Challenging Holidays

Challenging Holidays....

So we all experience over eating on holidays, it is almost expected of us. We plan for it by wearing our loose fitting or elastic wasted clothing, schedule couch time using football or It's a wonderful life as a excuse to be a sloth and so many other things. This is just ingrained on our culture, so with a new smaller stomach how does one do these holidays? Well since it has been a while let me back up to Halloween which seems to start our three to four month decline and unraveling of the rest of the years hard work.
Halloween is not so hard for me, except during high stress times at work because everyone has candy at their desk free for the taking. Then there is the office Halloween fund raiser where people can send you "Spooky Grams" . These are tasty little treats your coworkers/friends can send you as a little special acknowledgement. Of course I don't want to throw those away because it is so thoughtful and kind and it would be just rude not to eat it... RIGHT? Let the games begin.... Guilt.
Yes we feel Guilt if we eat it , we feel the guilt if we do not... Oy Vey! I often ask myself what is it about guilt that we give it so much power and control in our lives? I will save that for a BOOK! LOL  Anyway, so Halloween, I get several Spooky Grams and had a couple high stress days and found myself eating some candy which is not great for anyone but for someone with limited space in their stomach, these treats take up space AND have no nutritional value so I not only get the bad sugars and carbohydrates but rob myself of the protein and other nutrition I need. Thankfully I did not stay home and pass out candy on the actual Halloween night because that is always a excuse to have a candy or two, so that was one good thing this year, I did not do that. I actually did pretty good making it through Halloween considering in the past it has been one of the hardest with so much candy floating around.

NEXT for me and probably the hardest for me.... NO not Thanksgiving... I have my Birthday before Thanksgiving. My Birthday is probably the hardest holiday for me because that override switch gets flipped. You know the one... It's MY BIRTHDAY and I get to do whatever I want including eat unlimited amounts of crap. The other part of my Birthday that makes it such a challenge is everyone wants to give you things you like or make things for you that they know you like. Well nothing was different this year. HOWEVER, I can say that while I had WAY TOO much sugary sweets around my birthday, I never over did it in one sitting. What I mean is Yes I had a cupcake but only a third of it at a time. Yes, I had some awesome decadent flourless chocolate tort cake, but only a tiny sliver at a time. SO yes I had way too much sugar over a few days BUT I did not over do it in any one sitting. I felt this was a success for me, but next year I will try to take it the next step and focus on some sugar free treats!

After my birthday came Thanksgiving. This was so far the most successful Holiday for me in terms of food and eating. As always there was tons of food, more then any one family needs, but we all have every year. There was the classic "snack" foods that sit out all day to munch on while we wait for the turkey and fixings to cook. I managed to stay away from most of that with a exception of a stuffed mushroom (my sister in laws specialty I will never be able to avoid) and a slice or two of salami. Now both these choices included protein and neither were large amounts, very small and manageable as to not make me feel over full with my little stomach, and yet satisfied my need to snack as it was Thanksgiving! LOL I also managed to distract myself by spending lots of time hanging with the nephews and nieces playing games which was WAY more gratifying then eating until my stomach hurt.
Then when it came time for dinner I did a couple little things that helped. First I used a small (dessert size) plate that was probably a third of the size of the plates everyone else used. Then I made sure to take some of everything I wanted, YES everything, but here is the deal. For example I love stuffing but it is another one of those high carb / low nutritional value foods, but I like it so I took like two little pieces of stuffing, or one bite. I did this with all the things I like and then I made sure the majority of my food intake was the protein, turkey, which really is the best part anyway. This made it so I not only did not over eat, but I did not feel deprived like we often do when dieting. I also choose to sit at the "kid" table ( I put kid in parenthesis because the youngest person at the table was a teenager so they are hardly "kids" anymore, but I digress), I sat at that table one because the company is better, LOL, but also it was away from the table that had all the food on it or near it! Translation, removal of the temptation. It really was not bad at all. Yes I had bites of dessert later but overall I felt very successful at Thanksgiving because there was no over stuffed upset stomach for me, and no fights with the brothers either! LOL
So Christmas is on its way and I suspect I will have another successful food experience as I have made it through my most challenging holidays, but I will still emotionally prepare and strategize just in case as it is always better to have a plan then not. I am grateful for my new little stomach and all the support from the friends and family in my life. As I continue to move forward I will share updates.

Numbers update... at my last appointment, which has actually been over a month now so these numbers are probably different now, I was down 80LBS since my surgery in May. I should have another appointment in January and I will let you know my new numbers. According to the dietician/nutritionist I am right where I should be and making excellent progress. I am continuing to work with the physical therapist to get strong in preparation for hip replacement. PT is going well too, still planking! Increasing the number and how long I hold it! Everything else is going smoothly and no complications or problems as expected because I am a Medical Unicorn. I have always know this journey would be more of a intellectual and emotional one than physical one, even though technically the entire thing is physical. OK I am getting too deep now I am confusing myself.
Thanks for reading, please leave comments and /or ask questions
HAPPY HOLIDAYS