This turned out to be waaayyy harder
than I thought. Who knew that changing a lifetime of bad eating
habits and a crack like addiction to carbs would be so freakin'
difficult? Apparently, not me. I was beginning struggle so badly,
after I had started out strongly. And every time I fell off the
wagon, I felt I was starting all over again. It wasn't really that
bad, but I tend to overreact, so it felt that bad. Then came an
actual, life changing, moment, that wasn't that bad but I lost my
shit anyway. My boyfriend was diagnosed with Celiac disease. That
meant no wheat. As much as carbs were my enemy, I still wanted to
have them once in a while. It was safer to have a wheat free house
than to risk cross contamination. So after a bit of research, I had a
melt down. Nothing major, kind of like the fire in the chemical plant
in superman 3, where everything ended up fine, but almost exploded?
Wheat was good at hiding....EVERYWHERE! We threw out so much food and
cleaned everything. We had to drop most of our favorite restaurants,
which was kind of a good thing, but anyone who knows me knows I like
to do things on my own terms, not because I have too (I'm kinda
stubborn that way). So all that hard work was about to look like a
skinned knee compared to the hemorrhaging brain that was was about to
ensue.
Not only was I reading nutrition
labels. I was checking ingredient lists for sneaky sources of wheat
and Google-ing brand names to finds out if they had wheat free
facilities. Then I became a know it all. Worse than before. I annoyed
all my co workers and my friends and anyone who would listen, with
facts about Celiac disease and wheat and blah blah blah. I'm also a
bit of a show off, so I wanted everyone to know how smart I am.
(That's the price you pay for being friends with someone so awesome. Take that!)
The avoidance of wheat turned out to have a good side effect. See,
wheat mostly resides in the restricted section of the grocery
store....the middle aisles. Not as intersting as the restricted
section at Hogwarts, but it was to be avoided nonetheless. See, the
outside edges of the grocery store have all the 'good' stuff. All the
fruits, veggies, dairy and meat. There is also the bakery, but we
just avoided that all together. Until that is where they but the
gluten free bread. Makes sense, but also under minds my
point...dammit. My point is, the gluten free diet made it easier to
stick to the good parts of the grocery store. And caused another
problem. See, gluten free diets are good, because you are eliminating
excessive carbs. Gluten free diets are not good, when you sub them
out for gluten free carbs. In my label comparisons, gluten free bread
has more calories and carbs than regular bread. But it is a craze
right now, so let the whores have their trinkets, I suppose. (I have
no idea what that means).
So we started eating gluten free carbs,
pasta, bread, cookies, etc. Its just like eating a regular cookie,
but doesn't taste as good. In fact, it tastes like crap. I was so
busy trying to replace our gluten with gluten free, I was forgetting
the big picture. Weight loss! Hello! I forgot my rules, to measure my
pasta and bread, have half my plate be veggies and eat low fat dairy.
That was easily rectified, and I was back on track. Then I got the
phone call I had been waiting for. The clinic my doctors office had
referred me to approved me and was ready to book my first
appointment. I was excited and apprehensive. I had worked hard and
lost about 20 pounds, but I knew this was one step closer to possible
surgery, which was kind of scary. I didn't know much about bariatric
surgery, and I knew they would teach me, but, I was mostly worried
about the new people I would meet. Would my new nurse and dietician
be as awesome as the ones I had now? (spoiler: Hell no). I knew my
diet would have to change again, but to what extreme? I had to do
something else, I was almost at my plateau. See, it is really
difficult to lose more than 5 to 10 % of your body weight with diet
and exercise alone. That was 34 pounds, max. That wasn't going to cut
it. My first visit proved to be both frustrating and uplifting at the
same time. The clinic had a lot of success stories, but any weight
loss program other than theirs was shunned like that awkward cousin
that you're sure is a virgin at 40 and has serious impulse control
issues so becomes a mailman (mine was a girl, go figure). I asked
about HCG, which was a diet my best friend was on and had been hugely
successful. I was worried because I was diabetic and needed more
information than the internet could provide. My doctor didn't know
enough about it and referred my to a gynecologist,
but his wait list was about 6 months. This was my only option for
now. So I trucked on, open to all options and waiting to learn new
and exciting things.
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