Well, a tentative surgery date, anyhow.
I met with Lisa, my patient advocate, on Tuesday and assuming I can complete my doctor supervised diet on March 1st – and there are no hangups with insurance – I’ll have WLS on March 23. I’m excited and nervous. Now I just need to make up my mind whether I’ll have gastric bypass or a duodenal switch.
[vimeo=http://vimeo.com/15802526]
A few thoughts while I was on my way to meet with a dietician for the first time. Pardon my rambling.
In cities across the United States, individuals affected by obesity, their family members and friends, healthcare professionals and many others come together and proudly walk to raise awareness of the disease of obesity, childhood obesity and morbid obesity in the annual Walk from Obesity. On October 9th, I’ll be participating in the Augusta Walk from Obesity. I hope you’ll consider walking with me, or making a small donation to support my effort. I’m trying to raise at least $200 and I’m 10% there already. Would you please consider helping out in some way?
The BookArc for iPad is a thing of beauty. It’s gorgeous to look at and a perfect companion for the iPad. If you’re considering getting the Apple iPad dock, skip it. Get this instead. It works in portrait or landscape. It’s sturdy. It doubles as a halfpipe for pixies when turned upside down.
Want to add a Twitter Tweet button to your WordPress posts? It’s super easy:
[php]
<a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-url="<?php echo get_permalink(); ?>" data-count="horizontal" data-text="Check out <?php the_title(); ?> on < ?php bloginfo( ‘name’ ); ?>" data-via="cdharrison">Tweet</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
[/php]
[php]
<a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-url="<?php echo get_permalink(); ?>" data-count="vertical" data-text="Check out <?php the_title(); ?> on < ?php bloginfo( ‘name’ ); ?>" data-via="cdharrison">Tweet</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
[/php]
[php]
<a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-url="<?php echo get_permalink(); ?>" data-count="none" data-text="Check out <?php the_title(); ?> on < ?php bloginfo( ‘name’ ); ?>" data-via="cdharrison">Tweet</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
[/php]
data-via="cdharrison" to your your own Twitter handle.data-text="Check out < ?php the_title(); ?> on < ?php bloginfo( 'name' ); ?>" isn’t necessary, but it’ll give you greater control over the intial text.Based on this quick tip from WPRecipes, I was able to quickly figure out how to count and display the number of Custom Posts (of a particular type) that I had on a site.
[sourcecode language=”php”]
<?php
$numposts = $wpdb->get_var("SELECT COUNT(*) FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE (post_status = ‘publish’ AND post_type = ‘listing’)");
if (0 < $numposts) $numposts = number_format($numposts);
?>
[/sourcecode]
Simply replace post_type = 'listing' with whatever you’ve named your custom post type. Then, to get the number to display somewhere on your page, simply insert the following code where appropriate:
[sourcecode language=”php”]
<?php echo $numposts ?>
[/sourcecode]
8-Point Flower is the first of several pattern packs I’ll be releasing over the next few weeks. (If you like these, please let me know!) It’s inspired by Islamic geometric patterns (which are pretty fascinating/incredible, I might add). The zip file contains: 6 PNGs (2 transparent versions not shown); Adobe Illustrator CS5 (.ai) files – single block or large pattern; and a Photoshop CS5 (.psd) file. Older versions of Illustrator or Photoshop should open the files. Best of all: It’s free and it’s licensed under a CC-BY-SA 3.0 license.
Hop on over to the OnWired blog where I’ve posted a brief tutorial on how to start working with variables and data sets in Photoshop. When I spoke in front of RefreshColumbia/CAUG a couple of months ago, I showed a brief demo of how to do this and many in attendance didn’t know this was possible with Photoshop. (If you have any feedback on the tutorial, I’d love to hear it.)
Officially I’m down 17.2 lbs overall, but I didn’t weigh-in this past weekend. (I’m certain I’ve gained since last weigh-in.) I’ve started making excuses for myself. I haven’t been active. I’ve been feeling pretty defeated. WeightWatchers works, but I haven’t kept track of my Points, and I’ve allowed myself to cheat far too often. When you’re losing a pound here and pound there without really trying, it’s easy to trick yourself into thinking “this one bad snack/meal/whatever” is okay this one time. The problem is that one time turns into several if you let it.
I’ve got a lot more weight to lose. So much so that I’m starting to consider seriously trying to get on The Biggest Loser or gastric bypass surgery. I refuse to give up. That’d be the easy way. I’ve got a long way to go and I’ve only just begun. I need to push myself harder. I need to be more realistic about what I can and cannot eat.
How do you keep yourself motivated?