Start of Week 7

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."
- Aristotle

I'm entering in to my 7th week since surgery. Amazing what 49 days can do.

New habits. New outlooks. New realities.

It's only 49 days. A month and a half. Seven weeks.

In these 49 days since my surgery my emotions have been everywhere, but my eating habits have been wonderful.

In these 49 days I have learned to move more, and enjoy it.

I have learned to savor salmon and tilapia.

I've stopped taking diabetes insulin and blood pressure meds.

Dropped three sizes (from a 28 to a 22).

Dropped 38 pounds.

Amazing.

Experts say that is takes 21 days to break a habit or start a new one. It took me twice as long, but I'm catching on. Slowly but surely.

It has taken this time to really get my eating down to a science. I prepare my meals and take my time to enjoy them. I prepare my cupboards so I'm never without the tools necessary for success. That's never happened before. Of course, it is necessary now for a myriad of reasons (nausea, dumping, sickness, etc) but it has worked as a tool to slow me down and build this new reality in to a habit.

When I tell people how long it has been since surgery they usually answer, "already?" Yes. Already. Time feels both fleeting and slow. These life changes were hard to come by. It took surgery for me to finally begin to conquer them.

And, really conquer isn't the right term. Because I will never really conquer my weight loss. This surgery is a mere tool. But, I'm going to have to work on it day in and day out. Making it a habit helps tackle that daily struggle, but I have to be sure that I don't slip back to old habits.

I'm not seeking excellence. I'm seeking a new way of living. A new way of eating. A new relationship with food that always had been one-sided for me. And food always won.

But no more.

To paraphrase Count von Count, I say, "AH, AH, AH! Seven! Seven is the number for new habits!"