I had an “old Lee” week. Didn’t do my strength training. Made it a measly 6 minutes running, walked the rest for “push day”. Ate terribly for the three day holiday weekend with a birthday party and Mother’s Day. I was also discouraged all week about my weight.
When I’m feeling too confident I break out then”reveal every fat roll yellow shirt”. When I’m down, I need only look at an old photo to see how far my “good Lee weeks” have taken me.
We stayed at a hotel on the third floor, and the elevator was out. I had no problems carrying up all the luggage, cases of water and soft drinks, food and toys for the party. Two stories of stairs and then walking way to the other side of the hotel carrying heavy things. Three years ago I would have needed to go to a different hotel just to get myself and my cane into the room.
Push day was a bust, but I had a workout as a party Sherpa carrying loads back and forth, up and down stairs.
We went to a Tiger’s baseball game the next day and it’s so nice that stairs are no longer an obstacle.
Bad Lee living had left me diseased, weak and disabled. Three years of more good Lee weeks than bad have me much better off.
Back to my strength training this week and eating the healthy foods. Working hard to keep improving my health.
A bad week need not turn into a bad month. I hope you had a good week. But if not, progress will come as you push for more.
How much more? A little more.
How much farther? A bit farther.
Always.
3 years and counting in my health recovery journey. A lifetime more to go.
p.s. Always consult your own health team for your specific needs
p.p.s. Educate yourself to fully participate in your health strategy
Went to walk my dog as I do every morning. I stumbled – but I did not fall. 3 years ago I very likely would have fallen as I couldn’t walk safely across my grass lawn without my cane. Which brings me to my push day and the 4 tons I lifted today.
Progressive overload has taken me from walking with a cane to squatting with 110lbs for 45 total reps this morning. Meaning that I have been working that bit more for 3 years now. One of my rewards is walking freely with my dog, no need for the cane and not falling over a crack in the sidewalk.
I lifted just a tiny bit shy of 4 tons this morning between squats, bench press and deadlifts. It was hard, but we can do hard things. It would have been impossible for me three years ago. The squats and lunges with just my own body were difficult for me on the easiest levels of the Supernatural VR workout.
Yet, this minoring I first lifted 4 tons of weight and THEN did a high level SN workout that had knee kicks in addition to all the rest of this full body aerobics. I love SN, it’s so fun. I have been progressing over time as well from the shortest, low level routines, to the longest and hardest they have. In fact, I either add a weight vest, do multiple routines, or lift weights first so that the SN workout will get my heart rate up higher.
As my heart fitness has improved, I have to work harder to get the heart rate up into zone 5 (90% of max and above). I was pushing HARD today and didn’t get past zone 4 (80-90% of max).
My push days are not about the exercise, the distance run, the weights lifted. There are no ribbons or trophies. I’m slow and weak compared to a healthy and fit person my age. But I’m not competing against other people. What I’m doing is building my health so that I can walk, and play with my grandson and all the rest of the important things in life.
Lifting the weights to near failure today was hard. Doing the Supernatural aerobics routine after was hard. I wanted to quit after every song. I kept pushing the limits because that kicks off the adaptive responses of my body.
My muscles will get stronger. My bones will get stronger. My metabolism will raise. Fat will be burned. I will become more insulin sensitive. I will sleep better and handle stress better. I will have a stronger heart. My blood pressure will lower. These and more health benefits are guaranteed. That’s why I’m pushing my body more.
How much more? A little more.
How much farther? A bit farther.
Always.
3 years and counting in my health recovery journey. A lifetime more to go.
p.s. Always consult your own health team for your specific needs
p.p.s. Educate yourself to fully participate in your health strategy
In my health recovery journey, now in its third year, I have a couple blockbuster accomplishments. Getting off all diabetes meds and putting my Type 2 into remission, and going from walking with a cane, struggling with stairs to running a 5k. Amazing, right? Sometimes, in light of the big items, the continuing daily challenge can appear to be minimized. And in doing so, some folks in their own daily struggles feel a disconnect to the big victories that they hope to experience someday. I’ve been open about the continuing struggle with my weight, but I also deal daily with the limitations and pain of osteoarthritis.
Ding Dong! OMG, someone’s at the door and my wife isn’t around. I’m down in my office working in my recliner. I can’t sit in a regular chair all day. I have to jump out of the chair and run up the stairs to the door. “I’m coming,” I shout more than once. Why? Because it takes me a long time to recover from sitting. Yep, I can walk for miles and run sprints, but getting up out of a chair? Aches, pains, slowness. I’ve made progress. I’ve made HUGE progress. But I still have arthritis. I still have pain. I still can’t do everything other people take for granted. What I took for granted.
At church we had a games day and at one point I was helping to pick up nerf darts off the floor. I was quite pleased with myself. Here I was reaching down and picking stuff up off the floor. That used to be a challenge. I’d drop something and then wonder – do I really need it? It was difficult to bend down and pick something up off the floor. Look at me, I’m picking the nerf darts off the floor! After the third one, there were no more left. A teen had picked up the 21 remaining darts in the time it took me to pick up three. Less time, surely, I just didn’t notice he was done until I picked up my third. Don’t get me started about actually getting myself down and then back up from the floor. I have more abilities than I had three years ago – but I’m far from normal.
So, I journey on. I have more health to build, more abilities to reclaim. The big triumphs are all rearward facing. You see them after many days, weeks, months or years of the daily struggle. I’ve built my mantra based on this reality. I bring the big victories in by doing the little things – more.
How much more? A little more.
How much farther? A bit farther.
Always.
3 years and counting in my health recovery journey. A lifetime more to go.
p.s. Always consult your own health team for your specific needs
p.p.s. Educate yourself to fully participate in your health strategy
So much of the standard care for treating diabetes is rooted in this – patients will not change, will not take care of themselves. In fact, much of how we treat Type 2 Diabetes has at its core that “patients should be able to live a normal life”. Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? Aren’t you glad the medical profession has at its core the value that you should be able to live the same life everyone else does? Is there anything better? Well, yes, actually. Being healthy and free of a deadly and debilitating disease is far better. For that outcome, though, it’s going to require changing what you eat, when you eat, exercise, sleep and stress management. That’s hard work and it’s worth the hard work. The medical system can’t take the time to inform, train, teach and coach those lifestyle changes – and they don’t believe in you – and they don’t think it’s right to expect your life to be different than the modern life. Take your pill, take your shots, change nothing and be glad that you will still die in pain and disability, just perhaps a few years delayed.
I’m reading “Rethinking Diabetes: What Science Reveals About Diet, Insulin, and Successful Treatments” by Gary Taubes. He is telling the history of all the different ways doctors and researchers have been approaching diabetes. It’s a “how we got here” treatise and it’s eye opening.
We’ve known for 100 years how to effectively treat diabetes but all that went away when we had insulin shots and all the drugs that came after. Why change your diet when you can eat whatever carb laden food and desert you want and “cover it” with insulin? Why should diabetic children have to be different than any other children?
Sounds wonderful. Sounds compassionate. So much better than either eating very little, fasting, or eating a low carb, high fat diet. Just eat your cake and take your insulin shots.
And watch decades later with the disability and health disasters that didn’t have to happen if only folks could have been trusted to do the difficult work of changing how they eat and live.
The good news is that YOU can have faith in you. You can bet on yourself. I went from highly diabetic on 3 meds including the $1000/month Trulicity, and I was scheduled to get on an insulin pump. I read the book “The Diabetes Code” by Dr Jason Fung, went strict NSNG (No Sugars, No Grains) – keto diet, added intermittent fasting and exercise. In three months – THREE MONTHS – I was off all the meds. I’m three years into my health recovery journey and the words my diabetes specialist said still stand out in my mind “Not everyone is willing to make the changes you did”. That was her reason when I asked why she didn’t teach what I’d done that reversed my Type 2 Diabetes. That is why she told me, “Diabetes isn’t your fault”, and then piled on more and more meds.
She wasn’t willing to bet on me. She’s probably not wrong about most people being unwilling to make the changes. But you? You can believe in yourself. You can do hard things. You can overcome Type 2 Diabetes as I have. As many tens of thousands have.
Bet on yourself.
p.s. Always consult your own health team for your specific needs
p.p.s. Educate yourself to fully participate in your health strategy
It was my grandson’s 1st birthday today. More than a few things were eaten “Off plan”. It was a fun and exhausting day hosting family and friends.
But to start the day off – time to go out for a run and push myself. The first five minutes I wanted to quit. I just didn’t “feel it”. I kept running anyway. And kept running. By the time I stopped, my heart rate hit zone 5. I walked a bit and then did several rounds of sprints. And walked the mile and a half back home.
It’s been awhile since I peaked into zone 5 (90-100% of max) several times during a workout. Push day accomplished.
The chart in the photo is about power/watts. Being a fatty , it takes a lot of force to get this body moving. The power zones go to 7 and as I was sprinting, I was well into zone 7. It’s kind of a way to measure WHAT you are accomplishing physically similar to the volumes of weights lifted (weight x sets x reps). Heart rate lets you know how your heart is dealing with the physical effort.
I’ve come a long way from walking with a cane for 15 minutes. I got here by doing more and going farther.
How much more? A little more.
How much farther? A bit farther.
Always.
3 years and counting in my health recovery journey.
p.s. Always consult your own health team for your specific needs
p.p.s. Educate yourself to fully participate in your health strategy
I added extensions to my PowerBlock dumbbells. They now go to 70lbs each instead of just 50. So I dropped back to 5 sets of 5 with 110lbs for my squats. Progressive overload can be achieved by adding more weight or more volume (weight x sets x reps). The key is having at least the last set be at or near failure. It’s that maximum effort that pushes your body to adapt.
For the last set I kept going until I couldn’t – 20 reps. That was HARD, my heart was pounding. I hit zone 5 in my heart rate. For a few seconds anyway.
It’s supposed to be hard. Hard is good when you’ve built up to it. At this point all my lifting is hard. Hard doesn’t get harder, nor easier. What you can do at near maximum effort changes. Sometimes less, sometimes more. Assuredly more over time. But the “this is hard”, once you’ve worked up to that level – that stays the same.
Hard is ok. You can do hard things. Engaging in hard shapes your body, builds your health, makes you resilient, regains and increases abilities.
There is no set amount that is “what I need to do”. It’s not 15 minutes of walking, nor an hour. It’s not 10,000 steps a day nor lifting for 30 minutes 3 times a week.
It’s maximum effort. Not every moment of every day – but at least a couple times a week. That is – if you want to keep improving. To improve you must do more.
How much more? A little more.
How much farther? A bit farther.
Always.
That’s how you go from walking with a cane and struggling with stairs to squatting for 2 tons in one workout.
p.s. Always consult your own health team for your specific needs
p.p.s. Educate yourself to fully participate in your health strategy
Three years ago today I met with my diabetes specialist for the first time. I had been officially diabetic for a couple years but never took it seriously. Only pricked my finger about a month before quitting. Just took my pills. Finally went to see the specialist my regular doctor had been recommending.
My A1c was 11.2 — 11.2 that’s highly diabetic. The fear of terrible path I was on finally sank in. Deeply in. I’m going to go blind…a primal fear from childhood. Loose a foot, need dialysis, have a heart attack — diabetes takes your health away long before it takes your life. Living disabled and in pain was a journey that was already in motion. I walked with a cane and drove with a handicap sticker. I struggled walking up and down the stairs in my own house.
“It’s not your fault, diabetes is genetic” the specialist told me as she added the $1000/month Trulicity to the Metformin and Glipizide I’d been taking for years. She said at our next appointment, she’d start me on an insulin pump.
That was three years ago. That day I made the turn, I was going to reclaim my health and abilities. In three months I was off all the meds and never needed to go on insulin. My A1c is not diabetic anymore, it’s not even pre-diabetic. I have normal blood sugars. “Why wasn’t what I did what you teach?”, I asked her. “Not everyone is willing to make the changes you did”.
How about you? Is she describing you? She sure had me nailed – until I decided to make that change. Diabetes may not have been my fault, but taking care of my health is definitely my responsibility.
You can rebuild your health. You can overcome type 2 diabetes. Yes, you can.
Yes. You can.
YES YOU CAN!
I’m not special. It’s hard work, but you can do hard things.
Did I think I’d still be working on my health three years later? Yes, but not really. I was shocked how quickly I was able to overcome the diabetes part of my health. Three months. I’d have been discouraged to learn that in three years I’d still be grossly obese. Down 50lbs in three years. I had been down 85lbs but gained 40 back. Weight is still a struggle.
The beauty is – all of your body’s systems work together. Unlike taking pills and shots. What I did for my type 2 diabetes helped with my osteoarthritis pain. The exercise I did for my diabetes built my leg strength. I was able to let the cane go. Then walk longer, walk faster, then with a LOT of effort, I was able to run. A year more and I was able to run 5k’s.
I’ve been reclaiming my health and my abilities for three years. Sometimes it’s two steps forward and one step back. I believe I’ve finally made my peace with the journey. This is me. This is how I live. Always. I work to eat well, exercise hard, sleep deeply, and handle stress better. How amazing it is to eat yourself healthy. Exercise yourself into ability.
Here are links for the beginning and each anniversary of my journey. There are details for what I did in those links. I promise you, if you feel like I felt three years ago, and could live my life for one day the way I feel now — you’d make my doctor a liar. You’d be willing to make all the changes I did. It is so worth it.
p.s. Always consult your own health team for your specific needs
p.p.s. Educate yourself to fully participate in your health strategy
Ok…so you aren’t going to read my earlier blog posts. How’d I do it? Keto diet, intermittent fasting, cgm, and continually exercising a bit more and a touch harder.
Busy morning and frustrating afternoon and I didn’t want to do my Push Day. Yet I’d already said no to my lifting on Wednesday and Friday. I could feel the habit of saying no to my lifting starting to form.
It took all the way to 7pm for me to get up and say YES! Went down stairs and added one more rep to each set. It is a push day after all. One hour and 3.3 tons of weight lifted later and I felt great.
So great I wanted to do a Quick Strike Supernatural workout as a bonus. But I couldn’t log in. So I took the dog for a walk instead.
I have yet to feel bad after showing up for myself and pushing past “the No”. I don’t have an answer for those who ask for help getting motivated. Other than this – don’t go by how you feel when sitting in the chair – but by how you will feel after saying Yes.
No photo of a sweaty me – but my daughter noticed her son’s resemblance to her own baby picture, though he mostly takes after his dad. After posing my wife with our grandson, we all see the likeness.
Worth the effort to reclaim health and stay alive to experience these moments.
p.s. Always consult your own health team for your specific needs
p.p.s. Educate yourself to fully participate in your health strategy
I’m out running and getting my heart rate up close to 95%. It’s my weekly push day. Finding ways to push that bit harder and go that small amount further.
I had someone on my mind who had asked “what can I do about this terrible pain?”. She was experiencing an arthritic flare up. My heart went out to her, but I have no instant fix helps to offer. The same is true for those moments when someone’s blood sugar is super high.
I’m coming up on three years of this journey to rebuild my health and reclaim abilities. I was highly diabetic and my arthritic knees had me walking with a cane and driving with a handicap sticker. I had to arrange a wheel chair and someone to push me to get across an airport in time to catch a connecting flight.
Now I’m off all diabetes meds and my A1c is normal, not even pre-diabetic. I’m out on a Saturday running and sprinting. But these improvements didn’t happen in a day.
From the beginning I aimed at getting healthy and fit. I didn’t try to just get low blood sugar readings or relief from arthritis pain. I didn’t even know that where I am today was going to be possible.
I had to change what I eat to remove the sugars and carbs. But those changes didn’t all happen in a day. Intermittent fasting and then multi day fasts started with not snacking after dinner. I couldn’t run, I couldn’t do high intensity cardio. I walked with my cane for 15 minutes.
I started where EVERYONE starts. I started where I was, and then made progress. But I kept on making progress, piling change upon change.
I got here by doing more and going farther.
How much more? A little more.
How much farther? A bit farther.
Always.
I have much more to go and I’m eager to get there. I want rid of all the excess fat. I want to build muscles, to have guns and legs that pop.
I am building my body. It just takes time. There is no pill or shot you can take to build your body. You earn it day by day.
p.s. Always consult your own health team for your specific needs
p.p.s. Educate yourself to fully participate in your health strategy
That’s right, I’m going to make the case for yoyo dieting. Bear with me, I haven’t lost my mind.
We all know someone who’s always on a diet – and always fat. Oh, they may lose weight every now and then, but they always gain it back. They try every type of diet which frustrates you – because “why can’t they just eat everything in moderation”? After all, you’ve never had a problem with weight control, how hard can it be?
From this point on – I’ll write about me and my journey, not the unnamed, un-faced “those people”.
Once I got into my twenties, I’ve struggled achieving and maintaining a healthy weight. Most of the time I wouldn’t even work on my weight. I have a fairly robust self image that, unfortunately, is impervious to the man in the mirror. That said, I have embarked to lose weight more than a few times. I’ll talk about just two of the most successful – that ultimately failed as always.
In my mid forties I was at my heaviest (until then) at 315lbs. A bad night in the hospital woke me up to the notion that I wasn’t going to die young, I was going to live sick. That was more terrifying to me, and the next day I embarked on a journey to lose weight and get fit. I couldn’t even do a single push up at the time. I started the Less of Lee blog on day one of that journey before I’d lost a pound. I thought by announcing to my friends, family, co-workers, and the entire world of my plan to lose weight – that it would box me in and keep me on track. And it worked.
I lost 85lbs in 10 months. No fasting back then. Just a Weight Watchers/calorie counting approach as I slowly transitioned to a low carb diet. In one of my earlier failed attempts I had learned about, come to believe, and had some success with low carb. I just wasn’t ready to jump straight into an Atkins diet. So I counted calories, used portion control and slowly started swapping out the high carb highly processed foods for low carb, whole foods. I walked and walked, then ran a little then built up to running 5ks. I did not have arthritis back then. Next I embarked on the P90 fitness program and started building some muscles. That’s the version of me in the photo on the left.
I looked good, felt good, and everyone was proud of me – I was proud of myself. Then the fear went away and the life of a father of three caught me up in other priorities and the weight came back. I’d try to get back on track and it wouldn’t stick, at all. And now I’m in my mid fifties, 336lbs, type 2 diabetic with arthritic knees, walking with a cane and driving with a handicap sticker. That’s me on the right, three years ago,
My A1c hit 11.2, Trulicity was added to the two meds I’d been taking for years and I was to start insulin shots at the next doctor’s appointment. The fear returned and I embarked on my current journey. There has been a LOT of success. I got off all the meds, never had to take insulin shots, and achieved a normal A1c. It’s 5.6 right now, two and a half years later without meds. I went from walking with a cane to running 5ks. Unbelievable.
Oh…and I lost 85lbs and was on my way to getting to a healthy weight.
BUT – instead, I gained back 40 of those pounds. I didn’t go back to my “wildly unhealthy, eat whatever I wanted” ways. I simply had too many days and times where I didn’t eat well. I gain weight EASILY. It’s quite hard to lose weight. I have not arrived.
And yet, I have not given up.
That’s why I am praising the yoyo dieter. To me, that’s someone who hasn’t given up. If I had never endeavored to lose weight, I’d be over 500lbs. I’d be on diabetes meds, and taking insulin shots. What does insulin shots do? It causes you to gain weight. I’d be walking with that cane if not a walker.
We assume that the problems are in the diets and in the dieter. And for sure, there are some questionable diets designed only to sell magazines and supplements. And sure, some people seem to fall for any wacko scheme.
And yet. The real villain is the modern, highly processed foods that taste so good, are so cheap, are everywhere in your face. No diet. No way of losing weight. No type exercise. None of these things work when you return to eating these “foods”.
Well, just never eat them. Yep. I’m guilty. The struggle is real. If I’d have learned my lessons in my twenties and never again made bad choices, I’d not be in the situation I’m in now. That I do the wrong things is not praise worthy. Do not be like me in this. I urge you to be perfect, all the time. For sure, that’s the best thing.
But…
Never give up. Never give in. Never quit. Never let past failures convince you to just stop trying. Just as surely as every bad choice has harmed me, every good choice, every good day has been to my benefit.
Others may label you a yoyo dieter because all they see is the failure without appreciating the struggle. I praise you as the unrelenting warrior that you are on your best days. If yesterday wasn’t one of your best, shake it off and move forward.
You warrior you.
p.s. Always consult your own health team for your specific needs
p.p.s. Educate yourself to fully participate in your health strategy
Less of Lee 