July 17, 2004

Craving's after surgery

I am also wondering about how and what, if anything, you did specifically in those first several months after surgery in regards to your separation from food? Did you do anything specifically to combat those cravings or desires for pizza or soda, etc.? Did you cry and have breakdowns or come up with a way to deal with them.....or simply just wait them out? This is a big concern of mine, but it will not stop me from going through with this. I am ready to break away from food, I just wonder how it will be for me. This is a major issue with my mother....she constantly asks me what am I going to do...and all I can tell her is "I don't know until I get there". I try to tell her about other people's experiences, but those are relative and personal to them, so I can't rely on those situations as hard facts. This is basically my major question, besides the typical things included in the contact letter.

The craving for food didn't start for me until a couple of weeks after I had surgery.  In the beginning, food just didn't appeal to me.  I spent so much time finding things I could eat, that I really didn't worry about pizza and soda.   Then I began to mourn food.  And yes I did cry.  About a week after surgery, a friend of mine from Alabama had sent me a case of vinegar and salt potato chips.  It was a brand that you can only get in the South.  I had mentioned before that it was one of the things that I missed about home, so she had a case delivered to me.  I gave most of them away, but a few weeks from then, I was standing at my kitchen sink, licking off the vinegar and salt.

 
Some cravings can be waited out, others you cry, and others you give into and end up sick.  The separation from food isn't forever.  You don't have to eat soup and yogurt for the rest of your life.  One day, you will be able to have a piece of pizza.  You will feel liberated and normal when you only eat one piece and have no desire to finish off the entire pizza.    In the beginning, I was too obsessed about not losing weight to give into a lot of the cravings.  Weight came off very slowly for me, about 10 lbs a month.  I wish now that I could be as diligent now as I was then.  I've never eaten more healthy in my life.  I exercise daily.  Over time, I've lapsed and don't make the best eating decisions.  I just see myself as a normal person now.  Normal people have a piece of birthday cake at a party.  Normal people have a piece of pizza at the office party.  I relish my normality.  If I don't watch what I eat, I gain weight.  I crave sugar now.  As a pre-op, I ate a lot of potato chips and fried foods.  Sugar wasn't a problem.  I crave it now.  When my pants start to get a little tight, I elminate all sugar from my diet and drink a few protein shakes.

 
Having surgery is a life long decision.  You will need to take vitamins for the rest of your life, and you won't be able to have the entire pizza.  As time passes you will learn what you can and can't have.  Life won't always be like it is in the beginning.   One day you'll have the chance to be normal.

 

Posted by Manda on July 17, 2004 07:29 AM