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August 09, 2004

I need to blog more

I never really have much of a chance to blog, it seems. There's always something happening that's taking up my time.

I guess that's a good thing.

It used to be that Amanda and I stayed inside constantly. This has definately changed quite a bit over the past four months. We've been going out regularly, visiting new places and making new friends. In addition, we're doing things together like we've never done before. Hell, in the past 5 years, we've probably seen a total of 10 movies together. 4 of those 10 movies have been in the past few months.

I guess you can thank the Prozac for that. I'm definately a different person these days. My attitude has completely changed, and I'm happier than I've been in many years. Even things that used to really get me down don't really phase me that much anymore. I used to be completely consumed by money and work, and these days both are much less important than before. I'm putting Amanda and myself first, for once. Hell, I even turn my cell phone off from time to time during the weekends so that we can actually have some personal time.

So, I went to the doctor today. It was mostly for a follow up visit to get my prescriptions renewed and a general wellness checkup. The doctor was thrilled with my attitude change and we dicussed all kinds of things about the change and how the medicine has effected my personal and business life. She said that everything looked really good.

She was also estatic about my weight loss. Since I visited the doctors office last, I have dropped 20lbs. What the doctor wasn't aware of, and I didn't mention to her, was that I was actually heavier when we changed our eating habits. The day I started, I got on the scale at work to survey the damage ... and I was at 326lbs. Today, on the scale at the doctors office, I was at 304lbs. My initial goal is to get under 300, and then start making other adjustments to help keep the weight off, like walking or some other kind of light exercise.

What's really amazing is what I had to do to drop all of this weight. One day, I had a sudden realization about what I was doing to myself. On a habit, I would put down something like 4-5 Mountain Dews and/or Pepsi 20oz bottles while I was at work. During lunch, I would have at least 2 huge glasses of Coke, and bring one back with me to sip on. One day I started thinking about the amount of sugar that was in these drinks, and how many calories I was putting down per soda. When I figured out the numbers, it was something between 1500-3000 calories per day just on soda alone.

So, Amanda and I made a decision and stopped eating sugar as well as salt (which was her weakness). We've found some great alternatives to sweeten our tea, we only drink diet sodas, and I personally have been drinking much more water. Granted, we do have a bit of sugar now and then as a treat, but it's very rare and it makes us about half sick when we do have some. In addition, Amanda has found some great seasonings that have replaced the salt, but still gives us just as much flavor as before.

Before I left the doctors office today, she recommended one more thing for me to get ... fish oil pills. I had Amanda pick some up while she was out getting a few things this evening. They smell to high hell (it's fish, afterall) but thankfully there's no taste to them at all. According to the doctor, if I take the fish oil pills twice a day, I will cut back on some of the bad cholesterol and triglycerides. My blood pressure is fantastic, but my cholesterol is up just a tad over 200. The good doctor explained that my triglycerides, which are a major risk factor for heart disease, were quite high and needed to come down. She said that my diet will help a great deal, and most likely has already helped to bring the number down. However, since I don't eat fish, the oil pills will help bring my triglyceride down to acceptable levels.

One interesting thing that I learned is that I might be having gall bladder attacks. I explained some of the symptoms that I've been experiencing over the past few months, and said that it really pointed to possibly some gall stones. She said that we can get a scan done to see if that is the case ... the worst possible thing being that the gall bladder may need removing. That really doesn't bother me any, as I've seen tons of people go through the procedure and handle it with no problems.

Anyhow, I think that's enough to talk about for now. I leave you all with a screenshot of my SuSE 9.1 installation. Novell was kind enough to send me their suite of Linux software for free. I'm really beginning to dig them once again. :)

Posted by ed at August 9, 2004 10:59 PM

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