• Starting Again #

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• Starting Again #

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So I’m starting again. I’ve really let myself down this past 6 months. I thought I would be much further along than I am.

Ok, now I’m done with the whining.

Once again this year I have set a goal to run in the MidSummer Night’s Run which is a 5K through downtown Lexington. I know it won’t be easy considering I’m now sitting at 274 pounds of mush but I’m the kind of person who needs those driving goals to get anything done.

What worries me more than anything is the fact that my sugar is now back out of whack. I’ll get there though.

I’m beginning a few different programs:

http://www.hundredpushups.com/

http://www.twohundredsitups.com/

http://www.twohundredsquats.com/

I’ll also be doing a Couch to 5K program. I plan to do cardio everyday but having a set program just clicks in my mind for some reason and helps keep me on task.

Tomorrow I’ll be updating the stats and goals on the left and reporting on the test for the pushups, situps, and squats.

Just gotta stay positive. Hope this finds everyone working towards being or staying healthy!

                                             ”I can feel the wind go by when I run.
                                                                     It feels good.
                                                                           It feels fast.”
                                                                                    -Evelyn Ashford

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Do you see a young woman or an old woman?

I recently read an interesting article about paradigms  and it really got me thinking about my own situation.

A paradigm is essentially anything that becomes a deeply ingrained accepted behavior or a typical example of something.

We all pick up paradigms from all around us. Paradigms are the driving force behind advertising.

If you want to look like the latest Cover Girl then buy their products, you want to get thin and fit like Dan Marino then join Nutri-System.

Unfortunatly the paradigms we accept are not always as obvious as that. In an earlier entry I wrote about the fond memories of my Grandfather and his morning insulin injections. I wrote that it was almost sad that I had such warm feelings of his potentially serious illness.

Looking back on it now though I realize that even in that he had set a paradigm for me. I picked up alot of his eating habits, his habit of abusing his body by eating the wrong things, and his habits of inactivity.

He unknowingly created a paradigm that I am now having to shift.

I thought, subconsciencely, that it was ok to stuff food into my mouth until I couldn’t move and then sit all day watching television.

Exercise?

That was something I didn’t need because I was totally healthy, I wasn’t fat. Oh no. I was my idea of what ‘normal’ or ‘accepted’ was.

I believe we all pick up paradigms from our families. Some worse than others.

Consider for a minute though that we pass our own paradigms to our children who then add to our by creating their own and passing them on. Is it any wonder that things such as obesity is so wide spread today?

Just food for thought. Think about your own paradigms and can you shift them?

I know I must and it isn’t easy.

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So I admit this whole thing got off to a very rocky start.

For starters I woke up late so my walk was cut short and in a moment of weakness I had a chimichanga for lunch.

So this will be a short entry but tomorrow I really get on it.

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• Got the grocery shopping done for the meal increase starting tomorrow, I'm feeling pretty motivated. #
• My after dinner sugar was 89…wow. Going to have to keep a close eye on it to make sure it doesn't go to low. #

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Growing up one of my most vivid memories is my Grandfather and his shots.

Every morning before 6 am he would stumble out of bed, literally stumble as his feet had been frost bitten in the Korean War and apparently he never had 100% feeling in them.

Most of the time he would then lumber to the bathroom, brush his teeth, and before leaving wet his hand and meticously arrange his hair in the ever popular comb over style.

At this point he was ready to face the day as Grandfather didn’t venture outside the house a lot in his last 15 years or so after he could no longer drive.

Then it was time for ‘the shot’ and the time for my own personal favorite and sometimes most interesting part of my day. After all as a 7 or 8 year old country boy anything that looked dangerous or caused pain was absolutely the bee’s knees.

Grandfather would stand at the end of the kitchen counter preparing his injection and would catch his young audience of one staring in early morning awe. With a smile he would hand me a syringe, without the needle of course, and walk step by step through his shot with me as I stood there, proud to be imitating my hero.

Grandfather is gone now and due to a very sad series of events I didn’t get to see him for the last 6 years of his life, nor at his death. But it comforts me that his memory comes back to me every morning when I take my own injection for type 2 diabetes.

Strange that such a potentially serious illness could cause such warm feelings.

When I originally went to the emergency room for double vision I was scared, but also assumed it was high blood pressure which I knew could be pretty easily controlled with medicine and a proper diet. After all I was sitting at 281 lbs of man, I knew that all this manliness had to come with some sort of price.

When the doctor told me it was diabetes and that my blood glucose level was 574 I almost came to tears and I’m not ashamed to admit that had it not been for my fiancé I may very well have turned into a pile of blubbering sugar right there.

Stephanie really helped me pull it together. After all I could beat this illness.

The next 4 weeks were a jumble of worry and the new medicines made me increasingly ill while my body adjusted to it all.

The Doctor finally settled on 1000mg of Metformin per day and 2 injections of 5mg Byetta, which much to my chagrin and boy hood wonder is derived from Gila Monster spit, and my weight is now at 262lbs.

But that isn’t all the point of this because I want more than drug induced weight loss, of course some of that loss comes from Stephanie making sure I don’t kill myself with a candy bar. I want to go from an obese diabetic to a tri-athlete.

So starting on Monday 8/30/2009 I will be keeping track of my progress, my sugar readings, my blood pressure readings when I am able, and my progress both literally and emotionally. I want to keep track of what I learn and to share that with others.

My goals as they are set now are the following:

1)      To Break 200 Lbs.

2)      To be able to run and finish a 5K in under 35 minutes by next August!

3)      To compete in and finish a triathlon before June of 2011.

So Monday it will all begin.  It’s time to beat diabetes so that my daughter doesn’t have fond memories of watching me inject myself.

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