Wednesday, June 22, 2011

I guess I am starting this blog to help me sort out my feelings about food, weight loss, and the drastic step I have taken. I am not sure that I gave enough thought to the whole process before I had the surgery. (I had a Verticle Sleeve Gastrectomy on June 18, so I am four days post op). Before the surgery, I was all excited about being thinner, since I have Always, Always, Always been heavy. I imagined all the people who would comment on my weight loos in 6 months when they saw me again, imagined all the fun it would be to shop in regular stores (NOT Lane Bryant, Fashion Bug or Catherine's) and how wonderful it would be to be thinner and feel good. BUT, I didn't think about the fact that I am changing my life style FOREVER! I am a real "foodie". I love to cook and bake. And I love to eat. I didn't stop to think that I am gong to have to radically change how I deal with food.

My relationship with food is really complicated. I have over 500 cookbooks, and I read cookbooks like novels! I will often take a new cookbook to bed with me at night and read myself to sleep reading new recipes. One of my sons is a chef, and he and I love to trade recipes, and talk about what we have cooked, and what we have eaten lately, where we have eaten, what was different about the last place we ate, etc. My favorite film of all time is "Julie and Julia". I mean, food is (was) a major part of my life. I often say if I had discovered my love for cooking earlier in life, I would have been a chef instead of a nurse.

So now, I need to stop and think long and hard about food and my relationship with it. I know that I often used food when I was blue or depressed. I would eat to make myself feel better. Lots of times, I would bake food to take to work, because people always complimented me on what I had made, and loved to eat the baked goods I brought to work to share. It was a way of making myself "special" to people at work. Lots of times I didn't even eat what I had taken to work, it was enough to make it and take it to work for others to eat.

Also I am going to need to address my chocolate habit. I (unfortunately) have an addiction to REALLY good chocolates, like Godiva, Sees, Lindor, Stam. When I see a chocolate store in a mall, I just CAN'T walk by without buying a pound (or two) of chocolates. I know that this is a bad habit, and one that I am going to have to STOP! But right now I could almost cry when I think about not eating chocolates again. Such a big life style change.

Lots to think about. Lots to "Chew" on.