Tag: health

Banned Things

Over the last 5-6 months or so I have banned some things from my life. Well, banned or boycott. Whichever is more appropriate. How am I doing on these things?

The most recent ban started six days ago when I started working to remove carbonated beverages and caffeine from my diet. If I am going to go through with the weight loss surgery process, then these two items will be permanently removed from my diet forever and ever. Apparently they are both stomach irritants and when you surgically mangle the stomach the way I plan to, then irritants are really bad.

I first learned of this development on Thursday 2/3 and my first day without either of them was Friday 2/4. I’ve made it six days. So far so good, I guess, but it’s definitely not a second nature sort of thing yet. Not even close. My quarantine routine over the last 23-24 months has involved filling up a bottle of water before I go to bed (with grape flavoring, always). If I don’t finish the bottle then I finish it the next day, but not until sometime in the afternoon. I’d have soda, diet pepsi, in the morning and early afternoon. Caffeine and soda. Now I am just drinking water all the time so the night time water bottle carries into the morning. That probably sounds more complicated than it is, but the point here is that every morning I continue to leave the water bottle next to my bed as if I was going to have a morning soda. No. You’re not. Six days on and I still forget that I am not drinking soda anymore pretty much every morning. That needs to end.

So the dietary bans are still going well, though not quite a routine yet. What was the other ban? Facebook. August 27, 2021 was the day I sort of spur of the moment banned Facebook from my life. That was a little more then five months ago. It looks like five months is pretty much long enough to get to the point where I don’t even notice it anymore. It hasn’t been 100%, but I think I can count the number of times I’ve visited on one hand. FoMO brought me back to clear off some notifications once, and once I went on to just mention I wasn’t going on anymore. That was probably pointless. The last time was a couple of weeks ago when I found out one of my Aunts wasn’t well and I checked my cousins accounts to see if I could learn anything. I was only on for a few minutes but I’ll fess up and admit I was there.

Other than those few times I’ve been able to stay away. I don’t think about it anymore. In fact, I got a notifications email the other day for the Lizardfish group and I had to look at it twice to remember what it was talking about. Sometimes it needles me, like when a YouTube show or a podcast that I am a regular viewer/listener of makes a mention of their respective Facebook groups, of which I am a member, and I don’t know what’s going on. I feel out of the loop. FoMO starts creeping in, but I forget about it quickly enough.

So my personal cancel culture targets are still going strong. Facebook is a big nothing to me now. Caffeine and carbonated drinks are going to be tougher to deal with. I can do it though. Absolutely.

Wow, is it Early

I mentioned over the weekend that we were planning on trying to do a little electrical work in the dining room but once we opened things up it was more involved than we expected so we punted. There are a handful of other electrical things we want to do around the house as well so we put out a call for quotes from electricians. One is coming today and they said they’d be here between 7:00 and 9:00… 7:00am? Really? Most days I don’t wake up until after 7:00am. Okay, whatever. I got up at 5:30 and was dressed and ready to go by 6:30. The electrician said he’d text when he was on his way. It’s 6:56… no text yet. Oh well.

The sad thing is, I am going to do it again tomorrow. My company is back into in-the-office-once-a-week mode again like we were during the summer. I’ve decided that tomorrow is the day this week. I really don’t want to. I don’t want to run the Covid risk, I don’t want to spend a chunk of the day wearing a mask, I don’t want to find out how my back is going to feel when I walk from the parking lot to my desk, I don’t want to use the shitty little monitor on my desk when I have a massively gigantic monitor on my home desk. Mostly, and this cannot be overstated, I don’t want the friggin’ commute.

We have to do it though, it’s the law now, so tomorrow is going to be my first day back. I will have to get up a ton earlier than the work-from-home normal, though not quite as early as today. I can do it. It’s okay. I just don’t really want to.

It’ll be okay. I can hack it.

Bad Seal

I had a less than perfect sleep last night. My CPAP mask kept losing its seal. It would start leaking air on one side of my face so I’d wiggle it back into place, and then a leak would start on the other side. It was pissing me off as well as keeping me awake. Eventually I took it off and adjusted everything and put it back and it was okay. I think I’ll be using a new mask tonight, just out of spite.

One of the weight loss appointments I booked yesterday is over Zoom. I got the meeting invite this morning. Yet another baby step. Let’s all get together and change my life, okay? Change my mindset first, then change my internal structure. Welcome to a new me and all that stuff, right? New Year, new me… literally.

I wrote my first lyrics for this year’s RPM Challenge. Are you proud of me? I am. Writing lyrics sucks and I suck at it. What is the song about? I haven’t a clue. Maybe after I sing it a few times I’ll decide what it’s about. For now it’s just a bunch of words whose syllable count matches the bad melody I wrote.

Okay. It’s time for work. Let’s be productive and have a good day, okay? Ready? Go!

Conflicting Emotions

My next weight loss appointment is one week from today. I’m conflicted emotionally.

On the one hand I can’t wait to get over the next hurdle and be one step closer to the finish line.

On the other hand, I’m scared shitless. I’m going to be meeting with the doctor who is going to carve up my innards. I mean, it’s terrifying!

So far the drive to move forward is stronger than the fear. I need to keep it that way. For the rest of my life.

One week.

The Ball is Rolling Now for Sure

I just got off the phone with the clinic that will be handling my weight loss surgery. I booked four appointments for the next 4-5 weeks or so. I believe two of those will be recurring throughout the next few months. This is happening, at least it looks like it’s happening. Any one of these appointments could result in someone putting a stop to the process. Maybe if there’s something amiss with my guts, or if the mental health folks decide I’m nuts, or if the dietitian thinks I’m unworthy, or if the surgeon thinks I’m a yutz… anything could derail this, but for this particular moment in time, we’re on track.

My heart has been pounding ever since the phone started ringing.

Unrelated note, there seems to be an issue getting our new furnace inspected by the city. We thought it was all set, but they had to come and look again today, and they might have to come again later as well. Not sure what’s going on, but here’s hoping this gets wrapped up quick like.

Slept Late

My 18 year old self laughs at me when I say that we slept late today and got up at 8:00am. However, we slept late and got up at 8:00am. I slept okay after my second fully caffeine free day. I woke up a few times but my numbers looked good. The heart rate dip was really good and the restful sleep percentage was the same as the first day. I feel okay today.

Not a lot on the agenda today. Hopefully lots of guitar playing. Jen’s working on a project so I want to stay out of her way. I have five songs that need rhythm guitars. I should see if I can add to that list too. I would like to get to it, but I find myself distracted by a video on YouTube where Rick Nielsen from Cheap Trick shows off some highlights from his massively gigantic guitar collection. It’s only an hour and eighteen minutes. I wonder if they’ll do a video like this with Steve Howe.

Sleep Check

One full day without caffeine followed by one night’s sleep.

Q: Did it have any effect?
A: I don’t know.

I got eight hours of sleep last night, which is both good and rare, but it has more to do with today being Saturday than anything else. We went to bed around 11:00 last night and I was out like a light almost immediately. That is likely a side effect. The sleep numbers that my watch tracked were average, I guess. Not too different than the last couple of weeks. My restful sleep percentage might have been a touch higher but not much.

That’s one night. I wonder how things will look/feel after a few weeks/months?

Let’s find out.

One Day Down, or Something

It’s almost 10:30. It’s just about time to turn in for the night.

It looks like I have made it through a whole day without caffeine. I didn’t think it was possible but there you go.

The headache is still there but Tylenol helped. I’ve had a ton of water today and I burned through a lot of grape flavored mix stuff. I need to slow down on that, but probably not for a couple of days. I need all the help I can get. How long before a lifestyle change becomes a habit? Three days? 30 years?

Tomorrow Jen is going to rewire one of the light switches because she’s a fucking super hero. I’ll help, but she has more guts than I do. Also… guitar. That’s my hope at least. It should be fun.

Fun with Caffeine

It’s been more than 24 hours since I’ve consumed any caffeine. Probably closer to 28 hours, maybe.

28 loooong, caffeine free hours.

As expected, I am really tired right now. Not so much that it’s a distraction, but I am feeling it. What I was not expecting, but probably should have, is the headache. It’s not bad, it’s just there. Is it too soon to start having caffeine withdrawals? Is it psychosomatic (probably)? Am I going to sleep better tonight? I hope so.