Oh Monday...the morning breaks with such enthusiasm...

and hope.

Isn't it great, how 'come Monday' you can do anything? Why do we wait until Monday to start a new diet, start a new exercise plan, start saving money? Why do we believe that Monday will be better than perhaps FRIDAY?

Well, today, Monday is my day...I'm committed to eating the way I'm supposed to eat as a gastric bypass post op. I'm commited to exercising to firm up this saggy body. At almost 40, gravity sucks!

Not intended on frightening anyone but perhaps myself, I'm posting a picture of where I started...back in March of 03, when I weighed 312 pounds. The shirt I'm wearing is a MENS 5X. I never wore anything but those damned stretchy leggins..thinking they looked OH so good and made me look smaller (smaller than what? a whale?)

My goal for this week is to achieve Ketosis (Ketosis (IPA pronunciation: [ki'tosɪs]) is a stage in metabolism occurring when the liver has been depleted of stored glycogen and switches to a chronic fasting mode during long periods of starvation.
During the chronic stage of starvation (after glycogen has run out), fat (triglycerol) is cleaved to give 3 fatty acid chains and 1 glycerol molecule in a process called lipolysis. Most of the body is able to utilize fatty acids as an alternative source of energy in a process where fatty acid chains are cleaved to form acetyl-CoA, which can then be fed into the Krebs Cycle. During this process a high concentration of glucagon is present in the serum and this inactivates glucose kinase switching the primary energy source of most cells from using glucose to fatty acids. At the same time, new glucose is synthesized in the liver from lactic acid, glucogenic amino acids, and glycerol, in a process called gluconeogenesis. This glucose is used exclusively by cells such as neurons and red blood cells.
Ketone bodies, from the breakdown of fatty acids to acetyl groups, are also produced during this fasting state, and are burned throughout the body. During the initial stages of starvation the brain does not burn ketones, since they are an important substrate for lipid synthesis in the brain. But after several days of starvation, the brain transitions to burning ketones in order to more directly utilize the energy from the fat stores that are being depended upon, and to reserve the glucose only for its absolute needs, thus slowing the depletion of the body's protein store in the muscles.
The brain retains a residual need for glucose, because ketones can only provide energy when used during aerobic respiration in mitochondria. In the long thin neurons, much of the metabolically active cellular membrane must derive its energy from glucose via anaerobic respiration without the assistance of mitochondria.)

My diet will consist of water (enough to float a ship) diet green tea and protein...and lots of it, and vegetables. For now, no fruit and certainly no carbs or sugar in an attempt to rid my body of these toxins. I don't expect this to be easy..and I've given fair warning to my family.