BlueyedMommy1965

I, too, am the 12th of September. Anschutz in Denver. You?

A great deal of care and effort went into your reply. And, that’s all fine and good, but hardly applicable to my post. I’m guessing that a quick glance at my header prompted your reply, without having read what I’d written. I’m awaiting approval from my insurance company. I’ve not yet been assigned a date for my gastric sleeve surgery. Hopefully, there’ll be some post-surgical patients to whom that information applies will find it useful.

Thank you. I appreciate your kind words. I feel a bit of an outsider looking in when it comes to this site.

You look AMAZING!!!

Quite by accident, I discovered about 8 years ago, that my ability to perceive flavour is different than most folks. See, I don’t taste anything UNTIL it is swallowed. In early 2010, I engaged my favourite deli clerk, who moonlighted as a weekend personal chef and like me, was a bit zaftig, in conversation about an article I’d read recently. It was regarding sneaky ways that more calories get consumed than we realise. One of the ways this happens is sampling food while we are cooking, so that we can tweek flavour, doneness, texture, etc. He asserted, in agreement with the article, that we can easily—and, subconsciously—consume an entire meal’s worth of calories before we even sit down, and that many SKINNY chefs sample and spit to avoid the caloric intake. I went home and tried his suggestion that same night. I don’t recall what I was making. It was a cream sauce of some kind . For a pasta dish. I recall putting my clean teaspoon into the pan, withdrawing the sauce, putting it in my mouth, sloshing it around a bit and TASTING nothing. I swallowed intentionally, although I hadn’t planned on it. Ahhh, I remember thinking. That’s good. It’s ready. Wait. What? I did not taste a thing until I swallowed it , so how could those chefs perceive how to fine tune their creations if they spit out what they sampled from their spoons? It was then when the realisation occurred to me that I MIGHT be different. I started thinking about my foodie BFF who was always talking about anticipating the tasting of this or that, and would chew her food with near orgasmic pleasure. Being a “live, and let live” personality, I never gave it much thought, because when I ate, I had one thing in mind: to stop the hungries. To assuage that grumbling and rumbling that happens when it is two in the afternoon, and you realise you’ve not eaten yet today. Which brings me to another thing: once I start eating, I never feel full. If I eat breakfast, I’m hungry all day long. If I wait until the hunger pangs set in, typically around two, I’m in pain. I start off every day awakening automatically around 5 am. I’ll have my morning Earl Grey, then proceed to fill my vintage pastel Tupperware Handoliers with filtered water from the kitchen tap, and start sipping. By the end of the morning, I will have downed one to one and a half. I’m obsessed with hydration the way some folks chain smoke. Oh, I’ve tried the HcG diet, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, NutriSystem. Their “sample sizes” left me ready to chew my arm off I was so hungry. Sure, one can lose weight by smaller portions and increased activity, but when your stomach is churning with pangs that make it hard to concentrate on real life, the distraction destines one to abandon the meal plan for some relief from the knife stabbing like pain. My mother was a horrible cook, as was her mother. I’ve never equated food with love, or long for a favourite food from childhood. There isn’t one. I’ve never felt compelled to eat when lonely, bored, heartbroken or depressed. Those emotions always sent me to the mall for a little retail therapy. Besides the compulsion to drink water (which is actually a good thing, provided it isn’t with food), my true addiction is spending money. It doesn’t have to be much. I find paying for things, even bills, inordinately satisfying, especially when stressed. So, Here I am, with my 43 BMI, hoping to get a smaller stomach and relief from churning, constant hunger. I hope it works.