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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I had to pause for blocked stomach after I took this evening’s pills, just like the lunch time. It cleared while I was cooking dinner. I blocked again while eating dinner. I only took 2.3 ounces of chicken but I couldn’t eat the last 0.3 ounces. So close, yet so far.
I was taking tiny bites and chewing each one to oblivion. I guess I was going to fast? I don’t know. I felt like I was doing everything right and being super careful. I am really getting annoyed.
I still need to drink 20 ounces of water and I still need 14 grams of protein. I will definitely hit both goals before the end of the day, but it’s just pissing me off that I still have so much to do. I’ve been stuck waiting for the blocked stomach and the foamies to clear for over half an hour. If I wasn’t stuck like this I would have hit the protein goal by now and would be pausing for an hour before finishing the liquid goal.
I’m really frustrated. Am I regretting my weight loss surgery decision? HELL NO. I don’t care how hard this gets, it’s still better than weighing 450 pounds and feeling like breathing was too much exertion to survive. This is frustrating but it’s 10000000000000 times better than it used to be.
Just so there are no questions about that.
Okay, I need to go get rid of a couple of pounds of saliva. Ugh.
Bad reactions to food on Sunday and Monday. Migraine on Tuesday. Bad stomach aches all day on Wednesday. Mostly okay except for a bad lunchtime food reaction on Thursday. What does the shit roulette wheel have for us on Friday?
Another stomach ache. But it feels different today. It’s not an oh I think I might be hungry kind of ache. Today it’s more like a you are disagreeing with something you ate last night kind of ache. Lots of gas, eating doesn’t help at all. I’ve had eight ounces of water, a protein bar, and a little protein snack. Still feeling it pretty much exactly the same as when I woke up.
Shit.
The good news though is that I have watched the season two premier of Yellowjackets. You know that show, the single most fucked up thing on television at this point in time? Yeah, that one. Great freakin’ show that is seriously disturbing while also really funny. No spoilers but the first episode was excellent and the last second reveal at the end… ewwww.
I checked the forecast for the weekend. Guess what’s not going to be out in the morning on either Saturday or Sunday. Go on, guess. You know it… the sun. No sunrise pics for me this week. It’s getting to the point where I might start taking this personally.
If we go to California in the fall, should I think about making a photo book for fun? Not like, oh I took a bunch of pictures so let’s throw the best ones into a book type of thing. More like planning out what I want to see in it and then trying to take pics that make it happen. Something like that. I’m sure I can get that done super cheap through Shutterfly or something. Maybe I can talk Jen into going up to the mountains a lot this summer and I could do something similar there. Just a thought. I like projects sometimes, you know? Like creative projects and stuff. I’m old, leave me alone.
The cats are in the cellar with me but they are avoiding me. I don’t think they like me very much. Sad face.
Unrelated productivity note: I am watching a youtube video of a guy using a folding camera from 1940 with a discontinued film format that expired in 1970. He’s in his home office talking about how he handled the ISO on the expired film and he’s standing in front of a white board that’s hanging on his wall. That’s super cool, of course. The stand out thing though, is that he has a Texas Instruments TI-83 calculator velcro’d onto the white board. Oh my god my nerd brain just exploded with how awesome that is! KaBoom!
Nothing much came of the doctors appointment. I have to make a couple of follow ups and I’ll be getting an MRI at some point. I’ve been crazy busy at work so I haven’t had a chance to make any of the calls I need to make.
I got home with a few minutes to spare before punching into work, but as soon as I did things got crazy busy. I tried to sneak in some lunch and I ate too fast and my stomach rebelled in a big way. It took two hours to calm down but I did get through my lunch. Granted, lunch stretched out almost all the way to dinner time but what can you do.
I’m drastically behind on both my water and protein goals right now. I’ll make it for both today, but I’m annoyed with myself, especially after I had such a good start this morning before going to see the doctor.
Change of subject: I need to do car music. We’re running out of days in March and I have to finish Record Every Month. I have three songs in the pipeline but I’ll probably only get to two. I am planning to do another album in a month this spring, but it depends on guitar gear. I’ve mentioned that I am about to come to the end of the Analog Man King of Tone waiting list. The first full month after I get my mitts on one of those suckers I will do an album in a month using it on every guitar track. That’s the plan at least. Will it be April? Will it be May? Kinda hope it will be April, but that seems highly unlikely.
What else… Star Trek Picard was good today. The whole gang is back on the show. All we need now is Tasha. Good stuff. The show has been fantastic this season. I really need it to keep up the good work and stick the landing. On the other side of the Trek/Wars coin, I started re-watching The Bad Batch over the weekend. I’m still not sure why, but I will finish the first season tonight (I think) and the second season is going to end next Wednesday, I think. Am I right about that? There are two episodes left but they will both be released next week? I head that somewhere.
I’m tired. I’ve had such a stressful week health wise. Between multiple stomach issues and yet another migraine… I need a nap. A long, comfy nap.
Six minutes left until quittin’ time. I’ll make dinner after I finish work, but I will probably be too full from lunch to eat it right away. We’ll see. 16 ounces of liquid left to go. A whopping 37 grams of protein left to go. I’ll make it to both goals, and then some. It’s just going to take some extra time tonight, I think.
Okay. Signing off. I’ll likely post again later. Yesterday was the lowest page view day I’ve had on this page in over four years. I blame the migraines, but I’ll try to write something interesting that will bring the folks by… or not. Probably not.
As expected, after a migraine on Tuesday and a bad gastric bypass stomach on Wednesday, I feel pretty good today. A little warn out but mostly okay. I drank a nice chunk of water while getting in my exercise this morning, and then had a protein bar breakfast afterwards. No issues so far. I overslept a little and I am still tired but I think that’s to be expected.
I have three hours of sick time this morning. I’m going to see my primary care doctor to talk about migraines and see what I need to do to try and get it all under control. I had one on the drive down to Florida just after New Year. I had another one, a minor one, on our last night on that trip. I think I had one in February, but was it two? I had one on the first night of the kids’ spring break. That was March 10th. Then the last one on March 21st. I don’t think this qualifies as chronic, or regular, or whatever the correct medical term for “lots and lots” might be. It’s enough to scare the shit out of me though. I mean, to quote Woody Allen, my brain? That’s my second favorite organ!*
Okay. Time to go start my morning. Shower, shave, dress, go see the doctor, go to work, listen to a lot of Peter Garbriel and Steve Hackett and try to talk myself either into or out of going to see them both in concert in the fall.**
*Quoting Woody Allen bothers me. It was bad enough when he cheated on the mother of his kids with her adopted daughter, but at least they are still together so we can argue that as gross as the relationship is it was apparently something along the lines of real, or if not real then lasting? I don’t know. I can’t get past the child molestation allegations though. I haven’t watched one of this movies since hearing about that, even though there have been a couple that I really wanted to, and some of his early 70’s movies are among my favorites ever (including the movie the above quote comes from). I try not to quote him the way I did back in the 90’s when I couldn’t go a full sentence without dropping something of his. They still slip through now and then when they fit too perfectly to ignore. I feel disgusting every time though, in case you were wondering.
**Peter Garbriel at the TD Garden in Boston on September 14, 2023. Steve Hackett at the Wilbur Theater in Boston on October 12, 2023. Like… how can a 70’s Genesis fanatic say no? Both of them within one month? I’ve seen Steve Hackett once, in one of the last shows I went to before the pandemic, back in September 2019. I’ve never seen Peter Gabriel. I’ve never even investigated the possibility before. I’ll never see Genesis in any of it’s forms as Phil Collins is physically unable now and there’s no way they’ll tour without him. My chance to see all five of them evaporated in 2007 when Gabriel backed out of the proposed Lamb Lies Down on Broadway reunion tour, which really never seemed like something he would have done anyway. Still… I’ve only seen one of the five of them live, and the chance to see two of them within a short space of time just seems like destiny in a weird sort of nerd way.
It’s weird how often I go through this problem when I am working in the office.
Sometimes when my tiny little redesigned stomach is causing me problems, I fear that there is something wrong and that I am on the brink of big troubles when in fact I’m just hungry. I’ll be dealing with all kinds of stomach pains and gas pains and discomfort and unhappiness, then I’ll have a small bite to eat and I’ll feel better for a little while. Then the pain will come back and I’ll be afraid there is something wrong again until I make myself have some lunch. Then I feel fine for a while. It’s weird.
I used to know what hunger felt like. I mean, don’t we all? It is a sort of human thing, right? My stomach feels funny, rumble rumble, oh I’m hungry. That’s not what this feels like though. This feels more like when you eat something that’s gone bad and it just sits like a rock in your stomach. I would hope that having something to drink would alleviate the symptoms the way having food does, but it just doesn’t work the same way. I tried drinking water today between 10:00am or so and 11:30 and it didn’t help. The pain and discomfort just kept getting worse. I had a small protein bar snack and felt 80% better. By the time I broke for lunch at about 1:15 it was all back again, full force. I had some chicken tenders and some peanuts. Less than five ounces of food combined, but probably 24 grams of protein or so. Now my stomach feels 95% better.
I’m guessing that by the time the clock strikes 4:00 I am going to be uncomfortable again. This is going to dog me back and forth for the rest of the day. If history has taught me anything, I will be fine tomorrow after a half decent night’s sleep.
The weird thing about this is how often it happens when I am in the office. I don’t know if it’s the traveling to get here, or if it’s the day of the week (office days are Wednesdays), or if it’s some other connection that I haven’t made yet. I don’t know. It’s weird.
I think I am just going to enjoy the brief reprieve while I can and try to get some work done. Here’s hoping I don’t feel like this tomorrow. Fingers crossed, folks.
Inside the Red Head's Head 