Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Taken to Heart

This year on Christmas eve, perhaps in an attempt at creative gift giving, my dad gave everyone a big scare by letting his heart stop for a few minutes. After coming back to life (and wondering why everyone was standing over him), he proceeded to have triple bypass surgery due to the 2 completely clogged arteries and the third 95% clogged artery.

As I looked at my dad in post-op with a breathing tube, I saw my future and I decided to change it. I've always had a hyperactive metabolism that never showed any signs of slowing, but in the past year and a half (perhaps ever since this post) I've gained more weight than I did in the previous 10 years. I've never really thought about what I ate since I always assumed I was young and indestructible. And while I am still young and virtually indestructible, I'm going to start being more serious about my health.

I'm not talking about starting a diet, or making another ill-fated new year's resolution to start running again. I'm changing how I eat and how I plan my exercise. On the eating front, I've given up my resistance to drinking diet soda. I'm not quite ready to only drink water, but going from super big gulps of high fructose corn syrup to diet soda is a big step for me. I'm also changing my philosophy of eating as many calories as I want, to only eating enough or less to maintain my weight, which for me is about 2000 calories. I'm not going to count my calories, but I'll just eat less than I usually do- only eating until I am no longer hungry and not until I feel full. No more steaks with extra fat on them. I get treats and desserts and candy, but just not as much and not as often. (By the way: family- I left a bag of M&Ms and Reeses in Mom's black box by the computer. Could you mail them to me?)

As for exercise, instead of my usual "I'm going to start running again", which sometimes lasts for several months but inevitably fails because of weather, boredom during workouts, and the fact that I always allowed myself to miss a few days each week (which prevents good habit formation), I'm just scheduling in 1.5 hours of exercise time every day from 8 to 9:30. To tackle the weather problem, I bought a year membership at the community gym which has an indoor track, and for the boredom problem Jenny is lending me her old ipod. I'm not dictating to myself what I have to accomplish in those 1.5 hours, I just have to be there doing something, even if its just stretching. I think this one will stick- I've already done it for a whole day!

My goal(s): Not die from preventable health problems before I'm 95, finally get the body of my dreams while I am still in my prime, and, regardless of what I end up looking like with my dream body I'll at least feel good from being in shape and eating decently.

7 comments:

jenn w said...

So how much exactly did you gain last year? You mentioned when you were home about you getting bigger or starting to be a real webb or something, and i seriously did not notice at all because im so used to you being thin. You should post some pictures of when you were in elementary/middle school and probably only pushed 45 lbs. :0 By the way, you might as well just buy another m&m stash, next time i go to momndads, its all mine! Mail it to you??? c-mon.

apyknowzitall said...

Welcome to the world of Diet Coke my friend.

Anonymous said...

actually Mojo and Elise already found that stash... nuff said.

Nick said...

It might not sound like a lot, but about 15-20 pounds, with most of it on my gut, which is supposedly the unhealthy place to keep fat.

apyknowzitall said...

You had a good resemblance of being 4-5 months along. Way to catch it before you start getting into your third trimester.

Nick said...

Yeah, I'm pretty much pro-choice when it comes to my belly.

Liz said...

the black box, i never thought of looking there, thanks for the tip.