Food

Normally the word food does not scare me but for the first time in a very long time I am worried about the rest of my journey. I do not want to gain any of the weight back that I have lost and quite frankly, I am nervous about eating. With only about 10 more days left of product, I decided that I would slowly start the transition to eating. I looked at the notebook that they gave me at the start of the program and determined that it was time to start adding food back in. I had a shake for breakfast and for lunch I ventured out (first time in months I have gone out for lunch) and went to find some veggies that I could add into my diet. Although I should have been more prepared for this, I went to Trader Joe's and walked the store for about 20 minutes before I decided on a mixed green salad with three cherry tomatoes, a few hearts of palm, and some artichoke hearts. The salad dressing, a raspberry vinaigrette, was really something that I was not too interested in but I decided to give the whole thing a whirl. I added less than a teaspoon of the salad dressing on the salad and took my first bite.

Queue the music...the flavors that I tasted are indescribable. I ate that first bite so slow and took in every single feeling that I was having. Guilt was the first, followed quickly by elation. I don't ever remember liking salad that much. I continued to eat a few more bites and then out of nowhere something in my head said, okay, you are full now. Huh, who was that? I don't ever remember hearing that voice. I looked down at my salad. No, I can't be done, I have only eaten 1/4 of the salad. Okay, fork down, lid on, container in the trash can. That wasn't so hard.

So here I sit back at the office. My stomach is rumbling so loud that I am sure all of my office neighbors can hear it. The digestion has started and I am hoping that the 1/2 cup of salad that I had goes down without much effort.

I am going to the supermarket today after work and I am going to stock up on many more vegetables that will not be so hard to digest.

I will keep this day as my official weigh in day because this is when I would do it at the optifast clinic. This morning's weight 183.4. Only 48.4 pounds to go to reach my goal. Not as daunting as the original 115 pounds that I needed to lose at the beginning.

FOOD...you are no match for me!