Food's Hold

[Stephanie Stroup McIntosh 157]

As a young child, I grew up poor. We rarely ate out or got special treats. As I got money of my own, I spent it on the foods that I wanted but could never have. I am sure that this was a large part of me becoming overweight. Everywhere I would go, I would think about food. Where would I eat? What would I eat? I almost felt like I needed to eat everywhere that I went, even if I wasn't hungry. I think it was because I could eat in these situations, where as a child/teen I would have never been able to eat.

Fast forward to my 3 week post-op experience... I went to a baseball game last night for a buck night special. Hot dogs, beer, pepsi, and popcorn were only $1. Its a good thing I am still so close to surgery, because it was hard to refuse these items that really are on the top of my favorite foods list. It rained, which I think helped too. At least that way I didn't have to smell the popcorn.

food has such a hold on so many of us. Its a daily effort to remember why we had surgery and why we are changing our lives. Let's all drink a Protein shot to our successes and move on from our failures.

[Salonboi 353]

As a young child, I grew up poor. We rarely ate out or got special treats. As I got money of my own, I spent it on the foods that I wanted but could never have. I am sure that this was a large part of me becoming overweight. Everywhere I would go, I would think about food. Where would I eat? What would I eat? I almost felt like I needed to eat everywhere that I went, even if I wasn't hungry. I think it was because I could eat in these situations, where as a child/teen I would have never been able to eat.

Fast forward to my 3 week post-op experience... I went to a baseball game last night for a buck night special. Hot dogs, beer, pepsi, and popcorn were only $1. Its a good thing I am still so close to surgery, because it was hard to refuse these items that really are on the top of my favorite foods list. It rained, which I think helped too. At least that way I didn't have to smell the popcorn.

food has such a hold on so many of us. Its a daily effort to remember why we had surgery and why we are changing our lives. Let's all drink a Protein shot to our successes and move on from our failures.

I grew up in the exact same way, and have often wondered if that's part of the problem.. Congrats on staying strong at game and I just did my Protein shot ????

[Miss Mac 6,262]

The hard part for me is "clean your plate", "there are starving children in China", "willful waste makes willful want", "take what you want, but eat what you take". Non of these mom-isms (is that even a word?) are wrong in themselves, but OMG the guilt I suffer in throwing out that last bite on my plate, or funky week-old leftovers that I never got to. But I have to come to understand that I can either respect the capacity of my sleeve or just tape the extra food directly to my hips.

I think one reason that I used to eat so fast was that I came from a large (six kids, 63 first cousins) family, and if there was any thought of a second helping, you had to out-eat the others. One of the tragedies of growing up poor or struggling is that crap food is cheap and nutritious food is costly. When I was gowing up in the 1950's and 1960's it cost nearly nothing to bake a cake from scratch, but fresh fruit enough to satisfy six growing kids was harder to justify. Kraft macaroni and cheese was 4 boxes for $1, fresh meat was harder to come by. The vegetable that we had daily was potatoes. I never met a potato that I did not like. Often a snack was "sugar bread", brown sugar sprinkled on a piece of bread. Most of my diet was bread, potatoes, rice, home-made noodles, pancakes, dumplings, biscuits, spaghetti - you get the picture.

It is so hard to un-learn bad eating habits while economizing with healthy ingredients. I did not like the discomfort of the three month pre-op diet, the two week liquid diet, and the post-op stages of introducing food to my new tummy, but I am so thankful for it. I had to learn to eat all over again. What I thought was a will power problem was actually the death-grip of salt, sugar, and grease.

We do not give ourselves enough credit for making the decision to move forward with bariatric surgery. People call us weak, but they have no idea of the strength it took to get us here.

[alwaysvegas 702]

Great posts @@Stephanie Stroup McIntosh and @@Miss Mac! And I totally hear ya both! So much of my eating is habitual and based on how I grew up. For me, food was/is a reward system.

Now that I'm so much more aware of how few calories I need to maintain a healthy weight, it's rather disturbing to think how much food I used to slam down my gullet. I think I've successfully changed my habits. I don't really think of food in terms of rewards...it's for health.

Hopefully I can maintain this way of thinking. I've done the yo-yo of course, so there's that fear that all of us have, but feeling really confident that the surgery is helping me for the long haul. And right now that long haul!

Best of luck to everyone!