So…What Was Bariatric Gastric Sleeve Surgery Like?

***Warning: If you are considering a weight loss surgery (WLS), please take my experience with a grain of salt. Everyone’s experience is different and everyone’s pain level is different. This blog is not meant to scare the fear into anyone. It is a realistic experience that I did not fib about. It is honest. I hope you take it for what it is worth but do not judge my experience with what you may experience***

Monday night, it was almost out of body the feelings I was experiencing. My anxiety was probably the highest it has ever been, something that I’ve had all my life. It was more than just a brick on the chest. I couldn’t focus on anything. I was un-rationally freaking out that my liver was going to be too big and they would have to do the huge incision on me. There were plenty of small freak out moments for me. I feel bad now about that night after it is all said and done-I took it out on Brian when he was trying to be playful with me to get me to relax. I just couldn’t stand the thought of happy anything-I hated my feelings and couldn’t control my anxiety.

My last ‘meal’ before surgery was at 8pm. Dad and Brian got sub sandwiches to go from some place in Omaha and they got me two soups-chicken noodle and some sort of minestrone. The restaurant strained one of the soups-chicken noodle which was delicious. I loved the broth. I ate every drop. I just wanted something different than my favorite ready to drink protein shakes. I tried to eat the minestrone but they forgot to strain it and it was too difficult to eat for me. I had no patience to strain it myself, with my own mouth.

I had to shower the night before, with a surgical soap called Hibiclense. I used it when I got all my piercings back in the day-I actually like the smell of it. I bought all new loofahs; I bought a brush for my back, I bought a loofah for my back and I bought a regular loofah for everyday use. I was freaking out in the shower about infections-what if I get an infection? What if I die of an infection? It was literally going from one freak out to the other. I had to just stop myself. There was no sense in worrying about that. Although, I did use half a bottle of it and washed my entire body three times.

Sleeping was next to impossible. I cuddled with Roto for the last time since he does tend to jump on me. I didn’t want to miss that moment with him. I couldn’t get comfortable. My mind wouldn’t shut up. It was as if we went to the Kansas City Speedway to watch the racing-it was the loudest event I’ve ever been to, until the night of my surgery. I couldn’t eat or drink anything after 12am. This was another worry for me because I drink at least a 100 ounces a day of water now. I also had a required pregnancy test in the morning-what if I couldn’t pee? Could I not have surgery?

I woke up, exhausted. I woke up having to pee at 4am. This was two and a half hours before I needed to be at the hospital. We were only 10 minutes away. I just stayed up, thinking about waterfalls of all things. I’m a moron sometimes. I completely wore myself down with exhaustion and worry. Of course, my first worry was-what if I wore myself down so much that I get sick? Oh, what will it feel like to sneeze? I may rip open my incisions. Okay-back on track, I had to shower a second time with Hibiclense. I took a long shower. This would also be the last time water could hit my chest/stomach area from the front for a while too-I soaked in that feeling. No pun intended.

We got to the hospital. I had a change of face. My best coping mechanism with any situation is humor. I am very, very funny. Going back to the bias/closet narcissist-I think I am fucking hilarious. I have a different humor hat for everyone I’m around. I like to think of myself of a perfect mixture of Amy Schumer, Tina Fey, Adam Sandler and maybe some George Carlton. I check in and I immediately tell the receptionist, “I have to pee…like really bad and I just need this negative pregnancy pee juice out of me”. She smiled and sent the nurse right up. I peed! It was negative-weird!

They set me up in the pre-op room where I had to get completely naked and wipe myself with 3 packets of these super strong baby wipe looking things. It took me a while and I could tell the nurse was getting impatient because I again, was freaking out about infections. I changed into my gown, got my expensive surgery socks on and crawled into bed. She came and discussed history with me like my last period, when to expect my period (which was that day), any allergies…basically the same information I’ve been telling everyone from the get go. I interrupted her and told her I was exhausted and felt the worst case of anxiety, she said I needed to tell anesthesia which was coming very shortly. She started putting my IV in. Come to find out she lived in North Platte so we talked about that for a bit. Anesthesia came in and waited for her to finish up before they gave me their stories. She let me know that my pregnancy results came back negative-and my attempt to be funny, I said-“I knew that. Hubby and I haven’t banged in so long!” and I laughed, she chuckled but the anesthesia team did not find it funny. They ordered me a bunch of shots, including some anti-anxiety medication which worked WONDERS! The second shot I got was one in the stomach. It hurt like a bitch and it was one that she warned me it may burn as she is injecting it in my stomach. My response, “This doesn’t burn at all…(wait for it….) And there it is!” It felt like gasoline. It was some kind of blood thinner to make sure I don’t bleed out on the table. The third shot I got was an interesting one. At this point the nurse and I bonded a lot, we swore in front of each other, giggled and laughed at inappropriate things-I liked her. She made me feel better, or maybe that was the meds she injected me with-either way, I don’t care. She said, “Now this needle has a steroid in it that I’ve heard stories about. It will be going in your IV. The people I have injected admitted that there is a burning sensation. It is a sensation burning on your private area”. She injected it and within seconds, my vagina was on fire. Literally, it felt like fire ants were eating my vagina. I described it all to her. She laughed. She also said, “The last time I injected this was on an elderly lady. She said she hadn’t felt that type of sensation in YEARS!” I had to laugh and quickly forgot about the discomfort. I asked if it’s only females that feel that and she said, “Come to think about it-the males complain their head hurts/itches…like their head with a brain not the other one”. The nurse also warned me I would have a catheter inserted after I was asleep. I have no idea why but I was freaking out about this. I couldn’t stop worrying about remembering the pain of it while it is pulled out. She was a blessing in a uniform. The Physician’s Assistant came in to check on me-I also love her. She asked me questions, made me feel at ease. I was as ready as I was going to be.  At 8:15am, the final thing they did for me-they injected me with the night-night medicine and I remember being wheeled back, looking at the two flat screens that the doctor will look at while performing. Sleep hit me like a train.

It was 9:15am, I woke up in recovery crying instantly. I was in the operating room for an hour. I could hardly breathe. I couldn’t control myself. I was in a lot of pain. I hunched over, yelling as best as I could with my hoarse voice asking for help. They kept telling me to calm down and I said I would if I had some relief. I don’t know what being stabbed is like but I imagine it is pretty fucking close to what I felt, with lots of twisting. Within seconds I was back a sleep. I remember waking up off and on starring at the people next to me in recovery. It was a whole room full of people. I imagined that’s what it would look like during an apocalypse, ‘the bitten’. Don’t judge me, I was drugged up. I hadn’t been thinking clearly for 24 hours or more. I looked at the clock when I was more coherent and it was 12:30pm, I was worried they weren’t telling my family I was okay. I overheard the nurses complaining that they had so many surgeries that day, they had no room to put the new patients. I was next to get a room. When I was coherent and walking around, a miracle had happened-I peed! I had no discomfort when I peed-I thought to myself, “This catheter thing was easy! What the fuck was I so worried about?” Well I asked the nurse because I when I peed, I had started my period and asked if it was from the catheter or my period. I said, “Nevermind-screw it just get me a damn tampon from my mom-this is a massacre”. I was due to start anyways. I prepared. The nurse informed me that they performed my surgery without a catheter with no explanation why. The second miracle had happened!

Finally I was upstairs on the 7^th floor. I was still. I was home for the next 36 hours. I had the best nurses. I respect them very much so. I feel as if I could be a good nurse but I couldn’t stand the site of that much blood or trauma. My grandma even told me while caring for my sick grandpa, “You are so nice. You should be a nurse”-well I probably shouldn’t be but I do care a lot, about people. My favorite nurse was Patrina. She was amazing! I feel I could have been her best friend. I am actually going to write her a recommendation to receive an award. My parents brought me a care package full of goodies like slippers, coloring books, flowers, and a game to play. I had a full set of stuffed animals to keep me company-my best friend Kylee got me a stuffed animal that looked like Roto in which I named Cooper (after her celebrity boyfriend Bradly Cooper), Kendra gave me sleeve-buddy in which I named Raven (because when I had surgery-its name was Ravenous but we removed the OUS-okay use a dictionary, you’ll know the joke about it) and Brian gave me his childhood ALF stuffed toy and sprayed the shit out of it with his cologne (all the female nurses kept saying how good I smell and trust me-it wasn’t me).  I also had a visitor from my best friend Jasmine. Unfortunately, I don’t remember her being there much because I had just gotten morphine but I love that she was there. I could hear her voice but not understand her. It was soothing to hear someone visit.

Brian said his goodbyes at 10:30pm that night. I had royally fucked up months ago in planning our trip to Oregon to get his surprise birthday present tattoo finished that we had started back in January. I marked Oregon down on the wrong week (the week of Aug. 17^th-19^th) and my surgery on the right week (scheduled this week-25^th). I found out after I scheduled my surgery that I put the wrong date down for Oregon-it was all my fault. I didn’t want to switch my date because if I did it once, I would find an excuse to do it again. It needed to be concrete. I told Brian I want nothing more than to fulfill what he wants to do and since I started the project by surprising him, he needs to go get it finished. We booked Heather in Oregon back in April to finish his tattoo in Wyoming but she moved and wasn’t able to do it until August. It was important to me that he go. I will blog later on this topic in depth as I need to get some words off my chest about it. It wasn’t until shortly after Brian and my parents left, I had a reaction to morphine. My IV became irritated and rash like. The nurse was pretty worried. My dad had shot a picture of me in the afternoon when I first arrived with a similar reaction but it was on my face. It ended up going away after 10 minutes but I will have to make note of it for the future. Brian would have stayed if needed. I needed him the night before, the day of and night of-then he was free to go! I knew I would be OK after that.

I slept pretty horrible that night after all my visitors left. I was up every 2 hours, asking for more medicine for my discomfort and sleep to be honest. My stomach was hurting a little, I wasn’t sure if my period had anything to do with it-I had actually stopped my period from several hours before when I first peed (see ‘massacre’ above) when I apparently started. I’m sure my period saw my insides and thought, “Oh shit-you’ve got a lot going on inside here. Maybe I’ll hold off a couple days”. Luckily it did!

I had gone through so many nurses during my stay. In following morning, I was finally able to pee and get some fluids out of me. I wasn’t able to drink a drop for over 24 hours. All I could do is wet my mouth with a sponge. I was sucking in the IV fluids like it was going out of style. The next morning-Wednesday, my goal was to drink 4 oz of water within an hour and then move to the bariatric fluids (which is this stuff called Juven-it’s basically like Crystal Light but meant to help recover the incisions on the inside of your body-tissue building nutrition). I couldn’t start that process until I saw a PA or a doctor-I didn’t get cleared to start this until 9:15am. I love my PA-I told her my concern with my liver and I told her my goal was to have the smallest liver the doctor had ever seen. She said, “That’s funny you mention that. As soon as he opened you up and we saw your liver, my first thought was-‘My goodness that’s a good size liver’. You would be stunned at how many people cheat during their 10 day liquid diet and what we have to do to compensate for a larger liver. It was great! Also you did not have a catheter because Dr. Hovey is experimenting with not using them during the gastric sleeve surgeries. This will help with decreasing infection and also cost effectiveness. You are only the second person to not have one during one of his gastric sleeve surgeries.”

Anyways, back to the water. I finished the 4 oz of water within an hour, felt sick full but not bad. I started the bariatric stuff and felt God awful. I had taken a two hour nap because I was so exhausted and Thanksgiving full. I could have thrown up but I was so scared what that would feel like. Come to find out after a nurse switch after my nap, I needed to drink 3 or 4 cups of 4 oz each of the bariatric fluid before I could get let go. I had to almost start back over. I was walking the floor like no one’s business. The other nurses on the floor would say, “Why are you the only patient doing what they are supposed to do?” or another one I got, “You are making grooves in the floor!” I was trying to stay on top of the gas they pumped me with. Before surgery actually happens, the techs pump some sort of gas in the body-the gas has nowhere to go other than travel. I still have gas between my shoulder blades and the tops of my shoulders. Walking helps this process very much! Kendra told me, “The only piece of advice right after surgery-you have to walk. Even if you don’t want to, don’t feel like it, you are tired-you walk!” I listen to her like she is preaching to a full house of church going people that need some help. Or an even better comparison-she is my Mr. Miyagi and I am the Danielson. Boy, was she right! Finally after I had almost thrown up due to being so full, I was released. I wanted to go back to the hotel. It was 8:30pm and we still had to make it to Wal-Greens to get my prescription liquid pain killer.

Roto was driving himself nuts because he couldn’t be on the same bed as me. I finally let it happen. I put a pillow on my stomach and let him sleep with me. He actually kept my mom and myself up because he was frustrated that he couldn’t be near me. My mom’s laptop was blocking his ‘bridge’ (the night stand) to get to me. He cared very much for me and was careful. I loved it. I needed it.

As a fun fact, my dad and I were curious how the surgery looked from the doctors perspective. We YouTubed a medical video of it. It was gross but honestly, surgery and medicine are truly amazing to me. It is amazing the things they come up with the better the human race. I have nothing but the most outright respect for nurses and doctors. If you are considering this surgery, I would not recommend watching this video. It is also something you shouldn’t watch if you have an uneasy stomach. My dad is notorious for being uneasy around blood or anything of the sort-he passes out getting his blood drawn. We both were fascinated by what my body just went through and the technology they used to do it.

I was pleasantly surprised to see how many people commented on my Facebook wall, private messaged me and also text messaged me with their love and concern. I appreciate that more than words. There is a saying that, “Blood is thicker than water”-I don’t always agree with that statement as nice as it may sound. Actually, I don’t agree with it at all-for several reasons I would rather not blog about. I have such a huge support system that have shown me they want me to succeed and do well in life. They have no relation to me, whatsoever. True colors really show in people and for those people that provide that support and love for me, I love you and it helps me more than words can explain.

Also, thank you to my unconditionally loving parents! I know this was a scary process for all of us but I am so happy that you’ve been there learning, experiencing everything with me and share my humor about my journey. You are truly troopers as I know I am goofy to deal with. Brian-you have been extremely supportive and pushing me when I’m scared the most. I know I will break down and thank you more later when I admit this was a fantastic idea. You all are the best!

This is all for a now! I will blog more on my journey soon! I have to update on my food progress!!!!!!

My Ten Day Liquid Diet-The Final Blog as a Normal Stomached Person

Day One of Liquid Diet (8/15/15)

It was a strange feeling waking up today knowing I was done with food for a long while. I had done the liquid diet while I had required work meetings in Kearney. I did it Monday and Tuesday night I caved in and ate some dinner. It was a food funeral night-I had bar food; a hangover burger (8oz patty with a fried egg on it, waffle fries, ranch dressing, “Bleu Balls” and boneless wings). It seemed easy to do the liquid diet. I did it-was satisfied. However, today I had learned that it was probably 95% psychological that it was that easy because I, at that time, didn’t have to be on a liquid diet.

Today, I watched my best friend Jasmine compete in the top 16 at the Professional Women’s Bowlers Tour (aka PWBA). I am so fucking proud of her. It was exhausting to watch, I cannot imagine how she is feeling now that it is all done with. It was hard for me to watch on Friday but honestly, I had a fantastic day. It was going through memory lane-so many people I haven’t seen in years, most I talked to, most I didn’t care to talk to. I received amazing feedback from people with my blog, I talked about myself a LOT. Felt bad at first but I had a lovely conversation with someone and she had said, “You don’t need to call it selfish-you need to start calling it ‘taking care of yourself’ because there is nothing selfish about that”. It was truly a feeling that I’ve never felt before talking in person with the people who have followed my blogs. I also found out that I have a surprising number of people who have read them but never acknowledged they are following. I smile at this.

The hard part was the desire I felt to compete. I was sad at times but honestly, the promise I made myself to be fit, prepared and determined for the following year to compete at most of the stops-that in itself helped me cope. I’ll start on those goals later. I am going to take Kendra’s advice and start some kind of goal/vision board to look at every day. For now, I am soaking in the feeling of being proud of my best friend achieving one of her own goals. I cannot wait to travel with her and help each other next year.

Around 8am had my first protein drink-my favorite one actually. It is called Med-Ex 51 in the flavor of cookies and cream. It has 51 grams of protein and is actually pretty filling. I ordered two more cases off of Amazon to get me through the work week. Yes, I Amazon Primed that shit.  We watched Jasmine bowl from 9:00am till about 12:00pm. I was starving. I tried water but it was a true hunger. I needed food. Excuse me, I needed liquid. I took my parents to the Pho Factory. They had never had it so I was excited to see them try it. I ordered spicy beef pho in a huge ass bowl. I wasn’t able to finish it but I also ordered another huge ass container full of spicy beef pho. This seemed easy for me to not really want to eat anything else. The hardest part of eating pho, they did not strain the onions or green onions out of the broth. I was literally fishing for a plain sip of soup without that added stuff. In a way, I made a game of it and it was kind of fun. I love the flavor-I can absolutely do this if I need some flavor in my life. Kendra had given me a care package earlier in the week in which it consisted of Ziplock bags that are for homemade popsicles. I am going to freeze my pho soup and call them Pho-Sicles.

After that, we watched more competition. A few hours later, I was starving again. A true hunger. I had a personal conversation with my stomach and it was hungry-water wasn’t doing it. The bowling alley was smelling very good- I had Brian stop at a gas station to get muscle milk-I drank two of them. I was satisfied.

We had dinner reservations at Blue Sushi for 7pm. I was starving again. I forgot to drink a protein shake before we left but I knew I was okay with soups. I ordered two miso soups and one creamy crab soup. My parents and Brian had ordered a fair amount of sushi-some that I know I love. I had eaten my soups first but I wasn’t satisfied so I ordered one more creamy crab soup. I had eaten that while everyone had their sushi. I was desperate for some flavor so after everyone was done eating their sushi, I was wanting to lick everything. I had licked a fire roasted baby corn just to get the flavor. It took all my might not to inhale it. I also took out a piece of asparagus that was in one of the rolls and just licked the eel sauce off of it. I never knew how vegetable-y asparagus tasted until I licked, sucked and savored it.

Later that night, I did my measurements and weigh in. I should not have done one of those things and you guessed it-weighing myself on the Fucker. It said I had gained ten pounds but I am justifying that with A). Water/Liquid weight B). All my food funerals C). I hadn’t been to the gym in three days. I am over it-it is just a number and it will soon be different. My measurements, on the other hand, I was pretty happy! It was satisfying to see the inches on a piece of paper.

With my liquid diet, I am asking people to give up something for 10 days. I have a fair amount of people doing it with me-including my parents and Brian. Dad is giving up alcohol, Brian isn’t going to swear and gave up Instagram and mom, I am so proud of her-she is giving up her new favorite candy-M&M’s.

Day Two of Liquid Diet (8/16/15)

I woke up to a hyper puppy at 6:15am. I slept pretty terrible because of her and let me tell you, I was exhausted-I wanted nothing more but sleep. My stomach was grumbling, hunger woke up with me. I had a protein shake, of course my favorite. I had an 8am coffee date with some girlfriends to do some blog writing. It is super fun! There was three of us-we each have a blog. Blog dates. They are my new favorite thing, well second favorite next to gym time!

Had a decent day with the liquid diet. It was my first time experiencing eating at home with everyone. It was slightly humorous to watch Brian cook. He screwed up his goal of not swearing while cooking. I couldn’t help but smile watching. The food he made smelled delicious. I ate broth while Kylee, dad and Brian ate a Sriracha smoked chicken. My mouth waters just typing those words. My left over pho was spicy and satisfying surprisingly.

I did have to take a break from being in the house-the food smell was very good and it bothered me to the point of breaking. I went on the porch and relaxed. I made a list of things I needed to accomplish this week. I needed a break from the smell in the house. It smelled so wonderful. Brian is doing such a good job of eating healthy. I crave healthy. I am starting to crave texture. I will make some sort of popsicles, courtesy of Kendra supplying me with the bags to do so.

Day Three of Liquid Diet (8.17.15)

Today, I felt hungry all the time. I woke up at 4:10am to make sure I had my protein shake before work out. I drank half of it and drank the other half when I was done. I felt thirsty while working out. It also doesn’t help that the iron taste in my mouth is getting worse. I had this when I was on the Atkin’s diet 14ish years ago. I guess too much protein does that to me. I had a bunch of running around to do with work so I made sure I packed enough ready to drink protein shakes to cover me.

I went to lunch with dad once our meetings were done. While there, I ordered 1 bowl of the egg drop soup and 1 bowl of the hot and sour soup (not my favorite but I wanted to switch it up). It was good-after I filtered it out. I still need to purchase a tea-bag strainer to put in my purse so it makes my life a little easier.

I also had my required 1 week before surgery doctor’s appointment. It went well and everything so far as checked out good. I won’t hear some of the results in time of surgery but my doctor said she will have them before and if there is an issue, she will personally call me. I didn’t realize how the communication works in doctor’s offices but I left there and felt good about what we talked about. I was also sad, disappointed and emotional for just a moment when I had to bring up getting on birth control. Since I can’t do the shot due to the increases of depression/suicide if you have a history of it (I have a history of both), I have to do pill but can’t start them until after surgery. My short emotional fit lasted maybe 5 minutes and I shook it off. Anyways- if you live in Lincoln and don’t have a trusted doctor, I cannot speak more positively about Dr. Blake. If you want more information about her, message me. She is the perfect doctor, for me.

I did have to stay in the bedroom while food was being made and consumed. I just feel like I needed a break after experiencing being around it for several days in a row. I had a moment of weakness and felt bad for Brian because he is seeking approval that he is still eating very healthy, I am craving healthy foods. He tried to describe what he made and I cut him off and told him I wasn’t ready to hear it but tried to assure him that he is doing well with eating.

I took a walk in the back yard to get my steps in because I am in FitBit challenges but also to clear my head. I relaxed and did some Pinterest pinning. There was food involved but I had a personal conversation with myself and kept repeating, “This is temporary. This is temporary.”

Day Four of Liquid Diet (8/18/15)

Today was a pretty awful day. I got maybe 3 or 4 hours of sleep. There was a terrible storm in Lincoln that was at its strongest by our house. Between the hard rain, thunder and the flashes of continuous lightening, it was pretty difficult for a light sleeper like me to get any rest. I didn’t go to the gym in the morning. I tried-I woke up at 4:10am like the usual but I just couldn’t. I had to drive quite a bit for work and I don’t do well when it comes to being sleepy and driving. I don’t do caffeine so it’s especially harder for me on those type days to just wake up. I was just in a poor, negative mood and I had moments of feeling better-but I pulled myself back into a hole of feeling bad about myself.

I did the usual and packed my cooler full of protein shakes. I am not experiencing hunger every 3 hours. Let’s just say that I am almost tripling-almost quadrupling my protein intake. To switch it up from the shakes, dad and I drove around Omaha trying to find a place with soup. Finally, a Panera Bread popped up. While there, I was trying to figure out what soups I wanted-chicken noodle is too much work, cream of broccoli is too chunky/creamy, vegetable beef sounded boring as shit-I settled on the cream of tomato soup. I was REALLY hungry so I ordered a 12 ounce and an 8 ounce soup.

The lady came to the table and dropped off my two soups and my dad sandwich. I told her the two soups were for me in which her (extremely judgmental) response, “Oh wow-someone must be really hungry today eating two soups!” Being that my mood wasn’t the best, I quickly snapped at her telling her pretty quickly in a tone I don’t use often, “Well I am on a restricted diet because I am having bariatric surgery and yes, I am hungry-starving in fact. I am on day four.” She looked at me with a look as if she had seen Jesus Christ himself, “Oh my! I am so sorry dear. This isn’t much of a meal at all. You must be starving all the time” in which my response, “You have no idea”. The way I look at it the situation-if I had ordered the worst sandwich on the menu, a baguette, soup which also comes with shit tons of croutons and another baguette-would she have said anything? Because I ordered two of one of the healthier things on the menu-I was judged. Let’s just sum my temperament up with being short fused and no time for excuses from other nor judgement.

My dad had purchased the new flavor of Frito Lay chips: Reuben. I licked it in desperation for flavor and quickly threw it out the van window. I did this as if it were going to bite me like a snake.

First night of league happened. It actually made my day in addition to joking with Kendra via text message all day. She knows how to brighten my day-the Tigger to my Pooh-attitude. I didn’t bowl the greatest but you know, I will take it after I have had a short sabbatical with bowling. Hali and I are making goals to give us something to work towards. I haven’t made mine yet but she has. I am excited to help her achieve them! A couple challenges did happen at the bowling alley; they made food and it smelled really good. I could tell it was pepperoni pizza. This is something I have noticed that has changed about me; my sniffer is super sensitive-I could probably be a drug sniffing human. Anyways, the team we bowled against also had someone who was vapor smoking. They had cotton candy and it smelled delicious. I hadn’t even thought about cotton candy probably in years until that point. I got over it. I am stronger than cotton candy or pepperoni pizza.

Day Five of Liquid Diet (8/19/15)

I woke up in middle of the night. This is probably due to the fact that I drank 90 ounces of water just at bowling. On a good note, I slept hard and loved it. It was really, really, really hard to get out of bed but it helps knowing that Hali depends on me picking her up at 4:45am to go to the gym. I had a case of the giggles even. What a difference a day makes! I did have a bad dream. I had a dream that I cheated on my liquid diet, not on purpose. I didn’t follow it to a complete science and they had to do a HUGE incision on me. I woke up after that-concerned of course, doubting myself.

I had to travel out of town for work again but since I wasn’t as tired, I felt good about the day. While I was in Seward, I stopped at a gas station to get some water. The cashier-maybe in her early 40’s noticed my new tattoo. She had mentioned that she loves the color. Being friendly like I am, I said “Thank you-I got it done almost two weeks ago.  DNB stands for ‘Do Nothing Bitch’ after Ronda Rousey. She is a famous UFC fighter. Her response was more judgmental and the lady the day before, “Oh…well…alrighty then” in this tone I couldn’t stand. I gave her a look that probably meant a million words-but she could probably guess the two I meant (starting with an F and ending with a U) and walked off with a smile thereafter.

My dad had wanted some food-it was a late lunch. My hunger is growing every day. I guess that’s okay since the physician’s assistant said I can hand unlimited liquid diet. Took my dad to McDonald’s so he could get a grilled chicken wrap. He got the combo meal. It was hard-the smell, which I haven’t been attracted to for YEARS-in fact I hate McDonalds and haven’t eaten there in nearly 6 years (don’t get me wrong, I chose to be a fat ass somewhere else and order my double or triple burger and a diet soda with fries). I did myself a favor and got a smaller protein shake from my pre-packed cooler and drank that. Although I will admit, I thought of greasy food with every gulp I took. I consumed a lot of water today as well. I peed more today than I have in weeks, maybe even in my life. I must be metabolizing water better. I’ve always had a thing about not peeing much no matter who much I drink or what I drink. I guess I trained my bladder to have a strong piggy bank since we traveled so much as kids/teenagers-I would have to hold it until the next gas station but my dad would forget so 50-80 miles later, he remembered.

Got home in time for dinner (I had left over Pho) and was considering going to the gym for a second time while everyone ate their normal food but I thought about all the shit I need to do like laundry, folding laundry and fixing our closet (my dad did that-it was a pain in the ass). I’m glad I didn’t go to the gym. I need to go into surgery feeling I did everything I wanted to do which includes housework. I doubt everything I want to get done will actually get done but I still have several days to work on it.

I also got several words of encouragement today via text and also through Facebook. I am seeing who my real friends are and being surprised of the support from people I haven’t heard from in years. It’s very refreshing to see this and a little disappointed in the others. I will not let that effect any part of my journey. Speaking of friends, stool softener has become my best friend. I had a fantastic date in the bathroom with it and it also was refreshing.

Day Six of Liquid Diet (8/20/15)

It was another day, another shake. It is getting a little redundant but still I have not had any temptation worth messing up my surgery. Went to the gym as first thing. I didn’t put a full effort in but I never do. In my opinion, I give it 95% so I can leave a little to be desired later. I’ve been taking some walks in the evening to get some steps in since I am doing more of the weight training than cardio. I’m still doing cardio-don’t get me wrong. I also treated myself to soup today! Tomato basil at Hy-Vee for lunch. Too many carbs but at least I am switching it up.

I seemed not as hungry the entire day. I think it was maybe my nerves. After work, I took my parents to Omaha to do the pre-operation class that is required. This is yet one more step that is making it more real. I was nervous I would learn something I didn’t know or start scaring myself out of doing it. It was almost just the opposite. My support team is really awesome, except maybe the pharmacist-I didn’t care for her but I can live without her. Any of her concerns, I have already talked my family physician and also the surgeon and she seemed to flip out about nothing. Anyways, one hugely positive thing that I learned-I am more prepared than 85% of the people that were in attendance. It shocked me how some people have gotten that far in this program with stupid questions like-“Soda and quitting…is this a permanent thing or when can I have it after surgery?”—are you kidding me? The same lady also asked about ‘juices’. On the OK list of things to consume during liquid diet-tomato juice and fruit juice (certain kinds-low calorie, low carb etc.). She asked, “So juices…tomato juice I don’t really like. Can I drink V8 Splash?” this was after the lecture about what is a good juice vs. a bad juice. She was mumbling “Oh Lord” under her breath with the answers that were thrown back at her. She should just save the insurance the headache of paperwork because she has already set herself up for failure. If she is paying out of pocket, she should save it for something that would be truly useful for her. I asked questions, I felt confident, until I realized I royally fucked up.

I realized that when I paid for my surgery on Tuesday in full, that I used the wrong credit card. Who does that? I have a new one that Brian and I share-it’s the first time I have shared financial stuff like that. Anyways, it had a limit that absolutely would not meet the amount I had to pay. I was freaking out during the pre-operation class. It had been two and half days since the lady called with my information. I had Brian try to get a hold of her in billing but no answer, left a message. I got another phone call that I missed from an Omaha number thinking it was the lady in billing-it wasn’t. I almost broke down and cried during the pre-operation class-I was a hot mess. I was not there mentally. I should have just walked out. Luckily my parents were listening intently and there were handouts. My mind was fucked. How was I going to sleep? I calmed down thanks to my parents-the plan was to call on Friday.

Another cool thing, there were 3 of us already on liquid diets. I told her about my blood test results that I just got back that day. Everything looked pretty good, healthy but one thing that was in the red (meaning I was over the ‘healthy range’) but they weren’t super worried about it. It was abbreviated “B/C-Ratio”. Of course, my parents and I were Googling it and it could have meant 1) Heart failure 2) Kidney failure 3) Liver issues 4) Diabetic possibilities. I told the coordinator about it and she said she wasn’t familiar and she asked what I’ve been consuming for liquid. I told her, “A SHIT ton of protein-like 180-200 grams a day. I am hungry all the time.” The annoying lady that was pretty much asking stupid questions, overheard us and said, “My sister has that. It means you have a lot of protein in your system and the numbers are skewed.” The coordinator told me to back off the protein so sadly I will. I showed her a picture of the protein shake that I love (Med-EX 51G Cookies and Cream-off of Amazon, its cheaper than the Vitamin Shoppe). She was super interested in it because it only has 8grams of carbs and 51grams of protein. That is HUGE for bariatric patients. At the end, I ran to the car and got my extra can and gave it to her-she wants to try it for herself and then maybe recommend it to future patients. It was my good deed for the day.

My best friend got a puppy as a side note-an English Mastiff named Brewser. I love him.

Day Seven of Liquid Diet (8/21/15)

Went to the gym in the morning, weird-right? I am addicted to it. Again, I didn’t push myself the full 100% but I also had a lot of steps/walking to do in the day. It was arm day-I can’t wait to start seeing a difference in my arms. It’s the thing I’m almost excited about the most. I really felt it today. I can’t wait to have a trainer to help me push myself more efficiently-or show me what I need to do for the results I want.

After work out, the morning was too beautiful to pass up. I walked for 45 minutes in our yard-around the pool. It was stunning out. I was sweaty, it was cool. I loved it. After that, I had work to do. It was a good day-productive. I got a lot of steps in-that was my goal. I was distracted by everything-I kept thinking about the fuck I did-wrong credit card mistake. I felt so guilty. I was freaking out my surgery wouldn’t happen because I knew they would process my card.

The clock was pretty slow. I needed to call by 9am to figure out payment. I couldn’t figure out where Kim worked, the lady in billing. I called several numbers and no one had a Kim that worked. After calling two wrong facilities, I found where Kim works. The lady wasn’t very nice but I was also frantic on the phone, slightly. Kim took the past two days off, hence why I hadn’t gotten a call back. Even worse news-no one else does billing for that facility. I was fucked. I had a meltdown. I cried, cried, cried. I had called my coach and she said she would message the physician’s assistant to call me to find out my options. An hour later, a miracle happened. Apparently, the card I used saw the transactions and upped the limit by a LOT and they processed it for us. I had no idea that credit card companies could do that. It was amazing. I had a moment of 100000% complete weakness. I thought I was so fucked. I wanted to eat. I almost did but I didn’t. I thought to myself, “I can’t have surgery now anyways, I just as well eat now!”

After my pitty party, I went to Complete Nutrition to get my measurements done. They do the same measurements that my support team’s office did on March 12^th. I am excited to keep the progression of what I am doing internally. I think that will help me feel satisfied being that I don’t always see the results from the outside.

I didn’t eat or drink well today. I am not going to list my excuse. I just wasn’t prepared. It was the first day in a long time that I wasn’t. It bothered me. I hardly drank water, I hardly ate. I did have me some Pho tonight for dinner and it was DELICIOUS. I think that is helping me by switching up flavors every now and again. I still feel this is too easy-I say this now but I know it will get tremendously harder. We went to a craft store and it hit me-liquid in-liquid out. It was not a pleasant experience. It was almost a problem.

My mom got her therapy dog! This is a side note but I am so, so, happy for her.

Day Eight of Liquid Diet (8/22/15)

Another day, another shake, and another. I was not feeling great today. I didn’t drink much water in the morning and worked in the afternoon. It was hot and humid, the first time it’s been that way in a while. I pretty much got heat exhaustion. I had to load/unload my vehicle and load it in my storage shed. I basically have my own small warehouse of supplies for work.

I rested. I felt guilty that I rested for several hours. I think that is also the first time I wasn’t on the go-go-go in several weeks. I had also developed a rash on both sides of my thighs, I guess that’s yet another side effect of being a ‘bigger girl’-I hate when they rub together. I don’t ever see myself having “the gap” but God, I wish I had it.

I stressed a lot yesterday about the surgery. I have been making a gradual list of things to pack for the hospital. I hate feeling like I’ll forget something or I won’t be prepared. I also hate not knowing how it will go-so this whole thing is feeling a little much for me. The anxiety medication IS happening right when I get to hospital. I’ve been hyping it up enough.

My husband was very kind yesterday to help me “switch up” my soups/shakes. He brought home some cucumber gazpacho from Zoup. It was pretty good. My taste buds were a bit shocked that it was something else other than cookies and cream, orange dreamsicle or chocolate.

Day Nine of Liquid Diet (8/23/15)

It was an interesting day to say the least. I slept in a little bit today. I feel the weather has been shifting to Fall and it makes me want to cuddle in bed. Not a good thing when gym is calling. I had rest days this weekend but I was still active around the house. I got my steps in with my FitBit.

I ate lunch with one of my biggest fans in my journey-Vicki. I just love her. I feel we are very similar with everything. I’ve known her since I went to college. She is one of my best friend’s mother. We played catch up a little over a week ago and I promised her a Pho date. She had never tried it before so I was excited to see what her thoughts were. It was a success! I even said during the meal, “I hope this isn’t like the other day with ‘liquid in-liquid out’. Well….

On our way home, I had trusted a fart. I really shouldn’t have done that. I haven’t had much gas at all since doing liquid diet and with my last experience with Pho, I don’t know what I was thinking. You guessed it… I, as a grown adult, shit my pants. It was all liquid. I know it is too much information but it is the life of a future bariatric patient. I didn’t know it was there, it was an accident. Luckily, it was in thick blue jeans and we were almost home. Brian didn’t even notice. I quickly showered and carried on with the day. I had another spell on our way to Target-we went shopping for last minute things to bring to the hospital. I made sure I got it all out of my system.

I went to bed hungry. It’s a hunger I’ve never experienced before. It’s getting worse and worse. It isn’t the worst feeling I’ve ever had but it isn’t pleasant. I am proud of myself not getting tired of the protein shakes I’ve been drinking.

Day Ten of Liquid Diet (8/24/15)

I didn’t sleep well at all. I was having dreams that involved my surgery, I don’t remember them. I probably woke up about 6 times throughout the night. I went back to sleep but I am one that if I don’t sleep straight through, I feel exhausted.

Even though I was tired, I still got up and went to the gym with Brian. I worked off my stress-or so I thought. It was arm day. I did some treadmill but I focused more on my arms. It was the first time at the gym that I wore a shirt that exposed my arms. I think I will do that more often being that I can see myself-which will motivate me.

I had to drop the big dogs off at the vet which made me sad because it was the last time I was going to spend with them without freaking out that they would accidently hurt me somehow. I didn’t realize how bad I was going to miss being around my fur kids until today. It made me tear up a little.

We had to work in Wayne, Nebraska and went to Norfolk, Nebraska. It seemed like a long day but it was productive at least. I wasn’t super focused on work. I could have cared less about it. I was anxious, the worst anxiety I have felt in years. The brick on the chest was back. I had flashes of feeling things would be okay with text messages, private Facebook messages I was getting with well wishes and support. For the first time, I understand I am being brave. It hit me today. It also made me feel real good that so many people care and have been thinking of me. I love it. I never have asked for it but it is nice when I need it the most. I have some of the best people in my life.

I was stressing myself out so bad in the car on the way to Omaha that I got a horrible headache. I never get them. I decided to sleep a little bit-maybe 30 minutes and I felt better. I am getting into a horrible habit of flexing my jaw when I am stressed or even grinding my teeth a little. I think that has something to do with my headaches too. I don’t realize I do it until it’s too late.

At the hotel, I had to re-read the instructions, the entire packet plus the booklet I got on Thursday. I guess I am as prepped as best I can be. I just hate not knowing. I hate the unexpected. People can tell me what it may feel like but it’s hard because I haven’t been through anything to compare. When I got my first tattoo, the comparison was-“It feels like a lot of little bee stings”. Okay, I can tolerate that-I’ve had bee strings, I’ve had a couple at the same time so I get the comparison. I just have to keep reminding myself that the things I will experience, will be temporary and it can only improve from there.

Dinner tonight will consist of soup. Brian and dad went and got sandwiches, I wanted to be with Roto.  I had my first silent cry because the food smelled so good and I am so close to surgery. The bread. The meat. I cried my pitty party away. I’ll eat my soup in a bit. I can’t eat or drink past 12am. I have to get some in though because they require a pee test in the morning to double check for pregnancy-trust me, no worries there.

I am going to take a walk before I sleep. Maybe even with Roto. Yes, Roto came because he is on seizure medicine and it stresses him out being away from us. He won’t be sleeping with me for a long time. Again, I cried a little. He is my little pebble, Khali and Husker are my bigger pebbles and Brian is my rock. It sucks not going to be able to be around that for a while. It is temporary. It is temporary.

I guess I am signing off officially. My last blog post as a normal stomached person. It’s a weird feeling knowing that everything will change within two hours tomorrow morning. I hope you all have enjoyed the blog thus far. It will only get more interesting from here.

A special thank you goes out to those that have been messaging me. When I reply with what it means, I mean it wholeheartedly. I love you all very much and appreciate the thoughts! Brian will be posting updates I’m sure. If he isn’t be sure to message him or my father, Greg.

My Week of Funeral’s

The title…it sounds pretty serious or maybe even morbid, doesn’t it? I promise you, no physical, living thing died-well maybe a cow or two. Maybe it was a harsh title but really, I am selfish and perhaps a closet narcissist but I just want more followers. In fact, the more fitting title should have been, “My Consumption Funeral; Food and Drink Erotica-PG 13”. It is getting crunch time with my surgery. The reality is hitting me more and more each day, a new life is waiting for me. In fact, the day I scheduled my surgery, Brian stole my personal planner after I had marked August 25^th “Surgery Day” and he had put “New Life” on August 26^th. Everything is going to change. I am preparing as best I can which includes a fair amount of funerals I had in order to cope with my new life style. I need to have them before I start my real journey. I am sure this will be fairly anticlimactic for my readers, but I am doing this for me and you’ll see why I am doing it after you’ve read through my food porn/funerals.

What type of funeral am I talking about? I am talking about what I call a “consumption funeral”. Typically bariatric patient’s call it a “food funeral” but I am branching out and including some things that I don’t necessarily eat but consume (e.g. wine, Fireball). What this really means, before the liquid diet starts (which I started that on Aug. 15^th, 10 days before my surgery), I consumed food almost as if it is a Last Supper or the death of my old food chain. Give that some thought-let’s say you have an entire week to eat the foods you want, what would you chose? Keep in mind that maybe you are going to the gym 6 days a week, sometimes twice in one day, eating healthy already. Would you take up that offer of “food/consumption funerals”? Let me explain my reasoning why I’m not really choosing to do that. I did to an extent but I didn’t do what the old Kaleena was doing-eating all of the bad food I would order, I would go to the gym either in the morning of the consumption funeral or afterwards.

Let me back up for just a moment. I already started my liquid diet on August 15^th. Basically I am consuming (I refuse to call it eating because the act of eating, in my opinion, you must chew food and swallow) protein shakes and broths. The goal is to have at least 60 grams of protein (before surgery, I am consuming a shit ton of protein-one day this week, I had 204 grams) and to consume 64 ounces of water (one day this week, I had 104 ounces). The reason I have to do this is to shrink my liver so that the surgeon can do the surgery laproscopically (5-7 small incisions) and if I cheat at all during the 10 day liquid diet, my liver will be large and he will have to perform it with a much larger incision. Therefore, he will have to make one large, I mean LARGE, incision. So, that is my motivation. I would rather have 5 tiny little scars than one huge one.

Once I am done with the surgery, I will only be able to consume liquids for a while-I believe around two weeks if I recall. Then I can move into stage two which is semi soft food for another two weeks. Stage 3 is soft foods and finally by stage 4, I can move into somewhat normal foods for another month and gradually get back to ‘normal’ healthy foods. I’ll only be able to consume small amounts at a time-at first, a meal for me will be around ½ a yogurt. I won’t be allowed to drink water 30 minutes before, during or after because the water will wash out the nutrition I need to absorb. There are foods I will have to stay away from for a long time, 6 months or more. Those will include things like: bread, corn, steak, popcorn just to name a few. When I eat meat, particularly steak when I get there-I will have to cut the meat a fifth of my finger nail, chew it at least twenty five times and then swallow. I am pretty excited because I have timed my surgery in just the right amount of time to enjoy our vacation in Puerto Rico in December for my brother’s wedding. I will be able to try new, solid foods then. However, when Brian has his surgery-I am going to support him as best I can and may follow his stage, whatever that may be.

Before I started my food/consumption funerals, Brian and I had a lengthy discussion about where I want to have them at. We went through our ‘This is Why I’m Fat’ list and honestly, those foods sounded disgusting. Not one thing about it sounded appealing. I can live without those things, as I am proving already. The thought of greasy, deep fat fried foods makes me want to vomit. Other than that, I can eat the other stuff I may miss but in definite moderation. It blew my mind thinking of what I wanted to have and literally, drew a blank. Just back in January if Brian asked me that question of the foods I wanted to have before I made a life change like this, I would have went balls to the wall and eaten everything and anything I could-starting with the list we made last blog. I did chose to eat unhealthy at some meals.

My first food/consumption funeral: I have been craving something since the surgery date has been creeping up on me. I want steak all the time. In fact, on Saturday night, Brian and I had a phenomenal experience near Omaha at a steakhouse called The Drover. My amazing father in law had gotten us a gift card there in which we decided, let’s satisfy my craving and go try it out. The restaurant was weird looking; it was a cabin setting, lots of wood that looked as if it were hand carved, the lighting was strange with an ugly dim yellow lights everywhere. One thing I did enjoy was a real candle lit on our table-that was a very nice touch. The waiter brought us water and homemade wheat bread with real slivers of butter. You bet your damn britches I had some fucking bread. It was warm and oddly healthy tasting. The menu seemed a little limited but I looked at nothing but the steaks. I had my heart set on a New York Strip. Luckily, one of the specials was indeed a NY Strip-18 ounces marinated in a whiskey. The vegetable of the day was asparagus and it came with salad or soup. I chose the salad because I’m sure I will be pretty tired of soup here in the next few weeks. I will miss crunchy. The salad was actually a salad bar-it was small but had all my favorite things: buttermilk ranch, croutons, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, romaine lettuce, banana peppers. I loaded my plate. It was delicious. I fantasized about bathing in the ranch dressing while lettuce fell from the ceiling-much like a romantic movie with rose petals in a porcelain bath with gold claw feet. We had ordered an appetizer which was bacon wrapped shrimp. They had 4 on a small plate with some sautéed mushrooms and a citrus horseradish sauce. It couldn’t have been any more of a perfect introduction to what I was going to experience next.

My love came to the table; it was as if it were smiling at me like it knew this was going to magical for me. Perfectly attached to the bone, grill marks still simmering as if it were chanting ‘eat me already’. I couldn’t keep my hands off of him, the NY big boy. My first cut into my fantasy, my breath was taken away. It was cooked perfect medium rare. My mouth instantly watered with excitement. The flavor was ‘OMG’ worthy, I could have reenacted the scene from When Harry Met Sally (I’ve never seen the movie but I know that reference). I wanted to just keep it in my mouth forever. I was happy, to the point of experience euphoria. It was by far, the best steak I have ever eaten. I asked myself, “is this because psychologically-I KNOW this is the last time?” as if I were having sex with a dude I had been banging for 20 years-one last time we bang- before we go our separate ways-better make it count. The answer, no. It was legitimate. I ate it all. It took all I had not to gnaw on the bone at the table. I considered asking the waiter for a take home box so I could do so in the car on the way home but I wasn’t that desperate. The asparagus was just as good. I was full of everything; food, happiness, satisfaction, love. I craved steak for the second time the next day but I didn’t want to ruin my last one-night-stand, at least for 6 more months.

I had a quiet, private, personal eulogy in my head of that steak. This was my go-to meal. I am such a steak and potatoes girl. I knew, it was the last steak I were to eat. Not because I didn’t have time or anything of that, it was the. Best. Steak. I. Ever. Had. I wish I knew that cow before I ate him, or her. I would have said the nicest things I’ve ever said to anything, I would have massaged it, maybe gave it milk-is that cannibalism? Anyways, if you have the chance to eat at The Drover in Omaha, please do. For me.

My second craving I satisfied was homemade tacos and roasted corn. I decided to make them healthy because it sounded so good. I made 93/10 ground beef with seasoning and I also bought a rotisserie chicken to mix in with it. I used romaine lettuce leaves to act as the taco shell. I got some corn on the cob with seasoning and butter already to go, just warm and serve. We also got some brats just because I haven’t had it in a long time. It was such a wonderful meal. I didn’t feel as guilty as I should have. I was even under my calories for the day. I am bias, I just love my cooking. For those who said they love my cooking and pictures I post, I am considering making an eBook of some kind with recipes. I figured this is a good way to expose my children to and “hand” them down.

My third food funeral happened while I was away in Kearney, Nebraska this past week for required c-store meetings. I very well could have eaten SO much junk food. We had a lot of vendors there, power house vendors that came with samples galore. I am talking bags full of chocolate, sweets, carbs. I must say, I came prepared and I am very proud of myself. I packed a cooler full of my favorite protein shakes and protein waters. Anyways, I was on liquid diet for two days while there. It seemed too easy. However, it seemed easy because I KNEW that I could cheat. This is the bad habit Kaleena. I am going to call my ‘bad habit’ alter ego, Sabrina. I did it for two days and was satisfied, happy and proved to myself I could do it. Finally, I ate food. I had bar food-this was on my list. I wanted to eat like I was hung over-something I knew would cure it even though I hadn’t had alcohol. I had a Hangover Burger (this was unintentional) which consisted of an 8oz beef patty, a fried egg, dense hamburger bun and cheese of course. I had to order the waffle fries as my side, with ranch dressing. There was appetizers ordered for the table of 11 people. An order of Bleu Balls happened which is deep fat fried chicken balls stuffed with ham and cheese-basically a cordon bleu type thing. I had two of those small balls. I also have 5 boneless wings with a sweet BBQ sauce on top, dipped in ranch. I could only eat half my burger and I admit, I devoured my waffle fries. The ranch was to die for! I am glad I ended on that note with bad bar food.

My fourth food funeral is one of my all-time favorites-I love me some Greek food. My favorite restaurant in Lincoln for Greek food is The Parthenon. Brian and I went on a lovely date, just like old times-Sabrina was in attendance. I wanted a glass of merlot, we ordered a bottle. And, I can’t go there without ordering tzatziki and pita bread, bring 4 extra pitas, please. For an entrée, I got the gyro supreme with double meat. I am not sure if the waitress sensed that it was my last meal there for a long time but I swear the chef that made the food also knew. Maybe she told them in the back. It was the best tasting gyro meat I’ve ever had. It was as if they had switched meat or something. The wine that the waitress brought was a house wine, it also tasted like Heaven in a glass. Next thing you know, I am almost sick full. No, I was. It was like Thanksgiving full, as my nutritionist at the University of Nebraska would say. It wasn’t enjoyable but I really needed to do that for ME.

My fifth food funeral was a favorite memory of mine that I will keep for a long time. I went to sushi with one of my girlfriends from college, Blue Sushi in Lincoln to be exact. We don’t see each other very often but she appreciates different delicacies like we do. I consumed so much sashimi, sushi, wine, coconut sake, it was the best sushi ever. In fact, we raw white tuna soaked in squid ink and I LOVED IT. I never would have thought I would eat that-let alone love it. Fun fact, they can only allow 3 pieces per table because squid ink is notorious for making people shit their brains out. We had a fantastic waitress and she helped us with everything. Again, I don’t know if I put off this scent or something but they must have known it was my last meal there. We had drinks afterwards, probably too many for me. I had Blue Moon and Fireball. It was my last hoorah. I will admit, I woke up hung over the next day. I hadn’t had one in so long and I hated every second of it. I am not going to miss that part of Sabrina. I am done with her.

My sixth food funeral is something I swear I could have lived on when I wasn’t ‘under construction/work in progress’. My favorite go-to fast food isn’t McDonalds, Burger Kind or Wendy’s-but this shady looking restaurant that is basically open 24 hours a day called DeLeon’s Mexican Food. There are several shacks across town with authentic Mexican food. I ordered a steak ranchero platter (diced steak mixed with pico, homemade red sauce and two over easy eggs lay on top as if it were a blanket. The sides were Mexican rice and homemade beans). Brian ordered my other favorite thing there so I could have a couple bites off of it-chorizo special burrito (chorizo mixed with diced potatoes and cheese). For an appetizer we ordered a carne asada quesadilla (a very large quesadilla with diced steak pieces, seasoning, grease). My odor must have been high that day because they made my food the best it’s ever been. This is not a joke, almost every place made my favorites the best I ever had there. We ate in the car which I don’t even care about-it was the experience in my mouth that mattered.

My final funeral was my favorite type sandwich, Philly cheesesteak-beef and poutine fries. The restaurant I love to get them at, Big Red Keno in Lincoln. We had waffle fries drenched in brown gravy with balls of melted mozzarella and beef on top. I had admitted to the waitress I was having a surgery and it was my last meal for a long time and to tell the chefs to make it with some lovin’. She was impressed and the chefs didn’t disappoint. Extra cheese, the hoagie bun was extra buttered and toasted, I ordered for my side-hash browns that were crispy crunchy with shredded cheese on top and a side of brown gravy to put in it. I was so excited to eat my Last Supper that I forgot to take a picture of the ‘before I eat it’ picture. I did take an after picture so you get the drift. They also serve the best Blue Moon beers. They serve it in large 34 ounce (560 calories FYI) frosty mugs. John Taffer would be disappointed in me because I admit I am a sucker, was a sucker, for frosty mug Blue Moon beer-he says it dilutes the beer. I say I don’t care. I couldn’t finish it though and I was super sick full. Miserable. Even worse than the Thanksgiving full day I had.

I was happy. It is over. No more temptation. I have my game face on and I am ready more than ever. I got everything out of my system that I wanted. I am sure this blog won’t seem interesting to most of you but honestly I posted this for me. I want to post this with pictures so a year or two down the road I can look at them and say, “Jesus… This was happening too often and I over ate so much”. It will be epic for me. No one who helped make my food funerals spectacular (waitresses/hosts/chefs) know about my blog but I do want to thank them publically for making my experiences the best they could be. It has been laid to rest and I will never look back. Sabrina, my alter ego of bad habits, is dead. May she rest in peace.

My Hopes, Dreams and Goals: Being Fearful, Scared Shitless

It’s been exhausting putting on a brave face for this whole journey. The saying I am all to familiar with, “Fake it until you make it” is easier said than done in this situation. I’ve had moments of weakness this week with the thought of surgery around the corner. I cannot believe just next week I start my all-liquid-diet for 10 straight days until surgery and will continue to do that for a month thereafter. Needless to say, I am getting scared shitless-at times. Maybe the more accurate description would be anxious. I’ve struggled with anxiety/anxiousness my entire life, along with depression. If I had a choice, I’m not sure which one I would rather have; depression or anxiety. Both are pretty awful.

It also doesn’t help that I’m a creature of habit, partially due to my anxiety. Change is not something I crave or desire. Poor Brian has to put up with me when I go against trying new things or places. I will say, more times than not, I have enjoyed when he pushes me to do/try new things. For me, it’s just a matter of mentally preparing; I have to talk myself into it-that it will be okay and that most times, it’s temporary.

Nothing was different with the thought of this surgery. I was scared. I was anxious. Not because of anything like the possibility I could die or have complications afterwards (although anything can happen and I am creating a living will, just in case). I was scared because I have to give up a life that I was used to living. The life style I had been living for as long as I could remember. I was scared and anxious of the change. This change is different from anything I’ve ever experienced and not even ‘normal’ people know how hard this is going to be. This is not like going to my favorite restaurant and deciding to not order my favorite thing on the menu and therefore I try something new and if I don’t like it, I can send I back and get my favorite thing. There would be no turning back. This change is forever. I will forever have to watch what I eat. I will forever have to take vitamins and supplements. I will forever have to drink water or something healthy-no more soda/carbonated beverages. I will forever have to be careful of alcohol. I will forever have to exercise. This change is something I have to be accountable for until I die.  But, the real question is: are all those permanent things I listed, unreasonable? No! Absolutely not. They are changes I would have to make if I want to become the mother I want to be in my head. That brings me to my next point.

I’ve debated with myself for a couple weeks on whether or not I was going to publicly post what I hope to accomplish with the surgery, getting healthy and fit. Again, this is my fear of change taking over; questions linger in my head of the possibility of disappointment, proving to my haters I can’t do it, letting people down (Brian), letting myself down are just to name a few of my fears and what I’m scared of what might happen. I’m making the decision to talk about the goals I wish to accomplish in the next few years. Why did I decide this? Because I want my journey to be honest, sincere and I don’t want to hold anything back from myself or you. I want to look back at this blog entry and say to myself, “Oh wow! I did it! I accomplished that!” or say, “That’s right-I forgot about that goal-I’ll work on it” and I am asking you, my friend, to hold me accountable on the things I say I want to accomplish. I WANT you to ask me how a certain goal is coming along. I WANT you to know if I am failing or falling short of success. I shall learn to shed the embarrassment because, after all, you have been a part of my journey thus far, somehow, and I hope you want me to succeed. And maybe, just maybe, you may ask me how you can help me get there. I see no better way of doing that and I have to be honest with you in order to do it. If you are one not to care about my goals or my journey, don’t bother reading any further or any of my masterpieces again. In fact, never speak to me again. I don’t need that in my life. Period.

Here  I go with the confessions again… Something I should  be embarrassed about but I’m not anymore. We are going to talk about the number on the Fucker. As much as I said that the number on the scale (aka Fucker) is not important, it sort of is. I have a goal the doctor set for me-I shall loose 100lbs. I have no secrets so I will talk about the Fucker number just for a moment. I have to shred the embarrassment… My highest weight was recorded when I had done my consultation on March 12^th, 2015. The Fucker dreadfully told me my weight was 269.8lbs and my total BMI (body mass index) 44.9 and my PBF (percentage of body fat) is 53.4. Yup, those are huge numbers-I am well aware. It is alarming, its gross and embarrassing. It is a huge number for a girl, height at 5’6”, not even in her 30’s. I am morbidly obese. Glass half full, I am young enough to some and have time to fix it. I’m already down 30 some pounds-currently at 238.8 as of yesterday. Although they approximated the 100lbs to be gone, I want to be at 155lbs at my goal weight. I want to lose a number that is basically a person. It just sounds so fucking impressive! This will be a lot of work and I am not sure if it’s realistic but I am definitely going to try and do so in a healthy manor. An exciting thing I am doing is tracking measurements before everything happens so a comparison can be made. I’ve already taken my one month before pictures and measurements. I’ll be taking right before surgery pictures soon. I am also taking daily selfie pictures as well for another type of project that Brian wants me to do.

Speaking of BMI’s, since this is probably more important than the Fucker’s number, my other goal will be related to BMI’s. I have a spreadsheet from a very high tech scale of what everything weighs on my body. I want to be in the ‘Normal’ BMI range for the first time in my life since I was eight. I’ve always been above average in everything-I just didn’t want to be that way with my weight, BMI or PBF. To be considered normal is super exciting to me even thinking about!

With the hard work of weight loss and lowering my BMI/PBF significantly, I want to be fit. As much as I want to have Ronda Rousey’s body, I, again, think there are some things that are realistic and some things that are not. With that said, I want to be fit, I want to be toned and I want to be slightly ripped in certain areas. This one may be a little difficult for me to obtain by myself. I am going to seek a personal trainer once I get going on the journey.

I want to be able to shop at Victoria’s Secret again. Unfortunately I am experiencing weight loss in my boobs already, so this is probably a very obtainable goal. Whose idea was it that weight has to come off your boobs first? It isn’t really fair. Although I have enjoyed Lane Bryant’s selection of plus sized lingerie, I do miss Victoria’s Secret tremendously. There is just something about their bras that are sexier-more color options maybe. Also, I am looking forward to their underwear-particularly their thongs. I want them to fit comfortably and not fit like I put a cloth ring around a Summer sausage or like I am trying to amputate half my body off with an XXL rubber band, when I wear them. That is also super exciting to think about!

Once I am at my goal weight or close to, I would love to renew Brian and my vows somewhere. It won’t be anything big, we will invite close friends and selective family but I want to wear a dress that I knew I couldn’t have worn on my wedding day due to my weight. I’m picturing a beach or somewhere exotic like Bora Bora. I want to re-live the wedding since I had slivers of doubt on my day, that stupid fucking negative devil that lingers. Insurance does not cover this surgery that I am doing and I have put it on one of my travel credit cards. With the points I earn, I would love to take a trip somewhere for my 30^th birthday-my ‘Dirty Thirty Party’. We are working out those details. This would give a taste of what is to come. I’m excited for it. I want to be the most beautiful bride and I want to know it, I want him to know it. I want to be his hot wife. I want him to be proud of me standing with him and I want to be proud of myself. I want to dress in front of him again, shamelessly. I want him to not be able to keep his hands off me. I want to feel and know I’m desired.

After our renewing of vows, I would love to feel great in a two piece. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a skimpy, slutty looking swim suit even though I would probably love that because I sort of like that type of style. Again, let’s be realistic here-I know some parts of my body will be screwed forever unless I get some sort of surgery for it. That isn’t out of the question but lets take one step at a time. I want a flattering two piece that fits whatever body shape I will have when I am close to my goal. That is realistic. That is obtainable.

Once I am more practiced at it, I would like to run a 5K straight. Yes, I said R-U-N. I’ve never been much of a runner, even when I was young and in basketball-running was not my thang. Finishing up my second week of going to the gym almost every day, I am learning to appreciate running. My belief, I was never taught how to breath/practice it. I’m now doing that and I am starting to really enjoy it. Another fitness goal: I’ve always enjoyed boxing. I used to have a punching bag in my room growing up. I would love to learn to be good at it. I could never see myself fight someone because I don’t really want to fuck my face up. You know? Because my face could be my money maker some day. Maybe. Just maybe.

One of my other addictions between shoes and food, I had a nasty habit of buying clothes I loved that I knew that at the time that they didn’t fit me or they weren’t flattering on me at all. I have literally bags and bags full of clothes that still have new tags on them. I always called the clothes “My Motivation” but really, all they did was multiply into more clothes without motivation at all. As if buying them was a sign that it would cure me of being fat. I wish. I even hung my favorite clothes up on hangers and put them on my walls of my bedroom so I could see them every single day in hopes one day I would wake up and do something about it. Still nothing. I am excited to pull those clothes out because it will be like shopping in your own custom designed closet. It will be absolutely bad ass! On to the future, I’m also looking forward to shopping at normal people stores in which they should have my size! Oh the excitement is nearly bursting from my waist already.

With my fitness, I want to focus on getting buff. One place in particular I want to focus on, my arms. I’ve hated my arms for as long as I can remember. They always seem to soak up fat more than any other place on my body. I call my arms The Sponge area. I have so many shirts that I’ve had to physically rip the width of arms so my fat can fit. Isn’t that horrible? This is why you hardly ever see me without a shirt that covers them, a shawl or coat. Once my arms are buff, I would really like to get some tattoos-perhaps a full sleeve even. I’m talking to my mom about ideas already. I would love her input on design. This should be a year or two in the making anyways. Here is a fun fact-Lady GaGa promised her father that she would only get tattoos on her left side. The reason is, she wanted to keep her right side pure-bare skin as a reminder that she can be naturally beautiful-for her father. I’ve been following that same philosophy for years now. We will see how long I keep that going. She did end up getting a tattoo on her right side. They are addicting so I understand why she did it. And yes, I understand this is a permanent thing-tattoos-I have several already. Please keep the comments to yourself.

Our goal is to figure out a compromise on where to live. We have been discussing this and looking into it for a couple years now. It could be a year or ten years from now, we don’t know. We are growing out of the house we live in now with three dogs (XL, L and S), a cat, an accumulation of both our stuff and I don’t foresee downsizing anytime soon. In fact, I rented a storage shed not long ago because I am overwhelmed with stuff. This decision relies on a lot of factors but it definitely is a goal of ours for the future. I want a more private location-maybe three to six acres with lots of room inside the house and outside for the dogs and children to play. Brian wants to live in a city, close to people. The thought of that makes me ill but again, we will see. Marriage is all about compromise. I also want a large enough house to take care of both our parents when they get to that point. I would love that very much.

I would love to start a cookbook. Not an official, publishable one-I feel that is super difficult. Although, it has made me feel pretty good with comments made on my Facebook about people hiring me to be a personal chef with all the healthy food porn pictures I’ve been posting. I love the comments and it does make me feel wonderful. I honestly think I was probably a chef in my past life or something. I want to make a cookbook to pass down to our children. I want to teach them, show them and let them know that healthy eating isn’t always boring, stupid salads. I want them to know it can be flavorful, easy and cheaper than eating out. That is a huge misconception of dining out-it’s cheaper, quicker and sometimes healthier. This is not always the case. I would also love to get a cooking group together. Once a month a group of people, or girls, we find a recipe we love and we cook it together, have a glass of wine. That sounds nice!

One of my biggest disappointments in becoming selfish this year, I am missing every Professional Women’s Bowlers tour stop. I do admit, it is a little hard for me to watch the live stream every week. I know I have disappointed my biggest fan, Brian, by deciding not to this year, but after discussing my health, it makes nothing but complete sense to both of us. My goal for next year is to practice to the max and participate. I would enjoy to place in the top 4 once, or twice but I will not be disappointed if that doesn’t happen because I shall compare that year to the year before. I am healthy enough to participate. I shall be proud of that. I just want to be the best bowler I can be and this is a wonderful start to that.

As shitty as this is going to sound but one of my goals is to have a feeling of pride once I am fit. I want the feeling of being around people knowing that I verbally said ‘I want to do something about my weight’ and actually know I have done something about it. I cannot wait on others to decide they are going to change. I am here to help anyone get to that goal of their own. I’m already doing something similar with several people. Please, do not be shy!

Even though she isn’t engaged, I want to be a beautiful bridesmaid for the future (bride) Kylee, my best friend. Being in two weddings this year and feeling the worst I ever have about myself, I felt embarrassed. I don’t want to have to wear Spanx. I don’t want to have to worry about unflattering dresses or having to choose a dress because I am a ‘big girl’. I don’t want to have to worry about starring at myself in professional photos because I’m ‘the big girl’. I have been looking forward to her wedding all our lives, well since we met 16 years ago (or so-we can’t ever remember) and I am most excited about it! I want to stand proud next to my best friend. She is literally going to be the most stunning person I’ve ever seen. It is HER day but I also want to feel that we are pretty bitchin’ looking besties.

First and foremost, I want to become healthy. The second most desired goal, I want to be a mother. All my life, as strange as it sounds, I feel I’ve been practicing to be a wonderful mother. It started when I played with dolls, taking care of them, loving them. When my parents started letting me have pets, my love grew and grew to love a living being. I think that’s partially why I am such an animal lover. Once I started getting real friends in my life-you know since I was ‘homeschooled’ and all-those people are ‘weirdos/antisocial’ (this will be a later blog), I started caring for them-not as children but knowing what needed to be done, knowing how to make people better, knowing how to make people happy and laugh. Playing house, I was always the mom or the dad. It was just meant to be. I know it. I love our three dogs and our one cat. I would save their life if need be, no matter what it took. Making the decision to have dogs was basically mine. I wanted to try and fill the void of not having children at the time in my life. Please do not get me wrong or judge- they are the best decisions I’ve ever made. I have never loved anything more than them. It is a different love, an unconditional kind. I found out that I just love to love something, to love people, to love living things.

With children, I know the love will be different. Brian doesn’t know but I have already been planning for about a year or so how I am going to tell him, when the time comes, that we are expecting. I’ve been doing the same for our parents and close friends. I cannot wait to record it and share it with people and even our children when they are older. There are so many things I am looking forward to with this goal of being the best mother I can be. I am looking forward to singing lullabies, changing diapers, feeding. I am looking forward to documenting their ‘firsts’. I am looking forward to memorizing all the Disney movies and songs. I look forward to the little kisses, the little giggles, the outbursts of crying fits. I cannot wait to share my love of animals with them. I can’t wait to show them how to bowl. I cannot wait to see both of our parents smile ear to ear with their grandchildren. I can’t wait until we play catch in the back yard. I can’t wait to give them their first lemon or lime and record it for all to see. I can’t wait to do family pictures with our furkids and children together. I can’t wait for the house projects to be done that I’ve been pinning on Pinterest for a long time. The list is honestly endless. These are the things I’ve been fantasizing about for as long as I can remember.

Those are my goals right now. One of the better decisions I’ve made with the journey is joining Bariatric support pages. I’ve been creeping on people’s success stories, fears, where they’ve been, seeing their goals made. It’s reassuring that I’m not alone with everything I’m feeling-the excitement, the fear, the shame, anxiety, being scared. It also inspires me to continue on my journey-everyone seems to be doing so well with their surgery. They say that the surgery is the best decision they’ve ever made-I’ve made a great deal of wonderful decisions already, not to be cocky but it is the truth. I can’t wait to have this done so I can start my goals now! It is all normal and part of the process what I am feeling. I’m putting my brave face back on, my moments of weakness are over. This will be the hardest thing I ever do, thus far. I am strong and yes, I am scared. I’m actually slightly fearful that I am going to complete all those goals, eventually. I have that feeling that with my mind being set-like I used to before I would complete a goal. Purely fearful it can become a reality. Scared shitless. Since I like to end with quotes recently, I will add another very fitting one from my girl crush-Ronda Rousey:

“People say to me all the time, ‘You have no fear’. I tell them, “No. That is not true. I’m scared all the time. You have to have fear in order to have courage. I’m a courageous person because I am a scared person.”  

This is Why I’m Fat…

I have a huge challenge for you. It can take you anywhere from 30 minutes to 5 hours depending on the effort you put forth but one thing I will guarantee you, it will open your eyes. The challenge: Take some time to inventory what you eat in a week.  This helped Brian and I realize a few things about our lives. It helped to realize A) why I am fat (for the most part) continuing with my blog of addiction and B) this helped me realize what I can still improve on and where I came from starting this journey. You can learn from our mistakes and maybe help you realize some of your own as well.

Over the weekend, Brian and I traveled out of town to spend a fantastic time helping my best friend get married. The (beautiful-couldn’t-have-been-more-perfect) wedding was in Colorado, so we had several hours to kill in the car with one another. Once on the road, our conversation suddenly shifted to food. Yes, food-remember? The thing I finally admitted out loud that I was addicted to just last week. We decided my next blog (this one, duh!) will be sort of a continuation of a confessional involving that same topic of food. I was slightly embarrassed even talking to Brian about all this because it is outright shameful the way we used to eat. It was nothing short of mindless. Food is sort of an embarrassing topic for people in general I think, especially when they know deep down the choices they make are poorly made. I always chuckle at myself, guilty as ever, I order a double cheeseburger, large fry and a DIET COKE-you know to save on the calories! Or every Summer, I have to eat better-you know, salads and shit so that I don’t feel or look as fat. As if 3 months will get me in the shape I want to be. Mindless.

Mindless is the best thing I can call it. My definition of mindless eating-when you let yourself (over) indulge all the things you absolutely want to consume to the point of not knowing what you are doing on the inside of your body, the long term. I didn’t know that eating as much as I was, bad food nonetheless would have such consequences. One aftershock effect I experienced-feeling so miserable about myself-I wouldn’t let Brian, my own husband, see me naked or in my underwear. I wouldn’t even let him see me dress in the bedroom, going to the bathroom-door shut and locked. This went on for three and half years. I felt terrible about me. Me. Mindless. Me. Much like a drug addict unknowingly killing themselves slowly or harming their body/hygiene, food is actually not much different. I do take part of this statement back; there is an element of denial. Brian and I even spoke about that denial. I would ask him after eating, “Dinner wasn’t that bad for us, right?” and his response, “No-it wasn’t that bad” in which we would justify it being OK what we ate and how much of it we did. I have always been a huge fan of learning, reading, exploring the ‘Seven Deadly Sins’- I am almost obsessed with it-perhaps because I am aware that I have almost all seven of them, my most practiced one is gluttony and sloth. Who doesn’t have at least most of those sins-right?

Brian asked me to pull a pen and paper out. We actually made a menu of what we used to eat last year/early this year. This was actually very hard because we couldn’t remember what we used to do for food. I would say that is a phenomenal stride considering we’ve made pretty drastic changes in our life since March. You will understand why I said we have been bad teammates; the question we both would ask fairly frequently, “What should we do for food?” The embarrassment of this blog gradually went away because we wanted to prove a point. In calculating the calories-so, so high in calories, I could feel the fat piling on just thinking about it, in my mouth with every word rolling off my tongue-disgust, my stomach in knots with guilty feelings of neglect. I then wondered; why was I so shameful by calculating a 6,000 calorie day-admitting it out loud and yet I was eating this shitty, greasy food more than likely in front of you at one point anyways? The difference is accountability within myself-knowing what I was doing, awareness. Needless to say, my whole philosophy now is being pre-meditative. I have to research what I will order before eating out or else temptation will get the best of me. A couple tools that have helped me, the app on my phone MyFitnessPal and my FitBit app, have truly been a huge eye opener on how mindless, careless, and neglecting I was being to myself and in turn, being a shitty teammate to Brian and not supporting his choices either. This list literally was making us ill to our stomachs.

This is what an average week would look like eating poorly (for me/us)-This is Why I’m Fat:

(Parentheses indicates approximate calories)

• Monday
• Breakfast= Nothing
• Lunch= Gas Station
• 2 Pepper jack Tornados (440), 1 Large 44oz Coke Zero, Sunflower Seeds (240)
• Dinner= Big Red Keno Restaurant/Bar
• Appetizer: Poutine-waffle fries, cheese curds, brown gravy, ground beef (650)
• Beef Philly cheese Steak Sandwich (600), Large Hash brown (side) with cheese (430)
• Three- 32 oz frosty Blue Moon beers (1798)
• Total Approx. Calories for me: 4,158
• Tuesday
• Breakfast= Nothing
• Lunch= Wendy’s
• Baconator with Pretzel bun (1,050), large fries (500), large Diet Coke
• Dinner= Homemade-Beef Burgers (because Brian got jealous I had Wendy’s without him)
• 80/20 Beef approximately 8-10oz (570), Rotella burger bun (150), 1 or 2 brats (240), brat bun (210),1 fried egg (90), ½ box Kraft Mac & Cheese (600), 2 or 3 Coke Zero’s
• Total Approx. Calories for me: 3,410
• Wednesday
• Breakfast= Nothing
• Lunch= Hu Hot (all you can eat Mongolian buffet)
• 2 full plates mixed with-Chinese noodles, beef, water chestnuts, green/red peppers, pineapple, jalapenos, chow mien noodles, shaved coconut, egg drop soup, white rice, 8-10 ladles of assorted sauces, 4 Coke Zero w/ Lime
• Total Approx. Calories for me: 3,000
• Dinner= Deleon’s Mexican Fast Food
• Chorizo Special Burrito (eggs, chorizo, dice potato, cheese), ½ XL cheese quesadilla, 32oz Diet Coke
• Total Approx. Calories for me: 4,638

• Thursday
• Breakfast= Nothing
• Lunch= Gas Station-Country Fried Steak
• 10oz CFS, extra gravy (570), scrambled eggs (180), extra gravy (350), mashed potatoes (200), two 16 oz Diet Cokes
• Dinner= Homemade-Sirloin Steak
• 12oz sirloin steak (1,000), 1/2lbs cocktail shrimp and sauce (243), garlic Texas toast (200), Pistachio Gelato Ice Cream (350)
• Total Approx. Calories for me: 3,093
• Friday
• Breakfast= Nothing
• Lunch= Nothing
• Snack= Nutri-Grain Bar (120)
• Dinner= Old Chicago
• 1/3 portion of Italian Nacho’s (530), 1/3 large Chicago style Meat Me pizza (1536), 4 tall microbrew beers (1260-for the World Beer Tour/Mini Tours)
• Movie theatre-32 oz Diet Coke
• Home-1/2 bottle of Southern Comfort Lime (900)
• Total Approx. Calories for me: 4,346
• Saturday
• Breakfast=Homemade-Belgium Waffle
• 1 Belgium waffle (200), butter (110), syrup (200), sausage patties (560)
• Lunch= Chinese/Sushi Buffet
• 2 plates full of-steamed white rice (260), sweet/sour chicken (460), beef/broccoli (360), 6 crab Rangoon’s (390), fruit (140), 5 pieces of sushi (350), ice cream (200) and 4 Diet Soda’s
• Dinner= Homemade-Beef Stroganoff
• Beef, egg noodles (600), gravy (600), garlic bread (200), 3 Coke Zero’s
• Movie night at home: 3 bottles of wine (1,530)
• Total Approx. Calories for me: 6,160
• Sunday
• Breakfast= Nothing
• Lunch= Sushi
• Appetizer: Miso Soup (80), Spicy edamame (330)
• Splitting a Sushi Boat-9 rolls which is 25 pieces per person (1400)
• Dinner= Topper’s Pizza
• Medium Boneless Parmesan Chicken Wings (confession-Brian and I would eat this on the way home so we wouldn’t have to share with others) (720)
• Large Tator Tot Loaded Pizza (260), Large Mac & Cheese Pizza (420), Bacon/Chocolate Cheese Bread Sticks (700), Ranch sauce (160), Garlic butter sauce (145)
• Total Approx. Calories for me: 3,955

Total Calories for the Week: 29,760 calories which is 4,251 calories a day

Here is what a current, healthy, week looks like (for me/us):

• Monday
• Breakfast= Protein shake (160)
• Snack= String Cheese Stick (80)
• Lunch= Breakfast Restaurant
• Veggie/Ham/Egg beater omelet (300), wheat toast (125)
• Dinner= Homemade pasta rigatoni pie
• Cheese, ricotta cheese, mozzarella cheese, meat sauce, 90/10 ground beef (1,100)
• Snack= 1 glass Chocolate FairLife Milk (160)
• 50 ounces of water
• Total Approx. Calories for me: 1,925
• Tuesday
• Breakfast= Protein shake (160)
• Lunch= Cocktail shrimp (225), left over pasta pie (900)
• Dinner=Homemade cauliflower meat me pizza (640)
• Cauliflower, Greek yogurt/protein milk cheese sauce, turkey meat
• 50ounces of water
• Total Approx. Calories for me: 1,925
• Wednesday
• Breakfast= Protein Enriched Water (70)
• Lunch= Homemade Carb-less Chicken enchilada’s (350)
• Dinner= Homemade/Left overs
• Sirloin steak (5oz), pasta pie, ham/cheese quesadilla, 2 ½ glasses of wine (1,100)
• 42 ounces of water
• Total Approx. Calories for me: 1,520
• Thursday
• Breakfast= Envy Apple (52), protein shake (160)
• Snack=Protein Water (70)
• Lunch= Hy-Vee
• All-you-can-eat soup/salad-2 oz chicken gumbo (120), 1 large salad with garbanzo beans, roasted chicken, peas, cheese shredded, ranch dressing (550)
• Dinner= Homemade smoked pulled chicken with sriracha sauce (140)
• Snack= 1 cup FairLife Chocolate Milk (160)
• 64 ounces of water
• Total Approx. Calories for me: 1,080
• Friday
• Breakfast= Protein shake (180)
• Lunch=Homemade-Enchilada mixture (220) chicken, egg white, cheese, beans
• Dinner= Homemade-bunless turkey burger (portabella mushroom, Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter, oil, seasoning, cheese, lettuce (375)
• Snack: Protein Enriched water= (70)
• 55 ounces of water
• Total Approx. Calories for me: 1,025
• Saturday
• Breakfast= Homemade-2 XL eggs over easy, salsa, Sriracha, protein shake (340)
• Lunch= Imitation crab sushi (120), garlic roasted chicken breast deli meat (140), roast beef deli meat (160), jalapeno sliced deli cheese (120)
• Dinner= protein shake (240)
• 70 ounces of water
• Total Approx. Calories for me: 1,140
• Sunday
• Breakfast= Homemade chicken, veggie quiche (300)
• Lunch= Protein Shake (160), Envy Apple (52), hard boil egg (80)
• Dinner= Roast beef/turkey/cheese protein wrap (300), homemade white chicken chili soup (140)
• 64 ounces of water
• Total Approx. Calories for me: 1,032

Total Calories for the Week: 9,647 calories which is 1,378 calories a day

My diet consists of high protein, low carb, low-calorie food and drink. Logging my food and water intake is very, very important to me and the future of my success. Starting this week, I am planning on logging my work outs for when I hit ‘the Great Wall’ of plateau, so I can analyze it later, perhaps with my team (nutritionist, personal trainer, my support team). Success does not have to be measured in weight loss or muscle gained or even the difference in clothing sizes. Bariatric patients call this “NSV” which stands for “Non-Scale-Victory”. I, among a large percentage of people, focus too much “on the number” of weight- we either go up, down, or maintain. I’ve called the scale a fucker out loud more times than my highest weight and in fact I have nicknamed my scale Fucker. As if it’s the scales fault for the three pound gain here and there. As if the scale twisted my arm to eat a 6,000 calorie day. Not even a joke.

My biggest NSV happened in mid-April; I was able to put my third wedding band on. I haven’t been able to do that for a couple years. I am determined to not let the scale measure my health (to a certain extent), happiness or success. Disappointment has hit me too many times with the Fucker. This is a completely different journey than I am used to with my “yo-yo” dieting, something I have done since I was ten or eleven years old. I’m so happy Brian and I are doing this together because we are learning, being wonderful team mates and loving one another more than ever. We discovered with our menu confessions that 1). We never drank water unless we were hung over and drank gallons of pop a week 2). We never considered calories in vs. calories out 3). We were in denial that we weren’t eating out that much. 4). We justified our bad choices.

The sum of the “healthy” week’s calories (9,647) actually was almost the total of the “poor choices” worst day (Saturday) at 6,160 calories. Brian did the math and to burn off all the excess calories we took in during an average week, we would have to jog almost 9 miles a day to BREAK EVEN, insane! Just last week I was so proud of myself for running a minute a thirty seconds straight. I haven’t been able to do that since I was probably eight. That is another NSV for me!

Once we were done with making our menu, we decided to have a little bit more fatty fun and make a list of some of the worst foods/habits we’ve ever done in our life and some of our favorite horrible foods. This is our couple’s confession on how we got fat (we lost track of calories towards the end of the list because it was getting a little sickening):

• Grilled cheese with 10oz of cheese 1800
• Potatoes chip sandwich 500
• 2 big rock stars 520 62 grams of sugar
• 3 NOS, 2 dews  and a 5 hour energy 790 mg of caffeine
• 2 liter of diet dew for 324 mg of caffeine
• Hash house pork loin 2300
• Hash house quesadilla estimated at 2000
• Gluttony burger at Sinful burger 2300 with philly egg rolls for 779
• A whole birthday cake 400 calorie per 10 pieces
• Bacon baby 3360
• Chips and Sriracha dip 2600
• Chipotle burrito extra meat extra rice, chips and guac 2200
• Sugar donut eating contest 2260 plus
• Val’s pizza eating contest 4636
• Oreo eating contest 1040
• Pancake eating contest 2260
• Golden Corral Mac and cheese/broccoli 2540
• Large thin crust dominos meat 2360
• Pan of Fruckies 5110
• Peanut butter marshmallow cereal rice krispie treats 1800
• Buzzard Billy’s monsterella sticks, armadillo eggs, fried gator, philly po boy and 2 hurricanes 3200
• Maraschino cherry eating contest 2800
• Wendy’s triple with chicken nuggets and large fry 2700
• Arby’s Big Montana, mozzarella sticks, large curly fry, large diet pop
• McDonalds 16 double cheese burgers (no buns), with cheese
• 6 lbs of bacon
• 4lbs of prime rib
• McDonalds double quarter pounder with cheese, large fry, large coke
• Burger King double croissantwich, large tator tot, large orange juice
• Red Lobster Ultimate Fest-6 biscuits, fries, shrimp pasta, clam chowder
• Runza-2 cheese runza’s mushroom burger, large fries, pop
• KFC double down sandwich, large fries, extra chicken thigh
• Entire box of oatmeal pies
• Entire box of zebra cakes
• Culvers-double butter burger, large cheese curds, cement ice cream mixer (oreo, reese’s peanut butter cup, butterfinger mix)
• Jimmy John’s-the gargantuan, chips, large soda, cookie
• Texas Roadhouse-3 or 4 cinnamon buttered rolls, huge ribeye steak, shrimp, Caesar salad, double order of fries with bacon/cheese, 2 cocktails
• Red Robin-double bacon cheeseburger, large beers, fries, appetizer with jalapeno coins, mozzarella sticks and onion rings
• Five Guys-Double bacon cheese burger, loaded with everything on it, 1.5 large fries, soda

Do what Brian and I did this past weekend with our menus. Accept my challenge and see what you are doing with your life and health. Whether you are losing weight, trying to lose weight, a skinny person, a body builder, a struggler (me!), maintaining weight- as I promised, you will see something, open your eyes like us. I hope what you see is our struggle; it is a true, real struggle. We ask for no sympathy, advice or encouragement (although that is nice). We will not, I repeat, we will NOT be freaks after surgery. We will still have cheat days, splurging-just not like we used to. Just you wait and see! We are doing what WE need to do to change OUR lives. What we may ask of you, our friend, support our good decisions because we as human beings do indeed know what a good decision is. As I said, I was embarrassed posting this because the calories were so disgustingly high, I wasn’t active at all with exercise and therefore putting on the pounds was easy. I joke of “stress eating” and “stress drinking”-but was that really a joke? Someone should have shook the living hell out of me and said, “Stop”-joking or not because I knew I had to but didn’t want to, the gluttony was too satisfying and the sloth was comforting.

I hope what you see in your own confessions: that you can be proud of eating well even if you have eaten poorly or occasionally eat poorly. It could always be worse (6,000+ calories) and it could always be better. The temptation is there, all around us, every single day. I hope that you see: you are not alone. I hope that you see; there is always room for improvement even if you are eating well. It is up to you to make the changes need-just like we are doing. I’m seeing the world more in the words of my new idol Ronda Rousey,

“…I’m not a do nothin’ bitch”.