My Bariatric Journey - The Good, The Best and The Fierce

Your day was going good, eating was on point and you even got in your workout. You feel triumphant about your day and then calamity strikes. Some surprise work event or emotional upheaval and you have eaten off plan and/or gone over your calories for the day. Now you feel guilty, shame and are kicking yourself. The whole day has been ruined. Right? Wrong! One of the most important details to remember as you move forward in your journey is that it is a lifelong journey and no one...NO ONE is perfect. Making the decision to live a healthier lifestyle is not a short term jaunt or a diet. This is for life. This means for the rest of your life you plan to listen to your body, eat healthy and get exercise at least 90% of the time. That is a lot of time. One slip-up is not going to undo all the work unless you decide to turn the slip up into the majority. If out of the month I eat on plan for 25 days but there were 5 days that I did not I would still have a loss for the month. However if I ...

About last night.... Potato chips and candy are the devil! I was at Walmart at the check out. I was aggravated with the line and some personal issues and in a vulnerable moment I grabbed a bag of Cheddar and Sour Cream chips along with a Dark Chocolate Kit Kat (Dark chocolate is better for you right?) Now...25 minutes later after I have consumed the chips and candy I feel like cacadoodoo! My heart rate is at 100bpm and I feel nauseous and out of breath. Basically...I'm dumping. You may be wondering why I blogged this. As I sit here suffering, I can clearly see how dumb this was. I was not hungry, I know better and to be completely honest I did not want this. This was my emotional response to stress and I did not do better in this moment. I wanted to write down EVERY emotion I am feeling right this second because the next time I feel a craving for chips and think that it's just a little snack I will vividly be reminded of this moment and how I feel right now. The twirly, si...

Let's talk good, healthy food!! A lot of the problems with diets are that it comes with the mindset that they are going to be restrictions and we have to deprive ourselves of good food. That is such a mindf*** and it puts me straight on the path to failing down the line. One of my issues is that I just want to enjoy life which means that I want to do what everyone else is doing. That struggled kept me failing for years. What I needed to so was to shift my viewpoint a little. I had to first learn how to eat healthy before I could even begin to figure out how to accomplish that. I've talked about portion sizes and that helped but I also needed to figure out how to construct my meals out of what I liked to eat. I am a creature of habit and what I like is usually what I wanted to keep eating. My faves were tacos (duh), chili, pizza, bacon cheeseburgers, Chinese food, ice cream and chips and smoked oyster dip. Look at my faves....not a serious vegetable serving in sight. I could n...

There has been a lot of talk about emotional eating and being addicted to food. I have heard that term for years and never really understood it but labeled myself the same. I used it as an excuse for my bad food behavior but did not take the time to look deeper and really understand what it meant for me or plan what I was going to do about it. The first part of the journey to weight loss and a healthier lifestyle is identifying what your food/weight issues are and understanding what that means for you. What are your triggers?Why is your response to emotional upheaval a food based solution? This is a step that only you can take. No one knows you better than you and you have to dig deep into some issues you do not want to face to find the answer or even get close to one. I thought it would be good for me to share mine as a way to be transparent and keep myself accountable. I am an emotional eater. I used to eat with every emotion. If I was happy, I would celebrate with food. If I was s...