jakebe | Entries tagged with health

The last time I went to an optometrist was about four years ago. When they checked my eyes, the doctor said she saw something that she would want to keep an eye on; she also wanted to know if I had any family history of certain diseases. That was the first time I heard about glaucoma.

On Monday I talked a little bit about what's been going on with me these past two weeks and how the stress has been a bit more difficult to manage because of certain things. I thought I would take off last Friday while Ryan was gone to give myself a three-day weekend that could be used to catch up on various projects and generally get in some extra rest and recuperation. Instead, I spent most of it with various doctors: first my therapist, then my optometrist, and finally a three-hour marathon with an allergenist where I learned more than I ever wanted to know about dust mites.

The optometrist visit is the one that's sticking with me, though. He was really helpful and knowledgeable, and taught me a lot about my eyes. Like the fact that my amblyopia (lazy eye!) makes it harder for me to perceive depth accurately, and that I can actually corral them with prisms in my eyeglasses. And that because I've been dealing with it for so long, actually having both eyes focusing on the same thing is something that might freak out my brain -- which is pretty interesting. But he also told me a lot more about glaucoma, and recommended that I start talking about tests and treatment with my doctor.

So, time for the definition: glaucoma is the name given to a group of diseases that damage the optic nerve, which takes the information from your eye to the brain for processing. It's a degenerative issue, so over time you lose your vision and in some cases go blind. It's also one of those things that just happen, so there's really no rhyme or reason for it. Certain people, like African-Americans (check) and those with a family history (also check) are at higher risk. It's too early to say that I definitely have it, but I'm at the age where it becomes noticeable and concerning.

I haven't noticed any vision loss outside of the ordinary; my glasses work a little less well than they did four years ago, but that's just how it goes. I know I have poor depth perception and favor one eye or the other when I need to focus, and when I'm drunk or tired one of them goes right into one corner of the socket and sleeps there. But these things always felt like manageable symptoms of getting older; your mind gets sharper, smarter, better, but your body doesn't work as well as it used to.

And that's something that I've never minded. I've often joked about being an old man, shuffling around and eating applesauce, bitching about the way things used to be. I love the comfortable self-possession of older people; they know who they are and what they want, and they have a much stronger idea about what's important to them. They've lived through so much that they know what's worth paying attention to and what can be safely dismissed. Well...the best ones anyway. I won't deny it was a bit of a fantasy to me, being confident about what I knew, what was worth knowing and what I could simply leave as matters for other people.

This, though...this rattles me. I think this is the first time I imagined getting older and being frightened by what I saw. My vision is so important to me. I read all the time. I love watching the subtle changes in facial expressions and body language within people. I love shades of color, and the way the green on the leaves changes when clouds pass in front of the sun. A future where I can't actually enjoy any of that is not one that I had anticipated.

I know it's early yet; I haven't made the appointment with my doctor. I haven't been diagnosed with anything. But I've seen the pictures of my optic nerve and I've gone over what they mean with my optometrist. I know that glaucoma happens earlier and more aggressively in people like me. I know that it may be likely I will have to shift my thinking away from "not losing my eyesight" to "losing it as slowly as possible".

That's a difficult adjustment to make. It presents a challenge to my embrace of the Four Noble Truths, the ideas of attachment to the impermanent leading to suffering. It's one thing to recognize a truth on an intellectual or theoretical level, to understand that one day your body will cease breathing and you won't see anything any more, and to suddenly realize that truth on an emotional, personal, instinctive level. One day, I will die. Oh my God, holy shit...one day, I will die.

The failure of my body has long been an intellectual and theoretical truth for me, and it's only been recently that it's become a personal and instinctive one. On one hand, I can be grateful that I have lived in instinctive ignorance for 35 years now; so many other people are forced to confront this much, much earlier and with far less capability to absorb this truth. On the other, it feels like I've been given a bum hand. Navigating my mental and psychological issues, and the terrible habits developed by my social and economic background, and learning more about the things I've struggled with for so long has been enriching and rewarding and exhausting. This last thing, this new wrinkle, feels like it's taking me close to the edge of what I should be expected to bear.

But the truth is this: the Universe doesn't owe me anything. Nothing lasts forever. My eyesight will diminish -- it may happen slowly, or more rapidly than I'm prepared for, but it will happen. In some ways, being aware of the clock winding down is a gift; it makes me appreciate what I have that much more.

I love the visual world. And this is a reminder to really engage with that love, to cherish what I see, and to have compassion for those who cannot. I will adjust, of course. I will learn to let go of the things that I hold too tightly to properly appreciate. For now, though, I just want to see everything I can and mourn that day in the future where I've witnessed the last thing I ever will.

It's hard to believe that I've just finished my third week of Whole30 eating. Day 21 passed on Monday, and today I'm looking at the home stretch -- in just 8 days, I'll have completed one of the more difficult things I've ever done. I'll have been living on meat, eggs, fruits, vegetables, nuts and oils for a whole 30 days as part of a dietary reset.

Now that we've settled into the habit of Whole30 eating and beaten the cravings that we have (and we still have those), we're looking at what our lives will be like after this whole experiment has ended. Ryan is worried that we'll go back to the same old unhealthy habits -- stuffing our faces with candy and cookies, eating fast food, getting right back into the things that we've worked hard to stop doing. And I have to admit, it's a legitimate fear. I've often thought that it would be pretty amazing to just go nuts for a week after the Whole30, eating anything and everything I want to, indulging in all the things my brain has been screaming at me to have.

Part of me thinks that I would be so overwhelmed by the fat and sugar and carbs that I've been missing out on this whole time, and that it would be proof that my body had changed. I would cringe away from the foods that are bad for me, and embrace my new healthy-eating lifestyle -- within moderation, of course. But another part of me knows better. The siren's call of tasty but nutritionless food is always going to seduce me, and falling into that temptation would be undermining everything I've built this month. It's best to gain a bit of closure with my worst habits now, and walk away for good while their hold on me has weakened.

But that's a post for another time, closer to the end. For now, I'd like to talk about the friends we have who've made this whole thing a lot more pleasant than it would have been otherwise, and what I've learned through them.

The silver-tongued devil who encouraged me to sign up for the Whole30 in the first place has been the most interested in really stretching out with it. We've been over to his house a few times in the past three weeks, and each time he's made food that was *really* good and totally Whole30-compliant. We've had "shepherd's pie," with wild boar, mushrooms and (I think?) carrots under a 'crust' of mashed yams. There was dry-rubbed pork chops with unsweetened apple sauce, and a really great breakfast scramble with over-medium eggs, shredded yam, zucchini and onion with wilted spinach. Of course, he and his husband are much more used to cooking than Ryan and I are, but it kind of gave me a look at a different way of doing the Whole30. If you know what you're doing and willing to put in the prep time, there's a pretty great set of recipes that you can totally rock the house with.

Ryan and I are still padawans when it comes to cooking; I don't think he's much interested in doing much inside the kitchen, and that's fine. His priorities are on his writing, where they should be. But now that I've gotten a taste for cooking -- and seen what my friends are being motivated to do inside the kitchen -- I'm definitely into the idea of doing it more. I'm really excited by the idea of being able to make a cheeseburger and fries at home that's way healthier and skewed to my tastes then something I could get at a fast-food (or even gourmet) burger joint. Now that I have a basic idea of how cooking meat and combining spices works, I'm a bit more comfortable with experimentation, and I think I can start expanding my horizons a little more all the time. Getting quicker and more comfortable in the kitchen is one of those things that I've been inspired to do -- not only by the necessities of the Whole30 -- but by the folks who're doing it with me.

We had a friend of ours hold the very first test-run of her new business idea in our kitchen, and ate most of her dishes for dinner over the week. The idea is that she sits down with you, talks about your likes, dislikes and dietary restrictions, then comes up with a number of entrees and side dishes to choose from. Once the final menu has been decided (five entrees, five sides), she comes over to your house to cook them and stores them in your fridge and/or freezer so you can have it whenever you'd like. It's a really neat idea for busy working households, and since she's a professional chef you just know you're going to get your money's worth.

We had Salmon A L'Afrique du Nord with cauliflower Confetti "Rice," Cinnamon Beef Stew with Jicama Home Fries, Pineapple Red Curry Duck with Cumin-Roasted Carrots, Macadamia Chicken with Tangerine-Ginger Sauce with Curried Onion and Ginger Soup, and Moroccan Lamb Meatballs with Creamy Spice Market Kale. I think the dishes turned out to be a bit more complicated than any of us realized; she was cooking for 14 hours straight, and I felt terrible about it. It turns out choosing five different meats for entrees makes things more complex than they need to be. Who knew?

At any rate, they were all very good, and a good number of the dishes were big enough that we ended up with leftovers the next day. The duck and the lamb were my favorites, and I usually don't break for those two. In fact, much of my Whole30 experience has been filled with taking second looks at things I decided I hadn't liked a long time ago. I've tried new seafood dishes, egg dishes, vegetables that I just thought looked funny at the store. Being driven into the arms of different foods is a great thing; my palate is expanding, even though it doesn't want to be, and I can appreciate a great deal more than I could before.

As far as the physical effects, my energy is still lower in general and it's hard to get exercise in a lot of the time. But it's a lot easier to wake up in the mornings, and for that I'm grateful. I haven't really experienced the boundless energy and wellspring of joy that's been advertised, but that's fine. I'm generating a different sort of contentment from the things that I've accomplished so far this month.

That's all for now. I'll look forward next week, to see what lessons I'll be taking with me after my Whole30 has ended.

It's my idea that rabbits tend towards husky frames. If you look at pictures of most pet bunnies, you'll see they tend to be soft, furry, rounded balls of fluff. Even wild rabbits tend to be small but powerfully built. Hares, on the other hand, are long, skinny, lithe. They're built for speed, and they don't nearly look as cuddly as their rabbity cousins. They're lean and fast.

It's also my idea that rabbits secretly envy the physique of hares. Whereas a hare can eat whatever it wants, rabbits have to mind their calories carefully or else food goes straight to their hips and then they'll be even fatter. It's not fair, but hares are decidedly ectomorphic. We rabbits? Stuck being endomorphs.

It's not that I hate my body. I merely dislike it. There's a pretty decent shape hiding under all of the fat deposits, and I'm determined to excavate it. I want the flat stomach. I want the toned muscle. I'm not ashamed to admit that. Even if it makes me feel kind of shallow and indoctrinated into the whole Californian fitness-crazy mindset.

I've been flirting with the idea of healthy living ever since I came here, but the latest wake-up call came earlier this year. As part of

toob's Year of No Regrets, we took part in the Bay to Breakers race, a 12 k race that takes you on a pretty hilly course through some beautiful parts of San Francisco. We were invited to take part with

malinandrolo, and it was really awesome to test out how far I've come with regards to stamina and such.

All in all, I didn't do too bad: I finished the race in one hour and 41 minutes. On one hand, it's not bad for a first attempt. On the other, that's nearly 14 minutes a mile. That's a bit less than 5 miles an hour, which even for a casual jogger is a little slow. I was doing pretty good for a second there, but on the first hill I sputtered to a slow walk and didn't really recover after that. Ever since then I've been hyper-aware of how winded I get going up stairs, how much strain it is to bend over my stomach to tie my own shoes, that sort of thing. Worst of all, pants and shirts that fit me a year ago are getting...snug, to be kind to myself. Nothing freaks me out more than realizing that the same pants I fit in a year ago are threatening to burst around my girth now.

This is all a part of getting older, I understand. Your metabolism slows down. You can't get away with eating candy for dinner any more. You need proper sleep and actual vitamins and minerals and protein and stuff. You can't trust your body to burn off fat. Instead of craving only sugar, your body's tastes diversify. I, for one, am glad and grateful for this march of progress, but at the same time I'm having a devil of a time learning how to be consistently comfortable with it.

I realized this fact well after my body started displaying evidence of it. So now I'm a bit behind with regards to taking the proper care. I'd wager I have about thirty pounds of excess fat here, and none of the actual dieting discipline to get rid of it. Getting it has proven to be a long, slow climb.

That doesn't mean there hasn't been progress. Candy bars are a much less frequent occurrence than they used to be. I have cravings for actual fruit and vegetables now. And I rarely have cheeseburgers. However, for every minor victory, there's the usual host of problems. I can't consistently exercise to save my life. I'm still far too in love with pastries and cookies (my current love: apple and cheese croissants from Specialty's). And my desire to develop new habits still frequently outpaces my actual ability to develop new habits.

The general concept of weight loss is so, so simple. Spend more Calories than you eat. Voila! The practice of it, however, is astonishingly hard. It's a lot like Zen that way: be right here. OK! Wait...how do I do that?

There's no secret to weight loss and physical fitness, I'm beginning to see. It's just a matter of being dedicated to eating things that are best for your body to use, and use your body the way it's meant to be use. Run, jump, kick, lift. The only thing making it hard is the way we've developed our society to be as sedentary as possible. It's not easy to find 'real' food to eat, and it's not easy to exercise your body for any good length of time every day. Finding a job that requires sitting eight hours, within a five-minute drive of McDonald's? *That's* easy.

If you're not paying attention, it's easy to keep the same habits that got you through your early adulthood long after they've stopped working for you. Keeping up with the way your body shifts over time requires you to stop, pay attention, make a conscious effort to change and stick to that change with dedication. I know this, but I'm still learning how to do it.

So, hopefully, you won't mind the occasional post or two about learning this stuff -- how to eat well and use my body, how the world around you makes that difficult to do, how to find ways to make that easy again. I'll keep the exercise filter for raw stats and trends, just because I need to have my numbers geek side addressed somehow. But theory and practice stuff, I'll try to keep up at least once a week.