Content Warning: eating disorders, mention of surgery
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Alright, enough fluff posts, time to get into something serious.
For my entire adult life, I’ve been just barely five foot eight and overweight to some degree. That resulted in a highest-ever weight of 313 and a fatty liver so bad that a gastric sleeve was deemed medically necessary. I underwent bariatric surgery on April 9th, and got down to a low weight of 249. Then between lack of money and stress, I started eating unhealthily, including poor meal preparation, worse menu planning, and a total lack of portion control. I am currently at 264 and staring down the holidays, when controlling what you eat goes into hard mode.
I’m supposed to be eating a meal, a snack, a meal, a snack, and a meal every day, each about 3-4 hours apart from one another. Each should have protein, carbohydrates, and fats, and I should be reaching certain daily thresholds of these macronutrients. I have daily water intake and exercise goals to meet. I even have a certain method that I should be using to eat and drink, such as no drinking for 30 minutes either before or after eating. It takes a lot of willpower and discipline to make it work, and some 30% of people who get bariatric surgery done fail to lose weight in the long-term. I’ve got plenty of willpower to not be in that 30%; hell, I quit smoking cold-turkey 24 years ago. What I lack, especially when it comes to food, is discipline.
Since my surgery, I’ve gotten away from all of these healthy eating habits, and have returned to binge eating, comfort eating, stress eating, and grazing, which have almost certainly stretched my stomach back out somewhat. It’s supposed to hold roughly four ounces of food, but I’ve recently put away a medium pizza in an evening. The worst part is that I’m occasionally hiding evidence of what I’ve been eating and how much, taking food wrappers directly to the dumpster on property instead of simply throwing them in the trash can for valet pickup later.
The time has come to admit that I have a problem with food, full stop. I’m a food addict, and I can’t do this alone.
If it sounds like I’ve joined a twelve-step program, well … I’m looking into it. I’m researching a couple of programs right now and trying to decide if it’s something that’s for me. Right now, I just know that I need to spend time talking with others with this shared life experience and find out what they’ve done to fight this battle. Come the first of the year, I can also make an appointment with my dietitian and get some further guidance on how to proceed from that direction.
I’m not out of options, and I’m not out of fight. But resources are limited and being successful on this eating plan is going to take a LOT of planning and prep right out of the gate, and that’s a skill I need to improve dramatically before I can excel at it. It’s going to be an uphill battle. I’m counting on the people I’m meeting through the twelve-step programs I’m researching, and I hope I can count on you too. I’m going to need all the help and accountability buddies I can find.
Post #3 was titled “Shall we play a game?” and I have to give multiple shoutouts for this one. The first person to give me the correct answer, WOPR, the supercomputer from WarGames, was MV Jakubowsky, over on Facebook. However, I also heard from Cynthia Sebolt here on WordPress who added that WOPR was also called Joshua – and that WarGames is then later quoted by Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow) in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Today’s quote is going to be a little more obscure, I think, but I hope someone can do it. Good luck!
The Quinndex 
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