black and white thinking anybody?

  You are such a sweetheart Elina...  thank you.  I actually kind of describe it a bit more in my response to Linda above...

Cir****tances have put me in a place where it was a challenge to get the junk food, I was away from it long enough I stopped craving it, then eventually, I stopped thinking about it, and finally I stopped wanting it.

Now for the first time in my life I truley think I have a handle on my weight and my junk food addiction.  I am trying to be as aware as possible.  I can now shop and not pick anything up.  I don't sneak food anymore.  My next goal, and I think it will be easy, I just need to test myself, is to get back to my long walks, and not pick up junk to eat while I walk.  Once I can do that, I will feel I have arrived.

I have never been a volume eater, I have always LOVED junk food and sweets and that is how I gained weight.  So if getting sick helped me break that addiction, than wow, what a silver lining to this cloud.

You are going to think I flipped my lid, but I have to share this...  15 years ago, I had left my ex, left my career of 8 years, left Ontario after living there all my life and moved across the country to British Columbia...

I got a job, appartment and made friends, I even dated a bit.  All look good and normal.  But it was too many changes for me to handle on my own, and I was STRESSED at work.  That is the one and only other time I have had a breakdown or got depressed or whatever the heck you call what is going on with me now....  ANYWAY, during and after that time I was no longer afraid of heights, I am not kidding.  It was amazing and to this day I am no longer afraid of heights, and I was VERY afraid before...  cool eh?

So this time it seems I am going to lick my addiction, how frickin' cool is that!?!

My god I am so chatty today...  sorry!

More hugs,

Cindy

Wonderful remarks Cindy. Makes me so glad you are back with us as you always add so much. You are a gem and we so value your comments. And you are doing great with weight!!   You help so many by being here. Stick around.   Diane

Great posts here - and something I think about often. I too have dieted, lost and gained so many times, once over 100 lbs. down to 145 and I could be so obsessively restrictive and focused on working out. But I could never maintain it for more than a few years, then it would all come back and then some. I worry about that happening again, so this post by some of you further out helps me.

I do feel differently with the losing this time. I do not constantly have to put thoughts of food out of my mind (only those first few weeks after surgery though), like before fighting the never ending urge to 'cheat' when I dieted. Which is so awesome - it's like peaceful weightloss for the brain, so unlike before.

I wanted the sleeve so that I could lose the weight and then live a life of moderation - no more extreme ups and downs of killing myself to lose weight and try try try to keep it off, until one day I crack and can't continue the diet anymore. I'm hoping that I will have this success with the restriction that the sleeve will provide me long term.

 My quick 2 cents worth - 

The actual ACT of losing and maintaining for more than a few  months - the FACT that you've actually DONE this - that it wasn't  completely hopeless for the very first time in your life - there just might be a bit of magic there!!! 

You've  built up your self-confidence and found that it's strong.  Just a thought...

l know l have a very long way to go until l know what l'm talking about, but l do know that this kind of thinking has never had room in my head!  Therefore the whole black and white dieting ensued...

You are always welcome to comment here.  I hope you feel that this is your home too.  I think you make a good point about confidence and a feeling of being strong.  The problem is that I have lost and gained a great deal of weight before in my life and I always felt strong and in control after I did that.  Eventually, I always gained the weight back.  Looking back at why I gained the weight back, I can trace it to two things. 1) I took my eye of off weighing every day and eating to maintain a particular weight.  In other words, I became so self assured, that I forgot who I really am, a compulsive over-eater.  2) Because of my all or nothing thinking, when I took my eye of the scale, I didn't just eat a little off plan, I ate my way through my world.  I ate in great big quantities, all the things I once wouldn't touch.  I will never be able to eat in large quantities, but we all know that it takes just a few calories more each day than we burn to gain the weight back over time. 

Thank you very much!  

l completely understand where you're coming from.  l have a huge ego when l've accomplished something. And the polar opposite.  l've bookmarked this thread, too. To remind myself about how l must always keep the over-eater in me in check.  'l ate my way through my world'.... l hear you on that BIG time.  

lt's so easy to fall out of the practice of tracking our food, also.  We get ****y.  We think we know it all and can eyeball everything and add it oh, so conveniently in our heads.  A couple extra bites here and there surely won't matter, right? See - l've been there, done that over and over. But l do know for a fact that l've never once given the commitment that l've given this sleeve.  l'm going to do my best to put that huge ego of mine to good use for a change;)  l know l won't be perfect, but l'm going to try to think of your words to make a difference in the way l deal with it in the future.

Thank you for taking the time to help so many other people through their issues.  lt's not easy, so hard to face our weaknesses. But when people support one another and lend a hand it makes BOTH people stronger.

This is SUCH a great thread, thank you for starting it Elina! 

Like so many, I've done this weight-loss-then-gain many, many times.  Although never to where I am now, I've usually gotten to about 160.  In my memory it seemed like I would stay at that weight for a certain time, then something would trigger The Beast - my need to eat eat eat - and I would be off to the races, back up to 250 in about a blink's time.

So right now, I feel like I'm "waiting to exhale."  Like waiting to be able to relax about my food issues, to get to the place where Cindy seems to be.  Not sure that day will ever come for me.  I'm terrified that The Beast will wake up. 

Except that this time, I too have NOT been subject (so far) to the old black-and-white thinking:  Either on plan or not, and if not on plan, the old why-bother-I'm-a-weak-willed-loser-I'll-never-be-able-to-do-this-might-as-well-eat-myself-stupid.  Since surgery I have eaten things occasionally that aren't on plan, and I just go back to my plan at the next meal.  Lemme tell you, THAT's a revelation!

You've brought up an interesting theory, that perhaps The Beast's name is Grehlin, and it's been tamed?  Do I dare believe that???  Not sure.... But everyone on this thread has provided some interesting ideas to "chew" on.  I'm so grateful for this site!

Thank you, Elina.  I do love this topic!

I am new to the sleeve, but not to the lifelong struggle with compulsive overeating.  I complete identify as a food addict.  Ideally, I feel like having a food plan is like a fence around my yard, where I can feel safe and secure and do whatever I need to inside the fence.  Recreational sugar is on the other side of that fence for me, and I honestly don’t miss it 99.9% of the time.  The desire to eat it has really receded into the distance, and I tend to view it like poison to my system.  I don’t eat the Decon, I don’t eat the Oreos.  No white knuckling.

However, I often have not had good judgment when it comes to everything else inside the fence.  The surgery has been great in that my capacity is reduced and the hunger is reduced.  But I can still feel like a failure for not making the best choice in every situation.  What I’m seeing intellectually now is how that black-and-white thinking (for me, feeling a profound sense of failure related to food when I don’t make the best decision) is actually a very bad thing.  It’s part of my disease, and it is really dangerous to my recovery. 

I had a sponsor many years ago that told me my job was not to use food.  And obsessing and feeling guilty about past food choices (which all relates for me to this black-and-white thing) is just another way of using food, and feeding the monkey.  Attaching so much emotion to past food choices isn’t just self-indulgent and pointless, I have to keep telling myself IT IS DANGEROUS.  It gives energy to my disease and it will be used against me (“you feel so bad about X, then you might as well do Y"). 

So much to ponder!!


 

"Do you think that it's possible that just the simple reduction of ghrelin is the answer? "

Yep!