Tag: gastric bypass

Lucky Guess

Who is the luckiest sonofabitch in town?

Wordle 542 2/6

🟩⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Having a weird day in the office today. We had an xmas party thing this morning which was nice except that one of our extended group has Covid and was in the office with a bunch of us last week and who knows if last week will forever be known as a super spreader event which would make today a mini super spreader event. Crud, I hate covid so much.

Anyway, the party included pizza. I didn’t have any. My team member who lives in Minnesota did because I DoorDashed him some Pizza Hut. Order entered in Massachusetts, order delivered in Minnesota. Like a Boss, as they say.

Like I said, no pizza for me. Can I have pizza? Probably, if there is no sugar in the tomato sauce. I just haven’t tried it and I really don’t want to. I brought some chicken salad. Meals have been tough over the last few days. Not terrible, but I have been stopping myself early due to signs that stomach issues may be coming forthwith. I prefer to dish out a certain amount of food and then eat it all as it makes tracking protein counts easier, but if I have to stop I have to stop. Today I had to stop. I ate a protein bar in the car on the way in for breakfast, and then maybe an ounce and a half of chicken for lunch. Round about 3:00pm my stomach, which was no longer upset over lunch, started getting upset over being empty.

I am sitting in a conference room with a couple of co-workers. It’s a smallish room but we’re spread out okay. No covid transmissions here. It’s quiet though, and that means everyone can hear my stomach moaning and groaning. It’s super embarrassing and it’s yet another reason why working from home is better than coming into the office. My stomach can sing and dance all it wants when I am alone at my desk at home. Here? Now? Today? I just want to hide. No one has said anything. Everyone is being super polite. I just wish my stomach would shut the fuck up.

ADDENDUM: I should say, in the interest of accuracy, that I am not positive one of my co-workers has covid. It looks that way, but it has not been confirmed.

Week 31 Weigh In

I thought this week’s Wednesday Weigh In would be a quick little blurb about a tiny change, given that I did the monthly weigh in just three days ago. I was wrong. I was probably wrong due to being sick a couple of times, and I think we can guarantee that weight lost this week will likely go back on soon enough, once I stop having these nasty stomach issues. The monthly weigh in on Sunday saw me down three pounds. Today’s weigh in, three days later? I’m down another 2.4 pounds. Do the math and find that I am down 5.4 pounds in the last week. That’s crazy. That’s the kind of results I was seeing back in June when this was all new and psychotic. This far along, I am seriously shocked to see a number that high. Not concerned, just surprised.

My BMI is down to 31. One more tick to go before I graduate/devolve from Obese to Overweight. Oh the celebrations we’ll have when that magical day arrives. My weight lost since the surgery in May is up to 176.8 and no one is more surprised than I am. My weight lost since the first check in appointment is up to 197.4. Two and six tenths pounds away from the mystical, magical, fairy tale land of two hundred pounds. Oh the celebrations we’ll have when that magical day arrives.

No stomach illness issues today, so far. Yesterday was okay. Not 100%. I had some discomfort off and on. I can’t tell if it was related to food or not, but there were a couple of times when the clock said I should be eating or drinking and I just didn’t out of fear of setting things off again. I was a little nervous about waking up sick again today, but I was fine. I did my exercise and then headed out for the long drive in the pouring rain. I made it all the way to Foxborough in one piece, found the desk I reserved for the day (I think), and punched in.

Here’s hoping for a quiet, stress/stomach pain free Wednesday.

Happy Seven Months

Seven months ago today I went under the knife and had my guts rearranged. Boom, babie. What do you say we honor the occasion with a trip to Vermont to see the kids and to hear my ridiculously talented step daughter sing a bit, but also honor the occasion* with a bonus weigh in?

It’s only been four days since the last weigh in but there was that one day when I did not eat even a crumb of food because I was feeling sick, remember? I think we can thank/blame that day for the slightly spectacular results I’m about to share with you, my internety friends.

Four days… three pounds. I lost three pounds. I am down to 257.0. My BMI is now 31.3. As soon as it drops below 30 I can officially stop calling myself obese. That’ll be the day, right? The total loss since the surgery is 174.4 and the total loss since the start of the process is 195. The flight to Disney World is one month from today (I need to figure out how I’m going to cover the eight month weigh in on that particular day) and suddenly that down-200-by-Disney goal is looking pretty good. Pretty doubtful I’ll get the since-surgery total to 200 by then, but we’ll keep on trying.

I have run for 30 minutes already, and I’ve had my morning vitamins and 16 ounces of water. Ever since Thursday’s epic failure I am really self conscious about hitting those goals. I don’t want to miss them again… ever. I’m waiting 15 minutes after the last drink before eating anything, but I am going to go upstairs and make myself some scrambled eggs again. We’re planning to leave for Vermont by about 11:00, which should get us there wicked early, but that’s okay. Better crazy early than a smidge late, right? I just need to decide if I want to bring a digital camera or a film camera or (most likely, because I am out of my skull with crazy) both. Yeah… both.

*I used the word occasion twice in this sentence and spelled it wrong each time. Also, I spelled it differently both times. I guess I just suck at spelling the word occasion, right?

Liquid Diet Day?

I’ve been up and about for almost four hours and I haven’t had anything to eat yet. My stomach is still pretty unhappy with me. It might be a little better than it was when I wrote the last post, but it’s still not good. Gas. Pain. Not nauseous at this point but probably not far off.

I haven’t eaten anything yet and I haven’t had my morning vitamins. I did chew up a couple of Gas X pills in the hopes that would help. It hasn’t. Not really at least. The only other time I took Gas X was during the first couple of weeks post-surgery and it eliminated all of my stomach discomfort almost instantly. I was hoping for more of that. Nope.

I am thinking that today is a liquid diet day. Back when we went from the stage one (liquid) diet to the stage two (puree) diet they told us if we have a bad day to just go back to stage one. Well, I am at stage… infinity? Whatever, and I am thinking of reverting back to stage one until my guts stop bitching. I have half a protein shake on a coaster on my desk next to me. I’ve had a few small sips. So far so good.

Wish your humble narrator luck.

DSCN2722

Harry is Home

Harry is home and it’s glorious!

Not sure what we have on the agenda today. Jen and Harry are going to go shopping for desserts for tomorrow’s mini-thanksgiving. I am going to make short visits to both parents. Also, in film camera news, there are train tracks running behind the rehab facility that Dad is currently visiting and I have black and white film in the camera… cliche, anyone?

I did 30 minutes of faux running today already. My sort of plan these days is 45 minutes on weekdays and 30 on weekends to give my feet a little bit of a break. I haven’t closed my calorie/move ring, but it’s 2/3 closed. I’ll close it today, no sweat.

What else? I want to play some guitar today, but I want to hang around doin’ nuttin’ with Harry and Jen more so… National Solo Album Month may be dying on the vine this year. I might try to get up stupidly early this week and spend an hour or so recording using DI and amp sims rather than my Deluxe Reverb. That feels like cheating after all these years of only using a real amp, but what can you do.

I mentioned yesterday that I had a really bad time with lunch. The same thing happened with dinner. I dished out a little less than four ounces of food, took 2-3 bites, and hit the pain/nausea failure point. I ended up pausing dinner for an hour or so and then I was okay. I was nervous about breakfast today after two bad experiences in a row, but I am almost finished an I feel okay. Here’s hoping lunch and dinner go okay too.

All right, kids. Time to go get my shit together and go visit a couple of parents. We’ll talk later, m’kay? M’kay.

Socials

I mentioned yesterday that I signed up to be a beta tester for Bluesky social. I also said I was pretty much done with social networks but I forgot about Instagram, which I use pretty regularly these days. I guess it just doesn’t register that way for me. I guess.

Today I Googled “twitter alternatives” because I feel kinda gross using an Elon Musk owned product. I signed up for two of them. Mastodon and I haven’t really connected yet. Counter Social and I pretty much have. Like the twit-ter, my user name is RobJ_. Maybe I will be able to automagically cross post from here to there? We’ll have to see.

One more item of note from this evening… I am trying Buffalo Wings for dinner. Well… one Buffalo Wing. The one piece weighs three ounces, and that’s all I can handle tonight. So far so good. I had to Google whether there is sugar in Buffalo sauce or not. According to the couple of links I checked, the answer is no. I should be safe. I just need to take my time.

I probably shouldn’t write a blog post while eating something new… oh well.

Enjoy your dinner, folks!

Week 25 Weigh In

Was this morning’s weigh in good?

Oh yeah, this morning’s weigh in was good.

I’ve been doing this for almost six months and I am still losing weight like crazy. Today gave me another five pounds. Five. Pounds.

Milestones galore, babie. The 10’s columns all changed. Like… all of them. I went from 283 pounds to 278 pounds. I weigh less than 280 pounds for the first time since… infancy? Something like that. Seems that way, at least. The amount lost since the surgery has topped 150 pounds, coming in at 153.4. The total lost since January has topped a colossal 170 pounds, reaching exactly 174 pounds.

One hundred seventy-four pounds. My brain might literally explode. That would increase the total weight loss by about three pounds, but I don’t think I want to lose those particular pounds.

My BMI has dropped from 34.4 to 33.8. That means I am 3.8 away from not being obese anymore. Wouldn’t that be nice?

I thought that having a week or so where I am trying to increase my daily protein intake by 20 grams a day might have some effect on my weight loss for the week, but nope. Things went well this week. I am pretty stoked. I have to admit that I did step on the scale once over the weekend. I really wanted to see if I went below 280. I was at 280.4 or something like that. I didn’t mark it down, but I did break my only-weigh-myself-once-a-week pledge. I figured it was okay. I just don’t want to make a habit out of it, you know?

Happy week 25. Next Wednesday marks week 26, and two days later will mark Six months. Should I weigh in on both days? Should I only mark the month? Should I not mark the month and only mark the week? We’ll see.

Nope

I tried to goad myself into playing the guitar at lunch today. I even took a picture for the photo a day thing.

Nope. I had a bad reaction to a piece of chicken instead. I guess it was just too big of a bite. It took me three hours to get through 4.4 oz of chicken, but one hour of that was just dealing with stomach pain and nausea and another hour was spent in a meeting at work. You know how it is.

51/365
51/365

Speaking of problems eating that stem from my gastric bypass surgery, the organization that determines the rules for qualifying for weight loss surgery has just rewritten those rules. They lowered the BMI requirement from 35 to 30. According to that I still qualify. My BMI is 34.4 even after losing 169 pounds. Can they bypass more of my stomach? WOOHOO!

Milestone Achieved

Last night, as expected, I achieved another post-weight loss surgery milestone.

I ate pasta.

Oh the glory! I only ate a tiny bit. 1.5 ounces to be exact. There was a little red sauce and about four ounces of meatballs as well. Protein, dontchaknow. No stomach issues. No nausea. No anything but happiness. Tiny amounts of pasta are back on the menu, boys!

In today’s episode of That Pedal Show, which was almost exactly the length of time I needed for my morning walkies, Dan buys a new Telecaster and gets it refretted, rewired, and has a pickup respun.

Oh, has that lit me up or what. Both of my 70’s Gibsons needs to be refretted, one needs to be rewired, and one is in line to get new pickups. I want to sell my USA Stratocaster to pay for some, if not all, of this work but I’ve been afraid to actually list the guitar anywhere. After watching today’s show… the guitar might go up for sale this weekend. We’ll have to see. There’s a distinct possibility that today’s photo-a-day submission might be for-sale pics of the Strat. I am equal parts excited about this and really scared to do it. I honestly have no clue how much I should ask for.

Speaking of this coming weekend (eight hours and 11 minutes to go!), the agenda includes hanging new curtains in the living room and getting a flu shot and the new Covid booster. I expect to be wiped out for at least some of the weekend. We’re trying to arrange things so that the worst of the vaccine push back will happen over night while we’re sleeping… or at least trying to sleep. I’ll let you know how that goes. My first three shots didn’t really affect me. The fourth did. It wasn’t terrible, but I definitely felt ill the next day. Fingers crossed.

Happy Five Months

Today is October 4th. Five months ago today I had gastric bypass surgery. In honor of the monthaversary, let’s weigh in. Yes, weigh ins are supposed to be Wednesdays and today is Tuesday, but the 4th of the month is a special occasion, right?

My weigh in last week was good but a little underwhelming. I lost 1.6 pounds. This week is a little more like it. Five pounds exactly. From 295.8 to 290.8, Sooooo very close to flipping that 10’s digit. Yesterday I said I might skip this week’s Wednesday weigh in. Now that I know I am less than a pound away from the 280’s, I might actually do it. You know, just in case.

The 10’s column did flip on the totals. My total weight loss since the surgery is now 140.6 pounds. My total weight loss since the first appointment back in January is now 161.2. Sweet Christmas, that’s a lot of weight. I’ve lost the equivalent of an adult human. I googled “weight loss equivalence” and found two sites that compare your weight loss total to something relatable. Neither had a value for 160. They both had the same value for 150 that wasn’t all that relatable. They both said the complete Oxford English Dictionary. Eh. One of them had an entry for 185 that was Hugh Jackman. I guess I have a goal now. It also had an entry for 235 that was Arnold Schwarzenegger. Again, goals.

This morning before work I did my daily walkies. I watched last Friday’s episode of The Rings of Power. I was planning on going the equivalent of 3.2 miles (about five kilometers). I was so into the show that I wasn’t paying attention to the data on my watch and I was over 3.8 miles before I realized I could stop. I thought about pushing it up to four miles, but I think that would have stretched a little beyond 9:00am so I stopped. Maybe we’ll do that tomorrow. Maybe going a little extra today will shave off that 0.9 pounds and get me into the 280’s by tomorrow. Who knows. I just feel silly with this whole thing now. Hugh Jackman, here I come.