166/98

So I was doing my forth set of inclined dumbbell presses. The weight wasn't too much, nice concentration and contraction. I felt good. I was adjusting my shoulder blades on the bench when I got a sudden wave of pain and heat washing over me from the base of my skull to the front of my head. I calmly put my weights down and took some long deep breaths. I wasn't in a lot of pain but the suddeness of the headache that set is was amazing. I could feel my heart beating in my temples. Needless to say I brought my workout to an early end. I went up stairs and layed down with an icepack on the back of my head. After a few hours the pain was down to a mild headache. My wife asked if I thought my blood pressure was up. I hadn't really concidered it. My son needed a couple of folders for school so I went up to the local Rite-Aid with him to get them and while I was there I decided to sit at one of those BP machines. 144/95. hmm. The next day I awoke with a bad headache again. Now, I have been fighting off whatever cold/flu has been going around the house so whether this was a normal Migraine or Sinus headache I wasn't sure, but I knew I needed to travel later in the week so I took a day to sleep. I called the doctor to pacify my wife and they couldn't see me until the next day at 4:15pm. So I woke now on Tuesday, went to work, left early, feeling relatively crappy and went to vistit the Nurse. I think I scared her with my story as she took my BP and recorded me at 142/94. She got my doctor who took my BP and clocked me in at a lovely 166/98. Man!!! So, I'm now on a low dosage of BP medication , which she says she'll probably increase before she decreases, and I've been instructed to stop all supliments and lose 20 lbs. I told my Doctor that I've been exercising and was very suprised by this. I told her about my blog and she said to keep working out and to keep fighting father time. "It's a losing battle" I'll use these last words of hers as motivation. I'll lose the weight. I'll lower my BP and I'll increase the lean muscle mass. (some how) So here's to the newest challenge.

The Dungeon

It's not much but it's mine. The only thing I'm missing now is a chin up bar. I've got my eyes open for one that I can attach to the overhead beams.
It's a tight squeeze but if I'm careful I don't bump my head too often.

Rebuilding

I got my first set of weights from my parents for Christmas when I was 10 or 11. I got a straight bar with about 20 lbs of weights on it. I also got a chin up bar that went in the door frame of my bedroom. I think I stubbed my toe on the weights and hit my head on the bar in my door frame more than I used them, but as with many young boys my desire grow up big and strong was there. Jump ahead to freshman year in high school before I did anything closer to serious lifting. A few friends and I started working out with some of the seniors behind the school with a mishmash of barbells and old benches. We eventually got permission to clean out a storage closet in the gym and set up 'The Weight Room' . I remember after one workout being afraid that my arms would never fully straighten out again. The next day I had what we called the 'Coco-crispy cripples', where your arms were so sore that you couldn't hold the spoon to eat your coco-crispies. Today the same High School has a state of the art weight room with real equipment. Boy kids today are spoiled. (lol) Anyhohw, on again off again with the lifting through high school and college and I was struggling my senior year in college to get above 200 lbs. So now 20 years later I'm squatting what I used to curl and I'm pushing to get down to 200 lbs. Now I'm rebuilding. My schedule doesn't allow for much gym time so I've been building my own gym. A few years ago I got a bench and some dumbbells, followed shortly there after by a BowFlex treadmill. A year later I bought a basic Smith Machine, a heavy bag and a stand. My wife is very supportive as I take to the basement in the evenings to workout. For my 40th bday she suprised me with a set of BowFlex SelectTech dumbbells. These things are great! They give me a decent amount of weight without taking up a lot of space and since I'm sharing my home gym with my oil tank, furnace, and the rest of the junk in my basement I don't have a lot of space to spare. So while it might not be Golds, a few nights a week I sneak off to my dungeon weight room and rebuild. I like the results so far. Let's hope I can keep it up.

Competing

So in my waking moments yesterday my brain was wrestling with why I continue to want to lift weights. Why lift? Why push for more? Shouldn't I start to become content with simply becoming healthy, eating well, losing weight? For some reason I still have my college days Muscle head mentality. While I am trying to eat more healthily I'm still pushing for a more muscled look rather than thinning down. I'm forty with 4 kids and a wife I love and I still feel like a 20 something, well at least in my head. My body feels much older. I've had 2 back surgeries, the last one leaving me with 4 screws and 2 rods in my lower spine. So my goal is to feel, physically, as young as my mind says I am. I’m in a competition with myself and with time. I know that the statistics of age say that at 40 things start to change more quickly. Testosterone levels are supposed to drop more rapidly. Depression is more likely. Well I’m going to do my best to fight these changes. So I’m going to continue to workout and continue to try to make gains and since I no longer have my friends to compete with I guess I'll have to compete with myself. Heres to a good fight.

Awakening

Here's an email I sent to a friend of mine, slightly edited.
So 10 weeks ago of so I started working out again with the goal of being in better shape by the time I turned 40. I turned 40 last Monday and for the most part it's worked. I feel pretty good. The muscle memory is still pretty good though it's taking me 2 days or so to recover between work outs. I'm assuming that if I keep it up the recovery time will improve. Anyhow I woke up this morning with an idea for a website http://www.fightingfathertime.com/. Sort of a site for newly middle aged men with articles about how to get or stay in good health. In my pre-waking moments I envisioned a community site, local, personal, growing as users join... So I woke up walked the dogs, fed the dogs, fed the cats, answered some work emails and looked at website building sites. Almost immediately I started to lose interest. You've got free site builders, pay small fee for sites, Wiki's... Easily overwhelmed I looked at simply doing a blog, but blogging scares me. I feel exposed and don't know that I really want to pour my thoughts out to just anyone. So, I'm mulling over a site but just needed to air my thoughts. I'm going to let my chickens out now and get my day going. I'm nervously waiting for the Superbowl tonight. Go Patriots!