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Part 1

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Part 2

Be sure to check out the WLSFA (wlsfa.org) and get your tickets for the 2011 Meet & Greet

But like I said, I miss writing. I’ve been doing some videos for BTV, but nothing for YouTube and I sort of miss that as well. So, I’m going to make an effort to start writing and maybe even doing some videos again.

It’s not that I don’t have ideas for what I’d like to write, and it’s not like there isn’t more to talk about… it’s just a matter of doing it, right? And maybe the reason I haven’t is part of the whole story in and of itself.

I’m approaching 16 months post-op, and I’m within 10 pounds of my lowest maintained weight. I guess I consider a weight I stayed at within a couple pounds for at least three months as a “maintained” weight. I was in the low 190′s from about January through May or so, a 4+ month period. Then I bumped up, and have been at about 200, plus or minus a few pounds since then. I think most of that has been muscle, as my clothes still feel like they fit the same.

I’ve been biking. Quite a bit. I hit the 500 mile mark for the year last week, and will break 550 next time I’m on the bike… hopefully on Thursday. I discovered that at about 12-14mph pace, I burn about 750-800 calories an hour. My typical ride is anywhere from 90-120 minutes. That’s 1000-1500 calories burned. Wow.

I still make it to the gym here and there, but I would rather be out on my bike than in a gym.

I’ve been eating a lot of crap. Especially back in June and part of July. I’ve gotten better the last few weeks, but .. yea.. I’m still eating stuff I really don’t need… I shouldn’t want. Some examples.. donuts, candy, more donuts, chips with dip, cookies, cookie dough. And for awhile there I was also just eating a lot. Maybe it’s cause of the bike riding. I mean, there’s days where I go biking 30+ miles and I guess I’m burning nearly twice as many calories as I typically eat in a day (I think I average 12-1500 a day right now). So yea, that makes sense I guess.

Problem is, despite the crap I’ve been eating… I’ve had barely any problems. Yea, I’m up a few pounds… but that’s to be expected based on where I am anyways, and like I said, I think it’s mostly muscle.

But on the other hand, I’ve still done pretty good on avoiding some things. Ice cream… Well, I had one spoonful at my niece/nephew’s birthday Sunday… tho I did have cake – (win some, lose some?) but cake is something that you can’t just grab at the store and end up binging on, where as it’s very easy to grab a pint of Ben and Jerry’s and go nuts. So yea… I mean, I was given a plate with a piece of cake and a scoop of ice cream on it… at the cake … but was able to not eat the ice cream (plopped it on my sister’s plate instead). All I had of it was the melted stuff on the plate that I sopped up with the cake.

And Ok, yea, I bought a Snickers on Saturday. But… I cut that Snicker’s in to quarters. Ate one piece that day and put the rest in the freezer. Ate another piece last night. Here it is 3-4 days later and I still have half that Snickers sitting in the freezer. And we’re talking regular size bar, not even a king size.

I know I can make good decisions.

I just need to make more of them.

Correction. I need to continue to make more good decisions than I do bad ones.

I think I’ll leave it at that for now. I do have more to say… lots probably. I had my 25 year HS reunion this last weekend, for example. Let’s see if I can get my writing mojo back and share some thoughts on that with you some time before the holidays hit.

This is sort of a remake of one of my first videos I did on my own… and the recipe is still one of my favorites. You can get the full recipe over on the BTV Forums.

I know the sauce itself isn’t a protein type item, but it goes oh so good with just about any type of protein you can imagine. And as usual, you can get the full recipe over on the BTV Forums.

And of course as usual, the full recipe is over on the BTV Forums. Leave comments here or there!

Check out the full recipe on the BTV forums and leave a comment there or here with your favorite variation!

This posting came about from my thoughts in a discussion on the forums over at bariatrictv.com – I’ll write more about the site later… let’s just say it’s a support forum for folks who have had or are looking in to weight loss surgery. It’s a small, but growing group of some very great folks… I highly recommend checking it out if you have been through WLS or are considering it as an option.

It started out with a sort of mini-rant about the term “morbid obesity” by one of the few other guys on the site. He’s typically pretty light-hearted about things, and I believe he was looking to generate a bit of good-natured discussion. I hope he forgives the fact that my response wasn’t quite along those lines. I’ve tweeked the following a bit from what I posted there, mostly just to eliminate a direct reference or such…

I’ve been trying to think of how to reply to this for a lil bit. The more I thought, the more it stirred up in me.

I understand the emotional ties to such a term… we all do… I grew up as the “fat kid”. In a new school in 8th grade my nickname was “porky portinga”.

But “obese” does not describe who I am. It is a medical condition from which I suffer, which happens to have gotten to the point of being diagnosed as “morbid obesity”, because like others have pointed out… every day I was living, suffering under that current condition I was accelerating myself towards death. 10 days ago I was in a position where I had already made significant enough improvements (losing about 60pounds pre-op) that I was already adding to my life expectancy.

My “condition” has dictated a lot of things for me over the years. It has been affecting me in untold ways… physically, mentally, emotionally for nearly as long as I have memories. There were times I thought I could beat this, that I should be able to beat this, through sheer will alone. Other times I ignored it… resigned to the fact that my condition was as much a part of me as my left foot… but the key word there is “condition”.

I believe it’s only recently that I’ve truly come to understand that this is a medical condition, a disease that I suffer from in just the same way that one can suffer from diabetes or arthritis.

9-days ago, I had a procedure done that will help me treat this condition. There are many “treatments” out there for obesity, but I think this is the best for me. Dr. Johnson has given me a new tool for me to use, one that at the very least will change my diagnosis from morbidly obese to simply obese.

I need to lose about 80# from where I am today to get to that line where the medical community draws the distinction between healthy and obese. I may never cross that line, and I’m ok with that, because I know I will be infinitely more healthy at that point than I am today. While I do have a number in mind, I hesitate to call it a goal… because I may not quite reach it and feel that I am good where I am at… that I am “healthy”, as much in mind as body as I need to be…. or… maybe I’ll go past it… maybe I’ll wipe the term “obese” from my medical records for the first time since before I was a teenager.

I currently suffer from morbid obesity, and … this may seem like a stretch to some… but I guess I’m looking at it a bit like a cancer. A cancer I am about to beat the bloody hell in to submission. And I’m going to have to continue to beat it down every day for the rest of my life. A year ago, I was resigned to not even fight it. I don’t know exactly what it was… if there was any one thing that made me change my mind last fall when I started looking in to WLS, but I did. And right now I can look at that morbidly obese diagnosis and say “bring it on.”

This week is a video for my Turkey Quinoa Meatballs. You can find the full recipe on my original posting or visit the BTV forums.

Yesterday I had a bit of a… well… not tough, but .. it was a day…

I got in another half-hour walk and all, but was just really wiped all day. I took a number of naps throughout the day. Woke up from one around 9pm, and was feeling a bit… warm… but didn’t think much of it.

Hopped online, and a friend of mine that has had lap-band and works in a hospital was online and we started talking. She asked if I’d taken my temp.. and for some reason hadn’t really thought of it. So I did, and I was running a fever. Just over 100.

She asked what meds I had… told her bout the stuff the hospital gave me… she said it had stuff like Tylenol in it so to take some of that. Took the lower of the recommended doses and watered down, like the doc had said to do if I took it… within a few minutes I was sweating. Not much… but I hadn’t been before.

After bout half-hour, checked the temp again and I was at 101.

OK, discharge papers said to page the surgeon if I had a temp over 100.4, so it was time to page.

He called back almost immediately, then he kinda grilled me bout my drinking, wanting to know exactly how much I had. Unfortunately… I couldn’t tell him. With the frequent naps and such, I knew I was drinking steadily (when I was awake), but I hadn’t been keeping track of just how much. I knew it was still only about 40 ounces though because of how many glasses I’d emptied through the day. But it was nearly 10pm, so yea… I was way behind.

He sort of chided me about how I need to keep track, need to stay on program, and that the fever was likely from dehydration. Said to get at least another 16 ounces before going back to bed, and to get up early, and if I wasn’t feeling any better to call his office and that I’d likely have to go in for some IV fluids.

I thanked him, and started to settle in for a night of catching up on my queue in hulu.com …  and then bout half hour later it hit me.

A HUGE wave of nausea, and started sweating like crazy.

This lasted about .. I dunno.. 5-10 minutes? And then it passed almost as quickly as it hit.

It was about then the fever seemed to break, and I was fine after that. Then I woke up this morning feeling bout the best I have all week. Bonus.

So lesson to learn… track your fluids. you may THINK you are drinking enough, but you really need to KNOW you are.

The poster then went on to talk about how it was a group photo with all these other people they knew, all smiling, and there they were “hiding” back in a corner and how “bad” they looked. They remembered how much they didn’t want to be in the photo at the time, and how sad it was to see that photo now.

Then the original poster talked about how they had posted an update photo to show friends and family their progress, and how this “best friend”, the one who brought this other photo to their attention had never commented on it at the time.

It can be difficult for people, especially those who have never battled a weight problem, to know how they are supposed to react when we lose weight like this.

Think about it… how many posts do you see form folks who are told by someone how good they look after losing the weight and are hurt because they feel they’re being told they weren’t a “good person” when they were fat. Almost as many posts by people getting upset because a certain friend hasn’t given them a pat on the back for losing the weight.

I think sometimes we put people around us in a no-win situation.

Our old pictures are a double-edged sword. On the one hand we can look at them for inspiration, they remind us of how far we’ve come and give us a huge (pun intentional) reminder of a place we never want to go again.

On the other hand, for many of us they are an ugly reminder of a time we were not in a good place in our lives. They stir up those old feelings of loneliness, awkwardness, depression, and more.

It is harder at some times than it is others, but I choose to wield that first edge as much as possible. I keep before pictures on my phone, I have a book of before and after that I show at meetings I volunteer at for my surgeon. For the most part, I don’t hide from where I was… I’m not saying I’m proud of those pictures, but for better or worse they are a part of who I am, they are part of what made me what I am today.

image credit: HubPages