2 year anniversary.

Yes indeed, I've been M.I.A for a long time on here. I've been busy with family, work and staying active and really don't find much time to sit down and type out a blog every week. Plus I think people bored of this blog pretty quick. Which is ok because I was really only doing it for myself to look back on later in life.  

So, it's been two years exactly since I've had RNY surgery and so far, it's in my top 3 for best things I've done for myself! Marrying my wife and having kids are also in that top 3 ;). It's been really awesome since my first year anniversary because I've been way more active in this year than any other year of my 32 year existence. I've been biking a ton and even bought a new bike. I raced in 4 races this year with mild success. Not sure if racing is for me, but it was really fun and even met a couple of great people along the way. Also took part in a mile fun run with my wife and kids. Teagan and I jogged the whole way and did it in 13 minutes! Which to me is pretty awesome because my fastest time in school was no where near that time. Haha. I was so proud to see my daughter actually run with me and to see her have fun was such a rewarding feeling! That was one of the main reasons in getting the surgery, to be able to stay active with my kids, to live a healthier and active life than I previously had and to hopefully instill some healthier values in them that I never got when I was younger. I don't eat the greatest, but I've tried and liked a variety of different foods that I never ate before surgery and actually like them! I still have my bad days of eating shitty foods. For the most part, they don't affect me like they do other gastric bypass patients. I pretty much eat like any normal person now. It's definitely a relief to be able to go in to any place and order anything off their menu. Something in the beginning I thought would never happen again. I didn't want to be the weird person in a group of people not able to have what everyone else was having. Stupid, I know, but I wanted to keep some type of normalcy for my self. That's pretty much been this whole experience for me, the positives out way the negatives on my end. 

There have been only a few down sides to the surgery. One of which include the  fowl smelling oder that comes from the deep dark depths of hell and expels from my body almost on a daily basis. It's so god awful bad, I feel so bad for my wife and kids who have to put up with it. I laugh at it because there's nothing else I can do about it. It truly baffles me that a person can smell this bad and still be alive. Unfortunately it comes with the surgery, at least that's what they tell me. It's because the food I eat doesn't get digested like normal people's food and it goes through my system quicker, in turn I guess, makes me smell just rotten. The sucky thing is, I haven't found anything to take that will help with the smell. So until then, I'm forced to sit outside and bask in my own smell. Haha. 

One other downside that I've had has been the random food blockage I get if I don't chew good enough.im assuming that's what it is because my surgeon doesn't know what causes it. Sometimes I get really sharp pains in my abdomen and it even hospitalized me almost a year ago for it. Come to find out that something, most likely a piece of food, blocked the opening from my other stomach and caused the bile to back up and enlarge my other stomach that was cut away. It can become very serious if the blockage doesn't get removed and now I know that I need to chew better and drink 45 to 60 minutes after my last bite to wash out my system. Since that first time I was in the hospital, I've only had it happen twice and each time I try to drink water and just relax. 

So that's been my life the last year or so since I've been on here. I've also had a hernia repaired in April this year, a possible side effect from the surgery, but not totally certain on that. I've maintain my weight between 240lbs and 260lbs for a year. Feeling pretty good about that, but I'm going to focus much harder during the winter to maintain between 215lbs and 225lbs.  That's my goal to reach by this spring and hopefully I'll be rewarded with a fat bike that I've been wanting for a while now! Until then, thank you all for the continued support! 

Here's a pic of my first year weightloss that I forgot to add to this post. 

One year, one person lost.

I'm back! Well, for a little bit at least. I've been spreading myself thin lately (pun intended) and I just haven't had a chance to write anything out for a blog. Truth is, not much has happened in terms of my surgery and losing weight. I haven't had anything go wrong, nothing happen to me out of the ordinary, nothing has creeped up on me during the last time I posted to really write about. I can sit and bullshit with you for a few paragraphs like I normally do every week and really write about nothing or I can write every once in a while and cover many topics. I don't know what is the best way to approach this.

 This blog was meant to cover everything that has happened to me over the year after my Roux en y surgery to lose weight. It was a crazy experience the first 6 months, but lately, nothing has happened worth mentioning. I've read a lot of blogs that people have wrote and most of them have good experiences and bad experiences to write about. And while reading them, there were little tips to help you out on your journey through the weight loss surgery process. I don't have that. I've had nothing but great success with my surgery 9 months ago. I haven't had any weird experiences that warrant me writing about. I guess you can say I'm lucky! 

 Actually yesterday was my birthday (July 3) and that was the day, last year, that started my weight loss journey. My wife bought me a membership to our local Snap Fitness for my birthday and I started working towards a goal. A goal that eventually that same year I would be having surgery to lose weight. I wanted to lay down the ground work before having surgery so that once I got to an decent weight, I would continue working out for the rest of my life. Not even just lifting weights, but just being active in general. And in this little journey of mine, at the one year start of this, I've lost a total of 182lbs. Basically, one average size person! Not quite where I wanted to be, but I will take it. I really wanted to lose 200lbs by this time, but it just wasn't in the cards I guess. Just 2 days ago I broke the 250lbs mark and I'm now 248lbs. Over the last 2 months I haven't gained or lost much and I've stayed between 259lbs and 250lbs. 2 weeks ago when my wife's cousin was up from Texas, was kind of bad and I reached 259lbs after a weekend of basically bad choices in food and drinks. It was a hell of a fun weekend, but the liqueur consumption was a lot for me who normally doesn't drink. It was fun to actually let lose and have fun for once, so I don't regret it and was back on track the next day. 

Now going back to the spreading my self thin part. I feel like I have so much shit going on right now.  First I'm trying to start a business (sort of) making bracelets and things out of paracord. So far, it's a little slow, but I'm trying to get a Facebook and twitter page started up and I've been slacking because I have other stuff going on. The Other stuff being my new obsession of riding my bike. I LOVE riding my bike! So much in fact that I'm considering doing the Black Bear Bicycle Tour in my town next year. That race is a 100 mile long race that starts in Grayling, Mi and ends in Oscoda, Mi. That is a hell of a long ride for a dude who just recently found a new passion in bike riding. Now, I can't say for sure ill do it. I most likely wont because there are more downfalls to it than up sides. One being, that it is a 100 MILES long! That is such a long time to be on a bike that i cant even imagine my junk working after that. Oh and for those of you who think big cushiony seats are the way to go on a bike, think again. Those things are the devil and make your mmmmmmmpackage go numb so quick! I need a new seat badly for my bike. When I bought my bike used, it came with that kind of seat already. I was use to riding a seat that was long and narrow and had a split at the back end of it for cushion. I loved that seat, but sadly it wasn't mine and I'm not paying $150 dollars for it.   Second, it's one "straight" shot from one town to another. Meaning, it doesn't loop around. So I'd have to make sure I had someone pick me up if I made it to Oscoda, it doesn't loop around like other races do.  Those are the two main reasons, that and we only have summer in our area for like 2 months and then it's cold and I don't want to be riding when it's cold out. Indoor trainers are ok, but it sucks just sitting stilly would sponsor  and not going anywhere. Oh, another reason is I think it's going to be kind of expensive to do. I have to get my bike in race shape, new pedals, seat, tires, etc. Then get my self in race shape, riding shirt, shorts, helmet, etc. My work said they would sponsor me, but I don't think they would cover the cost of all that stuff. Plus, I'm not even sure my bike would work for the race. Most people use a road bike, I have a Trek 3900 mountain bike, I don't think it's gonna cut it. I was laughed at by a couple of people when I told them I was going to use my bike. They said that I must love doing things the hard way and that I love pain. So now I'm thinking I will just do a few smaller races and maybe I'll enter the Big Mac's Spring Bike Tour and Mackinac Bridge ride. That is a race that has 4 different lengths, 25,50,75, and 100 miles. And you ride on Saturday and then Sunday, you are allowed to ride your bike across the Mackinac Bridge! Which, if you don't live in Michigan, is a damn big bridge that connects the upper peninsula to the lower peninsula. I think it's about 8 miles long, almost 600 feet tall and is about close to 200 feet off of the water. That's a hell of a long fall to take if you get blown off of the bridge! Anyways, I think I'll work towards that goal next year instead of the Black Bear tour. The Big Mac tour seems like it will be a lot more fun! 

The biggest thing I have going on as well is trying to juggle time with my family. I'm doing a shitty job right now, but I hope I can improve on it soon. I think that is a struggle for everyone. And I don't want to miss out on anything just because I have other things going on. Basically, now that I have a HUGE weight lifted off of me (for real), I want to do everything! I also realize that I can't do everything as well. So I'm sticking with the important ones right now. I do the paracording so I can keep my hands busy, no idle hands here. I do the bike riding to stay in somewhat shape. And I want to spend time with my family because my little girls are only so little, for so long and I feel like I've been forgetting that fact. So this blog will get updated from time to time, just not every week like I want. Who knows, maybe the writing bug will hit me again and I'll do it every week, but like I said, the summers are short here and I want to enjoy the warmth as much as possible! Have a great day everyone!

Insanity, not so much.

See that guy laying on the floor in the picture with the circle drawn around him and the word FAIL pointing at him, that was Jodi and I. Let me explain.

  After putting on a full metal knee brace, an ankle brace and wrapping my whole abdominal area with the binder I got when I had surgery, for two days of insanity, we decided that it just wasn't for us. Kind of bummed, but it's probably for the best.  Jodi didn't like it, I didn't mind it, but I don't think I was doing everything correctly, so that's why I didn't mind it. I went in knowing I hadn't did anything like this in over 13 years. I figured it was tough, but I still wanted to do it. I also kept saying lets do this at our own pace and just try to get through it. I figured, at least we are doing something for 45 minutes a night instead of sitting on our asses watching tv. The bad thing about doing any of these "fitness DVDs" is that with my knees, anything involving lower body moves is painful. So I have to modify pretty much every move in the Insanity arsenal, which in turn, makes everything easier. Im also looking at it like this, I have to go to a job outside of home where I have to climb up and down out of a truck all day, I don't need to be injuring myself and being out of work with no pay.  So where Jodi was full on doing everything like you should, I was basically half assing it. Even half assing it, it was still hard as hell.  So we decided that going from not doing anything remotely close to insanity to diving right in to it, probably wasn't the smartest thing.  

After the insanity fail, Jodi said we should try Jillian Michaels 30 day shred. I was a little hesitant at first because I looked at it as a women's work out. Then after doing level one of it, I realized it was pretty tough. This was more up our Steam Pipe Ally. It wasn't crazy like the insanity DVD, but it wasn't  just a stand around and move your arms a little bit DVD either. Probably a better choice to start out with, honestly. I guess I don't care what the hell we do, as long as we are doing something together. I wanted us to workout together so we didn't have the excuse of saying we had no time to workout. I always felt bad going to the gym after work around 5pm and coming home at 6pm to eat dinner, get kids their bath, put them to bed, then off to bed in an hour or so after that.  That gave no time for Jodi to go to the gym at a reasonable time and workout. I figured, if we both did a DVD workout, we could get everything done by 8pm, then get ready to do a workout by 8:30pm and then have some time to chill after, before bed. 

So now we decided that we would do her Jillian Michaels 30 day shred DVD a few days a week. Throw in a few days of bike riding after dinner. Also we would do the Insanity Fit test every Monday and Friday and maybe throw in another one of the insanity DVDs to work out with as well. I don't want to abandon the idea of doing insanity. Who knows, maybe I'll do it on my own in the morning, just to see how long I can do the program itself. Yeah, probably not. Ha!

What's up!?

Well, I'm back at it again. I have a few ideas for some post, but I'm trying to craft one in particular so that its not too much personnel information. It's one thing to talk about stuff with your dude friends and even your doctor, it's another to just type it out for people you know and random people in Russia to see. I don't care my self personally, but I'm sure my wife doesn't want to be embarrassed about the stuff I typed and she has family that reads this as well. I guess that hasn't stopped me before, I've always tried to be very honest and blunt about the stuff I write here. I do that because some people's blogs about gastric bypass aren't. And as a former fat dude searching the interweb, I appreciated the blogs I found that were open and very honest about their times going through gastric bypass. So with that said, if you see a post entitled with the phrase, TMI, open at your own risk.  Of course you know you will, that don't have the saying, curiosity killed the cat for nothing. :)

It's been a long, but fast year since I made the decision to go forward with having  Roux En Y ( RNY) surgery done. At the end of June, beginning of July is when I was too fat to pass my DOT physical and decided to do something about it.  As you all know, when I had my first meeting with my surgeon, he asked what weight I wanted to see at the end of all of this. Basically, what weight did I want to be down to by the end of a year to 18 months after surgery. I told him that if I could be 250lbs, I'd be happy as a pig in shit. Well, I can say as of yesterday, June 1st, I made that weight. Now, I'm not totally happy with that number. I say that because since that talk with my surgeon in August 2012, my goals have readjusted because I was losing weight a lot quicker than we expected. So the number I wanted to be at when June 1st rolled around was 245lbs. I know, big deal right? I missed it by 5lbs, but that number was a goal that I should have been easily beat had I stayed on track with things.  I didn't though, I didn't stay on track and missed an easy goal that was set by my surgeon a few months ago. It's my fault though. I put my gym membership on hold 2 months ago because the weather in Michigan WAS getting nice and then sure enough, shitty ass Michigan weather turned around and made it cold as shit and snowy. I wanted to be able to take the kids out side and go for walks and bike rides and not be stuck inside a gym for an hour. So when the weather turned back to shit gain, I decided I would go in Maintenance mode. Now most people that have had the surgery, don't hit maintenance mode until the "honeymoon" is over which is about 12 to 18 months after surgery. That's when you should be at your goal weight and from there, you start maintaining that weight for the rest of your life. Well, at the rate I was going, I was gonna hit my original goal weight (250lbs) about 6 months after surgery. In my eyes, that felt really quick. To me, that seemed like a lot of weight to drop in a short amount of time with out some kind of unintended consequences springing up to bite my ass. For example, having my gallbladder taken out. Which I'm sure will happen eventually, maybe not, but I don't need it out this year.  I've been 260lbs since the beginning or so of April. Since then I've been in maintenance mode. I say maintenance mode, but really it's not. Maintenance mode means you're watching what you're eating and working out. I've just been eating what I can and hanging out. I started riding my bike to work and back (about 5 miles in total round trip), but beyond that, nothing. Made my own TRX straps, medicine ball and kettle bell. Did a little bit of heavy bag training, which I didn't win. The bag, that is. If you remember, I joined a weight loss competition through Reset Nation Project and at the end of 45 days, you would see how much weight you lost by percentage. I lost 9.99% of my weight and the girl who beat me lost 10.37%. Yeah, I got beat by a girl. Haha. That I know of, I was the only one who had gastric bypass that entered the competition. Her and I were pretty far ahead of everyone else with losing weight. So she definitely kicked ass. Ok, got side tracked there, I just couldn't remember if I had posted on the blog what the outcome was with that. 

Basically I've been "normal" since the beginning of April until now. Tomorrow (Monday June 3rd) my wife and I start the DVD crazy, Insanity. Yeah, I truly can't wait! We are gonna ease into it at first. I don't want us to get discouraged or worse, injured. I want us to be able to complete the whole course which is about 67 days of jumping around and running in place and pretty much sweating our balls off. Can't wait. I'll report back how the first week goes next Sunday. Until then, much love and respect (add the finger point to you, what up John Basedow!) 

Two randomness goodies.

This will be a quick little post, just because. First, I want to say I very much enjoy The Steve Austin Show that is available to download online for free! If you don't know who Steve Austin is, you've been living under a log for at least 15 years, haven't you? Steve Austin use to be a WWF/E wrestler turned film star. Now he's doing a podcast and just talks about anything and interviews random people from MMA to WWE stars. He's only about 12 podcast shows in or so and they are only about an hour long. What I love is that he's the same dude he was when I was watching him wrestle back in the day as he is now. Same attitude and everything. No bullshit. If you have time, go to podcastone.com and type in Steve Austin Show. All of his shows are there for free! Be forewarned, he swears quite a bit, what do you expect, he's a redneck. 

Now, my second bit of randomness is very simple. I haven't quite got the hang of seeing the new me quite yet. After dropping 175lbs, there are new things to wrap my head around. Recently, it's the fact that I can damn near stick my whole hand in under my armpit, inside my rib cage! In trying my best to describe this, so bear with me. If you were to take your arm, lift it up so that its the same height as your shoulder, flex your chest muscle and then stick your hand under your arm pit. Maybe it's not my rib cage I'm feeling and its just my pec muscle. Haha, I just realized that as I was typing that all out. Ah, I'm a jack ass. Well, still, that feeling is new to me! I've never been able to see any kind of definition what  so ever on my body. Ha! That and when I lay on my back, it's not my belly that sticks out the furthest, it's my rib cage! #FormerFatGuyProblems

Well I'm done with the randomness today. Just wanted to turn out a quick blog. Trying to stay more on top of this! Peace out homie! (In Teagan's voice)

I had chicken livers....twice...in 2 hours.

Know how I was basically bragging about being able to eat anything this morning? Having basically no problems with anything. Yeah, not so much. When I got home from work at 11am I decided to go and do some yard work. It's a beautiful day today and its supposed to rain the rest of the week so I need some out door goodness. Well I was drinking a peace tea and then another. Before that I only had 20oz of skim milk and some nestle chocolate powder. So around 60 ounces of liquid so far. (This is shinfo to you, but I want to write it down for my own records. Oh and shinfo, if you can't figure that out is shitty info. Wut up C and R?!) 

Anyways, around 1:45pm I decided I was hungry and went inside to make chicken livers. Mmmmm!!! I made about 6oz of them up and only ate only 3oz and wa going to leave the rest for tomorrow. I had a 1oz bag of cheddar multigrain chips and 1 sweet potato chip from my wife's bag of chips. I was stuffed! Like, really stuffed. So I went back out to finish up the yard work thinking it would pass. 

Well, Jodi left for town and I mowed the other part of the yard and then went inside to check if Peyton was still sleeping and it hit me. These chicken livers Didn't like my little pouch apparently because they came back up. I've been to this rodeo before, I bring a little up and I feel fine and I can drink some water and go on about my pouched self. Not this time. It was bad, Pee Wee, bad. So basically everything I ate came back up. So now I'm sucking on a peppermint hard candy and watching my daughter try to give me kisses through her jail cell (crib). 

Why did I post this you ask? Eh, because I can and sometimes I like to share randomness like this. Plus, its nice to know what really goes on while you're going through Weight Loss Surgery (WLS), at least thats what i like to know when I'm reading a persons blog about WLS. If you like more randomness, wait for tonight, I'm gonna post a Vine Video from my past. If you didn't know, I use to be a professional backyard wrestler back in the day. :D So if you don't have the Vine app, get it! 

Follow me on Vine: vine://user/913146906639740928

And on Twitter: BiggieDeline

Almost 7 months out.

I wish I was more consistent with my blogs. I don't know why, it's just that sometimes I have the urge to write and other times that is the furthest thing from my mind. Maybe if I had more interesting things to talk about, that would make it easier. Who knows?

 Anyways, last month I had my 6 month check up. I think I mentioned that in my last blog, but I'm not sure. 6 months since they rearranged my guts and everything has been great!! I can now say that I can eat everything I once ate with no problems. Which is good, but is also kind of bad. I know I've mentioned this before, but I'm a little bummed that I can still have sweets an junk food. I was hoping that my body would totally reject those foods and make me sick. Unfortunately, that's not the case. I do however see it as a good thing because at least I don't feel like the outcast at parties for not being able to have a little bit. I'm actually glad I can have everything now because that just makes me feel normal.

 The only thing I won't go back to is pop/soda. I don't crave it and I don't want to even go back to drinking it. I know a lady who had this surgery done a little after me and is drinking Dt. Coke already. I guess, hey, to eAch their own, with provolone, baby (C and R, wut up?!) but that is one of the main things they tell you to try and not pick back up. Not only because of th extra calories, but because of the carbonation in it, it expands the stomach. I know you can drink diet, but you're only fooling yourself in to thinking that its good for you because it doesn't have any calories in it. I will occasionally pick up a Gatorade here an there or a Peace Tea every once in a while. For the most part, I stick with water and a packet of flavored powder stuff. Like crystal light or something to that effect. It's probably not that good for you, but that's all that I've been drinking since my surgery. I should buy stock in the Great value powder drink mix! Ha!

 I went in to this surgery just wanting help with portion control. I have that now! I'm basically able to have a somewhat normal portion of food now. Which is good for me. My nurse at the surgery center is extremely pleased at how far I've come. I've lost just over 140lbs since surgery at the End of October. Which is amazing to them! Since the beginning of July I've lost just over 175lbs. So to me, I think I've been doing great. I don't think my portions are totally out of whack. Right now I'm at a weight (255lbs) that I could live with for the rest of my life. Well, until next time, have a great day!