The Recipe Downshift

Photo Credit: thevintagegoose via Compfight cc

Yesterday was my first "dietary" appointment - the one where a Dietitian takes you under her wing and explains all the things you are currently doing wrong when eating. It is one thing to know that your diet for the next few months is going to be limited to 105 grams of carbs each day. It is something else again to see exactly how much that is. (Hint: Not Much)

I, of course, got to cheat - I've been going down this road with Lor since her initial dietary appointment 6 weeks ago. So information that might have shocked or dismayed anyone else in the classroom just rolled off of me like water off a duck - I got over my shock a month and a half ago. I felt like the kid back in Elementary who already knew all the answers. I just didn't keep my hand raised all the time, trying to attract the teacher's attention like that annoying little brat did. (Full disclosure: I was that annoying little brat in Elementary school. No wonder I never had any friends.)

However, with both of us now "officially" on the same meal plan, there is even less room to wiggle now - it falls on each of us to keep the other on the straight and narrow from here on out. And now I, too, am going to have to get fully on board with the "no water at meals" thing that I have not been maintaining as diligently as Lor has. All the slack that I have allowed myself during the last few weeks has been officially removed from my diet plan.

The most sobering part of the whole thing? The information that weight gain from here on out will result in cancellation of the surgery. This was not something Lor mentioned to me at the end of her first meeting - she probably wanted me to get the full force of it during the class or something. (Treacherous wife!) We even got a lovely example of a patient who had a few too many "food funerals" and gained 15 pounds during the last month before surgery. The end result was a canceled surgery.

My weight at check in was 295. I didn't think I was wearing 15 pounds of clothes, but there you have it. 295 at the office/280 at home is my "fat ceiling" - the number I can not cross again. A really sobering reminder that I am in this for the long haul - a lifetime of change is ahead of me. I hope I am up to it! The idea of having to explain to everyone how I got my surgery canceled because of my addiction to Girl Scout Thin Mints is too much to bear.

Not Thinking About Cookies,

- Hawkwind