Freewavemaker, LLC                                                                                August 14, 2024

I recently heard on a TV show that the only way to get “past the pain is to go through it.” I tend to believe this is not a fact but rather one of those “laws of nature” that seems to work, and no one can explain why. It is really not terrible that the average person does not understand it, but the fact that the average medical professional does not understand it leaves one to wonder.

I’ve lived with a pretty good amount of pain up until about December of 2023, when I decided to do something about it. No, not severe pain … just the normal aches and pains of “growing old.” You know … those nagging back aches, leg aches, stomach aches, and any other ache or pain you can imagine. All doctors seemed to want to do was prescribe expensive medications to ease the pain and release the muscle tension with pain meds and muscle relaxers.

Then, one day, a lightbulb went off in my head, and it said to me, “Pain is good. It lets you know that you are still alive. Dead men feel no pain.”

That little lightbulb in my head also said, “Pain is your body’s way of communicating with you. It is telling you that you can continue to feel the pain and someday die early and feel no more pain, or you can work through the pain and get in shape and, barring any accidents, live a long, healthy life.”

I said, “Well damn it, brain … why didn’t you tell me that in my forties and not wait till my seventies.”

The little light bulb answered back, “You dummy, I’ve been telling you that with every little pain I sent you over the past 33 years. You just have to listen.”

The bottom line is that I was way too fat for my height. A six-foot-tall man of medium sized bones should not weigh 275 pounds and that is what I weighed when I visited my doctor in July 2023. Not the way I see it anyhow. Had I been a 6-foot-tall body builder with all kinds of muscles, perhaps. But I was not Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, or Hulk Hogan. It is like I was carrying around a seventy-pound watermelon in my belly. Yea, a huge “beer belly” and I can’t stand the taste of beer. I don’t drink it so why would I have a “beer belly?” I told my young doctor that I was hurting and felt slow and sluggish most of the time and while he used nice medical jargon what he was really saying is, “Your just an old fat ass that needs to lose some weight.”

Actually, he was right and wrong. At the time my ass was perfectly flat ) not fat and plump) … it was the belly that was fat. And I started to realize that I am getting old … no longer the spring chicken it seems I was just yesterday. I thought about this for a few months and just thinking about it helped somewhat. No, it did not help with the pain but did help with the weight. As of December 2023, I was down to about 265 pounds.

In January of this year, I decided to do something about it. No, it was not a “New Year’s Resolution” to myself that I would not keep (like all the rest) … it was more of a promise to myself that I made on January 15, 2024. I decided I’d drop 50 pounds of “FAT” by the end of the year or “die trying to.” I mean what the heck, we’re all destined to die anyhow … but I didn’t need to rush it without a fight. I developed a written plan (plans are worthless if not written out and followed – take it from an ex-financial planner) and began to work on it. The plan was simple: LESS IN-TAKE AND MORE OUTPUT regardless of how much pain I had to endure. Actually, that was not the plan but the task I would need to accomplish to fulfill the plan.

I decided breakfast every morning would be one-half of a grapefruit and one serving of oatmeal with a cup of black coffee. Considering that I am not a breakfast eater … that is not too shabby. Lunch would consist of a sandwich (usually ham with Lettuce and Cucumber) and perhaps a cookie or granola bar for dessert. Dinner almost every night (except on Saturdays, when I have mom come to dinner) would be a can of Soup and a grilled cheese sandwich on wheat bread. My drink of choice would be water (sometimes flavored) and/or sugar free sweet tea (can’t stand the unsweetened tea but love unsweetened coffee). Sometimes, if at a golf tournament or something, I may deviate from this diet … but it is rare.

I also decided that I would set up a schedule of exercise. That would be simple as well. Walking everyday rain or shine. If it is not raining, I walk outside in a park or along the Natchez Trace. If it is raining, I walk in the house. Yes, the house walking is boring but at least I can catch a good movie while walking. Thirty-two times from my bedroom to the kitchen and back (and I must pass the TV each time) is one mile. So, if I need four miles I simply walk about 128 times and wear the floor out. I sure wished the city I lived in had an indoor track for people that want to walk … but that probably would not make much of a profit as lazy as some people can be when it comes to their health.

Getting past the pain …

When I bought my Google Watch (mainly to track my steps while walking – and I don’t recommend Google watches, as Google has the worst customer service in the world) I started walking in Brighton Park in my hometown in Clinton, Mississippi. Their actual walking trail is ½ mile long (green box in the illustration below). However, if you walk from the front of the park to the walking trail and walk the parking lot at the end of the park and go back to the front of the park you have walked a full mile. That is the trail I follow, and I reverse the pattern each time. The first mile is counterclockwise and the second mile is clockwise and so forth.

Brighton Park, Clinton, MS

When I first started on this journey in January of this year, I could not go more than a half mile. But before long I made it one mile … then two … then three. Today I walked 8 miles and had I not ran out of time (I’d told my wife I’d be home for lunch at 12:00) I could have done 10 miles.

But what about the pain?

Well, I have a bad back (e.g. a crooked spine). This causes pressure on certain nerves (don’t know which ones since I am not a medical professional) but I have a problem with my upper thighs really burning after walking for a while. At first, I could not get past the two-mile mark without having to stop and do some leg exercises to eliminate the burning pains I was having in my upper thighs. Of course, I asked my medical doctor about it and again he said, “Your old and Fat. Perhaps you should walk till you hurt then stop” I then asked my chiropractor, and he said that he could do nothing about it because have a bone spur on my spinal column that is up against my aorta (right where I’ve had and aneurism repair in 2016) and he’s afraid that too much spinal manipulation could puncture the aorta and that would not be a good thing. Both doctors told me I just had to deal with the pain.

Well, you know the old saying … No Pain, No Gain! I’m dealing well with it. I’ve been able to extend the distance a little each time I walk before having to stop to deal with the pain. Today I was able to get in five miles before I had to stop and take care of the pain … and taking care of the pain now simply means sitting down and drinking some water for about ten minutes before getting back out to walk. I realized several weeks ago that just resting the legs did more for them than exercising them. So that’s all I do now. Eventually I am sure I will be able to do the entire 10 mile walk without stopping.

In addition to the legs, there were other pains as well. When I first started walking I’d get severe back, shoulder and neck pains. I would not complain about these though because I also got them when I slept. However, there have been several times that I’ve come in from a walk with blisters the size of silver dollars on the balls of my feet and heels of my feet. And, yes I got these even after buying $275 custom-fitted walking shoes from Fleet Feet. What a rip-off that was. I used to take a day or two to rest these blisters (and ride the stationary bike on those days) but then I remembered something from high school. I was on the gymnastics team, and we were always getting blisters on our hands from the high bar, the parallel bars, the rings and the side horse. The coach did not give us time off. He wrapped them in tape, and we kept training. I started wrapping my feet in tape before putting on my socks and walking shoes to go back out for the walk.

I was going to go past the pain by going through it and I was not going to get off the “weight loss train” come “hell or highwater.”

So how is it going? You decide:

I told my wife before going out this morning that I truly felt like I was 53 and not 73. I no longer have back, shoulder or neck pains. I can walk longer before getting any leg pains and I have not had blisters on my feet (to many real thick callouses now) in about three weeks. Well, not only the callouses but also the new shoes. I purchased $17.00 walking shoes from Walmart and those lasted about two weeks before giving me issues. They were a lot more comfortable than the $275 custom-fitted shoes from Fleet Feet … but the soles would get so thin that I could feel every little pebble I walked across so the blisters would simply not go away – even with the tape. I finally broke down and purchased a pair of walking shoes (Skechers) for $65 and they seem to do the trick. No more tape and no more blisters (in the past three weeks or so).

After getting my Google watch on February 4, 2024, I started tracking my steps. Today I’ve put in 17,329 which is about 8.24 miles (and I’ve had the watch off charging for the past three hours). So far this year I’ve walked a total of 2,480,418 steps (since 02/04/2024) and at my average stride of about 2200 steps per mile that would be about 1,127 miles. Now that is a pretty good distance when you consider that the miles between my house and my brothers house in Lincoln Nebraska and back (round trip) is just 1,740 miles.

But the big question is the weight:

Check it out … In February when I got the watch to track my steps, I weighed 254.2 pounds. As of today I am down to 216.8 pounds and my goal is 210 pounds. You might be asking, “But what happened in July when it looks like the weight was stuck at between 220 and 223 pounds?”

I’ll tell you what I think happened after you look at the chart for a minute or two.

So, what happened in July?

The human body has a way of protecting itself. It’s the way God made us, I guess. You see you have these little creatures in your body known as FAT CELLS. These FAT CELLS not only like to survive but they love to “Thrive and Multiply.” That’s when you hit what I call the Weight Loss Plateau. It’s a period of time that your working to lose wait and your wait bounces up and down a few pounds per day without ever seeming to want to drop below the previous low. You get the same thing in the stock market, but unless you’ve sold short, you are wanting to get off the plateau and head for newer highs.

While a person is working their ass off trying to lose weight … once you drop so much … these little critters start running around screaming, “The fool’s trying to kill us … multiply, multiply, multiply or he will succeed.” Multiply they do – and that is what gets many humans off the weight loss train and back into the weight gain pain.

The only way to get past this pain is to go through it … it’s not easy … but it is worth it!

The bottom line:

Based on my “LoseIt App” on my phone I should achieve my goal of 210 pounds in the next 35 days (or before if I have anything to do with it). Then I will look at extending the loss to 200 or perhaps even 195 pounds. Yes, More pain, more gain – or loss as it is in this instance.

Yes, I’m still considered Overweight with a BMI of 28.6 – but considering it was at 38 when I started … not too bad, if I must say so myself. Perhaps I won’t be obese or overweight at 210 – we’ll see!

Have a great health journey and start listening to you own body … not the doctors. When I asked my doctor to explain why all doctors tell patients to lose weight, but none show or teach them how his answer was, “Well, doctors can’t make a living on skinny healthy people.” I have to give him “kudos” for his honesty of the situation.

The best to you,

Jerry Nix | Freewavemaker, LLC