Early’s BodyBlog

I did Beachbody’s P90X 90-day program starting July 1 and finished in late September. I couldn’t do any pull-ups at all when I started (and can only do two or three now), so I replaced them with lat pull-downs.
I also couldn’t do much more than 30 minutes of the Plyometrics cardio on Tuesdays and the Yoga training on Thursdays. Nothing makes me sweat like Yoga — it’s much harder than it looks. Ommmmmmmmm.

The weight training days on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays didn’t present much of a problem (not counting the pull-ups) and since I have a full set of dumbbells and an old, rickety Joe Weider weight machine I was able to do everything at home.

Here’s the upside:

1) I lost 22 pounds during the three months.

2) Thanks to the Yoga and stretching exercises, I gained a lot more flexibility overall.

3) The course exposed me to a wide variety of exercises, from weights to isometrics to plyometrics to body resistance moves — pretty much everything there is that doesn’t require sophisticated equipment such as, for example, a Smith machine for squats.

The downside:

1) If you’re not a beginner you might find the weight-training part of the program mundane and possibly boring. I liked the variety myself, since no exercise was ever repeated more than once per session.

2) Although personable and entertaining, some of Tony Horton’s jokes are as corny as anything you’ll hear from Michael Scott on NBC’s The Office. 

All in all, it worked out well for me.

Two months into my cut, I bought some Bronkaid and some French roast and tried out the Ephedrine/Caffeine Stack for about ten days. It works — definitely killed my appetite. Thing is, it became apparent after a week that I didn’t really need it. In general, I’m staying within my calorie limit and it’s probably not a great idea for a heart patient to be swallowing the big E.

That said, I like knowing it’s there if I ever need it.

It’s like someone told you to go F yourself and you did.

Of course you can spot reduce. The catch? Your body gets to pick the spots.

I’ve lost a lot of weight from my thighs. The belly fat? Not so much. At least my glutes are looking better.

… it’s slow. Painfully slow. About 1 1/2 pounds per week slow. The photo comparisons every 30 days definitely help. I didn’t see much between June 28 and July 28, but I see a hellofalot of difference between June 28 and Aug. 28.

That said, I still weigh 35 pounds more than I did when I had the heart attack. Who gets fat after a heart attack? Just me and Dick Cheney, I guess.

Man, that last post was way too long. But I’m too lazy to go back and shorten it.

I just want to clarify one thing — it ain’t about the thyroid pills. True, they don’t hurt, but I was already a month and six pounds along in losing weight via diet and exercise alone. I think eating a lot of protein, replacing bad fat and carbs with good ones and starting a lifting/cardio regime shocked my system, charged up my metabolism and snapped me out of compulsive eating right away.

Still, the thyroid diagnosis did explain a lot — I didn’t have a weight problem beyond the ten extra pounds gained during the holiday season until I turned 50.

Three good looking nurses pushed the gurney and my half-naked ass into the operating room as I quickly morphed into George Costanza.

"You guys know about shrinkage, right?" I said, my pants down around my ankles and my member as shy as a new-born turtle.

Three minutes ago I had been joking with the nurses about how I thought I might be having a heart attack. "Obviously, I’m fine," I said. "Must be that acid-reflux I’ve heard so much about. Maybe someday I’ll learn how to tell my heart from my stomach and my ass from a…"

A doctor came in with his face buried in a clipboard and said, "Well, the test results show that you did in fact have a heart attack. We’re going to have to do an angioplasty right way."

The actual attack didn’t go down the way you see it in the movies or on TV. I didn’t pass out, and I didn’t grab my left arm and slump over. I just had bad chest pain that I was pretty sure was coming from my stomach and not my heart. But it was my heart, all right. And now I was told I needed surgery.

The doctor explained to me that they’d be sticking a tube into my inner thigh and snaking it up along the artery until it got to my heart. It seemed weird that they were going to start at my groin to get to my heart, but then the more I thought about it the more I realized — that’s pretty much how everyone gets to my heart.

Anyway, I had the operation, I got two stents placed in my arteries (somewhere), and I quit a two-pack-a-day Marlboro smoking habit that same morning. It’s been five years and I haven’t had a smoke since. I did come close to slipping a couple of times, but I’m clean. Yep, I quit smoking completely and started eating compusively.

When I had my heart attack in 2004 I weighed 155 pounds, same weight as when I graduated from high school. Six months after my heart attack, I ballooned to 210 pounds.  I suspected it had something to do with the pills I was taking, but I couldn’t prove it.

I stayed fat until early 2006 and then decided that the pills were turning me into a compulsive pig monkey, so I quit the pills, started watching my diet, got in some cardio and some weight training and eventually trimmed down to 180. But when I went for my semi-annual physical my blood pressure was 160/120 and my cholesterol was 290. Not good.

I said screw it and went back on the pills. I gained weight once again and only this year I learned that Toprol was the culprit, a beta blocker that gave me a voracious appetite and a slower metabolism. This year I also learned that anyone could die from heart disease — Michael Jackson, Billy Mays, Isaac Hayes and a buddy of mine from high school who competed in triathlons. All dead. I had to figure out a way to lose weight and still take my medications, if that was possible.

It is. Earlier this year I had a battery of tests and here’s what I learned. The 90 percent of my heart that I still have left is functioning fine. No need for a bypass, no need for more stents. And a new cardiologist discovered that despite my heart doing well, I did have some irregularities with my thyroid. The diagnosis meant that I’d be taking yet another pill every day, but the pill also reigned in my appetite.

So here I am, writing way too much as usual, but back in the pink. I’m eating right, walking more, lifting weights — hell, I’m even two-thirds of the way through P90X (more on that in another blog). I think I’ve got a chance now to get back to me. Finally.

Well, you gotta start somewhere.