Back on the Journey

For the past 4 weeks, I have been working on maintaining my weight. I'm not really happy with that, I listened to my doctor’s bullshit, I listened to my shoulder, I listened to my reasoning but in reality I am just not happy yet.

So I'm saying the heck with all of it, I'm going back on the losing path! Starting right NOW, I'm going to eat and exercise the way I successfully did before I saw the doctor.

It means no fries (yesterday we shared a small fries and we ate it all), no wine, no sugar, I will not try to substitute anything with something else. I bought some “chips” from Kellog, they are not bad but they are not good either.

Yesterday my wife made fudge with healthier ingredients: natural PB, coconut oil, unsweetened cocoa, honey, vanilla and sea salt, not bad right? But I will not have any. Our neighbor brought some jam, I will not enjoy any more of it (too much sugar).

I find it so much easier to go without than trying to manage my habits right now when I'm not yet where I want to be. It's easy because I don't need to think “Can I have a piece of that?” the decision is already taken, no inner battle, the answer will always be NO!

I won't just cut everything off, I will increase the daily amount of fruits and vegetables I eat. I won’t be licking butter but I will not cut off eggs or cheese as my doctor told me to do. So if my cholesterol is bad, I'll take the damn pill.

I am a goal oriented guy so my goal will be to lose 1.5 lb per week for the next 10 weeks. I'll weight myself tomorrow and share with you.

I am so excited, I feel like I'm taking back my life, anyone else wants to join in this weight drop-othon?

Final Chapter

Last week a fire department in a mid size town in Quebec organized a half marathon for firefighters from all over. A 21 years old fireman died while running. This young man was fit, he had previously run half marathons. I'm sure because of his job, he must have passed medical tests to gain employment. But he died! 21 years old.

The organization had everything ready for any emergencies, hey they are firemen, they had doctors, defibrillators, ambulance, but it was not enough to save this young man.

If you think about it; The young fireman could have died when going into a burning house to rescue someone. His heart was the problem, he was a ticking bomb. His death had nothing to do with running, it could easily have happened while doing his job and might even have added another victim!

When I joined the Canadian Armed Forces, I was 17. Every year we had to run a mile and a half. Men had to complete it in 12 minutes and women in 14 ½  minutes. I never had any problem running, I could run it in less than 10 minutes. I would do my run and then I would run along my wife who you couldn't call Speedy Gonzales... Running was just not her thangs, you could say. Running beside her, she would focus on my footsteps and it distracted her from the run itself and it allowed  her to qualify. In the eighties, the run was canceled after someone died while running it.

You might think in conclusion that running can be a risky business, but it's not the case. I believe more people get a better quality of life because they are training then there are who die from it.

I meant to talk about running training but I'll keep that for another post and I'll continue with death. Strange where my mind goes sometimes...

The reality is that we are all going to die, some too young but never too old. You can't let death be your driving force, even if you stay home in a padded room, you will not survive.

People die while eating at their favorite restaurant. Often they choke on food and to not get embarrassed they go to the washroom to clear their throat. Unfortunately, no one sees how serious it is and they choke to death.

You can get killed crossing the street. I have been to London and on the side walk they had written “Look right for traffic” for us tourist. Maybe it's thanks to those indications that I'm still breathing!

I remembered one statistic I read mentioning you had a better chance to die from a lightning strike than winning the big one at the lotteries.

I don't know if you’ve seen this before but it cracks me up every time:

This man was in an accident (work accident, not car accident), so he filled out an insurance claim. The insurance company contacted him and asked for more information. This was his response:

I am writing in response to your request for additional information for block number 3 of the accident reporting form. I put 'poor planning' as the cause of my accident. You said in your letter that I should explain more fully and I trust the following detail will be sufficient.

I am an amateur radio operator and on the day of the accident, I was working alone on the top section of my new 80 foot tower. When I had completed my work, I discovered that I had, over the course of several trips up the tower, brought up about 300 pounds of tools and spare hardware.

Rather than carry the now un-needed tools and material down by hand, I decided to lower the items down in a small barrel by using a pulley, which was fortunately attached to the gin pole at the top of the tower. Securing the rope at ground level, I went to the top of the tower and loaded the tools and material into the barrel.

Then I went back to the ground and untied the rope, holding it tightly to ensure a slow descent of the 300 pounds of tools. You will note in block number 11 of the accident reporting form that I weigh only 155 pounds. Due to my surprise of being jerked off the ground so suddenly, I lost my presence of mind and forgot to let go of the rope.

Needless to say, I proceeded at a rather rapid rate of speed up the side of the tower. In the vicinity of the 40 foot level, I met the barrel coming down. This explains my fractured skull and broken collarbone. Slowed only slightly, I continued my rapid ascent, not stopping until the fingers of my right hand were two knuckles deep into the pulley.

Fortunately, by this time, I had regained my presence of mind and was able to hold onto the rope in spite of my pain. At approximately the same time, however, the barrel of tools hit the ground and the bottom fell out of the barrel.

Devoid of the weight of the tools, the barrel now weighed approximately 20 pounds. I refer you again to my weight in block number 11. As you might imagine, I began a rapid descent down the side of the tower.

In the vicinity of the 40 foot level, I met the barrel coming up. This accounts for the two fractured ankles, and the lacerations of my legs and lower body. The encounter with the barrel slowed me enough to lessen my injuries when I fell onto the pile of tools and, fortunately, only three vertebrae were cracked. I am sorry to report, however, that as I lay there on the tools, in pain, unable to stand and watching the empty barrel 80 feet above me, I again lost my presence of mind. I let go of the rope . . .

I (was not) Signing in the Rain

This morning it was cloudy, I looked at the weather network and no rain was expected for the next 3 hours. So plenty of time to do my security round at the campground.

It’s cold this morning so I put on a t-shirt, a sweatshirt and a coat and proceeded to round number one. In my imaginary report, I noted there was almost nobody left. I am not anti-social but boy do I appreciate when we have the whole place to ourselves.

When I walked by our home, I removed my coat and proceeded with round 2. Everything was still fine I noted, well there might be some problems in one of the squirrel’s household but I decided not to intervene. The male is really nuts and the female is after them... I think!

When I walked by our home again, I removed my sweatshirt, I’m still wearing a t-shirt so I'm not too scared of being harassed! During round 3 it started to mist. As I was walking, the mist kept getting thicker, a “normal” person would have read the signs and aimed for home, not me, I wanted to do 4 rounds and I like rain. Walking or running in the rain is fun, you get wet but after you are wet you are not going to get any wetter. So I continued on.

As you might have noticed, I'm walking in a loop, so of course I walked by our place again. I acted like I was removing my t-shirt for my wife’s benefit. From inside the house I heard “WOOHOO” so I guess she appreciated the view.

During the fourth round, it started to rain really hard, my glasses’ wipers are just not fast enough to get the water off my eyes. Within 5 minutes, I was soaked, I was starting to wonder how fishes breath under water. I switched from walking to running, the heck with liking to walk in the rain, I was drowning!

I blame Martha, I read her blog this morning and she mentioned it was pouring rain. I don't know how she did it, but she sent us the flood. I reported her to the weather network, they thanked me and assured me they will look further into the matter. I understand she wants to fill her rain barrel plus it's good for her garden but really why did I have to suffer from her rainmaking dance?

I would not be surprised if she teamed up with super women, the one who is close to the Canadian border. After all they both picked on me while I was not even aware. This morning I was doing some research and came up with THIS. The war is on!  You “silly girls” better watch out...  LOL

Fruit Salad Ice Cream

The day before we left to visit our daughter in the Maritimes, we had 4 bananas that were ripe. I was so excited by that!

I removed the peel and put them in a freezer bag, in the freezer. In the good old days, they would have bought the farm, they would have gone where no bananas should ever go, they would have been sent to a landfill near us. But not this time, in the freezer they went. Insane right?

A few weeks ago, one of my blogger extraordinaire wrote a short post about making ice cream, all free of dairy, eggs and refined sugars. At the time, I thought she had lost it. But it got me curious, hey it takes one crazy person to listen to another (crazy person). So Every half an hour I kept refreshing my link to her blog to see if she revealed her secret.

One dark night, she did, she mainly used fruits which she first froze and then she blitzed the whole thing in her food processor.

My mind is just blown up with the possibilities, I like fruits, we have a freezer and a blender. I have to do this, I know I can, I know I can.

Yesterday I took my first step in homemade ice cream making. I took 2 frozen bananas, raspberries, mangos and cranberries and filled up the blender. I could barely close the lids, it was so packed. Now I'm sure Ivy sees the problem with that, I should have looked less at the picture she posted and read more about her directions. She proceeded by steps. First she put a limited amount of fruit, blitzed, then added more, blitzed, almond, blitzed. She made ONE portion at a time. I was trying to make enough for the whole village. What happened is that the bottom inch was being blitzed but most of the content was just becoming an ice field. As soon as I realized what was happening, as a member of the genius species, I used a wooden spoon to push the upper ice crust to the bottom. The wooden spoon ended up in the bottom and has been blitzed! Not a problem, it added a little extra fibre in the ice cream, right?

I took a plate and emptied the content in it and started the whole process one piece of fruit at a time.

My wife was looking at what I was doing and getting really anxious about tasting, so she suggested I poured some milk in the mixture. We are not allergic to diary so I added milk. She then told me I could have used orange juice... boy those back seat drivers, lots can be said about them, right? She was right, I could!  (Christiane here: the whole time he kept the lid off the blender, pushing with the wooden spoon while the blender was On.  I thought the concoction would end up in his face and on the ceiling, the cupboards, the counter, the floor!  At least he was wearing his glasses so he was kind of protected… At one point I had to leave the room as I was too nervous about it!  Well, it was leave the room or take a video of the whole thing and make money with it if it went wrong! LOL)

My wife being one of the two testers involved and knowing she has a weak spot for Nutella, I decided to added 2 tablespoons of it in the mix.

Once the magic formula was finished, I scooped the ice cream into 2 bowls, gave one to tester number one AKA my wife and kept one for myself. Tester number one waited for ME to do the initial tasting. Maybe she expected me to not survive the experiment but when I said it was good she tried just a tiny bit.

Conclusion: Success!

The texture was so smooth, it was perfect. I was expecting to taste the bananas but they seemed to have been blitzed out somehow (magic). My wife commented that the nutella was completely unnecessary, she couldn't taste it and it was adding un-welcomed calories.

Next time I make ice cream (and there will be next times), I'll purée the bananas before I freeze them. Maybe even use ice tray and freeze the puree in it to use later. I will make one portion at a time, and I'll keep my wooden spoon off the process.

Next week: How to make ice cream's cone from tree bark. one hint: DO NOT use cactus!

FIRE in the hole!

I’d like to clarify something about yesterday’s post. May 1^st, I stopped taking my cholesterol pill. Because of our new and improved life style, I didn't think I needed it. So when I met with my doctor in May, where he was not impressed about my decision, he told me to get a blood test in June. This is why I got one done, nothing alarming just checking the cholesterol level. I won't see my doctor before July 22^nd so I won't get the results quickly.

The clinic is in town so we spent a night at our daughter’s house. It's a good thing because we watch survivor with her and were about 5 shows behind. We watched 4 so now the only one left is the finally, please NO spoilers, we will watch it the next time we go see her.

Yesterday when we returned home, the weather was nice, warm and sunny. We decided to burn some logs in our fire pit. We invited our friends and neighbors and ended up 11 people sitting around the fire pit sharing stories, laughing while having a glass of wine.

In the previous years, we would all bring a couple of bottles of wine. This year, our friends being aware of our new life style, came with their glasses. And no one left to get refills. We had a lot of fun without anyone being drunk, who knew this was possible?

Earlier in the day, I read a post from a lady in her seventies. She was talking about the death of a friend. And she mentioned she was now at an age when you have to say a lot of goodbyes.

Around the fire, our friends also mentioned going to funeral more and more often, one couple lost nine friends in the past year alone...

I guess we don't think much about death before retirement, we assume we will live forever, but as you age, it becomes clearer; there is an end game, we are all going to go at some point. Lets make the best of our time NOW, lets keep getting healthier every day, it will keep our clock finely tuned, it will mean a better quality of life to enjoy for many more years. We deserve it!

I will draw blood!

Today is going to be a tough day... I could use some people holding my hands.

I will be bleeding gallons of my life’s supporting juice. I will face one of my worst nightmare, I will be climbing my Everest!

Please if you could spend a few minutes sending me some positive thoughts around nine-ish, I would really appreciate it.

There is nothing I can do, I'm so helpless, I will surrender my arm to an unknown person and let him/her stick a very large needle in MY arm to draw MY blood.

I know he/she will tell me to take a deep breath, and then the pain will be so atrocious from having metal plunged into my so soft and tender body.

He/she will fill up bottles after bottles, I don't really know how many, I never look at what is going on but I imagine the bottles are the size of large soft drink bottles.

After he/she is done, he/she will put a band aid on the crater left in my arm. You know those band aid that stick to you like they are part of your own skin, the one that when you pull off you feel your life being pulled with it!

I feel so weak right now, it might be from the 12 hours I had to be fasting before my blood test.

Other than surviving this experience it should be a great day, it's sunny, we are at our baby’s home and going back to our own home after running some errands.

Anything stressful in your day?

UPDATE: (9:21 AM) If you had put a timer to send me positive thoughts at 09:00, something went very wrong...

At 08:57 24 sec0nds I was called into Dracula office. At 08:57 55 seconds I was dismiss. She had her fill of my red Canadian blood. 
She didn't say but I was very brave, I didn't cry much. 

No one told me but I think I should be recuperating for the next 2 weeks. To be safe side, I will not be manipulating any heavy equipment, tooth brush will be OK. I am typing slowly as I'm using only the arm that was not involved. 

Back in my walking shoes

Two weeks ago, I resumed walking. I was doing about 15 K steps a day which I find easy and I didn't want to push it. I was also in a 95 K steps challenge from Garmin (Vivofit). I knew we would be spending 2 days in the car and even though I knew I would not win, I was teasing the other participants. What can I say, I never miss an opportunity to pick on perfect strangers!

On the last day of the challenge, I let everyone know I was conceding the victory (I finished 6^th place) and I told them I felt sorry for them as I would be number one the next week.

The following week, I was in a 55 K steps challenge. Garmin knows how many steps you walk so they decided that my number of steps were not enough to stay in the major league... they sent me back to the minors!

Participating in challenges gives me extra motivation. I knew I would win the 55 K steps challenge as the other participant mostly walks 8-9 K steps a day. I thought it would not be good for them to be behind me the whole time. Of course at the end of the week, I easily won the challenge (even with another 2 days on the road).

This week I thought I would be back in the major league, but no, I'm still in the 55 K challenge. I wish I could choose the challenge and not be assigned one! But there is nothing I can do about it, I'll just have to graciously accept my first place next Sunday :)

I'm not sponsored by any company and I don’t promote any product, but if you are thinking about buying a gadget like vivofit or fitbit, I strongly encourage you to do so.

It is worth every penny so far. A few weeks ago, my wife, who also has a vivofit, undressed to go to bed, put on her invisible Pyjama, and proceeded to set her vivofit to sleep mode. She noticed she needed an extra 700 or so steps to reach her goal. She got dressed and went in the living room to step in place to reach her target.

I can't tell you how many times we get up and walk just to reach a specific number of steps. On our vivofit, there is an indicator that shows when we have been inactive for over an hour, a reminder to get up and walk. And we do.

We both have crossed over the 1 million steps. Without our vivofit, I would be surprised if we would have walked a fifth of that amount. It's a fantastic tool, if one were to break, we would replace it right away, it's that good!