Your input on food

Okay guys, here's my thoughts on everybody's experiences...and I will apologize in advance cause it's gonna be long. Well about the throwing up thing,...I did that for years, and it's really just replacing one addictive behavior with another. It's not going to solve the problem or make you feel any better, even though it may seem to at the time. Not that I'm being judgemental or lecturing, just speaking from experience, so I hope you don't get offended, Donna, cause I'm not trying to offend! For me, I had lots of issues with food. The key is awareness of what makes you want to eat, and then you can figure out the difference between head hunger and real hunger. I used to see food as love and acceptance. If somebody was eating something that I knew tasted good, I wanted some too, regardless of whether I was really hungry or not. Because food is a VERY social thing, if you think about it, food is one of those things that brings people together. So I would want to eat out of a sense of belonging to the group, whether it be going out with friends, eating at work or whatever. Other times of course I would eat out of stress, anger, any emotion you can think of, I would deal with it by eating. Now though, after this surgery, well, it depends on the time of the month! Around that female time I have noticed that my appetite increases greatly, and I want to eat everything in sight. Of course I can't and don't, but the desire is there because no matter what I eat I just don't feel satisfied. Thankfully though that doesn't last. But normally it's like this - I could care less, as I don't have the addictive problems with food that I used to. You know people can eat sweets, bread, giant greezy hamburgers, drink cokes...all the stuff I used to do, right in front of me and most of the time I just don't care, I don't want it. Somehow this surgery has changed my body and mind and about how I think about food. I am no longer as emotionally attached as I once was. I as "as emotionally attached" because I don't want to give the impression that I eat entirely on a physical basis. Most of the time I do, but sometimes (around the female time), it's emotional eating too. I do have general desires regarding food and I will satisfy those accordingly. Such as something hot, something cheesy, something sweet, some kind of vegetable, something heavy, something light...it just depends. And that's how I make my choices. Generally once I get whatever it is I'm in the mood for, I am quite happy until I get hungry again. But if I want something in particular, I am usually very picky about what it. Like for instance if I am craving peanut butter with celery (that happens alot lately), I will not have any interest for anyting else, in fact, everything else (including things I'd normally like) will look disgusting to me. And it will bother me if I can't get that particular thing, and I won't be satisfied until I do get it. But I take the suppliments religiously as well, and I drink LOTS of fluids..so that may have something to do with it too. I guess in the end, it comes from knowing that my space down there is limited and so I want to make sure that I walk away happy with what I've eaten. Feeling satisfied with the meal is very important to me. That may be some weird carry over from all the emotional eating and issues that I had with food previously, (I don't know), but once I get what I am wanting, 9 times out of 10, I don't want for anything at all until I get hungry again. And for some maybe that could be part of the problem. That you are not satisfied with what you're eating. I don't know, cause I'm not in anyone else's head. I feel that, in my case anyway, the belief that you will get obese again comes from the fear of loosing control of the self. But if I am aware of the self, of WHY I want whatever it is that I'm wanting, I'm in a far better position to make a choice as to whether I really want to eat it or not. Because it's the psychology of thinking "I shouldn't eat this, but I WANT it anyway!", that causes unnecessary stress on us. You start feeling guilty and ashamed because you're thinking in "unhealthy" ways or whatever. Like, well if I give into this desire to eat this here, I might have these desires all the time, and I might keep eating and eating and never stop. I think this is a natural fear that all obese people struggle with because we have valid past experiences that say "You lost control, and look at where it got you." But if you think about it logically - every one of us has limits. The physics of your body alone is enough to make you stop, if nothing else does. But more than that, we are different people than before the surgery. Our relationship with food has changed as a result. So I don't think there are any "I shouldn't eat this" for us anymore. I think if you want something, you should eat it, and you should do so without guilt or shame after the fact. Because I believe as time goes on, and we see that we *won't loose control, because we are not who we were before, the fears we worry about now will subside. Time is life's greatest teacher. ~Vicki B.