(Getting out of God’s waiting room)

‘Feeling your age?’ Who the hell said that? Are we supposed to know how it feels to be 50, 60, 70 or even 80 years old? No, there are no laws regarding how we feel, we simply feel fit… or fit to drop.
So, if we are in the fit to drop brigade, and we are happy in God’s waiting room then read no more… go away quietly and wait to die.
On the other hand, if you are tired of feeling exhausted and you would like to see your genitals again without the aid of a mirror… read on.
How is your general health and feel good factor? Before you answer, just sit down with a pen and paper and jot down the things you are not happy with about your general appearance and how things are not quite working for you. You know, things like dribbling down below; agonising in case you don’t make it to the toilet in time, and when you do get there you have to straddle the bowl or sit on it because you no longer have a good arc of pee (urine).
As you have probably gathered, this is an article for mature gentlemen; retirees with time on their hands, possibly confused men, bewildered at being told to act their age. But read on Missus, you will also gain from these pages, especially if you support and enthuse with your man and maybe join him in some of the activities. You will certainly spend less time slaving over a hot stove if you do.
Okay, so you are not happy with your waistline; your neck hangs over your shirt collar, you can’t see it but your back is larded with fat, your pectoral muscles are pouches of blubber and when you sit on your big fat backside your outsized buttocks squash your haemorrhoids, causing great discomfort. You can hardly put your socks on and you’ve bought slip on casual shoes because you can’t lace up your brogues.
How are you doing with that list of unhappiness? What! You’re out of breath just writing it! Okay, you know you are in the rundown; the final chapter, the last gasp, le commencement de la fin. Welcome to God’s waiting room!
You do not want to be here do you; you really are unhappy and deep down you know the cavalier attitude you show the outside world is a false portrayal of the chaos within; but what to do?
Prepare for change; that is what you do. And the first thing you prepare is your mind: mindset; attitude, desire and the will to live. Savour these words for you will need them in your hours of need should you heed my words. For there will be hours of need.
Just like the baby in the womb you will strive to live for nine months in order to be a born again evergreen, an avant-garde grandfather. Nine months of drastic change in order to emerge from the womb of life a reborn, a renovated man.
Picture in your mind’s eye how you would like to be: slim; alert, sharp and in the pink. Restored to robust health and recalled to life. No more painful piles (haemorrhoids) and aching joints; no more nauseous gas and distressing acid in your guts causing heartburn and grouchiness. No more agonising gout and lowness of spirit. No more choking on phlegm and gasping for breath as you climb out of the bath. No more one foot in the grave comments from unthinking loved ones.
Imagine yourself, resplendent in well fitting clothes and an aura of manliness about you. You will have a zest for life. The new well-being factors in your life will keep you cheerful; content and satisfied with your lot.
Think about theses things and be optimistic about achieving your aim, you’ve probably been heartsick for a long time. You have heard that remark, ‘Get a life!’ Well Dear Reader, that flippant remark is normally used as a derogatory protest or retaliation, but I mean it as three words of genuine advice from my heart. So let’s get a life!
I hasten to add at this point that these articles are an account of how I regained my health in my own way and my method is not medically or scientifically approved by any governing body anywhere on this planet.
In this series of articles I will explain how I shed 50lbs (23kg) of surplus fat; rid myself of piles, gout and aching joints. I no longer suffer from indigestion, heartburn, phlegm or flatulence and I enjoy my food very much. My sex life is rejuvenated and I no longer have toilet problems; my arc of pee is good and I can see what I am doing
I sleep well now because I no longer get up several times in the night to relieve myself. My wife is delighted for several reasons; one of them being that I do not snore any more.
I truly enjoy dressing in 36” waist trousers and I lace up my shoes easily. Before my nine month quest I was breathless after lacing my shoes; I had a 50” waist and many problems with normal bodily functions. This year is my 68th and now I believe I will live for at least another twenty years… we’ll see, won’t we.
I have regained my zest for life and I am happier now than I have ever been. I am no longer pensive about my future; I’m too busy enjoying myself. I bought a used mountain bike for a few pounds and some second-hand fishing tackle. I don’t go fishing and cycling every day, but I do get out of the house a lot now that I am fit.
I watch television in the evening for just an hour or so before retiring to bed. I use my computer for writing purposes only now; I no longer waste time surfing the web for something to do, I am too active for that. I now realise my PC is just another nail in my coffin… if I let it.
Later, I will write a book about my quest, but first I will write these articles just to get interested people started and maybe save a few lives because by the time I finish my book, many of you will be dead.
With that in mind, let us swiftly move on. You should have finished your list of unhappiness by now, so have a quick read of it and put it where you will find it in nine months time.
If you have self doubt and thinking how hopeless your case is: think again. But be optimistic; determined and brave. Think about your youth and how easily you did things; think about how you would like to be like that again. Realistically, you know you cannot be exactly like that, but I can tell you that you can regain a lot of that strength and health by doing the things I did last year.
I am not saying it will be easy; in fact quite the opposite, it is difficult and time consuming, but I am a retiree (pensioner) with all the time in the world to do what I like. So instead of wasting away in front of the television and increasing my backside spread on a computer chair; I got myself a life by changing my body with simple, effective exercise and by excluding foods that are not good for me.
There are thousands of books out there that tell how not to eat and how to exercise to lose weight. I know I’ve read many of them, but there is an ingredient I never found in those books: the real will to live. That is something you need to find yourself; the clincher, the deep down awareness, the intuition; you know, the one that hits you like a sledge hammer when the realisation hits you that you are in God’s waiting room.
I cannot give that to you; just like all those books cannot give it you, but I can attempt to point you in the right direction.
I knew my quality of life was depreciating rapidly because of aches and pains caused by accumulated fat and underused body parts. In other words, inaction and overeating was killing me. I had to get out of God’s waiting room now, and age is not an obstacle or barrier to an active life: if you don’t believe me, read Genesis.
You have probably worked all your life and paid for your pension, so the advent of retirement should be a joyful milestone in one’s life. The reason I bought the bicycle was because I wanted to relive my youth by cycling around the countryside and marvel at nature. I bought the fishing tackle for much the same reason. I’m thinking now of buying a tent and camping out occasionally.
I try not to dwell on the past, but had I not clawed my way out of the hole in my life that was filled by the television and computer; had I not rid myself of idleness and crashing boredom; had I not the intuition to begin my quest, I know I would still be in God’s waiting room waiting to die of failed organs through obesity, idleness and witless boredom. I supposed I could go down the pub every day to accelerate the dying process. But I didn’t… it was do or die, so I did it.
You’ve come this far with me so I assume you have the frame of mind to begin. We can start by choosing the first day of the quest. Give yourself a couple of days to mentally prepare and get the things you need if you don’t have them already.
Mental preparation is no more than revising all of the things you don’t like about yourself. Maybe you need to dig out your unhappiness list again. Sorry to depress you, but now you can think about how you want yourself to look like to lift the depression. Think positively and optimistically about your future; from this moment in your life think, ‘zest, joy and gladness because this is the beginning of my golden age.’
Okay, let’s get down to basics. You need a good pair of trainers; I have Reeboks that are firm and good for physical jerks, rather than road running. You need walking shoes or boots; I have Rockports Vibram Hydro-Shield, great for hiking and hill climbing, they are comfortable and sturdy and I like them very much, but you have lots to choose from.
If you have old but good footwear, use them rather than buy new because if you find you are not cut out for this, you haven’t wasted your pension money. Footwear and clothing are a common sense issue and you will wear what you like. Indoors I wear shorts or track suit bottoms. For outdoor exercise I dress appropriate for the weather.
Regarding physical training, you don’t need much in the way of equipment or clothing, but if you turn into a fitness fanatic you can buy all kinds of things from food supplements to home gymnasiums, but if you think you need extras, simply buy a skipping rope.
We should talk briefly about food now because we want to get started and food is a massive subject in the dietary arena. So to begin with, I will keep it simple; you’re not going to eat much. However, I will tell you what I ate, and more importantly what I didn’t eat.
I was a big meat eater; all meats, including offal. I would eat anything that was put in front of me simply because I enjoyed eating. I still do, but in a different way. I love savoury food just as much as I love sweet food. I was a gannet; I would eat everything and drink anything. Beer; whisky, wine, tea or coffee, but it had to stop if I wanted to stay alive. I wanted to live longer and have a more meaningful life so I chose the day to start my quest; my new life.
April fool’s day 2007. I couldn’t have chosen a better day; it was springtime and I had the summer to look forward to. Also, at the end of nine months I would treat myself to new clothes in the January sales in Oxford Street, London.
I applied the same mental attitude I used to stop smoking many years ago; I blamed all my problems on my obesity so that I could mentally embrace the deprivation of all the things I love to eat.
I had to promote an unbreakable mindset that would need lots of shoring up along the way. But it worked! I was 17.5 stone (245lbs-111kg) on 1st April and 14 stone (195lbs-89kg) before Christmas 2007: a loss of 50lbs in nine months.
I became fit and energetic with each passing day. Exercises became easier as my body responded to exertion. My pain threshold improved and my general health noticeably improved quite early on. My endurance got better and better and the realisation that I was going to reach my goal spurred me on. Now I maintain my body with a fraction of my quest regime exercises and I enjoy my new way of eating and now I will tell you how I did it and what happened on the first day of April 2007.
As usual I got out of bed and went to the toilet. I then washed, shaved and dressed in my training kit and went down for breakfast. I squeezed a lemon into a large glass of hot water, drank it and went outside to start my first brisk walk.
It is common knowledge amongst athletes that exercising before eating a breakfast is an obvious method of weight loss. The body is being exercised and using calories from stored fat rather than the breakfast everyone tells you to eat. While we are talking about people telling you how to do this and that; I will simply say this: do not tell anyone apart from your wife about your quest. Everyone has an opinion and health and vitality experts will come at you from all directions. Great big fat men and women; people dying on their feet, wall-eyed men fresh from the pub, people with walking sticks… they will all tell you where you’re going wrong. So do yourself a favour and don’t tell a soul, because this is your quest and nobody else matters. Besides, if you are to succeed, you will not be frequenting pubs.
I will say now that you are about to undergo a life changing experience that will steer you away from pubs and alcohol and your time will be taken up by much more meaningful things than propping up a bar.
Here is something else you should know: booze is the greatest cause of cancer of the oesophagus; mouth, rectum and breast and I’m sure most people are familiar with the various statistics regarding cancer; heart disease and obesity, so I will refrain from producing charts, tables and graphs and simply get on with it.
Regarding your brisk walk, there are a few things to say about the planning of it. Most people have the use of a local park or playing fields. Some lucky people live in the countryside and are blessed with woodland and much of Nature’s gifts.
The route you take is obviously your own personal choice, but I would avoid congested areas where the carbon footprint chokes you with exhaust fumes. The walks need not be boring and considered a chore; it should be interesting and enjoyable. The aim is to use approximately 500 calories, so depending on how much you exert yourself, this should take about one hour of brisk walking.
Let us assume you are lucky and have the use of a local park, most folks have this facility in their area. This first walk is your baptism of fire, so like a good soldier; we’ll use it as a reconnaissance to locate places to exercise in. Places where there are park benches for you to use for triceps dip exercises and elevated press-ups. Don’t fret; you’re not doing any on your first day. You can also find places to hide bottles of drinking water near the spots you will be exercising in. Lugging drinking water can be a bind so deal with it intelligently.
Allow yourself two hours on your first day: one hour to walk briskly and the other to recce the area and enjoy nature. Look for and recognise birds and trees, become aware of the environment around you as you walk. Walk tall with your head up and if anything of interest catches your eye, go over and investigate it… enjoy yourself.
When you get home, write a diary and keep notes on things of interest. If you have a map of the area of suitable scale, pencil in your route and plan new routes.
Noticed you haven’t eaten yet, belly rumbling? Feels different doesn’t it. You haven’t eaten since yesterday and it is midday already. You would be kidding yourself if you said you weren’t hungry, but it doesn’t feel bad does it. You are not slavering and about to tear the fridge door off are you? No, so relax and enjoy the moment of feeling empty. Embrace it because it is new and you need to get used to it.
Of course you are not empty, you are still fat and full of toxins, but you have broken the ice and lost at least 500 calories. So feel good about that and reward yourself with breakfast: 2 apples.
Don’t worry, lunch is only thirty minutes away, so go and wash up ready for lunch.
You had a couple of days to prepare for this day and you will have purchased the food you are about to eat for lunch, dinner and any snacks you may want. There is no meat today my friend, but there is plenty to eat. Your lunch should be a super tuna fish salad with tomatoes; chopped raw onion, lettuce, sliced beetroot and sweet corn. The tuna should be in olive oil with an extra tablespoonful drizzled on the salad.
Do not eat bread or potatoes and start getting your head around not eating dairy produce. Think about alternatives like Soya milk instead of cow’s milk; low-fat or no-fat spreads instead of butter. But why would you need butter? There’s no bread! Let us stay on this first day to soak up the atmosphere of possibly the most important day of your life.
You probably weighed yourself last night and made a note of it. Fine, now measure your waist, hips, chest and neck. Next, find an old pair of trousers or jeans that you wore as a young man and hang them where you will see them every day. You don’t need a progress chart, the pants will do fine.
If you are Mr Average, you’ll be about 5’-10” tall. Your ideal weight is between 11-12 stone (168lbs approx), so you can work out your approximate target weight loss.
If you feel the need for further inspiration, walk to the newsagent and buy a Men’s Fitness magazine. It is not a pumping iron magazine, but it does give you plenty of up to date information on diet and exercises. You will certainly see plenty of 6-pack abdominal muscles, so take your pick and imagine your mounds of fat being replaced by a vibrant 6-pack.
You are now training your mind because that will prove to be the weakest or strongest link in your nine month chain of events. You are alone here; there is no one to cheer you on, no slaps on the back, this is your very own private quest. This is self-discipline in the raw; your life is in your own hands. If you cheat, you are only cheating yourself. If you are successful the rewards are priceless.
Abstention is a major part of your quest, or so you may think. In fact, you will be replacing quantity with quality; a trick of the mind if you like, but you are the conjuror
Apart from chicken and turkey, you will not be eating animal flesh for the next nine months. Do not think you are hard done by, you’re not. You are about to experience the exquisite tastes and flavours of fresh well prepared fruits and vegetables, fish and fowl and many other delightful foods. You will also drink lots of liquids, especially pure water and fruit juices. Don’t forget: lions drink water.
The remainder of this first day is yours to do with as you like; you have much to think about, especially avoiding coffee and alcohol if you are used to drinking lots of it. Try some green tea, sweetened with a spoonful of honey if that is how you like it… but no milk. Drink plenty of water, but nothing after 8pm. Your evening meal should be finished before 8pm and I suggest something like poached or baked fish (not fried) with a fresh salad.
Be inventive with your salads, but bear in mind that whatever you put in your mouth, your body is trying to make living tissue with it. If you are a pudding person I hope you like pineapple, because that particular fruit is an excellent digestive and should be taken after each meal. Also, bear in mind that your body will not function properly if it is bunged up with stagnant food and the first days of your quest will see the removal of gunge from your system so you can flourish and gain strength and well-being quickly. It is important that you start feeling better quickly because you must find the resolve to work through the pains of the first few days and if you don’t feel good you will find an excuse not to continue. Let us get back to food and give you some ideas of what to eat and what to avoid.
Breakfast is a glass of lemon juice and hot water. A cup of exquisite green tea can be taken after the lemon drink, try it. You might like to experiment with tea; there are many brands and flavours to choose from; become an expert. You can also try herbal teas because some of them are immune system boosters, especially Echinacea, ginger and burdock root. Green tea has a terrific antioxidant effect on the digestive tract and herbals like valerian and camomile tea are stress busters and stress is probably the major cause of accelerated ageing process. I have a nice hot cup of camomile tea as my last drink of the day and I recommend you do the same. Also, take a cold apple drink to bed with you in case you wake with a mouth like the bottom of a parrot’s cage. A sip of cold apple will refresh your palate as you go back to sleep.
The first food of the day should be taken after your walk and exercises. It should be fresh fruit and I recommend two apples. This will blunt the edge of your appetite for lunch, which should be imminent after your training session.
As with your drinks, be imaginative with your food. Remember; apart from chicken and turkey you will not be eating meat, so do your own study on super foods because this article is not meant to list pages and pages of food though I will tell you what worked for me later.
Fish is great when cooked properly. It should be poached, steamed, grilled or baked. You can also buy it smoked and one of my favourites is also the cheapest: smoked mackerel. There are too many to list here, but look for oily fish like salmon, sardines, mackerel and trout.
I said earlier about avoiding dairy produce, but you can eat Soya milk and Soya cheese. Also, yoghurt is good for you; especially when drizzled with a spoon of honey, great for puddings. ‘Food of the Gods,’ is what the ancient Greeks called it… and they had a lot of gods! You can also eat hen’s eggs, but nor fried and not too many. Limit eggs to about four a week.
I am trying not to confuse the issue with vegetables, so I will merely say to eat lots of vegetables raw if you can, like beetroot; onions, parsley, lettuce and many more. Try steaming, boiling and baking parsnips; carrots, turnips, spinach, pumpkin broccoli, leeks, asparagus, cauliflower and garlic. These are the vegetables that I eat lots of.
Fruits are best eaten raw and the choices are endless, so for this article I will keep it simple: apples, apricots, pineapple, grapefruit, plums and figs. You can eat all the lemons you can, but I am staying with the morning juice and water. Hmm...
As you can see, there’s plenty to choose from so you won’t get bored. If you must eat bread, then it should be made from Soya flour. You can make a super Ploughman’s lunch with Soya cheese and fresh salad; the bread roll can be made from Soya flour, or use Ryvita crisp bread.
Lunches and evening meals can be made from any of these food items, but I must stress that you persevere and eat quality fresh food raw, or carefully cooked. If you are a grazer; a constant eater, you must try to break the habit by substituting the cakes, chocolates and sweets with fruit. If you must graze, you can graze on apples. You will soon get fed up with that and possibly break the habit.
Water and fruit juice is most important. Make a mixture of water and fruit juice in a 2 litre plastic bottle and drink it as you get thirsty during exercise. Finish the 2 litre bottle before you eat the apples at midday. One important tip here is that if you are flagging in the mornings; charge your water bottle with a tablespoon of Slimfast powder or some other meal replacement product. They are quite useful for flagging energy levels during training, especially during the physical jerks period of the morning about which I will tell you now.
On day 2, you walk briskly for one hour; get your arms and legs going and hold your head high while breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth. Purposely exaggerate your breathing so you are filling your lungs to capacity. Walk as briskly as you can so you are exerting yourself. When you reach your chosen park bench, perform a set of press-ups or triceps-dips to failure (collapse) then continue walking. If you did 20 press-ups then you should do 21 tomorrow and so on until you reach 50 repetitions of triceps-dips and press-ups. Depending on your effort, that should take three weeks to a month to achieve.
When you finish your walk, go to your chosen spot for abdominal training; either in the park or back at home. I suggest you use a blanket to lie on and if the ground is damp go home and do it there.
The first few weeks of exercise is aimed at strengthening your core muscles and improving the functions of the organs in the lower regions of your body. The improvements will become apparent quite early in your quest, so here we go.
No: 1. Place your blanket on the ground and stand erect with feet astride. Keeping your back straight, bend to your side and touch your calf muscle. Return to the upright position and bend to touch the other calf muscle and repeat the movement twenty times. As the days pass you will be able to reach lower and lower until you can touch your ankle. This exercise is beneficial to the prostate and an aid to elimination of waste: crud clinging to the walls of the intestine.
No: 2. Adopt the same stance with feet apart and bend forward to touch the floor. Keep your knees locked with your legs straight and bring yourself upright. Repeat bending to touch the floor, but try to reach further through your legs each time and repeat twenty times. This is a waist reducer and enlivens the lower intestinal tract.
No: 3. Standing in the same stance with arms outstretched to the side at shoulder height, lock your knees and reach for the left foot with your right hand. Come back to upright and bend again to reach the opposite foot with your left hand. Repeat twenty times. This is a waist reducer and another kick-start for constipation, it also benefits the prostate.
No: 4. Kneeling on all fours, stretch out your left leg behind you and reach forward with your right hand and stre-e-etch. Return to all fours and repeat alternate arm and leg twenty times. This exercise may seem easy, but it is truly a valuable exercise which benefits balance, abdominals and the prostate.
No: 5. From the all fours position, lie flat on your stomach with arms outstretched to your front. Balancing on your belly, raise your arms and head whilst simultaneously raising your legs behind you so that you are in a bowed position looking along your arms and straining to raise your legs; a difficult position to hold. If you can, hold the position for ten seconds and repeat ten times. This exercise is good for buttocks, abs, constipation, haemorrhoids and strengthens the lower back.
No: 6. Lie on your back with your hands under your buttocks palms down. Point your toes and raise both feet 6” from the ground. Open legs apart as far as possible, close again and lower. Repeat rapidly twenty times and complete three sets of this exercise each day for three weeks. This exercise is good for buttocks, lower abs and constipation.
No: 7. Remain in the same position with hands under buttocks. Point your toes, keep both legs together and raise them to vertical keeping legs straight. Lower slowly, touch heels to ground and raise immediately to vertical and repeat twenty times. Complete three sets of this exercise each day for three weeks. If this exercise is too difficult to perform with both legs together, do it by alternating one leg with the other until you have built up enough strength to do it properly. It won’t take long. This exercise is good for building core strength.
No: 8. Remain in same position with hands under buttocks and raise both legs. Cycle your legs by flutter kicking as though pedalling your bike. Complete three sets of twenty revolutions for three weeks. Good for lower abs, buttocks and constipation.
Sit-ups and abdominal crunches need no explaining from me, so I will simply say that you need to perform three sets of twenty repetitions of each for three weeks.
These exercises are to develop your abdominal muscles, but importantly, they benefit the organs that are in that region of your body. They reduce the waist and buttocks and firm up leg muscles whilst simultaneously strengthening your core. In my case they eradicated constipation and prostate problems. They also reduced my waist and backside and brought me back to full sexual potency. I had suffered for years with haemorrhoids and had spent a fortune on creams, but with these exercises and the aid of a new ointment that I discovered in Spain, my piles disappeared rapido.
In three weeks time, your muscles will have developed and strengthened underneath that layer of fat and will be ready for the exercises that will strengthen and develop you further in your quest. By then you will have felt the changes that are happening from within. You will be feeling much stronger, sleeping better and you will have experienced weight loss. You will also be eagerly awaiting the next article in this series in which I will concentrate further on exercise, super foods and how I deal with stress. Remember, we cannot buy good health at any age; we must work at it or take a place in God’s waiting room.

Copyright Christopher Chance 2008