Workout, Fitness, and Heart Health #44

My workout this morning went very well.  I am still doing the same basic routine as I have for the last couple of months.  I have added doing some leg lifts.  The exercise is performed on somewhat of a standing platform with padded arm rests.  You stand putting your arms on padded rests and firmly grip two handles.  You adjust your position to straight vertical so that your feet are elevated about 3 or 4 inches above the floor while you are holding the grips on the arm rests.  You then briskly lift both legs holding them together, turning slightly to the left as high as you can.  Return your legs to a standing position, feet remaining elevated and not touching the floor. Quickly repeat this movement, without resting your legs, this time turning to the right. I generally do 10 of this movement alternating left to right.  In addition to exercising your circulation, abdomen and lower back muscles are worked.  I just started this exercise recently.  I do 2 or 3 sets of 10 rep's daily.  I'm still working on tightening up muscles, and the results of weight loss.

I have good news for me, Michelle's husband checked out my computer and the problems I was having.  He got things worked out for me and I am now back to normal meaning I don't have to use Cindy's.  As I told you, I was quickly wearing out my computer sharing welcome with her.   Not only was I using hers but it meant I was using her desk and office space.  Mine is upstairs away from hers so normally we can have our privacy when working on whatever.  But this sharing was a major conflict of each others time and I felt lost, because my routine of going to my office and doing what I do on my computer was out the window. It goofed up my entire routine for me beginning when I got home from the fitness center. 

I don't go back to my cardiologist until December, which I take as a good indicator of my recovery going well.  That first 6 months after surgery and all of that seemed to be doctor visits every couple of weeks.  I am glad that is all well behind me.  Some of you are just now getting through that early stage and are close to next working on issues like exercise, and beginning to rebuild your strength.

My cardiologist also very recently had me stop taking Plavix.  If you have had a heart attack you are probably taking Plavix, or are familiar with it.  Plavix is a blood thinner given to reduce the possibility of blood clots in heart attack patients.  Hopefully for all of us,  one of the overall goals of recovery is becoming healthy enough to reduce the amount of medication we need to take.  I had taken Plavix for almost 2 years so I felt good about being able to stop using it.  Now if I can continue to improve and reduce even more medication.

Next time maybe some about weight loss.

Exercise and Losing Weight #43

I went back and read some of my earliest posts about having a heart attack and starting recovery.  I have decided, for a while anyway, I am going to return to writing more as I did earlier and spend less time being technical about food.  That is the best way I know how to explain it.  I feel like I have been writing more like a text book to students than telling a story.  I would rather tell my story past and present as it goes along.  I know if it got boring to me, it had to be to you.  Now, if you don't think I should change, just email me.  I still plan on spending a lot of time talking about diet, weight loss, healthy food, and exercise, but I will try not to sound too much like an exam will be following this.  I'm not planning on not discussing foods in general, just change the way I approach it.  Food, healthy and unhealthy, and our eating habits, are a crucial part of heart patient recovery.  Also, I haven't heard from anyone out there in a while about successes in recovery.  I got an email from someone a few weeks ago discussing their exercise program.  I enjoy hearing how others are doing in their recovery.

At lunch today, Cindy was asking me about someone I saw working out this morning. If they had lost weight?  And I told her, no, they haven't even though they work out as often and strenuously as I do.  So  what does that tell you?   Well, they probably are not eating as healthy and wisely as they should. You know, that is not unusual, meaning I see a lot of people working out who obviously like to eat according to the size of their bellys.  Most are guys, and most are 50 plus years of age.  Now I certainly don't know if they are recovering heart patients.  The point is, I work out often enough to see these people regularly.  Most of you who exercise regularly see where I am headed with this.  Exercising is not the magic pill that guarantees you're going to lose weight.   Remember something I said way back in the beginning.  If you're going to lose any substsantial amount of weight, I can guarantee you will have to suffer through being hungry.  I don't care how much you exercise, if you are over weight, you are going to feel hunger pains to lose it.  Why?  Changing to good eating habits is only part of it.  Eating less and exercise go hand and hand with healthy eating in weight loss.

I am still having problems with my computer's internet connection among other things. Cindy has not revoked my using her computer priveledges, so far that is.  She uses hers quite a lot and has not complained about me being on it when she could be working.

I lost 9 pounds recently and I will tell you about it in the next post or so.  I hope my computer gets back to normal operation.

Staying Active and Two Anniversaries Tonight #42

Some readers and followers of this blog are not recovering heart patients.  Many, or maybe I should say some I know of,  are people who for various reasons are at the age where they are just beginning retirement or for whatever reasons are no longer working, and have free time.  Many of the things we discuss concerning recovery would also apply to avoiding heart problems.  Speaking for myself, you know if I had eaten healthy, exercised on a regular basis and gotten my weight under control, I surely would have reduced the likelihood of a heart attack.  There are several guys at my fitness center who I know that are recent retirees, and working out is now a regular part of their daily routine.   I'm thinking exercise becomes part of a daily routine and fills out some of their free time.  It is one way to stay active and maintain health fitness.   When I was working, not only did I have a strict self imposed  schedule I followed, I enjoyed working and looked forward to it daily.  Being around and interacting with people. Your responsibilities, it all gives you something away from your normal family life, meaning work and those surroundings become as much a part of your life from 8 till 5 daily as family is.  And when that goes away, you have a large void to fill in several ways.  The part that can effect your health is staying active. When I first stopped working daily, I stayed active, not by exercising and working out, but by doing things around the house, yard duty summer and winter, and always trying to have a project going on.   I put in a lot of effort staying away from the TV, computer, couch, and kitchen table from 8 till 5.   But it didn't save me from the heart attack.  A lifetime of unhealthy eating, and lack of regular exercise were my undoing.  So there is a lot we have discussed since the beginning of this blog that would be very helpful to some people out there in how to reduce the factors that can cause heart attacks.

I'm not writing as often right now because of some ongoing computer problems I am having.  At this moment I am sitting at Cindy's desk using hers.  Neither of us enjoy sharing our computers with the other.  For the next several days if any little setting, or pop up, or glitch comes about on hers, it will be my fault.  And the thing is what little she knows about computers makes her an I.T. expert.   Not at all like her doctoring, and pharmaceutical expertise, she knows what she is doing there. But computers, well let's just say take away facebook, email, google, and photoshop and it is a done deal.   Can't let her see this or she will revoke my using her system privileges.

Today is our 44th wedding anniversary.  And two years ago today I had heart surgery.  We will be going to Houston's restaurant tonight.  It has been one of our favorite places to go for dinner, especially to celebrate special occasions. For at least 25 years we have been going there for birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, you name it, we have celebrated it there.  One of my favorite memories of there is several years ago on Christmas Eve, when our children had first reached age to go their own ways. I think I had worked that day and rather than us coming home late to an empty house on Christmas Eve, we went to Houston's for dinner.  I think maybe one or two of our children met us there.  Of course, in the past we went to Houston's for the prime rib, NY strip, filet mignon.  None of that will be on our menu tonight, we will have a great salad and plain bake potato. 

That is enough of thinking about the old days, we've gotta get healthy and get on down the road for more anniversaries and birthdays to come.......
Good health and exercise next time.