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Do You Even Exercise, Bro?

I used to exercise a lot. In my teens, I’d spend an hour a day on a beat-up rowing machine. In my 20s, I’d hit the gym seven days a week to use the elliptical cross-trainer machines. And in my early 30s, I’d walk 3.5 miles a day, no matter the weather.

At some point I stopped.

Mood music:

I don’t have a good reason why I stopped exercising. I told myself that I was becoming obsessive about exercise, but I’m pretty sure I was bullshitting myself.

I did manage to keep my weight down through diet alone for a few years, using the standard Overeaters Anonymous food plan of no flour and no sugar and weighing out all my food.

I still try to live by that food plan, but along the way I’ve grown inconsistent. I’ve slowly determined that the full OA experience isn’t for me. I particularly soured on the idea of having sponsors who dictate my every culinary move. Giving other people that much control over me hasn’t worked in the long run.

I used those feelings as an excuse to get sloppy and have only hurt myself as a result.

I slipped on old addictive impulses last year, and I have the weight gain to prove it. Prednisone didn’t help, but I used that as an excuse for months after I stopped taking it.

In any event, I currently feel like a disgusting mess. I don’t care about being thin. I do care about getting winded every time I climb stairs.

I didn’t wait for the New Year to start fighting back. I refocused on careful eating in November. And a couple weeks ago, after determining that diet was no longer enough, I started working out again on a cheap elliptical machine I bought last year.

I want to tell you I’m enjoying it, that I can’t go a day without a workout. I especially want to do so because I have so many friends who passionately post about their marathon running, weight lifting and Brazilian jiujitsu sessions. But the truth is I don’t enjoy it, and I never have. It bores me, frankly.

But it’s necessary, so onward I go.

My mission is to be consistent: to use the machine for 40 or so minutes as least five days a week and to supplement it with walking.

As I relearn the discipline of exercise, I thank God for music. When I put on some Black Label Society, Pantera or Thin Lizzy, I’m able to go on autopilot and plow ahead.

I have the added motivation of knowing that I’m very similar to my father. Like him, I’m a life-long overeater. He’s now bedridden and in failing health. If I don’t change my ways, I’ll meet a similar fate.

I respect my more athletic friends more than ever. The joy you get from your chosen method of training is something I aspire to. I don’t know if I’ll ever get there, but I will get healthier. And I’ll have you to thank for leading the way.

Arnold Schwarzenegger lifting weights

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I Forgot About Back Pain Depression

After eight years of life without any significant back pain, I’d forgotten how threatening an injury can be to one’s mental health.

This past week and a half, I’ve gotten all too clear of a reminder.

Mood music:

A couple Fridays ago, I twisted my tailbone out of joint while plugging in a power cord. It has never the heavy lifting for me that’s caused injury; it’s always been the quick, careless movements.

I spent that first weekend out of commission, but my spirits were good because I figured all would be better by Monday. Then I got to Monday and the pain seemed worse. A visit to the chiropractor had me feeling much better. Then, on Tuesday, I drove 90 minutes north for a camping trip. I’ve been walking crooked and slow ever since.

Saturday night, wave after wave of spasms kept me awake and in agony.

As I write this I’m back home and feeling a bit better about my ability to address the pain. I have another chiropractor appointment today, and I suspect I’ll be going for follow-up visits for the rest of the week before I’m back to normal.

I have to admit: My attitude has tanked because of all this.

Erin and the kids have had to pick up all the chores I usually do, which makes me feel badly. The biggest torment for me is a feeling of uselessness, and I’ve been pretty useless, though I’m very grateful to Erin and the children for picking up the slack without complaint.

I’ve been more short-tempered with people than usual, and that makes me feel badly, too.

The build-up of bad feelings inevitably leads to depression for me, and here it is. I’m not feeling doomed, and I’m sure as hell not feeling hopeless. I know this too shall pass, and the experience reminds me of how lucky I am to have full mobility most of the time.

When I can’t get off a couch, bed or chair, I can’t help but think of people who are permanently disabled. I can’t help but feel for my father, who has been left partially blind and in need of a walker after a series of strokes and heart attacks.

I’ll get to the chiropractor and get this fixed. I’ll also resume routine appointments to keep the back in check.

The black cloud currently over my head will lift.

But I’m reminded of how fragile the body and spirit can be. I’m sure I’ll appreciate the reminder in the long run.

For now, I’m just ready to get past this.

Skeleton with lower back pain highlighted

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The Beauty of a Broken Body

At the breakfast table yesterday, Sean said, “Dad has many good qualities. None have anything to do with his body.”

I had good laugh over that and was amused enough to share it on Twitter and Facebook. Which brought this thoughtful response from a friend: “Little does he know what you’ve been through with your body. When he realizes, he’ll know that that’s your best quality!”

Mood music:

Sean knows, of course. He’s seen for himself what a crippled back did to me before I got that fixed, and he’s heard all about the Crohn’s Disease I had as a kid. He has seen the pictures of me bloated on Prednisone and the fourth-grade report card with 43 absences on it, 26 of them during the final semester that year. Whether he truly comprehends it all is another thing.

His witticism, though, was meant to get a reaction. Nothing more, nothing less. He knows I enjoy a good zinger, especially from him and his brother.

But there is a bigger lesson for the kids: bodies fall apart for different reasons and in the majority of cases, it need not prevent a person from living life to the full.

I have friends who test and break their limits with weight lifting, martial arts and the like. I admire them immensely but will never duplicate their achievements because I still have a spine that limits movement. I’ll also never be as thin or muscular as they are, for the same reason. The childhood intake of Prednisone, meanwhile, left me with permanently bad vision and more body hair than I’d like.

Despite my body’s imperfections, I still push myself in a variety of ways. I cut flour and sugar from my diet years ago. I’m a regular walker and always have been. I push myself hard on the career front and have been rewarded many times over. I’ve pushed myself to the outer limits in unraveling my mental disorders and getting them treated.

My body may not be what most consider attractive, but I’m proud of it. Because despite all the blows over the years, it keeps on working.

Does that excuse me from striving to be in better shape? Of course not. There’s still plenty I can do to control weight and muscle mass, and there are no good excuses for avoiding that work.

My bodybuilding friends overcame plenty of their own physical limitations to get to where they are. I admire them for that. They remind me of the older brother I lost in 1984. He didn’t get to live a long life, but despite the asthma that eventually killed him, he lifted weights religiously and was full of muscle. It was his way of not taking an ailment lying down.

I learned a lot from that, and I think Sean and Duncan are learning a lot from my broken-body adventures today.

Strong man with unhealthy body

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Depression Causes: Add Sleep to the List?

Yesterday’s post on my sleep apnea diagnosis got a lot of response. Two big lessons from all the feedback: Far more people have sleep apnea than I knew, and those who have since been treated recall the huge mental distress caused by inadequate sleep.

Mood music:

Said one friend: “BIll, I too have sleep apnea. It’s a vicious, horrible physical problem. You don’t even realize how badly the lack of REM and deep sleep is changing your behavior and your emotional stability. Also impacts you physiologically in many and varied ways, including poor metabolism and blood pressure.”

I’ve attributed a lot of things to my occasional bouts of depression: past battles with addictive behavior, the OCD when I let it run hot for too long, personal experiences with illness and death and lack of daylight in the winter. I never really considered the sleep angle, though I suppose I’ve known about that all along.

Getting to the bottom of my sleep patterns started as an effort to deal with snoring and was more for Erin’s sanity than mine. (She’s a light sleeper, which means my snoring really messes with her own sleep quality.) But the benefits of this experience may turn out to be much deeper.

I’ve also gotten a lot of feedback on the usefulness of CPAP machines. A couple of readers reported that it was of little help. Many more readers said the device changed their lives.

Said another friend: “The first night I slept with the CPAP machine was the best night of sleep I’d had in two decades — no exaggeration.”

I’ve been told the success or failure of this depends on how accurately the sleep doctors fit me for the mask. You can bet I’ll keep that in mind when I have it done.

I thank you all for the responses. I’ll keep you posted on how the machine works.

CPAP Masks

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Pushing It to 11 with a Better Night’s Sleep

According to the results of my sleep study, I have something called sleep apnea. I stop breathing for a few seconds or a little over a minute and then snore ferociously as the breathing kicks back in. I’m told mine is moderate to severe.

Scary, you say? Not really.

Mood music:

I know a few people with this condition, including my father. It afflicts people from all walks of life: the fat, the thin, the short, the tall, the young and the old. In my case, the root cause is a nose and sinus cavity full of bad plumbing. My snout is almost always clogged, and if I’m trying to breath through the nose everything stops until the mouth breathing takes over.

The doctor showed me a computer screen full of squiggly lines that measured brainwave activity, blood oxygen levels, REM vs. light sleep, etc. Throughout the night the study was done, the squiggly lines flattened out. Most of the time it was for 8–15 seconds. In a few cases, it lasted more than a minute. Wherever the breathing flatlined, another column of lines showed my blood oxygen levels dipping below the preferred level.

It explains a lot.

That it instigates my snoring is obvious. But I’ve always had a tendency to get sleepy in the middle of the day, and I admit to occasionally falling asleep while staring at my laptop. It also explains why I’m usually out cold within minutes of lying down and opening whatever book I’m reading. I’m never adequately rested, so my body sneaks in whatever rest it can throughout the day.

By extension, it’s almost definitely making any depression I get along the way worse than it would otherwise be. I know I had a shitty night’s sleep Saturday, and I spent much of yesterday cranky as a result.

I’ve had two surgeries in recent years to deal with the snoring. One was to correct a deviated septum (I’m convinced the procedure only made it worse). The other was to snip off the uvula. Both times they also installed pillar implants in the soft palate to prop things up. Being overweight is often cited as a root cause, and there’s surely some of that in my case. But I’ve also lost a ton of weight over time, especially since kicking flour and sugar.

The solution to all this?

I’m going to endeavor to drop another 10 or 15 pounds because that can’t hurt. But the bigger solution is that I’m getting a machine to help keep the airways open at night. The continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine uses mild air pressure to keep an airway open. The devices are smaller than they used to be. Mine will be about the size of a tissue box.

I’m excited to see what a full night of uninterrupted sleep is like. Despite the breathing trouble, I’ve managed to function at a vigorous level. With better sleep, I’m hoping to push it to 11.

Frustrated CPAP Patient