It's so great to hear from each of you!!
Since my last post, I finished reading the "5 Day Pouch Test" e-book & the "Day Six, Beyond . . ." e-book. These each reinforced the fact that I have been exclusively eating "slider foods" and drinking water straight through each meal & snack every single day for several years. I honestly don't think I ever was focused on the 30 minutes before/30 minutes after rule and can see how both matters have led to me regaining so much weight in the past 3 years. During those years I also buried my mom, had to settle her estate, had two shoulder surgeries and have found myself unemployed. Bad habits are easy to fall back into when we lose that laser-like focus on ourselves and our own well-being.
The past 48 hours I've been tracking my food intake, staging my fluid intake & doing whatever is necessary to eat protein FIRST!!! - regardless.
The book referenced above strongly suggests eating 2 bites protein to 1 bite complex carbohydrate every time I eat. I've been focusing on that and thus far, it has served me well from the constant hunger I usually have when ingesting solid "slider food" meals & snacks. Maybe I just became obsessed with the "need" to chew & slider foods made it so much easier to chew away my emotional triggers. Not an excuse - merely a profound realization.
Exercise is the next item of the "Four Rules" that I must re-incorporate into daily living. I know that mentally, once some of this recent weight gain is gone, my "fight strength" will pick up steam. I realize now that even though my gastric bypass was way back in 2002, I'm the one responsible for daily living the FOUR RULES for the rest of my life. My pouch & I have to become friends again and we must work TOGETHER - as it is meant to be - to have & regain my wls success. I hope that makes some sense!!
The more honest I am in discussing my renewed journey, the more free I feel mentally & emotionally.
Jen, the thoughts of having another wls procedure have weighed heavy on my mind as well but when I started reading the 5DPT book I came to realize that my pouch may be fine; it's my eating behavior that sucks. I'm trying to now work with my pouch and not against it by "sliding' empty calories right through it at 70 mph. I allowed my imagination to picture my pouch as part of a giant water slide in an amusement park. The way I've been eating, I was putting my food on the water slide mat and turning the water flow valve to flood volume. No wonder . . .
Thanks to each person participating in this thread - it means the world to me!!