Yes. I'm struggling.

jackibailey
jackibailey Posts: 206 Member
edited December 4 in Goal: Maintaining Weight

I had gastric bypass in 2014 and I lost over 200 pounds really quickly so I've been "maintaining" for more than a year. So I'm up and down about 8 pounds all the time. Cause I eat cake haha. I go through carb spurts and I hate it. I gain weight, freak out, put myself on restrictive diet. Lose weight. It feels like a vicious cycle. I walk 5 miles at least five days a week. Actually when I start a "diet" again I will walk 8 miles trying to out exercise a bad diet and get the ball rolling. And I want to be less extreme about the exercise and more consistent with the food. And mentally I have days I freak out cause I can eat more food now. And then I have days I get full really fast. And I'm not creative about my diet. I eat a lot of the same stuff everyday. Lots of protein. My dr just said "that's the nature of a gastric bypass."
Yikes. So really does anyone else get like this. I feel very alone and I google and I don't find anything similar. I'm in therapy. I talk to my bariatric surgeon. But I feel like I just don't know the right way to be doing this now. Did my stomach stretch one day and shrink the next? And I know all carbs are slider foods for me, so on good days I weigh out my pretzels. That's the one purposeful carb I allow myself on good days. On bad days I eat so much carbs that the cravings take days for me to get over. Part of my problem is on some of the binge days I start out good but I don't feel satisfied after I eat. I won't feel the full feeling. My mind gets obsessed with wanting to eat something and I will watch the clock white knuckling it for three or four hours between meals the my FID kicks in. (*kitten* it disorder). Yes I'm in therapy working on this but is anyone out there going through something similar? I question how many calories I can eat. I question the amount of food I can eat. I feel like I'm doing something wrong. Any support would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Replies

  • elisa123gal
    elisa123gal Posts: 4,333 Member
    Work on developing a healthy relationship with food. It is working for me. I spend time researching the nutritional value of what I put in my mouth, the energy it provides and disease fighting power of simple food. Bit by bit and day by day my habits have truly changed as I've educated myself.
    Surgery, strict dieting, and cake binges shows a struggle with food. It is no way to live a happy life. Learn to make tasty food you can eat that will keep you thin and boost your energy and health.
  • jessicarobinson00
    jessicarobinson00 Posts: 414 Member
    I am in maintenance so I share in some of the frustration of dialing in maintenance calories. That said: switching from low carb to high carb can cause severe sways in water retention...possibly some of what you are seeing on the scale. Rather than thinking in terms of carbs, find a weight range that you are comfortable with, use a food scale, and stick to your maintenance counts..those numbers don't lie.
  • auddii
    auddii Posts: 15,357 Member
    I haven't had gastric bypass, but I eat a lot of similar things day to day. It really doesn't bother me, but since I now have to cook for my husband, I've incorporated more diversity for his sake. And boy do I hear you on the carbs. Some of my advise:
    • I found a list of go-to meals that I can rotate through that are easy to make, freeze well and easily fit in my calories.
    • I have similar meals at lunch and dinner, but change up what the actual composition. Lunch is some kind of main that is protein focused, a vegetable, an apple, and greek yogurt.
    • Some examples of mains are italian stew (essentially pasta sauce with tons of veggies and chicken so that it's super thick and no pasta is required), buffalo chicken dip (but again, more chicken to sauce ratio so that it's thicker, and I eat a smaller portion), frittata/egg casserole, pulled pork, etc. Usually, the vegetable is green beans because I buy them in a massive bag frozen and portion them out.
    • Dinners are again, protein based, I'll incorporate some kind of carb (bread or potato), and lots of veggies. I had to work up to being able to have carbs in the house at all really. I try to tell myself that they are for dinner only, and I don't eat them at any other time. Buying single serve, frozen rolls can help since you can just pull one out and bake.
    • I don't keep trigger foods in the house, but I don't consider foods off limits. If I want gelato, I grab the hubby and we go to a shop for a single serving. I've found a place that weighs out exactly 3oz for product control, and so that is where we go. Same if I want cake. In fact, I really wanted tres leches on Sunday, so we got some from our favorite place. I had a salad for lunch (with salsa instead of the amazing creamy jalapeno dressing), and we split one.
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