Well, I just re-read my last few posts, and can't help but be proud of how far I've come. I will be 10 weeks out from surgery on Tuesday, and feel pretty much normal. But a new normal, where I'm not hungry all of the time, and when I am, I get full really quickly on a small amount of food. Sometimes I even almost forget that I had surgery. But then I look at the scale, which is down more than 40 pounds, and I realize that I never would have been able to do that if I hadn't had some help. Because my old normal was scary bad, and I never want to go back to it.

My old normal was that I would wake up in the morning with a growling stomach. I would usually think about what I was going to eat before I had even gotten out of bed. Before I finished breakfast, I was already planning what I would have for lunch, and before lunch was over, I would already be thinking about dinner. And the last thing I would usually do before bed would be to eat a late-night snack. Like a half a package of Oreos kind of snack. My entire day literally revolved around food. Not healthy.

My new normal is that I get up in the morning, and I'm usually thirsty. I'm getting the proper amount of fluids - at least 64 ounces per day, but I think compared with the amounts that I used to drink, it's still not that much. And it's summer in Florida... So, yeah, I'm usually pretty dry when I wake up. I still can't gulp down a glass of water like I used to. But I can guzzle it pretty well. So, I usually get up and drink a glass or two of water or Crystal Light before I even think about eating. And even then, it's usually because my husband says he's hungry that I actually go to the trouble of eating some food.

And when I do eat, it's usually about a half-cup of something. I can get in more if it's something like soup. But in general I don't eat that much soup anymore, because I'm trying to be proactive about eating more solid-type foods. So far, I can stomach most things if I eat them slowly enough. That continues to be a challenge for me. I am usually mindful of what I'm doing, it's a challenge more often just because of the time required in order to eat at the proper pace... I'll be trying to eat dinner before leaving for work, for instance. Or on a half-hour lunch break at work. That's when I run into trouble. I'm better off just keeping my food at my work station, and taking a bite here or there. Most night nurses don't take breaks anyway, so no one really finds that to be weird.

As far as what I eat, I do find that the softer textures still go best. Grilled chicken or fish can still be a problem. I do better if it's served with some kind of sauce. Better still if it's cooked in the sauce though. For instance, we're having chicken tikka masala that was done in the slow cooker for dinner tonight. Perfect food for my tiny tummy. I've just in the past week started experimenting with fresh vegetables a little. Just a bite or two of lettuce, tomato. So far so good. Also just this week I've eaten pasta twice, and had no issues with it. And last night, I ate my first piece of un-toasted bread. Just a small one, but it went quite well, I thought. None of the "stuck" feeling that I've heard others complain about.

What still isn't working, and I am so very sad about it, is spicy foods. Just can't seem to tolerate them. I ate a few bites of Buffalo chicken at work the other night. I'd just been craving the Buffalo sauce. It stayed down, but I got the sliming sensation, and it burned in my chest for a long time. I have always loved spicy foods, so I'm really hoping that this reaction goes away at some point. Other than that, though I am incredibly happy with my new normal.