Actually, I have been thinking about it for a while now, wanting to be back on the road.

It’s been a few years now since I have seriously progressed on this journey, but I am ready to get it going again.

I am talking about a journey down the road to better health.  Primarily, I am talking about weight loss.

I have struggled all of my life with excessive weight, and in my adult life with obesity.  I have made progress in the past decade, though.  I first moved to the Philippines in May 2000.  While still living in the States, in the late 90′s, I reached my maximum weight of 430 pounds.  By the time we moved to the Philippines I was at about 395.  Since then, I have lost a fairly significant amount of weight, but still have more to lose.

Heavy - The show really motivated me!

Since I graduated from high school, in 1980, my lowest weight was 269 pounds, which was in 1981 or possibly 1982.  From 269, I went as high as 430, as I said earlier.

I want to be more active

Starting in around 2004 or so, I started doing more physical activity in an attempt to become healthier.  In 2008, I got down to 275, and I was really feeling good.  At that time, though, from a mosquito bite, I got dengue fever, a tropical disease that is quite debilitating.  I basically went 6 months with no energy, and was physically unable to work out or swim as I had been doing.  Because of that, I gained weight.  About 9 or 10 months ago, I was at 318, but I believe I went up to about 330 or so subsequent to that, although I did not weigh to confirm that feeling.

About a month or so ago, I was up one night and could not sleep.  I turned on the TV, and just by chance, I came across a show from A&E, I believe it was shown on TLC here in the Philippines, as I recall.  Perhaps it was on the Bio Channel, I don’t remember for sure.  The show is called “Heavy” and it covers the progress of extremely obese people on their journey toward weight loss and a healthier life.  After watching the show on local TV, I was inspired, and I was able to get a hold of a set of all of the shows in the series.  I watched the shows, and with each episode I felt even more inspired to get back on the road to personal weight loss and improved health.  You can watch a promo for the show below:

So, as I said, in the past months, I know that my weight increased to 318, but I feel that I probably went as high as 330.  After watching the last episode of Heavy, I decided to get back on the road, and my first step was to get my current weight.  I was surprised when I stepped on the scale last night, and I was actually at 292.2, quite a bit lighter than I had thought!

Tuna Sashimi is delicious and nutritious

So, I am exercising more now.  I had been walking already in recent months, but I am walking two to three times the distance now.  I am also moderating my diet as much as I can.  One thing that I am trying to do is to work in some exercise with my meal too.  For example, today, I decided to have Tuna Sashimi for lunch.  We didn’t have any fresh tuna, so I walked a mile to the market, bought the tuna, and walked a mile home.  I ate about 6 ounces of raw tuna, which is only about 175 calories.  So, I got some nice exercise, ate a healthy lunch, and felt good about both!

So, starting this morning, I am back to my journey toward better health, and I’m excited about it.  I feel confident that in a rather short time I can lose the 23 pounds that will be necessary to put me at my lightest weight since I graduated High School!  That will be a milestone for me, and mean that I am getting healthier too!  I want to enjoy a long life, and that is less likely at the level of health where I am today, even though I am much healthier than I was back in the 90′s.

Wish me luck!  And will power!

Well, the farm is not accessible by car, so we had to hike in.  Boy oh boy, what a hike it was!  And, it was all either a steep uphill or downhill climb too!  By the end of that walk, I was really exhausted!  And covered in sweat too!  The walk was well worth it, though, as the place is absolutely gorgeous!

You can read about our trip to ON Farm and see photos of the place at my other blog,

When I walk, I always walk my dogs. We have two dogs, Yeller (pictured above) and Bingo. Yeller is about 1 year old now, and is a female. She is still a pup, and acts like one. Walking her is a job, she is always pulling on the leash, wanting to go in directions where I don’t plan to go, etc. But, she is getting better. Bingo is a little over 2 years old, 2 1/2 I guess. Bingo is a male, and a really good dog. He loves walking (they both do) and Bingo stays right by my side, it is rare that the leash even gets tight, let alone having him pull on me.

Walking the dog

Last week, I bought a new toy, it is a new cellular phone, a Sony Ericsson K750i, with a built in 2 megapixel camera. I have a number of different blogs, and my old digital camera was just too big and bulky to carry around. On the other hand, I always carry my cellphone, which now means I always have a camera with me too. And a 2 megapixel camera is plenty big enough to take a nice photo for putting on the web. It’s a win-win. I love the camera and the phone too, it’s a good piece of gear, and a cool gadget!

About 5 or 6 weeks ago, I happened to be watching CNN to catch up on the news.  It happened that they had more of a “feature” show on, rather than the news, Anderson Cooper 360.  I watched for a bit, and found that they had Jamie Oliver on.  If you don’t know who Jamie Oliver is, he is a British Chef.  He is a TV Chef.  He has had a number of cooking shows on British TV over the years.  He’s OK, I’m not a huge fan, but I have watched some of his shows from time to time, and my wife Feyma has picked up a few good recipes from Jamie’s show over the years too.

What was Jamie doing on CNN?  Well, he was talking about his new TV show in the USA, called Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution.  Jamie went to a town named Huntington, West Virginia, which according to a US Government study is the most unhealthy city in the USA.  This is based on things like obesity, diet, health problems and such, which are found in the city, and compared to other parts of the USA.

When I saw Jamie talking about this, I found it interesting, I wanted to learn more.  Let me say, I am obese.  I have been obese for nearly my entire life, since my early childhood.  I have experienced health problems due to obesity.  Over the past 10 years, I have lost a lot of weight, but I am still obese, just a lot less obese than I was a decade ago.  I hope that in a few more years I will no longer be obese.  But, even if I still am, I am feeling better and living a more healthy lifestyle than I was a decade ago.

So, what Jamie wanted to do was to start a Food Revolution.  I change in the way that the people in Huntington ate, and how they lived.  I was excited about it myself, because I wanted to further change my diet, increase my exercise, and become healthier myself.  So, I decided to watch Jamie’s Food Revolution myself and see what it was all about.  As of the time that I write this article, four episodes have been aired, and I have watched them all.  I have picked some very good tips,

and I have watched as Jamie has tried to change things like the school lunch program and other things in West Virginia.  I feel that what Jamie has said and done has had an impact on me, and done some good things for me.  It has reinforced my already existing desire to improve my life and my health.

It so happens that just about the same time that Jamie’s show started, my wife started working on a big job in her consulting business.  Because of this, she has been away from the house quite a bit lately.  So, I decided to take on more of a role in the grocery shopping and cooking part of the household duties, in order to assist my wife.

Now is the time when the “perimeter thing” will come into play and you will know what I am talking about.  You know, I have heard over the years that the healthiest part of the grocery store is the part around the perimeter of the store.  The Produce department.  The meats department.  The dairy area.  The middle of the store is the area where there is not much nutrition, and where most people spend the bulk of their grocery budget!  That’s right.  The cookies.  The twinkies.  The ho-ho’s.  Basically, the junk food.  Of course, there are exceptions like the spices, the cooking ingredients and such, but for the most part, the bulk of the nutrition in the grocery store is along the perimeter.

So, in the past weeks while I’ve been doing a lot of the grocery shopping, I have found myself spending a lot of my time along the perimeter.  Yesterday, I want to the store, and I half filled my cart with produce alone, and I bought some meat.  I didn’t buy anything else.  My bill was only half what I expected it to be, and I came home and cooked some very nutritious and very tasty food!

Amazing!  It tasted good and it saved me money.  How could I complain about that?  Thanks, Jamie, for re-energizing me.

If you are like me, and have fought a weight problem for many years (I’ve been fighting it since I was a young child), you have, I have no doubt, had times when you went through your closet and cleaned out the clothes that no longer fit. Yeah, you know the ritual, right? Usually you put it off, delay it as long as possible. You deny that it is needed, but in your mind you know that half the clothes in your closet no longer fit you, because you’ve been gaining weight. You secretly hope that if you just wait another month, you’ll lose some weight and the clothes will fit you again. But, it never works out like that.

Indeed, today, I opened my closet to get a shirt, and as I looked at the clothes in there, I knew that it was time for the ritual again. I had to go through the closet and clean out the stuff that no longer fit. Only this time, I was throwing out stuff that was too big! What a great feeling! And, I knew that I was going to be getting rid of a bunch of clothes.

Another nice twist today was that I had a double dose of the job. Not only did I have a closet full of clothes that were too big, but my wife had saved and boxed up a bunch of shirts that I had previously (thought I had) thrown out! Stuff that was just too small, and I thought I would never be able to wear it again, I had tossed it in previous rituals. You know what, I even had clothes in that box that still had the tags on them, because I had never worn them before! When I bought them, they were already too small for me. You know what? More than half of the stuff in that box fit me now, and some of it was even too big, and had to be tossed! It’s funny, because I went from having clothes that were too small, I tossed them, only to be saved by my wife and hidden away. Now I tried on the exact item and it was too big to wear! So, it got tossed without even having it’s chance to get space in the closet again! Ha ha… that felt good!

As I was trying on clothes to decide their fate, I would toss those “way too big” clothes on the floor for disposal. A thought entered my mind – “maybe we should box these up so I can wear them if I gain weight back again.” That thought didn’t last long, though, because I quickly decided that if I saved them, I was giving myself an easy out to gain weight. I tossed them, and will never see them again.

I hope I never see those sizes again either! Ah, the ritual. It felt better this time, though.

Six and a half years ago I had a stroke. I nearly died.

After having the stroke, I maintained a weight of around 340 pounds, plus or minus. So, my normal weight, post-stroke, was about 90 pounds less than when I first moved here. About 3 years ago, I had gotten my weight down to around 310 pounds, and I was really striving to get under 300 pounds, but I just could not make it. I was exercising and eating a fairly good diet, but I had hit a plateau, and had trouble getting under 310. Six months later, I stopped my exercising, and I let my diet go. My weight rose to between 330 and 340 pounds again.

Back in December 2007, just after Christmas, I started taking Lesofat, which is a generic form of Orlistat or Xenical. This drug keeps your body from digesting about 30% of the fats in the food that you eat. Taking Orlistat is not an easy thing, it has some side effects that are quite restrictive. However, it has worked well for me too, and the hassles are worth it in my case.

About 2 weeks after I started on the medication, I also started regular exercise. Every weekday, I walked one kilometer to a health club near my house. At the health club, I went swimming for an hour. I do this 5 days per week, and have been doing it for about 3 1/2 months now.

Last week, I got some news that really made me feel good. It represented a milestone for me. You see, an American friend of mine who has also been living in the Philippines moved back to the USA. He had a lot of stuff that was not practical to move back with him. I bought some stuff from him, but on some other stuff that he could not sell, he just gave it to me, since we have been close friends. One of the things that he gave me was a bathroom scale.

In my adult life, I have never owned a bathroom scale. One of the main reasons for that is because during my adult life, I have never really weighed little enough that I could use a bathroom scale. When you weigh in at 400+ pounds, most regular bathroom scales do not go high enough to weigh you. Because of this, I just never bought a scale. When my friend gave me the scale, though, I was kind of excited to try it out.

I stepped on the scale, and I got a surprise.

My exercise, modified diet, and the medication that I’ve been taking has been effective.

The scale said…… 289 pounds!

The last time that I weighed under 300 pounds was 28 years ago. 28 years. That means that I was under 300 when I graduated from high school. Yesterday, I weighed again, and I was at 287.

Even just being able to use a bathroom scale is a milestone for me. To be under 300 pounds goes way beyond even a milestone. It makes me feel good about my life. It also motivates me to go lower.

For my friend who gave me the scale – Thank You! You don’t know how much it means to me.

In 2007, I put my health aside, and spent a lot of time working on business related projects.  I gained some weight in the process – weight that I had worked hard to lose in previous years.  Over the course of the year, I gained about 30 pounds, and I’m not proud of that!

In 2008, though, I have turned the situation around.  I started off the year by drastically increasing my level of activity.  For about 2 months now, I have been swimming every weekday.  I’ve missed a couple of weekdays, but only a couple.  I am very happy to have gotten back into the habit of regular swimming.  On top of that, on each day that I have gone swimming, I have walked to the Health Spa where I swim.  It is about 1.2 Kilometers from my house, so it is a nice walk.

In the 2 months that I have started this increased activity, I have also moderated my diet a bit, and the results are showing!  I have actually already lost all the weight that I gained last year, and even a little more.  I am wearing clothes that I couldn’t wear a year ago, and it feels good!

Getting into a new health routine really makes me feel good, both physically and emotionally too.  It’s the right thing to do!

A little over 2 weeks ago, when I started, I had allowed my blood glucose level to get to about 250 to 300 in the morning after I got up.  This is way above the 120 or so that would be normal, and it’s not healthy!  For a week or so, I have not checked my glucose, but this morning when I checked it, it was 188.  That is quite an improvement.  Yes, I still have a ways to go to be where I want to be, but I am on my way there.  My ultimate goal is to get it to 120 after sleeping, although I consider an intermediate goal to be 150.  In the next two weeks, I can reach my intermediate goal if I just keep eating right and not snacking. 

I must say that I’ve been really happy with my ability to maintain good eating.  For breakfast, I am having things like bran muffins and such.  For lunch, I make this my biggest meal of the day.  I’ve been having things like chicken and fish for lunch, although as long as what I eat is reasonable, and not necessarily perfect, I consider that OK.  For dinner, almost every night I’ve been having a salad, nothing else.  I have actually gotten to the point where I crave a salad if I don’t eat one every day.  This is coming from somebody who 2 years ago had never eaten a salad in his life, because I thought I didn’t like them!  Now, I am craving them!  Go figure!

The next step is also going to be increasing exercise.  Over the past 6 months I have gotten to where I have been leading a fairly lethargic lifestyle.  I used to exercise (primarily swimming) every day (at least 5 days per week), but I got out of the habit.  I had been just sitting in front of my computer working all day, then watching TV in the evening.  Not good!  My first move, 2 weeks or so ago was that I moved my exercise bike into my office.  I also have some weights in my office.  About 4 times per day, I get up from the computer, stretch, ride the bike or lift the weights for a while to break the cycle of sitting in front of my PC.  I am feeling better, and feeling ready to start doing some walking or swimming.  I will be starting that probably next week.  In my past experience, I would have to say that exercise made a huge impact on my diabetes, really dropping my blood glucose levels!

I’m feeling good, and I am feeling that I am moving in the proper direction.

Having a salad for dinner has been good for me. The good thing about that is that it helps my body maintain a better glucose level before bedtime. One thing that constantly reminds me when my glucose is out of control is that I will have to get up every night around 3am to use the bathroom. When my glucose is lower – either closer to being in control, or actually in control, I can sleep through the night without need to use the restroom. The past few nights, I’ve slept straight through the night. It’s a good feeling! It makes me feel more well rested the next day, and it gives me a mental boost to encourage me the next day to keep up the effort.

My next move is that I need to increase my exercise routine. I have a fairly new friend who wants to start swimming a few times per week. I used to swim every weekday, 5 days per week until I got out of the habit late last year. I am looking forward to getting back to swimming again! My friend will be out of town for the next week or so, but as soon as he is back, we’ll be getting started on the swimming routine. I am hoping he will like it so much that he’ll want to make it a 5 day per week routine. That would be perfect for me.

Well, what’s on my menu today? For lunch, I am going to have Ubud Lumpia. Lumpia is kind of like an eggroll, but it’s a Filipino dish. I live in the Philippines, so I eat some Filipino food, although I’m an American and mostly I stick with the foods that I am familiar with. What’s Ubud? Well, Ubud is a vegetable (I guess you would say it’s a vegetable) that comes from the inside of a coconut tree. It is so delicious! So, I’ll be having two Ubud Lumpia for lunch. For dinner, I am having a Caesar Salad, with some chicken in it. Looking forward to that!

For the last 8 months or so, I have again let my blood glucose levels go out of control.  It is so frustrating to me.  I have to work really hard to get my glucose into a reasonable or even normal level, so why can’t I maintain it once i get there?  I find it so frustrating!  Over the last week or so, I have again started making efforts to get back where I should be with my diabetes.  I certainly don’t want to let my glucose levels get out of control, why would anybody want that?  If I continue to do that, it will lead to medical problems, complications, even  an early death.  Hey, I have kids as young as 7 years old.  I want to be around to see them when they are adults.  Not to mention wanting to see the day when my wife and I can retire at our newly purchased land on Samal Island.  But, if I don’t get my health in control, and keep it there, I will probably never see those things that I long for.

My Dad died when he was only 55 years old.  I’m 45 now, and I certainly want to live longer than my Dad did.  I want to be here for another 25 or 30 years.  At the weight that I’ve carried all of my life, along with high blood pressure and diabetes, I feel that I’ll be lucky to make it to 55 like Dad did.  That is something I have to change.

Like I said, for a week now, I’ve been making steps toward better health again.  First thing I did was to move my exercise bike into my office where I spend the most time during the day.  They say that it’s a good thing for you to take a break from the computer once per hour or so.  So, what I do now is to take that once-per-hour break and during that break I either lift my dumbbell or ride the exercise bike.  I alternate the two in order to work different muscle groups.  My next step was that I made some modifications in my diet.  I have started eating 5 defined meals or snacks per day.  Before I ate only 3 meals, but I’d have constant snacks between meals it seemed.  Now, I eat smaller meals, but 5 times per day.  Usually my biggest meal of the day is for lunch now.  My dinner is usually just a salad.  And, I don’t eat anything after dinner.  I generally eat at around 7am, 10 or 11am, 2pm, 5pm and 7pm.  The mid-morning and late afternoon times are smaller snacks.  I try to keep the snacks healthy too.  I like to have a small amount of peanuts, or some tuna sashimi, or smoked salmon at those times.

One thing I intend to do is to write in this blog regularly.  I find that if I have to write down what I am up to, it helps keep me honest, and on track.  I don’t want to sit here and list a whole ton of junk foods that I just ate!  That would look bad, and worse it would make me feel bad just writing that down!

So, my goal for now is three-fold:

1. Continue to control the diet that I am eating.
2. Increase the amount of exercise that I am getting.
3. Blog about my health regularly.

I feel that if I can do these three things, I can re-gain the healthier lifestyle that was living about 2 years ago.