kingkeld's Journal, 23 June 2012

Good morning, dear world of FatSecret!

First of all, THANK YOU for all the compliments yesterday. It was very daunting to show the pictures, but it's so much easier to share the ”befores” when they are followed by ”afters”.

I can't stop staring at the pictures. I'm still trying to relate to them. I'm curious as to what it all looks like when the bloating is gone and everything is back to normal.

It's 3:21 AM, and I am – as so often before – done sleeping.

I slept good, much better than last night.

Yesterday was a little rough on me in several ways.

First of all, our furniture is not very post-surgery-friendly. I do have my ”throne” where I normally sit, it's a recliner and it's pretty good, but not for sitting the ENTIRE day. Not at this point of my recovery.

The healing in itself still doesn't hurt, but my back aches. It gets tedious, and it keeps me from a good night's sleep, and I get restless throughout the day.

Also, I get bored. Oh. So. Bored. Normally, when I get bored, I go to my bass guitar and practice, or mess with my sound, trying to improve something, or I go online and mess around.

Trouble is, that the bass is completely out of the question these days, it's much too heavy. The other things, well they all require that I reach kind of far in front of me, and that is something I can't do right now while sitting in my chair – the only place I really can sit.

We basically spent all day watching TV, and it was okay. It just isn't entertaining for an ENTIRE day, and doing this for a whole week (or more) will turn my brain into pudding, I think. I'm trying to find things to watch that will challenge my brain, something that is more than ”just TV”. Maybe that will help.

Trouble is, of course, also that we I get bored I want to snack. This is the worst time to be snacking as my calorie burn is at an absolute minimum.

Other than that, the healing process is going fine. I have no dripping from the wounds any longer, they all look nice. I just take it easy, and I barely feel it. Having my tummy belt on all day is a royal pain, but I guess I'll get used to it. I think I'm supposed to wear it for several months.

Last night, just before bed, I took one of Wife's stronger pain killers, to ease my back. Oh boy did that help. I think I will do that for the nights throughout the next week, until I get the stitches out and have permission to sleep on my side and in my usual strange positions again.

…

I did fall off the wagon a little bit on snacks yesterday. Wife brought home cake from the store, a little comfort food. She knows to not do that, but she wanted to be sweet to me, knowing how I feel these days. So of course I had some, and then I had some more. It was good, too.

She also bought me my favorite low calorie ice cream, which I had a nice portion of.

Other than that I had my usual breakfast, a light lunch, and Wife and I shared a pizza. The pizza was great – and half the pizza was MORE than plenty. I calculated one of those suckers once, got the information about the ingredients from our favorite local pizza pusher, and the worse of the pizzas they have (of those that I would ever consider ordering) are about 1500 calories. So half is 750.

With these things I estimate that I ended up around 2000-2500 calories, which is really my maintenance level. Hmmm. I guess didn't do THAT bad. :)

Today, Wife is taking Daughter shopping instead of me going. I can't lift, can't walk too far, can't sit. I think I will regret going. I might try out for a short little walk outside at some point instead, I'm afraid I'll go stir crazy if I don't see something other than my living room.

So how about the weight?

Well, as I write this I don't know what I weigh yet. I haven't been on the scale yet, it's only 3:37 AM, and I really wanted to wait a little. I am wearing yesterdays sweat pants, socks, hospital belt and a bunch of other things that will weigh me down, and I know the my weigh-in will be intimidating already. I will do a separate weigh-in, so if you check up on me and it's still in the 70's then it will simply be because I haven't weighed in just yet, or that I decided to chicken out. :)

I jumped on the scale at one point yesterday, just to confirm that I am significantly heavier than I would have guessed. Boy, was I right.

The scale at that time clocked me in at 88.1 kgs! Not 78.1, but 88.1 kgs. This is 12.3 kgs higher than my lowest. It's 11 kgs higher than my goal weight! DAAAAAAAAMN!

I did panic for a moment until I thought it over. Last Friday I was 78.8. I gained 10 kgs through the week. So which of these scenarios are most likely:

1. I had surgery and I am retaining water.
2. The tiny meals at the hospital plus yesterday's cake gave me 70,000 calories more than I burned.

I think we know the answer to this one, huh? :)

I'm not at all worried about the weight, I just don't like to see the number. I know the fluids will disappear one way or the other. I'm drinking a LOT of water to help it on the way, but it will take time. It's a natural thing to happen when recovering from surgery, and supposedly (Google told me!) the two things that impact it is the size of the cut (mine was essentially enormous!), and the length of the surgery session (7 hours!). So I'd say I'm in the category to be holding fluids like crazy.

I do feel the heaviness of my body. I try to use it as a reminder to NOT get to this point in fat gain ever again. It's already very heavy to carry my body around, and it is truly disturbing to think that I once weighed in at 155 kgs. I can't believe that I was even able to be moving around, let alone be walking around all day as I used to do.

I was very leary about wether I should weigh in today or not. It's gonna take me SO far away from my goal. It's gonna bring me back on the green bar. Then again, does it matter?

I mean, I have accomplished what I came here for, right? This is not a fat gain, it's the after effects from surgery. It's purely vanity that makes me NOT want to weigh in. I simply don't like to see the number and what it will do to my account. FatSecret has some great tools to keep an eye on things, and I think I need to think of it like that.

I have decided that I will start weighing in daily while I am this bloated and heavy. I want to keep an eye on it.

I'm not too worried about the calories. Actually, I believe it's important for my body to get enough nutrients right now, so it's probably better to be a little over RDI than a little under, simply for my body to be happy and recover faster. Of course that doesn't grant any free-for-alls, but just that I eat with common sense.

This includes the pizza yesterday. We did make it a ”wise choice” pizza. Wife wanted meat and cheese, and I figured that the proteins would do me good. We chose the pie to be whole wheat, and it was really good. I think I had room for the calories, and it all settled well.

In Denmark, a pizza is about what, 12-14 inches? A little larger than an old school vinyl LP. We have a tradition here that when we eat pizza, people essentially order one each, with whatever they want. We have the optional family pizza that will feed several people, but usually people like to have their own. 1500 calories each, as I mentioned earlier.

I have no clue how many of these I have downed over the years. I'm talking MANY. Never, until very recent times, have I ever considered just eating half. It's just not the way to eat pizza, and there is no optional smaller size. It's the same everywhere.

I'm really glad that Wife and I got into sharing them. First of all, they don't make me constipated and feel uncomfortable for a full week afterwards. Some of you may remember how I have cussed myself out for eating pizza in numerous journals through the last couple of years. Second, it's not nearly as damaging on my RDI. If I plan ahead, I can squeeze in a 750 calorie meal any day of the week. I just gotta compensate a little on the other meals, no problem.

This is what I like about calorie counting. I haven't really restricted my food choices a whole lot through this whole thing. I have eaten what I wanted, when I wanted it most of the time. I have had so many ”bad” things that it makes no sense that I lost all this weight. At least it makes no sense to those watching and not understanding what it is we are doing when we count calories.

So many people think that starving themselves and/or working themselves to death in the gym will make them thin. I am so happy that I have learned that it doesn't. I am so happy to have learned that it's about moderation on the foods, reasonable exercise, but just as much about inner peace and happiness, and being in a good place mentally. Once we truly figure this out, the weight will almost come off by itself.

Today, I am thankful for:
- feeling better than yesterday. Recovery is going well, and I can tell a difference every day. Nice.
- Hopefully a day not TOO boring.
- A reasonable (though short) night's sleep.

Have a great weekeend, friends! Life is good!