Health History
Received a SUP Package for Father’s Day 2014, after moving to a home with lake access in early ’14. Just took it out for quiet time, fishing, etc. for the first 3-4 months. Then a funny thing(s) happened…the chronic shoulder pain (in both shoulders) originating from injuries, then 2-3 surgical repairs in each shoulder…went away. Soon thereafter, muscle definition I’d never had before…appeared (BTW, I turned 51 on 12/29/14).
What was I doing differently? Working out? NO. Dieting? NO, but I did come to recognize some minor food allergies that had been bothersome—so I did away with some of those food items (Dairy and unnecessary starchy stuff). But a monster sweet-tooth remains. J And because of ruined knee-joints (“bone on bone” at this point) I can’t lift, do cardio or even mild impact-type exercise(s). Even Nautilus machines hurt.
So then I focused…no more fishing, and I used a running App to time/measure my paddling. 3-5 days per week, a 3 mi route that takes me between 51 minutes and 1 hour+, depending on wind. In addition to the pain loss (and that was enough, trust me!) the following:
Stats
Starting Weight: 186 (Aug 2014)
Ending: 155 (Feb 2015)
Starting Waist: 36
Ending: 31
Medications
Before: Vicodin and 6-8 other Rx’s, tablet, patches and topical for pain relief; 1 for Anxiety
After: OTC, only
By December, I had added wrist weights for additional resistance, and now paddle with 5-10 pounds on each arm. That 3 MPH pace makes me breathe harder, but not so much as to keep me from answering phone calls. Compare THAT to a stairmaster where “success” = an urge to vomit, afterwords.