Coke Floats

What, again?

2017-08-29T09:59:00.001-07:00

Down to 219 pounds again; This is the weight I got down to back in September 2008 on medifast. But when I came off that, I failed to transition to real food as I was supposed to, so between then and now,  I went back up to at least 300 (gained and lost 80 pounds) and now back down again. 

At this point, however, I'm in a much better spot than I was then; I'm comfortable with what I'm eating, haven't plateau'd yet, not exercising (aside from that one hike). I remember being a little freaked out last time, but now I'm looking forward to breaking 200, and I'm pretty sure I can do it before the holidays.

Also, I managed to hit all three goals in one day today: tied the 219 low, squeezed under 100kg, and edged out the BMI from obese down to overweight.

For fun, go google "What weighs 80 pounds". I found: A dishwasher. Post your finds in the comments.

Hey, this wagon, it looks familiar!

2014-10-13T08:55:00.003-07:00

Hey, six people who read this blog!

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you've been swamped with a bunch of runkeeper posts about walks. I've walked at least a mile every day since August 24th, 2014; In the last 30 days, I've walked 79.1 miles, including a 10.5 mile walk this weekend.

I was thinking I was getting close to my lowest weight from back when I was on medifast; I hit 246 lb. this weekend.

Going back through the blog, though, I see I was down to 219 at some point before I stopped blogging regularly. That means I'm a little under 30 pounds left to get to my lowest ever. It also means I put on EIGHTY POUNDS after stopping medifast. I had gotten back up to nearly 300. That's almost 3 bars of gold. Can you imagine carrying that around if you didn't have to? Ugh.

So, I've done a bit to get back down this far; the last few months has been a slow drop but a ramp up in exercise; just walking, but it's simple, I can't screw it up, and it's having a positive effect. I've done it long enough it's a habit, and I am loathe to break my streak.

I'll check back in a few weeks.

Status Update

2013-05-28T09:17:00.002-07:00

So, back on the wagon.

Got a new diabetes educator who suggested some changes to my medicine regimen. Logging everything I eat -- which by itself forces me to be more careful about what I'm eating, even if I'm not actively picking the best foods.

Walking a few days a week. Waiting on the gym until school is out so I can more easily work it into my schedule (also helps me ramp up with the walking instead of jumping in full steam)

Doing 100pushups.com's regimen for pushups again. Finally made it back up past week one day one.

Back down to 265 as of today - had this goal for about 9 months, but was pretty much steady at 275 since August; dropped the 10 pounds since the doc visit a month ago. Next goal: 255, as I crawl back down 10 pounds at a time at least to the 225 low I hit with medifast.

Why are you still here?

2012-07-31T20:05:00.003-07:00

Hello, faithful readers.

So, I've fallen off this wagon quite a few times now since the original diagnosis almost a decade ago.

Depressing to look back over the tags and see that I was doing medifast four years ago, and trying to run two years ago.

So, I got back up to nearly 290 pounds, stopped exercising, avoided the doctor, and managed to get my A1C almost back in to double digits.

So, I finally slunk back to the doctor, who gave me the appropriate amount of crap and put me on a new drug, Victoza. I'm in the middle of the second week of it now, and its side effects (lack of appetite, nausea) are both about as fun as you'd expect.

Doc assures me that the nausea will pass (yay) but the appetite suppresent is amazing. I not only am not hungry, the thought of eating something doesn't really hold any interest (whereas two weeks ago, it would probably have resulted in getting a snack.) I'm wondering if this will slow down (and how fast), as I've heard the stomach staple does eventually. I'm sure some of this is just being mindful, but it really is an amazing difference.

So, without adding back in exercise yet, my sugar levels have dropped down to normal; every day that I have a good fasting sugar in the morning, I take off a few units of insulin that night; in the next few weeks, I'll be off the insulin entirely (if this trend continues), and after that, Doc's targeting the actos.

I've dropped about 8-9 pounds in the past 12 days or so, due entirely to food intake.

Anyone out there using Victoza and getting similar results?

5K

2010-03-31T10:38:00.000-07:00

Hello, faithful readers. I am still fat and diabetic.

A month ago, a friend of mine at work suggested I run in a 5K this August, so I took him up on the challenge. I've been running* 3 days a week for 30m for the last month. Not quite couch to 5K, but in the same ballpark. Yes, I have special running shoes.

Today was the first day I've done this that I was able to get up to 5mph 3 different times during the 30m; Ended up going 1.6 miles in 31 minutes; I actually feel GOOD after the workout today, a welcome change. ^_^

I have a regularly scheduled doc visit in a week or so, and will bounce the sanity of this idea off her.

Now that I've been doing this for a month and made a (annoying, sweaty, and painful) habit out of it, next up is fixing my diet. I never transitioned properly off the medifast - so I did a great job losing the weight, but not keeping it off. My plan this time is to use the MF for snacks & backup, but to stay with real food as much as possible.

* Another runner friend of my says "Why not just walk". Trust me, that's basically what I'm doing at these speeds. =-)

Back on the wagon.

2009-08-11T06:39:00.000-07:00

So, apparently you can't just ignore your diabetes and make it go away!

After getting under fairly decent control and off the insulin and dropping 50 pounds, I took some (too much) time off from keeping an eye on it, and it got out of control again.

Had a doc visit today; back on the insulin, upped the sugar meds, need to watch what I eat, start going back to the gym. About 20 pounds to get back down to my low.

*^&#$#@$!

Horrible placement

2009-07-20T18:03:00.000-07:00

I don't know what to make of this: You can buy the awesome Dr. Horrible DVD at the local grocery...

Chocolate easter bunny says what?

2009-03-14T16:18:00.000-07:00

My son had two basketball games today, both at a high school a little under 11 miles away from our house; for the afternoon one, I had the bright idea of riding my bike out there, and meeting the family for the game.

I'm happy to report I made it in one piece, stopped only to drink some water, and can still walk. Sort of.

Switching between sitting and standing is going to hurt for a day or so; time to scope out a new bike and/or a new padded seat cover (I have a padded cover now; it's not enough!)

So, I biked last saturday for 7.5 miles, went to the gym at lunch on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and biked today for 10.7 miles. I even played some basketball with youngest kid for a while before it got dark.

Hopefully this means I'm in the running for the Fatty Bowl. More on that next post.

Information

2009-03-05T05:24:00.001-08:00

I've been struggling getting back on plan. One thing that has always helped me is writing things down - blood sugars, weight, food.

Thanks to Josh W., I discovered The Daily Plate. I will try to enter my food there as I go: http://www.livestrong.com/thedailyplate/diary/rss/cokefloats/

I'm just figuring out the interface, so don't worry, I didn't put the half and half in the sriracha.

... But now that I say that, think I might have to try that out.

Thanks, internets, for keeping me honest.

Lazy: Elevators

2009-02-25T09:23:00.000-08:00

I work in a small office building. There's a cafeteria on the first floor (where I just got a yummy, diet-safe chef salad), and my company has offices on 2 and 3. I work on 2, but 3 has a stash of work-sponsored free beverage.

So, a typical lunch time jaunt is stairs from 2 to 1, grab lunch, elevator from 1 to 3, grab drink, stairs from 3 to 2, eat at desk.

Today, thankfully, the elevator was on 3 when I was on 1, so I had a chance to think "take the stairs, lazy!". Which I did.

At least I wasn't breathing hard by the time I got back to my desk. ^_^

Free Shipping?

2009-01-15T19:42:00.001-08:00

I was buying something on amazon just now, and needed only $1.05 more to get free shipping.

"If only there were a way to search for items by price so I could get just enough for free shipping..."

http://slickfillers.net/

Thank you internet. Here's a scooby snack.

Twitchy Madness.

2009-01-07T00:09:00.000-08:00

Today was a rough day; I think on day one I was living off whatever I ate on the weekend. I ended up eating a little more than allowed on plan today, but I was trying to avoid HUNGRY, which was lurking around every corner.

One of my old habits, on medifast or off it, is coffee; when I'm on, I like it especially because of the (perceived?) increase in metabolism. Also, I can put creamer in it, which has just enough calories to get me through rough spots.

The downside of this wonderful plan is that it's now 3:12 AM local time and I'm not at all tired. Stoopid coffee.

At least I stopped being hungry hours ago.

Hurm. My boss is probably just getting online now. Perhaps I should just sign in to work and start my day.

*twitch*

Wagon: I'z on it.

2009-01-05T10:34:00.000-08:00

Rachael and I tried an experiment for the holidays; We'd not worry about our diet, eat what we liked, see what happened, and basically start over in the new year. Not so much a New Year's resolution, as a last hurrah on the old.

Well, that's over with now. I'm kind of glad, as I'd gotten to the point where I was back to my old ways entirely; Eating unhealthy snacks (and too many of them), no exercise; I still can creep into all (most?) of the clothes I bought on the way down, however, so things aren't too bad. I had taken to weighing myself much less frequently, just enough to make sure I didn't get close to my original weight.

I'm at 244.6 today; I had reached a one-time low of 219 on September 21st; I stopped daily weigh ins for the holiday on October 29th at 226.8 after some weeks of moderate goof-offery.

So, back on the wagon today; daily weighins, medifast do-over (I'm now about 40 pounds from my target weight: about half way done from my first go round), and, (*gasp*), back to the gym for a surprise 30 minutes of cardio that left me, amazingly, upright.

Thanks to my employer for getting me a free gym membership that I didn't know I wanted. I may be the fattest person with two gym memberships that I know. Thankfully, I had a gym bag packed and ready to go in the car from weeks ago (*cringe*), and managed to hitch a ride to a local gym with a friend from work today for lunch break.

I'll have some posts in the next few days about lessons learned, both from the first run of medifast, and from the months of debauchery.

On Holidaze

2008-12-06T16:30:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted here in a while as I'm no longer on the wagon, and I always thought of this blog as part of a balanced diet.

I'm still down ~45 pounds from my initial weight, but I'm not following any sort of sane food intake at the moment. I'm just trying to stay on an even keel until January, at which point I plan on getting back on the wagon again. This not-really-a-plan is actually working out OK.

Even eating pretty much whatever I want, my weight is still staying very steady. My blood sugar is starting to go back up a little, though.

I had a debate with myself this morning about whether or not to get on the scale - I've been weighing every few days still, but have had a few extravagant days of eating, so I wasn't sure I wanted to see the damage.

Talked myself into it (not so hard after remembering talking myself into doing it every day), and was happy to see that the last few days have just been holding steady.

I still feel great compared to 45 pounds ago.

I still need to get back to the gym. Encourage me, lazyweb.

newer clothes

2008-10-17T17:52:00.000-07:00

Kids had a school event tonight that didn't require my presence, so I dropped them off and went to the K to pick up some new clothes (again). The last of my old shirts are too big, and I don't have enough of a selection of L dress shirts to go a whole week.

Finally picked up a new belt (a 40. the 38 seemed a smidge too snug.) Got some 38" jeans, a large dress shirt, and... a medium long sleeved T.

I tried on a medium dress shirt and it was a little too tight in the chest (to be fair the T is a little tight as well, but not obscenely so. I least, I don't think so) but the stomach fit no problem. So if I start toning up, I'll be able to wear a mediums. And maybe some 36" pants.

I can't tell you how insane this is.

Goodbye, gram.

2008-10-16T12:40:00.001-07:00

My grandmother, pictured a few posts back, died recently. She was 92, and she was, sadly, ready to go.

There were no services, so Rachael and I took the kids back to visit my mother and her sister, to make sure everyone was alright. I think everyone is sad, but not distraught.

(now comes the related food bits)

There was, of course, much eating during the visit. I've been holding steady in the 220-225 range for months now, after falling off the medifast wagon. (More like dangling off the side of the wagon). After that visit, I had plumped back up to just under 230 again. I'm now back down to ~ 225.

Last doctor's visit (after weeks of being at that range), saw a slight increase in A1C from 6 to 6.4 or so; No change in meds; 3 month followup instead of the 6-weeks we'd been doing.

I'm slowly getting ready to make the push for the last 20 pounds. Planning a switch to a morning gym schedule to sneak it in before work, slowly getting back on the medifast wagon.

Saw someone today who hasn't seen me since I started on medifast; she said I didn't even look like the same person, and when I got to the '20 pounds to go' bit, she had the awesomeness to say "From where!?". (I could show you, but this is a family blog.)

(food part over)

I do wish I had gotten my stuff together when gram could have appreciated it; I know she always worried about my weight and health (I know this because she was not afraid to tell me I'd put on a few pounds!).

Goodbye.

Going Steady.

2008-09-24T23:26:00.000-07:00

Things are pretty much holding steady at this point, I'm still in the low 220s; had a brief dip down to 219 about a week ago, but a trip back home for some family cooking caused a slight rebound. Course correction in progress.

Still heading down to 205, but doing so pretty leisurely at this point, even before the homemade white chocolate cheesecake and BBQ.

Six week doc visit was supposed to be Tuesday. Then Friday. Now Next Tuesday! The doctor herself is apparently unwell; I'll hopefully be able to ratchet down the meds another notch once I can go over my bloodwork from last week.

In the before time

2008-08-31T14:46:00.000-07:00

Here's another before photo from late March (thanks Raye!), a little more than a month before I started this program.

Sadly, it shows off my old physique quite well.

Also pictured here is my grandmother, Elsie Wilcox.

Day 117 - What's the Over/Under?

2008-08-30T08:42:00.000-07:00

Haven't had a weight post in a while. The weekly weigh-ins have slowed down a bit, but I think that's entirely explainable by my recent deviations from the food plan.

I'm still primarily eating the medifast food, but I am being a little less cautious eating out (having the miso soup with my sashimi), having meat 2x a day once in a while instead of once and trying to juggle the medifast food down accordingly. So I'm still losing, but not as rapidly.

But as of today, I'm at 220.2 lbs.

61.8 pounds total loss (4.4 stone, 28 kg, 22% of my original weight.)
calculated BMI is now 29.86; I am now officially merely overweight. (I started out at 38+; morbidly obese with the diabetes)
Another 15.2 pounds to go to make my doctor happy. (We'll see if I'm happy there.)

I just went through the closet again today and tossed some old 44"-waist pants that managed to survive the last culling; Got some new 38" pants for my birthday which fit quite well. I don't normally like clothes as presents, but the size made it worthwhile. (Thanks, mom.)

I've included some before and after shots in this post; the one on the right is from mid January; but that's about the same size I was in May when I started. The one on the left Rachael just snapped a few minutes ago as I was hunting for a new shot. I tried to use the "thin" pose. I think I look a little goofy, but it definitely shows the difference. I'll see if I can find a better "before" shot later, but that's ancient history now.

Onward and downward.

Happy Anniversary

2008-08-28T06:13:00.000-07:00

Today is Rachael's and my 15th anniversary; We actually got to go a concert[0] last weekend, so no big plans today.[1]

Just wanted to wish her a happy anniversary and thank her for all her support on the diet; without her (she's going through the same program I am), I'm sure I couldn't have made it this far!

[0] Cheap Trick/Heart/Journey, all of whom rocked. I was especially impressed with the vocals on the new Journey lead singer.

[1] Thanks to Ann who offers to baby sit every year for our anniversary. If it wasn't for her, we'd never go anywhere!

Bite the Big Apple

2008-08-22T10:23:00.001-07:00

Warning, this isn't about my weight loss.

Ok, I'm a big Apple fan. I switched years ago for the unix, and stayed for the shiny. I have a first-gen iPhone. I've tried out the option to download music from iTMS to the phone, and then re-sync it to the computer; works great.

So, I heard a song in the car on the way to lunch today. Thought it was Richard Cheese, but no, it's an honest to god "name brand" artist doing swing-style covers of rock songs. I liked it so much, I bought the album when I got back to the office and had access to wifi.

I just used technology which was only a dream even 10 years ago to do something amazingly awesome...

...and it was to buy a Paul Anka record.

I think there might be something wrong with me.

Day 106 - Week 15 weighin

2008-08-19T06:52:00.000-07:00

Snuck out a new minimum of 224.2 pounds today, for a 15 week total of 57.8 pounds, 2-pound loss from last week.

That's about 20% of my starting weight, at an average of 3.85 pounds a week.

If I can go a little over 3 more pounds, I'll drop down to 'overweight' from 'obese'. I started out at 'morbidly obese' in May.

If I go a little more than 16 pounds after that, I'll be at the goal BMI set by my doctor.

I had a most disturbing feeling last night, lying on my side, getting ready to sleep. Resting my arm on my side, I could feel my bones (lower rib and pelvis, I think), and the loose skin that's accumulating was kind of hanging off to the side. The disturbing part was the depression between the two bones.

Anyone else reading gone through this kind of weight loss? Presuming I can keep it off, how long is going to take me to adjust to the new... shape? I don't feel different most of the time (my "just walking around" body feels the same as it did months ago), which means anytime I notice something like this, it's rather jarring.

Day 102 - Edamame Pyrotechnic

2008-08-15T10:25:00.000-07:00

Went out to a birthday dinner last night with the family to a newish Japanese place; Isabella's birthday was the day before mine, so we kind of shared a dinner out, but dragged the whole family with. I ate enough sashimi to fill the hold on a small whaling ship, and even had some awesome treat for dessert that involved mango ice cream wrapped in some dough-like coating (pictured here). I thoroughly enjoyed that, and the edamame, and some kind of warm sushi-like product that I think had some spicy mayo in it. And some shrimp tempura. I picked at everything.

I felt absolutely no guilt about this; However, I also had no "I deserve this NOM NOM NOM" moment, either. It was a normal, relatively sane dinner out; I had a good time, the food was good, I felt full but not bloated when it was over. I felt weird about not feeling weird, and commented on this to the wife, which did, I admit, make me feel sort of meta-weird.

My daily weighin shows a one day uptick of 0.2 pounds, which is completely insignificant.

And, after this wonderful dinner with my entire family, on the drive home, there were fireworks! We left the restaurant just in time to catch a good portion of a fireworks show on the Hudson; we pulled off on a back street to watch the amazing finale from the car.

Woot.

Day 101 - Yes, but how does that make you feel?

2008-08-14T05:37:00.001-07:00

I can't believe I missed an opportunity to blog on Day 100. Ah well.

One of the things that got me to a point where I needed to lose 80 pounds is eating for the wrong reasons. I often (used to!) eat when bored, excited, mad, depressed... To the kind of mindset I spent most of my life in, there's nothing some sugar and fat can't fix.

So, on this plan, I started out trying to be meticulous about following the program. And it didn't require a lot of concious thought at first; you setup your meals for the day, you eat every 2 hours, you don't have to think about it. The lack of thought was very helpful to me. I could make eating right the default, and I'd have to go out of my way to screw it up.

Lately, as I'm getting closer to my goal, I'm finding that I do have to think about it more. I've had a few days (yesterday was one!) where I didn't follow the program, but ended up substituting more low fat meats for a medifast meal or two. My totals for the day were probably not that far off, but I had sashimi for lunch[1], and then some roasted chicken and cold cuts later in the day. Well, I've been doing so well, don't I deserve to have some yummy food?

I've been having that thought a lot lately, and I think it's the new trick my lizard brain has come up with. It's partially true, even! I've lost (quick check) 57.6 pounds as of this morning. That's insane. Surely I deserve a little celebratory snack. An extra bag of those (relatively) delicious soy crisps? Another few ounces of meat? How about a few chips from a bag that isn't even on the diet?

One of the reasons I've been able to make this work so far is that I haven't really had to deal with real food at all. I've been "on plan" since May, so I've been able to avoid a lot of things that looked really good. I've allowed myself some slack so I don't explode: a few 20 calorie snapples aren't going to ruin my diet, after all. (And they haven't! I have retroactive proof!). But where do I draw the line? So far the line has been very close to "medifast or nothing"; Obviously not a good long term strategy.

As I start getting closer to maintenance mode, though, I'm going to need another mechanism to cope with all the food out there. I haven't quite figured out what that's going to be, but I am planning on keeping up with the daily weighins. So, worst case, even if I can't easily stay in a healthy range, I'll have an alarm for when I leave the range, and I know I can drop a few pounds as needed. It'd be nice if I never made the alarm go off, but that's my plan B for now.

I am glad that the medifast plan has a long maintenance cycle; Hopefully it will give my brain time to adjust to that as well. I also have a visit planned with a diabetes educator/nutritionist team once I'm released back into the wild, so I'll be working in this with the help of some very smart folks.

[1] Big shout out to Yoshi's in Latham, NY. Highly recommend. They take very good care of me there, and the sashimi platter I get there at least once a week has been a lifesaver on this diet. Having one food that I really enjoy that I get to eat on a regular basis with no guilt makes this bearable. I am looking forward to going back there every week even when I'm off the diet and on my own.

Day 99 - Pharmaceutical Reductionism

2008-08-12T17:02:00.000-07:00

Got the results of my six-week followup bloodwork today: my A1C is down to 6.0; it was 6.8 six weeks ago, and that's with several reductions in blood sugar meds six weeks ago, and going off the insulin about 30 days ago.

I'm back on a very small dosage of lisinopril for kidney protection, but get to cut the dosage of another med in half to compensate.

Cholesterol is sneaking back up slowly with the drop in meds the last time (only to 104 total, though), so no change on the meds there for now.

Big news is that my last remaining blood sugar med (metformin), which I was on 2g (2000mg) of has been cut in half to 1g. That's two less horse pills a day.

And I'm exercising less now than I was before I started the diet[1]. Still. So nearly all of this medicine cutback (and improved control on my numbers) is all food related.

The doctor seemed to have a hard time deciding today how deep to cut the dosages; She joked that it's easier to write the Rx when things are going badly.

Still aiming for 205 pounds; Doc says to shoot for about 28 BMI. That's about 20 pounds away from here, and given what I can see that remains of my still enormous-seeming stomach, I'm not sure I'm going to stop there. I want to be healthy, not skinny; But I have no idea what a healthy weight is, so we'll see what happens when I get to 205.

I can already see .... issues with the skin that's left; I'll try not to worry about that (other than doing crunches) until I've kept the weight off for some time.

Another followup bloodwork/visit in six weeks; I aim to cut even more meds and weight by then.

[1] Though I did go for a very nice 10mile bike ride this weekend. Work is about 14m from here, and the first 10m of that is pretty flat. Definitely going to try that one day this month.