Best and Worst Shape of My Life
We visited the orthopedist again earlier this week to talk about my back. 9 months on from my re-herniation and I'm growing tired of it. The last time it took somewhere 9-12 months to subside (though I don't think it fully went away). It's hard for me to remember a time when my back/leg didn't hurt, or when I was free to run, jump or do all sorts of physical activity.
We recently got a new Tempurpedic bed, which I love and which has helped me again get a restful sleep after progressively increasing discomfort. The reason is clear: after another MRI yesterday, even my amateur eyes can clearly make out the L5/S1 disc protruding .5-.75cm out into my sciatic nerve. I've always had very good health, and this has been the most frustratingly painful and limiting condition of my life. I'm only 27. I shouldn't be this bad off. And yet, I'm in some of the best shape of my life.
Thank God for biking.
I probably wouldn't have made it this long without it, and in addition to alleviating the pain and tightness I wake up with, it has been the biggest boon for my overall cardiovascular fitness as well. Through much of high school I was around 200 pounds. Going vegetarian and really eating healthfully in college and doing lots of walking around Boston dropped me to 185 lbs. Somewhere after that I slackened on my healthy eating and restabilized around 200-205. In perhaps my only real instance of couvade, greater indulgence during Cherry's pregnancy led me to also add a sympathy 20-25 lbs in the lead-up to the 2009 holiday season.
I've never been the skinny kid, but this rapid weight gain moved me from the outer boundary of normal weight into solidly overweight territory for my 6'4" frame. I was shocked at how much I'd lost sight of proper nutrition and the speed with which indulgence showed with my added girth. With more junk food on the Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year's horizon, we knew something had to be done. 225 pounds was unacceptable and could astoundingly get worse.
So Cherry and I set our weight loss goals before the holidays (not after a sense of New Year's "buyer's remorse") and were successful in cutting off further weight gain during that treacherous period. Having succeeded in not putting more on, then came the tricky task of actually taking it off.
Better eating and cutting down on junk food started us down the slow descent, but the real tipping point for me was the day in March that we decided to buy new bikes. We had my and Emily's old childhood bikes, which we'd only taken out once on a sub-freezing MLK Day 2008 Eco-tour ride around DC. The ride was invigorating, but proved how woefully inadequate our ill-fitting K-mart bikes were. Though we were interested in biking, it's tragic in retrospect that we still took another two years to actually invest the money in a good new pair of bikes.
Biking to work had been somewhat of a dream for me ever since my avid cyclist co-worker (and cubicle neighbor) Geoff Steele had led me on a tour of our bike facilities at EPA shortly before he retired in late 2007. He came back by the office to say hello a month or two ago and I was proud to report that I was continuing his legacy.
Riding the 12.4 mile roundtrip has set my back (relatively) straight each morning and minimized my pain, invigorated my spirits, and helped me shed over 35 pounds by the roadside. I'm now back in the 185-188 pound range and feeling wonderful. Where my clothing was getting embarrassingly tight last year, it's now embarrassingly loose and flowing in some cases. I feel like I need a new wardrobe, though that will have to wait until after I'm done with school next May.
Now I'm on a huge cycling kick and I just want to do more. I've gotten my commute down well and wandered around many other areas. The DC area has many great bike trails that I want to check out. I had a fabulous 20-mile ride when we went camping at Cape Henlopen, and I'm sad that my morning escape down the Breakwater & Junction Trail is the longest ride I've been on so far. And it was an easy ride on fairly level terrain, at that.
I want to do some longer rides, and maybe even some organized rides. The more I've learned, the more I'd like to do a century ride someday. There are some decent hills on my commute, but I could benefit from doing more hill work and pushing myself to try harder. We're looking forward to Xavier being old enough to go out biking so that we can take outings as a family.
Most recently, the Washington Area Bicycle Association has been advertising its annual 50 States and 13 Colonies rides: 65- and 15-mile rides (respectively) on all 50 named state streets in DC, or the 13 original colonies. Despite my daily riding, I don't know that I'm up for the 65-mile ride, which has a surprising amount of elevation change for an intra-city ride. But I've learned that biking is a great way to get to know the city, and this one touches all corners.
For today though, I think I'll try the 13 colonies ride at lunch (since I've found maps online and think its doable). Biking has revived my curiosity and sense of adventure, and I'm just wanting to see new places and try new challenges. My back may have kept me down and been demotivating in so many ways, but on the other hand, I'm healthy, feeling alive and loving my lifestyle. Biking hasn't been cheap (especially given that my Metro riding was already subsidized) but it has been liberating in so many ways.
We recently got a new Tempurpedic bed, which I love and which has helped me again get a restful sleep after progressively increasing discomfort. The reason is clear: after another MRI yesterday, even my amateur eyes can clearly make out the L5/S1 disc protruding .5-.75cm out into my sciatic nerve. I've always had very good health, and this has been the most frustratingly painful and limiting condition of my life. I'm only 27. I shouldn't be this bad off. And yet, I'm in some of the best shape of my life.
Thank God for biking.
I probably wouldn't have made it this long without it, and in addition to alleviating the pain and tightness I wake up with, it has been the biggest boon for my overall cardiovascular fitness as well. Through much of high school I was around 200 pounds. Going vegetarian and really eating healthfully in college and doing lots of walking around Boston dropped me to 185 lbs. Somewhere after that I slackened on my healthy eating and restabilized around 200-205. In perhaps my only real instance of couvade, greater indulgence during Cherry's pregnancy led me to also add a sympathy 20-25 lbs in the lead-up to the 2009 holiday season.
I've never been the skinny kid, but this rapid weight gain moved me from the outer boundary of normal weight into solidly overweight territory for my 6'4" frame. I was shocked at how much I'd lost sight of proper nutrition and the speed with which indulgence showed with my added girth. With more junk food on the Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year's horizon, we knew something had to be done. 225 pounds was unacceptable and could astoundingly get worse.
So Cherry and I set our weight loss goals before the holidays (not after a sense of New Year's "buyer's remorse") and were successful in cutting off further weight gain during that treacherous period. Having succeeded in not putting more on, then came the tricky task of actually taking it off.
Better eating and cutting down on junk food started us down the slow descent, but the real tipping point for me was the day in March that we decided to buy new bikes. We had my and Emily's old childhood bikes, which we'd only taken out once on a sub-freezing MLK Day 2008 Eco-tour ride around DC. The ride was invigorating, but proved how woefully inadequate our ill-fitting K-mart bikes were. Though we were interested in biking, it's tragic in retrospect that we still took another two years to actually invest the money in a good new pair of bikes.
Biking to work had been somewhat of a dream for me ever since my avid cyclist co-worker (and cubicle neighbor) Geoff Steele had led me on a tour of our bike facilities at EPA shortly before he retired in late 2007. He came back by the office to say hello a month or two ago and I was proud to report that I was continuing his legacy.
Riding the 12.4 mile roundtrip has set my back (relatively) straight each morning and minimized my pain, invigorated my spirits, and helped me shed over 35 pounds by the roadside. I'm now back in the 185-188 pound range and feeling wonderful. Where my clothing was getting embarrassingly tight last year, it's now embarrassingly loose and flowing in some cases. I feel like I need a new wardrobe, though that will have to wait until after I'm done with school next May.
Now I'm on a huge cycling kick and I just want to do more. I've gotten my commute down well and wandered around many other areas. The DC area has many great bike trails that I want to check out. I had a fabulous 20-mile ride when we went camping at Cape Henlopen, and I'm sad that my morning escape down the Breakwater & Junction Trail is the longest ride I've been on so far. And it was an easy ride on fairly level terrain, at that.
I want to do some longer rides, and maybe even some organized rides. The more I've learned, the more I'd like to do a century ride someday. There are some decent hills on my commute, but I could benefit from doing more hill work and pushing myself to try harder. We're looking forward to Xavier being old enough to go out biking so that we can take outings as a family.
Most recently, the Washington Area Bicycle Association has been advertising its annual 50 States and 13 Colonies rides: 65- and 15-mile rides (respectively) on all 50 named state streets in DC, or the 13 original colonies. Despite my daily riding, I don't know that I'm up for the 65-mile ride, which has a surprising amount of elevation change for an intra-city ride. But I've learned that biking is a great way to get to know the city, and this one touches all corners.
For today though, I think I'll try the 13 colonies ride at lunch (since I've found maps online and think its doable). Biking has revived my curiosity and sense of adventure, and I'm just wanting to see new places and try new challenges. My back may have kept me down and been demotivating in so many ways, but on the other hand, I'm healthy, feeling alive and loving my lifestyle. Biking hasn't been cheap (especially given that my Metro riding was already subsidized) but it has been liberating in so many ways.