Thanksgiving

OK,

 Post op here 09/15/2009, doing great up and around walking, doing the farm chores and feeling crazy great after a week...

 Eating is fine and tollerating everything fine.

However, I am the Thanksgiving cook and do the dinner up really nice every year for the whole family.  Five kids, Father, grandchildren...

I really have found I could care less about food right now and never am hungry which is good but, the smell of all the cooking in the house does smell good.  Which encourages me that I have not lost the total love for food.  I do love cooking and do it all the time, just eating now will not necessarily need to happen...

How do others deal with Thanksgiving centered around eating when you cannot?  My only thought is I am doing this for family, I have my little bit and take heart I have prepared something really nice again for them and we are all together... Any other thoughts...

Art

My first Thanksgiving was rough, too. I was on soft foods by that time, and was able to only have some mashed potatos, squash, peas, and maybe ground up turkey with lots of gravy if I was careful. It was hard. But I made it. And I made it several years on through, after that.

I think of it this way. It was situations like Thanksgiving that got me to the point of having WLS in the first place! Perhaps now is the time to make a new habit of Thanksgiving, if only for myself. It shouldn't be about eating as much as I can until I want to explode. How is that at ALL healthy? It isn't, and WLS was a pinnacle in my life, a turn-around point into a healthier lifestyle. Times like Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter... shouldn't be about gorging, but about what the whole point of a holiday is. Being with family, having a good time together, play some cards, play some football in the yard, snuggling with a movie or the game on the couch... Stop making the holidays revolve around food, because that's not why they're there in the first place.

I hope that helps at least a little.

Thanks this is great... I agree, we emphasis food for holidays and the better is just family and friends.

Thanks for the encouragment

I have to talk a lot and eat a little.  (Have to practice it isn't polite to talk with my mouth full LOL)  It's a real challenge and the farther out from surgery the more of a challenge I've found it to be.  I go back to Indiana for what we call Thanksmas - combine Thanksgiving and Christmas at Thanksgiving because, theoretically, it is less likely to snow at Thanksgiving.

I don't have to cook the meal (it's hard to nuke evrything I would want to cook LOL) so don't have to face that hurdle - since I don't cook, that has never been an issue really.

Prepare the whole meal as though you were preparing it for bariatric patients - everyone has to be responsible for their portions, but any recipe you can rework will not only be healthier for you but for all the rest of the family as well.  Plan a walk for after the meal and involve as many guests as are willing.  That can help.

And, probably the most important thing is to anticipate a bit of a struggle, review all the reasons you wanted/needed the surgery in the first place, know you will be able to eat more next year (and there's really nothing that says those foods can only be prepared for a November holiday), and CELEBRATE your success and new life's journey.

I wish you well