A whole new way of looking at life

[citygirl4616 2]

I have had my band for 4 months, and am down about 35 pounds. I am at the lowest weight I have been in years and physically feel awesome.

I was most definitely an emotional and stress eater. Now that I can no longer use food as my drug of choice, I find myself feeling EVERYTHING! I have done so much self reflecting in the past few months, and realize that whenever anything upset me, I would eat, rather than deal with it. Some people drink, some people get high, some people gamble...I would eat. Now that I really FEEL everything, it is like I have a whole new perspective on my life. I no longer settle for people treating me poorly. I speak up for myself now. I have much more confidence in what I say and what I do. I have reconnected with friends I didn't have the 'energy' to keep up friendships with before. I am even in the middle of a HUGE spring cleaning of my house. I am getting rid of all of the clutter and junk I have accumulated over the years. I have filled up half of my garage with junk to be hauled away! I love looking at my newly cleaned out rooms and closets now. It's such a good feeling.

It is not all good though. When I am upset, or stressed, my instinct is still to turn to food. We all know that won't work anymore! There is only so much comfort in a cup of cottage cheese. I find my negative emotions just building up, until I burst into tears of frustration. I have a great therapist who is helping me through this.

I guess I figured there would be some others on this board going through some of the same experiences as me. I would love to hear how you have gotten through it.

[ld0008 0]

Hi city girl, I have had my band for 3 months on June 3. I also am a stress and emotional eater. today was actually a bad day for me because I felt much stress in work and found myself trying to eat all day. I had my third fill last week and it's hard to get things down now. How do we stop the emotional eating, i don't know. All I know is that I hope that some day i will be able to control it.

good luck to you on your band journey.:sad:

[Hastings 3]

If you are struggling with your emotional drive to eat, then perhaps you should consider some therapy to help you get to the bottom your reasons for doing so.

I'm not saying this to be rude, but I really think that getting a lap band is getting a new lifestyle and if you keep that same old baggage around lurking in the corner, it's just the same old #### waiting to happen.

Good luck to you both.

Yes, I did have some therapy years ago. After losing 60 pounds a man asked me on a date. I said no. Within months I had put the weight back on with extra thrown in for good measure. Therapy did help me deal with it.