Take it from the top

Well, here we go.  A few weeks ago, the idea came to me to start this blog.  Why?  I guess it all really started about six years ago when I was preparing to undergo a life saving, lifestyle changing surgery called a Proximal Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass.  For the uninitiated, that's stomach stapling.  It's for extremely obese people and in most cases (like mine, for instance), it's a last ditch attempt to resolve a life-long battle against obesity.

For the record, these are my "then" and "now" pictures.  I'm the one in the red shirt and the one in the black dress.  There's no doubt I fit the profile -- though, that's about all I fit back then.. I'm almost six years post-op, now and as you can see, I've seen a degree of success.  I consider myself a lasting success because I've maintained my weight loss.

That's not why I'm doing this, though.  I'd like to prove to myself (and I guess everybody else) that you can still love food -- not in the vast quantity, caloric-orgy kind of way I did before my surgery, but in the grandly-delicious, flavor-intense way food was meant to be loved.  I want to know that, while I was and am required to change my relationship with food (seriously?  a "relationship" with food?), that doesn't mean I'm relegated to a life of bland, boring, small portions of beige food that simply sustains and does not excite, entice or delight.

Food was given flavors for that exact purpose -- to excite, entice and delight us.  In some cases bold, surprising and unexpected.  In others, delicate, subtle, aromatic and inviting.. but like flowers, why be beautiful if not to draw us in?  As animals, we would have discovered their nutritional value even if they had no extra special anything, but their flavor.. that's like the vibrant petals of a voluminous bloom.  It makes you stop and go, "Oooohh!" and it makes you want more.

I'm here to tell you, right here and right now, food is not your enemy.  Unlike every other addict, your addiction can't be given up.  You must still draw life from it every day.  So what are your choices?  Make it unappealing, pedestrian and boring.. nothing more than just plain old sustenance?  Live on liquids the rest of your life?  I'm sorry but I couldn't imagine a less attractive life.  It would be like living in two dimensions.

So I'd like to offer a solution that isn't pedestrian, unappealing or boring.  I don't have the magic balm that will make food calorie-less but come along with me while I navigate my way through the forest of flavors and maybe at the other side, we'll have both made our peace with food at last!

So..  you in?