Jack Fabulous

You can find my complete blog HERE. As I have written, I identified myself as an overweight guy who didn’t do much of anything. I went to work, I came home, and I was not social. I can’t identify myself in that way anymore because I’m more active and trying to be social. However, I am a baby when it comes to interacting with people. My weight used to hide me and give me an excuse to not have to deal with people. As another strategy to break out of my shell, I signed up with Meetup groups in the area. Several are for photography and a general social Meetup. My wife and I made reservations to go and see a play and have dinner with about 20 other people from Meetup. That should be interesting. I’m actually quite terrified of how to act and what to say. Thankfully, my wife is going to be there with me and she doesn’t have these hang-ups. I can lean on her quite a bit. For quite some time I’ve longed to have a group of guy friends. I watch movies like “The Hangover” or “Bachelor Party” and wish I had male friends that I can do things with like go to Vegas. I’d love to have a small but intimate group of guy friends to hang out, drink beer, eat chili dogs and cheese fries (burp!) and talk about whatever is on my mind. We could go out to see movies that my wife doesn’t want to see, play a little poker, car shows, chili cook-offs, fishing, paintball, you get the idea. All of those things guys like to do; I want to be able to do. I was telling this to my therapist who suggested I look on MeetUp. I found many groups for women but none for guys to just hang out and be guys. So, I created a group for guys. Because of my self-esteem issues I have very low expectations for the group. I didn’t think anyone would actually join the group but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try. I thought, “Oh well, I’ll create it and we’ll see what happens.” I paid for a group for 90 days because I figured that once this flopped, I wouldn’t be out a whole lot of money. Well, what happened is that I got 90 guys who signed up in just a few days. YIKES! So I guess this group might last a little longer than just three months. When I created my “low expectation” group, I also created a happy hour. I picked a date and time I was available but I figured that since nobody would sign up that it would be a moot point. Monday night it not idea for a happy hour but since nobody was going to show up, it was not that big of a deal. Within a couple of days, I had 15 men sign up for the happy hour. HOE. LEE. ****. I didn’t know I was filling such a void. Well crap, I guess that means I actually have to go and figure out where to have this thing. I really was expecting that no one would sign up for the Meetup, and no one would show up for the Happy Hour. These are the kinds of things that the old me, the 330 pound me, would have thought: “I’m not worth it, so therefore no one is going to sign up.” However, this is the kind of thing I need to change my attitude about. I AM worth it. I AM interesting. People SHOULD like me, and if they don’t I’ll just beat the living crap out of them until they change their mind. Sorry, I got carried away! Now, the Happy Hour is stressing me out because my wife is not going to be there. It’s going to be a bunch of guys I don’t know. It is all on me to make it a success. I don’t know how to act. I don’t know what to talk about. So we’ll have to see what happens. Anyway, that’s all the news that’s fit to print for today.

This week I lost three pounds and my therapist asked me how I felt about it. Anytime I lose a significant amount of weight I tend to get very anxious because I don’t know how to act. My body may have lost the weight but emotionally and mentally, I haven’t adjusted my way of thinking to this new, thinner person. I know a lot of people say, “Well, just because you lose weight doesn’t mean you’re a different person. You’re still the same person.” I actually beg to differ on that. I’ve transformed from a person who weighed 330 pounds to a 240 pound person. Before the weight loss I went to work, came home, sat on the couch, watched TV, ate dinner, played on the internet, and went to bed. That was the sum of my life. I could barely breathe sitting down, or even get dressed in the mornings. Now I’m participating in things I’d never be able to do if I was 330 lbs. I’ve been very active with my photography which requires a lot of energy to walk around for hours at a time. I’ve started weightlifting, kayaking, bicycling, and in general being very energetic. I have not only changed physically and have a lot more energy, but going from a sedentary life to an active one in just a matter of a few months requires a huge mental shift in the brain. Therefore, I am not the same person I was before. In my hermit like existence I was not social at all. I didn’t like talking to people and I kept to myself. Because of all this activity, I’m being forced out into situations beyond my comfort zone where I have to interact with people. Because of this weight loss I feel like I have broken out of a prison and like a freed prisoner, I want to experience everything life has to offer and everything I have missed out on all my life. This is why I am making an effort to become more active and even reach out to people for some social interaction. The problem is that psychologically, my brain has not caught up with all of this and that’s what’s really causing the anxiety. I am very socially awkward. I don’t know how to talk to people because I’ve never had to do it. I don’t know how to act or react when people talk to me. I feel as if I have no social skills whatsoever. I’m extremely shy and unable to hold a conversation or talk to someone in a social setting. I’m so shy and terrified that I wouldn’t go up to someone and start a conversation with them. When I meet people I am paralyzed to open my mouth for fear of saying something stupid, dumb, or uninteresting. I’m constantly wondering what negative thoughts the other person must be thinking of me. There are times I can be intelligent, interesting, and funny, but most of the time I think of myself as very dull. I guess all I can do is practice social skills by getting out there, into social situations. Meeting different people, meeting new people, and seeing how things go. Hence, it is torture to try to break out of my shell and venture out into the brave new world of humans.

I waited a few months before trying jerky but I love it and it is fine with my stomach. I like the jack links because it is softer.

I can't tolerate any carbonation. My doctor said not to drink it because the bubbles make your stomach expand. I don't know about all that. I just know that I felt really sick after just two sips.

I eat everything.

I buy puréed foods from blossom foods dot com. They are the perfect size and high protein low calories meals.

The first 30 days are the hardest but it gets easier every day as your body heals and adjusts. Try drinking Premiere protein shake. The chocolate flavor is pretty good. Also look up blossom foods and buy some puréed meals. They are high protein low calorie and just enough to fill you up. Feel free to read my blog to get a sense of what to expect. We have all been where you are. Drop me a note if you need more support.

What you are feeling is NORMAL. We ALL felt this way after our first week. Below is a link to a blog entry I wrote just 1 week after my surgery. It's called Buyer's Remorse: http://jfabulous43.wordpress.com/2012/02/18/buyers-remorse/ I hope it helps you realize that you are no different. This feeling does go away about as fast as it came. I have not regretted my decision since! If you need someone to talk to, feel free to email me at jfabulous43@gmail.com.

This is one of those rare posts where I pour my heart out and it was very difficult to write because it is very hard for me to face the truth about myself and my painful past. I apologize in advance for any rambling I might do. Body image has always been a sore topic with me. From the time I was born I always felt unattractive. No, not just unattractive – I felt like people thought I was repulsive. I believed I was so hideously ugly that people didn’t even want to look in my direction. I’ve honestly always felt like a cross between The Elephant Man and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. A lot of that has to do with the abuse that I incurred when I was growing up. In addition to the physical abuse, my parents constantly berated me as being worthless and told me I was never going to get a woman to marry me. My mother was constantly telling me I was fat, unattractive and ugly. She would say that I needed to lose weight and order me to go out to exercise. I hated to go out to do any kind of exercise because it just wasn’t fun and I wasn’t good at it. It would have been different if I had played sports, but we were poor and couldn’t afford the financial outlays that being on children’s sports teams required. So she would force me to “go jogging”, which I hated. She would peer out the window to make sure that I was exercising, so I would jog out of sight of her view and go sit on a log for 30 minutes and pretend to jog back. Imagine a seven year old (yes, you heard me right) being told all this and being sent out to jog by himself. The mental abuse started when I was even much younger, but my first memory of the “jogging” was when I was seven. My mother would tell me that they were saying all these things to “help me improve”, but I didn’t take those comments in the spirit in which they were intended, I took them to heart. After taking them to heart, I modeled my behaviors based on them. If I was repulsive, I tried to stay away from people, especially the opposite sex. I didn’t ask girls out on dates, I didn’t even go up to talk to people. I was too terrified and shy to walk up to someone, smile, and say “hello” regardless of their gender. When you are told something all of your life by people who love you, it is hard to not have it sink in. When I look back at pictures of myself as a young child, I realize that I was actually not fat, but I became fat as an adult because that’s how I saw myself. This played into my social interactions with women. If the most important woman in my life at the time (my mother) didn’t like me, then what hope did I have for the outside world? I used to feel very sleazy at just the idea of walking up to a woman and trying to talk to her. I felt like she would think, “Oh my God, here’s a disgusting, repulsive, ugly man who’s trying to get in my pants or ask me out on a date. He’s so ugly, disgusting, and repulsive that he makes my skin crawl and I just want to get away from him.” That’s why I never went up to anyone to try and talk to them. That’s why I kept to myself a lot. All throughout my life, I never got any type of positive reinforcement or positive examples of women liking me. No woman ever came up to me and started a conversation. The few people who I did ask out turned me down, which led me to stop asking anyone out on a date. All of those things solidified my opinions of myself and played into my self-image. This is the main reason there are no photos of me on the Interwebz. I’m still fairly socially awkward and not good in situations around people. Oh sure, you might think by reading my entries that I don’t seem that way, but in person I am very shy and suffer from low self-esteem. I still don’t go up to strangers and talk to them – even at parties when I’m introduced to people, I just listen to what they have to say and not say what’s on my mind. I’ve been thinking lately that when I weighed 325 pounds I probably did look hideous and ugly but at 240 pounds, maybe I don’t look all that repulsive. Now don’t get me wrong, I still don’t think I’m esthetically appealing. I still don’t think that there are too many women out there who would look at me and think I was good looking, or “Wow, I’d like to get to know him better”, but at least they wouldn’t say that I look dreadful. A woman isn’t going to avert her eyes when she looks in my direction. It bothers me that at some point in my life, before I lost this weight, I was 240 pounds and thought I was repulsive, disgusting, and ugly. As I said before, I made social choices based on that. The negative self-image is still there, but it’s not as strong. I’m not sure how my attitude will change if I lose more weight. I hope that it will get better, but I think some of that will also depend on the reaction I get from people around me. I’ll have to see if, with my newly lost weight, I’m treated any differently than I was in my teens and 20’s. I’ll have to see if people actually enjoy being around me – if women actually like talking to me. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to see if a woman would actually go out on a date with me considering that I’m married, but I’d like to at least find out what could’ve been possible, if that makes any kind of sense.

I dont think you need to worry. I was eating whatever I wanted 5 weeks out.

It is possible. I lost 15 pounds the first week and 10 pounds the next week.

In this past week’s meeting with my therapist, I said that I felt like I was not losing weight fast enough. I’m still fat. I still have a “beer belly”. She stated that I needed to make lifestyle changes to be successful. In her opinion, I need to do better. We discussed the life changes I’ve made to be able to lose 86 pounds. I used to eat at fast food restaurants about four times per week. That is down to about twice a month. And just to be clear, I’m not eating a burger meal, usually it is something small. I’m very careful to keep it under 200 calories. One of the tasks I used to hate while dieting was writing down everything I ate. Now I actually enjoy seeing how many calories, protein, and fat I’ve consumed. I’ve been using myfitnesspal.com and it has made all the difference in the world. My friends on there are very supportive to the point that if I don’t log on for a few days, they send me notes asking me where I am and how I’m doing. Now that I’m logging my food, I also measure it before I eat it; not everything all the time, but putting my food into a 1 cup measuring cup helps me know how much my stomach will tolerate. All of these things that I thought were a pain in the ass, I am now doing. I still make a lot of poor choices and I do need to make more changes such as exercising regularly. But with each pound lost, I feel like I am slowly making the changes required of me to lose the remaining 60 pounds. I only have 40 pounds to lose for my doctor, but I want to lose another 60. If this 86 pounds made this much of a difference in my life I can only imagine what losing another 60 pounds will do! I’m fairly confident that I will reach my goal but it is frustrating not being there already.

Due to hectic work schedules and a new restaurant opening on every corner, Americans are eating out more than ever. According to the National Restaurant Association, Americans are dining out at least 4 times per week and the rate of obesity continues to climb. As a whole, we spend one billion dollars a day eating out, which averages out to be $1,117 per person per year. This is a huge amount of money that would be saved by just eating at home versus out. So what’s the solution to the problem? Refuse to eat out? Americans don’t have to say “no” to eating out all together, but you can start to familiarize yourself with menus and learn to choose healthy items while dining out. Here are 8 Rules to help you eat smart while dining out: Look up the menu. Most restaurants post their menus along with nutrition information on their website. Research your options, and review not only calorie content, but portion size. More often than not, restaurants will give you 2-3 servings on one plate. Choose grilled, baked or broiled lean Protein sources, such as chicken breast, fish or lean steak. Ask for steamed vegetables vs. grilled. Choose a whole grain side, such as brown rice, quinoa or cous cous. Know what you will order before you go, and stick to it! Be the first to order. Once you get to the restaurant, avoid browsing the menu so you can stay on track. Also, try to place your order first to avoid changing your mind after you hear what your friends or family are ordering. Focus on your overall goal to be healthy and stick with your original food choice. Have it your way. Not sure what they use to “grill” their fish or how they prepare the mashed potatoes? There is always an opportunity to ask! While placing your order, inquire exactly how your food will be prepared. You may be able to reduce calories and fat by subtracting the butter or oil used for preparation. Some good questions to ask are: Can the dish be modified? What comes with the meal? Can I make substitutes? How large are the portions? Overall, don’t be afraid to modify a meal or make special requests. Avoid being seduced by wordy descriptions. Many menus will try to reel you in with mouth-watering descriptions- don’t buy into it! Research shows words that promote taste and texture, such as “velvety” mousse or “legendary” spaghetti, can influence the way you think the food tastes. Words like these prep your taste buds to expect your chicken to taste extra juicy, when in reality it may just be average. Stay away from snacking. Unless you are ordering an appetizer for your main entrée- stay away! Often times we can load up on many calories from appetizers then feel the need to eat our entire meal too. It is helpful to avoid the free bread basket or chips and salsa as well. These items can pile on the fat and calories-so have your server remove them from your table for best control. Make a meal out of an appetizer. Certain appetizers can be great choices for an entrée; you just have to make the right choice. Steer clear of the chicken wings, mozzarella sticks and other fried foods. Look for healthy options like shrimp cocktail, salads, grilled vegetables or broth based Soups. Another idea is to combine an appetizer with a side salad; the salad will bulk up the meal to make you feel more satisfied without the extra calories. Know your salads. Depending on how you toss it, a salad can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Make sure to pile on the greens, Beans and veggies while limiting salad dressing, cheese and bacon. Choose healthy salad dressings like low-fat vinaigrettes instead of cream-based dressings like ranch. Another helpful tip is to order your dressing on the side and dip your fork into it before dipping into the salad. This way, you’ll get a taste of the dressing on each bite without all the calories. Portion control. Last but not least is Portion Control. As we talked about earlier, many restaurants serve you 2-3 portions on one plate! So what should you do? Try sharing a meal with a friend or family member to avoid over-eating. You can also ask your waiter to box up half of your meal before it is brought out to you, or box up part of your meal once served. The key is to eat to the point of satisfaction versus feeling overly full. As you are eating, you want to pay attention to your body and listen to your internal hunger versus fullness cues. Slowing down at meal times can give your mind some time to catch up with your body that you are actually full. The Bottom Line: When dining out, be sure to research menu options before heading to the restaurant. Once you arrive, be the first to order and ask questions about how the meal is prepared, what comes with it and how large the portion sizes are. Be mindful while eating, and always stop when you feel satisfied. Reference: M. Moreno, (2012, August, 13). 13 Rules for Dining Out on a Diet. NBC News.

It's not unusual. I lost about a pound a day everyday for a couple of months.

It depends on the type and density of the cheese. Processed "cheese food" (not real cheese) is lighter

It really depends on how overweight you are. I've lost 85 lbs so far at 6 months out and I have another 80 to go. I feel confident that I will get there. It just takes time. My doctor told me I should have no problem losing 130 - 150 lbs.

This has been the hardest thing for me. I tend to sip throughout my meals. I know it is bad and I shouldn't do it, but I can't help it.

Yep! Broth is just fine!

I prefer to have bat wings. It makes me feel like a super hero....The Fat Knight

I'm just wondering how many folks regularly attend the monthly support group meetings sponsored by your doctor? Do you find them to be helpful? Why do you or don't you go?

Feel free to reach out to me if you need someone to talk you down off the ledge.

What you are going through is very normal. Everyone goes through these emotions. Here are a few entries from my blog regarding my fears. I had my surgery on February 16th. So look at the dates to see my pre-surgery fears. You may also want to read some entries of how things went for me after surgery to give you an idea of what to expect. http://jfabulous43.wordpress.com/tag/fear/

I had a lot of fantasies about all the different things I was going to do after I lost weight. I was going to be a lot more active, I thought. I was going to buy bicycles for my wife and me, and go bike riding all over town. I was going to take a self-defense class and learn how to finally protect myself. I was going to go on photo safaris all over, and spend hours walking around and taking pictures. I was going to go on hikes in the Shenandoah mountains, and learn kayaking – why, I have no idea. I’ve been trying to get my wife to agree to buy bicycles for some time now. She always said that we couldn’t afford it and that they were too expensive. I agreed with her, but it was really something I wanted. I felt that it was going to help in my recovery from weight loss. I wanted to buy bicycles in spring so that we could go out riding when the weather was cool. She had said no, but just last month she agreed that we should buy bicycles. I called up a good friend of mine who is an avid cyclist, and he met us at the pro bike shop. After spending a few hours of learning about bicycles, we selected two identical his and hers Schwinn comfort bikes. It’s been 90 to 100 degrees here most days, and just too hot to ride. On the few occasions that I have been able to ride my bicycle, I will say, I am woefully out of shape. I find that I can’t ride for more than fifteen minutes at a time, partly because we live on a hilly street, and going up and down the hills takes a lot more energy than riding a stationery bike. So far my attitude has been that my biking stamina will improve the more I do it. I’m just waiting for the weather to get a little bit cooler so I can go out riding. One of the other things I need to do is to start weightlifting. When I was having all those back problems, my physical therapist told me that the issues were partly due to my back muscles not being strong enough to withstand the extra exertion I was putting on them. She told me I needed to strengthen my back muscles. My wife and I have signed up for a weightlifting class that meets once per week. She is encouraging me to go do weight training two to three times per week. I believe the class starts next month, and I’m looking forward to it. I’ve also looked online to find photo safaris all over the country. There are several photo safaris in my area. I signed up to go to one in August. It would be great if I could go to one safari per month to get back into my photography. I’ve really been missing it. This particular safari I signed up for is going to be meeting at a museum, and we’ll be shooting in and around the museum. I asked my wife if she wanted to come along with me, and we could have lunch afterward. She agreed to go with me to the museum, but not to the photo safari. She would spend her time walking around the museum while I shot my pictures. We would meet up at the museum restaurant at a pre-designated time for lunch. One of the reasons why I invited her was because I didn’t want her to feel left out. The entire time that I was at the fire department, she would always complain that I was leaving her to go to the fire department and that I wasn’t spending enough time with her. I would like to make her as much a part of my photography as possible. It won’t be possible all the time, because a lot of these safaris don’t allow you to tag along if you don’t have a camera. I’ll do my best. My wife also found a kayaking class in the LL Bean catalog, and also, a fly fishing class. I’ve always wanted to try fly-fishing. I had signed up for fly-fishing classes a couple of years back while we were on vacation, but unfortunately, I was sick in bed the entire time during that vacation, and was not able to do it. While I haven’t actually done anything yet, it’s exciting to know that I am making plans for an active future. I think last weekend’s excursion to the park was a good first step.

I’ve been talking to my wife about becoming more active now that I’m losing weight. Yesterday, she told me to get a good night’s sleep because she had an activity planned for Sunday. She wanted to keep it a surprise and wouldn’t tell me what the activity was. We had been looking at the county parks catalog so I thought it might be related to us going to a park. She told me that there would be some hiking involved so I should wear comfortable shoes. There was also some mention of a picnic. I asked her if this would be a good opportunity for me to bring my camera since I had really been itching to use it. I have not used it since January. She hesitated about the camera and then said I could bring it but there really wasn’t much to take a picture of. I tried to figure out all weekend long where it is that she might be taking me. Every time I mentioned a park, she would say, “No, that’s not it and I’m not telling you.” I really love it when she takes the initiative to plan an activity because it takes the pressure off me and its just fun to be surprised sometimes. True to her word, this was a local park I had never been to before. In fact, I didn’t even know it existed. We parked and went to the visitor’s center to get a map of the walking trails. We walked down one of the trails for a bit until we got hungry and then walked back to the car and retrieved the picnic basket. We had discussed taking kayaking lessons but I didn't realize it was at this park. We found a shaded picnic table under a tree very close to the river. After eating turkey and cheese sandwiches, pickles, and watermelon, I walked around shooting some pictures. I realized that I had forgotten a lot of what I had learned because the pictures didn’t come out as nice as I would have hoped. Walking the trail The view from the picnic table I have no idea who this woman is. It just seemed like a perfect chance to use my telephoto lens and capture the greens and reds.