I'm Brian, and what you see here is usually the product of my warped sense of geekiness. I started the blog to chronicle my struggle against being overweight but I've branched out into social commentary as well as the trials and tribulations of bariatric surgery. When I'm not being snarky on here, I like baseball, music, and travel, as well as keeping up with technology. Oh, and I also have a wee bit of a Lego problem.
I survived Halloween and Supportive Partner Woman (Enlightened!)’s birthday. I mainly did this by sitting in the basement and watching disaster miniseries on Netflix. The quantity of recognizable names that wind up in these epics is staggering. The one I was watching last night, Category 7, was like a Who’s who of B-listers, has-beens and never will bes. You had Gina Gershon (as the director of FEMA… seriously), James Brolin, Robert Wagner, Tom Skerritt (basically channeling his character from Top Gun), Shannen Doherty, and Randy Quaid. The cheese factor alone is epic.
SPW and I have a bunch of work to do to get the Nerd Lair back into full commission. I started by reconnecting all the AV equipment. Luckily everything works, and I didn’t need to rebalance the speakers. Tonight’s project will be to reseal the sump pump hole and start the dehumidifier again. SPW has returned the LPs to their storage spot, and we’ll just keep doing what we’re doing until it’s all back where it belongs.
This would seem to be what Gratuitously Naked Guy is looking for…
The food challenges continue. Working an opposite shift from SPW is a challenge. I’m taking my first step tonight. I have an exercise session in the afternoon rather than the morning and that will should keep me from overdoing it at dinner. Since Wayne is healed up, I should be able to go back to the rec and get serious again. I should just go every day after work and get it over with. As to why I haven’t? I’m think I am a little afraid that Gratuitously Naked Guy will want to strike up a conversation with his junk dangling uncomfortably close to my face as I’m tying my shoes.
I’ll keep you posted on how it goes. Just need to recommit to the path I was on. It’s way too easy to go off track without the support being so close at hand.
Song of the Day: Fire and Rain – James Taylor
Currently Reading: The Panther – Nelson DeMille
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. – Mark Twain
So, I ended the last post saying that I would keep moving forward. Here’s what’s happening.
I got to day work next week. I’ve been working evenings since the beginning of May, and there’s some upside there. Namely getting to see more of Supportive Partner Woman (Sportschick extraordinaire!) and not having to worry about appointment scheduling. The downside is that you miss out on a lot of stuff in the evening and it also really messes with my natural circadian rhythm.
I’m also looking forward to the change in that it gives me more opportunity to cook fish. I love fish, but my co-workers aren’t exactly enthralled when you heat it up in the microwave. Even a plank roasted salmon that primarily smells like wood smoke brings out the great wailing and gnashing of teeth. The challenge, though, will be to not succumb to boredom eating. I’ll either need a second job or some kind of hobby to keep me busy. Sadly, the hobby can’t just be building Legos. That gets to be somewhat expensive.
B-Wing
Speaking of Lego, my most recent project was the B-Wing starfighter from the Star Wars Ultimate Collectors Series. I love the UCS sets… they are usually a more challenging build with lots of pieces and the attention to detail is astounding. They also come with a handy display stand and aren’t plagued with tons of stickers like other lower-end sets. This marks my third UCS set, and while not as challenging as the Imperial shuttle, it still took me a few days to get it together.
One of my main projects will be to adapt to meal planning. All too often, I’m throwing something together with what I have on hand, rather than having what I would really like to have. This will hopefully eliminate the discovery of four year old shrimp in the freezer.
I also have to adjust my workout schedule. My two sanctioned workouts this week are going to be at 7 AM, followed by full shifts. We will see how that winds up going. If it doesn’t fly too well, I can always go after work. I can also walk the neighborhood after work as the temperatures have cooled considerably. It was tough to do in mid afternoon when temperatures and humidity hovered around “boiling”.
All I can promise is that I’ll be making changes. Whether they work remains to be seen. Hopefully it will get the scale moving in the right direction.
I know, its been quite awhile. I started writing this from the laundry room of Disney’s Port Orleans Riverside Resort. I know… I go to such interesting places on vacation. What can I say? It’s a gift.
So, it’s been about a month since I scribbled anything down. Just been crazy busy at Chez T and, well, just nothing really interesting to report. Done some stumbling recently, food-wise, not a serious backslide, but enough that my last doctor visit resulted in just a one-pound loss. In a month. Granted, I wasn’t working out like crazy… trying to keep the tempo down to prepare for our trip. Fat lot of good that did me.
See, after one day of serious walking, with preventative measures in places (Stubby cocooned in moleskin, his counterpart wearing a gel pad), I get a freakin’ blister NEXT TO THE GEL PAD!!!! This, as you can imagine, did not make me happy. Especially not with five days to go.
Supportive Partner Woman (de facto nurse of unparalleled skill!) then decreed an easier pace and began a regimen of rubbing my feet with ammonium lactate cream, which, according to the surgeon, is good stuff. This, coupled with Betadyne and gauze and a lot of moleskin, really enabled me to stay upright. It’s the one blessing of neuropathy… I can’t feel the pain of a blister. Looking back, I thing the problem was due to the crazy high humidity. It made the air chewy and we usually wound up with two showers a day.
So, for us a vacation to Disney World is more about the friends and the food than anything else. We paid two visits to Ohana for meeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaat on a stiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick! There’s an art to eating somewhat healthier at Ohana… that is to view it as a high protein meal. Just keep in mind that when the nice server brings a sizzling skewer of dripping meat, he or she will automatically adjust your request by a factor of three. So, if you would, in fact, like one more piece of steak, make sure you have friends to share it with, because you’re getting three giant pieces.
The food at Ohana is not bad… you start with the Ohana welcome bread, which is a sweet Hawaiian style bread that has a touch of pineapple flavor. Then you get a salad, which would be better with less dressing. It’s positively drowning. I’m pretty sure I saw a lettuce shred clinging desperately to a life ring as its mates all drowned in the Vinaigrette Sea.
The staff follows this with the chicken wings and dumplings. I’m not a huge fan of wings to start with and these are just meh, so I usually pass on them. The dumplings are awesome, though, and it takes a great deal of self-restraint to not totally strap on the feed bag. This is followed with the greens, which consist of snow peas and broccoli that are well prepared. The share a plate with some tasty lo mien.
After the BS is dispensed with, it’s on to the main event. The meat. See, Disney wants you to believe that Ohana means family, but in reality, Ohana means meat. Lots of meat. Lots and lots of meat. We’re talking meat with a capital MEAT. The room is dominated but an open wood fire cooking giant skewers of steak, chicken, pork and shrimp. I love the shrimp. It has a nice level of spiciness without being too much to numb the palate. The steak has a wonderful marinade… not sure what all is in it, other than garlic, Worcestershire sauce and soy sauce. Makes it very bold.
The chicken is pedestrian… not a ton of flavor, probably kept mild for people who don’t care for spice. The pork, though, is not that great. It’s usually a little overcooked and the BBQ sauce is way too sweet for my palate. I think the open fire is simply too hot and dries out the meat. Pork, IMHO, should be done low and slow with just enough sear on the outside to keep the juices in. Here’s a view of the cooking fire in action:
After the gorging is over, they hit you with dessert. They bring a banana bread pudding topped with vanilla ice cream. If that’s not enough, they will dump an Exxon Valdez sized load of caramel sauce on top. I’m lucky, though… since I have dietary restrictions, they usually bring me a nice plate of fresh fruit.
I will provide more food details over the next few days, but suffice it to say that even with all the food, I still managed to lose 2.5 pounds while away. So, not a total loss.
Talk to you again tomorrow.
Song of the Day: Gangnam Style – PSY Currently Reading: The Tombs – Clive Cussler
I went to the gym this morning (and no, I didn’t skip an exercise appointment to work out) and was totally killing it on the elliptical. See, Ryan had told me to not lift on consecutive days and since I’ll be lifting tomorrow, well I made today a cardio day.
Gym was pretty sparsely populated today, so no problems getting my favorite elliptical. It’s the one at the end of the row. I choose that one so the maximum amount people working out next to me is one. Not that I’m antisocial, I just find having people on either side of me messes up my pace. It’s all those years as a band geek.
Anyway, after killing it on the elliptical, I did some time on the bike. It’s hard to get used to, though. I can never seem to get the height of the seat exactly right. That and the muscle groups are subtly different. I don’t have nearly as much endurance on the bike. I’ll get there. Anyway, I went back to the locker room to use the facilities, wash up, and wait for Supportive Partner Woman to be done. That’s when I encountered Gratuitously Naked Guy. Gratuitously Naked Guy (in search of a colony!) is this old guy who likes to parade around the locker room buckass nekked, y’all. It’s the moon, sun and stars in all their wrinkly glory. He likes to hold conversations. Naked conversations. With other guys. With his foot up on the bench. No towel within 50 feet. Just a guy (who looks like The Joker) wandering about the locker room waving his junk all over Hell and creation. I’ve never spoken to him before.
That all changed today.
As I was washing my hands, Gratuitously Naked Guy sauntered over and started the following conversation:
GNG: Say, nice weather out there.
Me: Uh, yes. Yes it is (concentrating on studiously drying my hands)
GNG: (no lie) Come here often?
Me: a few times a week
GNG (who is not exactly what you would call svelte): Good to see overweight people such as yourself here working hard.
Me: Er, thanks?
That’s the truth.
Gratuitously Naked Guy then wandered off on search of another victim. You might be wondering why I actually spoke to the guy. Other than it would be rude to ignore him? Well, I always figure that you should be nice to the crazy naked people. Here’s the funny thing, though… as many times as I’ve seen him touring the locker room, I’VE NEVER ACTUALLY SEEN HIM WORK OUT. In all fairness, I probably wouldn’t recognize him fully clothed. And for the record, he looks a lot like a bloodhound.
So, to anyone out there considering taking up the hobby of trolling the locker room at the gym sans apparel, here’s some advice…
Don’t be that guy.
Song of the Day: Escape – Journey Currently Reading:Steve Jobs – Walter Isaacson
So, after a nice weekend which included a wonderful break to the heat we’ve been having, Monday dawned sunny, cool and breezy. Having been cleared by the physical therapist to attend water Pilates, Supportive Partner Woman wanted to be at the gym by 10:00 for class. I thought that would be an excellent time to go… I could get my cardio in while she was doing the Pilates thing.
I had a great workout. 30 minutes and decent resistance on the elliptical, followed by a training loop on the bike. I’m still leery of the treadmill, as I don’t need a blister relapse before vacation. I finished and waited for SPW to emerge from the pool area. We went home and I was browsing through my calendar, wanting to make sure that my scheduled session was in fact at 11:00 tomorrow. Turns out I made a whoopsie and the session was for 11:00 today. That would be 11:00, or 33 minutes earlier than the current time. So, I skipped my session at the gym because I was at the gym. Sigh.
I called in and Cory had a good laugh at it… I was still pretty mortified. The sad part is that if I hadn’t decided to check, I probably would’ve missed the Thursday appointment as well, thinking it was on Friday.
So, the weekend was pretty good… had an unexpected Saturday off, so SPW and I traveled to Berks County to see her family and I took a side trip to see my mom. See, I’ve been a bad son… I haven’t stopped in to see her for several months. No particular reason, I just got caught up in life. It’s not a good thing, though. There’s more to life than working and not taking enough time for your family. Let’s face it… when it comes down to it, family is all you can really count on.
It was nice to see Mom, though. In a surprise move, she was trying to feed me, but I managed to escape without damage. I had stopped at Chick-Fil-A on the way to her house, as my sugar level was starting to go low. I ordered a #1 with a fruit salad, as opposed to fries, and it was very tasty. I probably should’ve gotten a grilled sandwich, but I felt that I needed the carbs. Three hours later, the blood sugar was going low again, so that necessitated me taking a glucose tablet. That held me off until we had dinner.
Crab quesadilla with onion rings and green beans.
We went to a new place for us, after getting shut out at Bonefish Grille. It’s a place called the Black Knight Tavern and Grille. We’ve been getting mailers from them for a couple of years, just never got around to trying them. Turns out the food is pretty good. Maybe not the greatest cuisine on the planet, but it was serviceable and filling. It also had the advantage of being pretty nicely priced. They offer a couples special. You get an appetizer to share, a choice of two selected entrees, and two small desserts. All for around $25. So, SPW (lover of fine crustaceans!) and I agreed on a crab dip appetizer that was served with some yummy warm bread. For her entrée, SPW went with a grilled swordfish, served with fries and green beans. I opted for a crab quesadilla topped with shrimp, served with onion rings and green beans. Like I mentioned earlier, the food is not haute cuisine. It’s basically pub grub, kicked up a notch. My quesadilla was fresh, loaded with plenty of crab meat. The rings were very crispy, and the only drawback with the beans was that they were a little oily.
Is this place going to earn a spot on our dining rotation? Probably not. The service was a little slow and the ambience isn’t that great. Our server seemed to have a regular in the same room as us and spent most of her time chatting up the regulars rather than attending to her other tables. I also realize that this probably wasn’t the smartest choice in terms of nutrition, but with my sugars running a little low all day, the carbs were probably a good choice. That’s what it all comes down to… making a smart choice. You have to weigh your options and know that if you had ice cream earlier in the day, you’d be better off having a big salad for dinner.
That pretty much sums it up for today. Keep making the good choices… your body will thank you.
Song of the Day: Learn to Fly – Foo Fighters Currently Reading: Return to Atlantis – Andy McDermott
Quote of the Day:
Progress is impossible without change and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. ~George Bernard Shaw
After I actually got decent customer service, Teh Interwebz worked fine for a couple of days. Sunday through Tuesday. Wednesday morning, it was jacked up again. So I called them. When I finally got a live person, I explained the issue, stressing that they were out on Sunday and I still think the problem lies with the modem. As I was on the phone, the modem rebooted itself and things were working. I was told to call back if it happened again. It did. 10 minutes later. I called, spoke to someone different, who insisted on setting up a service appointment. For Friday. Two days with intermittent (at best) Internet service. I reluctantly agreed, still thinking it’s the modem. When I finally got off the phone, I unhooked the modem and reattached the old one. I tested the circuits and no anomalous voltage readings. I let it power up, the AirPort’s green light winked on and the Internet was back.
It’s still back on.
With my (supposedly) EOL Linksys modem from 2003 or 2004.
I have to wonder if Comcast gets a kickback from Motorola on these “recommended” modems. This thing is a piece of shit and I will be taking it back to Best Buy tomorrow. Lord help them if they give me crap about it being open… Admiral Furious might set sail. I might need bail money, so if you have a couple bucks to spare, I’d appreciate the help.
Chicken skewers… all kinds of yum.
Just kidding. I’m gradually getting back on the healthy eating train. Yesterday, I made some chicken skewers for lunch that turned out yummy. I’ll post my marinade recipe below. I usually alternate the meat with slices of green pepper, sweet onion and tomato. I will use mushrooms, too, if I have some in the fridge. I like to get the grill heated up, spray the grates with cooking spray, then back the beat off as soon as I put the skewers on. This allows the meat to get some grill marks and a bit of a sear without overcooking the meat.
I’m on the hook to work Saturday night. Hoping for an unexpected day off, as SPW’s cousin’s daughter (one of our pseudo nieces) is having a birthday. Gotta love that the child likes Legos.
Back to the regular workout schedule next week… I have sessions on Tuesday and Friday. I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve missed the usual setup, with two or three other people. It should help to shake me back out of the funk I’ve been in.
I’m going to wrap it up for tonight… Hope you have a great evening and a better day tomorrow. I leave you with my marinade recipe.
Garlic & Herb Chicken Marinade
1/3 cup water
1/3 cup vinegar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried Italian-style seasoning
1 teaspoon poultry seasoning (optional)
1 teaspoon dried rosemary, crushed
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
In a medium bowl, combine the water, vinegar, oil, garlic, thyme, Italian-style seasoning, poultry seasoning, rosemary, salt and ground black pepper. Mix well and put in a heavy zipper bag along with your chicken breast pieces. Don’t let it go more than 5-6 hours for maximum flavor.
Song of the Day: The Secret of my Success – Night Ranger Currently Reading:For Love of the Game – Michael Shaara
Quote of the Day:
Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon. Doug Larson
So, I might have mentioned Supportive Partner Woman’s wonky back. She’s been dealing with it for five days now, and don’t let it be said that she doesn’t have salt… she went to work four out of those five days. The rest of the time, she was pretty much cuddled up in bed with her best friend, the heating pad. Seeing as it was a holiday weekend, she couldn’t get ahold of the doctor’s office to schedule an appointment. So, I woke her up and she called this morning. She scored a 10:20 appointment and managed to get poked and prodded and x-rayed and scheduled for physical therapy. She’s finally starting to move a little better, but I’m very relieved. I was stressing pretty hard because she was in so much pain. It was hard for me to watch. Let me just say that getting older isn’t much fun.
Otherwise, things are pretty good. Had a decent holiday weekend… didn’t do much, but did manage to chauffeur SPW to and from work. I felt a little better about that as she didn’t have to walk as far as she would’ve had she parked in the garage. I did mostly domestic stuff, laundry, rotated the mattress, all that stuff. I even whipped up a couple of dinners using Stuff From the Fridge. I’m always excited when I can do that… makes me feel like I’m doing something important. The one thing that fell by the wayside was my gym-going. I went over to the Rec on Thursday only to find the fitness center closed for annual cleaning. I was told I was welcome to use the tennis courts, but that wouldn’t do me much good, as I don’t play tennis. I was supposed to have a session with Ryan this morning, but I had to reschedule so I could take SPW to her appointment. I’ve got an appointment tomorrow morning at 8:00. Yes, it’ll be early, but I need to go. I have three weeks until we head off to Florida and I plan to get to the gym as much as possible. The good news is that Cory will be back next week, giving me my usual appointment times and class sizes. Ryan did a heckuva job running the show all by himself, but I’m sure he’s looking for a break.
The other thing that happened was that I wasn’t particularly mindful of what I was eating between meals. I know… NOT a good thing. I think it just made me feel better at dealing with my stress and I didn’t want to do anything else in case SPW needed me for something. My actual meals weren’t too bad… cereal or eggs in the morning, a sandwich for lunch, and a sensible dinner. It was the between meal visits to the fridge for cheese or ham or a tortilla that caused the problems. I need to refocus and remember how good it was feeling.
Well, that about sums it up. Not only is SPW on the way to recovery, Stubby is in pretty good shape. We will see how he does tomorrow.
Song of the Day: Bad – U2 Currently Reading: The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
In my last post, I wrote something regarding our Comcast service. I had written something not intended to be a scathing criticism of Comcast, or of my customer service experience. It was primarily meant as a simple observation. However, someone at Comcast read the post and contacted me to get our issue with the internet straightened out. Let me just say they are serious about this.
I replied via email to their representative. Within minutes I received an acknowledgment of that email and they called not only my cell (which I had with me) but also SPW’s cell AND our home number, I intended to call back once I shook myself out of my morning stupor and before I could do that, they called and are sending a service rep out to the house on Sunday between 10:30 and 12:30. Not too shabby. I will let you know how things go, but I’m very encouraged by the proactive response we’ve gotten to our issue.
Moving on to the topic of the day, I’m sorry to report that SPW is suffering from nasty back pain. This of course had me up worried most of the night… I wound up sleeping in a chair downstairs for a couple of hours. This is where a gym visit will come in handy. Hopefully I will build up enough energy to make it through the workday. On the plus side, it’s a three-day weekend for me, which makes me happy. I’m sad that SPW doesn’t have one, but by working the holiday, she gets some extra days off.
We are rapidly approaching decision time regarding an operation, though. I’m very torn as to what to do. My insurance mandated 6 months are up at the end of October, at which time I could have surgery. I could opt to wait until after the holidays and Reunion, which is what I am leaning toward. Mainly because I’d love one last hurrah at Ohana but also because it really wouldn’t be fair to be on a liquid diet or pureed diet around Thanksgiving. When I say fair, I’m referring to the need to make everyone else at the table watch me eat a half cup of goop. I’m also referring to my mom’s potato filling, which is so good it’s like a food group all its own. The other major question is what type of surgery will I opt for. I know I’ve said in the past that I’m leaning bypass, but I’m not even sure about that anymore. A colleague of mine just went through the bypass operation… I’ll be sure to consult with her before making any hard and fast decisions.
I do hope all my US readers enjoy their upcoming holiday weekend. I wish you all safe travels and happy memories.
What a difference a couple of days make. I was bemoaning my lot in life and talking about a reboot, then I went to the podiatrist yesterday and received some good news. It really made me that much happier, but I am out of the Boot of Shame. This doesn’t mean I’m full court back into the treadmill life. Dr. Miller wants me to stick to low impact stuff for another week or so, give the newly grown skin a chance to strengthen. I was, however, allowed to go back to the elliptical and arc trainers. So, yay me!
Since Stubby the Wonder Toe is out of the Boot, Dr. Miller still recommended cushioning him and, well, he gave me a little padded cuff to put around Stubby. It makes him look like he’s wearing a little g-thug hat. The only downside is that Stubby isn’t quite long enough to wear the padded bandage well, so I’ll stick to moleskin and gauze for cushioning.
I hit the gym today and Ryan had me doing a solid 25 minutes of cardio and working it the entire time. It was only 25 minutes as I had an appointment with the dietician as well. We did 10 minutes on the elliptical, another 10 minutes on the X-Ride and closed with five minutes on the arc. It felt good. I didn’t quite realize how much I missed it, but I started noticing my energy level being down the past couple of weeks.
Anyways, Shauna (dietician) is pleased that even with all that’s been going on, I’ve managed to lose 2.7 pounds. She wants to see me another time before SPW and I go on vacation. I know I can do better, but honestly, as bad a week as I’ve had in terms of food and exercise, I expected to gain weight.
I came home, fired up the grill and cooked up some chicken breast to take for dinner. I made some brown rice to go along with it, accompanied by peas (because it’s the only frozen vegetable I have at the moment. I also made some veggie flatbread pizza for lunch… this time topped with tomato (including one of our own!), mushroom asnd turkey bacon. Turned out pretty good. Shauna suggested that I try turkey pepperoni… thinks I might like it better than the bacon.
One of the other blogs I follow on wordpress, Fat Teacher, has a feature that I’m thinking of borrowing… the author likes to share a song of the day and also what she is reading. It’s a nice way to get a few things out there, and, knowing the music I like, prove how old school I am. So, look for that in future posts.
It’s about time to head off to work… hope I can write some more tomorrow.
I was working on a post yesterday… I’m kind of glad I never finished it, because it was really gloomy and doomy and full of self-pity. It was just an all around lousy sort of day. I was supposed to have a day off to spend with Supportive Partner Woman, but due to circumstances beyond our control, I wound up at work. I was set to spill all sorts of venom across the bandwidth.
Why the sudden change, you may ask?
Besides taking the Boot of Shame out for a limp, I was listening to my iPod when it showed again just how smart it is. The Shuffle setting spit out a song that just made me smile.
There’s something about “New Song” that just makes me grin. Maybe it’s that bouncy beat, or the sort of uplifting lyrical message. Maybe it’s the fact that Howard Jones was my first concert, way back in 1985. It was at the Tower Theater… pretty cool stuff.
Regardless, the day did get better.
Today was another butt- kicking session. It’s amazing how much my outlook has changed on exercise. Now that I’m limited by Stubby, I find myself annoyed that I can’t do more, instead of being annoyed that I needed to exercise. Guess that’s a good thing.
On tap for the weekend, well, SPW has to work, and I’m on the hook for Saturday. If I don’t have to work, I’m going to take my mother to a drum & bugle show at Exeter High School. Here’s the info if you’re in the southeastern PA area and need something to do on Saturday night.
Sunday, I’ll probably join some friends for a Barnstormers game. Been awhile since I’ve been to some live baseball and I miss it.
Memoirs of a Soon-to-Be Former Fat Guy 