I just realized I was doing fine ...

... until I started trying to "clean up my diet."  I was happy as a clam and maintaining well in the 140s.  I usually had some Faje yogurt (the kind with sugary fruit!) for breakfast, along with a lightly sweetened whole wheat cereal and a spoonful of peanut butter.  On the way to work, if I wanted a Coke, I stopped and got one.  Had a snack of a couple of slices of cheese and some peanut butter crackers mid-morning.  Whatever for lunch, depending on where I was; sometimes I took a lunch, sometimes I stopped and got a small fast food burger.  Sometimes I drank one of those to-die-for McDonald's smoothies mid-afternoon; sometimes I was at home and ate some meat or some nuts.  Supper was whatever protein was in the fridge, plus a bit of veggies, or maybe some soup.  About 8:00 or so, I was usually feeling peckish again so would have a spoonful of cream cheese or some more nuts or some more cereal or crackers.  It was not a great diet, but it was working for me.

A month or so ago, I started freaking that my diet was too junk-foody and TOO MANY CRACKERS!!  Started trying to clean it up.  Stopped the morning cokes and switched to tea.  Stopped the fast food.  Started fooling with breakfast so it wasn't so sugary.  Stopped buying my favorite crackers.  Stopped the odd candy bar I was having along the way.

And then the bingeing started.  I don't know why I can't remember that every time I try to restrict, I start to binge.  I JUST WISH I WOULD HAVE LEFT WELL ENOUGH ALONE!!!!

Dang!
--Dorothy

I am sorry you are having a struggle right now. I so agree with you about the not "restricting" though. The dietician/nutritionist that I work with is a big proponent of building in the things we like to eat in our daily eating plans jsut for that reason. The reality is what you were doing was working for you and you knew what was working.
This is one of the reasons I continue to post that everyone does NOT have to live by the low fat, low calorie, super low carb diets that some of the surgeons and programs push.
For some of us that is not what will work  best in the long run. I think we all need to know ourselves, our bodies, our long term habits and indiviudual "quirks" and work within those parameters.

Giving up all the sugary junk stuff is a good idea, but I think that you did it too fast.  Try swapping the coke for tea for a bit, then move on to changing something else.  Cutting everything at once is a formula for binging.

mary

Dorothy - I am doing best when I relax and listen to what my body really wants. and what it does NOT want!

our appetites and hungers are not just some formula with grams of this and ounces of that. we eat for social and emotional reasons, too.

bingeing is the result of deprivation. I NEVER binged until after I started "dieting".

Same here, mom.  I managed my weight just fine, decades ago, until I started dieting to lose about 20 pounds I thought I needed to shift.  Wasn't too long before I was 160 pounds overweight!  As the book title goes, "Diets Don't Work."  Indeed.
--Dorothy

Dorothy, have you read anything by Geneen Roth?  I am thinking the old books she wrote like Breaking Free from Emotinal Eating, etc.

for some reason I don't like her more recent books as much.

she writes about trusting yourself which is very hard, no matter what your size or if you are pre-op or post-op or at goal.

but it's worth looking into!

Yes, but it has been soooo long that I can't remember anything about it.  I do believe one of them was Breaking Free....

Interesting about trusting oneself.  I'll think, oh lovely, I've found something that works for me.  Then my eating disorders counselor sez "Don't drink Cokes; I had one wls client who gained every bit of her weight back just from drinking Cokes."  Then I read a book about eating according to Biblical principles.  Then I watched some episodes of You Are What You Eat.  All of a sudden EEEEKKK!!!  I'm eating garbage!  I must stop! 

And now I have gained 15 pounds.  Toot.
--Dorothy

ya, Toot indeed!!!

sometimes I read posts where folks make it seem like there is an easy forumla. calories in, calories out.

bull**** is what I say.  your body needs some comfort & Joy. 

it is NOT so freakin simple, it just isn't.    go to the library and find an old Geneen Roth book and re-read.

couldn't hurt!

sometimes it seems like the harder you try the more you obsess about food and eating and the worse it gets and all you think about is what can i eat next. I know i sure did this. still get into this mind set sometimes. Maybe only one or two subtle changes is best rather than a bunch of big ones. I swear if you make drastic diet changes then all the little fat cells send out some chemical message saying FEED ME and it makes you binge. My personal theory is that smaller changes fool your body into not knowing whats going on. Of course, I couldn't lose weight without the sleeve and expect to struggle with this forever but at least i have the sleeve on my side now. Hope you can find a balance and move away from the binge stuff as its such a hard habit to get out of. Post again on how you are doing. D

Part of this journey for me has been to maintain balance, and extremes one way or the other always set off my binge-o-matic. 

Boo.

Write this down and know it girlie.  Right?  lesson learned is a good thing?