A blog by Lexi Alvesteffer.
Today is Day 1 of my 2 week liquid fast prior to surgery. It’s now 5:31 p.m. and I’ve eaten Greek yogurt, a protein shake, and low-sodium chicken broth so far today. I was getting ready to prepare some cream of something soup for my dinner and I realized something, eating is my hobby. It’s the thing I get excited about during a normal day. Eating dinner is high on my list of things that brings joy to my life. Dinner and of course the pre-bedtime snacking that I so often do (not to mention the planning of lunches out during the week or dinners out on the weekend) are the things I look forward to after all the “have to’s” are done for the day.
It’s a little depressing to think that I’ve officially given up my favorite hobby and I know I’m going to have to find something to replace it. I also know that many people who have bariatric surgery end up with a secondary addiction so I figure I’d better come up with another hobby, and quick.
I enjoy crochet but don’t have the patience needed to learn how to make anything that isn’t square. I’m a master at scarves, washcloths and afghans but I’ll never know how to make a beret or a baby sweater. I’m also really awesome at facebooking. But since I’m already on facebook a huge majority of my day, I doubt that I could parlay that into my new hobby. And, as a side note, it’s not totally my fault that I spend so much time socially networking because a lot of my job(s) required work is done there. Smoking’s not an option since I can’t stand the smell or the taste of cigarettes and drinking isn’t allowed in my pre-surgical plan. I’ll be able to imbibe six months post-op but becoming an alcoholic would really kind of defeat the purpose of having surgery to get healthy.
Now I’m stuck. I like to write, obviously, so maybe I could get back into the creative writing I so loved in my high-school days or I could become addicted to working out. Although I’ve watched an Intervention where that was actually considered a problem. Becoming a shopaholic sounds super fun but would in short order become a financial issue for us. Anyway, I think I’ll spend the next two weeks of not eating much of anything enjoyable trying to think of a new way to occupy my time since I am truly beginning to eat to live instead of live to eat.
This is gonna be a long two weeks…
