Saturday, December 8, 2012

Well, I've hit bottom

Day 95... do I really need to keep counting the days?

Probably not. :)

I'll do so for key milestones.

Weight: 333.2
A1C: 11.2

Doctor's diagnosis? Full blown Type II Diabetes. 

How do I feel about it? Scared, depressed and motivated.

 I'm not on two medications. Crestor and Metformin.



Goal 1: Lose the weight, get diet and sugars under control. Get off medication.

Goal 2: Find other forms of stress reduction than eating. Big one is exercising, second big one is music & meditation.

Goal 3: Just enjoy life everyday because you never know how much longer you have.

That is all for now, Happy Holidays EVERYONE!!

Namaste

Friday, October 19, 2012

Day 45 - Failure and Relentless Pursuit

Lots of thinking; lots of falling off the wagon; lots of failure; but more importantly a huge new beginning.

Stress can take a toll on your psyche.  Especially when you are trying to make the right choices in your health and diet journey.  For the past 6 months, I've been worried about my place in my world.  The job, the band, the family, and the overall pinch of stress I see myself in.  Stress is all a state of mind and generally its self created.  You can choose to go through life with a calm demeanor; breathing and staying present in the moment, while focusing on your choice at hand and how you can accomplish the goals that are part of the path that you are on at the moment.  Yeah, that was deep and good advice, but sometimes hard to follow when you just get "caught up", as Tony Robbins would say.

The Job:  We've been in talks all year about me switching from being a consultant to becoming an employee full time.  Well, it has finally transpired.  I'm happy with the settlement to switch to employee and I'm very happy to be working as an employee of Wheels, Inc.  The stress?  Well, it was the worry of switching and becoming an employee again.  Would my needs of salary be met?  Would I be working for this person or that person?  Would I miss being a consultant?  I think all those questions have been answered satisfactorily.  In fact, I'm very happy and stress free now.  I can now take on the job at hand and its very exciting.  Stress 1 gone.

The Band:  Questions of our future seemed up in the air the past couple of months, but resolution occurred just yesterday with our continuation and some issues being ironed out.  We continue on and we will be victorious.  Stress 2 gone.

The Family:  There isn't any real stress going on here, other than we seem to not be motivated to stick to our diet and exercise program.  We overcame one very great hump this last week, deciding to re-up our YMCA membership.  Out of the gyms we have belonged to over the past few years, the Y seems to be the best place to workout.  Mary can still swim and I can walk the indoor track upstairs while she does the elliptical.  I can ride the StarTrack bike that I really like and start lifting weights again.  Stress 3 gone.

The main stresses are gone.  So what's the hang up?  Will power.  Plain and simple, getting motivated once again.  I have found music that is motivating me.  Not just for writing music, but motivating me to want to work out and do better for myself.  It is called Epic Score.  What is that?  Think of a movie trailer.  The epic quality of the music to bring you to a fervor and excitement within 2 minutes time.  To show the grand vision of the film you will definitely want to see in the future.  There are so many who write this style of music, but my favorites are Jo Blankenburg, Two Steps From Hell (Nick Phoenix and Thomas Bergersen) and Jennifer Thomas.  There are many others out there under various labels like Brand X Music and Future World Music.

I need to bring another person into play here as well: CJ Ortiz - The Metal Motivator!   CJ has some of the best common sense motivational techniques I have ever heard.  No BS and nothing but truth in your face in a Heavy Metal way.  As he said this morning on his Facebook post "I'm just a guy with a camera and a keyboard" oh, but CJ, you're so much more than that.   I watch and read his posts all the time.  Most of the time, its just what I need to hear.

So, I'm packing up my phone with Epic Score today and getting ready to plant my feet on the ground and seek the relentless pursuit of getting this weight off of me and getting healthy again. I'm embedding some video below of some great pieces from the artists I've mentioned above and CJ Ortiz who resembles one of my favorite songs by Triumph, "Fight the good fight every moment!  Every minute, Everday!!!!!  Fight the good fight every moment, it's your only way!"

Rock On!

Jennifer Thomas





Two Steps From Hell








Jo Blankenburg





CJ Ortiz - The Metal Motivator

Monday, October 1, 2012

Day 26 - Struggling

26 days in... lots of ups and downs this month.  Not really any time to exercise. Feels like the only exercise that I have been getting is band practice and gigging.  Two shows this month, one more in two weeks. 

Setting up and breaking down is like a "last chance workout" on the Biggest Loser. 

Excuses, excuses and more excuses.  Blood sugar is up.  Way over where I'd like it to be.  Its time to see the doc and get that under control.  We are looking into joining the YMCA again, it's a little pricey, but I used that membership more than I have used the Winfit membership to our really small gym down the road.  

Knees are starting to get bad.  In fact, while loading equipment on Friday of last week, my left knee gave out and I banged the right one with my heavy keyboard case.  I've only lost a few pounds and I'm not feeling well at all.  

I'm whining and giving excuses, but that's where I'm at, at the moment.  Hopefully this week will be a turn around.  I have been eating healthier in the mornings and lunchtime. Bringing my lunch is key and it does save a lot of money. 

Fall is here and color is changing very fast and the month has flown by.  Seems like time is getting shorter and faster.  I took the shot above, last year in October, when the color started to change.  I loved the path walking out into the water with the reflection.  It was such a peaceful day and a happy one. 



As the old joke goes... break is over... back on my head. :)


Write more soon.

Namaste



328.1

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Day 6 - Wrapping Up and Moving On

Six days in.  Ups and downs.  Going on and going off.  This was a week of clearing the schedule of getting back on the "change".  Lunch out with the rep from Apex.  Partaking in a last breakfast at work for a while.  Finishing off dining during the week at the Egg'clectic Cafe for breakfast.  Getting a chance to see my awesome cousin, who I have not seen in 13 years!  Doing an outdoor gig at the Biker Bash in Durand, IL yesterday and stopping over at our singer Beth's house out in the country for a BBQ and really killer food that she prepared for us.  She was the hostess with the mostest yesterday.  Down 3 pounds to 327. 

This was a week of eeking out my schedule to clear the way for a total immersion into the next phase of the "change".  What do I mean by "change"?  There are  certain things you need to prepare for mentally and physically.  

  • Getting your mind clear and focused that you are not going to pick up just anything to eat anymore.  
  • Getting mentally prepared to start an exercise routine, slowly and work your way up.  Its a marathon, not the Biggest Loser.  
  • Reflecting and envisioning yourself as already at the desired weight that you want to be.  

You don't need to Bob-Harper-Shock your system.  I'm sorry, but there's just something dangerous about that whole thing to me.  Mind you, the transformations are amazing, but getting yelled at into submission is just not my cup of tea.  If its yours, knock your socks off, hire Dolvett and enjoy yourself.  It's inspiring to watch the Biggest Loser, but there are so many aspects of it that I just can't stand.  Here's a great way to change the series for lots of people, to make it more worthwhile and inspirational.  STOP SENDING PEOPLE HOME!  Why not keep them for the season, weigh them in at the end and give them the prize money at that time.  Do the sixteen weeks like you normally do and then send them all home to finish that last couple of months on their own.  Bring them back and weight them all in.  Give a 1st, 2nd and 3rd place monetary prize to them and leave it at that.  You will get a hell of a lot more people following the show.  Still do the challenges for items you've been giving away in the past.  Still put them in a situations where they have to work things out with one another.  Let it be inspirational.  When you do things for the greed and for the competition of pushing someone off of a show, it just teaches a society that it's okay to do those sort of things to one another.  It sets a bad precedent.  Reality shows that have elimination just scream volumes of what is wrong with society.  Okay... I digress.  I'm rambling about something other than what I'm doing.  

This week's agenda:

  1. Lunch brought with me everyday.  Meals contained to at least 500 calories without going over.
  2. Two 200 calorie or less snacks every day between meals.
  3. Lower sugar intake.  
  4. Test blood sugar every day again. 
  5. Start walking.  Not long distances, but something more than just walking with the guys to Dunkin Donuts for their afternoon or morning coffee.  A walk around the Des Plaines River trail and back to work if its not too ungodly hot out.  
  6. Start edging my way into getting up at 5 am.  If I can swing myself into this routine again, then I can exercise before I get ready in the morning.  What form of exercise?  Get Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2012 out again for the Kinect.  Its such and awesome XBox tool.  Biggest Loser is okay, but Bob screaming, "c'mon you overweight lover" ever 5 minutes is freaking annoying as all hell and the exercises aren't that well done.  YS:FE by Ubisoft is just a killer program but most of all, it's fun.
  7. Find time to meditate, journal and reflect.  
  8. Last but not least, bed by 9/9:30. 

Sounds like a lot, but its really not. The best thing I can do for myself is just be myself and not beat up on myself.  If it falls into line; great.  If it doesn't; pick myself up and have a character building day! (thanks Les Brown for that jewel)  Wish me luck folks!  I'm off and running. :)

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Day 1 - Hello


Hello. :)

I figured it's time to document my journey.  Whether it helps anyone or not, it's helping me to keep track of what I'm going through.  This first post may be long because I'm setting a precedent for myself.  I'm announcing my goals and what I want to accomplish and where I'd like to be in the next year.  I've always been a goal oriented person, going way back into my childhood.  However much I have tried to follow goal systems in the past, for some reason, they don't work for me as much as just following what I can to do track things and not stick to someone else's tools for me.  I set goals, I check in with where I am on a daily basis and that is what works for me.

Where to begin...

I love my life. I may not necessarily love myself at times, but I do love me life.  I have the most wonderful wife and two great step sons, who I consider to be my sons.  I think nothing makes me stronger than the love I feel from my family and the love I am able to give back to them.  While we battle with various aspects of life, persevere and come out triumphant every time, I never lose sight of the fact that we have a strong bond of love between us.  

In 1992, I began a journey of losing weight from my hefty frame of 335 pounds.  I succeeded in using Richard Simmons Deal-a-Meal diet along with his exercise routines from the various volumes of "Sweatin' to the Oldies".  While he is a great marketing legend and a lot of people (including himself) poke fun at him, he has helped millions of people get back in shape and lose the weight.  He helped me.  I'll post the article from my trek with Richard at the end of this post, so you can read and see some before and after pictures from that time period that appeared in his newsletter from 1995.  

I lost 135  pounds total and then made another 20 pound plunge from switching to a vegetarian lifestyle in 1994.   Which was a hard choice to make and eventually I made the switch back to omnivore in 1998, due to lack of quick foods for busy lifestyle at the time.  I was exercising every day.  Walking and hiking for double digit miles on the weekend and feeling the best I ever have in my life.  I had quit smoking in 1991 and dropped all the weight I had wanted to, by the middle of 1994.  I was 180 pounds.  This was WAY too skinny for my frame.  You could see my hip bones sticking out of my side while I stretched into size 34 jeans.  I eventually worked my weight back up to 195/200 pounds in 1995 and sat there comfortably till I got involved with a Blues Brother act named The Bruise Brothers in 1996 (but that's a story for another time).  I put on weight for the Bruise Brothers and rested at the 235/240 weight for the duration of performing.  I had picked up smoking again in 1995 after battling depression, divorce and getting into a scary car accident.  I was back on the road to destruction of my health once again.

In 1999, my body had a meltdown of sorts.  I had heart palpitations after performing in the BB act at a country club and bowed out of ever performing in this act ever again.  Since I was less active during the 1999 to 2003 years, I shot back up to 265 pounds.   I was lazy and falling back into old patterns.  I needed a drug of sorts, and it was food and wine.  I broke free for a while when I got hooked into a relationship that was probably more psychologically damaging than anything else.  I clung to something that wasn't there and tried to sugar coat it with the word "friendship" which all it was, was a spiral downward.  While spiraling, I realized that I wanted more for myself so I started to separate slowly from the source of the problem and cut drinking out (even though I was smoking again from the depression of the relationship).  

I decided to try dating again, but was not having any luck finding anyone that matched.  I was sent on blind dates by friends who were setting me up with nightmarish women.  I then decided to try Match.com.  Why?  Because I had friends who had great results with Match.  After a few failed dates, I let the account sit, until January of 2005.  That is when my wife-to-be had popped up in an email from Match's "best matches" email of the day.  We made contact and a short pause in the infancy of our emails to each other, we were off and dating.  I had never been with someone I have felt such a great connection with, in my life.  We married in 2006 and I have been extremely happy ever since.  At the time both of us smoked the same brand of cigarettes.  Our consumption was around 5 packs a day between us, depending on the day of the week and any stressful things that were occurring for us.  That was expensive and unhealthy.  We decided to quit in 2008 and have never looked back.  When we quit, the weight came on faster than we expected it too.  At the time I struggled between 255 and 265 with very little exercise.  Within a year I was up 60 pounds to 320.  A year later I was sitting at 380 pounds.  So uncomfortable that I hurt when I slept and I started to feel like I was having sleeping issues.  I couldn't even bend over to tie my shoes.  

In 2011 I was diagnosed with sleep apnea and have slept with a CPAP machine every night.  I have more energy in my body now than I've had in my life.  I have probably been this way since I was in my early twenties.  On the road to this diagnosis, I started to cut back on high glycemic foods in 2009 and lost down to 330 pounds where I stayed until September 2011 when I had a sever attack of GERD.  My doctor put me on Omeprazole and a strict diet of no caffeine, no soda, no citric acid and no sugar.  Not the easiest thing to give all that up in one pass, but I did.  Plus I needed to drop weight when I got the "pre-diabetes" diagnosis a month later.  We both got on the calorie counting bandwagon and started to walk more and workout more and drop the weight.  I got down to 299 pounds by February of 2012 and was on the right track when we all of a sudden, it came to a halt and I got off the diet.  I have since put the weight back on to 325 pounds and am not feeling well again.  My blood sugar has climbed, but is not serious yet.  

So here I am, ready to commit again, in a different way.  Ready to get healthy and bring myself back into balance.  This time I'm ready.  It was like the smoking cessation that we did back in 2008.  It was time.  You just get fed up.  Case in point, Labor Day 2012.  My beautiful wife and I, decided to go on a little spontaneous trip after we ate lunch.  We ended up at the beach in Winnetka off of Tower Rd.  We parked at the top of the hill and walked down the stairs to the bottom and onto the beach.  When we got there, we walked in the sand to the water and stood there enjoying the waves and the cold water as it lapped at our feet.  The walk through the sand was strenuous for me. I was out of breath and my heart was racing.  When we finished, we had to walk through the sand but the worst part was coming up before us; the long winding walk up the stairs to the car.  I had to pause and catch my breath and slow down my heart rate at least 3 times before we reached the car.  I hadn't felt that out of control and sad in a very long time, about my weight, body and situation.  I sat there the rest of the day and fed upon it by eating too much and then having a few glasses of wine.  I just wanted to numb out and forget what was happening to me.  Why had I let this happen to me?  All I need to do is to bring in my lunch, starting eating healthier and stop all the bullshit eating that I've been doing.  "Put down the fork Dave!" is all I keep hearing in my mind.  The day I write this, is the day after Labor Day.  I got up this morning and shook it off and said, "enough of this."  Its now the time to go there. Its now the time to put together my manifesto for a healthier life.  

I want to live.  Standing at the beach yesterday it hit me.  I want to go on journeys with my wife, where we can hike in the mountains, run the beaches of the world, enjoy the nightlife, dance, swim, run and just enjoy life with each other.  That's what I want for us.  To be happy and healthy and loving life and to share adventures together.  So I am taking these first steps of the equation for myself.  Putting the fork down and turning to taking care of my diet so that I can get this weight off and be healthy one again. 

Join me on this journey.  I'll share some funny stories from my past to my present that cater from food stories, to woes in the gym, to some philosophical diatribes that I might have reeling around inside my head.  I do have deep thoughts from time to time, so now is the time to share them.  

On all my forums, social sites, music sites and profile pages I've always had this description of who I am.  "I'm a programmer by day; family man, musician, writer, artist, photographer and videographer by night."  Now is the time to add something to that mix.  "I'm a healthy person who is a programmer by day...."  This is where my mindset needs to change.

Namaste
Dave


Richard Simmons Newsletter from 1995