Help! I am having trouble!

Hello everyone. I am new to this message board and I need help! I am a little over two years out and have reached my doctor's first goal he set for me, 155 lbs. and now he wants me to loose another 13 lbs. which I have no problem with. My trouble is I am having a very difficult time stay on my diet plan. I seem to be always hungry!! Last month I was down to 153 lbs and now I am at 159 lbs.! I just don't seem to have any will power. I am so afraid of messing all my work up. I never want to go back to were I was before, 313 lbs. My family is supportive but they do bring in things like cookies and brownies in the house but I should be able to resist them but I am not. I use to go walking every night but this summer was so rainy that I have gotten out of the habit. My doctor at my two year visit said I that walking is not enough that I needed to job a exercise club which I finally did this month. I am even having trouble going to that now! What is wrong with me? I am scared of going to my doctor for my monthly weigh in because I am so embarrassed but I realize I do need help and don't want this to get out of hand. Does anyone have any ideas on how to get on track again? Laural

Hi, Laural! I'd be glad to be your "Diet Buddy" as you loss the weight to your new goal. My Nutritionist just lowered my goal to 150 lbs +/- so we have about the same amount to lose. Here is some info that I recently sent to a friend about my use of SparkPeople. Using SparkPeople really helps with daily food monitoring, but I always weigh my protein anyway. It's the only way that I can be certain that I've actually eaten enough of it. My calories hover around 850, but that's my weekly average. Some days are much lower; some much higher. What I look for is the area that is "too low" at the end of the day. If my fats are down, I'll add about 1/4 oz of mixed nuts....Carbs-- 1 oz brown rice, 1/4 whole wheat pita...etc It's a balancing act on one hand and a calorie "trick" on the other. I have been lucky that I have not had a stall. My best guess is that my body does not "think" that it is starving so the starvation mode doesn't kick in. I vary the amount of calories that I eat and alway include 2 higher calories days. Emotionally, this causes a bit of anxiety because I don't want to miss the opportunity to lose weight during this year. To counter that I simply take a weekly average, which comforts me a lot. I had a 1,100 day last week, but my average was around 850 again. .... If you decide to try SparkPeople, I'd start a separate hotmail account because they send a lot of (good) info that you might not want to have to sort through on your regular site. You'll be able to add foods that are not listed in their database easily. I usually drink 64 oz of water each day, which can be logged in on the site. One thing that is very helpful to me is that I've been able to modify my nutritional goals on the site to read: Calories 1000-1100, Carbs 100-120, Fats 25-50, Protein 50-70 As these are goals and I am not at my maintenance weight my daily totals are lower than the above numbers, but not by much. My Nutritionist OK'd these ranges. BTW, I use the mantra, "It tastes like dogfood." to stop urges for foods that I should avoid. Hope that this helps. Keep in touch. Ro

Sorry it has taken me so long to answer your kind post. I will be glad to be your "diet buddy". At the moment I am attempting the 5 day pouch diet and am on the first day. I do use Sparkpeople and really like it. Let me know it you still want to be my diet buddy. Laural

Just saw your post,,and I can relate,,I was having the same trouble,,hungry all the time, However,,I saw on the Grads board that some were doing the 5 day pouch test,,to reset the pouch to early post surgery. I tired it,,lost all appetite and cravings,,and am satisfied with just a few bites now. You might try it, it really works. Go to the grads board and check it out. The first 2 days its liquids and protein,,,I did soups and jello, water and protein shakes,,lost 2 pounds and all cravings stopped. I felt wonderful the next day. You gradually add soft proteins and then denser ones. Check it out.,it may helps ya! Im 2 years out and was falling back into old habits! Blessins Betsy

What is the five day pouch test and how do you do this? I am only seven months out and am feeling hungry all the time, and my weight loss has stalled...what do I do?

Hi! I saved the link after seeing it posted. Looks like a very good thing to try for a jump-start of our programs when it is needed. http://www.5daypouchtest.com/index.html Molly

Thank you for your suggestion. I am on my first day of liquids. It has not been to bad but tomorrow is another day, lol. I hope it works. I have to be out of town at the end of the week for a conference and am planning ahead of time how I will eat . Wish me luck.

Hi Laural - I was wondering how your pouch test was going. Do you think it it helping you and are you hanging in there with it? Glad to see you are taking control!! ~ Terisa

Hi Terisa, It was going very good until I realized that I have a convention to attend (which I am at now) and it seems so hard for me to follow exactly. I have noticed that I am not able to eat like I did. I plan to re-start the pouch test on Sunday and make sure I do not have anything that will get in the way of my success. At the moment I am following my normal diet plan like I should so maybe it will help also. I have done pretty good except for yesterday which was a crazy day! Thanks for you concern. I will post next week and let you know how I did. I do like the plan and the liquid diet part was very easy for me to follow surprisely. Laural

thanks for the information. i'm also almost 2 years out and hungry all the time. i looked for the grad board but couldn't find it. could you tell me what the 5 day pouch test is. i'd like to try it.