Experts

Diet and nutrition "experts" are all full of shit. Half of them say certain foods are just what you need to be healthy, while the other half say those same foods will kill you.  I am so sick and tired of reading about this hot food item that will burn fat and build muscle, or that other food that will probably give you nose warts and double your weight overnight.  The really irritating thing is that supposedly good and bad foods will switch places every week or more. 

It's all crap.  These so-called experts fall into two camps; the super-duper body sculpted winners of the genetic pool who could live off of Doritos and Mountain Dew and still look amazing...and fat slobs that gladly take money off of people desperately trying to understand just what the hell to eat to be healthy.  Neither care.  It's all bullshit, all of it.

What I'm doing is simple and basic.  See...I have a theory that we really do instinctively know what is good for us and what is bad.  I think the problem has come with us not listening to our bodies any more.  So that's what I'm doing.  Listening.  Hearing my mother's voice in telling me what is good and what is junk.  Mom knows.  She always knows.  Eat your veggies.  Only one cookie or you'll spoil your dinner.  Clean your plate because there are poor children in China that would love to have your scraps.

Not sure what the last piece of advice has to do with anything....but the voices of my parents that I hear in my head are a package deal and I can't filter out the weirder stuff.

Now I Only Need The Sex and Rock 'n Roll

I've got the drugs.  Lots of them.  Drugs to lower my blood sugar.  Drugs if it gets too low.  Drugs for my heart, my blood pressure, my cholesterol.  Drugs to thin my blood and sooth my tummy.  A special itty bitty drug to take if I ever get that frightening tightness in my chest again.

None of them give me a buzz.  They cost a lot of money and some of the side effects are bothersome.  However; I guess one side effect of not taking them is dying...which kind of sucks, so I take them.  Several times a day.  I was the type of person that didn't do pills.  Never even liked taking an aspirin.

Those days are gone forever.

I'm Back!

Good lord...it's been a while.  The last time I posted was way back during Halloween.  Now that is gone along with Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year, and even the Super Bowl.

Time flies.

I am healthier than I was last October though.  I've been eating properly and have gotten into the habit of exercising daily.  Still have diabetes...which sucks...but I suppose that if it wasn't for that, I wouldn't have near the motivation to take better care of my body.  A Pyrrhic trade off maybe.  Who knows?  Anyway, the photo above signals the beginning of a 12-week Body for Life Challenge.  I finally mustered the courage to download the photos.  I've kept the really revealing ones to myself for right now, but it's not as horrible as it has been in the past.  Since my heart attack, I've lost about 15 lbs and have kept it off.

AND I AM STILL COMPLETELY NICOTINE FREE!

All in all...starting off this year better than many others.

My Halloween Schedule

Before sundown with all the cute little kids ....top shelf candy, the good stuff. Hershey bars, Reese's cups, Snickers, tootsie pops, etc.

After dark with somewhat older kids but still dressing in costume ....anything left from the first round and adding the cheap crap I still have left over from last year.

After 8 pm with teens looking for free food and if they wore a costume it would be an improvement over their raggedy hoodies and droopy jeans ....the pop-tarts in the trunk of my car with a best-if-used-by date of three years ago.

After 9 pm I will be emptying out the contents of my cat's litter box.


Anybody knocks on my door after 10 pm gets a special treat.

 

 

Wednesday Cat Blogging

Twisted TV Throwback

Andy had momentarily forgotten that Helen wasn't at church this morning.

Be Weird Friday

Why "be weird Friday"?  Why not?  Friday is the day that I celebrate the precious freedom that we all have but rarely exercise...being weird.

I think it's a real problem.  Not being weird.....but the fact that so few dare to embrace weirdness.

When you were a kid, being weird came naturally.  It was called having fun.  Laughing at silliness.  Laughing at yourself.  Somewhere along the line we became so self absorbed, so self conscious, that we lost the urge to just be goofy for goofy's sake.  We became adults.  We got serious.  We grow old but, more tragically and unnecessarily, we act old.

When's the last time you were weird?  Would you dance in a pink tutu?

Celebrate weirdness.  Do something to make others laugh and you'll probably make yourself laugh as well.

And isn't that a great way to end any week?

Choices

I'm a busy guy.  I work all week in a demanding job.  Up early in the morning and going all day.  I don't have time to exercise....not today....maybe tomorrow...if I have time.

Then WHAM...in a hospital bed.  Can't even go to the bathroom without nurse assistance.  And, as I lay there in that bed with tubes and needles and wires; I think about how suddenly un-busy my days have become.

If I had exercised regularly beforehand, chances are I wouldn't have had to spend the time in the hospital.  Maybe or maybe not...who can say?  One thing that I do know is...I would much rather spend an hour in a gym than five minutes in a hospital.  Exercise may just minimize future hospitalizations.  Certainly worth an hour of my attention.

Twisted TV Throwback

Dr. McCoy never talked about why he always hated using the transporter.

Be Weird Friday

Running With the Old Dogs

The cardiac rehab I'm going to three times a week is something quite unique.  It's in a gym that's pretty much like any other gym with only a few differences.  The primary difference is that it has a crash cart available just in case somebody's ticker gives out while on the recumbent bike.  Of course, everybody is wired up to monitor their heartbeat and, every once in a while, you'll see the nurses run around to find somebody whose wire has slipped to make sure they didn't flatline.   But all in all, it is just a gym...with the exception that most of the people using this gym are, shall we say, seasoned citizens.

And that's really good for me because it means there is no intimation factor going on.  Nobody is showing off in the mirrors and nobody is trying to pick up a date or impress anybody else.  Everybody is working on their particular workout plan.  We are all there pretty much for the same reason....we want to get more fit so that we can live a few more years.

Though there is no real intimidation, there is still some things that irk me once in a while.  For example; every workout session usually starts with a brisk walk around the track for a few laps.  I usually begin at a pretty good pace and am counting how many times I'm going around the track and what machines I will be getting on afterwards.  Then.....out of nowhere....some really old dude all hunched over goes shuffling by me like I'm barely moving.  A couple of minutes later, he laps me again.  "Really?  Damn Grandpa, where are you getting your energy?"

Proof positive that age and fitness are not correlating values.  Also proof that I am way, way out of shape if I can get showed up in a gym by Methuselah.

Wednesday Cat Blogging

You Are an Inconsiderate Asshole

I'm not hating....I was one too.  Nearly a month of being a non-smoker has really opened my eyes to just how disgusting the habit is to those who don't smoke.  It has also opened my eyes to how smokers are blind to these offenses.

Cigarette smoke stinks.  There is just no way around this and the aroma hangs around a smoker like a fog.  As well, five minutes in proximity with a smoker leaves you with the same odor.  Smokers are immune to this because they are use to the smell.  It's kind of like being in a feedlot....initially the powerful smell of manure knocks you back on your heels, but after a while, your nasal passages get overloaded and don't register the stench anymore.  This phenomenon causes smokers to assume that nobody else can smell their cigarette smoke either, so they happily puff great clouds, usually right in your face. Nice folks who would be mortified if they publicly let loose with a fart that could curl paint give no thought to blowing out toxic pollution from their mouths.

"Do you mind if I smoke?" say the ever polite smoker who doesn't really expect an answer to the question.

"Hell yes!" I reply.

That response usually gets me sneers and grumbles as if I was impinging on their right to stink.   I guess that makes me the one who is an inconsiderate asshole.

Wednesday Cat Blogging

Rehab

This was my first day in cardiac rehabilitation.  It's an exercise center run by the hospital staffed by nurses for heart patients.  The idea is to do cardio to help heal and repair whatever damage you may have with your heart or circulatory system.  They wire you up and monitor you closely....I guess in case you seize up on them or something.  It's a pretty nice place, very modern with lots of state-of-the-art equipment, and it is also populated entirely by older people.

Intimidation factor here?  Zero.

Some of these guys though....really can punch out a workout.

Back to Work

Not really a fun vacation....but the longest I've been off from work for several years.  Pity I had to have a heart attack to take it.  Still, it was nice to goof off and take it easy for a week.  I did peek at emails every once in awhile but managed not to really care about what was going on or feel any desire to respond.

Nice.

I could get use to this.

All the more reason I need to get my ass back to work tomorrow.

Cold Turkey

If you had suggested to me over a week ago that I quit smoking cold turkey, I would have said "no fuggin way".  I was convinced that I couldn't cut myself off suddenly from nicotine without dooming any quit smoking attempts to failure after a matter of hours.  I needed patches, gum, lozenges, e-cigarettes....anything to keep the nicotine going while not actually lighting up and inhaling smoke.

And it's really stupid when you think of it.  I mean, for all other types of addiction the course of action is to stop using the addictive drug.  Alcoholics aren't given an alcohol patch.  Crack addicts aren't given cocaine mints to suck on.  Yet there seems to be an acceptance around nicotine addiction that it is okay to keep taking nicotine while trying to detox from nicotine.

All other addictions have a 12-step program.  I've never put much stock into AA, NA, or whatever Anonymous group ...I mean, don't get me wrong...if it helps somebody I am definitely all in favor of whatever works to get somebody to stop using a harmful drug.  That's the point, when you boil it all down, of 12-step programs; stop using the drug.  So I boiled it down a bit further and just have a 1-step program....stop smoking.  I refused a nicotine patch while in the hospital.  I wanted off the cigs.  I wanted off the nicotine.  I actually used the hospital as a detox.

It worked.  I am nicotine free.  Oh, I still have the cravings and the urges, but I can deal with them and I'm dealing with them with a clean body (relatively speaking).  Cold turkey is really the only true way to quit smoking.

Also good for sandwiches...of which I would kill for one right about now...but that's another post for later.

Long Week

There's an old saying...Life is what happens while you are making other plans.

Boy, is that a truism for me over the past week.  It certainly wasn't in my plans to be diabetic with heart disease.  I didn't exactly plan on giving up nicotine cold turkey.  I didn't really plan on having to watch every morsel of food down to the last carbohydrate.  I absolutely wasn't planning last week to be taking all kinds of medications, checking my blood sugar several times a day, and injecting myself with insulin.  I didn't plan for any of this.

Yet now, one week from last Friday, my life has been completely changed.  In a funny way, it may all be for the better.

Doesn't much feel like it right now though.

Shit Just Got Real.

Isn't that the way things usually go?  Everybody talks about doing this, doing that, not doing whatever....and we talk and talk and talk, but really, where is the pressure to change?  I have the title of this blog of being finally fit after 55.  Yet, here I am, after 55, still not fit.  Probably best to change that title.

It was always sometime in the future.  Someday.  Not today though...got too much to do and reaaaalllly don't want to get into all that effort of changing my lifestyle today.  Maybe this weekend.  Maybe next month.  Before my next birthday for sure!

It was all bullshit.

Oh, I was making small changes here and there.  Losing a bit of weight.  Kind of exercising.  Eating better.  But ignoring the big elephant in the room.  My father developed diabetes.  I knew I was a prime candidate for it, but I had myself in denial.  My father had a heart attack which eventually led to his death.  I also knew I was a prime candidate and also was in fever pitched denial about the possibility of following in Dad's footsteps.

Last Friday though, I started retracing some of those footsteps of Dad.  I had been having chest pains off and on for several days.  Usually they would go away and I would forget about it.  Friday night though, they didn't go away after a few seconds...they go worse.  Now, I may really thrive in the state of denial but even I know the symptoms of a heart attack.  So, with great reluctance, I told my wife who quickly whisked me off to the hospital emergency room.

While getting poked and prodded at the ER, blood was taken and it rang the bell on the super duper sweet side.  Into a hospital bed I went with IV's, insulin, constant monitoring, and scheduled for all kinds of heart tests the next day.  The next day confirmed a problem with my heart and a stent installed.

So the upshot is....diabetes and heart disease.  Neither possibilities any more.  I'm having to make significant life changes in just about everything I do.  No choice.  No choice.

Well....I guess I always had a choice.  I just have to live with the consequences of the ones I made for myself.

Wednesday Cat Blogging