Category: health

Absent Minded Doofus

I am in the office today. It’s the first time since before the surgery. The traffic was really bad. Another sign that the pandemic is over, even though people are still getting sick in droves. Hooray.

I was 10 miles down route 93 before I realized that I forgot my headphones. Damn it! Fortunately I had an old set of ear pods in my desk, so we’re good to go for today but… dumb ass.

It’s my first attempt at monitoring liquid and protein intake from outside of the house for a full work day. I will also be taking my meds (just vitamins, actually) at work today too. What could go wrong?

Surprised Myself

Hello and welcome to the seventh weekiversary of my weight loss surgery. It’s Wednesday and that means it’s weigh in day.

I stepped on the scale today, hoping for a 2-3 pound drop and fantasizing about a 4-5 pound drop, but not thinking that was in the realm of possibility. In Weight Watchers terms (That’s WW now) an average of 0.5 pounds per week is considered spot on perfect. I have been eating more this week than before, and I have snuck in after dinner snacks a few times. The progress should be slowing as a result.

I was down 7.2 pounds. Holy shit snacks. Seven pounds? I am a couple of hours removed from actually stepping on the scale at this point and I’m already wondering if the scale was wrong, or did I read it wrong (I absolutely did not), or if I step on it again would it be significantly different?

I have a spreadsheet that I use to track my weekly weigh ins. It has a column for week to week change, and two fields for total. One total is the weight loss since the last pre-surgery weigh in and the other is the total since the first weigh in. They are 64 and 84 pounds. I say again, holy shit snacks. I also added a column for BMI today. My BMI has dropped 10.3 points since the first weigh in.

Faint.

Ouchie

30 minutes of marching in place this morning.

10 minutes on the exercise bike during my lunch break. I probably could have kept it going a little longer, but I ran out of time.

The two things combined, along with going up and down the cellar stairs a number of times throughout the day, equal… ouch.

Maybe we’ll do 15 minutes on the bike tomorrow? We’ll see.

Monday Monday

It’s Monday and I’m back on trackish.

I slept a little late this morning and got a slow start. I got a little juice into my system along with my morning vitamins. I went through the morning routine and did a little laundry. I had everything wrapped up by 8:15 so I started my walking in place thing. I got all 30 minutes in and was feeling pretty good. I tried to help Jen find a charger for her MacBook Pro, and then I punched into work. I went through a good chunk of the weekend email and then grabbed half of a protein shake. I have a meeting at 10:00. I don’t know if I am going to be able to get any food in before then, but at least I’ll have some protein and some more liquid. I wonder if today might see a protein shake in place of breakfast. We’ll see.

Things I want to do today include going grocery shopping after work, maybe spending the first few minutes of my lunch break on the exercise bike. I have been wanting to up the exercise, and the bike is the way to do it. Is today the day I make it happen? Could be.

I wanted to play guitar this weekend and I failed. I spent a lot of time with my parents, and the rest of the time I spent hanging out with my wife. Time well spent. We finished The Offer, which surprised us both which how much we enjoyed it. Then we binged all 10 episodes of How I Met Your Father. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t great. I think I had exactly one laugh out loud moment through the whole 10 episodes, but I did like it. When season two happens I’ll watch it if Jen wants to watch it. I also finally started season three of The Boys. There are five episodes out right now and I am half way through episode three. Butcher as a Sup? Nooooo.

Okay. Time to get some working in. Have a good Monday. In the immortal words of U2, don’t let the bastards get you down! Huzzah!

Post-Surgery First

For the first time since my surgery, I ate take out tonight. It was just a couple of small chunks of grilled chicken and a couple of small scoops of baked potato, but it came from a restaurant and did not make me sick.

Victory is mine!

Wiped Out

Every day this week I did my 30 minutes of exercise before work. Today being Saturday, there was no work and I didn’t start my marching in place routine until after 4:00pm.

The result? I feel 10 times more wiped out than I did on any day this week. Recovering from the “workout” is so much more difficult than the rest of the week. I think I need to do tomorrow’s 30 minutes as soon as I get out of bed.

My fat ass is thoroughly kicked!

I Broke My Voice

I am not sure what I did, but my voice is definitely broken. I worked through half of one song this morning but there weren’t any real high notes so I was able to reach everything, it was just a little off key and I felt like I was struggling. I stopped for the day the first time I hit a part that was even a little bit high and I could not physically get to it.

Was I just tired? Was there something wrong? Does it matter? Back at it tomorrow, right?

Then I was driving to my mothers for a visit and I put some U2* up on the ol’ iTunes and as I tried singing along to Sunday Bloody Sunday it became clear that it wasn’t just a bad morning. It’s like the top of my range was reduced by 75%. I was fine if I stayed low, but as soon as something high came on… toast.

So in summation, there will be no car music for a couple of days while my pitch pipes rest up.

*Harry was watching an episode of Friends the other day and a U2 song was playing in the background and it just sent me straight down the rabbit hole. I know Joshua Tree is one of the biggest albums in history but I am still really disappointed by it. I loved the four records they made before it, but I just didn’t like Joshua Tree. War and The Unforgettable Fire might be among the best albums I’ve ever heard, I listened to my cassette copy of Live Under a Blood Red Sky so many times back in the early 80s that it was stretched and mangled, and Actung Baby is a friggin masterwork… but Joshua Tree? Not for me.

Despite that, I almost never find myself listening to U2. I think this might be the first deep dive I’ve taken in the music streaming age. I was happy to see deluxe editions of all of my favorite records, and thrilled to finally hear the original studio version of 11 O’Clock Tick Tock.