Take a look for yourself, and see how dramatic the change has been!
Who the hell is that fat guy on the left? He looks like he's got some serious self-control issues!
Weight Loss Tracker
Friday, August 24, 2007
A Thousand Words
Take a look for yourself, and see how dramatic the change has been!
Who the hell is that fat guy on the left? He looks like he's got some serious self-control issues!
Thursday, August 23, 2007
The results are in!
Today was my 3 month appointment, though it ended up being more like 3.5 months - but who's counting?
The official tally is in, and ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to report that my weight loss stands at a staggering
120 pounds!!
That's right, folks. I've lost a petite adult! 4 Sydneys! 6 20-pound bags of something!
From 477 to 357. I've now erased all the weight I've gained since I moved here in 1999, and then some!
And my A1C hemoglobin test: Down from 6.2 (diabetic) to 5.7 (not diabetic!) Hooray! No diabetes for me! Of course, I'm still kinda eating like a diabetic, but hey, it still matters!
I am now closer to my goal weight of 250 lbs than I am to my old weight, with only 107 to lose to my goal! And who knows, maybe I'll see if I can get below that when I get there. The doctor figures (if I do better on exercise) I could get down there in another 6 months.
And, I feel great! Tons of energy, I don't sweat just walking around... take stairs 2 at a time. Couple weekends ago, I went and cleaned out our storage unit. 5x10 space, about half
full of boxes and clothes and stuff we haven't dealt with since the move. 2 full trips of the Escape with the seats down. Got it all moved over in less than 2 hours, and nothing on my body
hurt. Nothing!! I could have done another one! Legs were a little tired, and I was definitely sweaty, but it was 99 degrees so I can forgive myself for that.
Getting into clothes I haven't worn in years - some I never wore, 'cuz I bought 'em and then promptly bloated out of them. It's just really astonishing all the way around.
Every morning, I now take great pleasure in tying my shoes, instead of just slipping (forcing) them on. When you are as fat as I was, you don't even want to THINK about bending over. So until about a month ago, these shoes had probably only been tied a handful of times.
It's all a bunch of little things, but O how they add up. Yea, verily!
The official tally is in, and ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to report that my weight loss stands at a staggering
120 pounds!!
That's right, folks. I've lost a petite adult! 4 Sydneys! 6 20-pound bags of something!
From 477 to 357. I've now erased all the weight I've gained since I moved here in 1999, and then some!
Every other health factor was spot on, except my my good cholesterol, which needs to come up about 3 or 4 points. Total cholesterol was down from 176 to 143. Iron was great. Liver, kidney functions perfect. Blood pressure was great. She said my heart even sounds better.
And my A1C hemoglobin test: Down from 6.2 (diabetic) to 5.7 (not diabetic!) Hooray! No diabetes for me! Of course, I'm still kinda eating like a diabetic, but hey, it still matters!
I am now closer to my goal weight of 250 lbs than I am to my old weight, with only 107 to lose to my goal! And who knows, maybe I'll see if I can get below that when I get there. The doctor figures (if I do better on exercise) I could get down there in another 6 months.
And, I feel great! Tons of energy, I don't sweat just walking around... take stairs 2 at a time. Couple weekends ago, I went and cleaned out our storage unit. 5x10 space, about half
full of boxes and clothes and stuff we haven't dealt with since the move. 2 full trips of the Escape with the seats down. Got it all moved over in less than 2 hours, and nothing on my body
hurt. Nothing!! I could have done another one! Legs were a little tired, and I was definitely sweaty, but it was 99 degrees so I can forgive myself for that.
Getting into clothes I haven't worn in years - some I never wore, 'cuz I bought 'em and then promptly bloated out of them. It's just really astonishing all the way around.
Oh, and here's another thing you thin people won't appreciate but I do:
Every morning, I now take great pleasure in tying my shoes, instead of just slipping (forcing) them on. When you are as fat as I was, you don't even want to THINK about bending over. So until about a month ago, these shoes had probably only been tied a handful of times.
Now, it's every day.
And now, I actually need regular shoes, not wides, because my foot wasn't actually particularly wide, just fat, and now it slides around inside.
It's all a bunch of little things, but O how they add up. Yea, verily!
Friday, July 20, 2007
Severe Morbid Obesity
Yay! I'm down from "Super Morbid Obesity" to only "Severe Morbid Obesity", according to the BMI calculator!
I might be moving this blog over to extrapounds.com. Stay tuned.
I might be moving this blog over to extrapounds.com. Stay tuned.
Monday, July 2, 2007
Life In Contrast
We've all heard it before: "There is no good without evil. No light without darkness. No pleasure without pain." Well, maybe you haven't heard it before, but my wife sure did.
On our first date.
She wanted me so bad after that.
But I digress. The reason that these sayings come up over and over again is because they're true. My life lately has been an exercise in this.
Last year at about this time was one of the worst times in my life. Everything had been piling on, and it was reaching a breaking point. I had worked crazy hours on a pilot at work, but my work was awful, the worst I'd done in years. We were FLAT broke. We were so broke that when I got paid, we'd go put $50 on a Wal-Mart gift card so that I would have enough money for gas that week. Gas prices were exorbitant, I think they got above $3.60 a gallon. Once on my way home, I called Lynn to tell her that I needed to get a bit of gas in order to make it home, and she said, "Well, I don't know what you're going to buy it with." I managed to scrounge together $3.75 in change from my car, which was enough to get a gallon of gas in Burbank to get me home.
The house was sucking our souls dry. We had received notice from our mortgage company that our ARM loan would be adjusting - and the interest rate would be going up 2% - equating to an over $700 increase in mortgage price PER MONTH! The windows in the place were worthless, and we couldn't afford to replace them. The A/C in the place was worthless, but we couldn't afford to replace it, either. So we were leaving the A/C at anywhere from 80 to 85, but Lynn and Sydney were home all day so we couldn't do it all the time. We were in an incredible hot spell - we had at least 4 weeks there that were over 110 every day. Sydney's little face would turn pink from the time it took us to walk from the parking lot into Target. And the combination of crappy AC and bad windows led to an electric bill of over $550 A MONTH. So we were sweating our asses off and still paying a nice apartment's worth of rent in the midwest in electric bills every month.
We were both fat and unhappy. We couldn't afford to go anywhere or do anything, and it was too bloody hot to, anyway. Sydney was the one bright spot in the whole thing. Maybe that's how we made it through... we did it for her.
Contrast that to today. Work is better. We sold the house, paid off a whole bunch of debt. We moved into an apartment that is $500 a month cheaper than our pre-adjusted mortgage, and $1200 cheaper than it was post-adjustment. Even though we're back in the 100's again, it appears as though our electricity bill might, MAYBE will get up to $250 a month if it stays this hot. We're on the second floor of a 3-story building, so we've got a unit above us to insulate us from the sun coming in, and we're 10 feet above the heat of the asphalt and air-conditioning unit exhaust. And it's got great windows (and did I mention a much better floorplan?), good vertical blinds, and we bought nice thick curtains to block the heat. Even though it's still expensive to live out here, it's much cheaper in this apartment than it ever was in the house, and we don't have to fix anything if it breaks! Woohoo!!
Plus, we're losing tons of weight; between the two of us, we've lost a full grown person! We feel incredible, Sydney's growing up to be a really sweet, interesting, funny and entertaining little girl that we enjoy taking places (usually!) I love my family. I love spending time with them, whatever it is we're doing. And the fact that we've come so far in this year makes it all the more striking.
The contrast is incredible.
I enjoy thinking about it from time to time. It really enhances whatever I'm feeling at the time. Like, "Ahhhh... remember how crappy life was this time last year? Yep, no more of that!"
Now, I'm big on putting and keeping things in perspective. I think it's sorely missing from "Western" societies nowadays. I mean, let's face it, just living in the U.S. puts me in the top 75% of the inhabitants of earth. I don't have any illusions about that.
But there's personal perspective, too. We had a really, really crappy summer in '06, but we didn't just sit around and grouse about it. We took the steps necessary to fix the problem, which weren't always easy. We sold the house, moved to a better place, got the surgeries... In other words, I think we deserve some credit for the positive changes we made, and therefore, deserve to enjoy the contrast the new happiness brings to our lives.
On our first date.
She wanted me so bad after that.
But I digress. The reason that these sayings come up over and over again is because they're true. My life lately has been an exercise in this.
Last year at about this time was one of the worst times in my life. Everything had been piling on, and it was reaching a breaking point. I had worked crazy hours on a pilot at work, but my work was awful, the worst I'd done in years. We were FLAT broke. We were so broke that when I got paid, we'd go put $50 on a Wal-Mart gift card so that I would have enough money for gas that week. Gas prices were exorbitant, I think they got above $3.60 a gallon. Once on my way home, I called Lynn to tell her that I needed to get a bit of gas in order to make it home, and she said, "Well, I don't know what you're going to buy it with." I managed to scrounge together $3.75 in change from my car, which was enough to get a gallon of gas in Burbank to get me home.
The house was sucking our souls dry. We had received notice from our mortgage company that our ARM loan would be adjusting - and the interest rate would be going up 2% - equating to an over $700 increase in mortgage price PER MONTH! The windows in the place were worthless, and we couldn't afford to replace them. The A/C in the place was worthless, but we couldn't afford to replace it, either. So we were leaving the A/C at anywhere from 80 to 85, but Lynn and Sydney were home all day so we couldn't do it all the time. We were in an incredible hot spell - we had at least 4 weeks there that were over 110 every day. Sydney's little face would turn pink from the time it took us to walk from the parking lot into Target. And the combination of crappy AC and bad windows led to an electric bill of over $550 A MONTH. So we were sweating our asses off and still paying a nice apartment's worth of rent in the midwest in electric bills every month.
We were both fat and unhappy. We couldn't afford to go anywhere or do anything, and it was too bloody hot to, anyway. Sydney was the one bright spot in the whole thing. Maybe that's how we made it through... we did it for her.
Contrast that to today. Work is better. We sold the house, paid off a whole bunch of debt. We moved into an apartment that is $500 a month cheaper than our pre-adjusted mortgage, and $1200 cheaper than it was post-adjustment. Even though we're back in the 100's again, it appears as though our electricity bill might, MAYBE will get up to $250 a month if it stays this hot. We're on the second floor of a 3-story building, so we've got a unit above us to insulate us from the sun coming in, and we're 10 feet above the heat of the asphalt and air-conditioning unit exhaust. And it's got great windows (and did I mention a much better floorplan?), good vertical blinds, and we bought nice thick curtains to block the heat. Even though it's still expensive to live out here, it's much cheaper in this apartment than it ever was in the house, and we don't have to fix anything if it breaks! Woohoo!!
Plus, we're losing tons of weight; between the two of us, we've lost a full grown person! We feel incredible, Sydney's growing up to be a really sweet, interesting, funny and entertaining little girl that we enjoy taking places (usually!) I love my family. I love spending time with them, whatever it is we're doing. And the fact that we've come so far in this year makes it all the more striking.
The contrast is incredible.
I enjoy thinking about it from time to time. It really enhances whatever I'm feeling at the time. Like, "Ahhhh... remember how crappy life was this time last year? Yep, no more of that!"
Now, I'm big on putting and keeping things in perspective. I think it's sorely missing from "Western" societies nowadays. I mean, let's face it, just living in the U.S. puts me in the top 75% of the inhabitants of earth. I don't have any illusions about that.
But there's personal perspective, too. We had a really, really crappy summer in '06, but we didn't just sit around and grouse about it. We took the steps necessary to fix the problem, which weren't always easy. We sold the house, moved to a better place, got the surgeries... In other words, I think we deserve some credit for the positive changes we made, and therefore, deserve to enjoy the contrast the new happiness brings to our lives.
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Progress!
According to the mall scale, I'm now down to 390. That's roughly 87 pounds down, and the first time I've been below 400 in several years (since the '03 Atkins Plan).
Saturday, June 9, 2007
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
The Official Tally
From April 19th until today: 38 pounds!
January 10th, when we had our inital consultation, I weighed in at a shocking 469 pounds. That's 30 more pounds than I had expected, honestly.
When I went back for my two-week pre-op, I was up to 477. That did not suprise me, as I had been spending time eating my favorite foods that I wouldn't have for a while after surgery, or in some cases, ever again.
Today, I'm down to 439. I know I've a loooong way to go to 250, but it's a nice headstart, I'll say that!
January 10th, when we had our inital consultation, I weighed in at a shocking 469 pounds. That's 30 more pounds than I had expected, honestly.
When I went back for my two-week pre-op, I was up to 477. That did not suprise me, as I had been spending time eating my favorite foods that I wouldn't have for a while after surgery, or in some cases, ever again.
Today, I'm down to 439. I know I've a loooong way to go to 250, but it's a nice headstart, I'll say that!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
