An adventure on the road to better health

This morning, Monday, August 9, 2010, I did a seven-mile walking workout, exercising with a pair of three-pound dumbells for the entire one hour and 42 minutes. I feel good about doing that today since exactly one week earlier I was on my way to the hospital to undergo "Laproscopic Right Inguinal Hernia Repair."

Yes, I had hernia surgery complete with general anasthesia. Check-in that day at Mt. Hood Medical Center was noon. I believe I walked back into my house about 8PM. My dear wife got to spend the afternoon waiting then taxiing me home.

I'm glad I had continued my walking and running right up to the day of the surgery. I believe my recovery from the anasthesia was aided by having relatively healthy heart and lungs. I've had a few surgeries the last few years. General anasthesia leaves me feeling like a horse is sitting on my chest. That feeling only lasted a couple of days this time.

On Monday, June 28, six weeks ago now, I'm showering following my morning workout, and beating myself up a bit for having gained five pounds over the weekend. As I am drying myself I feel a lump about three inches to the right of and seven inches below my navel. I touch it again. It doesn't hurt. It seems to be about the size of an almond. I prod it another time and am quite certain that I have discovered a tumor and need to find a good doctor to tell me how long I have to live.

Denise is at work. I rule out calling an ambulance or driving to the nearest Immediate Care facility. It is only 8:30, so I will have to wait thirty minutes to speak to someone at my primary doctor's office. I pray. I don't call Denise; I have no idea what to tell her. I pray for Denise, believing God is going to have to give her even more grace and strength as we walk through this process.

I am able to get an appointment to see the physician's assistant later that morning. I still don't call Denise. I really want to talk to a doctor before I talk to my wife.

I get to the doctor's office. The receptionist recognizes me, says it appears I have lost weight since my last visit, and asks if I am losing the weight on purpose. I get a pretty big grin on my face as I tell her I have been walking a lot the last few months, and assure her my weight loss is not due to illness. Of course, as I sit down to wait to be seen I begin to wonder if that is completely true.

My turn. Weight 206; was 240 in December when I was getting my Commercial Driver License renewed. Blood pressure a bit below 120/80; it's never been a significant health issue for me. The p.a. asks me what I think the lump is. I say it reminds me of what I felt on my dog when he developed a fatty tumor. The p.a. pokes and prods, asks a few questions, then announces it is probably a small hernia, but I will need to see a surgeon to be certain. I leave with a business card for Portland Surgical Specialists.

So, maybe I'm not going home to heaven just yet. I drive to Denise's work, only a few blocks extra on my way home. As nonchalantly as possible I show her the business card and tell her why I have to call them for an appointment. Yes, it's possible that it's something more sinister than a hernia, but the p.a. seemed pretty confident and didn't act like we even needed to ask the real doctor's opinion. I search Denise's face for a reaction. Quiet confidence that all will be well. Or a great actress? Or too buried in too much to do at work to take time to scream? I choose to believe God answers prayer even when we're too jumbled up inside to know what to pray.

I see the surgeon the morning of Friday, July 2. The surgeon demonstrates her ability to prod the lump in a manner that produces intense pain, then sends me to her assistant to schedule me for hernia surgery. I feel much more confident that my death won't be due to the lump.

It is too late to schedule surgery for the next week, and doing the surgery prior to a 9-day camping trip is a bad idea, so we schedule the surgery for August 2. I am instructed to do nothing strenuous between now and the surgery date. If I'm not sure about something, I should avoid it. If I decide to do something anyway, stop immediately if it hurts. Within a few days I resume my walking and jogging, but decide to continue putting off doing push-ups and crunches.

As part of pre-op the surgeon wants blood tests which include lipid and liver function. My main doctor sees those results and wants me to come in to talk. The cholestorol numbers look very good, but the liver function is not great. When he learns of my greatly increased activity level and my weight loss, he determines we need to cut the statin dosage in half and eliminate the niacin from my cholestorol meds. My body is now producing enough HDL and niacin that the previous prescription was poisoning my liver. This is very good news from my perspective.

We go camping and have a great time with the family. I walk or run 2 to 6 miles most days so I end up only gaining 3 pounds. We get home on Sunday afternoon, August 1, then head off for surgery the next day feeling fine. The hernia really hasn't bothered me much.

I get home from surgery Monday evening, feeling no pain. The general anasthesia hasn't fully worn off. My wife gets the pain med prescription filled right away because we are assured by the nurse that I will want and need them in a few hours. By 10PM my haze has lifted enough for me to recognize that the nurse was not exaggerating. Not only does my chest feel like a horse is sitting on it, any movement involving my torso feels like the horse is kicking. Tuesday is pretty much a fog.

By Wednesday afternoon the pain in my gut has subsided enough that I decide to try walking a bit. I do a very slow half-mile, struggling primarily with the heaviness in my chest. Wednesday evening I discover I can get into and roll over in bed with only very minor pain. I'm done with the pain meds.

Thursday I walk a fairly slow mile with no pain and not even a Tylenol. Friday I walk two miles in just over 30 minutes. The heaviness in my chest is gone. I started this post talking about this morning's workout. I am experiencing some pain today as I'm writing this and doing laundry and going up and down the stairs, but the pain is all in my calves. It's the good pain following a good, hard workout. I choose not to call the workout strenuous because I have been instructed to do nothing strenuous for five more weeks. If my wife reads this she may decide that I'm not too weak to mow the lawn after all.

health note June 24

Woops! I see it's been two weeks since I posted an update, and reading my previous post may have been discouraging since my weight was up that day. On Friday, 6/11, I dropped 2.2 pounds to 211.0. Yay! But that next weekend I attended a family wedding and small reunion, then work and rain gave me an excuse to not walk much for a couple more days, so by Wednesday, 6/16, I was back up to 214.3. Boo! Not to worry, doing the right things yields positive results.

In the last eight days I have dropped 6.8 pounds, and weighed in this morning at 207.5. (The last time I remember my weight being 208 was in 1995.) I'm probably not going to hit the 6/26 target I posted on 6/1. I intentionally set the bar low (using a limbo analogy), and my gut still can't get under that ever-lowering target. But I have dropped 9.4 pounds in the 23 days since June 1, and I don't think I would have accomplished that without an aggressive target.

I would like to tell you by what method I have accomplished this eight straight days of weight loss, even losing weight over this previous weekend with our regular Sunday family dinner. Unfortunately there is no silver bullet. The answer really seems to be to just keep doing the right things over an extended period of days, weeks, and months.

First, I am NOT on a crash diet, but my stomach has been slowly shrinking, so I am satisfied and feel full with less food in it. When I remember, I eat a bit slower, giving my brain time to get signals from my stomach and inform my mind that I'm no longer hungry. One trick my wife taught me a long time ago, probably from Weight Watchers or some women's magazine, is to put the fork or spoon down after each bite. That gives me time to chew my food before I swallow, and I find myself savoring the flavors more as I eat. Men, don't underestimate the value of a good woman's advice or her magazines; my cardiologist recommended I read women's fitness articles after my heart attack in 2001.

Second, I eat less at a time, but more often. Ideally, I eat at 6AM, 10AM, 2PM, and 6PM. I don't have many ideal days, but again, I set a good target and get as close as I can without making myself crazy. I hope you are seeing that I intentionally do not stress about my weight. Stress is a very real killer. I look way down the road, I set up a somewhat difficult target, I recognize that I probably won't hit the bullseye, but I know that if I hit one of the rings then I am better off than I would have been if I hadn't tried. So I find myself grinning as I look back over a day and realize I have been eating and snacking all day and never got hungry. Not every day, but it happens. I keep walnuts, soy nuts, and raisins on the kitchen counter where I can grab them easily when I have a craving to chew on something. I take sunflower seeds to eat when I'm reading on work breaks. I buy the kind still in the shell so I have to work to eat them. I now prefer Winco bulk sunflower seeds over the better-known brands; they seem to be a bit less salty and have a nuttier flavor, and are not as bland as the low-sodium brands. I also throw fruit in the blender with lo-fat vanilla yogurt, 2% milk, and a spoon of cinnamon powder, then put a quart of the concoction in the refrigerator. It usually takes 2-3 days for me to finish that off.

Third, I have lost my craving for some of the more unhealthy foods. This was neither a goal nor an expected outcome. I have so come to enjoy my turkey chili, brown rice, stir-fry veggies, bran cereal, lo-fat vanilla yogurt, fruits and veggies of many kinds, and spices (black pepper, cayenne pepper, chili powder, garlic, onion, oregano, cinnamon), that I honestly no longer enjoy the feeling of grease in my mouth. I have always loved chips and salsa, but I have two large unopened bags of tortilla chips in the pantry that have been sitting there for weeks. I'm sure someday I will open them, eat them, and enjoy the flavor, but they no longer scream at me to sit and stuff myself while watching some brainless tv show.

Finally, and this is key, I move. It isn't as important what type of movement I do, I just have to move. I keep moving until I sweat, then I keep sweating for at least half an hour. When I started 18 months ago I couldn't will myself to move and sweat that long at a time. I was completely undisciplined and had no clue how to set a target and start working toward it. I am somewhat competitive, but I have never been an athlete. I was a perennial bench warmer on school sports teams. Never in my life have I worked this long on a single physical goal. I encourage you to start moving, and find a way to chart your progress. Learn to break a sweat even if you are simply walking. As you keep at it your ability to go longer, further, faster will improve gradually and naturally.

My wife heard it takes 12 weeks of a regular workout routine for weight loss to really kick in. I think my recent six months may be an example of that. In 2009 I started at 264 and ended at 244. I wasn't moving much, and I had stopped losing weight. October of that year I was clear down to 235, but after my birthday, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years, the weight crept back up to 244.

Sometime early this year I really noticed how the effort my wife was putting into getting healthy was having a very noticeable, positive result. Her friends were complimenting her, too. Her good results was one of the motivators that got me to renew my effort to get healthy. So I started walking. I could easily walk a mile at first, but two miles was a bit painful. It made me sweat. I needed to sweat.

As the weeks have gone by I've tried to run or jog or do intervals, but with a knee that flares up the most effective long-term exercise has been to simply keep walking. Through the natural conditioning and strengthening of regular routine activity, I now start sweating in the second mile, and it is the fifth or sixth mile that makes me really work. So far this year, with the increased activity and smarter calorie intake, I have dropped from 244 to 207.

I intend to keep setting long-range targets that I probably won't hit. I am enjoying the long-term results. My 42 inch waist jeans used to be uncomfortably tight. Now the 38 inch waist jeans I dug out of an old clothes stack have to be cinched up with an older 36 inch belt.

And this week, for the first time in years, I am actually hopeful that I might really be able to start running. I am being very cautious, and need to visit a doctor that specializes in sports medicine to get the knee checked. I would rather walk for the rest of my life if running means damaging my knee to the point of needing drastic surgery. But twice this week I have run and the knee pain has gone away at about a quarter mile. My mile speed is only 9:30, but I am not in training for competition. I'm really just looking for a faster more effective way to get the heart rate up and keep it up so I sweat faster and longer, burning fat calories more efficiently. I guess that's the point of aerobic exercise, isn't it?

I hope you find this encouraging. Life really is possible after obesity. The Biggest Loser television show can be very motivating, but the winners spend 16 weeks getting educated and abused by professional trainers. If you can find a local Biggest Loser competition, join it. I haven't done that, but I am living with a person that is in her second competition and is doing very well. That group accountability is very powerful for many people. You may need to start slow, but start. Maybe you will be able to enjoy playing with your grandkids a bit more. Maybe your spouse will enjoy being with you a little bit more; if you are anything like me you will be more enjoyable to be around if you feel a little bit better about yourself. I used to quote the old Muddy Waters song, "I was built for comfort, I wasn't built for speed." But fat isn't comfortable either. I'm still overweight, but going in the right direction and really starting to enjoy the process.

health note June 10

I broke two of my cardinal rules and paid the price.

The two rules I broke are: (1) Go to bed early enough to get plenty of sleep, and (2) don't eat late in the evening.

I had to get up for work at 3:30 AM today, so I should have been in bed no later than 9:30 last night. It was after 10:30 I got in bed, so I got less than five hours sleep.

I didn't eat dinner last night 'til after 8:00 PM. I don't care how healthy the food is, if I eat it late in the evening, my body is likely to store it to use some other day.

So, this morning I weighed 213.2, up 0.9 pounds from yesterday, and 0.4 pounds behind my target schedule. I've put myself in a position of needing to lose 1.0 pounds by tomorrow morning just to be on target.

And today's life responsibilities and weather forecast are not helpful. I'm hoping to be able to do some running or walking this evening, but that's not quite as effective as getting the metabolism going early in the day.

health note June 9

Sunday morning I weighed 212.7. Woohoo! Monday morning I was back up to 214.1. Rats! But that is what I predicted. Tuesday morning, 213.0. This morning, 212.3. I'm still 1.1 pounds ahead of the schedule I set up nine days ago.

Shoes. New $95 running shoes, that is. I started running last week in my old Adidas. After three days they started falling apart. I bought them probably 4 years ago to play volleyball. Knee surgery and chronic pain stopped me a couple years ago from continuing to play. They're still comfortable to wear, and my feet, toes, ankles, shins don't seem to be any worse now for running in them. The chronic knee pain is no worse. The minor pain in the calf, ham, and quad I attribute to the fact that I ran a little and exercised some different muscle groups.

The old Adidas labels say Naler Classic and TENNIS, so I believe they are a true tennis shoe. That's probably why they are comfortable on the feet and worked fine for volleyball. But they weren't engineered as a running shoe for an overweight person, and their age is showing. Pieces are literally falling off outside and inside the shoes.

The new shoes are Saucony ProGrid Ride 3. The pair weighs about 4 ounces less than the Adidas. Kudos to Portland Running Shoe Company in West Linn for taking the time to watch me run in at least six different pairs of shoes. Once we narrowed it down to two competing pairs, they had me put on one from each pair and told me to go outside and run around the building. Half-way around the building the difference was night and day and the decision was easy. At least the decision about which shoe was best for me to run in was easy. I think they were the least expensive I tried on, too, but I didn't know that when I was running around the building.

I told them I would take them home, but wanted to be able to return them if I got home and checked my finances and found I just couldn't afford to keep them. $95 is a lot of money to me. They said no problem, that their return policy is very generous, so I took them home.

I struggled with justifying keeping them. I found the previous year's model of the same shoe online for as little as $60 (including shipping, with rebates, etc.) I have not found the current year model online any cheaper than the store. So, now I'm justifying the $35 difference.

My son warned me that just because they are the same model and have the same description doesn't mean they will feel the same when you run in them. The $60 online option I found had a "no returns" policy. I haven't found the older model in a store in the area where I could try them.

Here's my strongest argument for paying the extra money. I feel Portland Running Shoe Company worked for and earned the extra $35. They took time to work with my wife a couple weeks ago when she got new running shoes. She loves the shoes they put her in after going through their selection and elimination process. They had the previous year model of the shoes she wanted and we were able to get that discount in the store. They spent the better part of an hour working with me when I went back a few days after buying my wife's shoes. Back in my technical heyday I charged as much as $250 an hour for my consulting services, so $35 for an hour of their advice and service is cheap by comparison. I want that store to be profitable enough so their expertise will still be there when our shoes wear out. There are sometimes good reasons for buying in a local retail store.

I tried running in a couple other old pairs of shoes I had collected over the years. Indoors soccer shoes. Basketball high tops. I discovered my feet are not the same size they were ten or fifteen years ago. And apparently I wore them and broke them down more than I had realized. Running in them hurt a lot, especially the toes since the shoes are now a full size too small. You cause pain in your toes, and your whole body recoils to try to protect itself, causing pain in many places.

Three days after buying the Saucony shoes, I finally took them out of the box to test them on my then-smarting feet and toes. It was 9PM Sunday, the sun had just set, dusk was going to quickly turn to dark. I ran 1.5 miles in 13 minutes (give or take a few yards and seconds). My first reaction to actually running on the road was how good they felt; like moccasins on carpet. I guess I am a convert to good running shoes.

I ran three miles yesterday morning. That was my longest run in many years, probably decades. I walked three more miles with my wife last night. I walked and ran 2.5 miles this morning. I was going to do three miles, but I discovered even the tiny version of what Oregonians call hail stings when you run in it. (My brother got a lump on his head when he got caught outside in a hailstorm in North Dakota.) I also learned how heavy even good shoes feel once they get waterlogged. A lot of rain and hail came down on me in that last mile today. One more notch in becoming a "real" runner?

Reality check: my mile times are still more than double what they were in 1972. But, I'm feeling better than I have in a very long time, and my weight is down to where it was six or eight years ago.

health note June 5

Thursday I weighed in at 215.2, Friday morning I was back up to 215.8, this morning I dropped down to 213.4. As I've said, I can't be concerned or excited about a daily weight up or down. I have to watch the longer trend. Any time my weight drops by more than a pound, I expect a bit of a rebound.

I am consciously trying to lose weight significantly faster than I have the last eighteen months. I am walking two to six miles and running more than a mile most days. I have reduced food portions by about a third and am trying to stop eating before feeling full. I just had a half cup of chili, a half cup of rice, and six ounces of orange juice, and my stomach is satisfied. I am eating more often, usually about four hours between meals or snacks. I have increased my water intake, but that's still nowhere near recommended amounts.

Exercise other than walking and running is still almost non-existent. That is the next thing that will make a difference in my overall health.

health note June 2

It's after 6PM. I've only been home about an hour since I left the house at 5AM.

This morning I weighed 215.8. That's a half-pound under goal. Not too surprising since yesterday was the first time in years I had run more than two miles. I wanted to run again this morning, but extra work came up and that takes priority. I was only home mid-day long enough to chop up some veggies and eat a salad. As soon as I got home after work I changed and started jogging. I only made 1.5 miles before I quit and walked home. On the upside it's the first time I've run more than a mile two days in a row.

I was a little sore today, primarily my legs and back. My legs felt about like they should a day after running two miles for the first time, but my back is more a chronic thing unrelated to running. I'm hoping the running and weight loss will relieve some of my back pain. I really think my back hates the seats at work. The company's not going to change the bus drivers' seats, so I better find a way to work with them.

I ran cross-country in high school (1971-1974) so I have an idea what running and training should feel like. I expected today to be harder than yesterday, and it was. I'm not training for a particular event, distance or speed. I just want to look and feel better. While jogging today I found myself repeating over and over, "Remember the goal, remember the prize." The prize is simply being able to look in a mirror and say, "That's better." If others notice, and they already have, that adds encouragement.

So, this morning I was 0.1 pounds away from tomorrow's goal. Nothing is guaranteed. In the 18 months I've been tracking my weight, I've learned to ignore (for the most part) the ups and downs of daily weight, and look back at the trend.

If you see a friend looking better or hear they're trying, encourage them. It helps. It helps a lot. My wife and I have significantly increased our talk-time since I started walking with her every chance I get. Even if we don't say a word for a mile or two, I still love walking with her.

health note June 1

I weighed in this morning and was back down to 216.9. The Wii says that for me the top of the "normal" range is 194, and "ideal" is 171. I'm forgetting about ideal for now and aiming for normal. My Wii weight ranges are based on a height of 6'2". I don't know if my age, 53, is a factor.

I need to lose another 23 pounds to get to normal. There is a family event the last week of July that involves a swimming pool, and I would like to think it is possible to get from 217 to 194 in 53 days. I'm going to subtract the seven Sundays that I'm not likely to lose weight, and the seven Mondays it takes to get back to the previous Saturday weight, and I will still have 39 days to lose the 23 pounds. That's 0.59 pounds I need to lose each of the days I'm counting.

I'll spare you the daily targets. The weekly Saturday weight targets are: 6/5 214.5; 6/12 211.6; 6/19 208.6; 6/26 205.7; 7/3 202.7; 7/10 199.8; 7/17 196.8; 7/24 193.9. This seems doable.

I said yesterday I need to add to my walking routine some exercise for torso and upper body strength. I wondered how many honest push-ups I could do. Six was tough. The seventh was very shaky. Eight didn't happen. (Maybe I needed Bob or Jill yelling at me to get to ten.) Let's just say the word "guns" is not likely to be applied to my physique any time soon.

I dug out the Wii Biggest Loser game my wife used for quite a while before she moved on to even tougher routines. I have no concept of calorie counting so I can't do the whole Biggest Loser program, but there are exercise routines I can access. I did a 19-minute light workout it offered plus the warm-up and cool-down. After eating a salad I decided to test the knee. I jogged 2.5 miles in about 30 minutes then walked home from the park. I am sweating profusely and the knee feels great; we'll see after it cools off.

Until next time.

health note May 31

I am working on losing weight and gaining strength as part of my journey back to childhood. So, to hold myself more accountable, I intend to post a few details.

December 15, 2008, we got a Wii Fit and I started tracking my weight. On that day I weighed 264.6 pounds. On March 4, 2010, after 15 months, my Wii status changed from "obese" to "overweight" at 233.7 pounds. I very seldom exercise, so that weight loss was from minor changes to what and how much I eat.

I have begun walking somewhat regularly and that has increased my metabolism a bit. I have tuned my diet up a little more, and I am much more careful about what I consume between dinner and going to bed. Believe me, I am still not very disciplined, but I am doing better a bit at a time. Yesterday I was 216.9, my lowest weight since getting the Wii.

This morning I was up half a pound to 217.4. I no longer even try to be down weight-wise on Mondays. We almost always have dinner guests Sunday afternoons, and we eat very well. Today I walked five miles with my wife. (Anybody who knows her has seen her metamorphosis, and I quite willingly acknowledge I am just trying to keep up with my "new" trophy wife.) I attempt to run a bit occasionally, but my right knee makes me wonder if that is wise; that knee was scoped a few years ago and it never completely recovered.

Food: I eat a lot more vegetables and a lot less meat than I used to. My primary staples are chili (I make my own with ground turkey and jalapeno peppers), brown rice, chopped spinach and romaine lettuce.

For breakfast I typically slice a banana and throw a handful of raisins in my bran flakes cereal. I use 2% milk; never really liked skim and have heard there are some benefits to a bit of milk fat. I recently began adding ground flax to the morning cereal.

For dinner I dress my dinner-size spinach and romaine salads with combinations of my chili, Pace Medium Salsa, mild taco sauce, and Johnny's Lite Ranch Dressing. The Johnny's has a lot of black pepper already in it, and I love pepper. I may add to the salad a few other fresh veggies, sliced olives, almond slices, grated cheese, or crumbled taco chips, but am pretty cautious with most of those. I often have a cup of brown rice with soy sauce and/or a cup of stir-fry veggies from some frozen mix that I cook in a small cast-iron skillet with Worcestershire or hot Thai or soy sauce.

If I'm away from the house for lunch, I love the Subway foot-long roast chicken breast on 9-grain honey oat bread. Add all the veggies including hot peppers, hold the mayo, then dress with Dijon mustard, black pepper and oregano. I have them cut and wrap the sandwich as two 6" subs so I can eat half for lunch, and the other half for dinner or lunch the next day. (Raise your eyebrows regarding refrigeration if you must. I'm alive and feeling just fine.)

We had a lot of fruit left from yesterday's family dinner, so for lunch today I used our ancient Osterizer (blender). A banana, some raisins, a few walnuts, a spoon of ground flax, 6-8 strawberries, some kiwi, cantaloupe, honeydew melon, milk, and finally, a spoon of ground cinnamon, and I truly think I could make a believer of any of you. It was awesome.

I have the advantage of being more than okay with "boring" repetition in my menu. I am not a cook, but there is nothing in this post that I don't cook and prepare for myself. I am too lazy to get very creative, and minor changes in seasonings or dressings can have radical effects on flavor. I am no longer afraid to experiment, and my wife's kitchen is well-stocked with things I am unfamiliar with.

Exercise: Other than walking a few miles a week, I don't do any. That needs to change. I'm losing weight, but I know I will look and feel better if I start toning my torso and upper body. I understand there is still a lot of excess fat wrapped around my vital organs. So exercise is next on my agenda of needed changes.

Future health notes should be much shorter now that I've covered the past 18 months.

Sleep

"For some of you reading this book, perhaps the single most spiritual thing you could do right now is to put it down and take a nap." - John Ortberg, "The Life You've Always Wanted: Spiritual Growth for Ordinary People"

God has been challenging ... correction ... convicting me regarding my sleep habits.

What's the big deal? There's no commandment like "Thou shalt not be awake more than sixteen hours before sleeping. Sixteen hours thou shalt be awake, and eight hours thou shalt sleep." Is there? Besides, my back hurts if I lay down more than a few hours at a time. I'm a morning person, and a night person. Why can't I be both?

I have been told, and I have told one or more of my children nothing good happens after midnight. Looking back I would say not much good happens after 8PM. Seriously, what worthwhile thing am I usually doing late evenings that I couldn't have done earlier if I hadn't procrastinated?

Typical late evening activities: watch tv (more recently streaming Netflix), read email (follow random rabbit trails), check facebook (follow more random rabbit trails), check the news (tv, web, newspaper), online chat, online games, surf the web (often inspired by and followed by more randomness), read (Bible, devotional books, other books, blogs, newspaper), shop (groceries, clothes, online).

I am being made aware that the later I stay up, the stronger the temptations to read, watch, do, things that Jesus has already told me not to do. The longer I stay awake, the more tired I am, the weaker I am. So why stay up? Because it's tempting, and easy to rationalize, and not necessarily "evil", a few seconds at a time, no big decisions, almost imperceptible drifting.

What are the consequences of staying up too late? Guilt, for one. I know better, but I don't do better, and I am convicted when I finally succumb to sleep, and again when I wake up or am awakened by the alarm. Misery. I don't feel great. In fact I often feel a lot like someone suffering from a hangover. Danger. I'm not as alert as I could be when I'm cutting vegetables or driving. Drowsiness is one of the primary causes of fatal accidents, so others are endangered by me. Sickness. How many cold or flu viruses could my body have warded off if it weren't exhausted? Weight gain. I've lost a lot of weight over the last 18 months, but when I'm up late I'm much more likely to snack so will probably gain weight.

Once in a while I actually do go to bed "early", which for me means before midnight. What good usually follows? I wake up without an alarm clock. I have a more relaxed morning as I prepare to go to work. Nothing is rushed. I'm not [as] cranky. I feel better. I'm more alert.

What happens on the rare occasions when I go to bed before 10PM? If I was exhausted from staying up too late the previous nights, my body gets a chance to recover. If I wasn't in a recovery cycle, I will actually wake up early enough to have time to spend time with my Bible before I go to work.

I'm writing this the Saturday morning after a recovery night. I stayed up too late Thursday night, so fell in bed exhausted between 10 and 11PM Friday night after a pretty miserable day. I woke up this morning about 6AM feeling pretty good. I must have slept almost seven hours. That's unusually long for me to sleep. It's Saturday, so I didn't have to get ready for work. I've had time to make coffee, weigh in, read scripture, eat breakfast, and now work on this blog post I've been putting off for a few weeks.

I want to wake up spontaneously around 5AM. That's not a stretch for me; I often awaken around that time if I'm not recovering. I want the relaxed devotional time to start the day. I want the enjoyable productive days that follow a good night's sleep. The simple math is that in order to get eight hours sleep before 5AM, I must go to bed by 9PM. Yikes! I'll never get everything done if I go to bed that early. But the reality is I don't get much done of any value after 9PM.

The message is simple. I need to discipline myself to go to bed by 9PM on a regular basis. Going to bed at midnight needs to become the rare exception, not the norm. My expectation is that you will see more regular posts about other positive things Jesus is teaching me if I am obedient in the area of sleep. Children of the Father need their sleep.

Praying without ceasing

"Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." [1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (New International Version)]

Pray continually. Or as I was taught, pray without ceasing. As a little boy growing up in a parsonage, I would try to imagine myself in that never-ending prayer meeting, on my knees, going over and over my list of prayer concerns. I could barely stay awake for thirty minutes of those old-time Wednesday night sessions. I figured that scripture must be just for old people like most of the ladies that were kneeling in the pews around me.

As a teenager I of course got much smarter and assigned the whole passage to the category of allegory, figurative, impossible. It was just not reasonable that anyone could be joyful ALWAYS, pray CONTINUALLY, give thanks in ALL CIRCUMSTANCES. There was just so much more to life than joyfully saying prayers of thanks. Like bicycles and bruises, crushes and heartaches, playing and fighting with siblings and parents. Like having a life.

I am still learning that the meaning I assign to words is often different from what the author and/or translator intended. I understood prayer to be how we asked God to do stuff for us: forgive us; heal our grandmothers; protect the missionaries; make someone love us; help us get a better car, job, or house.

An earlier verse in 1 Thessalonians actually gives an example of how Paul practiced the art of praying continually. "We always thank God for all of you, mentioning you in our prayers. We continually remember before our God and Father your work ...." [1 Thessalonians 1:2-3 (New International Version)] Look at those words, then look again at the words at the beginning of this post. There is a lot of similarity and overlap.

I believe praying continually is simply including God in all our conversation, whether we are mumbling to ourselves, joking with a friend, crying with a confidant, or spending some face-time with Jesus. How will your conversation change if you include God in all your jokes, gripes, wahoos, and OMG's.

Pray without ceasing. Try it. He's already listening, hanging on every word, every thought, 24/7, just waiting for you to include him. Talk about a BFF.

Wrestling with God

"Great is Your faithfulness, oh God; You wrestle with the sinner's restless heart." This is the first line of Matt Maher's "Your Grace Is Enough" as recorded on his "Empty and Beautiful" album. Yes, Tomlin recorded the song first, but Maher (pronounced mar like car) wrote it, and his recording bears his heartprint.

I have long been fascinated by the double entendre (two meanings), in the English translation anyway, of the name Israel, which is translated as "wrestles with God." I don't know if Maher was thinking of Jacob the heel-grabber being renamed Israel the wrestler with God, but my heart immediately goes there when I hear the song.

You ask, "What double entendre?" It is my impression that Jacob enters the match wrestling with God, trying not to lose, and ends up with a new name, a new limp, and a new wrestling partner. Wrestling with GOD, Jacob vs. God, becomes wrestling WITH God, Israel and God vs. the enemy.

Genesis 32 is a beautiful story of someone who has already set his heart to do the right thing, but is scared to death by what he fears will be the result of his obedience. He knows his own history well enough to have good reason to fear for his life.

Today I am looking at a $1,600 tax due bill and a savings account of $300. My natural inclination is to let fear overtake me and begin fighting with God over things like tithing and trusting. But God assures me He is on my side, and nothing is too great for him. He might allow me to have to pay some penalties and interest, but that isn't the end of the world. There are other things on which He wants me to spend my energy. Worrying about this financial crisis is not on God's to-do list for me.

I wrestled against God for over forty years. I am so glad He adopted me and made me a part of Israel, one who wrestles with Him against my true enemy, the deceiver.

Oh, and what about the "sinner's restless heart" that Maher sings about. Is that my heart? In my simplest understanding, a sinner is anyone who misses the mark. When I see where my arrow landed, and I see the bullseye of God's will for me, my heart grows restless. I get angry at myself, or I get angry at God, or I get angry at the world. But God in His love wraps me tightly in His arms like a colicky newborn, sings me a  soothing lullaby, and lets me look deep into His eternal eyes. What was I kicking against? What was I afraid of? Yes, Jesus, I trust you. Your faithfulness, oh God, is indeed great.

Trust

"Do you trust me?" That is the question Jesus asked me September 29, 1999, when the smoke and mirrors of my life crashed around me. He still asks me that question on a regular basis. My response was, and still is what Simon Peter answered in John 6:68, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."

When Jesus' disciples started jockeying for positions of power in their skewed view of His coming kingdom, he stopped them in their tracks and said, "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Check out Matthew 18:1-10.

Change. Or don't. Live. Or die. Change how? Become like a child. What does that mean? "Do you trust me?" Watch a toddler with her father. Dad can throw her in the air, and she will laugh as she flies, knowing dad will catch her. Stupid, dangerous trust. But only stupid and dangerous if you don't really trust.

What stupid, dangerous thing has Jesus asked you to do? Do you trust Him?

This seems silly, but I think He asked me to start a blog. Good grief. Who's going to read it? "You are. And I Am. If anybody else does, blame me." Okay. I trust you.