Your Body Is A One-derland!

Friends , Loved Ones and Readers, Lend me your  ears!  Well not really, we don't need any more Van Gogh incidents. Seriously though , today is one of those days that helps to define your life.
Let's get right to it. This morning, after working so hard and for a long time, it finally happened. 
I stepped on the scale and saw this:

That is correct, We have a Winner!
Finally breaking the 200 pound barrier. 
  The website and forum that I belong to, is called Bariatric Pal, located at www.Bariatricpal.com . There is a saying there that is simply, Wonderland, or One-derland, depending on who uses it. This term is for when you no longer have the 4 , 3, or 2 in front of your weight, and can sigh a little and know you are in the right place physically with a 1 starting your weight. It is a place many overweight people haven't been to in much of their lives, and as such is an amazing place to be.
  This total is the lowest I have been since junior high school and not far from what I weighed in elementary school. 
  After a rather tough month for weight loss I have finally managed to get to One-derland. This is no small feat for me, although I do have smaller feet. Ha Ha.  
Trying to reach this goal involved a real extra heavy commitment. I stayed on the straight and narrow as far as nutrition , well at least as much as possible. Protein, protein protein, can you say Protein? LOL I do not jest. Turkey replacements all around, turkey bacon,( which isn't bad by the way) protein shake for lunch and usually chicken of some sort for dinner with the occasional ground beef, and a little veg thrown in. (especially broccoli, why do I love broccoli so much?) 
  I made a variant on my mothers hamburgers n brown gravy recipe. Ground beef, and egg, seasoned bread crumbs, finely minced onion ( alot of it) garlic powder, mrs dash, brown patties, and then slowly bring the gravy in to the patties when almost totally cooked and let them finish in the gravy. YUM! 
  But I digress. I also upped my workouts to 6 days a week. I alternate days  using the treadmill and the exercise bike. I upped my exercise bike to a minimum or 7.5 miles and maxed out at just over 12 miles at a time. While it is certainly tiring, I have increased my stamina a lot. I'm still not up to a full out run yet, i really have to get on the ball with learning to run. Running after you've lost so much weight is difficult because you don't have real super control of your balance. So speeding up my treadmill to a very fast walk is the first step, and I am doing that. 
  So whats next you ask? Well the only goal left in weight loss for me is the magic number 170. This is the number that my surgeon gave me when we had out initial consult meeting. This is the number that blew my mind and made me laugh as i thought such a thing impossible. A dream worth having, but a dream nonetheless. 
  Now, i can see that dream coming true. 
There is a very important event coming up on the radar as well for me. For the first time in many many years, I will be on a plane. I will be going to Atlanta to meet the amazing people I work with , who happen to be in our Atlanta, GA office and also to meet some of the department heads from our new parent company. They are flying in to Atlanta from our Austin Texas headquarters.
 Myself, a co-worker, and my boss, will be flying down in mid September for a few days and then flying back.  
  Why is this so important you ask? Well I will finally fit in an airline seat. The last time I flew was on a trip to Las Vegas my wife and I took together with friends. That trip while i was not as fat, the seatbelt would not fit around me, so i hid it under my arm when the stewardess came around to check. Inside I was mortified that she would figure it out and would announce my shortcoming to the whole plane. At various times we had thought about going away but we knew I would have to purchase an extra seat under current airline policy rules. Also as a health issue, sitting on a plane for a long time would've been a very bad idea with the circulation problems i was having in my legs.
   This time however i have zero worries about sitting in the plane and fitting in the seat. Bring it on!
Funny part is that I literally had nothing to wear..enter thrift shopping! Goodwill here has a great store, takes some work to look through, but I luckily found a few pairs of dress/casual pants, a pair of levis denim shorts ( I always liked that look and missed my old jean shorts.) and even a casual shirt or two. We have saved up to pick up a couple of dress shirts as these are just necessary anyway, I want to make that good professional impression. Here's a fun tidbit. two years ago when I graduated with my Paralegal title, I wore a dress shirt with a 24 inch neck and a collar extender to boot. We will be shopping for a 17 inch neck now, no collar extender needed. Thats huge, no wonder my sleep apnea and breathing problems have lessened greatly. All that fat sitting on your throat is like walking around with someones hands on your throat choking you at all times.
  Well so I got a surprise , when my wife, who had been secretly saving up for this moment, presented me with this gift.

This is a Gretsch Jim Dandy Parlor acoustic. With my new found smaller body, I find this just fits me well. It's one of those things. It is Gretsch's least expensive guitar by far, but it plays and sounds like a much more expensive version, it's easy to move around and I LOVE IT!
Well on to the next goal. See you all soon with more to say. 
Until then here is this posts cartoon!

I cant drive 155

Hello all, so sorry for being away so long. I cannot wait to tell you all about it.
But first How about some before and after pics? Just as a refresher.

Before 

More recent

Pretty nice if I do say so myself.

So I know you're all wondering where I am at now , weight wise?

Well ( in case you missed it) i am now more than 155 pounds down!

I weighed in this morning at 205 pounds which is 157 pounds exactly but hey  no bigee right.

  So where do i begin. well lets start with this.

 The company whose protein powders for my protein shakes i use, is called syntrax ( technically the parent is Si03, but the product is syntrax. So they asked me to be the inaugural person to head off their new social media campaign called transformation tuesdays. They used the pictures you see above on the website, facebook page and instagram/twitter as well. I was floored that they would ask. It was amazing. Look for Syntrax on facebook and you can find this if you like. But i wont force you.

  So thats the first thing. Second is that the hospital I had my surgery done at is holding a recognition night, and I will be on stage during this with my story and pics of me to show others what this is like. It is coming up in a few months in october. That brings me to this next part. I have this event coming up as I just mentioned. My boss recently announced i would be going down to Atlanta GA for business, in September. Before this surgery, I wouldn't have gone due to being so fat, I literally couldn't fly. I couldn't sit in the seats, and lets not get into walking around, which was just not possible. Walking through an airport would've been hell.

  But now, no problem, well okay maybe a small one. I literally have zero pants. Thats right ZERO. i have some workout sweat type workout pants and I have shorts, but well pants? umm nope. lol No dress shirts either. Enter, the thrift store! lol 

  I was able to pick up a polo shirt and a pair of dress pants for quite cheap. Whew! i am working on saving up for more clothes so i can buy a few things before i go away and before the event. Now the fun part is I now wear a size medium shorts and a large shirt in many cases. My neck went from a 24 inch , to a 17.5  that is almost 7 inches off my neck alone. 

  It will be fun trying on a dress shirt when the time comes. For pants i had no idea what size my waist was. Sure i knew medium shorts, but in pants? Well suffice it to say would you believe a 36? I know I didn't believe it. I honestly have not fit into a 36 since junior high school, folks that is 30+ years ago. 

  Scary, Trust me I know. 

 So whats life like now? Well i start off with turkey bacon, or sometimes a little less bacon and a scrambled egg, or no bacon and two, yes two scrambled eggs , well medium eggs extra large , just one please! And i can eat almost two scrambled eggs. Lunch is almost always a protein shake, a scoop of protein shake mix, 6 ounces of 1% milk or skim, and 4 ice cubes. blend and  yippie its like a dunkin donuts coolata. I go to the gym quite a bit. Have not hit the weights much yet, so far just a lot of varied forms of cardio. Bike , treadmill, elliptical etc. 

  Dinner is almost always chicken of some type, usually in a sauce or marinade. Thanks to eating like this, my wife has lost over 30 pounds as well. Sometimes we alternate with ground beef, in some form, or ground turkey, like tonight its taco wednesday. Well little soft shells, ill have one with ground turkey some lettuce a little cheese and yummy. Sugar free pudding or the jello sugar free chocolate mousse still fits the bill for a snack.  

 So what about my health. Well the chest pain thing still comes and goes, I have become used to it to a degree. We think it is related to my herniated discs in my spine.  But we shall see. 

  Now some friends asked me to talk about the reasons people fail with this surgery. The biggest reason is that they do not get the support they need to use this tool as the focal point to change their life. This is not a fix on its own. It doesn't magically win  the big game for you. It is a tool in your life change toolbox designed to help you succeed if you are willing to put in the work. I don't mean just working out either. Mentally many people are not given the mental approach to succeed. Before i had my surgery i had to visit with a psychologist a few times and we were able to whittle down things to figure out why I was having this love of food. I know I have discussed this in the past and we wont go over that again now, but suffice it to say I worked through it. Is my love of food gone? Hell no. But I am able to push it back to where it does not dominate me. My slogan is Food is to live on, not live for.  Many people either  deal with surgeons or practices that don't care what the patient does after the surgery as long as the insurance pays or the bill is paid in full. 

It hurts to see this happen, but it most certainly does happen.

  So whats next for me? Well let me tell you. In the bariatric community when you drop below 200 pounds and your weight start with that magic number of a 1, instead of a 2 3  or 4 , we call that entering wonderland. As in One-derland, ha ha. Well i  now sit 5 magical pounds from passing that huge barrier. I have no idea how to celebrate this yet, who knows maybe a new pair of pants!, ha ha. Crossing this barrier will bring a tear to my eye, that is for sure.

  Well thank you all for coming today I promise not to take a month to write the next post. See you all soon and thank you all for taking the time out of your day to take this journey with me. 

 Here is this posts cartoon.

140 Isnt just the number of characters on twitter anymore.

Hello all,
   Welcome back to my blog. It has been an interesting time to say the least. Those of you who have read my previous post will remember the chest pain issue. Well , it is still rearing its ugly head. It is still there it comes and goes and after a endoscopy, we still have no idea  what is causing it, or how to alleviate the symptoms.
   Living with constant chest pain is....hard.  It is almost impossible for me to enjoy this new me, while this is going on. But I try. I still go through my work, but I can say I get irritated more easily, and have to make a concerted effort to not take it out on my job or my wife. Thankfully I have been successful in this regard. The newest part is that the pain now stabs right through me into the area  just under my left shoulder blade.
  From what I can find it even has a name, Notalgia Paresthetica, which basically is described as an burning pain with an itch that is deep beneath the surface. It is associated with spinel issues, Which since I know I have a herniated disc in at least one spot, is very possible. Also spinal issues run in my family. My older sister has MS, and my mother had major spinal stenosis and spine issues.
  So what's the treatment, well its not diagnosed yet, but  there really may not be. But we shall find out more soon. One drug that is used is Gabapentin, which I used to take prior to surgery for nerve pain in my legs. I still have some, but there is a huge risk. You see Gabapentin is known to cause weight gain in patients. Let's face it, I am not going back to that way of life.
  So we do what we can, and I live with pain, sometimes it is pretty bad. But hey, everyone has something right? So what else is new.
  Well what is new is I surpassed the 140 pound lost mark. Yes I weighed in today at 221 pounds, which is 141 pounds down in 5 months 3 weeks.  This really makes me happy. You may also note that the weight loss has slowed down. Well that's expected. Its easier to stall now, and they are more like mini stalls. So I  will go a few days like 3 to 4 with no weight loss, then go two or three days where I will lose like half a pound a day.
  I know you are thinking well Steve what else is happening? Well I had my 6 month ( although a few weeks early) meeting with my surgeon and Nutritionist. My surgeon was very happy, in his words " ...You are way ahead of the curve, and you look great." Well I will take that for sure. I have a new nutritionist. He was very helpful. We discussed eating breakfast and I mentioned how I tend to have the same thing every day, but get tired of it.
  I won't eat  even good things like oatmeal or whole grains because I am really doing well without carbs and I am not ready to take in many more carbs, even if they are so called "good" carbs. The answer I recovered was interesting.  The Nutritionist, said ," why not have a steak for breakfast?"
  Basically he was advocating dinner for breakfast. Hamburger patties with an egg on top, or a piece of steak, ( I am not exactly ready for steak yet but soon perhaps). So we shall see. Although I don't have time on a workday to cook like that, but who knows. 
  So off of food, and on to a funny thing happened on the way to..  Well on the way to getting dressed. I had purchased some shorts in my new size a mens large. This morning however I pulled out one of these new pairs and holding them up realized they looked a bit on the small side. I remarked about this to my wife who agreed. I checked the inside tag and it said, xl. Uh oh! I must've bought the wrong size. So my wife grabbed the tags I had cut off and she said to me, " well these are a boys xl." A boys? Oh well I must've just bought based on the hanger.
   Now for a joke I tried them on.. and they fit! Ha! That really blew my mind. Not only did they fit, I wore them to work, and like them. This may not be too weird to some, but to me, it was a mind blowing event.  So what else. Well I went to see my primary care physician who hadn't seen me since the surgery. Well the staff who I had been seeing on a regular basis for over 10 years, didn't know who I was.
  My doctor didn't even know who I was. That was funny. When he checked me over and we discussed the chest pain issue, he mentioned that I would definitely need to have surgery to remove the "panny" area. Also known as the apron, its what used to be my belly. Now I have promised to be blunt in this blog, so I will not hold back.  He mentioned I would need a tummy tuck, and yes surgery on my chest to remove the remains of my man boobs.
  Sorry If I made you throw up a little there. It is not the picture I am sure you wanted to see in your mind. This is an issue for a lot of weight loss surgery patients. As you get older your skin loses collagen and elastin. These are the proteins that tighten up skin. Once you  start losing them and lose weight, you get loose skin. While it is a small price to pay  physically, it is a large price to pay financially. That is going to be an issue that is a tough one to face. Many patients go to Mexico and have their surgery done there. I can say that is not for me. So when the time comes, well we  will have to worry about that then. Until then I'll live with the sagginess and unflattering chest ha ha.
 So on that note, I will leave you until the next post. Hopefully soon when I pass the next huge goal, of 150 pounds lost. See you then. As always below is the cartoon for this post.
  Love you all.

It's a Buck and a Quarter Quarterstaff but I'm Not Telling Him That.

  Hello friends, family, loved ones, and readers!  Welcome back to my life. So you may have guessed it. As of this blog post, I am down 125 pounds!! I never thought I would get here, and I never thought it would change my life so much.  Well before we get too deep into that, I wanted to give you a little glimpse into my appearance now.  So without further ado, here  I am at a much thinner, 237 pounds. 

A lot better right?   
  Alas these things do not come without a price.  Two weeks back I awoke at 4:10 AM with ( gasp) chest pains, in the area that you would think, is associated with your heart.  I was scared to say the least. I sat up and was hoping it was some muscle twinge and would go away, but it did not. 
 So with my wife in tow we made our way to the emergency room. The protocol for chest pain is in multiple parts. The first thing they do is of course check your blood pressure and slap on an EKG. You also get the glory of having blood drawn for your cardiac enzymes and an IV put in. Now, people who know me well, know I HATE IV's. I just dont do well with them. Now the first person who tried wound up sticking me a couple of times and failing , which of course HURT!  So she ut in a call for the IV nurse. The IV nurse was not going to be available for over an hour, so they called upon a head nurse who was simply excellent at her task. She was also a friend of my sister Pamela, and that helped me be a little more comfortable as well. 
  So after this they draw blood every three hours as well as a new elg every three hours. After several round like this I was transferred into an observation room within the ER where i would stay through the day and until the next. The next day brought a new test. In order to rule out cardiac issues, I was scheduled for a Nuclear stress test.
  Well like a normal stress test I would walk then run on a treadmill to get my heart rate up to a target rate and then cool it down,  but I would first be given some radioactive material intravenously, and a set of scans made of my heart and the vessels within to check the flow. Then i was brought in to the stress test room.  Now in december , prior to my surgery, I had a regular stress test, which i made it to about 5 minutes running before they had to stop me because my heart rate was over 180 BPM. 
 Well in a good sign i made it past the 9 minute mark and rather than me stopping the test because i was so out of breath and my heart rate over 180 bpm my heart rate maxed out at 144 bpm and i made it all the way through the test. With my target heart rate achieved, they inject more radioactive material into your veins and then rush you back to the scanner where they take more scnas of your hearts vessels to compare with the first set. 
  The good news is they were able to rule out heart problems. The funny part is of course the first nurse I had in the ER had gastric bypass surgery 4 months before i had my sleeve done. The nurse practitioner who discharged me had her gastric sleeve done a year before mine, and in the same hospital by the same team as I did. It seemed like everywhere i went i was surrounded by people who had weight loss surgery. Now  I was released to follow up with my own physician. 
  Here is the bad news. Over  a week went by with no chest pain symptoms and we made the whole thing out to being a chest muscle infection or tear. Then a few days ago, on tuesday to be exact, the chest pain came back, and it has pretty much stuck with me on and off since then. I am scheduled to met with my primary care doctor on tuesday. There was a little breakthrough. I realized the pain comes only after i eat. Usually within 10 minutes of eating. When I wake up in the morning I am pain free, but after breakfast, on my way to work, it comes back. While its not ultra high levels of pain, it is enough to really make you pay attention.  So tomorrow morning I will be calling my surgeon to ask about this to see what they want to do, I may be seeing him on tuesday instead of my primary care doctor. The sort of good news is at least by knowing it has to do with my eating, I can rule out major lung issues, ( I wont say the C word didn't pop into my head a few times) which is nice. 
  So I will update my status after that happens, and we will kick the caboose and see what shakes loose. Oh and by the way the title of today's post is from.......Yes, it is from the Looney Tunes Robin Hood Daffy.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw9vaNS3b0s

So without further ado here is this posts cartoon.

A Buck Fifteen is a Small Price to Pay!

Welcome back everyone. Nice to see you here in Blogland.
So i know you guessed it but our current total now put me at 115 pounds down. So exciting to live life this way. Why the heck did I not do it sooner?  Well heck if we want to use hindsight why did i get so big in the first place? Well we know that answer. 
   So a funny thing happened. Funny weird , and yet also funny ha ha. Early Monday morning about 4:40 am i was awakened by a pain in my chest. Yes left sided , directly over my heart. I waited thinking maybe it was some small temporary thing, but no matter what i couldn't make it go away. Nor could I go back to sleep. Then i got a bit anxious and scared. As many of you know my family history, and for those who don't my mother had her first heart attack at a very young age a few years before my current age. That being so well known, I made the decision to go to the emergency room. I awoke my wife, and we sauntered off to the ER. 
   Now the immediately checked my EKG and started an IV, well first they missed and really hurt me, then called for a nurse who was the most skilled i have had in starting an IV. She also happens to be a friend of my sister Pamela, who worked at South SHore hospital's Emergency room for years.( it is good to know someone!) SO after putting that in my elbow area ( the antecubital space FYI), and drawing blood we awaited test results, well turns out the protocol for this is you get an EKG and blood drawn every three hours , for a total of three times each and they check your heart enzymes, and EKG for changes. Well after three sets were done ( and 8 attempted times for the 3 blood draws) it was decided that i would stay in the observation unit and today would have a Nuclear stress test. Simply put, you run a treadmill while they watch your EKG and take your vital signs, and first they take nuclear imaging pics, similar to a CT scan, but you have radioactive tracer material injected into you so they can trace the blood flow through the vessels in the heart. 
   After this you walk then run on a treadmill until you hit your target heart rate then they inject you again with more radioactive material, and you run one more minute then they ship you back off to the Nuclear imaging machine that retakes all the pics to show the enhanced blood flow through the heart. Well we did that and the results of all the tests show my heart is completely normal. (YAY!)
   Now here is the weird part. While I was in the emergency room, my nurse of course asks my medical history. Well so I mention the Gastric Sleeve surgery and she says " oh i just had gastric bypass surgery in september, and my husband had it 1.5 years ago."  So what are the chances I would hit it off like that with the nurse. We talked for a long time each time she came in to check vital signs etc. So that in itself isn't totally weird , I mean hey it happens right?   Okay so I am in the exercise stress test area and there is a nursing student watching me get prepared. The nurse there looks at my chart and says oh my sister had the gastric sleeve last year, and the nursing student says her mother had it last year as well. What are the chances that i get nurses with direct family members having had weight loss surgery? 
  The really weird part is today while in the observation area, the nurse practitioner comes in to start my discharge  process and she asks me what hospital I had my surgery done at, and I tell her Saint Elizabeth's and she says "oh yeah i had my gastric bypass there too last year." I literally looked at my wife in amazement. Did they specifically know to give me these caregivers? I was astounded. What a turn of events. Coincidence isn't just a word it seems. Well to make a long story short, I am ok. My heart is normal and they attributed my chest pain to either an inflamed or torn muscle in the rib cage in the heart area, or a cracked rib. Which since me and the wife spent the weekend doing major spring cleaning, getting rid of bags of old clothes and big plastic tubs of books, coupled with a really good gym workout, I evidently overdid it. So thankfully I am ok, and back home. 
   Now not to change subjects, but there is a company called Maya Kaimal. They make indian foods. They also make a tortilla like chip that is made from rice flour and chickpeas. So it is low in carbs and contains fiber and protein. I love them with some nice pico de gallo salsa. SInce i can only eat a few anyway, they really hit the spot. So i wrote to them and they sent me 9 bags of these chips and a case of various cooking sauces as well as a bottle of their spicy Ketchup, which is awesome. 
  We tried the butter Masala first , added it to chicken and it was just fantastic. The chicken stayed moist and was very flavorful. We next tried the Jalfrezi Curry which was also great for the same reasons. So if you like Indian foods, these sauces are worth getting. 
  So thats it for now friends more to come i promise. Thank you all for your support, kind words and constant inspiration. I love you all.

I will leave you with this posts cartoon.

   

Clothes do not make the man.....Look thinner?

      Hi all welcome back to my blog. Now I have said in the past that this would be a multiple posts per week kind of thing but I dont want to bore the heck out of you with, ate the same things today had my egg in the morning went to work, then had a shake for lunch and some chicken with a small amount of vegetable for dinner, went to the gym then went to bed. Kind of thing.  Unless you need help with insomnia, that would not solve a thing.
   So as a result I thought I would drag it out a bit more so we can cover highlights and lowlights all at once. Now thankfully this is an occasion of wonderment and is definitely a highlight.  So what is it you wonder ( I will bet many of you have guessed it already). Well , I will do a little backstory for you, before the big reveal. Back in mid October of last year , my surgeon Dr Anthony McCluney at Steward medical center in Brockton Mass, and I came to an agreement. We decided that it was time to push the button to launch me into my future and get the surgery done.
    There were tests to do and paperwork to undertake, but those would get done shortly thereafter. At that time we did my first official weigh in. Now prior to that, if you have followed the blog, you know not even a year earlier i had weighed in at 408 pounds, that was the big wake up moment for me. I had managed to get my weight down to 374 when i started my new job at the very end of February 2014. On this day in October, I was actually happy i had been able to lower my weight further to 362 pounds.
   So whats the big deal? Well today I walked out to my scale, stepped on it with both feet like do every morning, ( I have to do it weekly instead starting soon I know..) on this day however the display on my scale lit up and read 262 pounds. That is officially down 100 pounds since I have made a concerted effort to lose this weight.
  For me this is one small step for a man, one giant leap for Me! ( my apologies to Neil Armstrong)
Now those of you that are friends with me on facebook have seen these two pictures but those that have not will hopefully like them. The first is from a jaunt through Walmart a few days ago. Now for a lark I grabbed a suit jacket off the rack and jokingly said to my wife," heh I know this won't fit, but I'm just curious." So i tried on the suit jacket and, I was stunned. Not only did it fit, but it fit well. Now this may not seem like much  to you but it is the first time since i was maybe 8 or 9 years old that I have been able to fit into something like that off the rack.  No big and tall section, or big and tall store. No special "husky" or "portly"  this time.  This was a big event for me and a bit mind blowing.  You see, as these changes occur in me, I don't see the changes that others do, because I see myself every day and inside I am still me.
 

  Now the second picture is shortly thereafter. I went home and recently we have been sorting through old clothes to get rid of, I donated some and others went to someone who needed them. My suits and dress shirts I will post on ebay it is too nice to  just get rid of , and it helps recoup the cost from having to buy new clothes. Anyway I picked up a pair of shorts that I wore as recently as October of last year and as you can see I can basically ( checked today on a pair and Yes i can actually) fit into one leg of my old shorts. Again a bit of a blown mind. 

Now i had my 3 month visit with my nutritionist yesterday and she was very very happy with how far I have come and my eating habits etc. It is funny as she constantly reminds me that when I have days where I slip with my nutrition, to not worry about them and just get back on track and keep going.  I don't allow myself those days however, at least not yet, My worst was a small bite of a mini cupcake once, not even close to a mouthful, just enough to savor the taste and I gave the rest of that mini cupcake to my wife. I worry that if i slip once  I will continue to slip, but she wants to make sure I really don't keep that attitude so I can adjust more toward eating like a normal healthy person would, later of course, but bad habits die hard and trading a bad habit for another is not good either. So we shall see, I don't relish cheating especially since i can only eat so little that cheating is a big waste of time. 

   Now after this meeting I had to go over to the lab for some bloodwork. Now I am a baby when it comes to drawing blood, I just hate it. Just writing about it raises my anxiety levels. So I am siting in the blood drawing chair, and I am waiting and waiting for this tech  to get all this information into the computer. My tests are all entered one at a time by abbreviation and code and evidently since I am having every vitamin test under the sun done, and several vials had to be blocked from being exposed to light, several had to be placed immediately on  ice, etc this took forever. So after twenty five minutes of waiting in this chair, I am starting to sweat, my heart is racing and I am dreading this whole experience. 

  I tell this very nice lady that I do not want a warning, just do it and get it over with. Well she has to draw 10 vials of blood from me. 10? Well she comments how fast i am filling these suckers and I don't have the heart to tell her it is because my heart is pounding. Now we hit vials number seven and I am starting to really want to get up out of this chair, the anxiety is getting the best of me. I should have prefaced this by saying since this was a weigh in day at the hospital, I had had nothing to eat or drink up to that point and it was around 12:30 in the afternoon. Between the nutritionists office and the lab i was able to gulp down half a powerade zero, but that was it.  

   So finally the blood draw is finished and another tech come in and I am now dizzy as all get out, and my vision is very very blurry and all three of us are thinking I am going to pass out. I manage to get out of that blood drawing chair ( against the techs wishes) and make it to a reclining chair away from the blood drawing equipment. Thankfully after one of the techs went and grabbed me an ice cold orange juice, i started to feel human again, but it was a close call. lol it has got to be something right? So all in all a good few days, 100 pounds down officially and about 90 to go to hit my goal. This is one of my major goals now that I have hit and I could not be happier about it. I want to thank everyone, all my friends, coworkers, and yes my blog readers. Everyone has played a part in helping me stay on track. Whether it is friends saying how good I look, or coworkers asking how I am doing, those comments really help. Thank you all. 

   Here is this posts comic.

...Who You Calling Petite??

Hello Everyone, welcome back to the blog.

First let me apologize for having made you all wait so long without keeping in touch. 
 Things get so hectic sometimes that it is tough to keep up.  Things are going great here with my weight i've almost reached the tipping point where I have actually lost  more  than I have left to lose. 
I have discovered several things as well. The first being how to guarantee that I cause a stall in my weight loss. Now just in case you wanted to know, A stall is when your weight fails to change or changes so slowly it becomes hardly noticeable. 
   Well stalls are common when you lose a lot of weight and there are several infamous ones. The most infamous is the dreaded three week stall, which as you guessed occurs around three works from surgery. Thankfully mine only lasted a few days, but some people will incur a much longer stall lasting even a few weeks. Now there is a scientific explanation for a stal, having to do with water and a sugar by-product called glucagon, basically it has to do with water moving in and filling in empty spaces left by the fat that has been burned by the body. You have to work through the stalls moving that water out of those spaces and then you lose weight. Now one thing  I have mentioned before is that I measured myself prior to surgery, and then again on my 6 week appointment. Well  i will be measuring myself soon so that I can see the results, although i can tell you this. 
  With my body undergoing so many changes I have now gone from a size 5xl shirt to wearing some nice new 2x shirts, and my pants went from a size 4xl to an xl,  the changes have been dramatic. My boss even made the remark to me that i was a very petite man. lol That is the first time in my life I have been called petite, and boy did I love it.  
   Soon soon I will post new measurements, I'm intrigued to find out for myself what the numbers are as well. So I know you are wondering well where are you now with your weight? Well let me say this as a reminder, In mid october of last year my surgeon told me it was time to start my weight loss, and at my official weigh in I weighed 362 pounds. 
   This morning I weighed in at 270 pounds , 92 pounds down. Now with my target weight being 170, i have currently lost 92 pounds with 100 pounds left to go and as I said earlier in 4 pounds I will have lost 96 pounds with 96 left to go. Thats my tipping point, and I will enjoy it as well. 
  Now with all the snow and problems around i missed the gym for over a week, but we restarted a few days back and things are right back on track. One amazing thing is just one month before my surgery I was given a cardiac stress test and after 8 minutes of exercise my heart rate was over 160+ beats per minute. 
   Yesterday just for example, I rode for about 5 miles on the bike and  my heart rate never got above 131 bpm. Thats a tremendously lower load on my heart than just a few months ago. That's the best reinforcement of why to have this surgery I could get.  
   I  know that in the past I have told you all how little i eat well I want to share a picture of an actual meal, now this is a picture of a typical dinner for me. It consists of three small pieces of chicken  ( breaded yes but i have to have a few carbs everyday and these are it), and to make it even funnier i was only able to eat one of them. The little cup is a new product by libby's. They are little individual cups of veggies you can microwave, its a nice fit for me. 
So here'

is what i have for dinner, again keep in mind i could only eat one of the chicken pieces.  To give you a little perspective each piece of chicken is the size of one of those little lollipops, as a matter of fact these are called chicken pops, or about the size of a quarter each. 
   This is one of those really small plates, because yes, putting your food on a small plate does indeed help your mind get past the psychological hunger. Now one of the things I want to discuss, is this. You may or may not have heard or watched a TV program called the The Biggest Loser. Well in this weight loss show the contestants , all obese people, compete to lose the most weight. Now they get literally 24 hour a day care, trainers on call at all times, medical staff, nutritionists, chefs and exercise physiologists all ready to make sure they get all the help possible. Plus they workout all day long, no employment or life responsibilities. Then over the course of 16 weeks they find out who lost the most. Well on this seasons finale thier head doctor, knowns as Dr H, ( doctor Wayne Huizenga.) said that the contestants lost weight the "right way" without that distasteful and bad weight loss surgery.
  The man totally insulted people who have weight loss surgery, dealing a blow to people out there who would think about surgery but are now told not to. Well of course it is all money motivated as this doctor runs the Biggest Loser weight loss camp, where people pay 3 thousand dollars per week to lose weight. It infuriated me, and many others. Unfortunately he never said that like 60% of The Biggest loser contestants gain back all their weight because they aren't taught to change their lifestyle. I use this surgery as a tool to teach me how to eat forever, losing the weight is one part but keeping it off is the most important. over 80% of gastric sleeve patients keep  a large portion of their initial lost weight off for more than ten years. 
  Well thank you for coming back again, and there will be another blog post very soon, a special Milestone post at that. 

See you all soon, and here is this entry's cartoon:
  

Who's the Guy on The Fifty? Me?

  So hello again everyone, Welcome back. I wanted to start today's blog post off with some good news. two days ago was the 50th day since my surgery.  Coincidentally it was also the day I weighed in at 282 pounds, or 50 pounds lost since surgery. That equates to 1 pound per day lost. This is just amazing tome that I have been able to do this. The Gym and the dieting have truly done wonders. 
So many health issues have been resolved or greatly lessened since the surgery, that I can truly say I am so much more healthy now than I have been in 15 years. Now since the pre-op dieting and surgery together I have now lost 80+ pounds. I can honestly look forward to being able to say I have made an effort and as a result have lost 100 pounds ( no jinx).  This is my next goal. 
   I talked with the owner of the company I work for and he is an avid runner who has run 45 marathons and multiple triathlons including the iron man earlier this year. Well he has posted face book entry where no matter the temperature and we all know how cold it has been here, he and his friends have been out every morning running. Well I asked him  about how much he loves running and he surprised me by saying he doesn't like it at all. What he likened it to was liking the feeling when you're done running. The endorphin high AKA "Runners High," is what he is talking about. One of my coworkers  once said i would get addicted to going to the gym. Now I haven't got to that point yet, but I hope to.
   I will say that after a workout I do feel better both physically and of course mentally about myself. This week weather permitting we are due to start Circuit Strength Training, which consists of an additional 30 minute workout where you alternate between 10 machines for 1 minute and 1 minute of cardiovascular work, like stepping and this lasts 30 minutes and you switch from station to station with a traffic type light that goes from red to green to keep you moving along. 

This is another motivating factor.

Now this exercise thing takes some getting used to of course, and it isn't easy but it is necessary. I had someone ask what my food day looks like so I will give you some idea of my basic day. 

Breakfast-One egg scrambled, sometimes with one or two slices of precooked bacon, that I warm up. an sometimes with some cheese on the egg. I can usually eat the whole thing now in about 20 to 25 minutes. Once a week I may have 1/4 cup of cheerios with just enough 1% milk to touch them all instead of the egg but then I have to do something to make up for the protein difference. 

Lunch- (Work Week) Protein Shake in 6 Ounces of liquid. (Weekend) Varies usually something very light. 

Dinner- Primarily chicken, but add in beef usually once a week, or pork once a week. I have about 3 to 4 ounces of chicken and two tablespoons of vegetable, and a tablespoon of starch (sometimes) 

Snack- If  get the urge or hunger for a snack I have these peeled apple slices, or a scoop of peanut butter.  Or sugar free Jello or sugar Free Pudding.  

That's it. that is the basis of my food life at this point. Not exactly a lot, as a matter of fact about 600 calories on average.  So you can see that if you, my glorious readers were to follow this food plan....you would probably be hungry ALL THE TIME. Ha ha. But it works, and that's the bottom line in this. Now you may ask, well don't you get hungry? Well yes and no, there is a Psychological hunger that can make it as hard to say no to bad things as any physical hunger you can have. Also when you are actually physically in need of food you do get a bit of hunger. 

  What is hard is the fact you really stay away from the dread carbohydrates. Now i know my nutritionist has said and others as well that there are good carbs and bad carbs. However if you can, you avoid both. I do allow myself the occasional pita. There's a company called Josephs, that makes a Whole wheat pita with flax seed and omega 3's, that is only 4 net carbs for a whole small pita. I will say this, i beg for something crunchy, oh how i miss that crunch. I did find some crackers at Trader Joe's that are made from quinoa, rice flour and whole bran that are a lot like a tortilla chip and i will have maybe 4 or 5 with some salsa when i can get some salsa or actually i'm probably going to make some homemade salsa once the weather clears a bit. So with another 7 inches today and 10 more due tomorrow, I will be surely working from home. 

I wil

l leave you with that my dear readers. Also I will be posting all my taste test videos to you tube tonight I will post a link in the next post. See you then. 

Until then Here is my ending cartoon!

I Just Cant Weight..or..The Doctor is out!

Hello again everyone.  We have hit 1.5 months since surgery and all things are going well. 
I wanted to ell you how things are really going day to day. Food wise, I was cleared to eat anything I can tolerate, which pretty much means anything in extremely small quantities. I had asked my nutritionist when I could try a salad. I ate so many of them in pre-op, and i really like salad.  Well Lettuce as with most leafy greens do not digest well if at all. The cellulose fibers in the plants do not digest and have a tendency to act like a high does of fiber, and can expand and make your sleeve feel overfull. It can lead to throwing up. or just plain feeling like you swallowed a brick.
  So I was told to try a very small amount at first ( like there is any other size I could eat?!?) well i tried some homemade chicken salad wrapped in a lettuce leaf. Well i tried it wrapped in some heirloom bibb lettuce i got from Trader Joe's. Unfortunately the lettuce tasted like grass to me. 
  That is one of the things that happens after this surgery. Certain items will taste bad and certain others that you disliked now have enhanced tastes. I almost feel pregnant n that i tried a pickle and was amazed at how god it was. Not some special handmade pickle , just a small piece of dill pickle.  So I figured i was out of luck. Needless to say i tried a little bit of salad at work and iceberg lettuce still lasted good. 
 So I know what your thinking, how about an update? Sure lets get into it. First I will give you an update on my weight. My surgery remember was on Dec. 16th. In the pre-op diet i lost 30 pounds going from 362 to 332 on the day of my surgery. Today I am down to 286. Which is 46 pounds in 45 days since surgery or 76 pounds total since October 12th. Just as important along with the weight loss is the physical changes my body has made in response to the weight loss. So on January 23rd we remeasured my body at specific points and compared them to the measurement we took at surgery, and here they are below in inches.

AREA                   12/16/2014                           1/23/2015

Neck                       23                                             20

Chest                      60                                             52

upper arms  R  20    (L)  20                                   R 17 (L) 17

forearms      R  15   (L) 15                                     R 12 (L) 12

belly                        60                                               54

waist                        56                                               50

Thigh               (R) 26 (L) 26                                      (R) 24 (L) 24

   If you add that all up I have lost over 30+ inches since surgery. That seems like an absurdity, even to me and I'm the one living it. It is also a relief and a huge motivator to keep going. I average between .6 to .8 pounds a day lost now. I do have small stalls, which are expected with tremendous body changes, you will hold some water in here and there, it happens. I went 4 days without losing an ounce then on the fifth day dropped 2 and a half pounds. That's usually how a stall in weight loss breaks. 
 Just to give you an idea what my daily intake is like I will give you a normal day. In the morning I get up for work at about 6:45 am. I do not have to be to work until 9:30 am, but my wife is up and usually leaves by 7:15 so i like to be up and ready to go to see her off. Also if i get out of bed my chances of oversleeping are nil. 
   At first I had to decide should I eat breakfast or should I have some coffee ( decaf of course, although caffeine has had no harmful acidic effects on me so far). I have this down to eat first , so I whip up one egg scrambled. I even bought a very small non stick frying pan to make it easier to cook. Some days i will have two pieces of precooked bacon. I heat it up first of course. I can usually finish this or at least 90% of it over a half hour while the news is on and i get ready to leave for work. On my way to work I stop at Dunkin Donuts.
    Now in the past this was a very bad thing for me. I wouldn't eat breakfast at home but would buy a bagel with cream cheese, and extra cream cheese ( yeah I liked my bagel loaded lol) and two donuts as well for later in the day, and a cup of coffee, extra cream, extra sugar.  Obviously this was a big part of keeping myself fat, but I love donuts. It was comfort to go, with a hole in the center. 
   I realized that I cannot just deprive myself of everything bad I did, I just have to adjust. So now i get a medium decaf and add a sugar substitute like monk fruit extract, ( tastes better then sweet and low, yecch)  or even just one sugar, which overall is not that bad if that is the only sugar you have, although unrefined sugar is better like in sugar in the raw etc. I usually can only drink about 1/4 of a medium, before it gets cold and cold coffee is not my thing in winter anyway. For lunch i have a protein shake, either a Fuzzy Navel flavor or Cappuccino. Then for dinner its usually something chicken related. A store near us sells really good marinated chicken, in both pieces and in breast forms. Like Asian Chili, or Parmesan garlic, or Bourbon Turkey Tips. These cook up quick served  with a very small side of vegetables and sometimes even a smaller amount of starch. A total of about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of total food. If i get the urge later I will have some sugar free jello or sugar free pudding.  We went out for breakfast this morning to the doughnut shop we always frequented, no I did not get a doughnut, I got one egg and some toast and I was able to eat about half the egg and about 3/4 of one half slice of whole wheat toast. It is rough but it is also very interesting to leave a lot of food on your plate especially since I grew up in a household where you ate everything on your plate as a rule. Well i think I will leave it there for now, The next post will be much  sooner I swear. So see you soon, and go Patriots!
 Here is my cartoon for this post, Enjoy:

...............300... This Is Not Sparta!

  Welcome back friends loved ones and wayward Were-bunnies. Thank you for coming back and reading my blog. You all provide a great service to someone like me. Some of you I probably don't know, yet your reading my words keeps me going as much as anyone around. 
I thank you. Now on to the fun. 
  It is now almost one month post surgery and things are progressing. Not quite as fast as they started off, but they are not really supposed to. As a refresher, here is some quick background. In December of 2012 i weighed in at 408 pounds. In a response to this I decided it was time for a change and started my journey in weight loss. I wasn't very good at it as over the course of the next 15 months i only managed to lose 34 pounds. 
   This helped me to understand that I needed a new plan. I started off in March of 2014 at 374 pounds and started my job at Peach New Media.They helped inspire me to take that next step as well. The step to Bariatric Surgery, VSG also known as Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy, aka the sleeve. My pre-op weight loss plan helped me lose 30 pounds from October 12th to December 16th. 
 On December 16th 2014 I underwent the VSG procedure at Saint Elizabeth's Hospital, my surgery weight was 332 pounds. . A day later I was home healing, and about a month later I sit here writing to you. 
  The best news i can give is I now weigh in at 298 pounds. For the first time in probably 15 years I have cracked the 300 barrier. Honestly I had dreamed of this day for a long time, but dreams alone done do the work, it took a lot to get just to this point and I am truly glad to be here. Here is some side by side pics of my face, see if you can tell the difference before the weight loss and currently. 

Before

Current














I hope you see a difference. So far I am down 2 shirt sizes from a 5xl to a 3xl and in pants, Well lets just say it is a big difference. I have been wearing mostly elastic pants knowing I would be losing weight i couldn't buy anything expensive or it would be a waste anyway. So Sweatpants and workout type pants for me. I dropped from a tight 3xl pant to a loose 2xl pant.  I will post my before surgery measurements and I will take another set of measurements after my formal weigh in and meeting with the nutritionist on the 21st. That will be a hoot. 
  So I am now on the soft foods stage but that includes soft meats so im very happy about that. Yet in a be careful what you wish for sort of way. You see after being on the liquids for two weeks you truly want to eat something. However when you get to do so you realize how little you can eat and all the restrictions come to bear. Eat to fast..you will pay for it, eat too much, you will pay for it. 
  For me the toughest is not drinking within a 1/2 hour before and after meals. Also just not being able to drink in the way you used to , and I don't mean alcohol.  Let's say you are thirsty,  want to just grab a glass of water and drink your fill. Well your fill is a small half mouthful. Then wait then maybe another small half mouthful. 
 Now add to this the fact that myself and my wife have joined a gym. We go 4 to 5 times a week, and I ride the stationary bike ( upright) and she uses the treadmill. We started the first time at 15 minutes, because i was close to surgery still and didn't know what this would do to me to be honest. 
  I know from a year or so ago in physical therapy when i had my shoulder surgery, that I was capable of doing 15 minutes on the bike, albeit with a supreme effort on my part.  Well that first day was okay. The next week we upped it to 20 minutes and i was able to ride 5 miles and even doing the hill program on the bike. 
  The best part is although I was tired and sure felt the burn, I wasn't feeling like I would die like i used to. Losing this much weight so far has truly already benefited me. So next week 25 minutes, and then 30. Then we add in the circuit training to be sure i can keep some muscle tone. All in all things have gone very well. I go together with friends on last Saturday for the New England Patriots game and my friends all remarked how much I had changed. It is truly a wonderful thing to hear when you know and can feel and see the changes. Sometimes people say " oh have you lost weight?" when in reality they are just being polite. This time, i know and can honestly answer yes, I have. Well thats where I am going to leave this and head off to bed. I hope you have a wonderful week, and I will see you soon. 

and I leave you with this.