Exactly a month ago to the date today, I made my third effort with the Couch to 5K Week 1 Podcast. These podcasts are free to download from the NHS and are quite motivational. The challenge for me was not to be the fastest person on two legs, but to gradually build up to running the whole of a 5k eventually. As you can see from the Run Keeper graph below I increased my distance each time and I kept up an average of a 15 minute mile, not earth shattering, but not bad for a 46 year old man that hasn't run for about twenty three years. Unfortunately life sometimes has a habit of delivering surprise blows.
On Friday 23rd January, out of the blue whilst chairing a teleconference I began to lose my eye sight. I struggled on, and managed to message a colleague, who picked up chairing the call. After an hour my vision began to come back, and a night of good sleep seemed to clear it up fully. As this was not the first time it had happened that week, and at the advice of some of my dear friends, I took myself down to the NHS walk in clinic.
What I had experienced was a Migraine Aura without headache, but as to what caused it, they could only offer rough guidance. They did a rough eye test, and suggested I may need distance glasses, also my blood pressure was on the high side. Not critical, but higher than it should be for a Saturday morning at rest. The two episodes I had experienced that week had occurred the day after I had been running, so they told me to stop running until I had seen my own Doctor.
I have never seen my doctor look concerned before, so to say it put the fear of god into me would be an understatement. He agreed with the clinic that I should get my eyes tested and that my blood pressure was higher than he would expect. He arranged for a full battery of blood tests to be taken, these needed to be done after fasting for twelve hours, and due to availability at the clinic they had to be scheduled for two weeks after my initial consultation.
So whilst waiting for the test date it would have been all too easy to fall into the trap of feeling defeated, and going back to old ways. I must admit at first I did teeter on the brink, but there must be something I was doing wrong now to make my blood pressure high. I didn't want to complicate the issue by adding back the behaviours that had put my weight on in the first place, the behaviours that put me in the path of danger for Diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke and numerous other nasties . So I started at the one source of knowledge I did have, I looked at the food diary that I'm keeping on Myfitnesspal. In order to do this I needed to be open and honest with myself, and be tough on me, with no excuses. The obvious thing was my enjoyment of wine, I had managed to work this into my calories, but I could see I was easily over the recommended units per week. Everyday I give myself a milk allowance for hot drinks like tea and coffee, as tea and coffee without milk don't carry calories I don't tend to count those, just the milk consumption. I knew my coffee consumption was higher since working at home, but when I sat and added it up, I realised that I was easily drinking between 7 and 13 mugs of strong coffee in a day. So I embarked on a programme to reduce my caffeine intake.
So where does this leave me at the moment? Well I'm still losing weight at a healthy rate (it's not a race), I've lost half a stone in four weeks. There are also other activities, besides running that are free, I am allowed to go for brisk walks, and I picked up a very cheap second hand bike (most families have at least one lurking in a dusty garage unused). On the food side. I've not had an alcoholic drink in just under four weeks, and I'm now only drinking one cup of normal coffee a day, and some days none at all. Thanks to the wonders of Red bush tea which is naturally caffeine free, I expect the next time my blood pressure is checked that it should be lower. Fingers crossed.
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