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In the Spring of 2004 I was flying my Apache AH-64 Attack Helicopter on a routine recon ("snoop & shoot") run over Fallujah when a teenage Taliban member got off a lucky shot with his RPG and clipped my tail rotor. I was flying at an alititude of about 300 feet when he nicked me and I auto-rotated down into the foothills, hitting ground at around 30 mph.
My co-pilot and I both survived (obviously) but I broke both ankles and crushed three disks in my lower back. I was in the hospital for five weeks and did physical therapy for two years. previous to the crash I was a good athlete, playing lacrosse and swimming in college, and I was a marathon runner.
My rehab doctor told me to forget about running, maybe just do something low impact like swimming.
Two years to the day after my crash I ran the 26-mile Dallas Marathon in just under four hours.
Last edited by Chopper_Guy; 12-28-2011 at 05:25 PM..
In the Spring of 2004 I was flying my Apache AH-64 Attack Helicopter on a routine recon ("snoop & shoot") run over Fallujah when a teenage Taliban member got off a lucky shot with his RPG and clipped my tail rotor. I was flying at an alititude of about 300 feet when he nicked me and I auto-rotated down into the foothills, hitting ground at around 30 mph.
My co-pilot and I both survived (obviously) but I broke both ankles and crushed three disks in my lower back. I was in the hospital for five weeks and did physical therapy for two years. previous to the crash I was a good athlete, playing lacrosse and swimming in college, and I was a marathon runner.
My rehab doctor told me to forget about running, maybe just do something low impact like swimming.
Two years to the day after my crash I ran the 26-mile Dallas Marathon in just under four hours.
Wow man, thats an awesome story. Kuddos to you for defying the odds and making your Doc eat his/her words, very inspiring. Thanks for sharing.
My husband is a Marine and he has a saying that I live by daily when I run and push myself:
Pain is weakness leaving the body lolol
I workout to improve my health and fitness level. I am doing it to make my later life improved health wise. What we do now will adversely effect us at an older age. Plus, I look at the epidemic that has this country by the b*lls.. obesity. I do not want any part of that, or the health risks associated with it.
I started working out with weights and cardio back in 1998 at the age of 26. Then, in 2003, I married and took a 7 year hiatus from it. Last year, with problems starting to rear their ugly heads (severe acid reflux, back problems, knee problems, shortness of breath, and this was with me being about 30 lbs overweight). Then, I took it upon myself to lose 70 lbs (actually getting underweight for a short time), and now I am at the weight I want to be at, while doing some body building. I feel and look great, better than I ever have. It is a LIFESTYLE change, something I will do the rest of my life. I just hope others that begin their program view it in the same light.
My program started out with LOTS of cardio, and some weight training. My focus has changed some, and now am trying to build up the muscle more, with mild cardio to keep fat ratios down. I also maintain a good diet, with the main rules of thumb being:
1.) NO High Fruitcose Corn Syrups (this includes staying AWAY from sodas, diet sodas included! Just think, NO SODAS PERIOD! I still drink coffee though in the mornings.)
2.) Very little to NO Enriched Bleach Flour (I eat whole wheat, no buns on burgers, etc)
3.) Very little to NO fried things!
By doing these things, I keep a balanced diet, and can focus on more muscle developement, which I have come a LONG way with!
My story is that I love physical activity and always have, but not in a jock way. Have loved bicycling since I was a kid and still enjoy it, forty years later. The gym is my friend and I work out 4-5 times a week. I'm a high-strung type, and exercise calms me down so I can sleep..as does a yoga practice. Walking I love--especially on trails through the woods or on the beach. Miss the skiing we used to do, but now in coastal NC, so that's gone by the wayside.
A strong belief I hold is that "food is your medicine and medicine is your food" and I've read widely to find the best possible way of eating. For me, that has evolved into whole grains, vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts and some occasional animal protein. Little red meat, but poultry such as skinless breasts and ground turkey. And once in a while, a pork chop or bacon with breakfast--maybe monthly.
Cooking from scratch is my daily habit and I most love home-made soups and complex salads.
Got my sweet tooth under control, but the hardest of all eating lesson to learn is portion control. Practice, practice on this one for me.
These habits have kept my weight within ten pounds of high school weight and my health pretty much tip top, other than the normal creaks and minor aches that come from aging.
Guess I think healthy eating and exercise are habits we chose to acquire--or not. I try not to judge others, but just wish they could realize that health is withing their grasp. I wish everyone could feel well and vibrant.
Played Soccer my whole life since I was 5 until I graduated High School. Once I left high school to go to college, I still remained active for a year or two. After my Sophomore year of College, my weight started to climb. Drinking and late night eating does not do the body any good. Anyway, graduated college at around 235 lb, 6"1' tall. It stayed around there for a couple of years until recently. I got a new job and am not sick and tired of not being fit. I am working towards change, and its been more wonderful than I could imagine.
P.S. I used to LOVE food. My dependency on food outside of just surviving is slowly being broken.
Growing up I was always the pudgy kid but I wasn't really out of shape. I ran faster than most and I played lots of sports, just pudgy is all. I was never super coordinated so I wasn't really that good at any one sport, but I was always the kid who gave 110% no matter what. Once I was done growing toward the end of high school I evened out at about 5'10.5" and 175 lb. I was "solid" but not overweight. I held steady until my Junior year of college. I had to leave town for an internship over the summer and decided to dedicate myself to my own fitness while I was away. When I came back I was the same height and weight but looked like an athlete instead of an average joe. Eventually the return to school caused me to even out and maintain being in "decent shape" for a while.
I was in "decent shape" for a couple years, until about 10 months ago. My now fiancee had been diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma. I was working 50-70 hours every week and would spend every single moment outside of work by her side. Many days I'd have to fight traffic and make an hour long drive out to her parents' house after working a 12 hour day (she stayed there during chemo weeks so she wouldn't be alone at her apartment all day). Let me tell you, sitting at a desk 12 hours a day, followed by several hours in the car, an hour or two on the couch with a sick girlfriend, and irregular eating is NOT good for your fitness level. I barely slept, ate a ton, and got no physical activity at all. The very very few times I'd ever get to the gym I'd feel terrible about spending the time there instead of by her side.
So here I am at 25 years old, 5' 10.5", 185 lb. My now-fiancee is 5 months into remission, the celebrating has died down, and we're both getting back to the gym regularly. My goal is not necessarily to get back down to 175, but simply to look better and feel better. I'm already on my way and getting closer to my goal every day. There's only one thing about the last 10 months I would change, and that would be the cancer part. Since no one among us could've changed that, then I would do everything else again without question. No regrets whatsoever.
I've always been on the bigger side. In middle school, I was 5'5 and weighed 160 while playing softball and basketball in their respective seasons, as well as training several times a week in martial arts. The weight seemed to keep creeping up, and by the time I was in college, I weighed over 180 despite playing sports and eating relatively healthy (although of course that could have been improved). Now we know that I had PCOS during this time that threw my blood sugar and hormones all kinds of out of whack.
In college, I started having some health issues and was given steroids to help control it. I could easily gain 20 pounds in a month, and only have 10 pounds of that drop off after my steroid course was over. Finally in my senior year of college, I had to walk 4 miles round trip to my internship 3 days a week and that helped weight drop off in conjunction with working out in the gym. Still, I was "down" to about 200 when I graduated.
Then I was diagnosed with Stage IV Hodgkin's lymphoma 4 months after starting my first job (around 6 months after graduating from college). Suddenly all the seemingly disparate health issues made sense and the increasing fatigue I had felt over the past 4 years was clearly not all in my head. My oncologist suspects that I had tumors growing at least since I was 18 (was diagnosed at 23), but perhaps even longer. Because I had no financial or other help from family, I had to work full time through chemo on top of doing all of my own cooking, cleaning, etc with a 2 hour commute. I moved the same week I was diagnosed and had hoped to take the commuter rail from my new apartment, but was quickly banned from public transportation both due to the germs and my lack of energy level. In 6 months of treatment, I gained about 60 pounds. By the time treatment ended a year ago, I couldn't even lift the trash bag to take the trash out and there were days where I had to climb on my hands and knees up the 3 flights of stairs to my apartment and office.
During treatment and even after, I ate horribly. I watched every cent of my savings drain and got credit card debt for the first time in my life. I ate a whole lot of pasta and ramen noodles because it was cheap, easy on my mouth and stomach, and simple to make. Because of the way chemo changes your taste, I found it really hard to eat vegetables (plus all of my vegetables had to be cooked - no salads, no carrot sticks to nibble on, nothing). I found myself eating ice cream as almost a whole other food group because it helped soothe the sores in my mouth and throat. Unfortunately, when you're on your own through treatment, good food is one of the first things to go.
I recently did a rock climbing trip with an organization called First Descents that does adventure therapy for young adult cancer survivors. Being able to haul all 260 pounds of me up a cliff in the middle of the Catskills a year into remission totally changed my life and changed the way I think about what I can and can't do. Since then, I've started a spinning class and work out for 45 minutes most days on either a stationary bike or an elliptical. I recently won a scholarship to continue rock climbing indoors, but it doesn't kick in for a few more months and I want to try to lose some weight before I'm back on the rock.
It's still a really difficult journey. I deal with a lot of pain in my bones and from where I had tumors and lesions. My lungs and heart are damaged - so while cardio is really good, it takes barely any effort to jump my heart rate into dangerous levels. I have to be VERY careful. Gaining so much weight so quickly made my joints all funky, so I don't run and even walking long distances can be tough. The neuropathy in my feet means that if I cycle for more than 10 minutes, my feet go both numb and feel like someone is jabbing an ice pick through them (weird feeling!). I also often lose feeling in my fingers as well. I'm also very anemic despite eating spinach at pretty much every meal (even breakfast!) and taking iron pills. Through all of this, I have to keep pushing on. I have no idea if I will recover from some of these, or to what level, or how long it takes.
So next time you see a fat person in the gym doing an "easy" work out - give them a break. You have no idea what they have been through or what their bodies are dealing with beyond being fat!
In the Spring of 2004 I was flying my Apache AH-64 Attack Helicopter on a routine recon ("snoop & shoot") run over Fallujah when a teenage Taliban member got off a lucky shot with his RPG and clipped my tail rotor..
Fallujah is in Iraq. The Taliban is in Afghanistan.
My fitness journey is a long one so I will sum it up. I woke up one morning, looked in the mirror, and was disgusted by how I had let myself go. Weight training and exercising is as natural to me now as breating is.
I will never let that self-disgust enter into my mind again.
I've always been on the bigger side. In middle school, I was 5'5 and weighed 160 while playing softball and basketball in their respective seasons, as well as training several times a week in martial arts. The weight seemed to keep creeping up, and by the time I was in college, I weighed over 180 despite playing sports and eating relatively healthy (although of course that could have been improved). Now we know that I had PCOS during this time that threw my blood sugar and hormones all kinds of out of whack.
In college, I started having some health issues and was given steroids to help control it. I could easily gain 20 pounds in a month, and only have 10 pounds of that drop off after my steroid course was over. Finally in my senior year of college, I had to walk 4 miles round trip to my internship 3 days a week and that helped weight drop off in conjunction with working out in the gym. Still, I was "down" to about 200 when I graduated.
Then I was diagnosed with Stage IV Hodgkin's lymphoma 4 months after starting my first job (around 6 months after graduating from college). Suddenly all the seemingly disparate health issues made sense and the increasing fatigue I had felt over the past 4 years was clearly not all in my head. My oncologist suspects that I had tumors growing at least since I was 18 (was diagnosed at 23), but perhaps even longer. Because I had no financial or other help from family, I had to work full time through chemo on top of doing all of my own cooking, cleaning, etc with a 2 hour commute. I moved the same week I was diagnosed and had hoped to take the commuter rail from my new apartment, but was quickly banned from public transportation both due to the germs and my lack of energy level. In 6 months of treatment, I gained about 60 pounds. By the time treatment ended a year ago, I couldn't even lift the trash bag to take the trash out and there were days where I had to climb on my hands and knees up the 3 flights of stairs to my apartment and office.
During treatment and even after, I ate horribly. I watched every cent of my savings drain and got credit card debt for the first time in my life. I ate a whole lot of pasta and ramen noodles because it was cheap, easy on my mouth and stomach, and simple to make. Because of the way chemo changes your taste, I found it really hard to eat vegetables (plus all of my vegetables had to be cooked - no salads, no carrot sticks to nibble on, nothing). I found myself eating ice cream as almost a whole other food group because it helped soothe the sores in my mouth and throat. Unfortunately, when you're on your own through treatment, good food is one of the first things to go.
I recently did a rock climbing trip with an organization called First Descents that does adventure therapy for young adult cancer survivors. Being able to haul all 260 pounds of me up a cliff in the middle of the Catskills a year into remission totally changed my life and changed the way I think about what I can and can't do. Since then, I've started a spinning class and work out for 45 minutes most days on either a stationary bike or an elliptical. I recently won a scholarship to continue rock climbing indoors, but it doesn't kick in for a few more months and I want to try to lose some weight before I'm back on the rock.
It's still a really difficult journey. I deal with a lot of pain in my bones and from where I had tumors and lesions. My lungs and heart are damaged - so while cardio is really good, it takes barely any effort to jump my heart rate into dangerous levels. I have to be VERY careful. Gaining so much weight so quickly made my joints all funky, so I don't run and even walking long distances can be tough. The neuropathy in my feet means that if I cycle for more than 10 minutes, my feet go both numb and feel like someone is jabbing an ice pick through them (weird feeling!). I also often lose feeling in my fingers as well. I'm also very anemic despite eating spinach at pretty much every meal (even breakfast!) and taking iron pills. Through all of this, I have to keep pushing on. I have no idea if I will recover from some of these, or to what level, or how long it takes.
So next time you see a fat person in the gym doing an "easy" work out - give them a break. You have no idea what they have been through or what their bodies are dealing with beyond being fat!
Wow, you have been through a lot! I wish you the best of luck on the rest of your journey and send you hugs and positive vibes.
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