Tag: weight loss surgery

Strategies

Daily writing prompt
What strategies do you use to maintain your health and well-being?
View all responses

I tell you what, one strategy I should start using to maintain health and well-being should be to stop using the WordPress.com MacOS app to write posts because it doesn’t have a built in spell checker like the browser app does and I am just not that skilled a speller to be flying without a safety net, you know what I mean?

But seriously folks…

I never really thought about strategies yadda yadda. I clearly have them but I just never spelled* it out like this.

There are two types of well-being in play here. Physical and mental. The physical health strategies are, like everything related to my physical health these days, come to me via the weight loss clinic and their instructions to keep me healthy post-gastric bypass. Exercise every day, at least 64 ounces of water every day, at least 80 grams of protein every day, no sugar, small bites of food, chew every bite until it’s obliterated, don’t eat too fast. Those are the big ones. There are also things like keeping in touch with the clinic and not blowing off my regularly scheduled follow up appointments.

So that is the physical question, what about the mental well-being situation? I don’t think I have any specific strategies. It’s more like things that make me feel like maybe I deserve to be thought of as a not-so-terrible human being. That combined with things that just make me feel good in general will have to suffice. I treat my wife with the love and respect that she deserves. When I do that my well-being feels pretty well. When I fail… everything about me fails. Same with the kids. Treat them the way they deserve to be treated. For me that includes loving my two step kids as if they were my own. I do, so that’s pretty easy.

My family is the biggest part of this, but what else is there? Doing a good job at work is important. Helping my staff be the best they can be is incredibly rewarding. I’m honestly surprised by how good that can make me feel. Playing guitar, writing shitty songs, playing with home recording projects. All of that is good for my mental health. Taking a lot of pictures, writing on this silly blog. Those are important too. They help me to keep my head on straight.

I’m sure if I took more time to think about this topic I could add one or two hundred more things to this list. What I have here will do for now though. Hopefully everyone is able to answer this one for themselves, and in doing so keep their heads on straight for another day. This is a good thing.

*See what I did there? Spelled it out? Spell check? Get it? Yeah, I’m so damn clever.

Long Day

Today is my first day back at work after a four day weekend. I’ve been punched in for about eight hours and 11 minutes but if feels like 2523972 hours and 237923603 minutes.

One bad thing happened at work today. I was prompted to reboot to take a Windows update. I had no idea (because I didn’t check before I rebooted) that the update in question was a full update to Windows 11. Ah, hell.

After a few less than perfect days in a row in terms of gastric bypass side effects and the like, I have now had two very good days. Well, yesterday was good and today has been good so far. I am really tired though. I only got four hours of sleep ahead of my sunrise jaunt yesterday. Last night I got six hours but I never put on my CPAP mask so maybe it wasn’t the most productive six hours. I am trying to remember why I didn’t put it on when I went to sleep last night and I can’t recall. I know there was a reason at the time, but what was it?

Did I mention I mailed off two rolls of film yesterday? I was hoping to maybe get an email saying the lab had received them today, but I didn’t really expect to. Maybe tomorrow? One roll was loaded into Dad’s camera on either Christmas day or Christmas eve, so there will be a few Christmas shots. There was also some snow in the back yard stuff, and then the first day of Bellana’s graduation weekend. The other roll was my first roll of Kodak Portra 800. Really my first use of a professional level film. I get shivers just thinking of that, and know that everything I took will likely suck because I am clueless. That roll has mostly graduation weekend stuff, and a few pics from yesterday’s stop at Plum Island.

We are going to see Harry this weekend. I expect a lot of Doctor Who discussions. Maybe I will make him watch an episode of the original show, just for laughs. Maybe I’ll Google something like “best forth doctor episodes” and see if there’s something we can watch out of sequence.

I just did exactly that and found that Douglas Adams of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy fame wrote three episodes of Doctor who in 1979. Only two aired as the third was derailed by a labor strike. I think we might have to investigate this further.

Okay, the work day is coming to a close. Time to start packing up. I hope you all had a good Wednesday, and I hope it didn’t feel like it was 941760497 hours long.

Monday is Okay: So Far

After a tough couple of days, it’s almost 10:00am on Monday morning and everything is okay.

Stomach issues are normal for gastric bypass patients. At least that’s what everyone tells me. Every once in a while I am going to zig when I shoulda zagged and my new little redesigned mini stomach is going to let me know about it. That’s all the last couple of days were.

I’m on vacation today and tomorrow so I slept about an hour late (ahhhh). When I went to sleep yesterday is was feeling okay. No pain but maybe a little gassy discomfort. I didn’t hit my water or protein goals until maybe half an hour before I fell asleep. I feel good about that. I thought I was going to fail on both counts. I did miss my exercise goal and I’m upset with myself over that, but given the circumstances it’s okay.

This morning I woke up without any pain or issues. I was a little nervous that something might crop up, but I did my 30 minute fake jogging in the cellar (pronounced “yogging” with a soft “j”) and I ate a normal protein bar breakfast. It’s been a couple of hours and all is still well.

Is that optimism I’m feeling? Maybe. It might just be me wanting a grilled hamburger and fries for lunch. it could be either one

Bad Stomach Evening

Remember that post from earlier where I was talking about bad stomach issues? They cleared up quickly enough back then, but they came roaring back after the little protein bar dinner I had.

It was really bad for a couple of hours but I think it’s clearing up again. My one question to my little re-wired stomach pouch is:

What the fuck, bro?

My evening is a pretty screwed up mess, you know? Here’s hoping it stays away and I can rejoin society. I was planning on sunrise-over-the-ocean photos tomorrow but now I’m afraid to even think about getting off the couch. It’s just me and Doctor Who season five for now.

Good Progress

I feel like I have made good progress on a couple of fronts today. First, my stomach is still okay. I had a protein bar for lunch and I have some french fries in the air fryer right now. Not the Golden Crispers from the comfort food post from earlier this morning, but a different type of Ore-Ida frozen french fries. Not as good, but close. We’ll see how we feel after eating a little bit of actual food.

The second progress front is guitar! The 50/90 Challenge and all that stuff. I put rhythm guitars onto two songs, and lead guitars onto two different songs. I played my Les Paul. If I get a chance later I will do some more and play my SG. Variety is the spice of life, after all. I’m also hoping to mix a tune or two before the day comes to an end. We’ll see about that. For now, season five episode two of the new Doctor Who series. Hey, check it out! Prince Daemon Targaryen from House of the Dragon is The Doctor and Nebula from Guardians of the Galaxy is the companion. This might end up being my favorite cast.

Guitar pictures!

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Bad Stomach Morning

I wrote (twice) about having a tough day on the stomach front yesterday. By the time I got through lunch I was okay and everything seemed back to normal. It hasn’t quite stayed that way though.

Last night the gas started coming back not long before bedtime. I was drinking lemonade at that point, which more or less debunks my it-was-the-grape-juice theory. It felt different at first, but as the night wore on it revealed itself as more of the same. Fortunately it didn’t keep me awake and I was able to sleep.

This morning was when things started going sideways. When I woke up I had stomach pain. Real pain. Maybe a six or a seven on the scale from 1-10. Yesterday it was more like discomfort. Today was actual pain. There was nausea too. I felt pretty bad. I spent some time in the bathroom but that didn’t help. I was afraid to eat or drink anything. I grabbed a pillow and laid down on the couch. There was a part of me that was nervous that this would be my third experience with whatever it was that made me go fetal, groaning in pain, for hours at a time. It wasn’t though. I laid down for about 45 minutes. I think I dosed off.

When I came to the pain was gone. I won’t say I was 100% better. More like 95% better. Almost but not quite right. I had 12 ounces of water and my morning pills and I was still okay. I waited 15 minutes after drinking (doctors orders) and then had a small protein bar. Things were still good so I had one of my usual breakfast protein bars and things are still okay. That was 45 minutes ago and nothing has changed. In 15 minutes my one hour of waiting after eating (doctors orders) will be over and I will try to drink a little zero sugar gatorade.

So that means I had some trouble on Friday night, Saturday morning, Saturday night, and now Sunday morning. Fun fun fun. Here’s hoping I’m through with it. I am probably going to stay with protein bars for lunch rather than make something complicated. Simple is the way to go today, I think. Let’s see if I change my mind over the next few hours.

Weird Stomach Day: Part 2: The Squeakual

Well that sucked out loud.

I had fun outside while grilling up my one hamburger. Then I came inside and started eating. I got maybe a third of the way through it when I started feeling queasy and stopped. A few minutes later that one third of a burger came back for another visit.

Shit. Now what do I do?

I set a 15 minute timer. When that runs out I will reassess. Today might be a tough day. It might be a protein bar only kinda day. It’s been months since I’ve had a day like this. Here’s hoping they continue to get rarer and rarer.

Gastric bypass is most definitely not a short cut around weight loss. Definitely, definitively not a short cut.

Stressing

I am stressing out in a major way today. I’m in the office again (like every Wednesday) and I have meetings on top of meetings on top of meetings and even have to building hop for a couple of them. I’m sitting in the cafe trying to sneak in some lunch before the next meeting and I think I tried to eat too fast. My stomach is protesting a little. Hopefully I stopped in time or else I am going to have a really bad afternoon.

Wish me luck!

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.

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.