Thin Fluids Diet - Day 10 – I’m so over Shakes & Soup

If I never have to drink another shake, or sip another soup it will be too soon…


Now is when the real hard work begins… staying on track until I can get back to the new “normal” food in 3 weeks


The last couple of days have been really busy…


Yesterday I was down in the Southern Highlands of NSW helping my brother & sister in law move into their new dream home… not that I could lift anything… I still tried to help... but at least I got the pantry and kitchen done... oh and of course the TV…


I went all prepared with my little bag of food (the same as what my sister does for my neice) packed with shakes and soups… Although I must confess I was a little naughty… Mum made spag bol for dinner, so I snuck about a ½ cup and blended it all up… It was nice… and washed it down with a Crownie (my first beer in over 5 weeks)… I wasn’t going to blog, but is did say this blog was going to be warts and all… I was very careful and was ready to stop if there was any pain, but it was all goo… I was the last one finished and in the end only had about ¼ of a cup anyway… but I’m back to my shakes and soups again for the next few days… Dietician on Tuesday where I find out all about the “mushies”


Today been a little less energetic, but my minds been at it all day preparing for the ACS AGM tomorrow and the presentation of my Web redevelopment recommendations that we’ve been putting together for the last 5 months… That was almost done until I opened one final proposal which arrived yesterday… We thought it was cut and dried, but the new prop was just as good as the one we going to recommend, so I’ve had to redo the whole presentation again… and I’ve still got a couple of other short reports to write before I go to bed tonight


Late this afternoon, I finally managed to escape to buy some more shakes(I was almost out) and some more (different) soups, which I'm going to try for dinner tonight...



An early start tomorrow to get to the meeting in North Sydney to set up at 8am for our all day meeting which starts at 9… I’ve got my soups and shakes packed again for that one too… Hopefully I’ll get a chance to blog tomorrow night…


Then a couple more days to go before I’m back at work on Wednesday – not that I’m looking forward to it…


Until next time...

The Wraps come off…

Finally after 7 days I was able to take the dressings off this morning… being the big wimp that I am, and not liking what I could see or feel under them It took me almost an hour to do it…

One at a time…


To my surprise they had all healed well and what I could see through the dressings was the dried blood from just after the operation… and with no stiches… just a bit of heavy duty tape (like the packing tape you used to be able to get with the cotton fibres running through it), and then a waterproof plaster put over the top… no gauze or anything else…


The only one that looked a little funny was the port one, where I was left with a slight indentation in the skin… but not to worry, I’m sure that will heal well too now the airs getting to them… and I doubt after a few months you'll be able to notice them, which will be great for my new 6pack (LOL)! - We'll you gotta dream

Thin Fluids Diet - Day 8 – Drive here, Drive there, Drive Everywhere

This morning while on my regular daily walk – I did the full 4 1/2km block in 45 mins without stopping – I was walking past the local Catholic Primary School (opposite the high school) and was amazed at the number of parents that DRIVE their kids to school… What’s wrong with WALKING?


I might be showing my age here, but 30 years ago when I was in Primary School we walked TO and FROM school every day (except if it was raining). No wonder were breeding a society of fat kids… Granted things have changed a bit in 30 years with predators about - but hey I remember mum telling me to always walk to and from school in groups (and boy did we have a large group in my part of the street – no less than a dozen kids and we picked up more along the way), and never talk to strangers. Normally we’d have at least one parent always walking with us as well… No only was it good exercise before and after school, but it also taught us about road sense and a lot of other things… And I’ll tell you something, a lot of those parents that were driving kids could have done with the walk as well…


Were all time poor (me included), but if people can find the time to drop their kids at school, why not find the extra ½ hour to walk them even if its just morning or afternoon… These people have obviously got flexible working hours if they can be dropping kids at school at 8.30, so why not do your body a favour and walk them to school… It will get your blood circulating for the day and you’ll feel great after.


OK I’m off my soapbox now…



Today I’m just pottering around the house and getting ready for the ACS AGM on Sunday – got a bit to prepare for that, and after yesterday’s running around it will be nice to spend the day at home, as It looks like I’m heading off to my brothers tomorrow to help them move (not that I can lift anything). I’ll me the moral support keeping them fed and watered.


Yesterday was fantastic… I went to 2UE to record a segment on Dr John Darcy’s regular weekly program “Health Matters” about my lap-band surgery. It goes to air this Sunday at 7am around Australia (except Sydney). To find out if you can hear it, visit http://www.drjohndarcy.com/listen_to_drjohn.html. I’ll post the audio on my blog after its been to air…


Doc will be following my progress regularly on his show so stay tuned… It was fun and so easy to do… It’s different being on the other side of the microphone, but because it was Doc, it was just like we were having a coffee… the 4 minute segment flew by.


That’s about all for today… The sun is shining so I’m going to head out and water the herbs and tomatoes and give the lawns a good weed and feed… 


Until next time…

Thin Fluids Diet - Day 7 - The Incredible Shrinking Man

… and the ever increasing size of teenagers.


We'll it’s a week today since the band went on, and feeling better every day. The tenderness is waning (although I can still feel it a little), the tightness in the chest is almost gone and I almost feel back to normal…

First weigh in today since surgery and its good news… 119kg this morning, which is good considering all I’m doing is drinking fluids and not much is coming out the other end.

That’s 2.1kg since last Wednesday and 15.7kg all up in 5 weeks, plus is the first time in a few years I’ve broken the 120kg barrier – and on the BMI scale I’ve gone from Morbidly Obese @ BMI 43.48 to Severely Obese @ 38.41 so my BMI has dropped by 5 points as well. All up I’m really happy with myself so far.

Even better this morning I finally felt good enough to walk down to the shops (3km round trip). On my way I walked past the local high school… I was big at school, but the size of today’s high school kids is frightening… if they are that biog now, what are they going to be like once they become an adult…

This is very interesting as when I stopped sown at the shops for a small flat white, I was reading today’s Telegraph “Drastic obesity measure - surgery for overweight teens”

TAXPAYERS could be forced to fund lap-band surgery for obese teenagers under a proposal to be put to a State Government task force.


A leading children's doctor has called for public hospitals to perform bariatric surgery on morbidly overweight adolescents to tackle the obesity epidemic.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/lifestyle/drastic-obesity-measure-surgery-for-overweight-teens/story-e6frf00i-1225774141510

It was a very interesting read… something definitely has to be done to help some of these kids otherwise it will be frightening to see what they will be like in later life…

Well almost finished “breakfast” – Vanilla Shake with Benefibre… Heading out for a bit today to catch up with Doc John Darcy and do a couple of other things…

Until next time…


The title "the Incredible Shrinking Man" was coined by one of my colleagues Lee Jeloscek

My Blog Readers

I can’t believe the audience that this blog continues to gain… and not just here in Sydney either. Over the last week, readers grew by over 106% on the previous week, with over 182 visits and 383 page views over the entire week… I didn’t realize I was really that interesting… Friends and Colleagues have complimented on my writing “style” and how I just tell it like it is… Not bad for a middle of the road English student at high school, that never really had an interest in writing…


Google Analytics is a fantastic tool for anyone who has a website… The dynamic way in which it can work with the raw stats and drill down to specific information is amazing… I’ve had it on our ACS websites for the last couple of years and it runs rings around traditional web stats programs… For example not only can it tell you countries that visitors came from it can also tell you cities as well… It can also tell you what pages are being read… and how long people are spending on the site… very fascinating…

Thin Fluids Diet - Day 6 - “10 things you need to know about loosing weight”

Well I think I over did something yesterday… Not sure what… The walking, drinking too fast, or just doing too much; or a combination… By the end of the day I was feeling like crap and not only had my tender chest, but also pains in the ribs… Not that I did a lot yesterday except the shopping (maybe picking up too heavy bags or something), watching a bit of TV and a bit of computer stuff…

Woke up this morning and felt OK though after a good nights sleep… Already been for my walk (where did the lovely sun from the weekend go) and taken Chief to the vet’s to get his stiches out… One thing I am doing today, just so I know I’m getting enough fluids and not drinking them too fast is writing down EVERYTHING that goes through my lips and how long I take to drink it… Hopefully that might slow me down, although it will also be good for next Tuesday’s first visit to the dietician.


Who watched “10 things you need to know about loosing weight” last night on 7? It was quite fascinating, even for a pommy program from the BBC. Not sure why they had it on when they did (Monday @ 7.30pm) but rated well coming in at #11 nationally with over a million viewers, so there’s a lot of us out there that want to loose weight.


Parts of it were fascinating, particularly the meal where one team ate it normally with a glass of water, and the other team has their exact same meal pureed with the glass of water… 4 hours later the puree team’s stomach was still holding it, while the normal team’s stomach was almost empty…


Other interesting parts were identical diets where one week the person ate “normally” and then the 2nd week they had the exact same amount fat but added calcium, which caused more fat to be shed in their No. 2’s


Also where the lady recorded her intake each day… First week by video camera at the end of the day and the 2nd week by keeping a diary. It proved that keeping a diary while better than memory is still fallible compared to the “double water” or whatever it is that she had to drink that was supposedly always right.


It was well worth the viewing, and I’ve kept a copy from my TiVo and am compressing it to keep on the iPod…


There’s a Google Discussion on this as well


What’s on the agenda for today? A quiet one at home I think… pottering around and tidying up, although I do need to pop out to get some more Optifast shakes, which I’ll do a little later…


Well I’ve finished drinking my glass of water 35mins for 300ml while I wrote this so I must be off


Until next time...

Thin Fluids Diet - Day 5 - A New Week

It’s the start of a new week. This week I’m going to try and get back to “normal” not that I really know what normal is at the moment…

I’m defiantly going to get onto the Thin Fluids Diet properly this week, after feeling hungry for the first time since the operation (and even since I started Optifast almost 5 weeks ago) at about 9pm last night. That’s a good thing – isn’t it? It means my body is getting back to normal.

So that means Optifast Shakes for Breakfast Lunch and Dinner. The first few days I was only having a 2 a day – but also supplementing it with soup, water, juice and drinking yoghurt and tea/coffee.

Finally the Benefibre is working too. My system is functioning again for the first time since the op.

I’ve already had my breakfast Optifast Shake before I headed off for my morning walk, and then a glass of water when I got back…. This morning I almost got blown away while I was out walking, but I am back to normal pace now so managed to also work up a sweat. So from now until I head back to work I’m going to try either 1 Long walk a day or a couple of short ones in the morning and afternoon…

Until next time

Thin Fluids Diet – Day 4

What a lovely weekend it’s been in Sydney... It’s been a great weekend to get out and do things even though I’m still a little tender… This morning I went down for my regular coffee (and regular size) while I read the papers, It was nice except the first one they made for some reason they put sugar in YUK! The replacement tasted much better and I sat on it for an hour while I read both papers.



Once I got home it was back to the normal chores of washing… The bending was fine, and I didn’t feel the port so it must be getting better. Afterwards it was time to give the herbs and tomatoes some TLC. Now they’ve been in for a month… The some are coming along well and others not so well (especially when the dog decides to water the coriander for me)… after watching Better Homes on Friday night, I thought I’d try the sugar cane mulch not only on the tomatoes, but the herbs as well and then gave them all a good water with thrive… so it will be good to see how they go in the next week.


I’ve also spent some time clearing a backlog of shows on the TiVo too, between doing things so as not to overdo it...


Today has been a bit better with my fluids too… I just need to remember to record what I have had…