joatsaint

Congratulations ***does happy dance for you!** I know where you're coming from when you talk about the scales. My last doctor's appointment before surgery, his scales couldn't weigh me. It was really embarrassing, having this 20 something, pretty nurse sliding the scale counterbalance weights back and forth - trying to figure out why she couldn't get a weight measurement on me. I don't think she could believe that I weighted (or any person could weight) more then #350. She finally gave up. :-P Keep Pimpin' that Sleeve!

Hang in there, it only feels like forever. :-) I was able to move to soft foods by my 6th week. My meals consisted mainly of chicken run through a food processor and refried beans, sometimes I'd make a little chicken salad. So it never really felt like I was eating soupy foods all the time. But after 3 weeks, I never was concerned about causing a leak.

Lots of green beans seems to help me. Otherwise, it's yucky Milk of Magnesia time for me.

First, let me say honestly and with all my heart – I hate telemarketers. I believe that anyone that is a telemarketer is an undiagnosed sociopath and should kill themselves. Seriously, if you are a telemarketer – KILL YOURSELF! Really, I’m not joking…KILL YOURSELF, NOW… I’ll wait. Now, this may sound like a conversation right out of sitcom, but it happened to me. A telemarketing firm was trying to gather information about our company to include us in some kind of “green” business directory. My office was bombarded with literally dozens of phone calls. Basically they wanted to know what we did, how many employees we had, the amount of our budgets, and the who’s who of our executive staff. At the time, we had over 120 employees and everyone’s phone number is published on our web site. So it was very easy for the telemarketers to get ahold of us. Apparently they had a team of callers, each with a copy of our phone numbers. We were getting repeated calls to the same phone numbers over and over, from different telemarketers. Now as we are a service oriented business, we are trained to be polite and courteous to every caller, no matter the situation. They would call, we would politely tell them that we could not give them the information they wanted, 30 minutes later -a new telemarketer would call, rinse and repeat. We had so many repeat phone calls that it was interfering with our regular business operations. Finally, our executive director sent out an email telling us, next time we get a call, please tell them politely to stop calling us. Day one was irritating, day two was annoying, and on day three – they finally picked my phone to call. The first call I received, I politely told the sociopath on the other end that we could not provide them with the information they were requesting. Two hours later, I told the next sociopath, politely, that I was not allowed to give them (and I was not privy to) information regarding our payroll and budgets and to please stop calling our offices. The third call, I recognized the number on the caller ID, I was ready for them. The conversation goes as follows: Me: “Thank you for calling ______. This is Randy” Sociopath: “Hello, I’m calling from ______. Can I ask you for some information about your company?” Me: “I’m sorry, but I can’t give that information out over the phone. What information we do give out is posted on our website.” Sociopath: “Can’t you tell me who your director is and the approximate budget size of your department?” Me: “No, I’m sorry, but I can’t provide you with that information.” “Your associates have been calling our office for the past two days asking those types of questions, and repeatedly calling the same phone numbers over and over.” “Our director has told us to ask you to stop calling our office. I have had two other calls from your company in the past few hours. And I have asked each caller to stop calling, but your staff will not stop calling.” “We cannot give out the information you want.” Sociopath: “Hold sir.” At this point I’m transferred to a manger or some higher up sociopath. Sociopath Manager: “Hello, my name is ____. Don’t you want to be part of our “green” business directory? We are creating a business directory that features companies like yours that recycle and operate in and environmentally manner.” Me: “I’m sorry, but we cannot release the information you want over the phone. If you want a list of our staff, it is on our website, but I don’t have access to or permission to give out financial information about our office." “On top of that, your people have been calling us for the past three days, calling the same person multiple times, even after being told that we were not allowed to give out the information and please stop calling. Some of our people have gotten a dozen calls in one day.” Sociopath Manager: “Maybe you don’t understand. Don’t you want your company to be listed in our “green” directory? I’m sure it would be a plus for your company to be recognized as being an environmentally friendly business.” At this point, an evil thought entered my head. (Picture me sitting there with an angle on one shoulder and a devil on the other – scratch that, there was a devil on both shoulders! :-P) Me: “I’m sorry, but maybe you don’t understand. We are an information business. And information is valuable. We charge for providing information.” Sociopath Manager: “Yes, sir. But what has that got to do with being in our directory?” Me: “Well, we charge for answering questions. We charge $25 for each question we answer over the phone.” Sociopath Manager: “That’s a lot, to answer a question.” Me: “Yes it is, but information is valuable. At this point I must inform you that this phone call is being recorded and if you ask one more question, you accept our terms and conditions and agree to pay $25 for each additional question.” Sociopath Manager: “You’re kidding?” Me: “Thank you for asking a question and acknowledging that your company is agreeing to pay the $25 per question fee. Please feel free to ask anything you want.” CLICK!... He hung up!... The nerve! When I hung up and turned around, my director was standing there with a horrified look on her face. I asked, “What’s wrong?” And she asks, “What if they file a complaint against us?” I asked, “File a complaint with WHO? They called me, I didn’t call them. I was polite and treated them with respect at all times. They have been calling all our departments for three days now, repeatedly calling some of us, even after we have nicely asked them to stop calling.” “Obviously, they do not care what we want or that they are costing us man hours and interfering with our operations.” She says, “You lied to them. We don’t charge for answering questions over the phone.” I replied, “They don’t know that. And how would they find out?” At this point, my director gives up and walks away. With a worried look that said, “Somehow a telemarketing company is going to lodge a complaint against us.” Because I lied to a telemarketer! But we didn’t get any more calls from them – ever. P.S. I’m still trying to figure out who the telemarketing company would complain to and how the conversation would go? I imagine it would be something like this: “Hello, we would like to register a complaint against a business that lied to us.” “Yes, sir. Could you describe the situation?” “Yes. For three days, we have been repeatedly calling every phone number at a business, asking them for their financial information, budgets, names of staff, names of their directors and executive staff. And they have told us that they can’t give us that information and to please stop calling them. As our phone calls are disrupting their normal operations.” “Yes, sir. Go on.” “Well, on the third day of calls, I talked with a gentleman that informed me that THEY charge $25 per question. I was so perplexed that I hung up, told my staff to stop calling, and have been afraid to call them again – as we might get charged. Since then, I have been afraid to make probing calls to other businesses! Afraid to ask questions that even I realize no sane business person would answer over the phone.” “It’s really interfering with my staff’s ability to continue normal business operations.” “Since that time, I have learned that gentleman lied to me. They in fact, DO NOT charge $25 per question. I want to lodge a formal complaint!” Pause “Thank you for your call sir. I would be happy to register your complaint. But first I must tell you that this phone call is being recorded and that we charge $25 ……………”

Yes, they do have SOME Whey Isolate in the ingredients. But they also contain whey concentrate. They don't give the percentages of each. Whey Isolate is recommended because it is more completely digested by your body than Whey Concentrate.

You are right. I was only trying to be sarcastic. I don't want anyone to kill themselves. Sometimes it's difficult to convey humor through writing. But I hope that most of the readers are familiar with there rest of my blog and can see that everything I write has a numerous twist to it. And realize, that making people smile is what I'm shooting for in every post.

In the past 3 months, I've had at least 1 two week stall each month. I'll go as long as 3 weeks with no weight loss (and sometimes a gain) then suddenly drop 2 or 3 pounds almost overnight. I haven't gotten use to it, but I don't let it freak me out anymore. :-)

When I'm feeling rebellious, I have 3 goto things. 1) I run through the house with scissors. 2) I cut the tags off pillows. 3) I hold the fridge door open and just stare. Then I take a picture, cause it lasts longer! Yeah, I know, I'm a filthy animal.

I can only answer that I don't know. But the telemarketer wasn't trying to sell us anything, only trying to gather information - most of which they could have pulled right off our website. We get a few solicitations here and there, but for the most part, we don't have many telemarketers calling. But the guys in my story were relentless.

Thanks for the comment. I wish I was that creative, but these moments are pretty rare for me. I'm glad you enjoyed the story.

Ok, the good news. I graduated from walking indoors to walking outdoors. Now the bad news. Monarch butterflies are bullies! I've finally gotten enough endurance and stamina to start walking outdoors. I still don't like exercising, but I do like the effects. And I just can't make myself use either my recumbent bike or treadmill - they're just too boring. And besides, the computer is just 10 feet away the whole time, pouting from lack of attention. Did I mention that my Dell is an attention wh*re? So I have to get outside to walk. I have a state park just a few miles away and there are some nice nature trails that are about 1 mile in length. I've only been out there with my best friend. That way, if we run into a bear or wolf, I don't have to outrun the critter, I only have to outrun my friend! But this week, my friend is out of state, visiting his sister in Ohio. So it was questionable if I was going to motivate myself to get out and walk today at the park. But I mustered up the energy and drove out to the park. So here we go. I got my bright yellow shirt, the $5 forest green cap that I picked up in Alaska (is says, "If you ain't the lead dog, the scenery never changes!") and shades. Oh goodie, I look like a guy cruising the park looking for other guys - that has been known to happen at this park. Luckily for me the park was almost deserted and even better, no one was on the trails. So I started my normal route. Around the lake, skirt the canal and head back to the car through the flat areas. There are some ups and down areas that I think help strengthen my legs and ankles, but not so steep as to cause me pain, or worse, hurtle down hill out of control! Going uphill is no problem. I just don't do down's very well. I'm not good at getting down, boogieing down or going down hill. Anyway, back to my story. I was minding my own business, walking the trail, hugging the shade, and lost in my own thoughts when suddenly a black shape swoops out of the woods. Mere inches from my left arm. And I did what any manly man would do. I flinched and started windmilling my arms (oops, I meant to say, "used my master karate skills"), to swat away whatever that deadly critter was - to keep it's venomous fangs away from my throat! A lifetime later (or about 3 seconds in real time), I realized it was just a huge Monarch butterfly fluttering by. He casually fluttered across the trail and back into the woods. But I swear, this was no ordinary butterfly. I think it was a Pimp butterfly, cause he fluttered with a limp and was very colorful, like a pimp, and had an attitude. I swear I heard him say, "Punk ass bit*h!" as he fluttered back into the woods. I'm sure he told all his butterfly friends about how he - a 1 ounce butterfly - scared a 280 pound man and made him flinch. I guess I'm lucky he didn't give me two punches for flinching or have a smart phone to capture a video of whole thing. Otherwise, I might be on Youtube ring now, going viral. P.S. The good news is: I managed to walk just over 2 miles AND, as a bonus, got in a killer arm workout. But I fear the psychological scars may never heal. Keep Pimpin that Sleeve!

Lol, that made me smile. I've never been chased by a cicada, but I have been a landing strip for the dreaded "love bugs". :-)

Obviously, you are one of those telemarketers. Thanks for the comment. I appreciate all input on my writing.

Me too. I know as soon as I feel the 1st burp brewing that I'm topped off and better stop eating - or Frankensleeve will have his revenge on me! taylokat, I don't exactly remember which month the burping started for me but eventually it did go away. But I can remember waking up in the middle of the night, burping my brains out.

So, there really are "pirate dogs!" out there? Just one more question, where are your buccaneers? Under my bucking hat! bwaaaaaah :-P You look great, Keep Pimpin' that Sleeve!

I too was nervous, right up to the point where they wheeled me into surgery. I even backed out the first time I started the approval process. But I finally realized that things weren't going to get better for me without help. Like Ralphie May said, "I was waaay past a diet Coke fix!" Keep Pimpin' that Sleeve!

We've all seen them, all those women's magazines clogging the checkout counters. With titles like, "How to find His Pleasure Spot," "10 New Tricks to Keep Your Man," "Good Girls Bend at the Waist, Bad Girls Bend at the Knees." Now I'm all for women boning up on how to please their man. But where is the equal treatment for men's magazines? If those same headlines were in a man's magazine, the thing would be shamefully hidden, deep behind the counter in liquor stores, with a piece of cardboard blocking the cover, lest some young innocent soul gaze upon the image and be scarred for life. And, GASP!, if you actually thought of buying one, you'd have to wear a disguise so your neighbors wouldn't know it was you. And you'd shamefully carry it home, wrapped in a brown paper bag or folded between the pages of a newspaper - stuffed under the car seat. So no one would know that you were about to abuse yourself in front of God and all your ancestors. But stores proudly display women's porn right there on the end cap at the checkout counter. How did it become socially acceptable for women's porn magazines to be sold right next to the Tic Tacs and Juicy Fruit gum? Is it because because the target audience is women? Another inequality, I saw a commercial for the micro vibrator sold by Trojan. The women in the commercial sit around in circles talking about how wonderful it is, and even grandma chimes in and happily gets in on the action. Can you imagine the public reaction if it was 3 guys sitting in a circle (I know where you're headed - 3 guys in a circle, just don't go there!) expounding on the joys of the Fleshlight? It would be an outrage. The Christian Right would flood the airwaves with indigent protests of how shameful the commercial was and how we're all going to burn in Hell for it. But because it's women talking about masturbation, somehow it's acceptable. And finally it hits me! The marketing! If the men's magazines just worded the headlines on the magazine covers differently, their magazines could be sitting right there next to Cosmo and the Tic Tacs! And the best part is, women would be happily buying the magazines for their boyfriends and husbands. Just imagine if the latest edition of "Spread'em" changed the headlines from "Brandy's Naughty Adventure," to "Brandy's Illustrated Guide to Pleasing Your Woman!" or "Brandy Shows You 10 Ways to Make Your Woman Scream in Bed (No! Not by calling her by the wrong name.)" Women would rush to the stands to buy their man the latest issue. It's all in the marketing. Keep Pimpin' that Sleeve!

I think mine was around the 4th month. I drank a shot of tequila with Crystal Light. Caught a buzz pretty quick. I'm not much of a drinker - haven't had anything since.

I wasn't able to eat much for the 1st 3 or 4 weeks. I primarily lived on protein drinks, cream of mushroom soup and Crystal Light.

I am uncomfortable too, when the ladies at my office compliment me on my weight loss. But I thank them and then ask them to please not oogle my buns as I walk away.

Congrats on your success. Keep Pimpin that Sleeve!

I don't feel pain when I'm full, just pressure. It is a little uncomfortable when I take that "one bite too many" and I can feel a burp worm its way around the food to get out. I've always been real careful about not eating until I make myself sick. I've come close a few times and that was close enough for me.