Day 83 - End of Week 12

08-07-2010 Front

08-07-2010 Side

10-31-2010 Front

10-31-2010 Side

I've been on the 3 MPH 20 minutes morning walk for a week.  My thigh muscles are a bit sore, but otherwise, I have no problem with stamina of doing the exercise.  I will have another follow up with surgeon on next Friday, hopefully the vitamin blood test number comes in ok.

And tomorrow morning, I'll actually be on-call earlier than usual, the person currently on-call have a doctor's appointment that they cannot get out of.

I got bored this weekend, and actually finish up my mage's Blackwing Lair attunement quest.  It was so easy, I decided to do the same on my warlock, who has more survivable abilities.  

122/78/63 269.4 96mg/DL
Week to Week 2.6lb
Total Weight Loss 58.6lb
Body Mass Index 38.65

Day 82 - Make up Post

For some reason I completely missed the post yesterday.  This is what I would've said had I remember to post.

This week is my last day of none on-call week.  Next week, I'm back on-call, which means next Saturday, I won't be making the trip to Rose Hills.  I usually use that opportunity to go to eat things that's normally out of my day to day meal routines.  The last 3 weeks, I've been experimenting with Korean Tofu soup.  I tolerated them fine.  Today, however, I decided to add some plain white rice into the mix.  This did not go well.  I'm not ready for that yet.

122/82/62 268.2lb 100 mg/DL

Day 81 - Food on the Run

I have my vitamin blood test done this morning (or as I like to call it, 12 tubes jamboree, even though they only took 10).  I've thought by loosing 58lbs I'd be an easier draw, especially considering how much water I've been consuming.  I was wrong of course.  After the first technician wrap and check for suitable vein on both arm, she settled on my right.  After trying it with the standard needle, it hit no vein, but plenty of nerve.  So, technician #2 step and wrap my left arm.  At first, I thought that wasn't going to hit it as well, but she probed and probed and finally withdraw the needle a bit, and settled in my vein.  Even though she hit the vein, the needle went though it.  It was a wee bit painful, and I'll most likely going to have bruise for a couple of days.

Due to me being late for work following the blood work at the clinic, and the fasting it required, I didn't eat anything for breakfast.  Went to Jack in the Box and order a breakfast sandwich.  Didn't eat the bread, but the sausage and the egg.  Note to myself, I definitely CANNOT eat 2 breakfast sausage. 

112/79/58 268.4lb 97 mg/DL

Day 80 - Clothings 2

I noticed today that I actually went down another notch on my belt.  I wasn't conscientiously trying to tighten the belt, but it just happened that way.  This would be the 4th notch down since the surgery, another measurement to go by on my progress.

122/88/81 268.4lb 96 mg/DL

Day 79 - Clothings

As I mentioned back on October 18, I don't like shopping for clothing.  Even back when I wasn't overweight, I didn't like shopping for clothing.  After I became overweight, it's mainly for replacing clothing that I've outgrown or clothing that has fallen apart.  When I dress, unless there's a special event that demands different dress code, it's usually the next shirt on the closet rack.

As I'm heading towards the end of my third months post surgery, I'm coming up to a problem.  I usually switch from wearing short sleeves shirts to long sleeves shirts after Halloween.  My summer shirts was still in pretty good shape, albeit, they're a couple of sizes too big, and I've only been wearing them for 3 years.  My winter shirts is in terrible shape.  I've been wearing them for at least 7 years.  They are threadbare and falling apart.  The problem is that I have at least 3 more months of golden weight loss to go, and whatever I buy now it'll most likely not going to fit.  It certainty won't fit when I get to my initial target weight of 180lb.

117/85/84 268.6lb 93 mg/DL

Day 78 - Finishing Up Achievement before Cataclysm

So we spend 3 hours last night fighting 2 bosses.  Professor Putricide Heroic mode and The Lich King normal mode.  We've already killed The Lich King numerous times, so that wasn't our priority as the end boss of the Plague Wing.  3 hours of little mistakes of various type.  I racked up over 150 gold repair bill, spend 8 fish feast.  But we got him on the last pull on Heroic mode.  Nothing drop for me, of course.

Prior to going into Icecrown Citadel, I ran all 4 of my 80s through the holiday boss, Headless Horseman in hope for goodies.  Dianora walked away empty handed still, but Ogiue did scored the much desired The Horseman's Reins.  Now I just need one for my main character.  Kasukabe, my gnome warlock went into a Vault of Archavon to get the last remaining piece of loot of interest from there, Sanctified Dark Coven Leggins.  It dropped, but the other warlock win the roll.  I bought it for 1900 gold, which is a good deal all around.  I'm into completing a set, and now I have 3 piece Sanctified, and all but my shoulder is iLevel 264 gear.  Who care if it'll be replace in 6 weeks.  The other warlock got enough gold to buy old world flying skill.

I tried green onion pancake again this morning, 1/2, heated via toaster oven.  For some reason, I didn't take to it as well as I did 2 weeks ago.  I was in such a hurry getting out of my house, that I forgot my pack lunch.  Thus, when lunch time comes today, I went out to an Italian restaurant I haven't ate for months, Pinocchio.  Once again, this is a time of trial and error.  I ordered 2 Italian sausage with potato salad.  As I've said, I have the sensation of what I perceive as hunger.  What I don't have is fullness.  At least I know how much I can order from here in the future, just 1 Italian sausage.  

132/89/78 269.2lb 96 mg/DL

Day 77 - Pills

I'm currently taking 1 prescription pill (Metformin) and 1 prescription injection (Byetta). I crush the Metformin into fine powder and take it with water, and take my injection as normal. The rest of the supplements I take are in chewable or dis-solvable tablets. Yesterday, after enduring 2 days of constipation, I went and bought laxative pills from local pharmacy. The instruction was quit clear on NOT crushing or grind the coated pills.  Last night when I took it prior to going to sleep.  Stupidly, I took both pills with a health dose of water.  For the longest time (3 hours) I thought the pill have stucked.  This morning, when I woke up, I still felt the same thing.  The pills are working, since my bowel finally release its content in the morning, and I was able to eat the breakfast without difficulty.  But still, a somewhat unpleasant experience.

Today is the 2nd day of extending my morning walk from 0.625 miles to 0.75 miles.  If this goes well, I might want to push it to 1 miles in 2 weeks.

120/89/83 270.8lb 96 mg/DL

Day 76 - End of Week 11

08-07-2010 Front

08-07-2010 Side

10-24-2010 Front

10-24-2010 Side

I adjusted my morning treadmill routine by adding additional 5 minutes.  I now do 20 minutes a morning.  Thus far, no ill effect.  I clearly can do it.

Last night, Swift Razzashi Raptor dropped off from Bloodlord Mandokir from Zul'Gurub 20 man instance from Vanilla World of Warcraft.  I've already gotten Swift Zulian Tiger from High Priest Thekal.  As the raid instance will cease to exist, and will turn into an outdoor questing area come Cataclysm, this marks the end of my mount farming of this zone.  Here's what the mount looks like for me:

131/89/68 272lb 105 mg/DL
Week to Week 2.4 lb
Total Weight Loss 56lb
Body Mass Index 39.02

Day 75 - More Water

So yesterday, I drank half as much liquid as I should.  I got completely distracted yesterday morning, working from home.  Managed to delete one of my configuration file for a webserver.  My attempt at reconstructing it wasn't successful.  It wasn't until yesterday evening that I realized that the file have irregular spelling.  After I fixed that, the webserver came up normally.   That sort of things tends to take your mind off things.  The UPS for my sandbox died a horrible and noisy death on Thursday.  I already bought the replacement unit.  Unfortunately, circuit on the UPS overloaded, and it just plain refused to go silently into recycling.  My brother have to open it, disconnect the battery so the rest of us can sleep in quiet.

Yesterday is also Blizzcon, and for a change, they're holding it on the weekend.  I naturally didn't go.  But I did order the online viewing, mainly for the pet.

I think it's due to the lack of water I drink, but I'm feeling constipated again.  Today, I'm bringing 2 bottle water of Crystal Light to Rose Hills and the Lunch.  Hopefully by the time I come home, the cleaning pad will be ready for me to finish the house work.

124/91/64 271.4lb 98 mg/DL

Day 74 - Coffee

So the increase in water intake does a number on my weight.  I'm no longer constipated, and I actually loose a whole tons of weight.  I actually managed to finish the whole grill chicken sandwich for lunch yesterday (over ate again) san the bread.  But the pasta salad, I was able to process without issue.  And to finish up the steak I bought a couple of weeks back, I had one for dinner yesterday with half of a brown onion.

Not sure if I mentioned before in this blog that I like drinking coffee.  I don't do recreational drug.  I don't smoke.  I don't drink alcohol.  The things I indulge in life are food and coffee.  With the WLS, food isn't a crutch I used to reward myself or to calm myself down.  I literally don't have the stomach for it.  Coffee is another matter.  I haven't had coffee since 2 days prior to surgery.  Unlike other people in my office who also drink coffee regimentally, I don't get withdraw headache.  But seeing how for the past 4 years, I've been roasting my own coffee bean, gone through 2 automatically espresso machines, 2 coffee bean roaster, not drinking coffee is hard.  I spend a lot of money building up the my gears, and it's currently sitting fallow.  Well, the roaster is currently fallow, my brother is using the espresso machine.  Other than the cake, I have been able to tolerate everything that I've tried (pasta salad, green onion pancake).  Perhaps I should talk to my nutritionist about allowing coffee.

On the other news, I learn from yesterday that President Obama will be coming to Los Angeles.  Not only to go to the Coliseum, but to Glendale.  As it turns out, he'll be across the street from my office.  Needless to say, I work from home to avoid the traffic problem.

120/80/64 271lb 100 mg/DL

Day 73 - Drinking Water

So yesterday with aid of Crystal Light, I went ahead and drink 4 liter of water.  Having the sport bottle to measure and remind you to drink helps a great deal.

113/84/81 272.2lb 96 mg/DL

Day 72 - Plateau

So, my weight have been in a holding position since Sunday.  3 days of approximately no changes.

On hydration front, I went ahead and bought a  pallet of Arrowhead 1 pint bottle water.  Of which, I've used exactly 1.  The bottle is of size that's sufficiently close to what Crystal Light want to use (16.9oz).  It also works much better than the 12oz variety that my brother bought with a cap that can be operated single handed.  Thus far, I drink the bottle, rinse it, and refilled it with either the office bottle water or home filter/boiled water.  I'm supposed to drink 4 of these bottles a day.  Something I found amazing.

Another sign of weight loss is the relationship between my abdomen and other objects.  Back in my full weight days, I hate getting seated in a booth.  The table will inevitably hit my lower body, and I felt trapped.  Sitting in booth isn't as much of a problem as it used to be.  Likewise, the relationship between that part of my body and the steering wheel.  I've already set my seat as far back as it will go, and yet, my tummy is always in danger of hitting the wheel.  I have now at least 6 inches of clearance.
134/93/71 274.6lb 95 mg/DL

Day 71 - Kindle

So the Kindle I bought on Saturday arrived yesterday.  I bought all of Charles Stross Laundry series from Amazon.  I've already bought all of those books once, I just want to have it in Kindle format as well.  Haven't got too much of a test drive other than charging it and putting the leather cover on it.

122/95/80 274.8lb 100 mg/DL

Day 70 - Death of PuG Raid

As expected, with Patch 4.0.1, World of Warcraft Pick Up Group Raid (PuG Raid) died a whimpering death.  Now that the raid lock id are shared between 10 and 25, 10 man raid PuG are almost completely dead, and the call for 25 also lessened with the Expansion 7 weeks away.  Still, I managed to get on my Warlock and got through the usual 4/12 boss killed in Icecrown Citadel.  Managed to upgrade my chest piece to iLevel 264 (though the Armory isn't updating at all since the patch).  It's sad that my newest character, the Warlock has outgeared my 2nd level 80 on both of her specs.

So this is the start of Week 11.  I've been back at work for about 4 weeks.  I've also been wearing new shoes for 4 weeks.   I don't like shopping for clothing.  I like shopping for shoes even less.  About 7 years ago, I discovered ECCO Track II Low and these have been what I wear outside of my house every day.  I'm currently on my 4th pair of this shoes, and they do last far longer than the other shoes I've wear.  3 years ago, I went ahead and bought 2 pairs, thinking of switching between the pairs.  That didn't panned out.  With the surgery and the weight loss, I decided to go ahead and retired my old pair to treadmill use and break in the new ones.  It usually takes me about a month to get used to the new shoe.  I'm not sure if my weight loss or the fact that I loosely threaded the laces, I haven't had any issue with them since week 1.

Speaking of treadmill, when I started to walk again, I set the pace to 2.5 miles a hour, and 15 minutes.  That comes out to about 0.625 mile of walking each day.  Within the last 2 weeks, I ramp up the pace a bit, and the last 2 days, my pace has been 3 miles a hour.  This is the pace I used to run before my weight went above 300lb.  Giving how little time I have in the morning, I think I might want to do the same after work as well.

110/77/71 275lb 97 mg/DL

Day 69 - End of Week 10

08-07-2010 Front

08-07-2010 Side

10-17-2010 Front

10-17-2010 Side

After the plateau that was last week, this week, my weight lost continue at a familiar pace this week.  I now weight 53.6lb less than 2 days prior to surgery (when my log starts) and 80.6lb off from my highest recorded weight (I'm positive I used to weight more than 355lb, but that's just how much I have weighted).  The weight loss surgical program have repeatedly told us that the first six months after surgery is the golden months of weight loss.  I might as well make most of it.

We got another toaster oven (personally, I thought they bought one that's a bit too big) from Costco, and I tried the green onion pancake again, this time to good result.  The pancake wasn't overtly toasted, and it's actually moist and soft.  I did managed to burnt one of my finger...

On Warcraft news, I managed to add a small widget to the template, so now all of the link object from WoW Head will have floating picture showing the actual item.  

119/85/96 274.4lb 99 mg/dl
Week to Week 5.2lb
Total Weight Loss: 53.6lb
Body Mass Index 39.37

Day 68 - Ok, Dehydration

Last night I drank my first bottle of G2 vitamin water / electrolyte in weeks.  And my kidney, while still experiencing some discomfort is noticeably better, at least now it's just the right kidney.  I guess I'm really dehydrated.

I decided to experiment a bit and had lunch at a Korean BBQ restaurant.  No, I didn't have Korean BBQ meat, those would be too dry for my stomach.  But they do serve spicy tofu soup.  The problem is that I STILL CANNOT determine how much is too much.  Especially in this case, where most of the food is liquid.  I felt terrible after the meal.  I did feel well enough to actually have dinner, pork chop with bell pepper and some greens.  

108/81/81 276lb 100 mg/DL

Day 67 - Dehydration?

So for yesterday's breakfast, I did a little experiment.  I took 1/2 of the Green Onion Pancake and toasted in the toaster.  Unfortunately, it would appear that our toaster oven is broken, so my pancake ended up somewhat burnt.  This is just to test how I would tolerate this kind of food.  As it turns out, not well at all.  I have general discomfort all morning, but once that subsided, both of my kidneys were in pain.  I highly suspect that I'm not getting enough water in me.  With more water intake I'm feeling much better today.

I also tried to broaden my selection of grilled vegetable.  As I've stated before, baby sweet bell pepper from Costco grills nicely.  I added green onion last night, and it turns out well enough that I'll try again in the future.  Though, I probably will only do one stem, and only with the fleshy part of the green onion.  Hum, should I also grill just plain onin?

Today is also another sad milestone.  The Chinese Restaurant across the street is closing after today.  Now when I want to eat Chinese food, I have to drive.  Since this is the last time I eat there, I order one of my favorite dish, mapo tofu, which instead of eating half of the dish, I opted to eat 1/3 (using an empty rice bowl to measure)  and take the rest home (it'll be my dinner and lunch in the weekend).

On Warcraft front, since 4.0.1 patch came out, we're basically restricted to either 10 or 25 ICC raid, but not both.  I spend most of the night trying to fix the UI, Grid being the highest priority.  I did at least get the dewdrop library issue fixed by upgrading to the latest version.  Still waiting for some of my favorite mods to be updated.  I did went on guild run for Black Temple and Sunwell Plateau farming run, where we did not get the legendary offhand sword from Illidan, but we did score another main hand sword (our third).  Sunwell didn't yield anything useful.  The two runs, despite the repair bill does yield about 250g, so not a total waste of time.

107/82/68 275lb 108 mg/DL

Day 66 : World of Warcraft Patch 4.0.1 Day 3

Last night, we return to ICC25. It went as well as expected, the range caster DPS went insane, the melee dps found out their DPS went to the floor. I had a working Grid until 5 minutes prior to raid time and then no Grid after I got into the raid. Yep, I tanked the first 5 bosses in ICC25 without a working raid frame, which is challenging enough.

Tanking Deathbringer Saurfang with the new rotation is a breeze, though I missed our old automatic Cheat Death mechanism. Still have to get used to that rotation. Our Paladin healers needs to get used to how to heal, since we stopped at Festergut where I got 2 shot by him at 4% health.

After the raid ended, I spend another hour online to fix my Grid issue.  I finally resolve it by removing the old configuration settings.  Now, I have to fix the Tidyplates doing everything in reverse.  

At least I got one piece of upgrade out of this, Heroic Blightborne Warplate, replacing the non-heroic version. With reforging, this gives me an extra 4% of block chance.

Lastly, yesterday, I bought all three of my alts 310% speed mount skills, though I haven't have time to play them yet.  At 5000 gold per purchase, that dropped my gold stash down to about 4k.

116/84/83 276.6lb 101 mg/DL

Day 65 : World of Warcraft Patch 4.0.1 Day 2

To no one's surprise (except Blizzard's official new release), the game did not come up until 5PM PDT. I was attending the support group, so I didn't get home until 8:30PM. Thankfully the guild realized that there is no way in hell we're raiding on the biggest patch ever for the game. Not only is lots of mod that people have been depending on broken (Thank god I got Grid back), but the class mechanics have changed so much that it's unwise to forge ahead. We did a 3 drake Sartharian 10, and I was the lone tank. I still have not get a hang of the mechanics because people are pulling aggro off from me frequently. The good news for me is Black Drake drop for me. Mount #124.

118/89/83 277.8lb 99 mg/DL
Milestone 50lb

Day 64 : World of Warcraft patch 4.0.1

Today is the day World of Warcraft patch 4.0.1 is deployed. I expect nothing meaningful done, lots of mod updates, lots of mods not working. Good thing I have the support group tonight.

Went down to Romana's sandwich shop and ordered a Grill Chicken Sandwich for lunch. The side order is pasta salad, I ate the bell pepper. As for the sandwich, I kept half for tomorrow in the fridge, and use the bread as cutting board for the chicken. No point in trying to eat the bread, as I don't have the stomach for it anyway. Ate the sundry tomatoes, lettuce, cheese and bacon separately. Even at 1/2 sandwich, this appears to be too much for my stomach to handle.

124/89/64 278.6lb 110mg/DL

Day 63 - The Kingslayer Gnome Warlock

Kasukabe finally got over that last Icecrown Citadel 10 normal achievement. Now all of my level 80 characters have at least that.  Oh, today I crosses the 50 pounds loss mark.  Somehow I didn't noted this.

111/80/69 279lb 98mg/DL

Day 62 - End of Week 9

Today is the end of 9th week since surgery.  Seemed like my weigh lost have slowed to a craw, only lost 0.8 pound this week.

08-07-2010 Front

08-07-2010 Side

10-10-2010 Front

10-10-2010 Side

134/82/62 279.6lb 102 mg/DL
Week to Week 0.8lb
Total Weight Loss 48.4lb
Body Mass Index 40.11

Day 61 - Almost There (Warcraft Achievement)

So we band together for another alt run at ICC10.  My remaining level 80 Kasukabe finally got a couple of cracks at Lich King encounter.  However, by the time we got to him, it's 1 AM already, and people clearly are not awake.  Lets hope we can finish him so I can collect the Kingslayer title.

I swear, if my head isn't attached to my body, I'd loose it as well.  Lost the vendor promo water bottle at car dealership getting my car serviced.  Well, time to go back to the oversize bottle that doesn't fit my car.

124/89/65 279.6lb 103 mg/DL
Month 02 16.2

Day 60 : What is Full?

Well, here we are almost 9 weeks since the surgery.  I think I have some sensation of what hunger is, although I'm not entirely sure about about that.  However, I still don't have a good handle on what is full.

At home, when I prepared my 5 ounces of (frozen) meat into NuWave oven and the sweet bell pepper, I'm good with that serving size.  Since it really doesn't vary, it works out well.  When I eat out, I'm still trying to guess how much I can and should eat.  Thus far, with the exception of the trip to eat fried tofu and the Friday soup run, pretty much all of my meal excursions have ended with me over eating.

I still cannot sense when I'm full, at all.

113/81/66 279.6lb 103 mg/DL

Day 59 : End of The Wrath of the Lich King

December 7, 2010 marks the end of the second World of Warcraft expansion.  Here's some of the highlights:

I was fired from my previous guild after I got sick of listening to rhetorical question from guild master.  I managed to get into m current guild within 2 days.  Looking back, my old guild still have not complete Icecrown Citadel 25 raid, while 3/4 of my level 80 characters have completed that.  Well, that's about as much as I'll say about that.  My current guild is currently working on heroic version of the instance, and we're rather close to the final boss of the Plagueworks.

In between the previous expansion and this one, I managed to finished the World Event meta-achievement and get Violet Prot-Drake I'm not too crazy about the size of Proto-Drake even though I own Red (Heroic Achievement) and Green (Oracle tribe item on a weekly timer).  In the best in-game financial decision I've ever made, I bought Ashes of Al'ar for the low low price of 4000 gold.  I did managed to get Rivendare's Deathcharger.  Having a Paladin riding a Death Knight mount is still interesting.  Another rare mount I got is Swift Zulian Tiger, now I just have to get the Raptor mount before the instance goes away.  We went through 2 different Halloween holiday event, and I did not win the Headless Horseman's Ride (although I did lost one roll).  Well, another Halloween is coming, and lets hope for best.  I got Great Brewfest Kodo last year, and manage to give my newest level 80 character, Kasukabe one as well. Thus far, I have 3 out of five Horde mounts (Deathcharger, Kodo, Hawkstrider), Raptor is the only remaining mount that's available to cross faction as there doesn't seemed to be a wolf mount for Alliance.  I've also been farming Kharazan off and on, but since that's not going away, I'll continue to plug at it.  Haven't got around farming for the turtle mount, and the other rare spawn mount.

My vanity pet collection is currently 126, including a couple that I paid real money for (Blizzard Store).  My mount is 124.  At one span in between major content release, I got bored and went on a pet collection spree.  I must have spend over 50000 gold on all of my pets.  

When Cataclysm, the next expansion arrives, everyone with spare 5000 gold will probably buy the faster flying mount speed (I'm saving up 5000 gold just for that).  I did get all 4 of my level 80 characters mammoth mount with vendor to speed up selling vendor trash.  I also got them Argent Squires for the same purpose in the instance.  

139/90/68 279.8lb 104 mg/DL

Day 58 : Flashback The Rest of Week 1

Yesterday was the last day of Brewfest on World of Warcraft.  Didn't get the Kodo I wanted on my 2 remaining level 80 characters.  Nodame did managed to score a Brewfest Ram.

Onto the Flashback of the rest of Week 1:

The cat scan dye induced muscle aches gradually subsides in the rest of the first week, as well as the abdominal pain at my diaphragm. I didn't do much of anything in for the rest of the week. Having my brother drive me anywhere is a bit of a hassle.

Three days after my surgery, I have an appointment with my primary physician, who was very pleased with the result. I kept the medical regiment as well as the new vitamin. By this time, I've stop taking the liquid codeine, which I think is the reason I was advice not to operate heavy machinery.

On Friday, after a call to the surgeon's office, that restriction was removed, which allowed me to move around a bit more.

My meal consisted of protein drink in the morning, protein drink for lunch, and more protein drink for dinner. I did buy some chicken broth (after drinking some of it in the hospital) in preparation for week 2-3.

126/92/69 279.8lb 110 mg/DL

Day 57 : Lesson Learned

Ok, Yesterday was a double whammy. First off, I ate home prepared mapo tofu, which I ate half at lunch and half at dinner.  The amount I ate at lunch seemed to be too much.  Further complicating the situation, someone at the office celebrated their 15th year anniversary, with cakes.  I took a small slice of strawberry cake.  I'm still feeling the effect of that cake.

119/89/69 280.6lb 100 mg/dl

Day 56 : Head Scratching Time

After looking at various solution of hooking up my Droid phone's music output to my car (FM adopter, cassette adopter), I opted for the cheaper solution of cassette adopter. I'm already short on DC plug on the front of the car already, and the cassette adopter seemed the be easier to use while FM adopter all requires me to sacrifice a DC plug. Next car I buy will have a build in auxiliary input jack.

In Warcraft news, December 7 is the day the next expansion comes out. That means I have 2 months to get the Raptor mount before it's gone forever. Redouble the effort Dianora.

Ok, back to the number for today. I think my body is still adjusting to the my current dosage of Metformin. Prior to my doctor's visit in early September, I was taking 1000mg, 500 in the morning, 500 in the evening. My Primary Care Physician halved that dosage, and it took a while for the drug to get out of my system. Lets see if we can work this number down again.

111/85/77 279.8lb 111 mg/DL

Day 55 : End of Week 8 - More photo

Today is the end of Week 8, so more pictures:

08-07-2010 Front

08-07-2010 Side

10-03-2010 Front

10-03-2010 Side

No adverse effect from yesterday's expansion of my food choice.  Now I just have to finish the fish we bought last week. 

110/86/77 280.4lb 102 mg/DL
Week to Week 5lb.
Total Weight Loss 47.6lb
Body Mass Index 40.23

Day 54 : Going Back to Rose Hills

Now that I'm off on-call, I can resume the duty of replacing flowers in front of my mother's urn at Rose Hills.

Before doing anything else meaningful, I spend 2.5 hours working on my cell phone, finally solving my 32GB sd card mounting issue (whenever the card is re-mounted after dismount from desktop, the phone does a soft reboot).  As it turns out, even though the phone does recognize the sd card, it isn't properly formatted.  I backed up the data on the sd card and format it while mounted the drive on my desktop.  No more soft reboot.

I also had an issue with doubletwist not re-synching my iTune library.  Finally end up buying an app call iSyncr from the Marketplace, and it does seem to do its job correctly.

I took a vendor gift water bottle (it fits better than the one I bought at store), and start drinking water religiously on my trip to Rose Hills (due to various factor, a 45 minutes drive turn into 90 minutes).  I finally get to eat the fried tofu at the noodle restaurant.  Eating it isn't as difficult as I imagine.  Just chewed the individual cube down to very very small bits.  The family have dumpling for dinner.  I have them minus the skin, which has the same kind of consistency as noodle.  Since I cannot eat noodle for a while (if ever), I opted to just eat the fillings.  Good to eat some of these things I haven't had in a while.

127/93/67 280.4lb 108 mg/DL

Day 53 : Cardiologist Appointment Second Attempt

So for the past 2 days, my solid intake has been greatly lessen.  I stop using chewing gum (it's amazing how much gum I go through on a long drive).  Perhaps it's because I'm actually looking for it, but the usual 1PM to 3PM pain didn't come on, or at last as sharply as the previous days.

The cardiologist appointment went without a hitch.  Back in 2007 I had an episode of chest pain that finally got me send to an emergency room and my attending cardiologist there became my actual cardiologist.  They ran a bunch of stress test with rather specific instruction (fasting to start baseline stress test, follow by eating food and then wait 30 minutes before doing the second stress test).  The test didn't reveal anything, but I've been seeing him every 6 months.  He was very pleased with my progress, and my blood pressure measurement in the office is actually better than the one I had at home.

I apparently have an inverse white coat symptom.   My blood pressure tends to be better at the doctor's office than at home.  I've been wondering about the size of the blood pressure meter's cuff that wasn't designed with my arm's diameter.  So much that I went ahead and buy a newer model that has a different design.  The result is still similar to my morning reading.  

120/88/67 281.4lb 103mg/DL