Days of abstinence: 64
Days until surgery: 18!!!
Weight: 158.6 pounds
Wow! I
can’t believe surgery is only two and a half weeks away! Jack and I went to my pre-op appointment
yesterday and paid the surgeon. We still
need to pay the surgical center and the anesthesiologist in the next few
days. This is really happening! I am nervous and anxious about the surgery
and the recovery period after the surgery, but I am really looking forward to
all of this extra skin being gone. It’s
so hard to believe that after all of these years I will no longer have folds of
skin hanging below my C-section scar or large, loose hanging breasts. Wow.
It’s hard to believe this is really happening. In addition to the full tummy tuck and breast
lift, I am also getting lipo suction on my outer thighs to remove the saddle
bags that will not budge with any amount of diet or exercise.
It sounds like I am really lucky that my
abdominal muscles are strong and where they belong. It sounds like the most painful part of a
tummy tuck recovery is the suturing of the muscles to repair separation of
abdominal muscles. The doctor doesn’t
think I will need that. If I need a
small repair, he’ll do it, but he doesn’t think he’ll need to do anything major
with my muscles.
I’m getting close to my goal range of 150 – 155 before
surgery. Perhaps I will get to 155,
perhaps I won’t. I am not too worried
about it. I am glad to be in the
150s. My guess is I will lose another
couple of pounds before surgery, but that’s it.
I’m fine with that. My biggest
motivation for wanting to lose a little more weight was so that my breasts would
be smaller and lighter going into surgery so that they would end up being a
smaller size after the breast lift. I
feel pretty good about that, now. It’s
amazing how much difference a few pounds can make.
I haven’t had any sugar in 64 days!! The amazing part about that is I don’t want
any sugar. I’m not even tempted. It sure makes it easier to lose weight. The biggest difference in my eating, between
not losing weight and losing weight, is how much I eat for dinner. If I have “three squares a day,” three nice,
hearty meals, I maintain my weight. If I
have a hearty breakfast and lunch and eat about a half portion for dinner, I
lose a little weight. Most of the time I
keep my dinner light, but if I’m eating late and am pretty hungry, sometimes
that is hard to do. The hardest moment
is when I am putting the food on my plate.
If I am really hungry, I tend to take more food. If I put the food on my plate, I eat it. It also helps to eat dinner early in the
evening.
I continue to have discussions with family and
friends about alcohol and coffee. I am
very, very close to deciding that alcohol is gone from my life forever. As I told Carla yesterday, I don’t really
need to make this decision until February 1, which will be about when most of
my recovery is complete. I know I won’t
go off program at all until then, anyway.
But it is something I am thinking about.
Never drinking a glass of wine again is not that big of a deal, so I
wonder a little bit about why I am giving this so much thought. I think it has something to do with the way
drinking a glass of wine with a nice dinner for a special occasion sort of
slows down the moment and seems to make it more of an event. I don’t know.
Anyway, the bottom line is alcohol, for all practical purposes, is a
sugar. I don’t eat sugar. Therefore, alcohol should probably be a
banned substance, too. I honestly don’t
know why I am grappling with this at all.
It seems like an easy decision, doesn’t it? I’m probably almost there.
With regard to coffee, even though it is an
addictive substance and, yes, it is mood altering, I see no reason to stop
drinking it. It is something I really
enjoy. My two-cup-a-day habit causes me
to pause and enjoy life for a minute.
The time I spend drinking my coffee is the part of the day when I settle
down and relax. Usually, I am the only
one in the house that is awake. It’s my
quiet, me time. There is no evidence
that drinking coffee is bad for me.
Sugar and alcohol hurt my body.
That is an established fact.
There is no evidence that coffee hurts my body. I am hard pressed to come up with a good argument
to give up something that I really enjoy that does not hurt me.
There is an argument that maybe coffee should be
eliminated because it is addictive and mood altering. The transformation that I experienced when I
stopped eating sugar was profound. The
most startling change was how much happier and content I am. As I mentioned in a previous post, sugar
seemed to take the edge off my highs and lows, so my moods were less intense
when I was using sugar. Now, I seem to be
experiencing emotions more fully and, somehow, resetting to a
higher-happiness-plateau more quickly after an intense emotion. This is a remarkable and unexpected benefit
that has resulted from giving up the sugar drug. Would I experience a similar benefit from
giving up the caffeine drug? I have no
idea.
My gut response to that question is no. I think there are a lot of reasons that I am
happier without sugar in my life. Part
of it is definitely the physiological impact that sugar had on my
hormones. But part of it is the
psychological hold that sugar had on my behavior. Sugar owned me in a way that coffee never has
and never will. Sugar called the shots,
I didn’t. Coffee is not that way. I enjoy my coffee, but I don’t want more than
a couple cups a day. I have a hard and
fast rule, no coffee after noon. If I
drink coffee after noon, I have trouble falling asleep. I don’t see a cup of coffee at 1:00 in the
afternoon and wish I could drink it.
Sometimes, if it is really cold out, I want a cup of coffee to warm
myself up, but a cup of herbal tea fills in that void, nicely. Also, coffee has no calories. Consuming coffee does not make me fat.
I find the idea that giving up caffeine may have
a positive impact on my emotional well-being intriguing. I’m thinking about it. Maybe being free of all addictions would be a
good thing. Maybe it is unimportant. Who knows?
Oh, and by the way, it is Thanksgiving. For a lot of us that means too much food,
including desserts and wine. For us,
today, that means no such thing. Jackie
and I are treating it like any other day.
We had a big family dinner with the kids when they were here. We are content to enjoy this four days off
with no celebrations or commitments, other than to get caught up around the
house and get some planning done. I’m
glad. I can hardly believe I have four
days off with nothing to do. What a
relief. It’s been a while since I really
felt like I could relax and recuperate.
And on that note, I will sign off.
Have a beautiful Thanksgiving day!
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