Getting Healthy

When I graduated high school I weighed about 220 pounds.  I remember hearing everyone saying that they'd love to have the body they had in high school and thinking to myself that I'd never dream of the same thing... I'd get my body into better shape and keep it that way.

I'd also be married in a couple years, have a big house, two loving children, drive a sports car to work read as many books as possible and....

Like all those other dreams, my 'fit' body never materialized.  Now at nearly 40, I'm wishing I had the body that I had in High School.  I'm sure you've heard of the 'Freshman Fifteen' referring to the fifteen pounds that many freshman put on when they go to college.  Well... I had the 'Freshman Forty'.  That's right... I ballooned up to over 260 pounds.

While it's not a goal to return to 260 pounds, I'd certainly like to be 'down' to that weight again.  You see in the 20 plus years since high school my weight has continued to grow and grow.  My 'high' point came several years ago when I was tipping the scales at closer to 320.  I didn't make any specific changes then, but I did lose my sweet tooth.  I just stopped enjoying loads and loads of sweets.  I DO like an occasional cookie or piece of cake, but that's it.  I can no longer gorge myself on sweets.  I'd much rather eat a good sandwich.  In addition to cutting out most sweets I refocused on what 'full' meant.


I used to consider 'full', in terms of eating, as that feeling you get when you are about to split at the seams.  It took a good long while, but I've adjusted my thinking.  That same feeling is now looked upon as 'stuffed', and I try to never get 'stuffed'.  Instead, full is now eating enough.  A plate or two at a meal and no more.  You see, physically I don't ever get the feeling of being 'full', so it's a purely mental exercise to stop eating.  

These two changes dropped me down to about 265 pounds.  I held that weight for a good while, but when I started working I gained five pounds back.  I have now sat at 270 pounds for a good four months.  There is still plenty of work I can do on my diet.

Quick aside... I hate the term diet.  Most people hear that and assume that you are cutting back on what you eat, or eating only particular things, all in the hope of losing weight.  I am NOT changing the way I eat to lose weight.  I AM changing the way I eat to be more healthy.  If that healthy lifestyle leads to lost weight, then good.  If it doesn't... then too bad because I plan to continue eating better all the time.

That being said, I still have goals on what foods I eat.  My primary dietary goal for now is to find a replacement for soda.  On a typical day off I'll drink between four and eight cans of Mountain Dew (regular, Code Red, Live Wire, Voltage).  I say on a day off because when I work I take several bottles of Gatorade's G2 (the low cal stuff) and drink that for eight plus hours.  But even on those working days I'll still have two or three cans of soda.

The problem with the drinking is complex.  First... I'm diabetic.  No, I've never been diagnosed as such, so the best way to say it is actually 'Pre-Diabetic'.  But I don't need a doctor to tell me that my constant and unsatiable thirst, my constant need to urinate, my constant hunger, and most importantly my blood sugars that hover between 180 and 220 at all times mean that I'm diabetic.  It's no surprise really... just being as heavy as I am will lead, eventually, to diabetes.

Second... I smoke.  I do love the flavor and sensation of smoking.  But after having a cigarette there is a dry sticky feeling in my mouth.  It tastes good enough, but it feels 'off'.  To get rid of this mouth feeling I have to drink something, and the only thing that consistently gets rid of that feeling is a carbonated beverage.

I've tried many low cal or no cal sodas, but they all taste like garbage.  I've tried tea, water, sports drinks, lemonade, and even no sugar KoolAid.  They can all satisfy my constant thirst (at least temporarily), but they can't remove my off putting mouth feeling.

So for the time being, I drink a lot of soda.

Maybe one day I can reduce the amount I eat further, or even change my diet to something healthier, but for the time being I believe I've hit a wall on what I eat.  Right now if I eat less, I stay hungry.  And if I'm  hungry, I'll eventually just eat more.  So... how do I get healthy?  I don't need to be a nurse to know the answer.

I work out.

Working out is another term akin to diet.  I just don't like it.  I picture people going to the gym to get that dream body.  I picture them struggling to get into smaller pants or gaining those six pack abs.  Bah.  I may not love the way my body looks, but it's my body and I refuse to hate it.  I'm a big guy and that's just the way it is.

But... I am not a healthy guy.  It's not just the extra weight.  I know that heart disease runs rampant all over my family tree.  I know that my arteries are probably chuck full of clogging cholesterol.  I've always joked about the fact that I only run when being chased... but if I'm honest I probably couldn't outrun any danger even if I needed to.  Not only am I not fast, I simply don't have the muscle tone or stamina to keep up any type of activity like that.

So... I need to exercise.  I need to work out.  Not in the hope that I'll get a svelte sexy muscle bound body, but just for my overall health.  It's been a goal of mine for years (decades?) to start up an exercise regimen, I just always found a better reason to NOT work out.  Well... enough is enough.  When I assumed that I would be getting a job at my local hospital I assumed that I'd start using their gym.  Sadly the prison doesn't have a gym, so there isn't that easy way to get my feet wet.

For some odd reason last night I started really looking into getting a gym membership.  There wasn't some big mental changing event... I just started looking at gyms online.  It seems that there is a Planet Fitness in my hometown, and I have to say that their advertising does work.  I don't want to go to some gym where everyone there is chasing perfection.  Big hulking muscles, guys screaming and grunting as they dead lift hundreds of pounds.  People looking at the treadmills and stationary bikes as useless cardio machines taking up space.

I want a place where it's ok to just go and get some exercise in.  A place where 'some' exercise isn't looked at as 'not enough' but instead as 'better than none'.   I also want a place that's open to when I want to work out.  I can't imagine waking up early just to go work out... instead I think I can easily fit it in at the end of the day.  I get out of work around 10pm and it takes me about an hour to get home.  So I'd like to start my work out around 11pm.  Planet Fitness is open 24 hours a day, Monday through Friday.

They also seem very financially possible.  From what I could gather online, it costs $29.99 to start up a membership, and then costs $10 a month.  No long term contract that needs to be paid in advance.  IF I try it and decide that it's not for me, I can always just cancel my membership and walk away, paying only for what I had used.

So that's where I'm at now... considering joining.  I think it's going to wait until after the holidays just because... well just because.  I still want to let it rattle around in my head awhile longer.

I am also still looking at the longer term health situation.  I now have insurance and as such have no excuse for not seeing the doc.  I need the full workup that he wanted to give me when I had my physical for nursing school.  I bet that I have high blood pressure.  I bet that my heart is going faster than it needs to be. I bet that I have high cholesterol.  I know damn well that I'm diabetic.  The only thing holding me back is the thought of starting up an exercise regimen.. That very well could get my diabetes under constrol without any medication. And given enough time it may well get me into good health all on it's own.  I'm still pondering setting up an appointment.

I do need to quit smoking... but honest with all the trouble I've had trying to quit in the past, I'm just not going to focus on that now.  Instead I'll focus on other areas of health.

I also need to get some new glasses.  The no line bifocals were nice when they were new, but my prescription must need updating as it's getting harder and harder to see both up close AND far away (middle distance seems to be just fine).

These aren't any type of new years resolution.  This (hopeful) push into being more healthy needs to last more for a year and can't end with some arbitrary goal (YAY! I'm now 220 pounds again, lets eat more and exercise less!).  What I really want to do is push past the 'newness' of it all and make it part of my routine.  Once it's routine, it will be very hard to break out of.