Bedknobs and Broomsticks

Halloween is Approaching

The last 10 days or so have been a bit of a roller coaster.  Not for weight, though.  So that Wednesday, weighing in at 6 lbs sub, and then to the following Monday, the same thing did happen, and I lost 3 lbs for the week, but came up 3 since Wednesday.  I don't think my weekends are very productive, but I don't eat outside of the time schedule.  I just don't move much.

This week has been similar, but I'm watching each day what I eat, and when, and where, and weigh in each morning to see when the weight starts creeping in.  Last night I was rather convinced while going to bed that the next day, this morning, would warrant a gain, since I hadn't defecated.  And then, after drinking some horrible chamomile tea, my stomach grumbled, and whirled, and I felt a pocket of stuff move from my stomach down through my intestines, and the appear at my sphincter, awaiting clearance.  I thought it was just gas, but it was so much worse than that.

When I weighed-in this morning, I had lost another nearly 2 lbs since the day before.  Having been at around 464 on Monday, I'm now at 457.  If I keep on this pace, then by Monday, I will have dropped down to below 450.  After I get to around 440, meaning the week after, I can switch to my other scale, which does do some BF% measurements with it.  My current one doesn't.  And with all this calculation and estimation, I know that if I'm honest and diligent with it, I could be near sub-400 at Thanksgiving.

I went to a family doctor, and he was a huge advocate for keto.  I told him about the cholesterol, and he suggested I take the protein back to about 15% of my daily calories, and focus on fats.  I told him my nutritionist was wanting me to do keto, and he wanted me to have her reach out to him, as he hadn't found a nutritionist yet to support his keto-craze.  So my next appointment with her will be to get them in touch, and to start on keto.  I actually made an appointment with an "Insulin IQ Coach" at a company to take their 90-day challenge, per the doctor's orders, and after that, my doctor wants to see me again.

So Saturday I start keto again, and on Monday I'll get a plan together with my nutritionist.  And we'll see how this all goes.

I bought paints a few weeks ago, and nervous about using that as a medium for expression.  I've been watching Bob Ross, and have an easel, and all the colors he plays across the screen.  I just gotta do it.  Maybe this weekend.

For now,

-Your Semi-Retarded Friend

Squanch and Vodka

On the Outside of Being Inside-Out

It's been 10 days since you looked at me... Remember that song?  That's not how it starts, but you're singing it in your head right now, so that's okay enough.  I've had a good/bad, up/down last few days.  Some wins, some losses, some disappointments, some shame, one superb night of rest, and an almost nocturnal emission with a Brazilian actress whom was so gullible, she thought I was teaching her how to do "excited" better.

From my last post, I had talked about weight loss; and I didn't want to follow up on the 8th because when I weighed-in, I had gained 2 lbs.  What had changed from the previous week?  I didn't go to the gym as much, but I was still fairly active.  I got a new couch, and moved that in, and spent several days hanging out with my nephew.  And anyone who has entertained a 6-month-old whom loves to jump will tell you, your shoulders get REALLY sore after just a few hours of playing, "look what I can do" with the bundle of joy.  But I love the goober, so I push through the pain and soreness so he can keep smiling that awesome smile.

So I played a lot, exercised via life, and weighed-in, and gained 2 lbs.  I didn't get a BF% measurement, and maybe it went that way, but it didn't feel very good.

Ready for the good news?  Not yet.

That same Monday, I went into work, drank my obligatory energy drink, and worked until about 2 PM.  Then grabbed another energy drink, and started to eat around 5 PM.  I swallowed an especially large piece of beef jerky just as I felt I was coming down and crashing hard from the energy drinks, and the piece of meat started a slow-crawl over the bump in my throat caused by a benign growth on my thyroid, pressing against my esophagus.  I felt anxiety, even though I could breathe, and felt my heart rate increase.

The meat cleared, but my heart rate continued to thump away.  Before I knew it, I was laying down in a peer's office, talking to them, trying to get my heart to calm down, and it just wasn't budging.  I was having a full-fledged anxiety attack at work, and couldn't understand why it was lasting for so long.  I had one a month ago and called Jack to talk to me and keep my distracted, and eventually felt better.  But this one wasn't going away, and didn't.  I went home and tried to sleep, but couldn't.  It felt like my breathing didn't match my heartbeat, and that kept me awake.  Eventually spoke to a physician, who recommended a sleep aid to calm my heart and help me sleep, which I did around midnight, waking up a few times, and feeling a little better in the morning.

As soon as I got into my groove at work, the thumping starting again, and found myself in a bit of a tight spot.  I took the afternoon off, hung out with my Pop, sister, and bouncing nephew, and observed random times it spiked from "on the edge" to "falling to my doom."  I went to dinner with the aforementioned party, and got in my car to drive home when I realized the shallow breath and tightening in my chest wasn't because of my anxiety -- it was because of my asthma.

I began to think of the timeline, and how things played out, and realized that if I started having an asthma attack on Monday morning, and the energy drinks, with their caffeine, helped improve my airways, so I didn't notice the attack, and then suddenly didn't have that with the crash when my heart started bumping harder.  And if my heart needed more oxygen, but couldn't get it from the asthma attack, it would likely pump harder, but certainly not slow down.  So the persistence of the heart's demeanor in conjunction with the asthma attack led me to believe I was about to go into cardiac arrest, or have a heart attack.

I realized this all while driving home, and then making a big decision then.  I took some anxiety meds from a few years ago that hadn't expired, and took them with some Prednisone -- the drug they give in ER's when having an asthma attack, remembering a doctor telling me that mixing the steroid with a muscle relaxer was fine, since they targeted different parts of the body, and waited.

After 40 minutes of waiting, I felt my heart thump HARD 3 times, and my lungs suddenly open up.  I jumped up out of my chair in panic, took several very deep breaths, and walked around a bit.  My heart began to slow down, and breathing became enriched with delicious oxygen.  And finally my heart calmed down.

I legit felt like I was going to die by taking steroids to calm my heart down.  Typically it's thought that steroids will increase heart rate.  But since my heart needed oxygen, which it couldn't get, the steroids opened the airways, and improved O2 potency, thus calming my heart.  After about 30 minutes of that, I felt the anxiety pill kick in and went to sleep.

So the good news was I was able to figure out what the problem was, and why it was being exacerbated.  Also, since it was going on, I decided I should still have my anxiety checked into because attacks have been happening with more and more frequency lately.  I've called a psychiatrist, psychologist, nutritionist, and family doctor for appointments in the next few weeks to get some things back in order that I've been intentionally avoiding.

I'm rather excited for each meeting, and for them to start helping me get things back together.

Also, when I weighed in this morning, 2 days after the 2 lb gain discovery, I had lost 7.4 lbs from Monday to Wednesday.  I'm guessing that my body being in a constant aerobic state had something to do with that.  We'll see how it looks tomorrow.

While I'm concerned about the increased rate of anxiety attacks, and migraines as well, I'm happy to be going to see professionals whom can help with those issues, and get me going on a better track.

-Your Semi-Retarded Friend

Havana and Wagyu

An Unforeseeable, but Inevitable Slowing Down

Last week was my start of Intermittent Fasting.  I weighed in at 474.6, and took that at face-value, as I knew it would be changing and quick.  The week was a bit difficult, spending it at a conference, and having lunch catered to people each day smelled great, but felt awful.  Calorie-free energy drinks got me through days of fatigue and exhaustion that comes with low blood-sugar.  I had a good week with it, and stayed true to the schedule I had made.

I go to work, or whatever during the day.  Around 5:00 or 5:30 each evening I start eating, and head home around 6:00.  I put something in the sous vide to start cooking, and head to the gym or yoga, expecting to get there around 7:00.  I workout for 45-60 minutes, and get home 15-20 minutes later, just in time for the sous vide to finish.  Prepare the side dish with the meal, sear the meat, and then eat.  Larger portions, since I'm eating for a day in a few hours.  It's very difficult to do that, I've found.  Even eating not the most healthily, I still fall a bit short.  Saturday was a proof of concept, since we went to Red Robin for dinner, and I got a big burger, ate a bunch of fries, and got their biggest dessert, and was still 800 calories shy of my daily requirement.  Some starbursts kinda helped with it, but I finished the day at a sub 400 of the day's requirement to maintain, if I was catatonic.  Since I had been moving around and doing things, it's likely that I burned a couple thousand calories from activity throughout the day, so the day was quite literally close to a 1 lb loss day, after eating horribly.

From Monday of last week, weighing in at 474.6, I weighed in today at 466.2, a loss of 8.4 lbs, or 1.2 lbs per day on average.

And here's the trouble -- I know it's going to slow down.  I wish it didn't.  Despite how unhealthy it is, I wish I'd deal with those health concerns over the current ones.

If I lost 1.2 lbs per day by keeping this up, then by Thanksgiving, 52 days away, or Christmas, 85 days, I'd lose 62.4 lbs and 102 lbs, respectively.  And from today, of 466.2, being nearly under 400 around Thanksgiving, and being around 364 at Christmas would be huge.  I'd fit on a plane without the extend-o-belt.

Then, keeping that going, to get down to my all-time low, of 262, I'd just have to persist for another 85 days.  That's mid-March of 2019.  To think that by April, I could be at an all-time low, and May being my ideal weight, having lifted and Yoga-ed into my body, I'd daresay that I would be in rather good physique as well.  Then taking supplements for the extra skin, and THAT being my biggest dilemma, I'd be stoked.  I'd take the hunger every day, and accelerate this 2-year sentence, and get out for good behavior after 6 months.  I would TOTALLY do that.

But I know it won't last.  As I lose weight, even proportionately, I'd go from 1.2 lbs per day to 1.1, then to 1.0, and 0.9, and so on, until it was 0.1 lbs per day, and then the last 30 lbs takes longer than the first 100.  And that's just rough to be so close to a goal and not get there just yet.  But perhaps by then the things that are super difficult now will become easier, and I can just push harder to it.

I am curious at what point will my body/mind realize that certain things are easier.  Like, even at 364 lbs, that's a lot more than I should be, but I wonder how much difference I'll feel from doing things, so much that I'll notice them, or not realize it's easier because of how little difference it is.

I still have yet to figure out milestones, goals, or how to measure success along the way.  And I wonder if this severe weight loss can be cascaded into further weeks.  This will will be very revealing for me.  If I can lose another 8.4 lbs, then I'll feel a bit confident about the whole thing.  If it's closer to 5 lbs, with the same effort, then it's likely my body stabilizing to the diet, and another week or two will tell me how to project the future.  And then I'll know closer to what I expect.

I hope my post next week is more along the lines of "Yay, it worked the same again," and then I can keep tracking that.  Otherwise, I know the feels associated with that, and it's difficult to stay super positive, despite the fact that loss is still loss.  Then it feels more like missing out on parole, and you will have to endure your entire sentence.  It inspires hope, but doesn't usually allow for the hope to warrant any merit -- but can often turn the hope into anger or disdain, so much that you give up.  Don't.  Easier said than done.  Just don't.

-Your Semi-Retarded Friend