Dramatic? Maybe, Effective? Yes!

Well Leslee... If that's not determination....I don't know what is!!!  I can see myself doing the same thing. You've got a long road ahead trying to deal with two problems at once...But you sound so much stronger than you seem to give yourself credit... I really think you will begin to trust yourself sooner than you think and you'll do wonderful once you know you can do without snacks and drinks and eventually without locks. Plus if you keep posting when you feel weak...the guilt will stop you, knowing you have to face the jury! LOL  Eventually you might lay out portion controlled foods the night prior and buy food fresh rather than stock up on stuff.  That's what I do. I cannot be trusted with too many snack type foods...so I only buy enough for a few days... I keep pickles, lunch meat, cottage cheese, salad stuff, fruits, yogurt and soymilk all the time....Then I buy a few protein bars and other protein snacks.  This way I only have these things to choose from.  If hubby wants something sweet...I buy his favorite icecream flavor that I don't like or fav crunchy snacks that I don't like much and that helps a lot. After 23 years, you compromise and find snacks you both like to share...I broke that habit so I don't want him to share!!! LOL Well that's just a little suggestion that seems to have helped me some.  I plan my snacks and then I have that to look forward to...and then it feels like that old friend that I can allow to visit on the right terms...and without having an all night wild party.  I learned limitations this way.  And appreciation for small moments of a nice safe food relationship.  Oh...me and food get a little roudy once and a while and we dance on the table and all...so to speak! LOL  But I limit those times and allow those moments once in while...And once a week....usually weekends I might have that one thing that I craved for a while and shouldn't really have....Like cake with frosting or something totally naughty. I am so happy to have that little sliver that I don't even want more after that.   That's what I mean about learning to trust yourself.  I totally trust myself, because even my binges are controlled...and if I find myself out of control....I bite down hard and refuse to give in and if I can't...I know that I have tomorrow to start over...even if it means putting the locks back on the fridge to gain control back.  You can do this! 

Loved your post!! Thanks!  and I laughed at this "...and then it feels like that old friend that I can allow to visit on the right terms...and without having an all night wild party."  That is a great way to describe it!!  Leslee

Do whatever u need and help u out.   Try to do a self constructive behavior 4 you or others, anything that takes the real detachment of the food from ur mind, stop count and think is it worthed>? I am there too, lost a hundred with the surgery four years ago, since 6 months i cannot stop eating the bad carbs easy to digest,gained 40 pounds, throwing up everyday, made myself an hernia and starting an ulcer in my esaphogus with this circle behavior, i cannt eat meat or chicken, started discomfort and now pain, went to the dr find out this..and i am having whatever it takes to get help and better care of myself , looks like another surgery is coming, I did my lower body and my breast plastic surger 3 years ago and i feel like my skin is pulling for gaining of that weight and hurts all that pullying....went to too much and it is like in that moment the comfort food takes over, I stil dont get it

 im glad im not the only one thinking of doing this I was going to do it just with my DH's snacks he keeps at all times 5 boxes of lil debs, cookies, and chips in his cabinet If it was just me they wouldnt be in the house at all, so I've been thinking of just locking them up.

When I was on one of my many diets years before my surgery I was married to a guy who wasn't overweight and wanted his snacks available to him. I knew having that junk around would be really hard for me. He wanted to be supportive of me but also wanted his snacks. Our solution? He kept his snacks in the trunk of his car. I didn't have a key to it so it wasn't available to me, and he could have them whenever he wanted them. It worked really well for us. Sometimes you have to be creative.  The only Halloween candy we bought was gummy worms, which I think are disgusting. That helped me, too.

It's totally about creativity! lol.. I'm also playing a "marble game" Every day I go without snacking (even tho it's locked up I could still hit the closest mcdonalds and such) I get 3 marbles, every night I don't snack I get 3. Every 12 hrs I go without drinking I get 5, every ten minutes of work out I get 1...etc.. When the vase is full I get an ipod. After that my reward is gonna be a $500 shopping spree to sophoras! After that (and I'll make it a big vase) is a new wardrobe! By then I should be at goal. These are my intentions, and I've done good for a week so far, so wish me luck on stickin with this. If it was just snacks I think the trunk would totally work for us! My husband doesn't really eat snacks or treats or hardly anything. And we keep healthy food around, but even healthy food when eaten every two hours will cause a weight gain. I feel so much stronger after just a few days of this, i really think I'm going to be ok once we take the locks off. In fact, today he forgot to take the keys out of the locks, so I have complete access..but I'm not looking for ways around the system, I want this to help me, so I'm pretending the keys aren't sitting there in the locks! hahaha.. Thanks for thinking I'm creative and not just crazy lol Leslee

Extreme to say the least.... The real test is when you remove the locks.  Well if it is working for now that is all that matters,  I am sure your will power will grow.  take care of yourself

I think I'll be able to do it without the locks shortly here. As an earlier post said when I see the scales start moving I'll be motivated again. Four pounds down already and it's already easier. I don't think I even need to do it for 21 days..but they say that's how long to break a habit..it certaintly isn't hurting me any to not have access at all times to the food. So I think I'll give it a 3 week run, then take them off and see how I do.

Yeah.  I thought about this post alot.  I really did. And you aren't going to like my response.  But it's honest.  And it's not meant to be hurtful. I'm curious if you ever sought counseling for this addiction to food?  How did you manage to lose weight, even with the surgery, in the first place? I'm concerned that it requires a lock on your food supplies to keep you from eating.. and that you are sad and mourn the loss of food.  I was a fat girl.. I liked to eat.  But I never mourned the loss of eating. Yeah, I had a regain.  I can sit around and blame it all on having two kiddos.  But I was the one who broke my rules and went back to carbs.  When I had enough, I went cold turkey on them and have done swimmingly.  I can't use a lock or even avoid buying these foods due to a toddler running around my house (and of course, her favorite food is anything that has carbohydrates in it). I just guess I'm worried about you and this addiction.

yes I know it's an addiction, and the only help I got from it was a counselor saying to "put a rubber band on your wrist and flick yourself every time you think about food" Not too effective. The lock isn't so much to "force myself not to eat" by "restraining myself from food" As I can definately get food anytime I want, McDonalds is less than a 2 min walk from my house, I have a grocery store on every corner, and a great bar less then a block a way. But what it does, is it slows me down. Since I can't go automaticaly to the fridge and eat without even thinking about it, it gives me time for the urge to pass until I can get out of the habit of the mindless snacking and grazing. I'm sure I have some emotional issues with food...most of us do and that's what put it to the point we were to ever need surgery. But I also believe it is partly a learned behavior and/or habitual. Every time you do something an actual "cord" connects nueron to nueron in your brain, every time you do the thing that cord gets stronger until a deep seeded habit is established. The only way to break that is to stop doing that behavior long enough for that neuropathway to begin to atrophy. In the mean time while that is atrophying it's a good idea to start a NEW pathway to build a NEW positive habit...that also in time will get stronger and stronger. I've been to school is counseling and psychology, and read probably 50 percent of self help books on the market while there is a lot that can be helped with counseling, humans are creatures of habit. So yes, the lock thing is extreme and wouldn't work for most people because of their living situation, but we just happen to have all our food in the fridge or in the pantry and no kids, and no one I need to feed..the food just sits around waiting for ME to eat it when I get so bored, which happens a lot since I'm home alone all day while my husband is at work. (I teach singing out of my home in the evening).  I've only had the "lock" on for three nights, and last night for the first time in years my body didn't wake up 3-7 times a night to go eat...just three nights is all it's taken so far for my body to relearn how to sleep through the night, once it accepted it's not getting a feeding every hour or two. My mom says it only takes a baby a few nights to break the habit of night time bottles...and I think that's kind of what has happened here. I also don't think I'm the only one who's "mourned food" the counselor and dr that my two neices and I both went through with our surgeons office told us all "for some of you it will be like losing your best friend, and you may actualy go through a withdrawel and mourning process". So I don't think I'm alone in that. At the same time, my two neices didn't experience the same "mourning" and they have kept the weight off better than I have so far, which goes to show I definately have something pretty deep seeded. So I'm agreed there. So.. this is a long post. In most part I agree with you, I need to work with a dr, but at the same time I also just need to do whatever it is I need to do to start breaking the habit. Instead of just saying "oh I need counseling but in the meantime I'll keep eating whatever" (as we all know help from counseling can sometimes take months or years, if it even helps at all) I'm doing whatever measures I can to stop the weight gain. In 3 days I've lost 5 lbs, simply from NO snacking whatsoever, and NO drinking (alcohol) at all. So three 1 cup meals a day and tons of water, and a couple low cal protein drinks to supplement. This is my 3rd or 4th day and already I'm thinking a LOT less about food, and filling up my time with more productive things...I think it's kinda strange/funny/extreme/weird...(any other word that fits) to lock one's self from their easily accesable food lol...but it's working, so I'm just gonna go with it for a while longer. I'll keep you all posted on how it actually works. We'll see what happens when I take the chains off in about 21 days..will I go straight back to old eating habits? or will this have broken the chain?  We'll see! Thank you for your input! Leslee