Weight gain and a new day.

Two years after surgery, I became caregiver to my mother-in-law. Due to inactivity, and falling away from my bariatric diet, I regained some weight. Fast forward to one year ago, my husband retired a.d we moved to Indiana. We moved in with my parents to help them and kind of watch over them. My bariatric diet has gone completely by the wayside and I regained a lot of weight. Well, today is a new day. I have decided to go back on track, which will include cooking separate and logging everything. So, my journey begins again. May I have the fortitude and courage to do this.

I think this is a really good place to start!  Best of luck to you!

Liz

Good luck. Sending you prayers for strength!

 

You have put yourself on the back burner to care for others and that shows what a special person you are.  Unless you walk in our shoes, no one has a clue what an emotional, lonely, painful thing it is.  I too cared from my husband and lost him in December.  After keeping my weight off for over 10 years I gained!  Here is a list of steps that is helping me. I hope it helps you and YOU CAN DO THIS! Take it one day at a time!

 

Planning/Preparing

Remember when we were preparing for surgery? How many meetings, classes and such did we attend? We were told the more prepared we were the better our chances were for success. And they were right. Go through the house, car and work place and get rid of trigger foods. Stock up on foods that will keep you on track. I removed every bad carb/sugar temptation and replaced it with lots of protein, veggies, grains and fruits.

Journaling

Get back to journaling. This will help you identify when you feel like eating, stress factors and any triggers in your life. Once you identify these factors, this will help you put tools in place to keep you from eating. It became clear I was not taking time for me anymore. I worked my day job and then spent the rest of my time caring for my husband. It was easy to reach for fast, prepackaged food. Since I purged my home I have to eat clean as there are no other options LOL

Use a tool to track you're eating and exercise like Getting Started with Health Tracker. Once I started to track ever bite and drink it became clear why I had gained.

Goals/Rewards

Make a list of goals for yourself. Make them realistic and small. Some of mine were move more, purge all junk from my home, eat more protein.

Food

In general, a long term post-weight loss surgery eating plan includes foods that are high in protein, and low in fat?, calories, and sugar. Important, vitamins and minerals are provided as supplements. (if you had a different surgery adjust this to your food plan).

Water

Water is our Best Friend. I have to say I never went back to pop or any bad drinks, however I was drinking tea like crazy. What is wrong with drinking tea? I was either using sugar or 3 equals and 3 sweet n lows per 32 ounce glass. So I was either pushing to be diabetic or get cancer. I found once I started carrying a bottle of water around 24/7 (yes had one at my bedside) I lost the cravings for the sugar and I KNOW those artificial sweeteners are not good for me. Look I am old and if you add up all the artificial sweeteners I have consumed I am sure I am at the rat in the lab getting cancer threshold.

MOVE!

I can't say enough about how key this was for me. The reason I kept my weight off for almost 10 years was no matter what, I kept moving. If I could not go to the gym I would walk. I loved Zumba, bootcamp workouts, lifting weights. When I stopped, the weight started coming back. So for me I am starting slow to avoid injury by walking and using some of the workouts on my Demand TV. Find something you love to do and it won't feel like a pain in the *** to do daily.

Support

If it's an option "run" don't walk to a support group.

Keep me posted on how you are doing

Good luck to you. I too gained weight as a care giver and finally decided one day that I needed to take care of me as well as I took care of everyone else. It took a lot of doing, especially being tired from all that I was doing. Sounds as if you are ready now and as you lose you will find, as I did, that you have more energy to put int yourself. I am sure lots of us here have gained for the same reason and we will be here to encourage and support you. You go girl!

First step is the hardest and you have taken it.  Congrats on your return to healthy eating.

May I suggest that you consider getting support.  This is a hard path to do on your own.  There may be other resources that are closer to you, but Lutheran has monthly support groups - if you did not have your surgery there, there is $5 cost.  http://www.lhn.info/coe/coe_detail.php?t=104657&dept=&facili ty=Rehabilitation%20Hospital

Also, if you haven't had your labs, etc, checked in the past year, time to get that done and see where you are at.