Category Archives: Health

Filling in the blanks

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Towards the end of the last year I had bragged about some new year resolutions. One of them was that I would be posting more frequently here. Well it has been about 2.5 months since my last post. Not good going. The status of the rest of the resolutions are very similar, if not worse. I am taking solace in that it seems to be a universal problem :-)

One of the reasons for me not being able to keep with any of things that I wanted to do was my illness. I have been having a series of throat infections starting from mid December of last year. After the first infection subsided I got an even worse condition known as peritonsillar abscess (PTA), which is much rare compared to tonsillitis but far more painful and serious. The condition consists of infection on the backside of the tonsils which forms an abscess which is filled with puss. If not treated, there is a chance that it might even lead to death. I was put on antibiotics which did not help. So the doctor gave me steroids and stronger antibiotics which seemed to work. But I got another infection as soon as the current infection subsided. This time even antibiotics and steroids weren’t helping. So the doctor had to make a small cut into the throat and drain the puss. It was extremely painful and I almost fainted. I think it was the incompetence of the doctor that caused most of the pain. To top it all, when I was standing dazed from all the pain and blood oozing down my mouth, he was trying to persuade me to do a tonsillectomy as soon as possible. I wanted to kick his balls so hard that he would spit them out.

I decided to switch doctors and I really have to thank God that I found a very good doctor (Dr. Sunil Ummat from Northwest Face in Kirkland). He had to do another draining but this time the it was almost painless. This is one of the times where I recognized the importance of seeing a good doctor, I swear that the difference is like night and day. The problem with peritonsillar abscess is that once you get a PTA, the structure of your tonsils have forever changed – they are never the same again. There is a good chance that you can another abscess and there is no way to prevent it other than staying healthy and making sure you don’t get a throat infection. That is like trying to prevent a common cold. You can only do so much. Many doctors suggest a wait and see approach while others recommend a tonsillectomy. Usually it is up to the patient to make the decision and Dr.Ummat did the same. I was not sure. I did not want to go through a PTA again but I was quite afraid of doing a surgery. Dr. Ummat was very patient and explained all the pro and cons to me. After a couple of weeks of deliberation I decided to do the tonsillectomy. I had it done last thursday. Today is the 8th day after the surgery and I am doing pretty well now. I haven’t fully recovered yet, but the pain is mostly gone (I am still on pain medication though) and I have started eating soft foods. Cant talk much either. One of the (positive) side effects of the surgery is that I lost 14 pounds in less than a week :-)

I am not making any more promises now about frequent blogging and reading books and learning technologies. I am going to take life as it comes because if there is one thing that I have learned so far from 31 years of life it is that you can’t really expect life to go the way you want it to (that is not to say that I am not in a bad position today, but I have had so many deviations from where I expected to go in life). I am starting the see the value of the Zen approach of going with the flow and taking it easy and enjoying life while I can.

These thought are not caused by the bitter experience of my recent illness or because I believe I have achieved enlightenment but these are thoughts that have been shaping up for several years now. I have been reading a book called Power of Less recently and I very much like the idea of minimalism. I have hundreds of books. More than I can read in my lifetime, but I just keep on buying more. Now I think what I love is not the books, but the experience of buying them. Just the way women love to shop for clothes. I used to scour over Amazon for several hours a day for books that I don’t have, all the while having on my shelf several hundred books that are in the “must read” category. Now that I have identified a problem, I have decided to fix it buy not buying more books but by reading the books that I already bought. I think that having a few good things and enjoying them is far better than having lots of good things but never being able to enjoy them. I have decided to experience less number of things but to experience each more deeply. Let us see how it goes.

Diet update – Oct 06 2008

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Today morning my weight was 182.4 pounds which comes to approximately 82.7 Kgs. This means that I lost something between 6 to 8 pounds in the first two days (i didnt measure my weight before starting the diet but I think it was something between 188 – 190 pounds which was the case when I last weighed myself). This rate of reduction is excellent from what I have read and it certainly gives me some motivation to continue the diet. The going is tough and the sugar craving is very high but I hope things will get better in the days to come.

Yesterday morning I had 2 eggs and a sausage for brunch. In the evening I had 2 chicken pieces and for dinner I fried some shrimp. I snacked on beef jerky in between meals as well. I drank 3 caffeine free diet cokes and ate a couple of packets of Splenda to satisfy my sugar craving.

I played badminton on saturday and volleyball on sunday so I am guessing that it helped in burning some fat.

I haven’t decided what my target weight should be. I don’t want to put too much pressure on myself. When the cravings get high, I console myself with the fact that I can quit any time that I want, but by having a target weight it would feel like a failure if I quit before that. I am just going to keep going as far as I can.

The hardest part would be keeping the weight off after I start eating carbohydrates again. I don’t have a plan sketched out for that, but most probably I would start exercising more.

Lean & Mean

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It has been a while since I wrote anything here, I guess I am having a blogger’s block. Today I made a significant decision and I thought I should write about it, partly to keep my resolution and partly to break the writing block.

I have been gaining weight steadily in the past two years and I am beginning to get a bit concerned about it. I had bought a lot of clothes when I came to US but I cant wear any of them now because my waist size increased from 32 to 34. So I have decided to shed a few pounds and start feeling good about myself. A nice side effect would be I would be able to use some of my old clothes :) . I am just hoping all this would happen, but you never know unless you try it. So guess what, starting today I am going on a low-carb diet. I have done this once before with good results although I quit after a week unable to withstand the sugar craving. I lost something between 4 and 6 Kgs in that period. That experience gives me a lot of confidence now and I hope to do better this time, not necessarily in terms of quick weight reduction but in terms of getting better long term benefits ( I gained back the original weight within a month last time). One advantage that I have compared to previous time is that in US you have better access to food which is carbohydrate free. I really suffered that week in Bangalore while I was on diet because I couldn’t get enough protein & fat only food to keep me from going hungry. Going on a diet, in general, is pretty tough because the fact that you cant eat certain types of food makes you crave for exactly that. A significant factor for success is your ability to keep your mind off the diet, something that I couldn’t do last time. I hope to do something in the coming days – something that will keep me busy and keep my mind of the food craving. Maybe I will blog more or study something new or start a pet project.

Today I ate 4 eggs and some beef jerky for brunch. In the evening I ate some baked chicken as a snack. I am planning some sausages for dinner. There is a lightheaded feeling, but otherwise everything is going good. I don’t have a weighing scale at home so I don’t know my exact weight before starting the diet, but last time I weighed myself it was something between 188 and 190 pounds (around 85-86 Kg). Tomorrow I plan to buy a scale so that I can keep track of the weight during the diet period.

Wish me luck dudes and dudettes, and stay tuned for the diet results :-)