Poop and more poop

Good grief, I've been a pooping machine this morning. I think it's the pork ribs clogging me up or the additional iron I am now taking, but it's Poopfest 2007 all over again. Adding the additional iron is doing wonders for me with me not feeling as !@#$-ing cold all the time and I do feel a little more pep. Poop-wise, I pretty consistently have a 18-24 hour turnaround from start to finish. The only exceptions to this are when I eat cheese or wheat products (bread, pasta, etc.), that crap tends to clog me up for at least 2-3 days. Not good. All that pooping definitely showed up on the scale as I weighed in at 278.2 lbs this morning, down an even 2.0 lbs from yesterday and 238.4 lbs overall, but up 6.2 lbs for the month (boo!). I can't wait for my new scale and body fat monitor thingamajig to come in ... like I need more data to obsess over! The UPS tracking number says I should get it on the 24th.

Tonight is support group meeting, yea! I can't wait to go, I love it so much. Unfortunately, I won't be able to say I've lost any weight, but I think getting off the diuretics was the right thing to do so I can say I made a positive decision for my longterm health and now that I am at least getting back to where I was, I am more and more content with my decision. One of the first things for the New Year is an appointment with my PCP to get some labs done as well as to see whether or not I can get off the blood pressure pills. I've been averaging 110/70 the last few times I've taken it and that was several weeks ago. My only fear is that the diuretics may have been contributing to that, but I won't know til I test again, so I will probably just try to get my blood pressure taken tomorrow to see.

Deluzy's post about readership has inspired me to incorporate a reading goal for 2008. A few months ago, I decided I would work my way through Oprah's Book Club as I had already read many of them, but I didn't give myself a timeline to do it. I think I will try to do some of the books at that list, but I need to find some other intellectually stimulating books as well. When I was in Barbados with several of my old college friends, it was so refreshing to be able to engage in intelligent conversations about a variety of things. I don't get that in my day to day and I miss it. I need to keep my mind sharp, so I will be finding books that can get the neurons firing. My initial thoughts are to get through a book a month, but I can read much faster than that, so I may opt for one book every 2 weeks. I do like my television shows so that will definitely cut into reading time, unless of course that writer's strike goes on longer than I expect. By the way, I'm taking book recommendations!