LittleJoe

Starting 2nd week of Vegan eating...

Years ago, Shirley & I were vegetarian. I've been vegan a time or two, tho' neither of us remembers if I was vegan when we met (I don't think so, but not sure). For those who may not know, the difference is that some vegetarians might consume milk products ('lacto'), and some might consume egg products ('ovo'). Vegetarians who consume milk and egg products are lacto-ovo vegetarians, and that' what Shirley and I were during the first several years that we were together. There were a couple of times when I was a vegan; vegans don't consume any animal products.

Although we've not had red meat (beef, pork, etc) in over 30 years, for the majority of the past 20+ years we've eaten birds and fish, along with fruits, grains, veggies, etc. Recently we'd been considering getting healthier in our eating again.

Well, our buddy John (http://jonvon.net/) turned us on to The China Study (book, website), and then to The Thrive Diet (book, website). So motivated by those books, and with a lot of inspiration from VegWeb (bunches of great recipes), we've completed a week as vegans, and are starting on week 2.

My main impressions so far is that we are eating WELL, we are eating healthy, and I'm not feeling hungry, nor am I craving anything. One of my goals is (with this improvement in diet, coupled with increased exercise) to get down to a bodyfat percentage of 15% (currently just under 25%), and to see some great numbers re cholesterol, triglycerides, etc when I have my next physical checkup in mid/late summer. We'll see how the upcoming weeks go :)

Still off caffeine - mostly :)

During the past month or so, I've consumed a total of about 2 full cups of caffeinated coffee. I had originally stopped drinking real coffee because I thought perhaps I was having PVCs brought on by too much caffeine (even though I typically had only 2 cups of coffee a day, and never more than 3). Well, increasing my dosage of CoQ10 seems to have done the trick. Normally I take 200mg of CoQ10 each day, and I upped that to 400mg for a couple of weeks. And there's been no more of the "fluttery" kind of sensation that I'd had. I've also had a cup (or partial cup) of real coffee a couple of times when I was dragging in the afternoon, with no ill effects.

Since I've found a very nice decaf coffee - Seattle's Best Organic 'Twilight' Swiss water process whole bean - I've decided to stick with this decaf for most of my coffee drinking. I like the taste, but usually do not really 'need' the caffeine. And once in a while, if I do feel that I need to bathe my heart in a little adrenaline, then I'll grab a cup of REAL coffee :)

Say it ain't so! A decaffeinated Joe?

I've been off of coffee for a week now - except for that experimental cup Wednesday morning. More on that in a bit.

For as long as I can remember, I've loved the smell of coffee. Given that I was toilet-trained by the age of 18 months, and quite clearly remember my mom changing my diaper, that means that for at least half a century (I'm 52) the aroma of the first dark brew of morning has excited my senses.

It was 1970 (9th grade) when I had my first cup of coffee. I was watching a football game and was freezing, so bought the only hot beverage they had - coffee. It was terrible stuff.

The first year of college somehow passed with coffee still not on my list of consumed beverages; all of that changed by the second year. Fast-forward to post-college, then marriage, then an infant son and a tanking economy, and I went back to school to become a geek. For 2 years I worked full time and went to school more than full time, and consumed (literally) 20 cups of coffee a day (one per hour of wakefulness) plus periodic caffeine pills plus diet coke. It was 4 hours of sleep a night for 6 nights a week, and an all-nighter once a week. For 2 years. That was 20+ years ago and I can still lay down anywhere and enjoy a 10-minute nap :)

Once those 2 years were done, and for the next 20 some-odd years, I would enjoy 2 to 3 cups of coffee most days. Typically on vacations or if sick, I'd skip coffee. Once espresso had been discovered by the Littons, our coffee love affair blossomed. We purchased a Pasquini Livia semi-commercial espresso machine, a Rancillio Rocky burr grinder, and for the past 7 years have bought green (unroasted) coffee beans and roasted much of our consumed coffee to our own preferences.

Ah, bliss in a steaming cup of black elixer!

A week ago I noticed a bit of a 'fluttery' feel in the heart area. Not constant, but relatively frequent throughout the day (10 times?). Exercise was not affected... strenuous workouts are no problem at all. I can work up a healthy sweat and keep going on the treadmill or other workout for an hour and the body feels great. It was only when stationary that I'd notice it. Could it be that decades of bathing my heart in twice/thrice-daily adrenaline baths was having an effect? Inconceivable!

So I decided to experiment. I had no coffee last Saturday, none Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. By Wednesday, there was no more of that fluttery thing, so I tried a cup of coffee to see what would happen. Our bodies are truly wonderful laboratories ...within reason, of course. Well, before the morning was done, there was that flutter. So I've not had any coffee since that Wednesday cup, and the flutter has diminished more each day.

I can't say that coffee is definitely the culprit. Perhaps it's a deficiency of CoQ10 or something else. But such a seemingly direct correlation between the coffee consumption (or lack thereof) and the odd heart thingy sure seems to point to coffee.

Now, as far as the suffering that some coffee addicts endure - primarily killer headaches - when coming off of caffeine... Well, I'm quite fortunate there. I've never been bothered much with headaches when I've stopped coffee for a week or whatever, and this time is no different. The only 'side-effect' I've noticed is that I've had to make sure to get 7-8 hours of sleep each night, I've been taking a nap pretty much every evening after work, and my brain seems to be slowly emerging from a mild fog that seemed to have started sometime around last Saturday morning. In fact, yesterday was probably the first day in this post-caffeine world that I felt as clear as I usually had.

So this morning I'm about to pop in and do an hour on the treadmill (a mix of brisk walking on the flat, alternating with periods of running on incline ...always leaves me soaked), then I'll get cleaned up and head to the store for some Seattle's Best organic, Swiss water process decaffeinated, 'coffee'. The taste should still be there. The wonderful aroma will be there. The caffeine? Well, that will be about 3mg of caffeine versus the 85mg+ of a cup of regular coffee. But at least I'll be able to enjoy the weekend morning ritual of a cup of hot black coffee and the newspaper :)

Laparoscopic Hernia Repair - 4 days after

The surgery was Monday (earlier post). Today is Friday. Independence Day here in the USA. And I am feeling a bit more independence. On Monday, I was taking 2 vicodin every 4 hours (actually a generic substitute - Hydrocodone/APAP). I did not want to be on this med for very long, so on Tuesday I cut that down to 1 tablet every 4 hours. On Wednesday it was 1/2 a tablet every 4 hours or so. Yesterday I took a couple of Advil a few times. Today is med-free.

I was told that vicodin can make it hard to poop. Understatement. They should tell folks that taking vicodin is like filling your colon with concrete. On Wednesday, I drank about a cup of prune juice an hour, eventually consuming 3 pints of the stuff, and finally that evening things seemed back to normal. Not like I'd downed a ton of colon-blow or something, mind you ...just back to normal! Wow.

I've been sleeping in the family room on a recliner, since that makes it easier to get up and down. Tonight I plan to go back to the real bed and see about getting a decent night's sleep.

The exercise plan is starting to take shape. Today's rigorous workout was a gentle stroll around the block. I may go out again this evening for a stroll. That beats the 'laps' I was doing yesterday through the house to try to get more movement. I'm hoping that by sometime next week I can be back to doing 3 miles a day ...even though it will be via very easy walking, no running at an incline on the treadmill :)

So the pain is quite bearable, the insides seem to be working, the body is getting back to burning a few calories (I think I burned 37 calories today), and the gut-bloat (from being 'inflated' for the procedure) is almost gone. The followup appointment is a week from today (11th July), at which time the stitches will be removed from the 4 small incisions. And at that time I'll again ask the doc about resumption of real workouts. He's advising to pretty much take all of July off from working out. That is hard! But going through this again would be worse, so I'll follow his advice.

Laparoscopic hernia repair

My body has told me in no uncertain terms that even though laparoscopic surgery might not slice one open as widely as 'regular' surgery, it is still definitely surgery.

I had an inguinal hernia on the right side. I was born with it, it was repaired many years ago when I was 3 years old, and now it was in need of repair again. Last Monday I visited the surgeon (Dr Ronald Delgado in Brandon Florida, and he is wonderful!). He discussed the procedure, we scheduled the time, and I went for some pre-op tests (EKG, chest x-ray, and some blood tests). I was told to have no food nor drink of any kind (not even water) after midnight prior to surgery day, and yesterday arrived at the hospital at 6:30am to prep for the 9am procedure.

There were various forms to be signed (of course :) ...then an IV catheter was inserted. My veins tend to hide when it is cooler, and Shirley and I did feel that the room temp was rather frigid ...so the poor nurse had to abandon the first attempt and go for the side of the wrist (which is usually a good spot on me, but she wanted to try the wider part of the forearm first).

After meeting the nurses who would be in the operating room and the anesthesiologist and the surgeon, they hooked me up to the IV bag. Since it was known by that time that I was missing my morning coffee, they kindly labeled the IV bag "COFFEE" ...it still wasn't the same. And they wheeled me towards the operating room.

The next thing I knew I was in post-op. Apparently, after knocking me out, they shaved my "down-under", inserted a breathing tube down the throat, a catheter up the urethra, made 4 incisions, inflated my belly, and repaired the hernia, then closed me up and removed the catheter and breathing tube (I'm glad that I don't remember getting those inserted!!).

The pain has been manageable, thanks to generic Vicodin. I've started easing off of those ...very carefully. The hardest part by FAR was peeing. I don't know if it was due to everything being numbed, or what, but I was warned about this by several others. They did have me pee before leaving the hospital, but it was probably no more than a spoonful; that at least showed that things were working, albeit nowhere near normal. We were probably back home by 1pm yesterday afternoon, and by mid-afternoon I felt like I had a gallon in my bladder. I tried various things to help the flow, but I think the main thing that helped was just time. By early this morning things were much closer to normal -- thank GOD :)

OK, this will get a little graphic now if you're squeamish. I had a devil of a time finding details and pics from folks who had had this procedure done, so I wanted to provide the details that I had been wanting prior to surgery. The first 2 pics are pre-op. The 3rd pic was provided by the doc, and shows a great view of my appendix, and of the nylon mesh that was used to patch the hernia. Then there's a pic post-op at the hospital. The last two pics are of the wounds ...one with the incisions covered by bandages, and the final pic with just the "Steri-Tape" covering the stitched incisions (I was told to leave the Steri-Tape in place, but to change the gauze daily). I've got some extra fat, but I'm not as round as the images make things appear. Honestly :) ...The final pic shows a little 'deflation' as compared to the pic from yesterday afternoon. I don't know how long it takes for the air/gas that was used to inflate the belly to dissipate.

Pics:

Work *finally* eases ...hernia surgery tomorrow

It's been an extremely busy couple of months, working nights, weekends, pretty much every waking moment. But as of today, I'm spending an entire day not working :) Ahhhhhhh...

And just in time. I've been putting off hernia repair and need to get that done now while it can still be done laparoscopically. I'm booked for surgery tomorrow morning. The really insane thing is that aside from the standard concern before any medical procedure, I'm looking forward to the day off.

So (famous last words), I'm hoping to have some time to get back to blogging, spending the evenings and weekends doing anything exCEPT work, and getting back to a normal life after what will hopefully be a quick post-op recovery.

Colonoscopy - all done, all fine

When one hits the half-century mark, it is recommended to get a colonoscopy to screen for colon cancer and other ailments. I'm 51, so I was overdue.  This is the wrong way. I opted instead for a more standard colonoscopy, which I had done this morning. It turns out that the actual procedure only takes 15 minutes. It's the before and after that requires one to allocate some time. The prep day: I was told to eat no solid food the day prior, and to drink only clear liquids. This was pretty easy, really. Some years back, Shirley and I used to do a juice fast on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of each week. We'd drink just fruit and vegetable juices and water, and then break the fast on Friday when we'd meet for a salad. So one day was easy. AND black coffee was allowed, so no worries. The more interesting part was the procedure to empty out one's insides. At 11am I took the prescribed 4 pills. The packaging made them look huge, but as the second pic below shows, the pills were actually quite small - very easy to swallow:

The next step was to add some warm water to the HalfLytely powder, cap and shake the container to mix the solution, and put it in the fridge to cool. Then it was back to juice and coffee for the next 4 hours. Starting at 3pm, as per instructions, every 15 minutes I drank 8 ounces of the HalfLytely mix. It's sort of like a slightly gelatinous, somewhat salty  Gatorade ...with a mild lemon-lime flavor. Given that I don't care for salt, it was a little unpleasant, but not bad. It takes about 8 doses (1 every 15 minutes) to get all the solution consumed. And trust me, it works! I'd not heard nor read much about this, so I figure I'll let the curious know ...after about 5 doses I took up residence in the bathroom. It was like a firehose. That sounds funny and disgusting and it is quite accurate. After a few hours (and finishing the other doses of the solution) I knew that the doc would have a very clear view of my innards. Picture day: Today was picture day, the day for the doc to take a video of my colon and check for any issues. I'd been told to stop drinking even water after midnight, so I was a tad thirsty. Oh well. After signing in at the hospital (and waiting around for the required time that one must always wait it seems), I was given a lovely gown to wear (the kind that's open in the back :). A needle (for IV) was positioned in my right arm (they wanted to use the back of my hand, but it was so frickin' cold there that my veins had wisely retreated for warmer parts). I was led to the procedure room, chatted a little with the doc - and asked if he might supply me with some pics of my innards - and they started the anesthesia. The next thing I knew I was lying on a bed in a little recovery area and Shirley was seated in a chair next to me. Somewhere along the way I remember the doc saying that I'd done a good prep (I so knew that already). Everything looked good inside, which means I'll go back for another movie day in 5 years. And the good doctor was kind enough to supply me with pics, so that you, dear reader, may now know me inside and out. With no further ado, here are pics, in order, of the inside of a human colon (mine) as the instrument travelled along:

It's now 5pm, and even though the procedure was done at 8:30am this morning, I'm still feeling very slightly foggy. So it makes sense that they warn patients to not drive, to not work (and probably should not blog) for 24 hours after the colonoscopy. Oh well. The End.

Toward optimal health

This next week I plan to do a liver flush and cleansing diet. I'll also be adjusting the type and dosage of the nutritional supplements I take. I've been exercising almost every day for a year or more - doing a few miles on the treadmill usually. And I've cut out eating cheese, quit eating red meat about 30 years ago, in general just eating birds/fish, veggies, fruit, and whole grain. With the diet and exercise, I'd figured that cholesterol numbers would be pretty good. Well, a month or so ago I had a check-up, and total cholesterol was in the upper 200's, HDL was just under 50. The doc I've been seeing wanted to 'treat' this by putting me on a statin drug. I think he was wanting to do 40mg a day of Zocor.

BUT ...I've had stress tests (treadmill test) with echo cardiogram with a cardiologist and that shows the heart to be in VERY good condition. Blood pressure is 108 over 73. Pulse is 63. So aside from this magic number (the total cholesterol), I seem to be in good shape.

So rather than start buying and taking a brand name drug, I have decided to 'flush' the liver to help it deal with the cholesterol. About 10 years ago I followed this liver flush and diet. I dropped the excess 10-20 pounds I'd been carrying, felt great, kept the weight off for years (it is back with me now :), and I also noticed that total cholesterol dropped to 160.

While on vacation this week, I read this book (pictured above) which includes references to many, many peer-reviewed studies published in JAMA, Lancet, etc. The gist of the book is that our bodies have the ability to heal and to stay healthy ...but we often may need to supplement our diet to give the body what it needs to do its job. Even when eating whole foods, those foods are often grown in a manner that limits their nutritional content.

The other thing I've done is to start working with a doc at Wellness Works to see what I can do to help my body achieve optimal health. There are certainly times when prescription drugs are necessary, but I do think that many physicians unfortunately fall into the habit of a rushed 15 minute appointment - determine the main 'complaint' and prescribe something to address the primary symptom. I would much rather take ownership of my health. So the revised plan now includes continuing with the cardio workouts, and I'm revising my supplements, doing the liver flush (this is my idea, not the doc at Wellness Works), adding a few weight-lifting workouts each week, reducing the amount of water I drink (suggested by the doc, after reviewing the rather massive quantity I've been consuming), and possibly other modifications after I do my next consultation with the doc at the end of the month (to review results of hair and blood analysis). This will be interesting!

Shake your fanny

You can stop "normal" aging. That's the little article I read this morning in the Parade section of the newspaper. The author, Dr. Henry S. Lodge, basically states the reasons why "use it or lose it" is such an  important concept. Eons ago, our bodies would semi shut down in the winter. As a matter of survival, we would 'decay as fast as possible' during the winter to survive (since there would be little food on which to survive). Then in the springtime when we'd become active again hunting and gathering, our bodies would rejuvenate. The activity would stimulate our cells to now focus not on decay, but on growth and replenishment.

Read the article! It raises more questions in my mind. For example, given that all but a few stem cells in our bodies are constantly being replaced with new cells, why should a body necessarily retain memories that are perhaps undesirable, like 'bad' joints or even scars? Shouldn't we be able to spontaneously heal? Shouldnt' we be able to overcome ailments by offering our systems environments in which to thrive and rejuvenate?

And that's kind of the point of the article. That some of the stereotypical aging patterns needn't be so. That our bodies offer us far more potential than we often allow. Very interesting read.

So the moral: Excercise! Shake your fanny!

New treadmill: Great! and evil

We've had the Bowflex Series 3 Treadmill for a week now. Happily, it arrived last Tuesday, several days earlier than had been predicted. Gosh, treadmill technology has come a long way since we bought our last one (while taking the old one apart to recycle what we could, we discovered part of the frame that had pretty much disintegrated ...I suspect it may have been wounded during the cross-country move to Florida). This new device is definitely evil ...in a good way, I guess. It has a number of built-in 'programs', so I can select a program, enter how long I want the workout to be, and then let this electronic demon force me through a more rigorous workout than I would do if left to my own slothful ways. So I'm still doing 3 miles a day, but the miles are harder. Sometimes faster. Sometimes at more of an incline (much more). Usually a mix of both. And always harder. A good solid sweat-fest.

So I am developing a real love/hate relationship with this critter. But I'm part masochist, so it's all good :)