Category: health

The Activity App Tried to Kill Me

The iOS activity app that’s tied to the Apple Watch gives these little challenges every now and then and I like to complete them because I am easily manipulated by technology.

It had a challenge for the Lunar New Year to do one workout of at least 20 minutes between February 1st and 15th. I decided that today was the day. I was going to hop up on that exercise bike and ride for 20 minutes. I brought up an episode of Tacoma FD (s3ep12 Pickleball) on my iPad and put it on the little iPad holder on the bike’s handle bars. Then I told my wife that if she heard a loud crash coming from the bedroom it was likely because I died trying to ride the bike for 20 minutes, and off I went.

I actually went for 21 minutes. The Activity app triggers exercise time based on your heart rate and for the first minute of my workout (which I tracked in the Workout App because I am not only easily manipulated by technology, but I am also chemically dependent on using technology for everything imaginable) my heart rate did not increase enough. I wanted the 20 minute workout, but I also wanted 20 minutes worth of exercise time on the app, so I had to throw in an extra minute.

What a feeling of accomplishment! Well… I assume I would have a feeling of accomplishment for catching the little carrot that the little app dangled in front of me, but my legs hurt so much that I can’t acknowledge any feelings other than aches and pain and a general sense of blissful, pain masking numbness.

The next challenge is to do 30 minutes of exercise on Valentine’s Day. That’s no worry. I want to do 30 minutes total every day, so it’s a gimmie. Assuming I can get my legs to move again. That’s sort of a big if right now.

Cheap Soda

My company has soda machines all over the place. The cans of soda are nearly free for staff. We have to pay the $0.05 state deposit and that’s it. Picture it; me, a lifelong dedicated fanatical soda drinker working in a building where cans of soda cost a nickel. Basically heaven.

Except that I can’t drink soda anymore. Shit.

I am in a new building now. Did I mention that? Probably. We were in Waltham, which was closer to home for me than any other company building, but they sold the Waltham building during the pandemic. We were moved to Westwood, which is further away than Waltham but was the next closest building to home. When we had our brief return to office experiment over the summer we had to setup our new desks and get used to the new place. Now it’s just where we go. No big whoop, right?

There was a point in time during our Waltham stay where I was trying to eliminate caffeine in the afternoon. I started bringing a water bottle and filling it up from the water cooler in the kitchenette. It tasted really bad. If I added a ton of ice it would get cold enough that the bad taste was sort of masked, but even if I put my go-to grape flavoring stuff in it, the taste was still crappy.

Now I am under doctor’s orders to no longer drink soda (Robert wipes away a single tear) so I’m back to the water bottle. There’s a little cooler in the kitchenette here too. I just filled up… nervous that this water would be bad too…

It isn’t. It sure ain’t the Poland Springs wonder that is our cooler at home, but it’s okay. I can live with it.

That sound you heard all over the surface of the Earth was my emphatic sigh of relief.

Half Way There

My lunch break is coming to an end. I am halfway through the work day. Halfway through my first day back in the office.

I had planned to bring my AirPods Max with me. I forgot to pack them. I’ve been using air buds like some kind of caveman. I also forgot that they centralized the trash barrels. Instead of having a barrel at every desk they have one in the middle of the room. My lunch trash is just sitting on my desk. I’ll chuck it out the next time I get up, but when will that be?

It’s sunny and 50 degrees out. Practically Spring, right? I made sure to open the blinds in the bedroom so the plant clipping can get good light today. I’m hoping there will be a new leaf opening up when I get home. Fingers crossed.

There are more people here now than there were the last time I posted. Still no one close enough to make me nervous, but still. I’m Covid safe, but not as Covid safe as I’d be if I were working from home. Sigh in frustration.

I got a phone call from the weight loss clinic. They confirmed my appointment for Monday. Yet another teeny tiny hurdle crossed. Monday should be a huge hurdle crossed. I’m nervous, but I am okay with it for now. That’ll probably change once I see a doctor holding a knife above my guts. Crap.

Okay. Back to work.

Banned Things

Over the last 5-6 months or so I have banned some things from my life. Well, banned or boycott. Whichever is more appropriate. How am I doing on these things?

The most recent ban started six days ago when I started working to remove carbonated beverages and caffeine from my diet. If I am going to go through with the weight loss surgery process, then these two items will be permanently removed from my diet forever and ever. Apparently they are both stomach irritants and when you surgically mangle the stomach the way I plan to, then irritants are really bad.

I first learned of this development on Thursday 2/3 and my first day without either of them was Friday 2/4. I’ve made it six days. So far so good, I guess, but it’s definitely not a second nature sort of thing yet. Not even close. My quarantine routine over the last 23-24 months has involved filling up a bottle of water before I go to bed (with grape flavoring, always). If I don’t finish the bottle then I finish it the next day, but not until sometime in the afternoon. I’d have soda, diet pepsi, in the morning and early afternoon. Caffeine and soda. Now I am just drinking water all the time so the night time water bottle carries into the morning. That probably sounds more complicated than it is, but the point here is that every morning I continue to leave the water bottle next to my bed as if I was going to have a morning soda. No. You’re not. Six days on and I still forget that I am not drinking soda anymore pretty much every morning. That needs to end.

So the dietary bans are still going well, though not quite a routine yet. What was the other ban? Facebook. August 27, 2021 was the day I sort of spur of the moment banned Facebook from my life. That was a little more then five months ago. It looks like five months is pretty much long enough to get to the point where I don’t even notice it anymore. It hasn’t been 100%, but I think I can count the number of times I’ve visited on one hand. FoMO brought me back to clear off some notifications once, and once I went on to just mention I wasn’t going on anymore. That was probably pointless. The last time was a couple of weeks ago when I found out one of my Aunts wasn’t well and I checked my cousins accounts to see if I could learn anything. I was only on for a few minutes but I’ll fess up and admit I was there.

Other than those few times I’ve been able to stay away. I don’t think about it anymore. In fact, I got a notifications email the other day for the Lizardfish group and I had to look at it twice to remember what it was talking about. Sometimes it needles me, like when a YouTube show or a podcast that I am a regular viewer/listener of makes a mention of their respective Facebook groups, of which I am a member, and I don’t know what’s going on. I feel out of the loop. FoMO starts creeping in, but I forget about it quickly enough.

So my personal cancel culture targets are still going strong. Facebook is a big nothing to me now. Caffeine and carbonated drinks are going to be tougher to deal with. I can do it though. Absolutely.

Bad Seal

I had a less than perfect sleep last night. My CPAP mask kept losing its seal. It would start leaking air on one side of my face so I’d wiggle it back into place, and then a leak would start on the other side. It was pissing me off as well as keeping me awake. Eventually I took it off and adjusted everything and put it back and it was okay. I think I’ll be using a new mask tonight, just out of spite.

One of the weight loss appointments I booked yesterday is over Zoom. I got the meeting invite this morning. Yet another baby step. Let’s all get together and change my life, okay? Change my mindset first, then change my internal structure. Welcome to a new me and all that stuff, right? New Year, new me… literally.

I wrote my first lyrics for this year’s RPM Challenge. Are you proud of me? I am. Writing lyrics sucks and I suck at it. What is the song about? I haven’t a clue. Maybe after I sing it a few times I’ll decide what it’s about. For now it’s just a bunch of words whose syllable count matches the bad melody I wrote.

Okay. It’s time for work. Let’s be productive and have a good day, okay? Ready? Go!

Conflicting Emotions

My next weight loss appointment is one week from today. I’m conflicted emotionally.

On the one hand I can’t wait to get over the next hurdle and be one step closer to the finish line.

On the other hand, I’m scared shitless. I’m going to be meeting with the doctor who is going to carve up my innards. I mean, it’s terrifying!

So far the drive to move forward is stronger than the fear. I need to keep it that way. For the rest of my life.

One week.

The Ball is Rolling Now for Sure

I just got off the phone with the clinic that will be handling my weight loss surgery. I booked four appointments for the next 4-5 weeks or so. I believe two of those will be recurring throughout the next few months. This is happening, at least it looks like it’s happening. Any one of these appointments could result in someone putting a stop to the process. Maybe if there’s something amiss with my guts, or if the mental health folks decide I’m nuts, or if the dietitian thinks I’m unworthy, or if the surgeon thinks I’m a yutz… anything could derail this, but for this particular moment in time, we’re on track.

My heart has been pounding ever since the phone started ringing.

Unrelated note, there seems to be an issue getting our new furnace inspected by the city. We thought it was all set, but they had to come and look again today, and they might have to come again later as well. Not sure what’s going on, but here’s hoping this gets wrapped up quick like.

Slept Late

My 18 year old self laughs at me when I say that we slept late today and got up at 8:00am. However, we slept late and got up at 8:00am. I slept okay after my second fully caffeine free day. I woke up a few times but my numbers looked good. The heart rate dip was really good and the restful sleep percentage was the same as the first day. I feel okay today.

Not a lot on the agenda today. Hopefully lots of guitar playing. Jen’s working on a project so I want to stay out of her way. I have five songs that need rhythm guitars. I should see if I can add to that list too. I would like to get to it, but I find myself distracted by a video on YouTube where Rick Nielsen from Cheap Trick shows off some highlights from his massively gigantic guitar collection. It’s only an hour and eighteen minutes. I wonder if they’ll do a video like this with Steve Howe.