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| Photo Credit: schiiiinken via Compfight cc |
After another grueling 8 hours across the desert (including 4 different multiple-mile construction zones) we have returned home. Arizona is safely behind us, and we will not return until the average temperature drops 20 degrees.
At least.
An interesting (and discouraging) shift took place while we were there, though. Throughout the process of switching to a low-carb diet, I have rarely actually been hungry. Even the first 6 days of the liquid diet didn't make me hungry - just cranky and stupid. Oh, I have had cravings, of course. But real, live hunger? That had not been an issue.
Until our first day in Tucson.
Since our arrival there 5 days ago I have been ravenous. I have never been closer to breaking diet protocol than I am right now. I am so ready to throw it all away so I can go have a waffle. Topped with blueberries and whipped cream. With 6 fried eggs, and maybe 12 pieces of sausage. And a cheeseburger for dessert. That kind of hunger. My stomach has literally hurt constantly for 5 days straight.
This is not only discouraging, it is frightening as well. I am afraid of "falling off the wagon" and eating so much that I regain enough to disqualify myself for surgery. (Not sure how I would regain 53 pounds in 4 days, but who said fear is rational?) I fear sneaking out behind Lor's back to go binge somewhere and then lying about it when I return home - you know, addict behavior. I am even afraid to be in proximity to pretty much any "real" food right now. When Lor threw away half a boiled egg last night that she couldn't finish, I almost cried.
The real fear, though, is what happens after surgery? I know that removing the greater curvature of the stomach takes with it the majority of the ability to produce ghrelin - the hormone responsible for hunger. But I can't wrap my head around how that will feel right now. My biggest fear is that I am going to come out of surgery and feel exactly the way I feel right now - that my whole life post-surgery is going to be a constant, gnawing hunger that I am fighting off 100% of the time. I know myself well enough to know that I won't succeed in that case. And then all this, including having the majority of one of my major organs removed, will have been for nothing.
Lor keeps trying to encourage me, pointing out the fact that I have been taking in only 600 calories (plus or minus) a day while expending more than 3000 a day in moving activities every day that I have felt this way. I am difficult to encourage. I just know that I have 4 days left until surgery, and I don't want to fall flat on my face, here within sight of the finish line.
87 hours until I cease eating entirely for surgery prep (at 10 pm on Sunday). Wish me luck in keeping the faith until then.
Dying For A Quarter Pounder,
- Hawkwind
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