Archive for July, 2009

So, 18 weeks to go until I wrap this up, although I will continue the personal program through into the new year until I get my weight down the my goal weight of 88 kilos.

Another good week, even though I didn’t exercise on all of the days that I planned to and my eating was poor over last weekend. I’ll somehow fix that this week, although with my son in tow it makes it hard to get out for a walk on Sunday, and I have the additional food temptation of going to the football on Sunday afternoon to see the Bombers take on the Tigers .. the second last game D and I will get to this year. But a little sacrifice of what I’d like in the moment versus the value I get long term by sticking to the plan means I’ll be good, I’ll take some roasted almonds and water, that’ll get me through.

Fat Food Friday was a ripper today, toasted sandwiches for breakfast, Prawn Risotto for lunch and a burger and chips for dinner .. feeling bloated and unsatisfied .. ahh, don’t you love it!

Now I need to cook lunches for next week so that is out of the way for the weekend.

Tomorrow morning is Bikrm Yoga at 9.30am and then an afternoon of housework (cleaning, ironing, washing), followed by playing in my main band How Now at Khyats in Brighton, if you’re in Melbourne and looking for something to do head down around 9pm and say g’day. So it will be a big day of exercise.

The rest of the week will be Monday night – walk, Tuesday 6 am Bikram Yoga, Wednesday – walk, Thursday 6 am Bikram Yoga. I’ll try and get another walk in, maybe Tuesday night if I can get myself organised well enough, but next weekend I’ll do a 2 hour walk on the Sunday morning.

That’s enough for tonight .. can I just ask two things from you.

1. please sponsor me, all funds go to baker IDI Heart & Diabetes Institute.
2. spread the word about my blog.

Yesterday I ventured into the Healthy Heart Clinic at the Alfred Hospital, run by Baker IDI Heart & Diabetes Institute, for an update on the health impact of my lifestyle changes.

This is the third visit I’ve made, and the plan is to visit again in late September and then again right at the end of SavingAlan in late November. I wrote about my last visit in this blog post.

Here are the comparative results from my visits so far;

Smoker: If I stopped smoking then I would get my overall risk factor cut by half to 2.5, which is the average for someone of my age.

Systolic Blood Pressure: They say the pressure is a little high, but a surgeon mate of mine reckons my blood pressure is brilliant for someone my age, regardless of the weight I carry.

Diastolic Blood Pressure: This is the pressure coming in to the heart, it remains good if not excellent.

TC (Total Cholesterol); Have reduced by 22.5%, and it is within the healthy normal range

HDL (Good Cholesterol): Here’s the impact of the changes in my diet, I am now over the 1.0 mark, regarded as the healthy benchmark.

LDL (Bad Cholesterol): Down 35.3% in 5 months.

Triglycerides: No issues here, in fact the decrease of 38.8% is a fantastic result.

Glucose: Sitting right in the healthy range..

Weight: In the last period I only dropped 5 kilos, but have still been able to get the great results we see above. School Holidays blew my routine though.

Body Mass Index (BMI): Down 17.7% – not sure if I will ever get to 25.

Waist circumference: Down 11.4% or 17cm. By my weekly measurements I am down to 126.5cm, so I must have been bloated from toast I didn’t have the day before. I can’t imagine how good it would feel to be 94cm around the waist, but if I stay motivated anything is possible.

Heart Health: Risk factor has dropped from 9% to 8% and now to 5%, regarded as a mild risk to have a cardiovascular event in the next 5 years. My target absolute risk is 2.5% and I am 2 times more likely than a person with a low risk profile to have said event, down from 3.6x.

Diabetes Health: My risk of developing type 2 diabetes within 5 years is High, and with this risk level I have a 1 in 7 chance. I’d like to see this drop considerably over the next 4 months.

So I am still indestructible!

The Heart Clinic is based at the Alfred Hospital in Commercial Road, Prahran (between Punt and St.Kilda Roads) and you can call them on 03 9076 3398 to organise your own check up. The first time you go takes about 40 minutes and all it consists of is a questionnaire, blood pressure and a blood test. The blood test is cool compared to what I have been used to, instead of taking a syringe to you and extracting a heap of blood, they just prick the end of a finger  and take  small amount of blood through a tiny little straw .. it just runs up there on its own.

Then they analyse the blood in a little machine and that provides results on cholesterols, triglycerides and glucose levels. These combined with blood pressure, weight, body mass index, waist measurement, age and whether you’re a smoker all combine to provide a risk factor.

So give Jan or Liz a call now, it’s free and the information is worth knowing before you end up in the Alfred proper.

I have a fixation on Crunchie bars.

I think of them often, every day.

When I wasn’t focused on losing weight I never thought of them, but lately I just want one every day .. damn!

I’m getting back into the routine of exercise and eating well.

I didn’t get out for a walk on Monday, so I had to make sure tonight was worthwhile. I headed down to the beach, the rain was light, the wind was blowing and it was cold, so I rugged up with layers of clothing and two hours later I am still sweaty so I am getting good value out of the walk.

By the time I got home, heated up the last of the Pumpkin Soup for dinner there’s no time to get anything done, except a quick couple of blogs. Need to get to bed early and  get up for Bikram Yoga in the morning.

The vertical axis is the speed of the walk. I am pretty happy with this effort. The last time I was walking (about 7 years ago) I was doing 7 kms most mornings in 60 minutes, so I am not far away from that speed and intensity. While I am this weight I get good burn which is awesome. You can click on the image to see a larger version.

I have a goal of 285 kilometres by the end of November – 5 kilometres a walk, 3 times a week and I am already behind the 8 ball on it.

It’s interesting speaking with different fitness and health related people and getting their view of what is the absolute best method of exercising to get the maximum results in wieght loss.

Some of the Personal Trainers I have spoken to are so hardcore in their view that there is just no way I would consider following their program or working out with them. I am not fit, I need to understand my body and its limitations until I can handle more intense workouts. Them being so rigid in their view misses the whole point of the ‘personal’ in their job description. I think most people would think of personal trainers as taking a purely cookie cuter approach to fitness and health, that you follow this to get a certain outcome. having said that I am sure there are some absolute rippers out there who can combine all the different elements needed to help someone reach their goals.

I am stubborn, pig-headed and at times a damn know it all.

What do I want from exerise?

I want to be amused, challenged, entertained, I want solitude, I want to meet other people with similar challenges and I want to see results. If I can package this all up, I’ll be so motivated and committed to the plan that I will end up with all and more of my goals met. But I am doing this on my own, and pulling in the help when I need it. Why?

Not all of us can afford months away from work and family to go on Biggest Loser, spend weeks at health retreats, afford gym memberships and the like and we need to find ways within our budget and commitments to reach our goals. Sometimes this means adjusting budgets and commitments to place different priorities on different aspects of our lives.

So now I have a priority on my health -  combination of physical health (exercise and food) and mental health.

I think I have worked out what is a good exercise balance for me – Bikram Yoga 3 times a week and a one hour walk 3-4 times a weeks, seems to be getting the best outcomes for me. I’d like to get back and do the occasional aqua aerobics session as well, and look forward to when my feet and ankles will stand up to playing tennis once a week.

I understand as I get lighter I need to become more intense in my workouts / exercise. I tripped across a spreadsheet the other day that showed the level of  variance in effectiveness of walking and running and the weight factor www.brianmac.co.uk/excel/energyexp.xls. So for me being very heavy, I get good outcomes from walking at the moment, but the day will com when it is not intense enough and I’ll need to up the ante, I’m looking forward to that. One thing that interests me is kayaking on the bay, I think that would be a great way to get some sun and exercise at the same time.

I bought a pair of Nike’s just so I could use the Nike+ sensor in the shoe with my iPod Nano, but now I have the iPhone 3GS and it’s all integrated it’s even better. So from today’s workout here is the screenshot;

So I have set a few challenges. i) to walk 285 kilometres by the end of November, this is 15 kilometres a week for the next 19 weeks.  ii) 48 walks minimum over the next 16 weeks. I should be able blow these out of the water, and if I do then I’ll see some great results.

Today’s walk was great, new socks meant no blisters, but I did suffer really sore ankles and feet, so I obviously need to build back up again after the two week layoff. I am so lucky to live close to the bay and be able to walk along the coast, fresh air blowing and no traffic roaring by.

The city of Melbourne in the background

I know laying around somewhere I have some exercises that I can do at home with dumbbells to strengthen my shoulders and arms as well, so I am going to try and get a routine with that going 3-4 times a week, as well as setting a push up / sit up challenge in the weeks ahead.

All this combined with the strengthening and toning that Bikram Yoga provides, not to mention the calorie burn which I have been able to find estimates between 350 calories and 1845 calories per session. Let assume it’s down between the middle and lower third of the range for me as I cant get into all positions as yet – 500-800 calories.

Anyway, I’ve been for my walk, done loads of washing and cleaning and now it’s time to get some work done.

It’s no understatement to say that my biggest challenge is dealing with me!

You’ll notice that the absence of posts correlated directly with weight being added instead of subtracted. For two weeks I went quiet, while I battled myself to try and get my routine sorted out. A few things conspired to throw me off balance and out of a routine that was really working for me.

The first was school holidays. My son gets 12 weeks holidays a year, of which 6 he spends with me. I get 4 weeks annual leave .. you do the math. So this holiday period I decided I wouldn’t take the time off. So the compromise was for the two of us to stay with my parents some 80 kilometres away and I’d just have to drive in to the city every day and back at night.

So the two mornings a week at Bikram Yoga went out the door, and the Monday and Wednesday walks also got cancelled. It wasn’t that so much, as the other things I added to it, food! For whatever reasons I decided that I could take a break from the food plan as well .. DUMB! I should have set that week as a challenge to lose weight regardless of the difficulty of coordinating all the different parts of my world. Okay, I did, but I gave up.

By the time holidays were over, the routine had been broken and I was exposed to all the old habits and the feeeling that I could just turn it back on any time I wanted and get the weight loss moving again. Well it proved not to be so easy. That following week I was still in dissaray from the previous one and just didn’t buckle down and get organised. The house became disheveled (a nice word for a pig sty) and I was all over the place and just couldn’t be bothered. I’ve always known that failure is part of the process to my goals and bad weeks are just as important as good weeks to expose how my thinking works during that time so I can catch it next time. The mind plays tricks on me to go easy, knowing that everyone will understand, “you can still do it”, “just walk a bit extra tomorrow” etc etc.

Well enough, I’m back.

I added 2 kilos during the 2 bad weeks, and then took off 1 kilo last week, which was a bit of  surprise as I really didn’t exercise much and my food intake wasn’t anywhere near as good as it normally is. So now I have another false security to deal with, that even if I am not that good with food and exercise, I can still get a weight loss outcome. But if I stay on course and stick to the process then I should be able to improve my outcomes and power towards to 100 kilo mark.

I think this coming week is going to be a good one, I can already feel some change in my body, and I am going to avoid bread all week and should see some decent cm loss results.

So the plan for the week ahead;

Friday – gig, 3 hours of polaying drums and sweating it out – done

Saturday – Bikram Yoga – done

Sunday – 1 hour walk, early morning

Monday -not sure yet, have a business commitment in the evening and an early start, so may have get up very early and head out for a walk.

Tuesday – Bikram Yoga, 6am.

Wednesday – Walk the Tan with Penney and Kerry.

Thursday – Bikram Yoga

Highlight of the week, my brother who has completed a number of Marathons and is about to take on the full Iron Man Triathlon in Bussleton (WA) later this year came to class on Tueday morning. Nice to hear that he was weary from his first hot Yoga experience, even better is that he’s coming back for more this Tuesday – thanks Paul!

So here’s the current status;

Man Week is over, but I’ve just discovered it and decided to add my two bobs worth.

I’ve been scared to write about this post and the ones that will follow for fear of what other people will think, will their view of me be diminished, will I seem weak and will I think even less of myself as I see these thoughts and feelings written down for the first time?

This is a story I have intended to share since I first started the SavingAlan project, it was the reason for starting it, not just to talk about how I am going to lose weight or raise money for charity, but to share my story and personal challenges.

Maybe for validation that I am not the only one who faces the demons I do, or maybe that writing it down will give me insight into my own condition as well and maybe shine a light on a path forward.

The discovery of some awesome posts from Julian, Scott, Gavin,  Jye ,Joel, Mark and Gavin have prompted me to sit down and get it done. I don’t have prosaic skills of these guys, but it’s time I added my voice.

On my interview with Stubbsy I said that I would now open up and talk about how I became obese, as I firmly believe it is what is between my ears that caused it, not simply what I chose to eat. It’s not about discipline, about routine, about knowledge, about skills, about self worth / esteem, about family, about belonging, about expectations and a hundred other things. It’s about all those things and more.

I have suffered and battled with depression / melancholy on and off for all my adult life (and possibly some of my childhood as well), but it has taken until my mid forties to realise that was what I was experiencing. It took a second marriage breakdown for me to get to the crisis point, the feeling of hopelessness, of desperation, of a sadness so heavy it was physical.

But being a man I’m expected to be able to handle these things, to continue to function at work, socially, as a parent, as a mentor, as a son and all the other roles we fulfil in our daily lives.

During the two years it took to battle for some custody of my son, during the time when I needed friends and family close by I ostracised them all. I literally couldn’t function and I didn’t want anyone to know, I couldn’t let the veneer crack. The odd thing is they could see it clearer than I could!

As men we need to be aware of each other’s need to talk, we need to make sure we can be good listeners for our friends and family. There were many times when I tried to have a conversation about how I was feeling that the other person took over the conversation and it became about them, when I just really needed someone to listen even if they didn’t understand, just to listen to me so I could hear myself. Instead it stayed bottled up inside.

Three moments are so clear in my mind, and I never want to revisit those feelings again;

1. Not long after the marriage broke down and I had moved out, I was sitting in the courtyard just feeling helpless and hopeless. Thinking about how it all turned out this way, this wasn’t how it was supposed to be. I was supposed to have the happy marriage, awesome job and beautiful house and here I was finding it impossible to find one good thing in my life. It was an easy path to consider that it would all be better off without me, but I don’t have the balls to do that, but I thought about all the people who do feel that there is no way out and in desperation and hopelessness take their own lives.
2. Some months later at home, walking around the backyard bawling my eyes out, my whole body heaving. An incredibly heavy sad feeling, but not for a specific reason, it was just everything built up – I had screwed my marriages (yep there was an earlier one), my work life, my friendships and here I was alone fighting so I hopefully would not screw up again by being an absent father.
3. Driving home from work during this time was a battle, going home to an empty house was just a reminder of what I saw as failure on all fronts. It was a destination, not a small part of the eventual journey. I would just cry all the way home.

In the later stages of the custody battle I worked for small ad agency that did some work for Beyond Blue. I remember seeing the new set of TV ads and was horrified that I was looking at myself, it was me in those ads … it couldn’t be.

I rang Beyond Blue for help, and basically all they did was send to their website to find a counsellor / psyche, which didn’t really help much. So I trotted off to my GP who quickly understood what was going on and set me up with a Psychologist. I did 10 sessions and felt like I got nothing out of it, and it would have been so easy to just give up, accept my lot and maintain the survival mode, even though I longed to feel alive again, to feel loved, to love and to laugh.

Over the following months I had given up the idea of how I could find someone I could connect with, who could help unlock what was going on, what I was going through and get me to understand my behaviours and the beliefs that drive them.

During this time I tried think of the times when I have been happiest in my life, when I felt of value to myself and others, when I was passionate about what I was doing and felt really alive. I dug back to the late 80’s and realised that two common themes kept emerging – music and charity.

So I started to formulate SavingAlan and having discussions with people when I got the chance to test the waters, to see if they would drag me down or dismiss it as a stupid idea. Instead the support I got was incredibly positive and so I sat on it and procrastinated for a couple of years.

About 18 months ago I accepted an invitation to dinner with some business colleagues and the conversation quickly became very open about experiences, about life and how we felt about our own current situations. There was a strong resonance in each of our stories, but most importantly one of the women gave me an introduction to a counsellor / psychologist.

This has been serendipitous introduction, my time with Jan (counsellor, coach, psychologist) has been an incredibly positive influence. The level of understanding I have, the insight into myself that I have learnt and am continuing to learn is helping me every day get my life back to where I want it heading. She challenges me to be honest with myself and to get to the underlying belief system I have built up over the years and to see its madness and how this has shaped so many things in my life and turned one with so much energy and enthusiasm for life into a survivor.

The good news is I am on the path back, I don’t need to be perfect, I don’t need a perfect life I just need my life full of my passions, after all, that’s all any of us need.

I teach my son to have the courage to walk to the beat of his own drum, now it’s time for me to walk the talk!

There is so much more this story, too much for a single post, but now I have started it and it’s out there I can let the fear go.