Workout #7

I was now entering 6 months since the heart attack, and about 7 1/2 months of weight loss.  By then I was pretty much entrenched in new eating  habits, enjoying healthier foods, and my family was believing in the new me.  They recognized I was intent on working to improve my health, strength, and doing whatever doctors thought was best for my heart health.   For my birthday, my daughter gave me a great gift, at the appropriate time for me.  Membership to a fitness center. Five minutes from my home.  Open 24/7.  Trainers, pools, spa, indoor track.  It was great.  I keep forgetting you don't know all of my health background so I need to let you know a few things that probably a lot of you can relate to. Especially those of you my age who have had heart attacks.   I was not an exercise, workout, play sports, ride a bike, take physical care of myself kind of a guy.  But I had been doing my walking and was ready to step up to a real exercise routine.   Let me stop right here.The first step was to meet with my cardiologist and get approval.  Next my daughter arranged for me to have some beginner sessions with a trainer who worked with,  and had specific workout programs, for heart patients like me.  Michelle belonged to another fitness club,  had experience with this trainer and felt it was important I work with someone familiar with cardiac patients. So before beginning to work out on my own, I met with my cardiologist, and a trainer.  You may want to consider the same if you are a beginner.  My trainer gave me an orientation of the center, strength machines, treadmills, kind of how everything works.   My first day was pretty much intimidating, like the new kid in school.  A good mix of men and women, all age ranges, more young than older, and almost all in good physical shape.  In other words I saw I had a long ways to go.  Cindy decided she would  join and start working out with me.  Cindy worked with a trainer and got on a routine for herself.  She was like me, no experience doing this stuff.  Cindy was in good physical condition. She was never sickly, didn't have time to.  She had been too busy raising our three children while I was off running a business. I was gone a lot, eating out two or three nights a week. She was unlike me,  always ate the right foods, took care of herself.  Never complained once about my bad health habits.

Treadmill, 2 miles at 3.4 mph.  1 mile around the track at quick walking pace, carried a 5 pound weight in one hand above my head.  It helps circulation.   Let me be overly cautious here, you don't need to do anything I did unless you talk to your doctor first. That's what I did.....10 minutes on an elliptical machine.  Then I spent 30 minutes on some specific strength machines, trained on by my trainer, and approved by my cardiologist. A trainer can be expensive, and I was looking for a routine that would be good for me and my condition.  It took only  2 sessions with the trainer to get an established routine.  From then on I was on my own, which is what I preferred.  So I was exercising about 1 hour 30 minutes or so daily.  I worked out 6 days a week, for 1 year, then  I went to 5 days a week.  If on vacation I didn't skip working out.  I would find a way to do all or some of my daily routine. 

Cindy faltered, working out is just not her thing, she works out but I don't think she enjoys it as much as I do.  Kind of like  oatmeal, it's good for you, but you need to do it every day.
You know something else good I got from the fitness center.  Being around people. I really enjoy working out, my routine and feeling good after an hour and half of exercise.  It is a great place to people watch.   This was a large center and it wasn't unusual for 40-50 people to be working out around you.  A few older 60 plus, men and women. 45-60 more men than women. Most of the guys in this group are in pretty good shape, lifting weights, working on muscle building. Most of the ladies are a little bit on the heavy side. They do a lot of treadmill and track walking.  25- 45 year olds lots of young suburban moms in good physical shape, work out a lot on stairmasters, running on treadmills and stationary bicycles. Guys same as the gals.  18-25 year olds  spend most their time walking around center looking to see who's looking at them. 

I gave up working out on the elliptical.  I felt like I was pushing myself too far and my heart rate got too high for me while on that machine.  I wore a small heart rate monitor while working out to track my rate, and after several months eventually felt comfortable to stop using it.   I expanded my use of strength machine usage and increased my total bar-bell capacity from 5 to 70 pounds.  (10 months).
I use the treadmill for 6o minutes, no incline.  I have some good exercise people stories I can tell you if anyone wants to hear them.

My next posting I will spend a lot more time on blood pressure, more details on foods I eat, vitamins. In general some things I think I have neglected in telling you about myself.

Cindy Can You do The Leaves For Me? #6

 I'm not sure where to start -  exercising, diet, healthy foods.   First I think I need to finish up about weighing, tracking your weight loss and all of that.  You know I only can tell you  what worked for me and why.   Even though I was absolutely ready to change,  I knew losing weight was going to be a battle for me. I don't know the exact date but the night before I started,  I weighed myself.  Man was that depressing.  I thought maybe about 225 pounds. I weighed 240.   The next time I weighed was almost 6 weeks later to the day at the doctors office. My exam,  remember.  I thought if I could weigh 225 that would be great. 15 pounds lost in 6 weeks.  I weighed 218 and did that make me feel good, especially when the nurse began bragging about the weight loss to my doctor.  You can see I averaged about 3 pounds per week weight loss. Now seriously, I was starving, and if I had weighed after the first 14 days and seen I had lost only 5 pounds, I would have been ready to walk to Birmingham for another double cheeseburger.  So why find a reason to discourage yourself by jumping on the scales every day.   You're doing it for the long haul, changing eating habits, right.   How many times have you done what I use to do. Every few years going on a very rigid diet. Sacrifice eating, living on celery, carrots and other similar foods.  Somebody at work told you about their cousin losing 50 pounds on this very diet.   Weighing every day and hanging in there for 3 weeks to meet your 15 pound loss goal.  And when you hit it, what do you do ? You stay with it for a bit, and then you go right back to the same old appetite habits.  Same old ways.  I did.  A heart attack is the last thing on your mind, I know, remember me, their for someone else, it won't happen to me attitude. I don't think weighing yourself after the first day is very important. I didn't think I  needed to invest in some expensive diet program  you see on TV, or join some club where you weigh in front of everybody, and their snickering and thinking,  man that guy is wasting his time.

Get a few books, read up on nutrition, calories, get on the internet.  Most importantly talk to your doctor.  My cardiologist provided me with a lot of good  information on heart healthy foods, nutrition, and diets.  You'll figure out whats best for you.

It was now almost 5 months after my heart attack and I was walking 1 1/2 miles twice daily.  Once in the mornings and again afternoons.  It was the middle of January and the weather most days was not good for being outside, but I dedicated myself to walking every day.  I talked to my doctor about exercising, weight loss, and my heart condition.  My doctor felt good about the progress I had made and my heart was strong enough for me to start exercising my body.  But he cautioned no lifting over 5 pounds.  I said,  like one 5 pounder in each hand?  No, was the answer, 5 total pounds. Start small and work up.  He reminded me again, you're not as well yet as you think.  Your body will let you know what your limits are.  I had made a complete reversal.  Gone were the thoughts that I would always be sickly, no energy, unable to do the things I had always enjoyed.  I could start picking up my grandchildren again. I looked forward to doing yard work, picking up leaves.

Wait just a second, maybe if I work this right I could convince Cindy she needs to do the leaf  work or get me one of those cyclone rake leaf machines.  Yeah that's it. I'm getting back to normal.

This Is Depressing, Will I Get Back To Normal ? #5

The fluid issue was a build up around the lungs and heart which is  a complication of heart surgery. This fluid normally is absorbed before it accumulates and begins to surround your lungs. Early the following morning Cindy and I were at the hospital.   My heart surgeon had explained the  procedure to me,  he would not be doing it, someone else would.  I didn't ask if the other guy wears boots.  The procedure did not go well, was very painful. We left the hospital that night at 6:30 pm.  That was the beginning of  a 2  1/2 month medical odyssey. From early October and ending around Christmas.  I had 2 or 3 doctor appointments almost weekly, outpatient and  hospital stays. I was in the hospital a couple days for a nuclear stress test for my heart, being discharged a few days before Thanksgiving.  That is when I begin to  doubt if I would ever get back to my normal life.  There is not much to tell you other than I was not making good progress, just the opposite.   I finally told my cardiologist I could not go back for another lung treatment.  I didn't think I was strong enough to endure it. It was too painful and didn't seem to be working.  The following week I went for chest x-rays and after reviewing the images the technician ask if  one of my lungs had been removed. There was so much fluid around the lung, it would not show on the x-ray.  I continued the painful procedures until my lungs began to clear.  Cindy was there with me the whole way, she never faltered.  We became pretty well know by the staff around the hospital by being there so often. While all of that was going on my cardiologist had me drop out of an  exercise recuperation program for heart patients.  He felt I could continue my walking, but not a great distance. I  maintained a very short distance walking routine while my lungs were beginning to clear.

The first lung fluid removal  was exhausting and painful.  You're taken into a room with one doctor and two nurses, you're given a local anesthetic and the surgeon explains how he is going to drain the fluid.   This is not some tiny hypodermic needle, it's large and it goes in through your back to your lung area.  A lot of fluid is removed and as it goes down there is a change of pressure in your chest cavity, your lung expands somewhat, and that is when the pain starts.  I went to recovery, Cindy was with me,  and it was several hours before I felt well enough to be discharged and sent home.

My children were very supportive and encouraging to me through the time of my recuperation.  We always have a heavy fall leaf removal and clean up around our home. Michelle and her husband saw to it that was handled for us.  Ann, our other daughter spent time helping Cindy with things she had put aside to look after me.  My wife never complained about my circumstances and believe me I gave her plenty of  reasons to.   Brent our son and youngest child, took care of all of my fall deer hunting responsibilities and anything Cindy needed him to do for us. Our children are married and have their own households and family matters to deal with, so everything they did for me was above and beyond.

   Ann, stays current on the latest electronics, computers, cell phones, and in general what I think of as high tech socializing.   Cindy and I ask  her when we need general help about those things. She got Cindy into facebooking.   Texting is something I do about once a year.  Twitting I'm not sure if you do that with your phone or computer, and I not going to ask any of our children.  I'm sure a lot of you are like me, my 9 year old grand-daughter laughs about how little I know about i-pads i-phones and so forth.

After Christmas I had an appointment with my cardiologist.  By this time I had lost 45 pounds, my cholesterol was good.   He agreed I was ready to fully resume walking, increasing my distance but needed to closely monitor my heart rate.  His instructions were as your strength improves your body will let you know what your limitations are.  "You will know what you can and can not do, don't push yourself beyond that point."

The last 3 months had been the most difficult of recuperating.  My lungs had cleared, I was getting stronger, I was improving and was ready to work on getting healthy.

Today for lunch I had oatmeal, and it was good, yeah I had oatmeal for breakfast too.  Snacked at 10:00 on a tangerine and a banana.