blief

Before I get around to my recent ride reports (HPC at PIR and 100MON) I just have to write this down.
Mostly for myself, because I am proud to have found a reliable cause-n-effect relationship and because, you know, I have a few relatives who might have some of the same things going on – this might put a bug in their ear.

Sugar.

My body doesn’t like it.
Rather, my brain LOVEs it – honey, candy, jellybeans, cherry sours, gum drops, hot tamales, kool-aid, I could keep going. But the rest of my body “freaks out” – and that is a direct quote from my attending naturopathic physician.

A short history.
Several years ago I was ‘diagnosed’, by the blood mobile, with hepatitis. I was too young to care and blew it off – I was healthy.
Skip forward 5 years and my life insurance exam also noted high liver enzymes indicative of someone with either hepatitis, heavy drinker/smoker, overweight, or…”It must be the ‘or’ I said…cause none of the others apply”. The ‘or’ I found out was a small cadre of individuals blessed with fatty liver for ‘no reason whatsoever’. I pay more cause the life insurance company only needs one excuse.
Skip forward 5+ more years and a ‘regular’ checkup with my medical doctor showed high cholesterol. Prescription? – “more exercise, it isn’t that high”

Uhhh, I already bike to work nearly every day and I am currently training for the Seattle To Portland classic – putting in 100s of extra miles each month.
Oh…well then take some of this medicine and we’ll check back in 6 months – oh and that medicine might cause some flushing, don’t be alarmed.

Fearing the loss of the better part of my lower intestine, they didn’t bother to explain what flushing was, I again prepared to completely blow it off but maybe having gotten wiser or maybe succumbing to the preponderance of independently verified data AND recognizing that my traditional doctor and nurse hadn’t recognized me for who I am individually I stumbled across a naturopathic physician.

I’ll skip the iterations of blood tests and trial and error in the interest of brevity but I met with her every couple of months for a year as she tried all the usual suspects in search of a root cause. She was also addressing the symptoms and narrowing down the cholesterol numbers to a rather singular portion of the “overall” test – my triglycerides.

With a host of supplements, vitamins, and more minor medications meant to address the symptoms my numbers were slowly coming down but the triglycerides were still in the 250’s when 2 winters ago she recommended going off sugar – as much as possible.

The science, the explanation, and my habits (see aforementioned list of candies) all pointed to this being an issue so I stopped, pretty much cold turkey for about 4-5 months and took the blood test again.
We were dumbfounded – with no new medications my tryglycerides came down to 67.

67! What the heck did you do?
I stopped eating sugar.
Well I should say so…and I think we found your achilles heel.

Indeed we had…in fact, in the coming months, I noticed that I no longer used my skin cremes for eczema…for the most part I wasn’t even having eczema any more.
Right after that I took the leap and began tapering my asthma medication. Now, for most intents and purposes, I don’t need my asthma medication either. I commute hard by bike nearly every morning and only after a cold (or after pie) do I find that I might have a use for some asthma rescue medication – very mild usually.
Long term preventative meds? Totally not necessary.
That has been a lifelong thing with me, since that morning when I was a toddler stumbling into my parents bedroom barely breathing.
The docs said it might go away with age – it didn’t. But they didn’t know anything about the sugar factor.

Skip forward one more year to yesterday. My recent tests came back after 14 months of NO supplements and a steady increase** in sugar and simple carbohydrates estimated by me to be peaking at roughly 40-50% of BN (Before Naturopath) – and my numbers are right on the edge of tolerable.

** read that as me slowly giving in to the difficulties of reducing simple sugars and carbohydrates entirely.

So now, my goal is to tighten the sugar-belt a little bit, some sugar or simple carbs in moderation (if I can stick to it in moderation) will be fine, make sure and balance that with protein intake and fiber (to make it harder for my body to absorb it) and it seems I have found a good balance. We estimate that based on these new findings I can probably eat whatever I want sugar/carb-wise during an endurance event (like 150 miles around the mountain…ohh man those Oreos tasted good that time).

And I remain, for the most part, asthma free, eczema free, medicine free, and on a path to not expressing those genes I clearly have which turn sugar into triglycerides at an alarming rate in my body. Lot’s of triglycerides tend to turn into (or at least be related to) things like hypertension, high blood-pressure, diabetes, heart disease, and probably other bad things.

Oh, and I almost forgot – my liver enzymes are way below normal.
WHA WHA WHA??
This seems to be the last thing to move in the right direction. The blood mobile, the life insurance company, my medical physician, none of them could explain it – for that matter neither can my naturopathic physician. These particular enzymes used to be over 50, as low as 40 on the medicine, and now they are 25 – without any supplements or medicines of any kind, unless you count coffee.

Hell! I dunno!??
Wrapping this up – suffice it to say that sugar and I will have a long-distance relationship from here on out – with an occasional tryst, chaperoned by my bike…naturally.

Now…about that Vitamin D!??

This Sunday I will be racing in The Fat Cyclists 100 Miles of Nowhere event.

Things I like and/or eagerly anticipate about this race.

• The Cause: Registration dollars go to LiveStrong to fight cancer
• The Distance: 100 Miles is a great distance – far enough to sound awesome to 99% of your friends and family and not so far that you can’t muster the next day.
• The Fattie Family: I will be racing against hundreds of fellow Fatties in hundreds of categories and the stories that will ensue will be worth being a part of.
• My Family: Arguably the best thing about this event is that my own family will be able to attend – You know – if you can’t bring your family to the race, bring the race to your family!
• The Location: It is unreasonably close to my residence – I think bathrooms, food, mechanics, and other support will be easily accessed with lines MUCH shorter than any other race I have ever attended.

That brings up the one thing I am not eagerly anticipating about this race.

• The Course: Since I live on a hill and because it just so happens that there is a 1.025 mile loop within spitting distance of my door event organizers chose what turns out to be what many racers have complained is an unnecessarily challenging event – net elevation gain will, of course, be zero but along the way, with several rollers and a large handful of false-tops, the elevation profile will result in approximately 14,000 feet of climbing.

I can only hope that the pro’s outweigh the con’s on race day, Sunday June 5th. If you want to come down to the race – start time is 5AM with an expected finish between 11AM and 12 Noon PST.

I am feeling good, beginning my tapering today, and so I will make a gutsy prediction –

I will take the win in The Bald-Headed, Front-Wheel-Drive-Recumbent category.

My strategy will be to make an early breakaway and then hold off the peleton using my superior aero technologies (both recumbent AND bald) and then on the climbs I will engage the strong climbing ability of FWD.

So…ahhhh-I’ll be pretty much unstoppable.

I watched a healthy looking coyote sniffing along behind the chain link fence next to the Sounder train station this morning in Tukwila.

Nice little greenbelt for this coyote, if I do say so, courtesy of The Boeing Company and the previous owners of Longacres.

I have noticed a handful of urban coyotes in the past couple of years including in my neighborhood.
For some reason people get freaked out with these critters running around – I find Pit-bulls to be much more worrisome.

Go coyote go.

These three things have something in common.

* dvorak keyboards
* recumbent bicycles
* standing desks

One thing they have in common is me; I am an advocate for all three and I am committed to them because of the other thing I blief they all have in common.
They are all easier on your body.

Avoidable repetitive stress is something I have actively avoided for most/all of my adult life. It might have been related to any one of those PBS specials about coal miners that spend 14 hour days hunched over at the waist.

I TOTALLY would have invented a lay-down walker thing if I were in that environment.

Anyway, all three of these things also represent a little bit of investment in either time or ingenuity because they aren’t standard. Not too many stand-up desks being sold at Paikea.

They should be.

Most of you work at a desk so…for anyone interested but finding themselves unable to overcome some of the hurdles of a standing desk here is a resource for review.

Home

I haven’t dived in yet, but I will.
One thing I did see was that standing burns about 360 more calories per day than sitting.

The last time I was here a snowstorm brought Nashville to a halt.

This time middle Tennessee has had tornado and flash-flood warnings several times this week and a LOT today.

I was very safe where I am but we certainly saw a LOT of rain in town.