Confession....

Thank you for the advice. I have completely cleaned out my pantry, fridge and freezer.

You are right. Posting this confession was extremely hard but I knew I had to do it for me. I knew it may draw some not-so-kind comments but I felt I needed to hear all of it not just the "it's ok, we all did it" kind of reassurance (not that those comments don't help too!).

Thanks again!

When I was in the 2 week pre op phase, I ended up eating at 5 Guys and had a cheeseburger and fries. The weird thing is, I don't like burgers very much at all nor am I a big meat eater. But for days I absolutely craved it, and I caved. Like Karik mentioned, I tried very hard to turn each slip into a learning opportunity. It took a few weeks, but I eventually finally recognized just how serious the hubby and I would enable one another. Many times I would eat crap like that because he wanted to, not me. I had to get a handle on that. Other issues that emerged is eating due to boredom and emotional eating. I continuosly work on that. But, I did make it to goal and overall maintaining well. (Yes, slight regain but back at goal weight as of a few days ago.)

I eventually after a couple of months in the weight loss phase realized that I needed to develop one critical skill that I absolutely lacked in my previous dieting patterns: If you fall off the wagon, learn how to crawl back on. I am a serious all or nothing type mindset. Perfect succusful dieting for 2 months, 1 slip, then all hell breaks loose. A lot of negative emotional baggage when it happened as a side dish as well. Not any more. Now, I shoot for being consistent- not perfect. My goal is to be on plan at least 90% of the time. When I do slip up and have a couple of consecutive bad days I know to try like mad to get that under control, and usually I do well with that. The more insidious issue is eating just slightly above plan calorically speaking and that very slow but steady gain that can result. Still working on that.

You are not doomed to fail. Look at this as a learning experience and begin to develop the skills you need to stop repeating the episodes. And I cannot overemphasize enough what Karik said- during those critical 6 weeks post op you must not eat off of the prescribed diet for healing purposes. You will find the reward at the end of that is you no longer will be craving crap nearly to the extent you are dealing with now. :)

So done and go forward. Folks cheat on preop. When you have your new tummy that's when you don't need to do that. The purpose of the sleeve is no hunger and small amounts. Your head will still talk but with the sleeve you just can't which is why I love my decision.