Tag: gastric bypass

Two Years Ago Today

Two years ago today I went to the weight loss clinic for the first time. It was not for an actual appointment of any kind, it was just so they could take my vitals and then have the first appointment later via Zoom.

The vitals they took included my weight. It stands as the heaviest I’ve ever been. Well… I may have gained a little weight between that day and the first actual appointment, which was when they told me to make some dietary changes in order to lose a little weight ahead of my actual weight loss surgery, but it is the heaviest weight I’ve ever actually recorded.

On January 19, 2022 I weighed 452 pounds.

Today? Two years and one gastric bypass surgery later? I stepped on the scale this morning and weighed 213.2 pounds. That’s a difference of 238.8 pounds.

Holy shit.

Granted, I stepped on the scale three days ago and I weighed 209 pounds, so it’s like the theme from The Facts of Life: You take the good, you take the bad. Dig? Just kidding. This is freakin’ amazing. 238 pounds in two years. The last time I actually posted a weigh in was a couple of months ago (November 4, 2023) and I am down about two and a half pounds since then. I call that maintaining, which at this point in the process is very much my goal.

Happy Two-Years-Since-The-First-Check-In day. Celebrate good times, come on!

More Sugar Free Magic?

I just heard a commercial on a three year old podcast episode that talked about a sugar free clone (my word, not theirs) of some well known cereal brands. I went to their website and OH MY GOD THEY MAKE A SUGAR FREE COCOA PUFF’S! OH MY GOD!

Magic Spoon – Cocoa

What else? They make a sugar free version of Reece’s Puff’s as well! Again I calmly say, OH MY GOD!

Magic Spoon – Peanut Butter

I am shivering in anticipation. I am not going to buy either of these yet… I am just going to let them swim around in my tiny little brain for a few weeks before I give in to the Mt Everest sized anticipation. 

Life changing knowledge, kids. Life changing.

Chopped

My wife and I are eating dinner in front of the TV, watching an episode of Chopped because every now and then we binge watch the holy hell out of cooking shows.

One of the contestants had a bad experience trying to make ice cream in the dessert round. That was a moment of inspiration for me. Boom, like a cooking show lightning bolt.

Remember how I recently declared to the universe that I will (try to) grow peanuts in the back yard this year? Well I have another challenge for myself. This one will be easier, I think, and won’t be ruined completely by squirrels and chipmunks.

I am going to make homemade sugar free ice cream.

You heard it here first. Well, Jen heard it first because I told her I was going to do it before I started Googling. I found a few recipes. I will likely try this one first.

I’ll let you know when (if) I try it, and how it comes out.

Better

Well yesterday sure sucked, didn’t it?

Bad stomach pain, nausea, was it dumping syndrome? Maybe. I’ve felt like that twice before but the other times cleared up after 4-5 hours where yesterday took the whole day. At one point I said to my beloved bride that I had a feeling a good puke would do me well. A few hours later, around 8:00pm, I think, I did throw up a little and eventually I started to feel better. By the time we went to bed I was coming out of it.

It’s almost 8:00am now and I’ve already had more food and water than the entire day yesterday. I’m hoping to take it slow for now. I’m waiting out the hour after eating before having a drink. It’s a little tough as I’m still seriously dehydrated from yesterday. I’ll have it straightened out soon enough though.

My wife was under the weather yesterday too. We both rolled a snake eyes on our Fridays. She seems better now too. Here’s hoping we both keep improving. Wish us luck.

Sick

My gastric bypassed stomach is in full revolt today. There is so much pain.

It’s not the worst pain I’ve experienced but it has hung around the longest, by far.

I’m afraid to eat anything but I have to try. How about a little lemonade to start with?

Here we go…. Wish me luck…

Conjunctivitis

Conjunctivitis… Pink Eye… do I gots it?

Oh yeah, I gots it.

Shit. My eye is more sore and more itchy now that I know what is wrong.

To make matters worse, I have cocked-up the whole gastric-bypass food/eating thing multiple times today and even had a full on puke experience.

I’m better now, I think. Ready to move on with life. I’ll pick up my eye drops at the drug store tomorrow and keep my fingers crossed that I don’t zombify or anything crazy like that.

Two Thoughts

Two brief topics for this more-or-less lunch time post.

First:

I screwed up. As often happens, three hours after I finished breakfast my stomach was starting to ache because it was too empty to deal with itself. I had a snack. Peanuts. Lovely. I then… had another snack. Some sugar free cookies. That was a mistake. Not because I had a bad reaction, but because I was stuffed and only about 90 minutes away from lunch time. Now here we are, 10 minutes into my planned lunch break, and I am still stuffed and can’t see myself having a real lunch. Dumb ass. You’d think after a year and seven months I would know what I can and cannot handle in terms of between meal snacks. Nope. I screwed up. 

Maybe I’ll try to eat a lunch-esque something or other about an hour from now. I don’t have any meetings so I won’t have any problems with work scheduling, but I also don’t want to ruin dinner. We’re planning on having some gnocchi tonight and I want that to go really well. I wonder… do we have any meatballs in the freezer? Hmmmm… we’ll see.

Second:

Social media. Shit. Why can’t I just stop with the social media stuff? I mean, I post to this blog 123612764 times a day, why can’t that be enough? What the hell is wrong with me?

I need a twitter alternative. There are a lot of decent platforms, but none of them are quite good enough. I should just back one of them and post there 2496723457 times a day and fool myself into thinking I’m having fun with it. It will be a bald faced lie, but I don’t mind.

So which should I go with? There are three that I am kind of using a little bit. 

  • Mastodon
  • Threads (which makes me sick because it’s a facebook product and facebook is just as slimy as twitter)
  • BlueSky

Mastodon is good because this blog cross posts there. Threads is good (even though zuck is fucking evil) because there are a lot of people that I followed on other platforms that I am following there. BlueSky is good but… I really don’t know why. Probably just because I sort of use it, I guess. 

Common Enough for a Hand Out

At my check in at the weight loss clinic I asked about my low blood sugar episodes.

Apparently the question is common enough that they had a handout already printed and ready to be handed out.

Huh. Apparently we can chalk it up to crackers. I’ve been eating crackers a lot and lo and behold, eating crackers leads to blood sugar dive bombs in people with little butchered stomach pouches like mine.

Crud. I like crackers and I have a cabinet full of them. Crud.

One Wacky Day

As weird, crazy, wacky days go… that was one.

My stomach was in and out of gastric bypass weirdness all day, including a legitimate yacking during dinner. Fun.

As mentioned in a prior post, I was also exhausted all day. I had six uninterrupted hours of sleep last night, but the way I felt through the day you’d think I was awake the whole night. Of course it’s 10:00pm now and I’m not tired at all. I’m just sitting up in bed watching Deep Space Nine ( my binge watch reached season five today) and wondering if I’ll be tired enough to sleep sometime soon.

Tomorrow is this week’s in-the-office day. The company is giving out the annual holiday gift. This year I passed on the turkey and went with the ham. When will we eat it? No clue. I offered it up to my sister and her husband for Xmas dinner but I think they are passing on it.

I have a doctor’s appointment on Thursday morning. It’s my 1.5 year check in with my gastric bypass surgeon. I’m compiling a list of questions. Today’s wacky-weirdness will lead to a few, I’m sure.

Until then… get some sleep, Trekkie-nerd-boy.