Friday, June 12, 2009

Head Hunger From Hell



Wishing I Could Eat

It's two and a half weeks in and I am not hungry, but still I feel cracks in the resolve. Again, I'm not hungry. But I want to eat. Not just eat anything, but certain things are haunting me. Bread, which I haven't had in 3 weeks. Something sweet, like a cookie, would be great too. Or just more of what I'm eating now would work. 'Cause I'm not eating  much. Just a few ounces at a time. And no matter how slow you eat it, it doesn't last very long.

Eating Like A Roman

For a long, long, time, (at least a year), I've been eating what I want. I mean in quantity as well as variety. And you can really lose control doing this. Since I began having a weight problem I have felt I should deny myself things. Even if I'd eat too much, I still would tell myself, "I can't have dessert." Or, "I can't drink alcohol on top of all this food." I'd tell myself to stop short of total indulgence. Then, about a year ago, I just quit that. I pretty much ate what I wanted. It was heaven and it got me bigger than ever. What a surprise!

Now, with the lap band, I'm not really hungry. But my head still wants to overeat. And my head is persistent. It can think of the darndest things to tempt me. My head hunger can remember foods I haven't had in years, have only read about, only had once, just  made up right then and there... well, you get the idea. My head hates me, and it wants me to stay fat.

In fact, I could make a case that every fiber of my being, every molecule and atom wants me to remain overweight. It's the culture that wants me to be thin. Our American culture is threatening me on a daily basis. This is a problem, because I'm not planning to leave America. I heard on Oprah about a country where big women are worshiped as desirable above all others. It's a really tiny, poor country, of course. And hot. So I'm not moving there. Instead, I got a lap band and I'm trying to get down to a socially acceptable weight. 

But it is truly amazing how your own mind works against you. Like right now I want some chocolate. I'm thinking a Hershey's bar with almonds, which happens to come in a giant size as well as the small size most people are familar with. During my period of total indulgence I had a few of those big bad babies and let me tell you, more is better when it comes to chocolate. 

But I've told myself that those days are over for good, and even gone so far as to have myself cut open to ensure my success. So I'm going to try to trick my head hunger by eating low fat chocolate pudding instead of a giant Hershey's bar with almonds. I'm fairly sure my head hunger will know the pudding is low fat. But I'm gonna try to trick it anyway. After all, I'm really not hungry. View blog reactions

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hi - great blog with many wise and introspective thoughts!
Yes, the emotional need to eat is very strong, whether we are hungry or not. this one thing alone is what causes most band success failures. it's extremelky important to be working with a therapist on these issues, ideally starting well before surgery. did your surgeon go over this?
you'e welcome to join my Lapband education group, where we have a number of successful longterm bandsters, including banded psychologists, to help with issues like these, as well as e many safety issues, eating issues, and muc more.
You may request to join at this link

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/BandsterSuccess/

cheers!

Sandy r, BSN, MN
Band educator
banded 6 years, at goal for 5 yrs