An alien at the grocery store

I dropped my prescriptions and wandered through the store and felt like  an alien. Nothing to buy , nothing to eat,I couldn't even think of something to pick up for my family.  Makes me weapy. Silly I know and this is just  a stage that will pass soon.

Well i think there is plenty to buy but it is different from the old standards.  Like now we have 2xprotein yogurt, cottage cheese, eggs, chicken strips, lentils etc. for soups, various cheeses, on and on ... Chick peas for those roasted chickpeas Kelly does.  It is an adjustment but there is still a lot to buy.  It can be more expensive than before too.  Protein bars .. Chocolate ones!  I am getting carried away.  And dont forget thr Miralax and MOM :))

It is definitely an adjustment, especially right after surgery! Hang in there, it gets better and you'll soon enough have more options. I can't tell you how excited I was to be able to go and buy actual food for my pureed and soft stages!

If you are doing it right, you will walk around the outside aisles and rarely venture into the middle aisles.   The outside contains most of the fresh, unprocessed, less chemical stuff/   If it's on an inside aisle - check the nutrition label before putting it into the cart!

Even if your family needs mean you have to venture into the middle on occasion, you will surprised at how much more time you spend in the healthy areas!    It does get better and easier, I promise!

Do you really want it to pass, I am still like that, we just came back from the grocery store (two) to make chicken for dinner tomorrow.  It isn't fun to shop, I bought chicken and a bag of carrots for my dogs.  No snacks, no treats, no nothing.  We went To Restaurant Depot this morning, more overwhelming food choices, my bf had a list so it was easy, but for me food is like something I like to window shop for but not actually buy or eat.  I like to watch cooking shows for the same reason.

I got the idea to practice choices at the grocery store:    1) I purposely enter the candy, cookie, or chip aisle and practice walking by old food choices screaming inside my head to myself, "these choices almost killed me!!"    OR     2)  I purposely put an old favorite in my shopping cart and then practice putting it back on the shelf screaming the same things in my head.   Sounds weird, might not be recommended by a therapist, and maybe has the potential to backfire on me some day but, for now, it seems to help build up my confidence I can resist temptation better than all the pre-WLS years I miserably didn't.

That's funny.  I find myself doing my shopping then at the end taking stuff back out of my cart.  I am still adjusting to...."I don't eat that anymore!!"

I think that's a neat idea.  I think that since you've practiced that a lot, it's going to be easier to resist temptation when you're faced with it and have to make those choices "for real."

Julia- it seems very common for us to go into a "mourning period" post surgery.  Not only is your body healing, but you are adjusting to an entirely different way of life.  

I read once that one of the most stressful events in ones life is moving... Learning all the new places to shop, meeting the neighbors, finding the best route to work- all of these things are stressful and challenging, AND you're having to do them without he familiar comfort of your home base.  Sounds pretty familiar, doesn't it?  Even when the move is a good thing, you miss the old place sometimes.

Have a good cry and do something that makes you happy, this too shall pass-

good luck!

I'm almost 8 months out from surgery and I still have a hard time trying to figure out what to make for dinner.  I'm not hungry anymore, and nothing really appeals to me, so it makes it really hard to figure out what to make.