Day 11: a little shopping and a lesson or two.

I got out today and went mall walking for a while. I had some shopping to do for me and my daughter at JCP and then I went to Casual Male to get some new clothes. I could have bought a size smaller, but my dunlap is too noticeable in the next size down, so I stayed at the 54s. I bought two pairs of jeans, some undershirts, some work slacks and a nice denim-looking button down shirt. Some of this will be worn to go see an 80s cover band tomorrow night. I love going to see this particular band and a bunch of my friends are supposed to be there, including my best friend

On to lessons offered and learned.

The offered: Someone on the Facebook Gastric Sleeve Surgery support page asked why it felt like it was taking so long to get through everything for the surgery. I offered that when I need to exercise patience, I call on my totem animal of patience: the Zen spider. Take the spider by itself and consider it's patience to spin it's web. Now take that same creature and make it a Zen Master. How much patience does that spider have? So when I need to focus my patience, I think about the Zen spider.

The learned: Most of my meals today were nothing out of the ordinary. Protein Shake for breakfast, 24 oz. of protein juice between 7am and 12pm, pureed chili for lunch and another 24 oz. of protein juice between 1pm and 5pm. Dinner is where the learned lesson comes in. I decided to have a small baked potato for dinner. 3.85 oz of potato, a touch of shedd's spread for butter flavor and salt and pepper. I mashed it all together very finely and chowed down, taking small bites. I have discovered that my sleeve in it's current condition does not like potato. No matter how big or small a bite I took, my stomach shot some pain my way. So I'm leaving potatoes off the menu for now. I'll try again when I'm fully healed. And I'm not saying that everyone will have this problem. It might be unique to me. I guess I'm saying to pay attention to the signals your body gives you once you have the sleeve. Try things out of the ordinary and see if you like it now or if your body can tolerate it.

Bihar arte!