The Things We Leave Behind

I am told that from the back I look "skinny."  I am told that one cannot tell when they look at me how very much I used to weigh.  With half anticipation and half trepidation I ask "but, I still look fat, right?"  Their responses reveal that, in the course of the past few months, a huge part of my self identify has     slowly           faded                   away.

My obesity was a badge of my struggle.  A sign that I had baggage.  A signal that there was a little place in me that somebody had broken a long time ago and which I had never taken the time to put back together.  Now there is no announcement of my scars.  They are hidden beneath clothes.  The more important ones are found beneath flesh in the intimate places where the soul resides.

Recently, I was spending time with friends I just met.  They did not know me eight months ago.  They have not been with me through this journey.  They saw me in my new body.  They assumed I did things like cross country ski and snow board.  They invited me to go rock climbing.

Without my weight, I have no external mechanism that notifies people of my faults.  Nothing to say that I've still got baggage.  That I'm still a little broken.  I've decided not to tell them.  I've decided to join them.  I've chosen to be the man they see, rather than the one I feel like.  And, perhaps, along a hiking path, or on my way down a sloping hill I'll loose a little baggage and heal a little.

A Brief Intermission...

I wanted to give an update to you guys, lest you think that I have abandoned my efforts here.  I have not been posting often and will not be posting regularly again until March.  Why you ask.  I graduated from law school!  HOORAY!  But, now I am studying to take the bar examination.  BOO!  This process is time consuming and not fun.  I would rather be here, but I know I need to stay diligent and on-track.  I'll post major updates from time-to-time.  I'm coming up on a major milestone.  Also, I'll give you a 9-month update once my labs are in next month.

I leave you, for now, with my graduation picture in all my silly regalia (minus the oh-so-silly cap).  I hope the new year brings great things for you all.

                                    - Justin                                              

Holiday Comparison

With its cookies and pies, roasts, turkeys, stuffing, potatoes, and other fare, the holidays can be a time where we try not notice the extra pounds we've put on.  The scale becomes a no-no place.  If we can get through the month and a half between Thanksgiving and New Years, we can deal with the damage later.  This year, however, has been a different experience for me. 

I have taken time to reflect on Christmases past, and I celebrate myself.  As I was uploading this year's pictures I came across a testament to how far I've come.  Observe:

(Click here to see this image in full size)

I feel so much better in body and spirit than I did last year.  And, yes, I did have pie, and cheesecake, and stuffing, potatoes, roast, turkey, and cookies... oh, the cookies!  I also managed to LOOSE about 15 pounds during this period of feasting.  If I haven't said it recently, I LOVE MY DS!

Doctor knows best, but he don't know D!

Well, folks, I have fallen victim to something we have been told to do since we are children but which DS'ers are often cautioned against - I listened to my doctor. His coat was so white, and his degrees so prestigious. So, when his eyes when wide when I told him I was taking 50,000 IU of Vitamin D per day, I followed his advice and cut back to 50,000 IU every other day. Here are the results:

At three months my Vitamin D lab was:

Component Results

Component	Your Value	Standard Range	Flag
Vitamin D 25 Hydroxy	44.7	31-80 ng/mL
	Classification of 25 OH Vitamin D status: Insufficiency/Moderate Deficiency: < or =" 30" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: auto; margin-left: auto; ">Sufficiency/Optimal Levels: 31 to 80 ng/mL Toxicity: > 100 ng/mL Test performed by RIA methodology

At six months my Vitamin D lab was:

Component Results

Component	Your Value	Standard Range	Flag
Vitamin D 25 Hydroxy	37.8	31-80 ng/mL
	Classification of 25 OH Vitamin D status: Insufficiency/Moderate Deficiency: < or =" 30" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: auto; margin-left: auto; ">Sufficiency/Optimal Levels: 31 to 80 ng/mL Toxicity: > 100 ng/mL Test performed by RIA methodology

I know what you may be thinking: "Wonderful, he's within the standard range."  No, my friends, I don't see things that way.  What I see is that my Vitamin D level dropped 15.4% in three months.  That's 5% per month and, to me, an unacceptable declining trend.

From here forward, I will be taking no less than 50,000 IU PER DAY.  I will speak with my surgeon (Dr. Lane) to see how he feels about 100,000 IU per day.  

Raising my GOOD & lowering my BAD cholesterol with Coromega

Well folks, my six month labs are starting to come back to me.  This is the first of several bog posts I will make about the results.

One question I had post-op, when my malabsorption had done its job and dramatically lowered my cholesterol, was: "how do I raise my HDL (good) cholesterol?"  I began using my Coromega brand predigested fish oil packets.  Supposedly, because of its "predigested" form, Coromega circumvents a DS'ers malabsorption/is more bioavailable thus raising HDL levels.  Here is what I found:

At three months post-op I had not begun regularly taking my Coromega.  Here is what my Lipid Panel was at three months:

Component Results

Component	Your Value	Standard Range	Flag
Triglyceride	91	30-149 mg/dL
Cholesterol	131	100-199 mg/dL
HDL Cholesterol	31	>45-  mg/dL	L
VLDL Cholesterol	18	6-40 mg/dL
LDL Cholesterol	82	60-129 mg/dL
Fasting Time	12	-  hrs
TC:HDL Ratio	4.23	1.00-5.00
LDL:HDL Ratio	2.65	0.50-3.55

From three to six months out I began supplementing two Coromega packets (2000 mg of Fish oil) per day, this is what my Lipid Panel was at six months:

Component Results

Component	Your Value	Standard Range	Flag
Triglyceride	59	30-149 mg/dL
Cholesterol	122	100-199 mg/dL
HDL Cholesterol	40	>45-  mg/dL	L
VLDL Cholesterol	12	6-40 mg/dL
LDL Cholesterol	70	60-129 mg/dL
Fasting Time	12	-  hrs
TC:HDL Ratio	3.05	1.00-5.00
LDL:HDL Ratio	1.75	0.50-3.55

So, with Coromega supplementation, my triglyceride level decreased by 35% and my LDL (bad) cholesterol decreased by 15%, while my HDL (good) cholesterol increased by 29%!  I managed to decrease my total cholesterol 6.9% while significantly raising my HDL (good) cholesterol.

I credit these results to Coromega because my eating habits have not markedly changed.  Yes, I cook with olive oil and eat fatty fish about once or twice a week, but I still eat sausage, and steak, and butter, and poultry, and mayo, and eggs, and fried things, and whatever else I feel like eating (save carbs).  So, I don't attribute these results to diet.

I hope seeing my results has helped you.  If you're interesting in buying Coromega, it comes in various citrus and/or chocolate flavors, does NOT taste fishy, and the cheapest price I've found for is $20 for ninety packets at Vitacost.com.  Vitalady also sells this product.

Coming soon, "why not to listen to your doctor when it comes to D," and "did Justin manage to raise his tanked A, E, and K levels?".

A Birthday of Love

Yesterday was my birthday.  Those who know me know that I claim the whole month as mine and all this month I have received cards and calls and packages of love and well wishes from friends and family.  I also gave myself some pretty amazing birthday gifts this year.  A trimmer figure.  A more active body.  Energy.  Health.  And a new found ability to love myself.  Don't get me wrong, I don't want to give off the impression that before my Duodenal Switch I was some self-hating fat man in a constant state of depression.  No.  I liked myself alot.  But I find now that I love myself more.  How do I know?  Well, because I am more able now to let others love me.  With each card or present I opened, with each package that came, during the time I spent with friends and family, with each loving telephone call, I felt love from the other person on a deeper level.  It is more meaningful than it was before because when I hear "I love you" or "you're wonderful" I believe it is possible, because I love me and think I'm wonderful.  Conceited?  Perhaps.  But, I deserve it.

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I see you.  Slowly emerging from my body.  Who are you?  You have my eyes, but the rest is unfamiliar.  I do not understand how you move; you are becoming lanky.  I interlock your arms or bend your legs in funny directions just to see if I can.  I have never moved like this before.  Your fingers can touch the small parts of my back.  Your shoulders have become muscle and bone.  What have you done to my shoulders?  You are a strange man in the mirror as I leave the shower.  I am less startled if I fixate on your eyes.  You have my eyes.  But curiosity gets the better of me.  I follow beads of water as they drip from my hair and slip down the sharp angles of your face.  They glide down your neck and pool on your clavicles which peak beneath my flesh.  I have never had clavicles like yours.  They are foreign to my touch and odd to my sight.  You fit clothes that are too small for me to wear.  You exercise, and enjoy it.  I have no idea who you are and yet you are what I've become.

We have to stop meeting like this.

Christmas is October

I am surrounded by copper, magnesium, and potassium.  Tomorrows mail promises to bring even more exotic offerings: bio-source iron, 10:1 cherry extract, lemon lime pre-digested fish oil, and 35 billion CFU probiotics!  I am officially having a vita-addicts Christmas... or perhaps, this is just the Universe showering me with gifts in "my month" (my birthday is October 20th and I claim the whole month as my own).

Last week, I found myself so rushed it was hard to get good foods in.  I even found myself stopped at one of my old haunts and Cleveland's best Puerto Rican place Rincon Criollo.  There, I indulged in chopped chicharones - fatty, moist, salty, crisp pork bites sure to bring any diet to a screeching halt.  Instead, I managed to drop 5 pounds in a couple days.  I love my duodenal-switch!

I spent this weekend at my mom's house in the country.  I love being there.  She is so supportive, happy, and helpful.  Plus, being in nature surrounded by the changing leaves of fall is always calming.  She stocked me up with great food that will help me keep on track.  As I type this post, there is chicken paprikash in the slow cooker, thanks to good'ol mom.  I really don't know where I'd be without her.

Time for bed.  I need to fall asleep before the smell of chicken begins to fill my apartment and I can't get to sleep due to over-salivation.

Body Amnesia

As I left work the other day.  "Are you loosing weight, sir?" the stranger-woman on the elevator asked me.  "Yes, I am" I responded with a smile as the doors slid open and I began to exit into the parking garage.  "Well, you look great!" she told me.  I had just enough time to get out a sincere, "thank you" before the doors closed.

Then, I began to think.  The conversation with myself started as I walked to my car, continued as I drove home, and finishes, I guess, with this post - HOW FREAKING FAT WAS I?!  I mean really, for a total stranger to notice my weight loss, notice it to the point of commenting on it, means that at some point that same total stranger had to have seen me and said to herself, "damn, that man is HUGE."  Then, as we rode the elevator together, she thought "self, is that the HUGE man we saw a while back?  He looks like he has lost weight - alot of weight - you should say something."

Don't get me wrong.  This woman was sweet and made my afternoon.  But, I have to take pause and ask myself what impression I have been leaving on people.  Now that I have lost so much weight, it is hard for me to remember what my face used to look like.  I forget the curves of my hips and how plump my belly was.  Perhaps it is my minds way of preventing the pain that is caused from loosing my physical identity - I simply don't remember ever looking any differently than I do now.  But, the thought that "gargantuan" is what I was giving off is depressing.  I just have to look forward and hope that in the future, people see me as more of a Denzel than a Marshmallow Man.

Back in the Paddle Again

Hoo-rah!  I rowed for the first time in two weeks - when my ankle started hating me.  In even that short two weeks the calluses and blisters on my hands from rowing have gone down, dried, and peeled away.  Perfect then that my rowing gloves/pads came in the mail.  Now I can get buff and hot while keeping my hands silky smooth...LOL!  Not only did I row, I rowed with no pain.  This is a good thing because I really want to keep my weight dropping.  But, you know what?  Even with two weeks of no/minimal exercise I still dropped ten pounds in the last seven days - Duodenal Switch, gotta love it.