Tuesday, March 26, 2013

At Goal Photos and Comments


Well finally after what seems like a lifetime, I guess it has been pretty much, but anyway I can now say I am a man of normal weight. This morning I weighed myself and I was at 168.5 pounds. That brings my weight down to a BMI (Body Mass Index) in the normal range. Even though I have an eventual goal of 165 pounds that is the lowest weight I wanted to attain. My real goal was always to be a normal weight person and I have done it this morning.

Now I am going to continue to try to keep myself under this weight. To do that I think I am going to lose down to 165 pounds so that I have a little wiggle room to gain a pound or two and then lose it again and still stay under my goal of having a normal BMI and that was my goal all along.

Now the hard part starts for me, and that is to keep the weight off. I have never really met a goal weight on any diet I have been on. I just kind of ran out of steam and settled for what ever weight I was then and felt good about my accomplishments. Then as it was for many times even after keeping the weight off pretty much for as long as 8 years, suddenly I get on the scale and I was up maybe 30 to 40 pounds and that discouraged me so much that I just threw in the towel and started eating giant portions again and gained everything I had lost.

I may be fooling myself but I just don’t think that will happen again. After having the surgery in May 9th of 2012, I have not been able to eat more than a cup or so at any one meal. On some solid food like meat, I can only eat maybe 4 ounces, so unless I decide to eat every other hour or something, I don’t understand how I would gain a lot of weight without knowing I was abusing the system. Also my loving wife would kick me where the sun does not shine. So I am a lot more optimistic about my weight future after this surgery than I have ever been.

Please look at the photos I have provided here. The guy on the left, is me at my 70th birthday party. I had been dieting, kind of, just before that photo was taken. I felt pretty good about myself and I had gotten that blue denim shirt and black T for my birthday. Both were a little smaller than what I had been wearing, so I was thinking I was looking pretty good. What do you think? I was sick, very sick. Diabetes way out of control. High blood pressure. Sleep apnea very bad. Heart congestion. Asthma out of control. My knees and feet were failing and I had already had two knee operations. It was getting pretty clear that I was going to be in a wheelchair pretty soon. In other words I was dying and the doctors told me so.

The guy on the right is me now a couple of weeks ago. He takes no medications at all. No diabetes anymore or any of the other problems I was having. All my blood tests come back normal and my doctors and surgeons are real happy with my progress. But not as happy as I am. I am doing things now that I thought I would never be able to do again in my life. I can actually live like a normal person of my age. I can walk, swim, bicycle, dance, and work around the house without feeling like I was going to pass out or have a heart attack.

People are stopping asking me what I did or how much weight I have lost. They are getting used to my new look and that is great. I am treated so much better by other people who have never known me as a fat man. So much more respect, and of all the things I like about my life now maybe that is the best thing. People just give me more respect. And I am more confident in myself and don’t feel ashamed when I meet people face to face. I always felt they were judging me as a less worthy person because of my weight. Not anymore I am thinner than most of the people I meet now.

I feel very fortunate that I was given this new tool in my life. I have wished for it for a long time, and I resolve to not abuse it or waste the time of all those who have helped me by doing things or eating things that I know are contrary to what I have been taught. This has truly been a learning experience and I know myself so much better.

Thank you all who have helped and encouraged me and I owe you a debt of gratitude I may never be able to repay but I will try by giving my experiences and encouragement to other going down the same path. Thank You All my Family and Friends.   

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Kind of Down Today


I am kind of disappointed today. I wanted to be at my BMI goal of 169 pounds but just missed it. Oh well, I am sure next weigh-in I will make it. To be honest, I am getting a little nervous about losing more weight as already I am getting kind of skinny. The bones in my body are starting to stick out all over. My ribs are showing and I can almost feel my internal organs when I lay down. If some of the excess skin was gone, I think I would be way under weight and the normal BMI figures do not take that into consideration. I hope I am not really hurting myself trying to get to this goal at my age. But ill health or not, I am going to try my best. I have never really made my weight goal in my life. I have always stopped just short. This time I am hell bent on doing it. I have a final goal of a few pounds under normal BMI so I have some wiggle room, but if I don’t make that, that will be OK as long as I stay in the normal BMI. I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, sure hope it is not a train. 

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Did My Hobby Make Me Fat?


As many of you who know me, I am now and have been involved in Amateur Radio (Ham Radio). I have been doing it from the time I was 15 years old and continue to this day. It may have been one of the things that contributed to my weight problems. It is a kind of a sedentary type hobby where a lot of sitting as listening and not doing much movement. Even Golf which I did a little would have given me more exercise. Sometimes Jackie would bring my dinner to me in my ham shack, I would eat it, and not even remember it. No wonder I was fat. I would eat a big meal, not remember it and get another big serving or two. 

Anyway I still love to contact many of my friends all over the world and renewing many friendships on a daily basis. Of course many young people use cell phones and computers to do about the same thing. But that fact that I have built the facility that does the communications gives me a lot of satisfaction. I did not build all the boxes like the transmitter or receiver, but I put all the components together and set them up correctly. I have been very successful in the hobby and have worked and confirmed every country in the world. 

An organization that regulates many of the activities of hams is called the ARRL (American, Amateur Radio League). They have a ranking of those hams who have archived high goals in radio especially working distant countries. The part of the hobby is called working DX which stands for long distance communications. They have many awards that the grant to hams who have made progress on working DX. I am proud to say that I am number one on their honor roll, and have worked them all on the list.

These days I try to limit the amount of time I spent working on my radio and try to find other things to give me some exercise. I probably have way to many hobbies and it is a good thing I don’t work for a living anymore as I would not have time for it now that I am retired.