Kenna Morton's Journal, 24 Apr 19

In light of the sudden death of a man that I had just barely started discussions with on helping him on a 100 lb weight loss journey I thought this would be a good time to repeat a post I have done before on the value of good physical activity and cardiovascular health.

Think about your vascular system that pumps blood throughout your entire body as one big freeway system. Think about the major players around your home town. In my neck of the woods in Southern California it is the 5, and the 91. They do a pretty good job on a daily basis, up to speed and get us where’re we are going. But when there are major incidents like a semi that turns over or a pileup - most of us are able to get off the freeway and use major and lesser surface streets to get around the issue and still get where we are going. All of these freeways and surface streets didn’t happen overnight. As the need arose, additional freeways , frontage roads and backstreets were built to keep the traffic moving.

When you are younger, mostly what you have is the 5 and the 91. As you age your body begins to build additional roads (vessels) in anticipation of future need or to handle issues that are already beginning to happen, Like when you smoke or become obese or diabetic and are developing some cholesterol plaque in your vessels. When younger people who have already developed diabetes, obesity, etc suffer a cardiac event they often do not survive because their bodies have not had the opportunity to grow additional vessels to bypass a sudden blockage and continue to get the oxygenated blood to the brain, heart and other critical organs.

When you do cardio workouts, play volleyball, swiim, fast walk, anything that gets your heart pumping a bit your body starts building those accessory surface streets and frontage roads so that it can proactively provide you with the oxygen you need to do these things. So often an elderly person will have an elective surgery planned (like a knee or hip replacement) and they will find on the EKG that he has had a heart attack in his past, yet survived it or may have ignored the pain thinking he had indigestion. They survive because those accessory blood vessels had a chance to build up over time.

So, while many people here have said they don’t “move” and they don’t like to sweat and they can loose weight without exercise, etc, more power to you. But, can you survive a heart attack? The man I mentioned said he was lazy and just didn’t want to do anything active—- until now, with so many members of his family SUDDENLY developing diabetes, heart problems and renal failure. At 51 years old, on Easter Sunday he was laughing and eating , clutched his chest and fell to the ground and was dead before he hit the dirt. No KNOWN medical problems and a physical scheduled for the first week in May. Very sad. And btw, an EKG IS ONLY AS GOOD AS THE MOMENT YOU HAVE IT DONE. IT TELLS ABOUT YOUR PAST— you can still have a heart attack 5 minutes after it was done.

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1112 kcal

Fat: 49.83g | Prot: 54.10g | Carbs: 116.20g.   Breakfast: Butter, Cooked Eggplant (Fat Not Added in Cooking), Simply Enjoy Grilled Zucchini, Kenna’s CHICKEN sausage Patty, Egg, Dave's Killer Bread Thin-Sliced Good Seed Bread, Welch’s grape juice and Hibiscus drink, Maxwell House International Cafe Orange, Sarabeth's Orange Apricot Marmalade, NoSalt Nosalt. Lunch: Chobani Whole Milk Plain Greek Yogurt, Ranch Granola, Driscoll's Blueberries, Tru-Nut Powdered Peanut Butter. Dinner: Pure leaf cherry hibiscus herbal tea, Grape Tomatoes, Nopales (Without Salt, Cooked), Pure Leaf Unsweetened Green Tea, Melissa's Anaheim Chile, Prime Time Sweet Mini Peppers, Onions, Celery, Carrots, Avocados, Lettuce, Frieda's Extra Firm Tofu, moki Bean soup. more...

2001 kcal

Exercise: Walking (moderate) - 3/mph - 30 minutes, Studying - 1 hour, Watching TV/Computer - 2 hours, Cooking - 1 hour, Housework - 1 hour, Sleeping - 8 hours, Resting - 8 hours and 30 minutes, Water Aerobics - 30 minutes, Swimming (slow) - 1 hour and 30 minutes. more...