New Years "Revolutions"

Editor's NOTE: I got a bit long winded... sorry.

My daughter came home from school and said, 'Dad, what is your New Year's Revolution'? She had said the same thing to Jen earlier in the evening and we got a good giggle out of it. As I've seen other posts, I like to think of it as more of a 'goal' then a new resolution, since those resolutions never seem to pan out.

For example, take the typical resolution that I had for years... get in shape. As most of you don't know, I was a scrawny 6 ft 145 lbs kid heading into college. I easily gained the 'freshman 15' between meals of cheap Pizza Shuttle pizza and bags of Dorrito's. Anyway, I left my 4 year journey around 170 lbs. Then over the next few years I slowly added on the weight. Continued bad eating habits (Hot Pockets Rock) along with many more bags of cool ranch dorito's and pepsi's galore.

Marriage didn't change me much, even when we spent the first six months eating really cheaply (hence not eating as much; splitting meals if we did go out to eat) so we could save up money for a down payment on our first house. As most husbands do, I joined my wife in gaining some pregnancy weight. Each year during these first few years of marriage I made the resolution to 'lose a few pounds' and 'get in better shape'... but I could easily come up with the usual excuses. Not enough time (what was I thinking, we didn't even have any kids yet!), my eyes just aren't awake enough to put in my contacts that early, what's the point... I tried walking / jogging around our neighborhood a few times, but it never caught on.

After our first child was born, I got to experience the awesome power that is lasik eye surgery. This was going to be my turning point. I could work out and not worry about dried out contacts (or tired eyes)... and it just didn't happen. I tried some of the pill diets (Metabolife lasting the longest), but it never stuck. But I kept making the same resolution. I'd get frustrated with my weight, how holding my young Abby would make my belly pretty darn obvious, etc. Of course, to each their own on what they feel is 'too much weight'.

According to the government (or whomever came up with it), my BMI indicated that I was close to obese. First, let me say that 6'1" and 225 lbs is not even close to obese. Nevertheless, I was not happy with my weight. But with any free time left taken up with a new child in our lives, getting in shape just didn't take a priority. Besides the usual excuses, our nation just doesn't make it easy to get in shape. It does cost more to eat food that is good for you. Between the healthy selections at the grocery store and every restaurant slowly rolling out healthy items (but at a higher cost), it was just such a big step to take. And, with us starting to save up money for our second house, it just didn't happen.

As you can tell from all of this, I'm not one for change. Also, I am a professional procrastinator. If you give me an opening and its something I don't care much about, I can find a million things to keep me from doing it.

Moving along... we move into our new house in early 2004 and a bit after doing so, I had this strange coughing fit. It ended up causing me really bad back and neck spasms, even limiting the range that I could turn my head. I remember going to the dr. and seeing my weight on the scale around 230 lbs. It had been a while since I had weighed myself and was just kind've a shock to me. I worked my way through that fun (muscle relaxers really are amazing in how fast they work... but I made sure to only take like 3-4 of them) and got back to health.

After that I was determined to try and get into better shape. And I went about it slowly... limiting the number of Pepsi's I would drink (i've never developed the taste for diet drinks), started bringing my lunch to work more often, and every once in a while I would order a chicken sandwich instead of a burger. At the beginning of 2005 I had made it down to 215lbs. Jen was spending a couple nights a week working out at our 'clubhouse' in our subdivision, doing a great job of getting back into shape after our second child was born, but I rarely went. It was just not easy for both of use to go up there... we would never see each other.

That summer, we decided to go up to the annual Wellington Health Fair. We wanted to check things out and heard they would have a bounce house for the kids. It was the event that changed us all. They had someone there from a local hospital doing free BP and Cholestoral checking. I gave it a whirl... and was shocked. I had a high BP (of course I had just finished a cup or two of coffee) but my cholesterol was 252. That sent me off to my PCP, where a real blood test showed it a 237 with nearly a 5:1 ration of LDL to HDL (with thankfully a very normal BP). Sure, these numbers were a surprise to me, especially since I had worked myself down to 203 lbs... but it was the look in my wife's eyes that put me over the edge. You could see the concern in her eyes... the worry. I spent the next Friday, Saturday and Sunday up at our clubhouse learning how to use an elliptical and working out.

The next week we went in and joined Lifetime Fitness. Sure it was a bit pricey, but the selling point for us was the child care. My wife tried a free pass to Health and Athletic, and the child care wasn't as fun as Lifetime. Our girls actually love going there... there is so much for them to do. And having happy kids makes it much easier for the parents to go. Jen would go during the day and I'd go a couple of evenings a week plus the weekends.

Not really being a person that has worked out much before, I once again started cautiously but knew I needed to get not just my body but my heart into shape. I did mostly the elliptical machines for 25-35 minutes. Then, I slowly tried out the treadmills... I couldn't run for very long (I never have been much of a runner) but I slowly built up the ability to jog. It's funny to hear 'runners' who say they can't stand to run on treadmills. Since I have no foundation of outside running, I'm the opposite as the treadmill gives me a nice pace to keep vs. running outside where I can't run a good pace and end up having to stop every so often.

Anyway, every once in a while, I'd venture over to do some weight machines (those free weights were WAY too intimidating). Then, I discovered one of the best things about the gym... my own free personal trainer. Yes, Free! Ok, its not one on one training, but a group fitness class that was all weightlifting (no silly step/aerobic stuff, etc.). I was fortunate to get a great instructor who taught on Monday nights and I was really able to learn a lot about how to do weight lifting. At this time (around October), I had my follow-up check and my LDL to HDL ratio had gone way down to 2.5 to 1 (total of 188) and my weight was at 185.

But as my instructor kept telling us, if you want to change the way you look, then you need to build muscle... and you do that by working your muscles to failure at least twice a week. The other thing I learned in all my weight loss was in the end, losing weight is really simple math; you eat less calories then you burn. And the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn each day while just sitting around (each lb of muscle burns between 35-50 calories... by just living). You can see some comparison's of my look in various Family pictures.

My weight has remained about the same (I went down as far as 178, but I'm fairly steady at 190). And I still go every week to the same class with the same instructor. She moved to Monday's at 11a, so I now have an excuse to work from home one day a week and take a long lunch (with my boss' blessing). Back to that BMI discussion... 6'1", 190lbs is considered Overweight!! So, every time I hear the stat that 60% of the US (or more) is overweight, I laugh and look the other way... what crazy scientist came up with this formula!!

Wishing you a Healthy New Year!