Last Meal

From the day I decided to have lap band surgery, I was already thinking about my "last meal." In the weight loss community, a last meal is the BIG meal you have before surgery where you can eat ANYTHING you want, and AS MUCH of it as you want. Usually people pick their absolute favorite foods and just gorge the entire day (so mealS...not meal).

I had been thinking about mine from day 1. I was going to start the day out with breakfast at IHOP and get endless pancakes, sausages, bacon, hash browns, waffles, etc. Then I would snack on ice cream and movie theater pop corn. Then for lunch I wanted Chili's baby back ribs...a full rack! With LOTS of french fries, and potato skins. I was also going to drink about 20 Shirley temples. Then I would snack on other various types of things...milkshakes, cream cheese stuffed pretzels, and the like. For dinner I wanted my FAVORITE prime rib dip sandwich from Charleston's w/a bowl of the potato soup, croissants, and french fries. For dessert I wanted Cheesecake Factory cheesecake...not sure what flavor yet. Then later on a large blizzard from dairy queen.
Yeah...that's IF I could have eaten all that. And you know, I really would have tried. But now that I'm getting so close, the desire to have a last meal has faded.

For one, by eating all of that, I will have un-done all the hard work I've put in to lose my pre-op weight. If I don't lose an acceptable amount of weight before surgery, they can cancel the whole thing on me and make me start over from scratch and I'd have to pay for all the pre-stuff again! One days worth of eating however I want is not worth all the time, effort, and money I've put into this. Not to mention I'm sure my bosses would kill me if I told them I'm not having surgery after all the schedule re-arranging they did to make this work for me!

For two, by having a last meal, I'm telling myself that I can NEVER eat those foods again, so this is my last chance. And that's not true. I will most likely still be able to eat most of those foods. Some foods may physically not work just because they would get stuck in my stomach opening and not go down, so I would give those up willingly. But for the most part, I can still have everything I want, I just have to be more sensible. I can't have them frequently, in fact most I should hardly ever have. But that doesn't mean I can NEVER have them. And I may only be able to have like 3 or 4 ribs and not an entire rack, but the point is that I can have them on occasion.

So while I was really looking forward to eating myself silly with all of my favorite foods, I realize now that I'm MORE looking forward to being healthy and being proud of myself when I look in a mirror. Like the saying goes...nothing tastes as good as thin (or healthy) feels.