It has been awhile since I last wrote. A lot has changed in
the last few months. It has been over 5 years since I had my weight loss
surgery. Weight has been rapidly lost, clothes sizes rapidly changed and life
was getting better. I had moved to Italy in 2008 after the surgery and begun
cooking with Amore Sapore. The cooking
was the easy part. The hard part was dealing with all the personalities in the
small group. But in that first year I lost about 135 pounds. I felt good and I
had gone down considerably in size. I loved the ability to buy nice fitting
clothes and wear them with a certain degree of pride. I had accomplished a lot
and I was proud of myself. I did get some unfortunate resistance to my loss
from my partner. It was not easy for her
to accept that I weighed substantially less than she did. It was just one of
many problems we had. Those problems led ultimately to a divorce and we both moved on.
I am sure that Sandi had she lived to see this weight loss
would have approved and been proud of me.
She had gone through a similar process and lost almost 150 pounds, which
frankly she kept off better than I have. When you lose that much weight you
begin to see that you are very much different than what you were used to. The
mirror is no longer an enemy, to be ignored if at all possible. It wasn’t
vanity, it was more like satisfaction and success, finally. After I left Italy I began a slow but steady
increase in weight and regained about forty of the pounds I had lost. The eating impetus was more emotional and
snacking was a problem.
When I married Kathlyn she had gone though a lot of the same
things as I had. Weight loss surgery, and the sudden death of her long time
husband. She had also tried to date and develop relationships with men that
were not as successful as she had before. All of these responses were similar
in my case. So here we are, closing in
on two years of marriage. She retains a wonderful senxe of humor and makes me
laugh, I cook for her and she proudly told me the other day that in the last
year she had only gained three pounds. I
guess my Eight Bites philosophy is working at least for us. I have lost about
eight pounds and slowly sliding down on the scale. I have started to go to the
gym three to four times a week and working with a personal trainer once a week.
I know I feel pretty good and have been lifting a lot of weight, treadmilling
and rowing.
In the last couple of weeks, I have been trained as a Food
Champion with the Jamie Oliver Food Revolution and will be starting to teach
kids and adults about making good nutritious meals simply, easly and with some
fun. Hopefully they will take away the inherent stigma we attach to cooking now
days. It really seems that most kids no longer go into the kitchen with their
mom or dad and cook. Probably because mom and dad are wound up in just trying
to make ends meet and resort to getting takeout, or microwaveable meals. So we
will teach them some simple dishes, and include knife skills, kitchen equipment
use and maintenance, and sanitation. It will be a fun time until the 20th
of December when the Big Red truck leaves to head to its next stop. The local
food champions will hopefully continue
to teach the kids in other venues including Boy’s and Girl’s Clubs and
schools.
So here it is almost Thanksgiving and I am preparing to cook
some dishes for the family gathering. I have made a flourless chocolate almond
cake, a flourless pumpkin soufflé cake, a lemon tart, and am in the process of
doing a few more things tomorrow. So this Thursday will pass. Next
week I will start the Jamie Oliver program.
Have a good Thanksgiving. Stay in the moment and try everything you
like, but just make those tastes rather than platefuls.
