YAY! I'm not completely crazy!

This past week, I had to go into the center and get a psychological evaluation, meet with the dietician and the fitness specialist. It was 3 hours well spent. I spoke with the psychologist for about an hour and a half about my life and my childhood. Even though it was only 90 minutes, it was rather theraputic. We talked about life experiences that may or may not have contributed to my current situation. After all was said and done, I felt very encouraged and ready to move forward. I spoke with the dietician and her understanding about my pre and post-surgery eating was a little different than my surgeon. From what she said, he is pretty strict about the food and the timing at which I'll be changing things up. I was under the impression that I would start a liquid diet a week before surgery then stay on it two weeks after surgery. Then the next two weeks will be full liquids then two weeks after that would be soft mushy food. The dietician said that I would actually be on a liquid diet the week before but pretty much immediately after surgery and for the next week, I will be on full liquids. To define full liquids, they mean protein shakes, cream soups, etc. They also said that I will get to the point that I can eat anything that I want, and that is where the good choices are going to come into play. My surgeon said that I have to stick to lean meat, fruits/vegetables and zero to low caloric drinks. I think I would rather have few options than many. It makes it easier to decide. But, once I start seeing some success which should happen quite rapidly, I think it'll get a little easier. The nurse, who has done the surgery, said that the first 6 months will be when the most significant rate of weight loss will happen. In fact, the first month I should lose 6-8 lbs a week. It's hard to for me to fathom that but believe me, I welcome it. Now, to many that doesn't sound healthy but it won't last long. My body is getting used to a new way of being. I will have to take a multi-vitamin everyday for there rest of my life...as we all should. With my meals being as small as they are...4oz...(yikes!)...my body isn't going to be getting the same amount of nutrients in the beginning that it is used to getting. It'll take a while for my body to get to the point that my intake of food will be sufficient. We eat to maintain what we already have. Hopefully, at some point, those 4oz meals will be more than enough.
The fitness specialist said that for the next month, I have to keep track of the exercising that I do. They recommend I start out slow and work my way up to 30-50 minutes of some aerobic exercise 4-6 times a week. I have to record it like I do with my food intake and take it with me to my pre-op appointment. After about 2 months, I'll be able to start doing abdominal exercises. Being that the port is attached to the abdominal wall, I have to be very carefull. The only part that I am worried about is the sag effect. If I lose weight so fast that my skin doesn't have time to catch up...that will not be cool. While at the clinic I saw before and after pictures and they were amazing. One lady had the surgery and when all was said and done, she opted to have a tummy tuck. They took 16 lbs of skin off of her. I found out that you can donate your skin to the UofU burn unit and that can reduce the cost of your surgery. I know....probably more than you wanted to know...but I thought that was interesting and kind of cool.
The only things that i have left to do is go to an Informed Consent class, get my date of surgery finalized, get a pre-op and post-op appointment and take the "Psychological Effects of Weight Loss Surgery Class" and I should be good to go.
Thanks to all of you for all of your support. I know I couldn't do it without you. I love you all.