When I started this blog in 1999, it contained mostly personal stuff. Blogs were a new thing, Facebook and Twitter were five respectively seven years away, and it felt appropriate to me.
Later on, I switched to english and added more about my professional projects – hence the focus moved to rather technical posts. Personal matters felt more appropriate on Facebook. In an attempt to gain back control about my content, I recently moved the blog from Wordpress to Lektor.
The next step for me is reintroducing personal matters. Not many, but now and then. I won't bother with adding tags or so, so hopefully my dear readers won't mind stumbling over non-technical content here and there.
This is the first personal matter entry.
I used to have fairly good health. Apart from being a slight bit overweight for the most part of my life and the obligatory annual cold I never had any serious issues. I went for diet once and then, but the damn yoyo effect always cought me. My height is 165cm and in the last 18 years I went from 76kg (which was okish) to 96kg (which is way too much).
Just recently I started to feel sick. I was tired more often and had a little base nervousness that had no obvious reasons. From time to time I had pressure on my ears which turned slowly into a ringing.
On the 23th of March this year, I went to bed after a tabletennis match at midnight, being almost shaky. I woke up 5 hours later and felt miserable – very nervous and with an uncomfortable level of ear pressure. I drove to the emergency hospitalization and they found out that my blood pressure and my level of blood glucose were much too high. They gave me 5mg of an antihypertensive drug and released me some hours later.
My family doctor dropped the truth bomb: I have the blood values of a 60 year old. I'm weighing way too much and need to start excercising as well as change my nutrition.
As an interesting coincidence, I'm now at the same age (47) my father died. I was eleven years old when that happens – and now I have a little daughter and a wife who both need me. I NEED TO TAKE BETTER CARE OF MY HEALTH.
This time I'm doing it for real. Since 23th of March, I lost 10kg by eating better and being more active. Here's what I did in detail:
Besides loosing the 10kg, the net effect is I'm feeling way better. My blood values are back to normal, I'm less tired, have more energy and can concentrate better. I'm going to continue with this routine until I'm back at 76kg and then try to develop a balance so that mid-term my weight keeps being stable.
So: All is good. I'm more often hungry than before, but I learned to live with it, almost embracing it, before the next meal is due.
This is what I wanted to share with you. Look after your health, don't neglect it.