Category Archives: Health

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.

Health, Wesley, Writing

On losing strength

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My morning reading over a cup of coffee, at my desk at the office, after my devotions and before beginning the grind, continues in John Wesley’s letters–as it will likely do until retirement, which is just 8 years, 7 months, and 18 days away. I found a new passage in one of his letters today that is worth commenting on, but I will put that aside to a future post and continue with the 1731 letter to Mrs. Pendarves that has been the subject of other posts. Repeating the quote, with a new emphasis:

“…I am afraid of nothing more than of growing old too soon, of having my body worn out before my soul is past childhood. Would it not be terrible to have the wheels of life stand still, when we had scarce started for the goal; before the work of the day was half done, to have the night come, wherein no one can work? I shiver at the thought of losing my strength before I have found [it]; to have my senses fail ere I have a stock of rational pleasures, my blood cold ere my heart is warmed with virtue! Strange, to look back on a train of years that have passed, ‘as an arrow through the air,’ without leaving any mark behind them, without our being able to trace them in our improvement!”

After bemoaning about growing old too soon and not having his soul fully developed, Wesley continues with a similar thought: that strength may wane much too soon, well before he could enjoy what pleasures the body could afford. Or, might Wesley have been thinking of the whole man–body, soul, and spirit? Surely if bodily strength and pleasures exist, so to do spiritual and intellectual.

At a college graduation once (I attended four straight years, and am not sure of the year), the speaker encouraged the new grads to “peak at eighty.” That is, as bodily health decreases the power of mind and spirit should increase, with the result that our most productive years should be somewhere around our eightieth on earth. That seemed like good advice. Of course, when I reach eighty, perhaps I’ll change that to “peak at ninety”!

Now 56, my body sure doesn’t work like it did even a few years ago. Why, back in 1995, on a pleasurable Saturday afternoon in August I raked an acre of cut grass and added it to a huge compost pile of leaves, thoroughly mixed the whole thing, then picked up and moved about 10 wheelbarrows full of dead fall apples to the same pile and mixing them in. I was exhausted, but not spent. Now, thirty minutes of weed eating leaves me ruined for the rest of the day. How did this happen? Surely thirteen years could not have reduced my strength that much.

Yet, I sense my mind able to grasp concepts that only five years ago would have been unfathomable. Writers like Emerson, Carlyle, and Macaulay speak to me in a way they once could not. New meaning in Scripture jumps from the page, and preparing Bible studies and Sunday School series is more than mere wishful thinking. Five years ago I had one book on paper an none in my mind; now I have at least twenty in the gray cells, patiently waiting in a disorderly queue for their turn to move to paper or pixels. Even as my body loses strength, my intellect–and hopefully my spirit–give me increased pleasures, increased productivity.

I’ve not given up on my body. I hope at 58 to be younger than I am at 56. I am determined not “to lose my strength before I have found it.”

Bible study, Health, Life Group lessons, Wesley

Growing old too soon

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Continuing with that quote from John Wesley’s letter to Ann Granville, here is a shorter version of it:

“…I am afraid of nothing more than of growing old too soon, of having my body worn out before my soul is past childhood. Would it not be terrible to have the wheels of life stand still, when we had scarce started for the goal; before the work of the day was half done, to have the night come, wherein no one can work? I shiver at the thought of losing my strength before I have found [it]; to have my senses fail ere I have a stock of rational pleasures, my blood cold ere my heart is warmed with virtue!”

Wesley interestingly expresses concern about growing old in body, but not being mature in his mental development, of “having my body worn out before my soul is past childhood.” This is something we all need to be concerned about. The body grows old as a natural process. Development of our soul (i.e. our intellect, our emotions, our spirit) is NOT a natural process. This is something we need to be deliberate about.

Of late I have been very concerned about my intellectual development. The result is that I have chosen reading material that I feel will improve my mind. I suppose one could say that all reading improves the mind, and I would agree with that in part. Obviously some things we could read will improve the mind more than others. I’ve also been concerned with advancing in my spiritual development. It seems that this goes in fits and starts. For a period I will be incredibly focused on the Bible, and study it with great intensity of mind and find myself growing. At other times, secular concerns crowd out Bible study, and stagnation develops. Maybe that is the way it will always be. Maybe intensive spiritual study for too long a period can be draining–exhausing–and I must back away until mind-improving activities of a lesser intensity have a chance to give my mind a rest.

At present, the Elijah and Elisha Bible study I’m doing is a great springboard for Bible study. First with a general reading and selection of items to present to the class, then in intense reading of the selected passages along with a couple of commentaries, and finally to preparing a handout for the class to have each week, I have found this study quite meaningful, and have felt my mind, soul, and spirit growing. We just finished the fourth lesson today. Six remain, with most of the intense study still ahead. I guess by the end of May I’ll be ready for a breather.

But this part of the journey is certainly a joy.

Health, Life Group lessons, Writing

It’s been a bad week

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I know a blog of a professional person is supposed to be about a brand of some kind, not a diary of all that life throws at you. The fact is, though, I’ve been down in the dumps this week–big time, so I’m going to give you a diary entry. The problem is not that anything is actually going bad. A problem or two has arisen at work, but solutions have also developed and other things have worked well. Nothing has broken at the house, the bills are paid, and my weight is even dropping a little (agonizingly slowly, though without exercise) as I ate well and avoided snacks. I didn’t get a ticket; the truck and van didn’t break down; and I bought gas this time the day before an 8 cents price hike. I have come within one calculation of completing my Federal income taxes, subject to mathematical quality control of course, and I’m a week ahead on preparing my Sunday School lesson–oops, they call them Life Groups now. Even the rain on three days, which usually perks me up, didn’t. So, you ask what’s wrong? What would put me in the dumps?

It’s writing, specifically the lack of time to get to it, and another dose of reality at the almost impossible odds of becoming published. I did plenty of writing this week, mostly business letters via e-mail, and a few via snail mail or its semi-electronic cousin, the fax. I also wrote that one Life Group lesson and started on the second, it being well along. I had to study a lot for those, but it was good study and my mind was engaged. But none of that (except possibly the Life Group lesson) takes me an inch closer to being published. Every day filled with life–life to the full, as Jesus wants it to be–is a day further away from the dream. I’m at that point in life where each day is a precious commodity as it relates to fulfilling a dream. Youth is gone, and I have only so many days left.

Writing as a dream looks to be something that will cause an emotional roller coaster in life. I’ve experienced that before, first in my days as an expatriate and later in my days as a foster parent. The swing of emotions are energy sapping, leaving the brain little ability to create, even little ability for normal function. It requires considerable toughening to keep going. This week, I didn’t have it. What will next week hold? If I finish my Federal taxes this weekend, get another Life Group lesson prepared to put me one week ahead, and maybe have time for a blog post for three days in a row, maybe I’ll approach next week as a dynamo of brain-power. At least I can hope.

In addition to which, for those loyal readers who remember my posts a while back about capturing ideas for future writing, I did manage to capture two this week: one could be an article or a book; the other could be a Life Group series, which could later be a book.

book reviews, Health

Book Review: “;Natural Cures ‘They’ Don’t Want You To Know About”

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From time to time, I will provide book reviews in this blog, of what I’ve recently read. It will keep me sharp as I read, and maybe hone skills as a reviewer, especially of how to be honest but not insulting. Of course, blog readers will then see that a lot of what I read is ancient.

This first one is reasonably new Natural Cures ‘They’ Don’t Want You To Know About by Kevin Trudeau. Like many, I had seen bits and snatches of his info-mercials, though I never watched one all the way through. Much of what I heard him say made sense, and the entire concept of natural curse simply by using things that God gave us, rather than relying on man’s manufacturing, is attractive to me. I remember reading <url=”http://books.google.com/books?id=YqV27LGcZGMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:Jean+inauthor:Carper&sig=grfd6-2KKyYNDTK5jYzzpPlt_Hw”>Food-Your Miracle Medicine by Jean Carper some years ago, and being impressed with the whole concept of natural cures. I had been intending to purchase Trudeau’s two main books, but my brother-in-law beat me to it, giving them as Christmas presents last month.

Unfortuately, the first book is awful. I hate to say that so bluntly, but it is. If I had the time and a bit more of a masochistic bent, I would go through the book with highlighters and highlight: health suggestions, anti-government ranting, anti-corporate ranting, self-aggrandizement, and information rebeated either verbatim or almost so. The health information would be less than 2 percent of the book, anti-government rants about 15 percent, anti-corporate rants about 20 percent, self-aggrandizement maybe 5 percent, with the rest (whatever that comes to) being awful, awful repetition. If the repetition percent comes out to less than 60 percent, I’ve given too much weight to other things.

This is sad, because I suspect most of what he says concerning health is quite valid. Eat foods in their most natural, organic state, without the benefits of pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, genetic modification, homogenization, pasteurization, etc. But wading through the awful repetition is so difficult, I don’t know how to really benefit from this book.

The beefs I have with Trudeau are the same ones I have with most health books.
1. While all organic food would obviously seem to be better, a modern, urban society, with the distance from farm to market to table results in so much spoilage that full organic is not possible in massive quantities. So only the informed few could benefit from this.
2. The organic and natural way of eating is much more expensive than what we find now in stores. Thus the poor cannot really afford to participate. Only those with land and the wherewithall to organic farm, or those with sufficient means, can participate.
3. The book itself is poorly written, as I find most health books to be. Trudeau needs a ghost writer and an editor who will be honest with him. The 400+ page book could have been done in 50 pages with no loss of information.
4. The book is not so much for conveying true health information as it is a teaser, published to take you through a portal into a world of other for-profit products. Most of these health books are really for the purpose of selling food supplements. Trudeau’s is for selling website and newsletter subscriptions. Some difference.

I have read a little in Trudeau’s second book, More Natural Cures Revealed, but will not be reviewing it. To do so will be redundant.