Time is flying so fast, it is only a mere ten days until S-day, day of surgery that is. I do not have the time to really prepare myself for it. My darling hubby has had a shoulder re-construction on Monday 15th of November. He had badly injured his left shoulder...skate boarding! Yep you read right, six months ago he decided to show our 5 year old son how daddy used to do ollies, but instead of landing he just slammed it and 'ate shit' (for the more uptight this is a perfectly acceptable term in skate boarding circles: http://everything2.com/title/Basic+skateboard+terminology). Anyway so he had his shoulder placed back where it should be and I was beside myself out of worries, as he was still not out of the OR at 6 pm at night. My poor son and I were loitering around the hospital for about an hour and then I decided to take Finni to a bar instead of putting up with his obnoxious bore-dome induced behaviour. It was actually rather fun taking my kid for the first time to a really nice bar, where a guitar player was giving a show. We hang around for about an hour, we shouted the music man a cup cake, which he thanked us for by singing 'Finni is the muffin man' and then we headed back to the hospital. I would have loved to have one single bite of this muffin, but I somehow managed to leave the premises just in time. Well I guess it was also time to take my kinder kid out of an adult environment =). Also for some reason over the past couple of weeks, since I have truly decided to go ahead with this invasive surgery my eating habits have changed rather dramatically. I find myself making more conscious decisions about my food intake.
Not that I stuff myself all the time with what we all know is the wrong type of food. In fact about two years ago I began to cut out wheat products from my diet after I was diagnosed with wheat intolerance. Wheat Intolerance (due to Gluten sensitivity - a protein found in Wheat, rye, barley and oats) is actually rather common. Up to one in seven is Gluten intolerant. Some of them meet the requirements of Celiac testing and are known as Celiacs. But most Gluten sensitive people are Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitive (NCGS) and the majority are undiagnosed...just as I was for the past 34 years.
So what is going on I asked myself. Well the answer is rather simple and can be found in the human evolution. The growing of grain crops using agricultural techniques has only been practiced for around 10,000 years. Compared to the time humans have been eating other foods in the hunter-gatherer lifestyle (meat, fish, vegetables and fruits) - 2.5 million years - that's a very short period. Our bodies did not evolve fast enough to keep track with the economic evolution. In fact our capacity to grow high yield grain crops like Wheat and barley has far outstripped our digestive system's rate of development. That is, as a species, not all humans yet have the necessary genetic makeup to break down the complex part of the grain: the Gluten. What makes things worse is that over time, because high yield crops are so cheap to produce they have found their way into a vast number products you find on today's supermarket shelves (even into lollies!). So there is very little escaping from the Gluten mafia really if you do not read the fine print on the food label.
In my case I became rather interested in what we put into our mouths and what we are being told is 'good' for us. I came across a book titled ' Take control of your health and beat the sickness industry', which although written by a former Hollywood starlet (http://www.doctorsaredangerous.com/) and at times a little simplistic still made me strongly re-think everything about healthy living. During recent visit to my family in Switzerland my sister gave me a book published this year (2010) titled 'Fette Irtuemer' written by a ETH Zuerich (same university Einstein did his PhD at) nutrition researcher Dr Paolo Columbani (http://www.swissfir.ethz.ch/people/pcolomba), who has reviewed hundreds of medical journal publications (see his literature list: http://www.swissfir.ethz.ch/people/pcolomba/publications_pdf/Literaturhinweise_Fette_Irrtuemer_Colombani2010.pdf). This book, which is unrelated to the 'Take Control' book, makes very similar claims to the 'Take Control' book and has re-inforced my belief that what we are being told what is good for us...might actually be nothing else than very good marketing. Hooray for the marketeers, but shame on us for not well taking control of our health...
In any case after changing my eating habits a little, I found that my weight started to plummet, to a low of 67Kg. A number I had not seen on the scales since I was in my early twenties, in fact back then I always wanted to weight around 63kg. Story of my life, never happy with what the scales show. Interestingly however the weight slowly crept back up by 10kgs over the course of two years, which I can only attribute to wrong portion control. I fooled myself into thinking that if I eat the right foods, the size of my plate makes no difference...WRONG! Very wrong. Couple this with the fact that my female hormones are non-existant and bingo you have the twins from hell. So yes, once I became lax with portion control, no matter how nutritious the food on my plate, my body just kept on re-filling the ever present fat cells and I plunged deeper and deeper into my body loathing habit.
I never liked being touched on my belly,which I felt was hanging like the belly of a fat pig. This caused much distress to my darling husband, who no matter how much he tried to persuade me that my belly was ok, only got rejection in the bed room. I always preferred the lights off approach to anything going on in the bed room from the time my weight kept on going up.
Back to the Count-Down
But lets get back to the count down, which I mentioned above is not really a count-down anymore as for one, the love of my life (hubby that is) was hospitalised and secondly I had to attend a 3 day conference the week prior to my surgery. So really all my good intentions to prepare myself adequately for surgery went out of the window. I did not even get the time to squeeze more than one exercises session into the ten remaining days prior to S-day. Well, believe me I felt rather bad about this and almost beat myself up mentally about it. How could I have been so unorganised time-wise? In any case the days flew by and without realising it, it was the night prior to S-day. I had arranged for my best friend to pick me up from surgery and stay at her place. You might now rightly ask, why would I not want to return home after the OP? Well let me tell you...I did not have the guts to tell my husband what I had been planning for months and months. I knew very well that this was wrong and it felt awful to look at him every day and keep this massive decision from him. I rationalised my cowardice by saying to myself, that I did not want any discussions about it. About six months prior I had tried to engage him into the L-discussion, but very quickly realised that he would not have a bar of it. In fact during a nasty argument he even used me opening up to wanting liposuction against me and that had hurt rather badly. Hence I rationalised my being quite by telling myself that I had a right to do this, that I did not need any permission from anyone and hey he just bought himself a new car to play with, so why should I not by myself a new bod for both of us to play with...we would both be happy in the end...and so on and so on. Truth is that I did not want to be talked out of it and deep down I felt like beating myself up for wanting to undergo elective surgery, which in rare cases had ended in death. Really was I sooo uncomfortable in my own skin, that I would voluntarily undergo anaesthesia and the sucking out of the unwanted fat ? YES. I was. I really disliked my disproportionately fat arms and the love handles on my back. I mentioned to you previously that I am a very sporty person, I love my sport, but there was no way I was able to rid myself of these two hot spots. Even when I weight 67kg, my arms were still big and the top of my pants still sported the muffin top. The things that had shrunk were my boobs (to the great regret of hubby), my thighs, my belly (to my great happiness) and my face (also to the regret of hubby). So I knew that diet would not do the trick and neither would exercises. Still this little nagging voice in me kept on saying that I was choosing the easy way out, that my will was not strong enough to address my body issues the good old fashioned and hard way, diet, exercise and maybe psycho therapy to redress my hate relation ship to my arms and hips. I guess most women will understand what I am talking about here. So how do you get around thinking this way...I do not know. I still ask myself whether my decision to have liposuction was the right one, if I could not have addressed my fat using the hard road, instead of using the road less travelled, given not so many people are actually going down that path yet.
In hope that as this journal evolves I will be in a position to quite the voice in my head that keeps on telling me as I write...you were weak, you took the easy way out...but for tonight let me say only one last thing. The night prior S-day, I did tell my hubby, who was for a while so shocked at he would not say anything. I actually told him in a 'By the way...' sentence at the kitchen door after dinner. He had just told me that he did not need to fly out to an AGM the next day and I said, that this is good news, as by the way I am having extensive liposuction at 11 am the next day. Believe it or not, I was very tempted to keep totally quite if he had flown out for that AGM, but after many text messages from my best friend trying to convince me that he had a right to know and the spur of the moment I am glad that I told him about it.
Have a good night or day wherever you are and smile, its the best way to show life your teeth!
Yours Dotti :-)
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