Re: Weight gain !!

Stephanie wrote:
On Apr 23, 11:13 am, Cindy Murray <c1ndyl...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Stephanie wrote:

Hi Sue, I've actually lost 40 pounds since quitting smoking. I think
what happened is it got through my head that no number of chocolate
chip cookies would assuage my hankering for a cigarette. That if I
ate a dozen cookies I wouldn't want a cigararette any less, I'd have a
dozen cookies down my gullet, and I'd be en route to gaining more
weight.
That's one thing I'm happy about...when I started the Chantix, I had
resolved NOT to replace cigarettes with food, and I actually made a move
to start eating BETTER. I also started walking. That really helped in
the beginning. It made me feel good AND it held the extra weight at
bay. I actually started losing weight early on. But then life
intervened, I couldn't walk for a few weeks, I gained a few pounds, then
my feet hurt and kept me from walking even more... It snowballed.
I've gained a little more than 10 pounds from my pre-quit weight. That
doesn't worry me THAT much. It's the 30 or so more that I had gained
BEFORE I quit that worry me the most. Those were gained over the 10
years that I spent completely depressed, stuffing my face with whatever
fatty foods I could find, and not exercising at all. I did a lot of
damage to my body (and my soul) during those years. That's the hardest
part to mend.



If anything this loss of connection to mouth-satisfaction ended up
going too far, and I lost more than I needed to. It's taken a couple
months for me to regain 10 pounds, and stop scaring the dog.
Like stoppng smoking it is all in our heads. I think journaling it
out can be helpful, as can posting and getting feedback.
You are absolutely right on that one. A while back, I had decided that
I wanted to try treating my food addiction (just because I don't eat it
doesn't mean I don't crave it!) the same way I did cigarettes. And that
means thinking hard about what's going on in my body and my spirit when
I'm craving those girl scout cookies at 10PM. I have to pull out all
the tricks just like I did with smoking. Re-learn routines to break bad
habits (like eating cookies in bed, even if it is JUST 4 cookies). I
just don't know how to do it without becoming a NAZI about it. I don't
want to FEEL deprived or be ANTI-snack food.

This is a
subject of great interest to many of us on A3S so feel free to post
about it. I think our relationships with food are extremely complex,
and we're all trying to sort it out as best we can.
Maybe we need to gather up a "quit group" of weight loss buddies, like
what we do with our quit buddies (007's, TG08's, etc.)

Cindy
Smobriety comes to: 1Y 3M 2W 2D 19H 32Mns $-Saved to date: $1863.58
Cigs not smoked: 9436

It actually sounds like you do eat really 'clean' Cindy, and I
appreciate your not wanting to feel deprived or to become a food
NAZI. I ate pretty clean too, I just routinely ate too much.

Yep, that's an issue with most Americans in general. Hubby and I talked about changing to 9 inch plates to control portion sizes. But the problem still exists that a chicken breast comes in whatever size the store sells it at, as does a pork chop, steak, etc. And you can't get smaller portions of most restaurant food, either -- although I do often doggie bag 1/2 of it for another day....
It has
been in slowing down, chewing more thoroughly, and eating smaller
portions that I lost the weight. I also skipped a meal a day. I know
that is not necessarily a good way to lose weight, but it is how I did
it. I would eat midmorning, and then again in the late afternoon or
early evening (easy for me to do as I live alone and don[t have to
cook for a family.)

Yeah, that's a big problem for us. Hubby and son are scouts, plus school stuff. There's something going on almost every evening. Not to mention hubby doesn't even get off work until 5:30, and he has an hour or more commute home (and that's on a good day).

I was still full into the evening, and just broke
the snacking at night pattern. I would drink tea (with milk and
sweetner) and realize that it was only mouth-hunger, that I really
wasn't hungry. This worked particularly well if I went ahead and had
something sweet after my second meal. Something really small, like
two bites of a dessert. Doing that required my realizing that the 2nd
bite tasted exactly the same as the 10th or 20th bite, in fact better,
and that the law of diminishing returns would play out if I ate more.

The thing that's hard to convince yourself if that it's not hunger. It's your brain. Your emotions. It's the traumas and abuse we suffered as children. And eating two does not satisfy the craving any more than 10, 20, 30 or 100. The only way to satisfy the craving is to end the cravings altogether by mending what's broken in our psyche. And that's why we crave that stuff, and that's why we binge, and that's why we ruin our bodies with stuff that's bad for us.... :(

I also try to keep really high density foods (seeds, trail mix) out of
the house, as I've never figured out how to properly manage those
foods.

I'm sorry to hear of your period of depression, and can completely,
with my whole heart, understand about depression and weight gain. I
also understand about depression and weight loss, trying desperately
to find something that I could control. The irony is that my issues
with food have never fundamentally changed, whether overweight or
underweight.

Yep, me, too. After my divorce (1st hubby, nearly 24 years ago), I lost weight down to an all-time low of 113 lbs, wore a size 4, and still thought I was fat. I didn't eat healthy, and what I did eat was a binge of some sort or another -- going out to a restaurant I couldn't afford, stuffing myself with foods I wanted as a child and could never have, etc. That was when my smoking really picked up, too. I smoked before, but I smoked A LOT MORE back then.

To that end, I'd be glad to post about this whenever you
want to talk about it. I'll keep my eyes peeled for these posts (I
use google and can miss things, so ping me if I don[t respond).

I, too, am happy to discuss this topic with anyone who's interested. I think it's totally on topic because I truly feel that a lot of the things that compel us to eat are the same forces that compel us to smoke, and I think the answer is to treat the two addictions similarly (but not necessarily the same).


Cindy
Smobriety comes to: 1Y 3M 2W 2D 23H 19Mns $-Saved to date: $1864.24 Cigs not smoked: 9439
.

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