Neurosis and Tomato Soup...

Since my Gastric Bypass surgery 18 months ago I've been neurotic about what I eat. Granted, on some occasions I eat whatever I want and do just fine. I always have been watching my sugar intake and I carefully check labels for grams of sugar and nutrition information. I've been told I'm over the top about it, but when I don't check - I inevitably run into problems.

In an effort to scale back how much I cook and the cost of food, we've decided that simple dinners will work. So last night, I made one of my favorites - cream of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.

It was so yummy going in - I could taste it before I put it in my mouth - good comfort food that was creamy and delicious. I got in about 1/2 my soup and part of my sandwich before it hit me. I started losing visual focus and my head started to swim. Then the heart beat started going faster and I started to get cold and clammy. Thinking I was having a hypoglycemic attack (fairly frequent this week), I took a glucose tablet. When I started to feel even worse, I retrieved the empty can from the trash and checked the sugar content. Twelve grams. That is double what I usually allow myself for any serving of any food. Problem solved - sort of. Now I just had to live through the feeling yucky part of the whole process. I ended up in bed at 7:30 p.m. and I never got up until this a.m.

The last time this happened was in Salt Lake City when I ate 1/3 of a blueberry bagel. I'm not sure how much sugar was in that thing, but it made me feel really bad!

Now. I may complain about this occasionally. If I'm careful, this usually doesn't happen. It's when I think I'm safe, that I run into problems. I chose to have Gastric Bypass surgery over the lap band surgery so that I would have this effect if I ate something I wasn't supposed to - so I guess I got my wish. Think - revers Pavlov's Dog theory. 132 pounds later, I don't regret my decision at all - I can live with a few times feeling crappy to live with my weight loss results. This is the hard part about surgery - but I'd rather learn to eat right (even if I mess it up occasionally) and learn to live with my new body.

Lessons are learned every day.