Tag: gastric bypass

Boycott My Favorite Vegetable

I hate to do it, but I think I have to. Crud.

Jen came up with a recipe for cooking broccoli in the air fryer. It is fantastic. Bordering on magic. We were making it regularly as a side dish along with chicken and potatoes. I had a couple of bad experiences that I chalked up to eating too much too fast, which is always the cause of my stomach problems. Over the last couple of months I have been dishing out a tiny amount of broccoli when we have it but I generally haven’t eaten it. I had been saving it for last and I was always full before I got to it.

Tonight I flipped the script. I have been instructed by the weight loss surgery clinic to always eat sources of protein first, so I eat all of the chicken on my plate first. I did that tonight. Normally I go for the potatoes next because something about having weight loss surgery has trigged my inner Irish stereotype so I always go straight for the potatoes. Tonight I went for the broccoli first and saved the potatoes for last. Now I am dealing with a blocked up stomach and a mild case of the foamies. Crud.

I can’t say for sure but I think this might be three consecutive broccoli meals that ended in foamies. All of which were trigged by the magical, delicious, wonderful broccoli side dish. Crud. I think I have to stop eating it all together. My stomach can handle it without trouble, but I can’t seem to keep the bite sizes small enough, or I can’t seem to chew it into oblivion enough, or I just go too fast. Whatever it is, it is definitely a trend. Crud.

Broccoli has always been my favorite vegetable. Maybe I’ll go back to counting chews and using a stop watch to make myself pause between bites. That used to work when I was much more sensitive than I am now. We’ll see. For now, here’s hoping the foamies pass quickly. Good luck, Robbie.

ADDENDUM: I had my last bite of broccoli at 7:15pm. It’s 9:19pm now and my stomach is still blocked up and I am still spitting up foamie saliva. Grrrrr. Wasn’t it like a week ago when I wrote a post about blocked stomachs generally clearing up in around an hour or so? Didn’t I write about two hours being unusual? Why does my stomach have to be a dick to me tonight? Broccoli is officially on the boycotted food list, right next to cod and anything with more than a couple of grams of sugar. Broccoli is a total jerk face.

Month 16 Weigh In

I can’t believe I did that. Yesterday was September 4th. I am supposed to weigh myself and write about it on the 4th day of each month because my surgery was on May 4th. Somehow though I forgot to step on the scale. That’s the first time in 16 months that I flat out forgot to weigh myself. I am really surprised at this oversight.

I made up for it today. Today is the 16 month and one day weigh in and it’s very uneventful. I did a bonus weigh in for no reason at all on August 20th, about two weeks ago. I am 0.4 pounds up from that date. I more or less maintained at just a smidge above the lowest my weight has ever been as an adult. I will take it, kiddos. I will take it with a gigantic smile on my face.

I was 205.2 on August 20. The lowest my weight has ever been was 204.8. That was on May 4, 2023, my one year surgery anniversary. This morning I was 205.6. 0.8 pounds above that lowest ever mark. My BMI today is 25, exactly on the line between normal and overweight. Technically on the overweight side of that line. My total weight loss since the surgery on May 4, 2022 is 225.8 pounds. My total weight loss since the first weigh in on January 19, 2022 is 246.4 pounds.

I still have this vague idea of dropping below 200 pounds, but it’s not a big deal. It’s more of a pie in the sky sort of thing. I am more than happy to hang out around 205 and just maintain for a while. That makes me happy. That works for me.

So the next weigh in will be on October 4, 2023 and I don’t expect to forget about it when that day arrives, but now that the precedent has been set? Who knows.

Happy (one day late) weigh in day. May your Tuesday after Labor Day weekend be quiet and stress-free. (This is for US folks only, of course. For the rest of you all it’s just a regular Tuesday. I still hope it’s a quiet and stress-free day but it has a different feel if it isn’t the day after a holiday weekend, you know?) Good luck, everyone!

Prep

I mentioned in yesterday’s daily writing prompt post… I think it was yesterday’s at least… that I’ve been writing pointless blog posts for about 17 years. I did something today that I have never, in all that time, done before. It has to do with my dumb haikus for you’s thing.

I have a new note on my iPhone where I have already written tomorrow’s haiku for you.

I did prep work. Really. I feel so gross. Like, this page is supposed to be spontaneous brain droppings, right? Where do I get off doing prep work?

Whatever. Anyway…

I have a couple of tasks for work that I wanted to crank out this weekend. It’s 7:11pm on the final day of this glorious three day weekend and I haven’t even started them yet. What the hell is wrong with me?

I had a bad case of what my mother used to call “the hungry horrors” after lunch today. I feel like I had a full days worth of between meal snacks in the space of about 30 minutes. It turned me into a giant gas bomb that’s ready to burst at any moment. It wasn’t bad enough to ruin dinner (I didn’t eat anything for four hours prior to dinner) but it’s left me uncomfortable and distracted. Blah. I have to push through and get that work done before I go to sleep tonight. Moron.

Okay, time for Robert to buckle down.

Less Than Nine Hours to Go

It’s just after 8:30am on the Friday before Labor Day weekend and I haven’t punched in to work yet. I had a few things to do first. I went with Harry to the garage to drop off his rental car and pick up his car. It’s all set and it looks as good as new. He just left to go back to Burlington. He’s going to miss his first class this morning, but that’s about the only downside to this visit. All is well again.

I’m less than nine hours away from a three day weekend. I just finished season 11 of the new Doctor Who. I have 20 episodes over two seasons left to go and then I’ll be all caught up. I’m on episode 17 of season seven of the original show. Eight episodes left in this season and something like 2346123472572 episodes left in the full series. I don’t expect to finish either series this weekend, but I can pretty much guarantee I’ll be done with the new show in a week or so which means I will be 100% caught up before the next episode airs in November.

What about the music project? I have 27 songs finished and 39 total in progress. I have four more songs ready to mix and I hope to crank them all out tonight. I have 30 days left, including today, and a ton of work still to go, but I think I am more or less on pace to finish on time. I’ll have a few days at Disney World where it will be tough to make progress, but I think I will be okay. I should note that even though I took over two weeks off in August, I still managed to finish an RPM Challenge Rules album in a month as I started and finished 12 songs within the calendar month. I started and finished 10 in July too. In order to hit 50 songs over all I will need to start and finish 11 songs in September. Three album in a months in a row isn’t a bad place to be. I think once this project is finished I will try to get back into the last re-recording project which has been left hanging for a little more than a year now.

I mentioned in the last post that my stomach has been a little less than 100% this morning. I had some trouble with water early on and had to deal with a minor bout of The Foamies after taking my vitamins. I only got eight ounces of water in during my exercise, but afterwards I was okay for breakfast and I am feeling much better now. I’ve managed another eight ounces since I came home from Harry’s auto shop. I think we’re back on track today. I might have a hamburger on the grill for lunch today. We’ll see how it goes.

Okay, it’s 8:50am now and I have to be punched into work by 9:00. I think I’ll hit publish on this masterpiece of an update and get my work day started. Lots to do today, lots to do. Eight hours and 40 minutes to go until the long weekend.

You can do it, Robbie! You can do it!

Stomach Fail

Why?

I’ve found that if I make a mistake while eating instant mashed potatoes and some of the instant mashed potatoes get stuck outside of my redesigned stomach, after 15-20 minutes those ‘taters will come back up in mildly spectacular fashion. It’s unpleasant and gross, but it’s also my stomach literally fixing the mistake and within minutes I’m back to 100% normal and all is well.

I’ve also found that if I make a similar mistake while eating quinoa it will last for hours, yes hours plural as in multiple hours before it clears up. It isn’t painful, I can just tell that there is something subtly off about my digestive situation. After a couple of hours I’ll convince myself that I’m imagining it and try to eat something small. That will get stuck behind the quinoa that I wasn’t imagining was stuck and that will be painful and cause foamies and nausea. Unlike the potatoes though they never come back up. I just have to continue to wait for it all to pass on its own, even though I’ve already waited multiple hours and no other food ever gets stuck for more than an hour, or an hour and a half tops.

Jen made quinoa tonight and it was magical. It also got a little stuck and two hours later I thought I was okay until I had a bite of a protein snack. Now my stomach hurts and I’m nauseous and spitting up foamy saliva and just waiting for the damn stuff to pass, damnit.

Why is the reaction so different when the diagnosis is exactly the same?

I finished mixing three songs and I’m part way through two more. I paused so I could watch episode three of Ahsoka but I had to pause that while I deal with my stomach issues. I still hope to finish the episode and the two songs (and the protein snack) before I turn in for the night, but it’s already 10:00 so maybe I won’t get to it all.

After typing up all of this on my iPad while leaning over a bucket in the bathroom, some of the protein snack came back up and I feel a lot better. Okay, so the snack and the instant mashed potatoes have something in common, but what’s the deal with the quinoa? Why no improvement after two hours plus? We may never know.

Okay, back to Ahsoka. May episode three be as good as episodes one and two.

This One is Going to be Gross

Spoiler alert, this post is going to be T.M.I. and it’s going to be really gross. You have been warned.

***RED ALERT***
***RED ALERT***
***RED ALERT***

Okay, so in the post Gastric Bypass Surgery world there are rules for how you eat. The big one is you eat your protein sources first, then when that’s all gone you eat everything else on your plate. Protein first, non-protein second.

Tonight I made tacos for me and Harry. Even before having my guts hacked to pieces, a taco for me consisted of taco meat and a taco shell and that’s it. Beef with some seasoning (sometimes chicken or turkey, but generally beef) and a taco shell. I used to put the beef into the shell and have a… ya know… taco-ish thing. Now I eat them separately. Beef first, then a shell. Tonight I had 3.2 ounces of beef and half a shell.

The 3.2 ounces of beef went down without issue. The half a shell did too, at first. I was going to have the other half of the shell too but my stomach started feeling a little off so I stopped.

15 minutes later the shit hit the fan. My stomach turned upside down and I had to make the mad dash to the bathroom before it all came up. Fucking taco shell.

My question then… I tracked how much protein was in the beef. How then do account for the small amount of beef that… came along for the ride when the taco shell came back for a second visit?

See? Told you it was going to be gross. I tried to be polite though and never used the word puke once. You’re welcome.

Random Thursday Thoughts

Just jotting down some smallish, random thoughts on a Thursday afternoon.

My stomach is being a jerk today. Gas. Bad gas. Lots of bad gas. My stomach is a bit upset. A little bit of pain. Nothing bad, just gassy. Super gassy. Pardon the T.M.I. of it all. I just felt the need to share.

In the interest of daily creative behavior like the photo a day challenge and my current 1400+ day posting streak on this little bloggie, I was wondering if I should post a daily haiku. What do you think?

One haiku each day
You know, to keep the brain loose
Could be worth a shot

I have watched a lot of Doctor Who today. Like, an alarming amount of Doctor Who. A frightening amount of Doctor Who. Both the original series and the new series. So much Doctor Who. I may have a Who problem.

We brought Harry’s car to the shop today. Here’s hoping they get the work finished before he has to go back to work next week. I may have to drive him back to Burlington after I finish work one night, and then turn around and drive home right away. That could be a long night. I will do it with a smile on my face, but… yeah, that would be a long night.

The cats have been super affectionate today. I am not sure why. It doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, but it is definitely a welcome development.

Unexpected Weight Loss Milestone

I had all of these milestones in mind when I had the weight loss surgery. You know, things that would mark the progress as I lost weight.

20 pounds, 50 pounds, clothes becoming too big for me and having to replace them with smaller sizes, you know, things like that.

At some point I reached the my-wedding-ring-doesn’t-fit-anymore milestone. At the time I thought that maybe I might hit that milestone twice. I’d have the ring resized and then continue to lose weight and have to have it resized again. After that first time though, when it was reduced by two ring sizes, the pace of weight loss slowed and then leveled off and then my weight started creeping up again. Just a smidge. I thought, rightly so, that I would not have to get the ring resized a second time.

Then earlier tonight I was in line at the check out at the grocery store and I was mindlessly spinning my wedding ring around my finger. It feels loose but not loose enough to slide over my knuckle without a push. Then, right on queue, it slid over my knuckle without a push. It was just, poof, on the wrong side of the knuckle.

Well shit, boys and girls. Maybe I am going to need to get the ring resized a second time. I think it’s okay for now, but maybe in a couple of months?

I should also note that I bought the belt that I am wearing right now back around Christmas time. It’s been on the second hole for the entire nine months or so that I have been wearing it. Then on Sunday when I was getting dressed for the wedding I tightened it to the third hole. My belt was just getting too loose.

The scale has been telling me I am maintaining an approximate steady weight. Not really gaining, not really losing. Maybe… but at the same time I might still be getting a smidge thinner… just a little bit, slowly as the days roll past.

Interesting.

It makes me curious what my September 4, 2023, 16 month weigh in is going to look like. We’ll see in a few weeks, okay? I’ll let you know.

The Scroll Wheel is Dead, Long Live the Scroll Wheel

I take a mouse with me when I work in the office. It’s not the same mouse I use when I work at home, it’s actually the mouse that came with the last desktop computer I was issued at work back in… 1862? Something like that? 2016 maybe?

I was using the scroll wheel to scroll through an email and it just stopped working. I closed the browser and reopened it, thinking it was a software issue. Nope, it still didn’t work. I rebooted my laptop (issued to me in 2021, I think) because I thought it might be a hardware thing outside of the mouse itself. Nope.

The scroll wheel is dead.

I went to Amazon and ordered a cheap-o wireless mouse to replace it. I found a few of various levels of cheapness, then took one of the cheaper ones so that I could spend a little more for overnight delivery to make sure I had it as soon as possible.

Long live the scroll wheel.

On an unrelated note, there have been no stomach issues today. Kick ass. It’s not even 4:00pm yet and I am already close to hitting my water goal, close to having all of my vitamins in, and sort of close to hitting my protein goal. After yesterday’s dietary B.S., things are looking really good today. Killer.

Okay, less than 1.75 hours left in the work day. I have to somehow get through the rest of the day without having a scroll wheel. How did we do it in the old days? How did we even survive without scroll wheels?