Notes from Lapbandland - Sunday, December 2nd

Good Morning Everyone,

A Good Time, Soon to End

The sun is streaming down on us after a rare overcast morning here, and the last of the mist is veiling the mountains on the horizon. Sunday is a workday here, and I can see cars and farm vehicles pulling in and out of our parking lot, and people walking around purposefully and necking with their cell phones.

I guess I'll be one of them in a few days. I'm due to return to work on Wednesday. I'll be ready, but boy, am I glad I took two weeks to recuperate after the surgery. It has been a time for resting, healing, getting to know my body, thinking, writing, and spending more time at home with my family. I've always been a get back to work quick type of guy, bored and fearful of spending time alone at home, but I'm glad I was ready for a change.

Smaller Portions of Life

All in all, I have to say that I find myself much more restrained - less involved with who or how many people have or haven't come to visit me, whether or not people can see that I'm losing weight, or on affairs in my community and beyond. It's almost as if the band is teaching me how to digest life in smaller portions - to swallow it slowly, to savor it's taste, to be satisfied from it, to make do with less and to obsess about it a whole lot less.

The 500 Ton Gorilla Has Left the Building

I weighed in at the clinic today - 11 kilo, or 24 pounds, down since surgery. While people here haven't noticed the loss yet, I've gotten a few comments about how I seem much more calm and content. No big surprise there - life without a 500 ton gorilla on my back shrieking FOOOOOOOOOOOOD!!!! non-stop into my ear is another thing all together, apparently. For now, I'm eating very small portions of food, which I find delicious and which fill me up for hours, enjoying my drinks in between meals, and not obsessing about food at all! I've been feeding my kids without nibbling on their leftovers, eating in our dining hall without hearing the siren song of foods I can't have and reacting differently to situations which would've freaked me out before.

Squash and Plastic, Anyone?

One example here - on the evening of my second day of mushies, I was preparing a meal of pureed zucchini and asked DW, who was standing next to me washing the kids dinner dishes, to wash off the blending component of the hand held mixer which we had recently bought and which I was using for the first time. She did so, but overlooked the plastic cover which was on the blade. Innocently, I blended away, only to find little bits of plastic in my mouth when I tasted the first spoonful. Of course, that was the last zucchini in the house.

In the past I would have responded to this situation by getting annoyed at DW and then becoming withdrawn (and, of course, by overeating later to compensate myself). Instead, I literaly laughed out loud as I thought, "hey, I don't really need it anyway- I just lived through a week on liquids!" I just joked about it, threw it out, and made myself something else to eat. I think that this is the real battlefield - long after the weight will have hopefully been gone, I'll still be contending with situations like this (and a whole lot worse!) without misusing food.

All the best,