Category: Wellbeing

Eating healthy food is way easier when you’re hungry. This is perhaps the best thing about the starvation diet. All that green stuff in the grocery store; you know, that strange corner of my Publix behind the frozen pizza, where they keep that stuff that kind of looks like the things that grow instead of grass in my yard, it turns out that under some circumstances it actually tastes good.

Wait a minute? Did someone say pizza? HOLY MOTHER OF JENNY CRAIG, BATMAN! SOMEONE LEFT GLAZED DOUGHNUTS IN THE BREAK ROOM AGAIN!

Quick, someone get me some spinach leaves and some “lite” raspberry vinaigrette dressing – STAT!

The hardest part about this diet thing is giving up caffeine.

“Caffeine? What does caffeine have to do with a nutritionally balanced diet?”

Nothing really, I guess, I’ve just decided that if I’m going to eat healthy I might as well throw out the baby with the bath water.

“That’s crazy talk man. You’re not Catholic, and it’s not even lent for cripes’ sake.”

True enough, but to be perfectly honest I haven’t given it up altogether. I’m just not consuming it at work.

“That’s even worse. Now I know you’ve gone ’round the bend. Work is the MOST important place to have caffeine. If you don’t use it at work, where the hell would you have it?”

Once again, you’re right. However, consider that if work is the most important place to have caffeine, it is also the place you would most likely abuse it. Nervous tremors will only take you so far in business, at some point you’ve got to be able to sit still at work, and that’s hard to do when you’re hopped up on a caffeine rush.

“What about Starbucks? You’re not giving them up too are you?”

That’s crazy talk man. There’s always room for Starbucks.

I have decided that I don’t need anymore rounding as a person. Friends, it’s time for a diet. In true gadget geek form, I’ve immersed myself in lists, digital scales, digital nutrition books, and spreadsheets. If commitment can be measured in collateral stuff, then I must be in it for the long haul.

How am I doing it; South Beach, Atkins, Weight Watchers? Nope, I’m sticking with good old fashioned starvation. The great thing about starvation is that you always know when it’s working, if you’re hungry then you know you’re sticking to your diet. Why, in just a couple of days I’ve found it can be a real boon for my perception of self worth. Every moment of every day can be a rewarding experience. As I see it, there’s only a couple of drawbacks to starvation: 1) it’s not much better for you than being overweight; and, 2) it’s a difficult lifestyle to maintain long term.

Oh all right, I’m not really starving myself. Well, I’m not exactly starving myself anyway. After extensive internet research (insert groan here) I’ve put together a rather complex (hair-brained) system of food substitution and calorie counting. Out is all of the crap I’ve been eating at work and snacks at home. Out are all of those crap frozen dinners. In are more nutritious snacks, based on a combination of their flavor and nutritional value. In are more wholesome frozen dinners. In is a Palm based spreadsheet for tracking everything I eat (just like a good bureaucrat). The one drawback to this system is we’re quickly learning it’s MUCH more expensive to eat healthy.

Ah, junk food, I guess you’re damned if you do and broke if you don’t.

On a side note, I have a question, where exactly did the expression “hair brained” come from? Was it originally meant to be an unflattering metaphor for women’s intelligence? (Based on the stereotype that women typically have longer hair then men?) If so, please know that I meant no offense Cheryl.

My wife told me that she saw a news piece on the boob tube the other day where they reported a fascinating discovery: there are far more germs in your average office than in your average office bathroom. What is the lesson here? Personally, I’m planning to move my desk to that stall on the end.

Despite evidence to the contrary, I think I’m capable of as much holiday spirit as the next guy. However, I must confess that I’m no longer impressed by holiday noise makers. Dancing Coke cans and singing Christmas trees were cute for about three minutes. Small devices that “beep” out various tunes stopped being cute in 1986. Articles of clothing with built-in noisemakers were never cute. As a matter of principle, I’m against any piece of clothing that requires batteries.

And yet, that’s just what I witnessed in the halls of state government this morning. A state employee with excess cheer was walking down the hall, accompanied by her own soundtrack.

“Where is that sound coming from?”
“Oh, that’s just my sweater.”

Is this a prime example of holiday schmaltz or am I becoming prematurely gruff? The whole thing was a little frightening actually. The sight of this person, full of holiday cheer, put my fight/flight instincts into overdrive. Maybe it had something to do with my foul mood at the time. Surely, no good can come from such polarized moods coming into contact with one another. I’m not a really big Star Trek fan, but the first thing that comes to mind is the anti-matter containment field failing. That’s when anti-matter comes into contact with matter, and you get a really big BOOM. Pretty much the same thing happens when holiday schmaltz comes into contact with sleep deprived torpor, right?

Who knows? If asked, the woman with the beeping sweater may have had something against my frayed Dockers and faded polo shirt. Come to think of it, I really look like a bum this morning.

There is one place where I always feel safe. It is a place I can go where all my problems disappear and my mind is clear. It is a place I’ve had wherever I’ve lived. It is a dark yet warm place. It’s where I wake up every morning, under my covers.

If you had just destroyed a perfectly good ankle in a back yard accident, based wholly on your own folly, how would you spend the rest of your afternoon? Many of you would take this golden opportunity and milk it for all of the chore evasion it was worth. Other, lesser mortals would seek medical attention. But I’m willing to wager that I am one of a select few that would go right out (after two Motrin) and play soccer with the kids.

It’s this kind of tendency towards rash action that led me to take the stairs at work this morning. You see, soccer wasn’t damaging enough. I had to find something that would really hurt. (Who would have thought that a hypochondriac could also be a closet sadomasochist?) Running up the stairs? Are you kidding me? That’s for sissies. Plummeting down the stairs on a bad ankle is where we separate the men from the just plain stupid.

Maybe now I’ll finally take my doctor’s advice and stay off it for two weeks; unless of course, something better comes up. It’s been a while since I’ve done any tree climbing,

“There are signs all over, you just have to know how to read them.” That was a line in a movie I saw once. I have no idea which movie it was, who was in it, or how long ago I saw it. Come to think of it, I don’t really know if it fits this entry. Let’s find out together, shall we?

If you’ve done any reading on this site in the last twenty-four hours, you know that I did a number on my ankle this weekend. Well an interesting thing happened on my way to get an x-ray. “Dude, it looks like your toes are turning purple.” That was the crack observation by the x-ray tech at the hospital. I bent over and took a look for myself. Sure enough, there were a few of the aforementioned angry bruises on my toes. Funny thing, those bruises, to a lay medical person they have surprisingly little in common with my ankle, when you consider the specifics of my injury. Let’s add two plus two and see what we get. I turn my ankle, in what had to be the most painful lower body experience since the time a medical professional tried to give me a shot of some kind of pain preventer between my toes (prior to a toenail extraction). Twenty-four hours later I get what looks like a purple stain along the bottom of my foot, only it won’t wash off in the shower. Then, forty-eight hours later the x-ray tech sees my toes turned partially purple. I turn my ankle and my toes get bruised? I’m sure it makes perfect sense to someone, but it’s just the kind of thing a would be hypochondriac would find maddening. Do you know anyone who would fit the bill?

Let’s Google “strange purple spots” and see what we get. I’ll bet that would be a lot of fun. Well, on second thought, it may be better to save that kind of entertainment for a weekend. I’d hate for the week to peak on a Monday.

I can’t wait to hear the results of the x-ray tomorrow. I plan to tell the staff at my doctor’s office the same thing tomorrow morning.

Find the nearest, most convenient cement slab in your backyard. Place a basketball pole and goal at one end, a table in the middle, and a basketball at the other end. Pick up the basketball and take a shot. When you miss, practice following your shot (with your body, not just with your eyes). The table in the middle serves as an obstacle, much like other people do when you are actually playing ball.

Unless you’re looking to throw a little cash towards a cash strapped orthopedist you know, read no further. Or better yet, just write the guy (or gal) a check.

Medical training or not, we are all familiar with the intended use of certain joints. The ankle, for example, is no more intended for lateral movement than the side of your foot is made for bearing weight. With this in mind, imagine that the side of your foot was unexpectedly called on to not only bear your weight, but to halt its acceleration (at a rate of 9.8 meters per second-squared)? Now imagine that in addition to bearing your weight and ceasing your body’s downward acceleration (at a rate of 9.8 meters per second-squared), the rest of your leg was engaged in the process of applying sufficient force to launch your body back into the air. Try and try as you might, you won’t find this one in the owner’s manual.

Why would an ankle find itself in this situation in the first place? Take yourself back to the cement slab and table. Picture yourself running around the table. You see that the ball is about to come your way, having bounced off of the rim like a red brick bouncing off of a light post. In one graceful movement you attempt a running stop off of one foot, intending to re-launch yourself into the air towards the ball, but your foot unexpectedly finds the leading edge of the cement slab. Unfortunately for your ankle, foot and lower leg, the edge of the slab finds the wrong side of a pivot point, and your foot rolls over the edge. Now picture your ankle swelling to three times its normal size. Imagine finding bruising on your foot, leg and toes. Not merely mortal bruising, mind you; but angry, purple bruising.

I sit here at work, my foot elevated, awaiting x-ray results.