Realizing Harmony

I’m continuing to progress in my weight-loss journey. The pounds just keep creeping off. And it is GREAT! 8.5 down… 1-3 lbs to go! (And I’ve still got another week to go on the weight loss portion of the program.)

Along the way, though, I’m learning some lessons. Yesterday I learned a two, one “interesting to know,” and one that’s CRITICAL to be aware of.

First, the “interesting to know…”

Lesson One: Pedometers are useful tools, but they don’t all work for everyone. And I’m not talking about working for you in terms of your desires or wishes or “style.” No, I mean some of them physically DO NOT WORK for some people.

I’ve been wearing a pedometer this whole time and my daily step-counts have always seemed low.

The first one I had broke. Its counts had seemed low, but then when the LCD screen just went blank – on a fresh battery – I just figured it was due to a faulty unit.

Then I switched, for a few days, to the one my wife had been using. The counts soared compared to the counts from the first one, but still seemed a bit low.

Then my new one arrived, just like the first one. And now I’m convinced that at least some pedometers don’t work for me.

Yesterday I put on my pedometer immediately after waking up. I walked around our home doing my morning routine things, and then working from home. Probably put in 500-1000 steps right there, but the pedometer read somewhere in the 300-400 step range.

Then I headed in to the office – walked out to my car (approximately 25 steps), drove there (0 steps), walked into the office (100 steps), dealt with a true emergency that included running outside and around the parking lot a bit (500 steps), went in to a meeting (50 steps), walked back out to my car (100 steps), drove home (0 steps), walked into the house (25 steps), and went through a fairly typical evening routine (300-500 steps.)

I would guess that my pedometer, if reading my steps accurately would be somewhere around 1600-2300 counted step range, which I know is very low for the program’s guidelines. But it’s a conservative estimate of my perception of reality. So, what did the pedometer actually read? 577!

There was one “trip” I took in the evening – from the bedroom to the kitchen to the living room – where I checked the count at the beginning and the end, and they matched! (394 steps was the beginning and ending readout.)

Why don’t my steps register? I think it’s because I walk too smoothly. My gait was created in part by my physical-education teacher for my Intermediate Conditioning class in college. When we went out for runs, he commented that we should be putting our energy into moving forward more than moving up and down. Now when I run, jog, or walk, my goal is to move forward, not bounce up and down. So my gait is more of a rolling gait than a stomping gait. I roll from my heel to my toe. I walk softly (but don’t carry a big stick) and move faster than a lot of people.

Problem is, pedometers like people who stomp, who don’t walk softly. Some pedometers are more sensitive to soft-walking than others. So for those of us who walk softly, we need to find the more sensitive pedometers to record our daily steps.

Lesson Two: Weight-loss affects your body’s needs, even its need for medications.

A moment ago I mentioned that at work I’d had to face a true emergency. Well that’s where this lesson came from.

As I was driving in to work I called ahead to let them know I was on my way to the meeting and to remind them that others would be coming as well.

The gentleman who answered the phone, George, is a great guy and a real joker at times. He’s very strong in his political and religious views, which he shares freely with those he knows, but he’s careful not to offend clients.  George is diabetic and for quite some time has been working on (and experiencing success in) losing weight.  Well, George answered the phone (after quite a few rings – which was somewhat unusual) and after I told him I was on my way and others would be coming too, he asked, “Who is this?”

I thought he was asking who the others were, so I explained the relationships and reminded him that he knew one of them but another was probably still pretty new to him. Then he asked again, “Who is this?”

I realized, he wasn’t asking about them but about me – since in my hurry to call while at a stop light I hadn’t unblocked my cell-phone number before calling.  So I told him my name again. But he asked again, “Who is this?”

This time I was getting puzzled. I said, “I told you who I am. I work with you.” And he responded, “I know you told me who you think you are.  But who are you?”

At this point I’m starting to think he’s into some sort of a joke or trying to make some “deeper” point (you know, like, “you are not your own, you were bought with a price” – you are a child of God), but there was something really strange in the way he was asking that I was beginning to think that either he was truly confused or (realizing that he hadn’t identified himself) maybe I’d called the wrong number and had just gotten some old man who didn’t understand all my babbling about a meeting, etc.

After going round and round a few more times, I finally told him I’d be there in a few minutes and talk with him then.

When I got in, the newest member of our group was standing in front of the receptionist’s desk, and George was sitting behind it. (He’s been our receptionist for several weeks now.) She was concerned. He looked dazed, and seemed to be almost slipping off the front of his chair and he was clearly sweating through his shirt, despite the air conditioning. Every so often he would raise his right arm above his head.

I greeted him saying, “Hi George!” And he looked straight at me and asked, “Who are you?”

Whoa!! He knows me. We’ve been working together for over a year. Something’s really not right.

I called his son, got his voicemail, left a message. Then called 911. I knew George was diabetic, so I was guessing his strange behavior might be related to that. While I was on the phone with 911, George’s son called back on my cell. He wanted me to be sure to let them know two things: 1) George had lost a lot of weight and 2) he was a veteran who had an appointment at the VA Hospital – so don’t take him to a regular hospital, as that would create a huge bureaucratic mess. When I got off the phone with both, I went back to George.

He insisted he was fine and needed no help. But we could clearly see that wasn’t true. We tried to get him some sugar in the form of a can of soda, but he couldn’t (or wouldn’t) sip from it.

A few minutes later I heard the sirens, and went outside to wave them in. Ended up running around the parking lot to flag them down and try to direct them over. (Our office is in a complex that has a labyrinth of parking lots – and you can’t always get from here to there.) They ended up just parking where they were and walking the rest of the way.

They hooked him up with an IV and within a few minutes he was back to normal.

The EMT’s asked George about his weight loss. He said he’d lost about 30 lbs over the course of the last year. By their reaction the EMT’s didn’t seem to think that was particularly noteworthy. (I didn’t either… at least, not of note for this emergency. I think it’s GREAT that George had lost all that weight. And losing it over a reasonably long time is healthy.)

What I found out later, is that he’d lost all that weight but his medications for diabetes (and other ailments) hadn’t been adjusted for the new weight. He had been trying for a while to get an appointment at the VA, and had finally succeeded. It was set for some time next week.

So, what caused his strange behavior? We don’t know for sure. It’s possible that the change in weight without a change in prescriptions may have done it. But it’s also possible that he’d just waited too long to eat, which, when one is diabetic, is even more critical. Or maybe it was a combination of factors.

So, to recap two lessons from yesterday:

1) Not all pedometers work for everyone – find one that works for you and your gait.

2) Weight-loss affects your body’s needs, even its need for medications.  (If you’re one of the two people who are following this blog, you’ll probably remember that one of the first points I made when I started blogging about weight-loss was the need to check with your doctor.  And I re-emphasized that in my second post on the subject.  Yesterday I just got that in-your-face reminder of the potential consequences of failing to follow that advice.)