I have to be at my childhood house in Tewksbury by 7:30 tomorrow. Movers are coming to get a few things and someone (me) needs to be there to let them in.
I need to wake up at a ridiculous hour. Why oh why then am I still awake? What’s wrong with me?
Go to sleep!
Oh yeah, tomorrow is weigh in day. I’ll need to get up early enough to step on the scale, update the iPhone Health app, then update my spreadsheet. Nerd alert!
Hey CVS… 13 days… where’s my roll of film, bro?
I posted on an analog photography Reddit forum the other day asking for suggestions for film labs that operate online. Meaning, I ship my film to them, they develop it and send me scans of the images, or send scans and ship back prints (if I pay a little extra).
I book marked a few sites and made accounts at some of them. One had a page dedicated to expired film. There 30+ year old example was super dark. That’s what I expect the first of the two rolls at CVS to look like. My zeroth roll, if you will. The second roll and all that follow should be okay. I don’t really care about that. I just want to see some results. I want to know that the camera and the light meter and all of the stuff work.
I also spent some time recently looking for camera clubs to join. There’s one based in Andover that would be fun to check out but they are shut down for the summer. Thanks a bunch. There are some others in the general Eastern Massachusetts area, but they are kinda far away. Oh well.
My last research topic was free online photography classes. I found one through the Harvard Extension School! Awesome! I tried to sign up for it but when I clicked the “start class” button the link was broken. Sonofabitch! I’ll try again later. No biggie.
Unrelated note: Dinner tonight was 4.2 ounces of deli roast beef. It was delicious. When I was done I set a timer for one hour so that I could know when I would be clear to drink water again. 40 minutes later I changed my mind and went looking for a couple of ounces of grapes. I ended up with 2.5 ounces. Want to know how much that is in practical terms? It was 11 grapes. My dessert tonight is 11 grapes. This is a pretty goofy looking new world, ain’t it?
I did something silly yesterday that I wasn’t going to write about but now feel like I want to share.
I have a drawer in my dresser where I stash t-shirts that used to fit me but don’t anymore, but I don’t want to get rid of for whatever reason. Yesterday, for the first time since the Gastric Bypass, I opened that drawer. There are shirts in there that were gifts that never really fit right and are basically new. There are shirts in there that date back forever including Rush tour t-shirts from 2004 and 2007.
I tried a few of them on. Some fit okay. Miraculously. Some still have a little ways to go. In true nerd fashion I walked over to Jen’s office to show off and get opinions on how things looked.
I am guessing I will need to buy a couple of work-appropriate collared shirts soon, but for casualwear (hehe) I might be all set.
I feel silly and weird and I am kind of enjoying it.
This is a new one for me in this new post-gastric bypass world. I had 5.4 ounces of salmon for dinner. Jen made it. She used the air fryer. It was perfect. Five ounces is generally my max for a meal. Today I chased the salmon with a little 3.5 ounce cup of sugar free pudding. That’s 8.9 ounces of food. That in and of itself is unheard of, post-op, but it gets worse, and the worse is what I am actually writing about…
I’m still hungry.
No, n-n-n-n-no. This will not do. My new stomach pouch is tiny. Five ounces should be enough. I don’t want more. I don’t need more. Why the hell is my brain screwing with me and telling me that I am hungry? My daily protein goal is 60 grams. I broke 100 today (barely). Why am I feeling anything other than pleasantly full?
Stupid brain. Stupid, stupid brain.
As of today I am nine weeks post weight loss surgery. That means today is weigh in day. How’d it go? It went really well. I lost seven pounds in the last week. That’s a pound a day, on average, if you’re keeping track. File under: Holy Shit Burgers.
The 10’s column in my current weight changed again. That is such a magical sight. Last week the 10’s column was a six. Today it’s a five. Brilliant.
Now I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but over the last five weeks I have averaged about 5.5 pounds lost each week. If I do that again next week, my total weight loss since the first check in on January 19th will top 100 pounds. Again, I am not getting ahead of myself. That is just some intellectual thing that the analytical part of my brain sussed out. It is not me getting excited or looking ahead or getting over confident or any of that crap. It’s just a number.
However, if that happens next week… there may be a marching band roaring up and down my street all day. Just saying.
Holy shit, dudes. Holy. Shit.
Today marks two months since surgery. I didn’t weigh myself to celebrate. I thought about it but decided to keep my Wednesday rule and wait two days.
I feel great. The only issue I have is scheduling liquids. A couple times a day I find the dehydration taking over. There was one time when I was visiting mom that it was bad enough to make me a little light headed. Another time, also during a mom visit (pattern?), my mouth was so dry I couldn’t form some words.
Other than that, it’s been aces. The weight is falling off and I haven’t felt this healthy in over a decade. I have millions of miles to go, but so far it’s all good.
So looking forward to whatever comes next.
I feel like I’ve circled the Earth today. I haven’t, but it feels nuts.
We went food shopping early. Then I spent an hour or so with my mother. It was weird today, but not in a way I’ve seen. It’s hard to explain.
Next I went to a store and bought a couple of pairs of jeans. You heard that right. I’m down two sizes, which when you’re this wide two sizes is the equivalent of four sizes for normally sized people. The question now is, how long until the new jeans are falling off of me too? Let’s find out!
It calmed down after that. Jen’s folks came over for a visit. We had a nice conversation about the collapse of the United States. You know, like you do.
Later, Jen made salmon for dinner. See the fish market pic from earlier today. It was fantastic. Really. Jen can make our little air fryer sing and dance. After dinner we went to Cambridge to research some computer components Jen was thinking about grabbing, but she passed on them.
Now we are home and I am behind on everything. I am way below my 60 grams of protein goal. I’m in a good place for the 60 ounces of liquids goal, but the protein is a problem. Also, I haven’t done my exercise yet. It’s 9:00pm and ai haven’t even started. Crud.
Okay, time to start-a-walking.
I can’t remember how much I weighed on our wedding day. It was a lot, but it was also less than it was when we got engaged. I just can’t remember the number. I didn’t write it down anywhere, so how can I figure it out? It’s like a weight milestone for me and I should be able to remember.
I found a way to make an educated guess.
The day after the wedding, my wedding ring slipped off while I was in the shower. For a while there I was taking it off when I showered because I didn’t want it to fall off again.
Back in January, my wedding ring was stuck. I couldn’t take it off anymore. My finger was just expanding around it. It didn’t hurt or anything, it just wasn’t coming off.
Today, post-surgery, it is loose. Not loose enough to come off on it’s own, but we are steadily getting closer to that point.
So… when I loose enough weight for my ring to slip off in the shower, then I will be approximately the same weight(ish) as my wedding day.
QED.
Two posts back I wrote a footnote about the possibility of my weight dropping below 200 pounds and how I imagine I would be unhealthily thin at that weight.
According to the site I go to when I want to calculate my BMI, that statement is actually super wrong. The calculator page includes this list of BMI Categories:
Underweight = <18.5
Normal weight = 18.5–24.9
Overweight = 25–29.9
Obesity = BMI of 30 or greater
I have spent my entire adult life in the Obesity range. I have a looooong way to go to drop below that category. With my height being 6’4″ I would have to get down to 246 to have a BMI of 29.9. I am so far away from 246 pounds that I haven’t even considered it a possibility.
In order to get below the Overweight category, I would have to get down to 204 pounds. That seems insane to me. Completely out of the realm of reality. Wow.
That means the range for me to be in the Normal weight category is 152 to 204 pounds. I can’t even imagine it. I feel like, at 152 pounds, if I turned sideways I would be so thin you wouldn’t be able to see me. I would be invisible. Really.
So if dropping from 200 pounds to 199 pounds represents entering Onederland… I guess that wouldn’t be unhealthy for me after all. It’s not a goal though. I don’t have a goal number in mind. My only goal is to be healthier and not have to constantly worry that the heart attack is right around the next corner.
I’ll get there.
Hello and welcome to the eight weeks post-op update. TL/DR: I feel friggin great.
I weighed myself this morning. It’s been a real mental struggle to stop myself from weighing in more than once a week. Obviously I am not going to tell you how much I weigh. Nope. I will tell you what the losses are though. Last Wednesday the drop was a lot bigger than I expected. Today was nothing like that, but it was still a little bigger than I expected and I am really pleased.
I was down 5.4 pounds today. It wasn’t enough to change the tens column in my current weight. Changing the tens column is a thrill. Changing the hundreds column… now that’s worthy of a celebration complete with circus animals and a marching band and a Blue Angels flyover. It’s going to be a while before that happens.* Still, I am happy today.
My total loss since a few days before the surgery is now 69.6 pounds. I’d really like to round that up to 70, but no. Let’s be literal with this number. I don’t mind being a little fuzzier with the other total though, but I don’t have to today. The total weight loss since my first check in at the weight loss clinic is now 90.2 pounds. Let me spell that out once more time. NINETY POUNDS!
NINETY POUNDS!
My next check up at the clinic is tomorrow afternoon. I assume they are going to weigh me when I get there. That number will be higher than today’s number (I assume), and I am wondering if I want to include it on my tracker or not. I think it would be a more “official” number than today’s due to the likelihood that the scale is more accurate, and because it’s the same scale I used for both my initial weigh in in January, and the last weigh in before the surgery… But I really don’t want to see that number drop below 90 due to some technicality.
So in summation, allow me to share that I feel fantastic. My energy level… I feel 10 years younger. I can exercise without feeling like I am going to die. I don’t have to stop and rest when I walk for 10 feet. It’s amazing. Yeah, my clothes don’t fit anymore and I look like a clown, but that will be at least partially addressed over the weekend. I still eat too fast and that has kicked my sorry ass a few times now. Nausea is not fun, but I have not been bad enough to take the nausea medication they prescribed for me at the hospital. I just feel great, and I can’t wait to see how I feel with each new week.
*On the Bariatric Surgery Facebook group I have learned that folks refer to the drop from 200 to 199 pounds as Onederland. If I reach Onederland I think I will look like an anorexic. That is too far for me to consider. I think that would make me unhealthy on the other end of the spectrum. Still… Onederland. Sounds pretty engaging.
Inside the Red Head's Head 