Trials and Tribulations...

March 1, 2012, seven months, stuck at 243 pounds while my knee heals...dammit!


Rebuilding the Wreck

   Have you ever seen these shows about people who rebuild old cars? They go find some rusty old car, hiding in a barn somewhere like it is ashamed to be seen. The car guy finds this old rust bucket and says, "Oh my God! This is a 1967 Buggernaut Coupe, built in Luxembourg by Dummass Motorwerks! It's a classic!" He's hopping up and down, all grins and excitement, and then the camera swings to the car, and it's a disaster! The tires rotted out during the Clinton administration, one headlight is hanging loose in it's socket, a chicken is roosting on the roof, and the whole thing is so dirty, you can't tell what the original color used to be. The car guy lifts the hood, and when the dust cloud settles, he gets all excited again, "Yes! It has the original 9 cylinder engine with the turbo charger and the titanium spark plugs! Awesome!"  And you are wondering how he can tell all this, because the engine looks like a pile of rusty, discarded parts in a junkyard somewhere. He buys the heap, and the rest of the show is all about the restoration work he has to do, with whacky little scenes of fun and hijinks by the guys in the shop...

   While the camera rolls, the car guy runs into one unexpected problem after another, because there are so many things rotted out, rusted away, frozen solid, or just missing, and he has to fix one screwed up situation after another. Some parts he has to special order from Bavaria, some he scrounges from a guy in El Paso that owes him a favor, some he actually makes from scratch in the shop, but eventually, he gets it running again. It runs like crap, but it can actually move under it's own power...that's where I am right now with this rusted hulk of a body of mine.

   I was so fat and so badly out of shape that many of my muscles atrophied. The tendons tightened up and the muscles wasted away because I wasn't able to get any decent exercise, so now I'm running into all sorts of little problems. My thigh muscles are weak, and I have tendonitus. All those little muscles in my lower back, hips, sides, rib cage, etcetera, are all weak from lack of use, so when I try to exercise, I am shockingly weak compared to my younger self. I am doing all sorts of therapeutic exercises, but I still have a long way to go...

PLANKING - SIMPLE AND EFFECTIVE   

  No, I'm not talking about those morons who post pictures of themselves lying flat and motionless on park benches, coffee tables, railroad tracks, or where-ever. I'm talking about one of the best, most effective exercises I have ever experienced. It is stupid-simple, you can do it pretty much anywhere, and it is amazingly effective. All you do is lie facedown on the floor with your elbows tucked under your chest and your hands under your chin, and lift your body up while keeping your back straight or ever-so-slightly humped.  Don't let your back sag! Think of it like a push up done on your elbows instead of your hands. Concentrate on trying to tighten up all of those abdominal muscles, and hold that position for 15 to 20 seconds. 

shamelessly stolen from someone else's blog...

    This exercise actually works pretty much everything from your neck to your ankles, including all of those little muscles in your lower back, abdominals, and hips, the collection of muscles people have dubbed "The Core". Do that 3 times, with 30 seconds of rest in between planks. If you are in decent shape, 20 seconds won't be too challenging, but you will feel it working. If you are in crappy shape, like me, 15 seconds will have you sweating and shaking like a heroin junkie going through withdrawal. I did three planks of 15 seconds each on Monday, and I'm still feeling it on Thursday morning. For now, one planking session per week is plenty...especially if I do the side plank version while I'm down there on the floor. It is the same principal, just performed on one elbow with your body sideways instead of face down. It is idiot simple and abs-olutely effective! (Get it? Abs-olutely? Never mind, bad pun.)  It hurts, but it's good pain, the kind of pain that happens when weakness is leaving the body...

More sweat and good pain coming soon...


and a word or two about Vodka!

   Do you like vodka? I mean really like vodka? I'm not talking about a splash of the stuff in some orange juice, I'm talking super cold vodka shots, no ice, no mixer, just toss the bottle in the freezer for a couple hours, then drink it straight. If you really like vodka, then you know the difference between the good stuff and the cheap stuff, right? Don't be so sure...

   When you buy a really good whisky, like a fine single malt or a nicely aged sourmash, you are paying for the materials in the mash, the distillation, the fine oak barrels, the long patient aging process under strictly controlled conditions...and it's worth it. When you buy a nice, top-shelf vodka, do you know what you are paying for? If you plunk down $35 for top-shelf vodka, you are mainly paying for the name and the fancy bottle. Vodka is simply the purest distillation of ethanol, mixed with the cleanest water available. There is no careful aging, no oak barrels, no fine aromas and flavors. The best vodka is simply really clean ethanol at about 40% strength, diluted with clean, pure water. So what is the difference between the cheap stuff and the high-dollar stuff? Impurities...those other chemicals in there that make the stuff taste funny. Really cheap, crappy vodka tastes like paint thinner mixed with diesel fuel and a dash of battery acid, and it may actually have some of the same chemicals in it. Cheap vodka tastes bad, leaves a harsh or oily aftertaste, and gives you a skull-splitting, please-kill-me-now hangover. What to do, what to do?

   The answer is simple - purify the stuff! I recently experimented with a cheap bottle of rot gut, the cheapest in the store. I took a small shot of the stuff, gagged a little, and debated just pouring it out, but I decided to go ahead with my experiment anyway. I got an empty bottle, a small plastic funnel, 2 coffee filters, and about 50 cents worth of aquarium filter charcoal, the stuff you can buy at Walmart. I filtered the cheap crappy vodka through the charcoal once, and it was noticeably better. I filtered it through the same filter again, and the stuff was almost good. After 4 trips through the charcoal, I honestly don't think I would be able to tell the filtered cheap stuff from the really pricey stuff with the goose on the label. I tossed the bottle in the freezer for a couple hours, and enjoyed several shots later in the evening while watching something educational and spiritually uplifting - some gun porn on the outdoor channel! I went to bed, woke up fully functional, no hangover at all, no headache, no feeling of being poisoned the previous evening, just one glass of water and I was ready to rock. 

   With whiskey, you pay for all of those subtle flavors and aromas that fine, careful aging can produce, but with vodka, you are paying for what you don't get - all of the chemical impurities that come in the really cheap crappy stuff. Save a pile of cash and simply filter out the stuff you don't want. Trust me on this one, it works!

Physical Therapy Sucks...

but not for the reasons you might assume.

Six and a half months, stuck at 243 pounds, down 108 pounds, and limping from knee surgery.

     The knee-bone doctor did his thing, cleaning up a good bit of damage in my left knee. He said I had torn and frayed cartilage, a pretty bad bruise on the end of my thigh bone, water on the knee, and tendonitus. All I know is, it hurt a whole bunch before, and it still hurts but not as much, and hurts less every week. He prescribed six weeks of physical therapy, which is about what I expected, so I started last week - and it isn't what I expected at all!

    I was very athletic when I was younger, and have always worked hard in the gym and on the field. When lifting weights, I always try to lift to the point of failure, always pushing, striving, working to get that last bit of effort into the iron. It has always been my belief that pain is simply weakness leaving the body, that I can do more than I am currently doing, that I am capable of digging down deep and coming up with that inner strength...and that is exactly what I CAN'T do during therapy! My therapist is a very smart cookie who really knows his stuff. I understand the reasons he tells me to take it easy, don't push, be patient. "You are not working out, you are in therapy, you are not trying to get stronger, you are trying to heal." I understand, I get it, I see the logic, if I push too hard I can do some seriously permanent damage...but it is still driving me nuts! For a few weeks there, I was running, hiking, walking, moving, and it felt so good after being crippled for so long. Now, I'm crippled again, if only for a while. I feel like I was let out of a cage, only to be tossed right back in again as soon as I was getting used to the freedom - and to be blunt, that feeling fucking sucks!

    So for now, I'll hold back, and not push it. I'll stop myself from digging deep and striving for excellence, I'll shut the fuck up and do as I am told, and strap my icepack to my leg when it is sore, and be a good little therapy patient...and I'll hate every minute of it.

    Shit.

Six Months!

Day 180, 243 pounds, down from 351, total loss of 108 pounds 


It's been six months since the doc cut my duffel bag stomach down to size...let's have a brief summary of the results; I have lost over 100 pounds, and still losing, my diabetes is gone, by bad back is about 95% better, my cholesterol and triglycerides are completely normal, and my sleep apnea has disappeared. I am healthier in every way, feeling better, working out, consuming less adult beverages, I quit smoking, and I actually eat Brussels sprouts - seriously!

   It hasn't been completely easy. I have shed many gallons of sweat, lifted many tons of iron in the gym, and actually started running for fun and exercise. I recently had knee surgery to clean up some damaged cartilage in my left knee. It was an old injury that I aggravated running the Jingle Bell Jog in early December. It was only one mile, but it was enough to inflame the knee joint and make me seek help. I am now looking at about 6 weeks of therapy, then back out to the track. I'll be running 5K in the next Jingle Bell Jog...

    I have to say that I do have one regret about my weight-loss surgery; I regret that I waited so long to have it done! It's true that I was kinda busy rebuilding after Katrina beat the crap out of the entire region, but even so, I wish I had gotten trimmed before my knee started breaking down. I am absolutely certain that the damage to my knee was a direct result of being a huge, rotund, fat-body type of person, and losing a pile of lard would have prevented the damage to my knee. Too late for me, but it isn't too late for any of you VLP's (Very Large Persons) out there who may be thinking about it. My advice to you is simple: you have a disease, it will kill you if you don't seek help, therefore, seek help NOW!


From here on out, I'll be posting about running, cutting trails through the woods, fishing, skydiving, etc...I'm pretty sure everybody understands the whole Gastric Sleeve thing by now, if not, you can go to the first post and read all about it...

2000 Words Worth

They say a picture is worth 1000 words, so here is 2000 words worth, plus a short summary at the end...

My life now has improved beyond measure. I can do things I haven't been able to do for about 10 years, I feel better physically and mentally, and I no longer dismiss activities as being impossible because I'm so damn fat. My body functions normally. I have no foreign devices in my body, I do not require frequent doctor visits for adjustments, and I have no dietary restrictions.  I can eat anything I want, I just can't eat very much. I have found that eating healthy food makes me feel even better, and food with heavy doses of sugar or starch make me feel kinda crappy - just like before my surgery. The body still reacts like it used to. Good food is still good for me, bad food is still bad for me...

IF YOU ARE FAT, AND HAVE BEEN STRUGGLING WITH YOUR WEIGHT FOR MANY YEARS, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? A SIGN FROM GOD DELIVERED BY A BURNING BUSH? Consider me a smouldering shrub, then. You have a disease, and it will kill you. Seek help! The Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy  is the sensible, logical choice for people who are severely over-weight (like YOU). Google it, find a specialist in your area, do some research, and get the help you need...you will have the same regrets I have - NONE!

http://www.yourbariatricsurgeryguide.com/gastric-sleeve/

Random Rant - Whatever Happened to Service Guys Actually Giving a Shit?

    It seems like the guys who fix things, maintain things, install things, and in general are supposed to know how to make things work, just don't give a rat's ass anymore. A few weeks ago, I took a rifle to a gunsmith/parts changer/ guy who hits shit with a hammer. There was a piece of a brass cartridge case stuck in the chamber, and I couldn't get it out. The rifle was pretty much worthless as it was, I couldn't fix it, so I assumed I would simply take it to an expert and pay too much to get it fixed, but the thing would actually work when I got it back. A few days later, I got a call, the rifle was ready, I could pick it up any time saturday. I grab some ammo and some targets, drive for about an hour, pay the "expert" for his services, and head for the range...where the rifle is completely locked up! I can't rack the cocking handle to load a cartridge, the bolt carrier assembly is totally jammed, the thing is completely non-functional. Understand, it was running fine when I last handled it. The problem was the empty cartridge case getting stuck, not the rifle itself. They got the brass out of the chamber, but when they reassembled the rifle, they didn't do a function check. A simple little procedure where you cock the weapon on an empty chamber and pull the trigger...do this 3 times, and you can be confident the stupid thing will function. You pay someone to be an expert, they do the job, but they don't take an extra 30 seconds to make sure it is working properly before they send it out the door.

    At my place of business, we recently had a very expensive, complex piece of equipment installed. It is composed of several modules of high-tech gear that are all supposed to work together and produce the results we need to stay in business. The manufacturer sent 2 modules that would not interface with the main module, and forgot to send a rather important special cable that allows a 3rd module to do what it needs to do, so the installation specialist left the site without testing the installation - he couldn't make sure it worked, because the factory had shipped the wrong gear. The repair guy came out, futzed around with the various parts and modules, and after about 4 days of screwing around, proclaimed it functional, and left without making sure the stupid system was working properly. We have had the thing for a month now, and I don't think it has worked yet - and it cost well over $100,000! The other repair guy is due tomorrow, we'll see what kind of job he does.

   It isn't just the high-tech guys, or the expert craftsmen types, who don't give a rat's ass anymore. It seems like NOBODY gives a crap. The custodial crew at my building works for a different contractor company than we work for, and I know they don't care worth a fart in a hurricane. The cleaning crews don't even bother showing up half the time, and they haven't actually cleaned any of the floors in two years - let me repeat that; they haven't actually cleaned any of the floors in TWO YEARS, including the bathroom floors! I have personally observed people leaving the bathrooms with such a pale, nauseated look on their faces, I thought they had the flu, or maybe food poisoning, but it was actually the smell of the room itself. The bathrooms smell like fermenting sewage! If you are foolish enough to look closely at the brownish-gray tiles and black grout, you will see that they are actually supposed to be blue, green, and white tiles, with pale sand-colored grout. You will also notice the furry texture of the tiles is due to funny little curly hairs that are stuck to the floor, just like your feet will stick when you walk on the tiles...no, I am not making this up. The problem is actually three problems rolled into one situation. ONE: The crews are not given mops, they are given cleaning pads, like big Swiffer pads, and a "special cleaning solution", and they are told that you don't need to scrub or rinse, just wipe the pad over the floor with the special cleaning solution, and the dirt and grime will magically dissolve into thin air! It'll be so clean, it will actually be sterile. You could perform open-heart surgery on those floors! TWO: The cleaning crews know that this is absolute bullshit, but they don't care, they are just following orders. They can smell the fermenting rat shit smell as well as anybody - they use those bathrooms, too. THREE: The supervisor in charge of the crews doesn't care, because his company has the contract, and it's damn near impossible to get fired from such a place, and he knows it. He doesn't need to check on his cleaning crews to make sure they have done their jobs - he knows they haven't, and he just doesn't care! He couldn't care less about the floors, cuz he gets paid one way or the other...The situation has gotten so bad, we actually clean the f***ing bathrooms ourselves, just so we won't have the overpowering urge to spew our lunch every time we take a whizz...God help the ladies, who actually have clothing touching those hideous floors while they sit doing their business. On those rare occasions where I am forced to drop my pants on the floor in there, I feel an overwhelming need and desire to go to the gym and take a long steamy shower...

The lack of care and concern in the service sector of our society is getting out of hand - I could go for the obvious bad play on words and say that the situation is really shitty, but that would be a gross understatement.

Folks, if you are gonna do a job, take the time and have enough personal pride to actually do the damn job, do it right, and make sure it is done correctly before you move on!

Merry Christmas, Everybody!

Wishing all of you all the best! I have a terrific Christmas present this year...I have lost 101 pounds, and I feel terrific! No more fat, crippled, and helpless...HO, HO, HO!

More details later...

The Six-Million Dollar Man...or Maybe Not.

   Remember Steve Austin? Remember the show's opening scenes? "We can rebuild him, we can make him stronger, faster, sexier, cheesier, and he'll smell like chocolate chip cookies!" OK, that wasn't exactly how it went, but close enough. For those who don't remember the show, Steve Austin was a test pilot/astronaut/door gunner on the space shuttle/whatever, who was in a bad crash, and the government decided to rebuild him with bionic implants. If you have never seen the show, rent it or look for it on those cable networks that specialize in 1970's cheese fests, drink several adult beverages, and enjoy the wholesome family goodness of bad sci/fi special effects and predictable, heart-warming plotlines...don't get me wrong - I loved it! Watched every episode at least once, making sound effects right along with the TV!

    Having taken a detour down Nostalgia Lane, I guess I need to come back to the present and talk about my own $6,000,000 project, except it is a lot less high-tech, and a lot more old-fashioned than Colonel Austin's reconstruction (it also wasn't funded with Taxpayer Dollars, dammit). About 4 months ago, I was a fat, waddling, shambling hulk of a miserable man, pathetic and in pain, and generally possessing a rather grumpy disposition. I walked with a cane and was severely limited in my mobility and activities, and popped a lot of pain pills, cuz I needed them. A very skilled doctor drugged the crap outta me and cut out a chunk of my guts; specifically, approximately 80 percent of my stomach...best thing that ever happened to me, health-wise! I have since lost about 95 pounds, and 10 inches around my waist. My diabetes is gone, my blood pressure has dropped, my sleep apnea has disappeared, I have tossed my cane in a corner, and now I can walk like a normal person...

    A few months ago, every normal, ordinary activity was an exercise in pain, the brute pain of simply moving my large carcass from point A to point B. There were so many things that were simply beyond my physical capacities that life really wasn't worth living any more. The only reason I stuck around was for my family, and because of the vague hope that maybe someday, something would happen to make things better. What eventually happened was so simple in concept, yet so profound in its effects, I only regret not doing it sooner...I lost several years of living to being a wretched fat bastard, and I can never get those years back. I can, however, make up for that lost time by becoming the best man I can be, physically and otherwise. Hence, the "Reconstruction" theme of this rambling dialogue. I am rebuilding myself physically, and the outer change is noticeable, according to friends and family. I also suspect that the inner change is also noticeable to those few who are paying attention. 

    I go to the gym at least 4 times a week, pumping iron and working the aerobic machines, walking on the treadmill, building muscle and endurance, getting stronger, tougher, leaner, harder, and becoming one sexy, awesome beast of a man!...Well, OK, let's not get carried away here. "Stronger, harder, more muscular, leaner" - all true. "Sexy, awesome beast of a man", maybe not, but here is the deep-down truth. I feel like a sexy, awesome beast of a man, even if I don't look like one. The difference in how I look has been described as "great", "incredible", "fantastic", etc, etc, blah, blah, blah (I actually look entirely ordinary and common-place)...I appreciate the kind words, and the outer change is pretty dramatic, but the real change is inside. It's how I feel as a man, a human, a living breathing animal of a being...I have not felt this alive in many years.

       A few days ago, I was at the gym, doing the weight machines and jogging on the treadmill, and I felt so damn good, I just went out the back door, paced off 40 yards in the grass, and started doing wind sprints - 40 yards as fast as my big, hairy self could run! I would dash, walk around in a circle for a few seconds catching my breath, then haul ass back the other way like a scalded chimpanzee. I'm sure I looked absurd, a 51 year old fat man running wind sprints, but I felt what can only be described as an animal joy at just running as fast as I could! I wanted to chase down a mailman and bite his leg, or go tearing off into the woods chasing rabbits and barking at squirrels...it was awesome! And now I'm limping, cuz I am experiencing a very curious physio-medical phenomenon; Too Much Too Soon Syndrome.

    TMTS syndrome happens when someone is suddenly released from a life of significant physical limitations, and finds themselves with a fierce desire to do everything they have been denied for so long, so they try to do it all, right-by-God-now! I want to go trail running, and sky diving, and bike riding, and hiking in the mountains, and...well, you get the idea. I want to do it all! Right now, dammit! But an honest assessment of my abilities tells me that I need to develop one other kind of strength that is in short supply - patience! I need to work up to all of these things a bit more gradually than I am attempting right now, or I may wind up doing myself some damage. The last damn thing I want is to have to dig that cane out of the corner just to walk from the parking lot to the office!

    On the other hand, I will be running in the Long Beach Jingle Bell Jog this coming Saturday, doing the One Mile Fun Run... I'm sure there will be a good deal of walking involved before I get to the finish line, and that'll be just fine with me!


4 months, 258 pounds, down from 351, on my way to 205 or so...