Asperger's Coincidences?

I thought this was an interesting coincidence.

Shortly after the July 4th holiday here in the States I was watching Degrassi on whatever that satellite channel is "For Teens". Think it's a Nickelodeon spinoff channel of some sort. My daughter was a fan of the show and I actually started watching it and got too much into the whole drama of the various storylines...so sue me.

Anyway there was a Degrassi-a-thon leading up to the new season. In the show there is a character named Connor with an episode focusing one of the story braids on him having a behavior issue that is diagnosed as Asperger's. The kid showed symptoms of it for several episodes, but unlike many "teen" or kid shows where a character suddenly has an episode with some condition that suddenly manifests so writers can focus on an issue-of-the-week, this kid had a running history of Asperger behavior that seemed kind of consistent for the character. Nice.

I took note of the Asperger thing. Thought it was interesting.

Later that day I was at the gym listening to episode 48 of Stackoverflow (yes, I'm way behind on some of my podcast feeds) and one of the topics Joel and Jeff discussed were programmers with personality issues in a team and how to deal with them.

One of the points Joel brought up? Techies with Asperger personalities. He said that people with this type of personality usually appreciate being told that they're doing something that others find uncomfortable or incorrect and tend, in his experiences, to just acknowledge it and continue on while trying to correct the behavior (if it's an issue that bothers them or relates to keeping their job, anyway).

Twice, Aspergers was mentioned from outside sources in one day. Interesting! Was something trying to tell me something?

I was also elated to finally hear someone that gets it. Joel (Spolsky) actually understood that for Asperger personalities, we don't care about social rules and courtesies as much as Normals (this is also one of the times when I refer to Normals being people without Asperger's instead of people who aren't overweight...).

A lot of people simply write us off as rude or won't discuss certain issues with us because they're too emotionally rooted in the issue. Social rules dictate we don't talk about certain problems or ideas because it is rude to do so...but for us, people with Asperger personalities, we don't follow those rules because our brains are wired differently. We tend to be more detached emotionally from most issues where Normals worry about how they look to others because it commits a social faux-pas.

Another way to think about it...to us, Normals are the weird ones. We don't understand why something of so little impractical use is such a big deal.

It was great to hear Joel saying that in cases where the programmer or techie is Aspergers it's perfectly fine to just tell them, "Listen, so and so doesn't like it when you stare at your shoes while they're talking to you. Try to watch them when they're talking, 'kay?", and the programmer usually just says, "Oh, gee, thank you for telling me." Then they go off to work again. No hurt feelings. They were unaware it was bugging someone.

On the other hand it bugs me when Normals expect the person with the personality quirk to change just because it makes them uncomfortable. If it's not something that is hurting someone, let me stare at my feet. Unless it is something that is causing you distraction, why stop someone else's habit just because it's rude?

I have a lot of quirks where people distract me and cause me anxiety because of their otherwise harmless habits. Twisting hair, flexing feet, chewing with their mouth open...I can't concentrate. I can't not become focused on this, like a water faucet dripping incessently. I need to remove myself from the distraction or I grow extremely agitated. But if it's a quirk that doesn't affect anyone...why bother them about it?

I guess that just grows out of a feeling I get that I'm expected to accomodate other people while others aren't necessarily feeling any need to accomodate me. I'm told others do and I am just oblivious to it; not surprising, given the situation. We need emotion-based cues pointed out to us sometimes. But I also grew up with the feeling that I was an inadequate outsider. I was "different" and thus expected to conform to what others defined as normal while normal people were perfect the way they are.

This meant that I am very sensitive to when this is expected of me as an adult.

I was simply struck by the coincidence of hearing this disorder being mentioned twice in one day on two different media platforms for different reasons and it got me to thinking about these issues more. It's nice that there's some acknowledgement of it out there in the media. Maybe to some degree it'll enter into the groupthink of society a little bit more. Or at least it's a little consolation that I'm not the only one out here with it, plus I was so happy to find someone who seemed to actually get what it's like to interact with an Aspergian mind without treating them as if they were defective and needed to change to be more normal.

Thank you Joel!

Weigh-In Progress

I thought I'd put this in since I kind of hit another milestone of sorts. Of course, it could change in a couple days if it goes the wrong way, but at least it hit a milestone for one morning.

This morning my weight came in at under 300 lbs. 298.5, actually. That's 159.5 pounds since January lost, 77.5 since my surgery in April.

Like I said, it could all change with water weight or one of the fates getting angry with me for doing $DEITY-knows-what. With any luck it'll continue to fall (or worse case, plateau...I could live with that for a couple days...) but only time will tell!

I had gone to the gym again today too. I'm still not sure I'm doing things correctly or "well", but at least I'm doing something. I changed my end-workout routine so that instead of doing the treadmill twice (just before, just after) I do the treadmill to warm up and a stationary upright bike for 20 minutes to "cool down."

I'm still trying to figure out what the reading on the treadmill and stationary bike is that is labeled "mets", though...

Office Open Except For Lunch

This is appearing in the feed many days after the fact, so while it just recently happened to me it actually occurred weeks ago.

I needed to get my bloodwork done as part of my post-operative followup. That day things were already running late; my wife's parents were leaving to drive many hours home but apparently arranged to meet for breakfast after my 9:30 appointment. The doctor's office must have been running behind. I didn't get in until close to 10:00. After talking with the doctor I had lab paperwork in hand but because of the time I said to go to Panera to meet with her parents for breakfast first then we would go back for bloodwork.

Upon returning to the office I found a sign in sheet at the lab with a note telling people that the registration desk was closed for lunch from 12:00 to 1:00; I got there right at noon. I entered my name on the sheet and waited.

Over the span of twenty minutes I saw several people, some I could tell were employees, leave the lab area. Leave. Not come back. Only a few minutes after I arrived someone shut the lab door as they left and I, the only one in the reception room, just got a sheepish grin as she left.

No one coming to even check the sheet...doors closed...I was there alone. After twenty minutes I had the distinct impression that it wasn't just the registration desk that was closed for lunch. At the tail end of that twenty minutes about four or five people in civilian clothes came in through reception and proceed through an "authorized personnel only" door, ignoring me.

I ended up just saying to Hell with it and leaving.

I had taken time off from work to get this stuff done today. I did not relish the idea of stewing for an hour to pay someone to jab me with a needle when I still had half a dozen things to get done.

This isn't the first time I've run into the "closed for lunch" thing, not just here but with other businesses. I can understand if this is some small operation...but when it's a place with several qualified employees available, why can't the employer stagger break and lunchtimes a little? This isn't a pharmacy where the law requires a licensed pharmacist on duty and many pharmacies have one working for the day and several assistants in the shop.

What about people trying to get stuff done over a lunch break? It's horrible to not have time off to do things. I normally can't get things done because offices and stores close just as I get out of work. I would have been three kinds of pissed to have gone over my "lunch time" to do this just to find everyone "out" and realized I had just wasted my time.

Maybe the lab was just slow and there was one guy drawing blood from someone. I don't know. If there was it would have been nice within twenty minutes to have had some sign of life in there. I was the only name on the list that no one had come out to check. The normally open lab door was shut. The room was empty except for me. Not a sign of another soul.

That's not entirely true. At another window on the other end of the room there was some young guy sitting behind the desk of the physical therapy reception window in the corner of the office (not directly behind the window where people would come up to get information or check in, I saw him because I was at an angle to the window) with his face buried in some book or paper while eating a sandwich. He wasn't offering any attention; I toyed with the idea of asking him the lab was just plain shut down, but he was clearly engrossed in his sandwich.

I had grown so pissed at that point that it was better if I didn't have any bloodwork done just then. My patience was just too short by then. It would have been nice to even just have a simple sign saying that there was someone who would be out soon.

All I would ask is for some consideration for people who don't have a very flexible schedule. You never know how much you can help...or ruin...someone's day, and I was definitely fuming for the next couple hours about this.

Diet and Routine

Diet is a lot like a good suit...any diet can be made to fit you, but you need to shop around to find one that really fits you well. Notice I said diet, not dieting? They are often linked but usually people don't see a difference. There is one. Dieting is an act and people consider it a temporary measure usually to starve yourself in some way or with some gimmick in order to lose weight while your diet is the nutrition you take into your body. I'm probably oversimplifying but if a nutritionist wants to comment on the post he or she is more than welcome to. This stuff just flows from my the top of my head and people should know that I'm not a nutritionist so if I'm a little off then please forgive me here...

Anyway there are a lot of diets out there. You can follow a vegan diet (are there any overweight vegans or vegetarians out there?), no carb, no sugar, Atkins, South Beach,...blah blah...if you're overweight you're probably familiar with a short list of dieting lifestyles available out there.

I am a person that has tendencies and quirks that befit a person with a mild form of Asperger's. Part of that means that routine is very important to me, and I've found that a diet that consists largely of a set routine tends to work well for me. Once I get into a habit I tend to follow it.

I thought about this as I've now become settled into another food routine. Since my surgery I've had a number of bumps in what I could and could not eat and how to try balancing nutrition with protein intake and such. It's not over, obviously, as I'll need to make adjustments as blood tests tell things and probably adjust for weight maintenance if (hopefully when!) I lose enough weight to be near a healthy size.

Since my surgery I'm now down to a habitual diet that normally consists of a breakfast and a lunch that consists of a kind of home-made burrito and a dinner that is often a third one of these, but sometimes half a sandwich from Panera Bread or some seafood from Red Lobster or something like that. I take the leftovers home and piece them out for meals the next day so I don't let them spoil and go to waste.

The burrito consists of a flat bread called FlatOuts; it's a soft flat bread that is great for making rollups and comes in a variety of flavors. My favorite has been the honey wheat (but oddly enough I didn't see it on their website...I see it at Wegman's, though, where I normally stock up on them). I normally put some mix of 2% cheese, 98% fat free bologna, and/or ham on along with some mustard and roll it up to pack in my cooler.

I variation I make of this is to use a slice of the 2% cheese and some refried beans. I also will sometimes put in a chunk of cheese for calcium and protein.

There are some small variations I'll make along the way; like I said, we do go out sometimes to restaurants, other times I'll get enough ambition to make some Egg Beaters scrambled or as a patty to put into a home Burrito-ala'-Barry.

I always measure this out so that the meal is less than 6 ounces. At first I was keeping it under 8, and through monitoring and reflection I found that my ideal size where I felt pretty good through the day and still didn't have discomfort was a sweet spot near 5-1/2 ounces. So now my meals are less that 5-1/2 ounces when all weighed. I think that's doing pretty good.

Since I started riding the stationary recumbent bike, though, I felt a little bit...off? I suppose that's one way to put it. I felt "off". So I take a few peanuts, watching how much I have of course, to give a little boost. I started riding and going only about 3 or 4 miles. today I ride usually between 6 to 9 miles in about an hours' time before hobbling back upstairs (it really makes your behind sore!). I don't take a bowl of peanuts or a cup or anything like that. I'd estimate I have about a quarter to a third of a cup of peanuts, just roasted lightly salted peanuts. They're a good source of nutrition and I think a good source of energy for exercise; I know I've felt better since doing that so unless the nutritionist tells me to knock it off I don't know what harm there is in doing that.

That said I still dislike exercise and it makes me anxious when I am in a situation where I can't get my exercise time in now. I knew that was going to happen...

I have to say that I have not really felt a lot of pain or discomfort while adapting post-surgery. I had maybe two bouts of what I'd classify as pain, and maybe two or three episodes of discomfort while learning what was and wasn't an amount to tolerate as intake. I also had to discover that rate of eating affects how you feel...in my job, you get short bursts of time for lunch usually on the go an it's hard to step back and have an actual uninterrupted lunch time where you're still not pestered with job duties; this is something I think I'll need to work on more. But still I'd have to say that after all was said and done I had a fairly smooth transition.

I have had exchanges with one of the people that follows my blog, Lee, and I believe he normally sticks with a routine of eating batches of a homemade chile, the recipe for which he has at his own blog. I think the recipe is found here, but he may have altered it and varied it over time...I'm sure if you email him or comment on his blog he'd be glad to share it.

I don't know what works for other people. I just know that I can stick to a routine...about six or seven years ago, give or take, I went on a Very Low Calorie diet which was about 600 calories a day. People asked how I could do that and in truth it wasn't very hard. Well, the resulting pancreatitis and gallstone attack that led to the removal of the gall bladder wasn't pleasant, but the calorie restriction? Not so bad after about two weeks. I simply got into a routine of what I would have for meals at set times. It's probably the Asperger's in me.

So this is an update on another aspect of how I'm adjusting post-surgery as well as sharing that if you are a creature of habit, perhaps a diet with a foundation in habits would benefit you. The bets tools I've found for dieting are food journals and the advice of a nutritionist/dietitician. Various gimmicks for losing weight are usually just that. Gimmicks. At best they'll fool your mind into following a system that can benefit you. At worst you're wasting your time and money.

If you have lost weight or maintained a weight loss, please share your information in the comments!

Another Side Effect Finally Came: Hair Loss

I've been taking a couple baths finally. Ah, to sit and stew in piping hot water...nice and relaxing.

We happen to have a tub with little jets in it. There is a circular intake with a plastic sieve-like cover that sucks the water into the pump, then ejects it into my blubbery skin, simultaneously relaxing the muscles after an hour at the gym (and an hour out doing weed whacking) while highlighting how much excess fatty skin I have.

But I noticed something else. The plastic cover on the water intake starts growing hair.

While I would like to think it was my wife's hair, this is noticeably shorter. I'm thinking it's mine. The pump is collecting it into a small hairball that surprises me with just how much there is apparently no longer on my scalp.

I read a lot of warnings that after surgery there is often a period of time when hair starts falling out. It's just something that apparently happens as the body readjusts to a different caloric and vitamin/mineral intake. Unless it continues to happen, then I suppose it may be a medical issue.

It's all good for now. I always had a thick head of hair so thinning it out a little won't hurt anything.

Just another side effect...

My Little Guy's Eating Habits

How do we raise our kids to eat well?

Is it by example? Or are their habits for eating innate?

I've been worried about this with my son lately. Up until shortly before my surgery we were big on fast food. We went to breakfast on Sunday mornings at McDonalds, and several times a week we would go to get dinner at McDonalds or some other fast food outlet.

Slowly my own habits had changed; it was done out of necessity and then later in justification through reflection of having to make the changes. Since I have to consider my diet when planning out the day I end up pre-fixing most of my meals and taking them with me. Even if we're eating out I'll have my little plastic container with my cheese/meat wrap. The only food I'll normally have outside my three sub-6 ounce meals is probably what amounts to a total of 1/2 a cup of lightly salted peanuts or a spoon of peanut butter; I found that having some of those helps stave the feeling of "off" that sometimes hit me during the day, especially after I started trying to exercise.

I've weaned off milk and now only have water to drink. It seems like I'm constantly drinking water and still I had test results back saying my kidney function showed I need more water in my diet. Sheesh.

For my anniversary my wife got me a camel pack, the backpack with a tube and water bladder for drinking. It's meant for people who hike or ride bike. I think it's the only way I'll get enough water during the day.

My son is pretty consistent when it comes to what he wants for his meals. He wants a cheeseburger or chicken nuggets for dinner, small french fries, diet soda. Other occasions he likes Macaroni and Cheese. Sometimes he likes pizza or one of those ready-made Lunchables packs.

Lately he's been asking for cereal or a cheese sandwich. Sometimes as a snack, or he'd have it as a post-dinner meal.

At the same time he sometimes won't eat much for lunch or breakfast. He may, for all practical definitions, skip a meal. Just not hungry.

I know that kids, especially young kids, go through periods where they'll eat the same things over and over. I still do that. What I'm worried about is whether he's overeating, or how to curb the bad habits of relying on fast foods for meals. It's not that you can't eat sort-of healthy foods at fast food joints, at least from a weight control viewpoint. A cheeseburger (his favorite meal staple) is only 300 calories at McDonald's. But relatively speaking food from restaurants (and fast food joints) tends to be higher in fat and sodium than stuff made at home.

I'm also worried because when my little guy goes to visit grandparents I get the distinct feeling that he's given more freedom from food restrictions; if he wants candy or more helpings of macaroni and cheese or a hot dog, it's always ready for him whereas we would be more inclined to tell him he's had enough.

Part of me thinks I'm just more focused on it because of my surgery; it's a side effect, when you constantly focus on your own eating habits and issue, to start looking at what other people do and get into and start passing judgement on their habits. I look at how food interacts with other people and how people interact with their food. Are they eating this or eating that much because they're hungry, or because they're looking to that meal as an emotional crutch? Will my little guy be eating like this because it's associated with reward or security or love?

More often than not we impart these views on others without even knowing that is what we're doing. What if that's what I'm allowing or doing to my own son?

This is a constant source of anxiety for me. I don't want to rob my son of a "normal" (or semi-normal) socialization; I don't want to turn him into a food freak unwilling to try new things or constantly worrying about his weight. At the same time I know that I was overweight and had issues with food for my entire life, and as a result was robbed of many of the interactions that Normals take for granted growing up.

I also don't want to make others around me worry about their own habits around me or my little dude. My wife made comments recently that reminded me she is conscious of the fact that I eat less now and it makes her feel unusual with what she's eating even though for me my situation is different and it doesn't bother me that other people are eating more or talking about food. In my perspective it's a social habit that people are conditioned with making them feel self-concious about social eating around people who aren't eating as much as I am.

So what is really normal eating for younger kids? Should I be letting him eat pretty much what he wants as he's hungry and be careful not to encourage him to "clean his plate" or worry about leftovers, or should I be trying to limit how much he takes in and risk making him self-conscious?

I had hoped that the overweight cycle would be broken by my now living by a better example. Maybe it will have some kind of effect. I'm really hoping it will...but there's far more influences in the world my little guy lives in than just his daddy.

Weight Loss Progress for July 24th

Time for another update, I suppose. I weighed in this morning and I'm now at 300.5 pounds.

I've lost:
157.5 pounds since January.
75.5 pounds since the RnY surgery in April.
62.5 pounds since my friend challenged me to lose 60 pounds before he lost 30.

As I've said before I don't think he's tracking his challenge anymore; I'm not pressing it with him. If he checks in periodically he can do what he wants with it, but to tell the truth I don't know if he does read the blog.

Moving on, I am told that losing that much weight is really good. At the same time weight loss is so individual that no one can tell me how good or average this weight loss is. So I'm not sure where that leaves me.

I also have a lot of excess skin. I wish it could be removed, but even if the insurance company covers it:

1. I don't have the $1,000 copay right now
2. I may need to have medical evidence that it's not for "cosmetic" reasons; my wife insists that the skin removal is part of the surgical coverage for our insurance, but I refuse to underestimate the maliciousness and utter confusion that an insurance company can unleash.
3. I am told they won't even consider such surgery until at least a year has passed.

I sometimes wonder how much extra weight that skin constitutes. I constantly think about how ugly it looks, though.

So that's my quick and dirty update for my weight loss status for today.

Troubles When Eating Out

Going out and about while finding food is a challenge for me.

If you've followed my blog posts you know that I'm very much set into routines. It's an Asperger thing. Or maybe it's a me thing. I don't know, but it's the way I am.

There are a few places I am comfortable going to because I more or less know what to expect. For example, we go to Panera Bread and get a sandwich because I normally can eat half a sandwich and take the other half home without feeling uncomfortable or overfull. I had at one point cut down to eating a McMuffin at McDonald's for breakfast once a week...turns out they're 4 ounces...but eventually I decided that there was a little too much fat and sodium in the fast food I was eating and so when we now go there I pack something for my breakfast to take in with me.

I started getting little sushi rolls...picnic rolls, they're called...at Wegman's. They're pretty good. The primary problem is that they aren't too high in protein. They're mainly rice and vegetables; some of them have a fake crabmeat in them, but that's really it. Because of the restrictions that come with my surgery I need to be a little more mindful of getting protein an calcium in my diet, so then I started using the picnic rolls as an accompaniment to other foods like a chunk of cheddar.

Unfortunately there's something like 16 mini-rolls in a tray. I end up having to eat them for the next several meals or I risk them spoiling and then wasting the money buying the food. I utterly hate wasting food (or money on food because I waited too long to use it).

I later discovered the turkey wraps at our local "Super Walmart". They don't call them wraps, but that's what they are. The wrap is cut into four parts and the size in ounces divides them up nicely so I can eat half without going over my portion limit.

I love Wegman's. I utterly love it. But their wraps...too big. The net weight on the container is one pound, so that would mean that half the wrap is 8 ounces. I try to limit my food to 6 ounces or less.

Damn.

The other night we ended up stopping at a Walmart to get some food and groceries, and discovered that that particular Super Walmart didn't have the turkey wraps. I was extremely disappointed since trying something else would mean risking side effects or having to figure out how much I could eat without causing problems.

We stopped at a Wegmans and I took their wrap and purchased a 7.5 ounce container of their picnic sushi rolls. I ate 1/4 of the wrap which should have come out to about 4 ounces, and then 4 of the sushi rolls which should be about 1.8 ounces (7.5 divided by four, since the tray was in four rows of four). Anyway, I hoped it would come out to about 5.8 ounces in theory, and I didn't have any problems after eating it so I guess it worked out well enough.

But obviously you can see the kind of hoops I have to jump through to get the mental math to work out just to get a meal when I don't have it pre-made.

When I'm not careful enough I have other issues. When we ate out at a restaurant for our anniversary I had issue with the chicken (again, it happens sometimes but not always). My wife didn't think I ate too much. I didn't think I ate too much. But I obviously did something wrong; if it wasn't eating too much it must have been something with what I ate.

It was a chicken breast with pilaf topped with a cherry and brandy (it was some kind of alcohol, I'm not sure if it was brandy or not). I ate a portion of the meal and had the rest boxed but it was too late.

My stomach had that over-full feeling. Slight but constant pain. Not a horrible one, but enough to annoy me.

In addition my thigh muscles felt...the best term I could use to describe it is spent. Not tired. Not cramped. Just weary, bordering on numb. Wobbly?

I didn't know if it was the alcohol not entirely cooked off the cherries on the chicken or what. All I know was that despite the meal being very good, I had a definite issue at hand...I ended up hanging out in the bathroom and walking around a bit, touring the restaurant while trying to work some of the digestive problem out.

There was no extreme pain, vomiting, or nausea. It slowly glubbed away and I was fine after about ten or fifteen minutes.

Again, you can see that this can be an issue. The place was unfamiliar to me, the drive was long...if I did have other issues that could cause a mess,...well, the thought of it was a source of great anxiety.

This is something that I as a post-operative bariatric patient must learn to live and deal with though. Once the RNY (Roux-en-Y) procedure is completed there's no going back. Having to deal with this is just...part of the new me.

Hopefully the tradeoffs...anticipating better health and energy, for example...will be worth the price I have to pay.

Vacation Dining

My wife and I recently celebrated our fifth anniversary. To celebrate we made arrangements to go to a rather large city several hours away for a night.

I noticed that there were several restaurants right near our hotel, some of which I was familiar with (chain restaurants we have within an hour of our home) and others that we hadn't heard of before.

We were in the area for just one night= and we only visited one restaurant at which we made reservations (a haunted castle built in 1860!). The other restaurants that were near our hotel (and even the ones in the hotel) we skipped over. I had prepared most of my meals ahead of time to make sure I had the "proper" foods and didn't have to worry about my intake amounts.

We drove by the other places and I watched them float by in the window; I wistfully thought about vacations past where one of my highlights of the trip was in sampling cuisine of the area. Now,...not so much.

I'm curious about them, but I no longer can make restaurant exploring a highlight of our trips. I don't have enough space for the leftovers if we went to all the places I'd have wanted to visit. Even at the restaurant I did go to I ended up eating just enough to experience discomfort (chicken sometimes triggers that in me...something with chicken breast seems to cause that).

So now when I go on trips or vacations I need to reframe my focus on enjoying attractions or events more than enjoying restaurant experiences. On one hand I think it's a positive step in developing a new attitude towards food. On the other hand, it's kind of melancholy or bittersweet in that this is a passing of a chapter in my life. It is also hard to adjust to the idea of not anticipating trying some new Italian pasta dish or some grilled chicken at a new restaurant when I pass by a new place near whatever hotel we'd be staying in.

But adjust I must....and off I go instead to a museum or mall for a few hours.

Calorie Count on Food Labels

Well this is depressing.

I always knew that calorie counts weren't exact on labels. Your food would vary by some percentage because I knew that a calorimeter measures calories by burning the sample; you can get a decent approximation of calories in the food by using samples in the calorimeter tests, but it's only supposed to be a close approximation. "Close enough for hand grenades", I suppose; otherwise you couldn't eat the food if you wanted a more definitive measurement since the food would have to be destroyed in the process of getting the number of calories it contained.

Click here to see why it turns out labels lie.

This article contends that there are other factors that affect calorie intake because our bodies don't burn calories, they digest the food. Things like texture of food and which components are "digested" by gut bacteria before your body gets a whack at it affect how many calories our bodies absorb. Even how a food is cooked, like whether a steak is well done or only medium well done, affects the calories your body can metabolize.

For people like me this is very annoying; I used to track numbers obsessively (and now I track the number of ounces I'm taking in for each meal) so seeing that certain components in foods could or should be adjusted by nearly 20 percent is not only disheartening but a source of anxiety.

What next? That weight loss isn't a matter of calories in vs. calories out? That pills or weeds or sunlight exposure will affect your body weight?

Not surprisingly it was somehow concluded that this was too much of a burden for companies to fix the labeling system for very little benefit. It's sad to see that there is known science behind the argument that the current labeling system is significantly misleading, but it's being ignored simply because it's a pain for someone to have the food properly or at least more accurately labeled.

This isn't a magic bullet, as if finding out that 500 calorie brownie is actually 1,000 calories and that is the real reason someone weighs 400 pounds. But it would be nice to think that the labels we're using to track information for our health is more than just semi-fictional works!

What do you think? Is this something worth having on food items?

Health Care Reform Proposal

The Junkfood Science blog has an entry regarding the Democrat's proposed healthcare plan, and if the 10,000 foot overview looks like spaghetti from this diagram then it's probably too complex to actually manage in any practical sense.

You might be able to find the blog article from either the link I embedded above or the blogroll on the right side of this page to find Junkfood Science and check it out.

It's so disheartening what a complex mess healthcare is. I enjoy the Junkfood Science blog; the posts are thought provoking and packed with good information. But I do think there's a bias towards strong opposition to the Obama health care proposal; which is fine. Everyone is entitled to an opinion on their own information site...you won't find much praise for Windows on this blog, for example (is there any? I don't think so...I know I have some good things for it though, just not good enough to have posted about it yet).

What I haven't really seen on the Junkfood Science site is a counterproposal or explanation as to why nothing proposed could work. Maybe she has posted the information and I've just missed it (like I said, I enjoy the site or I wouldn't waste my time there). There's something I learned relatively recently (meaning in the last couple years) and that is that if you have a complaint, fine, voice it. It's good in a team or group to have someone that can see the flaws in an idea and point them out. But try to have a counterproposal or solution as well. Just whining about the problems accomplishes nothing but makes you a poisonous element to any team or group.

Now that Obama is in the hot seat everyone is focusing on how we're hoping the healthcare reforms he'll start...and it's important to say it'll only start, not complete, since changes with government occur at a glacial pace...but that it'll probably fail. Every lobbyist and company with a stake in it is making sure they can yell, "I TOLD YOU SO!" when it doesn't work for everyone.

On the other hand, what is the alternative? I'm in my thirties and I don't recall any time aside from Hillary Clinton's efforts hearing about a concentrated effort to help American citizens get healthcare that didn't leave them thinking it would just be better to crawl into the corner and die rather than sort through the bureacracy to get better.

Republicans and insurance companies are saying that the government will stifle competition (yet I keep getting packages from UPS and FedEx...didn't we have a government-run group that delivered packages at one point? I think it was called the postal service...).

After three decades we're still in a mess and not the Democrats or the Republicans have done squat to help their constituents. The Democrats have been and are trying now to find a remedy. Politics as usual between our defacto two-party system is trying to hamper even that effort. Meanwhile we have 46 million Americans (as of 2007) without insurance and with the economy tanking the last couple years there's little doubt that number has risen significantly.

I'm begging. Stop bitching about the planned reform and find a solution. If you think you know better, then propose it. The last time the country actually set it's collective sight on a goal we managed to land an astronaut on the moon in surprisingly short time. Now why can't we get vaccines and medical care to our neighbors without putting them in debt for the rest of their lives?

Bueller?....Bueller?....

Gym Day for July 14th

Another day at the gym. I pretty much stuck with what worked last time; starting with 3/4 mile on the treadmill at fourteen minutes and ending with 1/2 mile on the treadmill in 9 minutes (although I did have the grade set to 3 and 3.5 degrees, increasing a little over previous times), I managed (15 reps each, with associated weight):

compound row: 125
lat pulldown: 110
pec fly: 110
vertical chest: 65
lateral raise: 80
overhead press: 50
bicep curl: 50
tricep extension: 50
lower back: 125
abdominal: 100
leg press: 300
leg extension: 100
seated leg curl: 115
abd/adduction: 150

How much fun was that?! Actually it wasn't bad. I got almost an hour with the Mac OS Ken podcast and the first three episodes (six chapters) of The Zombie Chronicles: The Escape. Nice story so far, and the Macintosh news is always handy for keeping up on technology developments in the Apple world.

Calorie Restriction and Living Longer in the News

There have been a number of stories flooding popular media lately about recent results of a study on calorie restrictive diets.

This blog post nicely sums up why 99.9 percent of those stories have been misleading at best and wrong at worst.

In other words, rely on the media to give you some 10,000 foot view of information but if you want the real story you'll need to learn to think critically about the information you're being spoon fed.

Calorie restriction diets being championed as pseudo fountains youth are nothing new. But now there's a study that refutes the claims, and somehow the popular media still interprets it as being in favor of what the proponents claimed. Funny what happens when you dumb things down for mass consumption.

Anyway...check out the link...mull it over a bit. See what you think. Leave a comment here if you'd like.

Weight Loss Progress

I just realized that the last time I posted an update on my weight loss was on the 23rd of June, and here it is the 14th of July. Weight loss seems to take so long and yet I look at the entries here on the blog and realize how time seems to slip away; must be relative to the subject at hand.

As of the 23rd of June I weighed in at 321 lbs. This morning I weighed in at 306 lbs. Since the surgery I lost 70lbs (April 7th); since the beginning of the year I've lost 152 lbs.

Oh and since the time my friend had issued his 60 lbs weight loss challenge I lost 57 lbs. I did hear back from him in a short email a week or two ago; he didn't say what his weight loss numbers were but he did say something about being under a lot of stress and a couple other things so he wasn't losing what he was supposed to be losing (I don't know how dire your situation is...you haven't said...but believe me. You're not the only one with these problems. I can While I'm not facing homelessness there are more than a couple thousand in taxes and insurance bills due now and I'm really not going to be able to pay without some form of @#$ added debt...I can relate to the worries). I have no idea if that means he hasn't been losing or he's been gaining or what it means exactly. Dude...if your goal was to have motivation to do something you have to follow through with the motivation part. I don't know if he's been keeping up with the blog here at all but I do post information on how things have been going; if you just issue the challenge in hopes it'll kick your butt in gear then go off to resume your habits without actually checking up, whether this would have helped you or not doesn't matter. You would have had no idea how I was doing compared to your progress (or lack thereof), so I suppose I don't see where the motivation was supposed to try factoring in. That doesn't just apply to dieting either; without measureable goals, how can you know how you're doing, whether it's diet or your job or just about anything else you try to achieve or excel in?

But that's a different lecture.

To be fair maybe you just wrote it off as maybe it was a bad idea like everyone tried telling you (he wanted to lose 30 pounds in the time it took me to lose 60) to "race" a bariatric patient's weight loss. Or maybe it went from a motivation thing for you to a convenient excuse when you found that it wasn't enough to get you to follow through. That's something only you would know.

I've been semi-plateaued for the past week or so, again. On the 6th I was 307. measuring every other day, I then went to 306.5, 305, then 306 and today 306. Water retention? Salt? Just another adjustment? I don't know. I think this has happened before. Here's a 4-month graph of my weight loss (which only covers since April, not since my weight loss efforts started in January):
You can see a couple blips where things leveled out. I hate it when it happens but the doctor said that this would happen; you don't slide down the scale, you stair-step. I keep telling myself that to try and stave off the anxiety that maybe this is it, that maybe my weight loss has come to an end.

Today's also a gym day. Once I finish this and take my pill regiment I'm off to see the Nautilus machines for an hour then back here to get cleaned up and face the day. I have a busy schedule so I'm trying to get the gym work in early. Yay!

Gym Day for July 12th

I just went for my fifth visit to the gym. The Sunday hours are short and attendance, as promised, was sparse. All the better for me.

It was quiet and I managed to do all 15 reps for each exercise this time. I think I may have come close to finding the adjustments for the next couple weeks to stick with. Here they are, fifteen reps each, with the pounds each was set to:

compound row: 125
lat pulldown: 110
pec fly: 110
vertical chest: 65
lateral raise: 80
overhead press: 50
bicep curl: 50
tricep extension: 50
lower back: 125
abdominal: 100
leg press: 300
leg extension: 95
seated leg curl: 115
abd/adduction: 150

This was preceded by 3/4 mile on the treadmill for 16 minutes and followed by 10 minutes on the treadmill at 1/2 a mile.

So now I guess I just keep with this regimen for a few weeks and see what happens. I've found that I really like it when there's next to no one there at the gym; unfortunately that probably won't happen again until next Sunday.

I have no idea if these weights (or reps) are considered good, bad, or average for beginners. I don't even know when (or if) there is supposed to be some visible effects of doing these routines. On days where I don't go tot he gym I've been trying to make sure I ride at least 10 miles on the stationary recumbent bike; not doing so, as I expected would happen with my personality, leaves me feeling as if I have failed and dreading what the scale may tell me a day or two later as a result of my failing to adhere to the exercises.

Tomorrow is a bike day; Tuesday, have to hit the gym for at least another hour. Fun, fun!

More Notes on the Fat Acceptance Movement

I've started kind of following along with The Fatshionista blog and Living At 400 lbs blog lately. I guess the Fat Acceptance movement kind of interests me since obviously I'm overweight.

I'll start off by saying that if you're happy with the way you are, more power to you. If you're 300+ pounds and say you're happy and fit and you feel good about yourself, then really it's not my business to argue with you. It's great that you feel good about yourself.

Nothing I'm saying here is to attack someone personally. My thoughts are focused on the group, the Movement, as a whole.

When I was overweight I accepted my obesity too. I accepted it because change is hard. I liked food. I liked not riding this @#$ bike ten miles a day. I liked not sweating on purpose (I sweat all the time in Summer...isn't breathing supposed to be an exercise?). I saw joggers running on the sidewalk and they never looked happy. They looked like someone was chasing them to give them a proctology exam. Why would I want to cut back on food (I'm hungry, @#$!!), waste my time doing something that normal people looked thoroughly unhappy doing, and ruin my already low supply of clothes with sweat and holes from having to exercise?

So I guess I was part of the fat acceptance movement. Accept me as I am or get out of my way. It helped that I was an introvert and didn't really like people or social situations too.

Gradually I gained high blood pressure. And high cholesterol. Then the diabetes...I was on Metformin and later coupled it with Byetta. I noticed myself hating having those usual fat-thoughts...you know, will this bench hold me? Will this seatbelt reach? On a plane flight I needed an extender for the belt. It sucked. But it was who I am. I just wrote it off as another reason to hate getting up in the morning.

My new doctor at the time...I'll call her Dr. K...seemed like she was ready to just give up on me. Another patient who doesn't give a damn about dying young, ignoring her medical advice...the usual. And she reminded me that I would most likely not live to see my young son graduate or get married or suffer the wonders of marriage and children himself.

*sigh*

She was right.

She referred me to a specialist who took a glance...literally...at my list of comorbids (blood pressure, apnea, etc.) and then tossed his notebook on the desk and said, "Weight loss surgery. You need it. Anything else?"

Dude. He sounded pretty sure.

He gave me the referral and out of his office I went. I'm pretty sure he was used to patients ignoring him...at least that's the feeling I got. Another idiot wasting his time; state (to him) the obvious and move on to the next in line.

I hate it when they do that. I'm not your average idiot and hate being lumped in with them. I'm my own special brand of idiot.

Anyway that's when I started in earnest trying to get the surgery and lose weight. That's also some background on my perspective on weight loss.

So when people in the Movement say they're healthy and all, it's kind of interesting to me.

I've read them saying that doctors are surprised they don't have the comorbidities that overweight people are supposed to have. "My cholesterol and blood pressure are normal!" I used to say that. Then I developed them.

I've read them saying that they eat salads and relatively healthy foods and they're still near whatever weight. I ate salads sometimes. Have you read the labels on dressing? Once you put a decent amount of dressing on a salad so you're not eating something that tastes like yard clippings you end up with a pretty high calorie count, one that easily rivals anything you get at the menu at Olive Garden or (I assume, since those jackholes won't publish calorie information) Applebees.

I'm very interested in whether people in the Movement have honestly done any tracking of calorie counts. It's not hard to do if you're somewhat organized. I was very anal retentive about it when I ended up having to track numbers but I'm even happy hearing ballpark figures. I was shocked to learn that I was probably in the neighborhood of three to four thousand calories a day...I was supposed to be, for a sedentary person, sixteen hundred to eighteen hundred, if I recall correctly.

And anyone in the Movement who claims to not overeat all that much and put in exercise by walking stairs, etc...I can't help but think they're full of it. Weight isn't magical. You put it on by taking in more calories than expending. It's not just a genetic thing that you're fat. You may be predisposed to it, but it still is getting the fuel somewhere to store it...any time I read these claims I wonder if they think they're getting fat from their feet drawing nutrients from the soil or air.

One thing has been consistent in my trials and tribulations. I eat less, I lost weight. I eat more, I gain. The surgery itself doesn't do much more than try forcing you, for a short time, to eat less and feel better with less food...eventually that effect wears off. Somewhat. From what I can find, if you don't stretch the pouch you should still feel satisfied with smaller meals. Can you short-circuit that? Yeah. You can sabotage it. But you'd be an idiot to try to do it.

In the end it's a tool for learning new habits. I could have tried eating this small amount of food without the surgery. I'd have been more miserable for it though, and my stretched stomach would constantly nag me for more until my intake kept creeping higher. I know it would have. Well, I'm pretty sure from past efforts that's what would happen.

So those are my curiosities for the Fat Acceptance Movement. I have been toying with the idea of trying to email the some of the "fat-o-sphere" bloggers and get their perspectives on my questions. I'd be really interested in the answers...any others ever read these blogs and consider themselves part of the Movement? Have you ever tracked calories for your intake before and if so what was it?

Overweight America Means Being Heavier Is Seen As Normal

I've always known that clothing sizes are largely arbitrary, at least for women's clothes. See, to make consumers feel better, manufacturers kind of "make up" numbers. Apparently women don't mind trading a standardized scale for something that just makes them feel better about themselves.

I don't know how they stand it. But that's the Asperger's in me.

At any rate, a new article found here discusses the new trend in weight in America: due to obesity being on the rise in the general populace, people who are on the heavier end of "normal" see themselves not as overweight but as normal weight.

In other words the old joke about feeling better about being overweight by hanging around with people more overweight is being proven as an actual effect.

Because more and more people are overweight and we are a communal species, a species that relies on our interactions with other people to judge, in part, ourselves, the label of "normal weight" is starting to slide higher as the average weight of our society slid higher.

What does this have to do with clothes? One of the points brought up in the article is that clothing for women has begun sliding again among certain clothing manufacturers. As the article points out, depending on the label, a woman could be a size 14 but the clothes at the Conglomomart that fit her are a size 10.

Despite all the noise being made about fitness and health it's good to know that old habits...namely making compromises to accommodate the delusions of an overindulgent society in the name of profit and "feeling good" about itself...are still a constant that can be relied upon.

What's In Fast Food?

I ran across an interesting article going over the 10 most common ingredients in fast food. I hate how the site has a "slide" structure to go over their lists, but sometimes they have some interesting items to share.

I'm kind of torn on this. I don't mind the "fake food". There's plenty of people making claims that these things kill you, but if anything it's a slow death. I have little doubt that it certainly doesn't help you.

If you make things at home, you end up having to spend money on freezers, electricity, and time to prepare things to eat. I also think that unless it's frozen food entree's home made food is definitely healthier. You can tell because it tends to spoil more quickly.

On the other hand, fast food is convenient. Restaurant food entails no cleanup, no dirty water into the sewer to go on your bill, no post- and pre-meal efforts. It's relatively inexpensive with no (or little) extra waste, unless you're very conscientious with your home packaging of food or extra "green" in your habits (if you're American, I doubt the majority of you are big with the "green" movement). It usually tastes pretty good if your palate is accustomed to this fare.

I do know that when looking over information on calories and nutrition in restaurant and fast food items they are almost inevitably higher in fat and sodium. Even Panera, one of the healthiest choices for food on the go, comes in high on the numbers here.

Some of the items in the fast food list are scary. But they are what make the food what consumers want. They keep the food from spoiling. They give the food a trademark taste and smell. They enable foods to come to your trays with the accompanying low prices.

Healthy costs money. Fresh vegetables, fruits, good bread...they spoil, so not only are they more expensive to purchase but you often end up throwing out part of it. There's turnover in your pantry. Candy bars, fast food...cheap, long lasting, tastes decent. Bad for you but at least you can afford it.

So I don't know what to think. In a market where business is supposed to be driven by the customer, that would mean that despite the weird chemicals in the foods we eat these companies are making tons of money off giving people what they want.

Does knowing what is in the food deter you from eating there? After all, it's not like it's a big secret that these foodstuffs are considered bad for you. It's widely advertised by health groups and insurance companies, who have a vested interest in not paying your later-life health bills. Doesn't seem to be stopping most people.

Maybe moderation would be the best path to take. What do you think?

Gym Day For July 9th

Another fun day at the gym. I'm trying to get used to working with the machines. One of the managers at the gym asked how I was doing; I showed him my chart, and he said it looked good. He said I'd want to stick with the machines for another few weeks before "switching it up a bit". Something about confusing the muscles to help with the workout. I didn't know my muscles were so cerebral as to get bored with a workout.

I started out with a 3/4 mile on the treadmill in 14 minutes (my time has been going down gradually each visit...).

Then I did (reps @ pounds):
compound row: 15 @ 125
lat pulldown: 15 @ 125
pec fly: 15 @ 110
vertical chest: 15 @ 65
lateral raise: 15 @ 80
overhead press: 15 @ 50
bicep curl: 15 @ 50
tricep extension: 13 @ 65
lower back: 15 @ 120
abdominal: 15 @ 100
leg press: 15 @ 300
leg extension: 15 @ 95
seated leg curl: 15 @ 115
abd/adduction: 15 @ 120

I then walked half a mile in ten minutes to "cool down" on the treadmill.

I'm not sure how effective this workout thing is. I have only gone four times so far, so I guess it would be expecting too much to actually see any results from going, but afterwards I don't feel quite as drenched in sweat as I'd have expected to be after an hour at the gym playing with that weight. I actually sweat the most from the treadmill walks; I set it usually to 2 or 2.5 percent grade and I think I'm going near 3 mph or a little more.

I also used my iPod armband for the first time. Made things a lot easier; I didn't have to search for an old shirt with a pocket in order to listen to my iPod (plus it tends to fly around a lot when it's in a chest pocket and I'm on the treadmill). It's a simple armband with elastic and velcro, but it worked really well, as long as I was mindful of where it was on my arm when using certain machines.

Other than that, things went fairly well. I think. Maybe I'll know more tomorrow at my weigh-in...

Nutritional Book Reviews and Blogging?

What follows is really an anecdote that led me to a bit of wishful thinking...

I was at Barnes and Noble not long ago...big surprise...and my wife found a book on the shelves that she thought I might be interested in called Skinny Bastard by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin. They authored the popular book series starting with Skinny Bitch.

I started skimming sections of the book and found that it was laced with very risqué language; it was very "tell it like it is" colloquial and conversational for certain circles. It made it easier to read because it was so conversational.

The book promises to help you lose weight through eating well and in the process becoming healthier. I skimmed through some of the chapters, like "Carbs: The Truth", "Sugar is for Candy-Asses", and "Meat: Rotting, Decaying, Decomposing Flesh." You can see where it's going.

But it didn't take long for the book to show a common theme: meat bad, vegetarian good.

The tone wasn't one of reason or science, it sounded like a propaganda pamphlet against anything that wasn't Vegan. Something started tickling the back of my brain.

I looked at the authors. The back of the book stated that Rory Freedman is a "self-taught know-it-all with an epic ass" and that Kim Barnouin is "a former model who holds a Masters of Science degree in Holistic Nutrition". "Holistic Nutrition?" Whenever I have found people referring to themselves with a title including "holistic" it sets off alarm bells for me. I looked up Nutritionist in Wikipedia and found this:
*******
In some jurisdictions such as the UK and some US states the term "nutritionist" is not a legally protected term. As a result, some nutritionists who appear in the media in these jurisdictions may give advice on diet that is of questionable informational value.
*******
Double uh-oh.

My wife did a quick lookup on Amazon for reviews of the book and the results were dismal. That tickle in the back of my brain turned out to be pretty spot-on. The book is basically a preaching to the choir for the vegan lifestyle.

Which, don't get me wrong, is fine for people who want to be vegans. But when I'm looking for advice on nutrition and diet, I'm looking for advice and information, not indoctrination to a lifestyle and propaganda to use as ammunition against people who like cheese (the book even mentions various chemicals that make their way into milk and cheese because they're naturally produced by the cow...more reason to avoid diary and meat!!)

That made me wish I knew of people who read books for their field and post reviews. At that time in particular I was wondering if there were bariatric surgeons or nutritionists who read books about diets and health who posted reviews of such books, who would know when the "science" offered in these books is the truth or a load of bunk (the reviews for Skinny Bitch on amazon were somewhat scathing at times from reviewers saying they were biologists and chemists, saying the science parts of the book were downright wrong).

Anyone know of such blogs or review sites? There might be a market for such a thing if it doesn't exist yet. Otherwise I'll just have to stick to aggregated reviews from Amazon.

Insurance Politics Are A Racket

I toyed with the idea of putting this in the feed several days from now, but you know, this story is so outrageous that I decided to just plop it into the present time in the list.

Here's the story about one woman for whom a trip to the hairdresser was the first step on a road to ruination, financially and emotionally. I couldn't imagine going through what she went through and coming out on the other side a sane person.

It highlights so much of what is wrong with healthcare in the U.S.; the politics, the playing of the system, the bureaucracy, and the black mark that you end up having tattooed to your name for having the audacity to get sick.

What's really sick is the system.

Read the story. It's truly a terrible state that we're in when this is what can happen to any American and underscores the need for medical reform more than ever.

How Dumb be Americans?

I picked up a book at a Barnes and Noble that is still sitting on my shelf (unfortunately) waiting to be read called The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30). It's another in a series of works coming out discussing how stupid today's population in America is.

I found another post dated for the Fourth of July at the Junkfood Science blog that highlights yet again just how dumb we are. It's very disheartening and highlights the lack of critical thinking skills in our student population.

Some points from reading the article:

I agree...an uneducated population is easier to control. We are a population that cares more about toys and ourselves than intellectual pursuits. It's a boon for groups with selfish interests, though, since stupid people are too dumb to understand they're being manipulated.

The article implies that immigrants are more intelligent than Americans since a huge percentage of them pass the test with all the answers correct. I think they study the topic ahead of time. I mean, I took the amateur radio test to get a technician license many many many years ago; I read the practice books so much that I literally memorized the the test. When the time came to take the test I knew what the answer was from the multiple choice exam by reading the first few words of the question, since the questions were taken from a pool of questions. It's not so hard when the immigrants had just studied to come here (although there may be some difficulty involved with the language barrier).

The article brings up a state exam where the majority of high schoolers couldn't pass (and thus not graduate). Since most of them weren't passing, the legislature simply got rid of the requirement. Not surprising. I've seen it happen in similar cases several times before; the Enrichment Program, when I was in school, was our school district's gifted program (for kids tested and found to have a higher than average IQ). Not enough kids were getting into the program for their spending so the requirement for the minimum IQ was lowered and thus created a full classroom; the program was dumbed down but it made the administrators happier. Eventually I think they eliminated the program because the smart kids (in the age of No Child Left Behind) is already "proficient" so they don't deserve additional attention. That's a different problem though.

The post also mentions that there's a problem with teachers in Massachusetts where new elementary level teachers couldn't pass the basic teacher's exam, so the state allowed a huge percentage of them to get certified anyway with the requirement that they pass the exam within 5 years. After having spoken and observed many teachers in my time I have come to the conclusion that teachers are not some different animal from the rest of the population; they aren't necessarily more intelligent or reasonable compared to anyone else. On average they're probably higher up than non-skilled workers, but I was shocked to find one teacher in a school district that believed the moon landing was a hoax. I was floored to discover that an educated person would actually believe this, but in retrospect I shouldn't be. Teachers are people that specialize in their sub-field and aren't necessarily Renaissance Men. I've met some very knowledgeable teachers and I've met some that I'm surprised manage to dress themselves. But there always seems to be one universal...bureacracy from higher ups always seem to be disconnected from their employees' needs and work. I guess politics will always be a detriment no matter the organization.

Overall the article probably is a bit of a simplification of what the founding fathers were really like, but still the post was worth checking out. It was some fascinating food for thought.

Another Day at the Gym

This post is going in rather late. My day was busier than it has been. After work I came home and started changing and getting things around to head to the gym when I got a call from a friend asking me to help out because one of his clients couldn't get their server to start up after turning it off during a storm. He was out of town and wondered if I could act as remote hands since the system was blue-screening at startup; he couldn't remotely access their system to help them.

I headed there first to scope out the problem. After evaluating the system I found it had filesystem corruption; silly Windows wouldn't even boot into safe mode command prompt only so I couldn't run a chkdsk. Another pet peeve of mine...Windows clearly had in the error message the instruction to run chkdsk to see if that would fix any problems Windows was having, yet it won't set the flag for the filesystem to be checked at boot, and I couldn't get to a prompt to fix it from the system. Of course Microsoft doesn't pack in enough tools for it to repair or bootstrap itself in cases like this, and they make it a real pain in the arse to create boot discs from which to fix it. You're expected to use the install disc. Which most of the big vendors don't include install media anymore.

But I digress.

I packed the system in my car and went to the gym, then joined my wife to take trash to burn at my parents burning pit before coming home and having dinner and working on that system again. Looks like everything has been fixed thanks to bootable CD tools. Once again the tag-team of RIP Linux and BartPE worked their magic. The client's server should be back in place tomorrow morning.

Anyway, I managed to get to the gym and put in about an hour of sweating profusely. I started with a 3/4 mile on the treadmill, then did:
compound row: 15 @ 125 lbs
lat pulldown: 15 @ 125 lbs
pec fly: 12 @ 120 lbs
lateral raise: 15 @ 80 lbs
overhead press: 15 @ 50 lbs
bicep curl: 15 @ 50 lbs
tricep extension: 10 @ 65 lbs
lower back: 15 @ 155 lbs
abdominal: 15 @ 100 lbs
leg press: 15 @ 300 lbs
leg extension: 15 @ 95 lbs
seated leg curl: 15 @ 115 lbs
abd/adduction: 15 @ 100 lbs

Then I finished off with a half mile on the treadmill again at about 2 or 2.5 inclination in 10 minutes' time.

I'm still trying to find the right numbers, balance my reps and weight to challenge me without killing me. Some obviously need to be altered; see the whoopsies where my arms gave out in the pec fly and vertical chest, for example.

But it's not like I've done this a lot. I'm still experimenting. I'm just hoping I'm putting in proper form when doing the exercises.

It's been a long day. I need to get to sleep now...night everyone!

Bariatric Followup for July

I just had my followup with the bariatric team this morning. It was a cursory thing...it seemed that the office was running late, since my appointment was scheduled for 9:30 and I didn't get in until about a quarter till or ten til ten.

The doctor said that I'm doing well. Went over medications, some of what I'm eating for meals, etc. and commented on the weight loss.

I told her about the pain in my waist and she said that it is probably scar tissue; she didn't seem to worried about it so I won't be worried. Just have to wait and see if the pain improves. Not that it's much of a burden, since the pain only seems to happen when I sneeze. Weird. Must be just right to trigger the stretching of whatever is scarred.

I need to get bloodwork done to test my vitamin and mineral levels in my blood since last time I was iron deficient. Other than that...progressing nicely, according to her. I still think I'm not changing fast enough. But that's an issue for the psychiatrist, I guess.

This isn't just me though. Notice that people in society just sort of treat fat people as if they're supposed to be able to remove fat like a shirt? It's as if you just woke up and did something stupid, deciding to be fat for the day, then normals turn around and are shocked that you'd choose something so stupid. It's not like your daughter dressing like a whore and being told to go change before leaving the house...look at all that fat! You know you should be skinny! Go change right this minute! What will the neighbors think!?

In our society impatience is valued over patience, and immediate gratification is almost expected as the norm. So when it's taken from January until now to lose 151 pounds. That's not what is in the doctor's records, but I tracked without my clothing on to reduce variables...so on my records I lost 151 pounds since the beginning of January.

So that's the progress for the day. Or month. I have to go back in October to talk to the surgeon...and before taht I'll probably hear back from the doctor about my blood test results.

Your Bariatric Team

I had an email last week from the dietitian working with me on my "bariatric team" asking how I was coming along with my food choices and if I would like any recipes or had questions. She said she had been reading my blog and commented on one of the other posting as well.

This emphasizes a point that really I didn't give as much thought to as I should have before the surgery, and that is making sure that your entire medical support group is one that fits your needs as well as possible if you're going to go through with this kind of surgery.

I'm very online-oriented; I usually don't feel as comfortable in group settings and prefer that one-on-one type sessions be limited. I had second thoughts about my doctor for the surgery because he was described to me as being more "old-school", doing only open RNY surgeries instead of laproscopic and meaning I'd have a longer healing time and more scarring, but I went with him because he had a proven track record and really the open surgery is easier and less likely to have complications on the table. He was a straightforward no-nonsense guy and I've rarely seen him afterwards.

I realize that I now have a dietitian who is willing to periodically check in on my blog and will communicate with me over email as well as a physician assistant who will answer questions via email. When you have professionals willing to take the time to keep tabs on you over email, one of the biggest time sinks you can possibly have during the workday, you know you have a support team that is going out of their way to accomodate the patient instead of making it harder for the patient to fit their lives into the professional's schedule and I for one really appreciate it.

I'd also like to think that by keeping this blog and putting in the occasional "here's my status" entries that my doctor and dietitian can keep tabs on me without having to sacrifice a lot of time from their day. To be honest I don't know if the doctor checks it or not, but I was very glad when the dietitician let me know she still does since I suppose if I really had a concern of some sort and had it on the blog she might know if I should have it forwarded to the doctor.

I doubt the insurance-required psychiatrist checks the blog...I already give him half-reams of journal information periodically for sessions. I don't really know. I probably don't pay him enough to be a personal Dr Phil (then again, would I want a personal Dr. Phil? Probably not), and he doesn't strike me as the type of person who is really a technologist (but he's not a luddite either, since while in session he uses a bluetooth keyboard on his lap to type notes while we're talking. It's kind of neat. I like the blinky blue light on the USB dongle from his monitor when he's hitting the keys). I really don't know him well though because I think this type of doctor is supposed to keep a distance between his life and yours; he's here for therapy, not to be your friend. Paying for friends is legal in Nevada if that's what you think you're looking for.

Anyway, it's important that you find a team of people that will fit your needs. It's not easy. I've reached the point with hospitals and doctors and insurance where I feel mentally whipped; I'm happy that I can even get medications without having to jump through thirteen hoops ("My pharmacy will call the doctor's office to authorize the refill for me?? THAT'S GREAT!" - isn't it sad when that actually was a relief because it was one less thing I had to schedule to do? True story). When I was doing the hoopty-hoos to get the bariatric surgery done I more or less was a pinball, going from one post to the next as I was told to fall in line on a checklist of tasks and items. Whatever doctor I got, I went with. The only thing I actually stopped and changed was the psychiatrist because the one I first went to for the initial head test really really peeved me off with the handling of notification of results.

So if you can, make sure you sit and figure out what you need to make the surgery and post-surgery time a success then try finding people to make that a reality. I sort of lucked out with the group that helps me. I more or less stumbled onto a really capable team of people that seem to be working to help me. Other people may not be so lucky.

Workout for July 5th

I went back to the gym today. The gym I belong to is only open a few hours on Sundays...noon to three. Probably a reflection of the dedication to exercise in the area...or they don't have a lot of members around on Sundays. Doesn't matter. I went down around 12:30ish and got home around 2:00.

I've been slowly reading the Weight Training for Dummies book; one of the things it pointed out that I didn't know before was the relationship of reps and sets to strength training. From what I understand so far, the goal is to work the muscle to failure, meaning to the point where you can't do another set in proper form. Then you rest that muscle group for a bit.

Anyway, I tried pushing a little more to find some limits. For some exercises, I think I found some failure points. As I type this a few hours after the fact I'm still feeling pretty good, so I am hoping that I'm still moving around tomorrow.

compound row: 15 reps at 110 lbs
lat pulldown: 10 reps at 125 pounds
pec fly: 15 reps at 110 pounds
vertical chest: 10 reps at 95 pounds
lateral raise: 15 reps at 80 pounds
overhead press: 5 reps at 80 pounds, then 5 reps at 65 pounds (ouch!)
bicep curl: 9 reps at 65 pounds
tricep extension: 11 reps at 65 pounds
lower back: 15 reps at 155 pounds
abdominal: 20 reps at 95 pounds
leg press: 15 reps at 300 pounds
leg extension: 15 reps at 95 pounds
seated leg curl: 15 reps at 115 pounds
abd/adduction: 15 reps each at 70 pounds

As you can tell, some of the funny numbers came from reaching a point where I wasn't going to move much more, so I cut it short. All these numbers were significantly higher than last time when I was tentatively trying things.

Some I really need to adjust higher, like the abd/adduction. Others I guess I just need to keep repeating until they become easier.

Because of the need to rest muscles (the book discusses that) I will probably not be going back to play with the weight machines until Tuesday. Whee!

Why Do I Blog? And How Offensive Do I Get?

I don't know if I ever actually said why I'm blogging.

I had toyed with the idea of keeping a blog for awhile, but what really pushed me into doing it was the surgery. At the time I had to absorb a lot of information and sort through a lot of thoughts and issues pertaining to bariatric surgery.

So I suppose the push to actually do it was the surgery. I wanted to keep an account of what happened in case other people might search for anecdotal evidence of what it was like for me.

I decided early on not to keep it just about bariatric surgery, though. I knew that I'd run out of information. It would get repetitive very early on, I thought, and besides that, the information I passed on would have a bias from my life. My life is affected by other things; my technology obsessions, my Asperger's, even facing the possibility of my death in the surgery brought into question my religous views. As a result I decided to open the blog to being bariatric surgery with commentary from my point of view of my life.

I didn't want to define my life by the surgery. But at the same time I cannot escape that I have largely defined my life by my weight, my obesity; after more than a few decades the obesity had come to define too much of who I was and shape much of what I had become. Hence my blog name and strong obesity/diet/WLS bias.

But at the same time I do put items in that are somewhat controversial. I'm not out to poke sticks into wasp nests; I don't aim the offensive guns just to generate controversy or offend people.

Besides, if I wanted to do that, I could. It would be way to simple. But pointless

I figure my audience is far too small for my posts to cause ripples. But I do on occasion post things that some would find offensive.

It's nothing personal.

Posts regarding religion are showing my viewpoint of the world; it's part of what shapes my worldview. It's supposed to help illustrate part of why I believe what I do, why I understand the world the way I understand it.

I haven't had any complaints, so if anyone has read something they took offense to he or she hasn't voiced it.

But I thought I'd put this in just to clarify things a little. I wanted to do a blog for awhile. But I actually did it because of the surgery, and since then I've used it to act as a sounding board for who I am. It's a way to send my little voice into the big wide ether; I don't pretend that others will pay attention or even that it would make a difference to others, but there's always the chance that this can help create a legacy in part for my children to have after I'm gone, or get some insight into who I was long ago.

My father is still alive, but I have almost zilch knowledge of what he was like growing up. He's simply not an open person. I don't think he's ever even going to read this blog...I know only bits and pieces of his childhood history. I'm hoping that this is a record for my kids to go back to and find out more about where I came from, my beliefs, my worldview, and to a degree the problems I encountered in this period of my life.

I suppose this blog, potentially offensive bits and all, are just a way of staking a little corner for my voice among a chorus of millions out there. It's not much. But it's something.

It's So Easy to Overeat

My wife and son had some fast food for dinner. It wasn't today necessarily; this particular post refers to a dinner they had awhile ago from McDonalds. My wife tried the Angus Mushroom and Swiss Burger; it's a 1/3 of a pound of meat with mushrooms and swiss cheese (surprise!), onion, pickles, and tomato with a large sesame seed bun.

Seeing as I'm obsessed with nutrition information from restaurants, one of the things I love about McDonalds is that they are very forthright with their nutrition information. By going to their nutrition site, you can easily look up info on particular items or even create a "McMeal" that will compile nutrition information for your meal in total.

My wife's burger and medium fries came to a tad over 1100 calories. She had unsweetened tea, so she had a non-diet soda...scary.

That was for a burger and fries! It's a meal order...you can get this by a number at the menu! Many people who think they need to cut back or are overweight may justify their meal choices in part by comparing it to what other people are having. My assumption used to be that if you can get it by a menu number at the restaurant, how bad can it be? Other people must be getting it too.

But when you stop to think that your nutrition information is based on a 2000 calorie diet, and that most people should be getting somewhere between 1600 to 2500 calories a day (depending on your activity levels)...1100 calories is a significant portion of the caloric intake for the day.

Once in awhile this probably isn't bad. But when it's a habit, you can see how one sandwich with an average side apparently can easily push your calorie intake numbers.

It's not necessarily a "fast food" thing. Going to the nutrition side and getting a cheeseburger and medium fries (and tea or water to drink for 0 calories) comes to only 680 calories. For a meal, looking solely at calories, that's not too bad. I say looking solely at calories because it's not a panacea of nutrition, but if we ate a perfectly balanced meal for every meal every day of our lives then our lives would probably feel pretty boring.

In my little world that is a major problem for overeating in America. Our portions and calorie densities we fit into those portions are so easy to overdo. If you're careful it's not so bad. I gradually had cut back my once-a-week McD's breakfast to just having a McMuffin; that was a 4 ounce sandwich (believe it or not, it's really about 4 ounces despite its size) that came to 300 calories.

But if you have a yummy sausage, egg and cheese McGriddle? 560 calories. The McSkillet Burrito with sausage? 610 calories. The Sausage burrito isn't bad...300 calories. Unfortunately the meal option for breakfast is 2 burritos and a hash brown for a total of 740 calories and 41 grams of fat. If I told the dietitian working with me that I was having that kind of breakfast she's probably shake her head and wonder what was wrong with me. Pre-op, of course. Trying to down that much fat and quantity of food at one sitting would mean that I probably have something off-kilter in my head (the meal in total has 26 grams of protein, though!)

In other words, it's very very easy to eat too much, and relying on restaurants or other people in those restaurants as rulers by which to measure your adherence to being "average" in your eating habits is going to lead you down a road of obesity.

If you want to lose weight you have to be proactive to some degree and start monitoring your intake. So far the best tool I've found for me (aside from the surgery) is to monitor your caloric intake through a journal. It means being organized, it means sticking to your routines of recording things. It's a pain. But for many people it would probably be a real eye opener to what their habits really translate to.

Since having the surgery I now monitor the quantity, not calories, in food. I keep meals to 6 ounces or less. I avoid sugared foods, chocolates, etc, and I have some peanuts during the day when I'm feeling woozed or heading out to do something of some exertion like riding bike or exercising. Just keeping your meal sizes reasonable (especially with the requirement that I try focusing on getting calcium and protein in each meal) can really help keep your calorie count down as a side effect.

But it means having to keep your kitchen scale handy. Seeing as I can't take my particular scale with me, it means prepping most of my meals at home and taking them with me, although I've found that having something like half a Panera sandwich is enough for an entire meal now (even those calorie counts can get rediculous if you have what they sell as a basic meal...the pick two's soup and 1/2 sandwich? Check out the calorie info on their site...)

Restaurants are trying to turn a profit. They do it by giving the public what the public wants. The public wants to feel good about overindulging...the public doesn't word it that way, but that's what they want. So relying on the fast food joints and sit-down restaurants to validate your eating habits? Probably not the best idea.

Anyone else have thoughts or ideas to share?

Being Overweight is a Good Thing?

Science Daily has an article with the results of a study from Obesity from Statistics Canada, Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research, Portland State University, Oregon Health & Science University, and McGill University.

Apparently the risk of death from highest to lowest runs:
Underweight
Extremely obese
Obese
Normal weight
Overweight

That's right...being overweight carries the lowest risk of death.

There is a caveat in the article that "Our study only looked at mortality, not at quality of life, and there are many negative consequences associated with obesity, including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes."

This is the first (Canadian) study to show that overweight people may live longer than normals.

I knew there were claims that extremely low calorie diets extend lifespans, but this is the first time I've run across someone saying that being fat is good for you too. Then again, correlation does not imply causation.

The Nation's Obesity Report Card is Out! We FAIL!

Let's take a poll. Should I feel sad or bemused at the results of the recently released results of the "Obesity Report Card"?

We have more attention than ever on obesity.

Schools are adopting these cranial-rectal inversion policies enforcing limited snacks and beverages that are not "healthy".

PE programs are getting more (but probably not enough) emphasis in school-age kids.

Diet books are a multi-billion dollar industry.

Almost every tabloid has at least one story poking at weight issues with celebrities.

Every year there's a new buffet of diet hoaxes, pills, herbs, quick fixes, and fads from which to choose.

New bariatric patients continue to surge into the ranks.

And yet the rates of obesity rose in 23 states.

Granted, this is based on a study following BMI, which may not be an accurate overall assessment of your actual health level. But still it's troubling that there are so many steps being taken to do what in my view amounts to legislating health (how cooperative are most people when they have to do something "just because"?) while apparently the effect isn't quite as successful as hoped. People won't want to be fit unless they come to decide they need to do it on their own, and quite frankly our society is one that values excess and indulgence.

On top of that there's stress from our economy. Uncertainty on whether you'll have a job or a home next week.

Foods that are healthy are expensive compared to the unhealthy stuff. Some people who dedicate a good bit of time to learning about healthy living and frugality can proclaim this to be false, that it is possible to eat well and in a healthy way without spending a huge amount of money. Unfortunately it still takes effort to reach that point, to learn the techniques, and quite frankly, there's an investment to be made in changing lifestyle.

It's not easy. Ergo, we reach for snacky foods and cheaper foods and fast foods instead of the vegetables and healthier choices.

One of my favorite lines from the article is "research suggests that overeating is a key reason kids are overweight." I love it when they find the obvious, as if people are actually overweight because of exposure to some kind of floor wax; were they actually expecting to find something to justify the idea that it's not our own fault we're overweight? Apparently there are still people holding out hope that fat actually is caught by inhaling bad air or some kind of angry sky wizard waves a wand and somehow makes that small three-slices-of-pizza lunch multiple in the gut; it's not because that tiny three slices of pizza should have been one slice, yeah? Something is causing me to simply make calories multiply after I swallow the food. That must be it.

Anyway, there's the link to the article. Take a gander. Let me know if the whole situation is amusing or sad.