Need to keep myself honest....

Ok this is a bit of a long story, and I'm really posting it to formalize it and keep myself honest.

Short history:  I am just about 11 months post op.  I went from a high of 333 to a low of 145 - that low was about 3 weeks ago.

Situation:  I had my hip replaced 3 weeks ago today.  This is all part of the "master plan" of getting my body where I want it.  Step one was taking off the weight, step two was hip replacement.  The replacement went well and I am recovering nicely.  I went into the hospital on January 23rd weighing 145lbs.  I was discharged 4 days later on January 26th and weighed 170lbs.  Obviously I did not gain 25 lbs of fat in the hospital, and while it was shocking to see the scale number, the rationale part of me knew it was primarily water weight.

Challenge: I have been at home for 3 weeks and for the first time since surgery I am REALLY struggling with my eating.  I feel like I want to graze all day long, and my nasty habit of night eating is back with a vengeance.  Even when I would make a serious effort to control my intake during the day, I would almost always fail at night.  I would be (head) hungry all night long.  I never felt "full" or "satisfied".  I did do a fairly good job of staying "on plan" (although probably 75%-80% "on plan" as opposed to my normal 90%-95% "on plan"), but I just consumed a lot more than I normally do.

Current Status:  I am back down to 158lbs as of this morning, and still have quite a bit of swelling, so I am sure I didn't gain a whole lot of "real" weight, and most, if not all, of the remaining will come off, but this has scared the living crap out of me.  I have done so well, and it has not been overly difficult to do so.  This is the first time in a year I have struggled to control my eating habits.  Maintenance is what has always terrified me.  I have always been a good "loser", never a good maintainer.  I can not go back.  I will not go back.

I also returned to the office today, THANK GOD.  Not that I love being at work, but routine is key for me.  Sitting around all day, being bored, and having my activity drastically reduced is obviously a recipe for disaster for me!  Also, having all the food readily available is not good for me (my family eats how they always have, so there is endless junk in the house).

Anyway - there it is.  I've outed myself.  I've gotta get this under control.  Hoping being back in my routine today will help with the night eating.  Thanks for listening!

They don't call it a journey for nothing    You will be tested and usually if you evaluate what is different the common denominator is getting away from the basic daily actions that got you to goal and keeps you there.  Go through this check list and see if there are any steps you are not doing now that may be part of the challenge.  Take your challenges one at a time and replace them with steps/actions to stop the scales from going up.

YOU CAN DO THIS!

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.

Thanks!  Most of these I am doing (planning, journaling, food and water), and honestly these are what have kept me from coming completely unhinged I think - very valuable tools! 

Unfortunately, I wish I could purge my house, but my wife and daughter would not be pleased :-(.  Definitely removing the temptations would help me SO much, although I still have been eating too much "healthy" food.

Moving is a short-term challenge given I had my hip replaced, but I am doing everything I can (and my doctor allows) to move as much as possible.  I was given PT exercises to do once a day and asked to be allowed to do more, so they said I could do them up to twice a day - CHECK.

I have also been walking again the last week (albeit with a cane) - even being back to work I drove to the gym at lunch and walked a half mile (ok, that's not a lot, but trust me it's a lot when you are 3 weeks to the day from hip replacement!).

Thanks for the support and encouragement, it is much appreciated!!

Congratulations on all you accomplished. 

I know that any time I am on antibiotics - my internal yeast infections goes out of control... and I crave sugar... any carbs - sugars... Candida is real.. read on that. 

plus any pain killers makes my more hungry... I can eat and eat and eat...

I deal with candida using natural supplements and very strong probiotics and using Rx diflucan.  That really makes a huge difference on what I "crave"... 

google candida after antibiotics.. 

it is easier to said no to sweets or other carbs without the little bugs inside us get crazy for sugar...

they probably pumped you with a lot of antibiotics and that most likely killed a lot of good bugs in your gut and allowed candida ti grow out of control.. 

I'm sure they did pump me with anti-biotics - but I wasn't sent home with any, so I have been off them for at least 2.5 weeks for sure.  I will do a little googling though, this is new info to me, and I'm always on a quest for more information, thanks!

I did wonder about the painkillers.  The thought struck me that my inhibitions maybe a little lower than normal being jacked up on opiates all the time (ok, "jacked up" and "all the time" are a bit of a stretch, but you know what I'm saying).  I have been trying to cut down on the painkillers to once or twice a day, hoping that might help.  I can only hope as that would be great!

Actually, now that I write that out, I am wondering if it is related at least somewhat to the painkillers.  I mentioned that night eating was an issue.  As I've cut down on pain killers, I've cut down largely during the day, but by night time I need them.  That's also when my eating goes to hell.  Correlation?  Hmmm....

Great thoughts, great advice.  I'm going to get to googling candida.

I'm a big believer in the benefit of being heavily scheduled.  Your being back at work covers a good chunk of your time.  Try scheduling even your most mundane activities and see if it helps.  If you don't track your food intake in great detail, start.  It's all highly psychological -- my tracking and retracking and revising isn't done on schedule, but rather when I need a little discipline.

Give your self credit for eating too much of the right foods instead of succumbing to the junk in the house.  That you've not caved in completely works in your favor.  Really, really does.

I do track religiously, even when it hurts (and is embarrassing frankly) to do so.  I honestly believe that is what kept me from a total disaster.  It's just a lot easier psychologically to log a bunch of extra fruit than ice cream.  I think my worst day was still around 2200-2400 calories (I forget offhand).  Not good - but I could easily have put in a 3000-4000 calories day with the wrong foods.  Easily.

First day back at work has been great so far:

B: 1 cup steel cut oats w/baked apples & cinnamon

S: Large bag of veggies (red peppers, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes)

L: Homemade Coconut Curry Chicken w/Cauliflower Rice

S: Large bag of fruit (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries)

Totals:  609 Calories, 43g Protein, 89g carbs, 9g Fat

So far so good.  Just have to get through the night!  Wish me luck!

Lots of luck and a little hucklebuck to go with it.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg8GgQojTV4

That is a lot of carbs. I would feel like starving by the end of the day. I added fruits to gain some weight. But I would not dream of having so much fruits. 

Tomatoes are fruits... 

I would increase proteins and fats and reduce sugars...

I wondered about that carb count with a "large bag of fruit".  Fruits have a lot of carbs.  I rarely eat fruits.  When I do, it's apples or red grapefruit.  

You might want to cut them down a bit.