A Changed New Article

I must tell you, dear reader, that my original plan was to do a Blog on some transportation matters for this area. There are some interesting things going on that I wanted to talk about. As I am sure you know by now, I usually start off with some personal issue and then go into my main topic. This personal issue generally does not take too much space.

Sometimes though my plans change. Not in advance, mind you, but only because the writing on the particular personal issue suddenly starts to take up a lot more space than I considered at first. Here is one of those specific cases that just seemed to happen and to require me to expand the space needed on here for this topic.  Sure, I wrote a similar story a short time ago but I guess I just have to do another one because it plays such an important role in my life these days.  And it might be important for some of you as well.

This time, dear reader, I am going to deal once more with some of the matters that happened as I started to exercise after returning from the hospital several years ago. This process increased rather dramatically for reasons never anticipated in advance.  I will be discussing the many small exercises that I have been undertaking to get better. These exercises are making me feel so much more fit so that I can transport myself around a lot better than I thought that I could. As an example, in the warm weather especially in summertime, I walk around generally 3 times a day: once after every meal. On particularly pleasant days, one walk itself could last for about an hour, believe it or not.

Regretfully, all of this action is relatively new in my life. I was hardly doing any exercising before. That is obviously why I had put on so much weight before I entered hospital. After I left, I probably lost somewhere in the range of 40 pounds there. I remember the first time I actually saw myself dressed in normal clothes, not pyjamas which I had been wearing consistently for about 3 months when I was back at home. Truly, I could not believe what I looked like. In fact, and this is really true, I thought someone had redesigned a photo that I saw and put my "head" on someone else's "body" which was quite slim. It took me a bit of time before I convinced myself that it was really a picture that I had taken of myself.

I have gained some weight since I returned home from the hospital about 3 years ago. I must admit that I get very depressed when I see my weight increasing.  This has happened several times when I quickly gained about 2 pounds each time and it worried me that I was eating too much. Immediately, I went on a strict diet to try to reduce the weight, but found that I could not, or rather might only have lost a small fraction of a pound. It took me some time after speaking with people who knew a little bit about putting on and taking off weight that it was the new exercising that I was just starting to do that was responsible for the increased number of pounds. It was the increase in muscle, not fat, that caused the weight gain.

I was very happy when I heard that because I was putting on this weight yet my clothes were fitting almost exactly the way they were before when my weight was less. This has now happened several times and yet, to be honest, I go through the same fear of weight gain every time until I finally figure out that it is the muscle building that put on the new pounds.

I have had to change my diet after I became so ill and returned from hospital. I do not eat all of the same kind of food that I used to eat before and which, to be honest, I really liked. Unfortunately, it helped put on pounds on me. My new diet, surprisingly, was very easily picked up by me and enjoyed by me. I do eat a lot more vegetables than before with more chicken and fish but much less meat. I do try to make sure that what I do eat makes up an acceptable diet that keeps me "full" yet does not put on the pounds. Oh sure, I still do eat meat, like steaks or veal chops, but I do not eat them as many times or in the comparable large sizes as before.

Let me talk a little bit about the exercising that I do. 

It was very important for me early on to start exercising to keep myself in good shape. Unfortunately, I could not do so. After returning home from the hospital, I was in bed continually for several months. I lived in our house bedroom on the 2nd floor and could not even walk down the stairs to get to the kitchen to eat. Accordingly, my wife had to go up and down the stairs several times for each meal to feed me! And I was not an easy eater either so she had to do a lot of stair climbing.

I really did not do very much walking around at all until we moved to our new condo house. Not only did I go for walks outside, but I was trained to do exercising by one of the people who came to help me out as part of the recovery program on which I was now involved.  I won't go into a lot of detail about my new program but he was here for 5 sessions teaching me new steps at each of them.

Just as one example, I had to sit down and lift each of my legs as high as I could for as many times as I could. Pretty easy don't you think? It sure seems that way. Except I could not lift my leg more than a couple of inches off the ground for more than 2 or 3 times and had to stop because I felt so worn out. These days, I can lift my legs individually quite high for about 20 times each and I probably could do more.

I go through about 7 different steps for each exercise session. Naturally, I increase the number of actions in each step as I continue to keep on adding to them. I spend right now about 20 minutes on each session with all of these steps. I go through them 3 times every day, doing a complete session once before each meal.

As I was increasing the number of steps for each exercise, I am sure you will understand, dear reader, that I got quite tired out. As an example, going from 2 steps per leg lifting a couple of inches off the ground for each leg to 20 steps per leg going quite high, and feeling good about it, is quite an achievement.  I might even add on a few more steps soon.

Naturally, FATE stepped in and my exercising changed. It improved dramatically. I saw that there was another group that provided exercising for people like me and contacted them to see if they would help me out. They said they would and after waiting some time, one of their senior people was assigned to me to go through a 12 week program learning new exercises.

Well, this person is quite excellent not only in the way he handles people like me but in exercising techniques as well. The approach he took was to make sure that I could undertake basic exercising that his program offered, but also he gave me specific exercises to meet issues with which I wanted to deal. I am going through that process now since I still have a number of weeks left to work with him. At this stage of the process, I am just learning the new techniques. However, these days, I can do a lot more in the new process than I could when I first started exercising before.

Whew, that is a lot more that I discussed than I intended to do so when I first was going to write about my exercising.  You see, dear reader, I can even write more with all of the exercising that I have learned for a number of different techniques. It is quite an achievement for me and I am happy to have accomplished as much as I have. I intend to continue this wonderful system which I trust will help me live better for as long as I possibly can. It is truly an activity that I enjoy today.