It’s Wednesday. I stepped on the scale this morning and immediately made the command decision that I am not going to log the weight today. I was way up. Something like three pounds. That’s okay, but if I am no longer seeing any real progress, and it’s been over a month since I’ve seen any change in any direction that was consistent, then why bother. I think I will skip this week and try again next week. I mean, it’s been 11 months… let’s take a breather, right? I was never intending to do this forever, after all.
Tag: weight loss surgery
Easter Dinner
Jen and I just got home from having Easter Dinner (which was actually at lunch time) with my father. My sister’s family was there too. My brother was with his in-laws today so he couldn’t make it.
Dinner was lovely (choice of lamb or ham, I went with the lamb). I was feeling like I had had enough and thought, I’ll have one more bite… It’s been an hour and a half and the foamies are still raging. Stupid one last bite.
Up next for me is an MRI appointment over at the hospital formerly known as Saints Memorial in Lowell. Having a medical appointment on easter just tickles me. Come, giggle with me.
Jen and I are also looking at maybe making a change to the back yard. While we were out there on a fact finding mission I filled the bird feeders because it’s spring time, babie and that’s what you do!
Week 48 Weigh In
Yesterday was my weekly weigh in day but I failed to post about it. I am sure you were all waiting breathlessly to hear the results and I failed to come through for you. Sorry folks, I was busy. Also, I did the monthly weigh in on Tuesday and the numbers were silly and I knew that Wednesday would correct and look awful. I was right.
Last Wednesday I was 213.40, which was the lowest weight I’ve seen since I was a teenager, I think. On Tuesday, a day after being sick and barely eating anything, I was 209.60 and I knew I was going to be way up when I weighed in the next day. I was. Yesterday I was 211.80, up 2.2 pounds in one day. Yeah. I lost my sub-210 milestone, my 220 since surgery milestone, and my 25.5 BMI. Happily I got to keep my overall total breaking 240 milestone as I am now at 240.2. That’s cool.
I am not upset about being up 2.2 pounds in one day. Not at all. Why? Because it was obviously going to happen after a really sick day on Monday. More than that though, I was still down 1.6 pounds since last Wednesday and if I hadn’t stepped on the scale on Tuesday, that number would have looked great to me. I would have been very pleased with 1.6. So I am taking that as my win for the week.
Yesterday was a weird one as far as nutritional goals are concerned. I hit my protein goal (my total for the day was 88.88 grams and my daily goal is 80 grams) but I crashed and burned on liquids. My goal is 60 ounces and I only got to 42. That’s a serious fail. I am not sure what the problem was, but all day long I was having trouble with drinking water. I could only handle a really small amount at a time. Then at dinner I caught the foamies and it took hours to clear up. Any time I tried to drink for the rest of the night I could only get a tiny bit in and I’d feel sick to my stomach and I’d have to stop. I still needed to eat to hit the protein goal and I was able to do that, but then I had to wait an hour before I could drink again. I was looking at my next sip being around 11:30pm and I just fell asleep around 11:00. Failure.
It’s already better today. It’s only 9:18am and I am already a little over 25 ounces. I have also had a good breakfast of a heavy on the protein, protein bar and a few links of brown and serve sausages. I am in really good shape already today. I have also already done double my exercise goal (I’m at 61 minutes when my goal is 30 minutes) and I’ve already hit my calorie goal (according to my watch I’ve burned 1017 calories and my goal is 1000) so things are looking good today.
In summary, the Wednesday numbers look bad compared to Tuesday but really good compared to last Wednesday, and two tough days eating and drinking this week have been followed by a really good start today. I’ll take it. Here’s hoping I drop below 210 next week, or the week after. Or someday in the near future. That would be fun. Also, while we’re at it, let’s start hoping for a glorious day of sub-200. That would be amazing.
Until then, sorry for the late post… not that anyone really cares… I’m just trying to be nice… nice to myself, I guess… you know how it is.
11 Month Weigh In
11 months ago today I went under the knife and had my guts rearranged, gastric bypass style. As with every monthiversary, I used it as an excuse to step on the scale, even though my regular scale stepping is scheduled for tomorrow. Now I am going to share some numbers but you have to take them with a grain of salt. 11 months on, these figures are borderline spectacular. They are also almost surely a lie that will be uncovered when I do my weekly weigh in tomorrow. Okay? Let’s not get too excited.
All of my numbers except BMI hit milestones.
Oh wow, Bradley Whitford is in this episode of The X-Files! Season two episode nine. That would be 1994, maybe? 1995? Sorry… I got distracted by the television. I’ll stay focused from now on.
Where was I? Oh yeah, milestones galor. All lies, but still milestones everywhere you look. Last Wednesday the scale read 213.4. Today? 209.6. I broke 210, babie! Holy Shit Burgers! Under 210! Amazing! Granted, I was sick with stomach pain all day yesterday and barely ate or drank anything all day. I didn’t come remotely close to any of my food goals. Not even a tiny bit close. Assuming I hit all of my goals today, I will be back over 210 tomorrow. Pretty much guaranteed.
Along with flipping the 10’s column from a one to a zero, losing 3.8 pounds over the last six days also flipped the 10’s column on my total since surgery. I am up to 221.8 pounds since May 4, 2022. My grand total since the first appointment is the final milestone of the day as that has a new 10’s column too. That number is up to 242.4 and suddenly the possibility of hitting 250 pounds sounds like a remote possibility rather than a fantasy.
The last number to check in on is the BMI. It’s not a big moment, but it is a big change. Last week I hit 26. Today it’s 25.5. Half way to the magical 25, you-are-not-overweight-anymore moment. Crazy.
Now, what about all of the other crap that went down since yesterday? The stomach pain and the gas pain and the mild nausea never went away yesterday. It ebbed and flowed a bit as the day went on but it was always there to varying degrees. Fortunately it’s gone today. I have a bit of a headache, but that’s down to dehydration, I think. I only had about 20 ounces of water over the whole day. Drinking made my stomach feel worse, while eating made it a little better. I didn’t hit my protein goal either, but I was a little better than halfway there. I have had eight ounces of water already this morning (it is 7:41am) and I am about to have a little breakfast to see how that goes.
I will weigh in again tomorrow and I will be up, probably a lot. That is okay. I will get down below 210 for really reals at some point. When I do I will celebrate properly and it will be glorious. Until then, let’s just enjoy this while it lasts. The next check in is the weekly check in tomorrow. Until then… 209.6, babie! WOOHOOO!
Another Long Day
Another long day filled with a gaggle of long, frustrating meetings and problems. 18 minutes until the weekend. I think we’re in a position right now where we will be able to call it a day at quittin’ time, but I’m not going to count my chickens until they hatch.
What’s in the queue for the weekend? Not sunrise at the ocean pictures because the weather forecast is crappy. Tonight we’ll have our third Hello Fresh meal. The first two were excellent and I expect good things from the turkey meal we have lined up for tonight.
I have to mix a song. It’s the last day of the month so I need to finish off the second of two songs I worked on this month before midnight so that I can complete my personal write and record a single challenge. The first song was done a couple of nights ago. The second song isn’t as good, and the performance is worse, but it’s still worth finishing. Tomorrow is April 1st so the Record Every Month challenge resets and I can start working on something new. I’m thinking about using the tremolo built into my amplifier this time. I never use it… so maybe I should.
Jen has a project in her office that we’re going to work on. She wants to change a bunch of things on her desk. We haven’t done that in a while so it will be fun to mix it up. I am thinking of changing things up on my desk too, but I think I want to wait a month until the window replacement project is complete. I don’t know why but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
My exercise and calorie (move) goals are done for today. My liquid intake goal is also done. I have a few more hours before my stand goal is done, and almost half of my protein goal is still outstanding. I’m behind on that one, by quite a bit. I’ll hit it though.
Okay, time to sign off. I still have nine minutes left in the work week. The weekend is so close… so very, very close. I’m ready for it.
Interesting View
The scenery on the drive home tonight was interesting.
I hit my protein and liquid goals before I left work. I decided to have some french fries (salt delivery units) as a tiny dinner-like-entity when I got home. Five minutes later I was gagging up saliva with something stuck. I’m at almost two hours and counting now. I should have given it a miss tonight and just gone without.
Week 47 Weigh In
There’s a lot to discuss today, but I am going to try and keep it brief. Today’s weigh in was a good one. Remember a week or so ago when I said I stepped on the scale unofficially and was WAY down, only to step on the scale for real the next day and be WAY up? Today’s weigh in matched the number I hit when I was WAY down and all was right with the world.
The scale read 213.4 today. That’s down 2.6 pounds from last week’s 216. I had been up in three of the past four weeks, so it’s nice to be down a bunch today. It feels good. I thought I was going to be up today because I hit the post-dinner snacks pretty hard last night. I figured I would have ruined any good progress I made this week. I bet if I step on the scale tomorrow I’ll be up a lot again, so I am not going to step on the scale tomorrow.
I am now down 218 pounds even since the surgery, and 238.6 since the first weigh in. I’m really looking forward to hitting 220 since the surgery. At this rate it will probably be a month before I get there, but the 11 month weigh in is actually six days away. It would be sweet to get there by then. 240 total will be nice, but 250… that will be really nice. That may be too much to ask for at this point, but a boy can dream, right?
The interesting thing today is the BMI. Not because of the number but because I redid some old math and found that my expectations were off by a ton. The BMI value today is 26, down from 26.3. That got me thinking. If 213.4 pounds puts me at 26, does it make sense that I would have to hit 190 in order to drop below 25? I did that math months ago and it has stuck in my head. It sort of set 190 as my eventual goal. A BMI of less than 25 would put me into a healthy weight range for the first time… ever. I rechecked the math today though and I was way off. WAY off. I must have been using the wrong height before because when I calculate the BMI using 6’4″ as my height, I have to get below 205 pounds to get below a BMI of 25. That’s a huge difference from 190. If I weigh 190 pounds, my BMI would be 23.1. How could I have been that far off? I don’t understand.
It doesn’t matter though. The goal is to just feel healthier and I am definitely doing that. I set a personal Apple Watch activity app record today by jogging (yogging) in place for a full 60 minutes. Why? I was watching new Star Wars television episodes and just didn’t want to stop. That’s all there was to it.
The next weigh in, as mentioned above, will be Tuesday next week as that will be April 4th, my 11 month surgery anniversary. The weekly weigh in will still happen on Wednesday but it will be much less impactful.
Until then… think thin, Robert.
Long Day
Today has been a long day. Not sure why, it’s just felt stressful.
Tomorrow is going to be rough too. Tomorrow is in the office and, as I mentioned in a post the other day, I want to do a lot of Disney+ TV watching before I head out. I want to have everything packed up and ready, including my lunch, tonight so that I can save time in the morning. I am such a nerd.
Food has been okay today. I had a little stuck stomach feeling while taking my pre-lunch time calcium citrate pills. It cleared after about 10 minutes, but it was uncomfortable. Breakfast and lunch themselves both went off without a hitch. After having three issue-free meals on Sunday, I had two bad experiences on Monday. Lunch was a smidge on the bad side so I just stopped eating before I was finished. I had already eaten all of the protein I had planned so it was okay. Dinner was bad, but it mostly came down to me overcooking the chicken. It was too tough to chew enough and I just got tired. Then I ate a few chunks of potato and I think the skins weren’t breaking down enough and got stuck. We’re having fish and some green veggies tonight. I am sure things will go better. If so, I could have another three good meals day. That would be nice.
I am hoping to mix a song or two tonight in between packing for work tomorrow sessions. I would like to be done with REM (Record Every Month) for March before I sleep tonight. We’ll see how it goes.
Speaking of dinner tonight, we’re giving Hello Fresh another try. We’ve used it a few times before and it’s always been a good experience. The hang up we have is planning meals, ordering the meals, putting the shipment into the fridge and freezer, and then when it comes time to cook we change our mind and do something else. We want to get away from that and stick to the schedule. If we can do that then Hello Fresh is a great option. It’s so much better than me cooking the same thing every night, or ordering out all the time. I foresee success. Just with the added caveat that I have to avoid sugar, so anything we order that has sugar in it, I will have to take a pass on. We can still cook it, and Jen can have it. I’ll just skip that item on the menu. Let’s keep this house a No Dumping Syndrome zone, shall we?
Okay. Time to finish off the work day. The only question I have for the universe is when does Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania come to Disney+? I am not happy about the existence of a Marvel movie that I haven’t seen.
Overslept
I set my alarm for 5:00am and didn’t get out of bed until about 6:40. Oh well, after a rough few days I think I needed it. I still do, I am feeling super tired still.
I was planning on getting my exercise in for the day, then getting ready for work, then (assuming Jen was awake and not in an early meeting) I was going to add the final guitar parts to the two songs I’ve been working on. Nope. It’s after 8:00 now and I just closed my exercise ring and had a protein supplement breakfast. My stomach is okay so far, though not really 100%. I’m still feeling a little beat up after the rough week, but yesterday was 99% fine and I am hoping for a trend. I’ll use the stop watch at lunch and dinner and see if it keeps me on track. It doesn’t always work, there are other ways to fuck up apart from just going too fast, but it worked for me all day yesterday. I still don’t know what went wrong with the late night pudding cup snack last night. I was really shocked at how that one turned out.
I am planning to go food shopping after dinner tonight. Once I get home I will try to add the last guitar parts to the two songs so that I can start mixing and get them in before the end of the month.
We did a lot of planning for Bellana’s college graduation weekend last night. Once we get through all of the logistics I am going to start obsessing over the photography options. I’m hyper focusing on lens options (yes, the pun was intended… focusing… get it?). I was thinking about trying to get a long zoom so that I could get close up shots of the stage from our cheap seats. Now I’m not so sure. Now I think I might want to go for something super wide so that I can get the whole scene when the family is all together. Like, what if we go to dinner to celebrate afterwards. If I have a 40mm lens on the digital camera and a 50mm lens on the film I’m not going to be able to get multiple people into a shot unless I stand up and walk away. Maybe I want to look into getting a 28mm, or even an 18mm lens so that I can grab nice wide group shots.
Oh to be able to actually know what I’m doing. Heh heh.
Okay, time to go get showered and dressed and get ready for work. Happy Monday, he said with biting, dripping sarcasm.
Take a Step Back
I thought I was doing all right yesterday. I had a bit of a blocked up stomach at lunch time, but there wasn’t any pain. I just needed to be patient while it passed.
Dinner was different. I had a mostly protein bar and snack dinner because we started lunch super late. I over did it. No blocked stomach or any fun like that, I just ate too much. I was super stuffed at first, but then it morphed into one of the worst stomach aches I’ve had since surgery. It was bad, but the pain wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that it just didn’t stop.
The fun started at about quarter after 8:00pm. Around 11:00pm I was sitting up in bed, really wanting to go to sleep, but in too much pain to try. Around midnight I was still a mess but I tried to lay down. It didn’t work. Laying down made things worse. I moved to the living room so I could try to sleep sitting up. I think I nodded off for a few minutes a couple of times. Around 2:00am I went back to bed. I was able to lay down, finally, and I managed to sleep.
When I woke up at around 7:00am today the stomach pain was gone, but I still don’t feel 100%. I have a lot of gas (TMI, sorry) and I feel sort of sensitive, as if one zig in the wrong direction would send me right down into the abyss. I took it easy at breakfast, just a protein bar. I’ve had half of my daily water goal but only my morning pills. I’m about two hours late for the lunch time pills, but I’ll have them soon.
I tried a normal lunch, but I took a big step backward in the post-surgery recovery process. I used a stop watch to force myself to pause between bites. At least 30 seconds, but mostly a full minute. The end result was a very long lunch, about 90 minutes, but I’m down to the last bite and I haven’t had any problems. Just the same gas that was there when I woke up (TMI, sorry).
I’m way behind on reaching my protein goal today, but I’ll get there soon enough. I’m pretty optimistic that I can get through the whole day without any stomach screw ups. I just need to be overly, overly cautious. I can do it.
Inside the Red Head's Head 