"If You're Gonna Take That Step, Then Get Up Off of Your Knees.” - Bon Jovi

Well.  The last few posts have been kind of heavy.    So I thought I’d switch gears a little and talk a bit less about heavy emotional stuff and a bit more about physical stuff happening in the here and now.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s pretty hard to get completely away from emotional stuff – this whole process is emotional for me.  But some stuff is easier to talk about and put out here for everyone to read about and judge than other stuff is. 

Not that I’m really worried about being judged.  Actually, that is the last thing on my mind right now.  At this point of my life, I could not care less what anyone is thinking about me. 

Actually, that’s a total lie……but I want it to be true!  The whole point of being brutally honest is to stop feeling troubled and embarrassed by my history and embrace it as the catalyst that brought me here to this moment.  And I am so grateful and happy to be where I am right now. 

This truly is the best time of my life so far and I feel like I’m giving myself a chance to “start over”.  I’m not allowing my history to eat (HA!) away at me anymore.  It has been an incredible release to admit how weak I became after I was victimized, admit all the bad decisions I’ve made, and feel like I can triumph over it.  And the private messages of support I’ve gotten have been really incredible.  I’ve heard from high school classmates who said they always admired me because I always seemed so confident (?!) and others who said they always wanted to ask me out but were intimidated (?!?!?);  others who confided their own stories of victimization and many others who told me they could really relate to my post about death.  Being so open about it all makes me feel like I am no longer an imposter in my own life.  I feel like I am revealing my true self. 

There are some pieces of me that have always been authentic….I never lost these pieces and I never will, weight loss surgery or not.  For example, I grew up in a family that was very heavily influenced by my dad’s parents - my Italian grandmother (Margie) and my Ukrainian grandfather.  Their house always felt very Italian - partly because my grandmother’s big family all lived in the same town as us, whereas my grandfather’s small family didn’t, so her brothers and sisters and close friends and all their families were always dropping in.  We were always at my grandparents' house to visit and swim and eat dinner.  My mom and dad both worked in the family plumbing business and the office for the business was in my grandparents' house so business associates, customers, employees and their families were also always dropping in.  There was always a bounty of amazing food and wine, and raucous “discussions” shouted around the kitchen table.  

Food is important in all cultures but honestly, none more so than in Italian culture.  Everyone who has seen the Godfather knows the Italian way is about generosity, loyalty, good food, love, family, and passion and these themes were abundantly present in my family.  From the time I was old enough to walk, I was in the kitchen with my grandmother for all family celebrations, helping her prepare the meal.  It was always just me and her. In that kitchen, I learned to speak Italian; I learned to cook and I learned all the scandalous family secrets.  Her attitude towards food, family and life revealed by the stories she told. As she got older, I took over the cooking while she sat in a chair and “supervised”.  Sharing those times with her was so special…. Margie’s kitchen was home for me. 

That feeling of “home” is now sadly gone.  My grandmother passed away in the kitchen, sitting at the kitchen table, in 2007.  The last time I saw her alive was also sitting at that kitchen table….just her and me.  We ate lasagna together but the silence was unbearable.  She had recently been diagnosed with cancer at the age of 85 after a lifetime of no health problems and she just could not feel anything but fear, regret and depression.  She had no stories to tell, she had no fight in her spirit, I could tell she was not even enjoying her meal…she was just simply waiting to die.  And then she did, two days later.

Her passing left a huge void in my heart and caused a terrible rift in the family which has, thankfully, since been repaired.  I still cook in her kitchen with her pots and pans for family dinners but it’s definitely not the same.  However, I carry her and her Italian way with me always.  Having weight loss surgery is not going to change that for me because it IS who I am.  I am always going to love food.  I am always going to be offended if I cook for someone and I don’t think they eat enough.  I am always going to think I need “more” on the table. 

As a result, I am never going to be the kind of person who snacks on protein bars (ie “cardboard”) or uses protein powder (ie “chalk”) or tries out juicing, like a lot of weight loss surgery patients do.   I hear a lot of weight loss surgery patients talk about how difficult it is to get the proper amount of protein from food so they supplement with extra protein products…..this seems to be a real struggle for most people.  So far, I have had no trouble at all getting enough protein and it’s not like all these protein supplements actually taste good so I’m not sure why people eat them.

Just as an aside - both the lap band and the gastric sleeve are restrictive types of weight loss surgeries, whereas gastric bypass is a malabsorbative surgery....they work differently. Restrictive weight loss surgeries work by restricting the amount of food that can be consumed.  In essence, they work by encouraging the patient to eat less.   Malabsorbative weight loss surgeries work by decreasing the amount of nutrition the body is able to absorb from the intestinal tract.   Technically they should all result in weight loss (but it's possible to NOT lose weight after WLS) so selecting which surgery is right for a patient takes some thought.  I already have severe vitamin deficiency from having the lap band for 9 years so the sleeve was a better choice for me.  (Why did I get the lap band…that’s another story entirely and I wrote a whole blog post about it back in September.)

Since the band and the sleeve are both restrictive, I was expecting my body's reaction to food consumption to be the same with the sleeve as it had been with the band…….not that I was looking forward to that.  From the very beginning, even when my lap band was working the way it should, I had a very rough time with the band.  At best, I always had to take very, very tiny bites of anything I ate.  I always had to chew a million times until whatever I was eating was completely liquefied before swallowing.   As a result of both of these things, I ate really, really slowly.  Even though I ate so slowly and took tiny bites and chewed so much, food often got "stuck" which would lead to being sick.  There were certain things like bread, eggs, pasta, shell fish and meat that my band was totally intolerant of, which was so sad because I love all those foods. I always had to make sure I stopped eating many hours before bed or I'd have horrible acid reflux.

But so far, having the sleeve is a very different experience for me than having the lap band was…..I have been very, very happily surprised so far!  I haven't been sick at all and food doesn’t get "stuck".  Now I actually feel full.  For the first time in my life, I am not a bottomless pit incapable of feeling full...I actually get REALLY full – like, it’s Thanksgiving dinner and I’ve had too many helpings of everything, kind of full - rather quickly…..after eating about a cup of food. I haven’t found one thing that I could not eat so far.  I’ve tried shellfish, sushi, dim sum, bread, deep fried and fresh spring rolls, eggs, pad thai, pasta, pizza, salad, raw fruits and vegetables, nuts, pork, beef, chicken….I’m pretty much trying everything at this point (and there isn’t much I don’t like!) and so far, there has not been one thing that has given me problems.  I don’t have to eat super slow…I can eat at the same pace as everyone else; I just get full and stop eating faster than everyone else.  I don’t need to take tiny pea sized bites.  I can just eat like a “normal” person.  I am very, very happy about this and I hope it continues.  The sleeve is making social situations so much easier and more pleasant for me than the band did.

The biggest challenge for me right now is drinking as much water as I should.  I like water….I drink a lot of water……about 70 ounces of water/day.  But that’s probably about half of what I should be drinking.  My eyes, skin and nose have been incredibly dry the past few weeks and I sometimes feel dizzy or faint if I forget to drink for an afternoon.  When I start to exercise, this could be a problem!

Speaking of which, on Monday I have my first appointment with Dr. Comella, which I am super excited about!  You may recall from one of my previous posts that he and Anthony Caruso, a body builder, have a lifestyle management clinic and I am going to be their client.  The first appointment will be for building a nutrition and exercise base plan that will help me work towards my fitness goals.   Then they'll function as my personal trainers and nutrition coaches.  I’m not interested in just going for walks.  I want to try and sculpt my body the way I want it to be and that means strength training in addition to other stuff.  I had to wait 6 weeks after surgery to begin strength training but I knew all along I wanted to do it.

I’m trying really, really hard to not think about how difficult it will be for me to become the kind of person who exercises regularly.  I really want to exercise…in fact, I’ve been itching to start for the past month.  It was a fantastic thing that I healed so quickly from surgery but it meant that all these weeks, I have been dying to do much more than I should.  It speaks volumes that I did not start exercising early but I chose to do other things earlier than I should have.  Jessica told me how hard therapy would be and how hard doing the emotional work I needed to do would be…and yeah it was and is.  But in some ways, the exercise thing is even harder for me.  I can handle emotions.  I’m an emotional Pisces; born in the Water element…I feed off emotion, I live for it.  I do not feed off of exercise.  My brother got the jock genes in my family, I got the bookworm genes.  So right about now, I feel like Felix Baumgartner standing in a helium balloon in the stratosphere looking down at Earth.  My ideal body just seems so far away and the route to getting there so very daunting.

But the good news is I knew I would feel this way, which is why I chose to not join a regular gym.  I knew if I did, I would never start to exercise, never get close to the body I want or get physically fit.  I know myself.  Every day I would tell myself that tomorrow would be the day I’d start and it would go nowhere.  And then there’d be no roller derby for me.  No pole dancing classes, no horseback riding, and no improvement in my sex life, no hot clothes, no beautiful canvas for the many tattoos I covet…and on and on it goes. 

So this is important and it’s probably going to be expensive and I don’t care.  I already decided to cancel my Direct TV subscription to pay for it.  That $160/month can do me more good than it currently is.  I’ll have a team that is specifically focused on keeping my diet and exercise plan on track and will smack my ass into shape (a girl can hope!) if I lose focus, which I will.  I’m simplifying my life.  My energy and attention need to be on people, things and experiences that are positive, supportive and allow me to be the person I am.  Anything that weighs me down, holds me back or causes me self-doubt has just got to go.  Anything that builds me up has got to be incorporated.

It really is amazing how quickly things can change when you are open to it.  One person, one thing can change your life forever in a split second, without you even realizing it’s happening.  It’s so quick…you blink and it’s happened….and then you notice.    The key is to be open to it.  When you allow new people and things into your life, extraordinary things can happen.