Tag: health

Pick Up the Dumpster, Please

We rented a dumpster for the weekend. I had a ton of crap in the yard that needed to be dumped, and a ton of crap in the cellar that also needed to be dumped. Renting a small dumpster is what we do when we find ourselves in a situation like this.

They delivered it on Friday. I worked off and on filling it up on Friday through Sunday. They are supposed to pick it up today. The window they gave us is 9:00am to 5:00pm. That window is going to close in less than an hour (the clock says it’s 4:13 right now).

What the heck are they waiting for? Come and get the damn dumpster. I want to put our cars back into the driveway. They’ve been parked on the street since Friday morning. I know it’s been raining heavily all day, but should that stop the pickup? I wouldn’t think so. Let’s get this done, shall we?

Subject change

It’s been almost a week since I did a couch to 5k run. I am not sure when I am going to get back to it. I will get back to it, that’s a promise, I just don’t know when. I also think I am going to redo the entire last week. Instead of picking up where I left off, week three, workout two, I am going to start at week two, workout one. I feel like I need to do some rebuilding. I still want to finish this process. I just don’t have a lot of confidence in my ability to get there. We’ll see.

Subject change

I just want to go out and take pictures of stuff. Film, digital, whatever. I want to do it first thing in the morning when the sun is out. For almost the entire month of June and so far in July there have been few if any mornings with sunshine. It’s infuriating and utterly depressing. Why? I can’t remember the last sunny weekend morning. The forecast for this coming weekend is already saying cloudy and rainy. It’s hard to do this shit on a weekday, but even those are always cloudy and rainy. This Spring was the Spring of suck, and the Summer is becoming the Summer of suck. I just want to scream.

At least I can fill the creative void with some music. I just don’t want to. I want to split the difference. Music and photos together, not one or the other. Blah!

Not Feeling Great

I don’t feel so hot today. I got up at a decent hour, planning to stick to my daily exercise routine, but my wife wasn’t feeling so hot when we woke up and we went to see a doctor. No problems, all is well. She just has a bug.

When we got home I was feeling kinda run down. Tired and a little foggy headed. It wasn’t too bad so I got to work filling up the dumpster I posted a picture of yesterday. I broke for lunch and felt even more out of it an hour and a half later when I got back to work. Now I am calling it a day. I just don’t feel so good. It’s not bad, but it’s enough. I haven’t done any of my exercise yet today so I am calling that one too. I am going to miss it today. It’s okay, I won’t ruin my life by missing a day.

I am going to have a protein snack in a few minutes and then try to have a late dinner a couple of hours from now. After that? Maybe just go to bed early? Seems like a waste of a Saturday, but it’s okay. I am old. Early to bed is normal for old people.

The good news is that it’s looking like there will be a band practice after work on Thursday. We still need to nail down a few details, and I am going to need to re-learn a bunch of songs!

Random Thoughts on a Random Friday Morning

It’s Friday morning again, thank goodness. 8.5 hours of work day left until the weekend. My team at work is at half strength today (and Monday too) so I am a little nervous about what might happen today. I’m sure we won’t get slammed with urgent, critical issues or anything. It’s going to be a nice quiet day (he said while knocking on wood and crossing his fingers and all of that kind of stuff he doesn’t even remotely believe in).

I’ve been having a bit of a physical issue when I wake up in the morning. It’s happened at least four times now, including yesterday and today, and I am not sure what to make of it. When I wake up and get out of bed, the base of my left thumb is ever so slightly numb. It lasts for a good chunk of the morning. By lunch time or so it’s passed. It’s not a problem. It doesn’t limit me at all. It’s just there and I am not sure what it could mean, or what could be causing it. I don’t think I sleep on my hand in any funny way or anything. I’m sure it is nothing, but maybe I’ll try to see what position my left hand is in every time I wake up. Maybe there’s a pattern.

Speaking of annoying little health things, my right ear was completely blocked up when I woke up today. I slept on my right side for most of the night last night so that’s probably why. It was partially cleared within a few minutes of getting up and walking around, but it’s not 100% open yet and it’s been three hours. Maybe it’s time to invest in some ear wax softening stuff. Uh, I hate having blocked up ears.

What other random thoughts can I spew out at the universe today? Hamburgers. Yeah, that burger I had for lunch yesterday was so good. It was like a lunch time treat or something. If the weather is okay today I might do it again.

Speaking of weather, we rented a dumpster to help me clean up about a year and a half’s worth of junk that has accumulated in the cellar (mostly) and in the kids’ rooms. It is being delivered today and picked up on Monday morning. We chose this weekend because the weather forecast wasn’t bad. Now though, the forecast is showing thunderstorms over the weekend. I just checked the AccuWeather site and it says to expect storms in the afternoon both Saturday and Sunday. I guess that means I should plan on morning cleaning and afternoon music then? Something like that at least. Our dumpster delivery window opened over three hours ago and still no word. How long before I start stressing about the possibility of them not coming today?

I just got a spam email from Nextdoor on my work email account. Insert a hearty sigh of frustration here.

Okay, I am punched into work now. My exercise is done for the day (no running, just yogging) and breakfast is done and everything is set for a good start to Friday. Except music. I didn’t do any pre-work music today. Maybe after work I’ll sneak a little in. It’s time to start the day. I’ve got some stuff to get through today. Wish me luck.

Feeling Like a Failure Today

I made the decision last night before going to bed. I was going to sleep a little late and skip today’s running. I just knew I didn’t have a 30 minute trot around the neighborhood in me. My legs were still sore from almost 48 hours before, I was stone dead tired all day yesterday, I just wanted to wake up an hour or so late and go down cellar and watch Star Trek Strange New Worlds and just not worry about running. I did the running in place thing (pronounced yogging) instead so my exercise ring is closed.

So in other words, I feel like a total failure today. That’s nice.

Where do we go from here? I am not sure. I should do a run tomorrow and get myself back on track. Instead, I might give myself another day and then get back to it on Saturday. I am also considering going back two trainings and instead of doing week three, run two, I would do week two, run three. Week three, run one kicked my ass so thoroughly I feel like I need to build back up to it and then try it again. We’ll see.

I don’t think I am ready to quit yet. I ain’t no quitter, but… maybe in a few days I will be. I don’t know. We will have to wait and see how complete a failure I end up being.

Natural Caffeine Alternatives

I was a teenager when my taste buds and I first fell head over heels in love with Coca~Cola. Thus began my lifelong dependency on caffeine. That ended at one of my first weight loss clinic appointments when the dietician told me that one of the costs of the surgery was never having caffeine again. Despite my addiction, I was okay with that. Maybe because of my addiction. I was more than ready to put an end to caffeine.

Here we are, a year and a half and one gastric bypass surgery later, and I am working in the office today. I am in a conference room with two other staff members. One of them is drinking a diet coke and for the first time I am finding myself gazing longingly at the can. What the hell, Robert? I thought we’d moved beyond this.

I’ve also been finding myself getting really sleepy in the afternoons. It’s just the sort of things that a little caffeinated beverage would go a long way toward helping. Nope. We’re not going down that road again. My caffeinated days are 100% over.

It did start me wondering about natural caffeine alternatives. Is there anything that is reasonably healthy and gastric bypass friendly that I could use as a replacement? The first article I hit on had a couple of things that might be worth looking into. What is Carob? It’s a chocolate substitute? Interesting. There is a link to a carob bark recipe that uses some weird berry I’ve never heard of. I wonder if I could replace the berries with peanuts?

One thing the article listed will not be going into my diet today or ever. Cordyceps. First of all… mushrooms? Eh, no. Second, I saw The Last of Us and cordyceps literally* brought on the end of the world so keep them the hell away from me!

I have also brought this up in a post to one of the bariatric surgery facebook groups. Sometimes I get a ton of responses when I ask questions there. Sometimes I get nothing. I expect to get nothing this time, but it was worth a try.

I will keep digging around and see if I can find anything interesting. I’ll let you know.

*Cordyceps literally brought about the end of the world in a fictional story. Would it be then more correct for me to have said Cordyceps fictionally brought about the end of the world? Ah, grammar.

Week Three, Run One

Each time I got out for a run it is exponentially worse than all the times before combined. This morning was no different. To be blunt, that fucking sucked.

One minute walking followed by one minute running, repeated 15 times. Adding in a little cool down walk at the end where the coach lady wouldn’t shut the hell up, it worked out to 31 minutes and 17 seconds and a total of 2.29 miles burning 244 calories.

I was never feeling good about any of it at any point but it wasn’t until maybe the sixth repeat that I started feeling in really rough shape. After repeat number nine I was strongly considering just stopping and going home. After 12 I just said the hell with it and finished. The next run will be Thursday and it will be the same as today. I am wondering if I should repeat it a time or two more after that before moving on to the next thing. I wonder if building up a little extra stamina might be a good idea. We will see how I feel on Saturday when we get to the scheduled end of week three.

Until Thursday’s run then, I think I am going to sit on the couch and hope my legs start working again. I’m not feeling terribly optimistic about that just now.

Month 14 Weigh In

Happy 4th of July! You know what happens around here on the 4th of each month? It’s weigh in day! Boy are we going in the wrong direction now!

They told me I would level off. They told me after I level off I would start creeping back up. Last month was a clear leveling off. Today is a clear creeping back up. I’ve gone from 205.4 to 213.0. I’m up 7.6 pounds. I am very much happy with that. My BMI is up to 25.9 so I guess I am officially overweight again.

I knew I was going to be up this month. Not just because that’s how it goes, but because I have clearly been eating more and more at each meal, and equally important, more and more between each meal. I told the surgeon that last week and she said, paraphrasing, yup that’s good. So even with a significant jump in the wrong direction I am still somehow on track.

So that’s the story at month number 14. Until month number 15, happy weight loss and stuff.

Two Weeks Down

Wow, did that ever suck.

Today marked the third workout of the second week of the Runkeeper app’s My First 5K training. Each of the three trainings this week, and the last one from week one too, have found me increasingly convinced that I am not going to be able to finish this program. I know the whole point of this is to be challenging and to increase my endurance and all of that fun stuff, but each time I go outside and for one of these walks/runs I am questioning my sanity more and more.

Today was 10 rounds of walking for two minutes and running for one. I made it through six before I had any real difficulty, but I think it was after three that I started to doubt whether or not I was going to be able to finish. Eventually I got far enough along that I knew I would finish today but the doubt transfered to whether or not I would be able to finish the next run, or the one after that.

Is my endurance and stamina increasing? Yes. Absolutely. When I think ahead to the next run knowing that the format will change to one minute of walking followed by one minute of running repeated 15 times, do I feel like my endurance and stamina have increased enough that I can pull the next workout off? No. Not even a little bit.

This could just be me being a pessimist, but I really cannot see me being able to run 3.1 miles at a time without stopping. It just feels like an impossible ask. Am I saying that come Tuesday morning when it is time for me to go outside and try week three run one I am going to say no thank you? No, I don’t think I am there yet. I don’t think I am quitting. I just think that I can see myself quitting at some point in the near future. Maybe I’ll surprise myself but… maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll come up with something else.

We’ll see.

Week Two, Run Two

Two minutes walking, one minute running, repeat eight times. I cannot express how much that sucked. It was different than two days ago, somehow. It seemed tolerable until the last two rounds on Wednesday. Today it got harder much earlier, but at the end I don’t think it felt as tough as it did at the end last time. I’m not really sure how to describe it.

I took a slightly different route this time. Instead of just going around the circle I went down the road a ways. My map looks different and that’s something, at least. The next run will be on Sunday and that will be two minutes walking, one minute running, repeated 10 times. That is going to suck out loud.

I knew this was going to be a tough challenge, but it’s difficult enough that I would not be surprised if I abandon this little quest at some point. I don’t know if I have running a 5k in me. I am not ready to give up, I just won’t be upset with myself if I get further along in this process and come to the conclusion that I am just not a runner.

Maybe if that happens I’ll take up bike riding. Probably not.

When I got back to the house, this scene was waiting for me.

How much is that kitty in the window? Meow Meow