Visiting my mother. She’s asleep in the dining room. That’s not uncommon. It makes me sad, but as dad once said, if she’s sleeping she’s not in pain. That’s some bright side thinking right there.
I’m hitting the grocery store on the way home and might (if weather and population allow) stop at The Park and snap a pic or two. As always, we will see.
I’m working from home today. Back where I belong. After a day and a half in the office it feels good to be back at my desk in the cellar.
Not that a day and a half in the office is so awful, it’s just that after two and a half years of working at home I am really settled and used to it now and just don’t want to stop.
I had two nights in a row of really shitty sleep. Tuesday and Wednesday nights were just plain bad. I don’t know why. Well… Tuesday I just couldn’t sleep and was awake until almost 2:00am. Wednesday I don’t know what the problem was, it was just bad. Last night I was out like a light before 10:00pm and ended up with almost nine hours of sleep. I feel a little better today, but damn was I sleepy last night.
The last three days, including today, I have been pushing myself a little extra during my morning walkies. I’ve been trying to pick up the pace of the pacing, and also keeping it going for longer. My exercise goal is 30 minutes and I’ve gone for closer to 45. I’m doing the faux 5k thing again. I am trying to keep up the faster pace for 3.2 miles, which usually comes out to 44-45 minutes. The main goal here is to burn more calories early in the day so that I can close my move ring earlier. My goal there is 1000 calories. I’ve had a few days recently where bed time came around and I still had about 100 calories left to go. An extra 15 minutes of exercise each day should take care of that. I might change my goals one of these days, but I want to see if my ankles start hurting from the extra walkies first. We’ll see.
I watched yesterday’s episode of She-Hulk during today’s walk. On two occasions, my walkie pace synced up with a song playing in the background perfectly. My steps were eighth notes. It made me wonder if the audio folks working on the show try to match up the beats per minute of the songs they use for an episode. That’s something that really no one would ever really notice, but if that were true I think it would be incredibly cool. That’s just me.
Okay, 8.5 hours left in the work day. We have a pre-fab furniture item coming tonight and we’re donating a couple of furniture items tomorrow. I have to have all of that ready to go. There’s a chance we might see the kids very briefly tomorrow but that’s still very much up in the air. Outside of all of that the questions remain: Will I be able to do some music this weekend, and where do I go for my just-after-sunrise pics tomorrow and Sunday? Very important questions.
Right, back to work with you!
Yesterday was Tuesday, so you know what that means… It’s weigh in day. The numbers were excellent. I am down 5.4 pounds. Can you dig that crazy sound, or what? I am 4.2 pounds away from flipping my total weight’s hundreds column. If next week is as good as this week was… then we could be a week away from that wonderful moment. To quote Clark W Griswald, “Hallelujah. Holy shit. Where’s the Tylenol?”
It’s been a tough week food wise. I wrote about the stomach problems I had on Monday. Yesterday I was okay on that front, mostly, but I came up super short of my protein goal. I need 60 grams a day and I only got to 50. I will remedy that today, thank you very much.
I am working in the office for the second half of the day. My new hire lives in the mid-west and he is in town so we’re going to meet up with him after work and actually exist in person. That means I am going to a public place where people are. I’m okay with this even through my nervous Covid-19 paranoia. It just means I will have to deal with my Covid-19 paranoia, you know? We’re going to get some dinner and that means I will have to order something and then not eat most of it. I plan to bring my little digital scale and not over do it. I’ll have the stop watch on my phone too. They are all going to laugh at me, but I’m okay with it because I lost five and four tenths pounds this week.
I went to sleep really late last night. It was almost 1:00am. I slept for less than six hours and it was pretty crummy quality. I got out of bed a little before 7:00am and started my 30 minute exercise only to have to stop after 10 minutes because we had an air conditioner tech coming out to service our central air and our mini-split. He left just as I was starting work so it didn’t interfere with anything in a problematic way, it just messed with my routine. At least I was able to put the laundry away and do the dishes and setup the PlayStation 4 in the rearranged living room. There will be surround sound Rush blu rays spinning in the near future.
My stomach is a bit of a mess today. I was short on my protein counts yesterday so about an hour before I went to bed I had about an ounce of peanuts to get myself over the 60 gram goal. I finished over an hour before I conked out for the night, but my stomach still feels off. Maybe peanuts late at night is a bad idea. I did eat some scrambled eggs for breakfast this morning and boy am I gassy now. The burps are seismic. Let’s keep an eye on this today, shall we?
Speaking of Rush, today would have been Neil Peart’s 70th birthday. His brother asked fans to wear Rush t-shirts today in his memory. I am partaking, but should I need to join a conference call with a customer I’ll change into a collared shirt.
On the topics of weight loss and collared shirts, I bought some new clothes on Saturday. Two office appropriate shirts and two pairs of jeans. The shirts are one “X” size smaller than what I bought pre-surgery. The jeans are four inches smaller on the waist than the last time I bought jeans, and eight inches smaller than what I was wearing pre-surgery. I’m wearing new jeans right now and boy does it feel nice to wear clothes that fit. Oh, yes.
Okay, back to work. Talk to you later, kids.
It was never in doubt.
Did I get up in time to go out and take some bad photos of random spots in the Merrimack Valley? Yes. Did I do it? No. I went back to bed. Who didn’t see that coming! Tomorrow, for sure… assuming the weather holds.
Today we are scheduled to get a couple of pieces of furniture for the living room. Small upgrades to the décor. They initially told us they were going to be here during my morning meetings and I was not looking forward to having to step out. A few minutes ago they updated their expected arrival time and it’s right after my meeting so thanks, folks.
When I did eventually get out of bed I had a little bit of a sniffle. Huh. Unusual. Given that we were going to have people in the house I took a Covid-19 test. Negative. Oh yeah, my Covid-Free streak remains intact!
I’m thinking of some ocean pics tomorrow. Maybe Salisbury Beach. Also maybe spend 10-15 minutes shooting the boardwalk and some of the surrounding neighborhood. We’ll see. I might also hit a spot or two in Lowell on the way home. Again, we’ll see. I need a new tripod (I’ve mentioned that, right?) but fortunately the one I have broke while in the correct position to take sunrise pics and it remains in that position to this day. Cute, eh?
As Traffic once said (on John Barleycorn, I think), “who knows what tomorrow may bring?” I really don’t care at this point so long as the furniture delivery goes off without a hitch today… and they come after my scheduled meeting.
Right on.
Today is weigh in day and it is the most underwhelming weigh in day yet.
I weighed myself early, three days ago, because of the monthiversary. The results were wonderful. Today, I knew it was going to be sort of a waste of time. There just hasn’t been enough time for anything interesting to happen. It went exactly as expected.
In the last three days I have lost 0.2 pounds. Now before you think that I am bitching, I am most definitely not. Down two tenths of a pound is progress in the right direction and therefore is AWESOME.
Here’s hoping for another few pounds next Wednesday. We’re one small step closer to flipping that hundreds digit. Let’s go, babie!
There was a pretty monumental occurrence this afternoon. For the first time since the surgery…
I ate peanuts.
One ounce of peanuts has seven grams of protein. Sweet!
I kept the bite sizes super small and chewed them until my head was about to fall off, and then I waited a full minute after finishing one bite before taking the next. In other words, I was uber careful.
And it all went fine. I can officially eat peanuts again. What a happy day!
Let’s celebrate with a picture of the cat!
Also, here are some flowers that I picked up at the grocery store because I am ALL CLASS, BABIE!
The flowers in the photo were back lit. Did I use exposure compensation again? Oh, you bet your sweet ass I did!
Happy Return to Peanuts Day!
Today is the fourth monthiversary of my Gastric Bypass surgery. That means it’s a bonus weigh in day. Are you excited? I am!
I needed to lose more than three pounds in order for the 10’s column to change. Did I make it? Will I have to wait until Wednesday?
I lost 3.2 pounds.
Oh, hell yes! The 10’s column just barely changed! I just ate a bite of chicken. I bet if I weighed myself again it would go up again, but there ain’t no way I’m doing that! Wanna hear something truly absurd? The next time the 10’s column goes down… the 100’s column goes down too.
That’s going to be a shock. Seriously. If things keep going the way they’re going that could happen in maybe three weeks or so. I am not banking on it. I have to level off at some point, right? Still… that would be Earth Alteringly awesome.
All of the other numbers I am tracking had their 10’s columns drop too. My BMI went down 0.4 points. My weight lost since surgery (approximately) is now 121.6 and my weight lost since the first appointment is now 142.2.
The last week or two have seen an increasing number of difficult meals. I think I am starting to get arrogant in my eating habits and maybe not paying attention to the details closely enough. I am trying to cut back on the amount of food at each meal, in the hopes that it will in turn make it less likely for me to feel any stomach issues. Yesterday was free of issues, and I’m eating breakfast as I type this and not having any problems yet today. Here’s hoping all remains positive on that front.
Over all though, I feel so good. I can’t put it into words. I feel great.
Next weigh in is the usual Wednesday weekly weigh in. The numbers will be small but hopefully they will continue moving in the right direction.
To sum up… WOOHOO! Four Months!
Inside the Red Head's Head 