G'day all,
Thanks to favored and my Hawaiian friend John for their help editing. I always love to read your thoughts so please leave a comment after whether you like it or not.
Cheers
CharlieB4
*
Most people get warnings but some don't. They are walking along and bang! They drop dead. I should have seen it coming. It's funny how you kid yourself. The waist measurement of your pants keeps going up. It must be the different sizing of Chinese manufacturers. The back ache? Got to be those two years you spent as a labourer on a construction site. Nothing to do with the twenty extra kilos you carry around your middle everyday.
A close friend woke up one morning with a sore shoulder. Twenty four hours later he was in intensive care at hospital after having two stents put into his coronary arteries. But he was four years older than me and he smoked at lot. Poor bastard should have given up years ago. Then one day it was my turn.
I was lucky, it wasn't my heart or a stroke. Really my lightening bolt was relatively minor. I was climbing off the forklift at work, pivoting on one leg and my heel caught a pallet. My leg stopped turning but my body kept going. I felt my knee give and started to fall. Grabbing at the boxes on top of the pallet I tried to remain upright but only succeeded in pulling one off and it fell too. Unfortunately, it fell on me, on my now injured knee to be precise.
I'd heard a noise before the pain hit, which the specialist told me was my anterior cruciate ligament snapping. Then the impact of the vegetable box on the side of my now unstable knee tore the medial collateral ligament and the medial meniscus. Rugby knee, the terrible triad, blown knee, were the common terms for it. Surgery to repair the ligament then twelve weeks immobilized in a brace followed by extensive physiotherapy was the cure.
Workers compensation insurance covered all the bills and my boss was great, organising for me to start light duties in the office as soon as I could move around. It was my family doctor who put the frighteners on me. I was in to see him for a general physical before I got the all clear to resume normal work. After doing all the usual stuff and handing me a pathology referral for some blood work he sat down in his chair, took off his glasses and looked at me.
"You know why this happened don't you?" He asked.
"Yeah, I was rushing, I've got to realize I'm not twenty one anymore." I replied with a chuckle.
"Hmmm," he lifted his hand and rubbed his chin then sat forward and picked up his glasses again. "Jim, you may not be twenty one but you're not old. You're barely middle aged!"
Dr. Trent could be abrupt, I knew that. He wasn't renown for his bedside manner but that's why I liked him, he called a spade a fucking shovel. I was caught off guard and my surprise at being on the receiving end must have shown on my face.
"I'm sorry Jim," the doctor continued, "but it's all here in black and white." He turned the form he had been filling out around so it was facing me and put his glasses back on. "Look, height 176cm, weight 101kgs, circumference of your mid-section 108cm. This blood pressure reading, it's borderline high, my guess is your cholesterol is up there too. You're only thirty nine but I've got healthier fifty year olds in this practice."
"Well...well I've been not able to do much on account of my knee." I spluttered looking for excuses.
"I'm saying this stuff for a reason Jim, I don't want you to get upset. You're on the fast track to diabetes, heart disease, stroke, cancer..., but we can turn it around. I'm here to help and now is the time to start."
"Okay, so I'll go on a diet!" I replied haughtily.
"That's what I was going to suggest, but let me help. I've got a dietitian attached to the practice. I'll get her to talk to you outside before her next appointment. She will give you a food diary to fill out for the next week. You bring it back then we will get you and your wife to come in for a chat about where we go from there the next chance we get."
I got the food diary and filled it out the following week. Diana, my wife, dismissed it as the doctor overreacting.
"You're just cuddly, that's all. We've let things slip a bit but we'll be good from now on."
I agreed with her but when we sat down to look through the food diary the night before I took it back I could see Dr. Trent had a point. I couldn't believe how much I'd ploughed through in seven days and I hadn't included some of the little snacks along the way. Adding on a couple of beers on week nights and even more in weekends, it was easy to see my problem. Diana closed it up and put it face down on the kitchen table.
"You know we could both probably be a bit fitter." Diana said.
Shit, the warning light went off in my head. What do I say? If I agree am I calling her fat? I took the safe option.
"Huh?" A non committal grunt. Meaning either maybe or I didn't hear you.
"I just think that we should do this together. After all I do most of the cooking so it makes sense."
"Yeah, I suppose. The doc wanted to see us both anyway." I replied relieved Diana's initial thought hadn't been an elaborate test of my love.
We had been married for sixteen years and had two children. A boy, Stuart aged fifteen and a daughter, Emily, who was almost fourteen. We were anonymous really, neither of us had excelled at anything, average students who got average jobs in an average town. We worked our hours, did our best by our children. Volunteered at church and school activities but always behind the scenes, we were happy to remain in the shadows.
I'd been a nerd at school, well not completely. I wasn't smart enough to be included with them. Diana hadn't been in the cool girls group at school but she had floated just below it. In many ways I had been batting in a higher grade when I started taking her out but it was two years after we'd left school. The spots in my face had faded and two years of hard work as a builders labourer had added some muscle to my lanky frame.
Diana wasn't a plain Jane, nor a goddess. She was just Diana, a bubbly dark haired girl with a toothy smile. Like me, the on set of middle age had seen a thickening of her frame but I was still very much in love with her. It wasn't the fawning, unable to be apart love but rather it's mature cousin. We leant on each other, relied on each other, comforted each other. Once a month we went out for a nice meal just the two of us. It was a ritual, talk of children, family and work was off limits. We kept it about us, our hopes, fears and dreams.
Sex was still a big part of our relationship. With teenage children in the house it had to be discreet but we managed. It would be hard to put a weekly figure on it because by nature it was haphazard. There might be a purple patch when by happenstance four nights in a row we went at it. While other times work or family pressures meant we went for two weeks without managing to squeeze it in at all.
We lived a simple life with simple dreams. Our aim was to raise our children and give them the chance to do better than we did. Then work for ourselves, save a little so later on we can retire and spoil the grandchildren.
In the doctors office we waited nervously for our turn. As always he was running late with his appointments so I thumbed through an old fishing magazine while Diana played with her phone. The dietitian called us into her office first and we followed slowly dreading the report. She was good about it, not judgmental, but the plain fact was we were eating too much and of the wrong sorts of foods. She gave us some daily meal plans as well as tips on reading labels while shopping. She also stressed the importance of real food, fresh food, not processed stuff and limiting our portion size. Lastly she gave both of us another food diary to keep track of what we were eating.
Next we went into the doctor's room. He had the results of my blood tests that had come back okay. He gave Diana the same talk he gave me about carrying too much weight and the risks that came with it. Than he asked how we had gotten on with the dietitian.
"She was good but...we have both been on diets before, some have worked and some haven't but eventually we fall back into old habits. Isn't there a pill we can take or something?" I asked hoping for a quick fix.
"Sorry Jim, I wish there were. More to the point I wish I could invent one because I would become a very rich man. There are various forms of stomach surgery but I wouldn't recommend them in your case because frankly your problem isn't bad enough."
"It's just hard to break old habits," Diana added. "Creamy pasta sauces, sweet biscuits, chocolate..." The last word hung in the air and we looked at each other with sad faces.
"I know, but the easy choices could lead to an early grave!" The doctor scolded us.
With an air of resignation Diana and I rose from our chairs in preparation to leave.
"There might be something else you can try," Dr. Trent added. We stopped and waited. " I only read about it on a medical journal the other day. A researcher has tried a new diet where you don't have to change what you eat. Instead you just cut back on the hours that you are able to eat. You fast from 8pm to 12 midday."
"So no breakfast?" I clarified.
"Or other snacks after eight at night and before lunch."
"Isn't that against everything that has come before? I thought breakfast was the most important meal of the day?" Diana asked incredulous.
"According to this study it didn't have any negative effects. It just comes down to your fuel load. You're skipping breakfast, morning tea and then any treats after dinner including alcohol. So your calorie intake is cut by about one third depending on your diet. A positive side effect of the sixteen hour fast is that over time your stomach shrinks so you can't eat as much when you do." Dr. Trent clicked on the laptop on his desk. "I'll send you a link to the study. It details the parameters of the diet. If you decide to try this one instead of the other then come and see me every two weeks for a start so I can monitor how it's affecting you."
At home we looked it up and decided to go with the doctors suggestion. Skipping breakfast wasn't a big problem, skipping the biscuits and sweet treats at morning tea was a different matter. Avoidance was the key for both of us. Keeping busy in the morning and trying to forget about the hunger pangs. The evenings and weekends were another issue, no more beer and nuts watching sport after eight. We both had a sweet tooth for chocolate at night and Sunday mornings without bacon and eggs with all the trimmings for brunch was hell.
