New Rules, New Lessons

Today I wanted ice cream. 


This desire for ice cream was so powerful, that it pushed me to take a detour while on the way home from church. I drove in a direction that passed by both Molly Moon's and Fainting Goat (ice cream and gelato shops, respectively) in Wallingford. I could taste the creamy deliciousness; I was imagining I where I would park and what I would order. I was starting to make up excuses for why it would be a brilliant idea to stop. I was not at all hungry, but staring at the seductive ice cream signs had me trying to justify stopping in. It was then that I suddenly imagined myself as an alcoholic just driving by the bar to see if her friends were there – missing the carefree days of yester-year when she didn’t care or see the consequences of having that one (or seven) beer(s), thinking it wouldn't hurt to have just one for old time's sake. Then it hit me – I had a tool to overpower this desire. A promise, or rather a rule I made last month explicitly regarding all sweets, especially those of the ice cream persuasion:

No ice cream, cookies, or members of the confection family may enter my apartment (save for the rare sugar-free pudding or Jello). If I crave a sweet, I must walk from my home and get the smallest serving available from the shop. Low quality or excessive portions are unacceptable and not an option.

To keep driving and make it home, I found myself chanting a mantra in my head as I passed by both havens of frozen delights: “If I want it that badly, I will walk here. That’s my rule.” This stuck out to me, because it was the first time I realized that I truly do have power to control what I eat. It also was the first time I noticed I was explicitly using a tool I picked up from the lap band support group I’ve been going to.

Just last week the nurse that runs the support group for lap band patients (who is also a ‘bandster’) shared that every time she thinks of pizza, she says to herself (and whomever may be around to hear it) “pizza is not a healthy food choice.” At first, I didn’t know why this in particular stuck out to me so much; but now a few things are starting to make sense. As I am a fan of bullet point lists, I thought I’d share a few things that I’ve been learning about this new banded life:

• I have power over what I eat. Just because something is in front of my face, or because I feel a certain way does not mean I have to throw all the work I am doing out the window. I’m actually a pretty strong lady, and I refuse to continue letting food pull me away from my goals.
• Resistance is like a muscle that has to be worked. The more I work at resisting, the easier it will be. I may even be able to start resisting in really challenging situations – like parties or social gatherings.
• It doesn’t take much food at all to keep me going. I am still learning how to portion correctly and to fix what my eyes think I am hungry for, but I am starting to learn that what I thought about eating and dieting until now has been all wrong. I do not need to have 4 or 5 tiny meals a day. I do not need to keep snacks in my work drawer as contingency food to keep me going so I don’t binge at dinner. I don’t need more than a few vegetables to last me a week.
• Breakfast really is the most important meal of the day. It is worth taking a few minutes in the morning to stop, sit, and eat a small breakfast. I eat on a schedule, so having breakfast before I leave for work allows me to have coffee shortly after I get in, AND it allows for me to have lunch at a decent time.
• Planning ahead is vital. I HATE doing it sometimes, but packing my lunch the night before or checking the menu of a restaurant for possible food options really makes a huge difference.
• Eating out is not impossible. Though it is hard sometimes, and has lead me to re-consider a lot of my social practices. I’ll expand on this in a future post.
• It’s okay to throw away food. It can go in the garbage or go in the toilet – either way it ends up being crap.
• My body will know if I’m not making good food choices. Already, I am learning when I’ve eaten too much, or haven’t chewed enough, or the food I chose was just wrong. Other things are changing as well – I don’t crave bread or chocolate. It’s like the band turned off the switch that dictated that Bruscetta as my favorite meal and chocolate as necessary for survival. By the way, pizza is not a healthy food choice. 

Today I realized that it has been exactly one month since my lap band surgery (07.15.10 – a day in my history that will not be forgot). In these 4+ weeks, I’ve learned a lot about myself and my relationship with food, but I know I am just on the edge of it all – this is going to be a life-long journey and I am only on the first step. According to my little home scale tracking spreadsheet, I am currently 10.2 lbs lighter than I was the week before surgery. I don’t think I look any different. I am still massively afraid that I am going to do something to sabotage this, or that I will flat out fail. But all these little steps are progress, and I am excited to share it all here.