The introduction of....Real Food!

Well, the first week of introducing real foods has had it's good and bad points.  The good - that so far, I haven't had any type of adverse reaction!  As long as I watch my portions, and continue to space out my meals and water and snacks, I'm doing really well!  The bad - was that John was gone all weekend and it has been very busy and crazy with myself and both the boys.  That meant lots of crap food.  Most definately smaller portions than I normally would eat (for example, I ordered myself a chicken nugget kids meal from Wendys and only ate a few of the fries), but junk food none the less.  So - tomorrow when I get back on my Wii Fit, I'll do an extra few minutes! 
Hopefully, tomorrow, when I get on the Wii Fit scale, I won't have gained any weight...for all the walking and craziness I went through yesterday with the kids, I'm sure I did fine.  :)

Making Good Headway

Over the past week or so, I have managed to start working my way into normal food.  I have been doing pretty good with finding tasty "pureed" foods - scrambled eggs, pureed chicken salad, refried beans with red sauce, etc.  I've been supplementing in between with some baby food, yogurt / fruit "shakes" and protein drinks.  Yesterday, we went out to breakfast, and I tried a veggie omelet with no cheese.  It was good (but I found that I really don't like Egg Beaters - I'll stick with normal eggs from now on) and I asked for a box as soon as the plate hit the table - so that I could immediately cut it in half, put half away and not worry about over eating.  My stomach handled it well, and it filled me up nicely.  It was so nice.  I had hot and sour soup for dinner, which had some nice heat to it - and I handled that well also - it was great!  I'm still training myself to not drink anything 30 minutes before or after I eat - I think that is the hardest thing so far.  I'm so used to drinking while I eat that it's a challenge.  I'm really looking forward to reintroducing a new food each day!

The only "set back" that I've had so far is that one of my incisions got a little infected, so it was making it very sore to more - so I haven't been exercising yet.  However, a good cleaning of the incision and a few days of neosporin have it healing nicely, so tomorrow - I get to start out on the Wii Fit!  I can't wait!  I know that I am going to work a little harder to lose the weight, because of my intolerance to sugar substitutes.  Since I can't give up real sugar, I have to be willing to burn the calories off.  Another 20 lbs and I'm heading back to Zumba to see how my body handles it.  I'm hoping I'm not in as much pain as I was before, because I had so much fun with it!  Here's hoping that 20 lbs comes quickly!!!

The road to real food...

Today is a monumental day for me....hehe...I get to start eating "pureed food".   Ooh - I know - sounds  horrid, right?  But believe me, it is a welcome change from the protein shakes, sugar free pudding and cream of wheat I've been eating.  I was able to have scrambled eggs for breakfast this morning - such a normal thing - and it was great!  I went and stocked up on a few packs of baby food veggies yesterday, as well as some vanilla yogurt and canned fruit to make smoothies.  I can also have chicken salad in the blender - sounds gross - but at least it will have flavor!  Tomorrow, I pull out the Wii Fit and start really tracking my weight and doing some beginning excersise.  Hopefully by the end of the week I will be able to pick up Alex!  I think so far that has been the hardest part of it all - not the food, not the pain, but not really being able to snuggle with my little guy.  Soon.....very soon.....

1 Week Checkup

So, today was my 1 week checkup from my surgery.  Everything is healing well, I'm cleared to drive, and I have already lost 12% of my "excess body fat" from the initial weight they took at my pre-surgical appointment which was mid-November.  From then until the date of my surgery (1 month), I had lost 6 pounds, and now in the past week I've lost another 11 pounds already.  I'm very happy with my progress so far, and can honestly say that I weigh less now than I did after I gave birth to Alex, which was a pretty big milestone in & of itself.  So, I continue with another week of protein shakes, V8 and cream of wheat, and know that this time next week, I can add scrambled eggs & pureed veggies.  I think this is really the hardest part - I'm totally ok with the fact that I only have to drink or eat a little bit to be full.  I'm just sick of eating mush and watching the boys eat real food.  I think that is my biggest challenge.  But, John and the boys are being very supportive, as are all my friends and family.  I love you all, and I couldn't possibly do this without you all.

Hospital Stay & the Road to Recovery

Well, after 2 and a half very long days in the hospital, I finally came home Friday afternoon.  As with any hospital stay, there were good points and bad points.  I can honestly say, though, that some of the people that worked at the hospital I was at really should not be working in the field they were working in.  All in all, my stay was uneventful.  When I got to switch to my "phase 1" diet in the hospital, that was awful!  Their broth was nasty, and the jello only actually arrived once.  I pretty much stuck to decaf tea.  Now that I'm home, I'm still on "phase 1" through tomorrow - broth, tea, water.  I can start adding protein drinks, yogurt, etc on Monday.  All in all, I'm feeling pretty good.  Only a little bit of pain in the incision where they had a drain until Friday morning.  Otherwise, mostly no pain.  I'm still very sleepy all the time and I'm only taking the vicadin (liquid form) at night to help me sleep through the night. 
This week has been hard on everyone, that's for sure.  Alex is very confused as to why he can't climb up on my lap and snuggle.  John II has been handling it very well, in his own way, but can be very emotional.  The entire first day I was home, he sat on the couch next to me, playing his DS, never leaving my side.  He worries about the little things.  John, my awesome husband has been fantastic through this all - being supportive for me, taking care of the boys, doing the best he can.  I could not have done this without him!
Thanks to all the friends & family who have helped us and offered help to us this week - especially the day of surgery.  We couldn't have done it you all - especially to Joan, who got up at the crack of dawn to come and stay wtih Alex until it was time to take him to daycare, and to Monica, who kept John with her all day, and kept him from worrying too much by taking him to a movie!
Happy New Year everyone!