Things have been slightly less rosy, but still good. As I have been cleared to eat solid foods, I've been trying to do that every other day or so. In an initial foray, I ate two beef sliders with bacon (just the meat) and felt full but ok. A few days later I had a solid burger (BlackBurger on Canal) - again, bacon cheeseburger, eating only the meat, no bun or veg). This also was mostly OK - at the end, I was full and slightly uncomfortable but generally ok. I mentally adjusted the amount I could eat downwards and went my way. A couple of days ago, I tried a turkey burger from the same burger place, and bought the slightly smaller one so I ended up eating less meat. This was almost a disaster - I stopped before finishing the patty, and tossed maybe 1/5 of it. After entering the subway to go home, however, I started feeling ill. I decided not to get on a train, just in case. After 10 minutes on a platform bench, I gave up and went back to street level to sit on a bench there, wondering if I was going to throw up. I reached that point of 'copious clear salivation' but didn't actually vomit. Eventually, I went home.

Two days later, I had some grilled chicken breast, carefully holding myself to three ounces. Following that, I had 0.5 oz of hard salami. Again, I felt more than a little ill, although not nearly as bad as the turkey burger.

I think that poultry, being dryer and, in the case of the turkey burger, harder than beef, is just harder for me to handle. On the one hand, I like beef, so whee. On the other, I also like chicken and turkey and it has much less fat, so sigh.

One big problem I still have - I eat too fast. I've been trying to slow myself down, but it's really difficult, and I have to basically be paying close attention the entire time I'm eating. This is difficult if I'm eating with someone as it seems to involve having to spend a lot of time staring at my food and losing the thread of conversation, and when I'm alone it's hard because of the boredom factor (I can't be reading, etc.)

I still haven't thrown up from overeating, so there's that. I've managed to learn (some of?) my lesson without it getting to that point. I worry I'm stretching my stomach, but I'm pretty sure 2 incidents aren't critical. I'm seeing my surgeon for a check up in a couple of days.

I'm a little concerned about depression arising from my inability to eat more than a tiny amount at a time, though. This was the original fear, and it's being stoked slightly as I find out I still *want* to eat more than I can. This is weird but I sort of understand it - I'm logging food and counting calories fairly closely, and I find that eating solid food, even meat, means I get fewer calories that day because of my limited stomach capacity for that compared to fluids - and that there isn't as much nutrition in the meat as in the protein shakes. So on those days I ate meat, I tended to get a total of around 600-700 cals, whereas drinking only protein shakes and judiciously snacking I can get up to 900. I think I'm having trouble losing weight because I'm not eating enough; I keep hearing from docs that I should be taking in between 1000-1200 cals/day to maintain the best weight loss, and this is worrying me a bit.

The weight loss itself has slowed quite a bit and settled into a new pattern - I tend to drop 4-5 lbs over a couple of days, and then gain 1-2 back and fluctuate there for 4-5 days before the cycle repeats.

Weight: 275.5

My own list of five entries for Lost Gems of Yesteryear: Odyssey Two is now full. I wasn’t sure I would participate in a quest whose genesis was partly to suggest things for me to read, but then I found various write-ups that intrigued me in the course of hacking around the site, so I wanted to share:

  • Frequentative by Tem42, after Tem42 used the term in the catbox during a discussion of snuggle (purpose, uses, intent, and so on). Specifically it seems that 'a' snuggle is, commonly, a repeated action rather than a single act, and frequentative is the grammatical term that applies. I did not know that.
  • Manawatu waking by Demeter. Again with due credit to Tem42 who called out a lack of poetry in the quest nominated write-ups, although we have several since. Demeter was a valued colleague and sounding board back when I was Editor-in-chief of e2, and I am saddened to learn that she passed away. Demeter's collection of work here is worthy of your reading time.
  • Photograph of a Lady, Circa 1890 by Lucy-S, another poem, simply because I very much enjoy the imagery there.
  • On Blackness. I went looking for an essay to nominate. This one struck me as exactly the sort of personal experience narrative that fits e2 well. Also the pipe links led to other good content, and I do so love to find well-deployed pipe links.
  • I enjoyed both entries of Two stories about Mia which would be four, but Tem42 (again!) already nominated one of Zephronias' Stories about Mia so I specifically cite Bitroit's story/stories there for the purposes of the quest.

If you haven't yet noticed Brevity Quest 2016, please do so. I expect to add some BQ16 writeups once the e2 server decides that it's July, and I hope that you'll all do the same.

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