My Gastric Sleeve

What Are Your Food Triggers?

If you've ever taken a beginning psych course, you've learned about Pavlov's dogs. Ivan Pavlov was a Russian physicist who rang a bell whevever he fed the dogs in his laboratory. Before long, the dogs had so strongly associated the bell-ringing with the upcoming lunch that they salivated whenever they heard the bell. In other words, the sound of the bell by itself triggered them to expect and to want food.

Humans have triggers, too, situations or feelings that we have come to associate with food. For instance, sitting down in front of the television set is triggering for me, because in my pre-surgery days that was my favorite place to binge eat.

Being stressed out about something is also a major food trigger, since I used to cope with stress by stuffing sweets in my mouth.

Witches and Princesses and Halloween Candy, Oh My!

When I was a kid, Halloween was one of my favorite holidays, second only to Christmas. What's not to love? You get to put on a cool costume and pretend to be someone completely different for a day. Then at night you get to knock on doors of houses and demand candy.

When I got older, trick-or-treating became less important, and friends and I set aside Halloween night to watch horror movies, tell ghost stories, and in general scare ourselves stupid.

Even now that I'm a fully-fledged adult, Halloween remains near the top of my list of fun days. I still watch scary movies around the holiday, and I love going to the mall or downtown shopping area to see kids dressed up in their favorite costumes.

The one thing I could do without is Halloween's association with candy and sweets. It's so darned tempting to buy a huge bag of miniature chocolate bars "just in case" any trick-or-treaters come by. And even as I'm handing the store clerk my money, I know that this candy will never be tasted by kids in costumes.

How Do I Know When I'm Hungry?

Several people who have read this blog have written to me asking about hunger signals. One difference between having a gastric sleeve and having a banding procedure is that a gastric sleeve actually removes a large part of your stomach, including the part that produces hunger-inducing hormones. Therefore, after a sleeve, you get very few signals from your body to let you know when it needs food.

But I might as well be honest. After years of weight loss and regain, of starving myself and then eating everything but the kitchen sink, my body wasn't really on speaking terms with me anyway.

Since the sleeve, the only "hunger" I've felt has been mouth hunger, or the compulsion to eat for emotional reasons. If I'm absorbed in something and don't experience any emotional distress that triggers my food response, I can happily go all day without eating or even thinking about food.

The Therapist Who Treats Herself...

After another week of struggling to keep myself away from chocolate, I decided to take my bariatric surgeon's advice and see a therapist who specializes in eating disorders.

I honestly felt a little stupid that I couldn't seem to work this issue out on my own, but as a friend bluntly reminded me, "The counselor who treats herself has a fool for a client."

Anyway, I've been to two therapy appointments. The therapist I'm working with is very intuitive and able to read (correctly) into what I'm not saying, but she's also very sensible and down-to-earth when it comes to problem-solving. That's a perfect combination for me.