Food for thought

I haven't had food since dinner on Saturday. We went out to Applebee's for a joint birthday-for-the-kids-my-last-meal dinner and I enjoyed it immensely. I stuffed myself with a steak, half of Allie's three cheese chicken penne, and a strawberry cheesecake dessert shooter. I even had soda that wasn't diet!

Now, for the next ten days I am on a protein shake and water diet for rapid weight loss before surgery. The point is that you lose quite a bit of fat from around your liver, making it easier for the surgeon to move it out of the way and get to your stomach.

Apparently I will adjust in a few days, but right now it is quite miserable. Mentally I have prepared myself pretty well for this - I keep telling myself, "Eyes on the prize." I know how much this is going to benefit my health. I spent the last couple weeks saying 'good bye' to certain foods I wont be able to eat again - sausage Mcmuffins, Steak-Um sandwiches (which really, I think I am the only person that actually likes those things...), chocolate, etc. So far I am still able to laugh about the ridiculous-ness of seeing food but not being able to eat it.

You don't get to be my size by eating lightly. I would guess that my past daily calorie intake has been at least 3000-4000 per day. The  protein shake packets I am drinking (5 per day) have 60 calories each, with a total of 150 once the skim milk is added. They are sugar free. The rest of the day I drink water - I have to have a minimum of 64 ounces a day. That's only 750 calories a day.

Yesterday I was starving. I had to go grocery shopping for Jim and the kids and it was shear torture. I was eyeing some of the nastiest foods and thinking, "Ooooh, that would taste so GOOD right now!" It was worse, too, because Jim wanted mainly convenience foods for the next couple weeks, so I was getting pizza rolls, frozen dinners, frozen pancakes, deli meat, sugared cereal, etc. YUM. But...none for me. When I got home I let Jim know that HE will be doing the grocery shopping for a while!

Today I'm not hungry, but everything hurts. I am guessing that I am having sugar withdrawal.  I am shaky, sweaty, the toilet and I are intimately aquainted, I have leg and arm cramps, a headache, etc. EYE ON THE FREAKIN' PRIZE! :) I have one cup of coffee in the morning, and I don't care what anyone else says, Splenda does NOT taste like sugar.

I keep hearing the soundtrack from Oliver in my head..."Food glorious food..." I have also had Oliver's famously stated phrase, "Please sir, may I have some more?" go through my head a couple times, but since that phrase is now more associated with a line from the 80s movie 'Porky's', all I do is giggle when I think it.

Once I am past the sugar withdrawal I am hoping this wont be so bad. And after the surgery and I start feeling the health benefits and seeing the weight loss, I am guessing I wont miss the junk food at all.

Until then, if someone were to dance a M&M past my face they would be in danger of losing a hand.