Health

I like donuts but I donut like buses

I had to go back to my doctor today to confer about the unwelcome lump of something or other and lay out the next steps in what to do. He also mentioned that my blood sugar level in the previous test was 2.6, which is apparently exactly on the line between “this is okay” and “this is not at all okay” so I have to get a formal blood sugar test, the ultrasound and who knows what else.

The ultrasound is already scheduled so I’ll probably get the blood work done the same day in the morning. And the ultrasound is at Richmond Hospital instead of Royal Columbian. You know, the hospital I literally live right next door to. Anyway, it’ll be a fun day with poking and prodding and the actual topic of this post…

Buses.

I had to catch a bus at the Brighouse SkyTrain station (the 410, to be specific) to get to the clinic today. I checked ahead of time, noted when it departed and all that. Then I got on the right bus (410) but headed in the wrong direction because I wasn’t paying attention. I managed to get to the clinic only 10 minutes late as a result (and still had to wait 10 minutes more) but this particular bus reminded me why I dislike buses so much. Compared to trains:

  • they can get snarled in traffic and delayed. It took five minutes just top move past the first block.
  • the seats and aisles are unpleasantly narrow. I am not a wide person but even I find the space on a bus cramped at the best of times. There’s a reason they evoke sardine cans. The cramped space also makes it difficult to exit the bus as you must squeeze your way past everyone between you and the door.
  • constant stops. For the first two-thirds of the trip, the bus pulled in at every stop and the stops were usually spaced only two to four blocks apart (WHY?!) This stretches out the trip nigh unto infinity.
  • too many drivers don’t understand that they are carrying humans, not cargo that has been secured to the floor. They stab the brakes, causing standees to stumble about, then stab the gas, causing the standees to stumble again, but in the opposite direction. They gun it before people can sit. They forget to release the lock on the back exit, even though people are standing there waiting to get off. They run yellow and even red lights. Not all drivers are bad, of course, but the point is NONE of them should be bad drivers. It’s their job.

Anyway, if I was king I’d retire every bus and put in light rapid transit all over the place. I don’t care how much it costs, I’d do it and my loyal subjects would love me. They’d call me King Transit, Master of Trains.

A possible compromise might be to put the buses in transit-only tunnels. This would effectively turn them into trains. The cost could be partly offset by plastering every last cm of the tunnel walls with ads. I’d even be okay with sponsored stops. “The next stop is Boundary Road, brought to you by the refreshingly crisp taste of Coca-Cola.”

Or better yet, someone should invent teleporters. Screw this transit stuff altogether. You can keep the flying cars, just let me beam to the doctor’s office in five seconds instead of taking over two hours.

March 2017 weight loss report: Up 0.6 pounds

The good news is that unlike February, where I gained 2.2 pounds over the course of the (short) month, in March (a longer month) I only gained 0.6 pounds.

The bad news is I still gained weight, which is not a good way to lose weight.

Here are the stats:

March 1: 166.4 pounds
March 31: 167 pounds

And February’s by comparison:

February 1: 163.6 pounds
February 28: 165.8 pounds

The worst news is that in a little less than two months I’ve gone from 163.6 to 167 pounds, an increase of 3.4 pounds. Ugh.

It looks better (?) if you compare from January 1:

January 1: 165.9 pounds
March 31: 167 pounds

The difference there is a “mere” 1.1 pounds.

In any case, I need to get off my butt and start running more, doing my walks at lunch and purging the household of all snacks except for water and celery sticks, which is just green water in solid form.

Onward to April!

The overactive bladder

You know the best part about getting older? No, neither do I.

But until I can be cryogenically frozen and thawed out a thousand years later when people live to be 2,000 years old, I must contend with the fact that now, in my early 50s, things will break now and then.

In this case, man things.

A month or so ago I noticed a sensation in my groin. It wasn’t the pleasant kind brought on by lascivious thoughts, it was more of a persistent and annoying pressure. It felt like I had to pee all the time, whether I had to or not. It even felt like I had to poop a lot, which I didn’t. I tried to put this phantom pressure out of mind but in the end, it was too persistent and so I went to my doctor.

He scheduled blood and urine tests, with a tentative prognosis of prostatitis, (infected prostate, which I’ve had a few times before but not recently). He warned that the blood test would test for prostate cancer and often came back with false positives, so I wasn’t to freak out. At least not right away.

I delayed on getting the tests done because I am a man and men are like that. I finally did and almost immediately after I began experiencing new symptoms, namely a pressure or cramping in my lower abdomen as if whatever it was had started to spread. This alarmed me. After a shower, I fondled my crotch in a non-lascivious way and found the left testicle had a neighbor and it wasn’t the right testicle. It was a hard lump of something or other. I was pretty sure my crotch (or any crotch) is not meant to have a hard lump of something or other in it and was even further alarmed.

My follow-up appointment with my doctor (to discuss the test results) wasn’t until April 6 because he was on vacation. I didn’t want to wait nearly two more weeks while the unwelcome lump of something or other cuddled up to my left testicle, so I called the doctor’s office and they scheduled me to see another doctor today at another one of their clinics. He would have the test results.

The good news is the test results came out negative. The doctor said a prostate infection seemed unlikely. He speculated that I might have an overactive bladder. I nodded in my head because I’ve often thought my bladder is about ten times smaller than average based on how often I need to pee (I even tested for diabetes a few times because of the frequency). He recommended that I avoid beverages in the evening and see if it made a difference. As I write this it is 10:19 p.m. and I have a glass filled with diet soda next to me.

I had pizza tonight. It made me thirsty!

And I’m a man. Men are kind of dumb about these things (I’ll do better tomorrow, I promise.)

I then mentioned the lump of something or other and the doctor told me to drop my drawers so he could cop a feel. He used somewhat more professional language.

He confirmed the obvious–I had what seemed to a cyst where a cyst should not be. Well, a cyst really shouldn’t be, period. He said he was going to schedule an ultrasound and they would let me know when and where.

As Wikipedia defines it:

Medical sonography (ultrasonography) is an ultrasound-based diagnostic medical imaging technique used to visualize muscles, tendons, and many internal organs, to capture their size, structure and any pathological lesions with real time tomographic images.

Pathological lesions. Hooray!

Anyway, I’m not really alarmed since being alarmed will not actually change anything. I actually feel better than I did yesterday because the initial test results are clean and the unwelcome lump of something or other is getting probed.

What I’m trying not to think about is the inevitable plan to remove it. It’s tempting to enter “how are cysts removed” into a Google search but I’d like to sleep tonight (trips to the loo to pee notwithstanding).

Anyway, this concludes more of getting old. It’s always an adventure, like a dark ride that gets stuck partway through, probably next to one of the speakers blasting awful looping music.

February 2017 weight loss report: Up 2.2 pounds

How goes my goal of getting to 145 pounds at two months into the year? Let’s have a look at the past month:

February 1: 163.6 pounds
February 28: 165.8 pounds

Weight loss gain: +2.2 pounds

Whoops.

I was 165.9 pounds on January 1, so my total weight loss for the year-to-date is:

0.1 pounds

It’s impressive in a way.

On the plus side (that’s a weight loss joke), my body fat percentage has changed in a more positive way:

January 1: 19.1%
February 28: 18.3%

Body fat percentage change: 0.8%

Also on a positive note, I met one-half of my January goals by going donut-free for the entire month, no minor feat given that donuts were present throughout the month in plentiful quantities.

My goal for March is to have actual weight loss with less body fat, too. I get three extra days to accomplish this vs. February, so there’s that, too.

An ear-ie feeling

Today I went to the doctor because my efforts to remove wax from my left ear failed, though I did manage to loosen whatever was in there (wax, actually) enough to make it even more annoying than before.

My doctor recalled the old days of the giant metal syringe, which I remember being used on me once as a child. The fact that I vividly recall this is a testament to how awful an experience it was to have water hosed into my ear via a giant metal syringe.

The procedure today was done using a much smaller tube-like device that does the same thing (shoot warm water into the ear) but in a gentler manner. The procedure required four steps to complete: hose the ear, use a plastic picker thing to hook what was jostled loose (it sounds gross and trust me, it was), then the same two steps repeated.

The two chunks of wax were not insignificant in size. The doctor noted the skin inside the ear looked irritated due to these mini-boulders being lodged in there for the better part of a year.

I wouldn’t be surprised if I have nightmares tonight with the two balls of wax appearing as evil twins to torment me.

And while I can’t say I can hear better out of the left ear now, it definitely feels better.

Stupid wax.

The curiously uneventful exercise bicycle workout

Tonight I decided to finally try an exercise bicycle workout at the Canada Games Pool and I’m still wondering if I did it right.

I know I did the clothing part wrong. Light running shorts do not protect your posterior when sitting on a bicycle seat for half an hour. It got a bit uncomfortable at times, but I was able to shift my tuckus just enough to stave off keister agony.

I chose the fat burn workout and it asked me to set a heart rate target and my age. It defaulted to 112 so I went with that but ended up boosting it several times, topping out at 130–which is still well below my usual BPM when running.

I had to pedal pretty fast to maintain my target but curiously the effort didn’t seem too taxing. I sweated a bit but never felt close to the burn I’ve felt when on the elliptical or treadmill. On the one hand, it was kind of nice. On the other, it didn’t seem I was getting nearly as much out of the half hour invested.

There were level buttons and I assumed they would adjust the resistance (gears, I suppose) but they only offered to change the heart rate target. Maybe next time I’ll just choose manual or quick start. Or just not use the bikes. The pleasantness of being able to sit while working out was offset by how uncomfortable the actual sitting was. I think I may actually prefer the treadmill.

Anyway, here are the minimal stats:

Time: 29:19
BPM: 127
Calories: 247

The sixth elliptical and I get all klutzy

For the first time in a little over two weeks, I finally returned to the Canada Games Pool and did a half hour workout on the elliptical. Or rather I did a 27-minute workout, reached out with my right hand to adjust something or other, snagged it on the cord of my iPhone earbuds and whipped the phone out of the holder of the elliptical. It landed on the right foot pad, next to my right foot.

I immediately pressed the handy pause button on the machine, reassembled phone and earbuds and then hit the pause button again–you know, to unpause (resume) the workout. Instead, it started it over. Was I supposed to hit OK? Just start going again? (My hunch is the latter is the correct answer, as that’s how you normally begin a workout). I had about eight minutes left so started a manual workout and kept going until the watch dinged at 325 calories burned, my overall goal. I suffered no other clumsy incidents for the remainder.

I had the elliptical set to 14/12 and actually kept it at 14 the entire time, adjusting the resistance from 12 to 10 for the manual restart.

I sweated a lot and forgot my water bottle. These things are related.

It was nice to be active again. Now I must resist eating an entire cake as a reward for doing so.

And get more exercising in soon.

Stats:

Calories burned: 394 (345 active)
Time: 31:00
BPM: 156

January 2017 weight loss report: Down 1.7 pounds

This year I set a weight goal of 145 pounds. On January 1st I weighed 165.9 pounds, meaning I have nearly 21 pounds to lose. Yikes. Here’s where I’m at after the first month:

January 1: 165.9 pounds
January 31: 164.2 pounds

Weight loss: -1.7 pounds

Not bad but I’d technically miss my goal–at this pace, I’d be 145.5 pounds by December. Clearly, I need to step up the exercise, cut down the snacking or ideally both. I am making progress, though not being able to jog outside yet is cramping my exercise style. I only had two donuts the entire month, though! My goal for February is to go donut-free. And lose more than two pounds.

Another triumph over donuts

In the third week of January, a lot of people will have left their resolutions for the new year in tatters or more specifically, in the crumpled wrapper of a bacon cheeseburger. It is because of this that I want to celebrate another achievement as I work toward my goal of hitting 145 pounds this year: I have again dodged copious numbers of donuts.

Yesterday boxes of Krispy Kreme donuts were left in the kitchen area at work. I already had a small advantage in that I don’t like Krispy Kreme donuts–they are light but also almost sickly sweet with a heavy and kind of gross glaze. Still, in times past I would have gobbled up one or two without any thought. Coworkers were chowing down up to three (or more) each.

But I had none.

I was later informed that there were also boxes of the fancy ones, filled with jelly and such and probably 500 calories each. Those would have been more tempting but I’m pretty sure I would have resisted.

Next week I’m going to cut out all gratuitous snacking. Almost all snacking is gratuitous. I’ve done this before and I think this, with regular exercise, is essential to the weight loss.

I’ll probably be on the treadmill again this weekend but there is perhaps a slim hope that the last of the snow will be gone from the trails around Burnaby Lake. But I doubt it.

My weight on January 1 was 165.9 pounds. Today it’s 164.2 pounds. Losing 1.7 pounds in 24 days isn’t exactly wasting away, but it’s a start. I will continue to dodge donuts.

A fifth of elliptical

There’s not much to say about working out on an elliptical because the environment and machine never changes. I suppose if the machine magically came to life and galloped outside with me hanging on for dear life it would be different but so far that hasn’t happened.

Tonight I started with 14/12 on incline/resistance and eventually dropped the resistance to 10 before bumping it back up slightly to 11. At one point I felt muscles in my legs actually burning. Not literally on fire, just really feeling them stretching and such.

I also brought a water bottle tonight. It helped, though the cup holder is designed for righties. Prejudice!

I began to feel pretty tired near the end but finished with 350 calories burned on the machine and 364 according to the Apple watch (I let it run about a minute long before remembering to end the workout).

Officially:

Calories burned: 414 (364 active)
Time: 31:31
BPM: 155

I will likely do a treadmill run (bleah) next as I’d like to keep alternating. Plus the treadmills at least have dual cupholders so I don’t have to test my rightie hand-eye coordination when going for a sip.

A triumph over donuts

Two days I vowed to pass on the donuts that would be served at the weekly staff meeting. My immediate supervisor, who runs the meetings, opined that he might accommodate me in some way.

Today at the meeting the usual box of donuts was presented. And my supervisor brought along a banana for me. He quickly added that it was okay for me to have a donut, too. A donana, if you will. One of my co-workers said today is the official day people give up on their New Year resolutions. I guess people break before three weeks have passed or something like that.

But I held firm. I ate the banana and declined those freshly-baked yummy, mouth-watering donuts. And I assured myself they did not taunt me.

I am at 164.2 pounds. My weight is starting to trend downward again. I am exercising regularly. My body fat percentage has dropped 0.4%. These are all good things and I will not let them be derailed by a wickedly enticing Boston Cream.

Not this week, anyway.

And today would have been a good day to have a donut, too.