shaking it...

After my appointment's to see the 'Yes Man' & the 'Diet Lady' i started to really watch what i ate, i still ate chocolate, biscuits, chips and really fatty dinners like chicken parmigiana and lasagna with extra cheese and putting way to much butter and cheese on things that didn't need it in the first place so when i say i watched what i ate i MEANT i watched what i ate. but giving myself some credit, it wasn't quite that black and white. I did cut down on the portion size's and i made an effort to cut out as much fat as my will power let me meal by meal. See eating foods full of the oh so yummy but oh so bad stuff is an addiction like alcohol, smokes & drugs, so if anyone of you have one or more of these addictions I'm sure you will understand going cold turkey is not something that any tom dick and harry can do so i decided to take it one step at a time, I felt doing things this way was going to help me betting in the long scheme of things.

I had just 1 week to go before i had to start my 2 weeks of pre-banding shakes to reduce the amount of fat on my liver for the operating team to be able to get under it to get the the stomach. I had been having a shake each morning for breakfast before this as I'm not a breakfast eater but as everyone knows breakfast is the most important meal of the day especially for people trying to lose weight, this was my little kick start into the shakes and breakfast eating. Now with just 1 week, 7 days, 14 real meals to go before i had to stick to this shake diet i stoped and REALLY looked at my food. Not knowing if this would be a food i could ever eat again, everyone with a Lap-Band was different with the foods they are able to eat so i chewed every last bite so slowly, taking in every smell, every taste i possibly could just in case this was the last time i was ever going to be able to enjoy that combination of tastes. It was quite an eye opener for me realising i had been abusing the power of taste? the food i was eating i would say i loved it but after that week of TASTING my favorite food i think labeling it as yummy was a total underestimation. That week to me the food was simply amazing. While having my possible last taste at my favorite foods in that week i also said goodbye, not an out loud looking like a physio, but in my head i was closing the door behind each meal. Doing this was my way on making things easier to hopefully not miss or crave these again (so far so good). Day 1 of the shake diet i had chosen OptiSlim over the OptiFast that most surgeons and dietitians recommend as it worked just as good for my family when it was their turn as well it was allot cheaper to get. I found myself hungry all day even after snacking on the allowed 2 cups of selected fruit and 3 cups selected vegetables, but it wasn't hunger or craving's i was having it was just simply habit. Boredom used to be filled with entertainment of food for me. I always thought it wasn't the amount of food id eat it was what i ate that contributed to keeping the FULLER figure i maintained and added to over my life, but that I'm still learning and cant answer truthfully so it was most likely a mix of both. Days 2-4 were pretty much the same so i did my best to get out of the house during the day walking around shops or visiting, I just tried to keep myself as pre occupied as i could. Somewhere in around day 5 i started to really enjoy the taste of the shakes, looking forward to having one, people thought i was mad as they are not a chosen desire to have but i figure my taste buds were changing as well as my mind set as i also found i was not craving food all the time, that i was satisfied with the shakes and my 4 vita wheat with Vegemite i took a chance on eating around day 3. After that the next 9 days seemed easy with a meal routine of:

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Breakfast - Shake
Snack - Fruit
Lunch - Shake
Snack - 4 Vita Wheat
Dinner - Vegetables
Desert - Yogurt or Icy Pole

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I was so proud of myself sticking to this diet as i had tried the shake diet in the past and just failed, i cheated every chance i took, i skipped days here and there so it was never going to work but this time i had an achievable goal, taking on the words from Tamaris my Dr. "The shakes are great for weight loss but we mainly need you to do it to reduce the fat on the liver" so I'm not sure what part gave me the drive, the feeling it was the fat on the liver reduction rather than my weight or the idea of having a fatty liver could mean after they got inside they couldn't do it because my liver had to much fat so it would be a waste of time plus doing anything to make the operation just that little bit safer was a big drive too.
Day 14 came and day 14 went so so fast, the eve of my operation the eve of the band, the eve of changing my life for ever.