Disordered behavior carryovers post surg coffee tawlk

I like this post.  I definitely have disordered thinking issues.  I am a big emotional eater, in counseling I told the doctor I wanted to eat like a thin-person…she felt I had unrealistic view of how a thin person eats.   What I wanted was a thin-person body and to be able to eat whatever I wanted.  Most naturally thin people do not have eating disorders (unless they are anorexic!) Most of them balance their consumption and exercise naturally.   I saw this in my MIL.  Without trying she ate small portions, she got full on quantities I eat with my sleeve or less. 

 

I also have issues with weighing and thoughts about weighing….  .  Playing the game… I’ll weigh next week, I’ll do better and then the numbers start to creep up.   I signed up for a lifestyle class where I weigh in weekly with the counselor, and am weighing daily by myself.  The class is about making changes, finding solutions, being accountable. 

 

For me, I know I need to log my food so I am aware of where I am.  It is too easy to “Forget” I ate cookies or whatever.  Even if I don’t log those calories, they count and effect my weight.   I am back to logging, it is good to know where I am.

 

Next,  I have to exercise, even tho I am lazy and do not want to get off the couch, it is essential to my weight maintenance.  I did not exercise at all to lose my weight, that was a problem in that I did not get in the habit of exercising.   I was hurt in an accident, could not exercise, was not weighing, was not food logging. I had a ton of stress/anxiety and the weight crept back at the rate of about 1-2 lbs a month.  I talked to my doc and he felt I was not so much overeating as I was under exercising.   All it took was  200 calories a day more than I was eating and not exercising to cuase my gain.   I got on Wellbutrin to help my anxiety and have been exercising.  I know what I have  to do, and appreciate the support at OH.

 

I have been tracking my food this week, started Zumba 3X a week and am down 3 lbs.  If we use the tools we can be successful.  We need to really learn about ourselves and what makes us tick.   It is our individual journey and we each have our issues.  It has been 3 years and stuff still comes out when I least expect it.  I know I will need to work on myself and my issues..   The neat thing about the sleeve is that when I choose to use it, it is there for me.      

Cheers from Soggy and Cold San Diego California

Ter

What I wanted was a thin-person body and to be able to eat whatever I wanted. 

This!  I think this delusions plagues may folks, and we do not *get* that just 200 extra a day can make such a big deal! 

Hey, do you have good zumba shoes?  I get mine from dancewearsolutions dot com and they are slidey and help my knees and ankles to do better!! 

Thank you for sharing girlie.  Hope you get some warmth and sunshine soon!  I think today we are getting your soggy weather!  :}

I log my stuff in dietpower but I also have a thing I print out, its a week at a view with times, so I just mark down the times I ate and the what, so I do not get amnesia too. :}

But its awful handy too, in that at the bottom I have protein, iron, and calicum for each day, so I can stay on me about my vitamins too.  I used to have water on there too, but that dropped off the list. 

*The neat thing about the sleeve is that when I choose to use it, it is there for me.*

Amen mah sistah.

PeeeEssss

http://www.calendarsquick.com/printables/download.html?actio n=customWeekly

This is my weekly calendar template - tomorrow I can print out a the whole month out at a time.  Its a free handy thing I found and am glad to share with anyone who could use a week at a glance calendar! 

Thanks for the link... I use the Realizemysuccess site but there are times when I don't get to it.... like yesterday, I was away from my computer.    I was thinking I did o****il I put in the numbers and remembered all I'd eaten.  I am getting an Iphone in APril, when I do I'll be able to log with some system...

Thanks again

Brandy Brandy Brandy;
Sometimes your posts are so deep and full of insight that I feel like I must print them out and take a yellow highlighter and mark them up like I used to do in law school to fully appreciate the concepts.

So I do think there is plenty of disordered behavior out there for which one translation is:  bad habits or more simply lack of good habits. You have certainly found the good habits that work for you. So have the others who posted here. I am beginning to shape the set of good habits that I think I am going to need to make sure that I weigh 125 at the undertaker's which will be a long long time from now, thanks to my weight loss.

The good habits on my list are weighing daily if I can but not sweating it if I am traveling or whatever and can't, food journaling, avoiding white carbs and sugar, trying to increase the patheticly little amount of exercise I get (note I said "trying"), attending support groups including staying in touch with yous all on OH who are facing similar issues, eating whatever is offered when a guest somewhere but making sure my portion is appropriate (read: tiny), and thats about it.  I am convinced I have a very slow metabolism and while I would like to ramp that up by getting some muscle mass, its gonna take time after lifelong slugdom.

So yeah, we are all disordered or out of order or as Jimbo said, we all would eat dis order and dis order and dis order. No question its a challenge and can be disheartening when we think that its for the rest of our lives and not for 1 year like weight loss phase. Keep reminding myself that the rest of my life probably got a 10 year extension from this and to be thankful I don't have MS or cancer or ahlzheimers or some other debilitating disease. At least theres stuff I can do about my disorders.

Diane

:}  Too many thoughts for one jammed tight brain!  Its no wonder things leak out my ears :}

I think, you are right about them being habits, good versus bad. 

I think a thing with me that is actually helpful to me, is to know that my bad habits tend to run in my family, and they are not benign and gross, maybe like nose picking, or benign and irritating like habitual throat clearing or saying "like" way too often, they are self destructive tendencies that run in my familial bad habit line! 

I am thankful for whatever extension I have on my life too, and the fact that I can cram more life in that possible extension without having to hurt so much like before. 

Hooray for less pain and more mobility!

ANd no Alzheimer!  (that I *know* of) :} 

I love the talk of creating good habits.  I was logging my food and weighing daily for years prior to surgery and yet there I ended up.  But at least I have those good habits post-op and I'm grateful for them.  I was left alone a lot as a child and didn't really get taught good habits so my 17 years in OA was about learning how to take care of myself as a healthy adult would.  I think every meeting that I sat through has helped me learn to be honest about food post-op.

Even in OA, following a food plan, I still wanted to eat what I wanted and be a thin person.  Disordered thinking?  Yup.  Food was so much about comfort which was learned as a young abused one.  Definitely my friend, comfort and joy.

The cool thing about shedding the fattest suit, cause I still have a mini-fat one on with more revelations to come, is that I feel great and want to live in this world and even live life on life's terms which means that cookies and candy have calories and produce excess flab.  I used to count calories and have a limit for the day.  When I got to the end of the day, I'd just change the calories of that apple or whatever to less so that I could eat more.   Sanity?  hmmmmm, I don't think so. 

So along with shedding the fat suit came shedding the fat brain of denial.  For me this entire post-op process has been a learning curve.  I never took vitamins before.  Now I'm religious about them.  I never worried much about hydration (I was raw vegan so lots of fruit and veggie hydration), now I count my glasses of fluids.  I exercised but didn't worry about it, now I have goals.   I plan my meals ahead and make sure that I have what I need in the fridge, both home and office.  What still sticks in my mind is Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail.  Not this time!  I've failed way too many times in my 60 years and want to rewrite my script to include fabulous success.  Every time I open my mouth, I have a choice of what goes in there.

I read about the 5 day test and know that it will lead me straight to binging.  I can't do it.  I need my normal routine to keep me sane and on track. I need to know that my new habits are those of success and I won't need to torture my brain in ways that have never worked for me before.   I definitely need all the help I can get.

I loved reading everyone's responses.  Brandi, thanks for opening up that door to both listen to others and find what's true for me.  You do it so well!

Thank you for your sharing, my Lee.  I am just a net caster babygirl.  All I do is toss it out and the most beautiful things show up :} 

The only thing that I still keep going back to is relying on men online to boost my self esteem. If there is a man who I dig and he digs me back, it's like a drug to me. Serious. And really it's just a way for me to escape reality and not focus on the "real" me but instead be a fantasy me - the me I wish I was. It's sad, really.

But I also refuse to do extra exercise to make up for food I ate. I do weigh every day which I consider a good thing, since I used to avoid the scale so I didn't have to face how much I really weighed. I have definitely replaced drinking with lifting weights.

Weight lifting is better for your liver, definitely!

I hope you can find a way to *replace/heal/insert appropriate word here* that attention habit.  Thinking through and looking at all possible outcomes, none of them are going to be without a nice chunk of you and your family being hurt to your core. 

I dont have a big enough heart to tolerate emotional inappropriateness, either by way of my having it with someone aside from fella, or if he were to have it with someone else.  Its luring and seductive cuz it seems that just because its not physical it cant cause harm, but its even more dangerous, in my mind, because it *seems* so benign, like a melanotic mole.  It might not be very wide compared to relationships in a lifetime, but the roots go down deep, and on the interwebs, because we do not deal with folks' reality (their breath, leaving things in the sink, on the floor) intimacy seems to get microwaved.  There are people in real life I have to keep a cordial distance away from because I am inappropriately drawn to them, for whatever reason, so I definitely do get the draw and am ever aware of it in the interwebs.  I have never seen an outcome that equaled good things thought. Its never as benign as we think it will be, even if "nobody else ever finds out." 

Good things on you girlie.