Monthly Archives: September 2017

In the morning I try to walk five miles.  Most days I do, sometimes I need to split it up, finishing at night.  At first the walks were at a relaxed pace.  Now I try to push my heart rate up and walk at a very brisk pace.  Last night I was walking at a nice clip when a woman who was walking joined me.  She seemed to be surprised that I was moving this bulky frame so fast.  She said she had a hard time staying motivated.  I told her when I feel like slowing down I put on some German Hip Hop or German Heavy Metal.  She said she normally listens to Luke Bryan (whoever that is).

We picked up the pace and as she faltered I gave her my wireless ear buds and gave her a taste.  I put on:

And then

I’m not familiar with Luke Bryan but don’t believe he is like either of these artists because after they were both done she said she was spent and was going  home.  I wished her well.  When she got a ways away I saw her look back in an odd way.  Perhaps they don’t listen to Rammstein in LaGrange too much.  Oh well.

I have a brilliant friend who I met at banjo camp a few years back who is a professional comic.  We are on this journey together to become healthier.  We have been having a discussion on The Ketogenic Diet and intermittent fasting.  I have been limiting my carbs for a while but he is quite serious about it.  He steered me to The Joe Rogan Experience podcast.  This one featured Dom D’Agostino.  He is incredibly bright and explains the benefits of a ketogenic diet.  I listened to it on a podcast.  You can go to the podcast or you can see the video of the podcast here.

I’ve found a great deal of information dealing with The Ketogenic Diet.  I’m skeptical but her are a few graphics on it.

After reading the book, Younger Next Year I decided to ramp up my exercise. I can feel the difference from all of the walking so I went to the gym and worked on the machines. I chose machines because they will force proper form on this sixty-one year old body. I think it’s important to slowly work into it. The book is Younger Next Year, not next month.

Since I’ve been writing about getting healthy I’ve been inundated with ads. Ironically the all say I can get in shape WITHOUT exercise. All I have to do is send them money.

I finished Younger Next Year.

The gist of the book is that much of what we see is aging is merely the consequence of idleness.  Obviously we are aging, our hair is becoming gray and other things but many of the debilitating effects are due to our sedentary lifestyles.  A good example would be me.  I worked at a job where I walked ten miles a day and lifted ten thousand pounds a day to watching Netflix and playing the banjo.

The idea is to treat exercise like a job.  Something that you do every day, six days a week.  Your quality of life increases and instead of a slow decline you live well until your death very late in life.

It’s a great book.  Easy to read and very motivating.  I did make the mistake of looking up the authors on Google and found that Dr. Henry S. Lodge died at 58 of prostate cancer.  So it goes.

My brother’s cancer has been progressing.  He has a large tumor in his left ear and it is also in both lungs.  He was denied access to the clinical trial for the immunotherapy but is getting the therapy anyway.  I think it had more to do with funding than anything else.

Treatment started with radiation treatment to the tumor in his ear.  That is a daily treatment.  That means I have to drive to Elyria, pick him up and head to Seidman in University Circle.  On a good day it is a four hour day and on a bad day eleven hours.

After a few radiation treatments he started his immunotherapy.  This will be every two weeks for at least two years.  We got there at 10am for our appointment, they took us back at 10:45.  Explained the procedure and said they had to make the cocktail and it would take twenty minutes.  At 11:30 they brought the treatment to him.  It would take an hour so I got some coffee and headed to my car to practice guitar,  I didn’t hear from him after an hour and a half so I headed back to him.

He had a bad reaction to the therapy and had a very hard time breathing and pain in his back.  The whole medical team came and they pumped him full of steroids and Benedryl.  Once he stabilized they resumed the treatment but had to slow down the drip considerably.  Instead of an hour it became nearly three.

So, because of the complications they have to slow the treatment down considerable and also he has to have someone drive him there every time.  I almost had him on his own and driving himself.  This is a real setback.

I allowed much of this to weigh on my mind.  I’m still walking and doing other things to become healthy.  I’m back to writing and I’m back to working hard on my goal,