Daily Post--8/19/08

We have a challenge member who'd like deas on how to keep thinking of food as fuel and not as a treat or as a punishment... Any thoughts??

Food has been a treat for so long I think it's going to be difficult to break that one. I'm trying by getting facials, massages and pedicures. But they aren't available at 10pm when those munchies sneak in when I think of sad things. What do folks do about those?

Anxiously awaiting the replies to this one!!!!

Being "underweight" I have had to look at food as medicine and like any bad tasting medicine force myself to eat. It's very hard. I'd love some ideas too.

This has been a hard one for me too. I don't think there's anything wrong with enjoying your food and in fact having a treat. I make it a healthy treat though. I focus on what the food has for me in the way of protein and nutrition. There's such a small amount of food I can eat now, so I try to remember to make each bite count and still enjoy it. Besides, wearing the size 10 clothes I'm in now feels better than chocolate cake will ever taste again.

Well... I don't know if the challenge member is pre or post op, but I'm just about 14 weeks post op and have a very hard time trying to figure out what food is to me at all anymore. I've never really thought of food as a treat anyway, so I guess I'm blessed in that aspect, but I do see it as a punishment now. I now have to force myself to eat 5 or 6 times per day and I was a once a day eater. I swear I sit here and think the whole reason I'm not losing anymore weight is because I'm eating too doggone much. I upped my liquids, upped my protein, and still nothing. Oh my, and then having to force myself to drink these protein shakes... I would really love to get some good advice as to how to stop thinking of food as a punishment! The only thing I really think of as a treat however is my fruit. I looooove my fruit. Sweet Green seedless grapes... yummmmmmm!!!!

I look at it as your vehicle can't run unless it has fuel. BUT if you put the wrong type of fuel in it, it doesn't run as well. Then it has to go to the doctor, and sometimes it has to have surgery to make it better. If you continue to put bad fuel it in, it will continue to not run right.

OH God..when you get this figured out...please, please, please pass it along...yes its fuel, but it tastes sooooo good!

For me, food isn't a reward anymore. Most foods upset my tummy and the foods that go down good fill me up so fast that it doesn't seem like a treat anymore. My taste buds have changed so much...I just don't enjoy eating anymore. I eat because I have to. You would think I would lose a lot of weight this way but no, it seems that I have found a way of snacking. Even that doesn't thrill me with the taste, though.

I just keep going back to something my Dad used to say: You have to eat to live, not live to eat. I pay a lot more attention to the nutritional value of the foods I eat now, mostly because there is little room for something that does not provide my body good nutrition. Having said that, it's still a tough thing to keep going. Sometimes, I just wanna say "Screw it," and eat what I want, which would not be so healthy. On the few times I've done that, it never really tasted as good as I had imagined it would. I guess those are the times that, pre-op, I would have "blown" the diet and probably ended up gaining whatever I had lost to that point, plus more. Now, I still can't eat a lot of it, and really don't want to eat it anyway.