Hello....is anybody out there???
Hi,
Just happened upon this forum by the search function...can't seem to find it under forums or any of their subtopics so wondering if that is why traffic is low here...perhaps they are trying to keep it private to avoid crazies???
Anyway, I am Jewish, religious, and living in the Toronto area. I have my RNY scheduled for end of Feb 2012 and am trying to use this time to mentally and physically prepare myself for surgery. I oscillate between excitement and anxiety but am focussed on moving forward.
Was hoping to connect with others, especially as food is such a big part of religious celebrations and events....
Hope there are others who are out there.
Andrea.
Just happened upon this forum by the search function...can't seem to find it under forums or any of their subtopics so wondering if that is why traffic is low here...perhaps they are trying to keep it private to avoid crazies???
Anyway, I am Jewish, religious, and living in the Toronto area. I have my RNY scheduled for end of Feb 2012 and am trying to use this time to mentally and physically prepare myself for surgery. I oscillate between excitement and anxiety but am focussed on moving forward.
Was hoping to connect with others, especially as food is such a big part of religious celebrations and events....
Hope there are others who are out there.
Andrea.
Hi! I too found this only by accident, when I started to enter my "interests" in my profile. This forum, titled "Jewish", is a subcategory of the "Ethnicity" interest. There's another one, called "Judaism", which is a subcategory of the "Religion" group -- and their forum hasn't had a post since 2004!!! I'm going to bookmark this one so that I'll remember to come back more often.
Anyway, I was very fortunate to have done the best mental preparation without even realizing it.
My wife had RNY 7 1/2 years ago. For all that time, I knew that I needed it too, but I was very resistant and reluctant for various reasons. I'm now 2 weeks out, and I'm very confident that it is a good thing that I waited, because I was not psychologically ready yet. Here's what I mean:
On every diet I've ever been on, they say something like, "If in the afternoon, you feel a need to snack, have six cashews." And my reaction is, "Six cashews? That's not a snack! That's a joke! I wasnt a whole bag of them! Or even better, a whole JAR!"
About two years ago, my wife (5-6 years out on her RNY) developed cravings for chocolate in the evening, after dinner. So had a nice fancy pareve bar of 72% cocoa in the pantry, and each night she would take one square of it, and that was enough for her. I watched in awe, that anyone could possibly take one square and be satisfied.
That was when I began to develop an appreciation for how normal people eat. It is difficult to define exactly (like others in this thread have already written), but just as an example, a normal lunch at work is ONE sandwich, not the two or three that I needed to be satisfied.
Slowly, that appreciation developed into a real jealousy of people who can be satisfied with so little. And I thank G-d that when that jealousy got really really intense, that's when my doctor looked at my numbers and told me clearly, "It's not just a suggestion any more; you really need the surgery." And that's what pushed me over the edge.
I'm only two weeks out, but I am really hoping and praying that the surgery will be the tool I've needed to achieve the goal of eating like normal people do.
That's my story about preparing mentally. For preparing physically, they warned me -- I'm a type 2 diabetic, by the way -- that if I showed up at the hospital with a blood sugar over 300, they'd send me home. I was very rarely over 200, so I didn't rally worry about it, but it did get me very serious abou****ching myself.
There's a terrible temptation to overeat in the last few weeks before surgery, while we still can. But that's counterproductive, because we are trying to eat LESS, not more. And that's when the jealousy of normal eaters (that I wrote about above) really helped me a lot.
Another thing that helped is my surgeon's rule that we have to be on an all liquid protein-shake diet for the two weeks before surgery. He said it was to shrink my stomach to make the surgery easier. I do believe him, but I really felt a strong psychological component to it, as if I was doing a dress rehearsal. I really stuck to that diet, telling myself, "I don't want him cutting my stomach and asking, What's THAT in there?" I told myself that if I can't handle this for two weeks, then I'd surely bomb out after surgery, and I sure don't want that!
So if your surgeon has that rule also, I encourage you to stick to it as much as you can. And if not, ask him if it's a good idea. (If you want to know how I dealt with Shabbos, just ask.)
Anyway, I'm going to bookmark this forum now, and I'll try to come back!
Anyway, I was very fortunate to have done the best mental preparation without even realizing it.
My wife had RNY 7 1/2 years ago. For all that time, I knew that I needed it too, but I was very resistant and reluctant for various reasons. I'm now 2 weeks out, and I'm very confident that it is a good thing that I waited, because I was not psychologically ready yet. Here's what I mean:
On every diet I've ever been on, they say something like, "If in the afternoon, you feel a need to snack, have six cashews." And my reaction is, "Six cashews? That's not a snack! That's a joke! I wasnt a whole bag of them! Or even better, a whole JAR!"
About two years ago, my wife (5-6 years out on her RNY) developed cravings for chocolate in the evening, after dinner. So had a nice fancy pareve bar of 72% cocoa in the pantry, and each night she would take one square of it, and that was enough for her. I watched in awe, that anyone could possibly take one square and be satisfied.
That was when I began to develop an appreciation for how normal people eat. It is difficult to define exactly (like others in this thread have already written), but just as an example, a normal lunch at work is ONE sandwich, not the two or three that I needed to be satisfied.
Slowly, that appreciation developed into a real jealousy of people who can be satisfied with so little. And I thank G-d that when that jealousy got really really intense, that's when my doctor looked at my numbers and told me clearly, "It's not just a suggestion any more; you really need the surgery." And that's what pushed me over the edge.
I'm only two weeks out, but I am really hoping and praying that the surgery will be the tool I've needed to achieve the goal of eating like normal people do.
That's my story about preparing mentally. For preparing physically, they warned me -- I'm a type 2 diabetic, by the way -- that if I showed up at the hospital with a blood sugar over 300, they'd send me home. I was very rarely over 200, so I didn't rally worry about it, but it did get me very serious abou****ching myself.
There's a terrible temptation to overeat in the last few weeks before surgery, while we still can. But that's counterproductive, because we are trying to eat LESS, not more. And that's when the jealousy of normal eaters (that I wrote about above) really helped me a lot.
Another thing that helped is my surgeon's rule that we have to be on an all liquid protein-shake diet for the two weeks before surgery. He said it was to shrink my stomach to make the surgery easier. I do believe him, but I really felt a strong psychological component to it, as if I was doing a dress rehearsal. I really stuck to that diet, telling myself, "I don't want him cutting my stomach and asking, What's THAT in there?" I told myself that if I can't handle this for two weeks, then I'd surely bomb out after surgery, and I sure don't want that!
So if your surgeon has that rule also, I encourage you to stick to it as much as you can. And if not, ask him if it's a good idea. (If you want to know how I dealt with Shabbos, just ask.)
Anyway, I'm going to bookmark this forum now, and I'll try to come back!
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