT and they talk about food or something. I have never been able to attend the one by the NUT. And frankly, my experience is similar to yours with regards to the NUT. She's a really nice person but she doesn't get it, or she doesn't get me anyway and has not been helpful at all. She just keeps saying to keep doing what I"m doing but that isn't helpful!! I don't know what I"m doing! (that's a rather simplistic phrase--so much more behind that but that's my issue not yours).

You need to take what she says with a grain of salt and do what feels right for you. Of course, it will take a lot of trial and error to know what feels right and what works, right?

Do you drink any fluids with your meals? This flushes food through your system faster and then you get hungry faster.

Do you keep a food journal?

Are you tired of all the responses now? lol. Sorry to pile on.

[Wayne Hunt 59]

I think that what they call "meals" might not be how we envision meals.

I would suggest attending Overeater's Anonymous meetings as a place to get some support. Does your surgeon's hospital have support groups? Mine has 2.

Do you drink any fluids with your meals? This flushes food through your system faster and then you get hungry faster.

Do you keep a food journal?

Are you tired of all the responses now? lol. Sorry to pile on.

Not too many responses at all. They've all been valuable input, and greatly appreciated.

• I do journal religiously using MFP (217 day streak currently), That may be a bigger cause of my stress than I had imagined because I see the trends for calories going up and up over time, while I'm sitting at the same 3 pound range for the last couple of months..
• I *generally* obey the 30/30/30 rule when eating and drinking at meal time (no Fluid 30 minutes before, take 30 to eat, no fluids 30 minutes after). OCCASIONALLY I find the need to break that rule when I eat something that doesn't quite go down right (like dry, white meat chicken for example) but generally, I do pretty well at it.
• re: support groups. Inova has one meeting per month, and it's really helpful, but it's simply not enough (for me) to feel like it's any real level of support. We gather, share "war stories", then we go home.

  I will check into OA though to see if maybe that would be what I'm looking for. Part of my problem -- unlike most people -- is that when I started this, I'm a thousand miles away from "home". I know almost no one outside of work, so I don't really have a great support system of family or friends nearby. If I did, maybe this wouldn't be as big an issue for me.

Where "dieting" is concerned, and it bleeds over into this journey, is that I'm a data geek. I live by imperical numbers. Numbers I can wrap my head around. When I was doing WW, I used to print every day out, log it, chart it, et cetera until I could see what was going on.

Being post op at 6 months, it's a different experience than simply dieting. I'm fretting about getting everything I'm supposed to (chart wise) while dealing with a team that seems to want me to overeat (in my opinion) and since I don't need any encouragement there AT ALL, I'm just feeling a bit passive aggressive over the idea of being pushed in the wrong direction by my nutritionist...

Crazy or not, that's where I'm at right now...

(HUMOROUSLY an on a serendipitous note, my custom car tags just came in last week. The customized plates read "CRAAAZY"...)

Wayne

[filmgal 45]

Wayne,

Kick your negative thoughts.. OUT! Follow the guidelines, but listen to your body and you will succeed. You HAVE succeeded. I agree with counting grams of Protein if that helps.

Me, well I try to eat what I like. I am only 2 weeks post op and on to pureed foods and am dealing with meals I cook, smooshed. I cannot wait for SALADS, though! I so empathize with the Protein drinks though... yucky.

[Betti Boop 21]

So, ask her what numbers she is counting. You know it's Protein and ounces.