help falling off

My cravings for the wrong foods have come back with a vengeance. I am stuck at 44lbs gone in 3.5 months. I got a little discouraged and gave into some cravings, nothing huge just enough for me to feel ashamed. What advice do you have to get me back on track.

It can be extremely difficult. It is easy to light a match and hard to put a fire out.

Get all junk out of the house. Plan all of your eating in advance and weigh and track everything.

What works for me is finding acceptable substitutes. The Quest website is a great place to start.

The fact that you described your relationship with food as "cravings" and "ashamed" -- I would seriously consider whether or not you can use some outside help dealing with a possible food addiction. I know that recognizing that I had a food addiction empowered me to get the help I really needed to be successful. There was a reason I had gotten to 344 pounds and it wasn't because I had a healthy relationship with food.

I am not sure how old you are (this is written for a slightly younger audience), but a book I found that was helpful to get some perspective was Food: The Good Girl's Drug -- How to Stop Using Food to Control Your Feelings. Here is another good book for binge and compulsive eating: Binge Eating and Compulsive Overeating Workbook. I was able to get both books from my local library.

However, the best thing I did was to address my issues with a counselor who specializes in eating disorders. I consider myself in recovery -- there is definitely hope. Don't give up -- and most of all, let go of the shame. Shame usually causes a spiral into more eating rather than less...

^^^ Everything that Kat said.

The surgery doesn't fix our magical thinking about food. I recently started seeing a therapist who specializes in eating disorders. I'm an emotional compulsive binge eater. It doesn't disappear, even after losing over 200 lbs. And it gets harder and harder the further out you are from surgery.

In addition to the excellent suggestions from Kat, I'll give you another book that my therapist recommended to me: The Food and Feelings Workbook. It involves examining your feelings in relationship to food. Writing down what you're feeling puts me in touch with the disordered thinking that causes me to make poor choices.

I wish I was as smart as Kat and had addressed my eating issues immediately after surgery. Better late than never.

Listen to what Kat and White Dove said. Bite the bullet and get the carbs out. Everyone is different, and part of this journey is learning to know ourselves. When craving**** it is often a sign to pull back and get back to basics...including getting the carbs out. This is a learning journey. Be kind to yourself.

You do not know how thankful I am for your post!!!! You are not alone!!!! I swear u wrote ur post for me! I am 3 months out. I was doing great. Then......... My daughter had friends over. I treated them to junk!! I shouldn't have but she had been so good right along with me. Chips ice cream and Halloween candy. Well I did not hit the ice cream. But I tried a handful of chips. Well, they didn't make be sick so I had another hAndful, and another. Then I tried a mini Milky Way. That didn't make me sick either. So today I had Swedish fish. I feel like crap! Not physically sick, but emotionally I feel like a failure!!! I have that addiction back, I broke it once before surgery and now it's back. It's like heroin!!! Once in my system I can seem to kick it. I need help!! I had a stressful day and I attacked the Apple slices but dipped them in peanut butter!!!! I have follow up with my surgeon tomorrow thank god! I will be asking for help! I didn't do this surgery just to give up, but it's more than I can handle right now! I need help!!! Seriously!!! Sad, overwhelmed, and upset with myself!!! Please do what u can to get help!!! Keep us posted as I will too.

Check what you are eating. Review your Bariatric food list and Bariatric meal plan. Vitamins daily and water? Exercising? Journaling?

Ok, math time; 44 pounds in 3.5 months is just over 12+ pounds in the short time... average loss is 2-3 pounds per week.

You can be losing slowly, and try to remember it is not a race. The extra simple carbs can cause you to slow down and or stall in your weight reduction.

More coping skills and you can never have too many coping skills for this journal of a life time.

Be nice to yourself, and don't beat your self or shame yourself about it. No one is perfect.