Or more likely, learning to live on a starvation diet now that my gall bladder and I have parted ways.

The rule of thumb, according to nutritionists on the web, is that gall-bladder-disabled people must watch the amount of fats they consume, with 3 percent being the benchmark number.

So, I have been touring the supermarket, checking out the fat content on various products. Sad to say, there is a lot of yummy food I won’t be eating anymore, such as breaded fish and chicken products, pizza, chocolate, most pies, and on and on it goes, all of which have fat content far above and beyond the 3-percent ceiling . . . It’s downright depressing.

The only milk that meets the criteria is a 1% offering, which I used to scowl at. Now I have three litres of it in my fridge, though I am keeping the whole milk I already had for my coffee.

The thing is, I cannot eat like I used to, and I will so miss greasy french fries, the cheesy vegetarian pizza we use to have at my friend Ted’s house, and so much more. I can’t even eat a freakin’ donut without fear of making my innards go berserk somehow. It’s come down to tea biscuits for me. (I’m far too young for them!)

Meanwhile, for the first time since 2007, my weight dipped below 140 pounds, to 139.5 this morning. That makes seven pounds I’ve lost since my medical misadventure began — and I’m not even dieting. It’s obvious to me that I will never regain that weight, and will probably lose another 9.5 pounds before I level off. I don’t mind weighing 130: that was my weight from high-school days right into my 50s, when I finally started to gain some — to a high of 148, but averaging 146.

Maybe I’ll become the new Twiggy model . . . I dunno.

Still, none of this has affected my shoe size, and when a girl is depressed, one way to cheer her (i.e. me) up is to take her to Sears — which just happens to be having a sale on summer shoes right now! So there I was today, indulging in shopping therapy. And I don’t have to worry about the fat content in my sexy new platform sandals!

— Jillian

P.S. I haven’t had a drop of wine since this all began, but I won’t be banishing it from my life. I’ll get back to the California samplings soon. (We tried a Woodbridge wine a couple of weeks ago; it was awful. I think it had gone bad, so we need to try another bottle before I can comment fairly.)