COVID-19 Gratitude 2: Getting My Health Back

There are many things I’m grateful for amid this pandemic. My health is one of them. A year ago, I would have been at much higher risk of catching COVID-19.

Mood Music:

I’m certainly not bulletproof. No one is, based on the limited science we have on COVID-19 at the moment. But mentally and physically, I have much more fight in me.

This time last year, I was hovering around 290 pounds. I was on blood pressure medication, the CPAP was struggling to punch through airways under pressure from a fatty throat and I was getting migraines constantly. Weight-control measures that had worked in the past didn’t cut it anymore, especially the food plan and 12-step program I was following via Overeaters Anonymous (OA), which I wrote a lot about earlier in the history of this blog.

My experience is not a condemnation of OA or anything else that works for others. Many people need a 12-step program when addictive behavior is the root of their pain. It simply didn’t work for me. OA felt too much like a cult. I don’t like answering to people on a good day (except my wife), so calling a sponsor every day to report on everything I’d be eating didn’t work. I abandoned the program but kept the food plan and didn’t replace it with something better suited to my needs.

My health slid down and my weight shot up. It took me seven years to find something that worked better. My body paid a price in the meantime, as did everyone around me.

I had less energy, less patience, and a lot less clarity of mind. I fell into more frequent bouts of deep depression.

By May 2019, I hit bottom. My wife had found success using the Noom app and tracking her daily steps with a Fitbit, so I decided to give those things a try.

The combination has worked out because it’s allowed me to use data to manage my behavior. The numbers on the Fitbit tell me when I’m not moving around enough and compels me to get up and take walks. Noom allows me to track my calorie intake throughout the day to stay in check and has helped me make better food choices though its green-yellow-red classification system.

Using that simple combination, I’m down to 213 pounds — my lowest weight in more than a decade. I can’t remember the last time I suffered a migraine. I fit in airplane seats comfortably again (not that it matters at the moment), and I’m not getting winded every time I walk a few steps uphill. I’m at the point where I can maintain my weight and be in fighting form. I’m going to 210 just for the hell of it.

I had to turn things around under normal circumstances. That I have maintained it amid this unprecedented global crisis makes me feel grateful and lucky.

Life is always hard. Better to have more strength for the fight.

That may be obvious, but it’s not always easy to follow. Times like these show us that we must try harder.

With Burnout Comes Wisdom (If You Survive)

I’ve devoted several posts to combatting career burnout, particularly in the information security industry. But something recently occurred to me: Burnout can be a good thing, but only if you survive.

Mood music:

The thought came to me after talking to a fellow industry veteran and work colleague. We’ve seen friends younger than us either setting themselves up for the fall or crashing to Earth after burning to a crisp.

My friend knows burnout. So do I. We’ve survived it and are better for it. You don’t often hear about how survivors of burnout become better and stronger. There’s wisdom to be had.

Personal lessons:

  • Accepting more responsibility without more pay seems OK when you’re young, but it’s not. When I was in my 20s and eager to advance my young journalism career, I didn’t think about money. I just wanted to get the job. I assumed that with good work, better pay would follow. All I did was show the bosses that they could keep throwing more weight on me and I’d take it. I nearly destroyed my health in the process.
  • Being a people pleaser is dumb. My current employers treat me well, but I’ve been in jobs where I put everything else in life aside to do more work. I wanted to be the golden boy so badly that I let precious relationships suffer along with my health. As I got older I realized the top brass didn’t put in nearly as much time as I did. I ultimately discovered two things: The best corporate leaders learn to prioritize tasks and keep their eyes on the big stuff. The worst simply ride the backs of minions who won’t say no.
  • Working 90 hours a week and loving it? I didn’t think so. Those who know the history of Apple have heard about the “90 Hours a Week and Loving It” shirts that made the rounds back in the ’80s. It was based on Steve Jobs boasting about his people working those kinds of hours. When you’re in your 20s it’s easy to fall into the trap. I certainly did. But all those extra hours left me with a whole lot of loneliness and depression.
  • Living on your knees will cripple you. As a young man, I was terrified of the punishment bosses would deliver if I ever disagreed with them. Part of the mindset was well intentioned. I knew enough complainers to know that I didn’t like them. The part I missed was that you CAN disagree. The key is to suggest alternative ideas and steer clear of empty whining that only focuses on why something is bad. Even if you don’t always hit the mark, it’s better than letting disagreements in procedure eat you alive.

Set boundaries. Put family and health first. Stand up for yourself. Spend  your time on that and you just might survive the burnout periods.

90 Hours a Week and Loving It

Sleep or Exercise: Which Matters More?

I’ve been trying hard of late to get my exercise regimen back on track. But I keep hitting the same wall: sleep. Specifically, I can’t get my ass out of bed at the appointed time so I keep missing my workout window.

Mood music:

For a guy who used to obsessively walk 3.5 miles a day no matter the weather or amount of rest, this is baffling. True, I am pushing my mid-40s. But really, this shit still seems harder than it should be.

I’m not a sedentary guy. I usually take the stairs instead of the elevator at work. I run up and down three flights of stairs in my house all day. Erin and I take regular walks. Hell, I climbed all the way to the top of the Bunker Hill Monument last week!

But it’s not enough.

I know what I have to do. But I have to get around this fairly new problem of sleep getting in the way. I’ve always been an early riser. But to work out first thing in the morning, I need to be up by 4 a.m., and that’s not happening. It’s as if my body is staging a sleep protest, refusing to budge before 5 a.m. The simple answer is to exercise later in the day, except that life has a habit of getting in the way.

About now the reader is saying, “For crying out loud, just do it!” I can hear one of my tough-guy friends saying, “This post is escapism and blame.” I can see all those “Your Excuse Is Invalid” memes on Facebook.

Yes, yes. I know.

I have plenty of fresh motivation to get over this hump. A lot of friends my age are engaged in some serious weight-lifting programs. I know a lot of dedicated runners and swimmers. They do it, and so can I.

What I need to figure out is how to break through that first, most stubborn wall — the urge to stay in bed.

Man asleep on barbells

Why Do Americans Die Sooner?

CNN reports that despite spending more per person on healthcare than any other country, Americans are getting sicker and dying younger than our international peers.

Why is this? Because Americans are too high strung and overworked. You could say the stress is killing us.

Mood music, ironically sung by a couple of Brits:

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Here’s the takeaway from CNN:

Data from 2007 show Americans’ life expectancy is 3.7 years shorter for men and 5.2 years shorter for women than in the leading nations — Switzerland for men and Japan for women.

As of 2011, 27 countries had higher life expectancies at birth than the United States.

“The tragedy is not that the United States is losing a contest with other countries,” the report states, “but that Americans are dying and suffering from illness and injury at rates that are demonstrably unnecessary.”

I’ve had conversations about this with friends from Europe, and they always go on about how crazy we Americans are. We respond to job stress by putting in even more hours, trying to keep up with the ever-growing demands of our corporate masters. Some of us now work holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. We seek solace from the stress in all the things that are bad for us: Overeating, drinking, pills.

When Erin and I got married, we spent our honeymoon traveling around Ireland. The slower pace of life floored us. They took the first Monday of every month off for a “bank holiday.” In restaurants, people weren’t in a rush to put their orders in. Waitresses would talk for several minutes with patrons before taking down their orders. Accustomed to faster service, Erin and I didn’t like that much. We are, after all, Americans. Rushing ourselves and others is in the blood.

At the time, I was working at least 60 hours a week in a job that paid $28,000 a year. I was a ball of tension, and I comforted myself with food binges. I was 280 pounds on that trip.

I still put a lot into my work today, but it’s different because I love what I do. I’ve also spent a lot of time building a relationship with God, taking a mindfulness class heavy on meditation techniques, and playing guitar. I’ve slowly learned to enjoy life and not rush through it to the next pressure. But I still have a long, long way to go.

I’m not a unique case. Americans put ridiculous amounts of pressure on themselves over trivial things.

To be fair, I know a lot of Europeans who have bad habits and bad health. Americans are simply destroying themselves a little bit faster.

But I also have a lot of American friends who have fought back. One friend is a passionate weight lifter. Another friend does jujitsu. Many of them are now doing yoga. They’ve made radical and necessary changes to their diets. This gives me hope.

We may be dying faster, but in never giving up and trying to better ourselves, we have a pretty good shot at learning to live longer.

Man under job stress

Starting Over

In a lot of ways, I feel like I’ve been starting everything over this past week. Not in big, drastic ways, but in little ways that will hopefully add up to something good.

Mood music:

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There’s the afternoon tea I’ve been drinking instead of Red Bull and more coffee. There’s the meditation and yoga. And there’s the significant tightening of my food plan.

What’s the reason for all this?

I attribute some of it to the mindfulness-based stress reduction course I’m taking. I’m not sure it’s gotten me to the point of a sharper attention span and ability to live every minute in the moment, but the tools I’m learning are designed to get me there eventually.

The food clean-up is more about getting back on the horse after months adrift in the Overeater’s Anonymous wilderness. I never slipped back into the pattern of binge eating, but I was certainly getting sloppy. I was using way too much cheese for protein. On the last shopping trip I stocked up on salmon to use instead. Erin asked if this was my latest obsession. It’s really just me getting back to basics. I still haven’t returned to the OA meetings or gotten a sponsor, but one thing at a time.

My return to guitar playing has definitely been a factor. When I play I’m right in the moment, where I should be. I realized I play better when drinking tea than when drinking coffee. The chords are steadier and cleaner when I’m not on coffee overload. Another example of one good habit leading to another.

It’s fitting that all this is happening in the autumn. It’s usually the time of year when my mood and grip on life start to slip. Making changes this time of the year is turning out to be a powerful thing.

It’s also fitting because autumn four years ago was when I first decided my worst addictions had to stop owning me. That’s when I kicked flour and sugar and started weighing out my food. A year later I was done with alcohol.

Temptations still come and go. But the key is to take it a day at a time and get back on the horse when you fall off.

That’s what I’m learning, anyway. Hopefully, all of this will continue.

Reset Button

Time for Tea

This is going to shock a lot of you, given the steady flow of coffee you’ve watched me drink day after day, but try to stay calm.

I’m drinking tea, and lots of it.

Mood music:

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This change wasn’t planned. No doctor told me to do it or risk a heart attack. And I haven’t given up my beloved java.

In recent days, I’ve started splitting the day between coffee and tea: coffee in the morning, tea in the afternoon and evening.

For whatever reason, I really started to crave tea Saturday afternoon. It could be because my mindfulness teacher keeps telling the class to “have tea with your problems” or “tea with your dragon.” When you have an addictive personality like mine, the more someone repeats something like that, the more you start to want it. It’s why I can’t hang out with people who want to talk about nothing but boozing. Before long, I start jonesing for a bottle.

I got home that afternoon and had some green tea. Later, I had some chamomile. It felt good. I felt more at ease. A new afternoon-evening habit was born.

Those who know me well know how much I love caffeine. Coffee is the main delivery system, along with Red Bull, though I haven’t had the latter for a couple weeks now. I simply haven’t felt like having it.

There’s a stupid part of me that sometimes resists change because I’ve spent so much time building up an image. Admittedly, I like the sober, bitter-coffee-swilling hardcore image I’ve built for myself. But the smarter part of me knows that it’s always best to try new things and expand one’s horizons. That’s why I started playing guitar again after nearly 20 years. Playing is quickly becoming my main addiction and I’m fine with that, because it means I’m not burying my face behind the laptop screen as much as I used to. I discovered Saturday that tea goes really good with guitar playing.

So here I am, drinking tea and coffee. Turns out, there’s plenty of room in the day for both.

Just as long as the writer doesn’t drink all the editor’s tea. —The Editor

Green Tea

Get Well, Eddie Van Halen

Funny thing about life: Just when everything is humming along and all is right with the world, something devastating comes along and kicks your ass back to the stone age. So it seems to be with guitarist Edward Van Halen.

Mood music:

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Last winter, Van Halen released its “A Different Kind of Truth” album, easily its best effort since “1984,” in my opinion. The band then embarked on a massively successful tour and seemed to be enjoying the hell out of it all. They tossed old songs they hadn’t performed in decades onto the set list, to the delight of fans.

Looking at all the footage from those concerts on YouTube, you can see Eddie enjoying himself and playing better than ever. It’s been good to see, especially since most of us wrote him off as death bound after seeing his drunken, often-incoherent performances of the mid-2000s. He’s been through cancer, a hip replacement and alcoholism. But on the 2012 tour, he looked every bit the man who had beaten his demons.

Then the band abruptly put the tour on ice at the start of summer, and the rumors started circulating: Were the band members fighting? Was Eddie drinking again?

This week, we got the answer from the Van Halen News Desk and other news sites:

Eddie Van Halen underwent an emergency surgery for a severe bout of diverticulitis. No further surgeries are needed and a full recovery is expected within 4 –6 months. Van Halen’s scheduled November 2012 tour of Japan is currently being rescheduled and the band looks forward to seeing and playing for their fans in 2013.

CNN gave this update yesterday:

Eddie Van Halen is home recovering from surgery.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame guitarist had an operation for diverticulitis, an inflammation and infection of the intestines.

According to a rep for the rock group Van Halen, the guitarist first developed the condition while on tour.

When he came off the road, he had a serious flare-up.

Eddie Van Halen spent three weeks in the hospital after surgery to remove the infected intestine, [resulting] in another infection when he popped a few stitches.

His home recovery is expected to last four to six months.

We love to put the famous on big pedestals and then gawk when they fall off. But they’re human like us. Sometimes they’re riding high. Other times they’re getting kicked in the nuts.

I’m one of those fans that will hang on every news item and video featuring the band. It’s not merely about being a fanboy. It’s about how Van Halen’s music was there for me when I was fighting all the demons of childhood. It’s about how Eddie’s recovery from addiction inspired me to do something about mine.

It’s about how Van Halen’s music pulled me through many episodes of winter-induced depression.

Through its music, Van Halen has been there for me. So wishing Eddie well is the least I can do. I can also relate to his current troubles, having had my own colon trouble. Colon ailments are hell, especially something like diverticulitis.

Get well, Eddie. We’ll see you in 2013.

Eddie Van Halen

‘Fixing OCD’ Article Is Badly Misleading

An article in The Atlantic called “5 Very Specific Ways to Fix Your OCD” blows it from the start — in the headline.

OCD sufferers know damn well that you can’t fix OCD. You can only learn to manage it and make it less of a disrupting force in your life.

Mood music:

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Knowing that as I do, I’m dissapointed that the writer would give OCD sufferers false hope, followed by five pieces of advice that are not totally unhelpful, but also not very realistic.

I still write some clunkers with the best of ’em. All writers do, especially when you produce articles daily. But here, I think the author was mislead by Concordia University psychologist Adam Radomsky, who spelled out the five strategies.

What follows are portions of the article in italics and my responses in plain text.

Re-examine your responsibility. Many of the symptoms of OCD can be caused and/or exacerbated by increases in perceived responsibility. The more responsible you feel, the more you are likely to check, wash, and/or think your thoughts are especially important. Ask yourself how responsible you feel for the parts of your life associated with your OCD, then take a step back from the problem and write down all of the possible other causes. For example, someone who would likely check their appliances repeatedly might feel completely responsible to protect their family from a fire. If this person adopted a broader perspective, they would realize that other family members, neighbors, the weather, the electrician who installed the wiring in the home, the company that built the appliances, and others should actually share in the responsibility.

Radomsky misses the point — OCD sufferers usually know the reality of these situations. But our minds spin with worry anyway. Like the addict who knows he-she will eventually die from their bad habits but can’t help but continue with them anyway, the OCD sufferer knows that he-she shares responsibilities with others, but can’t help but take on all the problems of the world anyway. The brain is constantly in motion, taking small concerns and sculpting them into huge, paralyzing worries.

Repetitions make you less sure about what you’ve done. This is bizarre because we usually check and/or ask questions repeatedly to be more confident of what we’ve done. OCD researchers in the Netherlands and Canada, however, have found that when repetition increases, this usually backfires and may lead to very dramatic declines in our confidence in our memory. To fix this, try conducting an experiment. On one day, force yourself to restrict your repetition to just one time. Later that day, on a scale of 0-10, rate how confident you are in your memory of what you’ve done. The next day, repeat the same behavior but rate it a few more times throughout the day. Most people who try this experiment find later that their urges to engage in compulsive behavior decline because they learn that the more they repeat something, the less sure they become.

I appreciate what he’s trying to do here with the role-playing game, and it can be helpful to try tracking how much you repeat an action and what it does to your memory.

But he again misses the crucial point: We OCD sufferers already know these repeated actions fuck with the memory of what we have or haven’t done. One of my OCD habits has always been going over the checklist for what I need to do before leaving for work the next morning. Clothes laid out? Check. Coffee maker programmed? Check. Lunch made and in the fridge? Check. Laptop bag stuffed with all the necessary work tools? Check. Then, even though I know full well what I’ve just done, I run through that same check list over and over. I’m not as bad as I was before treatment, but it’s still in me.

Treat your thoughts as just that — thoughts. Intrusive thoughts are normal, but they become obsessions when people give them too much importance … Spend a week making this distinction between your OCD thoughts (noise) and thoughts associated with things you are actually doing or would like to be doing (signal). See what happens.

I’ll tell you what happens: Your thoughts continue to run wild despite the exercise. Not that you shouldn’t try it. For a few people, it may help. But one of the very first things we learn is that we are not our thoughts; that thoughts and reality are not the same thing. But this is like the responsibility example above. We keep thinking because we can’t help it.

Practice strategic disclosure. People with OCD fear that if or when they disclose their unwanted intrusive thoughts or compulsions, other people will judge them as harshly as they judge themselves. This sadly often leaves the individual suffering alone without knowing that more than nine in 10 people regularly experience unwanted, upsetting thoughts, images, and impulses related to OCD themes as well. Consider letting someone in your life who has been supportive during difficult times know about the thoughts and actions you’ve been struggling with. Let them know how upset you are with these and how they’re inconsistent with what you want in life. You might be pleasantly surprised by their response. If not, give it one more try with someone else. We’ve found that it never takes more than two tries.

This piece of advice is sound, but gets buried beneath the unhelpful material.

Observe your behavior and how it lines up with your character. Most people struggling with OCD either view themselves as mad, bad and/or dangerous or they fear that they will become such, so they often go to great lengths to prevent bad things from happening to themselves or to their loved ones. But ask yourself how an observer might judge your values based on your actions. If you spend hours each day trying to protect the people you love, are you really a bad person? If you exert incredible amounts of time and effort to show how much you care, how faithful you are, how you just want others to be safe and happy, maybe you’re not so bad or dangerous after all. And as for being crazy, there’s nothing senseless about OCD. People sometimes fail to understand how rational and logical obsessions and compulsions can be. Remember, your values and behavior are the best reflection of who you are, not those pesky unwanted noisy thoughts.

This too is sound advice. But it leaves out something incredibly important: You can’t review your character and reconcile it with your OCD habits in this simple step he lays out. It takes years of intense therapy  — and for some, like me, the added help of medication — to peel away the layers and get at the root of your obsessions.

You can learn to manage OCD and live a good life. But it’s a lot of hard, frustrating work. And that work is ALWAYS there, until the day you die.

Know that before you dive into the search for simple solutions. If it looks simple, it’s probably too good to be true.

The Monkey Will ALWAYS Be On Your Back

I’m standing at a bar in Boston with my wife and stepmom. They order wine and I order coffee. My stepmom beams and says something about how awesome it is that I beat my demons.

I appreciate the pride and the sentiment. But it’s also dangerous when someone tells a recovering addict that they’ve pulled the monkey off their back for good.

Mood music:

Here’s the thing about that monkey: You can smack him around, bloody him up and knock him out. But that little fucker is like Michael Myers from the Halloween movies. He won’t die.

Sometimes you can keep him knocked out for a long time, even years. But he always wakes up, ready to kick your ass right back to the compulsive habits that nearly destroyed you before.

That may sound a little dramatic. But it’s the truth, and recovering addicts can never be reminded of this enough.

Dr. Drew had a good segment on the subject last year, when he interviewed Nikki Sixx:

Sixx talked about his addictions and how he always has to be on guard. Dr. Drew followed that up with a line that rings so true: “Your disease is doing push ups right now.”

So painfully true.

I know that as a binge-eating addict following the 12 Steps of Recovery, I can relapse any second. That’s why I have to work my program every day.

But Sixx makes another point I can relate to: Even though he’s been sober for so many years, he still gets absorbed in addictive behavior all the time. The difference is that he gives in to the addiction of being creative. He’s just released his second book and second album with Sixx A.M. Motley Crue still tours and makes new music. He has four kids, a clothing line and so on. He’s always doing something.

I get the same way with my writing. That’s why I write something every day, whether it’s here or for the day job. I’m like a shark, either swimming or drowning. By extension, though I’ve learned to manage the most destructive elements of my OCD,I still let it run a little hot at times — sometimes on purpose. If it fuels creativity and what I create is useful to a few people, it’s worth it.

The danger is that I’ll slip my foot off the middle speed and let the creative urge overshadow things that are more important. I still fall prey to that habit.

And though it’s been well over three years since my last extended binge, my sobriety and abstinence has not been perfect. There have been times where I’ve gotten sloppy, realized it, and pulled back.

But the occasional sloppiness and full-on relapse will always be separated by a paper-thin wall.

I’ll have to keep aware of that until the day I die.

The monkey isn’t going anywhere. My job is to keep him tame most of the time.

Strong Too Long, Or Weak Too Often?

There’s a saying on Facebook that depression isn’t a sign of weakness, but simply the result of being strong for too long. Somewhat true — though weakness does feed the beast.

Mood music:

I’m feeling it this morning.

I’ve always taken a certain level of satisfaction from my ability to stay standing in the face of death, illness, family dysfunction, depression and addiction. Sometimes, I get an over-inflated sense of survivor’s pride.

People love to tell you how awesome you are when you emerge from adversity stronger than before. The victor is placed on a 10-foot pedestal and life looks hunky-dory from up there. But it’s only a matter of time before the person on top loses balance and crashes to the ground.

I’ve fallen from that pedestal a bunch of times, and my ass is really starting to hurt from all those slips off the edge.

All this has me asking the question: How much can you blame depression on being strong too long when many times it comes back because the victim has been weak?

I don’t think there’s a precise answer. I only know this: I feel like I’ve been trying like a motherfucker to be strong 24-7. But I don’t seem to have the fortitude to maintain it, and I give in to weakness.

In the past, that weakness would involve indulging in food, alcohol and tobacco until I was too sick to function.

Today, the weakness involves getting angry and self-defensive and distant at the drop of a hat.

For all the progress I’ve made in managing my OCD, there are still moments where I go weak, put the blinders on and do some stupid things.

It’s the compulsion to keep staring at the laptop screen when one or both kids need me to look up and give them some attention.

It’s stopping in the middle of a conversation with my wife because the cellphone is ringing or someone has pinged me online.

It’s spending too much money on food and entertainment for the kids because it’s easier to me at the time than  cooking the food myself and playing a board game with them instead.

I’ve been working double-time at bringing my compulsive tendencies to heel, going through some intensified therapy. The short-term result is that I’m an angrier person than I normally am.

My therapist made note of that anger at our last meeting. The trigger in the room was him taking me back to my younger years in search of clues to present-day debacles. I thought I was done with sessions like that five years ago.

But I’m learning that the road to mental wellness is not linear. It goes in a circle. It’s like driving to the same place every day for work. The drive to work and back is a loop of the same landmarks, the same traffic patterns and the same behind-the-wheel thinking sessions.

I’m learning that managing my issues is going to involve frequent trips back and forth from the past to the present. This pisses me off. But I know I have to keep at it.

I guess I’ll always have my weak moments because of the events that shaped me.  But you can still be strong throughout it, learning to regain your footing more quickly  and being better at the kind of discussion with loved ones that prevents endless miscommunication from adding up to a mountain of pain.

I don’t know when I’ll truly reach that level of strength. But for now I’m leaning hard on all my coping tools, including the music and the praying.