A Bump in the Road

It hasn't been a week, but I'm sitting down and writing today because I need a dose of drive and accountability.

I have good news and bad news. The bad news first: I put on a pound.

Now before you judge me (although Lord knows somehow I still judge me) you should know the circumstances. I've been having really bad hunger pains. So bad that they wake me up in the middle of the night and make me want to curl into the fetal position. They come during the day, too, as soon as an hour or two after I've eaten. I assumed this was because I was on a soft/liquid diet and the food was just going through me too quickly. In order to combat this, though, I've had to be eating quite a bit more than I had been. I'm not eating junk food or anything, but even eating healthy, with how often I've had to eat to keep the pain away, I've definitely had more like 1500+ calories a day instead of the 800 I had been eating. This has just been since Tuesday, thankfully, but it's still meant I've put on a pound. And that I don't like.

The good news? I talked to my surgeon yesterday, inquiring about how soon I could start working out, and as I told him about the hunger pains, he quickly told me that those weren't hunger pains, it was my stomach trying to undo itself! Now, I know that doesn't exactly sound like good news, but to a girl who just had surgery in order to be LESS hungry, it was faaaabulous news. This pain will pass (I would assume, anyway... I somehow lose my brain every time I'm on the phone with him and forget to ask obvious questions. Something about him going to like, twenty years of college makes me so intimidated I can hardly talk.) and until it does, the answer isn't eating, it's ibuprofen. And thankfully, the calories in ibuprofen are minimal. :)

What this means for me today, is that I can go back to the diet that will continually help me take off the pounds without being in pain! And when I got on the scale this morning (I'd been avoiding it for the last few days because I knew I'd been eating too much to lose anything) it did two things. It discouraged me, of course. But it also reminded me that I have a cruise in 20 weeks. And if I want to be back at around 150 pounds, I need to lose at least 2.5 pounds per week. Every week. There's no waiting til tomorrow or Monday or next week. I have to do this right now. That knowledge, thankfully, has put me back into attack mode.

I'm telling you, my friends and family, about this goal. If I say it out loud, or write it down and publish it in this case, it helps to solidify my resolve and move forward with tenacity. By God's grace and with His help, I will conquer this. One step at a time I will climb this mountain and I can't WAIT for the view from the top.

So... first step down. My next step will be spending some time at God's feet, asking for His strength and perspective. :)

Thanks for all your love, support and prayers. They mean more than I can ever tell you.

<3 Leigh