On eating and drinking...

Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity. ~Voltaire

Day 27 AS

Not a lot to report. Same old - same old. Overall doing pretty well. Dizziness has thankfully subsided, I'm left with just feeling tired all of the time now. Yesterday was a little weird -- I had a hard time keeping pureed foods down, and was kind of sick getting out of the shower (yuck) but that seems to have thankfully subsided today.

The other weird thing is that I'm still not hungry. I know the head-hunger is going to hit me one of these days, but so far, so good. I am eating 3 times a day because I need to -- not because I want to at this point.

Next big milestone is tomorrow -- I get to start eating "soft" foods for a month. Just like a baby, I'm supposed to add one food at a time to make sure I can tolerate it. If it doesn't work (and I shudder to think what that means!) then I wait a week and try it again. John got me some good supplies to try -- an assortment of "processed" meats (recommended as it will be easier to chew to the required applesauce consistency -- I can also eat poached and boiled meats -- ugh), eggs, and some soft low fat cheeses. Ripe bananas and canned fruit (with any syrup washed off) are also on the list, as are overcooked potatoes, sweet potatoes, white rice and pasta. The hard part is that I also have to start the no beverage with meals for the rest of my life phase or for 30 minutes afterwards. I've always consumed tons of water with my meals so this will definitely take some getting used to. Hopefully with the meals only being 3 ounces (3/8 cup) in total I won't miss the water too much.

The number one priority remains getting all of my protein in. I am still struggling to get to my goal of 75 grams/day.

Thanks to John I have found another pureed food I like: smoothies. Yum! Yesterday he made a banana smoothie for breakfast and added some of Elaine's protein supplement -- it was delicious. We tried kefir for the first time with this and found it pretty tasty -- filled with protein. A few days earlier he made a banana strawberry one that was pretty tasty too. One thing I've noticed is that I still prefer "simple" flavors -- not too much spice or too many complex flavors. That seems to be getting better with time, so hopefully in another week or two that won't be an issue any longer.