Stress Test today

I made it through the stress today without any chest pains or discomfort. That is a good sign. I won’t get any results until tomorrow or Wednesday. Hopefully tomorrow. They injected me with radioactive dye for the chest exrays, which means I can’t hold Elias until tomorrow. Didn’t seem like a huge deal until I got home and couldn’t hold him.

Anyway, while I was waiting for the dye to work its way to my heart, I sat next to another guy in the waiting room. He is in his late 40’s and has had 7 heart attacks and 11 stents. After his 3rd heart attack, his doctor told him he only had 3 months to live unless he changed his lifestyle. He has done so dramatically, but that apparently couldn’t erase the 40+ years of poor health. He seems to be doing good, but has to endure quarterly stress tests. That is yet another eye-opening and motivating example of why my lifestyle has and will continue to change.

For those of you that are looking for “heart-healthy” meals for home, here is a fantastic list of sites:

Mayo Clinic (one of the best)
Delicious Decisions (recipes from the American Heart Association)
NHLBI (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute)

As for the education and exercise portion of rehab, determining your target heart rate for exercising the heart muscle is no longer just a matter of adding 30 beats per minute to your average. The formula for determining your maximum heart rate is 208 - (70% of your age). So, I’m 30, 70% of that number is 21. Subtract that from 208. 187 is my maximum heart rate. 65-85% of that number would be the target range. To make it easier, there is an online calculator here. The key to exercising the heart is working for 30-60 minutes while you are within your target heart rate range, allowing 5-10 minutes for warm-up and cool-down.

I’ve been walking on our treadmill for 45 minutes at 3.5 mph with a 3% grade. That brings my heart rate into the desired range for the right duration. Obviously, looking at these numbers, you can tell I’m out of shape :). As time goes on, those numbers will have to increase. As soon as I get the full go ahead from my Dr., I plan to start weight training as well.

Unfortunately for me, most people remember this stuff from their 8th grade health class. Apparently I slept through that series, because I didn’t know any of it. I had a good idea, but didn’t know any of the specifics.

Pimpin’ ain’t easy

My Dad drove the car for Senior Citizens of the year in the Corn Festival parade. As you can see by all the “bling” he is wearing and of course the sign on the side of the car, he is a member of the local Kiwanis club.

Elias digs bath time

Ben’s Health Update

Well… I’ve been on the mend now for roughly 5 weeks and am doing really well. I started cardiac rehab on the 28th of August and am doing just fine. I’ve stared working out in my basement on the treadmill every day and am on a pretty strict diet, which basically consists of:

• Little or no salt (sodium)
• As few calories as possible
• No cholesterol.

I am consuming on average 1200 mg of sodium and 1500-1700 calories daily. My doctors recommended I stay under 4000 mg of sodium and 2500 calories daily, which I am finding very easy to do with salt substitutes and no junk food. I’ve also completely wiped out caffeine from my diet which was a big step for me. Prior to my heart attack, I was drinking (4) 20 oz Diet Mt Dews before lunch and (4) 20 oz coffees after lunch. No wonder I didn’t sleep very well :). Needless to say, I suffered through a couple of days worth of headaches and am just fine now with water, flavored water, juice and one Diet Rite (0 caffeine/0 carbs/0 calories/0 sodium/very little taste) daily. So far the diet and exercise is doing the trick as I’ve lost about 25 lbs. It is also a huge help that Kami is involved in both the diet and exercise. We trade off working out and are both making heart-healthy meals. That definitely eases the pain of both diet and the exercise.

I have a stress test tomorrow morning (9/10) which will determine my progress and my return to work. I’m anticipating some restrictions with work, but at least I’ll be back. I’ve been getting a little stir crazy.

Thanks everyone for all of the cards, meals, thoughts and and prayers. I am a very lucky individual and feel blessed that my situation wasn’t worse. It has been a very eye-opening event in my life which has pointed me in the direction of a much healthier lifestyle.

Corn Festival 2007 (a.k.a. World’s Fair)

The Corn Festival was this last weekend and of course the wackos were coming out of the woodwork, but the kids still had fun.