Bariatrics, Part 5: Thunk!!

Well, the scale hath "thunked" again. I am now at 266.8, which means I'm 1/3 of the way through my first hundred pounds and rapidly gaining ground on my spouse. (All my 10 readers who are larger-sized married ladies can appreciate the latter. "Oh, to weigh less than my husband!") I've threatened to steal his too-large jeans. When he balked, I told him that surely he didn't want to ever have to wear those jeans again, and I promised not to stretch them out in the butt, which is an easy promise for me to make since I'm kinda flat back there like a guy.

Here's the latest ticker:



We took Madeline to Mandarin class today, and afterwards, attempted our first meal out, at Lebanese Taverna in Annapolis. Note to Edie: Next time, order from the appetizer menu and not from the regular menu! This is going to have to be my rule now for most restaurant meals. I hate to waste money and food, and my tiny tummy certainly has its limits. A couple of stuffed grape leaves would have been enough lunch for me, and it sure would have cost less. Hey, I've gone from being a "cheap date" to being a "really cheap date"!

I ordered a chicken kebab, which came with a huge pile of rice and a salad. I didn't want to try salad yet -- technically, it's not part of a "soft" diet -- but I knew the chicken would be covered in tomato-ey sauce and sufficiently moist. Thankfully, nothing got stuck. I managed to eat about half the chicken and a bite or two of Madeline's hummous, wondering all the while if the tiny scrap of pita bread holding the hummous would get gummy in my tummy and stick in the stoma. Kevin and Madeline finished off my chicken and salad. I don't feel as guilty about wasting rice as I would have felt about wasting meat. Everything stayed down. No indigestion or pain.

The lunch out got me to thinking and me and Kevin to talking. A lot of the newbies in the weight loss surgery forums -- actually, the forum I read most is a bandster forum -- worry about what they'll have to give up. And a number of the veterans run off at the mouth (or is that "run off at the fingers"?) about how we shouldn't be enjoying our food and food is nothing more than fuel. Gad, I hope I never say that! I love a good meal! I appreciate good ingredients that are well-prepared. It's one of life's great pleasures, band or no band. Once a foodie, always a foodie.

Thankfully, my doctor's people don't seem to have a problem with my philosophy. (Some doctors seem to. I swear, maybe I'm imagining things, but from the stories I've heard, I've gotten the impression that there are bariatric surgeons out there who secretly hate fat people.) While I also have some healthier habits, including buying only 1% milk and cooking with olive oil, I told the nutritionist that did my pre-surgery eval (and could have rejected me for surgery!) that I use butter. Not Benecol. Not Smart Balance. Delicious, creamy butter. Accept no substitutes. And I use half-and-half in my coffee. None of this skim milk fake diet stuff. She didn't bat an eye. She told me that if I was a foodie before the surgery, I'd be an even pickier foodie with the band. If you can't eat much, what you eat must be absolutely divine. She's seen it happen before, and it's actually easier for someone who appreciates good food (read: someone who doesn't frequent the McDonald's drive-thru 6 nights a week and dine at TGIFriday's on night seven) to be successful with weight loss surgery. Ah, the value of mature and refined tastes! And though I'll still eat butter, I just won't be eating enough of it to hurt me with a band. Food snobbery will work for me!

So, after lunch we promptly walked over to Whole Foods and went shopping.