Suddenly, I'm not half the man I used to be

In fact, I'm three quarters of the man I used to be, and it wasn't that sudden.

Last year one of my brothers had the kind of heart related health scare that made the other brothers go in for a full lube and service.

So back in January, they took blood, weighed me, sniggered, stripped me down and then put me on a treadmill with electrodes attached to my nipples. A treadmill!

There I was, weighing in at 128kg, in my undies, sweating, huffing and puffing on a quick walk setting at a slight incline.
The cardiac dude said to me "would you say you have an active lifestyle?" Regular readers of this blog may remember how happy I am to be exercising, and how I love a cheery conversation in the middle of it. I said "Do I LOOK like I have an active lifestyle?" and we all laughed at how incredibly witty and fat I was.

A week or so later I headed back to my GP for the results, wondering how many bypasses I might actually need. While she didn't specifically do the "I've got good news and bad news" routine, she did say "Well your heart's fine. But you have diabetes."

I laughed out loud. A real Mrs Krabapple "Ha!" kind of laugh. Not cos it was funny, and certainly not because it was unlikely. I think it was because every time I go to the doctor I expect to get told I have cancer, or a dead heart, or that my right foot is actually imaginary. And of course I never get told those things. So to be told that I actually DO have something pretty serious was actually surprising.

My results weren't hugely big numbers. It was, obviously, type 2 (the fat guy type). For those that like the technical details, I had a HbA1c of 6.9, which put me in the low end of the "has diabetes" spectrum, but I was on the spectrum nonetheless (also, as an extra kick in the balls, the cardiac dude had written "decreased exercise tolerance for age"). My doctor told me that while there are drugs that can control Type 2 Diabetes, one of the side effects is that they increase appetite (now this made me laugh with actual humour, cos come on, that's hilariously ironic), and her recommendation (as it has been on many occasions) was to lose weight.

All the diabetes literature said that you should be below 100kg (and 100cm around the belly). I was 128kg and around 128cm. So, I set myself a goal. To lose 30kg (a nice round number), to take me down to 98. But then I realised (because I’m a nerd and binary numbers are etched into my brain), if I set myself a goal of losing 32kg it would take me down to 96, which would mean I would lose a quarter of my body weight. So that was the goal I set.

SPOILER ALERT: Today, after just under 10 months, I reached that goal. Over the next couple of posts, I will go over what I did with my food, my exercise and my general approach. Eventually, I presume, I will monetise this blog, and become a millionaire. So get in while it's still free.

Zumba-ya m’lord

Sunday 8th of August – Reflections before Week 5 begins

Holy crap I just saw the time. I have to be up in a few hours so we can Zumba.

I don’t think this one is even trying to be anything other than a flash in the pan DVD-selling fad, and so I’m expecting it to have laugh out loud moments. Having said that, of course, there will be Latin music and that will make it hard enough. I wonder if we’ll hear this:

I don’t really know what to expect, though. In the end it’s all jumping up and down, running around and feeling knackered. That’s pretty much all it ever is. Sometimes with props.

But there’s a spanner in the ointment, here. After last Monday’s session I felt quite tired, to the point where I went to bed rather early, and spent all of Tuesday in bed. I went to work Wednesday, but went home after only a couple of hours (it’s called “doing a Blocky” in honour of a guy in the office who did it once). I have spent the remaining days coughing a lot.

I’m still coughing right now. Last night I was pale and shaky and went to bed early as well. So not only have I not done any exercise over the week, I am still feeling somewhat crap. Which of course makes me wonder if I should go at all. In fact on reflection (that is the name of the post, after all) I may not. Which is sad in a way, cos there’s a hope that someone might be dressed like this guy (who is, I think, the now-multimillionaire behind this fad), and really, couldn’t we all do with some of this in our lives?