Calling all cooks....and post-ops too...

First of all, welcome to those of you who are new and joined me--thanks very much!

Now for the main event:  I need suggestions on how to handle Thanksgiving.  It is my first big "foodie" holiday since surgery, and I'm worried.  Here is how Thanksgiving normally transpires at my house:

1.  My parents come for an extended stay, which puts three adults in a condo for one.  Not only are there more people in a smaller space, but the people in question all have somewhat big personalities (I actually think I may top the list on this).  So while I love it when they come visit, it can also be overwhelming.
2.  We wake up and turn on the Thanksgiving parade and my mom and I cook.  My mom's job is to hold the turkey while I fill it with stuffing, and to amuse me by making the turkey dance while she's doing it.
3.  We eat the food.  What is it?  For me it's always a little bit of turkey on the side of a large plate of carbs--stuffing, mashed potatoes, and rolls.  We try to have salad and veggies to make it a slightly rounder meal, but I usually push those to the side.
4.  My mother cleans up.  Our deal is that I cook (with the exception of preparing the naked turkey for the oven), and she cleans up.  That, and she's somewhat compulsive about cleaning so even if we didn't have the agreement I would just leave it until it drove her so crazy that she cleaned it up anyway.  So the trade-off is actually a much better deal.  During clean up, there is usually a great deal of "stuffing-stealing" on my part, which consists of me deciding that there is no way for all the stuffing to fit into the tupperware and I should therefore eat it while standing in the kitchen.  And maybe another roll.  With butter.
5.  Then there is much laying around in a tryptophan-induced semi-comatose state while my father attempts to watch football with his eyes closed and my mother and I attempt to change the channel to something girly without waking him.
6.  We eventually make it over to a friend's house for a dessert buffet and to practice having more appropriate social skills than sneaking stuffing and slumping on the couch.
7.  We go home, we have a late-night snack (ie. a second Thanksgiving dinner), and we go to bed.

These are things that I cannot do this year.  I can't make it all about the food.  I can't eat the same type of food, nor can I eat it in the same quantity.  And I'm realizing that I'm going to have to re-design Thanksgiving.  Here's where I need your help.

How do I celebrate the holiday without making food the centerpiece?  How do I get some physical activity space for that day?  What food can I have that feels festive and holiday-like for all of us, but doesn't make me hate myself the next day?  How can I change our holiday without making my parents feel punished?

I don't know.  I've thought about going out to dinner (not a great option for us), ordering a "Turkey Dinner for 2" from Whole Foods, having yummy and festive nibbly things (since I have to eat small amounts several times a day) and avoid the one major holiday meal altogether, or invite ourselves to a friend's house.  I'm just not sure.

What are you guys all doing for Thanksgiving?  What do you do to stay on plan for the day (or do you just give yourself a free pass for the day)?  How do you make it feel like a holiday when you have to change everything?

Any and all suggestions are welcome--please leave them in the comments.

Head and body--reaching a detente?

One of the things I hear over and over is that weight loss surgery is on your body--not your head, and if you don't take care of the issues that made you overweight in the first place you will not be successful in the long term.  So I'm really trying to examine what it is that drove me to overeat.

The answer very frequently comes down to avoiding negative feelings. 

I was diagnosed as Bipolar type 2 in 2001 (yes, it's different than regular Bipolar or Manic Depression as it is mostly on the depressive side, with an occasional side of hyper and, for me, anxiety).  I consider myself lucky, as it is pretty mild--to the point that only my very closest friends knew that I had issues.  I was REALLY good at hiding it at work and to casual friends.  I developed a whole set of coping skills that consisted of me hiding whatever emotional state I was in.

Turns out, that's not a great idea.  1.  It means you are a lot harder to diagnose, and less likely to get the problem addressed.  2.  It means that your state of life requires hiding who you really are, and how you really feel, which becomes a huge hit to your self-esteem.  3.  It means that you have to find a way to cope with the dichotomy.  For me, it was food.  I regulated my emotions with lots of carbs (found out later that carbs boost serotonin as well as your fat cells), with sugar, and with fat.  All of those things, in mass quantities (which I also hid from the world, for a long time anyway), are really effective in blocking out your feelings.  Temporarily.  But they tend to rear their ugly heads eventually--in the form of 350 pounds.

I knew that after surgery I would have a lot of emotional work to do, and that I would have a hard time letting go of the food.  There have been times that I had a whole meal of just bread.  There have been times that I overate to the point that I thought I would die from the pain.  To me, these are the limits that I knew I would have to test, and that I need to learn from--quickly. 

And for the most part, I have.  I get a "cheat meal" each week, and then I go back to high protein, low carb and lower fat foods the rest of the time.   That means that when I get into emotional trouble now, I don't have my default coping mechanism of stuffing my feelings down by stuffing down food.  Angry, sad, lonely happens to everyone, but it feels to me like I get them stronger.  Not only because I have a tendency to intense feelings, but because when you don't express them they build up and get out of control.

The funny thing is that I've figured out that the best way to express and work out these negative feelings is body-based.  I always thought that the depression, bad feelings, and loneliness were thoughts and feelings in my head and the only way to get them out was to use my head (agonizing about everything) or my belly (filling it up until I was numbed by the serotonin).  I try to do pilates, meditation, and body movement to get rid of and deal with stress better.  I make myself "play dates" to keep from being too lonely.  I take deep breaths whenever I can.  I take a bubble bath, or clean out my closet of clothes that don't fit. 

All of them lean to the physical realm.  And I'm finding that  a lot of these things can help regulate those uncomfortable feelings.  I'll admit that it's not as easy and fast as pizza, and that there are times I forget, and that it's really hard.  I'm hoping to eventually come to a truce between my head, my heart and my body.  Right now, they are all in talks (see how political I am?).  There are occasional outbursts, but it doesn't seem to be a full-out war anymore--it's more of a Switzerland-type state of neutrality.

Honestly I don't think that I will ever win the war, but if a detente is enough to bring the Cold War up to a comfortable room-temperature, I'll take it.



So it seems like there

High anxiety--a tribute to Mel Brooks

OK, maybe not a tribute to Mel, but I keep thinking of him singing that  song, "High annnnnnnzzzzzziety!!!"

I've been worried about everything lately.  How much money I (don't) have, how stable is my job, what if I get laid off, how do I go about rebuilding my savings, what will I do when the Beast dies (she's about 87 in people years), what if I never reach my goal weight, what if I do and then regain it all...

I tell you, sometimes my brain is an exhausting place to live in.  Wildly entertaining, but exhausting.

So I'm trying to let go, and live one day at a time (thanks for the reminder, TinaM!).

Is it bad if I say that I'm starting this tomorrow?