What will we leave behind?

This morning, I am running a temperature and not feeling all that good. Kind of achy and sick to my stomach. I wanted to go swimming, but there are several older folks there who have many serious illnesses and I do not want to give them a bug so I am staying home today and feeling sorry for myself, which I have no right to do as I have been blessed beyond measure in my life.

As I was laying in bed trying to feel better, Jackie was playing music from Pandora on the stereo. Many of the artist she was listening too, have passed but I realized that no matter what their personal life was like, no matter the health problems they may have had, now that they are gone, still millions of people can enjoy and appreciate their music, movies, or books. Whatever they left for humanity will stay with us for years and years. The recent tragic passing of Robin Williams is an example. He struggled from depression apparently for years and finally gave in to the temptation to get out of his pain by taking his own life. But still he will be remembered and loved by many people for a long time.

I have to ask myself, what will I leave for future generations? I know I have a family who will remember me for a generation or two, but did I contribute to society in any meaningful way? I had a lot bigger plan for my life. I wanted to be a doctor and help people. I gave up on that dream. I was talented in music but let that go and can no longer play worth a hoot, so that is gone. I built a data center for law enforcement and a communications network, but that too is long gone and the work I did for 30 years in in the dust bin. So it is easy to get depressed on my current condition in life. 

I will never be famous most assuredly. I doubt I will invent anything that will have an impact on society. I for sure will not leave songs or movies for future generations. So what can I or anyone else, who would be considered a normal person do for future generations? In my case I think it boils down to just a few things. Live as good a moral life as you can. Try to be kind to everyone. But most importantly for me, I believe I and you have a responsibility to tell and leave your stories. That is, document what you and other family members have done with their lives. 


I am involved in the hobby of genealogy and have traced my family back many many generations. In doing so, I have found stories and events that these people have experienced. The sacrifices they have made to make our lives better. Someone needs to carry this on in the future. I will leave my records and stories on-line and in hard copy form and pass it along to someone in my family. Maybe in this way a little immortality can be be achieved and something worthwhile passed on to other people to enjoy. At least I hope so. 

Two Year Out, Checkup

I had my two year checkup yesterday with my surgical team. All tests came back very good. The dizziness I have been having sometimes they feel was because I was a little dehydrated. I am still within 6 pounds of my lowest weight and that is fine and to be expected. They weighed me dressed of course and even with all my cloths on I was just a fraction over my desired BMI. But I normally weigh on each Tuesday in my underwear and then I am within normal on the BMI scale.

I have been taking a medication for cholesterol. Because my tests came back and my cholesterol was so low they felt I should not take that medication anymore. So other than the meds I take for heartburn, I have no prescription medications at all. What a change from the days of taking a tray of meds and insulin shots 3 times a day.

The past two years have gone by very fast and the changes in my life and corresponding health have been amazing. I just hope it all continues and feel good about the prospects.  

WLS and How Long You Will Live

There have been many benefits I have had because of my weight loss surgery. I have talked about many of them on this blog before. Other than the heartburn problems which I am working with my doctors to find a cause and cure, things have been pretty uneventful for me. 

I really believe that by now without the surgery there would be a good chance that I would not have been living, or at least living a greatly diminished life . The weight was causing heart failure and the diabetes was getting way out of control. Yes I was dieting and losing some weight and felt I was on the right path when I found out about WLS, but if history is any teacher, I probably would have regained the little weight I had lost and added more. That had been my pattern for most of my life. 

Now two years out, when I tell people what I used to weigh they can not believe it. I never thought I would be one, who does not want to tell people about my past weight loss. I used to scoff at those who got upset when relatives or friends tell other about their weight loss. But now I can see that we want to be looked at as just normal weight persons and don’t want to concentrate on past problems. That my be sticking my head in the sand, and maybe I am over confident about my ability now to stay at my weight, but after 2 years of not gaining much back I am feeling much more confident about it.  

In thinking about my mortality, I always felt I would live a long life as many of my ancestors lived to be very elderly. My mother for instance seen here on this page is going to be 96 this summer. My grandfather also seen here, was 98 when he passed. And as a genealogist I can tell you that I have had many relatives in the past live to close to 100 years old. So I always thought I would live long. But I never really thought about the fact that most of those who lived long lives including my mother and grandfather were slim people and did not have things like diabetes. I liked to ignore those facts when considering how long I might live. But being more realistic I can see that my chances were not that good unless I lost the weight and taken care of my other health issues.   

My grandfather
he looked pretty much like this
when he was in his 90s

My mother as she was in her 70s

Of course non of us can predict what the future holds for us. Just this week two neighbors were on vacation in Hawaii and were killed in a car crash. Unforeseen circumstances can change for us almost over night, but considering that if you are living with excess weight and the other health issues associated with it, your chances of living a long productive life are greatly diminished. Do not fool yourself into thinking as I did that family history will take care of you, because it wont. 

Making Progress

Well it has been over a month from the time I posted to this blog. It is not that I have stopped having interest in what my life is like after bypass surgery, it is just that because of the surgery I can do so many other things that I was just unable to do before.

As I have noted before, we are remodeling our home. Just now the kitchen is the main part we are doing. When I say we, I mean my wife Jackie and me. I do not have the money to pay someone else to do the work. As it is now we have about $6,000 invested in the things we had to get so far to bring our home up to modern standards. Can you imagine how much it would have cost if I could not have done the work. So not only has the surgery improved my life, it is saving me money.

Working on the kitchen. What a mess

We are living in a construction mess right now. If you know my wife, you can appreciate how hard it is on her to have the house a mess. She is the kind of housekeeper who will vacuum the same floor more than once in a day if she feels it is messy.

Old tile gone waiting to put hard flooring down. 

The old tile floor and underlayment has been removed from the kitchen and dinning room and just yesterday we got the new hardwood flooring to put down. We have to let it get accustomed to the environment for 3 days before I start to nail it down. I have never done that before but have the tools and have watched many U-Tube videos showing others doing it and I feel confident that I can do it as well.

Before surgery I would not have had the energy to do these tasks and would have collapsed in a pool of perspiration on the floor if I tried. If you are like I was way over weight and sick and can find any way of having the surgery, please do what you can, to get it done. You will not regret it. That is of course if you use the great gift of the surgery to modify your life and change you habits. Without doing that the surgery is a waste of time and effort. It is not magic, but if you follow the rules and do as you are directed to do, you too will be able to do things like I have talked about here without worry about killing yourself.  

Not a Freak Anymore

I am not a young man, but I still think of myself as young and think I look younger than my 72 years. Because of my weight loss surgery, I feel I am in better heath than I have been in many years. I still have the normal aches and pains one would expect when I do something physical hard to do. I have also lost some muscle mass while losing the weight. I can no longer depend on my ability to use my muscles to do as much as I used to a few years ago. Even with the weight I had I was always very 

strong and could just about move mountains.  

I graduated from Puyallup High School in 1960 and then went on to college and started a family. I did not see most of my high school classmates until our 10th year reunion. Looking at the group then we had survived petty well, still a good looking group. We had not lost many to death and did not know of any of our boys who were lost to the war that was going on at the time in the far East. 

In 2010 of course we had our 50th class reunion and as expected we were looking a lot older. I could hardly recognize many who were there and I am sure they could not recognize me either and I had to reintroduce myself to them many times. Of course the thin athletic boy that had lots of hair was now fat and bald so I do not blame them at all. I had tried to lose a little weight before the reunion, and had been able to get a size 48 pants on. They were tight but on. I thought I looked pretty good but of course I was fooling myself. But I was not the only one who had gained a lot of weight and lost their hair. We had also lost a few classmates to death as would be expected but really just a few. 

I had not heard from most of the classmates again from the time except for a few who were my“friends” on Facebook. I found out from one of those friends that a group of people were still meeting once a month at a Puyallup restaurant and kind of having a monthly reunion of sorts. With the prompting of one of these friends, I attended the meetings this past week at Charlies Restaurant in Puyallup. 

After loosing about 150 pounds I had to reintroduce myself again but this time I was one of the thinnest ones there. I did not have to feel embarrassed about my appearance anymore and that was great. I would just sit back and enjoy the company of my classmates without feeling like a freak Actually I think Jackie who went with me and I were the best looking couple there. Probably predigest with that statement but I did enjoy the attention. I over heard one of the guys say how good I looked now to another classmate. I don’t think he knew I could hear his comments. He told the other guy he looks great now but he used to be huge, and that was a true statement but he did not know how huge I had been as he never saw me at my hugest 

Anyway I am so thankful for the surgery and now I feel I can live a normal life and interface with old friends and family without feeling I am the biggest elephant in the room. 

Thankful

I am so happy with how I feel most of the time these days. I have so much energy and actually look for things to do around here all the time. Jackie is amazed at how much better I am in getting things done.

But I do have a few problems that I have talked about before. I am continually having acid reflex. I have talked to my surgery team about it, and they gave me some medicines for it, but so far I still have an occasional problem. It normally happens while I am sleeping, I upchuck acid into my mouth and esophagus. It hurts like hell and most of the time I have to get out of bed to clear it. I will eat a couple of soda crackers or drink something and it seems to calm it down a little but I lose sleep over it and feel kind of weak the next day. I am going to be a little more aggressive with my doctors and see if I can find what is causing this problem.

Many of our friends, who are about our age, are having more health problems than either Jackie or I are having. Some very major problems and I sometimes feel guilty about complaining about my little problems when I have been lucky enough to not suffer any big ones myself.

Of course almost everyone these days will develop some problem they are going to work on before they finally die of something. I guess it comes down to quality of life and each day we are given to enjoy the things we do. Our health systems are good enough these days that people even with major problems are able to go on for years and still have a pretty good quality life.

Years ago many things people are living with would have meant almost immediate death of at least a pretty miserable life until they eventually died. But today medicine is advanced enough to extend our lives in better ways. And for that and the surgery I had, I am most grateful.

Phase one is done!!!!!

Boy am I tired but happy. I got the first part of our home remodel project completed and I am proud of how it turned out. We only spent about $1200 on the job and paid as we went so no credit cards were used. This is only about a third of the total project. Next is the kitchen and it is going to be a lot more money to say the least. Some new cabinets, new appliances, new floors, new paint and trim. So I am going to have to put away as much money as I can for the next few months so that I can afford the project. Jackie is still trying to decide on exactly what she wants for flooring and counter tops. That will go a long way in determining how much it is going to cost. Stay tuned.

I lost the little weight I gained over the holidays and am under my goal weight again which was 168 lbs. I had to cut my calories down quite a bit to lose the weight but now I am back on my normal schedule. If I should go up a little from time to time I intend on cutting back for a week or so to control it. The key is to weigh and measure everything very closely and to take actions if needed by cutting back for a time.

With Spring coming on I will also have to do a lot of work in my yard and home on the outside. So that coupled with my swimming that I still do 3 times a week will increase my exercise activities and burn a few more calories so my weight will probably stabilize more.

It is hard to believe but the anniversary of my RNY surgery for two years is coming up soon. Two years ago this time I weighed over 325lbs and thought I was doing good, as that was down form what I had weighed a few months before. What a difference in my life the surgery has made possible. 

Doing things I wanted to do for a long time.

I have been quite busy lately and that is one reason I have not updated this blog for a time. I have also been sick. Seems like I have been sick from just before Christmas until now and I am still a little under the weather in some respects. In fact I am a little discouraged because I was under the impression that after losing about 147lbs my health would be much better. In most respects it is, no more diabetes and high blood pressure for instance, but this past couple of months I have been sicker than I have been for years even when I was over 300 lbs.

Anyway lately Jackie and I have started the refurbishing of our home. We are going to paint most rooms and put new flooring in as well. We are starting in our laundry room and back bathroom as the floor in those rooms is very bad. We have not painted the walls for over 20 years at least. Well as of this date the rooms have been painted and the flooring is mostly in. We have elected to use vinyl tile called Ultra for the floors. It looks like wood but is resistant to water and other things you would expect to be on the floor in a laundry room. So far it looks very good, but a little harder to install than was advertised.

As many of you may know I am a Ham radio operator and that is my main hobby. I got a new radio for Christmas from Jackie. It was in a kit form and I had to build it. It turned out wonderful and I am enjoying using it. I was able to put it together without any problems and my old eyes and hands were able to get the job done.

My weight has stayed stable over the holidays. I was up about 4 to 5 pounds but I am on the way of losing that now. I am happy with my weight and even with a few pounds back from the normal regain you have in my kind of surgery, I am stabilizing and people are telling me I don’t look sick. I guess when I was still loosing and my face was very hollow I kind of looked like I had some terrible illness and now I look much better. I can tell you one thing and that is that if I had not lost the weight I did there would be no way I could do the work around here that I am doing. The surgery and all that goes with it is still one of the best things that I have done in my life for myself. I would for sure do it again. 

Happy Thin New Year

Well I made it through Christmas and New Years without gaining much weight. I think I am up about 4 pounds but will be taking that off soon. This year I could eat much more than last year, but still not what I used to eat like.

Because of the surgery, my stomach (now called pouch) is much smaller than most peoples stomachs, and last year I will still recovering from surgery so it was hard to eat more than a small amount of food at one time. This year I could eat more but was satisfied much sooner.

But I did not deprive myself of any of the holiday things that make life fun. We even baked a few cookies but have most of them to the grandkids an folks we had for our Christmas eve dinner we have each year.

Normally New Years is a time we would get bags of potato chips and pig out that day. We did not have one chip this year and in fact the only treat we had was a piece of cheesecake we had left over from the Christmas dinner. Even that was too much and I tossed half of the piece I had away.

We are just now starting on our big project for the year and that is to remodel the house. At least we are going to redo the laundry room, small bathroom off the laundry room, my ham shack, the family room and the kitchen. Mostly all we plan on doing is painting and putting in new flooring. We will be modifying the kitchen cabinets and getting some new appliances but basically like the other rooms it will be painting the walls and putting down new flooring.

We are going to use venial flooring in the laundry room because of having so many wet things in there we were afraid that wood would warp so we went with venial flooring. We are also thinking about replacing the ceramic tile in the kitchen with the same kind of flooring we plan on using in the laundry. The family room will probably have hardwood.

I have a lot of work to do and I hope I have the energy to do it all and get the house back in shape for another 40 years. 

Christmas Past

Grandma Bea

When I was a kid, I was very lucky in that I had wonderful loving parents and grandparents They all lived in the same town and in fact one set of grandparents lived just a few doors down on old 4^th Avenue.

Christmas time was always special and the family loved to gather together for all kinds of celebrations of the time. It was a magical time for us kids as our parents and grandparents did everything possible to make the holiday special for us. The family and extended family all got along very well and there was none of that kind of behavior where you could not invite some parts of the family as they did not like other parts etc. We all loved each other and that was very obvious.

Our Grandmothers and mom went out of their way to make things us boys loved for Christmas. We are talking about eatable things here like pie, cake, cookies etc you get the idea. Boys have a bottomless pit when in comes to things like that, and our grandma’s could bake like nobodies business.

My grandma Bea lived just down the street from our house. She was a lot like a second mom to us. She always made a special apple spice cake with creamy frosting each Christmas. Her house was filled with the smell of this wonderful creation each year and we looked forward to gorging ourselves on it. We had it every year.

One year however, grandma Bea was very sick and confined to bed during the Christmas season. No cake this year that was for sure. I was attending college and did not know my grandmother was that sick. We visited with her during Christmas as she could not make or come to any of the other dinners. We did all we could to make her Christmas as good as we could under the circumstances.

After Christmas as I was getting ready to go back to college on the train, my dad just before we left for the station suggested that I go say goodbye to Grandma Bea. When I got to her house she was in bed, but asked me to go to the kitchen to get a package for me. When I got there sure enough she had managed to get out of bed long enough to make me that wonderful apple spice cake. She had wrapped it all up in an old pillow case and it was still warm to the touch and of course the smell was heavenly. I thanked her and of course said, she should not have gotten out of bed just to do that but that I appreciated what she did and would enjoy the cake on my train trip back to college.

My mother had prepared a thermos of chocolate milk for me to have with the cake and off I went on the train. The train pulled away from the station and I could see my mom and dad waving goodbye to me as we chugged down the tracks. Somewhere along the way, I smelled that wonderful cake and took a little taste. That is when I had an epiphany. I really realized how loved I was. Unrestrained, unrestricted, unabashed love. I knew for sure that my parents and grandparents loved me. I knew for sure that I would never do anything in my life that would cause pain to my grandma’s or parents. How could I ever betray the love and sacrifice they had shown to me?

Those feelings and reassurance of that apple spice cake day have stayed with me for the rest of my life. It is not the big expensive gifts that we remember, it is the seemingly small gestures like this one that mean so much more as time goes by.

By the way grandma Bea did recover and lived many more years and helped raise my oldest daughter.

May we all remember and have much love for each other this Christmas season is my prayer for you all.  

Getting ready for Christmas

Well the Thanksgiving holiday is over now on to Christmas. Everything went real well at our dinner here at our home, at least nobody complained. I was able to eat a little more this year than I did last year, but still not what anyone would call a normal meal for a person. Very small portions and no seconds on anything.

I did not gain any weight but I did not lose either and that is my goal. I am at the weight I want to stay at. Between 161 and 164.

We have some of the food bought for the Christmas dinner but not all of it. We figured out what the food and other things cost for Thanksgiving and it was about $250.00. Kind of hit on the old budget but it was worth it to us to have our family here with the exception of those who live too far away.

Christmas shopping and such is taking a lot of our time these days. I am buying most of Jackie’s presents on line. I can not tell you what I got her here because she reads this blog and I do not want to spoil it for her. I know what she got me, and I will talk about it after Christmas. It was something technical and she could not have ordered it without my help. So it is here but Santa will not let me open the box until after Christmas. Most of Jackie’s presents are here but one and I am having a dickens of a time getting that one. The first place I ordered it on line I think was a scam. They were supposed to send me a update when it was shipped but nothing has been forwarded to me about the status. All they will say is that it will take 10 to 14 work days before it shows up. Next Thursday will be 14 days and if I don’t have it I am going to see if I can get the charges back from my credit card company and PayPal. In all the years of getting stuff on line I have never had the problem I am having now. If I don’t get it I will tell you the name of the online company so you can avoid it in the future. Just in case I ordered the same product from a more reputable company and it is scheduled to be here this coming Monday so Jackie will get what I ordered and I may have to send one back.

That is about it from here, except I am sick. Like a very bad cold or flu. Hope I feel better soon. 

Another Thanksgiving after WLS

Jackie will again be working her little tail off getting things in the house ready. She will be scrubbing and polishing everything to make it look nice in the house for our guests. She is always so concerned that there may be a piece of lint or something out of place. She will vacuum the floors at least 10 times before everyone get here. Well maybe that is an exaggeration, just 5 times.

I am more concerned about the food and making sure it is ready and cooked correctly. Jackie and I will work together as we always to get it all done. As we get older it is harder and harder to set up and prepare a big shindig like this each holiday season. We will be doing it again on Christmas and probably New Years as well. Buy we love having the family around and will hold the festivals here as long as we can. One year as I remember when the girls were all in school and nobody else was coming to our home for Thanksgiving, we went to a restaurant and had a buffet. It was good, but it was just not the same with the family all around laughing and having a good time, so we would just as soon continue with what we do for as long as we can.

This will be my second Thanksgiving after my WLS. I plan on having a little more this year than I did last year as far as volume of food. I can tolerate a little more these days but still will have a hard time eating more than would be on a small salad plate. But I am going to have more than a square inch of pie like I did last year. However I know what will happen if I over eat and I have to make sure I have nothing after about 7:30 in the evening or I will suffer with heartburn all night and I definitely do not want that.

Everyone have a great holiday and please remember those family members and friends who are not with us physically anymore and be thankful for the family and friends you will enjoy being with this year. 

Had Another Birthday

Well yesterday was my 72^nd birthday. I had a wonderful day and enjoyed best wishes from many friends and family. I am still very amazed that I have lived this long and I am looking forward to many more years.

It really was quite an achievement in that my mom was told that I would be very lucky to live to the age of about 35 years as I had very bad asthma as a child. Two different times my heart stopped when I was in the hospital and had to have it started again while I was there. In those days they didn’t have those paddles that they shocked you back to life again, they had to take a long needle and inject adrenaline into your heart through my chest cavity. But thankfully, asthma has pretty much left me as I got older and other than a small spell when I eat something I know I am allergic too.

Anyway my life now is much better after WLS even though it was just 2 yeas ago before the surgery. I can eat most anything I want but still not much more than about a cup of solid food, and I am full. But I could eat that amount several times a day and of course I would gain weight again. So I still must be very careful not let my addiction to food overcome me and I know it has the ability to do that if I give it a chance and don’t weigh and measure everything I put in my mouth.

Yesterday my mom, who is 95 took me to dinner. Because it was Veterans’ Day many of the restaurants were very full. I did not want to spend a lot of time waiting for a table, and my mom has a lot of problems with her legs and hips so I did not want her to have to spend a lot of time getting something to eat. So we went to an Asian buffet here in my town that is quite large and can serve many people very quickly. Well that was a mistake. I was told never to try something in a place like a restaurant that you have not eaten before. Well I did not follow that advice and had some things that I had not had before and I got very sick. I thought I was going to through up but did not want to do it in the bathroom at the restaurant so I was just sick and it seemed like hours before everyone else to finish eating and go home. We did finally go home and I was able to start feeling better.

But all and all, I had a good day and I am looking forward to many more years now that I have a body that can do just about anything I really want to do. I am going to be getting ready to do a lot of remodeling of our home just after the holidays and really looking forward to it as I know now I can do what just two years ago without the WLS would have been impossible. 

Bored

Well one thing I am learning is that if you want to keep your weight off, it is much easier to do if you can keep yourself busy. When the weather around here was good, I could always find something to do around the yard. But now the normal weather for this time of year is in full force and it is too cold and wet to be outside much.

Now because I am somewhat bored, I find myself thinking of eating something all the time. I have been pretty successful as there are not many things in the house that would be that bad for me to eat unless of course I ate a lot of them. We now have herbal tea each day at about 2 PM and will usually have a shortbread cookie with the tea. I of course count the calories in my daily menu plan and record it on MFP, but still it would be easy to eat many of them during the day and that would lead to problems.

There are only so many things I want to look up or access on my computer. Only so much time I want to spend on my other hobby amateur radio. After that I find myself looking for something to do around the house to keep my mind off of eating something because I am bored.

It is my birthday in a couple of days and Jackie got me a home weather station. It is fun to set it up and play with it a little and it did take me away from boredom for a time, but now I have to look for more things to do. I put the weather station on my computer so I can see the display better and it gives me more details than the regular control panel can have on it. I also registered and put my station on the Weather Underground and you can find it on the internet by searching for stations in Lacey, Washington. The name of my station is Slum of Lacey.

Of course we have the Thanksgiving holiday coming up soon and then Christmas so I will be kind of busy during those times, but they involve food so I also got to be extra careful that I do not over indulge with all that great stuff we have around.

After the first of the year, I will start putting in new floors in the house, painting, and remodeling the kitchen a little so for quite a few months until Spring, I will be very busy doing those tasks so I will not have much time to be bored and will probably wish I could actually be bored again. 

Fatso Run, Fatso Run?

I think many of us who have ventured into the world of weight loss over the years have heard of the “ Domino Effect”. To illustrate what I mean by this is something you do in life, had an effect on something else you are doing or trying to do.  

I have friends, and I have done this too, who are struggling trying to lose weight. Many are like me in the past way overweight, not just pleasingly plump, so to speak. In my case way over 300 pounds.

Everyone preaches that you got to exercise to get the weight off. I have no problem with that statement. But here is the kicker. What is exercise? If you are way overweight, and decide on going on an aggressive exercise program at your present weight some bad things happen, at least they always happened in my life.

You may lose weight at first, in some cases quite rapidly. This fact may even motivate you to even up what you are doing. But eventually what happens is that your stress your already over burdened body and it breaks down somewhere. Most of the time in my life that meant my legs. Torn muscles, or tendons are common. Feet also take a beating if the exercise program includes running or fast walking. The damage you do will not only effect you right away, the damage will linger into your later life. I have had both knees repaired and my back still suffers from my routine of running at least 6 miles every other day that I did.

Eventually because of the pain and injury, you stop the routine or in your mind only suspend it. But slowly the weight that you lost in this effort comes right back on and maybe even more and you go into what I call the “ Oh Well What the Hell Mode”. This is where you tell yourself I don’t need to be skinny, life is short, may as well eat and do what I want. Does this sound familiar?

The problem is the Domino Effect. Body breaks down, so weight comes back on. I know it is discouraging and everyone says you got to exercise to lose weight. And I agree with that……. BUT.

But you must, in my opinion, diet your way down with very moderate exercise first. You have to find the caloric level of eating that will allow for fairly fast weight loss and only do light exercise until you have reduced your body mass down quite a bit. In my case I lost from over 300 pounds down to about 225 before I felt that when I exercised that I was not stressing my body anymore. I could workout without having my heart beating very fast, and my legs and feet were not feeling an excessive amount of pain and what pain I had only lasted for a short time.

I am not a doctor so I can not advise you of what weight you should be before you can do strenuous exercise, so best to get the opinion form a professional. Once your body mass is low enough you will be able to workout without doing long term damage. You can continue to diet and work out but now you will be able to accelerate your weight loss with the exercise and not hurt yourself and slump back into not being able to do physical things, which will defeat your weight loss efforts.

It is a balancing act, cause and effect. Just don’t go to far on eater leg. Not too much exercise without dieting first. And then and only then can you up your activity. Not the other way around.

This has been my experience over the last 50 years or so of weight problems for me. I hope it helps you. 

New Weight Loss Help

Jackie and I recently got a new device to cook our food. We are always looking at improving how and what we eat. Especially now that I have had WLS it is important that I have very little fat. We have always cooked our meat on an open rack in the oven letting the drippings fall into another pan under the rack and getting as little as possible retained in the meat.

There is just the two of us in the house and when we cook meat in such a small amount. It is not very cost and time effective to use the big oven to cook just 4 ounces of food for each of us. We were looking at a way of being more effective and to be honest our oven is very old and Jackie does not like having to clean it so often. 

A friend of mine had tried several of these cooking devices like the ones you see on late night TV. He actually bought most of the popular brands and used them for some time. After doing an evaluation he decided that the best device he used was the cooker manufactured by Sharper Image. 

Jackie and I got one and we agree that it is very good. It cooks the food very quickly and has a rack so that the excess fat falls to the bottom of the big glass bowel. You can cook the meat or what ever you want even frozen. It takes only a very short time and the energy use and clean up is just great. The meat is browned and crispy if you want it that way. We even do fries in it and they are crispy on the outside and soft and tender on the inside. 

In our mind this is a very good device if you want something that cooks things very fast and well. It makes life a lot simpler and costs less in energy and cleanup is much faster. The Sharper Image has a large glass bowel that is kind of heavy, but it will last longer than some that have some kind of plastic bowels. It is large enough that you could cook a complete meal in  it and it would work for a larger family if you need that. 

For Jackie and me, it fit’s the bill very well, and we love it. 

Burp!!!!

Things around here are pretty much returning to normal. My weight is stabilizing, I weigh every other week on Tuesdays. I bounce up or down a pound of two but for the most part I am still under my goal weight but not losing to a dangerous area any more. I am still having big time problems with heart burn or over active stomach acid problems. They are better than they were when I was on vacation. Seems like they come on when I am hungry or it has been awhile from the time I had something to eat and my stomach is empty. 

The Doctor is sending me for some tests next Tuesday. The kind of tests where you drink some yucky stuff and they take pictures of it going through your system. He for some reason thinks I am having a blockage or something like that. I don’t think so as I have no problem eating anything these days. In fact I am worried that I am eating too much. I do weigh and measure everything and log it into MY Fitness Pall software on the internet, but still I worry that the weight will start to creep up on me. 

We paid off all our vacation bills I think. We did charge some things while we were in England, got the bill and paid it, but there still may be a few linger changes still out there. It cost us a lot more than we had planned, but we had a wonderful time and the memories will last us for the rest of our lives. 

Now on to working on the house. Going to put new floors in most of the rooms and paint. We are still not sure what we are going to put in the kitchen but one thing for sure is that Jackie wants a new stove so I will be working on the cabinets to make room for a slide in gas oven and stove top. We will be working on that just after the first of the year. First we have to get though the holidays and have them paid for, then we can buy the supplies needed and get to work. I hope to have it all done by April. Wish me luck. 

Sometimes Computers Stink

I have not posted much lately because some @#$%@#%#%$ hacked my web site and I have had to rebuild it completely. Looks like they came in via a script entry. I am not sure but the only way I could get it all out was to delete the site and start rebuilding it.

It was kind of a blessing in disguise as I had a lot of hanging orphaned files out there that needed to be cleaned up and I wanted to do a re-design anyway so now was a good time.

I am taking steps to make sure this does not happen again, however if hackers can break into the Pentagon, I am sure they can hack me if they want to. But why would anyone want to spend the time hacking a personal family web site. I have no “hot topic” things on it that I can think of that would make anyone mad, but who knows these days with so many nuts out there.

Anyway that is why I have been kind of skinny on this blog. I hope to get back to normal again.

And my progress on my WLS is going fine, except after my vacation in London, I gained a pound, but now this last week I lost a pound and a half, so I am back in the hole again. I am almost 10 pounds under my goal.

I am trying to eat more and have an additional snack, but I am still very afraid of eating a lot because I start to feel I am grazing when I have 3 meals and 2 snacks during a day. But the scale is not telling me I am gaining so I guess I should just stop worrying about it.

Back to working on the web page. Go here to see my progress.

http://www.w3oz.com

Thanks

Our Trip to London England

Jackie and me in London

Well, well, well, what a month of August it was for us….Jackie and I. As I posted in July we had a party for our 50th anniversary. As part of our celebration, we had planned for over a year to go someplace we have always wanted to go and that was England.

Both my genealogy and Jackie’s have many roots in England. We had heard of all these famous places like Stonehenge, Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London for example. Well we saw them and much more. What a wonderful time we had during our time there which was only 8 days but that was plenty and we saw everything we had planned on seeing.

We had a formal tour ran by a wonderful company called Globus. The tour guides were more like college history professors. I think I learned more about England than I had ever expected to know. They were just wonderful and the accommodations were top notch.

The only thing we did not like was the English cooking. Someone has to introduce them to some of the spices of the world. To be blunt, it was as bland as could be and some of the food was just not eatable.

A funny story happened while we were there. We had both wanted a good English meal of Fish and Chips. Well our first day there we went to a pub and ordered F&C. What came was pretty good chips, but the fish, well let me say was like an old thin piece of road kill, very flat with the skin still on it. It was as hard as shoe leather. The batter on the fish was not even done and very bad tasting. I could not eat mine and just had a few chips.

Well along our tour we ran across another place and again ordered F&Cs. But we did not pay enough attention and did not notice that the fish was going to be fish patties, not what we had expected. Again the coating on the fish was hard and burned, but the actual fish or what ever it was kind of ran off the plate. It was awful and we again ate some of the chips but left the rest.

Well we were getting the feeling we were not going to find any good F&C in England after all. We got to a city by the name of Salisbury, They have a very old and big cathedral there that we visited. It was very impressive. As I was leaving one of the people who worked there as a greeter asked me how our tour was going. Now I know this man had know idea who I was other than I was an American tourist. I said great we just loved what we were seeing, except we were disappointed that we were unable to find a good F&C dinner. He said well I can tell you were you can find the best F&C in the world. I expected him to say some restaurant there in England. But no he said, the best I have ever had was at Ivor’s in Seattle Washington. He said I have been there many times and believe me they are the best. I could not believe what he said. I told him I have had that dinner many times and expected to find some better in England. He said to his knowledge there is non better in England.

But on our next to last day there we did find a good F&C dinner at a restaurant in the Hilton hotel we were staying in. Kind of expensive, $100 counting the tip but at least it was good. Actually more than I could eat.  I did my best to stay on my program and I have not weighed myself yet, I plan on doing that next Tuesday as that is my normal day to weigh, but I don’t think I have gained anything. Jackie put on about 3 pounds but it is already coming off.

I am just so happy that I had the WLS so I could walk and enjoy the tour. A little over a year ago I would have never been able to take this tour without skipping many of the tours because I would have been too heavy and my legs and feet would not have been able to carry me along. This time, I had absolutely now health problems, and I was not tired or sick at all.

But we want to stay home for awhile now and work on our home and get it in shape. We plan on taking another tour in a few years but for now we just love looking at the 529 photos I took and the hours of video so we can remember the great time we had.

Our Big Party

Well we had our big 50th wedding Anniversary party here at our home that was put on by our daughters. They did just a wonderful job and I am so proud of them. A father could not expect a better bunch of daughters. They are all different in personalities, and talent. But deep down inside they are, to sum it up just nice, compassionate and caring people. 

What they did for us was just wonderful. We had some old friends over and many of our family. There were other events going on that day that some of our close friends had to attend because their kids were in them, but all and all our best friends showed up and we had a great time. 

The girls surprised us with many great gifts other than the food and other things they had arranged. They gave us photo albums, and pictures of Jackie and I over the years. They gave us a very beautiful picture album cover in silver to hold our pictures we are going to take on our anniversary trip to England. But one of the nicest things they gave us was one that did not cost much. They gave us a poster board with comments on it about things they remembered as young gals that meant a lot to them. Some of them I could hardly remember and was so shocked that they would remember these things. Some of them were so touching that they made me cry. I love them so much. 

We went to a photographer shop and had photos taken of our little family just like the one we have hanging on the wall for our 25 anniversary. This time we are just a little older. Our great grandson came here with his mom and we got my mom, the little ones great great grandma and all the rest of us in a 5 generation photo. Not many people can show a photo of them and their gg grandma. She is now 95 and in good physical shape but her mind is starting to drift out a little, but lets hope she is around at least to 100. 

Our new goal is to reach our 75th anniversary. Don’t laugh we are in pretty good shape and now the my WLS and think I have a real chance. 

Will post to you when we get back from England.

But thanks again girls for a wonderful party that we will remember for the rest of our lives.