Health and Fitness

I have never been a self starter who is motivated to exercise. In fact, if I am being honest with you, my default state is laziness and I don't like to exercise.

However, since I have been sick, I have made it my job. The experts say that the average person needs 2.5, hours of physical activity weekly. It can be anything you want as long as you get your heart rate up.

Physical exercise has been proven to help with depression and anxiety issues. Along with helping to slow down mental diseases and things like heart disease and diabetes. 2.5 hours a week really isn't that much.

Since I have made exercise my job and recovering from this traumatic brain injury is my goal, I exercise 12 hours weekly. However, my case is not normal and I don't expect everyone to be able to do that. Even when I finally fully recover, I am going to continue with my DDP Yoga program. 

It is low intensity and impact. It helps me to get my heart rate up. It is something which I can easily continue to do well into my 70s and beyond.

Even if I stop all of my other exercises, just doing the DDP Yoga Monday to Friday for an hour a day will be five hours a week. That is double the recommendations for physical activity. 

I am not doing this because I want to live forever. I am doing this because I want to get better for my family. I want to return to being a normal father and husband. I don't want to be dependent on Jenny or Eliana. 

Additionally, I have started reading an excellent book given to me by my Uncle Richard (mom's younger brother). The book is titled The Glucose Revolution. It is all about lowering and stabilizing your blood glucose levels in order to improve your overall health. 

In the book, she (the author) does not give you a super restrictive diet or ask you to count calories or do anything crazy. I am not finished with the book yet, but so far she is only asking me to make small changes to my diet to control the amount of artificial and natural sugars that I ingest. 

Many people assume that if a food is fat free then it must be healthy. However, from reading the book, I have learned that many fat free foods are filled with artificial sugar. So, you are trading one problem for another. 

I have experimented with taking a photo of the nutritional information label on my food and then uploading that photo to Google Gemini, the AI intelligence from Google. I then ask it to tell me in plain English, what is in my chosen food and whether it is healthy or not. 

I am not counting calories or doing anything crazy restrictive. However, using this method, I am able to make more informed choices about what I put into my body. 

None of this has been easy. However, I want to stick around with Jenny and Eliana for as long as I can. Now that I have turned 40, my waistline has been expanding. I need to work hard to take better care of myself. I have the exercise part done. I have finally found my motivation to keep moving forward. Now I just need to work on improving my diet. 

Til next time, Tyler