This is a band that I have liked for awhile, and I just thought that I would share this video. The band is Virgil, and the name of the song is Amnesia. Enjoy.
Uncategorized
Research project
When I began writing this blog, I intended this to began as an EMS and gun related blog, and it has sort of turned into my soapbox. I have since retired and left the EMS field and continued on to a more advanced program, so I guess we can sort of go back this blog’s roots and talk for a minute about medicine.
For my Master’s degree research project, I have decided to use myself as a case subject for a study relating prediabetic individuals to weight loss. The connection between obesity and diabetes has been well documented, and my intention is to take that research to the next logical step and research the effects of dieting and weight loss on various factors in blood chemistry. My faculty adviser has approved the project, and I am now in the data collection phase of that study.
Uncategorized
Responsibility
As a paramedic who worked in a 911 based EMS system for 22 years, I know about delay. The number of times when I was dispatched to an emergency after a lengthy delay were numerous, I would say that a delay of 5 minutes or more was frequent, and happened at least once out of every twenty calls. The worst such case was an auto accident where a police officer requested our response. We were not dispatched to the incident for 45 minutes. The dispatcher said that she had opened the dispatch window on her computer, and then got busy with another task, and forgot to ensure that we had actually been dispatched.
So it doesn’t surprise me that there was an 8 minute delay between the 911 calls and the dispatch of emergency workers in this case. Then, it took police officers an additional 6 minutes to arrive. From the call to the arrival of the first responder was 14 minutes. Let’s say, for our purposes here, that this was where you and your family were enjoying some activity, and you were being faced with an attacker trying to kill you. He is armed with a machete, or a gun, or is setting your home on fire with a can of gasoline and a match. How much pain and destruction can he accomplish in 14 minutes?
The sheriff says that if they had properly recognized the danger, they could have shaved 10 minutes off that time. Even so, a lot can happen in four minutes.
THAT is why I own firearms. That is why I own fire extinguishers and wear my seat belt. You are responsible for your own safety. That 14 minutes can last the rest of your life.
Uncategorized
Irony
I find it ironic that Mike Church, a talk show host on Sirius/XM radio (a paid subscription radio service) this morning on his show, states that companies that don’t make any tangible thing (like Facebook, Sports, and other entertainment) are a waste of money. He then says that society can’t afford to have them, as we will run out of money as a society as we waste it on entertainment.
I don’t know if he has thought this through. After all, he doesn’t do anything, either. He is a political commentator. That means that he doesn’t make anything, all he does is comment on politics, which is another group of people who don’t produce anything.
Uncategorized
How I did it
In my last post, I talked about how I lost 70 pounds in just 5 months. It was pretty simple in concept. I went on the theory that type 2 diabetics (which I was becoming) are insulin resistant. This means that a low fat diet is not a good idea, because carbs are difficult for insulin resistant people to process in a healthy way, and tax a system that is already in disorder.
The problem:
The signs that diabetes was coming were there: over 40 years old, 50 inch waist, BMI of 42, high LDL (bad) cholesterol, low HDL (good) cholesterol, elevated triglycerides, high blood pressure, and the sudden appearance (within the past year) of skin tags around the neck and shoulders. (Skin tags are sometimes a sign of insulin resistance.) This was confirmed by an A1C of 6.6. A reading of 6.6 is a little high, and is technically on the low end of being diabetic.
If I wanted to not be a diabetic, I needed to lose weight and keep it off, and then I must learn to control my diet in a healthy and maintainable way. I decided that I needed to lose at least 100 pounds.
The solution, phase one:
I immediately gave up all starches and sugars, and the only carbs I am eating are vegetable fiber. So, I eat vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, cucumber (and pickles), olives, string beans, and other low carb vegetables. I stay away from nuts, peas, carrots, corn, potatoes, rice, wheat and grains of all kinds, all oils except olive oil, and no fruit.
I limit my eating of tomatoes, onions, and dairy products. I can eat meats, except I stay away from organ meats in order to avoid gout.
I can eat one dessert each day that uses alcohol sugars, and one Adkins bar in place of lunch. You also have to learn to only eat when you are hungry, not when you have an appetite. There is a difference.
I eat less than 30 carbs a day, most days less than 20.When counting carbs, do not count dietary fiber or alcohol sugars like splenda, because they do not affect insulin resistance and do not cause spikes in blood sugar. No alcoholic beverages.
A typical day for me goes like this:
6 a.m. Breakfast: Two sausage patties, two scrambled eggs with a tablespoon of salsa or chopped onion for flavor, and a large cup of coffee with two Splenda. Total carb count: 4
noon: An Adkins bar to hold off hunger pains. 3 carbs. Sometimes, I will instead have a salad of spinach, arugula, a small slice of onion, olives, cucumber slice, low carb ranch dressing. 4 carbs.
6 p.m. Dinner NY strip with steamed broccoli and cheese. Total carbs: 4
9 p.m. Snack: Jello no sugar added pudding cup. (They are sweetened with alcohol sugar. Banana fudge is my favorite.) 4 carbs
I drink 2-3 liters of water per day. Other than that one cup of coffee in the morning, that is all I drink.
Total carbs for the day: 15.
The results:
They kind of speak for themselves. I have lost 70 pounds since September, my waist is now 10 inches smaller, and my A1C is now normal. My BMI is now 34.
My ultimate goal is to weigh about 180 pounds, which I hope to see this summer.
In defending myself:
I am trying to avoid the fate of this guy, so: I am not a dietician. I am in school to be a licensed practitioner, but I am as of yet simply a paramedic. Although based in scientific fact, this site contains my opinions, and should not be taken as being medical advice. Nothing on this site is intended to be medical advice, and does not imply a provider-patient relationship. I am not your doctor. Do your own due diligence, and consult a professional if you have any health or diet related questions. This site is intended to chronicle my own success, and is not intended to assist you in diagnosing, treating, or managing any disorder or disease. The reader assumes all risk if attempting anything mentioned on this page.
Sucks that I have to put all of that, but that is our world now.
Uncategorized
Weight and health
I had my annual physical exam done back in September. When the blood work came back, it showed an A1C of 6.6. Anyone with an A1C of more than 6.5 is a diabetic, and the doctor said that they would have to confirm it with a second test before officially diagnosing me with that disease. She said that the early diagnosis of diabetes can sometimes be reversed if the patient were to lose 10-15% of their body weight.
That test result changed my life. I weighed a little over 300 pounds that day, 5 months ago. I changed my eating habits, and now I weigh 235 pounds, and I am still losing. I have lost 22% of my body weight, and I continue to lose about three pounds a week.
Last week, I got the results of my second A1C test back: it was a 5.8. I am hoping to be under 200 pounds by May. A 100 pound weight loss in 8 months. Incredible.
Uncategorized
Gut punch
So I retired from my jobs as a paramedic in November so that I could move several states away for the next two years, so I could return to school for my graduate degree. I packed up some of my favorite handguns and moved 1,200 miles. I now own a house in Florida, and rent an apartment a few miles from the school. I am a dual resident of two states, and maintain a house in both of them. I guess I am technically a snowbird.
One of the problems that this caused relates to the way that I packed my handguns. I guns into four padded Pelican cases. There were four 1911s, a pair of Sig 229s in Stainless, and a Beretta Tomcat in one case, and a Sig Mosquito and 3 Glocks in a second, an AR-15 in the third, and a Springfield M1A in the fourth. The problem is that the Pelican case is air tight, and I packed them in hot, humid Florida, and transported those cases to the cool, dry north.
Three weeks later, after finally getting settled in, I opened the locked cases, and it felt like I had been punched in the gut. The humid air trapped in the Pelican cases had condensed, and began corroding some of the guns. In the end, only two were damaged: The AR has some surface rust on the barrel which cleaned off with some work. The sad part was one of the 229s (the .357Sig) was rusted so badly that the takedown lever, mag release, and slide stop were all rusted in place. Apparently, the 229 Stainless doesn’t use as much stainless as I thought.
I took it to the gunsmith, and the guy behind the counter told me that my gun couldn’t possibly be stainless steel, because you can’t blue stainless. I tried to explain Nitron finishes to him, but he looked at me like I was stupid and told me that there is no way to blue stainless. I then asked him why it says “stainless” right on the slide, and then told him to hand me my gun back, because he is obviously not the guy I want working on my guns. It turns out he is only a helper, and the real gunsmith actually knows what he is doing. The total repair estimate on the Sig is about $400. Rebarreling the AR will be expensive, too.
Expensive lesson.
Uncategorized
The gun question
As you know if you have been reading this blog, I am in school to earn my Masters Degree and become a Physician Assistant. We were recently in a class on how to conduct an exam, and were talking about the questions that we are required to ask a patient. One of the questions that they said we are required to ask is whether or not they own a gun, and whether or not that gun is kept in a secure location. Then we should use this as an opportunity to talk to them about the dangers of having a firearm in the home. I spoke up and said that I did not feel like that was a valid medical question, and the answer that I got was that this was about safety.
I then pointed out that we shouldn’t stop there. After all, if this is about safety, why not ask them if they are gay, and of so, lecture them on the dangers of homosexual activity? Of course, the reaction I got was how inappropriate that was. I pointed out that more people die each year from AIDS than are murdered by firearms.
I then asked if I would be penalized in any way for refusing to participate in a politically charged topic like this. They relented, and I will not be penalized in any way for refusing to ask that question.
Uncategorized
“It just works”
“It just works” is the slogan of Apple’s products. The Apple fanboys will go on and on about how the idevices are virus and crash free. Now, I can tell you that I own a windows desktop, an iPad, and an iPhone. Until I bought my iPad last February and my iPhone in December, I had never before owned an Apple product, nor had I used one (with the exception of a former significant other’s machine). I had almost exclusively been a windows person. In fact, I had owned a windows machine (or three) since the days of Windows 3.0, when I bought an Intel 286 machine. We go way back.
So after a year of testing, how true is the claim? Not very. I use my iPad for note taking, and it occasionally needs a reboot. Some software compatibility issues require some tweaking, and there ARE viruses out there that affect Apple equipment. However, I have not had a virus on any machine that I have owned (including my Windows and Apple devices) in over ten years, mostly through some common sense web practices, despite not having any virus protection software running. (Spyware is a different story: but I eventually got a handle on that as well.)
With all of that said, the iPhone 4S is not my first smart phone, but it has been the best one I have had, and I have often wondered during the 2 months that I have had it how I ever got along without it. The iPad is great for taking notes during lectures (I use it to write directly on the Professor’s Powerpoint slides. There is an app that allows you to highlight, write notes, and mark up the slides on your iPad, using only your finger, but that is a post for another day.
So yes, Apple products are good, but bot the evolutionary leap forward that so many claim it is. They and Windows devices, IMO, are on par with each other.