In reference to the post from earlier today where I discussed my silly food experiment, I have finished my lunch. I had a little bit of chicken, a protein cookie, a little sugar free chocolate, and a handful of Ritz crackers. No peanuts for me.

Now we wait and see how I feel this afternoon including if my stomach requires me to eat on the drive home, and how I feel when it’s time for dinner, probably around 6:45-7:00pm. Will there be gassy pain in my stomach like there often is when I work in the office and have peanuts with my lunch? Or will I be pain and discomfort (and brutal, violent farts) free (please excuse the TMI, but I included it for the benefit of scientific research, you understand)?

In other health-ish news, I used my CPAP machine again last night. It went well. No issues. More importantly, the SleepWatch app on my Apple Watch tells me that the ratio of restful sleep vs light sleep increased. Yesterday it was 67% restful, which wasn’t bad, I don’t think, but today it was 79% which is pretty wonderful. I like seeing that number in the 70’s, but when it pushes 80 it’s extra special. It had my sleeping heart rate dip at 21% too. Anything above 20% is excellent. Unfortunately, I failed to get six hours of sleep in total (only by a few minutes though) and the older I get the less functional I am when the total is less than six hours. Oh well.

So as far as medical experiments go, we need to see how my stomach feels by the time dinner rolls around, 4-5 hours from now, and how tonight’s sleep goes. There is just so much data to collect. The statistics nerd typing this post is giddy with antici…

…

…

…pation.

https://robertjames1971.blog/2024/07/03/and-now-we-wait-and-see/

#apnea #AppleWatch #cpap #CPAPMachine #diet #food #gasPain #gastricBypass #gastricBypassRecovery #gastricBypassSurgery #health #meal #mealPlanning #Sleep #sleepApnea #sleepData #sleepStatistics #SleepWatch #sleepwatchApp #stomachPain #weightLossSurgery

Bellana is back in Vermont. She left last night and stayed over one of her friends’ house in order to cut down on her morning commute today. At our house she was three hours away from work, and today is a work day for her. I get it. It makes me sad to see her go, but I am also really happy we had her for a few days. Even more so as we had Harry for a few days before that, and their visits overlapped so we had them both for a day. That made me really happy. That was an extra good night.

Jen is working from the office today. I am working from home. That means I am here by my lonesome, just me and the cats. I have a podcast playing on my MacBook and it’s streaming to Home Pods scattered all over the house. I don’t have to pause the podcast if I need to get up and leave the room. Heh heh. Technology is cool. When Jen comes home I’ll shut off any streams that are anywhere other than Harry’s room/my office space.

The Great Heatwave of 2024 is going to become official today. The forecast calls for the temperature in my little city to hit 99 degrees. That will be three days over 90. Heatwave: Confirmed. It is 9:10am right now and it’s already 83 degrees. It’s going to be fun.

The forecast for the rest of the week? Rain and clouds and awful. Back to normal, I guess.

After complaining about crappy sleep for the last week or so, I finally topped six hours last night. In fact, I topped 7.5 hours. It was broken though. I fell asleep at 9:30pm. Not by choice. I just couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore and zonked out. Normally I try to eat something before I go to sleep out of fear that my stomach will get so empty over night that it will hurt. A snack at bedtime avoids that problem, but I didn’t have one last night. My last bite to eat last night was at 7:49pm. I woke up with a bit of a stomach ache at 2:30am. I had a little snack and felt better, but I couldn’t fall back to sleep until well after 3:00. Oh well. I felt really tired when I woke up today (almost an hour later than I had planned) but I feel okay now. Here’s hoping I won’t be totally exhausted today.

Okay, red head. Back to work.

https://robertjames1971.blog/2024/06/20/empty-nesters-again/

#90Degrees #99Degrees #Apple #emptyNest #emptyNesters #Family #gastricBypass #gastricBypassRecovery #gastricBypassSideEffects #gastricBypassSurgery #grownKids #health #heatwave #HomePods #Kids #Podcast #Sleep #sleepSchedul #sleepStats #SleepWatch #StepKids #streamingAudio #tech #Weather #workFromHome

It’s Wednesday. I’m back in the office. You don’t care, but I want to write about something… anything… so here we are.

Today is Juneteenth. I completely forgot. When the state first established today as a holiday we got it off. Less than a year later our company turned most of the non-national holidays into floating holidays so now we don’t get today off. It was just another day for me except that there was no traffic on the highways this morning. From my house to my office, 43 miles, took 46 minutes. Why couldn’t every commute be this easy? While having the day off would have been great, I will take this as the next best thing… sort of.

I failed to get six hours of sleep again last night. My watch tells me I got 5:45 but my heart rate numbers were pretty spectacular. Hopefully that means I won’t be too completely exhausted again today. Just mildly completely exhausted. I still haven’t hooked up my CPAP machine since coming back from Florida a few weeks ago. I think my sleep numbers (assuming my watch pulls accurate data) are implying that using the machine won’t make much of a difference. I should probably use it anyway. Maybe there will be a placebo effect or something and I won’t be quite as tired after a short night’s sleep. I don’t know.

The Oilers won last night. Yippee. Well… that’s being mean. I am glad they won. Not because I expect them to dig out of a three games to none series hole, but because it literally extended the NHL season. If they are going to lose on me and prove that I suck at picking the outcome of NHL playoff series’, then the least they can do is lose in seven games so we get our money’s worth, right?

As for the Red Sox, they have won four in a row including two wins against the first place Yankees. Glorious. I saw a post on social media where someone said that this streak proves they will not only make the playoffs, but advance to the American League Championship Series. I laughed out loud. No, let me be more specific… I laughed out loud for a long, long time. They are four games above .500. They are in third place in the division, 11.5 games behind the first place (and thoroughly evil) Yankees. They are two games out of the wild card. Oh yeah, it is June. Yeah… they are better than I thought they would be, but they are still pretty clearly mediocre. They might sneak into the wild card, but I am not holding my breath. If you’re expecting the Red Sox to do anything better than middle of the pack, then you haven’t been paying attention. No. They will not make it to the ALCS. If they do, I will happily eat my words, but I won’t have to because there’s no chance. This is the way. I have spoken.

I watched last night’s new episode of Star Wars: The Acolyte. There has been so much hate spewed at this show. Most of it rooted in sexism and racism rather than the story or anything to do with it. I’ve enjoyed the show so far and I am looking forward to seeing where it goes. I’m on for the ride, as the saying goes. Last night though… episode four… I finally had something that I didn’t like. What was it? The running time was less than 30 minutes. Come on, Star Wars. We need more than that from our weekly episodes. We need more to sink our teeth into. These episodes should be more like 45-60 minutes, right? We need that content, folks. We need it! Star Wars, babie! Give us more!

This is the way.

I have spoken.

What was I talking about?

https://robertjames1971.blog/2024/06/19/another-wednesday/

#365 #365Challenge #AppleWatch #Baseball #Cat #commute #Disney_ #health #Hockey #Holiday #iphoneography #juneteenth #Kitty #lily #MajorLeagueBaseball #MLB #morningCommute #NHL #nhlPlayoffs #nhlPostseason #photoADay #photoADayChallenge #photography #playoffs #postseason #RedSox #robin #Sleep #sleepStats #SleepWatch #standings #stanleyCup #stanleyCupFinal #StarWars #starWarsTheAcolyte #stateHoliday #Television #traffic

I have made it to lunch time and nothing disastrous has happened yet. My feeling that today is going to be a bad day has not yet come true, but I still have half the work day to go. Fingers crossed that everything stays quiet.

I have been having a couple of issues. My stomach is not having a good day. The frequency of gastric bypass side effects does seem to be getting smaller with time, but today has been noteworthy. I was feeling a little off this morning while drinking water and doing my exercise. By the time I had my protein bar breakfast in the car on the way to work I was okay. Three hours later though I started having that empty-stomach-ache feeling. I had a small snack and felt better, but it only alleviated things for about an hour. Now the stomach ache is back, but I just started eating lunch so hopefully that will put an end to it.

The other issue I am having today is one that I hinted at in a post last night. I am completely exhausted. I got about 6.5 hours of sleep last night, which is a little less than I was hoping for. I still wear my Apple Watch to sleep to keep track of various sleep related data. One data point that seems really important to how rested I feel is called Sleeping Heart Rate Dip. The SleepWatch app says that a dip between 10% and 20% is average. Over 20% is excellent. Under 10% is not good. The last two nights I have been under 10%. I don’t know why. The app recommends exercise as a way to encourage your heart rate to dip more while you sleep, and I have exercised a lot the last couple of days. I’m not sure what to do about this, but I am so tired today that hopefully my body won’t have a choice but to have a good night’s sleep tonight. I guess we’ll see how things look in the morning.

Until then… fingers crossed that my sense of impending doom is not warranted. Here’s hoping!

https://robertjames1971.blog/2023/11/22/so-far-so-good-3/

#food #gastricBypass #health #meals #Sleep #sleepingHeartRateDip #SleepWatch #stomachAche #stomachIssues #stomachPain #weightLossSurgery #weightLossSurgerySideEffects