These are Mine

Tonight we went down to visit my sister and BIL in Tecumseh.  They recently welcomed a brand new, newborn foster baby into their brood, growing their family to 6.  Baby L. is the tiniest little thing at only 5 lbs but she is extremely sweet and precious.  She slept, nestled in various sets of arms, throughout our six+ hour visit today.  No matter the circumstances, there is always something so wonderful and innocent about newborn babies.  They make you get out of your own self a bit and remember what really matters in this world.

I was a little worried about the trip today because I heard form Mom and Dad that my sister would be serving chicken nachos.  YUM - definitely a former food for which I would have gone ALL IN!  I packed myself some of my creamy potato soup that I really like, hoping it would be enough.  I am in the thick of retraining my brain right now that when I can't have food that I previously loved, I am NOT being deprived.  Instead, I am learning how to be a healthier person who is more in tune with her body's needs. Who will ultimately be happier.  I am learning how to eat to live, rather than knowing how to live to eat.  Chicken nachos will never be on my menu again.  I can have all the toppings and make myself a delicious chicken bowl but nacho chips / tortillas / taco shells / whatever are a BIG NO for me, from now on.  Forever.  They were not good to me in the past so I have to let them go.  I have to find new, healthier foods to love.

Anyway - it dawned on me tonight that these are my moments.  I think anyone who has undergone Bariatric surgery has to make their own way through a world inundated with food again, post-surgery.  This isn't like alcoholism where you could just make a concerted effort to never be around alcohol or those who consume it.  No.  This is different.  Food is vital and it has been so intertwined into our culture that it has become a way--THE way of socializing with friends and family.  And one is faced with this situation, needing to eat, multiple times a day, not just once.

I've been reading the book, "Before and After: Living Well After Bariatric Surgery" and in it the author includes a year's worth of her journal entries after surgery.  It's interesting to read as there is so much that I can identify with, in terms of her fears and doubts, as well as what it was like to be a fat person living on the sidelines of your own life.  However, there is also a large chunk of the journal section to which I cannot relate at all.  She regales tale after tale of these exquisite dinners to which she is invited that first year.  She tells stories of having to peruse gourmet menus to find the one item she can have.  Of flying off to Vegas on a whim one weekend and being faced with the gourmet buffet there.  Those are not my struggles.  There is a very definite preppiness to her writing that I cannot relate to at all.  A sense of entitlement and level of entertaining and being entertained that is not going to be part of my life.  Ever.

No, my stories...my hurdles...will consist of trying to find my way amongst food I've enjoyed my whole life.  And amongst the same circles of people I've known either forever or for the last several years through work.  My struggles will center on family parties, BBQs, Thanksgivings, Christmases where I have to create a new normal for myself.  I will have to go to Perry potlucks and only eat one or two bites of the food offered.  I will have to make an effort to bring something to share that I can eat.  My struggles will consist of going to everyday restaurants and choosing healthier options, or of finding something - anything - I can consume on those fast food days when rushing through life from one activity to the next is inevitable.  There have been two such challenges for me so far since surgery.

The first was only a few days after my surgery, at Mom and Dad's.  They served macaroni and cheese with chicken sausages and peppers in it.  Talk about a major trigger food!  And although I was still feeling pretty sore and not at all hungry then, I hadn't expected the food to smell so good.  That's a meal I would have previously eaten gluttonously, happily consuming seconds if they were available.  Not only did it smell good but it looked good too.  Although it was surprisingly easy for me to abstain, I just hadn't expected that.  The second food-related hurdle was tonight.  As things turned out, the chicken nachos never happened.  One thing led to another and kids were hungry / too much was going on so we opted for a Wendy's run instead.  In many ways a good thing because the nachos would have been hard for me but also hard all by itself.  Again, the food smelled good.  NOT that I want to be nauseous because I definitely don't but I honestly didn't expect food to still be so appetizing after this surgery.  It's the old habits that die hard.  When we were ordering, how come I kept thinking of the chicken sandwiches I used to love so much?  And why did I almost go ahead and convince myself that I could jump the gun and try some Wendy's chili in purée form even though I still have three days on liquids before I can do that?  Then putting out food for all the kids, how tempting it was to just stick a fry into my mouth, or to grab one or two of their extra chicken nuggets. In the past those little things wouldn't have even been a blip on the radar for me.  Tonight I had to force them to be something that former fat girl would do, not something the new and healthier me would do.  It's hard.  All of it.

The bottom line is that this is hard.  This path I've chosen is not an easy one.  There are sacrifices and changes that are inevitable.  And as of now, I still haven't reaped many of the rewards so the old me could look at it as an unfair trade-off.  The old me could feel very sorry for herself right about now.  Still though, I chose this path and I'm going to see where it goes.  I sincerely hope I don't encounter (or create?) the same bumps that J. (or other re-gainers) have stumbled upon but I suppose if I do I'll have to deal with them as they come. I definitely think that I'm in this with my eyes wide open and that I'm going to do my best and continue to give it my all.  ONE DAY AT A TIME.  What else is there to do?