Update..

The cup thing was lame. I eat less than a cup per meal anyways...moving on... I am typing this from my treadmill! Check out my treadmill desk concoction!

I start the spring semester in a couple days and I need to be able to get my workout in and get my homework done. So giving this a try again. I bought SurfShelf laptop desk thing from Amazon but the way my treadmill is set up it didn't work too well. It would have been awesome if I had a different console. My ghetto style one forces me to walk towards the back of the treadmill. Oh well, it serves the purpose.

So the cup thing was dumb. What did I do instead?? I met with my therapist on Monday morning. We talked about my compulsve thinking about food and how I still eat for emotional reasons. She said that from what I was saying I am not in touch with my thoughts and feelings when I am in these compulsive mindsets. Intellectually I get what is going on but I am not allowing myself to feel the feelings that are driving me to eat. She suggested that I stop for few moments and journal/chart how I am feeling and what I am thinking when I feel the desire to eat outside of hunger. I started doing it that day. Here are some screen shots from the notebook on my iphone.

It was very interesting to see how bothered I get by small things and how much my eating is triggered by stess. This week was rough. I suffer with an anxiety disorder. Generally the mood stabilizer I take along with a PRN anti-anxiety medication does the trick. But these last few days I haven't been able to kick the constant feeling of worry and like an elephant is sitting on my chest. I am on the treadmil right now trying to get some endorphines flowing since I have taken 2 PRN pills today with no avail. I tried meditation and deep breathing as well. Its been a crappy day. So here I am doing two things that help make me feel better. Walking and blogging/journaling. My sister is coming over to hang out too. She always makes me feel better to. All I can do is keep moving forward because I can't just crawl in bed and check out. The kids need there mom. My mom suffered from severe depression when I was young and I have memories of her in bed while my dad took us out. I dont want to give my kids the same memories. I'm sure this week will he better!

My first experiment of the year

So I just realized that I will turn 30 this year! Ahhhhh! Exciting and scary at the same time. I really want to leave my food issues/obsessions in my 20s. So I am making a conscious effort this year (and more so in the first half since my b-day is in July) to figure out what works for me and to make peace with food. So the expirement starts today.

This week I will measure all of my food and I will eat 1 cup or less of food at each meal. No rules on what kind of food this week. Just a cup or less.

I know that shouldn't be too hard since I have an altered stomach, but I think being mindful of how much is on my plate will help. So I have a 1 cup measuring cup and I have asked my sister to join me in this week long endevour! I'll keep you posted on the progress.

New Year

I can't believe it has been almost 8 months since I posted here. Several reasons/excuses:

1. I went back to school. I am working on a master's degree in Counseling Psychology with the hopes of going on to a doctoral degree and becoming a psychologist.

2. (and the main reason) I got very LAZY with not only maintaining the blog but with life in general and with my life after WLS. I stopped doing all of the things I was suppose to be doing. I stopped working out. I stopped drinking my protein shake/coffee because I couldn't bring myself to spend $50 bucks on the tub. I slowly stopped having my yogurt everyday. I also stopped taking my vitamins! Really? Those are less than $10. Pure laziness. My diet/eating spiralled out of control. I started eating what ever when ever. I think I gained 5-10 lbs. I'm not 100% sure because my scale broke and I stopped paying attention. I weigh about 183 right now. My old scale said 173 one time only, so I have gained 10 lbs at the most. Still HORRIBLE since I am only 18 months post op. Anyways...

A few weeks ago I stopped and evaluated where I was at. I was feeling out of control with my eating and my emotional issues surrounding food were making me feel like a crazy person. I sat down with my journal and started trying to see what was going on. I realized that over the last few months I stopped doing all of the things that made me feel good, mentally and physically. I had stopped making my health a priority. It didn't happen over night, but slowly but surely I just stopped caring. I realized that what I needed to do to get back on track was pretty simple. So for Christmas I bought myself a big ole' tub of protein and some vitamins! I started making my protein coffee and taking my vitamins daily. I stopped taking the elevator at work. I am trying to work out 20 minutes a day but that hasn't been working out as well. I have a treadmill but it needs some servicing so Sears is coming Thursday to give it a tune up. I am trying to get back to where I was and go farther to get myself healthy and on track. I also made an appointment with my bariatric doctor to talk to him about plastic surgery and my struggles and an appointment with my therapist to start to work through my food issues.

Today is New Year's day and I have been thinking a lot about what I want to do in this new year. I would like to lose another 10-20 lbs but honestly I am less concerned with that as I am about not gaining any weight. I want to stay healthy and get healthier. I have been thinking a lot about creating a set of rules to live by. I feel like I need to set some guidelines for myself to keep myself in line. I started doing this last year with the protein and it really helped. I want to write about my experiences here. I want to create a list of strategies I can pull from when I am struggling so I can keep on track. I don't want to just focus on my eating but that is where I will start since that is what occupies the majority of my thoughts.

I will try hard to keep posting here. It is therapeutic for me. It feels like a creative outlet and I really like it. Happy New Year!