Chunky As I Wanna Be

Epilepsy, exercise, diet… how does this all come together?  Here’s the short version of my story: how I became a middle-aged fathlete and human guinea pig.

As I said, I’m a bit of weirdo, in that my seizures didn’t start until I was 28.  (Well, I’m a weirdo in a lot of ways, but let’s leave that for another time).  I sometimes call myself a “lucky epileptic.”  My family history — my brother grew up with epilepsy — meant that the doctors intervened with medication right away, and were able to get my seizures under control with the first medication they tried, and I was able to live normally and seizure-free for years.  This isn’t the case for many people.  Since getting more involved in this community, I’ve spoken to folks who have five, ten seizures a day, who have tried two and three medications to no avail.  So yes, I’m really, really lucky.

Lots of other changes happened around that time, too.  I went from being tall, thin Dave to Big Dave.   I can’t prove that it was the medication that caused the weight gain, but it probably didn’t help (nor, I’m sure, did my growing older, my affinity for beer, junk food, television…).  Either way, my weight shot up 50 pounds in four years.  At one point, I went back to visit the high school in the South Bronx where I used to teach.  A girl named Ebonee, who I’d taught as a freshman, walked right up to me and called me out on it: “Mister! You just as chunky as you wanna be!”

I tried a bunch of different diets, a load of different exercise regimens, joined point-counting groups, ran half marathons… on and on.  I’d lose a few here, gain a few there, always looking for the next big fix.  

After a couple more moves around the country, I found my way to a master’s rowing club.  I’d rowed competitively back in college, and it was one of the best experiences of my life.  I loved the camaraderie, the hard work, the opportunity to start every day in the fresh air and out on the water, so I joined up.  I still remember our first erg test, when our coach asked us to weigh in.  I stepped on the scale with some trepidation.  My teammate Rich — a funny, whip-smart, super-intense, athlete who can burpee rings around guys half his age — snuck up and peeked over my shoulder.  “Daaaaaamn, Dave!” he announced to anyone who’d listen, “You’re a big guy!!”  I shot him a look.  “No, I mean solid, you know?” he tried to recover.  “You wouldn’t know it to look at you, but wow.”

The name has stuck.  BigDave.  Hey, if nothing else, it’s descriptive.  And honest.  At six-four and the better part of three bills, there’s no way around it.  The only thing to do is to wear it with pride, right?  And now I have a title for when I finally put out my first hip-hop album — Big Dave: Chunky as I Wanna Be.

https://youtu.be/oacaq_1TkMU

 So anyway: rowing, diet, rowing, another diet.  The wheel goes round.  Eventually I made my way to the corner of the diet industry that focuses on real, whole food, cutting crappy processed stuff, and eating what our body is meant to eat.  Though I remained a bit suspicious of the “paleo” stuff (as Rich liked to say, if a caveman found a piece of bread on the ground, he’d eat it), I started looking into it.  I eventually found NSNG, what seemed like a really simple and sensible way to cut through all the noise and eat healthy.  No Sugar, No Grains.  Eat everything else, in whatever quantity you like.  I was skeptical, but I figured I’d at least look into it.  

The program’s founder, Vinnie Tortorich, is the author of a funny and engaging tell-all, Fitness Confidential and hosts a funny, politically incorrect, no-nonsense podcast exposing the rampant chicanery of the multi-billion-dollar fitness industry.  His approach appealed to my desire for simplicity, as well as my inveterate skepticism.  

Not that I took his word for it, but through the interviews on his podcast I was introduced to authors like Gary Taubes, Nina Teischolz, Dr. Jason Fung, Dr. Tim Noakes… and eventually people in the neuroscience world like Dr. David Perlmutter, Dr. Susan Masino, Dr. Georgia Ede, and Jim Abrams. I read the books by these folks, looked at their medical research on PubMed, listened their to conference lectures.  I soaked up all I could, and somewhere in my unremarkable brain, a connection was being formed.  Could my years of living wild and free, taking (and failing to follow) bad diet advice again and again, jumping on and falling off one bandwagon after another, have hurt my head, as well as my waistline?  It’s a question that I was happy to leave unanswered, at least until this year...

Note: The ramblings published on this blog are the opinions of the author alone and shared for entertainment purposes only.  The author is an English major with no medical or scientific background; thus, his words should never be taken as medical advice.  Consult with your doctor or medical professional before undertaking any diet or exercise program.