Not as healthy As I Should Have Been. #2

  I should tell you some things about my health leading to the time of my medical exam prior to the heart attack.  August 2,  6 weeks before the check up I weighed 240 pounds.  My wife and I were returning home by road trip from Florida with my daughter and two grandchildren.  We had been on the road for about 25 miles when we made our first stop at What-A-Burger for mid-morning fries, burger, and giant size soft drinks.  About 3 hours later we did the same at a Sonic in Birmingham, except this time I did the double cheese burger with large order of onion rings.  Enough said of the road trip you get the idea, we still had over 4 hours to go and more stops to make.

  I had been giving a lot of thought to losing weight, my overall health , how to lose weight, and concluded I could not do it by going on a diet.  I was eating too unhealthy, and applied too few controls on myself when it came to food and eating.  I decided my health and body were being damaged by the amount of red meats I was eating.  Not only that, but how it was prepared, what chemicals, preservatives, and enhancers were in it?  What were you consuming when you ate processed meats, hot dogs, sausage, canned meats, and luncheon meats?  I was not eating enough fresh vegetables and fruits.  Most of my vegetables consisted of french fries, baked potatoes, or an occasional salad loaded with dressing.  All of my meals included a sizeable portion of red meat.  Snacks included red meat.  There was one I especially enjoyed, after dinner, before bed, a snack of deli meats, usually ham or roast beef, most times both.  I did not eat much chicken unless fried with skin on.  I liked the crunch.  I wanted to lose weight, and change to a healthy life style.  I knew I could not do it by going on a diet, I was going to change more than how much or how often I ate.  Remember the road trip, coming back from Florida?   Returning home that night I decided I had eaten my last burrger and fries.  I was ready to change and tomorrow would be the beginning of a healthier me.  I went out that day and bought  books on calorie counting, fat, carbohydrates, nutritution, eat this, don't eat that,  salads, nutritional values of vegetables, fruits, and passed my first test when I met my daughter and grandson for lunch at backyard burger and had a Caesar salad and water.  I knew I was on my way to a new me.

  We are going to change subjects for a moment to clarify some information about my blog and its purpose.  I was successful in losing 60 pounds, and changing to eating healthy foods.  Took responsibility for my health, survived a heart attack, heart surgery, two lung surgical procedures, complications of heart surgery, and began rehabbing my body.  This all happening in 3 months.  I am going to share my experiiences with you, what worked for me, what didn't work and most importantly, even though you have had a heart attack or heart surgery you need to know it is never too late to improve your health, live a healthier active life, and enjoy the benefits of good health.  I am going to give you details about diet, exercise, my opinions on foods, and their health benefits based on my personal use, results, research, and experiences.

   After the heart surgery I remained in the hospital for 8 more days.  I was fortunate in that I did not experience much pain after the surgery.  Almost none in the chest or incision area, however my leg was quite swollen and painful from the artery incisions.  36 hours after surgery I was up and walking with assistance down a hospital corridor a couple of times a day.  My room was on the cardiology patient floor of the hospital, rehab, patient care, meals,everything on that floor was directed towards heart patients.  You know I think that was the first time in my life I can recall not having any appetite.  I would have thought being on the cardio floor they would have been overly sensitive to what foods were offered for patient meals.  Eggs in the morning, with bacon, white bread toast, milk, butter, I still wonder why they offered that kind of  nutrition to heart patients.   Remember me telling you about my wife being my medical advisor.  She spent every night sleeping in my room on one of those little hard overnight beds, almost 2 weeks.  Let me tell you, I was so glad to have her there with me, one morning at 5:00 am two nurses walk in, I'm soundly asleep, and they announce loudly "wake up, we need to weigh you."  Imagine a mother grizzly in deep hibernation being awakened by someone disturbing her cub.  Those two nurses starting backing up to the door as my wife came out of bed questioning the intelligence of waking and weighing a heart patient at that time of the morning.  They came back after breakfast and weighed me. 
  A few days later I was strong enough to be discharged, went home, and took another step in returning to a healthier and new me.