Weight loss

Back in early March I was weighed as part of the pre-clerking process for my cancer operation. 108Kgs. Extremely overweight for my height, and largely responsible for my high blood pressure, incessant snoring and poor sleep regime. Possibly also a contributory factor in my getting the cancer too

Yesterday I weighed myself. 87Kgs. I’m still overweight, but it’s a huge improvement.

I’ve lost 21Kgs (46lbs), or 20% of my original body weight.

I now have a waist again, my blood pressure is significantly reduced, and I no longer snore. It’s hard to tell if my sleep patterns are improved at the moment since I’m somewhat stressed and my chemotherapy has me permanently exhausted, but I’m hopeful that when I complete my treatments, I’ll regularly be getting a better nights sleep too.

My long term goal is to lose around 5kg more, which will bring me down to 82Kg or so. I’m not a naturally slim build, but I figure I can do myself a world of good by managing my weight more carefully. The only concern I have at the moment is whether or not I’ll put some of the weight back on when I come off the chemotherapy drugs.

But at the end of the day, it’s in my own best interests to ensure I do not.

On yer bike!

I have noticed over the last couple of weeks that my trousers are all feeling a little tighter around the waist than they did before. They still seem looser everywhere else, but the waistband is definitely tighter. My immediate response to this was the thought that I must have been undoing all my previous good work, and over-eating. After all, it’s very easily done.

So I stood on the scales, only to discover that I’ve neither lost nor gained any weight at all recently. I’m still the 90Kg that I have been for the last month or so. Now, in the grand scheme of things this isn’t too bad – I’m not specifically dieting while I’m on the chemotherapy drugs; the doctors tell me I need to keep strong and healthy, and weight loss programmes should come a distant second to that. And I’m lucky to be able to eat, and not be wracked with the sickness that many people suffer with chemotherapy, so I’m trying to steer a sensible balance at the moment and either stay stable, or perhaps lose weight very gradually.

Which leaves me with the puzzle of the waistband. However, a careful examination shows that my ileostomy is now on its own little mound of tummy; it almost has its own little one-sided pot-belly. Which is not how I remember it when I first acquired it.

So the current question is, have I lost weight all around it, with it remaining proud of my abdomen, or is it actually becoming more prominent? If the latter, this kind of begs the questions is this normal, and how much worse will it get? My background concern is whether or not the ileostomy is herniating in some fashion – so tomorrow I think I’d better give the stoma nurses a quick call, if only to set my mind at rest.

And in the meantime I re-instigated my exercise programme, and went for my first bike ride in a while, on the basis that (a) I need to improve my stamina, (b) the weather was nice for it today, and (c) maybe it will help trim the tummy a little, even though I know it’s the wrong sort of exercise for that! In the end I spent 30 minutes cycling down to the sea, which was glorious. And as I arrived the sun broke through the clouds and bathed the coastline in sun. Lovely.

Mind you, having got there I was completely exhausted, and needed 20 minutes rest before spending nearly an hour cycling slowly home again. And this afternoon I’ve managed to achieve precisely nothing apart from a couple of naps. However, I’m pleased to have nearly tripled my previous longest distance, managing a 13 miles round trip. If tomorrow is sunny I’ll aim for sometime a little shorter – perhaps a 10 mile loop – and try not to completely wear myself out in doing it.

Positive side-effect of treatment – reprise

Yesterday my eldest daughters were taking part in their dance club’s annual show. This is a 3 hour extravaganza where all the kids get to show off what they’ve learned, from the little ones who are only 4 or 5 years old, and just starting, through to the young women who are getting ready to head off to college (often stage school).

The show itself covers everything from tap, modern and jazz through to the ballet that my two do. And it’s held in the public eye, at the local town theatre with professional choreography, lighting and music. It must be quite intimidating for the younger kids to get up on a proper stage in front of an audience of several hundred people, and perform their pieces. And so they all spend a lot of time learning their dances, and rehearsing like mad.

Which brings me to the point of this post. The show was yesterday evening, but the final dress rehearsal was early yesterday afternoon, which meant that the rest of the family got to spend a couple of hours in town, with not a huge amount to do. So we did quite a lot of window-shopping. Which is not normally my favourite occupation.

Except I happened to notice a nice looking jacket, and felt compelled to try it on. So I hooked out my size from the rail and tried it on, only to see it literally hanging off me. In the end I needed to drop 2 sizes to get it to fit. At which point it did fit very well indeed. Which hammered home to me just how much weight I’ve lost recently.

In the end, since I’m probably going to lose some more weight yet, I decided not to buy the jacket. But when we got home I went for a rummage through my older clothes.

• My most recent suit is now probably two sizes too big for me.
• My next most recent suit (relegated to the back of the cupboard as “too small”) is probably still a size too big for me now.
• My jazzy old waistcoats now fit beautifully, as do some of my older shirts.
• My oldest suit (three-sizes smaller than my newest) is just a little tight across the shoulders. But only just. A few more kilos off should see me back into it.

The only problem is with the trousers. Although I’ve clearly lost at least a couple of sizes off my waist (4 inches or so), the location of my ileostomy is such that it’s right where the trouser belt sits. Which easily adds a size to my waist, if not more. So the new slimmer, trimmer me has a way to go to get back into those older suit trousers … and that way involves some more surgery as well as probably some more weight loss.

Of course, there is a grey cloud surrounding this silver lining. If I keep on losing weight at this rate, I’m going to need to invest in some new clothes before I return to work. Yikes. Still, the good news is that my wife approves so much of the new slimmer me, that I get an automatic approval for new clothes, provided I keep the weight off

Oh yes. And the dance show was a great success too, with J & A dancing some really complicated parts, and (for the first time) being lifted. I was impressed and proud!