JCDan

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So, a year ago I met with my Dr and I weighed in at 354. Today I'm 249, and that's about a solid 100 pounds lost. I wore a men's 54 trouser when I went to that consult. Today I'm wearing a pair of 42 Wranglers. I'm not perfect, and I haven't kept on the plan as well as I should have, but gosh darn it, it works. My sleeve works. I hope I haven't broken it. I don't think I have, but people like me need something I can worry about. 

My wife and I have endured a difficult move, a new job, a new house, and all of the associated new debts. We're ok. I'm ok. And I'm so much happier than I was last year. 

Hey guys. I haven't been here much, but I've been lurking and reading. Keep up the good work. 

I adore bubbles. I've said before that I had a relationship with beer, and we're broken up. It's been hard. I miss his bubbles. 

Trying sparkling water. Slowly. After letting it get mostly flat. It's.... not terrible. We'll see. 

Fifty five pounds down since Thanksgiving. That's amazing to me. Thirty odd since surgery just over a month ago. I'm pretty excited. Things have been getting so much easier. I'm a little paranoid that I'll slide back to bad habits, so I am hyper-vigilant. 

Now if it will stop snowing, I can break out the motorcycle and see what that feels like as a loser! 

Don't eat grapefruit at 3 weeks post. It will make you sad. 

The end. 

My wife and I went out to the theater and then to a bar with friends last night. Got dressed up in a suit I haven't worn in a year! The show was fab, our seats were front row. That's how we roll. After the show, we hit up a brewery with some of my wife's friends. (Confession: I love beer. I think beer makes the world go 'round. I brew my own beer, I like going to weird beer festival things, and I subscribed to a magazine all about beer. The fact that I can't drink beer anymore makes me profoundly sad.)  Anyway, we were there, surrounded by delicious beer, and I ordered a damn decaf coffee. The poor server looked at me like I was a loon, and about 40 minutes later brought me the saddest cup of forgotten yesterday's coffee ever. I had a sip or so of that, and a sip or so of the cocktails folks were passing around - nothing bad happened. It almost felt normal. 

2 weeks post, and down a good chunk. I'm pleased. The protein shakes are my friend. Everything else scares the hell out of me. I can eat the pureed and soft food, but I feel wretched afterwords. So I've been adding new things to my protein and water list very slowly. Yesterday was chicken salad. It went ok. 

My boss is giving me shit about losing weight and so I opened a bag of chips and left them on my desk all day. I also opened some candy wrappers and left them all over. Decoy fat foods! lol. I need a new job. Going to see "Gypsy" at the CST in Chicago this weekend. Non-food based entertainment. I realized that all of our "plans" involved going out to eat.... I love restaurants. Gotta find something else to do to socialize. 

I've mentioned before that I'm a bit of a bull in a chinashop when it comes to new initiatives. This is no exception. If one kind of food is easy to chew up and nobody objects, ALL THE FOOD IS OKAY. 

That's patently untrue. Canned chicken is great! But you really should give it a go with the hand blender, not just tackle it head on. And who said anything about guacamole? That wasn't a good idea. I think it gave me heartburn - I woke up at some ungodly hour with reflux. I haven't had that at ALL since I started taking a PPI, so I was surprised. I chewed down some Tums and then had to get ready for work. Sad. So today we're back on the wagon, I rolled everything back to week one again. Liquids. Soups. Protein shakes. We'll try ramping up to soft again another day. 

Need to get over the old habit of washing things down. "Oh, that wasn't good, I am uncomfortable. GULP" Well, genius, now you're MORE uncomfortable. And you lose caloric value for that bite, too. 

PS. Snow can go to hell. 

Almost 2 weeks post, and I feel... fine? Most of the time I feel fine. I'm sleeping fine, I can get up and walk fine, I've lost quite a bit of weight initially (~20lbs) and I'm tolerating most foods pretty well. 

Two issues remain: pooping and eating too much. 

The first can be remedied. No problem. The second is more of a head-game. I'm not hungry. Not even a little. As long as I'm water-loaded and up to snuff on my protein, I'm not hungry at all. But my mouth is bored. I feel like I used to when I was a smoker. Fidgety. I haven't tried any more gum (see last week) for obvious reasons, but I'm about half-mad with the need to put things in my mouth. It's absurd. Almost as absurd as being full after two spoons of ground beef. Popsicle are great at home, but not at work.  So that's this-week challenge: Find something to put in my mouth that isn't a cigarette or a piece of candy. I'm thinking it might be time to drag out the tea-tree toothpicks again. They are very effective, if a little noxious. 

Also, "Premiere Protein" vanilla is gross. The end. 

Warm tea with a little splenda softened the knot in my stomach and allowed me the first peace of the entire day. (I'm a moron and swallowed gum. I know! Less than a week out, and I swallowed gum!) Anyway, I've found that my stomach has become a little bitch. It hates cold things, thick liquids, gum, pills, and anything that isn't SleepyTime tea or chicken broth. How am I gonna do protein this way? Back to the drawing board in the morning. 

So, it was bound to happen. I'm the kind of guy who takes one swipe putt-putt, decides he's probably the greatest golfer ever, and enters the Pro-Am walk-on tournament, only to find that I'm in way over my head. I've done it before, I'll do it again. I did it yesterday, and it scared the shit out of me.

I was watching TV (do you realize how much food is on TV??) and got head-hungry. I veered violently off-plan, consuming some terrible broth and then a tea + honey mixture, and an entire freezer pop (full sugar, not SF). This, understandably, made my pouch hurt, so I poured some protein shake on top to "wash it down". Old habits die hard.

Within an hour, I was shaking with cold, sweating, and had to use the facilities, ahem, rather urgently. Twice. I clicked off the boob-tube, showered, and put myself to bed with a compazine and a stern lecture to never do that again.

Just because you're doing well post-op is not an excuse to screw up the plan.

So today's a new day. I'm back on plan. Four little kups and my kitchen timer. 1 cup every 15 minutes. Two protein, two water. It's going to be a long day....