Reality, frustration and emotional eating...

Okay, so one more vent. You know what makes this harder than a normal diet? (The thin liquid diet specifically) It's so extreme. There's no small amount of any food you might find satisfying or soothing. The liquid diet removes all emotional eating from the equation, so even if I'm not hungry and even if I don't have a specific emotional crisis to get through, and even if I am not eating because I'm bored, I'm still left unsatisfied.

And really it's way more than that. For most of us who eat for emotional reasons, it doesn't have to be a big binge because we're upset. It's the small little comforts throughout the day that ease the tension. Even when we don't realize we're doing it.

So the worst and hardest part of this is that without all those little "releases" throughout the day, I'm left just tired and cranky and unreasonable.

Imagine how you feel after a long day on your feet and you haven't eaten. You know those days where you're with friends walking and walking and no one can find or agree on a restaurant. And after a while of being polite and nice to each other, you just start getting testy and you're tired and your temper starts to show.

That's how I feel sometimes. The problem is that I can't go sit down at that restaurant and have that meal. The protein shake is small and just absolutely does not provide that relief. I don't get that sigh that you get after a meal, not even that breath of release before you get full. Any of you long-time dieters probably know what I'm talking about (stop eating after your first sigh...)

But I'm also not physically hungry, and I recognize that.

Instead I'm left to find some other sort of salve. I'm tired so exercise isn't it, I'm worn out, talking isn't it, not sleep, not journaling, not tv and not the computer. Not even shopping shockingly enough. I was a little worried it would be.

From all my research before opting in on this procedure, I know this is that one big bad thing most lap-band patients struggle with! I just haven't read what the solution is...

Any words of wisdom from people who have been banded?

Stress and Anxiety

I'm definitely an emotional eater, and I've heard that a major issue that some lap-band patients have to deal with is finding an alternative way to deal with stress.

One of the major challenges of this liquid diet has been dealing with the crankies (poor Alex!) It's one thing if I'm legitimately hungry because then I can just have a shake and be fine. And since I'm doing the Glucerna shakes and they are low sugar, I'm not having mood swings from my sugar/carb highs and lows. In the past, I could often blame my moods on that.

However, some days since I've been on the liquid diet, or more often some evenings, I'm just a big 'ol crankpot. That of course colors my perception about everything.

The sales mtg at work this week has been stressful, but adding in running around today for doctor's appointments that were literally squeezed in between breaks in the sales mtg didn't help my cause at all. Getting up super early and dragging my butt in the sticky humidity, transfering 3x and then having a LONG walk to the radiology dept at NYU in shoes that gave me blisters, and wearing a suit, didn't help either.

So at the end of the day, I ended up just backing out of the sales mtg dinner entirely. There wasn't anything I could eat anyway given the restaurant, and I wasn't easily able to hide my mood from my coworkers, so I decided to avoid the situation entirely. Of course that won't always be an option!

I went for a group dinner yesterday and decided that it was just too tricky for me to try and eat just plain lettuce while everyone around me was eating bread and butter and lavish meals, and drinking, and then awesome desserts. Other meals haven't bothered me in my mtgs last week and this week, but yesterday and today I just didn't want to watch people eat foods I want to be eating!

The difference between just being in a mood though and this is that I have a short fuse in general now and I find that I'm anxious. Not always, but more than usual. I may be cranky and moody often enough, but anxiety isn't always the norm for me. And I'm not anxious about anything in particular. I can't say I'm even stressed about the sales mtg. This year's was waaay easier than usual. It's just my general state of being right now given that I don't have that food outlet.