Stupid. @#$&*!. Egg.

May 14, 2014

Had a bit of a meltdown yesterday. Woke up feeling pretty good, and had a decent food day. Decided around 4:30 to try an egg for dinner for the first time.

I made a lot of mistakes:

• I obsessed about it. It wasn’t just sustenance. It was AN EGG!! A milestone! I didn’t think about the future, about the fact that I could always have another in a few hours if I was hungry, and that I would also eat an egg tomorrow and probably once a day any other day I wanted an egg, too.
• I cooked 2 eggs, instead of one, because one egg did not seem like ‘enough.’ It seemed ‘too small.’ I cracked one egg, thought about it for a sec, and then cracked another. (also a problem, maybe, that I took the whole carton of eggs out of the fridge instead of just one egg. I have to be more deliberate.) I have GOT to learn to trust the portion guidelines. Many, many people are successful on the sleeve. The place I had my surgery is a Center of Excellence. Why? Because their programs and guidelines work. They have been tested and studied and I need to follow them. They have been down this road with countless patients. I have never been down this road.
• I served myself two eggs. Never dawned on me to cook two eggs but leave half of them in the pan while I ate just one and see how I felt.
• I served myself in too big of a serving dish. I had been eating out of these ½ cup storage containers N bought me. He bought me like 10. Well, they are all dirty, so I ate out of a bowl that was maybe 1 to 1 ½ c capacity. There is NO WAY those 2 scrambled eggs would have fit in one of my ½ cup bowls, and that could have been an easy reminder that, yes, I had cooked too much.
• I sat in front of the TV to eat. I am still really bad about that. But especially with a new food, I need to sit at a table and focus on how my body is handling the food.
• I gave myself an ‘out’ from the food timer - because eggs are only good when hot, and cold eggs are nasty. In other words, I made an excuse to eat at my normal speed.

About the only thing I did right was eat with a baby fork.

It was so freaking good. Really. Until I realized I’d lied about it. And then I started feeling sick.

I texted my cousin, who had WLS a few years ago, while I was eating. She reminded me to take it slow, use a baby spoon, I didn’t have to eat it all, etc. I told her I had an ‘extra bite.’ I did not tell her I had cooked two eggs.

And then the pain started. Oh, the pain in my esophagus and chest. And it got worse and worse - so bad that I texted another WLS friend and fessed up. She was so sweet: “...you will have to follow the rules.” What made me believe that rules didn’t apply to me? And did I really go through all of the prep and pain and expense of surgery and STILL lie about food? Really? I went through all that and STILL feel shame, still boldly make bad choices? Something has to change. There is no way one stupid egg was worth that pain, and lying!

Texted a second, non-WLS good friend. VERY good friend. She said “You lied because you are an addict and that’s what addicts do.” She is a true friend. I thank God for her, even though her words were hard to hear. I will need to recognize and address my addictive behaviors for this tool, the sleeve, to do what it is meant to do.

So I texted my cousin and admitted I lied to her. And the sky did not come crashing down. We had a good laugh. She reminded me that my eyes will be bigger than my stomach and that’s why the guidelines are in place. I told her that I wanted to cuss out that egg and we had a good laugh.

There was only one egg left in the house this morning, so I didn’t make the same mistake I made yesterday.

Hope and pray with me that this lesson sticks!!

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