The joy of diet and exercise

I have to give credit to a recent change in lifestyle to Gary Black, my ex-News-Miner editor. An email from him declared I needed a new mug shot to go with my weekly column.

OK, I have to admit a lot of the credit also goes to my daughter. Lisa is like one of those ex-smokers who are out to change the world, one cigarette at a time.

Diet and exercise was her sermon. All you need is diet and exercise.

I would mentally nod and verbally agree and say, “Mftmpha.” Translated around a mouthful of McDonald’s chocolate chip cookie, this meant, “Uh huh.”
“Tomorrow” is a pre-dieter’s favorite word. We’ll start the blasted diet and exercise thing tomorrow….after the dinner out with friends, the church potluck, when the rhubarb cake is gone.
Tomorrow we’ll start eating lettuce leaves carrots and fat free cheese. Tomorrow we will put on sneakers and huff for a half mile. The trouble for me is that tomorrow never came. I had started “tomorrowing” at least a year before and was happily eating my way into wider jeans.

It took the email from Gary to “tip the scale,” so to speak. Could I come into the office in a couple days for a new mug shot?

What? A couple of days? I dashed to the mirror and took stock. Good grief! This wouldn’t work at all. I needed a haircut and a dye job and, good Lord, what about that chin thing. And those pudgy cheeks?

And what was wrong with my old mug shot that was taken at least six years before, after a lengthy bout of flu yanked off enough pounds to make me at least appear almost thin?

Nope. Gary insisted. I begged for a small reprieve and he, feeling sorry for me, granted me one.
I went into high gear. Out went the bags of cookies and the ice cream in the freezer. The candy bars hidden in the towel drawer were ripped open, thrown in the garbage, and covered with coffee grounds and leftover tomato soup to quell any temptation to dig them back out.

I stocked up on fruit and vegetables and good stuff. I started walking a mile at noon and walking after work. When I was laid off from my job at Alyeska I hiked up the exercise. Five months later I was 30 pounds lighter.

For my birthday in June I got a Bodybugg. Lisa had one and convinced Troy that I would love it. She was right.

A Bodybugg is a slick little doohickey. It velcroes comfortably on my upper left arm and tracks every bit of movement I make. At night the information is downloaded and up pops a graph that looks like an EKG with peaks and valleys. I can see exactly when and how long I did that staggering run/walk. If I zoning out on TV it is pretty much flat-lined.

The Bodybugg is something like 98 percent correct in calculating exercise and calories burned. Food intake is put in by hand and shows the consumption of fat, carbs, and protein. The goal is to burn more calories than you eat.

The funny thing about all this is that the new mug shot never happened. The new job in Wasilla and giving up my News-Miner column took care of needing one.

Update on Lisa
After all sorts of tests, including a heart catheterization, we know that our daughter has a perfectly healthy heart and lungs. Her low pulse rate is a puzzle but doctors do have some clues as to the problem, which thankfully isn’t life or lifestyle threatening. Thank you to everyone who prayed for her.

And finally…A preacher went to his church office on Monday morning and discovered a dead mule in the church yard. He called the police. Since there did not appear to be any foul play, the police referred the preacher to the health department. They said since there was no health threat that he should call the sanitation department. The sanitation manager said he could not pick up the mule without authorization from the mayor.

Now the preacher knew the mayor and was not to eager to call him. The mayor had a bad temper and was generally hard to deal with, but the preacher called him anyway.

The mayor did not disappoint. He immediately began to rant and rave at the pastor and finally said, "Why did you call me anyway? Isn’t it your job to bury the dead?"

The preacher paused for a brief moment and then replied: "Yes, Mayor, it is my job to bury the dead, but I always like to notify the next of kin first."