10/26/2015 Changes (Trigger Warning: Suicide Discussion)

Boy are there a lot of changes so far. Sorry for the long delay in posting on here about the surgery. Things have been busy with recovery and follow up appointments. First the news about the surgery and then we'll get into the bulk of the topic I wanted to discuss today.

The surgery was a resounding success. The doctors called it one of the easiest sleeves they have ever done, despite my size. Very little in the way of  complications and I was off of meds rather quickly. In fact things were going so well that for a while I was wondering when the other shoe would drop. About 2 weeks in it happened. I ended up getting a UTI. I didn't have a catheter during the surgery (that I know of) so it wasn't from that. It was probably from infrequent urination from not drinking enough. I did end up having a catheter from that one which... sucked. I had some bad reactions to the liquid meds so I ended up taking solid pills there after and it was fine. But I ended up with a second UTI about a week after the first which had a different bacteria causing it. That's all taken care of though.

On the weight side of thing, I'm down to 569 as of the 8th of this month. They expect me to be down another 50 pounds by the 12th of next month (potentially) so things are on good track there. Physically I've been feeling a lot better, being more flexible and the like. I've been getting more headaches but that side of things is going well.

What I wasn't prepared for is the sheer emotional side of things. I was riding a high for a good long while, but about 3 weeks in I had a severe crash. Those of you on my facebook may have noticed my talks about profound sadness and the like. Things got really bad and have been really bad emotionally. My mood is all over the place. At times I'm perfectly fine and happy go lucky and then without a moments notice I've been crying.

The good news is... I'm not feeling quite as terrible as things were in college. I've not been dealing with the same level of suicidal tendencies I was there. I've had the occasional thought crop up, but I've managed to push them aside pretty well. Still, because there have been such things, I've vacated my room of all medicine except my daily medication containers. I have removed the bulk of the meds to prevent any rash emotional decisions in case I get worse. I don't think anything is going to happen. I really just mention it here because I wanted to take a moment to encourage anyone who even has the occasional thought. Talk to someone, it can help. And if you have the occasional thought, consider removing the things that could potentially be an avenue for you to do something. Remove sharp objects and lock them away in a drawer, similarly lock away your medicines. If you make it harder to get to, it acts as a physical barrier against a terrible thing. There is help and contacting a crisis line can be beneficial.

Needless to say, I've been dealing with a lot of this. My therapist is coming over a lot more and I've started going in to see a therapist in my doctor's clinic and my doctor is putting me in contact with a psychiatrist to deal with med management. Right now I'm just trying to take it one day at a time. We are focusing right now on getting it to where I can sleep as poor sleep and nightmares make just all the physical and emotional problems worse.

What also isn't helping, the last big change that I wanted to discuss, is that I feel like I'm going through a second puberty. As a warning, this could develop into TMI things so if you haven't been scared away by my sharing yet, well this is your last shot to look away.

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Okay so the first thing I noticed is I am getting harrier. It isn't so much effecting my arms as it is my legs, especially my thighs. But also, mostly in the groin area. I mean dear god it snuck up on me until I was finally like, what the hell, it's a forest down there (hence the picture with this article). I mean, I've never had issues with it in the past, but today for the first time I thought, 'shit, I need to shave down there too'. At the very least, I think I need to give it a trim.

This has also come with it the -other- aspect of puberty and that is the fact that my libido has felt off the charts. I mean, I've always been a romantic and longed for love, but those who knew me knew I've always been painfully shy and all of that so rarely acted upon things. Right now it feels all a lot more intense and it's been a bit rough at times. I've found myself being flirtier with people, which then is making me feel super awkward.

Also I don't know if this is what is going on, but my testes have been getting in the way a lot more. It could be that weight loss has just stopped... pressing them in with my fat and keeping them in place. Or maybe they are just hanging down lower, but I've gone to sit a couple of times and started to smash them. I've become increasingly worried about hurting them. I may have to, as soon as I can, switch back to briefs just to keep things nice and snug and secure.

I think it all comes down to testosterone. My body was used to making testosterone for a man who was about 850 pounds a year ago. In a year I've lost almost 300 pounds. Even if my body adjusted gradually through a lot of that, I've lost over 80 pounds in the last month alone. My body is producing a lot of extra testosterone than what it is used to pound for pound and that could be causing these effects. I'm not sure if it will even out or when it will even out, but for right now, it's making things awkward.

There just have overall been a lot of physical and emotional changes. Some are definitely for the better, others are requiring more work to get through, but they will be got through I think.

photo credit: Bosque en Acadia via photopin (license)

9-16-2015 POST SURGERY UPDATE!

You read that correct and if you follow my facebook you know that I had my surgery! I am now the proud owner of a smaller gastric sleeve. Apparently the second surgeon that they wanted to have there just in case, wasn't needed and he just operated the video camera through the entire thing (I have not seen the video). The physician assistant who saw me in the hospital told me that everything went very well and seemed to go by the book. They repaired a hiatal hernia while they were in there and I was out pretty quickly.

This was my first real surgery. I don't really count my wisdom teeth being taken out or the little procedure on my toe as surgery. So this was an entirely new experience for me. I ended up going in bright and early and got there at 5 o'clock.  They took me into the shot term stay area where they took my vitals and got me ready for the surgery and all of that fun stuff. I also got the most adorable red socks and it was awesome. I love my red socks. I then was taken into the surgery room and there were a lot of people in there and I remember getting put on the bed and then pretty much from there I was out.

The next thing I knew I was in my hospital room and they almost immediately had me drinking fluids. They also gave me this little cup of ice with a sponge on a stick to rub around in my mouth to moisten it. I called it my water popsicle stick. I was in and out a lot on the first day, but they had me sitting up fairly soon. I also ended up getting woken up all the time, but it all ended up being okay.

Next day I was on protein shakes and they gave me some tomato soup and by early afternoon I was on my way home. All in all I was in the hospital less than thirty six hours. Apparently I was a model patient and the surgery went through fine. I went into this expecting there to be a tone of complications, but so far, knock on wood, there are none. I ended up sleeping that afternoon when I got back and then woke up middle of the night. I went back to sleep and today I am back in the swing of things.

I am surprised at how well my pain is controlled, it isn't so bad. It flares up and I have a hard time moving, but i'm able to get up and walk around the house slowly and I am able to do most of my drinking okay. However, they want me to take in 195 grams of protein a day and I figured out in order to do it it will take 12 hours of just drinking protein shakes at a rate of 1 oz every 15 minutes (the rate they want me to drink). For those who are curious why they want me at 195 grams of protein a day, it comes from a calculation of my body weight x .3 and the result is the grams of protein I should have. As I lose weight this number will go down, but for now that is a massive number and I am not sure I can do it. I also need to get in liquids like water as well. I can get a lot of this from the protein shakes, but I need some on its own as well.  It's going to take some work to balance out.

The other big thing that I am struggling with is my pills. I can't swallow any pills bigger than 5 millimeters in diameter. I tried to swallow my aspirin which is 7 mm in diameter and it hurt for the next hour or so. (in fact it still hurts, it's part of what prompted this retrospective). I'm going to have to cut up a lot of pills. In the hospital I tried eating a bit of this pudding of a flavor I don't know what it is with all of my meds chopped up and ground and mixed into it, but I couldn't tolerate it. The taste was really off. I think it was a vanilla or tapioca, which I can't tolerate anyway. We ended up picking up some sugar free chocolate pudding and those pills I can't just cut into a smaller size to take, we'll try grinding up in bits of that and see how it goes. Next step beyond this will be seeing if the doctor can find us liquid versions of any of these. Thankfully, in time my med needs will be going down and thus I won't have as big of an issue. But what was already 20-25 meds a day, when you consider more than half of them need to be cut in two (or more. my iron supplement is in quarters) that's a lot of pills I have to swallow.

In time my stomach size will grow until it is about the size of a tennis ball and when that happens, I'll be able to take in a bit more pills and things like that and my rates of eating will increase until i'm on a more normal schedule. But for right now, for the next 4-6 weeks, it's going to be a lot of careful balancing the whole way through. There are no regrets though. This was what we needed to do, this is what I needed to do. Perhaps it's just a trick of the imagination, but there are parts of my skin where already it seems like it is starting to shrivel up and become looser. I'm taking in next to know calories at the moment and that is going to pay dividends early. Just can't get too attached to this rate of weight loss.

photo credit: three day's in hospital with the not so little one... via photopin (license)

9-5-2015 A Letter to Fat Shamers (Warning: Language)

Dear Fat Shamers,

You are right. Oh how right you are. I am fat. I am a lard ass. I am a fat ass. Hell, I'm just a plain old ass. I've let myself go, my body has gone to all sorts of hell. My weight has gone up and down so many times you would think that it had a yo-yo sponsorship. I can't help but get out of breath when I walk even a minimal distance to you.

I am disgusting. I know it, I see it in the mirror every day. I know how hard it must be for you to look at me. I have a hard enough time looking at myself and I only have to deal with that every now and then. I get it in just bits and pieces, what will fit in the mirror or what I see when I look down. I haven't seen my feet in years.

It's all my fault. You are right, it is all my fault. I let myself get this way. I am the master of my own destiny and I should have had the self control to stop myself from getting this way. I didn't need to eat the extra food. It's just SO EASY. I'm doing it to myself. I should know better. Those commercial's, they aren't for me. They are for you, for those who can handle it. I should know better than to pay attention.

I'm sorry for getting in your way. The world wasn't built for me and I know that. On the plain I should buy more seats. Or better yet I shouldn't even be on the plane. I know, fat people, we just sweat more, we stink more and we shouldn't be an inconvenience to you and the other people on the plane who have paid for it. How dare we? You are right though, when I do go out I should get a beeper, just to let people know when I'm backing up. I've never heard that one before. You are both witty and insightful.

I know you care for me. You only say this because you want to help me. If I just acted better, you wouldn't have to treat me like the human filth that I am. I know what trash I am. When I wake up in the morning I remind myself of it every day. Of what this is doing to my friends and my family. The pain that what I am, of who I am is causing them. I see it when they drink themselves to bed every night. I see it when they smoke to get away from me. It's my fault. I've done this to them.

And I know, I know that because I am fat, my opinion, my words aren't worth a damn. I mean why should it? I've already proven just how shitty I am. You've shown me the light. And even though I am three or even four times the person that you are, your opinion is worth twice as much, because you've got it all going for you.

You've never had to deal with the things I have.

You've never woken up with a great weight on your chest, being unable to breath.

You've never been in such great physical pain that sometimes it's a wonder you can even move.

You've never had every mistake thrown in your face day in and day out by people who don't even know you.

You've never had everyone look at you WHENEVER you eat like you've KILLED their favorite pet.

You've never realized that no one will ever be a worse critic than yourself.

You've never fought and failed and then had to try and fight again.

Your life is SO FUCKING EASY that you have enough time to come down from your ivory tower to tell ME how messed up MY life is as if it is some new god damned revelation.

You know who fat shaming is for at the end of the day? For you and this uncivil culture we have that acknowledges bullying is wrong, yet somehow thinks it's okay as long as it's against the socially unacceptable. You know, that article you read about that guy who farted in the face of that kid who was a brat to his mother, because he's a real hero! He's putting that kid in his place, bullying the brat who needs to change his life, to get him to change it! Or how about that guy who posed as target customer service to troll and insult at all of the people who got upset when Target removed gender from it's toy and linen departments. He was great, getting at all of those intolerant jerks! It's all in good fun and funny, so it's okay! Lets cheer them on! You are there just trying to have a laugh, or point out how stupid they are, point out their faults and maybe that will fix them. Maybe you will really fix me and my life. Because obviously...

 I'm the one who has that empty life.

I'm the one who is wasting my life.

I'm the one who is wasting everyone's time.

You know... some days, you actually have me believing it.

And I know you are sitting to yourself thinking that I don't get it.

Or you are sitting there wondering where the talk of incivility comes from given my cursing?

The thing is... I do get it. I do know.

The point is that you don't know ME. The -real- me.

You -may- well be trying to help.

But you aren't.

Food addiction is REAL.

My pain is REAL.

My life is REAL.

I deserve as much respect as anyone else.

Before you go casting those stones, imagine how you would feel if someone did this to YOU. Without knowing your story.

photo credit: SHAME! via photopin (license)

6-18-15 The 600 Club

I mentioned this on my facebook, sorry about the delay in posting this. Been having a mix of feeling under the weather and devoting a lot of my time to working out. We've been trying to up my activity levels of what I am doing and while the feeling ill has kicked some of that, we have been doing as much as we can. But I am here, just got back from an appointment and I am raring to go.

First and foremost, I just got back from meeting with my surgeon. I have finally rejoined the 600 club. I'm down another 34.8 pounds and am at 674.6. I'm within 25 pounds of my surgery weight. I am right on track with the goals we had set and the surgeon is very happy about the progress.

I didn't get the pre-surgical class today. That was mainly because they wanted to do it as close to the surgery as possible. I still don't know exactly when that will be yet. They are having to work with another surgeon as they want two surgeons there for the procedure. Currently they are looking at as soon as a month from now for the surgery, though up to two months depending on how the scheduling goes. Two weeks before the surgery I'll have my class.

Though we didn't have the class, I did learn more about the surgery. I know where it is going to be at now. Also the surgeon is confident I won't need to have a trache-tube put in, which is a wonderful relief. They expect the surgery to take an hour and a half for me. It usually takes around an hour, but they are giving extra time, because of the difficulty of my size.

I'm right on track and doing everything right and it really is a great big load off my mind. I find it funny that I lost the -exact- same amount of weight as I did last time, even though I am eating almost a thousand calories more than before. I guess I'm burning more efficiently and healthily right now, so that is good. I'll enjoy it while it lasts. Very soon I'll be on all liquids once it comes time for the surgery. It's been forever since I've had tomato soup, but I'll have to give it a try. I can also have the sugar free Gatorade, so I'll have to give that a try sometime.

As for the new exorcise plan I mentioned, we've been adjusting it so that I am doing more and more of my exercises while I am standing up as opposed to sitting and laying down. this will help with my balance and core as well as just my normal stamina. I'm also transitioning my walks to be a bit further, going into the kitchen and wearing my shoes for every walking period, so I'm getting some transitions in the floor I'm walking on, getting used to wearing shoes more. It's putting more strain on my body, but it's really helping too.

It ended up coming in handy today. The elevator that we usually use to get to my appointment was out of service, so I had to get off of the gurney and go get into another elevator because the gurney wouldn't fit and ended up walking down the hallway from the office on the way back out. So got a bit more walking in and it it wasn't for the extra effort we have been doing, I wouldn't have been able to do it.

Things are progressing really well and though I have been very anxious all week, tonight I am feeling really good and really happy. We are very close to this surgery. My surgeon said she didn't think we would get here (likely because of my past up and down) but she acknowledged I've really committed and I've been working hard. There is something very self satisfying about having someone admit you proved them wrong. It's a new day.

photo credit: Sonoran sunset via photopin (license)

5-25-2015 Obstacles

When we do anything, there are going to be obstacles. It is a fact of life. Some of them are bigger and some of them are smaller. And we have to find a way to deal with them. Most of the time we have to power through them, find a way to work around them and keep on going. Sometimes the obstacles are big enough that they stop us in our tracks. Yet when that happens, we have to find a way to get back on track soon enough and put that obstacle behind ourselves.

Today I found myself in one of the latter situations. For those who are not aware, I have PTSD. It's part of the reason that got me into the shape I am in today, subconsciously though it contributed. It's been an active part of my life since high school when it came to the forefront of my life.

Today it was the nightmares. I think they were worse than they have been in a good long while. I am not going to get into the details about what the dreams were about or entailed. Suffice it to say that it made for a harrowing night with little real rest. For all that it is psychological in nature, there is still a physical effect and toll on the body. For me today it has been exhaustion, wooziness from a lack of any real restful sleep and a physical pain in my body. My body was tense from everything going on in my dreams and when I woke up I got to deal with that tenseness. I got through the first half of my exercises, the ones where I was seated, but when I tried standing up or to go on a walk I nearly fell because I was so woozy and my body just wouldn't move.

As a result of that I decided to try sleeping today and resting. It ended up leading to more nightmares, but on the balance I ended up getting -some- more rest. I'm still stiff, but slowly it's getting better. The important thing that I had to recognize about today though was that today was a time when I just couldn't do the things I would normally do. This is something that my physical therapist and I have talked about. Recognizing what my body is telling me and knowing when to step back a little.

However, I cannot and we cannot use that as an excuse to be lazy if we aren't feeling up for it. We still have to try and sometimes if we do a little bit we can start to feel better. It's about learning to read our bodies rather than letting our mind dictate. And it is important that tomorrow I get right back on the horse, as it were and get back to working out again tomorrow.

Today is just an obstacle, a stumbling block, but in the greater scheme of things, it is going to end up being a minor blip that will be forgotten about and I will be on my way again and doing better. The goal is still in sight and a small slip won't prevent me from getting there, it won't prevent you from getting where you are going either. You just have to pick yourself back up, dust yourself off and keep on going.

photo credit: Innocent X via photopin (license)

5-20-2015 Glorious Outdoors

This is really  more of a mini-update than anything else. But I wanted to share my exciting new journey in exercising today as well as the first pictures of me on the blog. I was sort of nervous about sharing these. I have some serious body issues. However, I thought it was such a great achievement, that I had to share.

Today, for the second time in the last week, I went out walking outside. Overall, the length of my walk wasn't any further than what I usually do, in fact it was less than I usually do, but I did some walking over uneven terrain and walked further without my wheelchair than normal. My wheelchair is standing by and I sat down on it fairly often to rest before I kept walking, but it just felt great to get outside.

I spend 95% of my time cloistered in my house, and 85% of that time in my room. I get out for appointments only really and getting out there and breathing the fresh air was just something amazing to me. I never noticed how thick the air is inside and just how different it is until I went outside and came back in. I am anxiously awaiting the chance to go back outside and walk some more.

We are taking things slowly, however. Safety is the byword that my physical therapist is having us live by, and with good reason. If I push too hard and fall, we can set back all of the good work we have done.  As it stands, we've made amazing strides. I've got these pictures from late March even and the changes are quite something. Albeit, some of it is distorted by my sitting, but never the less you can still see some real changed there.

We worked really hard and tried out different things to deal with that lymph edema on my ride side. The lobe is still there, but it is massively deflated right now and that is making my whole exercise and walking routine that much easier because it isn't throwing off my balance as much. This means I can walk more safely and now that it is a lot smaller, I can fit my clothing better as well.

It's hard to believe that the two pictures represent just a little under two months and about 50 pounds of difference. It could be the angle of the shot with me sitting down, but I just seem a lot bigger in that. Maybe I am putting on muscle under there, which is why it isn't a more drastic weight loss. I've been rapidly increasing my weight and reps with exercises. Averaging one more rep on each one a day.

Today we just overhauled a lot of my physical therapy, stream lined it so that some of the beginning exercises just to help me get initial movement are now being replaced by exercises that require a bit more effort. My physical therapist is really happy with the progress. She said I made some of the exercises just look easy. My routine should now be a bit leaner, meaner and really help build the strength I need to keep exercising more.

I have my appointment for my pre-surgical class scheduled for the 18th of June and I'm really looking forward to that. Hopefully they see the work I've done and we will be on track for the surgery sometime in july/august.

5-18-2015 Warning: It gets Icky

I said above it gets icky and I'm giving another warning here for those who might not want to venture into the realm of TMI. I plan on discussing some of the perhaps less talked about aspects of weight loss, its effects and also just some of the general stuff that people have to go through in this process. It will involve body issues and medical stuff. And as a reminder, I'm not a doctor, I'm not in the medical industry, I'm only relating my own experiences with my own weight loss journey. Others might experience things slightly differently, or may not even have the same issues. But be warned, it does get a little bit icky.

For those who know me well, sometimes when I get obsessive about something I tend to research it a lot. One of the things that I also do is I just start doing math. It's funny, I did a lot of advanced math stuff in highschool, got to college and went, screw math, lets go full into theatre and english. Not that I didn't do both in high school, I did a lot, but for those who knew me in college, they probably never got that side of me except in my gaming aspects.

But anyway, this has caused me to read a lot and do a lot of random calculations, like the estimated weight of certain body parts (128 pounds for each leg), my estimated skin weight (around 130 pounds) so that I can gauge different things, like how much weight I lift when I do my leg lifts, how much weight will be gone when I remove my excess skin (about 100 pounds or so). I just need to know and sort of explain the things that I am going through and am feeling. that is where I came across this wonderful article about where the fat goes.

I always knew to an extent that a good portion of it goes out through the air we breath, I knew this from the REE that I had done and it just made sense. And I've always had my doctors talking about the potential for water retention affecting weight loss in a given week or so. I won't link anything about the water retention research I did, it just made me more confused as there seem to be a lot of different schools of thought on it in relation to weight loss specifically. However, this did make me come to another realization about how this relates to something else I am going through and this is where things get a bit icky.

Diarrhea. The average person goes between once every three days to three times a day when everything is normal. Above that and if it is liquidy it is diarrhea. I have noticed, especially as I've been losing weight that I've been going to the bathroom a lot more. I mean, I've always peed a lot thanks to diabetes, it is part of the reason I have trouble sleeping at night because diabetes causes you to pee more. Now it is even more so and I've had lots and lots of number twos that are mostly or all liquid. Now it seems that it may simply be an effect of weight loss as my body is pushing out the water aspect of my weight loss. It kind of makes your perspective change a little bit while you are going for your fifth time in a day. Then again, it is also exhausting having that need.

The worst has been when I've been in mid workout and  things start to move. Our society is so afraid to talk about theses sorts of things that you never really hear much about it or read much about it. When I first was experiencing it I wasn't able to really find much of anything, other than a few 'hushed' conversations about "runner's diarrhea" on some forums. But those weren't really credible as I wasn't able to find any science to back them up. While my own theory is conjecture, I'm at least basing it on the science of that above article and it does make sense in its own way. As I lose more weight, I'm probably going to be experiencing this more and more.

On a different end of the spectrum, one thing I will have to be careful about going forward is skin issues. In the weight loss surgery community, it is well known about excess skin being an issue and some embrace it and show it off, others will hide it, many get surgery to have the excess skin removed. It means a lot of different things to different people. One thing that comes with it though is the increased risk of yeast infections.

At my size, I have those, a lot. It is more than just uncomfortable, it is physically painful and if left unchecked could prove to be dangerous to my health. As my skin begins to be less taut, it produces more crevices and folds that are going to be dark and hot and with my increased working out, they get wet easily which just proves to be a breeding ground for the yeast infections. As i work, the worse it is going to get and the more painful it is going to get. I think that is one of the things that many overlook about weight loss. those who say 'it is just discipline' Well, yes, discipline plays into it, but you have your own body working against you in many ways making it difficult.

Albeit, I may have my situation be more pronounced, just due to my size, but it still remains an issue. I know that I for one am going to be having the surgery to remove the excess skin later and I hope to be able to donate it to burn victims. I've got type O blood and I've wanted to donate my blood for a long time, but haven't been able to, due to my weight. But maybe my excess skin, when the time comes, can do a lot of good for some people.

I have one month until my pre-surgical class. I should know then about when I will be having my surgery. I will keep my fingers crossed.

photo credit: expecting this? via photopin (license)

5-7-15 Another Step Closer

I am sorry that I wasn't able to post earlier this week. Things have been super hectic here, with appointments out the wazoo. I've been seeing physical therapists and nurses and the whole lot and I've been exhausted from everything. Sleep schedule has been all out of whack so I've been taking naps in my brief periods of free time during the day.

Today I had my REE and my weigh in. I was nervous going in and had some mixed feelings about it at first, but in the end, things were looking very positive. First off, my REE. I am burning, at rest, 3600 calories per day. With my current diet of between 2500-3000 calories a day, that is right where I need to be. That plus my exercise should do me well for carrying me through the rest of this. I am still nervous, as this is going to slow my weight loss and it already has in some ways. However, that may not matter too much now.

My current weight is 709.4. I lost 34.8 pounds in the last 5 weeks. It's less than I lost at my last weigh in in 3 weeks, but this weight loss seems to be more of a healthy weight loss than before and they are pleased with the progress. They were so pleased in fact that I actually got to sit down with the surgeon today to talk about it. This is the first time I've seen her in three years.

My cousin had a lap bad with Dr Patterson and said she was a very stern woman and the meeting was actually very positive to me. She seemed happy and her staff came in after she left to tell me that she was very happy with how I was going. They made the decision to seek approval for the surgery right now. The goal is to see them again in 4-6 weeks. That will be a general check in like we usually do, but they also want to do my pre-surgical class then as well and make that my last appointment before surgery. I am guessing that that means, so long as I keep on track and don't go up and keep on losing, I am 2-3 months away from surgery, depending on when the approvals get in and what they decide.

Only one more appointment pre-surgery. I am still in a bit of shock about it. I mean, I've always been hoping that would be the case, since I lost the 37 pounds in that three weeks. But I guess I never expected it. Now that the reality is here, it's shocking, but also I am nervous. This is going to be big and it is great for me. I just need to keep at it.

We discussed the surgery options between a traditional bypass and a gastric sleeve. We decided on the sleeve because it is safer and later can be transitioned into something else. The traditional bypass can produce greater weight loss, but the sleeve will be better for me for now and I can always do a band or bypass later if it isn't enough.

I've come a long way in this journey so far. I've had my weight fluctuate up and down, but since October it has steadily been coming down. I've lost about 140 pounds through my diet and exercise since October. They still want me to get as close to 650 as possible or even 600 if possible, but it seems that we are in the final leg of the journey before surgery. Just have to keep it up until then.

scale photo:photo credit: Bathroom Scale via photopin (license)

4-30-2015 The Uggghs

Don't let the photo fool you, I'm not in a hospital or anything like that. It's just one of those photo's I found that seemed to fit how I feel right now. Today is a day which I have for a while now (about 5 minutes) have affectionately dubbed the Uggghs. This is by no means a medical term or anything overtly specific, but more of just the way I am feeling right now. Part sick, part anxious, part exhausted and just feeling down in the dumps. I feel like that hospital bed, functional, but unkempt and uncomfortable.

Yesterday I met with the nutritionist and we discussed my diet. Apparently my endocrinologist is estimating I need 4000-4600 calories right now and a metric ton of protein. The protein I was aware of, but that calorie level had never entered into any of our discussions. This is a temporary estimate until we can get the REE (resting energy expenditure) done next week, but it is still quite a big change from the 2200-2500 I have been getting right now. They are worried that I am going to start having muscle wasting if I don't eat enough calories and that my body will go into starvation mood.

The nutritionist wants me to get in another 1000 calories a day in the form of 500 calorie meals at breakfast and lunch in addition to my usual shakes. On the one hand, this seems reasonable. I want to lose my weight healthily, I don't want to go about it in such a way that I am hurting myself. On the other hand, 1000 calories a day is a lot more than I have been doing on most days and i'm really worried about this negatively impacting my weight loss in general. They say that if my metabolism goes into starvation mode and slows down, that I will lose weight less efficiently, but I can't help but be frightened about this screwing up my timeline for surgery.

I've just been so focused on this really strict diet and really strict activity regimen for the last two months and I have to admit, I am starting to get utterly exhausted. I don't know how much of it is psychological because of what they are telling me (both with me letting my brain feel exhausted because they say it might be weakening me as well as my just anxiety about what this will do to me if I increase my calories making me feel sick).I don't know how much of it is just the truth of what they are saying setting in or something else all together.

I just know that I am in the home stretch right now, less than 100 pounds to go towards surgery and I want to be there this summer getting it. I want to get out of this house. I want to wave my nerd flag and be there opening night of Star Wars. I want to be able to do so much, but am terrified of any change that might end up causing me to throw that off.

Today hasn't been a big help. I feel sick, I've been feeling nauseous off and on all day today. It seems to happen the most when I think about my diet and everything related to it, so it probably -is- psychological. Then again, our neighbors are getting sick and they come over quite often to visit my mother and sister. My sister isn't feeling well either. I could just be having a bug that is exacerbating all of this.

However which way you wish to cut it though, my physical therapist put me on a reduced schedule for today and tomorrow to try and give me a chance to recover. She is also trying to get the mental health nurse out here, because they didn't see me this week and apparently they are swamped right now. I need that mental health care to help try and keep on track.

This is a time, and it is a big part of the uggghs, where I tend to second guess myself all the time. I feel like I've been downhill all week since my birthday and I don't know if that is just circumstances or if I have messed myself up in some way down the line. It feels like my anxiety is out of control. I've been trying what I can to distract myself, to meditate as best I can. I have never been all that good at it. And mainly, I just try and remind myself that next Thursday I have my weigh in and my REE. I can do this modified diet until then and we can refine it and then I will see where I am in my weight loss goal. As much as I want to get there ahead of schedule, I have two more months to get where I want to go and that could be simply 30 pounds per month which at this point isn't too hard to accomplish. I just have to stay focused.

One thing I am going to do my damnedest not to do is to turn to food during this time of the uggghs, that is the worst thing possible. that I could do. I will have something nice that fits within my calorie restrictions, but it will be within the restrictions. Maybe I will buy myself a new game to distract myself with in my free time. I've been looking at GTA V for a while for the PC and it is the start of a new month here so my very very limited entertainment budget should be able to just accomodate it.

photo credit: three day's in hospital with the not so little one... via photopin (license)

4-25-15 Status Report

I made myself a promise that I would do my best to update twice a week and here I am. That's a plus right there in my book, I managed to remember it. I've been finding of late that my mind is scatter brained. I think it's because I'm getting old. (birthday was last Friday, more on that later). This is a valuable tool for me to be able to express what is going on with my program and be able to vent issues that I might not necessarily be able to.

Honestly, I think that is one of the biggest problems I've had to deal with, properly venting and expressing my emotions and dealing with them. I grew up attending the school of suppression and trying to keep everything locked away and ignore it. Invariably it would get out eventually in some way. Sometimes it would be in passive aggressive behavior (something I think happens a lot in my family in general) and other times I've turned to food. Food is a great sedative, soothing the nerves and as a reward to make ones self feel better. The problem is, that isn't healthy. One can very easily become dependent on that food high and that is what leads to addiction. That is one thing where I have to be very very careful with it. I don't want to cut out special foods entirely, I think that will make me get -way- too antsy, but I need to have them as a nice, once in a while treat, not to eat away my pain. I think I am doing better on that point, but there are always going to be times when it crops up.I hope though, that as time goes on, that urge can be lessened and lessened until it is easier to say no.

Fridays, as usual, are my cheat days and we did something a little more special this Friday. We ordered pizza from Pizza Schmizza, a local place that I love and we bought some appetizers from the store. It was weird, because I think my mother ate more than I did. We both commented that I ate less in two sittings that day (we started off around noon and let it go into evening so had the same food for dinner) than I used to eat in one sitting. It's a great step and shows that I am slowly reducing the amount I eat even on these days when I allow myself to eat more. I am making progress there.

The next day, because I had taken a break from most of my exercises the previous day, I felt great, rejuvenated and hit my exercises in stride. things seemed to be going pretty well.I was doing well, my mood was great. I was pumped and ready to keep on everything. Then there was a bit of miscommunication at home.  My walking path that evening was very very crowded with animals and things and I asked if we could move my  mother's walker when it was blocking my wheelchair (my home base where I sit between sets of laps) and she got upset and made a comment about not being allowed to have anything anywhere. Which just isn't the case. She's upset because our house is crowded and she is sharing a room with my sister and they don't have a lot of space in there and it wasn't directed at me and was momentary. But the part of my that struggles with not feeling like I am a burden really took a hit that night and even though we talked it out I was rattled for most of the day. I ended up taking the wrong meds that night and doubling down on all of my daytime medicines and missing my night ones.

It threw me off for all of the rest of that night and Sunday. I was in pain, I wasn't able to do as much, I was feeling ill because of the meds. It all started with something so simple as that. It also scared me a little. I have forgotten meds before, but I've never accidentally taken the same meds again before and I don't want to make that mistake ever again. it also just reminds me how fragile what we've strung together for me here is. We're doing great, but this is by no means a solid platform and can't go on forever, which is part of why I really need that surgery.

Eventually with that, I can take my walking outside, not having to worry about taking up the living room. With the surgery, I'll be able to go out and od things for fun. Instead of rewarding myself with food, I could reward myself with a movie or going to an arcade or even just going window shopping. And when I get stressed and upset and cooped up, I could try and leave the house. At this point my desire to get away from the stress at times outweigh's my agoraphobia. I need to work hard and get there.

And I am working hard. I did my first quad lap of my living room today. That's a total of 200 feet without sitting down. That's the furthest I have been able to walk in -forever-. I paired that with increasing my laps to 20 total laps of the living room in each session. That is a total of 2000 feet a day just during my walking sessions. Which isn't a lot for normal people, but for me is a big deal.

I go to get weighed on May 7th, so we will get to see how all of this work has played out. Though, I am also a bit worried about how it is going to go. I have had some rough points, but I know this is probably just my same usual worry coming into play and not anything truly real.  On that day, they are going to be performing an REE (Resting Energy Expendiature) during which I will have to lay down for about an hour with a big bubble over my head and just breath, not moving, not sleeping, just lay there and breath and it will tell them how many calories I burn before taking into account calories burned to eat (which is a thing) or moving or anything else.

They are doing this, because they are wanting to fine tune my diet. I don't know if they are just worried I lost too much too quickly, or if it is something else, but now I have started hearing from the dietitian that is coming out tomorrow and from the nurse that the weight loss clinic might be wanting me to take in -more- calories than I currently am, to make sure that I remain healthy. Which I know I want to be healthy, but there is a part of me that is terrified of them wanting me to eat more. I don't want to rock the boat if this is working. Then again, if I need it, I could feel better and more energized to do my work. I guess we just have to wait and see.

photo credit: karate image via photopin (license)

4-22-2015 It's ALIVE!!!

And finally my computer is back alive. I can finally start devoting more time to writing once again. I am going to try and not let it slide. My goal is to try and post twice a week at least, more if I can do so. But finally the frankencomputer is working. Thank the lord!

I am starting to feel a bit Frankenstein like myself in some ways. Not from the composed of other bits of other peoples, but more in that I feel like so much of what we are doing with my diet and exercise program is just cobbled together. My size and weight aren't all that common. So uncommon that people my size might often end up being the subjects of the rare television special or series of news articles.

The methods for dealing with our sets of circumstances are often guess work because when you get to such extremes, it can be really hard to get a definitive plan together with so few chances to refine it. For me, while most people my size would be facing tons of heart issues, I've been very lucky in having virtually no heart issues. I've suffered from high blood pressure, but it is very controlled. My Diabetes is also very controlled. I am also very lucky in that I can still walk. That is perhaps the biggest thing. But still I cannot walk far enough to get into a car or a wheelchair van or anything to get to appointments, so we have to make do, using ambulances. My walking regimen involves lots of resting. My physical therapist and I are literally adjusting things every time they come over which has been three times a week just because there is no handbook for this.

My diet. I had thought that was fairly set, but now I'm hearing from my nurses that they are rethinking it at the weight loss clinic, worrying I may not be getting -enough- protein and nutrition to help maintain muscle mass as I lose weight; which baffles me. It's this delicate balance that is trying to be achieved and I just pray that we can maintain it until we can get through to the other side.

I am heartened though. I read this great article about a british man who was 950 pounds. He had gastric bypass surgery and now he's a lot smaller, but he is dealing with his skin folds. he has made it, he has changed his life around and he was even bigger than me. That's not something that I can really say that often about people.  It also reminds me of what I am going to have to face eventually, with my excess skin. I was staggered to learn he had over a hundred pounds of extra skin on his body and it makes me realize that all of my excess weight, it isn't just the weight, it's the weight of how my body has adapted to support its self. I am likely going to have a similar, though slightly less amount of skin to be removed, but in a way that will be the easiest almost a hundred pounds I'll ever lose. If you haven't read the article, please do. That man is an inspiration, quite literally to me.

I am glad that I am making this journey. My only regret is that it has taken me so long to get to this point in my life. So very very long. But better late than never. I will get down in size and soon I'll be able to go out and do things again, spend time with people. I'm already walking better and better. I've doubled my laps in the last month and some change. I'm exercising more, doing more and feeling better. My physical therapist has even cobbled together a way to help the lymph edema in my abdomen. So things are improving. I get weighed again in two weeks. Really focused on that. though this friday I am taking a bit of a break from all of the work the last few months to celebrate my birthday. Not going to go -too- over board, just treating it like a cheat day, just one that we are celebrating my birthday on. It's perfect timing.

photo credit: Frankenstein via photopin (license)

4-12-2015 Food Addiction

First I wanted to say that I am sorry for the lack of posts this last week. My computer started having some pretty serious issues and I had to end up packing it off and sending it to get repaired. The computer I am on is my older one and I've had to spend some time getting it up and running and updated and all of that. Plus in general it has just been a crazy week. Should get my main computer back in a week or two. We'll see. estimated time once they get it is 5-10 days.

This has been an especially rough week for me. I am not quite sure of what specifically is the cause of it. It didn't start immediately, but right around Easter is when it started for me and it's really progressed since then. It is likely a combination of things that has helped contribute to it. Though the most visible effect has been for me trying to deal with the food addiction.

This week has been very rough for me for wanting to cheat on the diet and have other foods.People always say it's just a choice, it just takes willpower. And yes it does take willpower, but it isn't so -easy- as that. Food addiction is a very real thing. When I get to wanting something I don't just have an urge and have to tell myself no. I feel my palms get sweaty and I actually start to get shaky as I tell myself no. I've had to clasp my hands really tightly together and tuck them under myself because I've been wanting these extra special foods that aren't good for me.

The closest I have come to going off is that I did allow myself a beef jerky bit on a day when I had missed a shake due to a nap I took and I needed just an added punch of protein. That helped curb the desire a little, but I am reminded this week that deal with my food addiction is going to be a long term thing and even though I can be good for long periods, I will still get that desire and I will have to fight it. It is a matter of life and death.

I think that the important thing though is not to take the Alcoholics Anonymous approach to addiction. For one thing, I just physically can't. I need to eat and I can't avoid it completely. But also the AA approach seems geared around this idea of if you can't follow the program perfectly it is your own fault. It's very black and white in a world that isn't black and white. And they do nothing to teach healthy relationships and moderation. it breeds an idea that 'oh I fucked up so I might as well just give over big since I've made a mistake' rather than a healthy approach that 'okay you made a mistake, it was a small one, it wasn't a big deal, the issue is when it is -too- much so go back and get back on track.' And that is the approach I am trying to do with food.

That is why I have a Friday cheat day. I've been allowing myself treats on those days to help with teaching me a healthy relationship with food. I have a small dessert on those days, but it's small and it's not big. My cheat days started off with these huge extravagant meals and I've been slowly paring them down. And it has been helping with my diet and my cravings a lot, though this week has been a struggle. I think it is other things contributing tot he issue this week though.

As I said, Easter is when it started and I think that may well be because of how the schedule for the day got messed up for me and how it through me off. I usually have a dinner at 6 o'clock. That is my 'real food' meal of the day when I usually have a lean cuisine or some other small meal. On Easter my family had company over so the plan was to eat at 2 o'clock. As such I skipped my 2pm shake in order to eat. However, dinner kept getting pushed back until it was 4: 30. As such my entire schedule, even with modified got thrown off. I missed shakes and probably ate more as a result of that. And then when 6 o'clock came around, because my body was trained to eat then it quickly became dissatisfied with the shake I drank then. I ended up having 5 crackers that evening at 9 o'clock to quiet my stomach. It wasn't bad for my diet doing that, but it felt like weakness, felt like a failure and the next few days I felt off and was having cravings just from that one day being off.

It hasn't helped that I haven't spoken with a therapist in almost three weeks now. If I don't see one this week it will be the third week in a row come Tuesday where I haven't seen one. We switched to providence home health mental health because the county felt I wasn't being seen enough by my old Psychologist, but this isn't helping either. And I think that not having someone to talk to has been impacting my mental health. Despite my progress with the weight loss, I've been having a lot more mood issues. I've been off and depressed more and pessimistic and that is either coming from my struggles this week with the food desires or is exacerbating those issues.

It also hasn't helped that I have been feeling sick. Maybe it has been brought on by all of this stress, but I've got this throbbing stabbing pain in the right side of my head, I've been running a low grade fever and at times been feeling nauseous. So that has fed the depression and that just makes me feel worse. In the past food has always been something used as a technique to try and help me feel better, food for medicine, just one more aspect of that addiction, so I've been having to push those usual steps to the side and just tough it out.

It's just  really rough. But I'm going to get through this. I have to. I keep trying to tell myself that I can do this. If I am on track for my weight loss goal, I should be around 733 or so. If I am at the same rate of weight loss as during that three week period before this, I am closer to 727. If I can get to 690, I will be able to schedule to see the surgeon and we'll be another step closer to surgery. Just have to tough this out.

4-2-15 The Scale: The Frenemy

Oh the scale. I both love and hate it at times. Really I cannot think of an object that incurs all on its own the same level of fear and dread that a scale does, while also providing this level of joy that is baffling given the terror that it invokes.

My love/hate relationship with the scale has gone on for such a long time. I think it is that way for many people who struggle with their weight. there is no more accurate tool for measuring weight loss than the scale, that we have. Yet even that measurement isn't the most accurate.

I've been told time and time again to be careful and modulate my expectations of my weight loss or lack there of because of muscle gain, because of water retention or a host of other factors. Your weight can fluctuate a couple of pounds every day, even more so when you are at higher weights like I am. So it can be really hard to accurately gauge your weight.

Clothing can be another indicator, but who is to say the clothing isn't stretched. I've had shirts from the same company in the same size fit me differently just because the stretched/shrunk in different fashions. So while clothing can tell over time, it isn't always the best indicator either.

Through my exercise and diet program I have thought I had seen improvements. I thought I was fitting into clothing better. I thought that I might be a bit more flexible. I was certainly doing a lot more exercises, that much was for sure, but I didn't know. Some days I felt less flexible, bloated terrible.

Anxiety and the mind were the biggest factors in this. I have felt like I was working my ass off. And I don't mean the pun, I mean literally I feel like I have been working it off. I have been tired and sweaty and eating barely anything all in the pursuit of my weight loss goal.

Yet I was worried. What if I wasn't meeting my goal weight? How much harder would I have to work if I wasn't, to catch up to what I was going to do. I was terrified of this. I wasn't going to be seen to be weighed until May 7th and I started to panic. I couldn't wait two months to be weighed, so I arranged so that I could be just weighed after 3 weeks from my last appointment.

That three week mark was today. I felt better, knowing I was going to have that buffer where if I wasn't doing things enough, I could somehow, someway work to find a way to do better. I spent today going back and forth between being excited to see how much I would lose, but then dreading the scale reading something low, that I hadn't done enough. I had had it happen before.

I must have nearly thrown up about three times, just from the anxiety today. I was fitful, distracted and so nervous. I got so nervous I started trying on clothes again and questioning, is this fitting better? Oh I haven't worn shoes in a long time, maybe I can wear them comfortably, I've been more stable lately. (it turns out I can now, so that is progress at the very least).

In the end I was nervous and scared and my home care worker Patti, she offered to go with me. But then my mother arrived and said she would go. She's never been able to go to a weigh in with me or any of my appointments and I have been wanting to for a long time, to have that family support. So she went.

And I've been keeping up the suspense long enough. My goal, to be on track for a July 4th weight of 650 pounds was 756.6 pounds. This is 1.18 pounds per day over the course of the last three weeks. I got there and I got on the scale and it was...

....

....

...

....

I'm a bastard...

...

...

...

744.2

That's 37.1 pounds in 3 weeks. 1.766666~ pounds a day. This is the lowest my weight has been in 3 years. I need to lose 94.2 pounds to reach my goal weight in 3 months. If I get within 40 pounds of my goal weight, I can meet with the surgeon. That's about 54 days at the current rate of weight loss. My birthday is in that time so I might be fudging a day so 55 days. That's two months. I could potentially be meeting the surgeon to plan the surgery in June, not July.

I am so relieved and so happy. I have all of this pent up adrenaline from the nerves that have been wracking me since the day started. I am well on track. I am so much closer and for the first time since this journey began, I am within double digits of my goal weight.

photo credit: Bathroom Scale via photopin (license)

3-31-2015 The Little Things

It is a popular saying to not sweat the small stuff. This is then often followed up by the assertion that it is all small stuff. I can see where this phrase and this way of thinking is coming from. Most of the time, the things that we worry about is fairly small on the average. Even when it is a big thing, we shouldn't worry about it because often times we are doing all we can and we just have to let life play out. We'll get through the hard times, brush ourselves off and continue.

Logic is easy when talking existentially. When I am talking about these vague ideas and concepts, or when advice is being offered to others, it is so clear and easy to see and act upon. Yet it is in the execution of the advice where issues tend to arise.

That is how it has been for me today. I don't know what happened, but I feel like I've gotten entirely off the rails today. It's not even over the big things. It's all the little stuff that has been bothering me and getting to me today.

I guess that is the first thing to discuss. "It's all small stuff" is a platitude which when adopted blindly for everything can in fact discount some very serious things. I am a big gentleman. While I've been lucky to have the worst heart thing I have be some well controlled hypertension, my weight is still a big big issue. There is no guarantee that things won't suddenly cascade on me very soon and go wrong and I could die. It could be tomorrow, it could be next week. It could be any time. People who weigh less than me have died of heart attacks younger than me.

No matter which way you cut it, I wake up every day and go to bed every night with that same thought in the back of my head. I could die at any time if I am not careful. I don't try and obsess over it, lord knows I try and forget about it sometimes, because it falls into that category of I am doing everything that I can. Yet it is something that is -huge- and every time I have a small failure, I feel like I am just signing my own death warrant.

Nurses, doctors and everyone else are constantly reminding me about that fact. it's part of what is driving me so hard to do this. I remember the fear that I had when I had my TIA (transient ischemic attack. also known as a mini stroke) and I couldn't talk for a day. That was when everything became so real to me. But even then it took me so long to do this.

Today I met with the physical therapist. Everything was going fine, I was having a normal day, no worries, feeling good with my exercises. We began to go over the exercises I was doing and I think that this is where things started to go down for me. I felt like every third exercise I did it was 'alright, that's great, but lets do this'. Most of it was really great advice, really all of it was. It was a lot of small changes all at once which is a bit tiring, but nothing bad.

The real thing that got to me was when we were working on my ankle and toe lifts while sitting up along with my knee lifts. These two exercises I have been doing, but struggling with doing how she wants me to do them. When I lift my knees, the weight of my lymph-edema in my right abdomen causes my right leg to lift awkwardly and turn. It should be going straight up and down. I kept not being able to do it properly until I had this very awkward stance where I was holding my lymph-edema lobe up while doing the exercise.

Then, immediately after, when we did my ankle and toe lifts, some of my long standing issues came to the fore front. My feet always tend to roll outwards, it is what makes finding shoes for me such a difficulty. If my foot rolls out and I've got a thick sole in my shoe and I trip, I could snap my ankle. When doing my toe lifts, my feet kept wanting to lift the inner part, but I was really struggling with the outer parts of my feet. We had to work and work until I felt like I was contorting my feet inward, almost painfully, just to get them to lift evenly.

The reasons for why we were working on this is all sound. It's so I can do these exercises properly and to do them safely. That is what I want to work with them on. But I felt like such a failure there, that I couldn't even do these most simple things, that my body was fighting me so much and I had to fight it so much. I had become used to my exercises and being able to do them pretty well. My body stumps me so often, but most of it I've been able to overcome. This was much more difficult, for such a small thing and I kept on messing it up even after knowing what I have to do. That is really what started me feeling off balance today.

To be honest, I didn't really notice it then. I just went along, we did everything and I went about my day. I did my laps then and then i encountered what was for me an embarrassing moment. For those who don't want too much information, don't like bodily functions, skip to the next paragraph. ... Still with me? Okay. One of the big issues that I've had is that when I work out and walk, I tend to have to go to the bathroom, a lot. I read an interesting article that discussed that when fat is broken down and we burn calories, most of it is expelled in our breath. But some of that break down goes into expelling liquid waste either in urine or in feces. For me, I tend to get diarrhea. Usually I take care of these things when it's just a caregiver around (because I need aid due to flexibility issues). Today I had it happen while walking with the physical therapist there. I had to run to the bathroom so I wouldn't mess myself and then the physical therapist had to set up the next two appointments with me through the doorway while I was doing this. Then I had to get my caregiver to help me clean myself with them there. I know they understand the need, they have others who have the same issues. yet it is very embarrassing for me to have it happen there in the moment and feel so exposed and feel like I'm putting them off with how disgusting it was. It made the situation very awkward and I think after that point is when I got very quiet for the day.

From there things were just normal, as I said, until my mother got home, rushing about. She had a sandwich wrap for me for my dinner (this was at 4, dinner is at 6). In all that was going on  today I completely forgot she was going out to dinner with a friend (who happens to be my usual caregiver, but not the one I had today). Because I had forgotten I hadn't asked the caregiver to set me up to be good for the rest of the day. Thus I ended up needing extra help from my mother so that I was good for while they were away.

This ended up delaying them so I started to feel really guilty. I didn't want to delay them and I felt bad for it. But she had set my dinner down on my legs so I could have access to it later and I told her I needed it elsewhere, I still had to walk (my usual spaces for holding it were occupied with extra water bottles). She ended up not wanting me to walk alone, because of the fall risks, even though I have done it before. She ended up waiting an extra 40 minutes to go to dinner, so that I could do my walk. The entire time I was feeling just so guilty, because last Friday they had tried to go do this dinner, but kept being delayed because of my sister and had to cancel because they ran out of time. Now here I was delaying them further. My therapists and doctors had been telling me that when it comes to my health and exercise, I need to be selfish and put doing my exercises above everything else, but i still felt like shit for delaying them and tried to make them go and I would do it on my own, but they refused. They wanted to be here while I walked.

This is really when things began to come to come to a head for me. I was feeling guilty and frustrated from earlier. Unknown to me I was also bleeding and injured on my leg, but due to the lymph-edema in my leg and the numbness that comes with it, I hadn't noticed it. It just wasn't very good. but then I noticed that my exercise tracker was all messed up and miss recorded, so I had to start redoing it. When I tried to re-do it, I kept on messing it up again and again until I just gave up in frustration. I scribbled angrily over my mistakes and in the process broke the pen and just threw it all down.

That is when I realized just how shaken I was today and how off balance. It feels even now just so silly, I was getting upset over these little things, I was letting them bother me so much. But I do think there is a reason for that.   It doesn't make me feel any better, I am still mortified at having had such a bad day and reacting so to such little things, but I do think there is an explanation for it.

As I said earlier, I live with that constant big worry in my head all the time. I worry about dying. I know that I could die anytime. That isn't an exaggeration or or hyperbole. That is just a fact. We are doing everything right currently. We are doing everything that we can, but I still could die anytime. Because I cannot address that issue anymore than I am, I feel like everything else, I need to try and be perfect or have control over it. Or I feel guilty because I feel like a burden on people. These things become amplified through that lens of my core problem.

I really shouldn't be sweating the small stuff, but sometimes, when you have so much else going on, you have only the small stuff that you can address. But no matter how hard you try, stuff will go wrong some days. Most days I'm not like this. I can't really tell myself, but my nurses have said I seem in better spirits most of the time, more positive, but at times like this it really doesn't feel that way.

I can logically analyze all of the things that have happened and look at it and find the reasons and rationalize it, but making that step from the logical understanding to feeling okay with it and not letting it bother me is just something that I haven't been able to master yet. I envy those who can do so, who can bounce back so readily. I hope to be one of them. Someday.

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3-28-2015 Motivational Music 2

First a quick update. I have been working very hard lately and been throwing myself into exercises. We were considering putting me into a facility to really help crunch down the weight, but turns out finding a facility that can accommodate someone in my situation is difficult. So we are going to be trying to replicate that sort of intense experience at home with extra physical therapy and nutritionist visits. Plus, new personal best, 21 laps around my front room in one setting!

However, I did promise I would finish my analysis of my music and why it is so inspirational to me and that is what I am going to do here. So without further ado, the rest of my songs for our enjoyment!

Levels - Avicci

This song has an interesting reason for being on this list. It started with me simply looking at lists of good exercise music. It was one that was recommended, so I took a listen and realized that it was a song that a youtuber I watch regularly liked to sing badly with different lyrics. I to this day can't listen to the lyrics here without hearing Ooooooh sometimes, I got to go pee pee. yeaaaah. So for me it's just funny and entertaining and it makes me happy. Which when exercising, something that makes you happy is always a good thing.

Another One Bites The Dust - Queen

I am a big fan of queen, hence why there are a number of Queen songs on the list. This one has just a great beat that really syncs well with the pace of my exercises. Beyond that, the song to me, when it says another one bites the dust, I think of it like another pound is biting the dust. It's going away, the fat is just getting off of me because it can't beat me.

Shot To The Heart - Bon Jovi

This song came onto my list after my sister recommended it to me. The reason being is that we were both watching lots of How I Met Your Mother and this was on Barney's get pumped mix. So I thought I would add it to my list to help me get pumped. However, beyond that it has come to represent my unhealthy relationship with food in the past. My addiction to food gave it a bad name, as it were.

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger - Daft Punk

Daft punk again makes the list. I haven't always listened to them, but I am coming into it more lately. They have just a very nice beat and this song's title really just says it all. I want to work harder, feel better, be faster and stronger. the repetition of these words over and over throughout the song become a mantra that I repeat under my breath with every exercise, every movement.

We Will Rock You - Queen

This is just another one of those classic songs that you find on so many work out mixes. It is a song about triumphing over adversity. It gets your blood pumping and it evokes in me that take no prisoners attitude I need with my weight loss. I will rock my body, I will win this fight.

Gonna Fly Now - Bill Conti

Okay, maybe this whole section is a little bit standard for most work out mixes, but there is a reason for it. As I said in my last blog, Gonna Fly Now is the song that starts off every work out of mine. Not from this list, but because it is my alarm that reminds me to exercise. It's a Pavlovian response now. I am so used to associating this song with exercise that when it comes on I start moving. I think many people do this, but I put myself into Rocky's shoes and I imagine myself being him, running and taking those steps. Someday I will do it myself, I will go running up steps and that imagery drives me onward.

Montage - Team America

Sometimes I like songs for silly reasons and sometimes I just like silly songs. This song falls into that later category. Even though it is silly, I find it incredibly motivational. Montages work for a reason and this song covers that generic idea of montage's so well that when this song plays, I am in my own montage. I have found myself imagining the process of my exercise and work out. Imagining how I will be in three months, five months, a year from now. I see a new better me and I think that I am just at the early stages of my own life montage and I will get there.

We're Not Gonna Take It - Twisted Sister

This song has a unique place in my heart, because it has helped me chart my mental health in some ways. When I was really depressed and in the early days of my exercise, I was habitually and accidentally saying We're Not Gonna Make It whenever I sang along while working out. It was just so ingrained, that negativity in my head. Stead work, however, has helped me get it right, we're not gonna take it. I'm not going to take this life anymore. I'm not going to deal with this anymore. I am going to get better and improve myself. And that is how it motivates me.

Under Pressure - Queen

Really, I just love this song. It's one of my favorite songs, has a great beat to it. I mean it's so good that even Vanilla Ice tried to rip that beat off. But it also sort of represents how my life has been in the past. It is a reminder of how I have felt when under so much pressure, feeling at the end of my rope. I don't want to get back there, I don't want to be like that, so this song helps me keep looking forward, to the future.

photo credit: Prelude via photopin (license)

3-24-2015 Motivational Music 1

Finding that motivation to help you through the struggles of exercising for those who have lived a sedentary life can be difficult. If you have lived a life carrying an extra person or two on your hips and stomach, you know how difficult it can be to even do the most basic of things, let alone trying to actually work out. Even the simplest of tasks that people might take for granted becomes in and of its self a work out.

My doctors have constantly told me that every little bit of movement helps, so much so that even while I am doing my leg exercises I will just pump my arms or even flail them just to move a bit more and burn more calories. That motivation and that staying focused was always a hard time for me. My brain never wants to turn off, it has been that way for so long, I can't help it. I do my best, but it is always difficult.

It can also be difficult to find the motivation to put yourself through what is going to be a painful, difficult and uncomfortable experience at first. I know it is cliche to say it, but I have found it to be true that after a while of exercising you do come out the other side feeling more invigorated than before. But until then you have to find that motivation to help keep you through the rough parts. For me, it has been music.

When I am ready to work out I set up my music and I turn off my computer monitor so that I am not distracted by anything else. My phone goes off to the side, I am focused on my work out. I was told once, that it is important to be like a pit bull with a bone with your exercise time, you don't let it go for anything else and my music helps remind me of that in an almost Pavlovian way. My alarm for my exercising starts off with Ready to Fly Now, the Theme from Rocky and that just sets me into exercise mode. That's when I pop on my playlist.

Beyond the simple beats of the songs which help me to keep up a pace and energize me, each song has elements of it that seem to speak to certain goals and feelings that I have and really helps me to motivate myself to push harder each and every time. I'm moving with more energy and while I am so tired after my work outs, I'm feeling better for them and eager for the next one.

My playlist is in no particular order, it's just as I added music and I always play it on random so it is a different inspiration each time. I should perhaps go through and actually carefully craft my music for a rise and fall with my exercises, however, I haven't done that now. So I'll just be looking at the songs in the order that they are on the list. We'll start with the first nine of the list today and I'll cover the rest another time.

Eye of the Tiger - Survivor

This is just such a great, classic work out song. It's about keeping the eye on the prize for me. I work out with my goal weight and my weight loss record on the wall to one side. When I have this song come onto my list my face just gets tight and i'm in game mode, I'm ready to do this. I am constantly checking my record reminding myself that I am going to do this, I am hungry... well not be hungry any more.

Satisfaction - The Rolling Stones

This song has a great beat and just makes me want to bob my head to the music. However, the message of the song for me is that I shouldn't get complacent, I shouldn't ever be satisfied with how I am. It is that complacency, that elf congratulation of good work that has led to me gaining weight in the past. I'll get to 750 pounds and then I'll say I've done a good job, lets celebrate and then I'll undo the good work. Cheat days are for the cheating and shouldn't do it outside of it. I shouldn't ever be satisfied with what I've done until I've made it to where I want to be.

Stayin' Alive - Bee Gees

Okay, this one is a bit corny and I don't usually listen to this song, but it, like some of the other songs on my list are there for the motivation. And really this song is rather on the nose in that front. I am literally doing this to stay alive. If I let this continue, my health will deteriorate and I will die. Plus the joy of their singing the happiness that they express in the song is just there to help brighten my day.

One More Time - Daft Punk

This song really motivates me to keep on going with what I am doing. Sometimes when we focus -too- much on the tasks that we have to accomplish on our path, we end up getting bogged down with worry and fear and that can lead to a relapse for a food addict. This song really helps me live in the moment of my exercises. When it comes on and I'm lagging from being tired, it pushes me to do just one more rep, and then another and another. Just one more time, because sometimes we do have to live in the moment.

Go Your Own Way - Fleetwood Mac

One of the ultimate break up songs, for me, the song captures my relationship with food so well. I love it too much, I'm addicted to it. But food is supposed to be fuel. So this song represents my struggle with that addiction and my attempts to conquer it.

I Got You (I Feel Good) - James Brown

Another straight forward song on my list. The high energy helps me get moving quickly and it reminds me that I do feel good and I'm feeling better and better the more weight I lose. I'm able to move better, my pain is easing up. It's hard work, but it's worth it so that I can feel good. The song makes me shimmy even when I am doing my work outs, almost as if I was dancing, making my exercises all the more fun.

Ain't No Mountain High Enough - Marvin Gaye

One of the quintessential work out songs, I remember this song being a part of Sweatin' To the Oldies with good old Richard Simmons. Its message of overcoming any obstacle to get to the one you love can also be applied to reaching the self that you want to be. There is nothing that will stop me from getting to where I want to go, to finding the me that I want to be. This songs more sedate pace makes it very good for stretches or cool down periods, but no matter when it comes on in my work out, I get motivated.

Push It To The Limit - Paul Engemann version

I am starting to feel like my songs are just really straight forward. Push it to the limit, that's what I want to do with my exercising. I want to push myself every day to do as much as I can. I try very hard not to bind myself to a specific time/number of laps. I just want to keep pushing my limit every time and every day and do what feels right.

Time of Our Lives - Paul van Dyk

This song really speaks to me in terms of there being times for everything. One thing that I really struggle with is that by devoting so much time to my work out and exercising, I'm not really spending time with my friends anymore, not as much as I used to. I am focused in and only have narrow windows for relaxing. This reminds me that there is a time for everything. Now is the time for me to get my health in control. Soon I will have time again to go out and do more. And because I am doing this, I will have more time in the future.


This is just the start, but really if I did everything for this today, we would be here forever. Again, next post will be more music and reasons why it is motivational for me. What is your motivational music? What gets you up there and moving?





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3-21-15 Everything Clicking

This new schedule is still tough and I think that it is going to require some careful work, especially in the evening, but I think that overall things are really starting to click into place for me with this plan.

The exercises is really one of the big linchpins of my weight loss program. It starts with ankle pumps, I do twenty five of them, very simply to get the blood flowing. I then move into these leg pumps where I pump both my legs out and into a stretch and hold it for five seconds before repeating. I do this twenty five times as well with both legs. From there I move into sweeping my legs to the side and back to the middle. I do twenty five of these with each leg. Then I do heel presses with my knees bent. This presses my heels into the bed and tenses up my thighs where I have some bad lymph-edema. I do this twenty five times and then I move into muscle contractions of my butt and my abs. This may not  seem like a lot, but doing these twenty five times each and holding for five seconds with all of these exercises really adds up and I can feel the burn in my muscles from it. I finish it all off with twenty leg lifts with each leg, holding it for twenty seconds each time.

That is what I used to do, but since then I've added several more exercises that I do while sitting up on the side of the bed or in my chair. I start with just kicking out my feet fifteen times, then I do ten knee lifts and then twenty ankle pumps again while sitting. It's worked out well and I am starting to get more comfortable with these exercises and doing them a bit faster, resting less between each of these. I repeat these first a half an hour after I wake up and then I do them again in the hour before my dinner.

I think take a chair out into the front room two times a day to do my walks. Because of my size I can't walk for a long time without a break. I measured out my walking distance in my living room and it's sixteen feet across. So a lap for me is walking that across and back again for a 32 foot lap. You may think this is nothing, but next time you want to go for a walk, try slapping on an extra five hundred pounds and see how far you can walk before you need to stop for a breather. That's what I'm doing.

What I walk varies from day to day. I am trying my best to put forward an idea of doing as many laps as I can and then calling it. I don't want to push too hard and risk a fall or not being able to pick them up later. Yesterday I managed 11 laps in my first bout of walking and 15 in the second. Today it was 7 and 10. This mornings was more because of bodily needs rather than not being able to do more and the schedule was tight for reasons I will get into in a moment.

The big obstacle that I am seeing in my schedule and with the walking is the evening walk which occurs after dinner. Right now I am exercising before dinner, then I am sitting up and having dinner out with my family which is always strenuous on my legs and back because I need to constantly adjust myself. But then I need to move into my laps for my walking. To do the laps we need to pull the commode from my room because it is at this perfect height that allows me to stand without straining, making it ideal for the way I do my laps. We don't have anything else that would fit.

My commode we keep super clean so there is no worries about germs, it's just a bit big. With my knee and back issues and general instability, I can't reliably move it on my own. My mother is recovering from neck surgery so she can't really either, my sister has a bad back from her work and we don't have a caregiver in the evenings. Right now we are having to group up and manhandle it out there and then back in when we are done. We can't leave it out there because 1 no privacy when I need it for other purposes and 2, we put it in front of the door and can't leave it there.

This leaves me with two factors which are making this section of my day difficult. The first is the just big stretch of using up a lot of energy right there. I need to exercises and burn off calories, no doubting that, but if I am too exhausted, I can't get as much out of the walk as I would like. The second real big factor is the problem of moving the commode or finding some other seat. We've discussed trying to find wood or something to raise the chair I have out there. If it was a couple of inches higher, as long as it were stable, I wouldn't have these same issues and that could prove to be the solution.

Despite this, my exercises are really clicking for me. The only thing that is really not clicking for me right now is my home care situation. The agency we use, Synergy, they decided to randomly change my schedule today and not tell me. I expect someone to be here at my house at 10 am to give me my morning shake. Around 10:25 I called them and asked where the caregiver for the day was. Turns out they scheduled him for 11:30.  This ended up throwing off my whole morning routine, though we did our best to keep to it.

It just highlights the need for a new home care worker, hence the interviews we have been doing. I must confess, I've been spoiled for choice with this. We've got a couple of really good candidates, three that I am trying to decide between right now. I've got one more home care worker to interview tomorrow, but that is it. I've taken down the advertisement for now. Even if this last person doesn't end up working out, I still have three people I really like to decide from and I don't want to tell any of them no.

Each has their pros and cons. One is really well experienced and is on the ball with so many of the things that I need. He's a bit more quiet and reserved it seemed to me, but that could have been nerves. My sister and Patti both met him at a training session by sheer chance and Patti reported very favorably as to his confidence.

Another is very vibrant and energetic. She's not had as much experience, but what experience she has is with twenty four hour care so it's really intense work. She's very friendly and seems very caring and I think would bring a very good energy to my life and really help keep me motivated with what I am doing.

The third is very well organized. He's again less experienced, but he has that twenty four hour care experience that makes it a bit more intense. He's also helped someone with weight issues and is still helping them. His organization and that specific appearance will do a lot to help keep things on track. The main problem is that he's also very busy with a lot going on in his life and he's already got some days set out in the near future where he needs stretches off and I don't begrudge him that. But given how busy he is, I worry how that will work with the home care situation with me.

All three are nerdy, geeky, gamery in their own ways to greater or lesser extents, which is something that I was wanting and looking for in a home care worker. It's a stark contrast to my situation at Synergy where things are generally rough with some few bright spots. Here I have three people I all think would work and I don't like having to tell any of them no.

I am considering speaking with them and seeing if two might like to split the hours and do 42 hours in a month each and ask the third, whichever it ends up being, if they would like to remain on call if there is an emergency or a vacancy in the future. I have four days that need filled, including the weekends. If they are fine with splitting those shifts and one taking half and the other taking half, we may be able to afford people whole weekends, give them more time to take another client as well on the side which is quite common.

This isn't an easy decision, but at the same time, I'm glad that this isn't an easy decision, because it means there are a lot of good candidates here and there are a lot of possibilities. Once we get this situation settled, however it plays out, I think I will be in a very good place going forward.

Even the evening meal situation is getting better. As I said last time, we got a lean cuisine selection that I should like. Today I had the breakfast sandwich variety. Since they are half the calories of the other meals I ended up eating two and then having some carrots as well to help bulk it up. It felt like a bit of a light meal overall, the meals we usually have are more, even when we have been trying to watch the calories. But this is much more tightly controlled and I actually really liked the breakfast sandwich from lean cuisine. This bodes well because I will adjust to the smaller sizes and this will do a lot to help me achieve my goal.

April 2nd I will be weighed in. I am shooting for 756.6. This is a very attainable goal, 1.18 pounds a day of weight loss. I can do this.

July 4th is the goal, 650 pounds. 781.3 and counting.

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