ANewDayforRose

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Down another pound today!  Four pounds in 5 days...again, not doing anything different, the scale is a funny funny thing.  (13 pounds in 25 days).

So my emotions....they reared their ugly head again today.  I got fuming mad today at work again.  Of course I only vented it to a friend, but fuming mad!  Who wants to be this way??  I don't!  I seem really hot-tempered since the surgery.  But then I wondered - am I more hot-tempered, or before would I just have a candy bar or another 'treat' when I was mad?  And then of course I would be lulled into calmness.  'It's okay....I have candy.'  I seem to be uncovering a lot of behaviors that really sound like they are linked to childhood.  When I had a temper tantrum was I given candy to shut me up?  I wonder!  And if that happened, really what is important is that I made that connection in childhood.  I let the candy soothe me and I liked it!  So it's my personality in combination with the environment and this is what developed.  At least that is my speculation.  So now it is time to put away childish/childhood coping skills and develop grown up ones.  I want t learn a better way to deal with anger than eating sweets or eating until I'm Thanksgiving full.  Maybe there is no substitute...maybe I just have to accept the feelings and let them pass??  Could that be?

So today I took the afternoon off.  Because of the way I reacted to my co-worker earlier this week I had called my friends and asked for some Reiki.   So I went in this afternoon, which after this morning I felt was well needed.  I do feel better.  If nothing else it was a very nurturing experience. 

I've been quite distressed about this whole 'wanting to eat until my belly was distended' thing.  I was talking about it to friends and I was feeling like no...it's not quite an addiction, it's more like a maladaptive way of coping (which maybe that is another way to say addiction.)  I have not been craving food, I've been craving a full belly!  The image that came to my mind was of a baby who has just been fed.  Fat and happy, content, relaxed, sleepy.  That's what I want to feel when I have that urge to eat until my belly is distended. 

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday....each day I've been down a pound!   I have done nothing - NOTHING - different than I have done all along.  I think my body just decided it couldn't deny me any longer and released the scale from its bondage!  12 pounds in 22 days.  Nice.

A year from now I will look back on these issues of late (wanting to eat until I'm distended) and I'll be glad that that is no longer me.  I chose the band because I wanted change.  I am so pleased that I did it.  I'm struggling with finding new ways to cope.  But through the struggle I will find healthy solutions.  This will not last forever.

I was down a pound yesterday, and down another pound today.  11 pounds in 21 days.  I'm happy with that.  I'm doing well.  I'm following all the rules, I'm working the steps to reach my goals.  Intellectually I'm there - it's this emotional wake of the process that is the struggle.  A year from now this will seem foreign to me.

I am miserable today.  Woke up resentful of going to work.  Sat with the cat in my lap (and loving that) for too long in front of the TV this morning so of course was late to work.  No biggie...I'm the only one who cares.  Got very irritated with my office mate this morning.  So lunch comes around and I can feel in myself this desire to feel full.  I want to eat until I feel distended.  I don't know where I learned that this was comforting but it is so sick.  Maybe it kicks in the endorphins, or maybe the carbs relax me, I don't know.  But I ate my sensible meal and felt irritated.  Irritated that I can't eat until I feel distended.  Irritated that I now don't have this coping strategy anymore.   On a diet there was always the option of eating too much - getting overly full.  No more.  It's gone.  I am a fool to not realize how difficult this would be.  How much I would grieve not being able to do this anymore. 

So it's Sunday night....and I'm feeling blue.  I use to blame everything on my overeating, now I see it just ain't so.  Before  - if I woke up with a headache, it was from overeating or eating too much salt, or a food sensitivity.  Before - if I had GI issues it was because I was overeating or had a food sensitivity.  Before if I was blue it was because my food was out of control.    How disappointing it is to realize that food was not the issue!  Oh my...that means there is another issue that needs to be addressed.  So you mean, dear one, that getting the food in control and increasing exercise is not going to fix everything??  But now I can't comfort myself with food on top of that realization?  I didn't realize!  F-me.  

I was too hungry - problem #1.  I got my food together - pureed chicken, gravy and cooked squash.  Yum.  I started eating at 7:27.  I finished at 7:39.  I'm eating too fast.  I was done, but still wanted more.  Oy.  So I took my vitamin and came to the computer and started reading posts.  8 p.m. - not hungry anymore.  Those 20 minutes would have meant an extra 300, or 500 calories pre-band.  Note to self....slow down!!!  And don't get too hungry to begin with. 

I went to a support group meeting this morning and I liked it (even though it ran waaay over).  I'm proud of myself for going.  I have struggled in the past with groups.  But since the surgery I've really seen that I NEED the extra support.  I'm running into things (emotions) that I didn't anticipate.  I'm sure there will be other things along the way too that I did not anticipate.  But it's also away of normalizing the experiences.  Someone has been through it before me and I will learn from them.    I got to meet someone that I met on OH, so that was an added plus.  

The scale has not gone down this week.  I can't let myself get discouraged about that though.  I'm tracking everything I eat and I'm eating about 1200 calories a day (usually less), so I know it will eventually show on the scale.  If I look at it that I've lost 9 pounds in the last 19 days - well that is fantastic!  (Even though I had lost 7 pounds in the first 6 days.)   I'm sure the water weight I lost has come back on, but the fat has reduced.  The scale will move again.  

So goals....yes I think it's time to start setting some exercise goals.  I can't do  sit ups/core exercises yet.  I have been doing the walk away the pounds videos, but not every day.  So my goal this week is to do it every day.  I also found my 2lb weights and I will do exercises with them every days (and the plan is to do it  several times a day).  

There are some really successful people with the band.  I'm watching them!  I want to emulate them!  They are my WLS idols!  The rules for success seems to be:  exercise every day; weigh and measure everything you eat; eat healthy choices; track your food intake; staying positive in your thoughts; and support group meetings.   I want to be someone's WLS idol in 12-18 months!

Today at work my co-worker said something like 'I couldn't stand to be on a diet for the rest of my life, and that's what you're going to be doing."  That statement really bothered me at the time.  But I do see how this, and other similar (stupid) statements get made.  People have no frame of reference for the lap-band.  And really I didn't realize either what it would be like.  In my 2.5 weeks since the band I've been shocked that I don't really have any cravings.  (I craved salt yesterday, but that's it).   And I really have lost my obsession with food. 

To me a diet was when I would plan what I could and could not eat and I would stick to it and tough out the hunger, tough out the cravings, and constantly be adding numbers in my head of calories or points to see if I could fit an 'extra' into my plan.  So far I have not had any of that with the band.  So even though I am eating pureed food, I'm not feeling deprived, and I'm not feeling overly hungry, and I'm not feeling like I have tough anything out.   I do keep track of my calories at the end of the day, but other than that, I have to say I am not on a diet!!!!  

It's a wonderful thing.  This could be my first taste of real freedom.

I had more GI issues this morning.  I took some immodium and headed for work....I ended up turning back...it was scary.    I ended up taking more immodium and going into work 2 hours late.  Maybe I'm sick??  Or maybe this really is emotion related?  I don't know.  So I felt unsettled.  And I began to crave salt (I may have been a bit dehydrated).  I didn't feel 'good'.  I realized that normally when I don't feel good I treat myself with food.  But I don't want to do that now - first I have no real overwhelming urge to eat - things ARE different now.   So here I am in a situation where I can't soothe myself like I used to.  So I was resenting my lunch.  My energy level was low today.  Again, in the past, this has been another trigger for me to eat.  And now I don't.  It's not like I resist the urge (like when I used willpower on diets), it's because the urge to eat really isn't there, but I definately feel the loss of a coping strategy.  Late in the afternoon I was scanning a document to make it into a pdf and I got so frustrated.  Much more frustrated than I would have in the past.  0 to 8 very quickly (I didn't get near '10').  I've been doing this alot lately (ex. the doctor's office.)  Normally this would be a cue to get a candy bar from the vending machine!  Now I don't WANT the candy bar - honestly there is no desire - but I do want to soothe myself, but I have no idea how to do it.  

So am I regretting the band?  Hell no!  But I think I was naive, or just had no way of knowing how this was going to be with my emotions.  I suppose everyone is different and everyone's relationship with eating and food is different.  It's obvious to me that I've used food as my comfort when I'm not feeling well, when I'm tired, when I'm frustrated.  And, I didn't realize that with the band the desire to eat would really be gone.  So it's really not like I'm on a diet and I'm fighting the urge to go off the diet.  I really just have no desire.   (That is a miracle!)  But I don't have a substitute yet.  So I'm just sitting with the feelings - and I don't like it at all!!