So I mentioned in my previous post that I did a number on my back. For the past several years I have had pain issues with my back or more directly with my hips / legs. I figured most of the problem was because I was a fatass and I would be better off as I lost weight. After losing 100 pounds the issue wasn’t really getting better and in fact was pretty bad at times. A few years ago, I wet to the doctor to have it checked out. He sent me for some Xrays and told me that I had a condition known as Spondylolisthesis which describes the anterior displacement of a vertebra or the vertebral column in relation to the vertebrae below. More directly, spondylolisthesis is a forward slip of one vertebra (i.e., one of the 33 bones of the spinal column) relative to another. Spondylolisthesis usually occurs towards the base of your spine in the lumbar area. There are 5 grades of spondylolisthesis that describe the amount of slippage. My condition is apparently a grade 2 slippage. The doctor sent me to an orthopedist who recommended Physical Therapy at the time. I probably should have gone then, but I didn’t because of the time involved and any other number of excuses I came up with at the time.

I dealt with the pain for the most part and on the really bad days took tylenol or darvocet. A week or so into June, right after my dad passed away, I started spending more time outside trying to do more so I had to spend less time thinking about his passing. I hauled about 1000 pound of stone from my drive way to various parts of my yard, built my wife 2 raised gardens and then filled them with about 1000 pounds of dirt. I got alot of other things done as well. But, in the process I really screwed my back up. Now I was faced with a whole new pain and this one didn’t always go away. The pain was pretty much in the low center of my back and was almost instant and very intense. I went back to the doctor who suggested physical therapy again and because the pills weren’t working anymore, this time I decided to give it a try.

I started around the end of June. I was going 3 times a week for the last week or two of June and most of July. I cut back to two days a week for the past two weeks and will probably stick with that for the rest of Summer. My sessions last for between 1.5 and 2 hours generally and it is tough to take that much time 3 days a week during summer because of the kids being home from school. I hope to add in the 3rd day once they go back to school at the end of August. Some days have been really tough, but overall I have been seeing the benefits of going. I feel more fit, I have definitely developed more muscle and have started seeing some results on the scale the past 2 weeks or so.

When I started I was doing 3 miles in 15 minutes on a Total Body Recumbent Bike and following that up with a variety of exercises to help strengthen my abs, hamstrings and various other muscles. After a few weeks of this, though, I started having problems with my calves and shins. I was having pain even on the days I wasn’t going to the gym and wasn’t able to do much of anything on my days off without pain. They adjusted my plan and put me on the treadmill instead of the bike. I have been doing that for about 3 weeks now and it seems to be going much better. It is harder for me to stay on the treadmill as long as I could the bike, but I am not dealing with that extra pain and seem to be getting up to a pretty good heart rate while I am on it. Some days I manage 8 minutes and some I manage up to about 12. It depends on the pain I am feeling as a result of the Spondylolisthesis.

All of this has renewed my search for decent workout equipment that will support my large mass. While the best solution would be simply to go out and walk. It doesn’t work so well because of this pain. When I can’t go anymore. I can’t go anymore and it’s kind of tough to just stop and sit down for a few minutes when you are out walking. I have been doing some research into treadmills and found a few web sites that have some pretty good looking equipment that will support overweight people up to 500+ pounds. I am hoping to talk to a few of the companies in the next couple of weeks to see about getting something. I would love to review some of the different equipment they have and rate it here from easiest to hardest and provide details of the results I get from each. I guess we will see whether that happens or not. But, I know one thing for sure. If I can finally get a break from this pain, there will be no stopping me. I am really enjoying the exercise aspect of the therapy and I want to do more. I push myself too hard some days which isn’t entirely good because then it creates more pain for me in the days that follow. But, I really want to be able to do more and when I start seeing some improvement, I start pushing harder and harder. I guess the pain is my body’s way of saying slow down for a bit. In any case, I will post more about my research into workout equipment for overweight people once I have had a chance to talk to a few of the companies.

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We bought the kids a Nintendo Wii for Christmas. Our 6 year old had been begging for one for about 4 months and it was the only thing he wanted. He had a Game Cube before that and is a huge Mario fan so we got him two Mario games to go with it. Plus it came with two other game packs, one of them being Wii Sports. Up until tonight he has mostly been playing the Mario Games but, I told him last night that we would spend some time playing together tonight. Well, after a few hours of trying to get something to work for a website I am working on, I was ready for a break and we had a blast playing some of the Wii Sports games like bowling and golf.

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Despite the fact that I hate the cold weather and it keeps getting colder and colder. I have kept with my daily walks. I skipped last Saturday and Sunday. Not sure if that was good or bad but, Monday I was back out without any issues. The temperature has been creeping ever lower all week and is expected to be about 8 on Sunday. I think I will probably skip Saturday and Sunday this weekend as well. We’ll see. I got a new batter for my Pedometer and although I still need to calculate my stride, the pedometer shows that the walk takes about 1300 steps and is 1/2 mile which puts me at 2mph since it takes about 15 minutes. Not bad for a start. My new sneakers have shipped and will hopefully be here by next Monday or Tuesday. I’m looking forward to having decent shoes to try out. I have been dealing with the cold by adding some extra layers and doubling up on my hoods. If nothing else, the dog sure doesn’t seem to mind it. He is starting to get used to the walks. He seems to even know when it is time to go as he is always looking to his leash at that time of day. Tomorrow is my second weigh in since my new start so we will see how things have gone so far and figure out what needs to change from here on out.

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7 days into my new start, things are going well. My second weigh-in for the year has arrived. While, it wasn’t anything to write home about. It was still a drop. After weeks and months of slacking, it feels good to be moving in the right direction again. Today was day three since my visit with the nutritionist and my decision to get out of the house on a daily basis and take a walk. I hesitated going out today as the temp dropped a bit overnight and it has been raining all morning.

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Why is it so hard to find fitness equipment for people over 250 pounds? I have been wanting to get an elliptical for a while now. The problem is that almost every one I look at has a user capacity of 250 pounds or less. I just don’t get it. I want to lose weight. But, to be able to have a home gym workout, I need to lose weight. It is starting to piss me off. Oh yeah, sure. If I want to go out and drop $1500+ I can get a gym quality machine that holds 300 pounds or more. But, I don’t have $1500 to spend on a single piece of fitness equipment and I don’t think I should have to spend that much. Are you telling me it is impossible to manufacture a machine with a user capacity greater than 250 pounds for less than $1000? I have found one elliptical that will hold up to 300 pounds. I have found a few treadmills that will hold 325 but I still have not found anything that will go to around 350. There has to be something out there. But, I don’t know where to look.

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My son had the day off of school Monday so we planed a hiking trip back to red rock mountain and Ricketts Glen State Park. I was hoping that we would get to see some great sights and plenty of fall. The problem is that the weather has been so warm. The colors of fall haven’t fully set in yet. Needless to say, we didn’t see many colors, or many sights of fall. But, we did enjoy the hike. Here are some of the pictures from the hike.

The start of the Grandview Trail	A view through the trees	The fire tower on top of red rock mountain
A view from the top	The rest of the grandview trail	More from the trail out
Field of ferns	No bears, but bear poop	The Adams waterfall

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At my last appointment with the nutritionist we were talking about my ups and downs and the things that I am having the most problems with. To date my biggest hurdle has been feeling hungry. Some days I just want to eat. I can eat something and 10 minutes later I fee hungry again. When I can keep that in check and eat good, healthy food, I do ok. But when I start to lose focus, I tend to eat not so healthy food. A tidbit of information she shared with me that I found very interesting is the fact that fat cells don’t go away. Read the rest of this entry »

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Another great form of above ground swimming pool exercise I have found is to use foam noodles along with the water for resistance. Holding the noodles with both hands then trying to push them down under the water is a great way to get a quick workout and stay cool at the same time. I place both hands on the noodle about 2 feet apart then slowly push the noodle underwater. The noodles natural tendency to float creates a good resistance and seems to be a pretty good way to keep moving. Read the rest of this entry »

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A great form of exercise I have found is to make my son chase me around the pool. The pool is 21 feet around and we have 5 or 6 foam noodles. I gather them all up then run around as he tries to catch me. When he gets close, I let go of a noodle and he goes with it, then I keep running and he chases me some more until he has all of the noodles or I can’t run anymore so I let him catch me. For some reason I am able to move better and with less pain while I am in the pool, so this can go on for 10 or 15 minutes straight. He is just learning to swim.. so he is in a life jacket and just swims around the pool after me. He has a blast and I get a good workout.

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We took the kids out to the local amusement park yesterday for opening weekend. It is a great place to go for an afternoon since admission is free (they charge you per ride). The kids got their hand stamped and rode all afternoon for $20 (hand stamps were buy one get one free since it was opening weekend) and we bought a $10 book of tickets for the rides that didn’t get covered by the hand stamp. It gave the wife and I a good opportunity to get out of the house and walk. So, that is just what we did. We spent about 6 hours at the park and half of that was spent walking around. I have to say it felt pretty good. I noticed I was able to get around a lot easier than last year. After we got home I was looking at the pictures we took and noticed that I seem to be smaller as well. Kind of gave me a good feeling seeing and feeling some of the results.

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