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As some of you may know, I’ve been reading the book The 4-Hour Body, by Timothy Ferriss (ala The 4-Hour Work Week fame) and I have decided to get healthy and follow his research-based recommendations to eat healthy and loose weight. (eliminate crap carbs, eat plenty of quality veggies, animals, and legumes). I previously read his 4-Hour Work Week book, and while it sounds great, I didn’t think it was very realistic for me (or most people for that matter). But his recommendations in his new book are quite realistic.

I especially like the alternative to conventional wisdom he presents (based on clinical research) on how Insulin affects fat storage and weight loss, more-so than Calories. To augment what I am learning from this book, I’ve started reading The Primal Blueprint (written by the guy behing Mark’s Daily Apple) which goes into a great more detail on body chemistry and how certain foods affect your chemistry and longterm weight gain, or loss. Like, for instance, did you know that Cholesterol, by itself, may not be all that bad?

“Excessive insulin is also now believed to be a central catalyst in the development of atherosclerosis. Insulin promotes platelet adhesiveness (sticky platelets clot more readily) and the conversion of macrophages (a type of white blood cell) into foam cells, which are the cells that fill with cholesterol and accumulate in arterial walls.” from The Primal Blueprint, Kindle location 1912

The biggest thing I’ve learned from these two books (they really complement each other) is how Grains, both processed and unprocessed, aren’t as healthy as we have been lead to believe.

I began my “eating habits change” (I don’t want to call this a “diet” – because of the connotations associated with the term and high rate of failure) 2 weeks ago and have already seen and felt results. I am down almost 6kgs (at least, before yesterday’s cheat day!). I’ll happily stick with this and see how far I can go. My goal: 30 kgs of body fat in 6 months.

Each day I feel a more consistant amount of energy throughout the day – most likely a result of bringing my blood glucose/insulin levels into more consistant levels with the sharp reduction of crap carb intake during the day. (Oh and an elimination of weekday beers).

This is some of the awesome healthy stuff I’ve been eating:

Sadly, I’ve had to give up some of the stuff I have grown to love: Bread, potatoes, deepfried breaded foods, sugary stuff, and beer (at least for 6 days of the week). But, It really isn’t that hard – healthy stuff, much to my surprise, can actually taste excellent!

I hope to continue writing entries in this blog to detail my progress and what I am doing to support said progress. Until Next time…

My Toastmasters group had a social gathering yesterday, and this time, we did something healthy (as opposed to eat and drink like we do at the Linux group, j/k), we played Badminton.

I was playing fine, probably overexerting myself at times, but all in all, was having a good time.

But then, the birdie was launched way back and I ran back to get it, of course missed.  As I landed on my right foot, I immediately knew I landed on it improperly as I felt some pain and had trouble stopping myself.  I didn’t fall to the ground luckily, as that would have been quite embarrassing!  But I did have to limp back to the seats.

Sitting, there wasn’t much pain.  Once I put pressure on my foot, major pain.  Was very difficult to walk.  Instead of going to dinner with the others, Melanie insisted I go to the hospital and get it checked out.

After a 5 minute wait, saw the doctor, he had me get some x-rays taken.  Turns out I fractured the #5 Metatarsus, the small bone on the outside of the foot leading to the small tow (number 4 in the image below, far right bone).

The doctor said I probably didn’t need a cast – he scheduled a followup for me on Monday with an Orthopedic doctor for the final decision. Ugh.

So now, I’m stuck on crutches at least 2 weeks (prob. more), and the doctor says it will take at about 8 weeks to heal fully – so I’ll need to be careful when walking not to put too much pressure on the foot.

A couple of days ago, I woke up to find my left leg incredibly swelled and red, with mild pain.  It seems the pocket of liquid (that I have lived with for almost 2 years) was getting fuller as well!

It seems to be related to the car collision I was involved with back in 2006.  A little background, after “healing” from that incident, a pocket of liquid remained in front of my Tibia (shinbone) below the knee. After about 9 months of no change (no pain, no increase or decrease of fluid, just annoyance of being there), I went to see a doctor and then a leg and angle specialist.  The specialist told me I probably didn’t need to worry about it and that we could drain the fluid now – there would be a chance that the liquid would come back after a while.  If it did, I shouldn’t worry.  Well, it did a few days/weeks later – again, no pain, etc.

Fast-forward to a few days ago when I woke up to this mess:

I went to the emergency room at Beijing United Family Hospital to get this looked at. (The pic above is of what it looked like yesterday (Tuesday) in the emergency room after the Doctor drew a hashed line around the redness (infection) and solid line around the pocket of fluid (that was much bigger than usual).

Diagnosis as of yesterday: pretty advanced infection.

I was put on a every 8-hour penicillin IV to work on the infection (as of this point, I already had 4 doses.)

I went to the doctor again today (this time to see the chief of surgery).  The redness did retreat a bit from yesterday (after 3 dosses of IV penicillin).  The doctor recommended 6 more doses (spread over the next 3 days, one in morning 7am, one in afternoon, 3pm) and oral penicillin in the evenings before bed.

I asked the surgeon about draining the fluid as I feld it was stretching the skin, causing most of the pain.  He said that wouldn’t be a good idea as by poking a hole through the infected layer with a needle into the fluid sack would cause the fluid to become infected, which would make the situation much worse and more complicated.  So we agreed to wait until the infection was taken care of by the penicillin before we discuss next options.

Lucky me.

I should have posted about this 2 weeks ago, but… As you see from the photo, Fred, Pockey, and I are sporting the brand new face masks brought to China by the BLUG’s very own Pollution Expert, Julien.

If you’re interested in getting one, check out his Website at http://www.pollution-china.com! (specifically here)

For the 3 or so weeks I’ve been using it, I have already noticed a great improvement in my breathing and less irritation in my lungs.