"It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver" Mahatma Gandhi

I have allowed other things (not necessarily more important things) keep me from writing here for the past month or so. I plan to rectify the situation beginning with this post.

Each day of the week I begin to awaken sometime between 4:40 am and 5:00 am. I slowly progress to full wakefulness over 5 or 10 minutes. Once there I have to decide if I wait for the alarm to get me out of bed or do I just get up and get the day started. Much of the time I get up  and get going before the alarm so Cindy is not disturbed. Four mornings each week I pedal an exercise bicycle for 30-40 minutes while viewing a devotional on KBYU television. I then spend about a half hour reading scripture and having my own morning devotional. This is about all I have time for during the hour and 20 minutes available before I need to begin getting ready for work. As far as conditioning goes I also walk several miles in the evening.

I look at the physical feats of friends and acquaintances and marvel at how men in my age bracket are able to do such amazing things. Shawn Mitchell climbing the Flatirons in Boulder County and walking and climbing other trails and outcroppings. Dave Schultz running marathons and other shorter races. I see men and women of my acquaintance who are active and engaged in life in a way that blows my mind. How do they do it? I think that most of these whom I admire have always done these things. When they were young they did it because they enjoyed it, or because they have a competitive spirit that leads them to push their own limits while trying the limits of others as well. Good habits of health developed while younger that pay dividends into these older middle-aged years.

I never enjoyed running. I did run if it was part of a game I played (softball, basketball, etc.) I gave up on track when I was a young teenager. Pedaling a bicycle in traffic never seemed to make much sense to me and the few times I did it I found it to be a lot of work - and who wants to work for fitness anyway? It sure seemed to me that there was no need to take care of this ole body. I was always thin and could hike or run (in my foolish youth) or pedal just about anywhere I wanted to go for fun. Then life started to get in the way. A job change that required working overnight, or late into the evening. Sleeping during the day really messed with my circadian rhythms and led to a decided lack of energy when awake. But I needed to provide for a growing family and this was the only job I could find at the time.

Looking back on those years I recognize that there were several times when I attempted to get back into a workout of sorts. I attempted to play basketball with friends several days each week during the winter months. I found that my legs were lead filled and it hurt to breath. I tried rollerblading, cycling, just simply walking, but none seemed to be enough. Sooo, my physical condition continued to deteriorate and the pounds packed on, and on, and on. And now here we are. I will confess here that my weight has ballooned to as high as 320 pounds and I have for short periods of time gotten that weight all the way down to 260 for a few brief weeks. I have never been able to maintain any weight under 300 over the last 15 years.

By-pass surgery in 2011 did not even provide me with any motivation to make any significant changes in my life that would lead to better health. I am not sure why, but now seems to be the time that I have become determined to change this aspect of my life. I see those granddaughters of mine and would like to hang around long enough to really get to know them. And I would really enjoy being able to spend a much longer life with their grandmother. I'm afraid if I don't do something now those two things may not be possible. For those few who have made it this far into this post (thank you) I encourage you to check in with me from time to time to see how it is going. I will report here at least monthly as to how my life is changing and how the weight loss is going. It took a long time to put on these pounds and I suspect it will require a great effort and a lot of support to take it off.

I have decided to participate in a 5k on May 17th in Fruita Colorado (Mike the Headless Chicken fun run). It will likely be a walk for me with just a little running. I will not ever run a marathon (sorry Dave you are on your own there) or climb a mountain. But I will climb this mountain.

Thanks for checking in. More to come soon. See you then.