The following article is a preview of something that will be displayed in my local hospital's monthly newsletter. One of the administrators asked me to write something talking about how I had done what I had. They want me to inspire some of my coworkers to take control of their health as well. I was honored, of course! It has been altered a bit, for names and places, and it may be altered a little more, as it appears to be quite lengthy. But here it is, for your consideration:
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The best gift that I have ever received was the wake-up call I got the day before my birthday this past year. On October the 14th of 2010, I stepped on to the scale in the ER, and weighed myself for the first time in 6 months. You know it’s time when your scrubs start to feel tight. I was astonished at the number staring back at me.
400.7 pounds
It was the biggest that I have ever been in my entire life. I didn’t know what to do to help myself and I started to question whether medication and surgery might be the answer. However, the solution came to me through an advertisement for a local gym coming to town.
When the gym opened up, I started out by going twice a week. I would go in, get on the treadmill and walk for as long as my legs could stand it, which was usually only 10-15 minutes in the first few weeks. From the beginning of October to the end of December, I lost 15 pounds. It came off slower than I wanted it to, but it was still progress. I knew that if I really wanted to make progress, I would have to make changes in my diet as well.
Counting calories just wasn’t enough for me anymore. I started searching the internet for nutritional pyramids and special diets designed for weight-loss. Through an acquaintance online, I found Paleo dieting and a book called The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson.
The Paleo diet is a rather simple concept. It is based on the diet of our ancestors from the “hunter-gatherer” periods. These people ate vegetables and fruits, along with whatever meat they could outrun, outsmart, and kill. They didn’t consume a lot of dairy, if any at all, and grains were far from being a staple in their daily diet. You also didn’t find any added sugars or salts in their foods. This concept was taken to a level of preparing and cooking these foods any way that is desired, just without any “modern” additions such as seasoning salt, deep fryers, or vegetable oils.
In Mark Sisson’s book, The Primal Blueprint, he takes the concept of Paleo dieting to a whole new level. Mark taught me to not only eat like a caveman, but to exercise like one too. He suggests that we model our fitness lifestyle after hunter-gatherers who wouldn’t have spent time “exercising”. Most of their time would have been devoted to walking constantly, crawling through forests, climbing up trees, and small bursts of speed to capture their prey or run from a predator. Translate this into doing 3-5 hours of low level activity like walking a week, with two or three strength training exercises, and a sprint session once a week.
This coupled with a class put on by Christopher Poe really helped to take my exercise to the next level. His advice was simply to do compound exercises (working more than one muscle) instead of isolation exercises (working just one muscle). This meant a routine of push-ups, pull-ups, squats, and planks. In the gym, it translated to bench presses, lateral bar pulls, squats with weights, and planks.
Since going to Christopher’s class, starting the Paleo diet, and exercising like a caveman in January, I’ve shed an additional 35 pounds. In total, I have lost 50 pounds in six months!
Since October, I’ve modified my exercise routine down to doing most of my cardio outside of the gym and at random times during the day and week. I don’t worry about it unless I don’t get in at least 3 hours of cardio a week. When I go to the gym I spend no more than 45 minutes to an hour there each time, and I do those compound exercises that Christopher taught me, and throw in a set of overhead bench presses.
The only other thing I can suggest to help with exercise is to keep track of it. I like to write everything I do down in a notebook. At the end of each week, I look over everything I’ve done and it helps me to see where I can use improvement and sometimes where I need to back off. In January, I decided that this wasn’t enough; I wanted to have accountability for my actions. I started a blog called the Emergency Medical Fatnicians (emergencymedicalfatnicians.blogspot.com) that I use to track all of my progress, as well as what I’m trying and things I’m doing to improve my health. It’s huge to me for keeping me accountable, especially if I know somebody is always watching and wondering.
I think the most important thing anyone can do is anything. Whether it’s going to Weight Watchers or joining a Zumba class, find a way to keep yourself motivated and get healthy at the same time.You’ll find out that, when you’re exercising, you’re not wasting time on the thing you’re doing, if you’re doing the thing you love.
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