Q & A

Did you have a problem with emotional eating? This sounds like a stupid question, but what did you do other than eat in the beginning after surgery? Did you sit down at meals? Did you find it hard or was there zero hunger?I'm 300+ and considering RNY. I am terrified I will eat 'thru it'. What changes have you learned to make sure you keep it off. You look awesome, btw.

This question was from an annonymous poster.
Answer:
I did and DO have a problem with emotional eating. I eat when I'm happy, sad, tired, jittery, lazy, busy, bored, ALL THE TIME! Food has been my crutch and bff for years! lol When I was first post op, I was able to focus all of my attention on my progress and watching the scale and that made it so much easier. Plus, I was into making protein shakes, and so that took some of my attention too. I was also SCARED TO DEATH to break any rules, for fear that I would die from rupturing my pouch or something, that I followed every rule to a tee. You can hear it in my early blogs... the fear!
In the beginning I did sit down at meals, but just ate slowly and most times, was still working on it when everyone else was done, even though I only had like 1/4 c of food. I was scared of being sick or hurting myself so I made sure to take the alloted 30 mins for meals.
In the beginning there was zero physical hunger, but I did feel head hunger. There was always this empty feelings I had gotten in my chest/abdomen that I thought was hunger. And I fed that feeling. Post op I realized that there was no way that was what that was. It was something emotional/mental and I would need to deal with it so as to conquer the food demon once and for all.
I am afraid of eating through this surgery too. As you can see on my last post I had a gain this month. But as I said, I am waking up NOW, not after I gain 30 lbs. back. I must get back to basics. I must remind myself that I must keep my emotions out of the kitchen and deal w/ issues instead of trying to numb with food. The first year is easy as far as restriction and such. Now that I am near goal, and can physically eat more, I see the next battle is going to be keeping it off and staying in control!
Keep me posted on your surgery date and results!!