Mother's Day isn't the same anymore...one daughter living on another coast, my husband passed, and living alone in this house, just made getting up this morning not quite as fun as days gone by. But I have several things happening that got my butt up out of bed early today!
My oldest daughter and her boyfriend have invited me to spend the day with them. We are going early this morning down to the Pike Place Market (the original Seattle Farmers Market). They are going to get their produce and I am going to take a gander at all the booths and goodies. Lot's of walking and gawking as I like to call it! After that, we are going to take their darling little dog Pepper to this really giant dog park with water access. More walking and gawking! Then they are going to make me a Mother's Day dinner! I love them to pieces and am excited to spend the day with them!
The other thing that got me moving this morning was just the realization that I feel 10 years younger than I did at this time last year! I have lost 42 pounds and while I still have 48 to go, I am beginning to feel like "me" again! It's hard to explain to someone who has never battled their weight...but when the weight was piling on, it wasn't like I didn't see it...I knew I was entering into the point of no (or very difficult) return...but it just seemed beyond me to stop it. Whether it was the stress of daily life, or depression over my Mom's passing, or work, or whatever, I felt like a spectator watching as my body ballooned up to 200 lbs and then beyond. I always held 200 as the mark I would never go over. I would say to myself, "well, you are at 190 now, but you will never go over 200". But of course, I did. Since I had no clear plan for how to keep it from happening, it happened. When I found out I was pregnant with my first child I weighed 135 pounds. 25 years later I weighed 224. Hard to believe that I just "let that happen", but I believe that is what comes from putting yourself last.
Food has been many things to me. It has been a friend, an enemy, a confidant, a solace. It has also just been plain yummy and a treat to the senses. But long ago, I had ceased seeing food as a fuel source...something to help my body do all the things it wants and needs to do. Food was for my mind...not my body. Now, all that has changed. With this surgery, food no longer calls to my brain. They say that with this surgery, they remove the portion of your stomach that produces the hunger hormone "grehlin". Well, if that is what did it, then I must have been one amazing grehlin producing machine!! Now, when I see something that would (pre-surgery) send me right over to grab a bite, I just don't feel it. When I am at the grocery store and they are cooking up samples to tempt you, it just doesn't. Don't get me wrong, I still love the smell and look of food...I have just lost that grinding urge to have it. It's like I am finally in control of myself. Strange, but oh so freeing!
Here's hoping that all the mother's out there have a day that is even half as special as they are. Mom's are truly the unsung heroes and a single day just doesn't seem long enough to celebrate them! I am going to celebrate myself every day going forward. Because this journey is just for me!!
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