Back from the Brink

"If you feel you are losing control of your surgery specific food intake what pulls you back from the brink?"



That question was asked on the WLS Info Forum. This was my reply:



I take a deep breath, and give myself a stiff talking to, and go back to fluids only for a few days (or fluids mostly at least - milky coffee, soups, slim fast - that seems to break the snack-habit which is my commonest downfall)



My over eating is always emotion-related, and I've learned (or I am learning) to forgive myself for it, and just sit it out till I get over it, and then cut back to get my weight down a few pounds.In the past I'd have hated myself for gaining five pounds so I'd have eaten till I gained ten, then dieted like mad till I lost four and hated myself for not losing fourteen. . .



My band is a brilliant tool. It does stop me "self destructing" like I used to do, since I can't physically eat enough to gain a stone in a week (I used to be able to) (easily) I have a really slow/low metabolism, and can only eat about 800 cals a day without gaining weight. That is a sad fact of life. I don't think that will ever change. But now, with my band, it is much harder to eat 5,800 cals a day



What pulls me back from the edge? My band doesn't let me crash over the edge as fast as I used to. It's like a parachute - I still go over, but more slowly. And I'm learning that that is ok, so long as I get up again.

Maintenance

As far as maintaining my weight goes . . I'm not v good at it. I am constantly gaining a little then losing a little.

I love reading other bandster's blogs, it is always really inspiring to find out how other people are doing. Sara at http://saragetsskinny.blogspot.com/ makes some interesting points.

"Do a web search for weight loss related blogs, and you’ll turn up approximately a kajillion sites. Start clicking on them, however, and you’ll soon realize that the vast majority of them fall into two categories:

1. Relatively new blogs by people who are in the first several weeks or months (or days, even) of their current weight loss effort, and

2. Pages long abandoned with their last entries a static reminder of better times.

Given that weight loss is generally impermanent in nature, it makes sense that the websites it inspires are equally so. If statistics say that only about 3% of us will ever achieve the holy grail of weight watchers everywhere by taking (and keeping) the weight off, then it’s probably safe to assume that some 97% of weight loss bloggers will disappear along with the success they had at the scale. I understand this, but it still makes me sad."

I guess part of the reason I am going to keep this blog going is because I have been doing it for nearly two years. There aren't that many banding blogs out there which cover that length of time. And maybe this will be useful for someone who is starting out.

No pics today, sorry - but again, if you want to see before and after pics, leave a comment, or email me bandster@ntlworld.com

Update

Well, I'm back. Sort of. I gave up the other blog, I guess I wasn't happy about being so open online.

I guess at worst it's easy to imagine my mom reading my blog. No one I know IRL reads this. At least not as far as I know.

Maybe they do. At least they'd know I don't have terminal bowel cancer. Which is what they all imagine since I've lost so much weight for no reason . . . .

Anyway. . .

If anyone reads this and would like to see before and after pics - let me know, leave a comment. I am happy to share pics with real people who want to see them. Just not happy to put myself online for the world to see.

Kudos to those of you (Dash, Catherine, etc) who can. I can't.

Soz guys