WLS: Not a Magic Wand

I am still pretty discouraged - tomorrow is my WLS support group at the hospital, and I am remembering that I am only down a pound from my last meeting on 3/10. (The group meets the second Thursday and fourth Saturday of the month. Like many people, I will eventually switch to only attending once a month, but right now, it is good support for me and I look forward to both meetings.)

It has been a tough month, weight loss wise. I did spike up those six pounds, and thankfully have taken that all off. I am down to my lowest, but again, still just hovering here.

I am a messy jumble of conflicting emotions about the current state of my weight. On the one hand, "Hello, who's lost 44 pounds this year? Yeah baby, it's me!"

On the other - grr. Weight loss has pretty much crapped out lately. You can see on the above graph how things have slowed down. I refuse to acknowledge the spikes in weight and subsequent loss, haha. I record lowest weight only!

There are things that I can change. I am impressed with myself when I get in 40 ounces of liquid (Diet Snapple tea) a day. I should push this more. I need to track my food, but I loathe doing so.

I eat my protein first, but I doubt I actually get in enough of it. Today, for instance:

2 hard boiled eggs
2T light mayo
Squirt of mustard
Squirt of pickle relish

Right now I am drinking a protein shake - 160 calories and 30 grams of protein.

Yesterday, it was the egg salad, 2T of peanut butter, a SBUX oatmeal package of nuts (100 calories but I can't remember how much protein.

And then, here is the one thing I need to change in order to adopt a more pragmatic view of the rate of weight loss:

I am a night eater. I have always, always been a night eater. Like right before bed. Last night, I attended an event for a friend. Stupidly, they did not serve food there, and I was expecting to be able to buy dinner. Afterward, I bought a small protein-laden salad (chicken breast, salami, garbanzo beans, mozz cheese) and a personal pizza. (Ok - at some point I just need to acknowledge that I need to cut breads out of my life completely for awhile.)

Now, I can't eat much, so I don't disparage myself much for what I ate. One slice of the pizza, not the crust. A fair amount of the protein off the salad, a couple bites of lettuce. When I finished with the salad, it pretty much looked untouched.

What I need to change is *how* I eat - pretty much only at night. I can't eat much, but I kept eating when I knew damn well I was full. I ate until I was physically very uncomfortable. And when I was no longer in physical pain from eating - well, I decided I wanted some frozen blueberries. Again - it wasn't the quantity. It was one ounce or so in a two ounce bowl. It is the uncontrolled nature of the eating that kills me.

Pre-surgery, I ate until stuffed, pretty much every night before bed. The worst time to eat like this. Post-op, I have proven to myself again and again that WLS is not a magic wand. I am not hungry. I was not hungry pre-op, either. And still, I eat to the max I am allowed.

I hate this. A friend and were talking about it today, and she was brainstorming the whys - and I said, well, for as much as I've thought about it - it really doesn't matter *why,* at some point, I just need to stop. Whether the calories sabotage me or not - this is the only thing that I am doing that is actively destructive to my weight loss goals.

If I can stop it - I can acknowledge that my weight loss will have ups and downs and varying rates of success. I accept that I am doing my best, and that is enough.

But first, I have to stop this nighttime eating. And it is so hard. I have battled against this all my adult life. It is just my time to decompress, or self-medicate with food, or wind down, or ??

It ends now. I need to have a clear conscience about my weight loss so I can enjoy the journey. This nighttime eating weighs heavy on me (figuratively/literally) every time I'm struggling.

ETA: I did do 12 flights of stairs today (my friend had the day off and has the card key access to our 20th flight, haha. I did 12 to my floor and decided I would rather stop than go up 20 and back down 8. I wimped out, but I was super busy at work today. Also, my lunch walking buddy wasn't around, but I did get out by myself and take a nice walk. Glad I did, because it was beautiful at lunch but STORMY now - we had a couple great days of sun, and now the forecast is another week of rain, bah.

Also, I always feel a little embarrassed/sheepish when I re-read posts like this, confessing I am a major nighttime eater. But then I figure, hey, you all don't think I got fat by eating apricots. ;)