Category: health

11 Month Weigh In

11 months ago today I went under the knife and had my guts rearranged, gastric bypass style. As with every monthiversary, I used it as an excuse to step on the scale, even though my regular scale stepping is scheduled for tomorrow. Now I am going to share some numbers but you have to take them with a grain of salt. 11 months on, these figures are borderline spectacular. They are also almost surely a lie that will be uncovered when I do my weekly weigh in tomorrow. Okay? Let’s not get too excited.

All of my numbers except BMI hit milestones.

Oh wow, Bradley Whitford is in this episode of The X-Files! Season two episode nine. That would be 1994, maybe? 1995? Sorry… I got distracted by the television. I’ll stay focused from now on.

Where was I? Oh yeah, milestones galor. All lies, but still milestones everywhere you look. Last Wednesday the scale read 213.4. Today? 209.6. I broke 210, babie! Holy Shit Burgers! Under 210! Amazing! Granted, I was sick with stomach pain all day yesterday and barely ate or drank anything all day. I didn’t come remotely close to any of my food goals. Not even a tiny bit close. Assuming I hit all of my goals today, I will be back over 210 tomorrow. Pretty much guaranteed.

Along with flipping the 10’s column from a one to a zero, losing 3.8 pounds over the last six days also flipped the 10’s column on my total since surgery. I am up to 221.8 pounds since May 4, 2022. My grand total since the first appointment is the final milestone of the day as that has a new 10’s column too. That number is up to 242.4 and suddenly the possibility of hitting 250 pounds sounds like a remote possibility rather than a fantasy.

The last number to check in on is the BMI. It’s not a big moment, but it is a big change. Last week I hit 26. Today it’s 25.5. Half way to the magical 25, you-are-not-overweight-anymore moment. Crazy.

Now, what about all of the other crap that went down since yesterday? The stomach pain and the gas pain and the mild nausea never went away yesterday. It ebbed and flowed a bit as the day went on but it was always there to varying degrees. Fortunately it’s gone today. I have a bit of a headache, but that’s down to dehydration, I think. I only had about 20 ounces of water over the whole day. Drinking made my stomach feel worse, while eating made it a little better. I didn’t hit my protein goal either, but I was a little better than halfway there. I have had eight ounces of water already this morning (it is 7:41am) and I am about to have a little breakfast to see how that goes.

I will weigh in again tomorrow and I will be up, probably a lot. That is okay. I will get down below 210 for really reals at some point. When I do I will celebrate properly and it will be glorious. Until then, let’s just enjoy this while it lasts. The next check in is the weekly check in tomorrow. Until then… 209.6, babie! WOOHOOO!

Sick

I woke up sick this morning. Major stomach pain, gas, and nausea. I feel really bad. I called in sick to work. I have a couple of meetings I still want to sit in on, but outside of that I’m sitting on the couch feeling gross.

I’ve only managed eight ounces of liquid so far today (it’s 12:40pm) but it hasn’t helped settle my stomach. I haven’t managed any food yet but I’m going to try a tiny little protein bar and see what happens.

Wish me luck.

Interesting View

The scenery on the drive home tonight was interesting.

I hit my protein and liquid goals before I left work. I decided to have some french fries (salt delivery units) as a tiny dinner-like-entity when I got home. Five minutes later I was gagging up saliva with something stuck. I’m at almost two hours and counting now. I should have given it a miss tonight and just gone without.

Week 47 Weigh In

There’s a lot to discuss today, but I am going to try and keep it brief. Today’s weigh in was a good one. Remember a week or so ago when I said I stepped on the scale unofficially and was WAY down, only to step on the scale for real the next day and be WAY up? Today’s weigh in matched the number I hit when I was WAY down and all was right with the world.

The scale read 213.4 today. That’s down 2.6 pounds from last week’s 216. I had been up in three of the past four weeks, so it’s nice to be down a bunch today. It feels good. I thought I was going to be up today because I hit the post-dinner snacks pretty hard last night. I figured I would have ruined any good progress I made this week. I bet if I step on the scale tomorrow I’ll be up a lot again, so I am not going to step on the scale tomorrow.

I am now down 218 pounds even since the surgery, and 238.6 since the first weigh in. I’m really looking forward to hitting 220 since the surgery. At this rate it will probably be a month before I get there, but the 11 month weigh in is actually six days away. It would be sweet to get there by then. 240 total will be nice, but 250… that will be really nice. That may be too much to ask for at this point, but a boy can dream, right?

The interesting thing today is the BMI. Not because of the number but because I redid some old math and found that my expectations were off by a ton. The BMI value today is 26, down from 26.3. That got me thinking. If 213.4 pounds puts me at 26, does it make sense that I would have to hit 190 in order to drop below 25? I did that math months ago and it has stuck in my head. It sort of set 190 as my eventual goal. A BMI of less than 25 would put me into a healthy weight range for the first time… ever. I rechecked the math today though and I was way off. WAY off. I must have been using the wrong height before because when I calculate the BMI using 6’4″ as my height, I have to get below 205 pounds to get below a BMI of 25. That’s a huge difference from 190. If I weigh 190 pounds, my BMI would be 23.1. How could I have been that far off? I don’t understand.

It doesn’t matter though. The goal is to just feel healthier and I am definitely doing that. I set a personal Apple Watch activity app record today by jogging (yogging) in place for a full 60 minutes. Why? I was watching new Star Wars television episodes and just didn’t want to stop. That’s all there was to it.

The next weigh in, as mentioned above, will be Tuesday next week as that will be April 4th, my 11 month surgery anniversary. The weekly weigh in will still happen on Wednesday but it will be much less impactful.

Until then… think thin, Robert.

Long Day

Today has been a long day. Not sure why, it’s just felt stressful.

Tomorrow is going to be rough too. Tomorrow is in the office and, as I mentioned in a post the other day, I want to do a lot of Disney+ TV watching before I head out. I want to have everything packed up and ready, including my lunch, tonight so that I can save time in the morning. I am such a nerd.

Food has been okay today. I had a little stuck stomach feeling while taking my pre-lunch time calcium citrate pills. It cleared after about 10 minutes, but it was uncomfortable. Breakfast and lunch themselves both went off without a hitch. After having three issue-free meals on Sunday, I had two bad experiences on Monday. Lunch was a smidge on the bad side so I just stopped eating before I was finished. I had already eaten all of the protein I had planned so it was okay. Dinner was bad, but it mostly came down to me overcooking the chicken. It was too tough to chew enough and I just got tired. Then I ate a few chunks of potato and I think the skins weren’t breaking down enough and got stuck. We’re having fish and some green veggies tonight. I am sure things will go better. If so, I could have another three good meals day. That would be nice.

I am hoping to mix a song or two tonight in between packing for work tomorrow sessions. I would like to be done with REM (Record Every Month) for March before I sleep tonight. We’ll see how it goes.

Speaking of dinner tonight, we’re giving Hello Fresh another try. We’ve used it a few times before and it’s always been a good experience. The hang up we have is planning meals, ordering the meals, putting the shipment into the fridge and freezer, and then when it comes time to cook we change our mind and do something else. We want to get away from that and stick to the schedule. If we can do that then Hello Fresh is a great option. It’s so much better than me cooking the same thing every night, or ordering out all the time. I foresee success. Just with the added caveat that I have to avoid sugar, so anything we order that has sugar in it, I will have to take a pass on. We can still cook it, and Jen can have it. I’ll just skip that item on the menu. Let’s keep this house a No Dumping Syndrome zone, shall we?

Okay. Time to finish off the work day. The only question I have for the universe is when does Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania come to Disney+? I am not happy about the existence of a Marvel movie that I haven’t seen.

Overslept

I set my alarm for 5:00am and didn’t get out of bed until about 6:40. Oh well, after a rough few days I think I needed it. I still do, I am feeling super tired still.

I was planning on getting my exercise in for the day, then getting ready for work, then (assuming Jen was awake and not in an early meeting) I was going to add the final guitar parts to the two songs I’ve been working on. Nope. It’s after 8:00 now and I just closed my exercise ring and had a protein supplement breakfast. My stomach is okay so far, though not really 100%. I’m still feeling a little beat up after the rough week, but yesterday was 99% fine and I am hoping for a trend. I’ll use the stop watch at lunch and dinner and see if it keeps me on track. It doesn’t always work, there are other ways to fuck up apart from just going too fast, but it worked for me all day yesterday. I still don’t know what went wrong with the late night pudding cup snack last night. I was really shocked at how that one turned out.

I am planning to go food shopping after dinner tonight. Once I get home I will try to add the last guitar parts to the two songs so that I can start mixing and get them in before the end of the month.

We did a lot of planning for Bellana’s college graduation weekend last night. Once we get through all of the logistics I am going to start obsessing over the photography options. I’m hyper focusing on lens options (yes, the pun was intended… focusing… get it?). I was thinking about trying to get a long zoom so that I could get close up shots of the stage from our cheap seats. Now I’m not so sure. Now I think I might want to go for something super wide so that I can get the whole scene when the family is all together. Like, what if we go to dinner to celebrate afterwards. If I have a 40mm lens on the digital camera and a 50mm lens on the film I’m not going to be able to get multiple people into a shot unless I stand up and walk away. Maybe I want to look into getting a 28mm, or even an 18mm lens so that I can grab nice wide group shots.

Oh to be able to actually know what I’m doing. Heh heh.

Okay, time to go get showered and dressed and get ready for work. Happy Monday, he said with biting, dripping sarcasm.

Almost Made It

So close to a full day without stomach problems. So close, yet so far.

No issues at breakfast. No issues at lunch. No issues at dinner except I dished out a smidge too much food and felt too full to finish every bite. No issues with any between meal snacks until…

All of my goals had been met. I was sitting up in bed getting caught up on the last few weeks of South Park. I was pleased with my success after a whole week of struggles so I decided to treat myself to a little cup of sugar free chocolate pudding.

Just before I finished the little cup, I started feeling a little queasy. Huh. A minute later and about half of the little cup of pudding was coming back for an encore. I made it to the bathroom in time, but only just barely.

So it’s not the perfect day I’d hoped for, stomach wise, but it was a good one up until the last few minutes. Better luck tomorrow, m’kay?

Take a Step Back

I thought I was doing all right yesterday. I had a bit of a blocked up stomach at lunch time, but there wasn’t any pain. I just needed to be patient while it passed.

Dinner was different. I had a mostly protein bar and snack dinner because we started lunch super late. I over did it. No blocked stomach or any fun like that, I just ate too much. I was super stuffed at first, but then it morphed into one of the worst stomach aches I’ve had since surgery. It was bad, but the pain wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that it just didn’t stop.

The fun started at about quarter after 8:00pm. Around 11:00pm I was sitting up in bed, really wanting to go to sleep, but in too much pain to try. Around midnight I was still a mess but I tried to lay down. It didn’t work. Laying down made things worse. I moved to the living room so I could try to sleep sitting up. I think I nodded off for a few minutes a couple of times. Around 2:00am I went back to bed. I was able to lay down, finally, and I managed to sleep.

When I woke up at around 7:00am today the stomach pain was gone, but I still don’t feel 100%. I have a lot of gas (TMI, sorry) and I feel sort of sensitive, as if one zig in the wrong direction would send me right down into the abyss. I took it easy at breakfast, just a protein bar. I’ve had half of my daily water goal but only my morning pills. I’m about two hours late for the lunch time pills, but I’ll have them soon.

I tried a normal lunch, but I took a big step backward in the post-surgery recovery process. I used a stop watch to force myself to pause between bites. At least 30 seconds, but mostly a full minute. The end result was a very long lunch, about 90 minutes, but I’m down to the last bite and I haven’t had any problems. Just the same gas that was there when I woke up (TMI, sorry).

I’m way behind on reaching my protein goal today, but I’ll get there soon enough. I’m pretty optimistic that I can get through the whole day without any stomach screw ups. I just need to be overly, overly cautious. I can do it.

So Close, Yet So Far

I had to pause for blocked stomach after I took this evening’s pills, just like the lunch time. It cleared while I was cooking dinner. I blocked again while eating dinner. I only took 2.3 ounces of chicken but I couldn’t eat the last 0.3 ounces. So close, yet so far.

I was taking tiny bites and chewing each one to oblivion. I guess I was going to fast? I don’t know. I felt like I was doing everything right and being super careful. I am really getting annoyed.

I still need to drink 20 ounces of water and I still need 14 grams of protein. I will definitely hit both goals before the end of the day, but it’s just pissing me off that I still have so much to do. I’ve been stuck waiting for the blocked stomach and the foamies to clear for over half an hour. If I wasn’t stuck like this I would have hit the protein goal by now and would be pausing for an hour before finishing the liquid goal.

I’m really frustrated. Am I regretting my weight loss surgery decision? HELL NO. I don’t care how hard this gets, it’s still better than weighing 450 pounds and feeling like breathing was too much exertion to survive. This is frustrating but it’s 10000000000000 times better than it used to be.

Just so there are no questions about that.

Okay, I need to go get rid of a couple of pounds of saliva. Ugh.

Another Absurd Day

This week… I just can’t win. What the hell?

TMI is on it’s way. You’ve been warned.

I mentioned earlier that I woke up with a stomach ache today and didn’t really know the cause. By the time the clock was approaching noon that issue was more or less resolved. I wasn’t 100%, but I was okay.

At 12:02 I started the process of taking my afternoon Calcium Citrate dose. Two pills. I had eight ounces of grape flavored water in my water bottle. The plan was to take the two pills but spread it out over 20-30 minutes or so and to drink that whole eight ounces. I had the last sip of water at 12:38 and all was well.

Or so I thought.

A couple of minutes later the foamies started. I was spitting up left and right. I feel so sorry for the little trash barrel next to my desk. There were bigger nightmares to come though.

The spitting up kept getting worse but it was topped by the gagging. Really. Gagging. I started yacking up grape juice. Not a lot, just a bit here and there, but it was awful and it was gross. The longer it went on though, the more grape juice was coming up. Make it stop, please! I don’t know how much came back up, and I’m sure it wasn’t the whole eight ounces, but what the hell, digestive system? It was water. Water!

It stopped around 1:10 or so. It lasted about half an hour. It’s not the first time something I ate came back up after a little while, but it was very much the worst experience yet. I know this post is living in TMI land, but I just had to vent. I was well enough to start lunch at around 1:45. I had another short foamies episode an hour later, but it cleared quickly. Maybe my rebuilt stomach just had mercy on me.

What a day.

What a week.

I need a vacation.