August 5, 2012: Week 23 Photo and Day 4 of 30

Week 23, 181.2 pounds, 41.8 pounds lost to date

8/5/2012: Day 4 of 30
Weight: 181.2
Today's calorie count: 1183
Morning exercise: 60 minute jog - 4.9 miles
Evening exercise: 15 minutes at level 7 on the elliptical machine - 1900 strides
Alcohol consumption: None
Younger Next Year Pages Read:  20
Notes from book:
Now things get a little technical.  This book is written by two people, Dr. Henry S Lodge and one of his patients Chris Crowley.  Chris provides the anecdotal, apply the science to every day life, chapters and Dr. Henry provides the details behind the science of health chapters.  The result is a book that is as fascinating as it is easy to read.  The science behind why we should exercise every day is amazingly compelling.  After reading this book you will never be able to be idle for days on end again without knowing, deep down, in your heart of hearts, that your body is just hiss-bumping its way to decay and you could be doing something to prevent it.  That's just it...you can do something to prevent (for the most part) this uncomfortable, painful, seemingly irreversible thing we call aging.  Not prevent, completely, as the book points out, but if you are like most of us, you can get noticeably younger over the next few years and then level out and be much fitter, healthier and younger than you are right now into your 70s, 80s, and 90s.  As Chris points out, our hair will still go gray and our skin will still wrinkle, so we will still look old, but we will not feel old.  If we start doing what we need to do today, and everyday from here on out, we can be climbing mountains at 80.  And that is exactly what I intend to do.

Speaking of the difference between looking old and feeling old, I'd like to tell you a little story.  Last week I saw a friend that I had not seen for a month and she said, "Wow, you look great!  How much weight have you lost?"  I told her that I had lost 40 pounds and still have 34 to go.  (I don't know why, but I always do that when someone asks me how much weight I've lost.  I always tell them how much I lost and how much is left to get to goal.  Maybe it's just to remind myself that this is a process.)  My friend's response was, "Are you sure you need to lose that much more weight?"  And I answered with the fact that I still weigh 184 pounds, which to me is self-explanatory.  And she said, "Well, yes, but if you lose that much more weight aren't you afraid you will look older in your face, maybe get more wrinkly?"

I sat there for a second, kind of surprised by the question and wondering what the answer to it was.  And then, the answer was there.  I told my friend that my goal is to climb mountains when I'm 80 and my face isn't going to get me up any mountains, my body is.  She was a little surprised by my answer, but she got it.  Immediately.  I really don't care if my face is wrinkly, I care about how I feel and what I can physically do and accomplish.  Wrinkles, schminkles! 

So I started out by saying this chapter of the book gets a little complicated, and it does.  Dr. Henry starts talking about the chemicals in your body that are in charge of regulating the cycle of growth and decay.  Apparently there are thousands of these chemicals, but he simplifies the story by talking about two of the primary players that he calls Cytokine-6 (C-6) and Cytokine-10 (C-10);  C-6 is the master chemical for inflammation (decay) and C-10 is the master chemical for repair and growth.  Dr. Henry explains that the 60-70 pounds of muscles in our bodies are the store houses for C-6 and C-10.  When we exercise our muscles automatically release C-6, which causes the soreness in our muscles.  After exercise, our muscles release C-10 to begin the process of rebuilding our muscles.  The amazing part of the story is that our blood is flowing through our muscles and picking up the C-10 and washing our entire bodies with this rejuvanating chemical that causes growth and regeneration of healthy cells and tissues.  Obviously, Dr. Henry does a much better job of describing this process than I do and I am not going to quote the entire chapter, but suffice it to say that when I was at the gym this morning and I found my weight lifting to be particularly difficult, I was happy about that.  Because I knew I was stressing my muscles, causing my body to release C-6, which would in turn cause it to release C-10, and that I would be younger tomorrow than I am today.  Yes, that does make me feel good.

Dr. Henry also talks about the difference between the stress of exercise (or of hunting or being hunted) and the chronic stress of modern life, and how these same chemicals, C-6 and C-10 work differently under chronic stress, particularly when combined with our modern diets.  To make it easy, I will quote those short paragraphs of the book:

In nature, chronic stress is always coupled with starvation.  The blood is caustic, but carries no fat.  In the wild, there is no cholesterol to be absorbed.  You are under chronic stress because you are starving to death.

C-6 draws white blood cells right into the wall of your arteries, and when you combine chronic stress with our rotten diet, the white cells turn into vacuum cleaners sucking fat out of your bloodstream.  They grow to obscene proportions.  They absorb so much fat that the actual cellular machinery of your arterial walls become invisible, buried under a mountain of goop.  We don't even call them white blood cells anymore; we call them foam cells.  In a renovation project run amok, the walls of your blood vessels fill up with all the junk of random demolition, held fast in a glue of fat and cholesterol.  Over decades, this turns into the stuff called plaque, and plaque kills at least half of us.

I can't begin to convey the book's message as well as the authors have done, so I definitely recommend reading the book.  It is enlightening, convincing, and inspirational.  Dr. Henry is very convincing when he makes the claim that vigorous, daily exercise is the only signal that you can send to your body that life is good.  Repair thyself, body, send out the C-10.  Life is good, game is abundant, and I need to be strong to be ready for the hunt tomorrow!!!!

August 4, 2012: Day 3 of 30

As I was laying in bed at about 6:30 on this Saturday morning, I was not excited about getting up and exercising first thing.  I like lazy mornings on the weekend, spent in my pjs, drinking coffee.  I usually balance the checkbooks, pay the bills, update my blog, water my garden, read the comics, and just let myself ease into my day.  Jack and I have different sleep schedules.  I'm a morning person.  During the week I'm usually in bed by 9:15 and wake up at 4:20 so I have plenty of time to exercise and have a leisurely breakfast before work.  On weekends, sleeping in means getting up at 6:30 or 7:00.  Jack, on the other hand, is a night owl and usually stays up until about 11:00 on weekdays and gets up at about 6:20 - 6:30.  So when he sleeps in on weekends, he doesn't get up until about 9:00.  I really enjoy those couple of hours when the house is asleep. I enjoy the quiet and solitude of the morning.  Using up one of those hours exercising is not part of my master plan.  On most weekends, I work my exercise into the middle of the day, but today I knew I couldn't do that.  I was scheduled to meet someone for an hour at 11:00am, and Jack and I had things to do this afternoon, so if I wanted to make sure I exercised today, I knew I needed to do it first thing. 

So, I'm laying there, not very excited about getting up and exercising, and I started to think about riding my bike.  Remember?  Jeremy suggested I substitute one of my runs each week with a bike ride.  As I lay there, with my legs not looking forward to the pounding they get when I run, I started thinking about riding my bike.  I like cycling but I have not been on my bike for a year, not since we got back from our 500 mile bike ride last summer.  I've actually felt guilty about the fact that I haven't ridden for over a year.  My neglected bike was just hanging there, on the wall of the garage, with two completely flat, deflated tires.  Poor Blacky.  I've felt bad for months that my bike was hanging sadly in the garage, covered with dust.

As I thought about riding my bike, I started to get excited about it.  I knew I had lost enough weight that my old cycling jerseys and shorts would fit.  That's nice.  I knew it would feel good to be back in the saddle.  As I lay there, I started wanting to get up so I could ride my bike.

I got out of bed before 7:00, put on one of my cute cycling jerseys from my first AIDS Lifecycle ride, and had a little snack.  Then I aired up Blacky's tires and away we went.  I had no pump or tire irons (I gave them to Carla), I had a crappy helmet (I gave my good one to Carla) that I forgot to put on, I left my cell phone on the kitchen counter charging; but off I went.  And it did feel good.  With the first few pumps of my legs my bike came to life under me and we were off.  I do enjoying cycling.  It is the only exercise I do that I truly enjoy.  It's not a chore, it's more like play.  But today, it was work.  I cannot believe how sore my rear is after just a 15 mile ride.  And my lower back.  Wow, a totally different set muscles got worked today.  And just think, a year ago I rode my bike 500 miles with virtually no pain (aside from a saddle sore - a completely different ouch, believe me!).  I was happy to be on my bike again.  I am looking forward to weekly bike rides and getting a little stronger each week.  I am stunned by how sore I am right now.  Yes, it is a good thing to be riding again.

Here are the details from day 3 of the 30 day plan:

8/4/2012: Day 3 of 30
Weight: 182.0
"Younger Next Year" pages read: 23

Notes from book (quotes or very near quotes are in italics):
It is important to understand that in relatively recent history humankind has undergone a profound shift in the way the world works. We have luxuries and choices in our modern lives that have no parallel in our ancient biology. As Dr. Harry Lodge puts it, "We simply stood up and walked out of nature." Most of us are not likely to face starvation. We are not hunting or hunted. Life is no longer a razor-thin line between famine and plenty. Instead, The great problem of our time is excess, overindulgence, and idleness.

Our minds don't know how to "read" this plenty, and we eat ourselves to death. Our bodies don't know how to "read" the absence of danger, the absence of the need to hunt and gather - the idleness, and we soften to death. We have adopted a lifestyle which is nothing less than disease. We may live longer because of modern medicine, but we live with a lot of pain and many of us die younger than we have to. "Younger Next Year" teaches us how to cure ourselves so that we do not need to live in unnecessary pain and die prematurely. Who wouldn't want to learn how to do that?

Step one of the cure is to stimulate a little of life in the survivalist world. Everything you do physically, everything you eat, everything you think, and feel, every emotion and experience changes your body and your brain in physical ways that were set in stone millions of years ago. Physical exercise and involvement in life trigger great waves of "grow" messages throughout your body and mind. Exercise is the only way to engage your body and your physical brain, but if you do it, you will get younger.  The catch?  You must exercise almost every day.  That leads us to Harry's First Rule - Exercise 6 days a week.

Exercise is magic. It gives you the strength, the optimism, the flexibility to do the rest. It is the amulet you squeeze in your palm to change yourself from the apathetic, crippled and exhausted creature you might otherwise become into something quite different. Someone transformed.

If we want to be younger next year, if we want to live a vibrant, healthy life well into our eighties and nineties, if we want to live large until we die, then we must stop the inevitable decay that comes from inaction.  We must exercise, vigorously, six days a week.  Exercise is the only signal we can send to our bodies that life is good.  When life is good we replace old cells with strong, young, healthy cells.  When life is good our bodies trigger growth - the opposite of decay.  You see, it's easy.  I can choose growth or I can choose decay.  I can choose health or I can choose disease.  It as simple as choosing to exercise or choosing to sit on the couch.  I, and only I, get to decide which one I would rather do...every single day for the rest of my life.

Exercise must be a habit.  It's way too hard to do it consistently if I have to decide all over again, every day, that I am going to exercise.  It must be part of my routine and, therefore; there must be a schedule.  My schedule is to get up every morning between 4:20 and 4:30 and exercise before I do anything else.  That works for me because my mornings are my time.  No one can take my mornings away...no one wants to at 4:20 in the morning.  They are all asleep!  Evenings are much harder for me because so much can happen that can make my evenings slip away from me.  Weekends are different, as I mentioned above, I tend to exercise in the early afternoons on the weekends, so I can have my mornings to myself.  But during the week, I'm like clockwork, getting up every morning to head to the gym or jog through the neighborhood.

And you must do it six times a week.  Chris, Dr. Harry Lodge's co-author, tells us to take the time to get psyched up about this before we start.  Don't ease into it.  That doesn't work.  Think hard about making this monumental change in your life, get yourself psyched up, commit to the program, and then start it with as much fanfare as possible.  Announce it to the world.  Celebrate!  Throw a party!  Make a splash about the fact that you are not only stopping your body's decay in its tracks, but you are reversing that decay and about to embark on a growth spurt.  Be bold and go for it.  You can do this, but first, you have to decide to do it.

I read Younger Next Year for the first time last summer.  I thought I would jump right into the program, but the fact is I spent a long time thinking about it before I finally jumped in, head first, on February 27th, 2012.  But that whole time, between June of 2011 and February of 2012, I was thinking about it.  I knew I needed to do this.  Since the moment I picked up Harry and Chris' book I never thought of not exercising the same way again.  I knew, soon, being idle had to be a thing of the past.  I am so grateful that I was able to finally make that commitment 23 weeks ago!!

Today's calorie count: 1411

Morning exercise: 70 minute bike ride - 15 miles
Evening exercise: 15 minutes at level 7 on the stairmaster - 64 floors
Alcohol consumption: None

Day 3 - Going strong.

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August 3, 2012: Day 2 of 30 - updated on 8/4/12

Today started out well with a vigorous workout with Jeremy.  It really helps that he reads my blog, because he knew that I was very concerned about this transition and that I was taking extra measures to stay on track for this next month.  In response to that, he was thoughtful about recommending changes to my routine on cardio days.  I'll still run one day a week, one day a week I will ride my bike (which I have not been on for a year, yet he knows how much I enjoy cycling), and one day a week I will do a combination of rowing, stationary cycling, and stair machine, with 10 minutes of ab work thrown in for good measure.  Ruth has also advised switching up the types of exercise on cardio days, so I feel good about these changes.  After my workout yesterday morning and with my new exercise plan in hand for the month, I felt strong, invigorated, and ready to attack my day with Gusto.

All was well until I got to work.  The hard part of telling everyone that I am leaving is over, so that's good, but now my job is a lot like being in a lame duck session in congress.  I have thoughts, ideas, and concerns with regards to how things should be done, but those thoughts are not particularly important to anyone anymore.  Hmmm...I wonder why?  I also don't have a lot of tasks that need to be completed before I leave.  There are definitely things to do, but it is not like I am going to actually be busy.  Add to the idleness the awkward conversations I am having with fellow VPs that are a little disappointed in my decision to leave and my anxiousness about my new job, and you have the perfect formula for me wanting to comfort myself with food.  In fact, I had an almost desperate desire to eat all day, or at least all afternoon. Many, many times I wanted to pick up a handful of this or a handful of that (there was snack mix in the break room...and at one point someone left a couple of candy bars on the break room table that I could hear screaming my name all the way from my office) and just stuff it in my mouth.  But then I would think, "Ugh, I'd have to calculate the calories for that.  No, don't do it.  It's not worth it.  You have a 30 day plan, just stick to it.  Come on, Roberta, you know that you can do anything you put your mind to for 30 days.  It's only 30 days.  You're fine.  You don't need that food.  Just keep on walking."  And, sure enough, I kept on walking.  I did not absentmindedly eat anything yesterday.  That would have been my normal behavior on a day like yesterday, to absentmindedly munch my way through the day.

Having my 30 day plan helped me stay focused on my health goals and not let the stress (or boredom) of the situation override my determination to stay on track. There is no doubt in my mind that I needed the extra discipline of this plan and the extra support of my "Special Ops Team," as Jack put it, to stay the course today. I can do anything for 30 days. I can follow this plan for 28 more days. This is completely and totally doable. I will do it. I am doing it! Go team!!!!

Here are the details from day 2 of the 30 day plan:

8/3/2012: Day 2 of 30
Weight: 182.4
"Younger Next Year" pages read: 22

Notes from book:
The science about health is rapidly changing because it is a much newer field of study than the science of disease. It turns out that health is much more biologically complicated than disease. In disease, the train has gone off the tracks and the laws of physics take over. The crash is destructive, but the science is simple. Health is the reverse. It has a carefully designed control mechanism to keep the train on the tracks. But while the science of health is complex, the controls to operate it are simple.

The basic premise in the book is that our bodies are an amazingly complex combination of cells that continuously communicate with one another. Millions of messages are sent from cell to cell throughout our bodies, constantly. And we have control over the messages that our cells are sending to one another.

Our bodies are well designed to do what humans did for tens of thousands of years, hunt and forage for food in the spring and summer (when our bodies would get lean and strong because food was plentiful and we did not need to store extra fat), start storing food in our bodies in the fall when food became more scarce, then shut down into a seasonal depression in the winter as food sources disappeared. During the winter our bodies' systems would shut down and slowly decay, so that scarce resources weren't used to maintain systems that weren't essential to life.

Our bodies are perfect for their natural purposes, but they are not designed for the modern life of fast food, TV, or retirement. They were designed for a life in nature. Left to their own devices, our bodies and brains will consistently and without fail misinterpret the signals of the twenty-first century and start to decay. It is possible to change the signals that we send to our cells and override the message of decay. There are four keys to overriding the decay code: daily exercise, emotional commitment, reasonable nutrition, and a real engagement with living. But it all starts with exercise.

Our bodies are constructed to grow and build in good times and decay in bad times. Good times, thousands of years ago, meant game and edible vegetation were plentiful. During those times humans would travel many miles a day hunting and foraging. That exercise - the physical work of hunting and foraging in the spring - has always been the single most powerful signal we can send that life is good; that it is spring and it is time to live and grow. Exercise is the first key to sending a message of growth and rejuvenation to every cell in our bodies.

The first step to being younger next year, therefore, is to do some sort of strenuous exercise at least 6 days a week. 

Calorie count: 1509

Exercise: Strength training in the morning as follows:

Set 1 - Repeat the following set of exercises 3 times
---- 24 Walking lunges with side arm raises while in lunge position with 10lb dumbbells in each hand
---- Step to balance onto knee high stool with 10lb dumbbells in each hand, 12 each foot
---- 12 Dips (triceps)

Set 2 - Repeat the following set of exercises 3 times
---- 16 Squats with 15 pound dumbbells in each hand
---- Run up and down flight of stairs
---- Throw 8 pound ball above head, bouncing off pole, keeping arms above head, for 30 seconds

Set 3 - Repeat twice
---- Carry 35lb plate, walking briskly, approximately 10 yards, put it down and run back to pile of plates. Pick up second 35lb plate and walk it briskly to new pile, run back. Repeat until all four plates are on new pile. Then, using same procedure, return all four plates to original pile.

Evening exercise: 15 minute jog

Alcohol consumption: None

Day 2 - A success.


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August 2, 2012: Day 1 of 30

Today was the first day of my thirty day plan to get through the beginning of the transition to my new job without losing focus on my "Get Fit" initiative.

For thirty days I will do the following, in addition to exercising for an hour a day, 6 days a week and eating less than 1500 calories per day:

1). Read from the book "Younger Next Year" for inspiration.
2). Write something in my blog every day about the book
3). Count calories and report calories consumed on my blog.
4). I will not drink alcohol.
5). Add 15 minutes of cardio in the evenings, 6 days a week, in addition to the exercise I do in the mornings

Every day for thirty days I will post my morning weight and blog about the five steps listed above.

Day 1 of 30, August 2, 2012
Weight: 183.6 pounds
"Younger Next Year" pages read: 33
Notes from book:
My quality of life really is up to me. I get choose how I will age. Humans start to age by the end of our twenties, so once we turn 30, the quality of our lives is up to us.

In fact, 70% of all of the symptoms that we associate with "normal aging" are voluntary, we don't have to experience the sore joints, weakness, obesity, and apathy we associate with aging. We can also skip 50% of all the sickness and serious accidents we'd expect to have from the time we turn 50 to the day we die. It's my choice, whether or not I want to become a radically better woman than I am now (or was on February 27th) over the next few years and then stay that way for the decades ahead. The answers on how to do that are in this book.

The fact of the matter is that most American women today will live into their mid-eighties or early nineties, whether they are in great shape or shuffling around on walkers. You are likely to live that long whether you want to or not. Statistical longevity is simply a fact of life these days. The decision I get to make isn't whether or not I will live a long time. The decision I get to make is how I want to live them. As Chris says, I have to age but I don't have to rot.

There's no question about what I've chosen. I choose to be younger next year!

Calorie count: 1290 calories

Exercise: 4 mile run this morning and 15 minutes on the elliptical, level 7, at a pace of about 130 strides per minute this evening.

Alcohol consumption: None

So far so good!

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8/1/2012: News - Phase 2

Yesterday afternoon I accepted the Finance Director position at Castle Creations and this morning I gave my letter of resignation to my boss at Enterprise Bank. 

Today was incredibly stressful as I told my boss, then my team, and then everyone else at the branch about my decision to leave the bank.  Several people were very surprised and others were not so surprised, but the hardest thing for me is the feeling that I am deserting my team.  I feel good about the fact that the team is strong and we've built a solid set of processes and procedures, so I know they'll do great.  Yet, there is still a lot that needs to be done as they continue to launch the business banking initiative, and I do feel bad about leaving them before we had everything done.

On the other hand, the new opportunity at Castle Creations is something I just could not pass up.  Castle builds high tech remote control devices and motors for high end remote control cars, airplanes, and helicopters.  It is a growing company in a growth industry that has outgrown its current systems.  I am looking forward to being part of the management team and helping them create the processes and systems they desperately need as they continue to grow.

As I mentioned in my previous post, one of my biggest challenges will be to maintain my weight loss strategy as I tackle this new position.  Ruth, bless her heart, answered my call for help and provided me with a 30 day plan to get through Steve's wedding day.  I am implementing that plan starting immediately.  And maybe that is the best way to handle this, 30 days at a time.  I guess I really don't need to know what I am going to do to stay on track on September 2, as long as I know what I am going to do tomorrow. 

I appreciate Ruth's words of encouragement, support, and advice; so I am posting them here.  I commit to following these steps and blogging about them for the next 30 days:

You have been successful so far because you have been consistently working out, restricting calories, and keeping your blood sugar level. You have a good plan (slow weight loss), inspiration (chart, reading), accountability (chart, blogging), and determination (personality trait). I don’t think that you will revert to your old habit of eating and drinking through transition. I think you are a new person.

Here is what I think you should do for the period of transition (August 2 through September 3):

1. Start reading “Younger Next Year” again to bolster your inspiration.

2. Write something in your blog from “Younger Next Year” every day until you are done re-reading it.

3. Count calories every day until September 3. This has worked for you. Report your daily calories on your blog or in an email to me. Every day. Until September 3.

4. Don’t drink until the actual wedding day, and think twice about drinking that day.

5. Add 15 minutes of cardio six times per week in the evening. This sounds like a lot. You will be tired. It might be dark. You might have a headache. You might have a pulled muscle (in which case you ride your trainer) -- but refer to the determination above and do it anyway.

And with that I'm signing off.  I have some reading to do!!

8/1/12: News - Phase 1

On September 1st of this year my son, Steven, is getting married to his lovely fiance, Elizabeth.  They are getting married on the beach in Florence, Oregon.  We've known about this for about a week...so yes, it's coming up fast, but I couldn't be happier and more excited for Steven and Elizabeth.

Of course, as the mother of the groom, I want to look my best.  My goal is to weigh 175 pounds on the wedding day.  That means I have 7.8 pounds to lose before then. 

Unfortunately, there is a little additional stress in my life at the moment, which you will find out about shortly.  (Sometimes you just have to wait before you can make public announcements.) That stress will make losing weight more difficult.  I will have to be extra diligent and dedicated to make this happen.  My priority in life, no matter what else comes my way, must be to lose the rest of this weight and be healthy.  Everything else works better when I am at a healthy weight and feeling good.  Nothing is stressful enough or important enough to cause to me lose focus on my goal of good health.  Commit, commit, commit.  Every day will require renewed faith in this cause to be as healthy as I possibly can.

To sum it up, I cannot eat my way through this upcoming transition.  That's my standard MO:   transition...eat...gain weight...settle in...lose weight...repeat.

NOT THIS TIME!!!!  Y'all hear me????  NOT THIS TIME. 

I know, I know...what transition?  You will find out soon...

7/31/12: Checking In

It's Tuesday morning and I missed yesterday morning's weigh-in post, but I did not miss weighing-in yesterday.  So here's the post.  I weighed 182.8 pounds yesterday!!!  I am sticking to my trend line and all was looking good...until last night.  We bowl in a league on Monday nights (I'm not very good, in case you're curious.  My average is a 130, but it probably suffered a little last night) and last night I pulled a muscle in my left quad.  It only really hurts when I walk.  The pain is on the left side of my upper left quad.  I put heat on it last night, which helped, and this morning, instead of my normal cardio routine, I stretched, used the foam roller on it, rode the bike for 20 minutes, did 1500 strides on the elliptical, and stretched and rolled it again.  The bike and the elliptical did not hurt, so that's good.  At least I have cardio I can do until it heals.  The stretching and rolling seemed to help.  So, the goal is to not let this minor injury derail me.  My plan is to show up at the gym every morning like I have been for the last 22 weeks, and do whatever I can.  I feel like this will heal quickly, it's already better than it was last night.  I will not let this be a setback!!! 

So far, I have lost 41.2 pounds and I have 32.8 left to go.  It feels good to be well past half way to my weight loss goal and 22 weeks into living a much healthier lifestyles!!