Category Archives: Health

Health, writer's platform, Writing

Clarity

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Yesterday morning, as soon as I rose and completed my new litany of exercises (six straight days now), I began a morning walk. My destination: the post office, to mail some bill payments. The post office is about 7/10 ths of a mile away, over fairly level road. However, I wanted a longer walk that that.

So I walked down every side street off Sherlock Road. By way of explanation, Bella Vista is all hills, ridges, and steep valleys–hollows, the locals call them. Collector streets are built on ridge lines, and local streets are cul–de-sacs off the main roads, following finger ridges till they plunge into the hollows.

On the way to the post office, walking on the left side, of course, that meant I had to walk down four side streets. Of course, that meant I had to walk up to get back to the main road. Coming back from the post office, I had three side streets to descend and ascend. The whole walk took sixty-five minutes, and I was plenty tired.

As I made all these side trips, I was struck by the clarity of the woods. By this time in winter, the pin oaks are finally dropping their leaves. A few stubbornly cling, mostly to lower branches, but most are gone. The early budding trees–the Bradford pears, forsythia, red buds, and dogwoods–have not yet popped. Some might by next week, but not now. So this weekend is probably the one with the greatest clarity through the winter woods. Houses across the hollows, unseen most of the year, are obvious. We can see our distant neighbors’ backyard business.

I continue to look for this clarity in my writing career. Book? Articles? Fiction? Non-fiction? Op-ed? Bible studies? All of these I have tried, and I can see myself writing them all. The writing sages say build a platform first. If you have a platform, editors can’t hardly turn you down when submitting book-length queries. I’ve got platform building ideas, but keep hesitating to trigger them for fear they will sap all the creative time and energy I have.

Yet trigger them I must, if I expect to have any hope of publishing books with traditional, royalty paying publishers. In two future posts (perhaps not consecutive to this one), I’ll explain a couple of platform-building ideas I have, one old, one new, and use the blog as a sounding board for them.

ETA: I wrote the draft of this post Saturday night, intending to publish it Sunday afternoon. When I awoke this morning, deprived of an hour of sleep, I saw our huge Bradford pear in the backyard is now white. Overnight the buds popped. Our native woods don’t have many volunteer Bradford pears, but it does look as if I’m correct: this weekend should allow maximum clarity.

Harmony of the gospels, Health, reading

Inch by Inch

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That’s advice you always here:
“Mile by mile it’s a trial.
Yard by yard it’s hard.
Inch by inch it’s a cinch.”

I’ve often felt that the person giving such advice was running a two-mile race, not a marathon. Yet, I can see some truth in this in terms of my own life and the improvements I’d like to make in character and conduct, as well as the goals I have set for myself.

Take my weight, for example. Slowly over the course of about three years, I have lost 50 pounds. That was as of my scales moment Friday. Of course, that does no more than put me back to where I was on a day in June 2003. I’ve still got 54 pounds to lose to make it to the top end of my ideal weight range. So I have many more inches to go in this.

Take the Harmony of the Gospels I’ve been working on since, when was it, 2004? This is a project that for a long time I worked at between other projects. It started as a Bible study for myself, to use in teaching an adult Sunday School class and to satisfy my own curiosity about something. Yet, since then it has grown into a Bible study I am working on to be of publishable quality. Friday night I finished the second round of proof-reading. I have only one more step to go before I begin typing these edits and putting it in a format to share with my pastor. Only a couple of yards to go, inch by inch.

Take the book I’m reading, The Powers That Be by David Halberstam. I began this sometime before Christmas. A 736 page tome, I’m down to twenty-five pages to go, and likely will finish it tonight. Perhaps I was stupid for persevering through the whole thing rather than setting it aside after a hundred pages, when I realized that, while it was good, the reading was going to be tedious and I would be a couple of months getting through it. Oh well, persevere I did, and have only a few inches to go.

Take trying to be published. This is certainly an inch by inch proposition, as at this time I’m not prepared to self-publish. The problem is I don’t know how long the journey still is, or even if there is a final destination. Possibly the inches are taking me along a race track with no finish line, and I will never be published. Or perhaps it is only an inch or two ahead. Either way, in the last couple of weeks I managed to move a couple of inches forward, mainly in my realization of where my writing is relative to publishing standards, and in seeing the next two or three inches along the way.

Other things in my life have also shown inched progress. And I’m thankful for that.

career, Engineering, Health

Power Failure

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This morning at work we experienced a brief power failure. This is a blustery day. As I arrived at the office about 6:45 AM the wind was fresh and from the east. By 9:00 AM it was from the south, and the front was almost upon us. Radar showed a line of storms heading our way from the west, likely to last most of the day.

Shortly after I checked the radar on the Internet, our power went out. Only for a second; then it came on for a couple of seconds; then it went off for five seconds; then on again and has stayed on. Just those few seconds, but long enough to cause every computer to have to be re-booted manually, long enough to lose any unsaved data, long enough to cause everyone to get up and walk around in frustration. Whether the power failure was due to the front being upon us, or something else, I’m not sure. We have a large road construction project going on about two miles from the office, but if they did something, we would not have come on so quickly.

I’m experiencing a power failure of sorts myself. Since all the work this weekend, which I described in yesterday’s post, which followed close on the work of the previous week and weekend, recovering from the ice storm, I don’t seem to have much energy. My weight is down, the lowest it’s been since June 2003. Saturday I tried on some slacks that were hanging in my closet but not worn for years, and I fit in all of them. I should have more energy than I do, given that I’m at a better weight, almost 50 pounds below my peak weight of a couple of years ago. So what’s wrong?

I have heard it said that toxins are stored in the body’s fat, and so losing weight by losing fat will release those toxins. I did some Internet research on this, and while many people make this claim, I couldn’t find any expert web site that I felt gave a definitive statement saying this was so. Could the mere act of losing weight at a good clip result in tiredness and sluggishness, regardless of whether toxins are released or not? I’m also fighting an injured right shoulder. I say injured, but I suppose it could be just a severe outbreak of rheumatoid arthritis. It doesn’t feel like my rheumatoid usually does, however. It feels like an injury. The pain is almost constant, even when at rest. I’ve learned to avoid using my right arm when I have to move it at the shoulder, and it seems marginally better since I’ve gone to this routine. My regular doctor appointment is in a couple of weeks, so I’m hoping I can get by till then and see what he thinks.

Maybe this personal power failure is partially due to economic conditions. Maybe it is partly due to the growing realization of the futility of trying to publish books. Maybe it is another (or two) life circumstances I am dealing with. More likely it is a combination of all of the above.

God, help me out of these doldrums, that I might better serve You in power and boldness.

Health

First week in the weight loss program

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Well, all that activity late last week and over the weekend paid off, aided and abetted by proper eating and just a little bit of exercise on two days. With a weight loss goal of 1 pound per week, but with a hope of actually achieving 1 percent a week at least for a few weeks, I weighed in today 2.25 percent lower than last week! So I’m way ahead of expectations.

I know, I know, the first week is always the easiest. And most or all of that was pounds added over Thanksgiving and Christmas. That’s the negative way of looking at it. But also this puts me 39 pounds below my highest weight of three years ago. It has come off steadily, an average of just over a pound per month. Now, with concentrated effort, it’s dropping faster.

I know I won’t be able to maintain that pace, and that a pound a week is more likely a correct long-term expectation. But oh does it feel good!

Health, Politics

Corporate Foraging

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This time of year is when I forage, in the office. Beginning about Dec 15th, the ladies begin bringing in little treats. Or various vendors begin dropping off gifts such as tins of popcorn or meat trays or boxes of peanut brittle, not for me but for the company as a whole. Or we give out meat and cheese trays to our clients, and one department head always mysteriously orders one too many, which of course we then have to consume. If I wanted to, I wouldn’t have to take a lunch. Although, since I can’t have the sweet treats, I do have to limit my foraging to what I’m supposed to eat.

Of course, foraging in the office has a different effect than it had in the days of hunter-gatherers. Back then, foraging took considerable energy and effort. One stayed slim and trim and built muscle while foraging. Today, it merely means taking about six steps from the corridor to the conference table in Dept 1, or ten steps in Dept 2, or…you get the picture. Foraging has a negative impact on the body, an impact which I am indeed feeling.

This is not a political blog, and I have made very few political posts. Normally, when I want to make political comments I head over to The Senescent Man blog and post there. But today I will comment on the “corporate foraging” going on in America. First the big lending companies, then the banks, and now the big three automakers all want someone to bail them out, to infuse money in them to allow them to keep operating without declaring bankruptcy. We have a presidential candidate from the party of “fiscal responsibility” who proposed spending 300 Billion dollars to buy “worthless paper” to artificially prop up house prices. Talk about an ultimate oxymoron. We have a president from the same company who defies the will of congress and of his own party and loans money to those automakers, saying it necessary to discard free-market principles to save the free market.

What will the outcome be of this? The US government becomes an owner in these companies, or in some cases becomes their creditor. The taxpayer pays for this, either with more taxation today or more taxation in the future. None of these is a good outcome.

What was the cause of this crisis? Greed, pure and simple, it seems to me. People were greedy, wanting to own houses they couldn’t afford, and wanting those houses to always go up in value. Workers were greedy (through their unions), wanting to have the highest pay and benefits package they could squeeze out of the company. Corporate officers were greedy, wanting the highest possible salary and bonus with the best golden parachute waiting should they fail. And stockholders were greedy, wanting the best possible profit this quarter with rising stock price, with no thoughts to long-term viability of the company. Our members of congress were greedy, wanting to be seen as the promoters and sustainers of prosperity. Rather than all the sorry characters in this sorry story fessing up to their greed and seeking to make amends, they go to the taxpayers with their hands out and say, “Please fund our greed!”

Greed is what causes my foraging in the office, with the result that my body is in worse shape, and post-foraging depression when I realize just how many pounds I have to lose, pounds I’ve lost a few times already. And greed was the cause of the bubble that had to burst, resulting in Panic of 2008 and the corporate foraging taking place before our eyes. The depression that will follow will be the result of simple demographics, as the baby-boomers age and spend less; but it will come.

This has truly been a sad year in America.

Health

Life Imitates Reality TV

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I believe I am part of a subculture–a very small subculture, it seems. It is the subculture of those who have never watched a reality TV show. Maybe there’s something weird about me, but I don’t watch ’em and have no desire to do so.

I sat down to watch the first show of the second season of Survivor. The first season had great reviews, and was a success despite my lack of watching. So I decided to see what it was all about. 30 minutes was all I could take. It was obviously not reality at all; it seemed stupid; and was for certain a waste of my time. Another time I was surfing channels, and came upon a reality show where some fat slob was engaged to a hot babe, and the purpose of the show was for him to make her break up with him. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I think 15 minutes was all I could take of that one.

The Amazing Race, Big Brother, Ozzie Osborne (or, yes, I also watched 10 minutes of one of those once), Keeping Up with the Kardashians, etc. None of them appeal to me. The Biggest Loser, however, looks like it might have some promise, and I may someday dedicate an entire hour to this one. At least it seems to have a practical goal in the midst of the entertainment.

At work, some youngin’s have decided to start a Biggest Loser program. Losing weight for us fatties, adding weight/muscle for the skinnies, workout goals for the obsessed but weak-willed, etc. For 13 weeks beginning in January we will do the program: accountability, support groups, and I don’t know what-all. I may be the only one over 50 in the program–heck, I may be the only one over 40!

We’ll see how this works. I need all the help I can get. After a great summer and fall, I’m fattening up for the winter, and need some motivation to do better. I hope this does it.

career, Health

The Skinny on Weight

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As part of my training responsibilities, I coordinate a weekly brown bag presentation to our offices. This is broadcast to any of our nine offices where people want to attend. We use a mixture of in-house and outside presenters as I can schedule them; and I teach a few each year. To promote them, I usually try to come up with a clever title. I used to say a “sexy title”, but our HR head voiced a mild objection to that, so now I call it a clever, attention-grabbing, got-to-attend-just-cuz-of-the-title title. For example, the one this week was titled “Staying Out of Jail”. The one we had back on October 29th was about how vehicle weight affects pavement design. The man who presented it came up with the sexy–I mean attention-grabbing–title: The Skinny On Weight.

That has almost nothing to do with what I’m going to write next. My weight is down, currently at a 4-year low. I’m down a total of 43 pounds from my peak weight. Well, after Thanksgiving I’m not, but I’ll be back there next week. Weight that goes on fast also comes off fast.

You ask how I’ve lost this weight, and what I did to do so? It’s come off over almost three years. I peaked in February 2006, the same peak I had hit in February 2004. After that second peak, I knew I needed to get serious about losing weight, but I wanted to lose it in a way that it stayed off, unlike past times of bouncing up and down. So I made a conscious effort to eat a little less. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, and without pain, the weight did start coming off beginning in March 2006. A little bit each month, not steady, and not without an occasional set back, but I’m losing.

I try to walk in the parking lot on the noon hour. The pressures of work and responsibilities don’t allow me to do so as often as I’d like, but I get at least one day a week in, many times more. Weather interrupts from time to time. We also try to walk on the weekends when time allows. Walking is really my only exercise, except for occasional rebounding with a low-energy bounce. Beginning in May this year, I made a stronger commitment to noon hour walking, and kept it up through the summer. As long as the ambient temperature was not over 95 deg. F, I walked at least a mile, sometimes closer to 1.4 miles. As a result, I showed a weight loss between my May and August doctor appointments of 13 pounds, and I kept it off and lost a couple more for my November appointment.

Now comes the push to lose these few Thanksgiving pounds, not put on any over Christmas and New Years, then keep going. The loss of 43 pounds is the good news; the bad news is I still have about 60 to go to reach the top end of my ideal weight range. I plan to keep on doing what I’ve been doing. Eat slightly smaller portions than I would like. Always bring some of my restaurant meals home. Limit snacks. Eat less fruit (a blood sugar thing). Up-tick my exercise slightly. I’d like to develop the habit of regular rebounding, and maybe use another apparatus regularly. I’m not worried about taking it off quickly. Just as weight that goes on fast comes off fast, so does weight that comes off fast go back on fast. Loosing at a rate something less than 1/2 pound per week is fine with me.

Some people in the company are putting together an in-house program for weight loss, maybe similar to the show The Biggest Loser. I’ll participate, but really won’t be trying to win whatever prize they offer. It will be just for the motivation to add those one of two more good habits to the couple I’ve developed over the last three years.

Skinny? No, and never. But hopefully healthier.

Health

Health Concerns

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Among the many things making for a crowded life is trying to improve my health. For too many years I paid lip service to this, exercising a little, eating better than many of my peers but not good enough, always putting off to another day the things I need to do to improve my health.

About the first of July I finally did get serious about it. I increased my walking for exercise, decreased my overall food intake and especially of the bad things, found small things I can do during the work day or while driving to burn a few extra calories. The result at my annual physical on August 19th was a pretty good report: weight at a two year (almost a three year) low; cholesterol down; blood pressure down; all other blood work good except for blood sugar, which crept up a little. The extra effort worked, and the time taken from avocational pursuits was well spent.

Then came the last three weeks, a whirlwind of things going on and the wife being gone and…well, I didn’t do so well. Cut back on my walking, went off the wagon on both volume and types of food, and my weight is up. I won’t say how much up, but it’s up.

So, it is back to the program of walking every noon hour (I did so today; walked 10 laps in the parking lot = 1 1/9 mile); eating right (one slice of buttered toast this morning, the healthy kind of bread; left over cabbage and corn for lunch with celery and carrot and an apple for dessert); and will begin some indoors exercises on the apparati we have which has barely been used for the last year. I next go to the doctor in mid-November, and I’d like to be down 13-15 pounds from August. That is certainly in reach.

What all this will do to my writing, research for writing, and genealogy habits I don’t know. But I’d better get back to treating this seriously.

Health, technology woes

Crashed

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Yes, it finally happened to us. Our main computer, the one that is the server for our home network, crashed Friday night. On Thursday we had the virus/trojan horse problem, and on Friday the worst happened. A cousin was unable to help us via phone on Saturday morning, so I disconnected the offender and took it to the computer shop. After 3-4 day wait, we will see if anything is recoverable.

Actually, that computer is not loaded with data. Lynda does her stock trading from it, and has a few MS Word files she would like, but it’s not as big a problem as it would be with my computer, which has all my writing. Most of it I have backed up, either on my assigned computer at work or on off-site sources. I really need to put it on my jump drive. Oh, yes, all our downloaded photos are on Lynda’s computer, but we still have those on the camera cards, so nothing should be lost.

But I experienced another crash on Saturday, a physical problem. The day started well enough, after moving a few light boxes to my mother-in-law’s new apartment on Friday, I expected no extra tiredness. And Saturday started well. We had a strong rain/wind storm while I was balancing the checkbook and paying bills. And I worked on tightening a small, antique table Lynda picked up at a sale. We then took that computer in and went to buy our weekly groceries, all of which went well. We were supposed to load up a table in my pick-up and deliver it to m-i-l, but after napping first, I woke up and hurt all over. Both my shoulders, my knees, my wrists, and most fingers were extremely painful. No way was I going to lift a table into a pick-up. So the evening was spent doing little but reading, early to bed.

Might this have been a reaction to extra eating I did during the last part of the week, following my annual physical on Tuesday. That was a good report, with all blood work in line except sugar, and more than a token weight loss for the first time in a long time. By the end of the week my weight was up–a short-term gain that will disappear with a few good days of eating. Was it a food allergy? Or maybe just a reaction to two weeks of very light eating during greater-than-normal physical activity? I wish I knew.

Sunday was much better. I took my normal day of rest, attending church and Sunday school, doing little physical labor, foregoing my normal Sunday afternoon walk, and devoting some time to writing. By the end of the day I felt good, and still feel good this morning. Very strange, that reaction.

Genealogy, Health

The Olympics (sigh)

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For the first time ever for the summer Olympics, I’m not interested. What a change in me. I’ve been watching the Olympics since 1964, when they were in Tokyo, when Bob Hayes won the 100 meter dash to become the world’s fastest man. The 1968 Olympics resulted in my two sharpest memories, good and bad: Bob Beamon setting a record in the long jump that stood for decades, and the raised fist protest on the medal stand by American 400 meter runners.

What is it now that drives my lack of interest? Oh, I’ve watched some. Saw the tape-delayed 100 and 200 meter records/wins for Usain Bolt of Jamaica, the US sweep in the men’s 400 meter hurdles, some gymnastics, some swimming, some volleyball. But overall, if my wife hadn’t turned on the TV, I probably wouldn’t have bothered.

So again, what drives my lack of interest? Maybe it’s just my competing interests. In past Olympiads I wasn’t so into trying to be a writer. Now every minute I spend with eyes on the television puts me further behind on writing projects, with consequences down the road. Also, I have this small spike in genealogy interest happening right now, also taking me away from writing but also requiring a lot of concentration. It’s hard to watch a balance beam routine when trying to type a family group sheet, or add proper citations to an “events in the life of” document. Then there’s all the work of moving my mother-in-law from her house to an apartment. That has gone well, the move is mostly complete (though with boxes yet unpacked), and now remains the sale of excess items and of the house.

Two other things which are consuming time, either now or scheduled for the next 10 days, are trying to get healthier through better eating and much walking for exercise, and helping a best friend move by August 31st.

I think I just answered my question, though, in the last paragraph. It’s time. I realize the Olympics come around only every four years (or every two years including the winter version), but it’s a question of whether watching them is a good use of my time when I have so many other things I need to do. I keep plugging away at a little writing, a little genealogy, a little reading for pleasure, a lot of walking, and a lot of moving (with much, much more of that the next ten days).

The Olympics? How soon is the closing ceremony? I missed the opening one.