Thursday, October 10, 2002

Is the scale broken?
No. I am continuing to lose weight at a safe, healthy rate. Earlier I said:

As of 9/18, I am 25 pounds down from my weight the day I had the stroke, 34 pounds down from my first heart attack in July (at which time my cardiologist told me to lose forty, so I�m six pounds from that target � which was supposed to take a year to reach).

As of now, 10/10, I'm eight pounds lighter still. I'm lighter than I've been in at least ten years. I'm down 42 pounds from 7/8 (two pounds past the cardiologist's order). You don't notice how many little aches and pains you've gotten used to, problems that are directly attributable to carrying around too much weight, until you lose the weight and don't have 'em anymore.

This is another thing for which I can thank my long-suffering wife, for (as she has noted) it was she who did the dietary research in order to tell me what and how much I should be eating.

I haven't mentioned specific before-and-after numbers. Do you think I should? Frankly, I was ashamed of my weight, even though my body's tendency to distribute fat evenly created the illusion that I was less overweight than I was. And my current weight, though a great improvement, is still nobody's idea of lithe.

But, you should excuse the expression, I can live with it.

I'm getting stronger, too. Not yet up to pre-stroke levels, but it no longer exhausts me to walk my son to school or climb a flight of stairs. It may not sound like much, but it's progress, and it's very encouraging. Is my wife responsible for this, too? Well, yes. It was she who asked me to start walking our son to school in the first place. It's about a mile round-trip, downhill all the way there (and uphill all the way back). There's that half-hour per day (actually a touch longer) that the cardiologist wanted me to walk.

I still hate exercise. But I can't deny I feel better.

Now if only I could see straight...

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