Okay so I guess it's time to sit down and actually write this update. It's been a really interesting last few days. Amazingly the last week at work has been really good and almost completely stress free. I'm not entirely sure how or why, but I can't complain.
The thought that I will be having GCS is starting to become more real to me. Before, my consult was so darn far away that I it was more of an "oh yeah, that will happen eventually" thing. Now, it suddenly doesn't seem that far a way and it's become more of an "oh crap, that's totally going to happen" sort of thing. I did the math and realized that I have 16 weeks until my consult. This all comes about because I realized next week is my first session having the hair on my nads zapped. I am not particularly looking forward to this. I will be fine and, god knows, I've put myself into plenty of uncomfortable situations before, but that doesn't mean I have to like it
. At least this session I'll be able to talk with my technician without having to mumble and keep my lips still. Surprisingly, the sheer act of having to shave the region 5 days before is very annoying to me. I did that once in the past and it's so darn tooting hard to do, plus i have incredibly sensitive skin so i expect tons of irritation.
Unfortunately, I still have 25 lbs to lose. While, I do not have to be under the BMI requirement in order to have my consult it will delay scheduling of the surgery. Therefore, I fully intend to be at or under that weight. I have been incredibly poor with my eating habits and procrastinating on exercising for the last 2 or 3 months. I haven't really put much back on (~5 pounds), but it was time that i could have used more productively. Like most other things in life I procrastinate and then put forth herculean effort to make it happen.
I do have a plan that will be fairly uncomfortable and likely not the rational way to deal with things, but it will work. As of Monday I am now on a ketogenic diet. I have done keto before and it is effective, but I don't particularly care for it because it requires so much food prep to do in a healthy way and I am crappy with planning and preparation. I do miss some of the food options, but it's not that bad and I enjoy 90% of the things I can eat. The last time I went keto was back in 2014. I managed to lose 30 pounds with a combination of diet and exercise over the course of 4 months. So I know what I am getting into. That being said the first few days have some new curve balls. I did not get the "keto flu" before and I doubt I will this time either. At the begining the body sheds tons of water as it depletes glycogen stores. This is why people who do keto typically lose lots of weight in the first week or two. Since Monday I am down 6 pounds (all water weight). Unfortunately, I am also on a diuretic (Spiro) this time around. Knowing this I have been ensuring to maintain proper hydration. This has meant that I have been waking up to pee 4ish times per night. That is amazingly annoying and I have some newfound respect for my wife when she was pregnant
The other aspect of this involves exercise. I will be doing P90x again. I've done the program before. This time however my goals are much more on weight loss and toning so the resistance will be lower than I historically opted for. In addition to p90x I'll be doubling up on the cardio and adding a good bit of stretching and some pilates (still working on figuring out what will be done each day). It sounds intense, and I suppose it is, but it's also not unual for me to go all in in and make results happen. I don't intend to stop once I acheive my BMI requirement. I would love to drop an additional 30 beyond that and get down to my weight when I left boot camp. In the photo I have from that I almost looked emaciated because my face was so skinny, but this time with hormones I don't think that will be quite as drastic. I absolutely hate that photo, but I will dig it up sometime and post it.
In the meantime here is an old picture of me from before. Please excuse my complexion in the photo, I was so absolutely massively sunburned from the day before.
Now on Tuesday I was in a really weird and overly emotional mood. I finally pinned down why around lunchtime. On Sunday I bought a crap tons of groceries after work. I ended up having an encounter with a girl that I used to be friends with. Some of you long time followers may remember this girl. I went back through this thread and was shocked to find it took going back to reply #20 ( late October) to find where that situation was brought up. We had the chance to talk for longer than a minute or two. For the first time in months since things fell apart It was pleasant and nice and we got to catch up a little bit. My brain had been using all of it's spare cycles dwelling on this and how much I've missed her. I legitimately thought about her almost every single day. I finally broke down and sent her a message asking if we could be friends again and that I've really missed her. To my amazement she responded that she has missed our friendship as well and would be willing to give it another shot. I got to spend the rest of the day feeling terrible because as if everything bad had already happened and our friendship broke again. It took me until yesterday morning to get out of that rut. I had therapy yesterday and it was fun to bring that subject up. I can't say my therapist is not concerned, but is definitely looking to use this opportunity for me to implement a lot of the skills and growth that I have undergone over the past few months. I don't know if it will be a good thing or a bad thing to reengage our friendship, but a thing it is and we shall see how things play out.
So now eveyone can be up to date on whats been going on in my life lately. Now I'm going to go back to camping Danielle's thread because her love life is way, way more interesting than mine.
