Finally back in the green zone

Sometimes I truly am my own worst enemy.

Despite telling myself I would never do this and jeopardize my health (and luck with the band) I found out recently that I have been living in a too-tight place known to my doctor as "the red zone" where the amount I can eat it so little that it leads me to maladaptive eating behavior. I had started thinking this might be the case months ago but always had a reason why it wasn't true. You know, I take too big of bites, I eat too quickly, I eat past the point of satisfaction. Those things may have been true once in a while but the more common truth of the matter was that I could physically manage to eat so little in the mornings, and even till about 3pm, that 1) I found myself extremely hungry most of the day even with the physical inability to consume anything else; 2) I found it impossible to resist foods I knew would go down more easily in favor of the better/healthier foods; and 3) by the time my band loosened up in the late afternoon, I had thrown all caution to the wind and would eat whatever I could manage. Yes, my 2 week experiment on medifast helped keep this under control a bit but I did have a very hard time keeping to that plan even for a day.

The number of times I would get stuck and end up regurgitating had been steadily once or twice a week for about 4 weeks when I decided I'd had enough. Sure the fear of being able to eat more and gain more weight was in my mind but rationally I knew that I couldn't keep living like that. So I had an appointment scheduled with Dr. A on 8/19 and I had made up my mind that I would ask for a small unfill.

When he asked me if I was having problems I replied, honestly, that I haven't been able to eat a wide variety of foods. That fruits and vegetables give me a hard time and that I want to be looser so I can make better food choices. He was fine with this and took out .5 CC, I believe. So now I'm back to 4.75 instead of 5.25 and it's been a world of difference!

A few days after my unfill, I wrote this post to my lapband forum friends on oh.com.

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Have any of you ever been so tight that you can simultaneously feel very physically hungry and physically unable to eat another bite? What did you do? Did you resort to foods you knew would go down easier?

I have to give a shout out to Jean for encouraging me to get a small unfill, which I finally did last Friday. I had been on the fence about it for months, to be honest. I have maintained my weight between 180-183 (a 90-93lb loss) since January of 2011 but the struggle has been one with myself to keep eating nutritiously even when the stuff I should be eating is the most difficult.

I've managed through sheer determination not to gain any weight but when I am honest with myself I have to admit I've been avoiding healthier foods in favor of ones easier to get down.

It really hit me when I regurgitated nearly every time I tried salad or fresh fruit but could eat an unlimited quantity of cupcakes...I really need to get this thing loosened.

It hasn't even been a week yet but I'm so happy I did! For the past few days I've been eating a wide variety of foods including fruits, and haven't had any PB/regurgitating/puking or even close. (This had become about a once a week occurance for me in the recent past.) All the slow and careful eating skills I've learned over the past 18 months are actually working and I'm not eating more than I should but I'm eating ENOUGH so I don't feel like I'm on the verge of passing out and go running for the first easy to eat food I can. It's an amazing feeling.

After living off 1200 calories a day, mostly because I couldn't eat much of anything till 3pm anyway, I am working on having a well rounded diet of 1600 a day with protein at every meal and snack. I hope not to gain weight (I really shouldn't since I burn about 2400 a day to the best I can calculate) but it'll be nice to just maintain in a healthy manner if that's all this allows.

One of the best things so far is being able to have eggs for breakfast and not be hungry 2 hours later!

Anyway, I wanted to share all of this because who knows if there are others out there going through the same thing. I thought for the last few months that the frustrations I was having were all my fault for not chewing well enough or eating slowly enough and I was afraid of going back to being pre-band hungry. But I still have 4.75ccs in my band (down from 5.25) and I'm remembering how easy it was to eat right and lose weight back when I was at this level previously.

Lesson learned! Don't be afraid to go to your doctor and get an unfill. If it doesn't make things better you can always go back. But being that tight is not what this is supposed to be like.