Back to the blog!

I can give all sorts of excuses. I was close to goal. The blog posts were repetitive. I couldn't think of something to write.

And then there was my ruptured Achilles, and the surgery, and the cast, and then the physical therapy.

But the fact is that I just weighed in at nearly 280, after being at 255 at the end of summer. Yes, 10 lbs of that was going off Medifast and back into a real diet, as soon as my body had carbs again I popped up, as expected. However, what I didn't do was stay there.

I can blame the lack of exercise due to surgery, and bloating and swelling, but I also know that I wasn't eating properly. So it's time to get back on the wagon. Blogging regularly. tracking my food intake. Getting back to the gym regularly. Rehabbing my foot so I can play tennis again and start running.

Today is a new Day Zero. Nearly a year ago I started this journey and was sitting at 332 pounds. I had gotten down to 280 in April. My goal is still at 240, and I've got 39.8 pounds to go, starting now.

I don't really want to kickstart things with another bout of Medifast, but it is definitely time to go back to small meals, lots of healthy snacks, and reasonable dinners. MyFitnessPal needs to be back on the daily website rotation, and I need to update the app and track religiously.

Yes, that includes the cupcake I got in the break room this morning. *sigh*

Overdue update!

So, let's update what's been going on the past month.

I severed my Achilles tendon, and had to wait three weeks to get into surgery. Well, surgery was a success! I wore a splint for a couple days and then went and got checked on and got a cast.

Two weeks in a cast, completely non weight-bearing, and then I got stitches out. Stitches came out Tuesday of this week and everything looked good. I got put into a heavier cast with my toes pointed down to protect the healing tendon. I'm in this cast for three weeks, BUT I'm  now allowed to do as much weight bearing as I like.

I've hobbled around a little bit with a crutch, and done some 'scooting'. It's not easy, but I'm doing it.

On November 25th I'll be taken out of the cast and put into a walking boot with a heel lift, and can start walking with a crutch or a cane. This will be just in time for our drip to Disney, so I'll be scooting around the parks on a motorized scooter for much of the time, and limiting my walking to just a little bit a day.

I've gained a bit of weight over the past month, which isn't surprising considering stress, Halloween, and limited exercise. But it's time to get back on the wagon and make sure I've not lost any ground when I get out of this thing. I want to be at no more than 260 lbs when I get the cast off. I weighed 266.8 this morning, and I think my cast weighs 3-5 lbs between the cotton, the fiberglass, and the tape.

So, today, I'm back to tracking on MFP and I'll weigh every day now that I can stand on my own feet. I should be able to get back in sync pretty easily, and then it's just 'make good decisions' and hit the holiday season at 260, and not 340 like last year.

Back to blogging

This is going to be a vaguely random blog post.

About a month ago, I'd transitioned off Medifast. I was eating more food, and more types of food, exercising a lot more, and I even started playing tennis again. I was bouncing around between 259-265 pounds, which I felt was pretty good considering I doubled my calorie intake and started eating carbs again.

Well, last week I was playing tennis, and while running for a shot, I felt a snapping in my right heel, and i hit the ground hard. Lying on the court, looking up at the lights, my foot hurt pretty bad, and I was sure I'd just ruptured my Achilles tendon. I got helped up by the class and went to the bench and iced it.

A while later, my wife came to get me, and brought crutches. I was able to go to my podiatrist the next day and he took a look at it. He confirmed it wasn't good, and sent me to get an MRI.

Now, Id been seeing this podiatrist because I have a vicious bone spur on the back of my right heel. I had an even worse one on my left heel, that I had surgically removed about 5 years ago. This surgery sucked, and I wasn't really interested in repeating it. However, my right heel was getting worse and worse, and I had finally decided to get surgery in January and just get it dealt with.

However, before doing that, we decided to try a less invasive response. I took oral steroids for a week, and then strong NSAIDs twice a day. the steroids kicked in while I was at GenCon and it was pretty magical, all the pain went away, and stayed away. When I saw the doctor again later, he suggested I try to stop taking the NSAIDs and see what happened. Well, the pain came back in 2 days, so I went back on them.

However with NSAIDs on board, I was feeling great so I started back up with tennis. I took a couple of intense 1-on-1 lessons and loved it, and signed up for a couple of group classes. It was at one of those that my tendon snapped.

The MRI confirmed that I'd severed the tendon, pretty much at the point where the bone spur impinged on it. So now the surgery time frame is moved up a lot. On October 14th, or sooner if there is a cancellation, I'm going to be cut on and have the bone spur planed off, then the tendon will be extracted from my calf where it's all bunched up, and extended, and reattached to the bottom part of the tendon. There's a severed messy bit that will have to be excised.

I get 8-12 weeks of immobilization and then I start rehabbing it.

I'm not looking forward to all this, but at least it will be done, and there's a good chance of regaining 100% strength in it. I know on my left foot, it feels better than it had in years, so I'm hopeful about that.

I just want to get it over with.

So now that I can't hit the gym and the courts 4-5 times a week, I've got to come up with an upper body workout routine and watch what I'm eating more. I don't want to lose too much ground to this.