Ok so I've learned something today... I had an awesome Christmas!!! My family is great and it was a great day. I actually made it through Christmas without slipping on the ice and even under 2,000 calories. Last night (day after Christmas) I was (and still am) basically in bed all day because of my back, but I decided to swap dinner for some whiskey lol. What I learned is that's not a good idea. I finally missed my target and went over on calories by 300 or 400 or so due to some late night pretzels lol.
I decided a few days or weeks back that I'm not going to hold myself to unreasonable standards.... so I went over calories for a day...big deal :) I'm going to get back to it today and continue moving forward with my goals. It's more important that I stick to trying to be under 2000 calories a day in the long run than that I actually do it each day. In addition to that.... my back is feeling pretty good. I still need to rest it most of the day, but pretty soon I'm feeling pretty good about getting back to the gym. I'm thinking I might go back to work in a few days as well. I drove for the first time today... earlier than they said I should but I felt pretty good doing it. My recovery is really moving along well and I'm excited to be a normal human being again!
Add in to this... that I had some nerve pain that came back... which obviously made me a bit nervous. I called the surgeon's office today to hear the bad news and it turned out to be positive news. They told me that they call this "reminder nerve pain" and that it's likely to go away on its own. I couldn't ask for a better present on christmas!! Hopefully I'm done with this back issue in a few weeks/months and I can get back to doing the things that I love!
18 days in and 1 day slightly over 2000 calories :)