Celery, cucumber and green pepper oh my!

After April 14th I am never eat these vegetables again. I didn’t really like them before however they have become the mainstay of my daily diet. I eat a few stalks of celery, half a cucumber and half a green pepper most days and wish they had some taste. I wouldn’t mind the celery stuffed with peanut butter, the cucumber made into tzaziki and the green peppers stuffed with beef and tomato sauce. But I will be done with them in 2 week and moving on to new and different.

I have a few books that talk about the things that I can expect after surgery when it comes to meals. I cant imagine devoting 1/2 an hour to my meal. For most of my life I have eaten on the run or at my desk as I work. The thought of sitting and devoting time to a meal seems so strange to me

Optifast is the devil

I cant believe how quickly times has gone by. We started this last year and I had every intention of writing on a regular basis but it just didn’t happen. I have a surgery date that is just over 2 weeks away so I figured now is a great time to get back at it.
I went to see the surgeon and he gave me a date of April 15, 2013 and told me that I would need to do 3 weeks of Optifast leading up to the big day. They say that the idea is to shrink your liver of fat and I think that is true but I also think that its a test. A test to see if you are willing to change your whole life and your relationship with food before you go through with it.
I started Optifast on March 25. The plan is to do 4 shakes a day, up to 2 cups of green vegetables, 2 litres of water/clear fluids.
Can I tell you that its a shock to they system? One of the things that made me fat was my love of sugar, chocolate, sweets and cakes. I have done Slimfast before and its not great but compared to this its like a milkshake. Optifast tastes like sweet chemicals. I couldn’t do the 4 a day and I was having vegetables but when I sat down and figured out what I was having, it was about 500 calories. I went from a few thousand to a daily calorie count equal to my usual coffee and muffin breakfast. So I have gotten a grip and I am making sure to do the 4 a day. I have added sugar free jello and salt free broth. I started making a vegetable soup; salt free broth, broccoli, green pepper and celery. Add in some pepper and garlic and it feels like you are having a real meal for limited calories.
I know that I am having more then 2 cups of veggies a day, I would guess that I am having 3 or so cups. I figure all things considered it could be worse.
I bought an immersion blender today cause I was using a frother and found it was still chunky. The blender makes a world of difference. It gives it the consistency of the premade shakes and it was easier to get it down.
I have not “cheated” or given in. I have stuck to the Optifast and fluids. I have been offered donuts, cookies and pizza. I look out my kitchen window and I see McDonalds, Subway, Popeyes, Pizza Pizza and Wild Wing. Fat me has been to all of them. Optifast me just dreams about it.

So I have 1 left for today and 15 days of shakes to go.

Cookie Cups and a Bucket List

I went to Buffalo this weekend with my boyfriend for a pre birthday shopping trip. All I could think about as we pulled up to the Walden Galleria was COOKIE CUPS!! Mrs Fields makes a chocolate chip cookie in a muffin tin that makes it cup shaped, They add a giant blob of frosting on it and I call it heaven. So we went to Mrs Fields and you would think I would get the cookie cup and I did. I also got the cookie sandwich and the cookie of the day. I took a few bites of of cookie sandwich and realized that I didn’t like it and that wasn’t what I came for. I did eat the apple pie with caramel cookie, I ate it before I even knew it and I am not sure that I could tell you what it tasted like. I decided not to eat the cookie cup right away since I was so sugared up. I also made my boy throw out the rest of the cookie sandwich. When I did eat the cookie cup on the drive home it was all that I wanted and remember and thats what I should have had all along.

I learned something important from my cookie cup.

My lesson was that I don’t need to eat all that looks pretty. That even though I have a bucket list of things I want to eat before surgery, I don’t need to gain another 100 pounds eating crap I just don’t want. So I will say good bye to the cookie cups.

I am going to make a list of things that I REALLY want to eat and do that.

I know that I can not wait for the day of surgery to stop eating all the crap that I do. My plan is currently cutting out pop and coffee as of September 1st and move on to reducing/eliminating carbs 2 weeks after that. Once I have mastered those two, I am moving on to sugars.

I need to be on the path to healthy before I make it to surgery and gaining another 20 pounds before that day will only make it that much harder after.

What I am doing and where I am at

I have decided that in order to deal with my weight issue, I am  going to have weight loss surgery. It took a long time to come to this decision – 5 years to be exact.

I believe that I have done all that I could on my own and I know that I am not able to do this on my own as I  have a large amount of weight to take off. Its time to take action. I have done the regular things that most people would do – Weight Watchers, Slim Fast, Jenny Craig, SparkPeople and the list goes on. The thing for me is that I don’t have 30 pounds to lose, I don’t need to drop the baby weight and I am not chunky, fluffy or pleasantly plump. I am morbidly obese.

I went to my family doctor and asked about WLS, she told me to research it and tell her where I wanted to go and she would refer me. That was about 3 years ago. I guess I expected her to fix it for me and offer a solution. She didnt and I didn’t look. I guess it wasn’t the right time and I didn’t want it enough.

I went back to her in May of this year and when we had the same conversation, I provided the information. It was time and I was ready. She sent the referral and it went to the back of my head. I figure that it would take months if not a year to hear anything.

Two weeks (August 9th) I got a package in the mail saying that I was scheduled for an info session on August 17th. I had a week to get my doctor to fill out forms and complete the novel of questions that needed to be answered regarding my health.

I went to the info session and knew by the time that it was done that this was for me and that I was going to go through with it.

The next step was to have an appointment with the surgeon and the team of dietitian, nurse practitioner and a social worker. At the info session it was advised that they would be in touch but no time frame given. I got a call on Tuesday August 21 asking if I could meet with the surgeon the next day. YES! I could and I would and I did.

Today I met with Dr Lloyd Smith who will do my surgery. I liked him and he told me that I was an excellent candidate for the operation. The next step would be to meet with the team of team of dietitian, nurse practitioner and a social worker, that is scheduled for October 17th, and then I call the doctor to get a surgery date. When I asked about a time frame he said February or March.

It seems so far and yet it will be here before I know it.

So that brings us up to date on the why, when and who.