What do you make of someone like me???

It really seems to be my one tendency that has crept back in that I have a problem with. I've been drinking soda for a year. It has not changed my capacity, it doesn't spur hunger, or the need/want to eat more junk food, honestly, I just see it as a soda. Nothing more, nothing less.

The night snacking on the other hand is a combination of a couple of things that I've been able to identify.

1) My husband is a naturally thin, lean, built like a brick ****house kind of guy. He has the metabolism of a gnat. Yes, I loathe him some days. But, he loves ice cream. He eats it 3-4 nights a week and he eats about a pint per night. Several months ago, he started offering the big chunks of Reese's pb cups from the heavenly yummy Reese's ice cream. He would say "Yum, here's a big chunk, you want it?" Me: "no thanks sugar, I'm good." Him: "oh come on, it's just a chunk of pb and chocolate!" Me "no, huney, really I don't want it" him: "you know you do". . . He'd physically get up out of his recliner, walk over to me, and dump the yummy chunk of peanut butter and chocolate in my mouth. He's a lovely man, but he's my crack dealer LOL. This spurred me to buy Whole Fruit Sorbet. The "better option", right? WRONG WRONG WRONG. Huge amounts of sugar, and sorbet slides right down. So, I stopped buying the sorbet for me. Which in turn, had me rooting around the "snack" bowl I keep for the guy's lunches. It was a crunchy granola bar at first, then the next night it was a little snack size bag of fruity gummies etc etc. Then it turned into a half sandwich of peanut butter and honey. Lately, guess what's it's been?

Starburst ! ! ! And, those little boogers slide right down without abandon. I caught myself this last week eating 8-10 Starburts right before we'd trot off to the bedroom. RIDICULOUS. I can not use the excuse "I'm hungry", I can't use the excuse that I'm low on calories, or any other excuse. It's just those damn things are super yummy, and I like them.

It's a vicious little cycle I've found myself in. I will say that I've been good the last week. I've recognized it, and working on resolving it.

2) I've found myself being very bored at night especially on the weekends. I stay home, but am active in our community and on base. I used to have a planned event at least 4 out of the 7 days a week. Most weeks, I had 2-3 events or functions on the same day. This kept me busy, it kept me on the go. I started working part-time as a lia sophia jewelry advisor last August. I ran myself ragged the first 4 months. I made great money, met new friends, earned a ****pot of free jewelry, then I took a break, and realized that I was not as busy, I was home more, and least to say, I am sitting around my house more. There are only 3 of us. Which equals a whole whopping 3 loads of laundry per week, my house is "lived in clean", a little clutter never hurt me, you can not eat off my floors because we have 2 dogs, and I personally refuse to sweep and mop every time they come in and out throughout the day. Problem is, with my self-imposed break from working, I'm home a lot more. I still have my social functions, my fun girls days, but I'm home a lot more now than I ever was during the fall months. Since, I'm not working as much, I don't have stuff to keep me occupied at night. I'm sitting around, lounging, watching tv, enjoying family time etc etc. Big issue is that while I sit, I want to eat. Just mindless junk snacking. I tried the whole working out at night thing, but funny thing is that when I try to workout when the kiddo and husband are home, they either want to interrupt me, or join me, and I'm not a fan of working out with people. Plus, my husband can be a douchebag when it comes to working out. His "way" is the ONLY way. You can see where this could be a problem, right? He doesn't get it. So, what do I do? I sit on my ass contemplating sound I go rummage around my cupboards for a snack.  I'm still trying to figure out how to combat this issue. There's only so much Wheel of Fortune and Family Feud I can play on Facebook. I don't read, I don't knit or crochet, I am not a crafty type person, so I'm in a weird place right now, regarding how to not be bored at night.

Overall, it's a battle that I will fight for life. I know that I feel bad when I eat then go to bed, I just don't have my normal get up and go mentaility. I've tried the whole "keep healthy options" around the house. It's nice in theory, but that strawberry shortcake roll sure tastes a helluva lot better than beef jerky or chunk of cheese.

Yep, boredom can be a real issue for those of us former fatties. Boredom got many of us fat. I find myself feeling somewhat antsy in the evening sometimes as my husband likes to watch all these sci fi shows and he is entitled to as he works hard, but i lose interest. thats one reason I am on OH so much in the evenings - computer is in the same room as our tv so i can talk to him and sort of watch. 

I play a lot of on line scrabble and that keeps me from evening boredom. also play a nintendo brain age II to keep my mind from going to mush. I do my art work mainly in the day as its my vocation now but sometimes do some in the evening or pack up stuff to ship or deliver. or sketch projects. but its a challenge. when my husband is out in the evening for choir, we got this x box kinect which has all these interactive games to play that are fun and it works by a motion sensor so you don't need to use any wand or balance platform or anyting. I like the horse jumping - pretend i am doing an arena performance. ditto skiing. gotta try some more. and am taking a martial arts class and could practice that in the evening though i don't much.

Mostly i find i don't like to stay at home in the day and go to art studio because at home there are all these chores and cleaning and garden work and junk i don't want to do. so i leave. you need to find some places to go and get out during the day. Play bridge? why not learn. theres always something going on with that.

and tell that husband of yours he has got to stop trying to feed you his ice cream. he thinks he is being nice but we know its not good. my husband thinks i am too thin but he respects my eating peramaters and doesn't try to make me eat more.

Anyway, hope you can find some fun to get away from the boredom eating. gl. diane

I particularly liked what you wrote here:

I really do enjoy eating a balanced, nutrient and protein dense diet. My body runs best with protein and greens. I can eat carbs, but if I overdo them, I do feel sluggish, and kind of run down. So, I want to feel good, I need to eat good. This is how I gauge what and when I eat.

This is kind of what I was saying in my post. I know which foods are best for my body, which make me feel the best, have the most energy, and are best for my health (same foods as yours.. meat and greens). 

So having that perspective helps me remained focus on eating good foods.  I truly associate in my mind foods like cupcakes as sapping my vitality, health, brain power and energy. 

I think that five minutes of enjoying that cupcake wouldn't be worth having all of those other side effects on my body, even if my mind and emotions could handle it (which they can't because I'm a food addict).  

 I also liked where you said this:

My thought process was; get to goal, worry about maintenance later.

I agree with this totally. I think that this is a safer route to take and will fit more people's needs in general.  This would be the "one size fits most" approach.. there will always be those that this won't work for and I respect that, but I think it's safer to encourage people to try it this way because it's less likely to cause issues later down the road.

And this is why you are my HERO!! lol

Since I have been quoted let me chime in for myself.
For me the key is being "mindful" of what I am doing. This is a much different approach than "dieting", "tracking", or "depriving" myself.  All of those, to me, are negative in nature. This is something I wanted and became committed to changing after I had my surgery. I know longer wanted to live with a diet mentality. I no longer wanted to live with a punishing attitude towards myself and my food.
That having been said I did a boatload of work on myself pre-op on my relationship with myself, my emotions, food and my relationship with all of the above.
One of the things surgery has allowed me to do is to let go of the narrow food world I lived in and the black and white thinking I had towards food and eating. That kind of thinking brought me to 263 lbs and an operating room in MX for VSG surgery.
What I do now is live my life.  I eat protein, I eat fat, I eat carbs. Somedays I eat a better balance of all of them, some days not so much. The point is I am aware, awake and mindful of what I am doing. I do not have to write down every bite, I do not have to obsess over every thing that goes in my mouth to do this.
I hear folks say the cannot do what I do, perhaps this is true.  I don't know. I am not advocating they do what I do.  I however advocating that they allow me to do what I do without condemning what I do, judging how I eat or predicting my failure. I cannot and will not keep it on the downlow. That is just not in my nature.
I think it is critically important that new folks know there is life after VSG and it can mean not dieting, not counting calories, not tracking every bite, not eating low carb. It may not work for them but it could work for them. The reality is no one knows what will work for another person .

Exactly!

 I think this is different for everyone. I am less than two weeks out and I think it would be great to eat more of a "typical" but healthy diet once I get to maintaince but that is yet to be seen. The truth of the matter, I have never in my life been a binge eater or ever had issues maintaining my weight. I gained weight due to many back to back pregnancies. We lost a lot of babies to get the 2 we had. Some as late at 6.5 months so you can imagine the weight I packed on. I have never been able to eat large portions and never have been an emotional eater. I am compulsive with shopping like many are with food. I just don't really have a relationship with food. But putting all the weight on made it hard to get off once I was done with the kids. I was in a place for 4 years where all that mattered was having babies and that was so difficult to do that I didn't give a **** about the weight. That being said I developed high blood pressure even at 250 pounds so I to do what works to keep my weight in check but I will try to venture out a little as I get further out. My biggest concern would be that if I am more "normal" and less diety will I get in the amounts of protein needed daily. How do you do this with out any counting or does it not seem to affect you much? We eat very healthy in my house, my kids don't get any packaged foods, every thing is from scratch. Even any sweets or chicken nuggets are made with whole foods from scratch and with low cal ingredients. We are a Splenda house hold for sure! I get the idea tho, it would be nice to go back to eating like I ate before the kids and didn't have to worry about it but then would I have to sub in a shake daily to get all my protein and the big question is… now that I have gained this weight and my body is different will I be able to maintain this weightloss.. I hope so but who knows. My "normal" weight over the last 4 years has been around 220 and I am aiming for 150. Im really glad this works for you and am just hoping to be as lucky! 

Boy are you right that everyone is different. your story is unique. Glad you got the children you so much wanted and so sorry to hear you lost some. All those pregnancies plus the losses must have really messed with your hormones and your mind. The connection of mind, hormones, emotions, habits, enviroment and a host of factors is a complex system not fullly understood but it sure can wreak havoc with weight. I am glad you have a healthy eating household as it puts you way ahead of the game in getting to goal. many of us were not in healthy eating households and had to make that conversion in addition to all the other changes associated with wls. I cook healthy for my husband too although he gets around it at times. I bet you will get to goal easily and you may be one of the lucky people who doesn't have to count and calculate as carefully to maintain as some of us do. And I say more power to you. I am hoping someday to be such a person but as i have said before, it it takes more calculating and counting for me to maintain, then so be it. I accept it and will do it. Because you know what,  I LOVE BEING SLIM.  can't get over it.   Diane

I am envious, that's what I think of you!  I got to my original goal of 153 in ten months ( I am almost 5'8") and decided I would like to get down to 145 and kind of hoped that it would magically happen, even though I stopped counting carbs, calories etc.  I did get down to 147 for a minute, but have now gotten to 156.4 today and am not happy about it. I did hover around 152-154 for about 4 months without much effort, but the holidays happened and I have been going up a little since then.   I haven't really tracked since last July and have tried to eat like a slim person or more intuitively.  It's not working for me so it looks like I will have to go on another diet to get back to the 153 and hopefully eventually 145.  I hope you will be able to maintain your weight the way you are doing it, for your sake, but I found that I could eat a little more at about 14 months out and it's catching up with me.

All the best!

Absolutely love this thread. I eat closer to the style of Kimberly and am 7 months out and 3 pounds from my ultimate goal. I've been in therapy weekly since a month before surgery and learned that my obsession with food, diets and eating is what got me to 208. For me, relaxing a bit, focusing on protein first and then enjoying whatever else I want, mindfully and in moderation has made this journey not so much about restriction about what I can and cannot have and more about living a life WITHOUT having an affair with food.
I do understand this is not for everyone and I think Frisco is right that maybe I am coming from a different place then others. I loved what he said. I think there is room for every style and no one is a freak. Xoxo.