Peter_C

January????~!

I hope sooner than that ~!!

CPFITNESS

Shoulder surgery is quite painful, I'm not surprised by that. Glad itbwent well, speedy recovery. Quit that soda today!

Zeake

Man, I have read this thread as if it was a novel. Peter I have to say that you can do anything. I mean anything you set your mind to. You kicked morphine and other pain meds. Most people never succeed in this. In the last year and a half I have lost 70lbs. I learned a lot doing it.
I know you love Pepsi. Have you tried Pepsi max? Better than diet by leaps and bounds. Soda usually = 15lbs a year. Another thought I had while talking to people at the gym about weight loss is this. Go to your local hardware store. Put 50lbs of concrete under each arm. Now with concrete make 2 laps of the store. Then drop the concrete.The relief you feel dropping that weight is what you will feel like when you have lost 100lbs. The only difference is it is sllloooooooowwwww going vs the drop of concrete you carried around the store.
I hope you dont mind my suggestions but here they are anyway.

#1 watch the biggest loser and watch every episode. Very good information in the show. Realize though that they are extreme. They only eat a max of 1800 calories a day and burn 6 to 10 thousand calories or more. I don't recommend weight lose that fast it really is not good for you. They do a lot of motivation things and teach more about healthy eating.
#2 follow this link and read all of it. https://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...hlight=fat+fit
#3 Count every calorie that you eat. Every single calorie.
#4 Buy this book. Read it several times. https://www.amazon.com/What-Say-When-...9401682&sr=8-1
#5 Take before and after pictures so you can really see what progress you have made.
#6 Read up on proper nutrition and protein levels to maintain the muscle that you have developed in your exercise over the last year. Clean protein is very important.
#7 Stop killing yourself with cigarettes. Do you want to live or die. Cigarettes kill. If there was no heaven and no after life at all would you waste 5 minutes of a life you only have one of for a stinking cigarette. Yes I stopped smoking I know how hard it is. Harder than giving up Pepsi.
#8 Never give up. No matter what ails you. Even the shoulder is only a small set back.
#9 Do a little weight lifting a couple of times a week once your shoulder is well.
You CAN do it. You could be riding 100 miles up hill and weigh 225 in 1.5 years from now. The key to it, is wanting it badly enough.
Drs and likely the PTs are going to tell you not to ride at all till a certain point in recovery. They don't want you to even attempt to reach for anything out of reflex. Driving can even be off limits even with the arm immobilized.

Great job so far. I am hoping you make your goals and live a long fruitful life. I will be watching this thread so don't close it. No point. You have achieved some great things so far. You can achieve lots more.

Pink Lemonade

I know it's now over 8 months later, but I'm just joining the party. haha But what I wanted to say is that I have often wondered if I was the only one who thought about these things... how different like would be if I could go shopping in a normal store, be able to sit in normal seats, go to amusement parks, etc. Never did I really think I was the only one, but it sure does feel like it. Why? Because it's not something we usually talk about.

I'm making my way through your thread/story now (obviously, only on page 2) and I am enjoying the discussion, and it's really neat getting to know you through your updates. Thank you Peter, for posting this. I look forward to seeing how things go and where things are now.

Neil_B

I and JAgraham just invited Peter C. to glide with us down the mountain to Cumberland, MD, on August 28 or 29. He can borrow an under the seat steering trike for the ride if he's still restricted from bike riding. The trike means he doesn't need to worry about balance, and the under the seat steering should be easy for him to manage with a bum shoulder.

Other Bike Forums people are welcome to join us, of course. Please PM me because we need to figure out how to get everyone back up the mountain. You hard core folks might enjoy climbing a 2 per cent grade for 24 miles, in which case that pleasure you can enjoy on your own.

Ride will start at Deal trailhead, or if Peter is ambitious, at Garret.

Neil_B

No, you aren't. Not by a long shot. The folks at Weight Watchers have a description for such things - "Non-scale victories." A good example of a NSV is the childrens' story titled "See Neil Run."

See Neil.

See Neil get in his Neilmobile and drive to work.

See Neil fume as construction crews and tree trimmers cause traffic jams.

See Neil fret about getting to work late.

See Neil park the Neilmobile at his work.

See Neil hurry to get into work.

See Neil break into a run to get to his office.

See Neil reach his office.

See Neil realize that for the first time in a decade, he can RUN!

See Neil running in the hallways to show his coworkers that he can run.

See Neil's coworkers ask him to stop running in the hallways.....

chasm54

I can't quite answer that, because I am not a "truly skinny person". At 200lbs I'm at least 10lbs overweight. But I've never been more than 30lbs overweight, nobody but myself has ever called me fat, so maybe, for the purposes of this discussion, I qualify?

I have read the thread. I think it's a testimonial to your determination to take control of your life and address your "issues", and an even greater testimonial to the preparedness of others to encourage and help you. Any skinny person who failed to recognise that would be both fortunate enough to never have had to confront something they found difficult, or deal with being looked down on or discriminated against, and sufficiently lacking in empathy to be unable to imagine what that must be like. I'm not going to patronize you by telling you that there are bound to be setbacks, that the goal is important enough for you to press on regardless, because you know that far better than I, and I can't know what it is like to walk in your shoes. But since this is a cycling forum, maybe a quote from Eddy Merckx, perhaps the most indomitable cyclist of all time, might be appropriate? He said Attack when it's hurting you. That's when you know you'll get away.

Pink Lemonade

I'm like that too. I don't plan things in advance because hey, SOMETHING will make it not happen, and I try not to get too excited about good things because those things never seem to work out for me.

That being said, I've read through most of the thread (up to page 20, yay!) and your trek has been inspiring. Right now, I'm keeping an eye on my local CL to hopefully find myself a nice bike for a good price. While I don't currently have your knee/shoulder issues, I hope I'm able to do even half of what you've accomplished thus far. Thank you so much for posting your saga, Peter.

Neil_B

Sigh. Another person setting himself up to fail.

Pink Lemonade

It's a little hard not to have that attitude when every single thing you work for or get excited about fails. In my world, failure is pretty much a given, no matter what I do.

That being said, I'm looking for something, anything, to succeed at.

Neil_B

"Everything" strikes me as an exaggeration. Do you breathe when you wake up in the morning? Do you wake up at all? If that's all you have to start with, it's something to start with.

Peter_C

Small update whil;e waitin g for thew pills to do their work so I can go to sleep...

Asked Cindy to help dry me after a shower today, so she comes up and gives me a great BIG hug that makes me scream li,ke a little girl~! She's so used to my leg being the issue she completely forgot about my shoulder and (OUCH) - boy, it was something~! 6 Hours later it's actually kinda funny - but at the time, not so much...

Hello to the new people in the thread, I hope my ramblings haven't bored you to tears yet. Typing is sorta a pain right now so am sorry for not writing too much. Some 72 hours after the shoulder surgery I can truthfully say in most ways it is more painful than a knee scope. With the knee, you can sorta prop it in a corner and as long as you don't move it the pain doesn't really change. But with the shoulder - coughing, sneezing (that really hurts), and being dumb enough to shrug your shoulders can really hurt.

How's this for dumb? Today alone, I have shrugged my shoulders FIVE times - UGH!

Put me on the record - I really *hope* I can do the Glide at the end of Augest~! If not more than that!!! I really want to - but until we see some progress I simpl,y have no clue.

My plan is as follows:

I see the Ortho on the 21st.
I go in for the first PT visit on the 22nd
The plan is PT 3X weekly. I plan to get the APPTs early in the afternoon, so after they are done torturing me, I can go to the other side (gym side) and ride for 1-2 hours (FREE). I expect it will not be fun at first, as I never enjoy PT - But, like I saw it for Frank - thnis is my chance to make bits and pieces work better, and this is really a great PT place!

(Reminder: Unlike other PT places I have been to over the years, where you have a 40 or 50 minute APPT, and if you don't finish, you'll 'get to it next time'... - this place has room for like 20-25 people at a time, and you do not leave until you are done doing whatever it is you are supposed to do that day - much to my sorrow the first time I tried to goof off at PT)

Have been a good boy, kept my arm in the sling until today, and now am letting it hang out and swing a little bit like the Doc wants. Am not supposed to lift *anything*, or do *anything* with the arm til he sees me, but in the interest of not letting it stiffen up, am to keep it out of the sling as much as I can until then. No infection it looks like - nice and dry, no heat, no fever, no redness. Weird part, it feels like my collor-bone is broken (not that I know what that feels like) - just that's where most of the pain is right now.

Been doing some rereading myself the last couple of days. The actual riding of the bike was never as hard as I thought it would be, but the zero weight loss progress in light of all the other changes leaves a rather poor taste behind.

True, I have not regained weight, which by itself is a good thing, and while my overall health is continuing to improve, I guess I was hoping that the increased activity would actually help with the weight loss.

I hate stating goals that I later fail about - would much rather state the results after the fact, rather than something that may or may not com e about...

People give all sorts of advice all the time. Most of us big people know for ourselves what we need to do, what will work, what won't work...

I figure since am bout to suffer PT again, I might as well have something to really suffer about. Am going to once again attempt to kill off the Pepsi habit. I really don't want to, but since anything I really like is bad for me, I guess it's time to give it a go once again. I do not have the excuse of work stress, etc in front of me, and since I carry no loose change on me any more - we shall see how it goes.

Yes, I *AM* going to drink the rest of the Pepsi in the house first But sometime between now and Friday it will all be gone. Since neither Cindy or my mother in-law drink it at all (both are diabetic) there will be no reason for it to be in the house.

The sad part is, I never see anything good come from this type of change - I just lose something I like... I simply hope that this time combined with my Bicycle, Frank, and the towpath (which I miss greatly) - I will see a benefit in enough time for me to make this finally a life change (I HATE TEA!!!!)

Fatb0yslim

hey man hows it going ive been a ghost on this forum for awhile but i registered today i wanted to tell you ive had 3 shoulder surgeries (from football and mx) and have found the most comfortable way to sleep is to lay on my good side and
make a fist and set it against the bed ( while your in the sling ) it somehow puts the shoulder in a completely neutral spot try it

Neil_B

Sigh. "Still, still, far wide", as Cordelia said of King Lear.

Peter, it's an exchange. It's not a loss.

Zeake

Glad the surgery went well.
I bet you have not accounted for the muscle you have gained since you started riding. Weight may have stayed the same but I am sure you have added some muscle.
I hope you have a great recovery. Try a Pepsi Max when you have a chance.

zoste

I hope that you find a decent bike in your price range.

Tucson is a great city for cycling...lots of bike lanes, a few decent MUP's, and gorgeous scenery. Because there are quite a few bicycles on the road, drivers are a little more aware of us here than where I used to live.

Good luck, and keep us posted!

Peter_C

Shoulder Update

I saw the Ortho today. Sort of a good news, bad news kind of thing...

Good news is I seem to be healing well, no sign of infection, etc.

Bad news is it seems I have been doing the wrong stuff. I'd thought that (like my TKR) working on motion, and range of motion, etc would be a good thing, so while I did not do anything stupid, I had been trying to not use the sling, and work on shoulder shrugs, stuff like that - turns out I have been doing the wrong stuff.

The Doc explained that since my rotator cuff had been torn, and that since he'd had to stitch it up, I was *NOT* to move my arm from my side, lift weight of any kind, or do *anything* the PT Dr does not tell me it's OK to do. It seems that if I use the arm to any degree, I run the risk of either outright tearing the stitches, or else run the risk of the rotator cuff healing "too loose" - by me stretching out the stitches.

I am *NOT* to mow the lawn, or get on my bike, or open the glove box of my car, or open a door with my right hand, or anything of the nature until if/when the PT Dr states otherwise.

I have another APPT for six weeks from now, and I start PT tomorrow afternoon - so we shall see how bad it will really be.

The way the Ortho made it sound, the Shoulder healing and PT is more risky than the TKR - the only reason the TKR PT was so bad was because my lack of muscle (tone) prior to the surgery. The knee was all about getting ROM and power back, and lessening of pain, with the shoulder it's not just the above, but also the proper healing of the torn cuff itself - yay~!

So, that's that I guess...

Zeake

It'll be back to real good in less than 6 months. Just try no to reach for anything. Hope it gets better sooner than that.

Pink Lemonade

Thank you. I appreciate it.

One thing I have noticed around here... most of the bikes on the road seem to be Trek bikes. I didn't notice that until I joined up here. lol

Pink Lemonade

In reading through, I somehow missed that your shoulder surgery was for a torn rotator cuff. After the cuff heals, you can work on your strength and ROM. Until then, listen to your PT!

Good luck, Peter. Keep us updated!

CPFITNESS

shoulder surgery is brutal but my friend got his done in december and he was playing golf with me again in may and really able to swing the club for the first time ever. he wishes he did it 3 years earlier.

As a fitness professional, it drives me crazy to hear you talk about Pepsi the way you do. I hope you do kick the habit and 3 weeks in you'll probably say " man, I used to look at drinking a pepsi like the highlight of my day" By the sounds of how much of it you drink, I'm 100% positive that it has sabotaged your weight loss efforts because of the calories and insulin spikes it gives. But look on the bright side, you havent gained any weight and you've gotten your lower body in better conditioning to take advantage of quitting the soda whereas in teh past you may have quit the soda but still sat on your ass all day. If you quit the soda and the weight starts coming off, i think you'll be very glad you did it.

Pink Lemonade

He already said he was quitting Pepsi. I think you can lay off him about it.

Neil_B

Trek is the GM of the bike world - except that they are profitable. :-)

Pink Lemonade

I did not know that, as I was completely unaware of them until a couple of months ago. hehe My presumption beforehand would have been that I'd see more Schwinn or Huffy bikes on the road than anything else. Hey, I'm learning though.

Neil_B

Wal-mart's Schwinns and Huffys are the Tata Motors of the bike world. :-)