Zombies Run! 5k

So I'm going to talk about one of my favorite apps of all time. As an app it is available for both IOS and Android for less than 5 bucks.

So the basic idea behind the app is that is it a couch to five kilometer training app.  It is designed to take someone who is a none runner and train them up to be able to complete a 5-kilometer run.  All of this over the course of an 8-week program.  Each week is made up of 3 identical sessions, that get harder as the program continues.

What makes this app so much fun in my opinion is the story aspect of the program.  You take on the role of Runner #5 a new addition to Camp Able.  The world has been overrun by zombies and you are being trained by the Camp Able Doctor and Sam the radio room to be a runner for the camp.  One day you will be out running in the zombie wilds collecting much-needed supplies but not until you are ready if the doctor has anything to say about it.

I've been using the app every summer for the last three years.  Until this year I've gotten stuck at the end of week 3 and have never been able to get past it.  This past week for the first time I've made it past week 3 and in fact I have completed week 4 as of tonight.  In fact to night I saved runner #6 life.  That runner had been cut pretty badly and was on there way back to Camp Able.  The problem was that they had three zombies hot on their heels.  I, as Runner #5, was the only runner available to go out and distract the three zombies so that she could make back to the base and get the medical help that she needed to live.  It was an exciting run and I had a great time saving the other runner.  I can't wait to find out what comes next

You can find out more about it here https://zombiesrungame.com/

Exercise plan revisited

Ok so lets all jump in to the phone booth with Bill, Ted and the Doctor and travel back in time to January 16th when I said I would originally post this.
So back on January 6th I posted some goals for 2016.  One specific goal was about exercise planning;

 Build to a weekly exercise routine
 I find that I easily fall in a routine that lacks exercise.  So much of my life and the things I enjoy are sedentary that I need to work to actively make physically activity apart of my daily / weekly routine.  By January 16th I will post a weekly schedule that will show my intended out routine.  Then by the end of January I'll post a follow up to show how I've been doing on it.

I kinda failed on the deadline I set it seems so with the help of the doctor and friends I'll try and clear that up.

So here is the exercise plan as it stands now.

• Zombies Run! 5k App every second day until it is completed.  Then move on to the main Zombies Run! app to maintain and continue the pattern that I've established.  For this part of the plan I am 4 sessions in to the program.  There are 3 sessions per week and I have just started week two.  As a reward for finishing a week I will be spending time in the pool and hot tub .  I think this habit has really taken root already.  The other morning was a none run day and shortly after I woke up I realized that is wasn't a run day and was disappointed by that fact.

• Yoga I've been introduced to a Yoga class that I very much enjoy.  It is only once a week but I make the effort to try and make out.  The price is reasonable, it is by donation , so I try and make sure I have ten bucks to toss into the bucket at the end of the class.    I've also found in a couple of situations in my daily life where the stretches I have learned have indeed been helpful.  

• Exercise Equipment; is something I want to start doing after my runs, but to date it is not something I've been able to include. I have walked through the equipment and looked it to try and figure out some type program for myself.  Also I have spoken with a couple of people I consider to be knowledgeable about such things to get their suggestions.

That is the plan as it stands right now.

A Surreal Weekend

It has been an oddly surreal weekend.   A very enjoyable one to be sure,  but surreal none the less. It started on Tuesday night while talking with tamile and roswyne.   The idea came up of going to Fargo for the weekend.   It was just a random trip or anything the was a charity fundraiser being hosted by the same group that puts on one of our favorite annual conventions,  Corecon House the person it was for has long been a major fixture of the convention and is one of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet. He has also been battling cancer,  which as it turns out is a very costly endeavor in the United States (more on that later)


So planning the trip turned into something of a cluster fuck.   Which I guess in a lot of ways is why I don't like to plan trips at the last minute. It started out as a day trip four hours down spend the day and the  four hours back.   For the record I hate trips like that.   You spend more time driven then you do at the place you are driving too.   It seems wasteful and like stupid idea to me. So I started exploring a few options for crash space. With little to no effort found crash space for Friday and Saturday.   Roswyne was comfortable. Being down that long or being tied to our schedule, so she made other plans.   I tried to adjust what I had started to set up to accommodate what she needed.   Which didn't work out at all.   So rather than  taking one car that could easily have fit 5 people we traveled in separate cars and honestly hardly saw each other over the course if the weekend. In the end I guess it wasn’t to big of a deal one way or the other. By all reports she had a good time and I had a good time, which in the end is the important part.


In our car was tamile,  naivara and myself.   Now normally naivara suffers from a condition jokingly called carcolypse,  you put her in a moving car at highway speeds and she is asleep.   That didn't happen  on the drive down which lead to one of the better discussions the three of us have had since our break up as a trouple. The three of us talked about a lot of different things and I think we were able to clear the air on a lot of things.  tamile and I also found a fair amount of time to talk this weekend as well. I think it put the two of us back on a better track for our relationship in a time that we really needed it.  Honestly I think tamile and I need to make a point of taking car trips of a minimum of 4 hours on a regular basis.  We both tend to talk with each other really well and open up while trapped in a car moving over 100 kilometers per hour.


The point behind the trip like I mentioned was to help support friend who is undergoing treatment for cancer.  Now this wasn’t for moral support, this was about financial support to help cover the cost of his care.  I heard a few numbers tossed around over the weekend about exactly what his treatment was costing.  All of the numbers seem to me to be ridiculously high (1 quote went as high as half a million), but I have been assured by Americans who are familiar with the system that they are certainly within the realm of possibility.  As a Canadian and someone who has grown up with socialized medicine this completely boggles my mind.  Now thankfully in my friend’s case he does have medical insurance coverage.  I don’t know to what extent it will be covered it wasn’t really any of my business.


Another friend who I saw while down there had also just undergone a major medical incident and had spent two weeks in intensive care.  She had no coverage, so she is going to have to pay for that all out of her own pocket as I understand the American system.  The cost of that stay is going to follow her around forever.  The amount of money it would cost for a two week stay in an IC unit up in the hundreds of thousands am sure.  


I did some quick googling and they even have a special term for this type of debt “Medical Debt”   The link will take you to the Wikipedia page that discusses the term.  After this weekend I don’t think I have ever been more thankful to be a Canadian.  Sure we might have long wait times to see a doctor at the emergency room, but I would rather sit around for 8 to 10 plus hours to see a doctor then have to work for the rest of my life to pay of the debt that was incurred because of the visit.


If you are reading this and would like to help out my friend house please visit House Is Where the Heart Is  page to make a donation. 

Goals for 2016

I don't like to make resolutions for the year ahead.  I much prefer to think of them as goals for the new year. 

With that in mind I also make sure that they are SMART goals.  If you are not familiar with the idea of a SMART goal here ia a quick primer

Specific (Goals must be clear and unambiguous) 

Measurable (Results must be able to be measured in some way, for example, the number of products sold each week, or the percent completion)

Attainable (Goals must be realistic and attainable by the average employee)

Relevant (Goals must relate to your organization's vision and mission) 

Time-bound (Goals must have definite starting and ending points, and a fixed duration)

I'll be keep these in mind as I write my own goals for 2016.  Looking at the list means of each letter you can see that they were intended for a group or organization but that doesn't make them any less valuable to an individuals goals.

Health:

• Complete Zombies Run couch to 5k:

 This is to be completed by tamile's birthday June 20th.  It will go a long way towards my own journey of health. Completing this has also been a long time goal for me as well, and it is one that I will see completed at long last this year.

•  Build to a weekly exercise routine

 I find that I easily fall in a routine that lacks exercise.  So much of my life and the things I enjoy are sedentary that I need to work to actively make physically activity apart of my daily / weekly routine.  By January 16th I will post a weekly schedule that will show my intended out routine.  Then by the end of January I'll post a follow up to show how I've been doing on it.

Personal:

• Get my drivers license.

I've had my beginner's license for a long time at this point and it is time I get off my ass and be able to drive on my own.  Far to often there are things I miss out on because of my inability to drive myself to them.

• Lifestyle Skills  and Power Exchange

There are a number of different skills that fall in to the kink lifestyle that I have dabbled in.  I really want to take the time to learn to make use of these skills in more in-depth.  I want to be able to use them in scenes at will, without having to take the time to for example look through a book as I'm working. 

An important part of those lifestyle skills include developing a relationship with someone to whom I can have an on going power exchange relationship.  I have parts of that style of relationship with two people at the moment but know that it could be so much more.

Professional:

• Clear attendance record at work.

 This is a simple one.  All I need to do is not miss work and it will take care of itself.

•  Successfully launch and fulfill Casting KickStarter

 This one is far more complex then the last one.  It would take many posts to explain it all and everything that is required.

• Complete test and prototyping for Gnome Care and continue working on other games

 If I want to be successful in the world of game design I need to always be working on projects.  It isn't enough to just make a single game and then start on the next one.  I need always be working on the next game, the next project.

Spiritual:

• Develop a regular meditation practice

 A few times over the last couple of years I have started to try and set up a meditation practice.  The times I have started the practice I have very much enjoyed the experience and felt better for it.  I want to be able to develop a practice that allows me to tap into that experience.

Anyways those are my goals for 2016.  It took me longer to post them then I had intended, but they were up and posted before the end of the first week.  So I'm happy with that accomplishment.  

The Wall

I was going through an old thumb drive the other night looking for a project and delete off the old crap that was on it when I came across something I had written.  It was originally written on May 2nd, 2008.  I never did get beyond the Wall that I face at the time.  Post surgery as you will already know I am way beyond that wall now.  Still I found it interesting to reread something from then.

So as you can see from the graph above I’ve been battling a plateau for roughly the past two months at this point.  For me the plateau has been 360 or as I’ve come to refer to them as ‘The Magic Number or The Wall’.  At first I thought I was just having a lazy week after having a good work.  Then I started looking at more closely as it continued for several weeks and knew I had to off hit a plateau and that if I was serous about this that I would have to take steps to break through. 

            First off I want to address the terminology being used because I really don’t like it.  A plateau is some where that mountain climbs stop and take a rest, may take a few pictures and enjoy themselves, for them it is a goal.  For people trying to lose weight a plateau is a point of frustration it is something that stops us and gets in our way.  It certainly isn’t something that we strive for or reach for.  So I say lets call it what it really is a wall.  Its something that we have to push through or climb over, it is in the end something to get past.  Now that we’ve got that out of the way and are speaking the same language lets get on with the blog.

            It’s my opinion that in order to beat something it is best to learn as much as you can on the subject.  That way you have the best possible tools to achieve your goals.  So off to the internet I went, I learned that ‘walls’ apparently come from two different possible sources.  One of the possibilities even claims that other is a biological impossibility.  I’m by no means a medical expert so I won’t even try and guess who is right in this and just present them to you as two separate concepts. 

            The first theory I came across on why have these walls when working to lose weight goes something like this.  The body needs a certain amount of calorie energy to get through the day. After all it has to do the basic things that we all feel are so important to continued life like Heart pumping, Lungs expanding and contracting, the kidney’s filtering and so one.  As we cut down our weight the amount of caloric energy we expend to stay alive goes down as well.  . 

            The next theory is the so called “Starvation mode” and it goes something like this.  Our body detects the reduction in calories and interprets that message as meaning that food is scarce.  So it goes in to what could best be described as a sort of power saver mode and saves any extra energy it can.  It makes sense in a lot of ways to me and would be a good survival method if food really was scarce.  Sadly in this case the body is miss-interpreting the message. 

            Some people say that the second one is biologically impossible, like I said earlier am not going to try and figure out who’s right and who’s wrong.  In the end the reason this happens is less important then what to do about it when it does happen.  That’s the real reason am sure many of you are reading this blog entry so lets get right in to that. 

            During my search every link I clicked offered me a new method to push through the wall or in some cases several of them..

Change things up if you have been focusing mostly on cutting back the calories then switch to focusing on burning the calories through exercise or vice versa.  If your already doing both try changing the amount you’re working out and increasing the intensity and or the resistance.

If you are not already doing so start a food an exercise log,  Keep track of everything you eating the calories too when possible.  Also including in that what you do for exercising.  It gives you a good picture of what your doing and not doing so you can really examine the changes you’re making to your life styles.

Change some of your eating habits can help so try reducing the carbohydrate and fat in take and eat more protein calories.  Just be sure to keep the daily protein calorie intake under 25% of your calories.  You can also try having days that are less restrictive in your diet plan.  That will sometimes help to keep the pounds coming off this is sometimes called Zig Zagging the calorie intake.  Along the same lines you can also adjust the sizes of the meals you eat through out the day and have several smaller meals / snacks through out the day.

I want to close with one site I came across that encouraged you to hang in their and keep it up.  Even though your not losing weight at the rate you might like, it is likely that your still losing although gradually.  This suggestion struck me personally as the height of stupidity and that it would only lead to further frustration.  So don’t just hang in there do something about it make changes and try in things.  Push through that wall and remember there will be another one at some point you broke through this one and you will break through the next one as well.

Your friend in weight loss who won’t give up and hopes you don’t either. 

A long over due update.

Wow, it feels like forever since I've written anything here.  That likely is because it has been forever since I've written anything here.  At first I had what I thought was a good reason, but that went away about a month and a half ago when I told naivara about the new girlfriend Roswyne Remember that cute red had I met at one of our house parties back in September.  Well She has become my girlfriend, I would say that has been going really well over all.  We talk a lot and spend a ton of time together, while both still are left wanting even more time together.

Anyways it is what it is and the time away from blogging is time away from blogging.  It certainly is something that I have missed doing on a more regular basis.  My intent is for this to be the first of a number of regular posts.Yes if you've read the blog for any amount of time you will know that this isn't the first time I've said something like that, and to be sure it won't be the last time I say it either.

Anyways here are some quick high level updates to get everyone caught up on my universe.

• Still happily married to tamile
• Have a wonderful new girlfriend Roswyne
• Effects of Weight loss surgery continue to be felt.  As of my last weigh in I'm currently at 300.5lbs.  That is a hundred pounds lost since July when I started the boost diet.
• I've recently switched from iPhone to Android for my cell phone.
• I've gone up to full time hours as of today.  (Not sure how I feel about this yet, other then that it needed to be done.)
• I'm getting a ton more driving in, and getting closer and closer to feeling confident enough to go for my license.

Anyways I guess that is enough for now, I'm sure there will be other posts in the coming days exploring different things.

Doctor's Follow Up

So today was my follow up with the doctor who did my by-pass.  I find it amusing that all of the doctors I have met and dealt with through the whole process have been skinny.  The same is true of everyone that works at the Victoria clinic as well. No way to know if this was an intentional decision or if it was just random but it certainly does stand out.  Even the hot resident doctor with the sexy accent who did the initial question was skinny.  Anyways it was just an observation that I wanted to share. 

So the appointment was pretty good.  The doctor gave me a clean bill of health and I've got the ok to go back to work.  He asked how everything was going if I was exercising and so on.  My only short fall has been that I've been forgetting to take my last vitamins of the night.  So they made a point of reminding me about that and how important it is.  At the end of the appointment I was told I would be put on the regular follow up schedule.  So now I have a follow up in 6 months and then again at the end of the year.  After that if all is still go then I will be going to yearly follow up appointments.

I think the real important and enjoyable part of the appointment was sitting in the waiting room.  In total there were 5 of us that were actively talking. 3 of us had our surgeries within a day of each other and had met in the hospital.  1 woman who was scheduled to have her surgery in 10 days and the last person had the surgery a year ago last March.  All of us readily shared our experiences with each other and everyone was happy and open about sharing.  We had all taken slightly different paths; for example some of us have been open about our surgery others have and are keeping it secret.

One of the funny things about the discussion was that the woman who had had her surgery over a year ago also had a cast on. Based on that and her physical appearance all the rest of didn't think she had a bypass until she came out and said so.  I can't imagine being at a point that when someone looks at me they wouldn't know I was once fat.

5 week update

August has been a hell of a month.  My body has pretty much got used to the effects of the surgery.   I've only found a couple of things so far I can't eat.  The big one so far is French Toast, it is a bit of a blow as I've always been a rather large fan of French Toast.  If that is the worst of it I'm sure I will live.  I've had a lot of ups and downs along the way.  Some days are still better then others and I'm sure that will continue.

At this point the biggest thing I need to focus on is taking my time while eating and making sure I get in plenty of activity.  We have picked up a Y membership, but haven't been able to make it down yet.  Our first scheduled gym time is tomorrow morning.  tamile has plans to go do aquafit with one of the ladies from our TOPS group.  I'm planning to hit the track and run week 1 session 1 of Couch to 5K Zombies Run.  Surprisingly enough I'm super excited about being able to start the Sessions.  It feels weird to say but it is true.

The loss of weight isn't the only changes that have been happening around the household.  We have redecorated what is now the guest room.  It still feels a little weird to call it that.  tamile and I have also worked through a lot of different things and have reaffirmed our power exchange.  It has been really good and things are working well for us.  I've also been encouraged to start writing again. 

Food As Reward

The day I was out walking with tamile and we started talking a little bit about what exactly food is to us and how we see it.  One of the things the we realized as we talked was that we both see food as a reward.  In seconds as we talked both of us rattled off a number of examples where we rewarded ourselves with food for a job well done.

• A new job? lets celebrate by going out to a restaurant.
• Kids Birthday? lets have the family over for dinner & cake.
• The kids sports team did well? Then lets get the Ice-Cream on the way home.

I'm pretty sure that you get the idea. Not really sure what the origin of this behaviour is but it seems  to be pretty consistent across most of the people I know.   More then once I've seen a coach with the whole sports team out for Slurpees or Ice Cream.

We need to get away from this.  Why should food be used as a reward?  I guess in a lot of ways it is just easy.  Food is everywhere so that makes it super easy to get and give as a reward. With a little extra effort a better reward shouldn't be to hard to come up with.

• A new job? What about getting some new clothes or something cool to have with you at the job.  Like some kind of desk sitter.
• Kids Birthday? Have the family over for gifts and a visit.  Skip the cake, it is a tradition that isn't really needed.  A quick bit of Google-Fu says cakes come from around the 1400s in Germany.   Maybe we need to change just how we do cakes, Maybe there is some type of better option.  I'm not to sure what it is but I do want to try and figure it out.  Maybe just skip the icing?
• Sports team did well?  Save the money you would have used on ice cream and get them something they can you use for the next game.  Maybe some better equipment, help pay for team photos, have Gatorade on hand for the next game (Sure it is food, but at least it is good you)

Anyways hopefully this will at least give you something to think about.

I was going to say that I hoped this post gave you some "Food for Thought" but I thought better of it.

There is a quote I found that is apparently attributed to Drew Carey;

"Eating crappy food isn't a reward, 

it is a punishment"

By Pass Update: Day 8

So it has been a 8 days since I had the surgery.  All things considered I'm doing pretty good and feeling pretty good.  Each of the incisions, but 1, have started to develop some wonderfully colourful bruises.  The one that hasn't bruise up is healing amazingly well.  The second worst bruise of the lot wasn't part of the operation but from the bloody Heperin shot I received the next day.

Next lets look at food.  Things have changed a little bit since I last posted.  Don't worry, Jell-O is still my best friend.  Now with that out of the way I have gotten to try a few new things as well.  I absolutely loved the Mango Hurricane Booster Juice,  with it I had a protein booster. That was a big help with my daily protein. It was so nice and smooth going down too.  The one rule I did break was I used a straw.  They say that you are not supposed to use straws because it introduces to much air into the stomach.  I didn't really have any problem with it.

The next day tamile made bison burgers for herself and pureed about 2 or 3 oz of one of them along with a bit of beef broth. I can't begin to describe just how good this tasted.  It was pretty much the first amount of meet I had eaten in some time.  I was tempted to add some ketchup or maybe even some relish but I decided against it.  I wasn't sure how the ketchup my cause it to clump up in my stomach.  As for the relish I don't really have a reason why I didn't bother with that I just didn't.

More news as it happens.

Day 4 By Pass Update

Well it has been four days since the by pass.  All in all I'm doing pretty good.  I've still only had a single bowel movement and I would very much like to start having them with some amount of regularity.

Me at the start line

Saturday was pretty exciting,  Months before I knew I would be having the surgery we had signed up for the Winnipeg 5k Color Me Rad run.  I was honestly pretty torn about how I was going to deal with this.  At first I had considered just going to cheer them on and sitting at the finish line waiting for them.  Then I considered walking as much of it as I could and just doubling back to the finish line.  I went back and forth on this a lot since the surgery and before hand.  Saturday morning I was getting dressed and pulled out the shirt I had worn to the other color me rad runs I had done.  It was pretty much decided at that point I was going to walk as much of it as I could.  I nearly dropped out around the 4 kilometer mark.  But I decided I had gone that far another kilometer wouldn't hurt.  I'm really glad that I made it to the finish line and did the whole route.  It felt like a really big accomplishment.  Granted there is still apart of me that is fairly certain that while it was an accomplishment it was also a stupid decision.    In the end I guess I don't really care all that much I accomplished what I set out to do.  Next year I will be running it one way or the other.

At the finish line (Left to right Randilin, tamile, and friend)

Showing off my incisions

naviara and her father joined us as well.

We finished off the day with a stop at Ikea.  tamile and I needed new bed side dressers for our room.  I was so waiting for someone to ask to help me find something I wanted to say I was looking for the shower displays to get cleaned up.  Sadly no one asked me anything but tamile and our friend did enjoy a snack afterwards.

I of course had water!

Once home a nap was had followed by a shower, in which a lot of the bandages came off.  Then the evening was spent babysitting the the grandkids who for the most part did a good job of not poking my stomach.

By Pass update

Gastric By Pass - Blow by Blow

So this post is basically going to be something of a blow by blow of everything I remember from my Gastric By Pass procedure.  Obviously I won't remember all of the details I plan to share what I can.  It will be some what graphic in parts because I don't intend to hold back.

The day started just before 7 in the morning when we headed to my daughters place.  The plan was for her to drop us off at the hospital and avoid paying for parking all day.  Hospital check in was super easy, they collected some basic information and sent us on our way.  The next room was admitting,  Here they basically get you set up for the surgery.  I was taking in to the back by a little old lady who I think was a hospital volunteer.  She gather up all my personal effects and other belongings.  Everything was tagged and bagged so it would be easy to move around with it me. While here they also set up the IV, of course now I am a mover so as soon as you try and put a needle in me I tend to try and pull away.  So this took a couple of tries.  My gods did that thing hurt,  although not as bad as the Heperin (We'll get to that later).

One problem I did have through out the whole admitting process is that I was supposed to remove all jewelry.  Well I have one ear ring that I've had in my ear for over 20 years at this point.  When my wife and I first got married we were basically broke.  So one of the things that we did to celebrate are marriage is we got our ears pierced.  The problem this caused was that I haven't taken it off in over 20 years.  The two pieces of the ear ring we figured have oxidized together.  The nurses tried to use forsips to remove them twisting and turning them.  But nothing would get it off.  There was talk of cutting it off, but in the end they left it in and just taped it down.  my favorite part about the ear ring was Dr Andrews comment about it.  When he arrived in informed he had had an extensive conversation about it with the nurses.  An other one of the people I met with refereed to it as the infamous ear ring.

All in all admitting was basically prep time.  One by one the doctors and nurse I was going to be working with.  No that isn't the right way to put it I wasn't doing anything with them they were working on me.  First was the admitting nurse who went through a battery of questions.  Later came two nurses who went through the same battery of questions.  how was your boost diet?  when was the last time you ate and drank anything?  The whole process was very repetitive at that point.  After the nurses had finished one of them pulled out a razor and shaved my stomach.  I was honestly surprised by how much hair I really had on my stomach.  He also shave the top portion of my groin.  A vibrating razor at the base of your shaft didn't feel as good as one might expect.

After they were done, a student anesthetist came by, he basically went through the same questions with a focus on any past operations I had experienced.  The one thing that really excited him was that dentures.  It meant that I was a whole lot easier to work with for them.  According to regular Anesthetist said I was their dream patient.  A little while later after that a man name Mark arrive to escort me to the OR.  I'm not certain but that seemed to be his only job.  A friend who had undergone the surgery told me the walk to the OR reminded her of the Green Mile.  I couldn't help but think about that as I walked to the OR.

The OR room reminded me a lot of something out of the show ER,  It seemed pretty high tech.  I was introduced to everyone in the room while I was sat on the chair in the centre.  I honestly don't remember any of the names, other than Dr Andrews.  The biggest thing I remember about my time in the OR was that one of the nurses kept insisting I had to higher on the chair.  The problem was that I'm 6'4" and for whatever the reason they didn't want my feet hanging over the edge of the bench.  I remember wiggling up the bench and my butt feeling like it was half way up the incline.  I was sure I was going to slide back down it once the procedure started but I didn't I guess.

I woke up about 4 to 5 hours later in recovery.

The incisions

The procedure was done through 6 incision.  I was honestly fairly surprised by how many incisions they had to do.  I thought that there would be a lot less.

Apparently one of the doctors had come to me and told me that everything had gone fine and that the operation had been a success.  I don't remember his visit but he did come by later in recovery and tell me the same thing.  The other thing that they say you might or might not remember is the removal of the pipe they put down your throat.  I didn't remember it at all.

A few family members came and visited, I passed a gas a couple of times.  Honestly I figured ya me, The last gas I passed was liquidy so I thought figured it was time for the washroom.  Sadly for me it was blood.  Apparently sometimes it comes out that way.  They took some blood from me to follow up on it and do some testing.  it has been two days now since the procedure I still haven't taken a shit yet.  So far that has been the only complication I've faced.  Hopefully I will go to the washroom soon.
The rest of the day

Anyways that is pretty much everything that happened.

Update:

Two things that I forgot: the nurse would not let tamile stay with me in the recovery room over night.  This was something that they were not really clear about during the lead up.  They basically said it was up to the nurse.

Second was the Heperin, I mentioned it earlier but didn't go into any real detail.  I was woke up in the middle of the night by one of the nurses.  She informed me it was time to for my Heperin shot.  It is a blood thinner meant to help reduce the risk of blood clots.  Coming to me in the middle of the night saying it is time for a needle really isn't the best way to get me to take it.  So I turned it down in the middle of the night.  Later the next day when I was a wake and was asked about it I took it.  If you are going to take this shot ask for it in the stomach.  It still hurts like an SoB but apparently it is better to do that then getting it in the arm.

Its a whole new world!

The subject should be sung like it was a lyric from Aladdin.  I don't know if it should be sung so cheerfully but overall it seems true.  Since my last post on June 2nd everything has changed and tomorrow it will begin to change even more.  There are a lot of different ways I could post this and I really don't know how to do it.  Some I'm just going to throw it all out there and move on.  I think I want to share it more as a personal record of everything that has happened.

• There was a massive fight between tamile and naviara, a lot of things were said and not said.  At the end of the fight tamile informed me that she was with drawn her submission to me.  There were a lot of other things said that night, none that I will share or repeat and some that I wish I could forget.  After that things seemed to return to some type of new normal.
• A few days  later something happened with naviara, out of respect for her I won't go in to details.  I will say it was not the first time it had happened, in the end for the health those involved it had to be the last time it happened with us.  I choose to the end my 5 year relationship with naviara.  
• And we have started to foster a dog on top of both of those.

So basically everything I've been working on for the last five years feels like it is gone. I have some hope that tamile will agree to submission again, but I honestly have no clue if she will. Apparently she plans to continue to bottom with me but who knows if that will happen.  Publicly she plans to be submissive but I have no clue how that will play out either.

Anyways that was my last month, I've made it pretty clear that I intend to continue in the lifestyle.  I don't know how it will play out or what it will look like, honestly I wish I did it would make the world a lot easier.  Who the hell wants an easy life anyways?  A part from that things are pretty solid between tamile and I.

Before I end this post let me comment on breaking up.  It sucks, but I believe it is the right thing sand for the best, I have no doubt about that.  Even with that being said it doesn't make it easy.  I've never been through a break up with someone who I had been with for so long.  So many of our things and belongings are intermingled and will need to be sorted out.  Not to mention all the emotions that go along with it as we sort things out.  It will be a timely process, one that will likely be made worse by what I have coming in the next couple of weeks, the boost diet.

Anyways it is nearly midnight and I need to think about sleep.

Post Doctors Appointment By-Pass Update

So I've had my doctors appointment and I also now have a date for surgery, July 23rd. Right smack in the middle of the summer.  All in all I don't overly mind the date.  It does certainly throw a wrench in to a few of our summer plans.  But almost anything we do over the summer throws a wrench in to one summer plan or another.

One thing that was really interesting about the appointment is that the doctor never really asked which surgery I wanted.  Which had been a topic of discussion between myself and tamile for several months.  He just looked over my file, and started talking about the gastric by-pass

So here is the basic run down of things at this point as I understand them.

• July 2nd: I stopping eating real food.  For the next 3 weeks I will be drinking 5 bottles of Boost Diabetic in order to shrink my liver so that the surgery can be performed safely.
• I've been told that during this time I will likely be fairly Hangry ( A cross between hunger and angry)
• July 23rd I have to be at the hospital for 6:30am.  For those of you who didn't know such a time existed it is in the AM.  Apparently normally you are in the hospital overnight
• Afterwards it is all about learning to eat again.  The first week I will be limited to liquid foods, which I will basically spend the whole day sipping at.  
• Then once I can stomach that it is time for foods that have gone through a bullet blender
• Then soft foods that haven't been blended and so.  

I've been told I could be off work anywhere from 1 to 2 months. I'm excited by this opportunity and honestly a little scared by it. I've been fat as long as I can remember and this strikes me as the best way to make a life style change that will last.  Right now the plan is to take a post a picture from Canada day, another 1 the day before surgery and regular photo updates after that.

Post By-Pass Follow Up

Sorry to keep my readers in suspense, assuming anyone is really reading this I honestly don't know.  If you are take a moment to comment on a post and let me know how you're doing.  While I don't mind the idea of doing this as a solo exercise in self discouvery it is still nice to know I'm not discouvering on my own.  Anyways back to the point of this post an update about my second follow up appointment.

It went awesome!  Shortly after I arrived I was ushered into a meeting with the dietitian.  Who tried to go over my records on My Fitness Pal.  I guess the site was down for some maintenance or something because she was having a hell of a time accessing anything on her computer.  Thankfully I had kept fairly good paper records as well.  So she was able to go through it and make a few suggestions where I needed to make further change or continue to make changes in my eating habits. Over all she was happy with what she had seen.  I asked fairly early on in the meeting what the process was at this point if I would find anything out today or if I would have to wait to receive a letter or something.  Sadly the dietitian was really noncommittal about the whole thing.

After I was done with her it was back out to the waiting room to see the nurse.  Thankfully the nurse was basically waiting for me to be done with the dietitian and so more or less I went from one office right in to the other one.  Unlike the dietitian the nurse was super forth coming about everything.  She took one look at my papers and read through the notes on my file and said I would be going forward.  The rest of my time with her was spent talking about how things would happen now.

The main difference I have seen so far is how fast everything is happening.  I had that meeting with the nurse on the 13th of May I have the first meeting with the doctors on the 29th of May.  So everything is starting to move super fast.  Of course it also seems like it was a blur because I've been insanely busy, and very excited.

Anyways their is your update for now, as always more later.

Second follow up

So this morning I received a call from the receptionist connected office that is handling prep leading up to my hope for bypass surgery.   Originally they had scheduled my second follow up appointment for tomorrow afternoon for 1 o'clock.  The first words out of her mouth was that they had to reschedule.  Honestly in that second I think my heart dropped.  Thankfully she offered me 2 options another appointment in 4 weeks time, or a slot tomorrow at 1015 am.  So without even talking to my boss, I just took the morning appointment and figured I would either work it out with or take the day off.

Anyways the day is sorted out and now my appointment is scheduled for tomorrow morning.  My understanding of it is that at tomorrow's appointment is the final one.  I will either be accepted to the program or not. I've done what I've been asked, there hasn't been a lot of weight lost since I started but I've made a lot of changes.  Anyways fingers are crossed, I just hope I actually find out tomorrow rather then having to wait several weeks to hear back.

If I'm not accepted I've been told that there is always the possibility of being given another chance.  Apparently the odds of that are very slim.

I'll let you know how it goes when I do.

Weight Loss

A lots being going on as of late, and as much as I want to be blogging about it more I am still having a hard time making this into a regular ongoing habit.  It is something that I'm going to have to keep working on & and it is only going to get harder from here.  As the summer continues my life is only going to get busier from here.

The last couple of weeks I have been really focused on getting my activity level up, tracking my food to stay under calories, and up my fruit intake.  Since I've started doing this I've been able to bring my weight down by 7lbs.  It feels really good to have been able to pull this off, and it has left me feeling great about myself.  Weight loss is a strange paradox,  It is hard to get started and then once you start having some success at it, the benefits start to really show through and make a huge difference in your life that you want to do more and more to encourage it.

Anyways on the subject of it feeling good, I should head out and go for a walk.

Food

It has been a fairly rough week for me this past week food wise.  I've been snacking a lot!  Been keeping track of things in a fairly half assed manner in my fitness pal.  Mostly everything has been entered by the end of the day but ither isn't how the system works best and I know that.  

Today i am going to try and get back on the horse as it were.  Eat better, for which I have packed a lunch.  Update Myfitnesspal as I eat things rather then leaving it to the end of the day.  Finally making exercise a priority.

I knew going into this there would be slips and times when I would fail.  So I'm not going to dwell on it, I just want to move forward and get it behind me.

The Interview

Well the surgery interview happened today.  I think it went fairly well I think and honestly I think it was way scarier in my head then it was in real life.  The reality of the interview was that it really was four separate interviews and at the end of each of them they give you a few goals they want you to work on.  I'll quickly run through each of them.

Medical History:  Really this one was pretty straight forward.  We basically ran through my family medical history and my own history.  The sad truth of this is my medical history is really boring.  I'm a 39 year old man who still has all four of his grandparents alive and well. My own medically history is pretty boring as well.  I've had three surgeries in my whole life; both big toenails removed, Tonsils removed, and I had all of my teeth removed to be replaced with dentures.

Dietary: I think of all the different discussion this was the one I was kind of dreading the most.  I've been using MyFitnessPal for at least a year now. So I have a pretty good history of my eating habits and I know they are shit.I have McDonalds for breakfast an average of 4 times a week.  Of course it also isn't uncommon for me to grab it or some other convenience food for lunch as well.  Bottom line is that I need to make some serious changes.  I guess I shouldn't be to concerned about my current standing, if I was doing everything right I wouldn't be going through this process

Fitness: Here we talked about what is challenging me and preventing me from being more.  For the most part I am physically able to be active.  It is a matter of getting up and making the time to do the activity.  I'm confident that the time table will keep me on track and since it will really show me where I am along the way.

Psychologist: This was without a doubt the toughest of the interviews.  I was asked a lot of why questions which I've never been fond of.  The concerns my wife has about the procedure came out most in this interview, She made it pretty clear that she would support me and be for there and their is no doubt in my mind that she would.  I'm not so sure the doctor we were talking bought it.  In the end I guess it isn't about them believing her it has more to do with my believe in her.

This was also the section where we talked most about the after effects of the interviews.  Things like a life long change in my eating habits, the need of supplements for the rest of my life, and the loose skin.

At one point in the discussion the psychologist is talking about addictions and rattling off some examples.  Tamile pipes and tosses Porn in to the mix. Then the psychologist turns and looks at me with this hugely serious face and asks "Do you have a porn addiction?" it was completely out of left field and I don't have anything close to a porn addition.  So the whole question left me speechless for a moment until I recovered with the clever comeback of "Is that on your questionnaire?" From there we go into a discussion about transferred addictions.

So the chat with with the psychologist ends with her asking me if I wanted to start Challenge Craving, a program they offer that is mandatory if you want to go ahead with the surgery, today?  I was really thrown by the question at first, but said I would Tamile brought up a concern of rushing in to everything.  The psychologist explained that they liked people to talk it as early as possible because there is a lot of information that will help make the changes.  In the end I said I would start today, but after I got home I called and asked to be removed from the class.  I've no idea if it was the right decision in the long run but it is the one I needed to make right now.

Everything has just felt so rushed in the whole process.  I felt I needed to slow things down a little bit.  Take some time to learn to make the changes that I need to make in my life so that I can be successful at this.  If I just kept rushing through everything I might just rush right past the point.