Successful vets

"I don't stress about it or beat myself up. That is what I used to do and then I would spiral out of control. Not anymore."

Yes, that's definitely another factor for me as well. I used to have a lot of shame, self-hatred, loathing, etc. over my suboptimal food choices and habits. And that just spiraled into the sneaky hate spiral that led to more and worse suboptimal food choices. So now I try to avoid getting that entire cycle started by allowing myself the occasional mindful less than perfect choice.

I am the same way Laura, surgery 1/2010. I eat pretty much what I want but suffer the low blood sugar if I indulge in carbs. I am down 70 lbs from my surgery date and comfortable. I do have loose skin but nothing I cannot live with!

I'm not a vet and I'm not even at my final goal yet (although I've met many intermediate goals, including my surgeon's final goal), but hey, I'll chime in!

A few weeks ago I had asparagus for lunch. Just asparagus. It was amazing. That was totally an off plan indulgence for me. And, over the weekend, I was traveling with my vegan bff and she found a vegan cafe and chocolatier, so I ate vegan mac and cheese and a perfect vegan peppermint patty. Totally an indulgence.

I like to watch the way "normal weighted" people eat. Occasionally they indulge. Most of the time they don't. That's how I want my life to be. When my Binge Eating Disorder is managed, that's how my life CAN be. I don't feel that I'm doomed to have an unhealthy relationship with food forever and I feel that complete abstinence isn't actually recovery, it's just avoidance.

So, yes, I do go off plan. If I never went off plan I would start (and have when I've tried) start obsessing and then instead of going mindfully off plan I go nuclear off plan and it's ALL BAD. So I'd rather be mindful in my less than optimal choices than be spectacularly mindless.

I am almost four years out from RNY and I wish I never touched sugar. It is so addicting for me. It i really hard to shake the carbs.

I am a food addict and an alcoholic. So I do know I have tendencies that I know will lead me on a bender of eating.

Having trigger foods in the house is one thing I try not to have.

Usually when I want something I plan it. Like on the holidays or a birthday. I will take something so to a function and share it.

Eating carbs can lead back to weight gain. It can come up fast. Now that clothing has stretch in it. You don't realize that you are getting heavier when the pants have give in them.

Learning how to eat like what a normal person does can be hard. But it can be done. There are so many vets who are ten years out and longer. They will help you.

Keep coming and asking questions. We may not always hear what we want to hear. It usually is the truth. You will be glad to have heard it.

People who have not had WLS. Will say oh go ahead you can treat yourself. They have no idea what it is like to get back on track.

I am so glad I had surgery though. I don't ever want to feel like I did before. I am vain I like the way I look. I do like the way I feel just as much or more.

Best wishes on your weight loss journey.

Occasional treats are highly personal. I'm almost two years out (time flies) and very far from my goals, though I've lost around 456 total (?) and 140 of that is post-VSG.

The problem with indulgences is that we have a society which encourages celebration. There's nothing wrong with that, necessarily. In my case this becomes an excuse. I avoid them at all costs. I work in healthcare with crummy food everywhere and I never eat any of it, using my strategies below.

Let me descend into a tangent briefly. >.>

For me (not necessarily everyone), obesity recovery is like addiction recovery. There are lapses and relapses. Lapses are inevitable; moments when we briefly detour and get right back on the journey. A relapse is what's dangerous - off-plan eating for weeks at a time, and long-term gain. The goal is to make sensible choices for lapses, and to make sure that they are always a choice. It's mindless eating we want to avoid. And, to be sure, not everyone can do this and that's okay. We are all different.

Having said this, much as with addictions, some people can go back to "moderate eating" and have indulgences. Some of us can't. No morality is involved with this ability - it's just how it us for us, both biologically and psychologically. It depends how severe the habits are, and to what degree they are pathological.

In some ways I am envious of people who can do moderation. I can't. I avoid trigger foods and enjoy other indulgences that don't set off my BED or food addiction. Melon today, for instance, is safe in small amounts. Fast food hamburgers with buns, not so much, as that is always a huge overeating trigger. I am normally what most consider "strict," however with BED and food addiction, my life is not typical of most WLS patients.

It's actually better for me to not eat rather than to eat something poor. The worst thing that happens with hunger is... nothing? I live in America and food is everywhere. Nothing will literally happen to me. If I had RH or something, it might be different, of course. I used to spend every moment obsessing about what to eat. Every. Waking. Moment. I am very glad to be away of that, and have no intention of returning. I do keep one emergency Quest bar and one emergency salmon packet about. I don't tend to even eat them, though. They are just for binge-y stress moments so I don't turn into a human Dyson vacuum. I tend to just fast until I need to eat again.

I respect that people are in different places here. Many WLS patients do well with eating occasional indulgences. I am not one of them.

I guess what I am saying is, it depends? It also depends on what I call the quality of experience.

What does that mean? If I am somewhere with $50 dessert as part of a $300 tasting menu which I do maybe once every five years, oh eff yeah, I will try it. I will NOT eat any grocery store crap. I will not eat the $3 brownie. I will also not eat handbaked goods, even it makes someone's 120 year old grandma cry. I will only eat what is truly worth it. I do this...well. I've found maybe twice since surgery, because after adopting this it becomes clear that most food really isn't truly worth it, since I do my best to avoid emotional eating.

Also, when I eat for the social experience, rather than the emotion, surprise, I don't binge later! Go figure. (This is me being sarcastic at myself... and shaking my fist at my brain, verbally.) This also limits my eating of crap, as I cannot do it often.

From the clinical side, I see rare indulgences work in patients who 1) do not have them to "feel better" and 2) are eating out of hunger, and not for emotional regulation. What this means is, if you truly are hungry and want to enjoy something, that's fine. Most typical-weight individuals do not eat lots of highly processed high sugar-fat-salty foods, because these foods are unhealthy and also addictive. Most typical-weight individuals do eat that slice of birthday cake - maybe 5-6 times a year? And don't have dessert every night, and don't eat processed food constantly. (The skinny people who do, by the by, invariably are metabolically obese or develop bad health issues despite skinniness).

Thank you all for your thoughtful answers! I've lost weight many times but maintenance is a different issue and I feel for me it will be a greater challenge than the weight loss. I want to go into it with as much information as possible.

I eat very much the opposite of you. I eat enough meat for me, you, and several of your vegan friends. So, while I track everything closely in MFP, I never think about protein or fat goals.

But I keep a close eye on calories. If I eat too much crap (always carbs), I make sure I average out the calories. That means I eat more non-nutritious food, and have to eat less nutritious food. Obviously, I don't want to do that too frequently. But it does keep me weight neutral.

In the same way, adding a salad to every meal won't help you lose weight. Any time we add something, a cut must be made somewhere else.

This is what has worked for me.

I often joke that my diet is 98% vegan by weight. ;)

For over 23 hours a day, I am vegan.

I pretty much eat like a normal person, except much less. I weigh in once a week. When I gained my holiday weight, I had to work to lose it like I did in the past. I actually feel and act normal. You just have to watch what you do and eat to be healthy.