I slept fairly well last night on a full Ambien. I decided last night that it’s really ridiculous of me to expect to quit Ambien in the middle of the worst part of this process. I’m not sure what I was thinking there. All I know is that there was a point last night when I thought to myself “I’d be happier if I was unconscious.” LOL. Ambien will be staying in my life for now.

Yesterday was the first day of the seven day pre-op liquid diet. It was about as hard as I expected. It’s not a pleasant thing to go through, but I am relieved about one thing: no migraine.

If you’ve been reading my blog from the beginning, you may remember this post from a few years back when I was thinking of having lap band surgery. Before I committed to the idea, I went on the pre-op liquid diet to see what it was like. It was good to look back and read that this morning. I wasn’t ready for surgery back then, it’s obvious. What a difference two years makes.

Yesterday’s calorie count was 450 calories. It wasn’t fun, but it could have been a lot worse. Hopefully it’s like everyone says: the first few days are the hardest. I’ll be in a movie theater this Friday night…smelling popcorn. I don’t want to bust into tears or run over to the glass case of candy and press my lips against it while screaming “WHY!!!!!!” at the top of my lungs in front of my co-workers. That shit’s embarrassing.

I had a fleeting temptation to step on the scale this morning, but got all mother hen on myself. No. I just don’t need that shit right now. I’d rather focus on getting through this liquid diet with my sanity.

For those of you who are considering surgery as an option, I can say this: the pre-op liquid diet is a real eye opener. For me, it’s not so bad at work when I’m distracted by the tasks I have to complete every day. It’s more of a challenge when I get home. I’m usually by myself for several hours. It’s hard to fight the auto-pilot that sends me into the kitchen for a snack and then plants me on the couch to watch the news. I wanted to make Vitamin Water Zero popsicles last night, but I couldn’t. They’re in a bin at the back of our pantry and HMH has all his BBQ gear shoved up in front of it. I simply didn’t have the mental balls to get in there and move things around – especially when I saw the bag of tortilla chips. I got out quickly.

I do miss regular, healthy food the same as my experience two years ago. On the way home from work yesterday, all the restaurants I didn’t get to say goodbye to popped into my head. I stopped that shit in a hurry. By singing showtunes. Yep. I sang showtunes at the top of my lungs while driving my busted up Hyundai down the highway and I don’t give a shit who saw me. I was warding off the food demons and the song “Mandy” from White Christmas seemed to do the trick. I’m quite proud of that.

Day two, here we go!

Muscle Milk Light, Cake Batter, 1.65 Pound