The thought process of ‘you can only eat a little at a time’ after bariatric surgery should be reworded to reflect the truth which is: you are no longer restricted to those portion guideline charts. Now, all you have to do is listen to your body to tell you what a portion is. That’s freedom, not restriction.

First, you must realize that every surgery and every patient is different. What one patient can tolerate in amount and type of food may be completely different for another; so the key is to listen to your body. No matter if it’s two bites or ten, physically tune in to your body to see if the amount you’ve eaten is enough. Don’t worry if you can only handle two bites, you can always have more later.

A second key is to delete standard portion sizes from your brain; you won’t need those anymore. At first there may be a bit of waste, especially if you eat out a lot, but as time goes on and your lifestyle changes with your smaller appetite you will begin to prepare and order appropriate portions.  Never feel forced to ‘clean your plate.’

And the third key is to stop pining for food! It’s not that you can’t have it anymore; it’s that you don’t need it! As you embrace this lifestyle, soon you won’t even want it. Remember, you can still eat most of what you want, as your doctor recommends, but it comes in small packages.

Relearning, reprogramming and adjusting to a new food lifestyle take time. As long as you don’t stay stuck in old ways of thinking and eating you’ll do fine.

I have gone through many emotional changes during the last 2 ½ years of weight loss and maintenance. I have gone from inappropriately loving food (using food as medicine), to hating food/food avoidance and finally to loving healthy foods and abhorring the things that made me fat. Pheww! What a trip.

I consider myself a recovering food addict. I know that even though I’m in a great place right now with the help of my Lap-Band®, the possibility for relapse does exist somewhere deep inside me. We all know how easy milkshakes and chocolates go down after a stressful week.  So what do I do about that?

When I find myself flip-flopping about how I feel about food, I just look back at the tricks, tips and coping mechanisms I learned. If I am in a place where I think that a pint of ice cream will make me feel better, I look at how far I’ve come and how miserable I was when I was overweight. When I’ve watched too much cooking on TV, I utilize what I learned about cooking light and small, and freezing foods. Finally, when I’m tired and overwhelmed, I take what I learned from my food hating stage and just use bare minimum, simple foods or protein shakes to get nutrition until I’m ready to cook healthy again.

You too may go through several food stages, but each one is a special learning experience. Learn what you can, file it away in the back of your mind, and keep those experiences handy for future use. You’ll definitely need them later. It’s ok to flip-flop from stage to stage, as long as you keep it under control.

Last week I attended a surprise family reunion. I never knew I had so many prestigious family members. My personal assistant, Ms. High Stress, organized this little reunion and long lost kin from far and wide RSVP’d.  All week long I saw the likes of Uncle Ben and Uncle Jerry, Aunt Sara Lee came bringing gifts of pound cake and the other Uncle Ben brought cheesy rice.  Who knew I had royal blood! Even, Lady Godiva came a-callin’. I was well into the festivities when I thought WHAT AM I DOING!!

I realize, as a recovering food addict, I am in constant recovery. And like anyone who is in addiction recovery, I had to assess the root of the situation, survey the damage and seek help. So in my best bullhorn imitation I announced that the party was officially over and everyone had to get out!  Two years of a perfect weight loss track record had been broken in one week, but I did not fall apart. I turned to my fellow weight loss buddies on the net. Knowing they too struggle helped me realize I am not alone.

So what caused the relapse? Honestly, two years of perfection. I was tired of being perfect. This coupled with improperly handled life stress ballooned into a combination pity party/food reunion. Losing weight is hard; keeping it off is just as hard and the thought of spending the rest of my life recovering from food addiction is ultra-hard. Knowing there is no actual end to this journey got to me, but knowing that there are resources out there to support me in my journey kept my 3 pound trip up from becoming a 50 pound fall-flat-on-my face disaster.

So the next time you think that other people’s weight loss blogs, food photos, daily food diaries uploads, and droning videos about their weight loss journey are so boring and don’t apply to you, remember, those are your REAL family members and they will be there for you WITHOUT causing damage.

Last week I purchased a skirt in size 8, a novelty T-shirt in XL, turtle necks in medium, two pair of jeans size 10 and 12 and a sweater, size small, and underwear size 7. All this came after trying on multiple sizes of each. Mind you, I am 5’6” tall and 160 pounds. I felt like Goldilocks, claiming after each fitting…this one is too large, this one is too small…this one is just right.  As my body whittled away over the last two years, I promised myself that once I reached my goal weight I would no longer allow anything in my closet that had multiple X’s or a W on the tag – I simply forbid it. But my latest shopping trip reminded me that due to apparent manufacturer’s tag-labeling psychosis this goal would be impossible.

A quick review of my current wearable wardrobe revealed that despite hitting my goal weight, I do indeed have forbidden sizes in my closet. What does this tell me? It tells me that some weight loss ideals must be thrown by the wayside. The idea of being a specific standard size is virtually unattainable, through no fault of our own. We may like to think that all manufacturers follow a universal size chart but they do not.

So what can we do about it? Nothing. You’ll simply have to estimate, eyeball it, guess if a garment will fit and then play the Goldilocks game when trying on clothing. Most importantly you must remember that those schizophrenic tag sizes are the manufacturers’ problem, not yours.

Recently I was driving through our little town and saw flashing blue lights in the rear view mirror of my mini van. I signaled and pulled over just past the next farm. I’ve never had a ticket before so I was understandably nervous. The officer asked to see my license and registration and like any careful driver I had them readily available and handed him both. Continue reading →