Planet Crimson

Haha, I have your captive attention for a few minutes while I update you on my CPAP experiences.

So, the week of n00bparty was a terrible time to evaluate the effectiveness of sleeping with a CPAP device. It seemed, though, that I could stay up more hours than I should have been able to, but I’ve been known to do that while having fun.

But, now I’ve had a full two weeks since n00bparty ended (though it feels like a lot longer for some reason). I’ve noticed that I am waking up naturally after about 6 hours of sleep. Usually at this point, I would pee and go back to bed. But, once I’m up and walking to the potty and I get to relieve my pressured ears (more on that in a sec), I can’t motivate myself to go back to sleep. Please take your jaw off your desk. (Flashback to a month ago, pre-CPAP, when I would get up 3-6 times a night, pee, and go back to bed and fall asleep within 2-3 nanoseconds.)

Since I work long hours on the weekends and usually end up with not enough sleep, Sundays used to be my sleep days where I would do a 16+ hour sleep marathon. Today, it was still a marathon, but it was more like 10 hours. Which is like, normal… for someone who didn’t get much sleep the day or two before that. I wanted to sleep longer than that, but I got up to pee, and that was the end of that nap.

So, the pressure thing. The last P in CPAP stands for “Pressure”. You are inhaling pressurized (and humidified) room air. So, when you swallow, yawn, etc… it gives you that pressure difference in your ears like when you travel into higher or lower elevation. Charles is good at swallowing in such a way that doesn’t let the pressure change, but I am not yet so talented. I’m getting there. So for now, when I remove my mask, I have pop my ears. It’s very refreshing.

Back in the days of always being tired, if I got bored and felt I had been awake long enough, I would go to bed. Now, I am hitting that wall and not tired. So, it’s going to take time to get used to having more time to do stuff.

Things are changing pretty rapidly in improving my quality of life now. I think more waking hours are skewing my sense of time, but I wouldn’t trade it. The changes are subtle and gradual, not earth-shattering or life changing like getting a new pair of glasses (or how I imagine getting LASIK done on your eyes would feel), but great nonetheless.

OK, so I just woke up from my first nap and I figured I’d just post the whole “story” here to answer everyone’s questions.

So, I was diagnosed with Obstructive Sleep Apnea with an average of 35 awakenings per hour. I had an appointment on Tuesday at 1pm to pick up my equipment. Ironically, I overslept and woke up at 1:15. I called the main center and they were able to get me in at 2 instead, so I got dressed and headed over to the same place where I had my studies done.

The lady there went through every part of the machine (which costs $3000 – thank you insurance for picking up most of the tab!). I was originally going to use the mask that I selected in my study which is almost the same as Charles’ mask, but in a size larger because the one I wore then was so small that my mouth barely fit in the damn thing. She convinced me to try a mask that went over my nose and mouth and I was surprised that I actually didn’t mind it. Since they have a 30-day trial period on any mask, I decided to try it out for 2 weeks and if I don’t like it, I can use the other one. I remembered that the “pillows” that go into my nostrils were kind of annoying and slightly irritating to my stupidly-sensitive noseskins. (inside joke)

The tech at the sleep center was very patient and I never felt rushed as she made sure I was completely happy with my choice. She also patiently described how to use the machine and take care of it. I’m just remembering that now because usually I would tend to rush through something like this because I usually treat all employees as if they hate their job when I’m a customer… so I don’t know what she did to actually stop me from doing that and remembering it now, it’s pretty neat that she did that. Our doctor is the same way… he doesn’t mind spending time with you and making sure everything is taken care of. Sometimes it means a longer wait before he comes in but it’s worth it when you know he’s going to do the same with you.

Anyway, I went off track… I had only had a short nap before my appointment (which is why I overslept it) but I had been up for enough hours before the nap to need a full night’s sleep (which for me is 12 hours – see why I need this CPAP?)… so Charles dealt with getting my oil changed so that I could get to sleep. OK, so I didn’t learn my lesson I guess and my oil hadn’t been changed in a little too long so I didn’t want it to be in bad shape before I take it to the dealership to get maintenance done and some things fixed under warranty so I had it changed ahead of time. But that’s another story.

Unfortunately, going to sleep at 5pm is about the dumbest thing I could do because that’s during the prime time of Poker Nation stuff. So basically from 5pm-9pm I received like 5-6 calls and several texts from 3 different people, and had to call a customer to answer a question. Needless to say, my sleep was VERY interrupted.

Charles came to bed around midnight and that pretty much always wakes me up at least for a minute or two. But this time the bridge of my nose was really sore because I probably adjusted that part a little too tight. The rest of my mask fit really well all night but obviously I’m going to have to adjust the top of it. I loosened it in bed but it was already bruised so I decided to just get up and take advantage of the quiet house to get some work done before n00bparty which is in 3 days (OMG).

I can’t say I feel very different at this point but all I really achieved was a nap anyway so I’m not disappointed or anything. Charles hurt his hip on the Stairmaster at the gym, so he’s skipping out until it stops hurting but I’m probably gonna go by myself and get my workout in. I need to catch up to his strength anyway (haha). I am at a new low on my weight tonight (324.0 – 15 pounds of loss) but that might dip a few more fractions since I need to pee (haha).

Oh – I almost forgot to talk about my machine. So, the machine has a “ramp up” feature which starts the pressure low and comfortable and slowly increases for 45 minutes up to your prescribed pressure. I remember when Charles first got his, he was having trouble psyching himself to use this thing and the ramp feature helped him get accustomed to falling asleep with (his words) a giant sucking octopus attached to your face. For the record, I completely understand why he prefers falling asleep naturally instead of on the mask. I just hate when he does it because he feels like dog shit when he wakes up that way.

Now, my machine actually lets me set the start pressure for the ramp-up. Charles’ machine does not. (I have the newer model of his same brand) This is GREAT because the default is the lowest setting of 4 which doesn’t give me enough air so I already changed it to 6 which is what we started with in my sleep study.

This machine also has a feature called “CFLEX” which reduces the pressure when you exhale… this feature is AWESOME. The thing I hated most about wearing Charles’ mask and the ones in the sleep study was that it was hard to exhale against the incoming pressure and it made me feel a bit panicky like I couldn’t breathe. This feature reduces the pressure significantly when it detects you exhaling and it feels a lot more natural to breathe with it than any other CPAP I’ve used. There are three levels of CFLEX… I moved it to the highest setting which is such a drastic decrease that it actually feels like the mask is being sucked back off my face. Not literally, of course. I may go down to 2 when I get used to sleeping with this thing.

Since when my face is sweaty, it itches, any mask is going to be terrible for my eczema. I figured out (during my second study) that if I put my prescription cream on my face before I go to sleep, it does its job and suppresses my immune system reaction and my skin doesn’t itch or break out in a rash. When I did a trial sleep on Charles’ equipment, I had a terrible itchy rash on my face for a few hours until the cream could clear it up. My (awesome) doctor didn’t even blink an eye when I handed him my nearly empty tube and asked him to write me a new prescription. One tube lasts me about two years (seriously, though that may change now since I have to use it every time I go to sleep instead of once or twice a week) so I didn’t have a refill available. He had already said “sure” before he even read to see what the tube was.

So, I have an appointment in 2 weeks to follow up. I can trade masks if I decide I don’t like this one, completely free, and they’re going to check the SD card in my machine to make sure that I’m using it. If I don’t use it, my insurance won’t pay for it. Makes sense.

My weight is mostly unchanged from my last post (325.8 now), but Charles and I took our measurements to see where we’re at. It was about 20 days since we took “starting” measurements (which weren’t really starting since we were several weeks into our program). I have lost 3.5 inches on my waist and 1.5 inches on my hips. Other measurements were about the same… some areas where I’m building muscle got a little bigger but more tone so I’m OK with that.

I went to our doctor today for this nasty infection on my feet. Long story short, I’ve tried 3 different athlete’s foot creams and over-the-counter antibiotics and it’s not working, so I had to call in the big guns. My doctor seems disappointed that I brought such an “easy” problem to him and asked if there was anything else. I mentioned that I was curious about the findings from my sleep studies and he gave me all the paperwork that they sent him. It turns out I was waking up 60 or more times every hour and my oxygen levels got down to 90%.

I also talked to him about how well Charles and I are doing with our weight loss and he decided to check my cholesterol levels on my way down to see how I’m doing with that. So, I got stuck with a needle. I didn’t watch, but I think she took two vials. She also said I have “great veins”.

Also, my blood pressure was 120-something over 70-something which is pretty good and my pulse is down to 62… my pulse is usually in the 70′s. I’m sure the exercise is helping with that a lot. The method we’re using is supposed to help with the efficiency of your heart and lungs.

So, we’re very encouraged and feeling really good.

As of right now I’m down to 326.4 pounds, which is 12.6 pounds lost since April 2nd. However, that’s 9.4 pounds lost in the last 4 weeks. Charles and I are 2 weeks into the “main” part of the weight loss plan that we’re on. (I’m not counting the first week where we did only one day because he was too sore) We’re getting faster at completing our routine (it’s supposed to take about 25-30 minutes but we’re taking 45, down from over an hour) and we’re both getting a lot stronger. For example, we do a deadlift (which, if you don’t know, is lifting a barbell from near the ground up to a standing position) which uses mostly your lower back muscles. We started off lifting 20 pound barbells and now we are lifting about 80 pounds. We had to buy lifting gloves because the weight is heavier than our hands can grip without help.

Making my lower back so much stronger has helped with the pain and weakness I usually feel back there when I walk for long periods of time, which means I can do speed walking/running better.

Some people are starting to notice the changes in me. Hopefully some of the clothes I’ve held onto that were too small will start to fit. I dropped a lot of money on a new swimsuit because my old one was really worn out and now that we swim 3 times a week (or more), I figure it’s worth it.

I’m doing really good with resisting fast food but it gets easier now that I’m used to eating better because those things don’t even taste good anymore. I don’t even eat much red meat anymore. If I do eat meat, it’s chicken. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not becoming a vegetarian and have no desire to give up meat (I still get a steak burrito from Chipotle every Saturday)… I just know that beef tends to have a lot of calories so I usually go for chicken. I need to learn how to cook fish and find out what kinds taste good to us and add that to our repertoire of food choices.

I’m really proud of Charles, too. He’s working really hard at the gym and we’re starting to find some real muscles hiding under the fat. (on both of us) He’s doing a really good job and I can’t wait to see where we’re at in another month.

Lastly, my niece Riley turned one year old yesterday! I can’t believe it’s already been a year! She’s really close to starting to walk and she looks SO much like her dad! Jenny made some really cute cakes and spent WAY too much on decorations. Riley had no idea what was going on but thankfully her whole crying when being held by others is getting a lot better so she got a LOT of attention. She also got a huge kick out of being in the pool.

Anyway, I must wrap this up and get to PN for work.

So, I’m roughly one month into my most serious efforts at weight loss. Those of you who have been following, know that I have been “working on it” slowly since I turned 30 which was 6 months ago. (oh emm gee I’m 30 and a half wtf!)

My peak (recorded) weight was 339.0 on April 4th. It’s possible that I was a little higher than that at some point, but probably not much, if any. This morning, before I ate or drank anything (just to be consistent in my measurements!), I was at 330.2 pounds. So that’s 8.8 pounds in one month! I didn’t record any of my weight last week because I seemed to have rebounded upward a bit and I didn’t want to let it get me off my course. Good thing I didn’t, because I’m still way on course!

So, week #1 of gym time was only one visit because I was so sore. Week #2, I did go 3 times (well, 4) like I’m supposed to. Now I’m on week #3, which is the last of my “Beginner’s Program”. Next week, Charles and I start on a more intense workout that’s actually the real program at work. We’re doing 5 exercises right now, but next week it will be 12.

The program we’re doing (called Fat-Burning Furnace) calls for intensity of workout rather than duration (such as: cardio!) – mark my words, it’s going to be the next Big Thing in workouts. Rather than long bouts of medium or low intensity, we’re doing short bursts of HIGH intensity – which is: working as hard as you possibly can. We have been following it up with 5-10 minutes in the hot tub and going home all nice, clean, and exhausted.

Progress? Hell yeah! As I have mentioned on Facebook, we are using a website (GymTechnik) to track our workouts. They have a really nice phone-friendly version of the site, and there’s an app for my BlackBerry (other phones coming soon, I assume). It lets us build our workouts on the site and then at the gym, we can pull up the exercises in order (many have pictures and instructions) and we log our sets, reps, and weight used so that next time, we know what weight to use (or increase). It also has a place to keep track of our weight, BMI, body fat percentages, and measurements and graph them if we want. There are other features, but those are the ones we are using. I intend to buy some body fat calipers so we can measure our body fat percentage, because that’s what we’re really trying to lose… not water weight, not muscle weight… body fat is the true goal and it would be nice to track it instead (or in addition to) our actual weight.

Despite what some people have told us about the way we’re working out, we are definitely getting stronger! Since we work each exercise to momentary failure, it’s easy to measure how many reps we can do because we literally go until we can’t do a single rep more. I am making big improvements in the weight I can move. Since I am still exercising for the same amount of time and to the same shaky failure, it would be easy to think I’m not making progress, but with this app, I can see that last time I could only do 7 reps and now I can do 10 (for example).

So, tonight is gym night… we’ll probably go around midnight or so because we prefer to go when it’s as dead as possible so there’s less ogling at our blobby selves. On our program, we’re not supposed to rest for long, either, so it’s better to have the machines all free when we need them.

It was definitely GREAT to weigh myself this morning and see that I am really making progress. I’m hoping to get up to 2-4 pounds per week instead of 1-2. All I’m thinking about for now is that 300 pound mark. I really want to get under it!

(One more thing: I have been “off” soda for this whole month. I’ve had about one soda a week, if that… and now I drink exclusively water or Vitamin Water, which is WAY yummy and only 125 calories a bottle. I also drink Orange Juice from time to time.)