Cutting Ties with My Best Friend

If You're Brave Enough to Say Goodbye, Life Will Reward You with a New Hello. - Paulo Cohuelo

Just came home from shopping for groceries. Yep. Some sort of combination of these items will be my sustenance for the next couple of weeks.

Clear liquid for 5 days and then clear liquids for another week after. Oh, and protein shakes. 60 grams of nasty tasting protein shakes each day.

Now, you'd think that I'm complaining - and, ok, maybe I am. But not because of what you may think.

I love food. I mean, I REALLY LOVE FOOD! It's been my constant companion all these years. It's been my friend when I had worries or was anxious or scared. It's been my lover when I needed some validation and comfort. It's been my recreation when I was bored with nothing else to do. So, I'm not mincing words when I say I love food.  The feelings are real. I knew what to expect day in and day out. Feel bad or bored. Eat. Feel better (sort of) and start over again.

And, food loved me too.  A little too much, in fact. It became suffocating. And, not just because I can't go up a flight of stairs without breathing heavy.

It would be jealous of any other relationships I may have had with friends, lovers or exercise. Food continued to build a wall around me with layers and layers of fat to help keep me from other things and other people. It would try to keep me safe, warm. It was a happy little world for Food and me. Until I couldn't move anymore and realized that my one love was keeping me from being me.

You know those relationships - toxic, overpowering and damaging relationships. These are the relationships your friends warn you against. These are the relationships you must end to take back your life and live it the way you were meant to - for yourself! And, sure it's easier to stay in this bad relationship because you have learned what to expect from it. But I realized that I'm getting nothing but aching joints, diabetes and cholesterol in return.

Well, enough is enough. Food, I have to break it off with you. And, fast.

I am now taking back my life. I'm ending my relationship with food. Starting tomorrow, April 9, 2016. I cutting ties with my best friend.

Knowing that I will have to do something drastic to make this switch, I have decided to have gastric sleeve surgery. Yep. I start my liquid diet tomorrow, April 9, to prepare for gastric sleeve surgery on April 14!

You can say I'm cleansing myself of it's hold on me. Literally. A cleansing of only clear liquids for a week before and a week after surgery. Then we will have an arms length relationship with food after that. We'll ease in to the nutritional sustenance that is required for my body to do what my body has been meant to do...

Dance.
Hike.
Run with my daughter.
Ride my Bike.

Live.

And so many other things that I can't even imagine right now.

I'll be keeping track of my progress here. Hope you join me and keep me company as I start this journey.

Gotta be honest. I'm scared. But as Paulo Cohuelo says, "If you're brave enough to say goodbye, life will reward you with a new hello."

Carmen 2.0 here I come.