Recommitting

I've really discovered a lot about myself in the last few months. While watching "The Biggest Loser," I realized one of my biggest hurdles to losing weight with the band: I just don't have a clear goal. When the contestants have their "goal shirts" with phrases of their goals on it, I kept thinking about what I would put on mine, and I couldn't think of anything. All of a sudden, it's a bad thing that I don't -hate- myself. Sure, I'm not happy being overweight, but I'm pretty comfortable with myself as a person, and I only feel bad about my weight when it's inconvenient--sitting in chairs with arms, clothes not fitting, stuff like that. I don't have any health problems. I don't feel like my life is threatened by my weight right now. But I think that in itself should be my focus; I need to lose the weight before it BECOMES a problem. I'm not as physically limited by my weight as other people my size.

Another thing I not really realized but admitted to is that I'm greedy with food. I'm not sure where this came from, but I have theories. One theory is that when I was growing up, my mom didn't have a lot of money since she was disabled and was living off disability and child support. Because of this, my mom would get really mad at me for eating anything than one serving at dinner and if I ate anything between meals. She would actually count and keep track of how much food we had (like 5 hot dogs, half a container of macaroni, etc). She would always know when food was taken, which I did a lot of when she would fall asleep at 7 or 8 PM every night. I was always so hungry, I could eat a package of cold hotdogs without flinching. At my grandma's house, I could eat whatever I wanted, and she kept a stocked kitchen. I could eat a pound of ham or turkey on two sandwiches in one sitting and like half a can of Pringles, a few sodas, and dessert would be a huge bowl of ice cream. My mom disapproved, but she couldn't say anything because it wasn't her house.

So what this means now is that I don't like sharing food if I think I'll still be hungry. When DH and I would share a pizza, I'd try to get the "bigger" half if it was cut uneven. If I got Chinese food when he wasn't home, instead of telling him I got it, in which case I would have been expected to get him some, I would get myself two dinners and hide it and not tell him (not to eat at once, but one for the next day). When I buy snacks and such, I forbid his friends from eating any of it when they come over for "movie night" every week. I hate being this way.

Anyway, those were just some thoughts I've had over the past few weeks that I just didn't have the energy to sit down and type out.

So now on to the title of this post: Recommitting. Now that I do have some restriction, it's much easier to recommit to my new lifestyle. I've been making conscious choices to stop eating before I feel stuffed. I have to trust my band that I won't be hungry when I stop eating. So far, it's worked. On Saturdays and Sundays I always make myself a nice breakfast of Egg Beaters (with cheese and meat and stuff) and buttered toast. Usually, I would have the equivalent of 3.5-4 eggs and 4 pieces of buttered toast. Yesterday and today, I had 2 eggs and 2 pieces of toast. I still put some meat and cheese in it, but less (since there's less egg). And I felt satisfied.

This is my biggest battle: learning that I can stop eating at "satisfied" instead of stuffed-full and not die. I need to learn that I'll be just fine on less food. It also means learning to enjoy the smaller amount of food instead of eating more and more because food tastes so good (another of my big problems). Last night I ate 3 pieces of pizza instead of the usual 4 (I could have stopped at 2, not sure why I ate the third piece).

The thing I like the most about having restriction is that I don't feel the need to snack. I think I only had one snack since my fill on Wednesday, and it was more because I wanted to have it, not because I was hungry. I still slip up, but hey, I'm headed in the right direction.

Another good thing happened today: I walked THREE miles! It was hot and I got sunburnt, but I had water with me and I just did it. My feet hurt a little more than usual, but I felt so good for having done it. I didn't time it exactly, but it took me roughly 1 hour 15 minutes, which is on target with my usual 2.5 mph pace. I was afraid I would slow down from getting tired going so far, but I did great!

I think the pain I was having is mostly gone. I'm so happy about my fill, I realize now that the basics of LapBand eating (small bites, chew chew chew, eat slowly) isn't just a conscious habit--you HAVE to do those things or you get stuck! It's awesome. I got stuck on mashed potatoes, of all things, but I'd much much get stuck on mushy food than be able to eat everything in sight.

I think I can still eat more than I would like, so I think I'm going to get another fill when I can. Can't wait to weigh myself sometime this week! I'm expecting good results.