Well, I’ve had a rough time lately on many levels. I’ve had a few setbacks, but the good news is that my weight is holding steady. Trust me, after everything that’s happened, I’m perfectly happy with that.
We went to Florida at the beginning of July. We had a lot of fun, but I was having a lot of trouble eating. I got sick almost every day and was having a hard time even drinking protein shakes. When I get sick I’m supposed to go to liquids for 48 hours, but I was on vacation. I didn’t want to be weak and grumpy because I was so hungry. I got desperate for calories and turned to frozen yogurt. It was the only thing that didn’t hurt. The cold would ease the swelling on my stomach and take the pain away. I even had a plan. I would attempt to eat all day, and succeed about 25 percent of the time. Then at night a couple of hours before bed, I would eat some frozen yogurt to make my stomach stop hurting and give me enough calories to make me not feel hunger. This allowed me to be comfortable and get some sleep. I know it sounds horrible, but honestly it’s kind of just part of my life.
I had always been told by my surgeon that sinus drainage will make my stomach swell. I had been having some allergies, so I thought maybe this is why my stomach was so swollen. We were about to head home, so I planned to just figure something out when we got home. Then we got a call that Eli’s favorite uncle had died. We headed home for a few days, and then headed out to Albuquerque for the funeral. I was taking Mucinex like it was candy and eating nothing but soup and ice cream. I felt like crap. At this point, the hypochondriac in me was convinced I was developing an eating disorder.
I had a previously scheduled appointment with my surgeon coming up, so I stuck it out for a few more days. At this point I was drinking shakes during the day. My dinner consisted of eating a few bites of soup until it hurt and then eating a few bites of ice cream to ease the pain. I would do this back and forth until I couldn’t take it anymore. The day of my doctor appointment I was struggling to even drink water. I almost had to pull over on my way to work to throw up water. That is bad.
From my June 15 post, you learned that I had broken my foot and was benched from working out. Because of swelling in my foot, my doctor gave me a prescription of hospital-strength ibuprofen. After my lap-band surgery I was told to never take any painkillers except Tylenol. This is because ibuprofen can cause stomach irritation. Well, me being the doctor I am decided that taking ibuprofen for a very short amount of time wouldn’t hurt anything. I had never had issues with stomach irritation and ibuprofen, so I figured I would be okay. Wrong.
The surgeon adjusted my band and made it looser, which has changed my life. After 48 hours I was able to eat again. My energy was coming back up and I was feeling better … for about two days. It was then I discovered I had developed a dependency on ice cream. I craved it. After a year of modifying my sugar intake and getting a handle on my sweet tooth, I blew it all in one little month. I seriously felt like someone who had earned a year of sobriety and then fell off the wagon. I felt ashamed and embarrassed that I had once been the person praised for such amazing willpower. What happens when you feel guilty about something? Well, in my world it makes me want to eat sweets. Oh yeah, I’m still not working out due to my broken foot. Fail. Fail. Fail all over the place.
Fast forward a week. I had a moment of clarity. Was it really that bad? Sure I hit a few bumps in the road, but it’s not like I gained any weight. Pretty good considering I wasn’t working out and considered ice cream a vegetable for a month. I went to the grocery store and stocked up on all my healthy food and set out on a familiar journey of low-carb eatin’. Did I have ice cream this week? Yes, twice actually. But that’s an improvement, so I’m happy with that. Am I a human being capable of errors? Yes, and some of them are actually worse than screwing up my diet. It doesn’t take genius to see that I learned a valuable lesson. Sometimes life is out of my control. I do the best I can with what’s in front of me. If I mess up I don’t let it define all my other decisions. I move forward and fix what I can. Oh yeah, and my foot is feeling a lot better, so I am going to start some light exercising this week.
As I head into another week of improvements, I hope my short comings will make someone feel better. For all those people that didn’t understand my willpower and felt defeated because you couldn’t live up to my achievements, I give you the gift of my screw-ups. Now you all know that I’m not perfect when it comes to eating right. More importantly, I now know I’m not perfect when it comes to eating right. I know I’m strange (for many reasons), but it makes me feel better to know I’m capable of making mistakes and not spiraling out of control.
