Going home
by
, 06-11-2016 at 06:18 PM (2655 Views)
Today, is day two of my pre-op modified liquid diet (modified because my surgeon does allow for a healthy dinner and high protein snacks). My surgery is scheduled for Monday afternoon. I am nervous beyond belief.
Preparing for this surgery is just one of many different things I have going on in my life right now. I have lived in Latin America for the past four years. My job has recently assigned me to East Africa. My family and I will arrive there in late July. Before we head to my next assignment we're spending a few weeks in the U.S so that I can have the surgery and so that we can visit family and friends.
One of the things about living overseas is that it often puts the U.S. in a different perspective. For me, I have a new awareness of exactly how much (unhealthy) food Americans are surrounded by everyday. Driving to the hotel from the airport, I was acutely aware of every restaurant I passed - Whataburger, Pappadeaux, the Cheesecake Factory, every Tex-mex restaurant, Dairy Queen (I'm in Texas y'all). . .the list goes on and on and on. I haven't eaten in some of these places in years! Whataburger's sausage, egg and cheese biscuits for breakfast bring back so many good memories. . . I knew this was going to be an issue for me, so I decided to stay in an extended stay hotel so that I'd have a kitchen and would be able to cook. I took my first trip to the grocery store and again, I was super aware of how much food there is here. . .most of it processed and unhealthy - an entire aisle basically devoted to ice cream? How many different flavors of Blue Bell ice cream are there? Y'all, the struggle is real! However, I stuck to my grocery list of lean meats, fruits and veggies. I bought a Vitamix blender, so I was pretty excited about trying different combinations of things. That has helped me resist temptation.
So far, I'm staying strong. I managed to lose 20 pounds between February and today by following my doctor's post-op diet: no red meat, no bread, no sweets and no alcohol. Tomorrow is my last day of the liquid diet and Monday is the big day!