What was it that John Lennon said? Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans?
The test is still running but it’s looking like a negative. We are still being overly cautious and heading home though. Just to be safe and keep everyone else at the resort safe.
It’s time for an epic Florida to Massachusetts Socially Distant Road Trip, Babie! WOOOHOOO!!!
In the waiting room for yet another doctor’s appointment. This time we are talking migraines, which aren’t really an issue these days. Thankfully.
Shake to shuffle:
Suck it, morbid obesity.
I hate to do it, but I think I have to. Crud.
Jen came up with a recipe for cooking broccoli in the air fryer. It is fantastic. Bordering on magic. We were making it regularly as a side dish along with chicken and potatoes. I had a couple of bad experiences that I chalked up to eating too much too fast, which is always the cause of my stomach problems. Over the last couple of months I have been dishing out a tiny amount of broccoli when we have it but I generally haven’t eaten it. I had been saving it for last and I was always full before I got to it.
Tonight I flipped the script. I have been instructed by the weight loss surgery clinic to always eat sources of protein first, so I eat all of the chicken on my plate first. I did that tonight. Normally I go for the potatoes next because something about having weight loss surgery has trigged my inner Irish stereotype so I always go straight for the potatoes. Tonight I went for the broccoli first and saved the potatoes for last. Now I am dealing with a blocked up stomach and a mild case of the foamies. Crud.
I can’t say for sure but I think this might be three consecutive broccoli meals that ended in foamies. All of which were trigged by the magical, delicious, wonderful broccoli side dish. Crud. I think I have to stop eating it all together. My stomach can handle it without trouble, but I can’t seem to keep the bite sizes small enough, or I can’t seem to chew it into oblivion enough, or I just go too fast. Whatever it is, it is definitely a trend. Crud.
Broccoli has always been my favorite vegetable. Maybe I’ll go back to counting chews and using a stop watch to make myself pause between bites. That used to work when I was much more sensitive than I am now. We’ll see. For now, here’s hoping the foamies pass quickly. Good luck, Robbie.
ADDENDUM: I had my last bite of broccoli at 7:15pm. It’s 9:19pm now and my stomach is still blocked up and I am still spitting up foamie saliva. Grrrrr. Wasn’t it like a week ago when I wrote a post about blocked stomachs generally clearing up in around an hour or so? Didn’t I write about two hours being unusual? Why does my stomach have to be a dick to me tonight? Broccoli is officially on the boycotted food list, right next to cod and anything with more than a couple of grams of sugar. Broccoli is a total jerk face.
I can’t believe I did that. Yesterday was September 4th. I am supposed to weigh myself and write about it on the 4th day of each month because my surgery was on May 4th. Somehow though I forgot to step on the scale. That’s the first time in 16 months that I flat out forgot to weigh myself. I am really surprised at this oversight.
I made up for it today. Today is the 16 month and one day weigh in and it’s very uneventful. I did a bonus weigh in for no reason at all on August 20th, about two weeks ago. I am 0.4 pounds up from that date. I more or less maintained at just a smidge above the lowest my weight has ever been as an adult. I will take it, kiddos. I will take it with a gigantic smile on my face.
I was 205.2 on August 20. The lowest my weight has ever been was 204.8. That was on May 4, 2023, my one year surgery anniversary. This morning I was 205.6. 0.8 pounds above that lowest ever mark. My BMI today is 25, exactly on the line between normal and overweight. Technically on the overweight side of that line. My total weight loss since the surgery on May 4, 2022 is 225.8 pounds. My total weight loss since the first weigh in on January 19, 2022 is 246.4 pounds.
I still have this vague idea of dropping below 200 pounds, but it’s not a big deal. It’s more of a pie in the sky sort of thing. I am more than happy to hang out around 205 and just maintain for a while. That makes me happy. That works for me.
So the next weigh in will be on October 4, 2023 and I don’t expect to forget about it when that day arrives, but now that the precedent has been set? Who knows.
Happy (one day late) weigh in day. May your Tuesday after Labor Day weekend be quiet and stress-free. (This is for US folks only, of course. For the rest of you all it’s just a regular Tuesday. I still hope it’s a quiet and stress-free day but it has a different feel if it isn’t the day after a holiday weekend, you know?) Good luck, everyone!
Holy shit! I just learned of a couple of medical issues going on in my extended family today. The clan is having a rough one, indeed!
My cousin is in the hospital having sextuple bypass surgery as I type this. Sextuple! Holy shit snacks! That sounds terrifying.
Add to that, my mother’s sister, who has been dealing with cancer for years, is in the hospital too. Something about her meds not being effective anymore and causing new side effects. Lots of scans and blood tests.
What a familial kick in the balls.
Spoiler alert, this post is going to be T.M.I. and it’s going to be really gross. You have been warned.
***RED ALERT***
***RED ALERT***
***RED ALERT***
Okay, so in the post Gastric Bypass Surgery world there are rules for how you eat. The big one is you eat your protein sources first, then when that’s all gone you eat everything else on your plate. Protein first, non-protein second.
Tonight I made tacos for me and Harry. Even before having my guts hacked to pieces, a taco for me consisted of taco meat and a taco shell and that’s it. Beef with some seasoning (sometimes chicken or turkey, but generally beef) and a taco shell. I used to put the beef into the shell and have a… ya know… taco-ish thing. Now I eat them separately. Beef first, then a shell. Tonight I had 3.2 ounces of beef and half a shell.
The 3.2 ounces of beef went down without issue. The half a shell did too, at first. I was going to have the other half of the shell too but my stomach started feeling a little off so I stopped.
15 minutes later the shit hit the fan. My stomach turned upside down and I had to make the mad dash to the bathroom before it all came up. Fucking taco shell.
My question then… I tracked how much protein was in the beef. How then do account for the small amount of beef that… came along for the ride when the taco shell came back for a second visit?
See? Told you it was going to be gross. I tried to be polite though and never used the word puke once. You’re welcome.
Just jotting down some smallish, random thoughts on a Thursday afternoon.
My stomach is being a jerk today. Gas. Bad gas. Lots of bad gas. My stomach is a bit upset. A little bit of pain. Nothing bad, just gassy. Super gassy. Pardon the T.M.I. of it all. I just felt the need to share.
In the interest of daily creative behavior like the photo a day challenge and my current 1400+ day posting streak on this little bloggie, I was wondering if I should post a daily haiku. What do you think?
One haiku each day
You know, to keep the brain loose
Could be worth a shot
I have watched a lot of Doctor Who today. Like, an alarming amount of Doctor Who. A frightening amount of Doctor Who. Both the original series and the new series. So much Doctor Who. I may have a Who problem.
We brought Harry’s car to the shop today. Here’s hoping they get the work finished before he has to go back to work next week. I may have to drive him back to Burlington after I finish work one night, and then turn around and drive home right away. That could be a long night. I will do it with a smile on my face, but… yeah, that would be a long night.
The cats have been super affectionate today. I am not sure why. It doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, but it is definitely a welcome development.
I am working in the office today. I’ve had a few meetings and I just wrapped up my lunch. I have another meeting booked for 45 minutes from now but I will be leaving for the day shortly after it starts. Today is my Uncle Jim’s wake. It’s actually a lot closer to my office building than it is to home so working from here actually makes getting there a ton easier. Otherwise I probably would have taken the whole day off. I took tomorrow off as I will be going to the funeral in the morning.
It’s so sad the way my mother’s family has fallen apart over the last year. Three of the four siblings passed away within nine months of each other. Only the baby in the family is left and she has some health concerns of her own. It’s been a tough year for the extended family. I am one of 22 first cousins and most of us are on a facebook messenger chat together. Anytime I get a notification of an update to that chat I get scared. It shouldn’t be like that, but it is. Hopefully we can all find a way to generate some happy news in the next year. I don’t know how, but maybe we can figure it out.
Speaking of happier news, Harry is coming home tonight. He needs to have some work done on his car and he is taking it to a shop near us because he couldn’t find a shop near Burlington, VT that could schedule him any time soon. We’re not sure how long he’ll be home. It will be at least as long as the car fix takes. Hopefully he’ll watch a Doctor Who or two with me. I bet I can talk him into it.
Okay, lunch break is over. Time to go back to work for the shortened afternoon.
I had all of these milestones in mind when I had the weight loss surgery. You know, things that would mark the progress as I lost weight.
20 pounds, 50 pounds, clothes becoming too big for me and having to replace them with smaller sizes, you know, things like that.
At some point I reached the my-wedding-ring-doesn’t-fit-anymore milestone. At the time I thought that maybe I might hit that milestone twice. I’d have the ring resized and then continue to lose weight and have to have it resized again. After that first time though, when it was reduced by two ring sizes, the pace of weight loss slowed and then leveled off and then my weight started creeping up again. Just a smidge. I thought, rightly so, that I would not have to get the ring resized a second time.
Then earlier tonight I was in line at the check out at the grocery store and I was mindlessly spinning my wedding ring around my finger. It feels loose but not loose enough to slide over my knuckle without a push. Then, right on queue, it slid over my knuckle without a push. It was just, poof, on the wrong side of the knuckle.
Well shit, boys and girls. Maybe I am going to need to get the ring resized a second time. I think it’s okay for now, but maybe in a couple of months?
I should also note that I bought the belt that I am wearing right now back around Christmas time. It’s been on the second hole for the entire nine months or so that I have been wearing it. Then on Sunday when I was getting dressed for the wedding I tightened it to the third hole. My belt was just getting too loose.
The scale has been telling me I am maintaining an approximate steady weight. Not really gaining, not really losing. Maybe… but at the same time I might still be getting a smidge thinner… just a little bit, slowly as the days roll past.
Interesting.
It makes me curious what my September 4, 2023, 16 month weigh in is going to look like. We’ll see in a few weeks, okay? I’ll let you know.
Inside the Red Head's Head 