Hi Guys,

Left my concentrated focus to be healthy in Jan and see how I maintained in Feb. Could'a been worse, could'a been better. My wight in day has been Monday's and I'm either rushing to work or enjoying a day off and both are excuses why I can't log in and be accountable and supportive. Life's not perfect but I've got nothing worth complaining about. Spending time working extra, moved grandma, shoveling snow, working on a home loan...

313.6 - I'll take that after a rocky month. Shooting for adding some exercise and getting closer to 300 by month end. I have annually taken a small to large health hiatus and vacation to enjoy the NCAA tournament. This month I only took 2 days off for the opening round, combined with my work rotation that gives me 7 days in a row off. I'm finding myself not getting out and being active so that is a short term goal next week.

Best, Todd

I checked in at 265 and a whisker this morning. So I plucked the whisker and am calling it 265 lbs even. That's down half a pound from last week and a tie for my lowest weight since surgery.

My schedule is smoothing out a little. There is still lots and lots of driving. That will continue for the foreseeable future. I dodged a blizzard that dumped 20" of snow on my parent's house. The neighbor took care of the driveway for me so I am glad for that.

201.0 Last week
202.3 Today

Food: C
Water: C
Vitamins: B
Exercise: D

Mindless eating. Boredom. Taxes. That's my story this week.

Good week to all.

Great questions for your surgeon. From a purely technical medical perspective, as soon as you are off pain meds you should be able to drive. That being said, I know from my surgeon's perspective, the bigger issue is access to health care. I travel some for work, and his biggest concern was that I wasn't in a third world country, or some rural town somewhere in the US. As long as I was traveling to major metropolitan areas, he didn't have a lot of concerns about me traveling. You would hate to have some sort of intestinal blockage and be in the middle of Eastern Utah (for example) where you are 100 miles from the nearest gad station, let alone an high quality hospital. In addition, if you had some sort of emergency that prevented you from driving, it would be important that your wife was able to drive the RV as well if necessary.

Again, these are just my perspectives - I would definitely discuss a plan with your surgeon.

I'm pretty sure if you drop below 2% body fat you're likely to die. I wouldn't think many doctors would be ok with someone maintaining at that level. From my undertandidng, "essential body fat" is 3%-5%. I believe for most medical professionals warning bells go off if you get near 5%. I believe anything under 8% is considered "under-fat" and healthy ranges are often considered 8% - 20%.

I realize that isn't the point of this post, but I was surprised to see the 2%, so wanted to chime in! But, I'm no doctor, just my $0.02.

Bill - thanks for the update, and I hope you are doing well. It's very interesting to see how different people respond to "life happening". I know that for me, personally, I do end up eating more than I should in stressful situations. I don't know that it is so much "stress eating" as it is that I get distracted by life, and am much less mindful of what I'm doing which leads to overeating for me. Fortunately, when this happens, I am still very good at sticking to food on my plan. And since my plan consists of a lot of fruits and vegetables, it's pretty darn forgiving if you have a few extra servings a day.