Day 4 - Funny how that is

With the Duodenal Switch, your eating somewhat returns to normal. It's not like you have to eat pureed food for the rest of your life, you can, for the most part, eat like a "normal" person. One thing, I have learned I can't do is drink large quantities of liquid within 15-30 minutes of getting a full stomach. If I do, whatever I just ate & drank is coming right back up. This is not a frequent occurrence, but happens every now and again when I forget that I need to NOT try to chug a glass of water after dinner. Ugh. Talk about horrible. It's just going to be one of those things I will not ever be able to do. I'm totally cool with that, especially if it prevents the fun I had last night. Ugh.

Today, was a good day food-wise. I kept it pretty straightforward, and honestly, take Day 2 and you've basically got what I ate today. My weight is down to 247.8 lbs, down 3 more lbs, and just 67.8 lbs til goal. Still dealing with a good bit of the big C, but things are moving a little bit, but I'm not all cleared out. Yuck, I know, I know, but such is the DS life.

On the exercise front, I didn't do any extra tonight since I'm pretty much sore all over. Training on the bike and really pushing myself is taking it's toll. I need to rest.

I can't believe tomorrow is Friday. Where doth the time go? Craziness. Well, I'm at the end of a book that I am desperate to finish so that's it for me today.

Day 3 - No poop

Not a good way to start off the day. I will be patient because I know a big ol'whoosh is bound to come any day now, hopefully sooner than later. Since I've been über diligent with my iron and calcium, constipation is my companion. Boo-hiss. I'm gonna take my stool softeners on a regular basis 'cause as much as I hate constipation, I hate hemorrhoids more.

Weight this morning, 251. Ironically, a few minutes ago I hopped on the scale and weighed 250.8. That never happens!

The day went pretty awesome, except that I forgot to eat the 2nd chicken leg I brought to lunch with me:

M1: Protein shake
M2: Chili
M3: Chicken leg, slice of corned beef, 3 slices of hard salami
M4: Sunflower seeds
M5: Fajitas! sans tortillas. Yum! Shrimp, beef, pulled pork AND beef. I ate nearly all the meat except for some of the chicken. I had a 3-4 corn chips with salsa, two bites of rice and about a tablespoon of cheese (sorry, couldn't help it).
M6: Protein shake

I'm fixin' to hop on my bike in a few minutes and get to peddlin' for at least 1/2 an hour. I just got back from the bookstore where I picked up a few books for my daily commute to work as well as a couple of moleskines...they have soft-cover ones now....so pretty!

Alrighty then!

Gag

Here's a tip...when you see protein bars in the bargain bin for 59¢, know that they are there for a reason. Do not ever think they might taste okay, because they DO NOT. Blech! So, it's freakin' beautiful here in Atlanta so I went out and ran and then hit some tennis balls on the hand ball courts for 1/2 an hour. Afterwards, I feeling a little lightheaded so I ventured off to the nearby GNC because I had to pick up some probiotics and wanted to pick up some Isopure Zero Carb RTD's because I gotta push the protein pretty hard the next couple of days. Anyway, right by the counter in a cute little basket are these protein bars for 59¢ so I figure, what the hell, I buy a couple and scarf one down so I won't pass out. Big mistake. Let me ask you a question, your mouth isn't supposed to TINGLE and feel NUMB when you eat a protein bar, is it? Christ Almighty, never again!

TMI-time. I spent a good portion of my night last night pooping foamy poop. Good times. And of course when I get on the scale this morning it reads, 271.0 lbs. WTF?!? I ain't panicking just yet, I want to get in 4-5 days of high protein, low carbs before I start freakin' out. I have to say though, the nice weather works wonders for my mood and overall mental health! During the day, I am no longer freezing! Woo-hoo!

Oops...

Raise your hand if you forgot Daylight Saving Time... Yeah, me too.

I feel a little unsettled. How did I completely forget DST? Not even a clue, usually I overhear something on the news or a friend or my parents will remind me or mention it in conversation. It sucks because I got up what I thought was 6:30 AM in order to get a few things done early as I have a busy day today, but turns out, it was a full hour later. Dangit. So I had to rearrange some things and my day will probably run longer than I had planned. Oh well.

How about some Sunday morning irony? After years and years of constipation due to my iron supplements, I was rejoicing in discovering an iron supplement that didn't clog me up only to discover the Calcium supplements are taking it's place in that realm. Sigh. Now I either have to take stool softeners or greatly increase my magnesium. One of these days I will find the right balance.

Weight this morning was an even 258.0 lbs. This was after I stayed at 259.2 for a day, then went up to 260.0 yesterday. The poop gods smiled upon me this morning. Ugh, I hate constipation, it's such an annoyance. Anyway, total loss so far is ... 258.6 lbs! Wait. Holy crap, I just realized I've lost 1/2 my body weight! Woo-hoo!!! I'm doing a happy jig!!!

I love my DS!!!!

Post Par-tay!

Oh boy, what a weekend! Friday night was a trip, for sure and I am about 90% recovered from the last 36 hours. I do feel a little odd because yesterday felt like a Sunday and today feels like a weekday, but thank God it's not. I need today to actually take it easy maybe and truly wind down. Well going out Friday night was interesting to say the least, the party started at my friend's house around 8:00 PM. We cooked up some appetizers and they started drinking Tequila shots. By the time we actually hit the road, it was 10:45 or so and they'd had around 4-5 rounds of shots. Off we go to the bar where another friend is the bartender and had promised the birthday girl a free drink or two. So we met up with two more friends and hung out at the bar, played darts and by this time everyone was pretty giddy so being one of two sober people, it was fun being silly, cracking jokes, playing around and not be drunk because when it was time to hop back in the car to go someplace else, no one had to worry about getting from point A to B safely. Anyway, we left that bar and went to this place in Buckhead around 1:30AM. It was a hole, but they had good music and my friends had a few more rounds of drinks and we eventually got out of there at 3:00 AM when I had a brilliant idea... Waffle House! Yea! For those of you not familiar with Waffle House it is "the" place to chow down and sober up post-partying in metro Atlanta. I hadn't been to a Waffle House in years. Besides waffles, they have your typical diner food. Turns out Waffle House was the right move because we were all starving and the food was outstanding ... yes, I know that sounds crazy, but after what like 7 hours of running around, we were all tired and we could have eaten at McDonalds and thought it was the best stuff ever. Anyway, I had a cheese & ham omelet, sausage patties and a couple bites of toast and hash browns. Everyone else had similar things, only one person got an actual waffle. By 4:30AM we were done and piled back into the car and we went to the birthday girl's house and I dropped everyone home and they crashed there. I didn't get home til 5:15AM and was unconscious by 5:30.

All in all a good time, the next day, yesterday,...not so much. Here's the thing. While everyone else was drinking tequila and beer and other stuff, I was drinking Diet Coke and water. The problem with drinking Diet Coke at two in the morning is that by 5:30 AM I was having a hard time falling into deep sleep because of all the caffeine even though I was dead tired so by 12:30 PM, I just got up for good because there was little use in me trying to sleep when I knew I really couldn't. So I got up and immediately took my supplements and drank a protein shake. I also knew I had to go run because it was Day 3 of Week 1 of my Couch to 5K program and I didn't want to push it off to Sunday. So I go to the park to run around 2:30 or so and I tell you, it was my most enjoyable run so far. I didn't have any pain, I wasn't overly tired -- I worked up a sweat, but wasn't exhausted. I felt really good and I actually felt like I could take it up a notch, which I will as week 2 does exactly that. Instead of alternating 60 seconds of running with 90 seconds of walking, it changes to 90 seconds of running/2 mins of rest. I will start that on Monday.

Anyway, so after the park, I go to the grocery store to pick up a few things and I'm home around 4:00 PM and I literally just veg on my couch for an hour because by 5:00 PM, I have to get up and go get ready for a birthday dinner at 7:00. Around 6:30 PM, the caffeine has absolutely worn off and I am exhausted, so exhausted, in fact, I'm not even positive I will be making to the dinner, but I go shower and dress up and make my way over there and once I see what's for dinner, I perk right up! Crabcakes AND Alaskan King Crab legs! Holy Mother! I was in heaven! There was also roasted potatoes (skipped) and sautéed green beans (yum), but I didn't waste space on that stuff, I was all about the crab! Absolutely divine, I gotta tell ya. Yum, yum, yum. Instead of birthday cake, we had creme brulee which I had a bite of, but I am not much of a fan. We wrapped up around 10:15 PM as some folks were headed out and all I could think of was my nice warm bed. By the time I got home, it was 10:45 and I was unconscious by 11:00 PM and woke up this morning around 9 AM.

So that has been my weekend so far. All I feel like doing today is ... nothing. I kinda feel like I want to go back to bed, but I'm not, I don't want to screw up my normal schedule. There are a couple of things I gotta do for work and I have to go get a prescription refilled, but that's about it. I may go ahead and rearrange my home office like I'd been contemplating. I have bought a new table to situate perpendicular with my current table so that I can now have an L-shaped desk which works better with my computer screens and gives me more desk space.

Anyway, I weighed in this morning at 269.8 lbs. Ugh. I know why, I haven't had a big poop since Friday morning, even my run yesterday didn't help much and there's no way I'm reducing the amount of calcium or iron I take, so I guess it's more water and possibly stool softeners for me. Bummer.

There are a couple of football games today, so I think I will head out, go run my 2 or 3 errands and maybe sneak in some work before I retire to the couch. My Cowboys play today so they better not disappoint, I'm hoping they make it to the Super Bowl so that I can throw a party!

Poop and run

TMI-time. Lately I've been paranoid that I'm not getting enough Calcium. I think it's because I am really afraid of breaking a bone or otherwise injuring myself while I'm doing all this exercise. The last thing I need is to be out of commission so I've been taking up to 1000mg more a day above my 2000mg minimum. The problem is that I also take my iron twice a day, both constipation-making machines. Obviously one thing I'm not going to do is stop taking the extra Calcium or iron, but I'm trying to figure out what my other options are because I DO NOT want to ride the 'rhoid train. I can either start taking a stool softener or I can start taking a fiber supplement. I think for now, I'll go with a nightly stool softener, I think, and we'll see how it goes. My weight this morning was 271.0 lbs. Hopefully things will get moving again. I hate feeling constipated, it's hard to feel healthy.

I've been letting my protein slip a little bit which is not good. It's been in the 120-140g per day range instead of upwards of 200g. I think one of my big mistakes has been drinking water with my supplements instead of a protein shake so that's gonna change. I don't really like them during the day, it's either first "meal" of the day or the very last and so if I don't end of drinking one first thing in the morning, then I sometimes don't get around to it.

Tomorrow I officially start my Couch to 5K training, I'm pretty excited. I'm opting to run at lunchtime instead of early morning as I don't really want to be getting up at 5 AM. I downloaded these Couch to 5K Podcasts to my iPod so that I will know when to run/walk. Not my favorite kind of music, but it'll do until I can figure out how to do my own. Ok, so the whole exercise plan is as follows (at least for the first few weeks):

Monday: Couch to 5K training
Tuesday: OPEN
Wednesday: Couch to 5K training
Thursday: Tennis Lessons
Friday: Couch to 5K training
Saturday: OPEN
Sunday: OPEN

"OPEN" days are days where I could go to the Y or just go for a walk or maybe go play tennis or something. These allow me some variety so that I won't get bored.

Today, I'm going to continue with The Great Purge and try to wrap up a few loose ends with work stuff. We have a new employee starting tomorrow which I am very excited about. We are basically hiring her in order to get rid of one of the slackers. The next couple of months should be interesting on that front.

Yeah, well, time for food. I'm starving!

Post-Christmas Thoughts

Not to be all about the food, but I've eaten like a queen the past two days, unbelievable! It started Christmas Eve, we had Alaskan King Crab legs, baby gold potatoes, whole artichokes and a ramekin of melted butter. The crab was absolutely divine, it was incredibly flavorful and tender and those things are huge, each leg was pushing 24 inches long. For dessert that night, we had cupcakes, yeah, that was kinda lame after the awesome dinner. Christmas morning we had crepes, lots and lots of crepes. Not my favorite thing in the world, but pretty good and quite versatile. Christmas dinner we had filet mignon with sauteed mushroom in some kind of sauce/gravy, these huge sea scallops cooked in a white wine sauce, asparagus spears, sweet potato crisps and warm multi-grain bread with lots of butter. Dessert was a duo of dark & white chocolate mousse. There was also an apple tart-like dessert that I didn't try. Very, very good meals, especially the crab. Now I know why it's so expensive.

The past two days, I'm really proud that I didn't engage in any overeating, in fact there was a point Christmas Day that I was feeling a little unsteady because I hadn't had enough protein or water so I made myself a protein drink and snacked on some cheese (I know, I know). There was plenty of food around and it would have been so easy to eat cookies, more crepes, candy, pasta, etc. non-stop, but I didn't have any real strong urges to. I mentioned the cheese earlier and I know I will probably be clogged up for a couple of days, but it was either eat a few slices off the cheese tray or eat Christmas cookies, so I opted for the cheese. It was good, by the way.

TMI time. The morning of Christmas Eve, I weighed in at 276.2 lbs, a little disappointing, but progress was still being made. Since I was away the next morning, I have no idea how much I weighed, but I will tell you, that I must have pooped and pooped and pooped and pooped some more. I don't know what the deal was, but good grief. It's always nerve-wracking when you are away from home and you have to deal with DS issues, luckily I was able to use a little used bathroom and I brought vinegar to pour in the toilet to help mitigate the poop smell. Christmas morning, again, lots and lots of poop. This morning, lots and lots and lots of poop. Ugh. I don't think I ate that much to warrant all the poop. I don't know. Anyway, all that pooping paid off because this morning, I finally weighed in at 273.8 lbs. Yea! I have almost lost all the water weight I gained. Woo-hoo! Since I ate a good bit of cheese yesterday, I know I will probably gain over the next 2-3 days as it makes it's way slowly through my system, but I am hoping that by the 30th, I'll be back to normal.

I didn't get a whole lot of presents this year, but I did get my new scale and I LOVE it so far! It's the Omron Body Composition Monitor with Scale (HBF-500). It came in late afternoon Christmas Eve so I didn't have a chance to use it because I had to head out the door, but I got the chance this morning. It's much, much better than the previous one I used and had to return. It's pretty substantial, the pads that send the electrical pulse are large and I didn't have any problems figuring out how it works. Here are my readings this morning:

Weight: 273.8 lbs
Body Fat %: 47.5
Visceral Fat: 9 (0-9 is normal, 10+ high)
Skeletal Muscle %: 23.9
Resting Metabolism: 2114
BMI: 38.7

The numbers I am most concerned with are weight and body fat percentage, but I will track all of them to see my progress over the next 30 days, at that point I will decide if I need to keep tracking it all or not, but I think tracking BF% is a no-brainer since I seem to be susceptible to having water weight issues. One thing of note, both this scale and the one I returned consistently gave readings 1.4-1.8 lbs lower than my old scale which leads me to a dilemma I currently find myself in. I have three scales right now, two of which are sketchy at best. I think I will just have to get rid of the sketchy ones and keep the new one. I've been weighing on two scales since before I had surgery and I ain't about to start weighing on three! I think I will bring the one that weighs up to 550 lbs to support group meeting and see if anyone has a use for it, the other one I will bring along as well and if neither of them get picked up, off to Goodwill they go!

Today might be a little rough, I got maybe 3 hours of sleep Christmas Eve and around 7 hours last night and I'm seriously contemplating taking a nap right now. Nutrition-wise, I am keeping things simple and will be drinking lots of water. I have one or two more social gatherings to attend in the next several days and then it's back to a normal routine. I hope everyone had a good holiday, I sure did!

My Ass Hurts

Warning: Way, way TMI Alert!

Oh. My. God. Usually when I say my ass hurts, it's usually about the decreasing amount of padding in that region, but today is about the much dreaded "H" word ... hemorrhoids. So incredibly painful. I'd felt a little ... "aggravation" down there for the past couple of days, but I just figured it was due to all the wiping from the previous few days, but then Friday through last night, I'd been really constipated and then 'rhoids made their existence known with a vengeance. Thankfully I ran out to the grocery store to get some Preparation H (stuff is expensive, but worth it). My first poop was firm and nearly brought me to tears, the other 10 or so have been liquidy and were initially not as painful, but the last couple were. Ugh. Ugh. I guess I've earned another DS badge. Not too happy about that. I took a long hot shower and then went to bed and it took me about an hour for the pain to subside so that I could fall asleep. All I can hope for is this to get progressively better. Ouch. At least this morning I can sit down like a normal person.

Anyway while I was at the store, I also picked up two packs of turkey drumsticks to be slow cooked at some point this week. Yum. I will probably cook them Wednesday so that I can have plenty over the weekend through to Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is more about the ham for me than turkey. Speaking of, I think I will opt for the baked macaroni & cheese and then make a couple of mama's sweet potato pies.

I weighed in this morning only because I wanted to see what the progress was given all the pooping I did yesterday and the scale said 274.4 lbs. Cool, not bad. I had a few pickles last night...every now and then I just have a craving for them, don't know why so I probably had too much and am retaining water. Oh well, it will resolve itself soon enough.

Well, I have a lunch meeting this afternoon at Chili's so I gotta scope out their menu online to see what I can eat, then I have to try to find something good for my dad for his birthday. He's a tough guy to shop for, but you know dads and their daughters, he'll love anything I get him.