15 months out and back to bad habits!

Hey Roberta, You look so familiar to me! Maybe I've seen you at Dr. Bauman's office or through work. I do a lot of consulting for Wachovia.. do you work for the bank, by chance? I swear I've seen you. I live in Southend and I go to the Dowd YMCA to work out mostly. Where are you? Carol

Hi Carol, I work for the "other" bank :), but have been in Charlotte for a long time.  I work uptown and generally work out on my treadmill at home (if at all--problem one).  I live in the Southpark area.  I work uptown in the Odell building, so maybe I've seen you uptown.  I am also involced with adoption so maybe through that. Hope to talk to you soon. Roberta

Hi Carol, I'm 14 months out and I too can totally relate.  I lost 100 lbs within 9 months, but have not lost since.  I have bounced around 140, plus or minus 2 pounds, but recently, the scale climbed to 145.  Scared the crap outta me. My strategy is to try to eat more like I did the first 9 months.  Can you guess what I didn't eat the first nine months?  Carbs.  Yes, I started experimenting with carbs about 9-10 months post op and am now convinced that carbs are the culprit.  (My only carbs are from vegetables, salad dressing and my indulgence is a few croutons) I started scaling way back on carbs last week and I'm going to try and see how that goes.  The first few days were rough, but, I'm substituting protein supplements when I get a craving.   Good luck,  I know how scary it is when we've come so far.  The reality is we're just beginning our maintenance phase and it will take some time to see how are bodies respond now that the honeymoon is waning. Karen

Oops, let me clarify, my only carbs as of late are veggies, salad dressing and a few croutons.  Over the past few months I tried crackers, cookies, a hershey kiss here and there...you get the picture ;) Karen

Oh my.. you have no idea. I found myself last week out to dinner having bread before dinner, creme brulee after and everything else in between! I'm feeling pretty low this morning since I did a major round of depression snacking AGAIN last night -- right up to 10:30pm.  I just spent 20 mins staring at the mini-bagels in my refrigerator trying to make myself throw them away. I don't think I ever anticipated these cravings/food addictions could come back this strongly after this long. Looks like I have a lot to talk to my therapist about this week...  Good luck to you in your journey.  Carbs are evil. c-

I feel out of control sometimes too - usually around pms time though - but if I look at it and compare it to how I used to eat, it really isn't so terrible.  I'm not suggesting anyone make excuses for poor choices, but if you focus on the upside, you might be able to forgive yourself and move past this tough period and make those smart choices. The othe night, I had two peppridge farm cookies and told myself I shouldn't have eaten that, then I thought, well, the cookies have been in there since last saturday, and you know before WLS, they would have been gone before they even hit the cabinet, so maybe I'm not doing SO terrible afterall.  And I don't hold it against myself or kick myself for too long.  I think looking at it differently may help you feel better about yourself and want to feed yourself better foods.  Does that make sense?  I'll stop babbling now.

I agree with what everyone else has said--and I'm working on the same thing.  Keeping the weight off is going to be the real challenge.  You might check out a couple of books I'm finding helpful: The Beck Diet Solution: How to Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person Winning After Losing The first is written by a cognitive behavioral therapist.  It is all about retraining your thinking about food.  It doesn't have a diet to follow as it is all about changing your behaviors by changing your thinking. The second is written by a woman who had gastric bypass and has maintained the loss.  Again, a lot of it is about thoughts and attitudes influencing behaviors. While I am still losing weight, I know that I eat things I shouldn't and don't need to.  I am an evening muncher and a candy jar at work person.  These behaviors have already slowed down the loss, so I need to get a grip on my habits now.  I don't want to be sabatoging myself for when the 3 year weight regain tends to hit. Good luck, Sally

I understand your anxiety, I am right there with you just now.  The difference between the old me and the new, improved me however, is that I never would have thought about going back to basics.  I would have used my anxiety to increase the volume of my eating.  This is where you are too.  You have gained a very few pounds and you are nervous.  You know, and can, and will, get back to your basisc wl diet and in a few days, the weight will be gone.  This is how we now have to live.  I personally weigh myself daily so that I can not pretend that my weight has increasd.  This may be too drastic for you, but for me, I spent years pretending that i was not as fat as I was.  I don't want that any more.  I like the slimmer me.

Like everyone who has responded, I don't ever want to go back to the old me.  My high weight was 259, but I'm almost 17 months out and down 125 pounds.  I bought Winning After Losing by Stacey Halprin and it is definitely worth reading.  Carbs scare me to death but they also call my name from time to time.  I thought it was just me being a failure, but now I see it's part of the whole picture.  Maintaining is something I have never attempted because I never got to a goal weight.  Thanks to everyone for chiming in.  I always find something positive on this website. Paula 259/139/135

Glad you have posted :) I'm going through what you have explained for awhile now. Broken promises to myself. I know I'm a food addict. I eat when I'm not hungry. I eat and snack ALOT. I can bet I'm averaging about 1500 calories a day. My sugergy was in October of 2005. I got down to 156 lbs and now I'm weighing in anywhere from 168-172 lbs. I gained 10 lbs on purpose because I just didn't feel well at 156 lbs. My surgeon didn't want me to drop below 160 but I pushed anyway. So here I am wondering if I'm going to go even higher and I'm so scared and totally embarassed! I gave it a shot on the October 05 board to see if I could get people to join me and support each other with this but I only got a few responses. I've got the exercise down but the food...my word.  I'm just trying to take one day at a time! Keep your head up :)