Regarding fasting.... I met a guy one time that had spent a career in the USAF as a dietitian and he remarked something about how his pension changed the next year because of his Social Security kicking in. I said "Hell dude, how old are you?", he looked to be in his early forties, truly. He told me 59. I asked him what his secret was. Guess the answer. He was a die hard faster. I forget the exact numbers but it was like 2 days a week and one 5 day stretch a month (??).... Who knows, it could have just been genetics. I do have an on topic question here.... my latest flame told me I should get an exercise ball and sit on it since I sit on my ass all day and watch stocks. She said it would be better than a chair. Is that true? Sittins' sittin imo.
Very sorry to hear about your episode. Please keep us posted, and let us know what your doctor thinks brought this about. I'm sure you'll tell your cardiologist the exact nature and scope of your workout (and dietary) regimen. As an aside, you may wish to ask him something that I would also like confirmed by a cardiologist. In the book Body By Science, the author, an MD, wrote that weight training is generally safer and better for the heart because of Starling's law of the heart and venous return. Simply stated, and if I understand it correctly, training with weights helps the muscles pump back blood to the heart which it needs to pump out because of increased demands placed on it. "Cardio," on the other hand, does not work the muscles in a manner that produces as much venous return. It's worth bringing up as you two decide what is best for you going forward.
Still breathing. Was released yesterday and currently feeling just dandy. I was in a local hospital and will now go to my regular providers at the University of Chicago. Have a meeting with a cardiologist next Monday. In regards to exercising the doctor(s) I spoke with at the local hospital said it was okay to do some very mild workouts, but the prudent thing to do would be to wait until I saw the cardiologist next week, do a stress test, echocardiogram, and wear a heart monitor for awhile. I will do something completely out of the ordinary for thick sculled dummies like me. I'll do the prudent thing and layoff for a week. I have done some reading and there is life and a gym life for people with Afib, but it takes some getting used to and finding individual limitations. One thing does seem to be a common belief, which goes to what Fred was pointing out, hard cardio is probably a thing of the past for me. Really heavy lifts also seem to be a no-no, but I haven't been lifting really heavy anyway. Seems it'll be a slower pace at the gym for me, longer periods between sets, and more weights than hard cardio. Good-bye Wall Ball and Kettle Bells. I'll let you guys know more as this develops. I will say this. Laying in that ER with my heart pounding at 190, trouble breathing, head spinning and a bunch of concerned looking medical people hovering over me, I wasn't thinking about anything except living. Just living. All the chicken shit issues became very right sized, and did so right quick. Not that I was really close to death, it just felt like it.
Hi Cap'n, good to have you back! Taking time off until you guys figure out what's what certainly seems like the right thing to do. If I may suggest, going forward, be sure that you and your cardiologist are on the same page. For example, you referred to "heavy lifts." I'm not sure what that means, exactly, because that could be high intensity or something short of it, depending on where you stop. A workout can he very high intensity with only moderate weights if you go to absolute failure. You get my point. So I'm wondering if maybe it is the intensity that is the key as you and your doc decide what's right for you. Your post prompted me to glance through the follow-up book to Body By Science by the same authors, the BBS Question and Answer Book. It has a section on special needs and includes a discussion on post-coronary rehabilitation. Not that this applies directly to you, of course, but it might be worth your while to at least leaf through those 15 pages or so of the book at your local bookstore. (It starts on page 94.) Whatever you guys decide, I think it might give you and your doc some worthwhile points to discuss. I hope everything works out okay.
^ Thanks, I'll take a look at that book. Just as a general heads up. Listen to your body and be honest with yourself and your doctor. Truth is I've been living with this for months and trying to convince myself it was just the normal aging process. When you hit a wall, find yourself feeling light headed and terribly fatigued hours after your workout, feeling out of gas even on "rest" days, and it goes on for weeks, something is wrong. If you find yourself suddenly, operative word suddenly, having to work much harder and not achieving the same already set and passed goals, get your ass to a doctor.
Apart from any medical issue you may have, which is fortunately now being addressed, I think you are also describing some symptoms of overtraining. I don't know how hard your workouts are, but I do recall there are plenty of them during the course of a week. As we get older, we can still hammer out quality workouts, but they may need to be briefer and definitely spaced farther apart to accommodate our reduced recovery ability, otherwise we risk overtraining. But it looked to me as though you were upping the ante; you were working out a lot. Also, there was talk about intermittent fasting and working out in a fasted state (when your blood sugar level is low), which only adds to systemic stress. In retrospect, perhaps you were piling it on a bit too much all at once. I hope you bring all of this up with your doctor.
I'm afraid you are correct. I have all the symptoms of over training. Restless sleep, anxiety, chronic fatigue, emotional distress, etc., etc. I have always prided myself on being tough enough to take it. What's that saying about pride coming before the fall? Seems to fit. This is going to take awhile to get past. Frankly, I'm a wreck.
On the plus side, that part is easy to correct. I'm all for a hard workout. They're the only kind I know. But to paraphrase Arthur Jones, rather than trying to find out how much exercise you can tolerate, you should try to determine the minimum amount of exercise you actually need to achieve your desired outcome.
The vagus nerve. Recent events have had me doing lots of research and this nerve is central to a whole host of things going on in our body and mind. It's well worth your time to give this a look. Just to get you started. I'm in day one of breathing and cold water face immersion type control. http://mentalfloss.com/article/65710/9-nervy-facts-about-vagus-nerve http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-4386/A-Simple-Breathing-Exercise-to-Calm-Your-Mind-Body.html http://www.newsmax.com/Health/Headl...e-stimulation-brainstem/2014/09/15/id/594746/