[Exhibitman]

Great topic and post, Bill, and everyone else for chiming in. We are all just bags of chemicals and water, and inevitably the mix will get screwed up somehow. I take inspiration from weird sources, like this quote from Rocky Balboa:

"Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done! Now if you know what you're worth then go out and get what you're worth. But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain't you! You're better than that!"

I've had my own year of inspiration. In late March, life finally put the wood to my testicles. I've always approached health and diet with good intentions but a WTF attitude. Now, I could blame a lot of my failures on stress eating, but the truth is I love to eat and love to eat crappy stuff especially. I have a junk food junkie's palate. Oh, and lots of caffeine too. Didn't seem to bother me, or so I thought.

For some time I'd been sleeping poorly, peeing a lot, getting headaches, just generally not doing great, but deluding myself the whole time that it was normal. The last weekend in March really brought it all to a screeching halt. I burned the candle both ends. I had family stuff and late nights Friday and Saturday, then I performed in a show on Sunday and was so adrenalized from the performance that I couldn't get to sleep for hours. Monday morning I got to work and was really just checking chat boards and messing around when I felt sharp pains in my chest, followed by pressure in my head and a flush. My pulse also felt thready. I googled "heart attack symptoms" and found that I was matching four of eleven, so I got my ass over to the hospital, which is 5 minutes from the office. What followed was 48 hours of hell as they bled, poked, prodded, stressed, injected, nuked and imaged me. With long periods of waiting around on a gurney or bed so uncomfortable that you could use it to torture terrorists, wondering if I'd really just f***ed myself permanently. Bottom line: no MI and no heart blockages but high blood pressure and pre-diabetes [borderline out of control blood sugar]. When I walked in my BP was 190/140, which is sky-high. Since high BP is often w/o symptoms, I got very lucky that I felt angina before I blew out a gasket somewhere.

Since then I am on to BP meds and a very strict low carb paleo diet, no caffeine, lots of yoga. My weight before this went down was as high as 284#; today 253#. My MD is optimistic that if I stick with it this time, I will be able to drop the tonnage over the next year or two and get off most or all of the meds.

I have adapted to the lifestyle changes. My family is happier with me for sure since I feel better, look better, and don't go through the intense blood sugar driven mood swings like I used to. My trip to NYC and AC for the National this year was an certainly eye-opener. I ate my way through Manhattan BUT only eating things that were on my diet. Net weight gain when I got home: zero! My blood work is getting better too.