Category: weight loss surgery

Food Experiment

This is one of those he-had-gastric-bypass-surgery posts. You’ve been warned.

I am doing a small food experiment today. I am hoping I do not get the results that I expect I will get.

I work in the office twice a week. Over the last couple of months I have noticed a trend. When I leave work I am dealing with some major gas pain. I thought it had to do with me having something to eat on the drive home and then being too stuffed for dinner, but the last couple of office days I have cut way down on the food I eat in the afternoon before dinner, and the gas pain has still been a thing.

I had a (very minor) epiphany on Monday. I think I know what’s going on. I bring the same lunch every time I go to the office. One serving of Purdue Chicken Bites (12 little mini chicken nuggets) that I heat up in the microwave, and then one serving (either 2.0 oz or 2.6 oz, depending on the brand) of peanuts. Combined it works out to 22 grams of protein, which is pretty good for that small a meal. Sometimes I’ll have some crackers or some sugar free candy with my lunch as well.

I have Purdue chicken, in various shapes and sizes, all the time. I have the sugar free candy and crackers all the time too. Peanuts though… in the early days of post-surgery solid foods I had peanuts all the time. Over the last year or so I have sort of lost interest in them and have only been eating them with lunch in the office. My question to myself then is this: Why didn’t that set off a red flag sooner?

Are the peanuts causing the afternoon/evening gas issues? It seems likely, doesn’t it? Today’s experiment then is to not have peanuts with lunch and then see what happens. I like peanuts. They are a good source of protein and they are tasty and while it’s true I have grown a little tired of eating them lately, I don’t want to have to stop. If peanuts turn out to be a problem… well that just sucks. I haven’t thought of an alternative yet. I will. Today I’ll just have a small protein bar with lunch to make up the difference, but going forward I’ll find something else.

We’ll see how today’s experiment goes, and then one day next week we’ll do it again and see if we get the same results. Then I’ll decide what to do going forward.

Until then… here’s an airplane for today’s photo a day challenge pic.

307/365

Errands Day

Just running errands and doing chores today. Keeping busy over all. I really wanted to take the cameras out for a walk this morning, but the weather was awful. The light was the worst ever. So disheartening. Oh well.

After a couple of days of weirdness, my stomach has been a team player today. No issues at all. I’m proud of the little surgically altered guy. It did not wake me up last night, which was nice of it. My legs are another story though. Twice overnight I woke up with bad leg cramps. It’s always something when you’re an old fart like me. All I want is to sleep and my own body is stopping me from doing it. What a jerk I am to myself.

Before I get back to the housework, I think I am going to finally put in a vacation request at work for our staycation in September and our next trip back to Disney World in January. I think it’s time, don’t you? There. I just did it. Hopefully my boss doesn’t have a heart attack when he sees two week long vacation requests at once. They are spread out. It’s okay. I’ll wait a while before I put in for the second planned Disney trip. That’s a full year away.

The Red Sox winning streak ended last night. They played Cincinnati, who are pretty terrible this year, and lost. It made me sad. Here’s hoping for vengeance in today’s game. I want to win by 90, at least.

Okay. Back to work, red head.

1st Intermission

The Oilers have a 1-0 lead over the Panthers after one period. They are dick teasing me. We all know that, right? Ugh.

My stomach played nicely today. Good job, surgically redesigned stomach pouch. Everything was very predictable. My hunger pains hit me right on schedule. Also, I didn’t over eat at the end of the work day and ruin dinner. Good job, Robbie’s little pouch thing.

Want to know what did ruin dinner? Just before 8:00 I had a bite of potato. The roasted potatoes we had tonight tasted AMAZING, but that last bite got stuck. Trigger the foamies. Trigger a little nausea. It’s been an hour and fifteen minutes and it doesn’t seem to have cleared yet. I still feel like that last bite of potato is stuck. I was able to cough some of it up, but clearly not all of it.

Damn it.

Okay. It’s after 9:00. I should be clear to watch the season finale of Doctor Who now. I have a little spit-up cup next to me (TMI), I have a gamecast of the hockey game from NHL.com open, and I need to do something to distract myself from my stomach pouch whatever it is. Doctor Who should do the trick.

Further updates will be provided. Come on, Oilers. Hold that lead, you sick little monkeys.

Weird Stomach Part II: The Update

I have made it through lunch. I think I am mostly okay.

As expected, at about 11:00am today I started feeling uncomfortable. I had a snack of a protein bar and felt better. I then had a second snack and felt a lot better. I finished that by 11:37, which seemed a little too close to lunch for comfort, but I was feeling okay so I thought it was worth the risk of spoiling lunch. I started eating lunch at 1:09. I wasn’t feeling all that hungry, but I wanted to power through to stay on something like a schedule, and to put off another empty stomach ache issue for a little while longer. I had some microwaved chicken and some peanuts. I finished at 2:01, feeling a little stuffed. That was half an hour ago and I still feel a little uncomfortably full. I’m okay though.

The bigger concern right now is that something like five of the last six nights, including last night, I failed to get six hours of sleep. I’m tired. I feel really tired. I need to find a project for the second half of the work day that I can really dig into and be too enthralled to worry about being sleepy. I think I know just the thing to work on.

I expect to start feeling hunger pains at a little after 5:00. That’s normal. I just have to make sure I don’t over do it if I need to have a snack. I don’t want to ruin dinner again. I probably will, just out of nerves about the way the last couple of days have gone, but hopefully I can keep things under control until I get home. I miss my wife a lot today, and I want to have a nice dinner with her.

Weird Stomach

Hello folks, here comes another gastric bypass post. Another my-digestive-system-is-no-longer-quite-human sort of post. Sorry. Just bare with me. There will be a cat photo or two as well. Your patience will be rewarded with little four legged fur balls.

Okay…

I’ve mentioned at least 100 times over the past two years that being hungry hurts now. I eat breakfast. All is well. Three hours later I start having a stomach ache. I eat a snack and the stomach ache goes away. I eat lunch, then three hours later I have a stomach ache. &etc, &etc, &etc*. I told my doctor about it. She smiled at me as if to say, “duh!” without actually saying, “duh” and said, “right… you’re hungry.”

My response was, “Huh… duh.”

The downside, of course, is that I can no longer tell if I am having stomach pain because I am hungry, or if I am having stomach pain because something is wrong. I have to have something to eat to know for sure. If I have a snack and the pain vanishes then it means I was just hungry. If I have a snack and the pain stays the same or (more likely) gets worse, then something is wrong. It’s simple and all, but it does up my stress level a little when it happens.

On the days when I work from the office, I usually finish lunch at around 2:00pm. The hunger pain hits at around 5:00pm. It’s not always three hours. Sometimes it’s a little more, sometimes it’s a little less. Every so often it’s a lot less and I am feeling it at two hours. I guess it depends on what the last thing I ate was. So at work, I eat until 2:00, then around 5:00 I’m hungry enough to feel discomfort so I have something to eat. Usually I wait until I am in the car heading home. Everything is fine at that point except…

On those drives home, I often find that I eat a little too much. By the time I get home I am plenty full and I have ruined my dinner. I usually have a little to eat for dinner with Jen, but not a lot. Two days ago, when I got home I was really stuffed. I cooked dinner for Jen but I didn’t have anything for myself. I managed to have a snack an hour or so later and then fell asleep really early. I ended up going a long time without any food. I mentioned in a post yesterday that I woke up around 2:30am with a stomach ache and I had to have a snack before I could go back to sleep.

Did skipping dinner on Wednesday night mess me up? That’s my question now.

Yesterday I could not get ahead of things. I ate breakfast and was feeling empty stomach pain about an hour and a half later. That felt WAY too soon. I had a snack and then felt it again an hour later. That went on all day. I just couldn’t get out ahead of it. I think I had four or five instances of empty stomach pain throughout the day. I had a pretty substantial snack before I went to sleep. That was at 10:00pm. I was asleep a little before 11:00pm and I was feeling fine.

Until I woke up with a stomach ache at 2:00am. That lead to the usual question: Am I hungry or is there something wrong? I had a snack. I was just hungry. That’s two days in a row where I needed food in the two o’clock hour. Let us hope that this is not the start of a trend here. I don’t want to do this again. Clearly I will if I have to, but I really do not want to.

We’ll see how it goes today. I had a pretty big breakfast (for me) in the car on the way to work today. I finished it at 8:11am. Let’s see how I feel around 11:00am today. Hopefully I won’t be hurting until well after that. Fingers crossed.

Now, as promised… when I got up at 2:00am, Robin Sparkles the Cat was sitting on the cat tree in the living room, right near the pantry closet where I keep my snacks. It was like she was waiting for me. Good kitty.

295/365
295/365

And just for completeness sake, before I left the house at 7:30am today, I opened some windows. Lily Pad the Kitty took the opportunity to pose for me, so here’s a picture of her as well. Good kitty.

*That is the correct, deprecated way to abbreviate the word “etcetera” isn’t it? Was it &etc or was it &ct? I tried googling but didn’t see anything. I know it’s been hundreds of years since that abbreviation was considered proper English grammar, but I’m old and stuffy so I want to bring it back.

Unplanned Month 25 Weigh In

I thought about doing this yesterday but I didn’t, and then I did it today because why not?

Yesterday was the two year and one month monthiversary of my gastric bypass surgery. I said I wasn’t going to weigh in monthly anymore, and for the most part I haven’t. The last time I stepped on the scale was the day of my two year check up with the surgeon. That was May 16th (wasn’t it?). After spending a week between Disney World and the road I was pretty sure my weight would be down, so why not step on the scale and find out?

Yup, I was down. Way down. Six pounds, to be exact. I am now 203.4 pounds. That puts me below the magic BMI number of 205 which is the weight that puts my BMI at 25, which is the border between overweight and not overweight. My new BMI is 24.8. Welcome back to the healthy weight range, Robert. Pat yourself on the back, bro.

Total lost since surgery is 228 pounds. Total lost since the first weigh in at the clinic is 248.6. I am 100% positive that it will creep back up to the 215ish range soon enough, but let’s just enjoy this for now. Maybe if my head cold persists I might drop below 200 again. That happened after we came back from Disney with Covid-19 back in September. I’d like to be back in OneDerland again, but I sure as hell don’t want to catch Covid to make it happen. Screw that noise.

Sick Day

I tried. I tried to finish the work day but my stomach just kept getting worse. Not as bad as three weeks ago, but bad enough that I couldn’t sit up straight or concentrate on work. I laid down around 2:30 after trying and failing to have a bite to eat for lunch.

Now it’s four hours later and I do feel a little better, but we are back to the old question: is there something wrong with my stomach or am I hungry?

I think I’ll try to drink a little water. Duck and cover, boys and girls.

Two Year Follow Up Wrap Up

I’m done with my doctors appointment. My two year post gastric bypass surgery followup is complete.

To quote my surgeon, “I can’t believe it.”

What did I learn today? From a sugar avoidance standpoint, eating fruits that contain a lot of natural sugars (looking at you, apples) should be okay because it’s a complex sugar that breaks down differently than your more junk food sugars. Also, staying on the topic of sugar, if you’re having a low blood sugar episode it’s okay to have some sugar to fix it, even though the amount of sugar my diabetic step son was told to take in that situation is exactly the same as the amount I’ve been told will trigger dumping syndrome. Somehow my body will process that sugar in a different way when it’s combating an over abundance of insulin in my blood than when the insulin levels are okay. How? I don’t know. I’ll probably still avoid more than the tiniest amount of sugar. Finally, when I ask the question, “is this stomach pain because something is wrong or is it because I am hungry” I am apparently asking a question that all of us ask. It’s normal and common to not be able to tell the difference. You just have to get used to it and hope that someday you’ll figure it out.

My next follow up is one year from today. In closing, as I was leaving I overheard my surgeon talking to another staff member. They were both looking at me and the words “I can’t believe it” were uttered for a second time. I also heard one of them say, “he doesn’t even look like he needs to be here” or something like that. Yeah. Good work, Doc. I couldn’t have done this without you, but if you want to make a red head feel like a million bucks weight-loss-wise, then saying you can’t believe it is a really good way to do it.

Photos!

This was waiting for me as I was about to walk out the door to go to the appointment. Good morning, bird!

259/365
259/365

The clinic is in this building. Let’s do this!

In closing, you bet your ass I am doing some sugar free celebrating tonight.

Bonus

I am about to leave the house and go to my two year post-op followup appointment with my gastric bypass surgeon. The actual two year anniversary was 12 days ago. I stepped on the scale to celebrate and I weighed 211.2 pounds, down from 431 on the surgery date.

As I was getting ready today, our bathroom scale was out of its hiding place. Sure, it hasn’t even been two weeks since I weighed myself, and sure I have pledged to not worry about the scale anymore. No more regular weekly or monthly weigh ins. So I should not have stepped on the scale. I should have just passed it by.

Nope, I hopped on. How’d it look?

I was under 210. 209.4, to be exact. I actually weighed myself twice to make sure the number was right. It was. I checked my weight tracking spreadsheet (of course the stats geek has a weight tracking spreadsheet) and the last time I was under 210 was October 4, 2023. Seven months ago.

I’ll take it.

When I weigh in at the clinic today I will be much higher than 209. I’ll also be wearing clothes and a watch and glasses and shoes and stuff so… yeah. Too much information, I am sure.

Happy follow up appointment day and happy sub 210 day!

I Forgot About That

Crap!

This post is a reminder to my dumb self. I have a doctors appointment on Thursday morning. It’s the two year post-surgery check in with my surgeon. I am supposed to have blood work done ahead of the appointment.

I completely forgot. I even e-checked in to the appointment already and didn’t see anything regarding having blood drawn. I checked my Google calendar though and the entry I made when I booked the appointment says I have to have blood drawn.

Crap!

I am in the office today and I will be in the office again Wednesday, so tomorrow is the only day I can get this done (assuming the walk in orders for the blood tests have actually been placed. I am going to assume they have been). Fortunately they open for business at 5:30am. There is more than enough time to get it all done ahead of work tomorrow. I’m just annoyed that I forgot.

Like I said… Crap.