Just as I thought...

... coming home has been rough. I haven't much been in the mood for much of anything lately and work has been a pain in the ass. I was looking forward to my tennis lesson yesterday, but it got canceled because of the holiday, so I opted to watch a Law & Order: Criminal Intent marathon on my couch. Yes, exciting stuff. I plan to go out today and actually be social, maybe head out to the park and hit some tennis balls.

I haven't much felt like blogging, at times I feel like there is too much ground to cover, but mostly I feel like there isn't much to say. I almost feel like I need to hit the reset button to get things, my routine, my life going again. I did go out and actually enjoyed myself Saturday afternoon, a little retail therapy never hurts! I mostly bought things for the house, some new rugs, some artwork, etc. It was fun and nice to get out and get my mind off of things. I came home afterwards and started on decluttering my house even more. After a few hours of that I have seven bags of stuff that I took to Goodwill with the promise of even more. Expunging that crap is somewhat liberating.

I love my DS, it's truly an amazing thing. I've been eating like total crap lately, like for the past several weeks and still I get smaller although the scale isn't so kind. I'm not too worried. I'm essentially at my doctor's goal and could stop losing weight and be considered a rousing success. I have different ambitions, of course, I'm looking to lose around 50-60 more by the end of the year which I think is more than doable. I found a pair of 16's that I snagged a couple months ago from a friend at support group who had brought in a lot of her old clothes. I can't get them past my hips, when I can and they actually look good and I can breathe in them, I'd seriously consider myself done.

There is a big shin-dig this Thursday night that I am very much looking forward to. It's a gathering of internet/web creative types with cocktails and such. I should see a lot of my old colleagues, folks I haven't seen in years, it'll be nice to see their reactions. Hopefully, I'll meet some interesting people with interesting things to say and hopefully I can look cute! I'm sure I will!

Happy Memorial Day, y'all! Much love to all the veterans, soldiers and their families! I'm an Army brat so I certainly understand what Memorial Day is all about. Much love to my dad today! He served a tour in Korea and three tours in Vietnam, he's gotten several commendations, a Purple Heart and 2 or 3 Bronze Stars. Today, I know he remembers the friends he's lost in both those wars and I'm sure it ain't easy.

Anywho, gonna get some work done this AM and then get the heck out of here! I advise all of y'all to head out and get some sun as well!

Stupid Tornado.....

So we had some crazy weather Friday night through Saturday in Atlanta! Friday night, a tornado actually touched down in downtown Atlanta, passing over the CNN Center, the Georgia Dome and Philips Arena which are all within a block or so of each other. Luckily there were no serious injuries, but from what little I could see from news footage, the damage was fairly severe. Then it started all up again Saturday. Early in the morning some strong storms passed through around 6:00 AM in my area and woke me up, but they weren't strong enough to get me out of bed. Saturday afternoon, different story. I was on Skype with my business partner talking about a problem employee. She has a TV on in her office, I don't. She makes a remark about impending storms so I check out the weather online and see a very ominous looking line of storms heading our way. This is just before noon. Long story, short. I spent the next two hours running between the living room so that I could watch how close the TORNADOES were to me and cowering in the bathtub with a giant pillow over my head on the phone with BP trying not to cry. Looking at the images on the TV screen, it looked like certain death was headed my way. I was really, really scared. BP lives right in the middle of the two major lines of storms/tornadoes so all she got was a little heavy rain. I got strong winds, heavy rain and hail. Truly frightening. Y'know it's never a good thing when you hear the freakin' tornado sirens go off in your neighborhood. Some areas got hit really hard and Thank God it completely passed me.

Onto more happy things... the applications for the 2008 Peachtree Road Race came out today and I'm so excited! I've been waiting for this for weeks! What they do is they put the application in the Sunday edition of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution every year which begins the mad dash to yours in because they only accept the first 45,000 apps and choose another 10,000 from the remaining ones. Yes, it is a BIG deal. I was up early this morning and got two papers, one for me and one for a friend in Alabama. I ain't trying to play around so I already filled mine out and put them in the mail. It's less than four months away so I really gotta buckle down with my training. It's going to be awesome!!!

Got a tennis lesson today and that's pretty much it. Weight this morning is 258.2 lbs. Ugh. Still battling the Big C and making little progress. I may need to cut down on cheese as that seems to be a binder, I can't cut calcium, that's not an option. Anyway, time to go eat and maybe get a little work done before I head out!

Bummer.

Today should provide some news. Dr. A will finally be back in his office and I should be hearing from him about next step. Admittedly, I'm not in the greatest of moods, just trying to focus on work which is requiring a lot of my time and energy, much more than I anticipated. With BP in France, a server upgrade (and all usual unforeseen related issues) and life in general, this is turning out to be one heck of a week. Tomorrow is my birthday and I'm not all that excited. I'd rather be celebrating losing 300 lbs right about now than celebrating a birthday, truth be told.

Sigh.

Not in the cards?

My current BMI is 36.8 which puts me squarely in the obese category.

When I hit the 300 lbs lost mark and weigh 216 lbs, my BMI will be 30.2, still obese.

However, if I lose another 2 lbs after that (weighing in at 214.6 lbs), my BMI will be 29.9 and I will live amongst the overweight.

At my goal weight of 199.0 lbs, my BMI of 27.8 will still make me overweight.

To reach a normal BMI of 24.9, I will need to weigh, 178.8 lbs.

In theory, I would love to be a normal BMI, if only to say, I am normal and know that by this measure, it to be true, but I don't think 178.8 lbs will look good on me nor am I all that convinced that I could get that low. I just don't know, y'know and I won't know until I get close to 200 lbs. I also have to remember that I do have a good bit of excess skin, so I need to somehow not factor that into my calculations, but it's hard not to.

My problem is that I don't know whether I should base my goal on (1) weight, (2) BMI or (3) clothes size. Maybe it should be a combination of all three. Bottom line is that when I reach goal, I don't want to be fat any longer. I don't want to be pudgy, full-figured, plus-sized, thick, voluptuous or any of that. I don't. I don't want a new doctor to tell me I need to lose a few, I don't want any X's, L's or W's in any of my clothes sizes, I don't want any of it. I don't want the "I'm too fat" excuse to be ever used again once I reach goal.

Having said that what number or combination of numbers will get me that? My best bet, I believe is to get to 199 and see what happens. I don't think it serves me well to start wavering on this until I get to that point and see what the landscape looks and feels like.

Anyway, on the 5th day, there was weight gain, not entirely unexpected. I weighed in at 270.2 lbs this morning. Thank you, Provera. Thankfully, I took the last pill yesterday so hopefully my weight will return back to normal soon. I've also given myself a kick in the butt. I have been getting lax with my eating lately which is not good, I'm finding it hard to get back to my old "strict" self and even harder to maintain that level. Part of the problem is that I've become accustomed to drinking flavored water which triggers my sweet tooth which compels me to eat sweet, not so DS-friendly things. I have also had my fair share of cheese and Nature's Own Double Fiber Wheat bread. I swear, this stuff must be laced with crack, because I keep coming back to it. Truth is, the cheese and bread add much needed variety, but my body just doesn't handle it well when I want to be in super weight loss mode.

Today, I start fresh and we'll see how things go. The goal is to eat as clean as possible, get in at least 150 grams of protein and a gallon of water, keep the carbs low, between 30-50 grams.

I run again today and I'm convinced this whole running thing would be 1000% times easier if I weighed like 50 lbs less. My stamina is good, it's just I feel like I'm too heavy to do it consistently. I think I need to add some low impact cardio work to my daily routine, probably just get on my recumbent bike for 1/2 an hour every day to boost my metabolism.

So more bad news, this time on the family front. My sister called me yesterday to tell me my nephew's wife's brother past away suddenly. He was only 34 years old. So sad. He was diabetic (Type I) and was in mediocre, if not poor, health. He was tall, lanky, pale and perpetually sickly looking and he didn't take care of himself. He ate poorly, drank excessively, smoked weed and never exercised. It is so sad. I've only met Lewis a few times in my life but he seemed like a genuinely nice guy, kinda quiet. I won't be going home for the funeral, but will send my condolences.

Yet another reason to feel obligated to take the best care of myself as possible.

Again

Weight this morning: 270.0 lbs, same as yesterday.

Today, I feel so bloated. The big C word again and I think the Maximum Protein is definitely giving me gas. Not good.

Able-bodied

I talked to my parents about my running and they very nearly completely bummed me out. My dad was like "oh, c'mon" in sort of a "what are you up to now?" kind of tone which was a little surprising. When I asked him why he said that she mumbled and said something like he didn't want me to hurt myself and do damage to my body. My mom was a little more neutral but when I told her about my dad's reaction she was said she felt the same way, but didn't say so. Dang. Obviously they don't get what I am trying to do here and I guess that's okay, but it still stings. I have to look at it from their point of view, they are very, very old school and "running for sport" is not something they can wrap their 75+ year old brains around. It's not something you do unless someone or something is chasing you so maybe I have to give them some slack. It could also be that they haven't fully grasped how much of a different person I want to be and maybe it's my failure in not conveying that. I haven't really involved them in all the stuff I want to do in 2008 and how much I want to transform my life. As far as they are concerned, I'm just fine as I am (which was a long time coming) and while I certainly appreciate that, I want them to be happy for me and for me trying to achieve more. Oh well, in the past, I would have felt completely deflated, but I won't let that happen now. They are still going to be the first people I call when I finish my 10K in July.

Anyway, I'm not really that sore. It's barely noticeable, I feel it a little in my thighs and shins, but that's really it. It is supposed to be 72 ° today so how can I not go to park again? I mean, seriously, wouldn't that be a crime against all that good and holy in the world to not enjoy such a gift of warmth? I think so, so yeah, I'm out of here around noon! I'm just going to take leisurely walk, hardly brisk and just enjoy some good music and the sun on my skin.

This morning I weighed in at exactly what I weighed in yesterday at, 270.2 lbs. I gotta tell ya, I'm perplexed at how my body seems to not want to get below 270 lbs. This is not good for my psyche. It's also probably has to do with the running, my muscles are probably retaining some water due to soreness so I'm not going to panic and I do have to remind myself about the water weight I gained last month when I look back and see how long it's taking me to get below 270. I am being stubborn (stupidly probably) about one thing though -- I have grown to love my cups of coffee. I use decaf coffee, Splenda and the lowest carb coffee creamer I can find. I like my coffee with a lot of cream & Splenda and if I am being completely honest, each cup probably has anywhere from 10-15g of carbs. Yikes! I know, I know. I got hooked when I took a job in February. I tried to limit myself to one or two cups a day, but I will probably have to kiss the coffee good-bye as of right now. Bummer. It's my only "bad" thing. I guess if I can give up cheese, which is my favorite food and if I can go gluten free, then I can give up the coffee. Ok, fine, I am done with coffee. I just had my last cup and we'll see how things go.

Time will tell...

I hope I am doing the right thing. Several weeks ago I had mentioned that I was getting off the diuretics because I didn't think I needed them anymore, well it only took a few days for me to get back on them because I had gained like 5 lbs. Well, I got back off of them on the 5th and have so far gained close to 15 lbs of water weight. Talk about going crazy! I have been trying not to panic because the hope is that things will normalize in a couple of weeks. I decided to get off them because I just think I need them. I lost fine for several months without them and I just don't feel right taking something I don't need, plus I'm concerned about long term use, potassium deficiency, also edema is a good indicator of protein malnutrition and with taking the diuretics, I'd never know if I was protein deficient. I won't lie and say the weight gain has me stressing out, but I think I am doing the right thing healthwise. It is becoming increasingly more important to me to be healthy, not just thinner. I want to get to a point where the only medication I am on is the Protonix, no BP meds, no diuretics, none of that. Just Protonix and my supplements, that's it. I know I am doing the right thing.

The bad thing about it is I am having conflicting emotions about the water weight. At times I feel like "oh, shit I broke my DS", other times I feel like I just gotta keep my head down and keep on, but many times I just feel like "screw it all, I'm going to eat! This time of year sucks anyway!" I don't want to be that person, but it's HARD, especially with so many get-togethers and parties and stuff. Ugh. I am going to keep trying though, I've spent a good amount of time reading people's true success stories and I am inspired to get my butt in gear. My body is telling me start over in 2008 with everyone else, but my mind is telling me otherwise. Everyday is another day to do the right thing -- this is what I keep telling myself.

I've been thinking a lot about what I want to do with my life, what's important to me, what I want to keep, what I want to get rid of and what I want to change. 2008 is really the last year I will working on a weight loss goal (how awesome is that!!!) and it's becoming more apparent to me that I need to work on other aspects of my life. My best friend has been seeing a therapist for the past 3 years and suggested that is something I might want to look into so I will, I am not going to discount anything, so we'll see.

Anyway, when I was home in late September I brought along with me this gray business suit that my mom had bought me a few years prior for me to wear at my uncle's funeral. It's a nice suit, but it was a size 32 or 34, we bought it at Catherine's in Lafayette, Louisiana. My mom made me put it on and she pinned it in all the right places for the seamstress to hem it and she said she'd have it mailed to me. Well, she finally mailed it to me and I tried it on last night and guess what? Way too big! My mom is so excited about me wearing this suit and I don't have the heart to tell her it doesn't fit. I'm either going to have to get it altered again or just give it up to someone who can really use it. My mom is funny, for some reason she can't wrap her head around the idea that I am still losing weight and that I am still getting smaller, she can't understand why I haven't bought a whole new wardrobe yet, I keep telling her, she doesn't believe me. She can't believe any daughter of hers doesn't want to go shopping! That's me, the anomaly! :) Did I ever mention I have 7 sisters? Two have passed away, one about 12 years ago, another in 2006, but yeah, 7 sisters and I'm the youngest of them all. You can only imagine what that's like growing up!

Low Protein...

Oh boy. I have not been getting enough protein and I am feeling the effects physically and seeing the effects on the scale. I allowed my very bad case of food aversion to get the best of me. I got off my diuretics a couple of days ago because I still felt a tightness in my legs which is a classic sign of low-protein and I didn't think it was a good idea to stay on them if they were hiding symptoms of something more important. So today I went out to GNC and bought a case of Isopure Zero Carb RTD bottles, each having 40g of protein each. I also went out and bought a bucket of chicken. Each leg/thigh combo has around 33g of protein and around 11g carbs. My plan is to get in 200+ grams of protein a day. I'm gonna drink 3 Isopures a day until my order from Vitacost comes. My problem is that I just can't eat that much, not as much as I could, I'm not sure why, I probably need to nurse my ulcer a little more and I think "large" volumes of food cause me issues. So I'm doing 3 protein drinks a day and 2 meals. That should be good. Yesterday I tried to get in all in food, but failed miserably.

My weight this morning was 289.2 lbs which is ludicrous but indicative of (1) getting off the diuretics and (2) not eating enough. Hopefully in a week or so, things will change.

Ever vigilant...

So freakin' disappointing.

» Marion Jones admits to doping

Booooooo!

I'm typically more inclined to babble on and on about my experiences thus far with the Duodenal Switch and post-op life, but this caught my eye last night and really bummed me out. Damn. I'm so disappointed in her. I don't like cheating and I especially don't like cheaters who lie and lie and lie some more. I'm a big sports fan and like most Americans, I get caught up in the Olympics, especially the Summer Games, and especially high profile sports like Track & Field. I love the passion of it all and I love fair competition, there are so many great stories to be witnessed. Marion's story was one of those, she really captured the hearts of many fans. To find out now, it was all a sham, just aggravates me. I feel the same way about Barry Bonds (as far as I'm concerned, Hank Aaron is still the home-run champ). Sigh. I don't know, this is just so utterly sad, I wish she hadn't cheated and I can't imagine the rough road the rest of her life will entail. I wish her the best as I'm sure she is regretting her decisions and there are certainly lessons to be learned here: Choose better!

Ugh....

I am going to be having a heckuva few days. My business partner and her husband are going to be a royal mess. He has a daughter with his crazy ex-wife and has had the child for the past several weeks. She is due back to her mom, in another country, Friday and they are both wrecks. The baby is unfortunately caught up in the middle of this hellish nightmare and the mother, as far as I can tell, is not making any of this easy. I don't pretend to think that this whole situation is easy on anybody, but I just don't understand why the mother is making all this so much worse, part of the problem has to deal with how her marriage fell apart and the role BP had in it all. Needless to say, I try to stay out of it, but I don't think the child, who is absolutely wonderful and an absolute delight, by the way, should suffer. BP and husband have spent most of the past couple of days in tears as they don't want the child to leave and go back to the mother as the mother has made it her mission in life to say horrible things about the child's father and BP to the child. What kind of person does that? When my mom's first husband left her, she never said a bad word against him figuring that the kids would find out on their own in due time what kind of man their father was and they did. She didn't need to say anything. It's just f-ed up. This weekend I am due in Savannah and it looks like they, sans baby, are going to drive down with me and they will spend a few days to themselves while I hang out with my Marchesini siblings, then we'll drive back to Atlanta. God, I just feel bad and I just know they are going to be messes so I just have to mentally prepare for being a good friend to them. Regardless of anything else, I know they love that kid and will miss her until she comes back to the country which could be God knows when. It's just sad all around.

Hairstory

I must change mine. I don't like it any more. In the past 6 months it has thinned out a good bit and I don't think it looks all that good. All the volume is gone and it's just limp and lame. If my sister is reading this now then I know she is rolling her eyes, she is well-versed in long history of my hair issues. Anywho, I may have to go the short route. I had short hair for years, here is a picture, in fact:

This had to be 2002 or 2003 and I probably weighed around 380-390 lbs, I think. I'm not sure. Anyway, hair this length was great, I've had much shorter hair and I loved that too, but this length was perfect. Right now, the front and sides are the thinnest and combing and curling it everyday at it's current length is not so good. The other option is to go shorter such that I won't have to curl anymore.

The other option is some kind of weave ... I'm not sure that is for me AND I'm not convinced that doesn't do more harm that good. Me thinks it's time to consult a stylist of some sort. This is Atlanta and there are like a million of them which was the problem the last time I decided to find one, so if by chance anyone out there in Internet land knows a good stylist in the ATL area that is well experienced in African American hair, then please let me know! Bonus points if this person has experience with post-ops!

Update:
That shirt I am wearing in the picture is a 4X, it was a shirt I absolutely loved and never wore in public because at that time it was too small. I've had that shirt for probably 8-9 years. That shirt now is WAY too big and is now in the pile of clothes I don't even try to fool myself into thinking that it's still okay to wear. Amazing...

Shit.

So, I go to the gastroenterologist's office this afternoon and give him the rundown. I told him about Brazil and he seemed very interested in the whole thing even to go so far as to ask me how much the whole she-bang cost. Anyway, I told him what my symptoms were and he poked around some and said that he wasn't sure exactly what the issue is but he's scheduling me for an endoscopy and his scheduler will give me a call to set that up. Ugh. Something is definitely going on and it's much different than my issues at the end of May/beginning of June. Since yesterday, eating solid food is rough. I mean it hurts. I can actually feel it, this started after I was eating ham yesterday so I cut dinner in half and finished the day off with a protein shake. This morning I had a protein shake which was a little rough going down, but actually not that bad so later that morning I figured how bad could scrambled eggs be. Geez! The first bite felt like I was swallowing a rock but subsequent bites went down alright although I was only able to eat 2/3 of it and that has been the only solid food I have had today. It kinda feels like whatever I ate yesterday is slowly making it's way through my system and leaving irritated bowels along the way. And let's not talk about the burping... It's been protein drinks since the scrambled egg fiasco for me. It's weird because it's always the first bite or drink that is the most uncomfortable and then things are okay, but I am filling up way faster than normal. Good grief... and then, of course, my poop pattern changes. No 10:30-11:30 AM poop, so that's not good. AND to top it all off, weighed in at 312.8 lbs this morning.

I'm not sure what triggered all this, maybe the ham is stuck or something. The doc suggested bland soft foods for the next few days. That really translates to lots and lots of protein drinks. Or I have to regress back to my first post-op days and do the dreaded pureed food deal. Boooooooo. Hissssss. Boooooooo.

Oh well, if that is the case then I'm inclined to go get myself some grits and mashed potatoes and have at it. Getting in the protein won't be a problem, 5 shakes and I am there, but the calories will definitely be.

Sigh. Oh well, just another little bump in the road.