Went on a Vacation

I went on a trip that lasted roughly ten days. I didn't really take any meals with me, I decided to try "roughing" it and just being kind of careful of what I ate.

The trip consisted of one 11 hour day in the car, then a 6 hour day in the car to reach the destination. We ate out a lot. Once in awhile some fast food...McDonald's for breakfast meant a McMuffin, for example, or we had the hotel breakfast buffets to save some cash. Other times we ate out at places like the Rain Forest Cafe or Bubba Gump's.

I knew I was eating more than I should, but I tried making sure I never ate until I felt uncomfortable. Most of the time I began to wonder if the pouch was stretched out; I'd eat the mushroom burger (the meat wasn't meat, from what I could tell) at a restaurant, and I wasn't hurting or uncomfortable at all.

We walked a lot. We walked a lot. One day was spent in Chicago, and I swear I don't remember walking so much in my life in one day. We walked the zoo, we walked around parts of town, we walked 10 blocks to the Navy Pier and 10 blocks back in stifling humidity. And I loved it.

The walk back from the pier, after the fireworks, my 5 year old son was complaining about the distance. He wanted to get to the hotel to see if he and his sister could go swimming, and we didn't know when the pool would close; we'd be getting there rather late. I knew we needed to step it up, but as my wife put it, "Daddy, your legs are longer...every step you take is two for him."

So I stopped and said, "I'm already stinky and sweaty, but what the hell...," and picked him up and placed him on my shoulders. "C'mon dude...we're going to get to the hotel!"

He leaned down and said, "You're my favorite Daddy!"

And you know what? We got back to the hotel in time for him to have a good swim.

I've never seen so many people walking everywhere. We saw runners everywhere we went in Chicago. We walked a lot at our destination, inside a giant mall, but that was more like meandering while shopping than actually walking in a city. I walked until my feet throbbed. I walked until my fingers swelled. I had sweat glistening on my arms in less than half an hour from 80+ degree heat and humidity high enough to swim through the air, and I didn't care. I stank. You stank. Everyone was sweaty and hot. I didn't care!

It was fun. But I was certain from the food that I had gained 10 pounds.

When I got home...I only gained 2.

Nice.

Weight Loss and Exercise

I saw this story and thought that the author's conclusions rather echoed the conclusion I've drawn after researching exercise and caloric intake after my surgery. As a matter of fact, I posted a comment to the Weighty Matters blog about it!

I probably had said it before, but basically, exercise simply isn't a great way to maintain weight loss. It's good for you and does great things for the body but for weight maintenance, it simply isn't a panacea.

First, people tend to reward themselves for working out. "I was good!" they say. "I exercised, sweated a lot, I can afford this donut..." or extra bit of pie or extra slice of pizza, whatever you want to stick in there as a treat. I'm sure there are plenty of people who go to the gym and not indulge, but there are plenty of average people who do.

Second, have you looked realistically at the amount of calories you burn versus what's in a cheeseburger? Walking for a couple hours at a decent pace will burn out a plain cheeseburger of 300 calories. If you wanted to work off the average American's meal, you'd be in the gym for four or five hours doing moderate work. That's a LOT of exercising, a lot of time, so if you don't get exercise in as part of your job (as in you're a professional weight lifter or aerobics instructor of something of that caliber), good luck with your exercise routine making a huge dent in your weight.

Third, I don't know about you, but I'm a creature of routine. Knock me out of my routine, and I will fall right off the wagon. I'm terrible about this. I like biking, but if I can't go out (like when it's snowing out, or raining, etc.) I can't do it on a regular basis, and that is exercise I can't do on a regular basis. Walking? When I can, but it's still not something I routinely fit in. Even going to the gym got to be a hassle as I was annoyed by some of the other people there.

Overall I've found, from my reading, my research, and experiences, that the best way to control weight is to play with your caloric intake. You don't need to work off calories that you don't eat in the first place.

For exercise, I do try to walk more; I don't mind parking a little farther away in the parking lot. I don't mind taking the stairs. I don't mind having to walk around a building, or walking to a destination when it won't take too long. But I don't do exercise to rely on weight maintenance anymore, and anyone pushing it as a weight-control item instead of just being beneficial for your health (your bones, you heart, etc.) is fooling you.

Day By Day

It's been awhile again since I had blogged. The reason is simple; there isn't much to report on.

Bariatric surgery is something that takes intense retraining and relearning and introduces new coping challenges for a period of time; once you have met (or coped) with those challenges, life returns to some semblance of a new version of "normal" and you move on, with changes and checkups periodically interrupting your routine.

After a year post-surgery, what is there to talk about? I could complain about not being able to enjoy cakes or brownies or other fun foods that I used to enjoy; my son's birthday recently slid by and while family were stuffing their faces with heaping helpings of yummy-frosted cake I was eating...I think an apple or some mini-pretzels and nuts. I don't remember.

I could complain about missing the days where I could down large portions of food with nary a bit of side effect. I see shows like Man Vs. Food on the Teletubes and think to myself, "That challenge would have been nothing for me a few years ago..."

Now I see that show and wonder how he doesn't gain more weight while filming the programs.

Oh, there's always something to complain about. Complaining isn't a challenge. The challenge is moving on.

My most recent checkup at the doctor had them concerned because some of the weight had creeped up. I assured them that I just saw the surgeon and there were changes being made to my diet; I routinely monitor it (every Monday, Wednesday and Friday I record my weight in the morning), and I'm trying to make changes to trim out a few calories.

My biggest dietary challenge lately has been peanut butter. I love the stuff. And I eat way too much of it. I usually eat it with apples or even broccoli (I know it's strange, but it works for me.) I suppose a secondary challenge has been cashews; they're high calorie but good. Very good.

I resolved to trim back some calories here and there and see what the effect would be. Basically I'm aiming to change my routine enough to get into newer, better habits through small changes. First I trimmed back cheese in my wraps. I used to have a slice of white cheese (60 calories) with some shredded cheddar. Then I cut out the shreds and had 2 slices of the white cheese, so calories were easier to control. Now I cut back the slices to just one in two out of the three meals, for a savings of 120 calories a day or 840 a week, which can add up over time.

Then I swore off cashews during the week. Saturdays and Sundays I have some, but otherwise, no cashews. This saves on calories and the wallet.

Now I've reduced my peanut butter intake. Not a huge amount, but it's reduced. I'm having more raw apples instead of apples with some PB on them.

Basically I'm trying to trim some calories here and there and keep busy with other tasks rather than focusing on eating. When I stress, I eat. When I get anxious or angry, I want to eat. When I get annoyed or want to focus on something other than something that is driving me batty, eating keeps me from saying something that will no doubt do little but make other people irritated or angry. Even if I'm bored, I want to eat. And of course there's my regular routine times to eat, when I'm used to having a meal and Mr. Tummy starts getting irritated if it's not refilled at the proper time (I think I liked Mr. Tummy better when the nerves were healing post-operation).

I'm working on trying to stay busy, as I tend to not want to eat when I'm occupied with something I enjoy doing. For the past couple of weeks I was working on a video contest entry which took precedent over working on my manuscript for the novel. Once that's all submitted I'll be working on the manuscript once again (I'm actually pretty far into my pass on editing, and my wife is still looking at the previous section I gave her. By the time she's done with that I'll have something like 150 pages ready for her to go through again.) With summer approaching I'm going to have the occasional weed-whacking chores or maybe even excursions into the park for some nature walks with my son (or family, if they're game to join. I've learned through my readings for the surgery and watching my extended family age that the more activity you get into, the better off you are with preventing joint issues later on.)

I'm still out here. I'm still doing some posting on my tech blog and writing blog. I'm still trying to lose weight, and cope with my personal issues that helped contribute to my weight issues in the first place. And I'm still trying to write a novel that may or may not sell.

Still taking it all day by day.

Hypno-Bariatric Surgery

Supposedly there's a new trend going around.

Hypnotic bariatric surgery.

Well, they call it incision-free bariatric surgery. Basically it's hypnosis where they walk you through the surgical room, complete with the wonderful smells and horrible gown, as if you're going to have surgery. Only instead of getting cut open, you get a hypnotic treatment.

The price tag is significantly cheaper than the surgery...by a long shot...somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand to two thousand dollars.

Me, I'm not a big believer in hypnosis. I think it's a lot of touchy feely theatrics to convince yourself that you have incentive to lose weight this time unlike all the other times you've failed to lose weight and keep it off. Well, the theatrics and the much lighter wallet.

Has it really come to this? Paying thousands of bucks to take a tour of a surgical room and have a nice nap while someone whispers into your ear that you shouldn't eat so much?

Am I missing something here? Has there been any empirical evidence that this (or any hypnosis, really) works? Or is it a matter of self-delusion and placebo effect?

One Year Followup

Today was my day to visit my surgeon/doctor in the bariatric department.

As I had already posted, April 7th was my one-year anniversary for the surgery. Now I periodically go in for followups.

So how I'd do? Well, he didn't give me huge kudos, but he didn't tell me how I screwed up either. He looked at some vitals and change in medications since last time, asked a couple questions (Pains? Digestive issues? Etc.,) and then said that it looked like I had plateaued. He asked about my eating habits, and my wife made sure I mentioned my snack of fruit/vegetables with peanut butter. To paraphrase:

"Okay," he said. "There's no problem with peanut butter. Or vegetables. But if you're going to break the plateau, you need to be careful about how much you eat. Patients sometimes learn to graze, and you can easily take in 3,000 calories a day just eating a little bit the entire day." Which, of course, will stymie the whole losing weight thing.

He suggested that something has to go. The snack, or a meal, but something had to be cut out. If I liked the snack, I could make it a meal.

Okay...

I said it was hard to not know what number I should be aiming for with my weight, since I've been stuck in the 270 to 275 range for the past couple months. He said, "Hang on..." and left the room, coming back a few moments later and saying, "230."

"230?"

"Three months out of surgery you should weigh 230. If you that number in two more years, you hit a home run."

I can do that. I'm sure of it. Two years to lose fifty pounds?

What I think I can do first is tweak my meal preps to trim excess calories there first. tweak here, tweak there. Trim calories. Trim some more. See what gradual changes add up to.

So now I'm super stoked about trying to lose weight until I hit my "target weight", not that I have one. The hard part will be adding in several small changes to tweak my caloric intake, then integrating them into a new habit, since it takes something like 21 days of consistently following a pattern to establish a new habit.

But the big thing to keep my eye on is that I now have a solid number, and a definite deadline by which to hit it!

The rest of the day was celebration. I had taken the day as a sick day, and my wife took the day to accompany me (I was going to the doctor and their lab for blood analysis and I didn't know how long it would take, so I took the day as a sick day. I was at the doctor. It counts.) We hit the Sam's Club, we hit the comic shop, the book store, and a few other errands. My wife even celebrated by giving me a couple of wonderful cards congratulating me on the progress I've made and giving me a $50 gift card to Barnes and Noble! I was really surprised by that. I couldn't even spend it when we stopped there because I really wanted to find something that just screamed, "IF YOU LEAVE WITHOUT BUYING ME YOUR PANTS WILL EXPLODE." Nothing screamed that to me. I'm saving it for a special occasion instead.

So that was my day. The doctor didn't yell at me, the lecture was set to minimum. I have to tune my eating habits a bit more. And I need to lose about fifty pounds. Not too shabby, all things considered!

Happy Anniversary to Me, Revisited

Yesterday was my anniversary of the operation. I was tired and said I'd post more about feelings on the whole operation journey today.

Perhaps weary is a better word instead of tired. I think there's a distinction between the terms.

So how does it feel to go from around 450 pounds to 270?

I don't know if I could ever put it into words that would properly convey what it's like for me. I've had to change so many habits and views in order to adapt to my weight changes and dietary restrictions that it's a very difficult thing to adequately put into terms that normals would understand.

The absolute most interesting thing in the surgery that I experienced only lasted a few weeks. Right after the surgery, as the stomach and intestine were healing, I had no hunger. Not just "not hungry", but my head was totally divorced from the feeling of wanting to eat.

I could look at the most sensational cakes, most mouth watering pizza, the most alluring tray of peanut butter and chocolate eggs and most aromatic array of deli delights, and fully experience all of the senses aside from taste in order to be drawn to these items, but I had absolutely no desire to eat them. Rather, I wanted to smell them. And I could smell them. I could pick out individual ingredients in mixtures of foods from smell, rather than just having the glut of a lump "food" hit my nose. I was surviving on a liquid diet of jello or some rather crappy broth and I didn't mind it one bit.

It was the most unusual sensation I ever had.

Of course as things healed up, my old hunger returned, my habit eating, all of that started to slowly creep back in. But for the first month of that recovery I had truly experienced how driven we are as a sentient being to the desires of chemical reactions in our heads and nerve triggers in the stomach and digestive system. If we could find a way to regain that sensation using just some miracle pill...wow.

I don't know if this is what it's like for normals; to see something that you absolutely love to eat, your favorite food, and have no desire whatsoever to taste it. To see it as an abstract thing that's just there instead of as a thing to be consumed.

I can't get clothes that fit. I guess I can, but they feel alien. I like my baggier clothes. I suppose part of me fears what would happen if I spent money on stuff that's supposed to be "my size." I guess it makes me look a little strange sometimes, with pants that flap in the breeze around my ankles. I sometimes wear socks covered in diabetic socks for additional cushioning in my shoes when the weather allows it. I still prefer going to the Salvation Army to look for pants that may fit me, and when I get shirts or items that my wife says are the "proper" fit, they feel too tight and constrictive, and I frequently worry that the seams are going to rip apart if I move the wrong way.

One change that has persisted involves how I view food and drink. I can't have anything that is primarily sugar or I risk getting very ill...I've pushed that boundary, barely, before, and it's not pleasant. I primarily wanted to see if the bariatric surgery had actually changed the way my stomach worked, and it did. I was told that I absorb sugars faster than before so I have to limit my sugar intake, and consequently most of my meals contain very little sugar and additives. Fortunately my own quirky nature means I don't mind having a repetitive diet while most people would balk at the notion of eating similar foodstuffs every day. Most bariatric patients have to carefully adapt to a "normal" diet, sans sugary stuff or carbonated stuff, in far smaller quantities. I just sort of adopted a few select items that I like and have those on a regular basis.

After the surgery I had to cut out the sweets, the carbonation, and in many cases the pre-packaged. I had to eat what health nuts always said was "healthier" for me, in portions we are supposed to eat but rarely do.

I also read about diets and the food industry. I started reading a lot. And it didn't paint a pretty picture.

The more I found out about what goes into fast food and prepackaged food, the less I really missed it. I didn't stop having the occasional hunger pang for it once in awhile, but I also know that it's not all that great for me if I did have it. You know, the zebra cakes, the cosmic brownies, the chain restaurant pizza, the huge portions of Mexican fare at Chevy's...mmm...fried artery clogging goodness! Unless you read the books that discuss what happens when you eat high fructose corn syrup or the burgers at various fast food joints doused in fats, artificial additives and sodium.

I'm still overweight. Probably still classified as obese. But I'm eating "healthier" than I ever have before.

I still see myself as the fat guy. I still avoid sitting in anything that doesn't look like it could support the weight of an F-150. I'll stand around sooner than sit on furniture risks a sudden snap or crack followed by the fat guy rolling on the ground like an abandoned turtle.

There are a few moments where I think I'm doing something that a year ago I wouldn't be doing. I remember walking the mall and feeling just plain wiped out afterwards; today, not so much. I am actually asking others to do more walking or moving around and they're griping that they don't want to.

I also tend to be a little more judgemental of people who indulge in the laziness that I use to wallow in. People who pull into a Quik-E-Mart and park as close to the door as possible, sometimes in spots that aren't even parking spots, so they don't have to cross any farther than they absolutely must to get to the doors. I wonder how many people are riding in those motorized carts at Wal-Mart because they couldn't be bothered to have listened to their doctor when they were told they needed to cut back on their food and lose weight. I see people eating the entire portion they're handed at restaurants and wonder if there are any ethical restaurant owners willing to feel even the slightest bit of remorse for their contribution to the obesity epidemic in America.

I am curious about people that are nearly too overweight to walk on their own power, or are in scooter carts, or have clear difficulty moving and yet are carrying pre-packaged fried fats or are indulging in a tray of fast food easily hitting a thousand calories in one meal. That was me...I could easily polish half a large pizza, if not the whole pizza, if I wanted to in one sitting. Although now if I ate two slices I'd probably regurgitate it or, not achieving that, lay in a puddle of pain for an hour or two as it slowly slithers through what's left of my stomach. Horrible agonizing pain. I guess I'm curious in that I'm fascinated with those people having been me at one point, so now I'm seeing myself through a slightly different set of eyes.

There's also the skin. I avoid seeing myself in the mirror as much as possible because I look horrible with the free-hanging skin. Large flaps hang under my arms, and my abdomen looks like it's melting in slow motion. If I move too quickly the flesh flops around and risks giving me a concussion. Consequently I keep a shirt on as much as possible, and usually try to wear shirts with sleeves long enough to contain my upper arms under fabric rather than leaving them free to slap around. The skin, along with the long thick scar in my midsection, are macabre reminders of my lifetime transgressions involving food and gluttony.

Bright spot: sometimes I can feel muscle in my legs now.

I've lost some weight. I'm pretty sure I should lose more. I've been fortunate in that side effects have been minimal; sometimes, yeah, I have discomfort after meals. It's a new signal to say, "Hey, Jackass, stop eating!" It doesn't happen often and it's minimal, lasting all of five to ten minutes. And it is less pain and more discomfort, and as long as it's just discomfort I guess I'm doing okay.

I'm still unsure of myself at times. I'm still having issues with my own image, and I am deathly afraid of regaining the weight. I've failed to lose weight too many times to think that this is a permanent fix.

I'll know more after my one-year followup next week...

Happy Anniversary to Me!

One year ago I was waking up in my hospital bed with a giant incision held together with giant staples.

I woke up in the morning one year ago in a hotel room, suffering from the after affects of a laxative meant to clear out my digestive system after a wonderful liquid diet regimen. Then I rolled into the hospital around five, was pushed into the operating room around eight. Many hours later I was waking up in recovery and forgetting how to breath.

I stayed up most of the night just bleeding. Bleeding and bleeding. Not much fun. But I did learn that the food network kept replaying the same few cake-backing episodes, which was good because I'd watch five minutes, doze off, and wake up an hour later right around the time the episode was repeated right near the point where I dozed off. That was pretty surreal after it happens four or five times.

When I finally decided to get serious about pre-op dieting, I weighed 458 pounds, and that was taken in January. The day I went in for surgery I weighed 376 pounds.

This morning after a lazy long vacation for the "Easter break" at my in-laws, I weighed 276.5 pounds.

If I am doing my math correctly, that means that I've lost nearly 100 pounds since my surgery and nearly 180 pounds overall.

Further estimates would say that I've lost 40% of my weight overall and about 26% since my surgery.

Depending on the weight charts you use I think I've lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 66% of my excess weight. I haven't talked to my doctor about it yet because my one-year followup is scheduled for next week (yipes!) and supposedly you're aiming to lose 75% of your excess bodyweight post-bariatric surgery. If I'm right and I've only lost about 60-some percent, then I'm either still off or there's more weight to lose down the road.

I don't know if I should expect to be chastised next week or congratulated. To be honest I'm nervous about hearing the doctor's assessment. I can picture him telling me that he's disappointed in my lack of progress or that I'm not doing something right.

It has certainly been quite the interesting trip. It's getting rather late here because to celebrate my anniversary my wife took me to my favorite restaurant since my surgery: Panera Bread. My wife, son and I had a lovely evening out shopping at Barnes and Noble, Target, Walmart, and Panera; my daughter decided she'd rather spend her time doing something else, but my four year old son told me to have a happy anniversary, so it wasn't so bad. Right now he's in love with a new Bakugan that Daddy helped pay for him as a treat.

Maybe tomorrow or in the near future I'll sit down and go over some thoughts about how things have changed and what has happened since and because of the surgery. So many things have changed, many other things have stayed the same. It's weird to look back on the journal and the blog to see how things have altered through the months following the surgery.

I was determined to put something up on the anniversary of my alterations. I got up the numbers. And later on I'll try posting something about the feelings from the surgery and further thoughts on the enormity of the changes that have occurred. No pun intended.

One year ago I was waking up soaking in my own blood. Today I'm reminded of that every time my skin wobbles and flaps, or I look down at the horrible rigid scar tissue. My branding for life to act as a reminder why I cannot and should not ever eat cake again, or what too much McDonald's can do to you, or what our fast food nation and culture of pre-packaged convenience foods have encouraged the population to indulge in.

Today I'm waking up in an alien body that doesn't quite fit anymore, and feeling more than a little weird when I can walk more than three hundred paces and not feel like I can't get enough air into my lungs. Our "local" Panera Bread is at one end of a strip mall anchored on the other side by a Target. My wife drove the car from Panera to Target while my son and I walked; we were about halfway there when my son spotted Mommy driving by in the car.

"Oh no!" he shouted. "Mommy is going to beat us!"

He took off in a fast trot down the sidewalk. I started jogging alongside him. Soon we were running, a still overweight thirty-something and his four year old son running down the sidewalk to get to the store entrance before Mommy did. We got there with time to spare; Mommy had just parked the car and was opening the door when we stopped at the front entrance. My son was beaming a huge smile, declaring to Mommy as she walked up that we had beaten her to the door. I was silently smiling because I could still breathe without gasping like a fish.

That was my night, one year after my surgery.

Kirstie Alley and the Big Life

I stumbled upon yet another reality show the other night. It was called, "Kirstie Alley's Big Life."

All I could say was, "Wow..."

I remember Kirstie Alley from Star Trek II and Cheers. Other than that...not much. I've seen her on the cover of the occasional tabloid with headlines discussing how she gained weight and lost weight and gained more, as well as a headline declaring that she had been dropped from Jenny Craig as a spokesperson (they wouldn't come out and say it's because she regained weight).

I remember hearing the news in passing and scanning headlines on tabloids, but I didn't pay attention to it. Most of that gossip just sort of floats around out there like turds on sewage wastewater, waiting to be processed by a bored public that tries to feel more connected to those they admire by reading about the flaws in those making a metric crap-ton more than we do. So I wasn't prepared to see just how Kirstie Alley has changed since her days on Cheers.

Just...wow.

And the series didn't leave a good impression.

I must have seen an early series episode; she decided to test her new weight-loss program on her "handyman" and enlisted him to work with her. It kind of reminded me of the handyman on "Murphy Brown." He always seemed to be paid to just hang around more than actually do anything, and I guess it's a double-paying job when you're hanging around in front of reality show cameras.

My first thought; how can you shill your own weight-loss program when you're really not looking like you could be a successful poster child for your program? She's overweight. She puts it out there (c'mon...it's called "Big Life," and I believe she had a show called "Fat Actress" before that).

Second, the show had her deciding to get more exercise. Exercise will help her lose weight. They had an entire episode dedicated to interviewing personal trainers to come in and help her and her handyman lose weight.

Ugh. I so hate that.

I've railed against it before. Exercise is good for you, but it will not be your magic key to losing weight. Yes, you may lose a few pounds. But I'm willing to bet that much of that is because exercise fills time you otherwise would use eating.

When I'm on the treadmill, it takes an hour to burn 500 calories at an easy pace. An hour. A plain cheeseburger from McDonald's takes five minutes to eat (or less) and is 300 calories. Yeah, five minutes to take in 300 calories takes at least half an hour to forty minutes to burn off.

So if your lifestyle has you eating two thousand calories a day more than your body needs, can you fill in four or five hours a day with exercise to get your caloric intake to a manageable level?

I'll say this again; exercise will let you eat what you want as an obese person to achieve a skinny body if you become a professional trainer. You'll spend eight hours a day sweating calories from your pores. You'll have a huge calorie deficit. Most of us have jobs that don't involve wearing sweats for the majority of the day, however.

Second thing I'll say again; the "easiest" way to lose weight is to change your food lifestyle. That cheeseburger from McDonald's isn't really all that bad compared to most fast food fare; the average McMeal of a Big Mac, large fries and large Coke comes to 1,350 calories. That's over half the calories the average person should be eating in the course of the entire day compressed into one meal. And I don't think it's all that unusual for someone to have a meal like this.

Exercise isn't bad and I'm not advocating not exercising. Exercise makes you stronger and healthier in a number of ways. I'm simply saying that exercise isn't a magic bullet for losing weight, and unless you do a LOT of it, it won't make a huge difference in your weight loss routine. Want a big difference? Don't eat so much. Not eating that 540 calorie Big Mac will save you over an hour on the treadmill.

Forget how this relates to Kirstie Alley? Her show, or the episode I watched, seemed entirely endorsing the idea that if you have a personal trainer (because every fat person can afford one of those, along with your own personal home gym) you would lose weight. She mentioned the idea that she needs to change her lifestyle, but in the same session of marathon Big Life episodes she called her handyman one night to ask if he'd like to come over to eat something.

Um...

Now she has released her Certified Organic Weight Loss Program  (no I don't care enough to put in the actual name because it's yet another program dedicated to miraculous weight loss if you follow the magic "system"). Does it work? I don't know, but it seems clear that her show is less about the life of an actress who is no longer in the headlines for her roles and instead is on the tabloids because of her size and is instead a show cashing in on the public's fascination with reality shows to help promote her program. Good marketing, I suppose. But I think it's bad that it's promoting yet another "system" to an American public that desperately wants to believe all ills have a simple, singular magic bullet cure.

It's reported that she's lost 20 pounds since January (and now it's March) on her own diet program. That's great for her. The key is finding out if her system continues to have positive effects after five and ten years...

Gabby Sidibe and Weight in Hollywood

I don't really have any desire to see the critically acclaimed movie "Precious." IMDB has a plot summary that reads, in part, "In 1987, obese, illiterate, black 16-year-old Claireece "Precious" Jones (Gabourey Sidibe) lives in the New York City neighborhood of Harlem with her dysfunctional family; she has been raped and impregnated twice by her father..."

Not really my idea of a movie that grips my attention, but that's okay.

In a move that isn't all that surprising, Howard Stern made the news (again) by criticising Sidibe's weight on his Sirius radio show. He said, in part, "There's the most enormous, fat black chick I've ever seen. She is enormous. Everyone's pretending she's a part of show business and she's never going to be in another movie," Stern ranted. "She should have gotten the Best Actress award because she's never going to have another shot. What movie is she gonna be in?"

Her weight is definitely on the high side. She claimed to Oprah that her first diet was at the age of six. She decided to love herself and her body, making her sound like one of the members of the fat acceptance movement.

But is Howard Stern wrong?

He refuses to apologize for the remarks. From an article posted at Contactmusic.com: "Stern's comments stirred up a swathe of controversy in the U.S., but he's standing by his opinion - insisting Sidibe should not be held up as a role model for overweight people, because obesity is a life-threatening condition."

He also apparently said that she will have trouble with landing roles in Hollywood due to her weight.

From the article: "I feel this girl is going to kill herself - you can't eat like this. I did enjoy her performance (in Precious) I have nothing against her, I'm just trying to say she's enormous...The girl has got tremendous problems and she needs help. And we got slammed (for saying it)."

I won't argue whether Stern is an opinionated ass or talking head like so many others who capitalize on their fame by stirring controversy. The question is, how right is he?

There are those who are saying he's full of it because Gabby is already wrapping a second movie and is starting in a TV pilot. She also has had support from some heavy hitters...no pun intended...in Hollywood such as Oprah Winfrey. Ha ha! Take that, Stern!

At the same time I'm wondering how many grossly obese actors and actresses (especially actresses) are in movies and television. I could probably count them on one hand, and these were very talented people who excelled in their craft...usually as comedians, or people who slid into acting from a comedy career. Even those that are famous and overweight are often not known for their acting career; Oprah, a one-woman business mogul, has a well known struggle with food. But she's not known for being an actress (nor is she truly grossly obese). She's a savvy businesswoman with her fingers in many media revenue streams. Sidibe is a newcomer in Hollywood with one hit movie on her resume.

And there is the fact that she is fat. She can pretend that it won't have an impact on her career, but observation tells us that it simply isn't true. Even little slips of the tongue tell us that it is something on the minds of people around her. The director of Precious apparently said on the carpet: "No one in Hollywood told me they wanted to see a movie about a 350 pound black girl who had HIV," Daniels said at the podium. Immediately realizing his gaffe, Daniels noted, "She's not 350 pounds, Gabby...but the book says...before you were hired."

The fact is that her weight right now is stirring controversy, increasing her publicity stops with more interviews in part because it's unusual to have a 350 pound actress that has managed to get nominated for so many awards.  The director was quoted that after seeing her audition tape that she seemed to be in a state of denial of her weight.

Another fact; the movie was about an overweight, sexually and physically abused poor black girl impregnated by her father. What big names in Hollywood would pull off this role without a fat suit? This girl had some acting skills and fit the physical specifications the role required. But that doesn't mean that she's going to have a career in Hollywood. And if you see the train wreck that has come from other flash-in-the-pans, chances are she'll enjoy a window of fame then slowly peter away into nothing.

This girl is having a lot of publicity specifically because she is in a unique position. A 350 pound actress made a name for herself in a movie that garnered a lot of awards. If this were commonplace we wouldn't be hearing about it, and soon it'll disappear as someone else takes over the public's short attention span, and that's when you find out how much staying power and talent the girl really has. The true talents are the ones that you see in movie after movie and you can't even recall when you last paid attention to her, yet you still find her name coming up for Hollywood roles.

I'm afraid that Howard Stern was being realistic here. Harsh, uncouth, but realistic. Hollywood is fascinated by freak breakouts and the media loves to swirl around fresh meat so long as the public buys the gossip rags. It doesn't take a genius to see that the women on the covers of magazines aren't 350 pounds; weight is usually a topic for deriding the Jessica Simpson's and Oprah Winfrey's to emphasize the latest "Oh My God She's Gaining Weight From Breakup/Illness/Stress/Bizarre Career Event" headline, or "See Who's Losing Weight And How They Did It" article.

The real story will come if Sidibe is on the covers of magazines in another year highlighting her latest movie or television project and not gossip on her personal life or yet another weight-acceptance article. Until then, I think Stern has a point. My inclination is to believe that Sidibe is a flash in the gossip pan that will disappear in a short amount of time, for better or worse.

Book: Cutting Myself in Half by Taylor Lebaron

I was curious after seeing  some blurb somewhere about a kid who lost "half his weight" from a technology-inspired diet plan. The book was called Cutting Myself in Half by Tayler LeBaron. My wife picked it up for me off my Amazon wishlist as a gift.

The gist of it: Taylor was overweight, around 300 pounds, and decided to lose weight using the good old fashioned method of eating less and exercising more. He developed his own system modeling calories into "money", like in a video game. He had enemies to avoid, like sugars and frivolous snacking, and allotted himself a certain amount of money to spend each day (calories) that once spent was over for the day. He based his daily money to spend on his calculated BMR (basal metabolic rate) and could adjust his intake by exercising at the YMCA.

Like certain other higher profile "systems" he took the tried and true...calories in, calories out...method of losing weight and adjusted his lifestyle by changing his perspective so it would be more like playing a video game. And it apparently worked for him. You can see for yourself at the website he set up.

Okay...now, I'm not going to begrudge him success in losing weight. The book outlines some of the things he went through that stress-wise contributed to his teenage bloating, and it's not something I'd wish on a kid. Parents divorced, his mother was in three car accidents, and there was a housefire. Yikes! And he found a way to channel his weight issues and his stresses into a new lifestyle, which is great.

But the book...not something for older people. If I didn't know anything at all about the author, I would have pegged it as being written at the level of a newspaper audience. The sentences were simplistic and repetitive. It was a bit bland in spots, and slow going. I really thought it was something written by a younger teenager and then run through the literary equivalent of an auto-tuner.

Some of the advice in the book was something I kind of cringed at. I didn't run this through a dietitician, and Taylor made it clear that he had arrived at his own advice through online experts (I get wary with anything that lists anonymous experts...maybe it was too many years reading Weekly Readers in elementary school where it was "expert this" and "expert that"...if you don't put specific names and citations, anonymity seems to be there for a reason, and I question it doubly so when the information relates to health claims) and not from direct doctors.

For example, he repeatedly credits his addiction to Coke Zero for saving him calories. He loves water, Coke Zero, or a combination of the two, while talking about his goal of overall fitness.

I loved soda. I only gave it up because my doctor basically forced me to. But while I drank gallons of it a week I was also very aware that soda, diet or regular, was NOT healthy. Quick rule of thumb; take something you like, read the ingredient list, and if there's something in it that you can't pronounce, chances are you should cut back on it. Soda has a number of things in it that are there purely as chemical enhancements, and many many studies have had links that arouse suspicion that diet drinks cause reactions in the stomach that prevent you from feeling sated, meaning you end up eating more or feeling hungrier in the long run. Sure, it saves calories, especially compared to regular soft drinks. The downside is that the chemicals in it could be doing some weird stuff to your innards.

Personally I would have preferred it if he brought up the differences between regular and diet drinks, with the caveat that it's better to drink them in moderation if you don't cut them out completely. I was also slightly irritated at the constant Coke Zero this, Coke Zero that. Another tip...if they're not giving you cash, cut out the constant free advertising. Just say diet drink or diet soft drink, or mention the drink you love very much once or twice. Stop hammering me in the head with an advertisement.

Second, he brings up protein bars. He works out, he's made it his goal to work on his strength. That's great! He does bring up information that has popped up in my own research regarding how muscles rebuild during "down time" by repairing microtears, and to do that he needs protein. He talks about salmon and chicken and other meats, but then mentions protein bars.

I don't know if he's read what I've read, but protein bars aren't really necessarily great for you. Many are misleading in the name "protein bar", containing a log of sugar that is uneeded, or more chemical substitutes to enhance or introduce certain flavors. If protein bars are a must on your list you really really should read the labels and do some investigative work, or see what you can conjure up in your own kitchen.

Again, all of his techniques worked for him, and that's great. He found a perspective that helped him make a big life change, much like The Hacker's Diet really influenced my own perspective. The book itself just wasn't quite my cup of tea. It became evident that he was aiming his book at the younger teen crowd, and the writing style had me kind of slogging through the potatoes to find the meat at times, so to speak.

The book was a cross between educational, "Here's how I did it" writing for teens and a blog. I think it was the plugs for Coke and the Zune that started making me wonder if this was a long blog entry turned into a book, while the simplistic tone and style cemented my opinion that this was for younger teens by a younger teen.

It also gave a number of skim-overs on topics without delving into anything in particular (the deepest background I can recall was discussing muscle tears healing in order to become stronger). Good sign of a book that is either trying to sell you on a system or is for kids; a tone of "just do this and it works, nevermind why or how it works."

So if you have an overweight video gamer on your hands that can't quite bridge the gap between reality and video games, this book might be good for them if they want to lose weight, as it basically outlines at the highest level how to turn losing weight into a long video game. Otherwise it probably isn't going to be of much use outside of being a feelgood story of a kid who took the initiative to lose extra pounds. For a better perspective on looking at weight loss from a technology-minded person, i.e., delving into the mechanics of losing weight without a gimmick, use Google (or the link embedded in the blog posting) to check out The Hacker's Diet, which gives the same basic message (cut back calories and exercise more...for the right reasons...) without the product plugs or the teenager-specific simplistic sentence structure.

Exercise isn't Fun

I've been bad lately about exercise.

I haven't gone to the gym for some time. I've not been carving time to go there.

I have reasons that I find valid. Parent meetings after work, feeling blah after getting home as the sun is falling due to this stupid time change crap, circumstances surrounding having to get a new car after totaling my old car in an accident...it just plain sucks.

I have been trying to ride my exercise bike instead in the basement a few times a week to keep from totally falling off the bandwagon, reducing the impact instead to something more like holding on to the back of the bandwagon by one arm.

Exercise is something that is rather hard for me to justify. I didn't see visible results from going to the gym. I feel stupid going without having someone there to "hold my hand", so to speak, and verify that I'm doing things properly. The primary reason I was exercising was to try losing weight, even though I know there are other reasons to do so, and my research shows that the plain 300 calorie cheeseburger easily takes an hour on the treadmill to burn off. An hour?! Better off just not eating the burger...those reasons alone are really big demotivators balanced with the whole having to get changed, drive there, exercise, come home and shower and redress and in the process get a nice change of clothes that now needs laundering.

It just seems hard to justify when exercise isn't exactly an item on my "Hey, I have an hour to myself, what can I do that's productive and fun!?" list. It's lonely. It's boring. The only thing I do that seems immediately productive is burning through my collected downloaded podcast items on my iPod.

Again, I've not been adding much to the bariatric blog lately, and most of that is because I've been spending more time on my editing of a novel draft rather than running around the gym or having blood drawn. The only real change I've had lately to my routine was avoiding the gym and instead doing more with the bike. We finally had a snowfall outside, so I'll probably end up eventually taking the snow blower/thrower out to clear off our rather large driveway, and somehow justify that as an exercise.

I still browse blogs (Hi Lee!), I still occasionally get some work done (Hi novel! Oh, and day job, there you are...). I still stick to a pretty routine diet for simplicity, and haven't had any blood removed recently for testing.

If you're interested in my occasional blathering, there are other blogs. My profile should have them listed. The most active...even though it, too, has been quiet as I've been working on editing more than creating new material, is my New Author Chronicles blog. Check it out or my other blogs. My updates dwindle as I'm filling time on other projects, but I am still very much alive out here!

Quick Update: Where Have I Been?

Life simply gets in the way. I have been shifting my priorities a bit; I've been busy with work, but most people say that, and it sounds like a cop-out. On the other hand what I've also been busy with is my first draft of a novel, which I've been writing about in my New Author Chronicles blog.


I've actually been making headway, too. The first draft weighed in at 112,240 words, and from that I've cut (so far) over 3,000 words. I'm hoping within a month or two to have something to start shopping around and see if anyone will be willing to represent it.

On top of that I've had my parent's birthdays and anniversary.

And a car accident. On my way to work one morning another car lost control and slammed into mine. No one was hurt, but my car was totaled, which in turn meant another week of dealing with the insurance companies and car dealerships. My car actually looked kind of interesting...the demolished driver's door looked like it had been sliced by a can opener.

But as Richard Fish would say, "Bygones."

I even managed to squeeze in a date night with my wife.

Basically, life has gotten in the way. I've prioritized my attempt at writing a novel, birthdays, even a staff party over my blogging and gym routines (I've been trying to spend time riding the recumbent bike in lieu of the gym time). I will need to make a whole separate blog entry regarding my exercise issues lately.

So I haven't disappeared. I'm still here, struggling with my plateaued weight.

Until then...time to play with my newly recalled new car!

Doctor's Checkup for January

I had my six-month checkup with my primary care physician (not my bariatric doctor). The good news is that I'm still alive. The bad news is that I'm still not normal. The okay news is that I'm a little closer to normal than I was.

The doctors have cut my cholesterol medication and my blood pressure medication dosages in half. One of them has a side effect of damaging the liver; now that they think my weight may not be as big a concern with impacting the liver, they're going to see if my progress with my blood chemistry continues if they cut back on the medications.

Bloodwork came in today. My LDL ("bad") cholesterol was 89, and the normal range is 10 to 100 mg/dl. So now it's in the happy zone finally. I think my blood sugar is within controlled range as well, because my Glycohemoglobin A1C is 5.2 (normal range is 6.0%).

My ALT...something with liver function...is still high, however. 98, where normal range is 30 to 65. I don't know what the previous number was, but hopefully it's still falling. They had said, after all, that one of the medications could be elevating this number so now that I'm cutting back on them...maybe the results will fall more in 6 months when I have my next bloodwork battery.

Another number that's off is Ferritin levels, measuring 16 when normal is 30 to 300. Wikipeida says that ferritin is a protein that handles release of iron in the body. But my iron serum and iron binding capacity measures seem normal. The doctor didn't note it in the letter, so I guess it's not something to worry about?

Other numbers are apparently in "normal" ranges. I guess at this point that there has been improvement but there's room for a little more improvement. Again, I'll find out down the road.

One Year Later of Diet Changes

I was going to call this a year later, but it isn't a year since the surgery. That's coming up in April. No, I was one of the lucky overweights that had to "lose weight before weight loss surgery," and that meant making dietary changes months ahead of time or my surgeon was canceling the surgery and instead sending me to a more specialized facility that had the equipment to deal with heftier hefty people. I know. I never not point out the irony of dieting before weight loss surgery.

It's been a little while since I updated the blog. The last entry is dated Christmas. Why? Because quite frankly there hasn't been a lot to report on. I haven't had diet stories that struck my irony or ticked-off bone, and I personally have been plateaued for several weeks. I could either bitch about being plateaued, which I already did once or twice, or just stay quiet (and update the other blogs instead).

That said, it has been roughly a year since I started dieting. I suppose it's more accurate to say since I made a change in my dietary lifestyle, since "diet" has the connotation of being a temporary measure (which never works in the long run). I thought it would be a good idea to post an update after one year of the change.

First, weight. I started contemplating diet and exercise changes shortly after Christmas, 2008. My first implementation started in January. My first entry on the weight tracking chart is dated 1/5/09 and is "458 pounds".

My surgery was 4/7/09, and the day before I weighed in at 376 pounds, for a loss of 82 pounds through diet changes alone.

Today was a weigh-in day (I know, how coincidental is that?) and I am 264.5 pounds. That is a loss of 111.5 since the surgery, and a grand total of 193.5 pounds in one year.

Commentary...have you ever tried weighing someone who's 400 pounds without a truck scale? There are home scales that can do it. Unfortunately they cost a LOT. More than my budget allowed. Instead I had to play with physics...it involved two cheap scales, one for each foot, and doing additional math. Fortunately the laws of physics are additive when it comes to the force the planet exerts on your mass.

Second, exercise. I definitely increased my exercise levels. My normal schedule has me at the gym for an hour or so three times a week, and other days I'd be working on my (very old) recumbent stationary bike. I try weight lifting.

What have I found? For weight control, not much benefit. At least, not that I can tell. The importance of weight is for your health more than weight control. Exercise is good for the heart, your bones, your circulatory system, and your libido if there are cute people of the opposite gender who, by virtue of the fact that they may see you with a sideways glance, force you to pretend you're not in excruciating pain when doing those last reps with the barbell hovering inches above your skull rather than seeing you as a fat dork with no right to be in the same room as them. You end up proving that you really are the little train that could, only instead of the consequences being a backslide down the hill you end up having a concussion if you fail.

With the holidays being an insane time I have not been into the gym for a week or so. I have spent a lot of time on the bike though. I have been down there pedaling away for 13 to 15 miles three or four days; I didn't keep track. I just know I was burning (according to the onboard counter) 800 to 900 calories a pop.

I figure this means I have a good reason to work on a resolution to exercise at the gym more once my regular work schedule resumes after the holidays.

Exercising more? Yes. Exercising for weight control? Not really. The number one biggest influence on your weight, from experiences and from my own research into the topic, boils down to caloric intake. Second is what you're eating...additives seem to have some correlation (but it doesn't mean it's a causation!) to weight gain. Third seems to be exercise. You move, you burn calories. Exercise a lot, you'll burn more calories and yes you can lose weight. Professional weight lifters eat more than even the average American eats and still manage to stay in shape.

The average American manges to end up with seasonal complaints when you can no longer jog or bike because the weather is crap, schedule conflicts mean you're at a party instead of at the gym, basically your routine is broken. You can always control what you put into your mouth. Relying on exercise to lose weight isn't the best strategy. This is especially illustrative when you realize how many hours on the treadmill you must put in to burn off even a single average fast food meal.

So I don't rely on exercise, but I'm still trying to get enough exercise that my health and weight loss are augmented.

Third, mental health. I'm still seeing the psychologist. Psychiatrist? I call him doctor. It was mandated by the insurance company, but I'm only out the time and they're paying for it. They screw that up sometimes, but in the end they're still paying for it. I'm prone to depression, and part of the control for the depression was my eating; that's been taken away from me so it's either trying alcohol binging or seeing the nice doctor every other week. Since the insurance company is paying that makes the therapy sessions cheaper.

Those are the three key alterations in my lifestyle over the past year without delving into specifics of what I'm eating and doing. Am I happy? I'm still seeing a therapist. What does that say?

Seriously, I'm not content with the weight loss. I'm still far over the weight I'm supposed to be and my flab hangs off me to a degree that it's embarrassing. I have lost 190 pounds and I'm not content; I'm also stuck at a plateau. I can do better. My height supposedly states that I should be in the 180 pound range, and I'm at 260...way over weight. The doctor seems to think I should focus more on the accomplishment rather than where my goal is (the bariatric surgeon said he didn't think hitting sub-200 pounds was really feasible in the first place, and I should be content with where it is for now; he also said that plateaus at this point are to be expected and could last days, weeks, or months).

I know I'm told that. But there's a voice in my head that says I can fix this and do better. Caloric intake and expenditure is something I can control in my life. I have less control over my current financial situation, work stresses, family stress...I can only control my reactions to these things but the situations themselves are going to hit me no matter what. But food? I control what goes into the food hole. Eat less, lose more. I can do this.

To sum up; one year later, there's improvement. But I can do better. This year I'm resolving to be even less fat in time for my two-year check-in.

Christmas is a Time for Treating

Merry Xmas, Happy Holidays, etc. etc...we all know the season and the stores remind us of the reason at every opportunity. It's to overeat and indulge, right?

Well, that's what one aspect of the holiday has become. My indulgence today is to not do my weigh-in, meaning I'll do my next one on Monday. I don't need to be reminded that I'm stuck in a plateau...Merry Christmas to me!

People with the Roux-en-Y surgery...and I suspect Lap-Banding...can't really "indulge" in the way that other people do. Loosening the belt just doesn't allow us to stuff in another helping of ham or stuffing.

The bad part is that we may want to still eat the way we used to; it's a head hunger and habit. It's also bad because eating is a social bonding experience. Families equate eating with social bonding. So while the bari post-op has finished his or her small portion (actually closer to a "real portion") of food on the mini-plate, everyone else is going back for seconds or thirds.

This is a tough time for post-ops. This is my first Xmas without being able to indulge...I'm rapidly approaching one year since starting my dieting program. And in some ways it kind of sucks; I'm the type of person that just isn't happy with having a thumbnail portion of each item available, so I have my meals that I tend to stick with.

On the plus side, the reduced stomach size helps warn you when you've eaten too much. I get this half-uncomfortable blah feeling that signals that it's time to stop ingesting. Now, this can be "beaten" by just eating slowly over time, or overeating by taking many small snacks that add up the calories.

In the end losing weight comes down to calories. Eat less, lose weight. The holiday treat time is to find the one or two things you really really enjoy and have a portion of it. As long as it doesn't have sugar as a primary ingredient (a coworker makes the best fudge, and I couldn't have it this year because I would get sick as a dog if I did...I also learned that the chai at Sam's Club has sugar as a first ingredient, and it did indeed make me sick, even though most other chai teas don't).

Hopefully other post-ops are doing well with their diet efforts over the holiday season. Everyone else is probably indulging as usual and then will swear off foods until New Year's rolls around, then will make their annual promises to lose X amount of pounds. And the cycle continues...have fun!

What It's Like to Weigh 500 Pounds

I have been working on a first draft of a novel for several months now, and after over 100,000 words am finally drawing near the end (then comes the FUN part...editing and rewriting parts of the draft so I can submit it in hopes of finding an agent!)

I was exploring different ways to end the story and yes, it includes the possibility of killing someone. Maybe not in real life, but one of the characters might die. I don't know yet. In either case I remembered picking up and glancing at a bargain book at the local Barnes and Noble titled How It Feels to be Attacked by a Shark edited by Michelle Hamer. It had accounts by various people, apparently all Australian or New Zealanders, regarding their brushes with death.

It includes (on the back jacket) stories of getting shot in the heart with a nail gun, come back from the dead, getting trapped in an avalanche...interesting stuff, I thought, and maybe the recollections could help in my own shaping and description of a realistic fight or death in the story.

I started reading it and after a couple accounts of being struck by lightning and saving a kid from a storm drain after a torrential storm, I found one titled "How it feels to weigh five hundred pounds."

I had to stop for a break. Looking back at my own weight loss records, I started this year at 458 pounds. About 40 pounds shy of 500, but still it's up there. Before I had lost weight the first time, many years ago...maybe six or seven years?...I was probably pushing 500, if not a little higher. I honestly don't know if there is a record of it.

Seeing that title first had me thinking, "Is that really a life or death account?" Then I was scraping my own memories to see if I could recall what it was "really" like for me at that weight. What do I say to someone if they asked about it?

I sat back down and read the story. One thing I definitely took away from it was that not all fat people are fat in the same way.

This is the story as told by (and about) Bobby Ballantyne, 42. She hated her father's vegetables and fish, so she'd toss them aside in favor of ice cream and chips and candy. She'd make herself three or four "big, thickly sliced toasted sandwiches" instead. Hmm...okay, I don't think I normally had three or four sandwiches, but I would have two. I don't remember doing it but it's possible I had three on occasion.

She said she had seven kids, getting heavier after each one. Can't say I did that.

Then she said that one day she couldn't climb a chair to clean the top of the fridge so she just didn't do it. I don't remember not reaching a point where I couldn't get on top of a chair.

She said that as she got heavier, she found there were more things she couldn't do and fell into a depression. When she was depressed she had to think happy thoughts to get into a "tranquil frame of mind" just so she could eat, since she couldn't bring herself to eat when she was depressed. Me, I found I ate depressed or not. Happy? Sad? Morose? Angry? These enhanced eating. But it was time to eat at lunch time or dinner time or a snack time...so I ate.

She recounted eating half a dozen slices of toast with heaps of butter and grilled cheese by late morning, then a block of chocolate. She'd make tea and open a pack of biscuits (are they cookies in Australia? I'm not sure). She'd hide food from her kids so she wouldn't have to share. Me? I wasn't big on chocolates or candy. I ate lots of cheese...snacking on slices of cheese, maybe a peanut butter sandwich as a snack. Cookies if they were around. Mindless things that could be downed quickly. but not typically chocolate bars and lollipops.

She blamed fat- and sugar-laden foods in addition to the quantities that she ate. My only caution there is that there is plenty of research showing that fatty foods aren't necessarily horrible. It's how much you eat of them...so it's more likely that while she needed to vary her diet more, she was closer to the mark in saying that it was quantity that really was her problem. Calories are calories whether in fat and sugar or lean protein. Health is a totally different matter (even if you ate lean cuts of meat for your diet, eating just lean cuts of meat and nothing else will still adversely affect your health.)

She recounted deals she made with God to go on a diet if she survived her chest pains at night. Me? I don't remember chest pains when I weighed that much. In fact, I have them now periodically after losing nearly 200 pounds. Closest diagnosis I managed to find has been stress. I consciously stopped giving quite as much of a damn about some of the crap at work and much of the weird pains and chest aches have subsided. I still get them on occasion but it seems that after a couple tests with the doctors they aren't too concerned, or at least not concerned enough to keep testing. I do remember making "deals" with God, though, back when I was trying to believe in a God that cared enough to help. Obviously didn't help me in the formative years of my weight gain...maybe that was part of the reason I started more strongly questioning His existence. The answer I was given was that God helps those who help themselves, so I had to do the work. Well...then it's not Him helping me, is it? If I have to "help myself?" But that's a separate discussion. Point is that I remember making deals that never worked, and in the end I'd have to do it myself.

She said she couldn't walk far; checking for mail exhausted her. She had to wear ugly clothes because that's all that fit her. She had to wear bike shorts for underwear because that's all that fit, and they helped reduce chafing. She couldn't wear shoes because her ankles were swollen, and had to wear sandals. Hmm...I remember that yes, walking a distance was tiring, but I had to do it. I forced myself to do it, because if I couldn't make it from one end of the mall to the other (or at least as far as we needed to go to finish shopping for things) then I was admitting I was too fat. I remember going to the Renaissance Festival one year and feeling so very tired...I spent half the time wishing we were heading back to the car. I remember finding excuses to take the lazier shortcuts and procrastinating to do things that meant extra moving, but in the end I'd have to do it because...again...it was admitting I was simply too fat. I usually covered for this by complaining, griping, or moving just slow enough that I wasn't completely out of breath. People with me usually just wrote it off to me being a rude bastard and while I'm sure they made plenty of mental insults about me that would have been wrong to voice, they may not have ever stopped to think that my ornery disposition was in part a way of covering for the part that scared me; having to admit that I was a terminal fatass. Complaining and griping helped cover that part of my insecurity and redirected what I didn't have control over...my fat ass...to something I did have control over...the heat, the crowds, the prices, the disgusting bathrooms, and my vocal complaints about these things.

Ugly clothes? Yeah, I remember wearing what amounted to tents and sails. I was never one to give much of a damn about name-brand crap though. Maybe in part it stemmed from always wearing ugly clothes. Still, I don't care much about shopping at the Gap versus Walmart. I worry more about making sure my ass crack isn't on display, unlike the whorish outfits worn by teenagers now displaying their own full moons, whale tales and muffin tops overflowing.

She recounts sleeping in a chair because she thought she might choke from her weight on her throat if she laid down. Can't say I had that issue. I did develop a strong...VERY strong...snore. Came from obstructive sleep apnea. That leads to issues in itself that could easily take an entire post. After losing some weight, that largely went away. CPAP machines? No fun. Except it did let me make weird noises when I opened my mouth.

She broke several recliners that she used to sleep in, five chairs in ten years because they broke on her. Chairs, she said, were her worst enemy. Plastic chairs would break easily. She would have her son check out chairs if she were invited out to lunch; if she had to climb steps she wouldn't go, and if the the seats weren't solid wood without arms she wouldn't go. She was imposing restrictions on her life. For me, this was a creeping danger. I gradually had similar things happen and because they were gradual, it was far easier to accept. There were recliners that gradually fell apart...they were a few years old, they probably were in need of replacement anyway, etc...it wasn't just because I was too heavy for what they were designed to carry. I learned to avoid folding chairs. I literally get chest pains from anxiety when I have to sit in them. I slowly lower my arse into the chairs, constantly probing my balance to feel if one of the legs is about to give, even today. Plastic lawn chairs give me the same trepidation. I rarely sit in down unless I have to or there is a solid and sturdy chair available. I have trouble with chairs that have arms too. I hate them I hate them I hate them...and I always try to find seats without arms. Worse are the theater seats. I still don't completely fit them and constantly worry that they're going to break on me. Cars? I don't usually wear seatbelts because they went from being uncomfortable to just not fitting me at all; most people laugh or say that it's my own fault for being so fat that I have to find a car that I fit in instead of a car that suits me. The absolute worst thing for me now are cars that constantly alarm when they detect your ass in the chair without a seatbelt on. I have horrible memories of riding with my wife's father in his vehicle where it dinged until I could fit the clasp into the buckle. Again...anxiety attacks. I refuse to ride in his car anymore. I don't even like riding in other people's vehicles, period. At least in my car I can make the rules. There was one time that I remember breaking the seat in the car. I think my old jalopy I drive now has bent rails on which the seat is mounted, making it difficult to adjust. Don't tell my daughter, though. I imagine it's just an old car that has a finicky adjustment on it. She's just ding-batty enough not to put two and two together and realize the truth.

She said she was diagnosed a year and a half before she decided to lose weight with type two diabetes. Hey, I had that too! Had? I guess it's the sort of thing that doesn't go away...but still, I don't remember how long ago I was diagnosed. She said she continued to eat as she always did. I think I sort of modified my diet, but evidently it was just another item on the checklist (with dark fluid-filling ankles, hypertension, high cholesterol,...)

Her revelation came when she fell in the shower. She couldn't get up; she yelled for her son, who desperately needed her to get up again because the fire department would have to cut a wall to get her out. She started obsessing on how this was affecting her son; the harassment, humiliation, and publicity this would draw if they had to come in and do that just to get her back out of the shower. She described the huge effort it took, with pillows lining the tub, her son grabbing a kitchen chair in which he sat while she used it to lift herself up from an on-her-knees position in pain from the weight on her joints.  Okay...my recollection of the bathroom time is thus:
A) for guys, you lose sight of your anatomy. This makes peeing quite a chore due to lack of radar lock on the target. Fat guys, I know you know what I'm talking about. Leaning on the wall over the toilet helped with automatic aim. The rest of the time it was a matter of sitting to pee, which brought about two new sets of problems; seats that were too small for my diameter of butt, and constant fear of breaking the seat. It's happened. Whenever I saw broken seats, I wondered if I did it or not (and there are times where it honestly was not me).
B) I hated my wife's need for glass sliding doors on the shower. She took away the curtain, and voila'...I no longer fit in the shower. I still think she did it so she could have her own shower.
C) I despised, at the time, my wife's insistence on a jet tub. I think it's one more thing to break or have to maintain. However, this tub was big. The tub in the house where I grew up was a standard tub, and I barely fit in it anymore. Actually I could play in it by hitting the drain and letting water go down, only my tubbiness dammed the water behind me. In front of where I sat the water was gone. I'd have a full tub behind me. Then I'd lift my leg and have a flooding torrent of water rush to an equal level in the tub, and I'd pretend I was some great dam monster washing away a town in a valley. Tragic fun for self entertainment. The jet tub, though, was large. Much larger. As it happened I could only take baths at that point because this tub was actually big enough for me while I couldn't fit in the shower. The extra large two-person jet tub was actually large enough to let me sit.

Ah, the bathroom. The place where personal embarrassments are supposed to remain private whether you're fat or skinny.

Back to her story; she mentioned that people would speak slowly to her because the assumption is that if you're fat, you're stupid. She became rude so people would focus on her rude behavior instead of her weight, and she felt bad for what she imagined her kids went through. As for me, I'm sure that there were comments and rude thoughts tossed my way. I'm fairly sure part of my cynicism, my intolerance for stupidity, and several other vices were contributed to in some way by my weight. I had a thick skin develop (literally and figuratively) in large part from my weight level; I was insecure about my intelligence because I needed to be right. Being smart was my thing; I was a geek, a computer jock, at home in front of a keyboard or reading a book penned by Stephen Hawking instead of the football field, and by dammit I was good at those things. It made me fear failure (and thus makes my financial failings now, my debt, my realizations of missteps in life that lead me to worry about my debts now doubly difficult to take and cope with). I was fat but you were stupid compared to me and I was going to make sure I could claw myself above the majority of people academically because that's all I had. I defined myself by being the (unfortunately fat and) smart guy in the room. Downplay the fat, up-play the wits.

Complete strangers may think I'm a fat idiot. That's okay. Chances are that for the one reason you have to believe I'm an idiot, I've already found three or four reasons you shouldn't have been legally allowed to procreate and two reasons why you shouldn't be allowed to breath the same air as I was breathing. Yes, my mind honestly worked that fast when I caught you staring at my ginormous balloon shaped body.

What it came down to was that I couldn't control what you think. I had to learn not to mind it so much because I couldn't change my weight overnight, while most people around me were content to live in ignorance, which also didn't change overnight. It was a thought that comforted me.

In the end, she joined Weight Watchers and has lost 300+ pounds, according to this account. I had surgery and have changed many aspects of my eating behavior that has led me to a 190 pound weight loss so far with a painful several-weeks-old plateau in the 265 range and a nice dose of wallowing in a depression and whiplash from turning away from mirrors when I see my body with all the flapping loose skin.

Funny how many memories five pages in a $7 book can dredge up. I spent more time typing this entry than I did actually reading that epistle.

The next story in the book is about what it feels like to choke on a cheeseburger. Ironic?

Maintenance

I had the surgery 8 months ago. Doesn't seem that way...seems like a distant memory.

I was told that the surgery's effects will continue for a year to 18 months down the road. But seeing as it's the holidays...which can be a trying time for nerves as well as stomachs...I thought I'd reflect a little on the current state of maintenance.

As a note, I've lost about 190 pounds total. That was including the pre-surgery mandatory weight loss (the irony is still not lost on me). But for the past week or two I've been fighting a mean plateau that keeps me in the 265 pound range. The bad news is...still obese. The really bad news is...it's enough of a weight loss that I have a lot of sagging skin, making me feel like a basset hound and keeping me embarrassed enough to not show my arms (and stomach, but I normally don't show that off anyway) in public.

I keep to the same diet I've had for the most part. The big change I recently made was to cut most of my peanut butter consumption. See, I have a couple food vices, which have changed over time a little. For example I loved soft drinks. Diet Pepsi, diet orange soda, etc...the doctor said I couldn't have it anymore. Not if I had the surgery. No bubbly stuff.

Begrudgingly I gave them up.

Mini donuts and brownies? Rich, think, cakey brownies? Gone. Pumpkin pie? Gone.

Even my Chef Boyardee I last had as a puree' shortly after the surgery...not since.

Jiminy jilikers. This is getting depressing.

Two things I didn't really give up; cheese, and peanut butter.

The problem is that I slide the slippery slope. I liked peanut butter. I indulged in peanut butter. I had too much peanut butter. It's a high calorie "slider food" that when not careful will add to weight. I wondered if that contributed to my plateau.

So now I have salsa on my broccoli instead of PB.

Let me tell you I preferred it a LOT more the other way. But hey...if it means taking off more pounds, I need to cut back on it. I have a taste on a piece of it or two and that's it. But in the afternoon, I have a little bowl of broccoli with salsa.

Snacking? Yeah, I do that. Apples and bananas. More expensive, unfortunately, but it is more healthy and relatively lower in calories.

Cheese? I have 2% cheese. A couple slices on my meals. That comes to 100 calories per meal. When I look at my pre-packed lunch/breakfast/dinner, I have a tortilla from Azteca (190 calories), cheese (100 calories total), plus a couple slices of thin-shaved meat (turkey or ham) and either some tomato sauce or salad dressing rolled up with a little bit of mushroom to add bulk. So I'd roughly estimate...350 to 400 calories? 1200 a day from meals? Plus my apples and bananas I wouldn't be too surprised at a 1500 calorie to 1600 calorie day. I don't think that's horrible, but I'll have to wait and see what happens with the plateau now that I've cut out 90% of my PB intake.

I still exercise to cut (according to the computers) 300 to 500 calories or so. I haven't been to the gym as much lately; I have tried making up for it on my recumbent bike. I've had a lot of other things to do with the holidays and family and whatnot, so it's just been a pain, especially as the weather gets colder, I'm learning the ropes of a coal stove for the first time, and it's freakin' dark by the time I get home from work, making it harder to get my butt out there. Excuses? Yes, I know, but to a degree justified. If it were a top priority these excuses wouldn't stop me.

The truth is that I have trouble finding the motivation to go. I don't have a trainer. It's not exactly a bit hurrah to go to the gym; it's not a rockin' place. It's hot, sweaty, and I'm never sure if I'm doing anything right with the freeweights.

Pain. In. The. Butt.

That said, I do still go. It's just more of a drag for me than when it was sunnier during the late afternoon.

So that's my progress with maintenance. Stuck in a plateau, depressed at the holidays and riding a recumbent as I type this, about to check once more if the coal stove is getting up to temp after having to refill the coal bed. Quick note to self...coal fires really like big deep red-hot coal beds. Let it get too thinned out and it'll die quickly, heat and firewise. And that sucks.

Until next time...feel free to share your dieting stories for maintenance and challenges to that weight!

Exercise And TV

The diet-blog has an article about a Fun eXercise Bike, or FXB, for your Nintendo Wii. Basically it's an exercise bike that interfaces with video games, an example they cite on the Amazon site includes Mario Cart.

The Diet-Blog site blasts it because it's an "excuse to spend more hours in front of the TV screen in the name of exercise."  From the posting: "What ever happened to fresh air and riding real bikes outside? Why does every aspect of life need to be centered around the magic glowing box?"

I enjoy riding my bike outside. But I also enjoy my stationary bike, and have put far more miles on it. Why?

A) Weather. It's bloody cold out there right now. And the weather in here is pretty stable, thank you.
B) Hassle. I have to pack my bike to drive somewhere and ride it. There are hardly any bike trails in the area, and riding on the road guarantees that at some point I'm going to get hit.
C) Information. Stationary bikes are pretty good at tracking speed, distance, and probably aren't terribly off in their calories burned ratings. Pony up more money for a bike computer and get it set properly and you can get more information from your regular bike too, but it's still more hassle.
D) Maintenance. "Real" bikes take "real" maintenance. I don't remember having to clean and mend a chain on a stationary bike. Or clean it. Or scrape dog crap off the tires before putting it in the van.
E) Routine. I need routine. I crave routine. Biking outdoors means commitment to riding in rain, snow, sleet, wind, hail...unless you change that routine. Biking on a stationary bike? Not so much. I can count on my stationary bike being ready to go when I am. My regular bike needs to have tires checked, and the weather can't be in the 90's or in the 30's. Sorry, I'm just not that hard core.

So is there something wrong with this Wii bike? I don't think so. It's a way to encourage exercise, and it costs $99 while my regular "real" bike was around $400, and "real" bikes can easily run into the thousands (I'd love to try out a nice recumbent bike sometime...)

We live in an age where exercise is artificial. People in gyms are pumping hunks of iron, steel and aluminum and riding fake bikes and walking and running on treadmills that go nowhere. There are people who decide to get up and "go for a walk" to get exercise during the week.

In the past, people were "pumping" rocks and lumber and carrying crops and food for animals. They walked because it was the only way to get from the house to the store and back. People didn't set out to exercise. They didn't have a bloody choice in the matter.


It used to be that exercise was a side effect of trying to survive. Today it's a scheduled activity. Why complain about what form it comes in as long as you get the exercise?

Holiday Eating: Before and After

Wow...seems odd to see how the time and gone recently. It's been a very busy week and a half...two weeks? I can't even remember. Perhaps the word "hectic" is more apropos.

I have relatives come up to stay with us for several days over the Thanksgiving holiday. And then there was a family "Christmas dinner" this weekend, so relatives came and stayed with us for another weekend, and I'm well aware that with Xmas rapidly approaching we're going to have yet another round of playing "check off the list of crap to remember." For someone with my mental balance, both from Asperger's and stress, this is a trying time of the year.

But I thought maybe it would be a good idea to review some of the changes I've found since my surgery related to my diet. This time of year, the November/December Thanksgiving/Xmas seasons, are the hardest time for people with dieting issues. This is also a time where people tend to feel more able to shrug off their eating habits because come New Years, they can just promise themselves they'll work it off as yet another resolution. Stuff yourself with stuffing and turkey and gravy and ham and cake and pie and...the list goes on. Tis' the season, after all!

But it's not that way for me. To be clear, at this point in my surgery journey I could probably try a little of just about everything without much dire consequence. Because of my need for rigid routine, I don't normally indulge in such things. I stick to my favorite routine meals; wraps containing some turkey and ham with mushrooms and cheese are my biggest staples, along with my peanut butter on broccoli. I had a modified wrap for Thanksgiving; I put some stuffing in the wrap instead of mushrooms. It was a holiday indulgence.

What was Thanksgiving like before? I'll admit I missed it. I wanted to have huge helpings of stuffing, my favorite holiday treat. I wanted a slab of turkey, the double portion of pumpkin pie (a favorite of all time on my personal list of awesomeness!), and even topping it all off with that so-disgusting-it's-yummy gel-blob cranberry sauce. Mashed potatoes? Pile it on, along with a squirt of ketchup. Yes, I think it tastes good. Leave me alone.

Ooh! Is that a basket of soft, ooey-gooey fresh from oven rolls? Pass the butter! And I'll have a liter of Diet Pepsi, please. And another roll. Corn Pudding!? YES! I'll have a spoonful or three, thank you.

It sounds like so much now. Maybe it was. But it was Thanksgiving and I enjoyed the hell out of it.

This year? I smelled the aromas and indulged only in some stuffing. I had that stuffing in a single serving of a wrap rolled with a couple thin slices of turkey (from a box of turkey bought at Sam's Club, not the bird carved on the counter) and a slice of cheese.

Yesterday was a family dinner from someone on my wife's side of the family. We traveled two hours to have a get together in a Masonic Hall where there were wonderful smelling cakes and pies, meatballs of various kinds (I love...loved...those things). All sorts of little goodies.

What did I have? a standard wrap from my recipe box and a lot of the broccoli, apple slices, baby carrots and cheese cubes. I even went out for a walk during the dinner to see what the town was like because I wouldn't have enough time to go to the gym and I was feeling antsy to work off some of the calories. Did I overeat? Probably to some degree, with the cheese. Nothing hurt. Nothing "backed up" or made me ill in some way. But I did have more cheese than I should have and I tried to make up for it.

Now we'll have a slew of Xmas dinners coming up.

So if you're a bariatric patient or prospective patient, how will things change? This is my first set of holidays with a "new digestive system", and I am more nontraditional in that I avoid trying all sorts of foods most of the time. I opt instead to keep a fairly routine diet that helps establish a routine, so your mileage may very if you do this. I can only tell you what has happened to me and how my choices have affected me.

These dinners were hard. I'm not a sociable person; I find personal interactions to be hard to cope with and seriously tiresome. But the one thing I did share with everyone was the communal meal experience. This year I had my wrap, finished it in five minutes, and got to watch everyone else slurping down their taters' and turkey. I smelled the stuffing. I watched my son slurping down little meatballs sliced in half, dripping in that delicious sauce that they bubble and glurp in the crock pot for hours.

It wasn't easy. And it makes me feel more of an outsider.

I did get some benefits. For example, I went to work the next day with a small container of mashed sweet potato and a cut up banana for breakfast. It was a change of pace that tasted very good (sweet potato has a wonderful ability to taste an awful lot like pumpkin pie filling when done properly).

Previous years would have been meals filled with multiple servings of mashed potato, stuffing, and rolls. Impulse grabbing of yummy goods. This year the closest I had to impulse grabbing were some cheese cubes and stuff from the vegetable and fruit trays.

Last year would have been a lot of lounging. Watch TV, eat more, snack...have pie. Lots of pie. This year was some TV, small wrap for Thanksgiving dinner, and at the Xmas dinner I had my wrap, too much cheese and broccoli, and then went for a walk. On the way home my wife and her family went to Kohls to feed their shopping habits while I went out on an excursion by foot to get more exercise (I was too narrowly focused to have found the crosswalks to get to the Wegman's to find some broccoli I needed at home, or a Sam's Club to find better deals on broccoli). I must have walked at least a mile, maybe two, altogether that day. Last year I'd never have considered trying to get some exercise in to help compensate for a meal.

I don't know if I did well or poorly in terms of not gaining the pounds. Lately I've been plateaued around the 265 mark, meaning I lost around 195 pounds. My feeling on how these dinners went...I have not been obsessing over the meals, so I take that as a knee-jerk evaluation that I didn't do horrible in my indulgences. Mentally I feel as if I were left out of some things and I truly have missed being able to dig in to a giant plate of food. Part of me wanted that old habit back. On the other hand, the big scar on my abdomen reminds me that doing that will leave me seriously ill and/or in pain.

So I have my wrap and I try to focus on other things to take my mind off the ooey gooey goodness that I am no longer allowed to indulge in. My impulse eating is limited to fruits and vegetables and some occasional cheese cubes. No dressing/dip though. Might have something in them that could make me ill.

Anyone else have similar dieting experiences in these times of holiday mirth and gluttony?

Movie Theater Snacks

The diet-blog had a quick blurb about a study from the Center for Science in the Public Interest that states that (are you sitting for this news? Of course you are, you're reading a blog entry...) theater snacks are not healthy.

I know, it's shocking.

Basically the study drew one comparison thus: could you stomach three McDonald's quarter pounders and 12 pats of butter?

That's what you get with a medium popcorn and soda combo from Regal. At least, nutritionally they're approximately equivalent in calories and fat. ~1,600 calories and 60 grams of saturated fat.

Before my surgery I'd have had to ask if those quarter pounders had cheese or not...ha!

Anyway, this caught my attention because I recently sat through that 2-hour comedy "Twilight" with my step daughter and her friends, so movie stuff with the food angle catch my attention since I'm always reminded of the food habits I've given up since my surgery. Nowadays, not too surprised that one movie is filling you with most of your daily calorie requirements.

Of course I don't get much at the theater anymore. I've had a few of the pretzel bites from a larger theater when we've gone; a few of them aren't too bad, I can't eat more than four or five of the bits, and we rarely ever go (I think it's been months since the last movie we saw as a family, I can't remember which one it was) so having a couple of the pretzel bites are a treat. But going to the theater is just too expensive. The article noted that the combo costs $12, and it's really no secret that you're paying a premium for food that is Sam's Club-econosized with a hiked up price when you eat at the theater. Theaters make their money from snacks and then they whine when profits go down as people can barely afford the tickets, let alone the three dollar water.

Back to the point...today, I rarely go to the theater. When I do go, normally the only thing I have in my stomach is bottled water. Food there is overpriced and calorie heavy, and I try giving myself some solace in that fact when I mourn that I cannot have these things anymore (I absolutely loved Reeses Pieces or Twizzlers when I used to go to movies).

I know...it's a heretical thing to suggest, going to the movies without buying a tub of 'corn and the candy and the so-big-small-children-can-drown-in-it soda. It's part of the theater experience. Unfortunately it's also a reason that theater seats are rubbing our thighs while trying to watch two hours of sparkly vampires.

I guess my stance is that I've had to adapt to not getting all those fun things at the theater when I do end up going. Miss it sometimes, so maybe it's retroactive justification, but you do what you have to do. Anyone else change eating habits in light of economy or nutrition information about theater foods, or do you continue with what you've always done?