The ScienceBlogs Diet, Mid-Year

Because it’s not science without graphs:

(Click for larger image.)

Basically the same deal as the last time I posted one of these. It pretty much breaks into three parts: 1) The initial “eat less and exercise” weight-loss plan, with a linear slope through January and February, 2) The “heartburn diet” plan, when the gastroenterologists made me really paranoid about food triggers, and I really restricted what I ate, leading to the steeper downward slope, and 3) The “screw the doctors” plan, where I gave up on trying to find foods that would eliminate the problem, and started eating a bit more regularly, leading to the flattening off of the graph at the end. I’ve basically been holding steady at around 230 lbs (do your own metric conversions) since the beginning of May, with a couple of upward spikes corresponding to the weekend in Vegas and DAMOP.

As for the recurring heartburn problem it’s, well, there. Thing that seem to help: 1) Keeping food in my stomach, most of the time. If I go too long between meals, it almost invariably gets really cranked up 2) Drinking a lot of water, which is just another way of maintaining a fairly full stomach without eating a lot, 3) Physical activity– when I go play basketball at lunchtime, or even just take the dog on a walk in the afternoon, that usually seems to help, 4) Beer. Seriously, when I have a couple of beers, it feels much better. I’m just about willing to develop a drinking problem to take care of my stomach problem.

Other than the stomach thing, I feel pretty good. I don’t get winded going up stairs any more, I’ve got more energy generally, my lower back doesn’t bug me as much as it used to, and my basketball game has really improved. Everybody I see tells me I look really good, and some golf shirts that I had moved out of the rotation as being too small now fit pretty well.

If it weren’t for the constant worrying about when my stomach is going to flare up and cause me a great deal of pain, I’d be really happy. We’ll see if things improve now that summer is finally (more or less) here, and my stress level will drop a little.

(I had a physical last week, and another round of tests has been scheduled, but my opinion of the medical profession is kind of at a low ebb right now, so I don’t expect that to lead to much of anything…)