Need advice...

So I finally have a surgery date, January 19, and my insurance has approved everything and I can't seem to stop eating crap food.  

I did so well for a while...I lost 13 pounds of the 26 required for surgery, but since I got my surgery date I can't seem to stop eating all the junk I can stand. I keep telling myself that I may never be able to eat this stuff again so I indulge. Did anyone else experience this? What can I do to snap out of this?  I don't want to sabotage my surgery. 

Thanks

I think this is a common feeling.  However, in most cases you will be physically able to eat all the junk foods again someday, but hopefully by then you will have adopted a new eating lifestyle and are enjoying the weight loss so much that you won't want to eat it.  For me (almost two years since surgery), I still crave a few things sometimes and allow myself to have a little bit now and then, but I find it pretty easy to pass up most of the junk food that I used to indulge in.  The nutritional info on most of that crap is all I need to see to decide that it's not worth putting into my body.

So stop thinking of this as a situation where you will be forever deprived of food.  Hang in there and be really good during pre-op in order to make sure that your surgery is as safe as possible.  You'll be able to eat most things again eventually, but as I said, hopefully you will be healthier and happier and will simply make the choice not to. 

Good luck!! :)

People most often refer to those as food funerals. 

There is nothing, not a thing, that you won't be able to eat in the future. So you really aren't saying goodbye for good.

Try to reel it in as much as you can. Getting a good running start before surgery is the best thing you can do for yourself.

What Grim said...

Don't psych yourself into thinking you have to eat everything you love one last time.  You WILL be able to eat it in the future, but you will have  a tool that may help you decide not to.

I can pretty much eat anything, even a fairly large quantity of sugar. My tool just reminds me sooner when I am making a bad choice. I still have to work very hard, not just every day, but at every food choice throughout every day, to make good decisions.

My eating was so bad I wound up getting 2x counseling appointments a week for a while.  I was just so nervous, plus I was interviewing for my clinical internship, working full time, and taking three grad classes.  It was my way of coping with emotional stress.  I wound up using the counseling for both accountability as well as "Hey if I can just make it until tonight, that's X days until I see my counselor."  I needed outside help in a bad way.  I was a mess for years and obese... I didn't really start straightening my life out until I was 32.  I'm 38 now, and it can be hard to undo harmful patterns, but its absolutely possible.

There are non-eating coping skills we can use, too.  Things like prayer, meditation, coloring, distracting yourself with productive activities, avoiding triggers for eating junk, avoiding junk, and so on.  I also got an "accountability buddy" I could text instead of eating.  I still made mistakes, but I made way less.

Hang in there and don't give up.  If there is a lapse, just stand right back up and move forward.  Don't let one lapse turn into a day, week, month, etc, of lapsing.  I made that mistake before.  The biggest mistake I made pre-surgery was justifying my mistakes.  I lost way less than I would have otherwise.  "I won't be able to eat this later" is a common justification.  

Before surgery I ate only to feel better - I ate for pleasure.  Now I eat to live.  Someone once told me that pre-op and I thought it was corny, but now I find myself thinking that way.  Don't get me wrong; I've had four lapses since my surgery, one of which was bad.  I just get right back up, stay accountable, and walk forward.  I don't justify extending the lapse.  Being accountable is the hardest part of surgery, and the most painful for me, but doing just that is saving my life.

In America, we have unlimited food.  There will ALWAYS be more junk waiting for me if I really wanted to eat it.  I remind myself that there is never a last opportunity to eat anything....that's just my pleasure-driven brain whining at me.  

I'm almost 4 weeks post op and the pre-op liquid diet is not a test to see if you are committed to the process although I am sure it does count for that. The reason for the pre-op diet is to shrink your liver so that the surgery is done in a safer manner. I have found I really don't have the cravings for all the crap foods. I know it will be a while before I can enjoy some of the things I ate in the past albeit in a smaller size, to be honest what I have been craving lately is a nice salad, nothing major, some lettuce, tomato, beets and mushrooms and either some ranch or Italian dressing. My brother who had the RNY 13 years ago eats whatever he wants to, just in smaller portions. So in a way you are giving up on stuff for a while but not forever. Keep your eye on the prize of being thinner and being more healthy and you will do fine. Good luck.

You may be looking at WLS as another diet. Like you are starting on this date and you will do good then.  There is a reason that this whole process is referred to as a journey.  You have a destination you want to be.  You are going to make wrong turns, get lost, runout of motivation or decide you don't want to go there anymore.  I found successful people that wrote what they were doing to lose to goal and mimicked them. So pre-op I removed the junk from my house.  I bought tiny plates and appetizer spoons and forks.  I practiced not drinking with my meals. I tried to eat slowly. I ate protein first.  I limited my carbs to veggies and changed whatever I could to be ready for post-op life. I was a wine maker and gave up alcohol pre-op. I lost 48 lbs before surgery.   Don't busy yourself saying goodbye just to miss the beginning of your journey.  I acted like a loser until I was a loser.

I want to agree with everyone else (piling on the thought for you). You will be able to eat those again just in much smaller amounts. I am finding it great fun to  feel happy and content with very small amounts of things I would previously have suffered trying to control how much I ate of them. I can even cook things for husband and not want them or just a bite. Lots of things also won't seem so great and I have no idea why. I used to love multigrain breads, now I can take them or leave them.

Perhaps it would help when you look at those junk foods and think that each bite you take right now will only cause you pain after you surgery. As has been said before the LSD is for a reason , to make the surgery easier. Every bad thing you eat now will make moving your liver harder and more painful. Yes I know you are not on that diet yet but you will be soon so start a little early in your mind. Do you have to lose 26 pounds to get the surgery? If the surgeon requires that then you need to think about how you won't be getting you surgery and new life all over xyz piece of food.

I wish you all success. You can do it.

Thank you all so much.  I think I just needed to say that out loud and get your feedback to see things differently. Love the support here