texasrigdiver

Send Message

Block

Add Friend

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays and if things go well I'll only have about 20-25 more of them. This coming Thanksgiving won't be the first one I wasn't able to celebrate fully. In the Navy during the cold war, in the South China Sea, every day was just another day keeping the red commies at bay. But the celebration isn't, and shouldn't be about food. If it was there are going to be a lot of people that don't have much to be thankful for. I hope most people recognize everything that they do have to be thankful for. I know my life is abundant.

Food is a big part of Thanksgiving though. It's wonderful to see that feast laid out so carefully, then share that meal with those we love, or at least tolerate a single day out of the year (every family has at least one, and sometimes it's me, that's OK). I'm not a chef, I wish I was. I do consider myself a good cook though. I like to eat, always have, and I love to try new things. I'm a culinary adventurer of sorts. I think it's great that my rail thin daughter is in culinary school and flourishing. even if she doesn't become a pro chef she'll be able to cook exquisite meals for her loved ones every day. I'm looking forward to some of that myself, when you consider what tuition is, they'll be very expensive meals.

I deep fried multiple turkeys every year for years, years ago. Haven't done it in about 5-6 years though. The last few years have been more cutting edge with traditional roots. I went through the turducken phase, and then smoking turkeys, then brining and smoking them, yep, absolutely delicious! Earlier this year I found out from my wife and parents that no one really cares for the commercially prepared turducken because it's too spicy. ( I'm a HOT food aficionado, seriously, HOT) 

This year, like most, my in-laws will be in town and what's left of my brothers and sisters(I'm the oldest of 8) who still live in town will be at my house for Thanksgiving. My wife and I LOVE to throw parties. Since my yankee in-laws from Michigan have never eaten a deep fried turkey then I'll be cooking one for them. My mom has already asked for me to cook her one too. Then I let it slip at work I was deep frying turkeys this year and I've had a couple of people ask me to hook em up. NO PROBLEM. it's kind of a waste to deep fry 2  10-12 lb turkeys in $60.00 worth of peanut oil when you cook about 6-7 without straining the oil.

I won't participating in the tryptophan OD this year as my surgery is scheduled for 1 week post Thanksgiving. I'm OK with that though. I can sit out one holiday meal to work on being thin and then every day for the rest of my life will be a holiday that I can enjoy my family, and new found self respect that comes with the ability to fully participate in my life and the lives of my loved ones again. I can't wait. I still get to deep fry 4-5 turkeys for coworkers and family so I'll still play the roll of rockstar chef. My daughter will be home from culinary school and I'll make sure the spotlight in shined on her. I bet they don't teach deep frying turkeys at Le Cordon Bleu. I have a lot to be thankful for, that doesn't mean my life has been or is now easy. maybe it's the struggle that makes me realize how much I have to be thankful for.

My wife, is what I'm most thankful for though. I told her when we got married that we may not become stinkin' rich but I told her it would be a fun ride. For the most part it has been, but because of my weight I haven't lived up to that promise the last 5 years. Now it's time to change that too.

I'm not going to lie though, what first inspired this blog entry is, while I was thinking about Thanksgiving this morning, my mind turned to the menu and everything we were going to prepare. While doing that I remembered the Turducken I bought earlier this year to beat the rush at Thanksgiving. That 10 pound lump of meat is now thawing out on the stove before I stick it in the fridge to finish, and next weekend I am going to smoke it on my trusty Weber. Me, my wife, my daughter, and maybe my parents will celebrate a mini Thanksgiving, and I'll get to eat my Turducken. If no one else wants any, fine, I will get MY turducken and will be thankful!

 

well 40 days after starting things have culminated in an approval as of yesterday. it was a verbal so I won't start counting on this and making plans until I see it in writing. I mhave mixed emotions. glad Diaana is going to do this too. like everything else we share, we get to do this together, theres better chances of success for both of us doing this together.

quickly, I just want to confirm that Bariatric Fusion is some of the worst protein, at least pre-op, that I have ever tasted.

There are a lot of reasons I'm looking forward to getting surgery. theres too ways to look at it, what I've lost because of Obesity and what I'm looking forward to getting back. it all boils down to all the things I've lost, I am looking forward to getting back.

What I've lost:

• Intimacy with my wife
• Self respect
• sitting comfortably, driving comfortably,
• being comfortable in social situations, self confidence.
• overall self confidence
• respect of peers
• ability to comfortably and safely scuba dive
• go fishing
• upward mobility, opportunities for promotion

I'll keep updating the list.

In prep for eventual surgery I have become a member of Myfooddiary.com. One of the best food tracking web sites I've ever found.

When I found out that my surgery would be moved out a minimum of 1 month I just played with the full liquid/softs diet. the second brand that I tried is "Bariatric Fusion". I don't like it, any of the ones I've tried. I tried 2 last Wednesday when I was still on trial. I had one for breakfast and it was so bad I didn't try anymore until that night. I got home and told my wife about them and then tried the second one. it wasn't any better. they definitely are made with whey, which I don't have a problem as far as taste. I don't know if there's a metabolic/digestive issue, at this point I'd say no. who knows, after surgery when tastes change these may be the only ones I do like. I've definitely got enough to try then because of the 8 I bought, I had three and I don't need to test them anymore. I had the mint choc chip today and it was the best of the three but I still wouldn't say it was good or that I enjoyed it.

I will be going back and joining a food logging website today. I was a member for 6-8 months, three years ago when I was working out before I started medi-fast. Since I still need to lose weight pre-op, I am going to go back and do medifast again.I say that but I'm already off plan today. I had my first shake then for lunch, second shake, I ended up having the Fusion protein drink and then a fage zero Greek yogurt with mandarin oranges. I thought the yogurt would be like cottage cheese and be good with fruit, not so much. so my next experiment with fage yogurt will be mixing it with a crystal light type of drink mix, just to see...

I also signed back up with "myfooddiary dot com"

Today I ran a mock up of full liquids, tomorrow is softs then wed is full liquids again.

So the morning started with 12 oz of V8 then a vanilla flavored shake and a cup of coffee on the way to the office..
The V8 as always was fantastic, one of my favorite flavors, umami/savory. just a hint otherwise nice and thick and COLD!

at 10:00 am I had the orange creme shake

at 11:30 I had  a glass of Slim Bios Life Unicity orange flavored fiber
at 12:00 noon I had 1 chicken broth meal replacement protein drink.
at 12:30 I had 6 oz of zero greek yougurt with 1 oz of sugar free torani orange flavored syrup

at 2:30 I had the Iced Latte flavored MR protein drink and a prepared cup of strawberry jello

at 6:00 I had the chocolate MR shake

at 8:30 I had anothe chicken broth flavored Mr and a cup of orange jello

at 9:30 I'm going to have 2 TBLSP of metamucil.


All of todays MR shakes/drinks are Bariatric Advantage. I used a shaker cup for all the drinks except the chicken brooth. all shakes mixed nicely. at lunch time I mixed the chicken brooth in hot water and I was scared, it isn't pretty. eventually it disolved. my top three in order of preference is:
1 Iced Latte- very good flavors and by far the thickest most substantial.
2- chocolate-decent flavor, nice and thick
3- vanilla nice flavor with no weird after taste
4- orange creme, orange is my favorite flavor of most things, this wasn't very orange but the creme flavor was decent.
5 chicken brooth, really, that isn't what I would have guessed. not very impressive.

1st day is over. it really wasn't hard I never really got hungry and most of the time wjhen i did think about appetite, I was probably over full so I'll make some adjustments before wewdnesday.

tomorrow is softs and I have a menu planned out for it too.

OK, jacuzzi time and off to bed.

Just for a reference I've added my profile info:


I am male, 47 YO, 5'6, and bounce between 300 to 285. last diet was Medi-Fast, I dropped from 324 to 268 and am back up 30 pounds but still down 24. I like Medi-Fast and recommend it. I have hypo thyroid and some kind of kidney issue, the doctor can't diagnose anything but reduced function. I quit smoking 7 years ago after smoking a pack a day for over 20 years. I quit drinking 20 years ago after a short drinking career of only 12 years. I quit using recreational drugs 30 years ago, when I joined the Navy and they said I couldn't do that stuff, I quit, no big deal. I joined right out of high school. I grew up in the Caribbean Islands and South Florida in the 70's so I started the substance abuse early. Growing up, My step dad worked in the oilfield 30 on and 30 off. He inherited some fishing boats when his dad died so I spent summers working on a 70' shrimp boat from Brownsville TX to Key West FL. In the winter time I ran a stone crab boat out of Sarasota FL and he would pull me out of school occasionally to work on the snapper boats.
 
I was in the Navy from 1983 to 1994 (FC1 SW). I went in at 146 lbs and by the time I got done with boot camp I weighed 175-180. I maintained that weight the entire time I was in. I was on the "fat boy" program the whole time because my height weight ratio, according to the DoN was out of proportion. I wasn't fat though, I ran 15 miles a week and worked out three days I week, I was actually in awesome shape. I could run the mile in about 7 min. I could do about 100 push ups and well over 150 sit ups at the annual physical performance testing. From 1994 until 1999 I went from 180 to about 200 lbs. From 2000 until about 2007 I owned my own business rehabbing houses while working full time. I stopped buying houses in 2005 but still had several under rehab and even more under rental but the rentals were up for sale. The rehab market changed drastically in south Texas and I got out of the business, happily! From 1999/2000 until 2005 I put on another 10-20 lbs and weighed in at 220. I was definitely overweight but I could run up ladders to work on roofs plus a lot of the other work I wasn't willing to pay someone else to do. I owned my own boat and regularly fished recreationally in the bays and ran 30-40 miles off the Texas coast for recreational diving and spearfishing. I started diving when I was 9 years old in when I lived in Trinidad and Tobago. In 2005 I was absolutely exhausted from working 120-140 hours or more every week for the last several years. At that time I weighed between 210 and 220. I told my wife I was done, I was going to sit on the couch and not move. I was going to play video games and watch movies for the next year. Within several months, while working at one of the houses I pretty much shattered my right arm and after surgery ended up in a cast for about 16 weeks from my shoulder to my palm. then within a few months of that my step dad(6 months out of prison for the last 17 years for running drugs) was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. I quit smoking within a few months, before he died. I smoked about a pack a day for close to 30 years (started smoking in 5Th grade, and buying my own in about 7Th grade) I started putting on weight in 2005 (DUH! dumb-ass!) and my weight skyrocketed, I gained 100 pounds in less than 5 years. But I had good excuses, I was exhausted, so I deserved a break, I was in a cast and I just quit smoking.
One year turned in to 5 and I still wasn't doing anything other then buying bigger and bigger clothes and selling all of my sports gear because I was to fat to run off shore (if I fell over board I was in serious trouble). I sold all my scuba equpt because I couldn't get back in the boat and after buying 2 new wet suits because I was getting so big I was done with that too.
 
in 2010 I was so tired of being fat I started working out, about 2 hours a day, I have a treadmill and a nice bow flex and bicycles. I used all of the equipment but wasn't seeing results after about 4 weeks so I started journaling my food. Like everything else I took it to the extreme. I do tend to be a pretty intense person. I came up with a spreadsheets tracking all nutrients and micro nutrients. I weighed or otherwise measured everything. Another 4 weeks went by and I was down a total of 14 pounds. But I noticed something. My weight would swing wildly in the span of a single day. I would spend a week to ten days losing 12 pounds, and then inside a single day I would gain anywhere from 6-12 pounds. I'd spend the next week getting rid of that just to gain all of it back in a single day. This pattern repeated for a while and I still have all of the documentation I generated while it was happening. of course i couldn't "gain" that weight in a single day so the only thing that made sense was I was having some kind of fluid issues. I went o my wife's endocrinologist who ran a bunch of test and found out I was Hypo thyroid and starting to have problems with my kidneys. I was also diagnosed with metabolic syndrome/pre diabetes and most likely also have CVI (undiagnosed). I have had sleep apnea all my life and have had a CPAP since 1993 (180lbs). This was all pretty frustrating so I knew I needed to take a different tack. I had been hearing a bunch of commercials for Medi-fast and told my wife I wanted to do it. While we were walking in the door to Medi-Fast I told my lovely wife that this was the last step before bariatric surgery. Three years after starting Medi-fast, and trying to game that system I realize I need to do something drastic. Drastic problems require drastic solutions. after working out for about 14-16 weeks and losing about 15-20 lbs I quit, but I was on medifast so that was a good excuse.

I started researching Bariatric surgeries in Sept and by the end of the month I knew I wanted to go with the sleeve. since then here's the time line.
9/24/12- filled out paperwork for Hermann Memorial, and The Davis Clinic.
9/25/12, The Davis clinic called and wanted ins info.
9/26/12 the Davis clinic said the surgery is covered and since my BMI is over 45 (united health care) I don't need any additional comorbidities and they would cover the surgery minus my co-pay and deductible, Looks like it's going to be around $2K for me out of pocket. they set my consult for 10/15. There's no way I'm going to wait 15 days to get the ball rolling.
I called Dr. Carlos Ferrari and they could get me in on 10/5.
9/27/12 Hermann Memorial called and they said my ins would cover the surgery.
10/5/12-met with Dr. Ferrari, he recommended bypass but would defer to me and do the sleeve ( I may also get the DS at the same time-undecided). he said his staff would put in for ins approval and he wants me to get a echo-cardiogram and full blood work up.
10/8-called cardiologist and there's an opening on 10/9. Called the ins co. they said i would also need an appt with a nutritionist and a psych eval. got a list of vendors from the ins co. Set nut  appt for nutritionist 10/9. called 17 psychs and only 3 answered their phones. all others were messages. appt set for 10/16.
10/9-0800 fasting blood work. 9:30 nutritionist for 3 hours!!!, 3:30 cardiologist, can't do testing the same day as first appt. did complete the EKG, and cardiologist said he wants to do a full stress test. set echo-cardiogram/stress test for 10/11/12.
10/10/12 ordered one weeks worth of 6 protein meals from 3 different company's just to try everything out.
10/11/12- echo-cardiogram and stress tests, with results to be delivered on 10/15/12.
10/15/12- TENTATIVE still have the appt with Davis clinic. Thinking about going just so I can hedge my bets to get the surgery done ASAP. I need to have the surgery by 11/2 otherwise it will be into Dec because of family coming into town for thanksgiving and my sisters wedding on 11/17 which I'm not going to miss. I don't want to be in post op recovery during family staying with us or driving 4-5 hours on 11/16 for sisters birthday. If I can't get the surgery done this year Its going to cost an additional $2000 in deductibles or co-pays.

10/14/12- I'm a giant fan of Pink Floyd and right now the lyrics from The Wall, Stop! ...But I'm waiting in this cell
Because I have to know... Since I haven't been heavy all my life I see being heavy now as a self imposed prison sentence. Over the past years I've slowly sold off more and more outside sports and recreational gear as I became increasingly heavy to the point where I couldn't do those things comfortably at all anymore but it got Worse(another brick in the wall...).  My wife and I used to be pretty active, on weekends we didn't sit around the house we were going on road trips a couple times a  month.  My wife still wants to go, I don't. I'm not comfortable in my truck, my clothes or most seats anywhere from restaurants to movies(another brick in the wall...). I'm an anchor holding her back too. it feels like prison, maybe something like house arrest. If I was to list out everything I've lost it wouldn't be a short list(yet another brick in the wall...). It's not like I haven't tried, like I haven't put in the effort to lose weight, I have (and again, another brick in the wall...). So after I do have WLS what other surprises are in store for me when I start discovering the long term permanent damage I've done to my body. Hopefully I'll be tearing down my walls of this self imposed exhile pretty soon. I bet I can find some appropriate lyrics from The Wall for that to. TEAR DOWN THE WALL, TEAR DOWN THE WALL...

OK, so all I have left to do that the surgeon and ins. company wanted is to complete my psych eval on this coming Tuesday. I just finished putting my menu plan together for the upcoming week. I am going to go ahead and do a mock run of a liquid diet (not too diffrent than Medi-Fast shakes for 5 meals except the one lean and grean I won't be getting.
On Mon-Wed-Fri I am going to do a full liquids trying out the new high protein (3 different brands) shakes and powders. I'll check back in tomorrow and provide details of how it went.