Day 175 - Not Making Progress

I did my usual measurement this morning, and it would appear that I'm hitting another plateau.  Gain another .4 pound this morning.  But considered that I did the measurement at 6AM as opposed to 8AM I usually take in the weekend, that might be some of the differences.

I did myself no favor by eating a chocolate dipped croissant this morning at a meeting.  But at least the rest of my lunch is the usual Healthy Choice, which much to my surprise, I actually enjoy.  Lets see how the rest of the week pan out.

113/70/62 233.2lb 103 mg/DL

Day 174 - End of Week 25

08-07-2010 Front

08-07-2010 Side

01-30-2011 Front

01-30-2011 Side

As expected, the stupendous lunch and dinner from Saturday greatly affected my measurement this morning.  As a result, I logged a 0.2 pound gain for this week, all due to 1 day of not looking at what I eat.

116/82/57 232.8lb 95 mg/DL
Week to Week -0.2lb
Total Weight Loss 95.2
Body Mass Index 33.40

Day 173 - Make Up Post,

This is yet another make up post. I was doing fine in the morning, but the lunch (Beef Broth Soup from Noodle King) and dinner (dumpling, pot-stickler with Hot and Sour Soup) really did a number for me. My number on Sunday isn't pretty.

110/78/73 230.6lb 95 mg/DL

Day 172 - A Setback

Guess I'm a bit ahead of myself for my post yesterday. Last night, I start to feel that old sensation on my left knee that's telling me that it doesn't like the way it's being treated. This morning, I did my morning walk 1 hour earlier than I usually do, and my knee is hurting. I didn't bother trying to go back to 3.7 MPH, instead, doing my customary 3.6. It could be the fact that my legs were mislaid while driving the rental for the past 4 days.

Speaking of the rental car, the shop called last night and pleasantly surprised. The car was done yesterday, so I picked it up this morning, thus saving me about $305. The entire tab comes out to $1738.82 for the repair and $305 for the rental.

111/72/60 231.4lb 84 mg/DL

Day 171 - Ramping Up Again

Another experiment today. Ramp up the treadmill speed up to 3.7 MPH up from 3.6 MPH. The first 20 minutes, I do have some discomfort on my left knee (the more injured one). Surprisingly enough the last 10 minutes is actually enjoyable, with the pain subside.

And finally, I registered some weight loss this week. Not as dramatic as last week's 4.8 pound, but at least it's some progress.

111/74/76 232lb 104 mg/DL

Day 170 - Roasted Slice Ginger

I uses NuWave Oven to cook my chicken/pork/steak for meals. I've been trying different vegetable to grill in that oven alongside. Thus far, I've tried onion and sweet bell pepper.

A couple of days ago, I got idea of slicing ginger (about 1.5mn) and grilling it. The idea is that ginger should have plenty of fiber that I need without any of the other stuff I don't need. I already enjoy eating ginger as part of a dish. The result has been uneven. I know the problem lies mainly on how thin I slice the ginger, and how long I cook them. Under cook them, and they're a bit raw, over cook, and they're too dry.

Perhaps I should investigate on getting ginger juice for the meat on grilling as well.

Oh, got the call from the shop yesterday regarding my car. The rear bumper will be about $1.9k, which I'll pick up the first one thousand of repair. The front bumper is another $900. The rental is another $580. All this plus the ding on my insurance means I really should be paying much more attention to my driving.

118/82/75 232.6lb 100 mg/DL

Day 169 - On Call Again

My on-call schedule was moved up one week to cover for a co-worker that had emergency surgery a couple of weeks ago. It's not as much of a distress as when I did 2 on-call in a 3 week stretch. It didn't get off an easy start when I was a bit late to work due to getting the car into shop and driving in from another direction. It should be interesting getting to the support group tonight with a different car.

112/78/75 233.2lb 97 mg/DL

Day 168 - Learning How to Drive Again

I took the car into body shop this morning for repair early this morning. There's no ETA. I took the cheapest rental car they have available (Prius, Camry) and drove a late model Camry to work. It takes a bit getting used to how low speed acceleration works on an all gas car, after having drive a hybrid vehicle for the past 6 years. Since this isn't my car, I'm going to take it easy and drive as carefully as I can.

110/70/64 233.2lb 104 mg/DL

Day 167 - End of Week 24

08-07-2010 Front

08-07-2010 Side

01-23-2011 Front

01-23-2011 Side

Not exactly my finest weekend.  Lets just leave it at that.

115/82/70 232.6lb 105 mg/DL
Week to Week 4.8lb
Total Weight Loss 95.4lb
Body Mass Index 33.37

Day 166 - Belt Tightning

Back in November 7 of last year, I wrote that I've gotten a new belt due to the ludicrous size difference between my last belt and my actual waist size.  At that  time, the belt size was a 42-44, a size a bit too small for the pants that I'm still wearing.  This week, I started to wear the belt 4 notches smaller than the initial hole, with 2 more to go.  That would normally mean that my pants size should be size 42, something I can get at normal clothing store.  The size 46 pants I'm wearing isn't falling apart or so oversize that I cannot wear it.  I probably want better fitting jacket though.

116/71/56 232.2lb 102 mg/DL

Day 165 - Healthy Choice Frozen Meal

I got a bunch of Healthy Choice microwave steam lunch last week to wean myself off from the usual set of lunch I've been eating.  For a while, my choices were limited due to my lack of tolerance towards pasta and rice (whole grain or not).  Now that I can eat them again, albeit, in moderate proportion, I give them another shot.

In so far as office lunch goes, they're really easy to do.  I just wish there are suitable version of Chinese food (though the faux Thai I had yesterday was actually pretty good).


126/70/65 234.4lb 99 mg/DL

Day 164 - Kumogakure

This is an allusion to Lady Murasaki's novel The Tales of Genji in between chapter 41 and 42 which is just a chapter with the title Kumogakure (Vanished into Cloud) which contains only chapter title and nothing else.  It is implied that the main character of the novel Genji died in this chapter.

No, this has absolute nothing to do with the content of the blog, but just a wordy way of saying that I have nothing interesting to say today.  At least I put this blog post out the day it's supposed to go out.

And my number appears to be back on track :)

119/76/60 234.6lb 99 mg/DL

Day 163 - Getting Fired Isn't Fun

No, I'm not fired from my day job.  That gig is still on-going.  I am fired from my position in World of Warcraft guild tanking position.  Well, raiding is becoming more like a job than fun.  Didn't sleep well last night, but this too will come to past.

128/90/69 236.8lb 101 mg/DL

Day 162 - Another Plateau

So this past week has been weird.  I reach my all time low back on Saturday, but the weekend has not been kind to me.  I ate pork noodle (minus the noodle) for dinner on Saturday and hot and sour soup for dinner and the rest of the week.  The hot and sour soup contains stringing mushroom that is good for flavor, but I'm not exactly sure is good for me.  I've gained about 1.6 pounds since Saturday.  And this is on top of me adding pace on my morning exercise.

We have a bit of excitement this morning when the gas powered cook top burner refused to turn off this morning after I cooked eggs for breakfast this morning.  I decided to switch up my diet a bit this week, stop taking the protein powder and seriously cut down on my milk intake to see if things improves.  After much prying, my brother was able to turn off the burner.  Needless to say, that one is now off limit, and we're down to 1 burner now.

119/85/74 237.8lb 101 mg/DL

Day 161 - Leveling Druid

I've been leveling my druid Lonchaneyjr this entire weekend.  Got her from I think was level 25 to level 60.  In doing so, she can now fly in both old world and outland.  The most annoying part of leveling her is not the experience gain, but leveling her profession (herbalism and inscription) at the same time.  I was never so happy when I got to Swamp of Sorrow and all of the sorrowmoss that's in the area.  I have no idea what sorrowmoss is for, but they filled a need for me at that moment, the gap of 50-60 herb necessary to get my inscription up to 300 skill point.  The act of gathering herb also greatly contributes to my leveling.  After I got to level 52 and 300 Inscription, I had to bid Swamp of Sorrow goodbye and go into Blastedland for the rest of my old world leveling.

With druid's instant cast flight form, herb gathering is made so much easier.  Well, onto level 61 and Zangarmarah.

114/74/57 237.8lb 105 mg/DL

Day 160 - End of Week 23

08-07-2010 Front

08-07-2010 Side

01-16-2011 Front

01-16-2011 Side

Another week, though this weekend saw the return of the mysterious weight gain.  I really got to lay off on the carbs from Costco.

110/63/67 237.4lb 106 mg/DL
Week to Week 4lb
Total Weight Loss 90.6lb
Body Mass Index 34.06

Day 159 - Japanese Lunch Experiment

I was busy leveling my druid yesterday, so this post is late by one day.

On Friday, I went back to Emon Japanese Restaurant for the first time in 5 months.  I ordered one bowl of Beef Don, which is just cooked beef strips saute in sauce over rice.  It comes with beam sprout.  Back before the surgery, I usually skipped the sprout, but not this time.  The beef and bean sprout I ate without too much issue, but I definitely ate too much rice.  So much so that I had to lied down on the floor just to be comfortable.

Needless to say, The Japanese Lunch Experiment was a failure.  Perhaps next time I'll just ask for 1/3 rice and work from there.

Day 158 - Ramping Up Exercise Routine

Yesterday, during my exercise, I tried to ramp up the treadmill pace up to 4 MPH.  I lasted all of 30 seconds before dialing it down to 3.7 MPH.  That went on for a couple of minutes and I went back to my usual 3.5 MPH.  This morning, I decided to see if I can do 3.6 MPH the entire 30 minutes, and I did.  I got a good work out, and my knees seemed to be holding firm.  So 3.6 MPH is the new speed for now.

116/75/80 236.6lb 99 mg/DL

Day 157 - Sleeping Cold

I don't like cold weather.  For about 7 years, I've had an electric bed pad during the winter time to warm my bed in addition to a radiated heater during the winter time.  The mild winter last year made me cut back on the bed pad, but I still use heater.  This year, I opted to use a lighter heater that just have light weight radiated heat panel instead of oil filled cylinders.  The difference being that the oil filled cylinder models tends to heat up more slowly, but maintains the heat better, while the lighter model heats up faster, but doesn't seemed to heat up evenly.  Regardless, the end result I have is a more heated room.

Last night, I forgot to turn on the heater, and my mind in my dream only comprehend that it's cold, not that I forgot to turn on the heater.  It was a miserable night, but I should be grateful.  At least I'm not shoveling snow off the drive way like everyone else.

123/82/72 236.8lb 103 mg/DL

Day 156 - 90 Pounds Down

I'm 90 pounds lighter this morning, since I started to keep track of my measurements 5 months ago.  The last 10 pounds took almost twice as long as the previous 10 pound.  But a gain is a gain.  90 down and about 70 more to go.

118/73/77 238lb 99 mg/DL
Milestone 90lb

Day 155 - When Your Favorite Shop Closes

Yesterday, I found out that my favorite brick and mortar anime shop, Anime Plus is closing at the end of the month.  I've been shopping here for over 18 years.  I've not been shopping here as much as I have before, and I supposed that contributes to its demise.  Now, my only source of anime will probably be online.

On other news, my weight loss is now back on track again, lost a healthy chunk of weight since yesterday.  Lets see how it works.

133/89/78 239lb 102 mg/DL

Day 154 - Decaffeinated Coffee

For some reason I thought today is the 5th month post surgery.  Using my previous method of tracking milestone, that was yesterday, so the posts have been adjusted accordingly.

I've been getting too used to the taste of Crystal Light flavor that I actually like.  I also want to stay away from the caffeinated version, so my choice is somewhat limited.  For now, I'm trying out the office decaffeinated, which I know will have some trace of caffeine, but much less than the energized version of Crystal Light.

I'm also trying something else for my lunch today.  I'm bringing in my usual hot and sour soup, but this time also taking the kimchi for the extra fiber.  Lets see how this works out.

Yesterday, I also finish leveling my gnome warlock Kasukabe up to level 85, and in the midst of doing the Twilight Highland quest, push our guild experience up to level 10.  Since my main character's reputation with the guild is revered, at level 10, I can buy heirloom cloak that's good up to level 85.  I immediately gather the funds and send an agility based cloak over to my druid, and level that character up to level 20 (so the druid doesn't have to rely on travel form to get around, and actually ride something).  Now, just need to level all of the character's reputation to get the necessary gears.

115/73/69 240.6lb 101 mg/DL

Day 153 - End of Week 22 / Month 05

08-07-2010 Front

08-07-2010 Side

01-09-2011 Front

01-09-2011 Side

Not exactly my finest week.  I did myself no favor by eating beef noodles and heavy dinner yesterday.  Gain 1.2 pound compare to the previous week's weight in, my first week to week gain.

Amended post, this is also the end of the 5th month out from surgery.  Month to month weight loss is down to 8.4 pound, mainly doe to the terrible week this past week.  Lets see how the next week pans out.

117/76/80 241.4lb 103 mg/DL
Week to Week -1.2lb
Month 05 8.4lb
Total Weight Loss 86.6lb
Body Mass Index 34.63

Day 152 - Noodles

This post is one day late.  Busy leveling the warlock yesterday, and trip to Rose Hills.

The problem with trying out new food is that I cannot figure out the proportion.  I still am having issue figuring out Hot and Sour soup sizes at home and taking it to work.  Yesterday, on my way to Rose Hills, I tried out the spicy beef noodles at Noodle King.  The place does serve some of the food not found elsewhere.  However, as always when I try out new food, I really can't tell when to stop.  I was discomfort for a couple of hours.

Unfortunately for me, dinner was dumplings and hot and sour soup.  I really need to start looking at what I eat again, and plan ahead.

Day 151 - Three Down and One (Or is That Four) To Go

Last night, I got my mage Nodame up to level 85 in the midst of doing quests in Twilight Highland.  As I've done with my Death Knight, I completed The Crucible of Carnage quest chain to obtain a decent two handed weapon.  Even though I later got both iLevel 333 sword and offhand, I'm still using this quest weapon as my primary choice, for now.  I also spend a bit of money leveling Nodame's tailoring skill past 500 so I can put on better cloak enchant.  Similar to what I did with the previous alt, I finished up to the Wildhammer wedding quest, which concludes the Wildhammer non-daily quests in the zone.  Next up on the list to level is the warlock Kasukabe.

We had another round of office lunch yesterday, and we return to the same Teppanyaki restaurant.  Having learn my lesson from the previous visit, I just ordered shrimp this time.  Surprisingly enough the number this morning is encouraging.  I actually have better blood sugar measurement this morning than both my father and oldest brother, even though I had left over fried rice for dinner.

120/75/74 240.8lb 102 mg/DL

Day 150 - White Coat Hypertension

There's a symptom for those of us that visit doctors regularly White Coat Hypertension in which a person's blood pressure measurement increases significantly in the doctor's office than at home.  For me, I've never figure what that is.  For me, the inverse is the case for the most part.  I've ALWAYS measure lower measurement at doctor's office, especially when the test is administrated manually rather than via a machine.  I have a machine at home that I put on first thing in the morning when I got waken up by the alarm.  And almost always, my number is better at the doctor's office than at home.

For example, I have my second appointment with my cardiologist since surgery, and the doctor is so impressed with my number (112/70) that he went ahead and scrubbed my nominal 6 month appointment and set it to 1 year out.  At least it's a good sign.

122/76/83 241.6lb 105 mg/DL

Day 149 - Back To Raiding

Yesterday is the first day of raiding for my guild. Unfortunately things being as they were, it's extremely difficult to get 25 man right now geared and on time for raiding. So, we went with 10 man raid for now. As soon as I logged in, I got tagged to go to the Tol Barad boss while we have control of that PVP zone, nothing useful dropped for me (this will become a theme for the night). After 1 hour of doing my daily quests (I managed to leveled both Druid and Hunter up one level by doing just the daily quests), I fly over to Blackrock Mountain (again, this is the third Raid Instances in addition to 2 huge dungeon instances from original Warcraft plus a new Cataclysm Blackrock Cavern). Being a tank with significant AoE capability, I was tasked to add control for Magmaw.  That fight took about 4 wipes to get it right. An Lava Spine dropped, while I could use the stamina, strength and mastery upgrade, this is a much better upgrade for the Frost Death Knight, so I pass it up for now.   Next stop is the fun fight of the night, Omnitron Defense System of 4 rotating bosses (2 active at all time).  Again, another 4 wipes the bosses are down.  Again, nothing useful for me.

We then decided to head over to The Bastion of Twilight and try our luck there.  First off is the optional boss of Halfus Wyrmbreaker.  Surprisingly enough, we got him down in one try.  We have another 4 shot at the double drake bosses of Valiona & Theralion, by the time we figure out how to do it, we were at our 3 hour limit.  We give it one more attempt and got them down.

I've basically never been to The Bastion of Twilight, so that was a new experience for me.  My raid mod Deus Vox Encounter unfortunately haven't been updated for the new expansion, and I'm going to have to go back to the ole DBM for raid encounter mod.

Today's number is a whole lot worse than it actually is.  I'm still constipated, of which I'm trying something different.

123/85/79 243lb 105 mg/DL

Day 148 - New Year Resolution

Well, on my last support meeting, the coordinator ask us to listed our goal for the next year.  I already have the numbers in mind.  My original goal is to get my weight down to 180 pounds.  I've since revised it down to 160 pounds.  So, I have another 80 pounds to go.  Ideally, I want to get down there by August 9, my one year surgery anniversary, but I have to be realistic about that goal.  I'll be happy to loose another 40 pound in that time frame.

124/79/72 240.6lb 109 mg/DL

Day 147 - Curse of the Many Alts

Sorry about the tardiness of this post.  Been busy.

I currently have 6 alts, not counting the banker alt that's her own guild with guild bank.  The Death Knight Ogiue I've race changed to Worgen and level her to level 85.  Since the character wears plate like my main character, the playing style is similar.  With the added benefit that I know more or less how to level in this expansion, getting Ogiue up to maximum level didn't take as much effort.  However, leveling this character primarly is for mining and blacksmith profession.  Gear, such as it is is kind of expensive on auction house.  So the leveling actually got side track by the many loops of mining.

The second character I'm currently leveling is my Mage, Nodame who's my primary enchanter/tailor.  Since she's a fragile cloth wearer, and how hard the Cataclysm mobs hit, leveling her has been a challenge.  I've level her in Frost spec.  Fire just doesn't offer enough self preservation while soloing for quests.  It's still fun in instances, but Frost works for me.  I managed to direct this toon to go through the entire Mount Hyjal quests chains, at which point, she's level 83, and skipped for the most part, Deepholme.  I spend most of today leveling her from 83 to 84, most of it spend in Uldum, doing the entire zone for the third time.  It's still a very enjoyable experience.

The next toon to get elevated will be the warlock Kasukabe.  I don't think I've moved except to do daily cooking and fishing quests.

The rest of my characters, shadow priest, druid and hunter are all currently on hold pending the conclusion of the leveling of the other toons.  I only use them for fishing and cooking.


113/73/65 240.2lb 104 mg/DL

Day 146 - End of Week 21

08-07-2010 Front

08-07-2010 Side

01-02-2011 Front

01-02-2011 Side

Another year has pass, and I'm a year older.  I have a very very busy schedule this coming week.  Lets hope I survive it well enough.

119/77/63 240.2lb 102 mg/DL
Week to Week 3.4lb
Total Weight Loss 87.8lb
Body Mass Index 34.46

Day 145 - New Year Eve Shabu Shabu

Due to some scheduling mix up, we end up having our New Year eve dinner meal at dinner rather than lunch.  My brother took us to a Chinese ran Japanese Shabu-Shabu restaurant.  I was a bit apprehensive regarding the amount of food available.  However, by limited myself mainly to the soup and the very thin sliced beef that took less than 10 seconds to cook, I think I did all right.  Or rather, the number did come out ok.

111/80/77 240.6lb 102 mg/DL