One of my favorite social events is our weekly Friday Social at our club. Everybody brings a plate of appetizers or hors d'oeuvres to share and our beverage. By sampling a few of everyone's treats, that becomes our dinner and we don't have to go home and cook. After we eat and visit a bit, we play cards. It's a lot of fun with our friends. Since I started the liquid phase of my diet, we stopped attending the socials because it was too tempting for me to be around food that I knew I couldn't eat. During the summer, that's almost the ONLY social contact we have with our friends, so I have been feeling like a recluse for the past 3 months. But this week we get to go to the social!! There are usually a few people who bring veggie trays or bowls of fresh fruit, so I'll have something I can eat without being unhealthy. And now I'm far enough into my diet that I think I can handle the temptation. But just in case, I'll have some fruit before I go there and I plan to have a huge salad as soon as I get home, so I'll be able to pass up the less healthy goodies.
I'm really looking forward to getting together with friends again. I do play bridge with them twice a week, but there's not as much visiting there--it requires more concentration to play bridge. At the socials we play a kids game called Chase the Ace, and it just gets a little crazy sometimes, but lots of fun.
It's still very humid here and we've been under an excessive heat warning for the past 2 days and it won't be lifted until after 8 p.m. tonight. In the middle of all this heat, we had a very severe rain and wind storm last Sunday that blew water under the garage door and made a real mess of boxes I had stored there. We're still re-packing and tossing from that mess. And in the middle of it all, my husband found a small rattlesnake in the garage; thank heaven he killed it and tossed the carcass out in the streets for the birds to eat. So I'll be watching my step now when I go into the garage--probably for a couple of years. I guess that's one of the challenges of living in the desert, but in 7 years that's the first time he's found one, and we've never had any of the scorpions or big bugs I was afraid we'd find when we moved down here. So I guess we're lucky we live in a good area. All we have are birds: doves, curlews and roadrunners mostly. And an occasional bunny.
This week I've been totally on solid food again after 12 weeks on liquid diet. It's quite a change and takes a lot of getting used to. And lots of planning ahead. So far the hard part is being able to eat everything I should have to get my calorie count up where it should be. I'm gradually increasing it each day, but some days it's just very hard to eat that volume of food. If I added things like pizza or enchiladas covered with cheese or chocolate, I'm sure the calories would add up fast, but I'm determined to stick to healthy choices--fruit, veggies, chicken, eggs, fish, 100% whole wheat bread, etc. I did add a couple dates each day and a small amount of nuts to help get the calorie count up there in a healthy way, but still it's hard to eat that much food. I used to have no problem eating a 12 or 16 oz. steak or half a pound of cheese or a couple of candy bars, but healthy choices simply don't have the high calorie count, so it takes a lot more food to add up.
I am finding that I have more energy though. I'm cleaning my house again this weekend, and it feels good to be able to keep it clean and looking good by myself.
I've had a few other non-scale victories lately too. One that I need to tell about is my trip to the eye doctor this week to get fitted for new glasses. For several years now, whenever I have my eyes checked, I've had a hard time sitting close enough to put my forehead against the band and my chin in the chin rest of the machine used to check my eyes. At my size, I was too busty to get close enough to reach the machine. So I had to hold the table and pull myself forward as hard as I could while the test was being done. It took lots of strength to hold me there as there was too much 'me' that got in the way. Well, this week I leaned forward to put my head into the chin rest and forehead rest and was shocked that I didn't need to hang on for dear life. In fact, I didn't need to hang on at all! I hadn't noticed, but I must have lost a lot of weight in my bust and above the bust. I wasn't even TOUCHING the table as I leaned forward. I just fit into the machine like a normal person! My husband and I had a good laugh about it when I came out. I knew my bra was fitting much better (not so tight), but had no idea I'd lost that much up there.
One other thought I had this week: when I was a little girl, one of my favorite story books was called "The Saggy Baggy Elephant." I think they still sell it; it was a Little Golden Book. But as I had my mom read it to me over and over again, I never expected that one day I'd be that saggy baggy elephant. And yet, my skin is sagging in the same way--on my legs and arms especially. I'm sure that by the time I get the rest of my weight off, I'll probably need surgery to remove the excess skin. Well, that's ok too. The main thing is getting it off and getting healthy again.