Am i alone on this one?

Does anyone else notice that when they consciously decide to watch their intake whether it be with ww, or 5dpt or anything that they eat more? I seem so preocuppied with food since i decided to do weigh****chers. So much so, that i think it is better for me to not do the program. Help... Food is on my mind all day, along with points, dividing those pts etc. I seem to over eat the points, cause all i think of is food and eating every 3 hrs to keep my blood sugar level and not get to hungry. This isn't working for me. Any advice?????

Well you are certainly not alone.  Many overweight individuals are overweight because they are constantly trying to diet and dieting makes them obsess about food which leads to binge eating.  This is the exact reason WLS worked for me, I didn't have to think about it ALL THE TIME anymore!  As you are finding out, if we get off the bandwagon and gain a little weight back, we can put ourselves right back into the viscous cycle of yo yo dieting.  It's all about lifestyle change... eat only healthy foods, drink drink drink, concentrate on proteins first, move to lose....  I am telling myself this everday and hoping it will help modify my behavior =)  Robin

Do you have a sample of what/when and how much you are eating a day?

Thanks,
Kathy

Hi there.  I just recently joined this group.  While I am only 7 months post-RNY, I had a band for 2.5 years before I had to revise it to the bypass.  I gained back all my band weight loss and now I'm effectively starting over and the weight loss is slower this time around... and has stalled for the last 2 months.  (just wanted to introduce myself)

To answer your questions... I do find that when I have to follow some diet/plan, I think about food all the time and while there are times that I could push the hunger out of my head, when I have to plan out my day or think about "rules" for a diet, I have a harder time ignoring the hunger.  Does that make sense?  There are a few things that help me:

* Make sure I eat dinner before grocery shopping (keeps the "naughty" things out of my cart)

* Try to make a batch or two of healthy meals during the week (like beef stew, pot roast, ground beef, etc) that way when I am in a hurry during the day/evening, I know I have a healthy meal waiting for me

* Keep healthy snacks around and in abundance in case I am hungry and have had enough calories for the day already (ex: carrots, grapes, cucumber, salad with LF/FF dressing, melon, pickles, etc).

* Try and drink at least 8oz of water before each meal/snack

* Try to get my exercise in before bed (I exercise, come home, shower, sleep... that is the best time for me to exercise).  I find that when I exercise, I also make better food choices (not necessarily the volume... but the actual choices are healtheir).

* Make sure I have something small every 2-3 hours (even if it is just one or two bites of something).  I make my "next meal" and then take a couple of bites 1-3 hours before sitting down with the meal.

These are all things I TRY to do... maybe I should print this off and put it on my fridge.  But to answer your question quickly... yes, when I am "on a diet" my mind obsesses about food.  It drives me nuts and I do end up eating more food.  Sometimes I should eat more food (like when I am busy and forgot to eat for most of the day)... Other times, especially when I am bored and am trying to hold off for my next meal (when I am hungry), I will graze.  I have mostly healthy foods here, but grazing on healthy food is still bad.

HTH

I can so relate to what you are saying! I recently joined weigh****chers also. I am 3.5 years out from my surgery, after losing 147 pounds I found I had slowly gained about 17 pounds, I panicked so decided to join WW for the accountability, Well, after 2 weeks and 7 pounds lost, I noticed after calculating what I was eating, that I was way low in protein! Since protein is usually high in WW points, I was eating more veggies and grains etc, instead of what I really needed. I was always calculating points and stressing because I was always hungry. Well, no wonder! Dense protein curbs hunger. Their new program stresses dense proteins first, but the point structure is not enough to support Post WLS needs. So,,I went off the program and back to the WLS way of eating,
WW is a good plan for people who are trying to lose without opting for surgery, my daughter being one of these. However, we who have chosen the WLS route need to stick to our WLS way of eating if we want to be a real success.
Good luck to ya!
Betsy

Thanks for the reply Betsy, i agree. In fact all day Friday i was rearching low carb life diets. I subscribe to bio med and an article happened to come through. This peaked my interest and i ventured further into biomed and found much research done on this topic, all proving ketogenic diets lead to better success, especially for me. ( the man part doesn't help me) but it was interesting. Much of the rsearch also focused on HDL and LDL levels and A1c levels for diabetics. Ketogenic diets have shown to lower A1c levels better than low fat diets and raises LdL levels, the good fat. Very interesting stuff.

Not only is this true for me with a "new" eating plan, but it seems to hold true for me any time I start something "official"!  By this I mean any kind of weight challenge, exercise challenge, etc.!  That may get me started & briefly motivated, but if I slip up, I feel like I've failed worse than I really have simply because I'm supposed to be on some official "plan"!   Then the cycle of off & on begins, and before long, the "off" is more frequent than the "on."