Posted by: WFMeyer on: January 1, 2010
I’ve been off the grid for a while. Besides my hernia surgery, I have had to deal with a huge basket of challenges and issues at a personal level that I won’t get into at this time.
My last home weigh-in was at the end of November, where I had gained over 6 pounds to where I was back up to 348. I was a pound or two more than that just before the surgery.
I weighed-in this morning and was please to see 342.6. I went through Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years and was able to go down 8 pounds since December 11th.
How? During the large Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners I had all the normal things everyone else has, but I took smaller portions of them – except for veggies – and I didn’t go back for seconds.
Did I eat snacks? You bet your Hershey’s Kisses I did. I just didn’t sit down with a whole box or bowl of them.
Did I drink? On New Years – yeah, too much. It caused me to hit the snacks harder than I would have liked. All that enjoyment probably cost me a pound or two, but I had a good time and I don’t do it with any sort of frequency – so I’m good with it.
Most Importantly: In between holidays, I ate clean more often than not, and I walked most every day. All of this helped to lose the weight I did during the holidays.
As a result of the hernia surgery, I am not allowed to train with any weights for 8 weeks. This puts me back in the gym by mid-February. For now, I walk for 30-40 minutes at least 5 times a week.
I don’t bother with the gym for now as with the New Year everybody’s in there with their New Year’s Resolutions and you have to wait to get on a cardio machine and then they give you a 30 minute limit. It’s too much of a PITA for me and not worth the time.
The Resolutionaries are pretty much done and quit the gym by Valentine’s Day – right when I’m ready to go back.
Posted by: WFMeyer on: December 12, 2009
This is new. I’m trying to write this letter under the influence of a couple of hits of Percocet while listening to the brilliantly talented and young David Garrett’s unique mash-ups of classical music and rock. I’m an instant fan.
Anywho, I had the surgery to repair my umbilical hernia yesterday. Since, I’m home writing this, everything went well. I was supposed to have the surgery at 12:45, but due to one delay after another. I wasn’t wheeled in until 3:30 – yeah you know the fun of waiting in a hospital right?
The good thing is since Mary works for the hospital; I had a private pre-op room to myself and just watched ‘Deadliest Catch’ waiting for my turn to get sliced up – which is another thing that changed.
The original procedure was supposed to be laparoscopic, but once they got a better look at the hole from which my intestines were sticking out, they realized it was bigger than first thought. So, they needed to do a direct access procedure to add a mesh over the hole to keep my guts from popping out.
This meant that instead of three small incisions they did one long one starting a couple of inches above my navel, through the bellybutton and about three more inches below that. Essentially a deep slash wound.
The good part is that they didn’t use external stitches or staples. They used DermaBond ® which means they Crazy-Glued my stomach together. The scaring will be minimal, so I can once again unabashedly take my shirt of in public places as I always do…uh, yeah.
They originally told me it would be 45-minute procedure. It took an hour-and-a-half.
I began to come to as they wheeled me into post-op, in time to here one nurse ask another, “How’d it go?” The other nurse said, “Oh he got a little wild when he went under and we were putting in the tube, but once we strapped him down everything went fine.” I don’t know exactly what I did and I’m thankful to have no memory of it.
Since I was pretty doped up, I didn’t feel any pain on my stomach, but my throat was killing me from that damned tube. Considering I hadn’t eating in 24 hours, I wasn’t hungry, but I was thirsty as hell. They gave me a toasted English muffin and cranberry juice. I had a few nibbles of the toast, but craved drink more than anything – the colder the better.
Even when we finally got home at 8pm, I was more interested in drink than food. Mary got vanilla ice cream and that really helped my achy throat.
My throat is still sore as I write this, but the pain from the incision trumps it now. I tried to deal as much as I could but getting up and down was a real pain, and I could only walk stopped over like the 1,000 year old man. So I relented and doped up. There’s still pain and discomfort but I can at least stand erect and think of other things other than pain.
Since I’m supposed to sit around and be a lump and not allowed to lift more than 10 pounds, I’ve been leaning on Sarah and Steve to help out and so far they’ve been great.
All in all It’s All Guud.
Posted by: WFMeyer on: December 4, 2009
I had my pre-op meeting for next week’s hernia procedure.
The news is mostly good. First the bad:
My total cholesterol is 259 (high)
HDL is 38 – (low) s/b at least 50
Triglycerides is 139 (good)
LDL is 190 (high)
The LDL realistically s/b at or below 100, however, I am a heart attack risk factor of 4 (low risk) and getting it below 160 would be good for my weight/age.
On the other hand, my fasting blood sugar was 91 (good)
The EKG showed:
Resting Heart Rate – 51 (excellent)
They asked if I lift weights and run. RUN.
I said, “Do I look like I run – ever?”
They just laughed and said, “Normally we only see athletes with a resting heart rate this low.”
Blood Pressure – 121/72 (very good)
During the interview, they told me other than my cholesterol, I’m in pretty good shape for a guy my size and age. They said most people as overweight as I am at this age are on a bucket of meds and have a long list of health issues.
They looked at the short list of supplements and doses I take on a daily basis and said that whatever I’m doing seems to be working for me and to continue on with it.
They suggest I see my doc about getting on a cholesterol drug, and I told them, I’d take care of it myself as I had in the past. So, I couldn’t have the breakfast buffet with corned beef hash, scrambled eggs, home fries and sausage patties at work today. It’s back to oatmeal for the next few months – it’s okay though, as I do really like it.
Anywho, I’m pretty pleased.
Posted by: WFMeyer on: December 1, 2009
The Final 4 went home to see how well they could do on their own for 60 days.
From the beginning Danny’s looks were most noticeably different. Amanda and Rudy showed big differences too, but not as dramatic as Danny’s. To be fair, Amanda is pretty close to her goal so she wouldn’t show as dramatic a difference. Liz showed improvement as well, but the least out of the group – in my opinion.
Danny and Amanda seemed to have the better support systems at home and were able to stay consistent.
There was a point where Danny’s wife was having a crisis of conscience wondering if her husband would still want her as he was looking better and better. This is a real fear. I have read more than a few articles where one spouse looses a lot of weight and gains a whole new outlook and self-confidence while the other remains in their status quo. These changes often cause conflict and have led to many divorces.
Rudy is a busy guy working long hours and wants to spend precious time with his young wife and baby girl. I remember how that feels. His schedule doesn’t leave him with the time he needs or would like to spend on himself. Again, I totally empathize.
Liz and her husband have a strained relationship, maybe even fractured. Whether or not it’s reparable was not evident. When visited by Jillian, Liz had been left alone on her rural property – a small farm – to take care of and run on her own. It didn’t leave her a lot of time for herself. Liz does not seem happy at home.
The group got a lot of support in the form of video-taped DVD’s, visits from Bob and Jillian and even a chef. They were given their final BL challenge to run a full 26.2 mile marathon.
When I could run, I was only good for short sprints. I hated the pain and agony of any extended run, so I know how they felt when they got the news they had to run such a distance.
During the run they received inspiration in the form of former BL Winners and finalists running with them, urging them on. Among them was Tara “The Machine”. It was noticeable that she had put on weight, but she still looked good and had that competitive fire. She really helped Amanda through a rough spot of doubt during the run.
I have to say I was impressed how well Rudy did. He broke away from the pack early while still carrying a considerable bulk on his frame and left everyone in the dust finishing in less than 5.5 hours.
Amanda came in second. At her young age and her much improved physique; I figured she’d have been first.
Danny, also still carrying a lot of weight, had considerable trouble. He was in a lot of pain, but Liz stayed by his side. At one point they had to stop and Danny iced his knees before continuing on. It was trying, but Danny made it over the Finish Line in just over 7 hours – not bad for a big guy…not bad at all.
During their weigh-in before the big finale, the women each posted a 16 pound weight loss over the last 60 days, which is good and a normal rate of weight loss. Danny then gets on the scale and pulls a huge 59 pound loss. About 1 pound a day! Then Rudy gets on the scale and he shows a 43 pound loss – averaging over 5 pounds a week.
I was thinking these numbers are pretty good for the guys until it suddenly dawned on me, “Holy crap, they lost this sort of weight during the last 60 days – at home!”
This made their accomplishment all the more astonishing.
Liz and Amanda fell below the yellow line, and each pled their case to America to vote for them as the third and final finalist to compete for the $250K next week.
We voted for Amanda. I like Amanda because she was heavy all her life and I know just what that’s like. However, I think Liz will get the sympathy vote being the older woman and in a troubled relationship.
Either way, it doesn’t matter as Danny and Rudy were so obese to begin with their total potential percentage of weight lost should be greater than either of the ladies could attain. I’m looking for Danny to win the whole thing…
Posted by: WFMeyer on: November 25, 2009
For the past month I was prepping for then writing a novel as a participant in the National Novel Writing Month. I’ve been a part of this crazy endeavor for the past 9 years, and it took me away from all my other interests. But now I’m back.
After 3-weeks of writing with any free time I had, I got to the point where it wasn’t fun anymore – so I decided to stop. The pull of my other interests were greater than the one to write a horror novel.
Although I was writing that didn’t stop me from watching The Biggest Loser. I sat there and typed away on the laptop while watching Tracey finally get the boot, and sadly so did Shay. During that time Liz fell out of favor with me as she was a lot of talk and little action – especially when it came to Tracey.
The bigger disappointment was Rudy. The way he treated Shay and Rebecca was mean spirited and showed he had no integrity. Even in the end he gave his “friend” Allen the boot.
Liz fell below the yellow four times and should have been the one to go. Allen should have been in the Final 4. He poses no real threat to Rudy as he could never lose a bigger percentage of weight since Rudy was so much bigger to start with.
As it is, Liz and Amanda stand little chance of winning the grand prize because of the percentages. The real battle is between Danny and Rudy.
Tonight TBL will be re-visiting up to 40 past contestants to see where they are with their weight. Some have kept most of it off, others have not.
This New York Times article talks about how some of the contestants used unhealthy methods to lose weight before the weigh-in finale.
The first season winner Ryan Benson opened up about this and he believes it’s the reason why he’s being shunned by TBL, and not because he re-gained all of the weight he lost and is once again over 300 pounds.
Having used all my time to go to work, write my novel and watch TV, you could probably guess things have not been going well with me weight-wise, and you’d be right. Over the past month, I’ve regained 7 pounds to where I’m back up to 348.
My focus has become really blurred on what I am supposed to be doing on a daily basis.
Last week I consulted with a surgeon to fix an umbilical hernia and do some blood work. Thankfully the hernia is small enough that I opted to have it taken care of as a laparoscopic outpatient procedure. That’ll be done on December 11, and it takes 8 weeks to fully heal.
I have held off on getting this done for too long and in doing so, I was not able to do any sort of weight training or a variety of other activities in case I made the hernia worse.
The only thing I have been able to do is take walks, which I have, but not enough of them.
After I get the all clear, I’ll be able to be more vigorous with my workouts. This doesn’t mean that I can’t give more attention to what I’m putting into my mouth in the mean time.
This is a lot of big talk considering Thanksgiving is only two days away. Let’s see how well I can maintain focus and attention…
Posted by: WFMeyer on: October 31, 2009
__________________________________
Starting Weight: 380
Weight After Last Weigh-In: 341.5
Weight Loss-/+Gain Since Last Weigh-In: +3.1
Current Weight: 344.6
Total Weight Loss YTD: 35.9
__________________________________
Yep, I know I didn’t provide a 20th of the month update.
Why? Because I didn’t weigh-in then.
Why? Because I knew it wouldn’t be good and I didn’t want to face the music.
I didn’t eat right enough and I didn’t exercise enough. It wasn’t too much different from the 20th to the end of the month either. But I figured, this is where things usually go sideways, I stop doing the right things I learned and trained myself for and fall back on all of the bad habits that have been screwing me over for most of my life.
I go into a mode of denial by ignoring what’s going on and before long, I’ve regained all of the weight I lost PLUS another bonus 5 or 10 pounds. Then the depression sets in, and another health issues starts showing early signs of development.
By posting today, I’m taking responsibility for my fuck up early and being accountable for it – and stopping it cold before it gets out of hand.
I gotta admit that when I got on the scale this morning, I was surprised it showed I only gained a little more than 3 pounds over the past 21 days. I thought it was going to be much worse like a gain of 10 pounds.
I’m not jumping on a soapbox today. I know what I need to do so I’m gonna
Just Do It
.
Posted by: WFMeyer on: October 28, 2009
This week is all about emotional drama. Amanda has a meltdown, as does Shay. Abby finds purpose and for all that has happened to her, her strength is inspiring.
The Black Team loses yet another challenge and the team members are set head to head against one another for the weigh-in.
At the weigh-in Daniel only pulls a 5 after a poor result last week. Granny Liz is his competitor and she beats him with a 7 pound loss. Then what the hell, Liz is all huggy with Tracey? Isn’t this the same woman who vowed to get even with Tracey? Among that, Liz is losing favor with me.
Rudy pulls a 14 pound loss to lose 101 pounds in 7-weeks. A Biggest Loser record.
Abby NO!. My favorite contestant threw herself on the sword so the others could stay. Daniel gets an undeserved reprieve. She has put her life back together, is living her purpose and is looking good.
Posted by: WFMeyer on: October 21, 2009
Tracey starts with the self-pity sympathy tears after the Black Team finds out Mo is gone. I just think she’s playing the game trying to gain some sympathy after making everyone mad at her.
The first challenge was for the teams to dig deep in the beach sand and come up with a key to open a series of locks where the prize is a trip home for a week. The Blue Team won the challenge, but they turned around and sent the Black Team home. The Black Team can see their families after being away for 5 weeks, BUT they will have NO access to the gym and more importantly no access to Bob and Jillian to train them.
While the Black Team members are at home struggling to stick to what they learned, Bob spent the time killing the Blue Team in the gym.
The show suggests that the Black Team members families are less than supportive in their efforts; eating foods that tempt the contestants and ignoring their plight. I’m not sure if this is staged by the producers for dramatic effect or not.
During the weigh-ins Rudy pulls a 14 loss – making for a total of 87 pounds lost in 6 weeks. If he makes the last 13 pounds to round out a 100 pounds lost he will set the BL record for getting to that point.
Black Team had a mountain to climb and needed to lose 45 pounds to beat the Blue Team and send them to Elimination. Danny pulls a 15 pound loss! Jillian looked shocked and happy. Daniel my boy gets up there and…BLOWS it big time by gaining 1 pound and sending the Black Team to the Elimination Room. I gotta say, since it is his second time at The Ranch, he blew it he ought to go home. Sorry Daniel.
BUT, the team saw fit to send Dina home. I thought she was deserving to stay – oh well. At home she is doing well, losing a total of 65 pounds to date.
Nest week looks to be interesting.
Posted by: WFMeyer on: October 14, 2009
So Tracey manages to get a really important reward and takes control of the game. Once again she goes back on her word or ignores people’s wishes and splits up every team except the Orange Team into new Blue and Black Teams. This was HUGELY unpopular and upsetting to the rest of the contestants. I’m beginning to think that Tracey is a mole or plant in the show.
The Southern Lady Liz collapses on the treadmill giving everyone a scare, but she recovers quickly as does her sense of humor and declares she’s a woman on a mission and has an agenda. I just don’t know how much longer Tracey can last, but I’ve seen really unpopular people last against all odds before, so I’m not counting her out – yet.
Okay Tracey pulls a 7 on the scale and she is not able or allowed to work out like the other contestants. The bigger guys in the house are pulling only a loss of 6,7, 8 pounds in comparison after going through Jillian and Bob’s last chance workout gauntlet. It seems improbable and makes me think even more so that Tracey is a plant.
Shay hits her stride – she pulls a 16 pound loss. It puts the Blue Team (Tracey’s team) in the position of having to vote someone off.
Oh no it’s Mo! Even Liz, who was gunning for Tracey, voted out Coach. Actually, I’m not surprised at all. Lover her or hate her, Tracey is a force to be reckoned with. At home Coach Mo has done well and is looking good.
Posted by: WFMeyer on: October 10, 2009
__________________________________
Starting Weight: 380
Weight After Last Weigh-In: 341.5
Weight Loss-/+Gain Since Last Weigh-In: 0
Current Weight: 341.0
Total Weight Loss YTD: 39
__________________________________
Unmoved
Yeah I know, I know…Eat Right – Move More – yada-yada-yada
Even more so remember:
Eat Like Shit – Feel Like Shit – And the Scale Will Show It.
