Tag Archives: exercise

An Anniversary I Wish I Didn’t Have To Acknowledge

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“Hiking is a bit like life: The journey only requires you to put one foot in front of the other…again and again and again. And if you allow yourself the opportunity to be present throughout the entirety of the trek, you will witness beauty every step of the way, not just at the summit.” – Anonymous

“I see my path, but I don’t know where it leads. Not knowing where I’m going is what inspires me to travel it.” – Rosalia de Castro

Today, 12/26/22 is the third anniversary of my heart attack. Since then, I have made changes to my life that I would think are for the better. After totally overhauling my diet, I find that I don’t crave all of the old crap that I used to. Candy is off the list (even sugar free candy, I can’t stand the taste of it). Fast food, like my favorite, Taco Bell, has also been filed in my brain as a “thing of the past.”

Physically, I feel better today than I have in years. It is amazing to me that you can feel bad for so long and not truly get it that something is drastically wrong. Talk about NOT listening to your body! Once COVID hit, unfortunately, it had my head spinning like a top. Can I still get out and hike? Should I hike?

In between the HA, CHF, and Type 2 diabetes, I have spent way too much time researching each of the conditions as well as how each can affect the others. I’ve probably learned way too much about ejection fractions and echocardiograms. I have also learned a great deal about the medications that I now take to keep my ticker ticking.

Mentally, the journey has been a little tougher. With COVID and the constantly changing messages regarding vaccines, masks, and, well, everything about the virus, it has been incredibly difficult to keep adjusting to every new idea that is floated to the American public. With all of that said, my focus remains on maintaining and also continuing to improve my health, both physically and mentally. I keep all of my doctor appointments and have learned that if something doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t.

So now I live my life much differently than I did three years ago.  It’s pretty clear that if I hadn’t changed my ways, today would more than likely look very different.

Hopefully, these changes will help to prolong a life that has been altered by years of bad habits and choices.

The most important thing? Stay positive and motivated!

Happy Hiking!

Don’t Forget The Diet

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“I saw many people who had advanced heart disease and I was so frustrated because I knew if they just knew how to do the right thing, simple lifestyle and diet steps, that the entire trajectory of their life and health would have been different.”-Dr. Oz

“Think about it: Heart disease and diabetes, which account for more deaths in the U.S. and worldwide than everything else combined, are completely preventable by making comprehensive lifestyle changes. Without drugs or surgery.”-Dean Ornish

One of the things that I have thought a great deal about since my heart attack is my diet. I have always exercised, but as an adult, my diet has been shit. I mean seriously, if you live in America, the choices you have to live a really, really bad lifestyle are endless. Taco Bell (used to be my favorite), McDonalds, BK, KFC and all of the rest contribute to a great deal of misery and unfortunately, death in this great nation of ours.

During the nine days I was in the hospital, I was able to do something that I don’t think I could have done if I was home. I actually detoxed myself off of sugar and any foods that are really bad for you. Since my daughter was home from school, I sat down with her and with the help of the internet, we figured out a diet that would suit my diabetes and heart condition. She spent (according to her) several days going through the house getting rid of anything that didn’t fall into the new plan of healthy eating.

So, after leaving the hospital, I went home not really sure if I was going to have the willpower to stick to a diet that didn’t include at least some of my favorite crappy foods. Fortunately, I think that since I was able to detox in the hospital, when I got home it was much easier to stay off of the garbage. Fourteen months later, I can say that I am still not eating the useless foods and have adopted what I think is a pretty good diet. I can also tell you that with the change in diet and the continued exercise, I feel better than I have in years.

After several months I found that although many of the recipes I was eating were really good for my diabetes, they were high in sodium, which isn’t great for the heart in regards to water retention.

So once again I went to the internet (Amazon this time), and I found an excellent cook book with recipes from the American Heart Association and the American Diabetes Association entitled, Diabetes and Heart Healthy Meals for Two.

The best thing about this book is that it runs the gamut of everything that you would want to eat, from soups and salads to meats, poultry, and vegetarian dishes. It also includes side dishes, breakfasts and dessert. Seeing as how it addresses both Diabetes and people with Heart Conditions, it makes a perfect cook book to use if you are trying to eat healthy.

Of course, I am not an expert in all things healthy, but I can tell you that I haven’t found any recipes that have not been edible. They’ve actually been really good.

Now the question that I have been wrestling with for these many months as I recover and also stay isolated from anyone who might kill me with COVID is this: If I had been eating better over the course of the last 30-40 years, would I have developed heart disease and diabetes? Although my mother had a bad ticker, it was her life long addiction to cigarettes that did her in.

One thing that you will never see me do is blame anyone but myself for my medical conditions. So many people these days spend their lives blaming everyone but themselves for the condition that they are in.
Only one person has that responsibility and blame and that person is you.

It’s Time To Get Back In The Saddle

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“Life is short. Go to the mountains and never look back.” -Anonymous

“Having a heart attack felt nothing like how I thought it would feel.”-Anonymous  

This whole Covid virus is really screwing up the start of my retirement. My goal, as small as it may be, was to be at a point now where I could be out hiking. But thanks to the virus, it has not gone exactly as planned.

Ever since I left the hospital on January 3rd, I have had to wear a portable defibrillator just in case I go into cardiac arrest. Originally I was only supposed to wear it for 45 days and then the decision would be made as to whether or not I would need a permanent one implanted, stay with what I have or nothing at all.

What are the factors to get me to one decision or another? It’s something called Ejection Fraction. What is that you may ask?

Ejection fraction (EF) is a measurement, expressed as a percentage, of how much blood the left ventricle pumps out with each contraction. 

When I had my heart attack, my EF was 8%. A normal EF for adults over the age of 20 is between 53% and 73%. Can your EF be improved? According to my cardiologist as well as what I have researched the answer is yes.

So for 6 months now I have done many things to help improve my EF. I still exercise at least six out of seven days per week, I don’t eat sugar and I also adopted a low sodium diet. The result is a decent amount of weight loss. I also take many medications to address my heart failure.

Now here is the interesting part. Although I complain about not being able to hike because of the virus, being locked down has actually helped in adjusting to my new life. The nine days that I spent in the hospital helped me detox from all of the crap I had been eating and having everything closed prevented me from slipping back into my old eating habits.

So on July 15th I finally go back to my doctor for an echocardiogram. I am hoping that at this appointment I will be given a more concrete plan on how to proceed. It is my hope that I either don’t need any type of defibrillator or they will implant one. The wearable one that I have now is a huge pain in the ass.

Until then, I’ll just keep on keeping on!

HAPPY HIKING!!!

 

I’m Baaaaack…And Grateful To Be Alive!

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“I’m as serious as a heart attack.”-Samuel L. Jackson

“Stress is a major component of cardiac events. It may not cause disease but can trigger a heart attack.”-Anonymous

Hey Folks,

I know that it has been a long time since I posted anything on this site. I am now officially retired from teaching as of 2:46 pm on 3/16/20.

So what am I doing with myself? Let me give you a little background.

First, I’ve had Congestive Heart Failure for just about six years. On December 26, 2019, I had a heart attack and spent nine days in the hospital. The doctors first thoughts were open heart surgery, but after several tests, it was determined that due to the weakening of my heart, I would not survive the surgery. So plan B went into effect. They ended up placing two stents in the arteries that run to the heart.

So, since January 3rd I have been just trying to get my heart stronger. I go to the gym six days a week and try to keep my stress level at a minimum. I have to admit that this has caused a dramatic shift in my lifestyle, especially what I eat. I have always exercised, but I’ve never really paid that much attention to the foods that I ate, Now, I eat tons of chicken, oatmeal, and everything is low fat, low sodium, and no sugar. I haven’t felt this good in a long time,  My cardiologist says with the exercise and vastly improved diet, I should be feeling better.

Now that I am retired, I have all of the time in the world to get to the point where I can back into the woods, hopefully, sooner rather than later. I’m not going to lie-I miss being out there. It has been months since I have felt the soft dirt under my feet, the warm sun on my face and the solitude of just being outdoors. At this point, however, I have to take it slow and listen to what my doctors say.

So what are they saying? I have to go back on 4/6 for an echocardiogram. At that point, I’m assuming they will make a decision as to whether or not I will need a defibrillator placed into my chest. Here’s hoping that they don’t!!!!

So my goals for the immediate future work hand in hand. I need to keep walking on the treadmill to get my heart stronger so I can get back out into the woods. At the same time, the goal is to also have my heart working at a rate where the defibrillator won’t be necessary.

 

Change Is In The Air…

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nysc_logo

If you know me, I’m not a big fan of change and I like things the way I like them. So this summer when I injured my knee riding my stationary bike, I knew that I would have to make some changes. Now, mind you, I could still walk and hiking was not an issue, just riding that stupid bike. So I decided to join a gym so I could have access to a treadmill and a stairclimber during the colder months instead of relying on just the stationary bike.

Especially with school starting again, it’s going to be difficult to get out hiking after school so I figured since a NYSC is 2 miles away, this would be the easiest way to get a good walking workout in and then hopefully still be able to get out on days off and on the weekends.

Signing up was easy online and when I went for the first time this morning, the people at the front desk were really friendly. Since I had never used a treadmill before, I did ask one of the trainers to show me how to use one of them. I know, how hard could it be? I just wanted to make sure that I didn’t end up on one of those video shows where the person on the treadmill wipes out and goes flying. So I swallowed my pride and asked the trainer to explain it to me like I was a 5 year old.

Thankfully she took pity on me and did just that. And thankfully again, I actually figured it out on the first try. It wasn’t that difficult.

One thing that I did find strange was that at first, I found it more difficult to walk on the treadmill than on the trail. Maybe it is just something that I have to get used to. We’ll see. But since it was the first time on a treadmill, I decided that I would take it relatively easy just to get used to it. I started just to warm up at 1.5 mph and gradually increased the MPH until I was walking at 3 MPH. My entire work out time? 45 minutes.

I also used the incline on the treadmill and walked for a while on 1.0. It appears as though they have different workouts on these things so I will experiment with that as the days go by.

So, for a first impression, I give them a 5 out of 5.

As I do with my hiking, I’ll keep track of my workouts on the blog. Instead of miles, however, I’ll keep track of my minutes walked every day.

8/30/19-45.0-45.0

8/31/19-45.0-90.0

9/1/19-45.0-135.0

***I decided to include the minutes of the workouts from 8/30-9/1 in this first post. Since I can’t really post many pictures of views in a gym, I was thinking of posting a once a week entry to explain what I did for that previous week.

Put One Foot In Front Of The Other

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“Act as the master of your life by putting your health, well being and happiness first.”

-Mariana Olszewski

“If you learn to create the right kind of climate in your body, mind, and emotion, your health and wellbeing and joy-everything will be taken care of.”

-Sadhguru

Being a teacher, I am blessed every year with having summers off. Although won’t see any kids until after Labor Day, I do have to go in tomorrow and Thursday for meetings. Every year in June I make a pledge to myself that I am going to get out and hike as much as possible. To get out and really put in the miles, see the views and do hikes I have never done before. Unfortunately, this usually ends up not being the case. Many times life takes over and prevents me from getting the hikes in that I have always wanted to do. And believe it or not, my own laziness has stopped me as well! Now I’m not saying that I haven’t hiked during past summers, it just has never been at the volume I would have liked.

As the school year drew to a close this year I made the same pledge. This will be the year that I get out as much as I can to do as much hiking as I could fit into the summer! I’m not going to lie, this school year was a really stressful one and the summer has been even more so. I really needed to commit to this!!! 

One of the other things that not many people know is that in November of 2014 I was diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure. Although I have always hiked and rode a stationary bike, this was not only a surprise, but a life changing diagnosis.

When I left the office that day, I thought that not only my hiking days were over, but my life as I knew it. I was really disheartened (no pun intended) at first when I was doing the stress test and did not even last 30 seconds on the treadmill. I knew that if I had continued I would have dropped. When I met with my cardiologist a couple of days later, we talked about the diagnosis and what it meant for me. I asked him when I could resume exercising and much to my surprise he said that I could do so immediately.

So here I am almost three years later. I have gone from not lasting 30 seconds on a treadmill to doing an 11 mile hike last week and completing 27 hikes to this point this summer.

Please don’t think that I am fishing for compliments or sympathy. I am simply pointing out that even in the darkest moments (thinking I was quite literally given a death sentence) that you can come back from that and resume an active lifestyle.

The most important thing to take from this is: All you have to do is put one foot in front of the other. At first it hurts and it sucks. We all have days where you don’t want to do anything, walk, ride, get out of bed. But you have to do it! I know for me the alternative was….well you can figure it out…