Recently I took a survey of my property
with the intention of making a list of all the unfinished projects I have to
do. We moved to this property in 1986 and some of the projects date clear back
to the time we moved in. I had a heart attack in January 2004 and have not
really worked since then, but my list of unfinished jobs has continued to
multiply. It has become clear to me that
one thing I am good at is procrastination. However procrastination can be
overcome with focused effort.
I finally accomplished a goal I had for a
number of years, but that is all a matter of perspective. In 2003 I decided I
needed to lose one hundred and thirty pounds. It went fine till January 2004
when I had the big one. I had lost ninety pounds. I was forty pounds short of
my goal, having gone from three hundred fifty pounds down to two hundred sixty
which is when I stopped dieting till, Easter of 2018. At that point I had found
all the weight I had lost and was back at three hundred fifty. Pretty sad
situation if you think about it. However because of a series of health crisis
in my life over that long period of time I decided I needed to continue to my
original goal, even if for different reasons.
The original reason I was losing weight was
that I wanted to start skydiving again. It was something I did when I was in
the Army and I was a licensed instructor. The reason for the specific amount of
weight was because of limitations on the equipment. You can weight more than that jumping on your
own and with the proper equipment. The equipment for most instruction centers
however was based on a weight limit of the student, instructor and equipment.
The total weight was determined with the goal and size canopy to slow you to a
safe landing speed.
Since starting my new diet at Easter of 2018
I have lost fifty pounds. With the ninety pounds I lost before my heart attack,
I have lost a total of one hundred and forty pounds. That is ten pounds more
than my original goal, but still eighty pounds short of my original goal thanks
to all the weight I gained back. My purpose has changed though. Now I am doing
it purely for the health benefit. I may still jump if I feel in proper
condition when I get to the desired weight, but jumping is no longer the goal.
Being a Type II diabetic, and Agent Orange recipient and Heart Attack survivor
who was technically dead twice. Just
staying alive is my goal now.
When I was losing weight the first time I
was an over the road truck driver. I did all my own unloading, walked forty
minutes every day and very carefully monitored my diet. Yet I had a heart
attack. It is with a little bit of trepidation that I approach my original low
weight of two hundred and sixty pounds. The condition I am in I could die
before I get out of this chair, but I believe the health benefits are worth it.
A year ago walking in and of itself was a challenge. There are five steps up to
the porch to get into my house. A year ago getting up them left me winded and
totally out of energy.
Once a month I carry in three five gallon
bottles of water and four forty pound bags of salt for the water conditioner. A
year ago I carried a bottle from my van to the porch, stop and get my breath,
carry it to the kitchen, stop and get my breath then finally to where we store
them in the back room. After that I would have to take a ten minute break and
go through the same cycle till I managed to get it all in the house. At this
point in time I can make two can complete trips without stopping three times to
catch my breath on each trip. I could probably do all of them without stopping.
I may as time goes on be able too, but I
am more into enjoying the improvement in the quality of my life. My diabetes
doctor told me if I lose another twenty pounds or so, she may be able to take
me off of the insulin I take for my diabetes. Not bad for a seventy-two year
old who takes care of his twin six year old great-grand-daughters, eleven hours
a day, five days of a week.
Yesterday my fifty-eight year old
brother-in-law passed away from a bad lung infection. I was fifty-seven when I
had my heart attack, so it reminded me I am not going to live forever and I
need to add these few pieces of diet advice that I have accumulated over the
years that helped me and might help someone else.
My youngest daughter, Glenda, who taught me
“The Way Down Diet” taught me a few other pieces of trivia that might help others.
When you get in a serious diet mode you will plan your meals and done right it
can really make dieting almost fun as you try new recipes and foods that you
might not normally eat. On Pinterest I
have a board with healthy meals. Pinterest is a very good place to find
some fascinating and different meals. Just type in what you are interested in
eating or preparing and hundreds of menus will come up. Some are very simple
and some are very complex. You get to choose the one you like and put it on
your board, or create a board for the things you like.
Glenda taught me what she called glycemic
dieting. It is based on eating foods that have a very low glycemic number and
are usually ones that have a lot of fiber. The good thing about these foods is
that they require more calories from your body to digest them than they put in
your body to start with. A few examples are cabbage, lettuce, carrots, onions,
asparagus, broccoli and peanuts. Putting some of these in almost every meal
helps lose weight by forcing your body to provide the calories to digest them.
As I said in one of my earlier posts, it is
not a matter of calories in and calories out.
All calories are not the same. I think the most important thing is not
so much what you eat but how much you eat. As I slowly adapt to the diet and
cutting down on the portion sizes. Your meal size slowly shrinks, and so do
you. It is funny the first time you go to one of the old fashion carry in
dinners and find out you are full and can’t even sample all the wonderful food.
Over time your stomach’s capacity shrinks.
Once I discovered I could lose the weight,
I realized losing weight was not the only problem. I know I have a heart condition. A big part of it is from eating foods that
are not really good for you. Foods that
clog your arteries by creating plaque can be eliminated from our diets. I
discovered that over time a lot of the damage we do can be reversed or at least
slowed down. There is a link that lists fifteen heart
healthy foods. Adding these foods to your diet and even
planning your diet around them can really make a difference in the way you feel
and what you can physically do.
One of my favorite diet advice blogs is on
YouTube and the title is “Butter Makes Your Pants Fall Off.” The blog is a little
hard to watch because he hardly ever looks at the camera. He does make it clear
though that many of the concepts we believe about food and dieting are totally
wrong. The diet he is advocating is called a KETO diet and is a high fat, high
protein, low carb diet and it is a way of dieting that definitely works. It is similar to some of the more popular
diets like the South Beach Diet and the Atkins Diet, however, he is not trying
to sell you anything. He simply advises you on how the diet works.
This will be my
last diet post till I reach 250 pounds.
At the pace I have been losing at that may be about eight or ten months
from now. When I started dieting it was
a goal oriented program. While I still
have goals I would like to accomplish my reason has changed. It has become a lifestyle and is no longer
really a diet, but a new way of living my life and hopefully making it a lot
more enjoyable.
Questions and
comments on my post are always more than welcome, thanks for reading and hope
to share with you how I am doing down the road. If I reach my ultimate goal I
will have lost over 265 pounds, thanks to my detour in route. In closing I will
only say this. “Diets Work,” The secret is having the willpower and
determination to follow the diet. I take a few days off every month, but I am
learning as I become better at planning my meals I really like the things I eat
and no longer desire the carbs. My one compromise is pizza. I do it a little different
though. I order it with double toppings
and extra cheese, then I scrape it off the crust and just eat all the protein
and fat.
