The musings of an Eighth Grader... or whatever you want to call me.

You hit the nail on the head for me. I'm a rule follower and always have been. Losing is easy because I set hard and fast rules for myself. During the loss phase, I was more than 99% compliant and could measure on one hand the number of bites of "illicit" things I ate. And now I'm staring at maintenance only 6 months out and everyone is all "Yay for you!" and I'm backing away slowly and shaking my head because it's scary.

I've been easing into maintenance for only a matter of weeks and I feel like every day is a tightrope between eating enough low-carb, high protein foods to maintain and falling into a fiery pit of lava (cake). See what I did there?

My husband, who is normal weight, fit, and has always eaten healthy keeps trying to explain what weight maintenance is like and how it "should be". For him, it's feast and famine. When he wants to lose a bit, he eats less. When he wants to gain a bit, he eats more. It's so normal for him and I can't imagine at all what that's like. If I let go of a tiny bit of control, it's over (or so it feels like).

Yep, this. I was HARD CORE in the losing phase. I mean, I could have been the poster child for WLS. 351 lbs day of surgery, 100 lbs lost in 4 months and 4 days after surgery, and reached goal of 160 exactly two weeks before my one year surgiversary. That means I lost 191 lbs in two weeks shy of a year. I was a BEAST that year. I had a strict no alcohol policy. If I was out at a Mexican restaurant, I did NOT eat the chips from the basket. If I was at the beach, I did not have a small ice cream cone. I literally followed all. the. rules. I was dense protein and a little veggies, I weighed my food, I worked out. I was pretty freaking awesome, now that I think about it.

Now I am 3.5 years out. Since making "goal", **** got hard. My new weight isn't new anymore. No one compliments me and can barely recognize me if they haven't seen me in months. Alcohol has crept back in. BLTs too (bites, licks, tastes). My pouch is mature and can hold considerably more food. Every single day of maintenance - every meal I plan or cook - every gaze into the fridge or pantry - is a chance to make a good or bad choice. And sure, I make bad choices. Mind you, I don't eat near close to the quantity pre-WLS thank god! But more than 4 months out, 9 months out, even 18 months out. Absolutely.

Occasionally you come across someone who is like "food is just fuel for me now" and "I am never hungry" and I want to be like them!!! I'm just not. Head hunger is real, and my head doesn't want chicken breast and egg whites and broccoli. Nope, it wants pizza and pasta and croissants and biscuits. All the **** that got me super morbidly obese in the first place. So I am with Pammieanne - I feel myself get PISSED when I see people squandering the honeymoon period when the weight is falling off and the pouch can't even hold half of a sausage. I feel pissed because I have the benefit of hindsight. And hindsight tells me DON'T *** ING WASTE THE FIRST YEAR EATING CRAP.

My bf is also normal and eats healthy and literally has never had a craving. Ever. I have never heard him say, "I'm in the mood for Chinese tonight" or "Can you make that XYZ I like" or "Want to order pizza?". He literally eats what I put in front of him, and he eats a small portion and he eats the protein first and a few bites of anything else. It's BIZARRE.

Pammieanne, your post totally resonates with me. I wish I could say, "it gets better" or "it just becomes a way of life". But I know I have to keep vigilant. I will never be cured of my food addiction :(

That's my husband. I can tell him that dinner is salmon and veggies and it's great. I could tell him it's pizza, and he'd eat that too. Both in reasonable portions for his needed calories. If he eats pizza one night, you'll notice he'll just instinctively eat a lot less the following day. He'll eat more if he worked out hard and if he's been lazy he'll seem to only pick at food or skip lunch because he's not hungry. Where did my instinct go? I think it got left out of my programming.

I've found that as long as I stay away from carbs (which I've done, 99% of the time), I don't actually want anything but protein and veggies and although my brain is all "EAT ALL THE THINGS" I, of course, can't. The moment I consume a carb, **** gets real.

I just got done with a vacation. I ate a piece of cornbread. Two days in a row. My damn brain still wants the f-ing cornbread.

NO DAMN IT!

You are so right JB! I am a rules follower like you but if I followed the rules of my NUT and surgeon I would not be as successful as I have been thus far. They wanted me eating more calories and carbs. I listened to the vets on here instead of the stick figure of my NUT who weighs 90lbs soaking wet and never had to lose 1oz of weight in her life! So once again, as I have said many times before....Thank You VETS!!!!! :) You rock!

Although this vet worries a little about your below 20gm carb days!

Thank you Deb. I will think about it but anytime I have tried to raise my carbs in a healthy way I start to gain right away. I truly appreciate your concern and I know you are looking out for me and that means a lot! Thank you! :)

I don't want to mess with your success. Ever.

I never thought that for a second. You are only looking out for me and I thank you for that. :)

Amazingly real post! I've said it before and I'll say it again....I am glad I am not alone.

Great post! What you are thinking obviously resonates with many (nearly all?) of us.

I was just having a similar internal dialogue with myself as I drove to work today. I am a little over 16 months post op (pretty much right where you are) and I am so sick of weighing, measuring and logging all of my food. So I was thinking "when can I stop doing this?" and "when will this lifestyle be easy/normal/effortless?", and sadly I realized the answer is probably never. I need to weigh and measure my food because my issue isn't so much going off plan, but consuming too much on-plan food. If I don't weigh, measure and log that is FAR too easy to do.

I also struggled with the final goal weight. As I have mentioned on this board a number of times, a DEXA scan was the only way I could objectively determine when I was at a healthy weight - I could not be trusted to figure that out on my own.

Even with the DEXA scan, it's a total mind game. I decided that 152 was my long term maintenance weight, but there is a loud voice in my head always trying to get me to go lower so that I have ample "bounce back" room. Except my 152 really DOES give me about 10 lbs of bounce back weight already. But every time I get up around 152-155 I start to get a little panicky and IMMEDIATELY cut back my food intake to drop weight. I am much more comfortable hovering around 148 (I was 148.9 this AM), but I know that is a little too low as my body fat is already on the very low end of acceptable.

I just want this to be easy, and it's not. And I know that's childish, and that I need to put my big boy pants on. Some days that's easier said than done.