Is it still ok to get joy from food?

[NB223]

Today I decided to get some snow crab legs at the grocery store. This is an item on my food list that I could have had as soon as I entered stage 3, but I never bought it because I enjoyed eating crab a lot before surgery. I’m not sure if I was afraid I would overeat, or if I would be depressed that the experience wasn’t the same, but either way I hesitated. I cooked them tonight and spent 45 minutes removing them from the shells just so I could correctly weigh the meat. I was so happy to take in those 3 oz, but immediately felt guilty. Is it ok to still get joy from food, even the “good for you” foods?

 

[3momchaos]

I think if it’s good for you, it’s allowed, and you enjoy it, SAVOR that moment! You deserve to enjoy the foods you used to love, doubly so the foods you loved that are good for you. We can still enjoy food, we just have to remember what brought us to our surgeons office in the first place. I was telling my mom the other day about how I won’t be having sweets for a very long time. They’re a trigger for me. She replied with some story about how she accidentally got icing from a cupcake on her hand and licked it off and that was just enough sweet. I told her that I was fine for her, but that would, right now, trigger me to eat the whole cupcake and more if it they were available. I know I need to conquer my mental food demons before I allow myself a trigger food. But you did it right by weighing it. I’m never going to let myself feel bad for eating good for me things. Don’t let food be ruined when it can still be savored.

 

[Shawna0530]

I think if it’s good for you, it’s allowed, and you enjoy it, SAVOR that moment! You deserve to enjoy the foods you used to love, doubly so the foods you loved that are good for you. We can still enjoy food, we just have to remember what brought us to our surgeons office in the first place. I was telling my mom the other day about how I won’t be having sweets for a very long time. They’re a trigger for me. She replied with some story about how she accidentally got icing from a cupcake on her hand and licked it off and that was just enough sweet. I told her that I was fine for her, but that would, right now, trigger me to eat the whole cupcake and more if it they were available. I know I need to conquer my mental food demons before I allow myself a trigger food. But you did it right by weighing it. I’m never going to let myself feel bad for eating good for me things. Don’t let food be ruined when it can still be savored.

My concern would be the glass of wine that I truly enjoy.

 

[Shawna0530]

This was very insightful. Thanks for sharing.

 

[WazzuCoug]

I think Diane is right on. We can enjoy food; it just needs to be the right kind of food in the right amounts.

The right food for us can be very flavorful and enjoyable. We just need to relearn what proper portions are and recognize that when we are full we don’t need to eat anymore, no matter how good something tastes.

Learning to recognize and acknowledge those new body signals are key, I think. Eat slow and savor; recognize fullness and satiety. It isn’t easy but we can do it!!

 

[LisaLisa]

One more thing... I know that I balked at having WLS for years because I'd have to eat different and there would be foods I could never eat again. This was a misconception on my part. If it were true, no one would ever get the surgery.

After a year or two, you get used to the small amount you eat but you don't increase it because your stomach is still very small. After a year, the stomach loosens up and enlarges to twice its post-op size, but that's still only 4 ounces.

When I felt ready and felt stable, I changed my diet. I should say that I was in a university study for 7 years post-op. I also saw my surgeon annually and my own doctor regularly. Good medicine makes for a safe recovery. So when I was ready, if I had spaghetti, I had a glass of red wine with it. If I had curry or Mexican food, I had a beer if I felt like it.

We are told not to have water 30 minutes before or after a meal, and never to drink while eating. But when things felt normal, I ate normally, and that included a wine pairing or a nice hoppy beer. For a while, I even drank red-label regular Coke, though not with a meal.

I'm still active and still maintaining my weight EXCEPT for the 10 pounds I have gained since self-isolating. The scale reads the same every day, but it wouldn't be so high if I wasn't quarantined. In addition to the inactivity of staying home, there is the very limited opportunity to get exercise. I used to go to the YMCA religiously. Now, it's closed. I still pay my dues every month and when they reopen, they'll use the payments to cover as many months as I was not allowed to be there.

But don't think that just because I do something and it works for me, it will work for you. I didn't just drop out of the sky without a parachute. Every pill I take, I test for solubility, by putting it in my mouth and seeing how long it takes to dissolve. Lots of my supplements don't come in chewables. My bloodwork and metabolic panel always reflects the levels of elements and whether they're low or high. I'm always on the up side of center.

And I didn't sit down with a bottle of wine and just drink it by the goblet. I tested small amounts of wine with meals to make sure they would fit together, or to see that I couldn't consume them together. I have very few excesses and so far, my method has worked for me. I never overeat because I hate feeling full, and even worse, stuffed to the gills. That used to be my baseline. Now it's just a bad dream.

Whether anything I do works for you or not, you won't even be able to determine until you're about two years out from surgery. You'll know when you can do it because all the beneficial elements will be in place: lack of craving, not consuming in excess, not putting two things together that don't belong together, never eating more than a bite of something ooey-gooey, even if everyone else is, making sure you put the fork down between bites (healthy people use a fork more often than a spoon, and you can tell by looking in your silverware drawer), chewing slowly and savoring the tastes and a deeply intense gratitude that I got this opportunity to reclaim my life. I mean, deeply deeply. It will be 13 years for me on August 20 and everything is better because of the surgery. I wouldn't trade these feelings for all the ice cream in Vermont.

Just don't reach conclusions that seem to fit with WLS. Get there and test it out. I know some people regain everything. You can bet those people never got past their cravings and still went straight to the refrigerator or cupboards when a crisis came near. They got the surgery, but it's a tool, like a shovel. It can dig the hole, but it can't plant a tree there. You can have the surgery but you have to work at adopting the lifestyle. You won't be able to eat the way you used to. But you may be able to eat SOME of the food you used to so long as you apply your new criteria, counting, weighing/measuring, avoiding, appreciating.

Try to get happy and stay happy. Give up on always being right. Peel off that coat of shame someone put on you. You will blend in with the crowd and no one will ever know you used to be a raging foodaholic. Enjoy being normal.

Thank you Diane. I was thinking how difficult it would be to be "normal" and you describe a new normal that I can live with--as my body allows.