A Fresh Start...

As of Monday (yesterday) I have embarked on a new series of health-habits.

I will be detailing some of the highlights and (probably) lowlights during the next 90 days. After the 90 days, we'll have a review and I'll share what I've learned.

Some vital statistics:

I am 5'11" with a moderately heavy bone structure.

Currently, I weigh 312 pounds. I'm "Apple" shaped and carry most of my excess around my middle.

My resting blood pressure is around 170/130... with Meds!!!!
I currently take:

Clonidine .4mg 3x day
Hydroclorcothyizine 25mg 1x day
Furosemide 40mg 1x day
Exforge (combination of 2 meds) 10/320 1x day (morning)
Exforge 5/160 1x day (evening)
Klor-Con 10 1x day

Yuck!

For most of my adult life, I've never been on any kind of medication; preferring to seek natural methods of healing. However, I ended up in the emergency room with BP of 265/172 and nobody could figure out why I wasn't dead.

Interestingly, my BP has fluctuated quite a bit over the last several years. When I first moved to Charleston, I was definitely on the high side.

But with a regular exercise routine, consisting mainly of lifting weights 3x week and exercise bicycling for 25 minutes directly afterwards, my BP went down to 130/90 without any meds... though I was taking "Quinn's Blend" herbs.

This is a combination of Cayenne, Garlic, Hawthorne and some other stuff.

Then, two things happened:

I started focusing more on bicycling and aerobics...

And I added moderate alcohol back into my diet.

BANG! up it went.

Hmmm...

You'd think that alcohol would relax the blood vessels, thus lowering BP. But apparently not. So now I will have one glass of wine with dinner, maybe once per week - if even that.

I've been procrastinating getting back into the gym for a very good reason... I'm being petulantly lazy.

Let's finish with a small talk about diet. I'm probably one of the worst examples of typical "American" diet there is. I am a firm advocate of the "Fat=Flavor" school. My mother always said, "Dog turds would taste pretty good if you added enough butter".

I have a deep weakness for really good hamburgers and hand-cut French fries. The best I've ever had was in Seattle from a weird little stand named, "Dick's". The closest I've found otherwise is Wendy's.

Frankly, I'm squashed in the middle of a little paradox: I love fresh veggies from the garden, but don't have the time, nor the space to grow one. Because I know how glorious these are, I pretty much disdain grocery store fodder. I never claimed to be reasonable. Even organic foodstuffs aren't close. But I'm working on it.

So, ok... enough of the background

My activity level has been almost nil for the last 6 weeks, but before that I was very regular in working out at least twice per week.

Yesterday, being my big start - I immediately got up and put off going to the gym. Seeing how well this went, I proceeded to diligently skip my 20 minute walk, and followed up by a long session of not stretching.

However, in a fit of weakness, I did drink over 1 gallon of water with lemon juice and chlorophyll which made me end up feeling like an intermittent fire hose.

Topping the day off, I noticed that there was some left over Ben and Jerry's in the freezer and since I didn't want to leave it there for temptation; I ate it.

I was, however very dedicated in most other forms of dietary discipline.

For Breakfast, I had egg-beaters, spinach and black beans with a tablespoon of salsa.

Lunch was a green salad and 2 hotdogs (theoretically good hotdogs without a lot of nitrates and crap).

Dinner was two grilled chicken thighs and a big handful of non-salted trail mix.

I had one glass of mediocre red wine while sitting at our fire ring in the back yard while giving Nicholaus tips on the fine art of Pyromania.

Life was good.