Attitude Adjustment, part One: The Weight of Life's Ups and Downs

I eat because I'm unhappy and I'm unhappy because I eat.

                                                                                                
                                                                                                         Fat Bastard

Out of all my vices over the years, food is my favorite. Unlike some of the harder types, you don't tend to have massive hangovers or withdrawals (and I have yet to rob from my relatives in order to buy some donuts). However,  it can still be a potent and insidious sneaky son-of-a-bitch. I have watched my weight fluctuate over the last decade-plus years pretty radically. I have tried a variety of dietary changes but always fell back into the old habits of eating (or drinking) whatever I wanted to and not worrying about the consequences. This isn't such an issue when one is in the Army, running 2 miles every weekday and doing a variety of calisthenics. But being more or less sedentary is another matter.

In June of 2001 I was out of the Army and weighed about 190. Despite a small spare tire that I generated in my last few months, I was in pretty darn good shape and fit into all my clothes and uniforms. By December of that year I was in the mid 190's and over the next four years I slowly crept upwards despite working for a utility company and walking all over town reading meters. From January to May 2005, the last year of living in Texas, I put a concerted effort into loosing some weight and went from 215 down to 205. When I got to West Virgina that June, I was in pretty good shape. Unfortunately, I put that weight right back on by the end of summer and kept packing it on until April 2006 when I started working at the VA. I had hit 244, looked and and felt awful and was generally not very happy.

This huge weight gain was my own fault. I drank a lot of beer, ate a lot of food and got very little exercise aside from repairing the house my [ex]wife and I had bought in Huntington. My marriage had been slowly crumbling  during this time and while wanting to find some sort of meaningful work (I was collecting unemployment) I was going nowhere. Nursing seemed like a far off goal, as I had no idea how to pay for college and was frankly scared to death by the whole concept. I had a wonderful group of friends in WV, without whom I would have been miserable. For any of you reading this, thanks and sorry I come around so infrequently.

Working at the VA Medical Center was a very uplifting experience for me. I even lost 20 pounds! I was surrounded by other veterans and we all spoke a similar language.  We had had similar experiences and this was a very meaningful job, when it started. After the first year I was becoming rather jaded with the system and the various levels of management that seemed more into self-promotion that actually caring for our nation's veterans.

After 6 months of working at the VA my marriage came to an end. At the same time I was going through my divorce, Jessica was going through hers. We worked together and bonded quickly over our similar home issues and being unhappy. We had very similar interests and despite very different up-bringing it turned out we actually both had been keeping very similar beliefs about the world, people and a variety of other topics, best saved for another time. Since then we have both overcome and shed biases and prejudices that we had developed over our lifetimes and found something that neither of us had had in a long time. Happiness.

Our relationship/courtship was pretty fast, only seven of eight months but it was certain. Jessica had two daughters ages four and six and I was thrilled at the chance of being a dad. For the first time in years I knew exactly what I wanted and I was happy to see it going my way. We were married and moved in together in May of 2007. Since then our relationship and love has continued to grow and I'm not sure that we have ever had a significant argument or problem. Our taste is so similar that it has become a household joke when asking each other's opinion on things. I also went back to school and started a new career. Actually, I really just started a career. Before I was just doing a job.

ANYWAY, the point of all this happy mushiness is that happiness can be fleeting. Not the happiness with our marriage, but how one feels about everything else. Love and marital bliss gives one that wonderful warm glowing feeling and I can say with all honesty that that part of our lives has not faded in the least. However, the outside world (bills, work, neighbors, extended family relationships, political and religious issues, etc.) have a way of creeping in and putting the squeeze on happiness. When this happens we (humans) often seek solace in something that provides us comfort. In my case, it was once again food.

It is easy for one's life to become routine. We get up, go to work, come home, go to bed, blah blah blah. It is easy to fall into the trap of the same old, same old. It is even easier to stop somewhere and pick up dinner rather than cook something at home. Grab a slice of yummy, plop yourself on the couch for a couple hours, shower and hit the sack. Good times, if you are wanting to broaden your "horizons." Well, I was doing that again. Not only are most of the to-go foods high in crapola content but they are expensive. Spending 20 to 30 bucks a night on dinner adds up pretty fast and does not help decrease one's level of stress when its time to pay bills at the end of the month.

It's a vicious double-edged sword that you have to be very careful with and I was not. My weight over the last year was creeping up and , as you know, it was 233 when this adventure began. So, what does one do to find relief from life's stresses?  Well, I'm working on it...

The Five Tibetan Rites

The original book that these exercises comes from is entitled The Eye of Revelation, The Ancient Tibetan Rites of Rejuvenation, by Peter Kelder. It was originally published in 1939 and reprinted in 1946 with greater detail. Since then it has has a few more reprints, begining in 1969 when it started to become more popular. It is written in the first person and describes the author's chance meeting with a retired British Army Colonel in NY. The Colonel proceeds to tell Kelder about his travels in India and the far east and of his interest in returning to find a fabled fountain of youth or Shangri-La somewhere in the remote regions of Tibet. The Colonel leaves the US on this quest but returns a few years later looking 30 years younger and reveals that he did indeed find the fountain of youth but that it is found within the individual rather than an actual fountain or geographical location.

The secret of youth is in fact five exercises that are performed by the monks in a monastery deep in the Himalyan Mountains. The monks are all in wonderful shape, despite advanced age and taught the Colonel their secret while he stayed with them for two years. The Colonel agrees to teach Kelder and some friends these five exercises and also goes on to describe the proper eating habits to adopt for maximum benefit. The basic idea, explains the Colonel is that we have seven "vortexes' in the body located in the forehead, back of the brain, throat, right side of the waist, reproductive organs and one in each knee. Keeping these vortexes spinning at the right speed is what helps prevent aging and maintains good health (hope I didn't have the one in my right knee removed accidentally during surgery).

As I have not done extensive research, I cannot say whether there is a whole lot of validity to the original publication date. I also kinda question the idea that there are monks living in the mountains who are 500 years old. That aside, the exercises are excellent, particularly as a way to retrain your body after a long time away from exercise.  The later additions of the book and those published by other authors have adapted the rites and made them more of a yoga style program. The vortexes have been replaced by the yoga "chakras" and some of the moves have been changed slightly as well as how you breath during their performance.

We have been doing the original program, as set down by Kelder, although we are not following the dietary restrictions. As I said, the exercises are great. Some of them are not easy at first but, as recommended, we began doing just three repetitions of each and adding two more each week. Eventually you are supposed to be able to get up to performing 21 repetitions. As no recommendation was made as to how one should breathe we have done whatever felt natural and allowed for the best stretch. Best to use a yoga mat or rug under you to protect your knees and back, as long as it doesn't start sliding out from under you. And here they are:

Rite Number One

Stand with your arms outstretched and spin in a clockwise direction. Yes, really. Don't get over-zealous when begining or you will get dizzy.

Rite Number Two

Lay on your back and raise your legs and head off the ground, keeping your legs straight. Return to the starting position, relax and repeat.

Rite Number Three

Neal with your hands at your sides. Bend over at the waist and tuck your chin to your chest. Bend backwards as you also extend your neck backwards. Return to upright and repeat.

Rite Number Four

Sit on the floor with your legs outstretched and your hands flat on the floor at your sides, chin to chest. Raise your butt of the floor while rolling forward onto your feet, creating a table-like position with your torso, head pulled toward back. Return to sitting position and repeat.

Rite Number Five

Get in position as if to do a push-up but sag at the waist and hold your head up towards the ceiling. Raise your butt towards the ceiling, pushing back with your arms onto the balls of your feet. Return to starting position and repeat.

 

 

Yes, it's that simple.

The book also discusses a Sixth Rite that involves the redirection of sexual energy but well, living for 500 years may not be worth all that.

They are doing a great job for us, particularly as it gave us an exact and simple program to follow. You start small and only make small increases each week. It is a relaxed program that takes the stress out of wondering how long, how many, etc. After two weeks we felt good enough to start adding in other exercises to our daily sessions. My back feels better and it doesn't aggravate my knees!

Hope this helps anyone who is interested.

Ripped Flabs, Part Two: Newtonian Motion

                                                    My old enemy...stairs

                                                                                Po, the Dragon Warrior


Jessica and I have similar physical histories. We both were avid runners in our younger days but physical injury took their toll and we slowly slowed to a crawl. We both had spurts of activity when we found the motivation but they never lasted long and we ended up sitting on the couch and thinking about getting started again (after the weekend, Monday perhaps). After my second right knee injury in 2004 I became wary of impact activities, especially jogging. This was a major whack to my fitness, when I was inspired enough to do anything. I tried lifting weights sporadically but again I had a difficult time seeing results as I never made changes to my other habits like eating (or pre-2007, fermented hops and barley products).

This was particularly difficult during the years of being in school full time. By the time I was done studying I couldn't have cared less if I was overweight or not and I was just happy to be able to go to sleep. I got good grades, but I earned every one and the kids complained that I was always too busy to play. Non-study time became a precious commodity and was spent with family being as still as possible. And so enters Newton's First Law of Motion:

A object at rest remains  at rest and an object in motion stays in motion,

 unless acted on by an external force.

 

 

 

 

No, my physics minded friends, this does not relate to weight loss or exercise in the realm of physics but it does wonderfully from a philosophical point of view and with a little tweaking:

 

A body at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted on by internal and external motivation.

 

(Yeah, so I'm short on motivation for art work)

 

 

I watch more people succumb to illness and poor health in my job, usually from lack of activity. I am confused by people in their fifties and sixties who retired, sat down and seem to be waiting to die. As I have mentioned previously, my parents are the perfect opposite example.

 

I, on the other hand, was becoming what I was shocked by at work. I felt tired and lazy most of the time. Walking up stairs, while not exhausting did make me very aware that I was challenging gravity. When I did get the gumption to do some push-ups I was acutely aware of it for a few days afterwards. The day I built the igloo in December I could barely move for the rest of the evening. Not the guy I knew ten years ago.The question for me was what would be the force to help accelerate my mass? I needed to start over and train my body to work again.

 

Fortunately, Jessica had already been working on this question with us both in mind and presented me with the solution: Yoga and the Five Tibetan Rites. Most people are familiar with yoga or have at least heard of it. The Five Tibetan Rites, not so much, but there is a good following on the Internet. The five "rites" or exercises are five yoga-like moves and stretches that work your body very nicely, especially for someone starting fresh. As recommend, we started out doing only three repetitions of each one and increased by two weekly.There is a whole more mystical side that goes with the rites, similar to that of yoga, including a fountain of youth aspect. While I have my reservations about my ability to  look twenty years younger, I have no doubt that any form of exercise will help one feel and look better (much like when they were younger). Of course, who knows? I may end up with a full head of hair and the six-pack abs that always alluded me in my youth.

 

We started with the Five Tibetans and have progressively added a few other yoga moves and more conventional exercises like push-ups, pull-ups and light weight training. I have been amazed at how quickly my body is recovering from my self-imposed convalescence. In just three weeks I feel great, and am seeing the results.  Flexibility is increasing, strength and definition are returning, and stamina is making amazing headway.

 

So here are the current stats:

 

 

Tibetan reps per exercise:       9

Push-ups                                 15

Pull-ups                                   1!   Whenever I walk past the bar

 

 

 

 

 

And most importantly:

 

 

 

 

 

 



Ripped Flabs, part One.: Finding Motivation and a New Way of Eating

                                     My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four.

                                     Unless there were three other people.

                                                                                       Orson Wells

Truth be told, the first post was written weeks ago but only posted on the 19th because I wanted to be sure I was actually going to get past day 3 of my weight loss plan. On day 5 my wife, Jessica, and I were at O'Charlie's ordering a salad for lunch. When I declined the rolls the waitress asked, "New Year's resolution?" to which I replied, "Yes. From 2007."

As with most of the country, witnessed by the yearly spike in gym memberships each January, I begin every new year wit the best of intentions. Heck, I begin every Monday morning with them too. I can sit with a loaf of peasant bread, freshly warmed in the oven and a stick of butter and be a happy "little" boy. Food had become my feel-good activity again and if I didn't find another I was going nowhere with the whole idea. A fundamental change in doing things was in order.

At the risk of sounding cliche, motivation and attitude are the keys. Not the usual kind where you say to yourself, “I can do it as long as I don’t think about pizza.” But rather the one that has helped me in the past, “I am thinking about pizza and I don’t want it.” I know this seems quite silly but for anyone who has ever tried giving up anything they really enjoy it is a fundamental requirement. You have to want it. You have to demand it of yourself and make it your whole attitude.

I am certainly not lacking in external motivational examples. As noted in an earlier post, I have watched friends and family make healthy life changes so I had their excellent examples to draw from. But I also had the examples of Mom and Dad to add fuel to the fire. It has been just over a year since mom was diagnosed with a "lemon-sized" tumor in he descending colon. At 76 she breezed through the surgery and, despite having the more invasive, full abdominal incision type, and was discharged on the time table of a person who had it done laproscopically. If that doesn't endorse a healthy diet and staying active I don't know what does. Dad is the same. He goes to the gym, chops wood and as far as I can tell they are more active now than when I lived with them 20 years ago. Dad had his scary medical issue back in 1990 when he had a blood clot that destroyed three feet  small intestine and landed him in the hospital for 2 months. At the time he was at about the same weight I was when I began this adventure.

And then there's this...

!!WARNING!!

 

 

 

Image may be disturbing to others

 

(It is to me)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another "truth be told"

 

This picture was taken on January 19 after two weeks and at a weight of 224

 

I love food. I used to love food and jogging/hiking. Then I loved food, jogging/hiking and beer. Then food and beer but missed jogging/hiking. Finally, I just loved food. There it is, my life in a nutshell (a nutshell sitting in the middle of a large pizza).

Jessica has lost 20 pounds over the last 4 months. I have been very impressed with her focus and determination and, along with the example set by others, I found the will to finally get into and stick with a program. I have tried many methods of weight loss over the years: Weight Watchers, Atkins (twice), Slim Fast, etc. With Weight Watchers the portion control was my down-fall. On Atkins and Slim Fast I wasn't getting enough carbs to function. After hearing a lot about the no wheat and paleo
diet plans I became interested. There was historical and biological context that made sense to me. Plus, an amazing amount of my food intake consists of bread or other wheat based foods and starchy veggies like potatoes (pizza, pasta, sandwiches of all kinds, biscuits, gravy, burgers, fries, etc.).

Believe me, it isn't easy, but I stopped all of these. I have started eating more fresh fruits and veggies. A salad has become my daily lunch (portion control be damned), and a Greek yogurt with a banana became my breakfast. Most important of all though was the attitude and motivation.  I knew this was working when I went to bakery at the hospital to get coffee and all those tasty tidbits behind the glass had no appeal at all, I simply didn't see them as food. I also ditched carbonated drinks like diet Coke. Coffee, on the other hand...

I was immediately surprised at how good I felt. I was no longer getting those post meal sugar spikes and drops. I maintained a steady energy level most of the day, aside from the 5 PM slump at work. But hey, after being on your feet and walking for the better part of 10 hours, one gets tired no matter what you eat. Here again, coffee comes to the rescue and tides me over for the last 2 hours. When home, I have found other activities than eating to occupy my time and boredom (I'm doing one now) but that will be the topic of another post.

Right! So, proper attitude in place, dietary changes made, time for the hard part. Movement!

So, Where am I?

So, where am I?                                                                               

Reflecting on the last few years of my life I have made many changes that have been of great benefit to me both physically and mentally. It all began almost six years ago when I married Jessica and became a father to two little girls. I gave up drinking and smoking, lost 20 pounds (not really enough and gained half of it back) and a year later went back to school to get my bachelor’s degree in nursing. Incidentally, starting college at the age of 37 is enough to make one take up smoking and drinking but I settled on coffee.

I had hoped to be able to get a nursing degree for years but it was both financially challenging and scared the hell out of me. The idea of school at 37 was both unappealing and daunting. However, with the support of my family I decided to pursue the possibility, especially after a few years of working at a VA hospital. The question was, how?

As I have told many people over the years, I can no longer go jogging without my knees swelling up like grapefruit and barely being able to walk for several days. This problem began in the Army while serving as a paratrooper when I tore my meniscus in my right knee. Sadly, it was not properly diagnosed until a few years later when it tore further and displaced, leaving my leg unable to straighten. I had surgery which corrected the problem (twice) but it left me unable to perform any kind of impact exercise, even walking starts to hurt after too long. BUT, because of this injury and disability rating I was granted by the VA, I qualified for vocational rehabilitation. Go figure, I had to get myself hurt in order to help heal others.

After developing a good addiction to Starbucks and espresso over four years, I graduated. I had made many new friends, although I was the same age as many of their parents and it had taken over a full semester for them to decide I was safe to talk to. By the way, if any of you out there have sons who want to go to college but are hesitant to enter the nursing profession, give him the following points:

1. It’s a great and rewarding job (although you do earn that paycheck).

2. There are always jobs available, even if they aren’t necessarily your ideal position.

3. And perhaps most importantly the girl to guy ratio in my class was about 70:5! If I was younger and single I would have…

Anyway, you get the point.

So, let’s see…addicted to coffee… yes, at the age of 41, I was starting over again with a new career, only with several years of bills, a mortgage and two young girls rapidly cruising through adolescence and thinking about all that stuff that comes with the teenage years. If not pressing the panic button I was certainly eyeing it warily and trying to maintain a smiling exterior.

I got my first job at Three Rivers Medical Center in Louisa, KY. Initially, this was not where I wanted to work. I had done my clinicals in the bigger hospitals in the area and that was where I wanted to be. Three Rivers is a small 90 bed hospital in a small town in rural KY, but it was a perfect first job. I worked on the Medical/Surgical floor and not only sharpened my basic nursing skills but shed a load of personal bias. I worked with a great group of people, not only on my floor but in the whole hospital. The benefit of a small facility is that you now everyone on a first name basis. Sadly, it was a long drive and there didn’t seem to be enough sick people to be able to work every scheduled day. Or, you got so many admissions during the day, you were barely able to keep up.

Anyway, during that year and a half, life pressed on around me. I continued to not lose 20-30 pounds, the girls continued to grow up and I stared at the pile of bills and wondered, how? I watched others make changes in their lives and really wanted to do something too, I just failed to find the motivation.

Then I woke up one day and there it was.

The Premise

A few weeks ago I came up with the idea for a blog. It is based my views of issues currently facing our country that I think are extremely poorly understood by both the general public and in many cases those that have been elected to fix them. This blog would very likely cause some peoples’ heads to nod, others’ eyes to widen and some to get downright annoyed. Because of my generally open attitude and view of the world I think I will be able address the issues I choose in an unbiased way, but have no illusions that I won’t piss off a few people.

However, since the New Year began I have decided to center myself back on a smaller and less controversial stage…me (at least temporarily). Having watched and been inspired by several old friends and family making healthy changes in their lives (Nadia, Jim, Meghan and my wife, Jessica) and watching my own mother once again beating back cancer I decided it was time to make a few changes of my own. I am overweight. 233 pounds as of January 3, and if it wasn’t for my good posture you would all be able to tell. My mother’s constant nagging in my youth is paying dividends these days. I need to do some budgeting and get things paid down (going to school fulltime and having a family isn’t cheap). I also need to feel better about myself, not only physically and financially but, mentally and, dare I say, spiritually.

 I, indeed I think we all, want to start each day with a sense of purpose and end it knowing that we accomplished something and made a difference. So, it occurred to me that if I wanted to write about the issues I see us facing as a country I should address my own before harping at or trying to inform and enlighten anyone else. This process may naturally transition into my original plan as many of the things I would like to fix in myself are also things that I think we need to address nationally.

My purpose in this project is multi-fold. One, I have found over the last few years that I enjoy it and (as my wife points out) I seem to have a certain need to inform, share information and just plain can’t seem to shut up. Two and most importantly, sharing my personal journey of change with others will make it public and obligates me to see it through. But be forewarned, I may be posting some images that will not only be disturbing to some viewers but may indeed be reposted with comments comparing me to the jolly Buddha statues in many Chinese restaurants.  

So, please hold me to it and don’t let me backslide!

Talk to you soon...