Jeff took this last night.

Left to right: Me, Jeff, Mike.
Jeff took this last night.

Left to right: Me, Jeff, Mike.
Robin and Lily would like to wish you a happy Friday. I tried to get a picture of Lily trying to eat Robin’s tail but she was too hyper and it was all blurry. This is the best I could do.
Tonight I got to visit two old friends. Mike the bass player is my oldest friend. We haven’t seen too much of each other since COVID hit and the band went on hiatus. It was great to see him though. Jeff the drummer moved to the west coast before COVID. We were trying to figure out when the last time we saw each other was. I want to say 2008. I know he met Jen at least once so it was post-2007.
Jeff recently became a grandfather and he came back to New England to visit the baby. He asked if we could get together and we made it happen. He’s doing really well out there, living the pro musician dream. It was so great to see him and catch up after all these years.
Hopefully we won’t let another decade go by before we do it again. Next time we’ll have to figure out a way to play some music together. I don’t think the three of us have played together since maybe 1990? There was a forth guy in that band way back then. He was working tonight, also living the professional musician dream. Next time we’ll have to find a way to have him join us too.
I think I may have mentioned that today is the first anniversary of my gastric bypass surgery. Have I dropped that factoid onto the blog yet today? I think I have.
To summarize the results of yesterday’s weigh in (again), my most recent goal was to get below 205 pounds because that would put my BMI below 25. A BMI of 25 and up means you are overweight. A BMI of less than 25 means you are at a normal weight. I haven’t been at a healthy weight at any moment during my adult life, and possibly at any moment in my entire life as a whole.
Last week’s weigh in (week 51) had me at 205.6 pounds. So very close to that overweight/healthy weight line. Yesterday’s weigh in (week 52) messed up that good vibe by coming in at 206.6. I joked in the post about maybe magically losing 1.7 pounds in one day and hitting that goal on my first anniversary. It really was a joke. I promise.
Guess what happened. Go on and guess.
I got up at a little before 6:00am and stepped on the scale. The number made me laugh. I stepped off, reset the scale to zero and stepped back on and got exactly the same result.
204.8. Down 1.8 pounds from yesterday. From yesterday. Ladies and gentlemen… for the first time in my adult life… and coincidently on the anniversary of my weight loss surgery… My BMI is below 25, implying that I am at a healthy weight.
How friggin’ hysterical is that? I joked about it yesterday and it actually happened today. Who writes this shit, right?
I have lost 226.6 pounds in the last year, and 247.2 pounds since the first weigh in on January 19, 2022. I can’t even believe it. My mind is blown. Totally.
So now what? I’ve tracked my weight pretty religiously every Wednesday and the 4th of every month for a full year. Can I stop now? I don’t know. Does the weekly weigh in count as part of my routine in such a way that I should keep doing it because I am a creature of habit and sticking to the routine has worked for me this far so I should do it? Should I stop the Wednesdays and just do the monthlies? I don’t know. I might wait until Wednesday morning before making a decision and just see what happens.
As far as goals are concerned, my general goal was just to feel healthier and not feel like I was dying 24 hours a day. That’s how I felt back in January of 2022 when this started. More specific goals didn’t really exist at first. I wanted to be under 400 pounds. I achieved that on May 16, 2022. That changed my goal to being under 300 pounds. I achieved that on September 21, 2022. I think it was in October or November when I publicly said my new goal was to have my BMI under 25, but I did the math wrong (like an idiot) and thought I had to get down to 190 pounds. The BMI goal superseded the sub 200 goal because the idea of hitting either one was so absurd that they didn’t seem realistic.
Now? I guess the goal is to stay below 205 pounds. Beyond that, hitting “Onederland” is the next pie in the sky goal. Onederland being what folks on the bariatric surgery Facebook groups call the magical moment when you drop below 200 pounds. I’m less than five pounds away, but it’s taken me months to get to 205 from the point where I first leveled off, around 216. It could take a while… or not. Who the hell knows?
For now though, let’s just focus on the happy anniversary of it all. 365 days and 220+ pounds. It’s so unbelievable I kinda want to throw up. This is beyond my wildest dreams. Thanks for hanging out with me and reading my stupid weight loss posts. I appreciate you coming along for the ride.
Wild Kingdom, outside:
Wild kingdom, inside:
No difference at all.
One year ago today, my beloved wife Jennifer without whom I never would have been able to get through any of the challenges of the past year brought me a cute little stuffed bunny to keep me company on my overnight in the hospital. It was the same color as our cat Patches, and she named it Patch Rabbit.
Patch Rabbit sat with me through the entire month of recovery that followed the surgery, and since then she has been sitting on the window sill next to my desk in the cellar office. I just thought I should include my bunny friend in the anniversary celebration by using her for today’s photo-a-day challenge.
Before (May 4, 2022):

After (May 4, 2023):

I still have the pair of jeans you see in the before photo. I might put them on and take a bonus mirror selfie, just for laughs. I mean, that is literally the reason I never got rid of those pants.
These pics are screen shots from one of two selfie-a-day apps I have been using. The plan was to take a selfie a day for the first year, then upgrade the apps to the paid versions and save off a video of all of the pictures. I will do that today and upload the videos here. I failed to take a shot a day. Failed miserably in fact. I think I have around 300 pics in both apps. We’ll see how they look.
In closing, when I typed the title of this post the song of the same name from the very first Rush album, released 49 years ago, popped into my head and I am hoping it will stay there for a while.
I shared a bunch of pictures on Tuesday of the changes I made to my basement office. Mostly I was focusing on splitting my work computer off into it’s own space. Doing that freed up a ton of space on my home computer desk but I didn’t really do much with it.
Until now!
Jen bought new speakers for her computer upstairs and I inherited an old set. I put them on the desk on Tuesday, but I didn’t have an amplifier that would work with them. Off to amazon.com we went and I was able to set it up this morning and test it out.
The new desk audio setup is sah-weeeet.
New speakers:
New digital audio converter:
Can you guess what the first test subject was? I bet you can. Sure you can.
I can’t believe it’s been a year since I went under the knife.
My head is spinning a little today. In most fitting fashion, I woke up with a bit of a queasy stomach. Hopefully breakfast will clear that up. It’s just fitting, that’s all.
I weighed myself. I’ll share that later. It was really good. I’m also planning on a before and after selfie because why not, right? It’s been a year and I haven’t died of any weird complications. That’s worth celebrating, right?
May the 4th be with you, friends and neighbors. Maybe I’ll watch Empire Strikes Back while I exercise today. No, I’ll just continue the epic X Files binge. Maybe I’ll watch an episode of a Disney+ show. Andor maybe?
What a crazy day in this completely crazy new world.
She was obsessed with my empty water glass. Why? What was so fascinating?