I am a very organized person. Walking into an office supply store quickens my heartbeat and engages my salivary glands. I love dividers, pens, paper clips, post-its, post-it labels, post-it tabs, index cards, index card file boxes, and my planner. I organize everything in my house. I would like to marry my labelmaker. Organization makes me feel at peace and far less anxiety.
Today I was making up a new menu planner and a new shopping list. The ones I had weren't functioning very well for me. Since I had gastric bypass surgery, in order to get adequate nutrition - especially the recommended 90 grams of protein - I have to eat six small meals a day. Most menus I could find online only had space for one snack, but I need one after each main meal. So I designed my own menu and shopping list, which I like to print back to back on one sheet of paper, having the menu and shopping list together on one sheet of paper. I thought I would share these with you, especially those of you who are bariatric patients like myself. Though I should be eating only three meals, I have to eat more in order to get the amount of nutrients I need.
Menu PDF
Feel free to copy these lists for your personal use. For any other use, please contact me for permission!
Friday, July 9, 2010
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Home is Best
I have just returned home after 40 days of in-patient treatment, and let me tell you, it is GOOD to be home. No, great to be home. No, absolutely-amazingly-wonderfully-fantastically-super to be home. I have always been a home-body, but being in treatment with twenty other young women and one gentleman (the poor soul) makes me appreciate alone-time.
I won't delve into what treatment was like in today's post. I will get to that some other time within the next week or so. For today I would like to talk about the lessons I learned that being away from home taught me. Of course, treatment itself held many lessons, but being away from everyone and everything I love for 40 days taught me more than any treatment center or treatment team could.
Being separated from my whole world put a great many things in perspective for me. For example, I began to realize how much of my time with my husband we have wasted over four years of marriage. We are rarely apart, unless Kyle is on the road; however, we weren't really together, either. We were usually in the same room, less than three feet from one another in our respective chairs, but emotionally and mentally we were miles apart. We rarely conversed, as I was absorbed in blogs and Internet news and Kyle was absorbed in television. When we did converse, the other person answered with only half-attention. We forgot little details because we weren't giving our undivided attention. I thought Kyle and I were close, and we are and have always been. But there was a divide in our marriage that would have significantly damaged our relationship if it had continued.
Once I was away and I couldn't call Kyle, I realized how much I longed to talk to him. It drove me crazy that we had been in the same room for four years and I hadn't spoken much, but once we were apart, I had a million things I wanted to say to him. I was not allowed phone calls my first 10-14 days. Then I was allowed one call a week to Kyle for ten minutes. That was the hardest policy for me to abide by. When Kyle and I were dating and living four hours apart, we often spoke for two to four hours daily. We've never run out of conversation with one another. We always have something to say. We just got bogged down by unimportant life issues and retreated and isolated to our individual comfort zones; me in the computer and him in the television. As I sat alone in Texas and wished desperately to converse with my husband, I vowed I would utilize our time together more productively once I returned home. When Kyle came for family week, he made the commitment to me that he would remove the TV from the bedroom! Hark! Music to my ears! Both of us have made a concerted effort to love one another more by listening more.
We all take our loved ones for granted from time to time. Sometimes it's hard to pause in the middle of life and be thankful for the comfort of loved ones. We just assume we'll see them again at dinner or at the end of the workday. I had some random moments of panic when I was gone. I would suddenly spring into the worry that something horrific would happen to Kyle while I was gone and I would never again get to tell him how much I love him and appreciate him. He would die in some freak car accident or stop breathing in the night. Although I have had some anxiety about him coming to harm ever since we met, it was far more intense these past few weeks. Although I recognized it as catastrophizing and pointless worry, it invaded my thoughts frequently. I thought of all the people who think they have more time with loved ones and then the run is pulled out from under it all when someone dies unexpectedly. I knew then that I had to be more appreciate and demonstrative of the good and love in my life. Instead of worrying that Kyle won't be there, I need to do everything I can each day to show him I love him. I will never know how much time we have left together, but I can know I did everything I could to show him my love while he was here.
Family week was an amazing experience that brought Kyle and I closer than we already were. We've been close since we met, but I've made it somewhat difficult for anyone to get truly close to me. Shortly before I left for Shades of Hope, I was struggling because I felt like Kyle was not as close and as loving as I once felt we were. I said to him one night, "You never touch me anymore," and he replied, "I can't get close to you. You're always surrounded by things. I was taken aback by this, but as I surveyed the scene around me, I realized I had built physical walls around me with stuff. I had stacks of notebooks, magazines and books around me, the computer on my lap or pulled up on the coffee table in front of me. I was always multi-tasking. Busy busy busy. He was right. I was shutting him out.
Because Kyle is significantly older than me, I am almost constantly afraid something will happen to him that will leave me alone. The logical part of my mind tells me to stop the worrying and just live in the moment for a change; that I have no idea how long any one of us will be on this earth. That I'm wasting the time we do have together. But that fear in the back of my mind pervades my life all the time. In so many ways, I've built walls around myself hoping to cushion myself from the pain. Unfortunately, I cushioned myself from the depth of love that he has for me, too.
Time away and alone confirmed to me that I am amazingly fortunate to be loved as intensely and deeply as I am. I could not be more cared about than I am from Kyle. I learned through my family sculpt that I get pulled away from our relationship and distracted from it with so many little things - the eating, the spending, the codependency. I let hundreds of tiny things get between us so that we are seldom close to one another on a truly emotional and intimate level. It makes me very sad to think about this, to envision Kyle lying on the floor with all those pillows in between us that represent my issues that keep me apart from him, when really, the safest place in the world for me is in his arms.
At the end of Family Week I was able to go on an outing with Kyle. We went to see the newest Shrek movie, thinking that something light would be nice. Ironically, the movie's message was directly related to what I had been thinking. In the film, Shrek gets tired of being a husband and father and wants life to go back to the way it used to be. He gets his wish, but it isn't all it was cracked up to be. He misses the little things. A LOT. I can relate to this. Once I was away from home I realized that I don't need exciting life events and merchandise to be happy. I can find joy and contentment in a kiss on the forehead as Kyle leaves for work, Pip's wag of his ail, Kyle's silly jokes, a shared smile or a game of Scrabble. It isn't about all the stuff I used to worry over, trying to solve and manage every little detail.
Life is about so much more, and at the same time, so much less.
I've made several commitments to myself and to Kyle about the way life will be going forward.
Kyle and I celebrated our fourth anniversary apart from one another on June 3rd. I love him more than ever, and I am so grateful he married me. I am grateful for our home together, and our little family that consists of us and our Pippy. Mostly, I am grateful to be loved and cared about, and grateful that I had so much to work hard for while I was gone, knowing that I had so much to come home to. What more could a woman want?
I won't delve into what treatment was like in today's post. I will get to that some other time within the next week or so. For today I would like to talk about the lessons I learned that being away from home taught me. Of course, treatment itself held many lessons, but being away from everyone and everything I love for 40 days taught me more than any treatment center or treatment team could.
Being separated from my whole world put a great many things in perspective for me. For example, I began to realize how much of my time with my husband we have wasted over four years of marriage. We are rarely apart, unless Kyle is on the road; however, we weren't really together, either. We were usually in the same room, less than three feet from one another in our respective chairs, but emotionally and mentally we were miles apart. We rarely conversed, as I was absorbed in blogs and Internet news and Kyle was absorbed in television. When we did converse, the other person answered with only half-attention. We forgot little details because we weren't giving our undivided attention. I thought Kyle and I were close, and we are and have always been. But there was a divide in our marriage that would have significantly damaged our relationship if it had continued.
Once I was away and I couldn't call Kyle, I realized how much I longed to talk to him. It drove me crazy that we had been in the same room for four years and I hadn't spoken much, but once we were apart, I had a million things I wanted to say to him. I was not allowed phone calls my first 10-14 days. Then I was allowed one call a week to Kyle for ten minutes. That was the hardest policy for me to abide by. When Kyle and I were dating and living four hours apart, we often spoke for two to four hours daily. We've never run out of conversation with one another. We always have something to say. We just got bogged down by unimportant life issues and retreated and isolated to our individual comfort zones; me in the computer and him in the television. As I sat alone in Texas and wished desperately to converse with my husband, I vowed I would utilize our time together more productively once I returned home. When Kyle came for family week, he made the commitment to me that he would remove the TV from the bedroom! Hark! Music to my ears! Both of us have made a concerted effort to love one another more by listening more.
We all take our loved ones for granted from time to time. Sometimes it's hard to pause in the middle of life and be thankful for the comfort of loved ones. We just assume we'll see them again at dinner or at the end of the workday. I had some random moments of panic when I was gone. I would suddenly spring into the worry that something horrific would happen to Kyle while I was gone and I would never again get to tell him how much I love him and appreciate him. He would die in some freak car accident or stop breathing in the night. Although I have had some anxiety about him coming to harm ever since we met, it was far more intense these past few weeks. Although I recognized it as catastrophizing and pointless worry, it invaded my thoughts frequently. I thought of all the people who think they have more time with loved ones and then the run is pulled out from under it all when someone dies unexpectedly. I knew then that I had to be more appreciate and demonstrative of the good and love in my life. Instead of worrying that Kyle won't be there, I need to do everything I can each day to show him I love him. I will never know how much time we have left together, but I can know I did everything I could to show him my love while he was here.
Family week was an amazing experience that brought Kyle and I closer than we already were. We've been close since we met, but I've made it somewhat difficult for anyone to get truly close to me. Shortly before I left for Shades of Hope, I was struggling because I felt like Kyle was not as close and as loving as I once felt we were. I said to him one night, "You never touch me anymore," and he replied, "I can't get close to you. You're always surrounded by things. I was taken aback by this, but as I surveyed the scene around me, I realized I had built physical walls around me with stuff. I had stacks of notebooks, magazines and books around me, the computer on my lap or pulled up on the coffee table in front of me. I was always multi-tasking. Busy busy busy. He was right. I was shutting him out.
Because Kyle is significantly older than me, I am almost constantly afraid something will happen to him that will leave me alone. The logical part of my mind tells me to stop the worrying and just live in the moment for a change; that I have no idea how long any one of us will be on this earth. That I'm wasting the time we do have together. But that fear in the back of my mind pervades my life all the time. In so many ways, I've built walls around myself hoping to cushion myself from the pain. Unfortunately, I cushioned myself from the depth of love that he has for me, too.
Time away and alone confirmed to me that I am amazingly fortunate to be loved as intensely and deeply as I am. I could not be more cared about than I am from Kyle. I learned through my family sculpt that I get pulled away from our relationship and distracted from it with so many little things - the eating, the spending, the codependency. I let hundreds of tiny things get between us so that we are seldom close to one another on a truly emotional and intimate level. It makes me very sad to think about this, to envision Kyle lying on the floor with all those pillows in between us that represent my issues that keep me apart from him, when really, the safest place in the world for me is in his arms.
At the end of Family Week I was able to go on an outing with Kyle. We went to see the newest Shrek movie, thinking that something light would be nice. Ironically, the movie's message was directly related to what I had been thinking. In the film, Shrek gets tired of being a husband and father and wants life to go back to the way it used to be. He gets his wish, but it isn't all it was cracked up to be. He misses the little things. A LOT. I can relate to this. Once I was away from home I realized that I don't need exciting life events and merchandise to be happy. I can find joy and contentment in a kiss on the forehead as Kyle leaves for work, Pip's wag of his ail, Kyle's silly jokes, a shared smile or a game of Scrabble. It isn't about all the stuff I used to worry over, trying to solve and manage every little detail.
Life is about so much more, and at the same time, so much less.
I've made several commitments to myself and to Kyle about the way life will be going forward.
- I will limit computer usage to a certain amount of time each day, especially to the time that Kyle is at work.
- I will tell Kyle I love him every day.
- We will sit down to an evening meal at the table with no television or Internet.
- We will communicate using family meetings and confrontations (more about those in a later post).
- I will ask for what I need. (More about that in a later post, too).
- I will attend support group for weight loss surgery, spending and eating.
- I will make sure that my actions reinforce my words.
- I will stop isolating and building walls.
- Kyle and I will pay the bills together so we both know where our accounts and bills stand
Kyle and I celebrated our fourth anniversary apart from one another on June 3rd. I love him more than ever, and I am so grateful he married me. I am grateful for our home together, and our little family that consists of us and our Pippy. Mostly, I am grateful to be loved and cared about, and grateful that I had so much to work hard for while I was gone, knowing that I had so much to come home to. What more could a woman want?
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