Anyway. there was a young woman talking about her experience 12 weeks out from surgery. She sounded very sad and I can relate. While it is exciting to lose weight at such a fast pace, to hear the compliments from others - having your world turned upside down is difficult. For many people, food is a pleasure. Planning meals, cooking and eating is a big part of our lives. Those of us who indulge in too much food have a set of problems that people who can enjoy without going overboard don't have.
One of the little talked about effects of weight loss surgery is that you not only lose your appetite, you lose your enjoyment. Things taste different, things you liked to eat not only don't taste the same they make you feel bad when you eat them. And I am not talking about indulgences - I mean things like eggs or yogurt or chicken. The young woman in the video was sad about this, worried that it wouldn't change back and she wouldn't achieve her dream of becoming a chef because of it. I worry , too. I struggle to get the 800 calories a day I am supposed to be eating. Most days I don't. It is hard to eat when you feel bad and nothing tastes right.
I went to the movies the other night and took a chance on a small bag of popcorn. I felt pleasure in food for the first time in 10 weeks. It tasted good. I nibbled slowly and made it through almost half the bag in the 3 hours I sat there. I am not "supposed to" be eating carbs - but it was worth bending the rules to know I could feel that pleasure again. Then yesterday I was cutting up a pineapple and I ate 3 chunks of it - oh, my. It was so good.
So the old pleasure is there to be had - right now not in the protein foods I need to be focused on, but it's there waiting for me to be healed and healthy again.
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