Hope of Deliverance

A couple of years back I signed up for the health insurance that requires you to do an assessment (questionnaire or biometric screening) in order to qualify. At the end of the inquisition, it gives you your "Effective Age"--how old your body is in terms of the damage (or lack thereof) you've inflicted upon it. At the time, I was a smoker (& a joker, but at that point in time no longer a midnight toker), I was overweight, I was "pre-diabetic" (when that designation still existed; as I understand it, it's diabetes all the way down now), I wasn't exercising, I wasn't sleeping well, & I was suicidally depressed. And my cholesterol was pretty high, too. So I shouldn't have been (but was) shocked when the questionnaire told me that my Effective Age was 69. As in You Can Expect to Be Dead Pretty Soon. (No hyperbole there: the KENTUCKY LIFE EXPECTANCY MALE 1  for Jefferson Country, Kentucky 2  is 73.7 years.) I wasn't looking forward to being dead in a few years, so I did what most people would do in such a situation: I denied it, ignored it, and went along with my life. Though I did quit smoking. But to be honest, that was mostly just because as an early retired teacher I didn't have much money to spare, plus I didn't want to pay the extra $40 a month for Smoker's Brand Health Insurance. And I'm not a dishonest guy. So.

But in the past little while things have changed for me a bit. During a visit to the doctor for something or other, the weigh-in (fully clothed and with shoes, I must say) said I was 276 pounds. And (having been married twice) though I am an expert at denial, even I had to face up to the fact that that was fat. Really, . Like Kingpin Fat. ("I'm 300 pounds of solid muscle!" 3) So I got really depressed about it and went back home and went back into denial for awhile, but eventually I decided to do something about it.

I didn't want to change my (bad) eating habits, though, so I just started exercising, riding my bike up to fifty (maybe more) miles a week. And I lost a little bit of weight. But not enough to even begin to nudge me out of the Obese category. And not enough to put a dent in my abysmal Effective Age.

And then three months ago I got sick for a couple of days and decided that that was it, I was going to lose some serious fat. And I went online and found a thing that told me how many calories I could have per day and lose weight, and I made my goal to be at 200 pounds by September. The calculator told me that I could meet that goal if I had 1773 calories per day and if I had moderate exercise to go with it. So I started in on it.

And yesterday I went back to my latest health questionnaire and changed my weight to my current number--222 pounds (admittedly without clothes, but hey, you've got to take every advantage you can, right?). And My Effective Age (now known as My GO365 AGE) had changed:

So it took four years (and three months), but I gained five years of life. Which really means that I've gained almost ten years of life. And I'm not done yet.

So turns out that there was hope after all. I just had to start thinking that it was Out There.

More details as they happen.





 1  worldlifeexpectancy.com
2   Now that is some specific shit, ennit? Welcome to the 21st Century, man.
3  Dialogue from The Amazing Spider-Man: A Rockomic!, a Must Have Item for all of you Webheaded Strangers out there.