Exercise - It Saved My Life - It Could Save Yours Too

Exercise - It Saved My Life - It Could Save Yours Too

I am a big man with a lifelong weight problem, 5' 9 ½", 245 pounds. I have tried every diet known to man, plus have taken innumerable doctor prescribed shots and pills all with short-term results. The weight always returned - and then some!

In desperation, I even joined a class of Overeaters Anonymous where the other 20 members were very overweight women. After attending about 10 meetings I noticed none of them were losing any weight. During the discussion period they said it didn't matter that they weren't losing pounds because they were getting in touch with themselves and were became satisfied with who they were. During my last meeting, I jokingly asked, "Who brought the chocolate cake for our refreshment period." Collectively, they took a dim view of that statement and promptly kicked me out of the group. I guess they just didn't like men. It didn't matter. I didn't lose any weight anyway.

Unfortunately, like so many other people whose bodies share a similar gene structure as mine, our body's processes food in a much too efficient manner. They seem to extract even the smallest calorie component from the food we eat and turn it into FAT! Doctors and friends alike say I just eat too much and eat the wrong kinds of food. How can such nutritious foods as potato chips, ice cream and hot dogs possibly be the wrong kind of food?

To keep from being "really" fat, I exercise a lot! I workout very hard in the gym one and a half hours three times per week, do difficult 3-9 hour desert and mountain hikes often and frequently ride a mountain bike 25 or more miles. Except for colds, I am rarely sick.

Three months before my "incident", at age 64, 12,000 other people and I rode the twice-annual 50-mile bicycle ride from Rosarito Beach to Ensenada, Mexico, where three quarters the distance is in the mountains. Typically, that ride should only take 4 ½ to 5 hours to complete. It took me six hours but I made it while many others did not. Two weeks before my "incident", I was hiking for several hours at the 9,500-foot level in the San Jacinto Mountains near my home in Palm Springs, California. One weekend before my "incident" I was hiking for several hours in the desert then came home to play with my grandson in our backyard pool. Following that I went to my home office, sat in my chair and dozed off into a half hour deep sleep, something I rarely did but I didn?t pay any attention to it.

The following week I saw a doctor for the sole purpose of having him prescribe the then, popular magic diet pill that miraculously takes away a person?s appetite. Supposedly, this magic pill had no nasty side effects. Fortunately he took a dim view of this pill and didn't prescribe it. A few months later the "magic pill" was taken off the market because it caused permanent heart defects in many people who did take it.

Since I was in his office, and hadn't had a complete physical since President Truman was in office, he suggested I have one. I reluctantly agreed to it. Enter the, "Incident." He gave me an EKG and immediately referred me to a cardiologist. The cardiologist recommended I immediately have an angiogram, an operating room procedure to determine where the blood is or is not going to your heart. During that procedure a heart surgeon was called to observe. Having a heart surgeon in to observe the fun and games was definitely not a good sign. Sure enough, I had five blockages, several, including "the widow maker artery" was 95% blocked and the remainder in the 80's percent range. I remained in the hospital and the next working day, a quadruple bypass was performed (somehow they made a two for one patch). During the operation the cardiologist came out of the operating room to tell my wife that "this man should be dead" because of the stressful things I had done and do on a regular basis.

Later I asked the doctor why I should have been dead. He said from the exertion I put my body through, and with my artery blockages, my heart should not have been getting the blood it needed. I asked how it was getting what it needed. He said thanks to the exercise that could have killed me, caused my body to develop peripheral blood paths that provided just enough blood to keep my heart from being damaged. I was one very lucky man! A year later I closed down my stressful high technology consulting business to be a card-carrying Social Security and Medicare recipient.

It is true the exercise could have caused my death, but if I had led a more docile lifestyle and had not exercised I would have surely died from the blockages.

Ten years later, and in my 74th year, I still keep my exercise, hiking and biking regimen and I'm still the same size 245 pound man. I take blood pressure and cholesterol medication, have doctor checkups twice each year and eat a low fat diet (that means no potato chips, ice cream and hot dogs.) all of which help control plaque build up in my arteries but not my weight. I continue to enjoy each day and thank God for allowing me to have more of them after cheating an almost certain death.

My recommendation to all of you couch potatoes is to put down your bowl of potato chips, get away from the TV and go for a brisk 45-minute walk and have a checkup once each year. It could just help you to stay on this earth plane longer, keep your spouse from benefiting from your life insurance policy and looking for a younger partner.

(Jack) Harold J. McLaughlin, Ph.D.
email: jackmcla@aol.com