Walking....

Three years ago, come this Labor Day, I had dropped about 15 pounds on my 5' 11" frame, and was weighing in at about 208 pounds, it was time for me to get serious about losing some more.  The since retired Doc Bergman was telling me that I was pre-diabetic 2, and my Cholesterol was somewhat high.  I guess I could always blame that on Vietnam...many do, and they may be correct...however I tended to think it had more to do with family history, like my silver grey hair, from the DeVore{mom's} side, and the full head of hair from the Houseworth{dad} and Waldron{Grandma Houseworth's} sides.  After all, my dad and his brothers all had their heart problems, which resulted in early death.  Dad at 55, his brother Forrest at 54, and Uncle Furl had several heart attacks, before he succumbed at the age of 75 or so.  Vietnam or not, Agent Orange or not....I tended to think any health issues were from genes and lifestyle...after all, even though I never was into smoking cigarettes, I had plenty of other things on my plate that probably didn't help the lifeline.

 I had reached 60 by the time Labor Day 2009 rolled around, and was going to make a determined effort to get in shape, lose some weight, and move on with my life.  Working with a dietitian at the St. Marys Hospital, I managed to get on a diet and program which allowed me to lose another 25 pounds(40 in total) and drop down to the 183 range...the lowest I had been since my Air Force days...I got back into lifting weights, and walking a couple of miles per day...that, along with my baseball, football, and basketball, officiating seemed to be pretty damn active, and work well for a 60 year old...but like everything in this life, you tend to slip up once in a great while....or maybe too often at times.

After hitting 182 or 183 within 8 months of the start....I felt pretty good, and slowly  started to backslide.  Keeping most of the weight off however, I did lock in at the 187 range for another year...then slowly the weight started to creep up.  Still down over 20 pounds in total, but back up 15 or so in the past 2 years....I figured out that, it was time to "lose it".  After all I had other health issues, Carotid Artery surgery, and a still high Cholesterol count and somewhat high blood pressure, were among them....so here I am, back to weight lifting on a regular basis, no not as heavy as in my 40s through early 50s...but still a good solid work out regiment 3 days a week down in the basement weight room.  I had been moving along pretty good, until the Carotid Artery thing...then a 3 month long "bump in the road".  That bump has now ended, and I am back on the weights, and back to walking at least 45 minutes to an hour most days....all the while still umpiring for a few more weeks, then football comes along.  I'll keep my progress posted....180 is the goal, as long as I don't pull anything else, at 63, even as active as I have been over the past years...you can't stop father time, this I know for a fact.

Walking the Lake Shore___

This morning to get my hour walk in{my routine is on lifting days I walk 40-45 minutes, and non lifting days I want to pound the pavement for an hour or so}...I took off up the side streets of town and headed for Lake Shore Drive on Grand Lake's southeast corner....which is the northwest corner of the lake.

Not to my surprise, even though the 9 o'clock hour was past, I noted nobody, I mean not a soul out on the lake, no boats, not a soul fishing, or, of course, swimming.  That's not to say that people were not out somewhere on the 13,000 acre lake, but in the busy corner attached to the Celina City limits....there was nobody, except for people sitting in their cars eating breakfast or looking at the few Canadian Geese families swimming near the shore line.  A sad commentary indeed for the once largest "man-made" lake in the world...the lake where once one could not only catch their share of Crappies and Catfish, but could eat them as well....not so these days, the alga scare is back, and along with the shrinking property values, the shrinking catchable fish population, the numbers using Grand Lake St. Marys, have shrunk to almost countable on ones fingers numbers.

Still, the walk was pleasant....and I am glad to be back on task....

Baseball tonight at LCC, tomorrow at Crestview, then Sam and I travel to Kalida one more time, before the tournaments begin this weekend....first the Junior ACME, akin to Junior Varsity high school ball, then the Varsity teams square off after July 4th.

back later>>>>

Photos-From my walk to the Lake Shore this morning...as you can see, nobody home, except for a few Canada Geese and their families....