I AM A LOSER.
I’ve lost over and over again. There are a couple things I am a “natural” at, but I am terrible at most things I try for the first time. Nothing comes easy to me. Everything I have done successfully required boatloads of planning, effort, persistence and determination.
The benefit of always losing is that, if you are paying attention, you LEARN. Man… I have done a lot of learning over the past, painful 40 years. It would have been nice if some things came easy to me, instead of trying and failing, trying harder and failing, over and over and over again.
But they say Thomas Alva Edison, in his quest to invent the light bulb, failed more than one thousand times before he finally got it right. I have also heard, “fall down 100 times, stand up 101“.
Win or learn.
My recent visit to the cardiologist was NOT a success. At least not in my mind. If you read my previous article (SPILLAGE), you already know that my plan was to prove that I could manage my hypertension with diet and exercise. Specifically, my hypothesis was if I could drop my body weight from approximately 234 pounds to 215 pounds, my blood pressure would be sitting at 110s over 70s (e.g. 118/76).
The victory dance I had planned out was cancelled when my blood pressure tested 160/100 in my doctor’s office at Tufts Medical Center in Boston. I was stunned. I had taken it before I left my home and it was consistently 120s/80s. I insisted something is “not right”.
Maybe their equipment is malfunctioning? The doctor and his assistants took my blood pressure again and again, periodically throughout my roughly 40 minute visit, in between our conversations about various aspects of my long term care. The lowest reading was about 150/90. Of course, as usual, I became angrier and angrier each time the result was not what I wanted. I am sure this didn’t help.
What is ironic about this failure to achieve perfect blood pressure is I feel really vibrant and healthy after getting rid of my excess body weight.
I am living with more energy, no afternoon crashes feeling like I need a nap. My wife reports that I no longer snore and I seem to sleep much more soundly. Additionally, I feel like I require less sleep overall than I did before. I tend to wake up, my mind excited to get the day started and my body is 100% pain free – no aches and pains whatsoever. Last night I went to bed at 8:30pm and woke up, ready to go, at 3:00am this morning.
It is emotionally satisfying to feel all my jeans are loose in the waist (I wear 33″ waist jeans from Lucky Jeans – love them), although I don’t love needing to wear a belt to keep my pants up. Mentally I feel more sharp and emotionally I feel more stable. I seldom, if ever, feel “stressed out” and my mindset is extremely constructive, open and willing, reinforced by a variety of peripheral successes in regard to perfected my training methods and eating plan. I feel grateful for my life.
I learned SO MUCH over the last 90 days of trying to PERFECT my eating and training.
In the face of my failure to achieve my main goal of completely resolving my hypertension, I do take solace in the many benefits yielded to me in this 90 day experiment. Although I did not “WIN”, I did not, necessarily “LOSE” – I LEARNED.
I’m not done. I am not giving up on my goal. Even though my body weight was 211 pounds at the doctor’s office, and the lowest they have recorded in YEARS, I am planning to get my body weight down further. I am betting that if I return to my mid-college weight of 195 pounds that my hypertension will vanish (I’m 6’1″ tall). 
I know that whether I win or lose in this adjusted course of action, I will still LEARN.
Thank you for reading.