My weight can fluctuate three to four pounds on any given day, but in the end it keeps making its way down. So with that in mind I waited to make sure it didn’t bump up a pound or so for a couple of days before celebrating the fact that I just hit the century mark…..one hundred pounds lost so far. Overall, I feel really great, but my OCD nature already has me anxious to lose the final hundred. This topic brings up an argument (one out of many) my ex girlfriend and I would have on the weight topic…just like ladies don’t generally announce their age, maybe guys like me just have trouble discussing their actual weight with anyone but their doctor. Every other discussion is in terms of how much I’ve lost or am supposed to lose, and this would drive her nuts because it made her feel like I was afraid of divulging something sensitive in front of my significant other. She had a really good point. I mean, what is the big deal REALLY when it comes to putting a number on it? I guess since I’ve been overweight my whole life, it becomes this monster I deal with daily and unsuccessfully try to ignore. Your self worth is constantly measured against how much you weigh, how much you USED to weigh, how much you SHOULD weigh, “if I’d just stayed on that diet during that one year I’d be so much happier now…..I’d be married, I’d have a better job, I would have traveled more…”, and all of the losses and gains that continue to cripple your self image decade after decade.
So the week before my surgery I weighed in at 426 pounds. As of thirty seconds ago when I stepped on the scale, I am down to 325 pounds. I’m 38 years old, and I probably haven’t seen 325 in at least ten years. The highest it ever got was 438 pounds, right before I did the KU weight loss research study four years ago. I lost about a hundred pounds that year, and the rest is, as the cliche goes….history. One funny little coincidence happened as I began this paragraph…my surgeon’s office called me because they needed to reschedule my 6 month checkup to February 27th. It just so happens that February 27th would have been my younger brother’s 34th birthday. I don’t really look for any hidden meaning or message in the timing of this post and the phone call, it’s simply something that connects the happiness of today’s achievement with the reality that this is life (the one you get, so go and have a ball Bonnie Franklin).
So the weight loss is nice indeed. A couple of other noteworthy things include the fact that I finally found a great use for those indestructable test tubes from my New Whey protein supplements that continue to pile up. Spice storage! I went down to Al Habashi market this week to stock up on spices, and there are just some things that you want to have on hand but don’t use every day….cardamom pods, star anise, whole nutmeg, whole coriander seeds, etc. These tubes are PERFECT for storage. Airtight as it gets, no chance of enough light getting through to degrade spices over time, you literally cannot break them, and they’re just handy to label and stick in the cabinet until you need them. While they’re not as fancy as those cumbersome test tube spice racks from Dean and Deluca, it makes me (a pretty loathsome non-recycler) feel like I’m giving something back to dear old mother earth by reusing them.
Lastly, I went ahead and emailed my voice teacher last night to talk about taking up lessons again. I stopped studying voice about two years ago…I had just bought my house and money was extremely tight, and I was just starting grad school. I’ll be graduating in May, and although it’s not like money is growing on trees for me these days I can depend on the reserves from my new food budget to take a couple of lessons per month. When I was in the chorus of Falstaff three years ago, that was such a memorable experience that I figure it’s time to branch out again and see what happens. The KC Opera is doing a new opera based on “Our Town” in June, and who knows, if things work out I’ll hopefully get to be in the chorus and rub elbows with REAL vocalists. I’ve been knocking the rust out of the pipes the last couple of days by practicing on Andrea Bocelli’s “Con Te Partiro”…..which I realize in the opera world is probably akin to singing Britney Spears “Oops, I Did It Again”. But my teacher will get me straightened out and I’ll have some new type of education to obsess over once grad school is over and I have no idea what to do with all of the extra time that normally would have been spent studying or writing papers…..or six months ago, eating about 8000 calories worth of greasy goodness.
Usually I would celebrate any kind of milestone with a huge meal. Tonight I’ll have some Campbell’s Chunky Chicken and Wild Rice Soup…..I’m a wild man with wildly shifting priorities now. 360 calories is a satisfying meal, and it feels good for that to be my new reality.
Unsaved Loved Ones 