Thursday, January 24, 2008

Dreams Dashed

I am afraid I may have blown a knee. I have played sports all my life and run in 6 marathons and done countless miles of jogging (as a bigger man). In all this, I have had almost no knee problems.

Then, last week, I was standing still when I felt my knee pop. I was JUST STANDING THERE! It has gotten consistently worse. Today, I can barely stand.

I have been hoping it would go away, but it seems to be getting worse.

This is going to force me to do what I have never been good at doing. I will need to lose weight by changing my eating habits, not by adding exercise.

Gross!

Friday, January 18, 2008

Living with Migraines

I guess I am just going to have to learn to live with migraine headaches. For the second time, my doctor put me on a medicine that was supposed to prevent migraines. It worked, but it made me a drooling vegetable.

I would take the medicine at night, before bed. I couldn't wake up in the morning, then wandered through the day in a total fog. Finally, then , I would sober up by about supper time. When I preached, I would get so dizzy, I could barely stand up.

So, today I took myself off the medicine. I may just have to live with migraines, but at least I can live!

Friday, January 4, 2008

A Bright Spot

I don't want to talk about my diet. I have been traveling and eating out every meal. But, today, I did run for 45 minutes (on a treadmill). I was encouraged to be able to run that long.

I am on a new migraine medicine which makes me feel loopy all day. I take it at night, and it doesn't really wear off till supper. So, I have about 4 or 5 lucid hours in a day. I finally ran at about 6:30 pm, when the medicine wore off.

I hate running on a treadmill, but with the winter we are having, there are no alternatives.

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

The Dave Diet

I have been successful at dieting in two circumstances. First, the diet must have very strictly designed rules. I am a diet legalist. Second, the diet must involve certain foods, but not involved starvation.

That is why I have done well on the Atkins diet through the years. It has rules. Don't eat carbs. It allows me to eat what I want of other foods, so I don't have to go hungry.

The problem with that diet is what I call "Snikta" Syndrome. Snikta is Atkins spelled backwards. It is what happens when I go off the diet. It is amazing how soon I can balloon up when I start up on the carbs again.

I am trying to do without the Atkins so that I don't have to go through Snikta.

But, I need rules. I guess my Baptist heritage is coming through. I need rules to follow. Here are the rules I need to follow this year.

1) I need to exercise for 45 minutes to an hour at least 3-4 times per week. I am sure my schedule will not allow much more.

2) I eat out too much, and especially at too many buffets. I am a bargain-hunter. Somehow, when I eat a lot at a buffet, I feel like I got a better deal. Pizza buffets. KFC buffet. Coyote Canyon. USA Steak Buffet. Big Dave has to avoid those places.

3) I need to control sweets. I love chocolate. I mean, I really love chocolate. Every dieting success I have ever had has required a lessening or elimination of sweets. I would wager that if I didn't do anything different, but just eliminated sugar for a month, I would drop 10 pounds or so.

Breads are about as bad as sweets.

4) I also need to watch my junk food calories. I can sit and eat a bag of Nacho cheese doritos in a sitting. When I get into the junk food, I go berserk.

5) I need to eat reasonable portions. That's my real problem - self-control. Eat a decent amount, then STOP, Dave!

I will try to follow these guidelines in January, then we will see.

Got to go. Jenni is frying pork chops, then we are eating black-eyed peas and rice. The Dave Diet starts TOMORROW!