Progress Wrapup (Or, Diet and Exercise Sucks)

There were a couple comments about my progress since the surgery. Ironically, I had queued up an entry for today that dealt with a topic from going to the gym, but I bumped it ahead a day to put this in.

First, some info on weight.

I had my surgery back in the beginning of April, on April 7th. It's now August 19th (technically 18th as I'm typing this). That means it's been a little over four months; I've been tracking my weight since roughly Christmas (I actually recorded starting in January what my weight was).

In January...the entry is dated 1/5/09...I started at 458 pounds. At that point I began the quest to lose weight in earnest; it turns out that you have to lose weight in order to have weight loss surgery.

I know. It's stupid.

I was told it was insurance issues. The place I was supposed to have the surgery supposedly only deals with patients less than 450 pounds, and that was a close cutoff. They wanted the patient to be closer to 400 pounds. Otherwise they ship me off to a medical center in Rochester where I'm told they are better equipped to handle morbidly obese patients. The doctor said it was due to insurance; the equipment wasn't rated for higher weights, and if something happened such as the table collapsing and they knew I was over the weight cutoff the insurance company will crap a brick.

As much as I'd love to see the insurance company get ticked instead of the usual routine...you know, the customer getting ticked because they're getting hassled and put through the wringer...the way the explanation was framed made the hospitals stance understandable if not a little silly. I mean...c'mon! You have to lose weight because you're too fat for weight loss surgery?!

But I digress.

I weighed 376 pounds the day before my surgery. That was 82 pounds from 1/5 to 4/6.

I just weighed in this morning. My weight on 8/18 is 290 pounds, meaning since surgery I lost 86 pounds and my overall weight loss is 168 pounds.

Yeah...at a little under six feet tall, I'm still morbidly obese. I've also gained a lot of flabby skin. Supposedly it can be removed for another thousand dollars worth of copay at some point, but it can't even be considered until I'm at least a year out from the surgery. It's uncomfortable; I wince when I see the batwings under my arms. I sting from infections under the apron of what was my stomach; I need to periodically powder it now that the weather has turned humid and hot, so sweat accumulates and makes it break out.

Oh. Yeah. Quick warning that I'm mentioning something kind of disgusting, so if you have a weak stomach don't read what I just wrote.

I spend a lot of time trying to just cover up the flab and flesh. On the plus side, the vicious scar running vertically in my midsection from the open Roux-En-Y surgery isn't quite as visible. The fat and flesh kind of caves inward in the front, hiding the purplish scar tissue deep in a valley of fat and excess skin.

But I'm not too concerned about the scarring. If I were, I'd not have used the surgeon I did; I went into this knowing he only did open RnY. Other surgeons today often use laproscopic RnY for reduced recovery time and far less scarring; I went full scar so I alway have a reminder of the painful month of recovery and memories of the bleeding and the memory of what I had done to myself in getting so rotund in the first place. That scar won't be going away for a long time.

Quick story. While recovering I happened to be in a place where a teenage girl I didn't really know was whining about the total intense pain she felt after giving blood at a Red Cross blood drive at her school. Oh, the band aid, oh, the pinching, oh the bruising, whine whine whine...

I was recovering. I could get around by then; it was a couple weeks after the surgery, but with open RnY, I was stapled, bloody from leaks, bandages that had to be changed periodically...in general, it wasn't pretty, and I was still struggling just to manage to get out of bed without assistance, and while she was chugging juice and cookies to compensate for her boo boo I was eating puree'd Chef Boyardee from baby food jars.

After listening to her whine, I got a little fed up. She commented on how much it hurt.

I looked at her and calmly said, "No, this hurts," and I lifted my shirt. Just enough to see the train tracks of staples, the deep bruising, the dried clotting clinging to some of the staples in the line...you get the picture.

Her eyes were like softballs. They snapped so wide I wondered if it was possible to sprain her eyelids.

She didn't complain any more.

Anyway...

I started exercising. The doctors and support people were telling me I needed to exercise. I rode a stationary recumbent bike in the basement, but it's a pain in the butt. Not as much as a stationary upright bike, but it's still a pain. I got pretty good at it though. I typically rode 10 miles a day eventually.

Eventually my parents bought me a year membership at a local gym. I started going every other day, but lately I've been going almost every day. I started out kind of slow...I mean, I don't know the first damned thing about "working out". I was very much the guy who was anti-gym and anti-exercise. Still am most of the time.

Learning what to do in gyms is a full time job. If you want to build muscle you do one thing; if you want stamina, another. Cardio this, weight train that, this many reps and this many sets to do this and achieve that. It's hard. Really hard. And get this...if you want to gain muscle, you have to overeat. That SUCKS! How am I supposed to gain muscle mass if I can't even eat much to begin with post-surgery?

Lately my routine has become alternating "upper body" machines one day and "lower body" the next. I start out with a 1/5 mile walk on the treadmill at various inclination; takes about 10 minutes. Then I typically end with another 1/2 mile on the treadmill. Those two walks alone burn usually around...well, today it was 348 calories together.

In an attempt to gain some muscle mass, from what I've pieced together, you're supposed to do fewer reps at a higher weight, basically pushing yourself closer to your tolerance for moving weight. Toning and stamina comes from more repititions at a lower weight, muscle bulk comes from fewer reps at a higher weight. At least that's what I've pieced together. I don't have a trainer and probably couldn't afford one if I wanted to. So right now I'm usually 2 sets of 5 repetitions at the following weight in pounds, in case you're curious...
compound row: 200
lat pulldown: 165
pec fly: 185
vertical chest: 100
lateral raise: 125
overhead press: 95
bicep curl: 80
tricep extension: 80
lower back: 205 (10 reps each)
abdominal: 120 today
leg press: 400
leg extension: 130
seated leg curl: 195, usually 190
abd/adduction: 200

I have no idea of this is good or bad or just neutral. One person told me that doing 500 pounds on the leg press is considered really good; I'm assuming that was a typo in the email since the machine at the gym only goes up to 495 pounds. Perhaps this would mean more to someone who knows more about working out in the gym; my eyes glaze over when I look at the list, and I have to fill in the bloody form every day I go.

The rough part is that I don't know how much good it really does. I was told that the biggest results are in the first 30 days; it's been about a month and so far no one will think I can rip phone books in half or lift small cars. That weird wriggling crap under my skin? I don't know if that would look this way if I didn't go to the gym. I don't know if it wouldn't, either.

Someone asked me not long ago how much weight I was supposed to lose, what weight I was going to stop at. I honestly don't know. I don't know how I'm supposed to look or appear, or what number I'm supposed to aim for. I'm just losing weight. Or at least I keep trying to. I figured it would stop when it wanted to stop. I'm still obese so regardless it appears that I'm wearing a small tent. I'm the one that would end up shirtless if our boat is marooned on an island because the professor needs a sail to use in building a new boat. It's still my lot in life. I deal with it.

I was told that the surgery is supposed to knock off something like 70% to 75% of the excess weight; so if you are 100 pounds overweight, the RnY is supposed to knock off about 75 pounds when all is said and done, meaning you're still overweight but not quite so much.

Oh...other changes...I'm off diabetic medication. The surgery means supplements...lots of them...every day. But I'm hoping to get off some of the pre-existing medications this year. Each morning I take: iron, B100/complex, B12, a multivitamin, something for blood pressure, something for cholesterol, a medication to cut down on stomach acid (prilosec? doesn't matter, I go off it in October), and calcium with vitamin D. Oh, and vitamin D. Some supplements are just lifelong because of the surgery...RnY introduces a deficiency in your digestive system from shortening the intestine, so you don't take in as many calories but you're also not absorbing the nutrients you need. Other pills...the cholesterol and blood pressure medications...are doc-prescribed until they see improvement in my test results.

Nine pills in the morning.

At night, I take another multivitamin, a B12, and iron.

But I went off byetta and metformin. My blood sugar has been diet controlled, sticking around the 100 mark in the morning and night. Another plus.

So that's been my progress. I have a nice scar in my abdomen to remind me of my bodily transgression as well as a really long belt that I've had for years in which I add more notched holes when I need to tighten it more. I blogged about the length before. It's...pretty darn big. It's my reminder of what I've done. And a symbol of hope for what I will achieve. Plus it makes a really loud thunderclap sound when snapped against itself like some kind of Foley soundstage sound effect tool.

This pretty much sums up my changes since the surgery. Or even before the surgery, technically. Now I spend my time at work, the gym, and trying to get a writing show entry completed...I think my gratis editor is almost done with the second draft suggestions. I'm really hoping that sometime later today will be an update on the status of that story!

So until next time...um...any suggestions for a good exit tagline here?