Probiotics Pancreatitis Connection?

Faithful readers will remember that my brother was going to the hospital on New Year's Eve 2007 while I was making my resolution to walk and lose weight. My brother suffered from pancreatitis and weeks later a friend from church did, too.

Lime.com just alerted me to a New York Times article about a possible connection between probiotics and the severity of pancreatitis. That's my take on what I read. You can read it here.

Money Reward For Walking

Money as a reward gets the attention of a lot of people. I'm not offering you money for walking, but maybe I can help you see the reward part differently. I realize that for those of you who have been fairly inactive, walking or exercising more is more physical work than you've done in a while.

Unfortunately, one BIG reason to get your walking in is to avoid health problems. Or at least to lessen the possibility or intensity of those problems. I mentioned my brother had pancreatitis when I started this blog in January. Since then I found out that a friend of my son's dad had a heart attack and I think he's around 51 like my brother. He will recover, but it's still a big deal. Today I visited a friend from church in the hospital (who is also 51, coincidentally) and he was initially admitted for pancreatitis and then had a problem with a burst blood vessel. I can't promise that if you walk that these health problems won't happen to you, but I know being in better shape lessens the probability that you'll have certain problems. Plus, being in better shape can lessen the severity of what you're going through. I still remember how well my sister-in-law came through her pregnancy some years back when she was working out at the gym regularly. Being in such good shape helped with a smooth delivery and got her back on her feet much quicker.

How much does it cost to get sick? You can lose work days as my brother did. Most of us have to pay something when we go to the doctor or the hospital, even if we are insured. Those are real costs when they happen to you. (Come to think of it, they're real costs even when it's not you paying for them.) NOT having to pay those potential costs is itself a financial reward. Not missing work and pay is a reward. Maybe you prefer to think of those scenarios as punishments. If that's the case, you're increasing your chances of NOT being punished by walking. I realize that this point of view isn't sexy or exciting or wow, but it's a real and legitimate way to view one of the rewards of walking or otherwise exercising and getting/staying in shape. Maybe I'll be more exciting next time. I know I'll be walking.

I am walking. You can walk. Please walk today. No matter what.

The scale and the hospital

This morning I stepped on the scale and it read 123.9. Not pounds - kilos.

One challenge that you might face in being more active is eating more if you're not paying attention. I think that's what I did this week, because last week I weighed 123.2, so i gained .7 kilos. To convert to pounds, multiply by 2.2, so my .7 gain converts to 1.54 pounds. Is it possible that I have built one and a half pounds of extra muscle that I didn't have last week? That's probably not it, though I did walk over 25 miles. So be forewarned, don't eat extra food when you add more exercise.

My health goals/resolutions are to lose 50 pounds of fat and gain 10 pounds of muscle by December 31, 2008. I still have 51 weeks, but now I need to lose 51.54 pounds. Still, that's just a smidgen over 1 pound a week and totally doable.

I'm grateful I can get out and walk. I urge you to reflect on your ability to walk and get out and walk now. Today I found out that my brother went back to the hospital Saturday for 11 hours and then was sent home. He saw a doctor this week who told him to get back in the hospital and Marianne and I visited him there this afternoon. They are not 100% sure what's going on, though they suspect his pancreas is infected in addition to the pancreatitis. He seems in better spirits, but the pain is still there. I have the sense that if the CIA harnessed pancreatitis, they could use it as an "enhanced interrogation" technique. This is not fun stuff and we all make choices that could help us avoid this outcome. You can do what it takes to get healthier. We can do it together. We must.

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Click on the title of this post to see a device we started using at home to stop paying phone bills. We use OOMA to get phone service that actually sounds like a normal phone through the internet. We paid for the main hub, which looks like an answering machine, and a scout device which allows us to have two lines with one phone number. In my opinion, that's a lot better than just having call waiting. We got our last phone bill for December and now we call in the U.S. for free. What a great deal if you still use a non-mobile phone.

Pushing four miles before dinner

This is day seven of my walking new year. Nearly four miles walked and the sun hasn't gone down yet. Tomorrow I look at the scale and no matter the result, I still have 51 more weeks to go in 2008. How did I get started down this path?

I just decided that I really need to make health more of a priority and walking is something 99% of us can do. So, if I can do it, you can do it, too. I sit a lot and I can feel a huge difference because I'm getting up and walking at least a few times a day. Maybe that's my metabolism getting in gear...

I also know that I'm about 90 lbs. heavier than I was when I met my honey, Marianne, in the 80's. I thought of myself as "husky" from a fairly young age. I don't think you could call me slender after about second grade, but that husky label was a disservice. Even wrestling my freshman year in high school I thought of myself that way, but really, that wasn't close to where I'm at now and many people probably thought I was in fine shape. I kept thinking of myself as heavy until I made it really come true.

Our son, Stuart, will be in college in August or September of 2009 and it will be great to be in much better shape by the time he graduates from high school. We've talked about him being an old man and me being an old, old man in our rocking chairs someday and I would like to be there when that happens.

While I was thinking about New Year's resolutions, my brother was going to the hospital late New Year's Eve with pancreatitis and he was there for days. He's only 51, but he was in incredible pain. I know he can do better, but he'll have to restrict his diet and at least walk on a regular basis. No beer for a long time, if ever, if he wants to make sure that pain doesn't come back. I'm almost 45 and I want to be in a lot better shape when I get to 46, let alone 51.

My honey wants me to be around for a long time, too. And, as someone who enjoys public speaking, this journey will give me more to talk about. Last but not least, I do care about people having better lives, so if I can write about this and some of you find it encouraging enough to make positive changes in your lives, I'm doing more of what I'm supposed to do while I'm here.

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Starting with this post, I'll include a link that I find important or interesting "underneath" the title of the post. Take a peek or ignore it - your choice. Click today to find one of the most important designers in the world. William McDonough is helping us design a more living, livable and lasting world. He's also involved with the Make It Right Foundation, which is helping New Orleans build houses the right way for a healthier planet.