A few days ago I met with my nutritionist and she outlined my food plan for the foreseeable future. I still haven’t really grasped how things are about to change. It hasn’t sunk in at all.
On Friday, which is 2 weeks before surgery, I’ll begin a low-carb diet, something I’m very familiar with. I’ll be low-carb for one week before starting the pre-op liquid diet. Because I carry the majority of my weight in my thighs and bum, I only have to do the liquid diet for one week as opposed to two or three. My doctor is prescribing Unjury protein powder during that week.
I have three days left before I start low-carb. One of the vlogs I watched recently talked about food funerals. The woman had food funerals for McDonald’s and pizza, and ice-cream, and all these other foods that she wouldn’t be able to have leading up to and following her surgery.
I know that we all approach these types of things differently. In the past, when I have known I would be starting Weight Watchers, or Keto, or any other diet, I have also had food funerals. I have binged on foods or quantities that were not going to be options after my “start date”. I realize now, however, that these moments of panicked indulgence were only reinforcing my unhealthy relationship with food.
How can I hope to be successful and develop a new, healthy approach to eating that will stay with me for the rest of my life, if I’m still treating Chipotle, Goldfish crackers, and pizza like forbidden fruit, to obsess over and mourn when no longer available?
Over the next few days I will have “bad” foods. I’m sure of it. There is a dark chocolate bar in the cupboard that has my name on it. But I am vowing to myself, right this moment, to not be crazy. I will enjoy reasonably sized portions of the foods I am fond of, with the understanding that I will be able to enjoy them again some day, just in smaller and even more reasonably sized portions. I will not view my upcoming low-carb and liquid diets as a death sentence for all of my favorite foods. I will not mourn them.
I am determined for my new normal to include a healthier relationship with food and there is no reason that can’t start right now.