What Happened?

Well marathon training was going great, I was down 25 pounds for the year, and I was fully on track and then I got sick. It was a weird sickness that involved a lot of GI distress, sore throats, mouth sores, and a general run down feeling. So I took some time off. I just started to feel better when we took Gunnar off to college and when I got there the symptoms all returned. I put it down to the altitude and the dry polluted air of Utah Valley. So I got through vacation and returned back to Minnesota feeling okay.

Once back all the symptoms hit me again but I wasn’t too worried because I still had enough time to recover enough for the marathon (though it would have been a slow jog now). Plus I was seeing my Doctor in a few weeks anyways. But the symptoms only got worse and any running was out of the question. I had been sick for over 9 weeks, not enough to warrant a trip to the Doctor, but enough to eliminate any chance of doing a marathon. So that money was gone

Plus I always tried to be 80% compliant on my diet, which coupled with exercise made me okay on my goals. That would mean okay lipid profile and I would gradually lose weight. The reality was about 50% compliant and without exercise I started to put the weight back on; not all of it but a little over half. As any knowledgeable fitness trainer will tell you, you cannot out exercise a bad diet (at least if you are not a teenager). Without control of my diet I was doomed to fail.

Finally after eight weeks of being sick and not eating well I was a mess again. It was then Lisa suggested that my illness started three weeks after starting the new medication. OMG!! I am so stupid given my history of getting side effects from medication. So I hit the internet and looked up the side effects for my pill and found out every one of my symptoms were listed right there. More worrisome was the really severe one that I was just beginning to develop. That one would have taken a year to recover from.

So I immediately stop taking the pill and decided right there and then, medication was never going to offer me an easy way out. I just had to accept my lot in life and just plain eat right and exercise, no excuses. I know if I would simply do that my problems would fix themselves. So in I went for my lipid profile and check up form my Doctor and as expected my results were terrible.

Total Cholesterol 250

LDL Unable to measure

HDL 25

Triglycerides 2100

Blood Pressure 160/100

Weight 250 pounds

I was a mess as expected and my Doctor immediately wanted to put me on a couple of new medications. But I asked for 1 month. Give me one month to just eat right and exercise. If I can show improvement for those 4 weeks I could stay off the pills, because the meds just screw me up. So I began with my diet and I was 100% compliant for all 4 weeks. Essentially I am extremely low carb. In simple terms, carbohydrates are transported by triglycerides within the body and that will cause you to store them as body fat and increased cholesterol. As I said this is a lot more complex process, but the basic premise is less carbohydrates equals less triglycerides. I have a condition referred to as Metabolic Disorder (aka Syndrome X) which greatly exacerbates this process.

I mainly just worried about diet compliance for the month with only occasional walks with the dog on the weekends. After the first week all my symptoms from the previous pill had finally cleared up, finishing with a nasty mouth sore at the base of my tongue. So let’s jump to my four week results:

Total Cholesterol 169

LDL 71

HDL 30

Triglycerides 339

Blood Pressure 137/82

Weight 240 pounds

The first thing I said to my Doctor was “Tell me how awesome I am”. And He Did. It was one of the most significant one month improvements he has ever seen and he has given me his approval for another four months. He says he wishes all his patients would just eat right and exercise, it would eliminate most problems. Now I still have room for improvement and my goals for the next four months are to drop another 40 pounds. This should help get my blood pressure where it needs to be. Plus I would like to get my triglycerides below 200 and this coupled with exercise should allow my HDL to climb back up to healthier levels.

So this means 120 days of eating clean – 100% compliant through all the holidays. So far I made it through Halloween with out an issue. I find the longer I am on clean eating the easier it becomes, so that is one good thing. Plus I plan on getting more exercise now that I feel much better. This means more walking and eventually running again. I am also setting up my bike trainer again for watching TV. Most importantly though, I am going to make an honest effort at the P90X. I have flirted with it before, but without the clean diet. This time Tony and me are going to do it right.

So I will probably post some photos soon. I have some from my really heavy days at 262 pounds, and I will get some of me at my current 240 pounds. Then I will try to get one a week for progress. It could get ugly; at least that is where we are starting.