First Doctor Visit in 8 years? Lets see how this works...

Motivation:

"You can't be a winner and be afraid to lose."~Charles Lynch

Diary:
b: whole grain bagel and peanut butter, decaf

s: protien bar

l: homemade chili, orange

s: beef jerky, tuna and pasta with mayo

s: small glass of merlo

d: popcorn and some salami slices

g: elliptical 2.28 miles, walk 1 mile, sauna

Notes:

Sorry for the week away, but I have been BUSY with a capital B! (and a capital USY, but that is another story.)

This last week I have gathered up many many stories, that I will just briefly list here. If there are any requests, I will ponder more in-depth about these issues, but for now I will just purge:

Fri - Sun: Travel to uncle's funeral - 15 hours away by car. I was not 100% certain I would go, but I am glad that I did. In general, I find that I am more dissapointed for the things that I do not do, than what I tried to do, but failed. I have too many stories of events I didn't attend or people I didn't talk to due to my weight, or my perceptions about how people feel about me. I have made myself a very synical, paranoid person, and I may need to get help with this in time. This trip was very good for me, as I was able to see my sister's new house, spend time with her family and my goddaughter. I also saw my other immediate family members who were all there. I had a good talk with my dad, maybe I will right it down later this weekend, as I found it to be very relevant. I also spoke breifly with my cousins, of whom I have some great respect and love. I think everyone has a couple cousins in their family that they feel closer to for some reason or another, whether it be age, common interest, or the amount of time they spent together as kids. I have a few cousins that immediately make me happy just by seeing their smiles.

A couple of things I learned over the weekend:
1) my new car has a broken air conditioning condensor. I checked this in Minnesota, and since it was under 50 degrees all month, the vent was pumping out cold air. I assumed this was working. In Nebraska, the ext temp read 102 at one point in time. It was a sauna in the vehicle.
2) travelling caused me to eat greasy fried things that I normally don't eat on the F25K, and I had nasty problems driving back home to MN that will not be fully explained here. My body is still recovering from the lack of exercise for 5 straight days and from eating such a change in food stuffs.
3) on Friday, my sister helped me take measurements (with celebrity judges). I will post these results below.
4) I bought a book on tape for the ride back to MN. It was Sugar Busters, and I will probabaly listen to it again and relay my thoughts on this diet plan. It was very educational, I think, and I will probably incorporate some of it's findings into my diet, as well.


Mon: not much sleep today, as I drove back and unpacked and checked messages. Early to rise to get back to work. If work gets any busier my brain will pop. I have a plate overfilled with projects and I still don't know if they are planning on extending me. On Monday, I didn't feel like exercising, but I did try to eat normally. I remember having meetings on top of one another. Monday late afternoon, I spent a couple hours SCREAMING AND YELLING AND CURSING at the car dealership about my air conditioning. I got every single excuse as to why this is not the dealers problem, but I don't really care. It ended with us agreeing that they would fix it, but I can't get it fixed until early June, so that they can figure out the paperwork and timing to submit the fix as an extended warranty issue. Basically, they believe this part that is broken is expensive (thousands) and they don't want to get stuck with the bill. Long story short, I like the vehicle, but can't deal without AC. I am somewhat concerned that other things will start breaking, so I am glad I bought the extended warranty, and yes, I do reallize that "things break". That is the nature of the world. Nothing stays exactly the way it was when you first bought.
Monday night, I watched the 2 hour ending to 24, and put Cards together for the Dylan night.

Tuesday: I did have a busy day at work, again, but I did get a chance to run on the eliptical for 2.28 miles. I also had my meals split up, but dinner was non-existant, due to the "Kites don't Bite" show. Tuesday night, Bob Dylan night at the 400 bar, our band played 3 songs (practiced 8 songs, but they only let us play 3). We should have been playing all night, becuase we rocked the place, and every other performer was boring me to death. I was having a problem staying awake after a long day at work. I sang "Everything is Broken", and played accordian on "Licence to Kill" and "O Sister". I think we really did a good job. We didn't win any recording deals, but the respect of the viewers.

Wednesday - now we are caught up. on Wednesday I had my first real Health Exam in 8 to 10 years. I brought the list of tests that I received over the internet that 30 year old males should have done, and the doctor asked some good questions. He indicated that my weight loss results of 1 - 2 lbs per week are very good, and considering my size of 400+ lbs, he is interested to see how things go. He did the whole breathing, ears, eyes, abdominal, neck, arms, legs, if you have ever been at a doctor's office, you get the picture. I got a TDAP injection for tetnus, etc. and he gave me some advice. He indicated that calcium might help my weight loss, specifically losing weight around my waistline. Due to my galactosemia, I don't get a lot of dairy (technically, I don't get any dairy, other than aged cheese) so getting calcium is problematic. There are lots of good sources of calcium, better than dairy, such as green leafy veggies, seafood and shellfish, and many foods are enriched with calcium. My daily vitamins also provide calcium. He suggested I take more, if possible. He also did an EKG and didn't find anything too concerning, but will watch one part of the results as I lose more weight.

I will go back for the full panel of blood and urine tests after Memorial Day.

Ok, so you are most likely as bored as can be by this particular blog post. Let me mix in a little flavor-flave:

As we talked about earlier, Blood pressure is a measure of the force exerted on your arteries while the heart is beating (systolic) and resting (diastolic.) When blood pressure is high, it can cause damage to arteries due to shearing forces, cause the heart to become larger in an unhealthy way, and lead to kidney damage, among other things.

First, here are 'normal' targets for most people:
Normal systolic BP: Less than 120 mm Hg
Normal diastolic BP: Less than 80 mm Hg

On 7/23/03, the last time I have a recorded blood pressure (I probably have had BP taken since then, but I don't have it recorded.) Here was the results at 500lbs:

systolic BP: 150 mm Hg
diastolic BP: 120 mm Hg

Bad, frowny face here. I remember that the doctor I spoke with at the time wasn't surprised by this measurement. The other thing that seems odd now, was that the doctor also didn't seem to care, or give any advice. I think he was willing to let my body deteriorate. Idiot.

Ready: Here was the current measurement, 80 pounds lighter:

systolic BP: 128 mm Hg
diastolic BP: 70 mm Hg

Cha-Ching! When I told the doctor what my BP used to be, he was very delighted. Funny, I am turning into a normal person again. After learning about my normallized BP, I got a little cocky and fell pretty confident about my F25K program.

I hope I am not breaking any HIPAA rules by posting this doctor's visit. Oh well.


MEASUREMENTS FROM FRIDAY! HERE WE GO:


As of May 20, 06

• Chest 54.50
• Waist 63.00
• Hips 57.00
• Thigh 31.50
• Neck 17.50
• Calf 20.75
• Bicep 17.25
• Forearm 14.00
• Difference over Previous Stats 4.00 inches (lost)
• Difference Overall 18.25 inches (lost)
  

Current Statistics

• Weight 407.2 (lost 7 lbs in 3 weeks)
• Estimated Body Fat% 32.82% (need to lose another 16.40 lbs to get to 30%, according to the calculations - goal to do this in 8 weeks, or maybe by the 4th of July. What a great independance!)
• % of Weight Loss over Previous Stats -1.74%
• % of Total Weight Loss -16.47%

Overall, I can almost touch that 400lb barrier. Maybe I will get there in the next 3-week measurment cycle...

more later,


Chazz