Necessary Mutilation

Weight: 216.2 lbs.

I think that I managed to lose an ounce or two during this week of overeating and partying! Given that in my past life I probably would have GAINED 20, I am very ok with this. Besides, my overall average weight continues to go down at a slow but steady pace.

Yesterday we did eat the buffet at the casino, and I tried to concentrate on good proteins as much as possible. I started with crab legs, and ate a few before I moved on to shrimp, a bbq chicken breast, and some chicken soup and carrots. I also ate a little chili with shredded cheese. I was nicely full when done, and had no room or interest in desserts afterwards.  As to playing there, we came home about $95 to the good - which we will use as food and going out money through the week and which hopefully will last until next Monday when we return for more!

Today I work long and late, and then Thursday night is our Compeer Christmas party; Friday Tom’s sister and brother-in-law are in town from Florida and joining us for dinner, and Saturday, our friends Debbie, Janet and Pete are coming over for a Xmas gathering. (This also means that we have to clean, clean, clean!)

Lately I have been reading Chris’ blog and then thinking a lot about the concept of expectations and beliefs related to gastric bypass. I have given thought to what I envisioned it would be like now and what I had hoped for, compared to the reality of things. Like Chris, I had hoped to have cravings and appetitie nicely reduced to a reasonable level so that I could avoid temptation and exercise minimal self control to stay on track. I prayed to have most of the burden of having to rely solely on will power taken over for me, and believed that this was the primary benefit of gastric bypass given the supposed influence on hunger (ghrelin production) and appetite. I have discovered that although this is true to some degree, that this seems to be less so for me than for most others, AND that choices at every juncture are still largely up to my brain and not my stomach. Some foods, like fried clams that I used to worship and once wrote like a whole blog entry about, I no longer crave and seem to escape my radar rather than me feeling compelled to order them whenever we are out. Now, I naturally gravitate to better and not fried choices, like souvlaki’s and salads. I am stymied as to what this metamorphasis is about, and for me, it is the most clear cut and compelling difference that I experience and that seems to come from nowhere. I also find that I like certain foods that I didn’t used to, and am happy with certain healthy items (ie: cooked veggies and raw fruits) that I wouldn’t have given the time of day in the past. It is strange to me that I feel this way, and am also not sure what the physiological processes is behind this. But am grateful for it!

Otherwise, I am not sure that this is how I envisioned things at this point in time. Maybe I thought that I would drop weight quicker or be freed of all food craving and appetite. I can’t actually remember exactly what I believed would be so, and now am not sure that I took inventory in this way beforehand. What I DO know is that I felt such a sense of despair, fatalism and failure beforehand, that I was desperate for any relief and hope, and just knew that I had to do something radical or I would die. I read other people’s stories and learned what I could beforehand, but as Chris so eloquently says, you can only really imagine and guess what you will feel and be like afterwards yourself, and it is easy to imagine following rules perfectly and doing great every moment of every day, only to find that it is all different and harder than you thought and that you are far from perfect or the epitome of self control. I too think that I am feeling and doing differently than I had hoped that I would be, and that this journey is more of a ride than I could have ever imagined. It is hard to explain, and probably equivalent to having children or something. I’m sure that people can psyche themselves into believing all sorts of things about what type of parents they will be when they finally reproduce, only to discover the process of raising little ones to be way different and perhaps harder than imagined, and themselves far less than the Mother Theresa they had hoped to emulate!

Whew…well I am done waxing poetic as it is time to do more mundane things like shower and prep for work! I’ll save my last bits of “wisdom” for my clients!