Getting a Life: "From Couch to Competition"

Training Note: A gorgeous Iowa Sunset invites me to get to the walk/run routine I began this week. Running is a bit more difficult than I thought it would be. The one sport I did well at was running - like twenty years ago!  From everything I am reading and hearing from others - patience is a key. Problem is, I am to patience what Attila the Hun is to Mother Theresa. Note to self: I need to find a decent running surface for training. It's all concrete and paved roads around here. The soreness in my gluts, and the ghost of shin splints past are telling me to take it slow. I've added the running this past week. Five days in a row. Feeling okay - but need to add this training slowly.

Off the Couch Note: Habits

At the very beginning of this journey, I had to break an incredibly bad habit. I was more of a computer potato than a couch potato. But - sitting was the major part of my life. When I first began to respond to the huge wake up
call from Dr. R, I struggled to get to the gym for the cardio and resistance training. Excuses began to multiply like last summer's Japanese Beetles. But, I did drag myself to the gym. Sometimes moaning and groaning. I had heard from a
friend that it takes six to eight weeks to build a new habit. The old habit of sitting was screaming and kicking as a new habit of exercise was emerging.

 Then it happened! Sure enough it was about six weeks. My work schedule schedule made it difficult
to maintain the new routine - and I was really irritable. The new habit had evicted the old. Mark it down - drag, bribe, scold, cajole, and do whatever it takes to get into a new routine of exercise. Do it for six to eight weeks and
you will have it knocked!  Promise yourself a great reward - a cruise, a night on the town - whatever. I promise you, however, that when the new habit kicks in, you will  feel so much better that the reward will be the
beginnings of your new lifestyle.

The Good News?

March 11, 2003. I'm up bright and early to head for nuclear medicine for a heart scan. The cardiologist will meet with me afterward to plan for what comes next. The treadmill during this test is more difficult than it was the first time and I'm hoping for maybe a single or double bypass instead of a triple or quadruple. "Damn," I'm thinking, "Wish I'd never spent those weeks during clinical training in the coronary care unit." I'd watched open heart surgery and even though it went just fine most times, there were those hairy cardiac arrests. Not fun.

Dr. R. comes to see me after the results were available. Is that a smile on his face? Dr. R. doesn't smile all that much. "Your blood flow is...." (Totally plugged?  Barely functioning? Absolutely horrible?) I'm down to that fox hole kind of, "God, get me through this and I will..."

"Normal!"

Normal? For real? Yup. The good news was that I was just another totally out of shape, short of breath, lucky couch potato. A little diabetes, a little high blood pressure, a little cholesterol elevation - but no open heart surgery in the immediate future. Dr. R says, "Go, go enjoy the rest of your life and... get off your butt!"  Dr. R. is a nice guy, but I never felt so good saying to someone, "Thank you very much, but I hope to never see you
again in my life!"

I had already started the Dean Ornish strict diet regimen along with some daily walking. One of the key complaints about the Ornish program is that his diet is so strict people can't stay on it. But I discovered something about eating that made a big difference. The plan wasn't that hard for me and there are a few principles that made the difference. Next time - "It's not about dieting or eating..."

See these two guys?

The guy on the left weighed in at 222 lbs, was seriously out of breath after walking 50 yards from the parking lot to an office on the second floor, had mild chest pain most every night, and was thinking about who to give his favorite rocking chair to when check out time came. (He figured within a year or so.) The guy on the right weighs 172, lost 65 lbs of fat, gained 15 in muscle, does cardio six days a week, weight training three or four days, and just got back from the shoe store with stuff to begin training for a sprint triathlon next spring. The two guys are technically the same guy. In actuality they are not the same guy at all. More about that later - but first let me tell you...

After putting it off for months, I found myself in my cardiologist’s office waiting for him to tell me the results of my stress test. No smile on his face when he said, “You have some changes in your heart wall during stress.” (I’m waiting for, “We’re headed for the cath lab,” and making plans to call a physician friend at Mayo for a heart surgeon recommendation). RING!The wake up call. But wait... I have a seven year old daughter. I'm an older dad and I want to dance at her wedding. And - I don't want her getting married at age twelve! Next post - what I wasn't expecting.