Week 4

Week four is the week where the train wreck occurs.  I hardly ever work out on Mondays because I know that on Tuesday when I meet with Linus that my butt is going to royally be kicked.  So Tuesday I go to the gym to meet with Linus and we start our work out.  We do the warm up on the cardio machine do the little medicine ball toss on the wall body warm up and start hitting it hard.  We did a full circuit and then about half way through the second work out it happens again.  The third time!  I start to feel nauseous again!  I tell Linus and he puts me on the treadmill and asks me what I ate.  He's concerned that I may not be getting enough calories before our workouts.  I tell him that I ate a banana.  He goes and grabs a protein shake from the gym store for me.  I drink it while walking it out on the tread mill.  I come clean with Linus and tell him that our first work out together that I passed out.  Linus is concerned and tells me that I should see a doctor.

Great!  A doctor!  I have let myself get in such bad shape that I need to see a doctor!  So I go home to face the music.  I tell my wife about feeling nauseous again while working out.  I also come clean to her about passing out four weeks ago.  She is rightfully very concerned for my health and well being.

Tuesday night/ Wednesday morning it is snowy but I still call the doctor because I need to get my exercise on.    They do have an appointment with my primary care physician at 9:45.  I tell them I'll take it!  So I head out to the doctor and walk in.  They take me back and do an EKG and a blood test to see if I have diabetes...  Diabetes!  I can't tell you how disappointed I was in myself to even have to be tested for diabetes.  I was in pretty good shape growing up.  Yeah I never ate well, but I was always active and I was "healthy enough".  Now I possibly have diabetes because of my eating habits and weight?!?!  This is horrible.

So I got to have my arm sufficiently drained of blood and I also got to have those little sticky pads stuck to my chest for an ekg.  My ekg came back abnormal.  I asked my doctor what did that mean and he said...  "It's not normal".  That was encouraging that my doctor is a walking thesaurus.  He didn't want to go into it because he didn't want to be an alarmist.  For me not know what exactly is happening, especially when it comes to my heart is worse the unknown.  He said he was referring me to a cardiologist.  I said the sooner the better for an appointment.  I said I could go anywhere I just want to get this taken care of.    This all happened on January 27 and the first appointment they could make for me was on February 10th.  I couldn't exercise or do anything physical until I saw the cardiologist.  This is unacceptable in my book.  It's my heart and all I know is it's abnormal!

As soon as I left the doctors office I called the cardiologist that they referred me too.  It turns out because of the snow they had and opening that afternoon!  Never having been to a cardiologist I asked if I needed to wear tennis shoes and exercise clothes.  The receptionist wasn't sure but suggested that I do for in case I needed to do a stress test.  I could tell her I was already more than a little stressed!

I called my wife and told her everything that was going on.  We decided that she should go with me to the cardiologist for an extra set of ears.

We pull up to the cardiologist's office and are seen pretty quickly.  She asked me if I have any family who has "suddenly died"...  Random question so I try to narrow that down a little bit.  I asked, "Like a heart attack?"  She said no like they were playing a sport and they fall out and die.  I told her I wasn't aware of any family members suddenly dieing.  She was concerned that I have a thick heart.  Apparently when you have a thick heart when you exercise you tend to suddenly die.  That's encouraging...  So she wanted me to have a ultrasound of my heart and to do a stress test.

They started with shaving fun designs in my chest hair and the putting these large sticky pads on my chest,  they remind me of large suction cups, like ones you find on shower mirrors that stick to the tile.  Then the ultra sound lady was really nice but it was a ploy because she then jabbed in in the sides and chest with a greasy ultra sound device.  It was not a comfortable experience.  She also took my blood pressure.  After jabbing me in my chest and side for what seemed like 30 minutes she put me on the treadmill for my stress test.  My poor wife was in the room with me and the first thing she thinks about, she tells me after the fact, is the thick heart and that this could very well be the end for me.

So here I am, I've lost some weight but I haven't lost 70lbs in 4 weeks or anything so I'm still large and in charge and they put me on a treadmill with no shirt.  I honestly don't care that they have to look at me shirtless running on a treadmill but They have a mirror right in front of me.  To make matters worse the only thing I can see in the mirror is my neck down.  This is awesome!  I get to watch myself jiggle while being on the treadmill.  This is really turning out to be a great day!

The directions that ultra sound stress test lady give me are that every three minutes the treadmill will go up and speed up.  I'm thinking, I've been working out for a month I'm going to go for a long time.  The directions should have been, after the first three minutes the treadmill will go all the way up so it will feel like you are climbing Mount Everest and then every three minutes it will speed up so you can't walk but yet you can't run either because you will be at that awkward speed.

So I will bear you the ugly details but something that is fun is that also every three minutes they have to take my blood pressure too.  So here I am in all my glory looking at myself in the mirror, sweating, jiggling, trying to keep my arm still so my blood pressure can be checked with my wife sitting behind me not looking because she thinks any minute now I am going to fall out.  Finally I say I have had enough.  I immediately have to run off the treadmill and onto the torture table where I get jabbed in the ribs and chest again so we can see what my heart looks like stressed.

After this wonderful event they then get to rip off the wonderfully large suction cups that I was assured beforehand were the most expensive ones they can buy because they want to make sure they stick...  Awesome...

So once I leave this room I get to go await to hear the verdict from the doctor.  The good news she delivered is that I don't have a thick heart and that my heart actually looks really good.  The issues is this...  When I am resting my blood pressure is in the normal range.  However, when I exercise it spikes to like 220/100, which is apparently bad...  Then when I stop it crashes, which is also not good.  So the solution, beta blockers.  So I now have to take a pill for a long time.  I can't do anything physically active for 4-6 days.  I heard that I also can't lift weight over my head.  I should have asked for clarity because my wife heard that I can't life weight at all...

I emailed my trainer when I got home.  Once I could get active again we were going to do cardio for my next week.  Moral of the story if you pass out or feel nauseous, tell someone, go see a doctor!

Week 3

This was a hard week for me.  I decided to go the trainer route because I know myself well enough that I need that accountability.  I know that I need to see someone at least weekly to see me and check in on my progress.  I went in to see Linus and unfortunately he had a sick relative and couldn't make it to have our work out.  So I ended up doing cardio for the day.  I was selfishly disappointed that I didn't get a full work out in.

I was also very nervous because my wife was going to be going on a girls trip this weekend.  In trips past when my wife  would go on trips I would decide that my life could become an all you can eat buffet.  I would be hungry all day and eat everything in sight.  I was nervous because some more accountability would be lacking.  On Wednesday nights I have class so I never work out on Wednesdays.  I didn't "feel like" it on Thursday.  And then came the weekend and my wife was out of town.  I didn't work out at all over the weekend.  I didn't eat horrible but I didn't eat like I should.  There was no fast food for me or anything like that.  I went out to a restaurant and actually tried to order healthy food.  I ordered the Santa Fe Chicken with grilled veggies and a sweet potato.  Little did I know that Santa Fe slathers their chicken in cheese or that grilled veggies literally float in butter.  The really sad part is I wanted a burger and I probably would have been just as well off having a burger versus what I ate.  I also went out with my father in law and had a Philly Cheese steak at a local pub/bar.

The good news is that on Sunday I did go out and play ultimate frisbee.  That only meant that I worked out twice for the ENTIRE week.  That is no dice.

Accountability for me, especially when starting new things is absolutely what I need to keep on track.  Loosing two huge forms of accountability was more than I could handle this early on in my quest to get healthy.  It is ultimately me who has to do the work.  I can't blame anyone but myself for the lack of time in the gym or the lack of discipline while eating.  Honestly I don't at all hate what I'm eating.  The truth of the matter is the longer I go eating well the better I feel.

Challenges

One of the biggest challenges that I have is often at the office.  My boss is known for have candy in her office.  When I say candy I don't mean black licorice that no one likes, I'm talking milk chocolate, dark chocolate, baby ruth, snickers, etc...  I'm getting hungry just thinking about all of this chocolaty goodness in her office.  Not to mention in the first few weeks of starting my journey of getting healthy our secretary brought in some glazed krispy kreme donuts and then called me to invite me to eat some.  It came from a great place, I'm not upset that I got the call but it's just one more yummy goodness that I have to say no too.  There is always food around my office.  We also had a birthday part at the office for a colleague.  We had a BBQ restaurant cater the food which was pork, turkey, beans, potato salad, lots of wonderful garlic bread, sweet tea (that's how we drink tea in the south), cake...  I'm sure I'm leaving food out.  Of course it was buffet style and of course it was a day that I had a lunch meeting and then came back to the yummy goodness.  Also, maybe even that same day some one brought in Duncan Donuts with wonderful creme filled donuts, which honestly are my favorite.

Another thing I'm a sucker for is TV advertising.  Can I tell you how good did the McDonald's commercial look with the chicken McNuggets (where on a chicken is a McNugget?) 20 for $5.  For a week at least I wanted to go to McDonald's and get chicken McNuggets.  The sad part is I haven't had a chicken McNugget in years anyways.  I'm really all about the McDouble for $1.  Not to mention after work I go to class.  When class gets out between 7:30 and 8:30 I drive by several fast food restaurants where I can get cheap yummy food.  Somehow through the last several years I have equated cheap food with alright to buy and eat food.  I think I've done this because I think "it's just a buck so of course I can have this".

UGH!  can you see my dilemma?  Can you see how I got to be closer to 300 pounds than 200?  As I write this I just can't help but thinking how good all of this crappy food sounds!  I seriously think that they put crack in all of these unhealthy foods, thus I crave them.  I hope I'm not the only one who will admit that I have a crappy food addiction in large quantities.  I am happy to report that since the turn of the year I haven't had fast food.  Er...  Well, that may not be totally true, I had a family member who wanted Fazoli's so I went there once.  I tried to buy healthy options from Fazoli's and still think I didn't do great.  I did get water and I only ate one yummy bread stick even though I wanted fifteen million of them.  I also had a side salad instead of a side slice of pizza.  So it wasn't great but it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been.  It's the small victories that count!

Week 2

After a great week.  I met with my trainer for a second week.  I felt that I was doing well.  Linus wants me to start warming up about seven minutes before we start working out.  So I got to the gym a little early so I could be ready to go for my appointment with Linus.  I got on my cardio machine and had my heart rate monitor on and was rocking and rolling.

Linus got there and we had a great workout.  My heart rate would get up to the 180s and then we would let it recover to the 130s before I'd start the next exercise.  Linus is very encouraging and isn't a yeller who says "jump higher, run faster".  If he knows that I'm putting out my best effort he just encourages me.

We got through our first cycle of exercises and about half way through I started to feel nauseous again.  I immediately knew what was coming so I thought it was in my best interest to let him know that I wasn't feeling good.  He quickly put me on a treadmill and started me walking slowly.  He said it was important for my blood to keep going and would help me to feel better.  After about five or so minutes I did in fact start to feel better.  We called it quits for the day and Linus said to keep coming into the gym and keep up the work outs.

Nothing else that week went poorly.  I worked out and ate healthy.  My wife was very supportive.  I did tell her that I felt nauseous.  When I played sports I saw people throw up fairly regularly so I didn't think anything about it.  I kept disregarding it as being out of shape.

I was seeing progress on the scale.  I was dropping weight and starting to feel great.  I have a long road ahead of me.  I always do well with the first few weeks.  I want to make this more than an attempt.  Two weeks down.  A lifetime to go!

The Week after my first meeting with trainer

The first week after I met with my trainer was interesting.  A big topic that we discussed was food intake.  We didn't get into calories in and calories out and all of that stuff.  We talked in general about food consumption.  He also emailed me a four or five page document about food as well as a sample meal plan and grocery list.  Right after meeting with my trainer, we will call him Linus, I went to the grocery store and started my new change in life.  For breakfast I eat a protein shake, and rolled or steal cut oat meal, a handful of nuts for a snack, a chicken salad for lunch, another handful of nuts for a snack and then a meat and veggies for dinner.  This is more or less the food I eat daily.

When I first saw this I thought I was going to starve.  Hello, I'm not terribly far from 300 pounds.  I believe the protein shakes really help keep me full most of the day.  I came home from the grocery store and immediately started cooking.  I try to cook for the whole week because with school, work, interning, and now going to the gym it's hard to find time to work through out the week.

Linus told me that I should do cardio 4 times a week and strength 3 times a week.  I can do both in the same day so I don't have to go the gym every day.  I think I did really well.  I made it, I worked out as much as I should I did a really great job eating too!  I lost a good bit of weight.  It was really encouraging!  It was a month ago so I don't remember exactly how much weight I lost.  I didn't go to a fast food restaurant or anything.  I went to Calypso, they have a great chicken veggie salad that taste great and goes with my diet.

During my work outs I didn't feel faint or nauseous any more.  I don't tend to work out as hard by myself as I do with with Linus.  My usual routine with "getting healthy" is I am really eager and great sticking to something for a week.  Thus I had a YMCA membership for several months and started out with great vigor only to have a membership that I was paying a lot of money to have and not utilize.  So it's no surprise that this first week is going great...  We'll see if I make it through the long haul.  We'll see if I really am going to be getting healthy or flake out.  My wife and I decided that I am going to see Linus for 10 sessions to have that accountability and have that help that I so desperately need to get my life back.  By getting healthy I hope I can put my shoes on normally, I can really fit my clothes and not stretch them literally to the break point.  Getting healthy is the goal not a weight or a number.  I want to be able to sit on the couch and not have my wife worry that I'm going to break it.  Living and enjoying life is my goal.

First Day with the trainer

I'm still trying to bring everyone up to date with where I am today.  But I want to talk about my first experience with my new trainer.  I've never had a trainer before.  I've seen Bob and Jillian on the biggest looser and quite frankly I was hoping for more of a Bob than a Jillian.  Nothing wrong with Jillian I just know that I'm large and out of shape I really don't think I need some one yelling at me trying to remind me of a fact that I am well aware of and live with daily.

If you've never been to a trainer one thing you should expect your first day, which I didn't really grasp, is that they do an assessment of you.  That doesn't sound to hard.  I expected questions like:  1) Are you fat?  My response... Yes.  However, it's not quite that simple.  They bring out a measuring tape and measure my neck, arms, legs, stomach, chest, waist, etc.  It's kind of like going to the tailor but only more embarrassing.  My trainer was professional and didn't laugh or say anything negative it's just kind of invasive and probably more so since I know I am out of shape.  You of course stand on a scale which I was sure I was going to max out.  

You do a BMI, Body Mass Index, which I was in the 30s or 40s, I kind of blocked that number out.  The great part about when we did the BMI my trainer told me that healthy is 16 or lower, I was at least twice that...  erg... Then he told me to have a six pack I have to be in the single digits.  I quickly thought, "this trainer is so optimistic!" fairly sarcastically.

You also have to do a blood pressure test...  This is where being large and in charge can be a problem without the right equipment.  Apparently I use a fairly large blood pressure band around my arm because the one they had didn't quite fit.  So I had to donate blood later that week to get my blood pressure reading.  It was normal.  

So once you're done feeling like no part of your body has been unexplored we then did some work outs.  My trainer is big into TRX.  It's a suspension training.  

Before my trainer would work out with me he made sure that I was wearing a heart rate monitor.  I have a Timex that I really like and it was on the lower end price wise.  

So I learned about heart rate zones and where I should be.  We also talked a lot about diet...  Apparently McDonald's, Burger King, and Taco Bell are not good places to eat regularly...  Who knew?!

On my second set of the TRX exercises I had to "use the bathroom" which for me meant I was feeling nauseous.  So I went to the bathroom to what I thought was throw up.  Playing sports growing up it wasn't uncommon for people to work out hard and throw up, so I really didn't think anything of it.  I thought man I am more out of shape than I thought!

After sitting by the toilet for a few seconds I started to feel faint.  So digging into my vast knowledge of health I thought I should stand tall and take deep breaths.  I eventually sat on the bench in the locker room and passed out.  Being embarrassed that I passed out I went out and told my trainer that I was feeling nauseous.  He put me on the tread mill and I very slowly walked to keep my blood flowing.  After a few minutes I started to feel better.

I drove home and looked in the mirror to find that I fell on some lockers when I passed out and scratched my back.  I was felt like I was super fat and way out of shape.  I wrote off my passing out as a out of shape thing.  I was so embarrassed that I didn't tell anyone, my trainer or even my wife about my mishap.  

Don't worry we will readdress this issue in the very near future.  

This was my first experience at the gym.  Needless to say besides the bruises from the fall my "core" which I didn't know I had until after working out with my trainer was super sore, in a good way.  I could tell that this was going to be a very good experience

Welcome to the Thinning Man

Welcome,

This is my first blog.  I've never read many blogs but my wife does extensively.  This blog is a story of my journey of getting healthy.  Let me start with giving you all some background information about who I am.  I am turning the big 30 this year.  I grew up very active and always playing sports.  I had amazing parents and I never had to worry about my needs being met and most of my wants too.  One of the things I never learned growing up was how to eat healthy.  I love pizza, pasta, ice cream, candy, and going out to eat, I always have!  I played sports through high school.  In high school I never weighed less than 200 pounds.  I played defensive line in football and fullback in soccer.  I could run a sub 7 minute mile and could bench press 265 pounds.  I felt very healthy.  

In college I played my current favorite sport, ultimate frisbee.  In college I weighed 220 pounds.  I remember splitting the 12 burritos for $6 deal at Taco Bell with one roommate, yes that is 6 burritos a piece for one meal.  I also remember during exams getting two dozen of hot now Krispy Kreme donuts and each of us eating a dozen in one night.  Because I was so active I never put on a ton of weight or felt incredibly out of shape.  Then I "grew up".  I moved to Nashville, TN and got a job.  I didn't find a group to to play sports with but I still kept eating out whatever I could afford on a small budget.  My food choices did not change, if anything they got worse.  I LOVE FOOD!  While living in Nashville, I've lived here for 6 years I have gained about 10 pounds a year.  Yes, that adds up to almost 280 pounds!  Since moving here I met my incredible wife, owned two different homes and have had some amazing opportunities.  All of this while growing literally daily.  

Towards the end of 2010 it was becoming apparent that my health was becoming a problem.  I tried to hide things from my wife, for example I put my shoes on while I was on the steps in our house so I could better reach my feet, we bought a new couch and my wife had to frequently tell me to sit softly so I don't break it, I refused to buy bigger clothes so buttons on my XL shirt were pulling because my stomach was ever expanding, buttons started popping off pants from the tension of being pulled by my waist, in my opinion my quality of life was beginning to be affected by my health.  

In November and December of 2010, with the incredible support of my wife, we decided at the turn of the year we would bite the bullet and spend money on a personal trainer and gym membership once a week until my 30th birthday.  I looked around at gyms near our house, there are only three, a local gym, the YMCA, or the local community center.  The community center didn't offer a trainer.  The YMCA, let's just say I've been there before. Which left my with the local gym, which I now love.  Clearly I joined the local gym.  I went in and asked them about costs and found that it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  So, I've now gotten started and decided to start a blog to hopefully encourage and share my challenges and victories with friends, family, and anyone else who stumbles upon this blog.  It's the middle of February now so I've already gotten started.  I will catch you up with the next few posts but I thought you would need to know where I am coming from so we can see how far I make it!  Thank you for joining me with changing my life.