It's walking and I'm balking - VIII

I gotta walk

Stepping on the scales the other day, I found a few more kilograms had been added to a number of achievement and triumph, I last observed in November. It meant I needed to get back to the walking exercises and step up the frequency.

This year, I have been slow on the uptake, I realised I could not return to the daily walks yet as there was not enough time to recover from the stress on my musculature overnight that I have for now set my regime to every other day.

Things to ponder

Whilst I am not a dieting fan, my struggle with getting sugar out of my diet continues with little success. It still ends up in my tea and coffee except when I have a frothy milk coffee like a latte or a cappuccino. I guess there is enough milk in the drink to compensate for the absence of sugar.

I try to get more vegetables and fruits into my meals, my sweet tooth is a weakness I need to overcome by determination and purpose. I have not dared throw a tape measure around my waistline, I am scared at what I might see, the more reason I should just get on with walking.

What I learnt about sleep

The beauty of sleep

After about 5 weeks of observing the sleep analysis data produced by my Honor Band 5 tracker, I am gaining some understanding as to how my body works. Yet, the use of the tracker is only indicative, it does not replace proper medical supervision and analysis that would require attending a sleep clinic.

Taking a day at a time, looking at the sleep data can be disconcerting for there are nights when I literally got no sleep, maybe just under 3 hours and I could not attribute it to anything, in particular. The Huawei Health app is full of suggestions, if I wake up more than twice in the night, I might have drunk too much water close to my bedtime.

Just about enough

Depending on the quality of sleep, there are dietary and fitness factors introduced, it almost becomes prescriptive, yoghurt is good, do more exercise or exert yourself less. You get to a point where you decide none of this really matters in the bigger scheme of things, but some adjustments can be made.

I know on average, I am getting just over 7 hours of night sleep, the stages of sleep are within the tolerable limits of normal, that is; REM sleep, Light sleep, and Deep sleep. Deep sleep continuity is low, but that is one switch I am not sure of how to tune, the charts are show me transitioning between the stages, spending more time in the Light sleep stage.

Worrying about nothing

My bedtime habits need considering, like when I go to bed and the whole idea of being a nocturnal animal needs putting aside. My tracker and app scream with curtains if I am not getting enough hours of sleep. I am good at waking up, I guess because most times, it is by alarm clock.

As I collect more sleep data, I think I will get a better idea of what minor habits like having an early pill time, not taking food after a certain hour, and probably varying the light and sound environment in the bedroom need to be altered ever so slightly. There isn’t a problem, just a situation to study, understand and keep under constant review, as for worry, that is completely unnecessary. Sleep tight!

Sleep data for August 2020

The 39 steps from looking fit

On the length of the tape

On seeing how a lady dropped the flab to a trim look, I could not help but be a little more serious about what I want to achieve with regards to fitness. Now, I have always been concerned about my tummy though it never occurred to me how out of shape I was.

Maintaining a 32” waist has not been that difficult, though when I had cancer, that shrunk to below 30” that all my trousers looked like big brother hand-me-downs. What shocked me was when I measured my girth at my belly button, I was not expecting to see 39”, I thought it would be at least 3” less.

Science the reality

Overnight, I had decided to get a Honor Band 5 which includes a heart rate monitor, a step counter, a sleep monitor, an exercise tracker and many more features I am yet to determine. I thought it would be useful to keep tabs on fat burning and how I sleep.

After trying to install exercise apps without much success or motivation to find out their usefulness, I realised I could get good enough information first from WebMD and our own NHS. I do a lot of brisk walking and I can follow the basic fitness videos. [NHS: Exercise]

Know my vitals

I won’t be dieting or calorie counting, I would eat moderately, cut out the unnecessary, increase my intake of water and put in hours of walking before going to bed exhausted with the aim that all aching muscles recover by the morning.

Critically, I need to find out how well I sleep and if there are things, I could do to get more relaxing and longer sleep. I need to see my weight drop along with the inches of lard. I have my work cut out.

Pressing beyond the strain

Pain on the wane

I am no glutton for punishment but I had to get beyond the pain barrier or the fear of it would lead to fitness recidivism, a kind of practised custom I so easily default to before I see the gains I aim for.

What I really want to do is shed pounds and kilogrammes, I am not counting calories nor following a diet, not that diets or dieticians show much knowledge of global foods especially of my West African cuisine. I follow a commonsense view of moderation, take the good just not to excess.

That means, I love my full milk and real butter, there is no silliness of living the land of skimmed milk and synthetic honey, not what was promised in the Bible and surely, I not taking any less today.

Stalking to a higher step

Yesterday, despite the fact that I was in much pain when I approached the altar for communion, I felt good enough later in the afternoon to add another 13,000 steps to my daily tally to bring my total to 17,705 steps and not a feeling a pain materialised, just a tightening of my thigh muscles knowing some work had been done.

I also skipped the gym yesterday, as it would seem 6 days in a row is good enough, with a day of rest until I was back in the gym today. It was walking to the maximum speed on the treadmill going up by increments of 0.3 km/h every three minutes from 6 km/h to 7.2 km/h and this got me to 2.92 km in 25 minutes.

A few floor exercises and I was done. I will be out for some walking and fresh air later, before retiring for the day. It still feels like fun and long may that continue.

The unsweetened experience of taste

For each, a pleasure

A friend shared a profile of his with me which made for intriguing reading until I happened upon a phrase, I was unfamiliar with. With more information at my fingertips than I could care to absorb in a microsecond, I tapped in the ‘girlfriend experience’ and a new world of knowledge without prejudice was opened to me.

Not one to moralise about vices as I cannot say I have that many virtues, even as one strives to be more virtuous, the offer of intimacy with emotional accoutrements for an agreed transactional value satisfies a universe of purveyors and patrons that cannot be ignored, if consent rather than duress initiates the purpose of the rendezvous. Invariably, there should be no shame in having the talent to share and seeking the talent to explore rather than exploit.

On the matter of ‘girlfriend experience’ of which it is an expression, a film, and a television series, even for the limited period in which that experience exists with one patron before another seeks it, it can only be hoped that the value of it which for my friend would be as cerebral as it is physical and rewarding will be repeated with more generosity than before.

Much as there can be a gender specification like ‘boyfriend experience’, it would appear the ‘girlfriend experience’ applies to all manner of companionship of that genre, it evokes a more fulfilling expectation than can be said for the less salubrious male determined version.

Stirring up the wrong sugar

Then to my long-running polemic about Frankenstein sugars. These are artificial sweeteners not derived from sugar cane or beetroot. I had decades ago taken to reading the labels on drinks and foods to ensure these sweeteners did not become part of my diet. Anything that suggests diet, no sugar, or low calorie, almost definitely has a different kind of known sugar in it.

Blog - The rise of the Frankenstein Sugars

In my ‘The rise of the Frankenstein Sugars’ blog of 2007, I wrote of the many sweeteners I have avoid whilst failing to wean myself off sugar. I had discovered through the process of elimination that some sweeteners trigger severe migraines, though accidental ingestion may not be a direct cause, new knowledge guides my adjustments.

The other day, I walked into a shop for a bottle of cranberry juice which is supposed to be ameliorative for the water infection I recently had. There was one with Stevia, a sweetener and sugar substitute derived from plants.

Peradventure a mistake indeed

Plants would have suggested its natural providence, but on tasting the juice, I did not have more than a glass, before I emptied the bottle down the sink after a week of it squatting with mendicancy in my fridge. Indeed, I have worked on eradicating the use of sugar in my beverages, I rarely have it in coffee which should be milky and not in tea when served in a restaurant or in a café.

I need to work on the guilty pleasures at home, honey replacing sugar is an indulgence and agave syrup doing the same is probably a cry for help where you’re marooned far away from civilisation. Evaporated milk in tea or coffee is a sin I indulged with the use of coffee milk when I lived in the Netherlands. I can only wonder how many pounds I might shed if I made sugar haram.

Stevia is sweet, but that is where the praise ends, the aftertaste is bland and forgettable, just a few degrees from sickly, you cannot have a tongue with taste buds and think Stevia is the future of sweetness. If I were to close the chapter on Stevia, Yuck, will be the last word of the three same words I repeat at the end. Each with their own exclamation mark. I regret that foolish adventure each day I remember my tongue was assaulted by it.

In maternal discomfiture

In maternal dispute

Just about 6 months ago, I went for a neurological diagnostic test just to ensure that my concerns about memory and reaction were not a systemic degeneration of my capabilities, though for what I had noticed about my concerns I had designed elaborate compensations for.

Blog - My HAND on my head - Memory Screening Tests

It so happened that all my considered reflexes and powers of recall were fine even if order and precision were not exact, my consultant did not think there was a problem. However, he did recommend I do a barrage of blood tests just to determine if there were other treatable conditions to assess.

The results of the blood tests suggested a Folic Acid Anaemia Deficiency (FAAD) for which I was to take Vitamin B12 and Folic Acid supplements.

Blog - Folate, I must, lactate, I can't

Keeping the flu at bay

To deal with the FAAD, I got Folic Acid 400 µg from the pharmacy and was not particularly comfortable with the label that suggested it was for pregnant women as it contributes to maternal tissue growth during pregnancy. As it transpires, everyone needs Folic Acid for cell growth and development, and this should be obtained sufficiently from diet except when pregnancy demands more than is supplied in the diet.

This morning I called my General Practitioner to schedule my influenza vaccine which I took for the first-time last year and has on the recommendation of my consultant to be taken annually. I was given an immediate appointment from an hour hence and I walked up two streets to see the nurse.

When I was called in, after the basic formalities of my identity and a few questions about reactions and allergies, she brought the vaccine out of the fridge, pricked the upper shoulder muscle of my left arm and injected me. I am usually surprised at how they call the prick of a needle a scratch because it is not. However, the needle is quite thin that it rarely bleeds after the injection.

In maternal balance

Then I asked about a possible Vitamin B12 injection booster that my consultant told me of at our last meeting in September, but the nurse needed to see recent blood tests to be sure of whether that was necessary. Going through me online file, she found a recent letter from my consultant which indicated my FAAD issue had gone and my readings had returned to normal.

To be honest, I was not keen on the Folic Acid supplements and I only took fortified cereals for breakfast for a few weeks. I am not a breakfast person, but I was glad to learn of the development, though surprised that I had not yet received a letter from my consultant about my latest blood tests from September.

A slight discomfort from the injection and I will be fine.

Thought Picnic: To the gym for a Jim?

Sweet tooth dilemma

I cannot deny I have always had a sweet tooth, a characteristic of which has gone to war against my dentition from decades ago. Whilst I count myself more a tea-drinker than a coffee-quaffer, the beverages have required sweetening and milk.

Then I started changing elements of my diet out of concerns for my health at first and to address some fears of body dysmorphia that might accompany a certain age. I have thankfully never been fat, but I am a bit troubled about things getting out of control, like bundles of unexplained tissue at the back of the neck and a tummy ballooning into an embarrassment.

My medication can change the physiology that some people can be susceptible to lipodystrophy where fat deposits show up in parts of the body to cause discomfort and possible deformities.

Figures and numbers

Maybe if I spent a bit more time in the gym and took up swimming as I have always wanted to, I could bring that and the other under control. When I had cancer some 8 years ago, I lost a quarter of my body weight, having had a 32” waist for as long as I could remember, I was down to about 28” that my doctor in discussing the change to my physique wanted me to gain back all that I had lost and a little more.

I have never been comfortable to gaining back all of it, I would rather I was 10% to 15% short of my peak weight. Besides, I have too much of a head for the numbers in checking the Body Mass Index (BMI) or making metric comparisons between height and weight where I imagine you are fit if your weight in kilograms is less than 100 units taken from your height. So, the comparison for a typical height of 6 feet which is 183cm should carry a weight of 83kg or less.

I guess that thinking, especially for males, belies a predilection to physical attraction defined as slim, slender or skinny, which would put the weight at lower than 75kg. On matters of body dysmorphia, one can suddenly be quite fickle, for both oneself and others.

Changes to diet

On my diet, I started with taking the Maggi essence out of my cooking completely, I am good enough in the kitchen to make tasty food without enhancing it with additives. Though it is not what I would get from eating out. One radical change was when I stopped putting sugar in my tea and consequently stopped having it in my coffee too.

It was not an act of the will of determination, I just decided to try it and then concluded, it was doing me no harm. It has not knocked the kilograms off the scale, but I am a bit happier for it. My next activity has been reducing salt in my diet too. Along with this change, I rarely take fizzy drinks, drink more water and where I make yoghurt shakes, I use honey as the sweetener.

To the gym for a Jim?

I probably can shed a lot of weight by doing more exercise, my three months in Edinburgh involved walking to my office, sometimes up to 2 kilometres each way, even if I could get a bus. I thought it was good exercise.

However, the struggle remains to maintain a fitter body into my 50s without getting obsessed with the way I look. This blog shows I am a bit concerned, I just don’t want it to take over my life. That is my fear of body dysmorphic disorder.

Folate, I must, lactate, I can't

A 'Don't Worry' Call

A couple of days ago, I saw a message on my phone. The doctor's surgery had called with a message from the hospital, I was to contact the surgery for a chat, but it was nothing serious for me to be concerned about.

There is a psychology to delivering news pertaining to health, and as long as it does not appear to be a life-threatening emergency requiring immediate action, they do well to allay your fears.

So, I called the surgery yesterday morning, where the conversation revolved around calling in to see the doctor for another few check-ups but for the fact that we could not find suitable scheduling since I spent the weekdays working in Scotland.

My lifelong gestation

The alternative was to have a quick chat to the doctor and see how things go from there. A few minutes later, the doctor picked up the phone and the conversation pertained to the results of the blood tests from the HAND analysis I did last month.

Then, the consultant ordered a battery of blood work to eliminate possible and manageable causes of my perceived short-term memory issues and attendant matters.

Apparently, I have Folic Acid Deficiency Anaemia, Folic Acid which is Vitamin B9 is also somewhat related to Vitamin B12. These two vitamins are essential to forming red blood cells, they help nerves function properly, Folic Acid is also essential in forming genetic material in every body cell, hence enabling perfect replication.

Knowing the reason why I forget to remember

Now, my knowledge of the use of Folic Acid supplements was for terms of pregnancy and though I have never seen my own period since before I ever knew what they were, I did wonder.

However, the deficiency explained the tiredness, insomnia, the occasional lethargy and the forgetfulness that I had highly compensated for through aide memoires, double-checking and reticence in proclaiming logical conclusions at work. That the cause could be dietary was also worrisome. I am working away from home and hence have no luxury of home cooking.

To make amends, I have to introduce cereals fortified with vitamins into my diet and I will consider supplements, yet I must be careful at over 50 not to run in excess of my daily allowance.

In three months we'll have some bloodwork done to ascertain if the deficiency has been remediated. I may not naturally lactate, but I must folate to keep well.

A slumbering machine operator

Do not operate machinery

As I stumbled out of slumber and took my anti-thrombosis injection in the thigh muscle before being wished a good night by the nurse, I thought.

Medicines that say do not operate machinery because these might cause drowsiness and wondered if operating the bed-adjustment buttons on my hospital bed amounted to machinery.

Thus leaving me at the risk of being flipped like a pancake in the frenetic state of trying to manage my fingers with the slowness of cranial activity one is suffering from.

Then, does that mean writing a blog is in danger of coming out wrong? Then you realise the idea of machinery that comes to you is about forklifts than buttons even though buttons can do more damage than shifting gears.

Slobbering over gourmet

My wonderful day that slipped by in the midst of involuntary slumber was blessed by visits which included a goodly portion of rice and some rather hot Yoruba stew.

The dietician would wonder why I was able to gulp that down and only sniff at the hospital fare, as if it were not obvious enough. Coming into hospital has meant I have to change my diet completely which in the best Dutch restaurants could be excellent but from a hospital canteen is fit for 3 Michelin tyres without the rims.

And that is a commendation given too generously.

We are ward mates

Haven’t had much conversation with my ward mates, we seem to be in our different world, the matriarch is 84 and not looking much over 65, the new entry is 50, tattooed all over like a Hell’s Angel and she speaks with a monotone voice and the drawl of someone who has smoked all her life – it appears she cannot read too, her partner is here from the first minute of visitation to the last.

The man beside me is 65, tanned like he returned from Spain yesterday; he looks fit and healthy but for what has kept him here for 4 weeks. Apparently, the suppositories are not working for him, unfortunately.

I am prepared for communion, I have my wine ready, I am definitely not doing the abridged version this time and hopefully the padre knows the words to that part.

Good night!

Seeing hospital meals again

Scoffing at utility

It might be congenital but that is looking for excuses, my mother when she was in Europe in the 1960s scoffed at the idea of the specialisation of chiropody but God knows today that having a chiropodist look at my feet would be of greater succouring benefit than a mother mopping her sick child’s brow.

And so, did one not a time scoff at the idea of being a dietician viewing it from the perspective of those weight loss diets or regimes that seem to plasticine-mould you into body beautiful that Michelangelo’s Mona Lisa or David would jump out of their eternal states of paint and sculpt in mortal envy.

The glories of hospital food

You learn, I had a visit from the hospital dietician the other day because it appeared I was not eating enough of my food.

The food choices are to reach the goal of either more energy or more bulk, that is where the sophistication ends, she did agree that hospital food was hardly haute cuisine, well, if you thought Michelin and hospital food, it would not be about stars but probably the chewiness of rubber in their tyres, OK, maybe that is a bit extreme.

No voice in choice

Anyway for all the integration that might be required of immigrants, losing your indigenous cuisine is probably the very last thing you will ever give up. There is a world of difference between Dutch cuisine and Yoruba food from the South-West of Nigeria, even so, there is enough of a difference between English and Dutch cuisines, and I seem to prefer those to the Dutch.

The presentation is a collage of dull colours that would hardly rival masterpieces of art out a kindergarten class, finger-painting and all.

A vulture pause will do

So we built round these courses of palatable disregard but not before I was reminded of the nursery that literally forbade eating between meals, these become lessons of life well learnt from childhood only to be debunked by professionals.

So Hiliare Belloc penned this rhyme for children and whoever had this at school was definitely scarred for breaching that rule.

The Vulture eats between his meals. // And that's the reason why. // He very, very rarely feels. // As well as you and I.

His eye is dull, his head is bald, // His neck is growing thinner. // Oh! what a lesson for us all // To only eat at dinner!

And you wonder why what is a coffee break should really be aptly named a Vulture Pause; nursery rhymes could be so unforgiving and graphic.

So, it is cornflakes rather than breads for breakfast, fruit salads in between and high-energy milk shakes for lates.

Sick as a dog

Now what I cannot understand is why over 6 hours ago I felt nauseated but the manifestation of seeing my food again took that long and by the time I finished this blog, I had been sick thrice already. Don't worry, I am sick-bag trained, no mess.

Is there a dietician in the house?