Two Weeks After My Stroke

Wow. I’ve never been more motivated to put exactly the right stuff into my body. Perfect nutrition for two weeks - well 12 days at least since I was in the hospital for 2 days, one day on an IV drip and one day heating healthy? hospital food. I’ve more or less eliminated saturated fat from my diet. No soda whatsoever. LOW SODIUM (very important). No candy, junk food, fast food, comfort food - lots of salads, fish, chicken, nuts, berries - oat bran cereal with non-fat milk for breakfast. I still have a double espresso everyday but no added sugar - I’m not even using the agave sweetener which tastes pretty good - just a sprinkle of cinnamon powder. I can already tell - diet is a HUGE part of feeling GREAT!

During week one, I walked every day, generally twice a day by the end of the week and rode my bike once. Did some very short (50m to 100m) jogging to get my heart up a bit - 130 max during week one and only one day. The balance of the week was all under 115 BPM. Yes, I did buy a heart monitor and I’ve been using it on all my workouts. My blood pressure dropped consistently every day during week one - from 145/115 when I left the hospital to 115/80 by the end of week one.

During week two, I walked a couple times, biked a couple times and lifted weights twice. My strength is 100% of my pre-stroke strength but my muscles are slightly more sore than normal. This is a key side effect of taking Lipitor, the standard statin drug for lowering cholesterol. My bike rides this week were nice a steady in the 65-75% aerobic range with short hills in the 80-85% range - for me, that’s 110-130 bpm and 140-150 bpm.

I think it’s important to look back at the most likely cause of my stroke - poor diet, stress from work, high blood pressure, lack of exercise. Understanding and controlling these issues is key in getting things back on track and making permanent lifestyle changes. It should be easy, but it never is. I’m slightly more motivated because I don’t want to die or lose any mental or physical abilities - it’s kind of like someone whacking you across the face and saying, "Do this or else." Awesome!

I’ll celebrate the two week anniversary of my stroke at 10:10am this morning, riding my bike on a beautiful sunny morning with one of my friends.