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So I have seriously been shirking my blogging duties and I have let down the entire borsht eating population of the Ukraine. On a side note and in all seriousness, one of my co-workers is actually moving his mother back to the Ukraine which is her home country. Just one of those funny coincidences…plus I got to make a joke about borscht with him which caught him off guard. Some days it is the little things in life. And lately I have tried to find a little humor in my life

Read the rest HERE

Well it is a fresh new week and I thought I would try to start it off with a blog post. Currently according to my scale I am just a hair over 80lbs down. This is a good thing obviously, though I still am not eating enough nor am I getting enough fluids. Something I continue to have to work at.

For all the mothers out there, I hope that you enjoyed the day yesterday and that you were able to be pampered a little bit. I tried to do my part and presented my spouse with a gift from Pajamagram.com, obligatory flowers, and a small token of jewelry. As well I took her breakfast order Sunday morning and made it to perfection. I also had a chance to spend some time with my mother yesterday which was nice since I had not seen her or my father since before my surgery. Actually they hadn’t seen me since I lost any of the weight I have. So we had a lot to talk about both with the surgery and the concerns over the liver issue. It also, came out during the course of the conversation that my entire family was seemingly against my surgery at the beginning. My parents never really voiced this before hand, they initially told me to do my research and said they would back me either way, but I see now this was just a placating move on their part. Today they seem okay with it, still a lot of concern for the after effects from the surgery, but ultimately I think they are glad that I did go through with everything.

So I have started my twice a day vitamin E regimen. Now initially when discovered I was going to have to ramp up my doses of vitamin E I harkened back to my childhood, more specifically my junior high and high school days when me and my friends would joke about taking vitamin E to enhance our newly developing post pubescent virility. Now this was back in the day when I also believed in Spanish flies and was trying to figure out how to place an order for them from an ad I saw in the back of a Hustler magazine that I had tucked under my mattress. I mean who could argue with a 100% guarantee. Gratefully I never did get that figured out thus saving myself from wasting my money on that.

Continued at http://twopoundsaweek.com/?p=546

Last day of Optifast – Surgery in 2 days

Somewhere I think I fucked up the timing of days in my earlier posts. Anyway, to set the record straight, 48 hours from now, at least by the time this is posted, I will be under general anesthesia and have probably 4 or 5 people standing around me talking about what basketball teams are still left in their bracket. (If you are in the Ukraine and don’t know about March Madness…sorry I got nothing for you here…Google it)… Oh and at the same time said people will be perfoming a surgical procedure that will forever change my life.... continued  http://twopoundsaweek.com/2013/03/are-you-sure-you-want-to-do-this/

Sorry loyal readers, it has been a few days since I have “blogged” something. Have you ever started something with great intentions then it becomes an albatross around your neck and you have a hard time keeping up with it? Well if you have never had that feeling, then you should start a blog! Sometimes tough to write for 6 people and 1,000 Ukrainians, but I am dedicated to this and I will power on spreading my wit and wisdom to the masses. If I can provide just one chuckle in one Ukrainians day, then I can go to bed content that I have done well in the world.

Read the entire post here...http://twopoundsaweek.com/2013/03/tuesdays-arent-a-good-day-for-cows-around-here/

Well this journey that started out a year ago just doesn’t seem to get any shorter. Just got a call from the Jeff the “scheduler” at bariatric office. Apparently after my meeting with the surgeon yesterday they decided to order a HIDA scan (which stands for hepatobiliary iminodiacetic acid scan…yeah say that 3 times fast) for my gall bladder prior to my surgery. So next Tuesday I get to visit Barberton hospital at the crack of dawn…literally the crack of dawn and instead of starting off with a cup o’ joe I will get a shot of nuclear tracer dye followed by a chaser of some some other drug concoction that makes your gall bladder go into hyper drive and act like it is trying to do the Kessel run in under 12 parsec’s..... Continued at http://twopoundsaweek.com/2013/03/and-the-hits-just-keep-on-coming/

I should have known that today was going to be just one of those days when first thing I found myself running late for work. From that point on the day just has started to spiral downward culminating this morning with my final visit with my surgeon Dr. Adrian Dan.

To start with, the waiting room was jammed this morning and it was practically standing room only. Which when you are standing in a bariatrics office lobby….let me clarify this point…a small bariatrics office lobby…and it is at its capacity of morbidly obese people…I am strying to stay out of the way of walkers, scooters and oxygen tanks. I was also reminded that however I currently feel, I am doing better than a lot of other people. Side note…best line of the morning I overheard…A person coming out from his meeting with the doctor. Boasted he is down a 110lbs (big kudos to him!)…then asked if it was windy out, because he was afraid he would blow away. Bahahahahahahaha!

Click here to read the rest... http://twopoundsaweek.com/2013/03/just-got-thrown-a-curve-ball/

Day 14 Optifast

This is the week where things are all coming to a head and to coin the phrase…shit is about to get real. Yesterday I attended a mandatory 4 hour lecture on what to expect pre-op and post-op. My wife did attend this with me and I think that she walked away from that meeting scared to death. Through out the entire process I have done my homework and there were few surprises for me in meeting. Most of the information that was disseminated yesterday I have read or heard before. Though the fact that once the surgery is done they do not ever want me to chew gum again was a new one for me….I know crazy right? But it is a safety issue, because if you were to accidentally swallow the gum there is a chance that it won’t pass through the system and it has to be surgically removed. So I guess Dentyne will just have to do without my future business. I will admit, while I knew most these things, when it is laid out in front of you, and you know that your surgery date is less than 3 weeks away. I will try to put this as succinctly as possible......http://twopoundsaweek.com/2013/03/where-you-wont-find-happiness/

Well I finished my first full week on Optifast with a cheat last night…well it was sort of a cheat. What was it that finally “did me in” you ask? Was it pizza that I have been in the presence of multiple times since I started? Was it junk food? Chips? Crackers and cheese? Was it a last grasp at something decadent and sweet? Nope it was a fresh oven baked chicken tender crusted with plain corn flakes and some parmesan cheese….okay it was actually 2 chicken tenders and they maybe totaled about 3 oz. in weight. Was it technically a cheat?… yes it was, but I skipped my last supplement of the night and was able to justify it all in my head that I did not sabotage anything too severely. All in all if you look at one of the supplements I was probably pretty close nutritionally with what I had vs. a chocolate peanut butter Optifast bar. Whatever it is I will fully admit that I am now 99.9% compliant and I slept just fine knowing it.

You know the drill if you want to read everything just go here... http://twopoundsaweek.com/2013/03/i-cheated-sort-of/

Day 6 and I am going strong on the mostly liquid Optifast diet. Yesterday I had a stalk of celery with my tomato soup (totally within guidelines of the diet.) I have to tell you, I don’t think celery has ever tasted so good to me. Just to have something that crunched when I bit into it was a treat. So far I have been doing 3-4 shakes, 1-2 soups, and 2 bars a day. So the only actual solids I am ingesting are the protein bars. While they taste pretty good, the volume just doesn’t make up for it. I really try to regulate those to being used as snacks or when my food cravings are the lowest.

When someone hears that I am on a “liquid” diet they all ask if I am starving all the time. One of the things that I have noticed during all of this is that I never have really felt that I am starved, but then again I never feel like I am full or that my appetite is completely sated. It is hard to explain, it isn’t horrible, but it also isn’t the bees knees.

Read the rest here: http://www.twopoundsaweek.com/2013/03/do-you-want-a-cookie-and-other-stupid-questions/

Day 3….going to keep this short sweet and too the point. It will be a long 28 more days. Most people are running around yelling stupid phrases like TGIF (for those in the Ukraine that means that everybody here is pleased that it is Friday…Maybe you know it as TLIF, Thank Lenin it’s Friday?) Any way I am digressing and far from getting right to any point here. Basically I am not really looking forward to the weekend. It is much easier for me to stay compliant on the Optifast diet during the work week. I have a schedule that is fairly consistent and it is easy to keep my compliancy. BTW…a little shout out for me….2 full days, 100% compliant. Let me see what that looks like on Monday and I will report back.

Right now I have had no serious temptations and have done well with regulating my hunger. I am still in the honeymoon “have sex anywhere” phase…I know that is what it is, I just don’t want it to turn into the old married couple “hallway sex” phase too early in this process.  The rest found here...http://twopoundsaweek.com/2013/03/hallway-sex-isnt-all-its-cracked-up-to-be/