262. Dropped off a bit there, sorry. I went to the evening of the 12th day of my juice fast. That's right, I jumped out of my 15 day goal. I figured that, even though I knew I could make the 15, if I continued to the end, I'd be so pissed at juicing I'd never do it again.

Once I was able to think properly again, which apparently requires pizza molecules, I figured out my error, and a solution, and my next goal. Yes, the pizza was that good. I had unconsciously allowed my thought patterns to shift away from what I was accomplishing and I began to focus on what I was missing; what I was being "deprived" of. I started obsessing over food which intensified the hunger and longing and trashed my morale. In retrospect, the arbitrary goal of 15 days was not the best method.

I plan to start juicing again this week, probably tomorrow. This time, my goal is to break 250. Last time, I started at 274.5, ended at 258, and have stabilized at 262-264. So, my net loss was over 10 pounds for a 12 day fast. This time, I'll break 250 and probably end up around 254/255 when I start eating again. Rather than fix a set number of days to fast, I'm targeting a weight to break. That way, a few days in, when I'm starting to dwell on all the wonderful foods I'm NOT eating, I can reach my intended weight goal sooner by exercising more. INCENTIVE!!

Oh, and if I just get downright pissy again or obsessive about food? I'll eat something. Not every day, not every 3rd day, but like, maybe once a week or something. This is a consideration and not a concrete part of the plan as yet. Mainly, though, I expect success because this time I'll be aware to avoid a shift in my thinking to what I'm "missing" and remember what I'm losing.

I looked at my tag "weight" a few days ago and was saddened by how long it's been. How long I've been affectionately called "big guy" by people who barely know me. How long I've berated myself and hated myself, no loathed myself... One of my life's successes so far has been making sure my boys didn't have weight issues. I hope they never will. If they do, I'm going to counsel them and encourage them and support them. I'm going to "bug" them about it every time we talk until they hear me. 20 pounds when your 30 turns into a hundred when your 40, I'll tell them, and it does nothing short of ruining. your. life. until you drop it. They'll know how I know this.

On a more positive note, I looked at my work badge photo, which is just over 2 years old because I got a new badge when I changed jobs. I had crept up over 300 to a maximum of 314 around this time. When I looked at that I realized I had lost over 50 pounds in the last 2 years and it gave me a surge of optimism. Maybe I won't have to be buried in a piano case. ;-) It made me realize I need to rethink things yet again, to start expecting to lose down under 200 pounds, because that can actually and realistically be accomplished in our lifetime!

And, because this post is only annoyingly long and not yet impossibly long, let's talk drugs. Still off all my depression meds and I've recognized some feelings of mild mania and depression associated with my cyclothymia. I guess I had once again convinced myself blindly and ignorantly that all that stuff was gone away. Ha. Uhhhh, yeah. So, recap, my brain isn't as balanced as yours. I have... issues. But I think I'll be able to manage without medicine. I think diet and exercise and weight loss will all positively impact my brain function. Some days I'll want to stay up and not sleep and others I'll sit on a chair and take note of the fact that I'm just not motivated enough to do the things that I intended to do that day.

It's a brand new concept for me; where I understand my imperfections, I acknowledge my strengths and shortcomings. It is conceivable that, with time, I might even come to like or even love myself. The telegraph worked, man flew, space travel happened. It's conceivable.

Tags: depression, diet, exercise, juicing, weight

258.  Never dreamed I could reach the 250s in less than several months.  16.5 pounds down.  Day 11.  If no one knew I was doing this, I would have quit last night.  So. Hungry.  It's been worse lately than it was in the first few days.  But, I know my sons are watching.  Sure, they'd be understanding if I did quit, but I wouldn't stand quite as tall.  My word wouldn't be quite as strong.  I can do anything for 4.5 more days.  Work calls, veg on.

260.  Day 9 of 15.  14.5 pounds down.  Head down, soldiering on.  It's no longer, "I can do this," it's "This is done! What's next?" 





Another fifteen?
At this point, we don't know.

262.  Weight loss has slowed, as expected.  Still, 12.5lbs from initial weight on the morning of the 23rd (7 days ago.)  Nothing but juice so far.  Hungry more the last 2-3 days.  Blood pressure yesterday was 111/65.  Blood sugars are staying within decent boundaries.  My highest since starting this was 168.  I'm currently taking 20 units of Lantis per night and it seems to be keeping my blood sugar where it needs to be.  As I lose more weight, I expect I won't even need that.

266 this morning, as posted.  Got up for tonight's work shift, 263.5.  I have lost 11 pounds since Thursday morning.  I think we can safely say that I'm beyond losing water weight from here on out. 

266.  Three full days of juice only now and I'm down 8.5 pounds.  Energy level is good, mood is great.  I gotta wear shades.  Worksleep.

Tags: all or nothing, aspiring to live, diet, goals, health, weight

268.  Now 2 full days under my fasting belt.  It hasn't been too bad, either.  I feel empty, but I haven't had severe hunger pangs.  I've been able to spread my juices out just far enough apart that I am due for another just when I really start to feel hungry.  Lots of water in between helps.

6.5 pounds in 2 days.  I've held off on exercise because I'm lazy and because I wanted to make sure not to overwhelm my body with exercise and fasting all at the same time.  After my work weekend the next two nights, I plan to start walking daily.

Work offers some challenges.  Obviously, I won't be able to "hide" the fact that I'm fasting even if I wanted to.  But, I'm going to be sitting, for 12 hours, and this makes for some planning before hand.  How do I take enough juice to last the shift, how much is enough?  When do I juice so that I have enough for work and home both.  Actually, this is probably easier than it sounds.  I'm juicing 4 times a day, so I just need to divide it right so I'm not starving at work or when I go to sleep. 

Day three commences. 

Tags: all or nothing, aspiring to live, diet, goals, health, weight

271.5 this morning.  After 24 hours of juice fasting and not eating any solid food, I dropped 3 pounds.  Water weight, I know, because I got up to pee about every 2 hours all night.  However, It's the beginning of something much bigger. 

I watched a documentary on Netflix called Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead. I thought about it a bit, got Allie to watch it because she is my voice of reason in many things, then went shopping for a juicer.  I ended up getting the exact model they use in the movie. I've set an initial goal of 15 days for my fast. The guy in the film did 60. I might extend it that long if I feel good, am getting healthier, and am losing a lot of weight. If it is difficult and I'm hungry, weak, or miserable all the time, I can suffer for 15 days to get some results. I'm not committing to more yet.

I expect that I will drop at least 15 to 20 pounds during my 15 days. If it's more, beauty. My long term goal is to weigh approximately 100 pounds less than I do now. The guy in the video looked about like me when he started and he lost 84 pounds during his 60 day fast. And, he's kept it off. So will I.

Tags: all or nothing, aspiring to live, diet, goals, health, weight

274. Just sayin'. Back on track post med manipulation mistake (MMM?). Now, walking. Yes. Oh, and I love oatmeal. No, I mean, I can eat whole oats dry right out of the box even. And I eat the non-cut, whole oats, little banana, little Splenda. It's not even like I'm choosing to eat healthy when I eat that. Still, it's hard to pass on blueberry or brown sugar cinnamon Pop-Tarts when I see them in the cabinet. Of course they're ALL carbs and 400 calories for a single pack of two! Death in a pouch there, mate.

Hey look! When I Twitter from Pinterest? Livejournal puts in Russian for free!

• Пн, 13:59: When I read this, I thought of my sister. http://t.co/QFDxDDtU

Tags: twitter

It's been a week of self-discovery, health-wise.  I got all excited about how proper diet and exercise were going to get me off my meds, and in so doing, I jumped the gun a bit.

My blood pressures got low enough I was getting a rush every time I stood up, so I cut my med in half, taking it only at night and not in the morning.  My BPs were still pretty low, so I thought it was quite safe to cut it again down to, off.  Well, it's a combo pill that has lisinopril (for BP) and HCTZ (long name,  unneccessary, look it up).  The HCTZ is a mild diuretic, which is a fancy word that means it makes you pee more to keep you from retaining extra fluid. 

I was fine for about 5 days pressure-wise, but I kept hording fluid like a desert cactus.  My legs looked like Gumby's.  So, around day 6-ish, I decided I needed to take the med again, if only for the fluid out-peeing.  This was an unusual bit of wisdom and foresight.  Over the next two days I felt pretty crappy, and the second of those two days I started having headaches that could register on the Richter scale, If I had one.  Checked my BP.  Yep, not too high at 141/85, but WAY higher than I had been running at 120s/70s.  Now, I'm in my 3rd day of being back on both doses and my legs don't look like skin colored bell bottoms anymore. 

Full Disclosure paragraph:  My weight went from a low of 273.5 to 281.5 during that time, and is now at 278.5.  Yes, I can eat healthier foods, exercise (a little bit) and GAIN weight.  I should be embraced and funded as the newest, best form of renewable energy.  I can conserve energy better than a sloth farm, if there are any of those, which I doubt.

And, here's where I admit that what I'm NOT doing is walking like I should.  I have a partial excuse that I just wasn't feeling like it as I sponged up all the excess water in my community, but then, "not feeling like it" has been expunged from my excuse play book.  It's now only in my Reasons to Change resource fanny pack (insert mental image here of a big guy with a fanny pack).  I'm "not feeling like" I want to be this big and this unhealthy any more. 

I've been walking about 20 minutes every day except my work days (weekends, 2 days one week, 3 the next).  As a result, I haven't lost much weight to speak of, but my medication needs are apparently changing.  I was taking my blood pressure med twice a day, but my pressure was getting so low I was feeling light-headed when I stood up, so I went to once a day.  My pressures were still very low (roughtly ranging from 100/67 to 124/74,  for example) so I've been OFF of it for a couple of days now.  I'm going to check it for the next few days to see if it starts creeping back up.

I've been on insulin shots before meals to control my blood sugar and I'm currently running a test on that as well.  I didn't take insulin before my last meal and I will check my blood sugar in a few minutes (about 2-2.5 hours after the meal) to see how close it is to normal (70-110).  If it is under about 130 or 140, then I may be able to stop the insulin and just keep using the oral med (metformin).  These are MAJOR improvements in my quality of life, as you can imagine.  If I can't stop the insulin yet, I'm confident it won't be long until I can. 

I need to be just a little bit more careful about my food choices (mainly, eating a little less) and I need to at least double my exercise regimen.  These are just small tweaks in the scheme of things.  Not easy tweaks, because I want to be lazy, but small.  Gimme a couple of weeks and we'll see where this takes me.

"I only go forward." Michael Caine

Tweets copied by twittinesis.com

Secretary to EMS: Why is he (the patient on the stretcher) here?
EMS: Dog bite
Secretary: Bed 11
As EMS escorts patient to bed, 2 cops come following.

LOL!

Rule #1: DON'T run from the K-9!!

Rule #2: Especially don't PUNCH the K-9.

Tags: work
Current Location: United States, North Carolina, Winston-Salem

Ages ago, in this place, I mentioned that I felt as if I had a mild version of Bipolar disorder. Smaller ups and downs. One of my best LJ buddies, thunderslug, typed in a response: dysthymia.

That started me Googling and I soon found Cyclothymia which is, you guessed, a milder version of bipolar. I've carried this self-diagnosis for some time, but then came some pretty significant depressive episodes, some therapy, and a trial-and-error clown car full of psychotropics and anti-depressants.

This week I'm at the psych's office for the semi-annual review of how marginally the drugs are working when I mention my self-diagnosis. He tests me, I'm positive for it. Meds are changed to ones more suited for cyclothymia than depression. Some of the meds I've been taking can even exacerbate cyclothymia.

Hope springs eternal.

Tags: cyclothymia, depression
Current Location: United States, North Carolina, Winston Salem
Current Mood: calm
Current Music: ER thrumming

Everybody’s got something to blame because they don’t want to look inside themselves.

....What do you see when you look inside yourself?

Inside myself? I see everything. I see all. I see the good, bad, the evil… I see the whole thing.

....How much evil is there?

‘s much as you see.

....What do you see?

All of it. (Wide grin, chuckle.) Right down to peaks you haven’t touched yet. To dreams you haven’t dreamed. And worlds you haven’t conquered. The mind is endless. You put me in a dark, solitary cell and, to you, that’s the end. To me, it’s the beginning. It’s a universe in there. There’s a world in there. I’m free.

--Charles Manson

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

.....I’ll tell you exactly why they’re (the record companies) evil, because I told you that if you listen to our music, and you really do, with a street attitude, you’ll hear a lot of positive messages. That’s news to our record label. As far as they’re concerned, they’re just like the rest of America, they think we’re just evil scrubs, you know? They think we’re just evil bastards but they still put it out.

.....You hear what I’m saying? Like, in other words, I know there’s a good side to ICP. That’s why I can write an Insane Clown Posse album with full karma, release it and go promote it and feel good about it. ‘Cause I know that there’s positivity in our music. But our own record label, just like the rest of America, thinks that we’re just all negative, and we’re responsible for **** like Columbine and things like that, and they still put the records out. They never asked us to define these lyrics. You’d think they would If they really cared. They’d say, “Wait a minute, we’re a giant corporation. Define these lyrics before we put this out.”

--Violent J of the Insane Clown Posse

     Based on my recent, continuing experiences I can solidly recommend that you never, ever do business with Bank of America.  Why? The most curious of you must be asking.  Well, it's a ( long story... )

If you skipped the prolonged read, suffice to say I have provided ample evidence to discourage most people from wanting to do business with Bank of America.

I've downloaded the latest software, I've done a clean boot as instructed to get my webcam to work (it doesn't), and I've gotten my G5 gaming mouse replaced with a G500, which displays the same symptoms the G5 displayed only the cord is clearly intact on the G500 whereas it was clearly fraying on the G5. My G500 now randomly stops working when using it for several seconds, (sometimes nearly a full minute!) It makes the disconnect/reconnect sound as if it was being unplugged from the USB port and replugged. Yes, I've tried it in numerous different USB ports. Yes, I've uninstalled and reinstalled the software at LEAST a half dozen times with the latest software from your support site.

I've uninstalled everything and reinstalled them one at a time with the most recent software downloads to no avail. In short, I am disgusted with Logitech. And I've been a loyal customer for many years. I currently use a G13 Gaming keypad, A Wave Keyboard, my G500 (until yesterday) and Non-Logitech headphones with mic after having 3 Logitech sets stop functioning in one ear.

I used to consider Logitech to be great value for the dollar and good, quality, computer gear. But, I think I should just be able to plug all this stuff in and it work together, ESPECIALLY being the same brand! I don't want to jump through hoops to make it work, uninstalling and reinstalling software, spending countless minutes "working" on my computer instead of using it.

As of today, I will no longer bother you to try and get this stuff to work. I'll just quietly replace it with another brand as it stops working, starting with this G500, which I have enjoyed immensely when it worked, but have been frustrated with to no end when it cuts out.

If you look at my support history, I think you will agree I've given Logitech the benefit of the doubt.

I will also be posting this letter in my blog to let my readers know that I am doing this; because, after all, Logitech also benefited from all my claims of satisfaction and referrals when I still loved your products so.

Tags: hardware, logitech
Current Location: United States, Winston-Salem
Current Mood: angry

From the 13th at 2300.

I'm at work. I am working my 4 week notice and preparing to transfer to another nursing job here in the hospital. A job that is away from the bedside. A job that is away from patients and their families.

I am ready for this after 10 years of dealing with some of the most abusive, unappreciative, vulgar scum on earth. Of course, I've also had the opportunity to deal with some amazing and wonderful people as patients and family members. I've had life changing experiences; euphoric, chaotic nights where a patient tried their very best to die and I stood between them and the exit, and crushing, torturous nights that ground my spirit down to the bone.

I've been sincerely thanked, given gifts, and visited later by well patients. I've been spat upon, cursed, struck, and called every name you could imagine as well. I've done chest compressions on a 19 year old girl while her parents held her hands. I've done them on a 70 year old man, while nearly every rib broke from the effort. I've listened as a mother begged her child not to leave her, and as another said, "Father, into Thy hands we commend his spirit."

I've taken everything I could from these experiences away with me, and I've given all that I had.

With a fond glance to my coworkers, I move forward.

Tags: work
Current Location: United States, North Carolina, Winston Salem
Current Mood: contemplative

At Evan's Karate class and it's boring tonight. Just punching focus mitts redundantly. But I'm so glad he likes it and is doing so well.