Remission: Back On The Horse

I did pretty good losing weight. I went from 274 pounds down to 252. I was proud of myself, especially when I leveled off at 255 pounds. But then it happened, as it inevitably does. I slacked off on running. Then my birthday hit. Ten of those pounds came back. Sometimes, I get up to 267.

That’s a holiday thing. Always happens around Christmas. Part of it is I quit watching calories and slacked off on running. That’s gotta change. Yes, weight loss is the goal. I need to be under 240 pounds after Christmas, which means I need to stave off that holiday bloat as much as I can.

Which means I need to get back on a program. Right now, I’m not as worried as I might have been in the past. I’m still on only two medications. My sugar is fairly low, and my blood pressure is somewhat normal. But increased weight and lack of exercise can reverse the progress I’ve made so far. I don’t want that. I like being able to eat a candy bar without worrying about a diabetic coma. (I am not exaggerating.)

So this week, I need to restart running. It’s warm out now, and daylight goes past nine o’clock. So there are no excuses. I need to finish up my weekly trail ride this year. And I need to jump start the weight loss again.

I’ve decided, once I finish the bike trail this year, to do Insanity, one of the Beach Body workouts. I got the 30-day version. I’ve decided to spend June being insane, do some running in July, and, when classes end at the end of July, do Insanity one more time. So what’s that do for fall?

Well, with all that running, biking, and Insanity (which includes a diet plan), by fall, I should be ready to start training for a couple of 5K races. That will involve returning to my beloved Little Miami Trail for some distance running on weekends, visiting a park near Medishack for its par course, and possibly joining a running club. We’re also going to need a treadmill. There are three of us in this house, and we all have reasons to keep exercising. Nita and I wish they were AJ’s reasons, but AJ won’t even see 20 until next year. (I miss 20.)

The trick is not to have a program and stick with it. The trick is to always plan ahead.

That’s why I’m not swallowing half a dozen pills every morning and a few more every night. I want to keep it that way.

Remission: Setbacks

The last three weeks or so have seen my weight roll back to about 260 pounds after bottoming out at 252. This is where most plans to lose weight go off the rails.

“But I’m supposed to keep losing weight!” people will cry.

I’m happy. I can run a couple of miles with no problem, unless my hamstrings get a little tight. I’m coming up on my birthday, which means lots of food, lots of booze, and damned little exercise. I’ve even stopped calorie counting because I go over every other day. I do try to keep my intake down. Protein bars and bananas are a big part of my diet.

I had a plan coming in, though. Originally, when I thought I would be taking off from school this summer, I intended to dust off the P90X kit downstairs. Then I discovered that a couple of the workouts take 90 minutes. 90-minute workout + school = not happening. But P90X is put out by Beach Body, the fitness juggernaut burning up the informercial time slots in recent years. They have other workouts, the Beach Body workout (hence the name) and one that does not require equipment, Insanity. It just so happens a friend of mine, Mindy Chislow, resells Beach Body and is a fitness fanatic. In fact, it’s her career. So I asked her if Insanity was a good substitute for P90X.

It is. An hour, and without equipment, is easier to work in than 90 minutes. So I’ll be doing the Insanity 30-day workout. It’s different from the slow buildup to running 2-3 miles a night.

It also helps that Nita is working out how she wants to attack her health problems. She wants to look how she did when we dated. (Never mind that she’s still beautiful.) I would prefer not to as she married me when I was at 275 pounds. And that was down from a peak of 305. But having someone in the house who needs to revamp her eating and exercise habits makes things easier. We can parallel our diets. It also means we aren’t buying a lot of food that only one of us is going to eat.

Right now, running and biking the Little Miami Trail are keeping me from becoming the Expanding Man once again.

Remission: The Numbers Are In!

I went to the doctor a couple weeks ago for bloodwork. I get this done three or four times a year, checking for cholesterol, blood sugar, and liver emzymes, the three numbers that have given me the most trouble.

A week went by. No phone call. Two weeks. Nothing. Did I owe something on my bill?

I called.

“Oh, the doctor didn’t think he needed to call you. Your numbers were all good.”

“Well, I’m kind of keeping track.”

They read them off. Cholesterol? Well… They took a wait-and-see approach.

Liver emzymes, a sign your liver is not happy with you for either excessive weight or excessive drinking or both? Down for the first time in three years.

And the biggie, A1C hemoglobin, a cumulative measure of blood sugar over the previous 90 days?

5.9.

Diabetic is 6.1. Yes, kids, I’m off all but two medications now. Even when my weight spikes, my blood pressure and sugar stays down now. Of course, I have to be careful. A weekend of fun can throw me off or a day where everyone brings in the latest sweets or a box of donuts can really throw everything out of whack.

Remission: How I Measure Weight Loss

There are two ways to measure weight. One is to weigh oneself once a week, usually on a Monday. The other is to do it daily. Weekly gives you a consistent number to work with and only causes anxiety that first morning. Daily can be nerve-wracking, but it does give you an idea of how certain foods and activities will impact your body. Just don’t be shocked when that long night of beer, wings, and mozzarella sticks add 3-5 pounds that don’t go away by the next morning.

I do daily, but there’s a caveat. If I jump on the scale one morning and see a number that’s a goal weight (this week, 255 pounds), I don’t automatically assume I’ve met my goal. This was once a source of frustration that derailed previous attempts to lose weight and get in shape. You can have a day where you eat little, drink lots of fluids, and are physically active, resulting in a very nice reading on the scale the next morning. The problem is you have a perfectly normal day the next day. Or you have a business lunch or are so busy the only food you get is a Whopper and fries. Then the scale is not so nice.

I do my weight daily because it gives me a trend. I also have to check blood sugar and blood pressure daily, so my weight gives me an additional health factor to gauge how I’m doing. I get up, do what it is we do when we first roll out of bed, then hit the scale. This is when you’re at your lightest. Everything after that is added weight that hasn’t been absorbed yet.  If I’m at or under my target weight, it’s a good morning. But it doesn’t count as meeting my goal. Not until I’ve had 7 consecutive readings at or below my target weight. After that, it’s pretty obvious the target weight is the new normal, and I can move on.

How’s it worked? I talked recently about stopping several medications. I am now about to stop using a CPAP machine to sleep. This is a milestone. Plus, I’d like to be able to travel over night with nothing but my laptop and an overnight bag.

I am writing this on Sunday morning, which now marks 3 days under 255 pounds. My original goal for 2013 was 250 pounds. If those numbers hold by the time you read this, I will be less than 5 pounds away from my goal for the year.

The Little Miami Trail

Every year (except 2012), I will hike or bike The Little Miami Scenic Bike Trail, one of those old rail beds that’s been converted for bicycle and pedestrian use. Sure, it’s flat, but it’s away (mostly) from civilization. In the past few years, I’ve done the trail by bike. I may run the trail by sections in the next few years. After all, I’m doing the Flying Pig Marathon for my fiftieth birthday.

Some would ask what the appeal of a flat, paved hiker-biker trail would be. As I said, it’s away from civilization, following the path (mostly) of the old Little Miami Railroad, which became part of Conrail in its final days before being abandoned. They’re flat. They offer no hills or opportunities to climb. So why this?

Well, there are plenty of parks that challenge a hiker and a couple of trails that will test a cyclist’s stamina. And while I do the trail partly to get some exercise, in reality, it’s sort of a meditation for me. I walk/ride the trail because it’s isolated. The scenery is ever-changing, and not just from section to section but from year to year. I’ve have gone through trail segments that, when revisiting them the following spring or summer, look nothing like they did the year before. I start the trail in Newport, Kentucky and ride it through Berry Park on the Ohio side of the Ohio River and out to Lunken Airport, where it circles the air field. This is actually not part of the Little Miami Trail per se. Starting at the Newport on the Levee complex, you ride the Purple People Bridge (Yes, that’s what it’s called) over to where it joins the Ohio River Trail, following the big river out to Lunken. The loop around Lunken is its own trail and connects with Armleder Park now. In the next two or three years, a bridge will connect that park with the trail proper. For now, I just accept the gap and pick up at a park in Newtown across the Little Miami River.

This rest of the trail winds through wooded areas, occasionally emerging into small towns along the way. Sometimes, you happen on an area developed entirely around the bike trail. My favorite is in downtown Loveland. When starting or ending a segment in Loveland, I’ll stop at Paxton’s Grill for breakfast or a bowl of chili.

Another favorite stop along the trail is the Little River Cafe in this unincorporated speck on the map called Oregonia. I’ve stopped in often for a cold beer and one of their thick, juicy burgers and a bowl of chili. Good stuff, especially on a hot summer afternoon when you’ve already bike about twenty miles.

It’s in this section where the trail and the river descend into this steep ravine, part of which contains ruins from the Ft. Ancient civilization that inhabited the Ohio Valley up until about a century before the Europeans reached this part of the US. Further on up, as the trail approaches Xenia (Yes, the town where all the tornadoes hit in 1974.), there is a swamp nature preserve.

A few years back, there had been bear sightings in the areas surrounding the trail in Warren County. That summer, I worried about what to do if the bear decided I was a threat when I happened by. After completing the trail for a year, I was disappointed that I didn’t at least see the bear from a distance.

When I do the trail, I ride or hike it in sections, armed only with water and an iPod, and sometimes, not even the iPod.

Remission: And Now I Start Running For Real

In January, I started a program to ramp up running. I started by power walking a 6-minute interval followed by one minute of running, repeating two more times. Gradually, the power walk was reduced to a minute while the running is up to nine minutes. I did have to stop halfway through the most recent one because my hips got too tight. It happens.

This week, I start running for real: Twenty minutes straight. Next week, 30 minutes. Then up to a nearby park and back, adding a lap around the park each week until the end of April. There will be a 90-day (or one-week, depending on how badly I hurt myself) break while I do P90X, but the goal here is to do a 3-5 mile run three times a week.

I haven’t run since 1984. Ronald Reagan was president. Gas was $1 a gallon. MTV still showed videos. The Internet was this super-secret computer thingie that Matthew Broderick hacked in War Games. I also turned 18 that year.

I turn 47 this year, and the body is not as resilient as it once was. For some reason, my threshold of pain is higher, probably life kicking someone around for an extra three decades, but there are more aches. I have the knees of my mother’s family, which tend to be stiff and get stiffer with age. I have a toe that may or may not have arthritis in it. I have a small toe on the other foot that I broke two years ago. It went completely numb after that.

But since starting this, I’ve plateaued at 14 pounds lighter than I was on New Year’s Day. Granted, diet has a lot to do with it, but the running has helped considerably. In the middle of this final phase of the ramp up, I’m also going to start biking the Little Miami Trail (more on that next week). What’s really helped, though, is that I now have decent running shoes. In high school, we was broke. My mom bought me the cheap shoes at K-Mart, and they had to be my walking around shoes and my running shoes and my gym shoes. No cleats or special New Balances for this boy. Oh, and they had to last until spring. Now? I can afford to go to Bob Ronker’s Running Spot and spend some decent money on a pair of shoes that can handle the punishment I dole out on my heels, support my weak arches, and generally let me forget about my feet while I’m out there sucking wind and wondering why I keep torturing my knees.

I do feel better since I started this. Hopefully by the end of the year, I can get a couple of 5K or 10K races in. My goal?

The Pig at 50!

Believe in it!

Remission: Medication

I spent most of last year maintaining a weight between 275 and 280. I wasn’t gaining, but my numbers weren’t improving either. In fact, they were getting worse.

Late last year, my doctor took my blood and dropped the “I” word on me: Insulin. I looked at the reading he had from my previous checkup. The numbers were going down. But they were not good. I had gone from an A1C hemoglobin – a cumulative measure of blood sugar over the past 90 days – of 10.2 to 8.1. 6 is the threshold for diabetes. Soooo… Did I need insulin?

I balked. Insulin is produced in the pancreas, and I clearly was still making insulin. Type 1 diabetics have to have insulin shots. That’s the very definition of Type 1. The body no longer produces any insulin. I had a friend who had this. She described the horrific week she had when she was 11, when they discovered her condition. I have Type 2. There are many causes, but essentially, the body simply becomes resistant to insulin, leaving a lot of sugar in the bloodstream that can’t be absorbed. In my case, it’s because I packed on over 50 pounds from 1997 to 2004, maxing out at 305 pounds. And I don’t show all the weight I gain. That kind of weight makes the fat cells expand, which makes it hard for insulin to deposit sugar.

In short, being a fat ass was killing me. Hence, this feature on the blog.

I balked on the insulin partly from fear and partly from some well-founded reasons. The fear comes from my mother. Very obese when she died, she spent the last decade of her life shooting insulin after every meal. In the back of my mind, that was the start of the downward spiral. Now, my mother had back problems and heart problems that kept her from exercising properly, which might have extended her life another 10-15 years. That’s probably irrational, but there it is. In reality, I wasn’t too thrilled with the idea of injecting myself with something my body was not only producing, but that my resistance to it was on the decline.

But being the lazy bastard that I am, I hadn’t been pricking my finger twice a day. You want a blood sugar number between 70 and 120. I was regularly waking up with numbers as high as 180 and coming home from work to 130, 140, even 150. So I started running. And I decided I would do P90X in the spring. And I would not neglect my annual tradition of biking the Little Miami Trail section by section this summer. And I would start counting calories.

This was not a New Year’s resolution. This was a decision to stick around for a long time. My wife bugged me several times, telling me to at least have my life insurance paid up if I didn’t want to stick around. Nita is not the type to want to “change a man.” So if she was bugging me about it, I had to get off my ass. First, I found the right cocktail to swallow twice a day. My doctor started with metformin (which I already took) and a drug called Tradjenta. I added a supplement called Alpha Lipoic Acid (ALA) that’s been suggested as a means of lowering blood sugar.  The numbers dropped, along with my weight, but not low enough. I was still waking up with high blood sugar. I added chromium supplements, which helped a little, but still didn’t do the trick. So we brought back an early drug called glimiperide.

Boom. Numbers went into the normal range, and, unless I decided to drink a lot, stayed there. (No one wakes up the morning after heavy drinking with normal blood sugar, but usually, that’s the least of your problems by then. I recommend lots of water and scrambled eggs for the hangover.)

After the first of the year, I ramped up my exercise, which I’ll talk about here soon. Coupled with keeping the calories under a set number everyday, I’ve managed to dump 14 pounds from my New Year’s Day weight of 274. The result?

I quit taking Tradjenta (which doesn’t seem to work anyway) and am about to stop metformin altogether. I may even drop a blood pressure medication.

Medications are expensive, especially Tradjenta, which I rely on samples to get. Also, I’ve never been a fan of pumping chemicals in my body, not even for recreation. Caffeine remains my addiction of choice, and alcohol is less and less appealing as I get older. If I can reduce my intake to a mutlivitamin every morning, I’ll be happy.

I’m not done yet. 260 pounds for my age and height is still overweight, but now I’m moderately overweight instead of severely. But I need to keep going.

Besides, I have a goal of running the Pig at 50.

Remission: At The Six-Week Mark

• Under 265 pounds, threatening to dip into the 250′s. This is significant because the last time I did not need a Darth Vader mask for sleep apnea, I weighed between 245 and 255 pounds.
• I almost don’t need to count calories. Almost. When I go over 2400 too many days in a row, I see it on the scale the next morning.
• I am about to lose more medication. Finally. Blood sugar seems to be the most responsive to weight loss and exercise. I’ll take it, though I’m not going to miss that damn cholesterol tablet if I can get rid of it.
• Up to almost a half hour running solid. I know this is slow going, but going out and running a mile straight without building up to it, especially at my age and weight in my condition, is risky. That said, I’m still going to run the Pig at 50.
• P90X looms on my horizon. I suppose I better break out the DVD’s and figure out what equipment I need.

Remission: So Far

As January enters its, one might think I’ve given up on my fitness New Year’s resolution. Not so. This was not a resolution. If we didn’t have a holiday season in December, I would have started this right after Thanksgiving. That said, I’ve actually made some progress.

• I started the year at 274 pounds. Right now, I’m hovering around 265 pounds. My goal was to hit that mark by February 14 and be nice and svelte for Nita when we go out for the fifth anniversary of our first date. No stopping now. I intend to be down to 260 by spring break in March.
• I’m running intervals, this past weekend 3 two-minute intervals in a 30-minute walk. This coming weekend, it’ll be four-minute intervals. Next week, I’ll pretty much be running most of the workout, working up to a solid 30-40 minutes.
• Blood sugar: NORMAL! It takes diet, medication, and a couple of supplements, but it’s one monkey off my back.
• I have more energy.
• I’m less irritable. My wife is overjoyed.

By mid-March, I will be running 1-2 miles three days a week. In April, I dive into P90X despite taking summer classes. (Remember when I said I wasn’t going to do that? It’s doable.) And on Easter, I begin my annual Sunday rides along the Little Miami Trail. By the end of summer, I plan to start training for my first 5K races since high school.

Hopefully, this will result in an emptier medicine cabinet, sleep without a Darth Vader mask, and a lighter touch on the scale.

//

Remission: Juice Fast

I first need to point out that I am not a healthcare expert or a doctor or a dietician. I’m simply a middle-aged, overweight man fighting back against his own bad choices over the years. My battle with Type II diabetes began in 2005 when I reached 310 pounds, had ringing in my ears, and had every joint in my body ache. What I talk about here, I do at risk only to myself. I write this to share with others with similar problems and to hold myself publicly accountable for improving my health. While you are certainly free to follow what I talk about here, please see your doctor. Your condition will likely not mirror mine, and I could very well post here about something that went horribly wrong in the near future. I hope not. All I can tell you is it’s a risk I’m willing to take, and I hope you will find and share your own path. – Jim

With the holidays over and done with, I decided to start the New Year off by purging. No, I didn’t crawl into the john at the corner bar at 12:15 to expel my New Year’s Eve consumption into the toilet. Dude, that’s just gross, both the restrooms at the corner bar and the expulsion.

Instead, I decided to fast. Not a real fast, mind you. I did that once, and never again. No, I did what’s called a juice fast. Eat nothing, and drink only juices for 24 hours. I don’t recommend this if your blood sugar is prone to radical lows or you need any kind of medication to function. And since my next drink would be the beer club’s weekly selection the following week, New Year’s Day is as good a time as any to clear out the digestive track.

I’ve tried juice fasts in the past. I did a three-day fast about six years ago and only made it through 2 1/2 days. That one came with a strict program to get back on solid food quickly. I tried it again four years ago, to which Nita thought I was insane. Living with a wife and a child made that more difficult as it’s easier to cook everyone the same dinner. And when your kid is a picky eater (even at 18, he’s picky as hell), it’s suddenly a bit inconvenient to sit out dinner with the family. I lasted a day.

But a day is all I need. All I’m doing is letting everything I ate over that final holiday weekend pass on without throwing anything down on top of it. There are a number of juice fasts out there on the Internet. Check them out, but choose wisely. Remember, some people have an agenda when they recommend these things, and while their purpose might be noble (or quite often not), it might not be in your best interests. So what did I do?

• Begin the morning with a smoothie. Not really juice, and you’ll never see that on any juice fast regimen, but I’m improvising. I’m also trying to amp up my metabolism.
• Drink 64 ounces of water. Not all at once, of course, but I’ve found water throughout the day counters the hungries quite nicely, especially for someone like me whose insulin is out of whack.
• Drink orange juice and grape juice at various times. Somewhat filling, and I like orange juice. I wish I could drink it more often, but not until the weight comes off and I don’t have to worry about spikes in blood sugar.
• Drink tomato juice or V-8 around lunch and dinner time. This is a no-brainer. Both are quite filling, and I have to scold Nita not to drink all my tomato juice until the next day.
• No alcohol and no soda. Alcohol brings with it a whole host of problems and makes resetting your body chemistry a tad difficult.

The next day, I resume eating normally, whatever the new normal is. I suspect I’ve written a blog post about that since I wrote this. There’s a nice drop in weight the following morning, but remember, that’s because your not digesting anything more than a bunch of liquids you drank.

I’m thinking this might not be a bad ritual to perform after the holidays or vacations, when we tend to eat whatever’s in front of us, drink to excess, and generally enjoy ourselves gastrically. Let’s face it. I love food. It’s how I got into this mess in the first place. But at least I don’t weigh 310 pounds. (I haven’t since 2005.)