Losing a part of me

Category: Surgery

  • Day 960

    I did not do better yesterday, gaining another two pounds this morning. I was scared last night about today’s fast day – the preparation for my procedure tomorrow started this morning – and so I splurged last night. Today I am limited to clear liquids only. I am feeling weak already, and not happy at all. With that said, tomorrow it will be over and done, and in the late afternoon I can eat again, I am not even allowed to drink my meal replacements until it is over! As such, I will not be walking today.

    Yesterday’s walk was another good one. I walked 9.5km, each split kilometre under 10 min/km. I wish I could go out for a good walk today, but with the limited intake I do not think I would have the energy.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 957

    While I was not pleased to see that my weight was slightly up this morning, I am comforted to know that I did everything right yesterday, and that the slight rise was likely just a blip. How often have I said that it is not about the points on the graph, but rather the downward trend that matters? I had a very good jog/walk yesterday and did the same today. I ate the same thing both days, which is also the same as what I have been eating these last few days. I am not too upset about it and know that tomorrow my weight will be better.

    Yesterday’s workout started with a 1km jog, and then I walked another 7km. I am not sure why my walking time was so slow – over ten minutes per kilometre, except for the first and last two walking kilometres. I am not sure that my choice of footwear is not a factor, and I am not terribly upset by it. This afternoon’s walk (also just over 8km) was walking only, and the slowest kilometre (the first) was the only one slower than 9m30s per kilometre. I was quite pleased with that, and came home, showered, and then made my lunch. It has been cooler these last couple of days than it had been, but I do not think that was a factor because the weather both days was similar.

    I have finally had a successful bowel movement! Ah, the weird things that we share when we are writing about weight loss. It had been several days since I had really succeeded, with minor attempts yesterday morning and today. It was not until nearly 4pm today that I sat down on the potty and really felt good when I got up again. I am hoping that will contribute to a decent number on the bathroom scale tomorrow morning. Here’s hoping!

    I have still not been sleeping wonderfully, but at least I am sleeping. I hope as I continue to exercise and to lose weight that my sleep might improve. We will see. As it stands, at least from Sunday when Leslie arrives, I should be sleeping better for a few nights. I always sleep better when she is next to me.

    My buddy Eduardo came over for a cigar after lunch. We had not seen each other since June, and it was great to catch up with him. I have been remiss in seeing a few of my friends of late. It is not that I do not think about them, but sometimes it is hard, and life just gets in the way. Later this evening another friend is coming over for another cigar. I am glad that I got my exercise in early!

    We are now in the month of September, and you can feel it in the air. While the days are mostly still warm, I have had to don long pants in the morning and the evening. Pretty soon the high temperatures will be in the teens, and autumn will truly be upon us. I will continue to remember that complaining about the weather is not the most effective use of my time… for all the good it will do.

    This Saturday I have to go for a procedure that I am a bit nervous about. As a fifty-two-year-old man, I need to have parts of me checked that I am not looking forward to having checked. I am less excited for all of the preparation that needs to happen, including no solid foods starting Friday morning, plus a regimen of what seems to be to be laxatives… I assume to ensure no unpleasant surprises to the doctor performing the procedure. None of this sounds fun, and I have just made a list of what I need to purchase from the pharmacy this afternoon… including the meds and broth mix (which may take me to a supermarket). Rest assured I will have a proper meal the moment I get home. To make matters worse, I will not be allowed to drive for the rest of the day following the procedure, so I have had to ask a friend to drive me home. I have also been told that I cannot take any more fibre starting today (well, Saturday really… but I only read the instructions this afternoon. I am going to try to reach the clinic to find out if this is a deal breaker requiring me to reschedule, or if we are okay). On the plus side of all of this, I should expect pretty decent weight loss results after not being able to eat solid foods (including my meal replacements) for thirty-six hours.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 474

    If there are two words that no person says with anticipation and glee, they are root canal. Yet that is what I am doing this afternoon. A couple months ago I broke a filling, and when my dentist examined it he told me that the damage is dangerously close to the root, and that we should preemptively do the surgery. The specialist agreed that it could wait until after the wedding, but that dreaded day has arrived. After class today I will drive to Oakville and… yeah.

    I have not been doing well on my weight loss journey, and my efforts to get back on track have not been successful. I do not know how I managed to drop over a pound this morning over yesterday, but I think that speaks more to how bad I was the previous day than about how good I was yesterday. I will do better today, but I am easing myself back onto the program. After my root canal I will likely pick up chicken and vegetables and will resume my partial (modified) program today… assuming I am able to eat after my root canal. One thing I do know is that I will not be able to jog today – I will be on pain killers that might impair my ability to react appropriately, and I do not plan to endanger myself or others.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 412

    I continued my streak yesterday, running for three kilometres and then walking six. My jogging pace is picking up a little bit which is good. I am looking forward to seeing how well I will be able to do when the roads and sidewalks are all dry, and I can wear my nicer running shoes.

    Jogging

    • Distance: 3 km (3.04km)
    • Duration: 23:08 (24:51)
    • pb Average Pace (Min/km): 7m42s (8m10s)
    • Steps: 3,600 (3,800)
    • Calories burned: 355*
    • Elevation gain: 0 (29m) *
    • pb Average cadence (steps per minute): 156 (154)

    * I suspect there was an issue with my devices, as I am reasonably sure that the walk was not completely flat… and jogging the same distance as I did Sunday, it is unlikely that I burned less than half the calories.

    Walking

    • Distance: 6.05 km
    • Duration: 1:06:14
    • Average Pace (Min/km): 10m56s
    • Steps: 7,500
    • Calories burned: 689
    • Elevation gain: 37m
    • Average cadence (steps per minute): 112

    I am not sure why it is that a couple of hours after I came in, I started feeling nauseous and light-headed. It might have to do with the weather, or I might just be pushing myself a bit. The fact that my apps are telling me that I am burning more calories per day than I am consuming is not necessarily a bad thing… but yesterday I set out a little after noon, and unlike all of my previous outings I decided to wait until I got back home before drinking my second meal replacement. That might have been ill-advised. I will make sure, going forward, that I am not straddling the line of when I should be eating… I will make sure to set out after having one.

    The result of my not feeling well was that I lay down for a nap. Knowing I had to be awake to teach my class, I set an alarm. I felt a little better in time for class, but by the end of it I was ready to get back into bed. I will be keeping an eye on my body these next two days… There is no way that I am going to push myself so hard that I fly to Dallas under the weather. We will see how I am feeling tomorrow, but I know that I have an appointment in the middle of the day, and that might get in the way of when I would usually want to head out. If I have to put the brakes on jogging for a couple of days, then I will… if I have to.

    My weight was up this morning, but only by .2 lb. It is frustrating when you do everything right for so long, and then you see the regression… but I know that over the last four days I lost nearly four pounds, and it is not unreasonable for there to be that slight adjustment. I will live with it. I got a frantic text from my weight loss buddy this morning who was upset that on the four-month anniversary of her surgery, she found herself up .7 lb., which she was quite distraught over. I called her and reminded her that she is not .7 lb. up from four months ago, only from yesterday… and she is really severely slimmer (and lighter) than she was four months ago. I reminded her of the importance of the downward trend, and not the individual plots on the graph. This calmed her down significantly; she thanked me for calling and told me that she needed to hear that. She also told me about two encounters over the past few days where people have commented on how fabulous she looks. In one of those encounters she blew it off and attributed it to her new haircut and outfit, but the other was an old friend and she brought her into the circle of people who know. She knows that I advise people to keep that circle as small as possible; it is nobody’s business a) That she is losing weight, b) How she is losing weight, and c) How much weight she has lost. She agrees, but this was an old friend that she trusts.

    I realized this morning that I was out of my gourmet coffee, and I had to grind some of my Cuban coffee to make the pot. I will definitely go shopping today. It is not that I do not like the Cuban coffee, but it is not quite as tasty as what I usually make for myself. I only have one more whole pot of coffee to make before I fly to Dallas, but I should have it in the house for when I get back to Canada. I have a number of other errands to run today, and while I would usually go to a particular supermarket to pick up the coffee that I really like, there are a few things I need to pick up at Fortino’s (including my shoes, but also certain treats that I will be bringing to Dallas to surprise my wife), so I will just get coffee there… despite their having discontinued the particular blend that I used to favour. I will do that before my therapy appointment, which for the first time will be in-person. Until now our sessions have all been on the phone, but due to my being unavailable for our usual Thursday session, she had this appointment available. It will force me to get out of the house, which will, in turn, force (or at least encourage) me to go to pick up my shoes, along with the treats and the coffee. While I am out, I might also pop up to Milton to see Ryan, who has been encouraging me to change my windshield wipers at his shop. If I had computer advice for him, I would expect him to follow it. He knows cars and especially windshields (which is his business), so I have been planning to do that since he told me to… but my schedule has not allowed for it. This afternoon I can do it.

    Sometimes the universe puts things in place that just make sense. For the first time in several days, the sun is out but temperatures are -4°, and the wind is blowing cold… and picking up significantly in the afternoon. Today would not be a good day to be jogging, or at least it would be quite uncomfortable. I could easily plan to go to the gym for a couple of hours, but I have really been pushing myself these last few days so if I do, I will take it easy. Maybe a few weight machines, twenty minutes on the treadmill, and then a hydro massage followed by a good shvitz. I probably will not do any of that, but I will also not be suiting up for a jog outside… which I enjoy so much more than the gym. I suspect that my next several workouts – outdoors or otherwise – will take place in Dallas. Leslie and I talked about going to the gym in her apartment complex together, which sounds like a wonderful activity that we can share.

    I suppose, looking at it, I have quite a few items on my calendar for today, even though it looks bare. I have my therapist at 1:30pm, but I also have to run several errands. All of that will keep me busy, which is not a bad thing. I much prefer being busy than not being busy. I might try to do some studying today, but I might also just relax with my book. I downloaded a book onto my e-reader before I flew to Dallas last time, and I had not picked it up in several weeks until just a few nights ago. It is a crime drama from before the time when cops had cellular phones, and aside from the pure kitschy predictability of their stereotypical behaviour (bad-ass LAPD cop on the outs with his chain of command is paired up with the female FBI agent for a case that nobody thinks is a real case, and not only do they find evidence but they also end up sleeping together), it is funny when he says something like, ‘My pager started beeping, so I pulled off the road alongside the first payphone I saw.’ Kids today would not believe how different the world they know is from the one I grew up in. Still and all, it takes place in Los Angeles, and it is interesting to see how different my reading of that city is now that I have lived there. I wonder what it would be like to go back and read the Decker/Lazarus novels that I read for so many years, never having known where the Foothills, or Van Nuys or Tarzana or any of the other geographic references that they made were. All this to say that it would be nice to sit on the couch with my book and take just one day away from my cybersecurity and networking studies and teaching. I make no delusions that I might sit outside with a cigar though… the winds were unpleasant this morning and they are forecast to get worse as the day progresses.

    Until I started on the full-fast program, and not even at first, but really since I returned from Dallas just five weeks ago and resumed it, the predictability of my body schedule has gone out the window. For years I have reliably sat on the throne in the morning and produced. I have alternately referred to my morning routine and morning ritual, which has always meant heading to the washroom, taking my pills, brushing my teeth, and sitting on the throne (often for longer than necessary while checking e-mail, Facebook, and whatever else). I would then shower, shave, and then walk to the bedroom to weigh myself on the (no longer appropriately named) bathroom scale before getting dressed, and then taking HRF Princess Sophie out for her walk. Over these last few weeks, including today, I have sat unproductive on the toilet for long enough to realize that nothing was coming, and then I would continue with the routine. Were this something I kept an active record of, I would be able to count on one hand (maybe two) the number of times over the past two years that I have had not had a successful bowel movement, or when I have had one after 9:00am. That is, until this past month. It really has been weird, but I have to accept that my body is changing in so many ways… most of them positive, but I did like the predictability.

    Speaking of changes, I noticed something today that is hard to describe but impossible to miss. Looking at my naked body in the mirror, the shape of my stomach has changed. On the sides there are these massive… indents? I don’t know how to describe them… but I do know that there was a time not too long ago that my belly extended from one side of my body to the other. Now it seems to be pushed in on the sides… except that is not right, because if it was pushed in, then it would extend out further. Imagine taking a balloon in your hands and squeezing it. The volume of the balloon does not change, only the distribution of it, right? That is not what is happening with my belly. It is pushed in on the side, but it is not pushing out. That has to be a huge non-scale victory, as well as an indicator of a couple of things: the first is that I am absolutely losing weight at a tremendous rate… and really, I have now lost over 125 pounds, so there is no denying that. The second is that I am beginning to see the sagging skin that I wrote about last week. When all this is over I will need to have surgery to have excess skin removed, or else I will look like… what? I don’t know, but I cannot imagine going through the rest of my life with all of that excess skin hanging down. I know! I would look like a child wearing an adult costume… or more accurately, a slim man wearing a fat man’s suit. Only, the suit would be made of skin and not wool or silk. There will be more than one consequence to my years of obesity. One of the prices I will pay for that, and for no longer being that, is that I will have to go under the knife to have that excess skin removed. Once I do that, I cannot imagine I would ever want to gain weight again. The thought of it just disgusts me.

    A couple of days ago Leslie mentioned that she did not like the idea of my having weight loss surgery, be it Roux-en-Y, or any of the other options… but that she would support me if I felt I needed it. I told her that I do not want that… but I appreciate her willingness to support me. I also told her that when I am there, I will explain to her why I do not want to have the surgery, which is not a fear of going under the knife, but much more than that… and more than I want to explain over a video chat or by text. I have given a lot of thought to it, especially since I was originally scheduled to have it in 2015 and was ultimately rejected from the program for reasons I will explain to her in person. I had not given it much thought of late, until October, when my diet buddy told me that she was going to do it. I do not know how much of it I have ever really discussed with anyone, so I am glad that I have had a few days to think about how to explain myself to Leslie. She is, after all, my wife. She is the one person from whom I do not want to keep any secrets, much less my thinking on weight loss, of which she has been so supportive over the past thirteen months.

    My plan for today is to stay on track. I am getting up to head to the airport in 42-hours, and this is just not the time to fall off the program. Thursday evening Leslie and I will get dressed up and we will go out for our sushi dinner, and I will have my first meal since the great nachos and salsa incident. If I can wait until then, I can enjoy that meal without guilt, indulging in the deliciously prepared raw fish on rice. If I were to break down now, then there would be little special about the meal itself, although being with Leslie would be enough special to make up for it. No, I should be sharing my first meal in nearly a month with her, and not on any tempting cheats that might present themselves between now and then. Stay on track, stay mindful, stay focused; if I do that, it is entirely possible that when I arrive in Dallas, I will weigh a full twenty pounds less than when I left.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 402

    I knew my weight was going to be up this morning before I even stepped onto the bathroom scale. I said to myself that as long as my weight remained below 275 lbs., then I would be happy. Okay, that is not entirely accurate… I said, ‘Please, at least be under 274.5 lbs.’ it was 274.6, which is exactly the same (my bathroom scale does 2/10ths and so that was as close as it would get. It is not that I was expecting to gain weight based on bad behaviour; it was a simple matter of the inaccuracies of yesterday’s weights, and that the fluctuations made me leery about the accuracy. Couple that with another day of terrible weather keeping me sequestered in the house, and an unproductive bowel movement, I end up .4 lb. heavier this morning than I was yesterday. Tomorrow will be lower – it is simply not possible to consume under 950 calories in a day and not lose weight. I just have to be patient about it.

    I noticed in the night that my hips are aching a little. These are the hips that until recently were completely insulated by layers of fat, which I can now feel. The aches are not significant, and they are not keeping me awake. I suspect they are just making me aware of some of the changes that my body has gone through… and continues to go through. There have been other aches over the last few months. Most of these I have written about in these pages but are now behind me. I am sure that if there were pains that were significant and lasting enough, I would have discussed them with my doctor. I do see him at least once every month, and I think I have been doing a good job of keeping him in the loop. When I started on this journey, I knew that medical supervision would be important, and that would not simply be about watching the numbers on the scale drop. There are side-effects of dramatic weight loss that need to be watched, and not all of them are predictable. Add to that the fact that even while I was still morbidly obese, I was doing a lot more exercise than might be prescribed, and you have a body dropping a huge amount of weight that needs to be watched closely by medical professionals. Don’t get me wrong… it is great to get the encouragement and pats on the back from the nurse whenever I dropped a significant amount of weight. That was never why I asked to see them on a regular basis. It is for these aches and pains that arise from tremendous changes. If my hips are still bothering me at my next appointment, then I will discuss it with him.

    I mentioned a couple of times that Leslie and I discussed the end game… what I will look like, how she can support me, and so on. Another big component that we discussed that is less pleasant is that I will likely need surgery to remove excess skin. Yes, as unpleasant a thought as it is, my skin has been stretched over the last twenty-five years to support between a huge amount of excess body mass. While it might once have, it is unlikely that at my age it will have the elasticity to bounce back to what it should be. When I first went through the orientation for the program in 2017, this was something that they discussed. I looked around the room and thought to myself that the people there were older, larger, and much more out of shape than I am… it would apply to them, but not to me. In 2020 I was with a woman who pointed out that what I thought was still fat was also partly loose skin. Whether it would have applied to me at the time or not, it almost certainly will now. I am not excited about that. I do not like surgery for anything, but to have excess skin removed so that my body doesn’t look like a deflated balloon… yeah, that’s certainly unsettling.

    In a couple of hours, I am going to spend time with a couple of friends smoking cigars. The original plan was for me to spend the afternoon in Cambridge with a buddy (doing precisely that), but he texted me last night to cancel. Fortunately, Sam and Eduardo are available, and I will only have to drive to Milton instead of Cambridge. The only difference is that Princess Sophie won’t come to Milton… we smoke at Sam’s business, and it is not really appropriate to bring her. She will get to relax at home, and maybe the neighbour will grab her for a playdate with Charlie. In the meantime, I am going to stick to the program. Gaining .4 lb. this morning is not going to put me off the program. The one thing I will remember is that the last time I drove up there, I picked up a coffee at Starbucks… and it was horrible. I suspect they mixed two different blends, and I did not enjoy it at all. I will decide if I am going to make coffee here or pick up a cup on the way… but make sure they give me the right blend. We’ll see… it is nice to have the change, but they have to make it right!

    Stay on track, stay focused. I only wish I had not planned better – while I can mix my shake in the blender bottle, I much prefer the consistency of it when I make it in the blender. I won’t have a choice for my second meal replacement of the day, so I will bring the proper implements to mix it at Sam’s place. It will not be the biggest compromise I have to make in this program, and I will do it gladly. I only hope that Sam has ice cubes in the freezer… they do taste better ice cold! Speaking of which, I finished the case of water that I always keep in the car. I will make a point to pick a new case up today. I also think I will need to pick up some more coffee… I am not quite out, but I am low enough that if I have to be at the supermarket anyways to pick up water, I might as well pick up coffee at the same time.

    Okay folks, I am going to get to it. I have about thirty minutes of paperwork that I want to get done before I head out, so I should stop procrastinating. Also, now that I think of it, I am not sure if I am able to pick up my shoes from the cobbler today, or if it is next Saturday that they will be ready. I only remember that I was relieved that I will have them back in time to bring them to Dallas. I’ll try to call and confirm.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 64

    Another day of following the prescribed regimen, and once again the bathroom scale is down. I am quite pleased with that, but more important, I am feeling lighter today. The shirt that I am wearing, which a month ago had my belly hanging out, is now much more comfortable. It is a good day to be going to the tailor to be fitted for a few custom dress shirts and pants, and possibly a vest and even a sport jacket. I will not be buying a suit at this time, but the rest I am ready for. I will not spend thousands of dollars at the tailor… but it is likely that I will spend more than $1000. I’ll be sure to take my American credit cards!

    Something that has been weighing on my mind is an issue that I only realized fully the last time I had lost most of my weight. At a certain point, if I do lose all of the weight, I am going to have a lot of excess skin and might need cosmetic surgery to remove it. If I am ever going to have the body that I really want to have, then that is a reality that I am going to have to face. I have been obese since very shortly after I got out of the Army, which is now over twenty-five years ago. It was a nice thought that my skin would bounce back because I was young… I am not so young anymore. I have never liked the idea of cosmetic surgery, but I remember how much of that skin was left – in my belly, in my chest – and I will not want to spend the rest of my life with it. Also, if I do go through that, then maybe I can look at the surgery as a delineation point – WAS fat, AM slim. Maybe that will be the daily reminder of why I cannot eat like I once did.

    I have my check-in meeting with my diet buddy this afternoon. It will be our first meeting in three weeks – she was off traipsing around Yukon… if traipsing is something that one does in the Great White North. According to her words, she needs to debrief. I suspect that while my last couple of weeks have seen me down, she will not have been so successful. That is not uncommon when one is on vacation. I have already decided that when Leslie and I are in Cuba, I will be suspending my diet program. That does not mean that I will not try to eat sensibly, but I will not be taking meal replacements with me. I rather suspect that eating sensibly in the tropics, where fresh fruits and salads make up a good part of the diet, will be easier than eating sensibly north of 60°, where a head of lettuce can cost $20.

    For those of you who are wondering if it would even be possible to stay on my meal-replacements-only program at an all-inclusive resort in Cuba, the answer is yes… and I know that because I have done it. In 2017, when I first went through the program, Eduardo and I spent a week at the Be Live Turquesas resort in Varadero, which is only a couple of kilometres from the resort Leslie and I will be at. I had four meal replacement shakes per day, and whenever someone asked if I wanted a drink, or if I wanted to join them for a snack, I just told them I was recovering from a bit of a stomach bug, and I was taking it easy. I remember the fear when we went into Havana, and I thought that I had forgotten my shakes at the hotel (in Varadero). I was so relieved when I discovered at the restaurant that I had not in fact forgotten them. I do not plan to subject myself – or Leslie – to that stress. I will be eating in Cuba, and when I come back, I will continue from where I left off.

    It is interesting… when I started this journey (again), I was reading my old journals from 2017 and 2019 nearly every day. I stopped doing that after maybe ten days or so… but thinking back on that trip, I decided to open up my first journal. Days 26-34 were spent in Cuba, and I got through it. It is amazing to look back on a trip like that and realize that I lost 3-4 pounds during that week. Okay, it is hard to be precise, because I had only registered my weigh-in six days prior to the trip. The first time I went through the program, I did it through a hospital bariatric clinic, and was not getting onto a bathroom scale. I was only registering my weight when they weighed me. On Day 21 I had lost 33 pounds, and by Day 35 I had lost 41 pounds. For those of you keeping track, I am currently on Day 64, and have not yet lost the full 40 pounds… but I am not on the same strict program that I was on, and I cannot expect to see the same drastic results. Yes, I plan to achieve the same results (minus the long, slow descent back into obesity), but it will take longer.

    Tomorrow morning, I am driving to Montreal for the weekend. I am looking forward to seeing my friends, but I am also looking forward to the relaxing alone time in the car. I will switch off between podcasts and the audiobook that I am listening to (remember when they were called books on tape? I am getting old!) and podcasts, and I will be smoking cigars as I like. I will do my best to not cheat on the program, which means that I will be taking a good number of meal replacement bars with me. Still and all, I know that I cannot follow the program the way I normally would, and I am hoping that when I weigh myself on Tuesday, I will not be more than a pound off from what I weigh tomorrow. Here’s hoping!

    While it is cloudy out, the temperatures are going to 11°c, and the wind does not seem so bad. When I get back from the tailor, I will be enjoying a cigar on the balcony.

    Have a great day!