Hey folks, I just wanted to give an update that another wave of “I need to get my health in check” came crashing into me yesterday. No real health scare, but I know I need to take the bull by the horn on me losing weight, etc. So; I went to see the doctor and of course – nothing to report. Everything is the same and I spent $42 for him to tell me that – awesome!

When I got back home, I did feel the need to create a “Health” calendar in Google and really map out what I should be doing to lose  half a pound a week (that’s the healthy weight loss number). I’m currently 5′ 11″ weighing 240lbs. My goal is to be 6′ 2″ weighing only 210lbs. Well I might not reach the 6′ 2″ goal, but getting to the low two hundreds is very doable. With my crazy, responsible life, my only forms of exercise are the Tae Bo DVDs I bought a number of years ago and walking/running around my neighborhood.

My schedule is to do Tae Bo everyday except Sunday and Wednesday. Also; to walk three times a week. That’s been my goal since a couple months ago. So; I thought I’d take care of that one (it’s about time!). Besides that, I can walk instead of taking the elevator, campus shuttle, etc.

Eating Healthier

I am pretty proud that we haven’t had any startch in our dinner for about a week or two. It’s been more vegetables and we’re trying to ride that wave. The veggies are fresh – meaning it increases the prep time, but it tastes so much better.

I’m not certain where I am on the health train, traveling in Atlanta. My first week’s goal was to establish a walking routine. I actually snickered while I wrote it down, thinking, “This is easy, how can I mess this up.” As of date, I’m still not consistent with exercising. One would think it was easy, but I’ve proven to myself that I need to put more effort into it. I think since I’ve started I’ve walked 3 times and did Tae Bo 3 times. It’s been a couple of weeks so that’s not going to work.

Zombified

On another note, I got some high-blood pressure pills from my doctor. They do have one side effect, which is causing me to walk the earth among other zombies! This pill is making me more drowsy than I normally am, so I called my doctor (to my surprise I was actually able to talk to him) and he told me to stay off the pills for 3 days and see if my symptoms change. This is day two off the pills and I already don’t feel as drowsy.

I’m normally tired at the end of the day and drop asleep around 21:30. Some times I go to sleep with the kids at 20:00, but while taking those pills last week, I was dozing off around 19:00. It affected my work, I noticed that I was being as productive. I think it was in the middle of the week that I associated it with my new high-blood-pressure-controlling/blood-thinning drug.

Eating

“Eating healthy is hard!” There I said it! The concept is easy, but putting it into action has proven to be more difficult than I expected. My whole life, I’ve eaten like a Jamaican – lots of startch, heavy on the meat, and “what the hell are vegetables doing here!?” So; my biggest challenge is eating the proper portions. The trick is with eating proportional meals, I have to have snacks in between and I’ve noticed that a lot of snack ideas are NOT appealing to me. How many times am I going to comsume assorted nuts!?  Oh well; I’m officially 240 lbs, so I need to get that weight down and the key, for me, is eating the proper proportions and exercising.  Time to get myself back on track.

It’s about time I took my health into my hands and work on habits that will keep me around for a much longer time. I already made some changes, but now my dad is really concerned and checking up on me daily. I can credit that to social media. I posted a status update on Facebook the other day about my eyes being blurrier than normal and he caught whim of that. We have high blood pressure (HBP) in our family and my parents, my brother and I have it as well. My brother and I are straddling Stage 1. Lucky for me, I work at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and last year or so, I took a “Mastering Weight Management” course. It was eye-opening to me and I never looked at my diet in the same light again.

So; what do I do now!? I have a binder from that weight management course, which breaks their lessons down into weeks – so I’m going to start there. Yesterday; I started a food log, so I know what I’m eating and what to change, and I started an exercise program. Nothing big, it’s just walking for 15 minutes (5 min warm-up, 5 min of brisk walking/jogging, and 5 min of cool down). The goal is to make sure I can schedule at least 3 walking sessions a week – after I get more comfortable with walking I can increase the intensity of the exercise, etc.

My Own Electronic Medical Record

I’m using Google Docs to keep track of my health data. The course, suggested I keep track of the foods I’m eating, some realistic goals, and my weight. I’ve added a few more worksheets because of my HBP. I usually don’t have a problem sharing my personal information with the Internet, but for some reason… this day-to-day data of my personal habits seems a bit more valuable than “status updates” and “blog entries”. Here’s a general overview of the worksheets though:

• Overview (dashboard)
  I’ll put fancy pie charts of each worksheet here.
• Goals (goal, type of goal, due date, date accomplished)
  Make sure your goals are realistic. Also it’s best to start out with goals you can reach by the end of the week and then work your way to monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, and annual goals.
• Food Log (date, time, food item, amount, food type, location, audience, mood, hunger level, notes)
• Blood Pressure (date, time, systolic, diastolic, pressure category)
• Exercise (date, start time, end time, duration, type of exercise)
  Note that any exercise is good, but it’s also good to get some light weights into your pattern. Lifting weights helps to burn fat that walking or jogging alone can’t do.
• Weight (date, time, weight, difference)
  This should be done on a weekly basis. It’s too stressful, on your mind, to weigh yourself daily, weight fluctuates too often. When you do weigh yourself, though, make sure you weigh in at the same time as you did last week.

BMI… You Liar!

The next thing on my list is to make an appointment with my personal physician, even though I haven’t seen him in over a year. The last time I saw him, he gave me some sample drugs that should help lower blood pressure and he suggested I lose some weight. I started taking the pills, but I haven’t lost much weight – so I avoided him after that. My body mass index (BMI) states that I’m in the obese category. Compared to the average obese individual [pictures], in America, I’m far from obese, but according to my height and weight – I should be 178 lbs. Yah, I’m about 235 lbs – big difference. I got a lot of work. Personally; with my muscle mass, I think 190-200 lbs would be ideal.

In the end I really hope I can make this habitual change stick. I noticed that I take care of everyone else (wife, kids, work, business, etc), but I don’t look out for myself. It’s about time I became a little selfish (in that area). For the record, I am selfish in other areas, but who isn’t!? Let me know what you think about the way that I’m going about changing my health. Are you in the same boat? Are you and BMI friends?