Day Seven

Workout: 11am
--Today was a Chest Day—
(Actually, today was a Lower-Back day, but seeing as how my lower-back is still pretty sore from whatever I did to it earlier in the week, I figured I’d bend the rules and give it an extra day off.)

~Push-Ups - (Pectoralis Major) - Body-Weight as Resistance - 1 Set of 20 Repetitions
~Inclined Dumbbell Flies - (Pectoralis Major - Upper) - 20lbs. Resistance (each arm) - 3 Sets of 15 Repetitions
~Declined Dumbbell Flies - (Pectoralis Major - Lower) - 20lbs. Resistance (each arm) - 3 Sets of 15 Repetitions
~Bent-Armed Pullovers - (Pectoralis Minor) - 20lbs. Resistance (each arm) - 3 Sets of 15 Repetitions

Breakfast: 12noon
1 Peach Complexion Visalus Shake
1 Go Energy

Mid-Morning: 1:30pm
1 Orange

Lunch: 2pm
2 Chocolate Chip Visalus Nutra-Cookies

Mid-Afternoon: 4pm
12oz. Glass of V8 (Low Sodium, Spicy Hot)
1 Apple (Golden Delicious)

Evening: 6pm
2 Scrambled Eggs (w/Melted Cheddar & Black Pepper)
2 Scrambled Egg-Whites (w/Melted Cheddar & Black Pepper)
2 12oz. Glasses of V8 (Low Sodium, Spicy Hot)

State of Being:
One week down!!!

I started hitting what I call “The Wall” last night while I was in bed. This is something that I understand to be specific to people who suffer from Metabolic-Syndrome, Syndrome-X, Insulin Resistance and the like. So, for all of you guys and gals who are less than 100 pounds overweight, you probably don’t need to be concerned about this. For those of you over 100 pounds heavier than you should be, there’s a good chance that you got that way by developing one of the aforementioned conditions and this is something that you’ll need to be prepared for.

Depending upon your particular body-chemistry and how consistent you are in changing your eating habits, “The Wall” might come within a week, or a month, or a couple of months. It depends on you. For me, it’s come a little over a month into my overall journey. While I’ve been on my official 90 Day Challenge for one week, as of today, remember that I’ve been using the Visalus program for 35 days, total. I used the program for four weeks, to see for myself that it worked, before I committed to a full 90 Days. As of last Saturday, November 24th 2012, I’d lost 35 pounds. So, while I started using the program at 650 pounds, I started my first official 90 Day Challenge at 615 pounds.

You can read all about it, by Clicking Here.

(That comes out to one-and-a-quarter pounds a day, by the way. So, yeah… it works.)

Ok, so… what is “The Wall?”

“The Wall” as I define it, happens when someone suffering from an insulin-related condition (like the ones I mentioned) manages to maintain consistently healthy eating habits for an extended period of time. Eating healthy is naturally going to mean consuming a lot less sugar. If you keep it up, given that the nature of our condition is rooted in chemicals (like Insulin) that have to do with the direct regulation of- and biochemical response to- our blood-sugar, you are inevitably going to start having blood-sugar crashes. This can have a variety of results, depending upon the person in question. For me, it’s all pretty standard; Muscle-Cramps, Fatigue, Headaches, Mood-Swings, and Depression.

If you suffer from an insulin-related condition, this will happen to you when you start to eat healthy and lose weight, REGARDLESS of how you’re doing it. I want to make that clear. This is an insulin issue. I don’t care if you’re on Atkins, South-Beach, Slim Fast or that utterly ridiculous Cabbage-Soup diet, the Wall is out there on the horizon, and by straightening-up and eating right,… you, my friend have just stomped the gas-pedal, headed right for it. So, the best thing that you can do for yourself is to Be Ready.

Eight or nine years ago, when I was first diagnosed with Metabolic Syndrome, my doctor put me on a very stringent protocol of diet, exercise and various medications. The result was that I started losing weight for about a month. I also had my first head-on collisions (plural) with the Wall. After all, nobody had bothered to warn me about it. This incident served to discourage me in a major way, and shortly after that time, (very shortly) I gained all of the weight back and then some. A couple years later, I dieted and exercised again. Again, for a couple weeks, I managed to lose a little weight, and again,... I slammed head-first into the Wall, got discouraged and gave it up. Now, to be clear... the Wall wasn't the only source of discouragement. But, it was certainly a contributing factor.

The reason I'm relaying this experience to you now is to show you how easy it is to keep this under control when it happens, and likely even to prevent it from happening in the first place. In other words, if this happens, it is no reason to get discouraged and it is certainly no reason to give up on yourself. Take it from someone who's been there before and who was stupid enough to let himself end-up there again, less than 24 hours ago.

So, coming back to more recent events, last night, I’m laying in bed, and my legs start cramping up... really, really hard. You may remember from My Story that, as a result of training for decades with hundreds of pounds of fat strapped onto me under my skin, I have built up a lot of dense, massive muscle. Well, as it turns out, the bigger the muscles, the more painful the cramps.

I woke up and pulled my toes back to elongate the muscle and relieve the cramp, which worked, but then, by bending forward, my abdominals began cramping up just as hard and the lean muscles across the front of my shin began to tighten-up as well. So, I jerked upright to get out of bed and a tight band of muscle across the middle of my back constricted itself into a lance of pain.

I may have been channeling Wile E. Coyote. I can't be sure.

Finally, I managed to get to my feet. This is the best thing you can do in that situation. You want to get the blood flowing, especially into your extremities to alleviate the cramps, (and it only took me five whole minutes to remember that, having bolted awake at 3am.)

Unlike the other times I’ve hit the Wall, though,… this time, I was ready. I’ve been ready since I started the program over a month ago. Right next to my bed there is a sealed Tupperware bowl that contains an apple (a healthy carbohydrate) and a banana (potassium.) This is my rescue kit. I tore off the lid and ate both fruits. I then stood, held onto the tall cabinet in my bedroom for support, and leaned forward to get my gut off of my hips and open-up the blood-flow to my legs. I then started bending my knees one after the other, rocking slowly back and forth for a good ten minutes. Then I sat down, rested for a minute and got up to walk around for another minute or so.

Eventually, I got back to sleep. Today, I ate a few more servings of fruit than I would normally, to keep my blood glucose from dipping too low. That’s really all it takes, but it’s important to be prepared.

My first experiences with the Wall were very different. I didn’t know what was happening. It wasn’t just cramps, either. I started getting very depressed. I had blinding headaches. My mood was all over the place. It’s bad if you don’t jump on it and get it under control, asap.

So, if you’re less than a hundred pounds overweight… you can probably disregard this post, except to pass along the information to others you may know who fit the prerequisites. If you’re a hundred-plus pounds overweight, however… be prepared. They’re not big, expensive preparations. Just very important ones.

1 - Have one or two servings of fruit every day. Mix them into your shakes or just have them as a between-meal snack. In fact, if you are diligent in keeping up with this, and your particular insulin-related condition is not too severe, you might avoid the Wall altogether. (Full Disclosure: I’ve been very lax in doing this, this past week, which is probably why I had such an extreme episode last night. If I'd been more on the ball, day-to-day, I might have avoided such a painful instance of it.)

2 - Have a couple emergency kits (containing fruit) around the house where you can easily get to them in case you're like me, and find yourself flailing around like an idiot in the middle of the night with an uncooperative muscular system.

This evening, I had the odd little cramp here-and-there. Nothing serious. When it happened, I grabbed an orange and put a stop to it. (That’s why there’s so many of them on my food-log for today.:) I’ll likely need to keep this up for another day or two.

Like I said, if you stay on top of making sure you're getting the occasional serving of fruit, your run-ins with the Wall shouldn't be very severe. I wasn't keeping on top of it, and I paid for it last night. Use this as a cautionary tale. Learn from my stupidity, please! Otherwise, it served no purpose other than to amuse whatever god of mischief was spilling his chalice of ambrosia in screaming fits of laughter around my room last night.

After a while,… again, how long depends on you,... this will stop being an issue altogether. My doctor told me once, that two solid months of consistent healthy eating habits will put you on the other side of having to worry about these crashes. I’ve never successfully gotten that far myself, so I can’t confirm the accuracy of that. But, stay tuned… I’ll be there soon.

P.S.: In case you're curious, here’s what Push-Ups are like when you weigh over 600 pounds…

(Feel the BURN!!!)

Click HERE for My Story

Click HERE to Come With Me

*****