July 20, 2008

Yo, DaVita!

Greetings to the good people of DaVita, this is KT your Mayor. All of me in fact. Which is a little too much. Which is the point of this missive.

197. That is how many pounds I weighed this morning, Sunday July 20. 188. That is how many I want to weigh in 90 days.

A bit of personal history.

I joined DaVita in 1999 (it was called Total Renal Care back then, and it was nearly bankrupt). I was in good health. Things were pretty intense in those days, and I used that as an excuse as I gained weight. I went from 192 to 210 at the peak. Most people would not have guessed that because my body type tends to hide some of the weight change, in either direction — but more importantly my LDL went way up, my total cholesterol went up, my triglycerides were rising, and my fasting blood glucose was high. My HDL (the “good” cholesterol) has always been low, and it stayed low.

This combination of lab values equals something called “metabolic syndrome,” which means you are at increased risk of developing diabetes. Which my mother has, which increases the risk.

So I realized I had to stop using work as an excuse to hurt my body. So I cleaned things up. Went back to my exercising five days a week, watched what I ate and drank. I got my weight down to the 185-190 range. The LDL dropped, the triglycerides dropped and the fasting blood glucose went down.

But over the last year I have let things slip again — using that foolish excuse of a very tough year of work and travel. I kept exercising five times a week, but did not watch my eating in the same way. So here I am, back up to 197. Although my labs were good the last time I went in, that was also when I weighed about 192 — and my history makes one thing clear — namely that my weight has a direct impact on my lab values, when the weight moves in the wrong direction, so do the labs.

So here I go with the Match the Mayor 9 in 90 Campaign! Please consider signing up with your own Health & Purpose Goal. It does not have to be 9 pounds, it does not have to be a weight goal. It can be reading a book a week, taking a 20-minute walk a day, meditating for 15 minutes a day, cutting out soda, whatever.

Here on Day One I ate a solid breakfast, more on that in subsequent entries. I ate a healthy lunch, chicken, lettuce, healthy beans and tomato salsa. And I went road biking (the Tour DaVita is coming up!) for 75 minutes, including an intense 30-minute climb and another 18-minute climb. I actually did a 29:13 on the first hill, which is one of my better times. I then did some rehab therapy for my rotator cuff and my grade one strain of the mcl in my left knee. Then 50 crunches. Dinner was my downfall, as I had seconds of spaghetti, it tasted so good and I was eating for pleasure before I knew what was happening.

Now I will see if I can resist dessert. I love ice cream, so when the craving hits I will head to bed with a book.

This is not a dress rehearsal, this is our lives! So let’s do it.