gmoxley

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 OK, so it has been a long time since my last post. I am living in the little town of Corbin, Kentucky with my wife and soulmate Cathy. And yes I an talking about the same person on both counts. We are empty nesters for the first time and it's been a real change for us. While my job is going well, Cathy has spent the last five months trying to find a job. When we lived in VA she was a elementary school librarian making $45K a year. Right now she has a temp job working at a healthcare billing company making minimum wage. And it's only expected to last for 8 to 10 weeks. Needless to say she is depressed.

With all three kids in college we are deeply in debt and having to pay some bills and let others slide until be have enough to catch up. I don't like living this way, knowing that we are only a pay check away from living on the streets. Needless to say, I am depressed.

I am always tired and my fibromyalgia gets really bad when I try to relax. I can't stand being this way, feeling like a loser and a wimp. I hope things get better.

Well, after over a year of delays, the Inova Health System that I am assigned to decided to not renew our contact and award the management contract to another vendor. While the hospital I worked at voted to keep Aramark there, some of the other hospitals in the system were not happy with Aramark and chose to change.  The system had decided that one vendor would be chosen for all the hospitals in the system. Winner takes all. So no matter that I had the best satisfaction scores of all the six hospitals, I'm out too.
What will happen next I do not know. Hopefully I can find another hospital within Aramark, but I am so said that I have to leave Inova Fair Oaks Hospital which I have come to love and everyone there. I feel like I am being made to leave my family, which is what I see them as. 

It's been almost a month now with no weight loss. My hunger is back with a vengence. I'm always tired even with a full nights sleep (8 hours). I'm building some muscle on my "trim rider" since I can now do 350 reps on it without killing myself. I hate being a whiner and I hate being stuck in the 230's. I go as low as 232 lbs. and as high as 238, but I can't get below 232 lbs. I'm stuck on "no sugar added fudgecicles" and Planters trail mix. My blood work shows everything is good, but I fell like I am never going to loss anymore weight.

Forgive me for acting like such a wimp.

OK, three months out and I've lost 65 lbs. Weight is coming off slowly.
Since walking wasn't doing much I bought a "Trim Rider" (kinda like a rowing machine except you work against your own weight by pulling back on the handlrbars and push with your feet to lift yourself up) at a yard sale. The first time I got on it I could only lift myself 10 times before my arms gave our. Soon I was up to 50 times, then 100 and tonight I did 150 times. I can actually feel some muscle in arms again. And since I made space in the garage for this machine and my treadmill, I can do my work out and then go inside to shower and get ready for bed. No long drive to a gym and no cost except for the $10 I paid for the machine. I love it!

Of course my brain is not doing as well, since I missed my three month appointment today. Rescheduled for Monday at 2:15 PM. I go for my fasting blood work tomorrow.

There was a really good turn out for the Walk from Obesity at the Fair Oaks Mall. I got to meet a lot of reaaly cool people. All the Inova Fair Oaks Hospital Bariatric people where there. They are so encouraging and nice. I also met JadesMom who is a wonderful person and she looks so slim. It was fun and good exercise. Met some Docs and even someone who sells the equipment used to staple our pouches. I can't remember her name but I really enjoyed talking to her and her husband. Nice folks. And I actually won a raffle prize. It was a "The Walking Company" basket with lots of walking stuff.

On another note, I had luch with JoeBear yesterday. He is such a great guy. We talked and laughed and compared stories. I never realized that I would gain the added benefit from WLS of meeting such wonderful people. 

Well I've been at right around 240 lbs for the last few weeks. I'm not worried because this happened when I was at 250 lbs and then I finally lose 10 lbs in no time. My hunger is back, damn, so I have to deal with that too. But I know I will make it if I just keep working at it.

 I really did it this morning. When I went to eat breakfast I decided to eat some instant grits that I had bought a while back instead of my usual oatmeal. Well, I don't know if I ate too fast, it was too thick and dry or something else, but I started hurting big time. I tried a little water to help it go down. The water came back up. So I walked around a while and that didn't help. So I lay down and that didn't help. Finally dug out the papaya extract tablets that I had not needed up to now and chewed a couple of them. Finally after a while longer I heard the gurgling that usually means my pouch is draining. The pain went away. Man that was scary. Looks like I will stay away from grits for a while.

Today I hit 235 lbs. which is half way to my goal of 170 lbs. I can't believe it, it's only been eight weeks since my surgery. 

The second big thing today, was that I ate half a falafel sandwich from our local Mediterranean Market. Such good, high protein, low fat mostly vegi food. My family loves it. Anyway, this is the first bread (pita) that I have eatten since my surgery. It tasted so good, AND I could only eat half of it. I was full!! This is the first time I have ever felt really full without having ate triple portions of everything at our Thanksgiving dinner or a mountain of hot wings. I was not 'busting at the seams full", but pleasently full. AND I STOPPED!! I may make it after all. I rolled up the other half and I'll have it for lunch tomorrow. What a novel idea! Normally, I would have eatten two of these sandwiches and polished of a pint of Ben and Jerry's for desert.

I must have over did it yesterday. I tried to get up for work and couldn't stay awake. Finally woke up at 9:00 AM feeling awake but groggy. Stayed home and did some work via the computer. Found out that I need to cut a chunk of money from my budget and report how I am going to do it tomorrow.  Later I realized that I had missed my follow-up with Dr. Anez. Just really spacey and out of it today. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

OK, it's been a couple weeks now with no weight loss and I'm feeling a bit concerned. I've noticed that my portions are getting a little bigger then the tablespoons they are supposed to be. While I don't actually feel hungry, I do crave strong flavors such as hot sauces, spicy V-8 juice, chili, BBQ sauce, hot spicy beef jerky, things with vinegar such as pickles, pickeled vegetables, and such. I eat beef jerky or nuts on the commute to work with the excuse that I am getting needed protein. I think I am fooling myself. 

While my portions are miniscule compared to what I use to eat, I still feel guilty.