eViL CruD

Well its the close of day 4 on the VLCD (eViLCruD) diet which I am on for 14 long days before surgery. I was thinking today, I should be grateful that the days are stretching on forever, it will make my life seem longer...

Its not really that bad. If you can imagine drinking 3 glasses a day of flavoured wallpaper paste, supplemented with 1 cup (thats ONE cup) of steamed vegetables and having your mouth taste all crappy and not being able to even think about the pizza ads as they flash incessently on the TV, and being completely exhausted from such a low calorie intake, then you can see its not that bad. Thats what VLCD stands for by the way, Very Low Calorie Diet, and it is loooowwww. 512 calories by my rough count. Oh I forgot, the 8 glasses of water are a bonus.

All this process is necessary to shrink the liver which is probably (almost certainly) full of fat. As the surgery is laparoscopic the surgeon needs to get past the liver to find the stomach, so if its bloated and oozing with fat it will make the whole thing that much more tricky. For tricky read very dangerous.

The way I feel about it is that this is the beginning of the journey, not the op itself. I am taking part in preparing my body for what could be a risky procedure. I am losing weight rapidly at this point at around a kilo a day (2.2lbs) which will slow down over the next few days. Funny how I feel so positive. I had expected me to be curled up in a sobbing heap by now, chewing at my knuckles and whimpering over steaks past and/or future. I am mentally preparing myself for the journey ahead which will involve very close attention to getting the correct amount of proteins and fluids..basically for the rest of my life.

There is a misapprehension among some people that WLS is "an easy option" or "cheating". Hmm, I don't think so. Its not a magic wand, and if the correct diet and exercise regime is not followed then results can be very disappointing - so I have been reading. But that does bring my thoughts around to how other people react to this. its not just WLS, its how other people are when you are obese. Its such a visible condition. In fact its almost as if thats all that people see, theres no hiding it if you are fat. And it is a fact that a fat person is much less likely to land a job if competing with a similarly qualified thin person. And lots of other stuff about fatism that I can't be bothered writing. Everyone has a helpful diet they want to share, and it seem that everyone watches to see what you are eating all the time too. What a paradox! Visible and yet invisible as a person. I saw a very cool picture on a fellow travellers blog.

Bariatricgirl. It was a photo of her face, slim, with the words "When I was obese, when I WAS obese, when I was OBESE, I was a photographer, musician and artist. No one saw the photographer, musician or artist. They saw obesity.
-Yvonne McCarthy

Very awesome statement.