Three minds

When it comes to food choices, I seem to be of three minds.

There is "body" me (artificial sweeteners make me feel terrible), there is "mind" me (artificial sweeteners probably cause an insulin spike and probably dysregulate my gut microbiome), and there is "inner child" me (don't tell me I can't have something, I'm going to eat tons of this artificially sweetened thing right now).

Has anyone found some good methods for calming their "inner child" voice (or whatever you prefer to call it)?

So far, I've had the best luck with not making anything off limits but keeping in mind the factors that influence good health when making decisions. I negotiate with the inner child a lot.

The only suggestion I have is what I do myself.

My food plan = meats, green veggies if room, and a bite or two of a white carb sometimes. I don't do much artificial sweeteners, I'd rather have a couple of bites of the real thing. I still dump horribly and the resulting RH is bad enough to be an uber-deterrant. So if I don't know the sugar grams in a dessert I eat three to five bites and never go above that.

In other words - we don't have artificial stuff in the house so I don't have to fight off any temptations in that area. And meat and green veggies fill my pouch up enough to last for hours. For me, it's just a matter of changing my way of eating. I didn't have surgery to be on a diet and I don't make myself go hungry if I get that way for some reason. I can eat as much protein and non-carby veggies as I'm comfortable with. It's a bit hard to get used to, but so worth it since it takes sweets and breads straight out of the equation from the get go.

You get to work out what's good for you, what that looks like is completely up to you and nobody else. But for me the biggest deterrent to sweets is a tummy full of dense proteins. Sorry to be so wordy. Good luck.

Ultimately the thing that works best for me is not to buy the things I don't want to eat. I'm the one who stipulates what comes into the house almost exclusively, so this works pretty well. It takes time and effort to get things aren't in my way of eating.

In a way, this has been even easier the past few months since Art took over grocery shopping to free up some more time for me. I make the grocery list and he only buys the things that are on the list... and I only put the things we actually need for the upcoming week on the list. This works out really well.

Of course therapy has also helped.

Huzzah! That's one of my best practices, too -- not buying and/or bringing home trigger foods or foods that don't support my intended eating / lifestyle.

If it's not in the house at 9:00 pm, I CANNOT eat it. :)

That's a hard one! It helps me a lot if I don't have the stuff around to temp me. My boss at works likes having a candy dish for the customer and I asked her to buy stuff I don't like... It's much easier! She laughed and said she buys stuff she doesn't like to make it easier for herself. So now we have a list of candy she can by that no one in the office likes!

I have also found that I let myself have a few bites when out or if something comes in the house that isn't a 100% to plan I make sure that I adjust my eating for the day to accommodate what I want. I also only do that once a week. That makes me think really hard, is this worth my once a week treat? Most of the time it's a no. Since I get something better later, it makes it easier to give up stuff when it temps me.

I think you need to find out what works best for you? I eat 35 meals a week, that's 5 tiny meals a day, if one isn't perfect that's okay. at least 33-34 will be!

Good luck!

Yes, I put my inner child in a time out I struggle with the artificial sweeteners. It's going to be the kiss of death for me as I like one pink and one blue. Yes, let's just mix the poisons. I have to remove them from the house and have only stevia available. Still don't like it but that works for me. My inner child starts to scream at me and therefore the time out.

I am not making fun of your question it really is a struggle for me too Stay Strong Maritonia!

If I want a cookie, I just eat a real cookie. If I try to stem cravings with artificially sweetened crap, I can eat a million Quest bars seeking out fulfillment and nothing about that is healthier than a cookie.

I have never had an issue with binging so 1 cookie doesn't turn into a whole batch of cookies. But, this is all part of the mental aspect of surgery. One of the things I've fleshed out with my therapist is that letting certain foods have a hold over you, in general, isn't healthy. For a long time, I didn't eat cookies (or any other 'bad food'), EVER. Not as a treat, not for a holiday, not for anything. But, there were other foods in my diet that I lived and died for. My whole day would be planned around yogurt I was anticipating before bed. Very planned, tracked, meticulous yogurt. So, the biggest thing I've worked on with my therapist is training my brain to realize that food is food. It's not some magical unicorn that I need to fixate on. It's just food.

Caveat, that I say this as being 2 years out from surgery. Newbies beware, don't use this as an excuse to eat cookies 3 weeks out from surgery.

I think we've been through similar processes. I had months where I've obsessed about my "on plan" foods non-stop and never let myself have a bite of off-plan food. I'd go through episodes of fixating on one specific food or recreating an acceptable version of a forbidden food.

Recently I went on a 2 week vacation and started out the first few days being hyper vigilant about eating perfectly, and the rest of the trip I ate what felt like non-stop sugar and bread - things I hadn't eaten at all in 1.5 years. In reality, I still ate mostly plants and meat, with some bites of chocolate or pastry every day. At the end of the trip, I came home and weighed 3 lbs less than when I left. Letting myself not restrict my food while having a good time doing non-food things turned out to be great for my body.

Maintenance has been such a tricky thing to figure out! I seem to be learning that maintaining at 120 lbs requires intense food obsession, while maintaining at 130 lbs requires being reasonable with my choices. I would still prefer to be 120 lbs, so I'm working on it.

I treat myself like the child. I allow the indulgence only after I've eating all of the protein that my body needs. I usually only have a couple of bites left, so I cannot eat enough to get into trouble, yet I am completely satisfied.