Slimdude

So this morning, I woke up and did my Blog and I walked 4 miles. I also walked another 4 miles later. Breakfast was Egg Whites with Fat Free Cheese and Salsa, some fruit and some coffee with that sugar free cocoa added.

Tomorrow my best friends are having a little dinner “get-together” to celebrate the fact that both he and I made our promotion list. I am looking forward to the social part, but I am nervous about the food part. I will try to eat sensibly and have coffee for dessert. We shall see…

Today I had my first consultation with the “Spine Doc” a*k*a Orthopedic Specialist. I am a little frustrated by the news and it has made me, quite honestly… a little angry. But it is nobody’s fault. The long-and-short of it is : I have some sort of Arthritis. Don’t know exactly what kind. But some of the things it has affected on me are my feet and my leg joints, and yes, my neck. So that is what has happened. I didn’t injure myself or anything, I have arthritis and that has caused some degeneration in about 4 discs in my spine in my neck. This in turn has caused a little bit of pressure on my nerves which causes me to have pain in my shoulders and back, etc…

And they advised me that since the pain might be managable and I am not damaging anything really to try and avoid any surgery for as long as possible and instead use medication. So I am supposed to try a combo of Celebrex and Robaxin now.

On one hand, it is very hard to be told that I will just have to live with some degree of pain for the rest of my life. On the other, at least I know that I can pretty much so whatever I want, to include exercise— and as long as I can push through the pain, I am not hurting myself further.

What DOES concern me is that , in all likelihood, more things on me will start to deteriorate. Today my neck, tomorrow my knees??? !!!!

Who knows??

But that is that and I will deal with it the best I can. I still have a great life and , quite frankly… I would rather have this than to be told I only have 6 months to live or something due to brain cancer.

I will try very very hard not to wallow in a “woe is me, I’ll always be in pain” mindset.

And I will certainly not let it stop me from being a better Airman, a better husband, a great Dad and also… yeah lose this weight.

—Matt 

Howdy BuddySlimmers!

I hope this morning finds you all in good spirits. If not, I want to encourage you to think of something to look forward to. They say that to make yourself start feeling good, try and think of someone to love, someone who loves you, or something good to look forward to. Even if it’s just a Diet Coke break. Perhaps you have a rewarding job or a great little tot at home who loves you.

Anyway. If you are new to BuddySlim, congrats on making a step in the right direction. Even if you failed 1000 times before, you never really “fail” to lose weight and shape up until you stop trying. The fact that you are here now reading this is proof that you have NOT given up and you are willing to change your life for the better. Hooray, you!

Okay now back to me. I have the day off today to make up for the fact that I worked last weekend. I did peek at the scale and it is still holding at “159″ despite some dietary slip-ups this week. So I am psyched that it will probably be that weight or maybe a tad lower on Sunday morning, which is what I use as my “Official” weight for the week. That means in my first week on BuddySlim I will have lost 4 pounds, maybe 5… so I’m happy.

I do expect to see that number slow to maybe 2 pounds per week as my body adjusts, but for now I’m not complaining at all. I’ve been eating about 1400-1500 calories during the day… sometimes I am slipping and snacking at night which adds anywhere from 200-2000 calories but even then I suppose I am so active that I am burning it back off. I guess Jet maintenance is more active than I thought when it comes to calorie burning. Did you know I read a 150 person burns about 200 calories per hour just driving a CAR? That is so crazy.

So yeah today I’m gonna stick to my diet and walk 4 or 5 miles this morning plus whatever walking I do today… but I am off work so it might be a Less Active day. In The Morning I have my appointment with the Spine Doctor (finally) and I am super-psyched about that because I want my neck and back FIXED!! Then in the afternoon my wife is also off work so I am going to see what cheap movies are playing… or maybe we’ll go to Blockbuster and rent a movie. I dunno yet.

After finding out I made the Staff Sgt. list for next year I have been pretty happy. I don’t officially put on the rank until July or Aug next year, but … I don’t know… it’s a big deal to me because it was my first time testing for it. It feels weird because there are so many people who didn’t make it, and some of them were Senior Airmen when I got to the unit, and now I’m going to outrank them. I passed them by. That is a weird feeling. But I studied, I love the Air Force, and I deserve it.

Later all!

—Matt