Pre-Op Diet Week 3 Complete: Progress Report

Well, it’s the day before surgery, and I feel like pregnant women must feel before they have babies.  I feel the need to nest and do domestic things, so what am I doing?  Making soup.  Doing laundry.  You know, domestic things.

I’m cooking soup for myself because I don’t want store-bought soup full of salt, sugar and other things that I prefer not to eat.  I mean, have you looked at the label on a can of Campbell’s cream of chicken soup?  Scary!

My post-op eating plan includes soups that can pass through a strainer, and includes such things as thinned cream of chicken or cream of mushroom soup.  Not being a fan of cream of mushroom soup, I elected to make my own homemade version of cream of chicken soup that omits the flour as a thickening agent.  I also decided to make French onion soup, because by its nature the broth is thin and flavorful.  So I bought a roast, which my husband will be eating off of all week long, and am roasting it with veggies and aromatics to generate some stock that I’ll add to a crockpot with caramelized onions to make the soup.  When it’s time for soup, I’ll just pour it through a strainer to catch the onions and sip on the broth.  Easy enough, right?

Good soup starts with a good, rich stock. On the left: the stock for the cream of chicken soup. On the right: the roast that will generate the stock for the French Onion soup I’ll be finishing off in the crock pot.

Enough about soup making for now.

This week’s loss was 3 pounds, which is a slight disappointment, but not a surprise.  I mean, I lost nearly 22 pounds in the two weeks prior, so I am not surprised that this week’s loss was smaller.  This is how it seems to go with my body–at first I’ll drop a tremendous amount of weight, and then it slows to a trickle.  This has been the pattern for as long as I can remember in every attempt I’ve ever made to lose weight.  I don’t expect that to change too much post-surgery either.  But I could be wrong, and I hope that I am.

The past two days, I didn’t drink as much water as I should have.  I attribute that to waking later than usual and behavioral fatigue.  This week will be different, for sure.  Like my dietician said, “After surgery, you’ll be drinking like it’s your job.”

The house is stocked with plenty of Isopure Icy Orange, orange-flavored Powerade Zero, cranberry juice that I can dilute with water.  I have comfortable empire waist dresses and nightgowns I can wear to keep pressure off the incision that will be above my belly button.  I’ve got plenty of pillows to prop me up in bed with since I won’t be able to sleep on my left side at first.  I’ve got my insulated tumblers clean and ready to fill up with water or Isopure kept cold.  I’ve got a gallon jar of hibiscus tea brewed, and after this evening, I’ll have some soup to eat.

My house is ready.  Am I ready?  Yes, except for the last few things I must do before bed.  The alarm is set, the scopolamine patch I have to wear is ready for me to put on before I go to sleep, and I’ve got the Hibiclens ready to shower with in the morning.

Tomorrow morning at 7:30, I check in to the hospital, pay them what I owe them, and then it’s showtime.

The next time I post, I’ll be back home and sip, sip, sipping and walk, walk, walking.  The next time I post, I’ll finally have a fighting chance at uncovering the me I’ve never seen.

And it will be an awesome ride.