Here's a question for the guys:

How many of you work out on a regular basis? How many of you are workout fanatics? How many of you dream of working out, but can't seem to break the chain of excuses?

Actually one of the most significant changes for me since the ADD dx is that I work out constantly now. I even hooked up with a personal trainer to get me on a proper program, that has been a great investment. Not only is he a great trainer he has become a good friend. I think the effects of wroking out are as equally beneficial for me as the meds.

Hrmm...I need to get motivated again. I do enjoy working out, but would love to be challenged, like with a trainer or workout partner. Too bad the median age of my neighborhood is 91!

I started working out for about a full year and dropped like 30 pounds. I did it compulsively, like 1-2 times a day including running, weights, aerobics etc. I did it all. Then I stopped and barely have worked out since, with only occasional, sporadic weeks where I will and then lose motivation. Right now I'm going about every day

Just started riding my bike again. Been doing about a mile every morning, to get the blood pumping :)

I used to work out a long time ago on a regular basis but can't seem to get myself into the groove of doing it again unless I have an upcoming event, which is stupid because working out only a month prior to a race doesn't do much for you.
I am big into Jet Ski racing (Endurance) and I got the crap kicked out of me at the first race.. I keep asking myself if I could have prevented it if I had been in good shape.
It was an offshore event and the surf was insane. I can handle (and love to fly) big surf in sets but this was like a washing machine.. Hitting from all sides.. I ended up coming off my ski in mid-air at about 45mph and pan caked into my ski when we hit the face of another wave. My knee is all swollen up now, though it didn't happen until about 1 1/2 weeks after the wreck. Bottom line is this, if I was stronger across the board, would I have been able to fight coming off the ski better? Probably..
At the end of last season I was in pretty good shape.. During the off-season I didn't do much else but slap keys on the computer, and at night have a drink of Bacardi & Coke to relax.. Not good.
I think one of the biggest problems for me is I get so focused into something (usually computer/site related) and can't pull myself away to go work out..
This really is something that I need to address because my "dream" is to be world champion in my class this year at the Championships (which happen to be in Texas this year for the first time - my backyard). I dominated the super course (endurance) races last year but didn't make it to the championships due to finances.. This year I would break my own heart to be in the position to be there and not be able to compete because I have refused to get on a program.

I know this is long winded but I know a lot of people with AD/HD that love to work out but also go through phases.. My father, at 60 turned into a health nut after coming down with adult diabetes. He will go for 6 months running almost 10 miles a day, laying out in the sun, pumping weights.... and then quit! Only to start it up again 6-12 months later..
Have there been any studies done on this?

I only run when chased, jump when my wife yells, and lift when I'm picking up my fork...


But.. I'm thinking about getting back into paintball... Shooting people legally can feel so rewarding at times..

Am now up to 4 miles a day :)

I love paintball.. Good workout too when it's 100+ outside and your are running for cover.

I'm going to go for a mile today.. walking, limping, running.. whatever. :)

despite me being a girl i cant seem to get motivated to work out, but i would like to. heh some say im a tomgirl!

I go through phases. I get all gung-ho about working out and getting fit and healthy, and I stick with it for a week or two, then it just sort of... fizzles out.

THANK YOU, AD/HD!! *sigh*

I'm hoping that after I get on my correct meds, I'll be able to stick with it more. I like the feeling of being fit and actually being able to wear NICE looking clothes ;)

-- Tom

PS: Big, I cannot for the life of me "vote" here. It always says my session is invalid. I checked my cookies and it says that it's not rejecting them, so I'm confused. I am behind a corporate firewall (Microsoft) but it's giving me grief. Any ideas?

MSFT most likely is filtering content at the firewall as well. Not sure why you can't vote, but if you PM me your vote, I'll manually add it for you. :) Sorry, that's the best I can do.

I suffered a cardiac arrest about 16 months ago.

During cardiac rehabilitation, I started weight training.

Like most things that I “get into”, I went gang-busters. For about six months.

Then, predictably, my interest evaporated.

I worked up some good arms and calf muscles. See results below.

Remember, I’m 53. (I was 52 when I had the cardiac arrest [and two heart attacks])

OK, to be totally accurate, the cardiac arrest was on January 23, 2002. The pics below were taken in August, 2002. My birthday is April 3rd, 1950. The cardiac rehab and subsequent weight training didn’t start until around February or March.

You do the math. Phew!

Click Here For Calf Pic (http://www.epic-isti.com/images/calf2.gif)

Click Here For Arm Pic (http://www.epic-isti.com/images/arm2.gif)

MadMike, dude, you are totally ripped! YOUR HUGE!!!!

Can you offer me an excercise that would target specifically my biceps? Forceps are okay, just want to concentrate on bulking up my upper arms. Pecs could use some work too, but for now, I want to just focus on the biceps. What do you suggest? Freeweights, machine, supplements? Give me a specific workout that you use. Is it as simple as just doing pull-ups/chin-ups?

Well about 10 years ago I did Lau Gar kung fu for a few years at the same time in my life I was on permanent 6-2 morning shift in a physical job and when I got home from work I trained for an hour or so at home, then I got a groin strain and stopped training altogether and since then haven't exercised at all :(

But over the years I wanted to start back training but didn't have the confidence, I did find it hard with the martial arts cos my mind would get really confused when learning new sets (Kata) which I'm sure is related to ADD.

Anyway, I ordered a Total Gym XLi last week so am looking forward to getting that, cos I really loved exercising, so now I can do it at home and lose the weight I need to.

I have a such a hard time getting started working out. I was doing this eating plan/workout plan with my wife, Body for Life.
You basically eat 6 smaller meals a day, 3 of those meals being protein shakes or weight loss shakes. The idea behind it is to reduce your carbs and increase your protein while at the same time building up your muscle mass. 3 days of weights and 3 days of cardio, alternating. We did it from November until about April and I was not very faithful at the weights or cardio but pretty good with the eating. I started the thing at 255 or so and the lowest I go was 246. Now I tip the scales consistently at 250 to 252. The funny thing is I know that my body reacts well to exercise.

In 1992 to 1193 I worked as a bagboy at Lucky(now Albertson's) and when I started I probably weight about 215. I was running my but off chasing cart out in the parking lot....sometimes as stress or anger relief. I also always ran to get a price check. I was down to 185 in no time at all, just from the cart collecting during work.

I even got all motivated by finding a picture of myself from when I got married(185lbs) and scanned it inot my computer and it is currently my desktop background on my computer. I started running for a few days and have not done much in a couple months.

Any suggestions for motivation? Also, any suggestions for what to do without joining a gym? I know it is important to be healthy. I am 35 right now and have a family with 3 active young kids. I want to be around for them for the long term. I started the year with a goal to lose 50 lbs and so far I have not lost anything. I don't want to abandon that goal, but need some suggestions on how to achieve it.

Though I run myself to the "bone", I can work out like this every day.. ;)

www.pwcracer.com/videos/teamsportracing/

Click on the TSR-R5-ProAmNovice link.. ;)

I'm the little (non-white) ski.. #151

(It's a big file.. DSL/Cable needed)

David, you should bicycle instead of running, the circles are therapeutic for your knee.

I have trouble getting to gym and finding time to exercise. Doh! Would probably help if I could get off the computer... You all could help by making your posts more boring and inane. Thanks for your support. :p

Hey Force, I like your signature.... It reminds me of one of my favorite verses in the Bible:
Proverbs 24:16
for though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again,

I have a poem about this, if you are interested.

You must be young Jimmy- if I'd stayed down after falling down only 7 times, I'd still be down... but thanks. Yeah, I love that one too, I got it off a "no fear" shirt. Funny, but I keep looking for the verse numbers when I look at it too...

This is a pretty fascinating topic for me, especially since I've had difficulty getting into a regular program to work out. I see a flabby man when I look in the mirror although people consider me thin. I'm 5'11" and 170#. I'm not sure what that works out to be. All I know is that my belly protrudes more than I like.

I cite several reasons for not following through with a program.

1) They say to make time to work out, but any extra time I can find I devote to writing. I sold a short story to an anthology this spring and have just finished the first draft of one for which I have high hopes. I'm also in the middle of the second draft of a novel I've written. If I have nothing else to say about myself, I know that I'm an exceptional writer and with the proper dedication to the craft I know I will be successful at it.

2) I can't seem to put down the cigarettes.

3) I have a voice inside my head telling me I'll never have the body I want.

So how do I make time to work out? I walk my dog every morning when I first get up, not for too long but a decent and brisk twenty-minute saunter. It's helped to bring my weight down from a high of 185.

If it's okay to limit myself, I really just want to tighten up my abs, not build any bulk.

Hi FtLaud: For your height, your weight is just about perfect....(to calculate ideal body weight, take 106 pounds for the first 5 feet and then 6 pounds for every inch thereafter). You should weigh 172. So you're just about right......If you can't cut out the cigarettes, can you cut down? Congrats on all that writing success....something to be proud of....and the fact that you've gone from 185 to your ideal body weight is also a good thing.......Can you cut back the writing time JUST a wee bit and devote a little bit of that time to a work out? Perhaps twice per week? Perhaps while you're working out, you could be meditating about what you will be writing about when you return home....You CAN have the body you want....:)

P.S Fort Lauderdale is where I want to live someday!! or at least Broward or Palm Beach....

I wish I could ...
I used to run with my wife when we were dating.
then we got married, she got fibromygia, and a member ship to a womens only gym.
My path to exercise just slammed in my face. (the door) oh well.

I feel so great when I work out, but I don't. There have been some times when I worked out regularly, religiously. I have to be able to have a regular time to do it, and it's too hard to take the time now, it seems. I found that it helped me feel more like I was in my body, not just my head. I even built up my upper body, when I used to lift regularly. I need a life manager.

i just ordered a crossbow wieght training system and plan to get started as soon as i have it assembled.my doctor says that working out will release some chemical in the brain to help with the depression so i will know it 6 weeks.

Hi all..
At 44 I have done so many different things in regards to fitness. The pattern however seems to remain that I go whole hog... stress or injure myself within a year and or lose interest. I have yet to find a way to maintain a cardio program. I'm 5' 10" at 175 pounds so it's not like I'm way out of whack with my weight but my fitness is lame.

I'm actually a bit fearful of the latest influenza strain making the rounds and hoping my heart is up for the test if I catch the bug.

Like so many others I too feel a huge rise in a sense of well being when I do get some extended periods of fitness, but just can't seem to sustain it.

A partner seems like a great idea.. now where is that wife.. ;^)

Cheers! Ian.

I ride my bike to work 3-5 times a week. It is 7 miles each way. I have always ran or rode a bike. I have ridden from Seattle to Portland several times. I do much better mentally if I exercise. My Doc say it is my way of self medicating. Even my wife notices a difference when I am exercising. I do go through about a 2 month period each year where I just cant seem to ride.

Four out of the last five days.. for twenty minutes.. oh.. it's going to be a long haul..
I've got enough wood to keep me busy though.. five cords... bucked up into 18" lengths, split and stacked. We'll see how it goes..

I am hoping if I have something practical I can sustain it.. more will be revealed..
Cheers! Ian.

javascript:smilie(';)')

I hope you guys dont mind me posting here, if you do let me know i will drag my butt back to the girl side of the fence and try real hard to muster some enthusiasm for housework or friendship issues.

I think weight training is possibly the second best activity there is. I leave my dumbells just inside the bedroom door so i make sure i lift some weights each night.
Mostly i like to free lift and have worked out quite a routine over the last 10 years or so.
Before i even realised my oddities were ADHD based i knew that weight lifting helped me function better from day to day.

First off you work yourself till you got no energy or anger left then hot shower and fall into bed so exhausted even your thoughts dont have the energy to run through your mind and keep you awake.

Has worked for me for years.

Public exercise is somthing i loath with a passion though. I just cant stand all those people measuring themselves against everyone else. Not to mention all that wasted money.

capri we don't have a square inch to spare for anything more in the house.. heh If I could I'd have a few weights around.. but not until the kids move out at this point..hhe I too have enjoyed weight training.

I like to think my wood pile will keep up with Paul's novel but I think has has the jump on me.. lol
Cheers! Ian.

Well, I got my run up to just over ten miles before I left the ship two months ago. That was high-end, run off the anger, distance though. Normally I would hit the treadmill for an hour to an hour and a half and toward the last month or so I was there I would weight train for the same amount of time every other day. Lost 26lbs the first two months just running. I am sure the adderall helped, just as I am sure the fact that I tend to forget to eat when I am on an underway schedule helped a bit too, (BTW, you can't get away with missing too many meals running that much 6 days a week, you get very weak very fast. It was a good reminder to EAT!).

Anyway, after all that I got down to 197lbs which for me is very light. I get home on LIMDU and I'm expecting the wife to be impressed as I have not looked like this since high school. She says to me, "You're too skinny! It's not attractive at all Dan. You need to put some weight back on." Sicillians! Not happy unless they are feeding you fat! ;-) Anyway, 192 is what the book says my ideal weight should be, but Doc says with my frame 225 is more accurate. So, yes I am running light right now. The idea being to cut down to lean and then lower my run distance, up my calories a little bit and let the weight training take it's course and bring me back up to my normal body weight, only lean as in highschool again.

My normal run is 7-8 miles, when I am not busting butt to get over a 2 month hiatus, and I don't do it because I'm a health nut, though I enjoy the benefits. I do it, because it is as good, or better for my ability to function as the adderall is, and it's a cumulative benefit. In other words, the meds add to my function, this does too. Together I get more than either gives me alone.

Also, quite frankly, I am angry. All the time angry at all the crap out there. I am a heart on the sleeve kind of guy and I can't just ignore all the hate, and discontent in the world. It makes me angry. The exercise helps keep me from blowing another gasket. I have enough nuerological problems without adding psych problems too. ;-)

Way to go E-boy! I have not ridden my bike in sometime. I am planning to start riding tommorrow. I used to run a ton. I ran a few marathons. I know it was one of the few times I could really stop and think. Hope thing are okay for you!

Never had my run that High Jim, probably never will either. Big torso, short arms and legs make for a less than efficient running machine. I do enjoy getting the angst out of my system though and, who knows, on a particularly bad day I might just manage a marathon. :-)

I am glad to see some guys making some headway on this. I got some good news this week. My doctor had threatened to put me on medication for lowering my cholesterol this past fall. I got the recent tests back and had made at least a 20% improvement in my blood profile!

My doc was impressed but not nearly as much as I am.. eheh Some element to be grateful for.

Now.. it's back to the wood pile and another twenty minute stint of splitting.

Cheers! Ian.

Cheers Ian!!!!!!! Way to go! keep up the good work!
Jim

Thanks for the nod Jim. Like E-boy I get some of the rage out of my system with a bit of intense exercise.

I used to run a lot but that's beyond me just now.
Hats off to you E-boy I know the intensity of running is what I'm after.
Cheers all. Ian.

Thanks guys. Your efforts have inspired me to at leat start up again. Today I rode my bike 7 miles to work and I will ride back home tonight. I hope this is the start of something. I am planning to do a annual 33 mile bike ride on the 29th. I will keep you posted. Keep up the good work!
Jim

I am going back into the gym again tonight... I find on the rough days a little reward helps. For expample, this particular gym sports a sauna. :-) It must be the swedish and indian blood, but sauna = sweathouse to the indian in me, and same thing for the swede. Now if they just had a cold pool outside the gym even the Irish guy lurking around in there would be happy. 'Course, I'd probably have a heart attack using it! The object with a cold pool is to sit in the 160 degree heat of the sweat house until you can't stand it anymore and then jump into the, just above freezing to 60 degree or so, cold pool. I could pull it off in high school because that was pretty much any kind of out door swimming in Idaho (most of the running water is coming off of glaciers, or is some other kind of rocky mountain snowmelt and winter snow up there isn't gone until mid-june so it's COLD). Nowadays, I'd probably just go into immediate cardiac arrest or something. Damn, getting soft in my old age. ;-)

I prefer road work to the treadmill to be honest, but I am still somewhat climate shocked from going from the Arabian Gulf to an East coast winter. Granted Va has nothing on Idaho, but it over a hundred degrees colder on some days than what I was used to overseas. So, I am slowly reaclimatizing myself. Besides, on a treadmill I can zone out and not have to worry about getting hit by a car.

I could never do the treadmill thing. It was to boring for me. I think you are doing the right thing. You have a huge climate change to deal with. I agree you will be safer. There are idiot drivers everywhere. I always liked the whirl pool.
Jim

gosh you guys are ambitious.. heh

Right now for me it is all talk. I have only done one day. It is a start though.

Talk is good.. at least for me. It seems like public commitments help me some.

So here we go with just that.. five days a week.. no less than twenty consecutive minutes a day.

I'm aiming for progress so I'll accept lesser times if my lame old (feeling) lungs at least get opened up a bit.

I'm not going to be fussy about exactly what I'm doing.. if it's shoveling snow or filling the porch with wood.. it'll count.

I'm not going to keep any records other than the days I get the job done checked onto the calendar. I just want to enjoy the time for what it is.

Another stipulation for me will be that it has to be outside. A fast paced walk to the river.. giving the dog a run for her money wrestling.. I'm going to try and remain open to a wide variety of activities.

Tonight I played with the dog hard enough to get the blood pumping and it was fun. I'm beginning to think more about fun.. heh I'm not very good at it. Practise will no doubt improve things. < g > .. you guys can see me smiling as I write this yes? heh

Now.. if I can make a nice little graph like Paul made for his novel progress... hmmm well we'll see.

Cheers boys. Ian

Way to go Ian! Making it fun with anything we do is the key for us. I love to ride otherwise I would not do it. I will go for 4 days a week to start out with. I know I won't make any graphs but I will keep track. I did ride in again today. That is 2 in a row.
Jim

Ian,

Keep in mind I made most of my progress on a ship at sea. At first I started small. Worked up to a half hour a day five days a week. Then I started noticing all the darn marines in the gym making me look bad. If there's anything I can't stand it's a smug jarhead! ;-) Besides, half the reason I was doing it was temper control and I was going through the wringer on the ship because they wrote me up for a psych symptom and called it misconduct even though medical was aware of it and dealing with it and said it was most assuredly not misconduct or even a big deal (it was a really minor issue, but one of the master chiefs in my department didn't want any head cases on HIS ship fit for duty or not and he made it a point to ignore medical which is, incidentally, illegal as hell. Point is I had a lot to be angry about. Between all that running and being angry, even the marines were starting to give me the "what's his problem?!" look. I guess I may have snarled a few times. Go figure. I mean they bark, who are they to talk?

Lastly, even working 16 hour days on a deployment there is simply too much time to have on ones hands. No one there I want to socialize with, I've read darn near the whole library, and even on an aircraft carrier you run out of places to go you haven't already been. So, it was a matter of staying occupied or going stir crazy. I filled my time up with training other people on their warfare quals, maintainance, repairs, and the gym.

Jim and E-boy et all
Yes fun helps. I'm not what anyone would refer to as "light" so any practise with "fun" is worth doing.

I may not get to the graph either but it's a nice thought.. might hit on Paul to send me a template. < vbg >

Two in a row is great. String them up Jim!

E-boy your comments about rage are uncomfortably familiar. I now internalise most of mine which is just as bad or worse for me than when I vented it on others. A self destructive fool.. yes sir..

There was once a time where I sat za-zen morning and evening and managed to run quite a bit too. Those were the most peaceful times internally for me. That type of discipline seems a ways off to say the least.

I have cycled plenty too but not since the mid eighties. I once did a 110 mile day. When I was cycling I was covering about 30 miles three times a week. Eventually I ran myself into the ground and had to stop. I have done the same with running. I've run marathon distances and trained for many months only to over do one aspect or another and sabotage the goal and or my ability to sustain the effort.

I got quite practised in yoga too.. now I just want my wood pile finished and the strength to help with a few construction projects to contribute to the family needs.

Jarheads is such a descriptive term.. hehe

Moderation in all things is an attractive goal for me. Starting small is essential but if it's too small I forget about it.. if it's too big I avoid it.. what a juvenile.. wish I had a big bit of "grownup" to chew these days.

I must say it's good to have company. Thanks guys.

Eeyore

I hope this image isn't too big. I modified the calendar page from my yahoo account.

If this is too slow to load for some I would welcome the feedback.

Although this is not day one of this venture it feels like it..
Cheers! Ian.

Another day.. another weeks wood split..

Does anyone know if I will be able to simply modify (edit) the image above instead of posting multiple images when I need to update it?

If not, I'll post it elsewhere and just post a link to the updated image I think.

Cheers! Ian.

LOL.

When I fist saw the calander, I thought you were scheduling to have A.D.D. every day. lol

oh.. but I am.. hahha

Ya I guess I should lose the add button... rofl

Looks like we have 90 minutes to edit the posts so I'll have to wait until tomorrow to post the next generation calendar.. ;^) I laughed too.. still laughing.. heh

Cheers! Ian.

Ian,
I do not know that much about computers so I can not help with the calander. It sounds like you have done a lot of different things. I ran a few marathons myself in my younger days. I have done quite a few long rides to. You guys are helping to get me going. I took Sat off, but rode 20 mile yesterday. Today I rode into work again. I am feeling a little better. I am like you I need to do more than a little workout, but if I overdo it I won't want to keep it up. I think I am the small guy here. I am 5'8" so that helps me in the running area. Oh well I got sidetracked. Keep up the good work.
Jim

That's ok Jim, I know more about computers than is good for me.. < g >

I have done many different things and none have been sustainable. My deepest desire would be to establish enough of a routine with this activity to have it blend into a lifestyle change for the better.

I'm glad to hear you find this thread of thought motivating. I do too.

How long did it take you to do your twenty mile route? What was your cadence? I almost miss the bike! Gravel roads have made horses more appropriate. Last year I rode very little. Maybe this year I can ramp it up once the weather warms up some. I have harness to drive her in the winter but I don't need anymore wood so it's a bit pointless.

Taking pleasure for pleasures sake is a struggle.

I'm 5'10" and have lost about 20 pounds since the summer to leave me at 170 which is still marginally heavy still. Muscle tone might help some... ehhe

Your side track looks like coaching to me.. personal touches help keep it real for me. Thanks.

This thread seems like it belongs on it's own in "Peer Coaching" or somewhere at least under it's own heading. Does anyone else feel the need? I don't want to move if this convo gets lost in the shuffle.

Cheers! Ian.

Ian,
I am up for the move to peer coaching, but I do not mind it here. You are doing a good job. You weigh a little less than I do right now. I need to get down to 160. I am 177 right now. It took me about 75 minutes. My candence was problaby 90 to 110 strokes a minute. I averaged 16.7 mile an hour. I do have a road bike. As I get into better shape I will get faster.
Jim

Jim
I guess there is no need to move this thread then.. it was just a thought.

I cut back on my potatoes, rice, bread and pasta and lost twenty pounds without even noticing. I didn't get all extreme about it but I did cut back. Now I prefer to eat less carbos while doubling up on the low fat protein.

I used to aim my gearing at 60 revs per minute when I cycled. I'd die a fast death at your rates.. lol

==insert huge distraction factor==
I still have my old road bike but the rubber is all rotten and it would take some time to bring it back into shape but it might be fun to do some of that again.

It was so mild today.. moisture was making the farm smells sharp in the clean air. The smell of thawing horse buns is a favourite right of passage on the road to spring. It was just below the freezing mark today with no wind speak of so splitting was comfortable in less clothing. The bluejays were scolding me the dog was hounding me for a wrestle.. work was cruising..kids came home happy..

The rage in the cage.. the vicious tongue.. the self loathing muted by the deer walking bye, both of us having made it through another killing season.

Take care. Ian.

"I'm from the government. I'm here to help." ~ E-boy

:-)

GOD I LOVE THAT QUOTE! HA HA HA HA HA HA! Sorry, an old supervisor of mine used to say it in the most sarcastic manner possible and I have long since taken it to heart.

E-boy do you keep a folder full of signatures? I'll trade you.. ;^) I take no responsability for the offensive nature of some of mine though.. < g >

Great picture. I was wiped out today so I did not ride. I do end up losing about 10 lbs once I get into shape. I might ride tonight after work. It depends how I am feeling. My legs are latic acid city today.
Jim

I'm not working hard enough at this to need a day off.. and with any luck that's just where I'll stay! heh

I love the images on the web. I never tire of the variety... thanks.

Jim do you warm up and stretch and all that stuff? Lactic acid is no fun. How do you gauge how hard to work?

Cheers! Ian.

Chaotic,

I keep 'em in my head.


"A Smith and Wesson beats four Aces"~ Murphy

You have a head?.. cool.. ;^)

I have a tough time remembering lunch..

Cheers! Ian.

So much for hardly working. I took my pulse after I was done my twenty minutes today and found I was working to almost 80 percent of max.

If I remember correctly ones maximum heart rate is calculated as 220 minus your age. I was 77 percent of that. I think you have to be above 60% to have any positive effect.

Whatever the case I expect part of my suprise comes in not knowing how little work it takes to get my heart rate up. I suppose the Dexedrine is playing a part in that as well but I'm too green to know by how much.

I've got to stop splitting for a while and do some stacking. I don't get the same satisfaction from stacking it up neatly as I do watching the pile grow...

Another day in paradise. I have made excellent headway at work this week although all I've done today is cook. Company this afternoon for coffee and wide ranging discussions in the forcast.

Cheers! Ian.

Hey Ian,
Sorry it took a while to get back to you. I took today off too. I felt better but I needed to give my wife a ride to work today. Your calculation is right. I notice my pulse is higher with Adderall XR.
I have used a heart monitor, but I just go by how I feel. I am for some reason able to push myself quite hard. Sometimes to hard. Hope the company was good.
Jim

Jim and or anyone else.. if you disappear for a few days I won't hold it against you.. really.. < g >

The company was good. They didn't stay long enough though. If I'm working hard enough I have a much better tolerance for people. This is a good thing!

I didn't take today off but maybe should have, as my motivation wasn't at it's best. I didn't realise I was working as hard as I was. I don't think you are suppose to train above 80% more than once a week or so if I remember correctly.

I do feel much better this week with the consistant output though. I notice my sinuses clearing out a bit of goo in the process. It's nice to dream of running again. I expect there is enough manual labour around here to keep me busy for the forseeable future though. That's not all bad.

I'd like to be of more use to those immediately around me. Cleaning up the garden weeds and getting some construction type projects done would be a big hit around here. It's good to dream isn't it? Unfortunately it seems as if dreaming is all it is. On second thought I think my dreams are best if I just focus on tomorrow's efforts..

In six weeks I'd like to show some significant improvements.

Cheers! Ian.

Ian,
I do not read to many books about working out. I just kind of do what feels hard. I did get back on the bike again today. I rode to work. It felt better today. I rode a little faster. I am still feeling really winded after riding up hills, but that will get better. Sounds like your doing a great job. I think will both have show a lot of improvement in 6 weeks. Oh to answer a question you had earlier. I do not strecth before after I ride. I probaby should but have not done it.
Jim

Actually the latest research says not to stretch cold muscles. Warm up with calesthenics, or a lighter version of the exercise of choice for a few minutes, then stretch. Stretching cold can produce tearing and soft tissue injuries, or so I'm told. The fact that I stretched cold throughout highschool athletics and never got injured must have been pure fluke. I coulda won the lottery!

Want to hear something funny? I have 2 degrees in Exercise Physiology (well almost) and am going to school for Physical therapy. My world revolves around exercise. I can quote just about any research study out there. I really know my stuff. My 8 or so jobs int he last 4 years have been in the exercise field.

I work out exactly 0 times per month. I just can't stay focused.


BTW, if anyone has any questions about working out, I will gladly answer them.

88ssp and crew.

Thanks for the offer. If I run into trouble I'll let you know.. :D

Jim I used to read a lot until I figured out that life is more about the "doing" than the "knowing". Now I resort to the information to ensure that I'm not so far distracted that I'll miss the tried and true recipes..

E-boy the warm muscle thing always made sense to me.. thanks. I spent a couple of year practising yoga and through that learnt to stretch patiently.

It's a bit like cooking for me. Once I used to avoid cookbooks but was missing the fundamentals. Once I could make a white sauce without much trouble I was able to improvise more. It's like that with exercise and me. If I'm not reminded of the fundamentals I loose my way and in no time I'm doing something that isn't sustainable. I'm not anxious to loose my way on this supportive thread. I feel the strength of your presence growing every time I post. I am already feeling the benefits and have great faith that this type of commitment when carefully chosen could be a very effective tool for me. I like the feeling very much.. thank you all who contribute here and elsewhere. It helps.

I sympathise with 88ssp. I know how that feels to be very knowlegable but not able to put much of it to work. My whole existence right now is centring around how it is I can engage more with the world around me. I have a plethora of resources and very little practise in putting much of it to work.

The exercise is the first step for me in making a public commitment to do something good for myself that I know will have many positive rewards. I'm hoping that this will help lead me to a life more involved in "doing" rather than only "knowing". This is what I want.

I think I've said here before that even if I never learnt another thing, I don't likely have life enough left to act on what I already know. Life is in the doing. It's a skill I have to practise in order to develop...

I'm tremendously dissatisfied with how far away my deepest dreams are. I'm sick of it and have come to the point where little else matters besides making some steps toward a more satisfying life style. I'm the king of distractability... but of course here on the forums I'm just one more person struggling to make some headway.

Here is another mark on the calendar thinking about bikes.. and spring and watching my wood pile grow.. and my smile broaden.

Cheers! Ian.

Another one done. I am tired tonight. I can't tell whether I'm getting my daughter's cold or whether the body is just removing some of the cobwebs it has accumulated.

I did some consistant cardio exercise before allergy season one year and it paid huge dividends by reducing my allergy symptoms to neglegable levels. I hope I can reap the same rewards this year.

More will be revealed I'm sure.
Cheers! Ian.

"Talking about music is like dancing about architecture".
http://home.pacifier.com/~ascott/they/tamildaa.htm
:rolleyes:

After yesterdays relaxed day off today was a strong showing..
Cheers! Ian.

:rolleyes:

Way to go Ian,
I am working my way back into shape. I did do my 33 mile ride yesterday. It is a very hilly ride around an Island here close to where I live. I was pleased with how I rode. I did better than I thought. I took today off. I will start up tomorrow.
Keep up the good work.
Jim

Thirty three miles.... That should pay some dividends.. Are you clipped into your peddles? What kind of bike are your riding? What style of rim? How much psi. are you running? I have fond memories of my old road bike.

Well done Jim. My twenty minutes looks pretty pale in comparison but that's not going to hold me back. At this rate I'll be well positioned for an active and productive spring and summer. I just need to do a little bit and keep at it.. the rest will come.

I meet again with my coach tomorrow. I'm looking forward to telling her about the progress.

Cheers and thanks.
Ian of the endless wood pile.

Ian,
Thanks. It is a Fuji Team road bike. It is very nice. I have speed play clipless peddles. I run at 120psi and have ritchey rims. The ironic thing is that The whole 2nd half of the ride I could not get clipped in. I came close to becoming a sopprano if you know what I mean. I am sure your coach will be impressed. Like you said this is your base to do more once the weather gets better.
Jim

drool....

I know I am very lucky. It makes riding fun

Got some semi-good news last night. Been concerned over what adderall has been doing to my blood pressure. Noticed at the gym right off the bat during warm up that I was already over 70% of my target heart rate.... ADDERALL. It went much higher while I was working out proper and I did that for most of an hour before it was sauna time (My favorite part). So, for most of an hour I was at 80-90% of my maximum heart rate. That was a little spooky especially with the blood pressure stuff going on lately but I felt fine, so I just did my thing. They have a blood pressure machine on premises so I went ahead and sat through a test about 15 minutes after my workout. My heart rate was still around 136 beats a minute, but my blood pressure was remarkably low.

Anyway, I was out of the routine of running for a good many weeks in transition from ship to shore so I am thinking my heartrate will go back down to reasonable, have to bust my butt to make my target rate, levels within a few weeks. One hopes anyway.

Getting my little twenty minute hit in during the early hours of the day seems to be better all round. I'd like to get it in before breakfast but that seems out of reach right now.

My whole day is changed because of it. I'm calmer over all and this leads to a better chance of catching social cues. I'm still quite cranky. Once the bank account has recovered a bit and stabilised and the fruits of my labours generally start to show up I'm quite sure that I'll lighten up in the glow of consistant progress.

As the clouds part I'm quite frightened when I glance backward. Nothing to do but walk forward.. no running yet..

E-boy I don't know what the blood pressure should be doing in regards to exercise and the drugs I'm on. I should look into that... yup. It seems as if my ability to bring my heart rate down is crippled some. I expect I'll taper off this Dex train and use as needed instead of the 10mg slow release in the morning and another 5mg standard release in the afternoon.

I'll start monitoring my heart rate just as I become conscious in the morning to see if I can learn when to ramp up the intensity of the exercise and when to back off for a day or so. This has always been a terrific indicator for me. If I'm working too hard my base rate is up. If I'm ready for more work it will drop.

My elbows are beginning to show signs of stress. I know it's a six week project to adapt some of the tougher tissue like ligaments and tendons. I'm a long way from there. I'm off to look into some ways of helping them out. :(

Cheers! Ian.

Well, I'm glad it's not just me. The upside is that I find it very easy to jump into sustained activity, providing I am reasonably hydrated (This is trickier than it sounds, see downside). The downside, is it is somewhat worrisome and I have to drink water like it is going out of style.

I am going to bring this up to Doc's attention again tomorrow. Supposedly he has a really good ADD audio tape he wanted me and my wife to listen to, I am supposed to remind him of too. I have remembered that for a month. I only have about 24 more hours to remember it and I am sure I'll find a way to forget now. ;-)

I am no longer really pushing myself. Just glad the ball seems to be rolling well again. I was having real difficulty re-establishing the "habit" of dragging myself out. Now I have to re-establish the weights. I think I'll hold off on that until after the Physical readiness test for the Navy though.

I am also trying to rope my trash talking soon to be fourteen year old into a 5K run with me. They have several fun runs scheduled this spring. He's an active kid and I think he could probably outpace his old man easily enough if he gave himself a little credit. Besides, there's no shame in walking if it comes to that. We are only going for fun and I'll not leave him behind. It's up to him though. I am not going to make him go. I am going to though. It's kind of a reward/motivation for the whole lifestyle change thing.

What I need to do most is quit smoking. Not today though. After that, the next most important thing is dragging my butt to the Navy college office and getting my classes started. Somewhere down the list around item 500,000 or so is the very wistful wish for a trout stream and a cold sixpack (of pepsi with two beers hidden in the back ;-) ). SIGH!

Getting started for me is tough. Once I'm rolling I'm ok but I still need to have reminders frequently. I have a terrible memory. I write almost everything down. I try to practise remembering but it's tiresome and not very rewarding. There is a game under my bed that I'd like to get into making time to play with the kids. I'll drag it out tonight and have a look at it.

I drink a lot of water too but I use my urine as an indicator of how much I'm needing. I hope your increased water consumption isn't indicative of something too far out of whack. I never used to drink much but found it helped my spring allergy a lot if I could stay hydrated.

Things are definitely moving along. It has been months now without a break through to indicate my efforts are along the right path but I think things are turning around now finally. My posting rate here is sure up.. ehh

24 hours is an eternity... lol

I'm trying really hard not to be pushing myself but even this small commitment of exercise is taxing my system. I don't sleep much so that is likely the culprit. I must say though that today the twenty minutes was over before I was ready to quit which is new. I'm not moving as much flem either which is encouraging. I hail from the "people of the weak lung".

Do you enjoy weight training? I did it for a while but I'm the body type that would make a bad soup. I lean to "scrawny" when I'm fit. I could never put on any bulk lifting weights and that's why I was doing it. Clarence Bass was my hero.. lol

I like the sounds you are making in regards to running with your son. Everything you have said there sounds right on the money. The wild card of course is his to play and that's a long way from a guarantee. I'm sure that if you can continue in that attitude, he'll reap the benefits somewhere down the line as he remembers your healthy approach to him and the running. Passing it forward to the grand kids maybe.. what a warm thought that is. That really is letting the "buck stop here". I'll have to find something like that to offer my eldest. She's 16 and could use something positive from her Papa... maybe driving skills... hmmm. Thanks E.

I finally managed to quit smoking a few years ago. I don't know exactly when. I made a conscious effort not to mark the date. I'd quit so many times before that the only thing that mattered was that I didn't have a smoke in my gob that minute! I suppose it's still like that except I'm repulsed by smoke now.

Sounds as if you have lots on your plate. Classes beginning..and a hell of a list! ehhhe I have a small river going through the bottom third of our 155 acre property. It has a dozen or so species up from the Red River, that struggle with the agricultural run off. I almost never take the time to fish. Maybe once I learn to sit still for a few minutes in the morning for meditation a light will come on and I'll begin to crave a fish fry.

Cheers! Ian of the walleye dreams.

coke and beer to follow.. :p Photo of my first two trout on a fly rod.

Hey guys,
Good job. i too have noticed my pulse rate and blood pressure are higher since I started the Adderall. I rode into work today. The weather sucked. I was cold and wet. I never really got warm. I did not try to push it just try to make it. The 5k sounds like fun E-boy. Your son may end up likeing the running. I was lucky that I never smoked. Keep it up you guys. Nice fish Ian

I took my pulse in bed this morning but something must have been whacked as it was at 80/min. I hope that's not an honest representation of my fitness! I remember the days it sat at 45/min... groan....

Another day.. and stronger yet... one small step at a time.. I'm running out of wood to split so it'll be back to chainsaw work soon and that's never nearly as much fun. I expect it will yield the same results though.

Rain can be a killer. I lived on the west coast of Canada just north of you Jim for many years. I need my ultraviolet... so I'm on the prairie for good now, I hope.

Cheers! Ian.

Yeah my resting pulse is higher now. I like the rain, but it is a colder rain. Did you live in or around Vancouver? I like chain saws, but I do not get to use them that much.
Jim

I lived in the lower mainland in Coquitlam just up the valley from Vancouver for much of my childhood.

Truth be told, I don't mind the saw that much. It is intense enough to hold my attention.. heh
Cheers! Ian.

I agree with the saw. I have ridden my bike a few times from seattle to vancouver. Anyway it is one of my favorite cities
Jim

I'm not interested in Vancouver at all anymore. I still remember before the days of "heat inversion" where the summers were spectacular.

After the Hong Kong invasion I have no interest in being there at all. I have some family on the island and spend some time in Victoria now and again but Vancouver I avoid. It's like any other metropolis port city only worse because I remember when..

Now Vancouver has an aggressive edge to it that I am not attracted to. Victoria on the other hand is right down my alley... too bad I'd need to make a small fortune to live there! Everything in Victoria is only ten minutes away and you can catch trout reliably within a fifteen minute drive of downtown. The trout pic I posted was just that kind of drive.

However I've chosen the country life where land is cheap and the neighbours few... ehhe Every time we go on a car trip somewhere and camp, it's a bit of a joke in the family that camping at home is much wilder than anywhere we have camped to date.. save maybe Glacier National Park in B.C.
http://www.bcadventure.com/adventure/wilderness/parks/glacier.htm

Cheers! Ian.

I envy you Canadians. I miss Idaho sooo much! There isn't a trout stream within four hundred miles of me here. Supposedly there are Pike in the resevoir a few miles up the road, but I've yet to hook one, and even the catfish and b*** I do hook are teeny and disappointing and don't even fight much. Catfish are not much for catch and release either because they are so placid that if you don't jerk the line to set the hook at every little twinge of the rod, they swallow the whole rig. Then it's cut the line, or kill 'em. Needless to say, I cut the line. Gets expensive so I just don't fish much anymore, besides catching the occasional snapping turtle can be a bit too much of an adventure even for me. Small ones are kind of cool, but the bigger ones... Well, they are just plain tempermental and I always feel obligated to free them, and well, I like my fingers. Nope, I miss trout and steelhead. I saw a Mepps black fury lure in the bait shop the other day on base. Rotten lure for these parts. Too small for most of the fish here. Great trout lure though. High contrast, black and yellow spinner. They eat 'em up! Always caught my limit with one of those.

I spoke to my oldest boy about that 5K tonight. He said he like to go, if he can bring his friend Robert. It's a military sponsored event and family only. Fortunately Robert's dad is Army, so he gets to play too! YAY! This also means if they decide they would rather screw off and walk I am free to try to give a good account of myself. :-). I am not taking it too seriously. I have enough time to get into decent shape training, but not enough to really get into competetive shape with my short legs. If I really push it I might be able to maintain an 8 or 9 mile an hour pace. I used to be able to out do that pretty easily, but... Well, 18 I'm not. Nor am I anywhere near as lean as I used to be.

Ian, you asked if I enjoyed weight training. I do, when I am fully back into the routine. It is quite painful getting there though. I don't main sore muscles either. For some reason, it takes more out of me than running ever did. I find that a good full workout on the weights circuit makes me quite sick to my stomach. It usually takes several weeks to get that out of my system. Running has never done this to me. My weight tends to remain stable, and then slowly climb as my body adapts to the workload. VERY SLOWLY. If I stop, I lose about five pounds a week on the adderall. That's while I am running, at the present rate of course. My plan is to Bring my run up to 8 miles a day with maybe a weekly ten mile run and possibly breaking up the daily grind with some shorter duration interval training for speed. When I get my weight down under two hundred again I will begin weight training in earnest again, low weight high reps in an effort to get as lean as possible. Then I will bring my calorie intake up a little, the weight progressively up, and my run distance down, until I am running no more than a half an hour five days a week.

That should put me where I want to be. I still need to quite smoking. :-( The very thought makes me sad... Of course, the idea of dying makes me even more sad. The world needs me! Maybe...

I'll bet you ate those fish didn't you! Rub it in why don't you!

E-boy et all.
If there are lurkers.. please join us whenever.

If you are ever up into south western Saskatchewan, there is a park there that is my favourite place on the planet so far. Roughing it is best so bring a tent and find a quiet spot in the west end of this place and tie a few flies before breakfast.
http://www.se.gov.sk.ca/saskparks/parks/park.asp?park=Cypress%20Hills

There are areas that are quite developed but the west end isn't. Throughout the surrounding areas you will find joy.

There is a Ducks Unlimited project seven or eight miles from here that was brimming with pike until last winter. We were short of snow and it froze the shallow body of water to the point that the fish couldn't make it through the winter. The shores were rank with tens of thousands of pike in the spring. We had a bad winter kill that year in our river too. The Ducks Unlimited site yielded firm white fleshed clean tasting pike so I hope it recovers soon.

My brother introduced me to a technique to fillet jack (pike) boneless. I'll tell you right now that everyone thought that was just the ticket! The day we were out had us eating kilo after kilo of absolutely boneless tasty jack fillets.. what a treat. Reminded me a bit of salmon in it's texture.

Sheesh! You guys are going to have me motivated to fish too... my brother's will be wondering what the hell is going on. ehhe Feels great to be alive just now.

The run with your son sounds like a great first step. Again, your tone sounds right on! It would be nice to see some instant gratification but I expect that the results will be positive regardless of the time frame.

Cheers! Ian.

Ian,

Wow, That was one positive post! Great to see that! It was especially nice to see positive feedback on my attempts at establishing some kind of link with my sons. When they were younger we were much closer. I am sort of naturally on the same wavelength as small children. So was my father though he would be loathe to admit it. My stepsons, of course, did not inherit ADD, and my youngest, who through no fault of his own ;-) happens to share my genetic heritage, did not share in the ADHD aspects of it. So, while he and I are eye to eye on everything from cartoons to games to... well everything, it won't last long. My two older sons have some interests that dove tail with mine, but not many. They both love math on the acedemic side. I could do without it, electronics tech or not. Neither of them cares for science. I live for the stuff. They get good grades, but neither reads for recreation, which I try to sell them on every chance I get to their great dismay. They do like soccer, but they prefer hockey. I can't skate to save my life. I have more or less given up on video games, though I am really not sure why. I was quite good at them, I just sort of, pushed them away for some reason. Maybe so I wouldn't compete with the kids for time on the game console.

It seems these days that the older boys see me as primarily a guy to ask homework questions of, ask about the occasional odd factoid (they know I have a propensity for trivia), the guy who takes them to the mall, and the all purpose electronic/bike/whatever else is broken repair man.

With the little guy interfacing is easy. With the older ones it is a challenge that often involves attempting to involve myself in activities I have no interest, skill, or knowledge of. Wanting to establish a rapport with my sons, gives me the interest, but these experiments usually fail as teenage boys are easily embarrassed by father's who stink at *fill in activity here* in front of their friends. Add to this that the easy fun with the five year old in front of them brings accusations of favoritism faster than I can even say the word favoritism and with a blended family that's a big deal.

So, I was very happy when Christopher agreed to go. This mean's it's even odds my 12 year old Brian will go as well. They didn't have much patience for fishing, so maybe this more energy intensive activity will be a bigger success.

Sounds great E-boy. It sounds like you raelly work at trying to understand your kids and not just put up with them. That is a rareity. I am sorry I am not much of a fisherman so I cannot discuss it with much authority. I think the running plan is very good. e-boy did you run at that pace while you were smoking or was that before you started. That is a nice pace. I am hoping to ride a couple of 100 mile rides this summer.
take care both of you

Well, for three and a half miles that pace is probably more wishful thinking than reality. 7 miles an hour to 8 tops. I could crank 10 for a good solid two miles when I was in my early 20's without too much heartache, but I really don't know what my top end is now as I'm not in that kind of shape anymore. I doubt it's that fast. Now I can hold that 7 as a smoker. :-) In fact the post run smoke is a great motivator. ;-)

Another notch in the handle..

Piles?! That's gotta be painful! You got preparation H for them? I'll bet it hurts real bad when you gotta use the little boys room! You got one of them inflatable doughnut seats to sit on? ;-)

Seriously, I know what you meant. You know, walking and hiking or, for that matter, just what you are doing are all just fine forms of exercise. The Surgeon general here says the key thing to start with is remaining active. From there, the starting point, providing you have a doctors screening and permission (depending on age health, blood pressure, heart disease/conditon ect...), is to start with mainting a target heart rate of at least 120 beats a minute for 20 minutes at least three times a week. If that is uncomfortable they say to cut it to ten and work up to twenty. Then over the course of a few months to work up to doing it five days a week. When you have been doing that for a month or two (keep in mind this is a long haul develop a healthy life style, don't scare the american public and try to keep them from getting fat, which they are are at a frighteningly fast rate) to increase the time you maintain that heart rate to half an hour. Now after you have done that for a couple of weeks you are ready to calculate your maximum heart rate for your age, look for your target heart rate and then maintain that for half an hour three times a week. Do this for about a month and then go up to four or five time a week. If weight loss is your goal you want to increase the time to 45 minutes 5 to 6 times a week because your body will not stop using blood sugar and glycogen stored in the muscle tissue as it's primary energy source (it does burn fat too during this time, but only barely) until about 30 minutes has passed. The ideal fat burning target heart rate is fifty to sixty percent of maximum. Personally, I usually end up holding 60 to 70 % because after not training for two months and being on the adderall it is really hard for me to keep my heart rate below those rates... ;-) I am hoping it drops back down soon, because it makes me look really out of shape. Typically any weight loss over about 2.5 lbs a week is water weight. Normal metabolic processes cannot produce or metabolize tissue any faster than that. So, these diets that claim faster results are full of crap. In our case as ADDers, we often have metabolic disturbances, so what feels right to you is probably right. In addition to that, I find that Adderall tends to double that 2.5 lb a week rate and it also increases water loss.

One of the biggest single factors in health and fitness besides staying active is simply eating intelligently. Avoid major calorie deficits. You should never burn off more than 500 calories more than you take in. This means you should neither starve yourself, or overwork yourself. The end result is the same to your body. It goes into starvation mode and drops your metabolism cutting your energy usage and conserving fat. You end up lethargic, with little exercise benefit and no fat loss. Your body will instead canibalize muscle tissue to produce energy. Also, obviously, don't eat crap. Smoking is bad, and I am a very stupid but very stress free smoker. Soft drinks and coffee are bad. I drink very little soda, but they can pry my hot coffee from my cold dead fingers. However, drinking extra water can offset any bad effects from these beverages. Proper dental care, of all things believe it or not, is crucial to cardiovascular health. The same microbes that cause cavities and gum disease can get into your circulator system through your infected gums (I'm talking about non-flossers here not people with advanced gum disease) and cause coronary artery disease. Biopsies of plaques in arteries consitently test positive for these bugs. Wierd huh? There's hope from a really simple source though. Firstly, there's already a vaccine for Carries (the bug in question) in human trials in europe. In the first test the subjects took the vaccine orally and simply brushed with a tooth brush but no paste for six months and were tested for bacteria in their mouths. None were found whatsoever. The other bit of hope is a plant sugar called xylitol used in gum you can buy in the store here in the states. Carries bacteria cannot digest it. What's more, when carries is exposed to xylitol on a regular basis, it loses it's ability to digest refined sugar too. It is no longer able to digest sugar and produce acid at all. This was discovered in denmark. Where the incidence of cavities and tooth decay in adults has dropped some 80% since. Of course, xylitol does nothing to protect you from gum disease, though the vaccine would if it ever gets approved.

****, the rambler strikes again!!!!! You know what Ian? I read to much!

I'm a reader too.

Are you a primarily non-fiction reader?

I really enjoyed your comments on the bacteria. I'll be following up on that. I'm a flosser too but have enough years of abuse behind me to leave my gums a bit low and the soft base of my teeth more vulnerable.

I've had a lot of dental work done over the past few years after many years of neglect. I now have teeth which I can bit with and have some confidence.

The diet and cardiovascular information I was mostly familiar with. You have stated the facts clearly. If there are admins lurking this is worthy of a "sticky". So many people still don't "get it" about why so many "diets" fail to change anything in the long term. You have made this point very well and it's worth keeping in mind.

I'm not likely getting enough sleep to take advantage of the exercise I'm doing. I sure feel strongly that the Dexedrine is not helping either. I'm tempted to begin tapering off the medication train and see how it goes. I was able to address many of my adhd symptoms prior to last summer sustainably without meds using my coach and it may be time to return to that approach. I'll discuss it with my Dr. on the 24th and the psychiatrist on the 18th.

My eating habits are better than they have been in the past. I'm not so prone to binging. Since last summer I have cut back on starches like rice, spuds, pasta and bread. I've begun to cook quite a bit now again after a half dozen years of not cooking. One of the things I've enjoyed baking recently is course breads. yum... Hopefully this week-end I'll get a chance to buy some ingredients to make some hard loves of grain for some European style pumpernickel.

Cheers! Ian on a donut, saving his pile for next year.. heh

Ian,

I was just listening to a really good audio tape my doc gave me from a lecture to the american psychiatric congress regarding the State of the science on ADHD as of 2003. The comment that was made about stimulant meds and sleep was that when the dosage was fine tuned, the stimulant had no negative impact on sleep and, in point of fact, actually eliminated or greatly moderated the sleep pattern disturbances associated with many cases of ADHD. Are you by chance taking the extened release version of dexedrine? That was addressed by this study too. They producers don't like to acknowledge it, but extended release dexidrine doesn't work. It's no different, clinically then regular dexidrine in lab tests. Nor does the first extended release ritalin, although later versions of extended release ritalin worked well, and adderall XR works very well also. The key thing though is varying the dose to get it tuned to the individual.

Very informative guys!! I need to watch my eating habits. I like bad food. If I did not exercise I would have a weight problem. I did ride into work again and will ride home tonight. I have slept good with Adderall XR. I have had other distractions from sleep as you guys know. :D
Jim

I am taking 10mg of extended release dex in the morning and then 5mg of whatever you call the other Dexedrine after lunch. I don't think it has any effect on my sleep. I'm just a bad sleeper on any account. I was taking dimenhydrinate for a few years before my pharmacist told me me it would be interfering with my R.E.M sleep.

I quit the travel tabs and my Dr. suggested lorazepam in 1mg doses for the same effect and it seems to work well. I find it hard to admit I take all this medication. I'm not very comfortable with it. Without the chemistry assist I don't usually get more than about 4 or 5 hours sleep a night at best.

It's my internal demons/torture that keep me from sleeping.... maybe too much preparation H.. ya never know.. ehh

Is there a transcript available for the tape you got E-boy? I wouldn't mind having a look/listen to it. Sounds current and timely.

You must have some good rain gear to keep your mileage up like this Jim. Or isn't it as rainy as I think it might be where you are? I like bad food too, but mostly I just like to eat too much of whatever I eat. It keeps me tired and ensures I don't have the wherewithall to do any more than the minimum. It's sick and I do it in so many different ways.

I play guitar poorly too and this seems to be just one more way I avoid playing the hand I'm dealt. I'm frustrated today no doubt. Just not getting the traction I need. I have a million ways to avoid meeting my potential in the areas that I am strong. Grrrr. I'll try and focus on the things I did get done instead of the dark side. :rolleyes:

E-boy you sound like a bit of a mechanic. Did you see the little low temperature differential Stirling engine I built? It runs on the heat of my hand at about 145 rpm and much faster on a mug of hot water... or over ice.. whichever you choose. I built it ostensibly for my wifes science lab at school. But we all know about boys and toys... lol My Dad is a mechanical type andI had a bet with him last week that I couldn't drill a Robertson driver bit. He hasn't figured out how to "anneal" yet.. ..heh I win! I love machines. But then I love almost anything that has humans extending themselves. Your collective running pace for starters.. oh my.. ... I thinkIcanIthinkIcan..

Jim the guitar is like your bike in that I'm lucky. www.perryguitars.com Daryl and I met in the fall of 1987 and became friends appreciating each others extremes. Mine is a steel string. I suppose it's true what Daryl says about most people buying guitars with their eyes but I'm not one of them. His have quite a voice.

Ian of the much left undone.
Peace.

It always feels better once I write.. thanks for hearing me out.

Ian you sound like a very good a fixer upper. I do not know much about guitars, but I can relate to your passion. It does rain a fair amount, but it is more drisal. I just have tights and a bike rain jacket. It is inexpensive. I get wet but i sweat a lot so I get wet no matter what. Also my wife did get me a thing that you put your wet shoes on overnight and it dries them off. Hope your day gets better.
Jim

Ian, I like machines, but I'm more of a tinkerer than a mechanic. Electronics is my field.

You know Ian, over 75% of adult ADDers have sleep issues and while it is counter intuitive as hell, the present wisdom is to treat the ADD 24 hours a day. Which is to say to continue stimulant dosing at night. A well tuned dose doesn't "stimulate" an ADDer at all, and it does directly address the sleep issues because they are directly related to the ADD. Almost 100% of cases when treated this way report normal sleep patterns after treatment. No kidding. I only just learned this today and I am going to ask my doc if I can dose a couple of hours before bed come Monday. :-)

Anyway, as soon as the wife gets home my butt is going to the gym. She is mad at me again anyway. I asked her to listen to this audio tape my doc gave me of one of the nations ADHD experts speaking before the American psychiatric congress regarding the present state of research on ADHD and on his own experience with his patients. This is where I got all of that new info I mentioned above. She was less than enthusiastic, and when I commented she didn't have to listen if she didn't want to she blew up at me. It went down hill from there.

Sorry to hear that wedgie boy :D Just kidding!! I hope you have a great work out. I can relate to the wife being mad as you know :D

Hey crew.
One more kick at the can today.

E-boy the tape sounds like it's wonderful. Do you have any links that might be appropriate? Is it marked "April 24th 2003"? I see a pdf file at: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/research/Roundtable2003message.pdf

Interesting about the stimulants at night. I'll give that a whirl tonight and see what happens. I'll loose the Ativan of course.

I notice a difference between the two forms of Dexedrine E-boy. The 5mg after lunch kicks in rapidly and is sometimes unpleasant if I'm over tired or feeling weak in some way. I sometimes get a bit of a panicky feeling with it but never on the 10mg slow release stuff but obviously the science isn't there to back that up. I know we are all different and that I have not taken the time to eliminate some obvious possible factors in this observation, but life is short.. and I'm not that interested in the details of it really. I want to be off the meds altogether but I'd best just hang tough until I'm stronger and on better footing.

I've never been able to follow things electrical or electronic. I'm fascinated with the computer and it's works but I'm really not that skilled. I just don't have the disciplined math brain to make a living at it. Linux is a political and social commitment rather than a technical appreciation.
http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue3_3/raymond/#d1

Jim I seem to forget that if it's raining it can't be all that cold! ehhe Especially if you are riding at a good pace. Oh how soon I forget.. ;^) The shoe drier must be just the ticket!

A fixerupper I am, yes.

I'm so grateful to have a partner that is sympathetic. I'll try to keep my mouth shut about it.. you guys seem to have your hands full with the other thang.. strength to you both. I got a peach. Found her in the classifieds.. but that's a story for another day..

Well Ian, My wife really is a peach too. She had just been through a lot before she met me, and I was the knight in shining armor before the promotion sort of overwhelmed me, and circumstances soon after that pushed anxiety issues, that I had always assumed were normal, so far beyond normal they simply could not be rationalized away. Had I known I would suddenly find myself so out of control of my own life, I never would have dragged her into things. She refers to the "ME" prior to all this stuff manifesting itself so spectacularly as "The old Dan" and often pines for his return. I really can't blame her for this. I have aggravated long standing issues of hers that she was completely above board with me about. No, she is not completely fair all the time, and she has done and said insensitive things, but she has no real concept of what ADD is, so I can hardly blame her for doing what everyone else in the general public does and listening to the Media and many of the mainstream doctors and psychologists who are inexplicably still in the dark ages on ADD, if they even acknowledge it's existence. I know I have not always been fair, or even nice. Hell, put me on a bad med mix, combine that with the ADD symptomology like speech editing issues, and sensitivity/defensiveness and I could be an out and out bastidge. So, I give her credit. I still hold out for a better day though.

Electronics are no different from machines. The math required is unbelievably simple. Computers, you see, are stupid. Just very fast. ;-)

E-boy between you and Jim I am left with my jaw on the floor. You both give me plenty of reason to pause and think before I "go off".

Thanks for the insight.

I have done a double shift today as it just felt right. I worked twenty minutes in the morning and now I'm just in from another 36 minute flurry. This now ends the wood I had bucked up into stove lengths and begins the next round with the chain saw. I'll take tomorrow off and pick it up again on Monday, all things being equal.

It's still cold enough to make the work bearable. It won't be once the bugs come out so I'm trying to get it well underway for next fall. I have plenty enough split for the next heating season to begin but it would be great to be a full year ahead... but then there is the summer kitchen to finish... ah.. dreams.. :rolleyes:

It's kind of nice to see the arms popping veins that no nurse would have trouble tapping.

It looks like yesterdays blues were temporary which I'll take as a good sign.

Off to the shop to see if that's still functioning as well. ;)
Cheers.. Ian of the juvenile calendars

I live by calendars! Of course, I suppose I'm sort of juvenile. I've got energy at all the wrong times, for all the wrong things. I've a tendency to wear my heart on my sleeve and my speech tends to reflect exactly what I am feeling. I think it is too my credit that inspite of the fact that if it crosses my mind it comes out of my mouth I generally manage not to say horrid things (the major exception being antagonistic meds making me angrier than I thought I was capable of being. Even the docs that caught it were impressed that I had been on them a year and a half and was never violent with anyone (not even a hint of it). This as an impulse control problem ridden ADDer! Do you think we've got a guy here with a real gentle streak or what? I was, as I said, a world class reactive jerk and even I was horrified by some of the things that came out of my mouth). With the exception of the one chemically induced incident of bastidgeness I'm an overly sensitive very defensive boob when I'm upset and I say some spectacularly ridiculous things, but they fall under the realm of just that, RIDICULOUS.

Believe me, if I was too horrible my wife,Robin, who is a victim's rights advocate for domestic violence would have been long gone. She was victimized by her ex-husband verbally, emotionally, psychologically, and physically for ten years before she finally got away from his sorry ***. At the beginning of our time together I could not even wake her up without her jumping three feet in the air and I had to be very careful how I pitched my voice when speaking to her because if I even sounded like I might be upset she would flinch. You had to make noise when entering a room she was in so she knew you were there. Even when I could tell she did not agree with me she would not say so or raise her voice when angry because she was afraid. She was afraid of men in general.

Believe it or not, I took it as a hell of a compliment the first time she ever yelled at me. That's when I knew for sure she felt safe around me. Completely safe. You see, she may not entirely forgive me my foibles, and she may not find me the most reliable man in the world, but she knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would sooner cut my own arms off than hurt her or those kids. After a while she decided I was probably just a wuss in a big giant body. I'm kind of non-conflict oriented in my general philosophy, you see. There just aren't that many things in life worth potentially coming to blows over as far as I'm concerned. The safety of my family and defense of my person are about it. I would also go to the aid of a person who obviously needed it, of course. Anyway, the wife used to put me on the spot wanting me give people a good talking to she thought needed it all the time and I would talk to them but I'd do it my way, which apparently wasn't the aggressive intimidating "Go straight to blazes" talk she wanted to hear. So, she decided I was this big wuss in wolf's clothing... :-)

One day, when my in-laws were staying with us (FOR THREE MONTHS!!! ARRRRRGH!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love 'em but that's a really LONG TIME!) One of the neighbors decided to have a little altercation with a young man he caught in the house with his daughter when he came home from work. Only he decided to have it in my yard. They were getting pretty loud and scary, and my mother in law has a very bad heart. She was popping nitro like it was going out of style. Me? I was actually oblivious to all this at first because I was focussed on the computer. My wife shook me out of it and asked me to put a stop to it before her mother had another heart attack. So out I went. I remember asking nicely the first two times. I remember I wasn't nice the third time and I was loud enough that the whole neighborhood heard me and lots of lights went on, and I may have used a bad word or two.... I don't actually remember the rest. I guess between untreated anxiety and the ADHD I spun up a little higher than normal... The teenager was the smart one. He left. The dad wanted to "Discuss it with me". My wife got to watch me physically remove him from my property. **** I wish I remembered that part more than vaguely! I didn't hurt the guy, but I must have scared the crap out of him because he had been harrassing my mother-in-law and wife on a daily basis prior to this incident and he didn't come near my home for three months after it, and then it was to apologize to me.

When I walked in the door, it was dead quiet. My mother in law was making tea, my wife was staring at me like she had no idea who I was, and my father in law said, "I don't know who the hell you are, but what did you do with Dan?" After that my wife no longer pushes me to "stick up for her". I think it may have been about seeing if I was capable of protecting her. It saddens me she feels so unsafe in this world. It saddens me even more she made me promise not to do anything to her ex... :-( He's given me a few excuses and I had to be all civilized and let the police handle it. GRRRRR.

See, she has her share of problems. I try really hard not to dump mine on her. Realistically there is no way to avoid that, of course. Man, I'm a dope. I didn't know this would happen when I married her though, or I'd have never put her through it. I have also told her I would not blame her if she decided to leave, nor would I play any games with the finances or any of the usual crap you see these days. She's still here. Maybe, I'm doing something right. Probably by accident knowing me. ;-)

I am not the gentle type. I likely fall squarely into the "abuser" category. I have a sharp tongue and a quick temper. Like many with ADHD I have a hard time with perspective when it comes to priorities. All my priorities look of equal importance to me and time just kind of happens all at once. This often leads to frustration. All the viscousness has moderated tremendously but it's not gone and the tolerance for any of it around here has diminished to near zero and I don't blame anyone but myself for that.

Last night I made another booboo with my middle daughter and scared her by being angry. I'm almost completely impotent when it comes to being a parent except for the negative impact. I still have some positive impact as a father but as a parent I'm dead in the water. I just don't know how to nurture those I'm close to.

I can school a young green horse to be kid proof, I can teach a dog nearly thirty words before it's a year old. I can grow almost anything with life in it.. but I am not good with my family... or myself as far as that goes. It's a sad day when I see the reality of being a fifth wheel at home for the most part. It is like being a stranger in my own house.

Your ability to culture a safe place for you wife is remarkable. What a great story. It made me smile thinking of your attention to detail and the satisfaction of knowing that her yelling at you was only proof that things are better for her now. Well done.

I was supposed to go out to my father in-law's today with the family but couldn't face it. Between the incident with my daughter and my trial with evening doses of Dexedrine I didn't turn out the light until after five this morning. I'm profoundly sad throughout. What a roller coaster I'm on these days.

I think I will begin to look at taking measures to leave. Or at least to have that option available if my wife and I thinks it's for the best. I don't like people for the most part and can hardly make friends with myself so maybe it's over due. In the mean time I'll stick to my guns about productivity and contributions to the household and keep plugging away at what I "can" do and try not to focus too intently on that which eludes me.

I heard your comments about the medications and dialing them in. I'll follow up on this with the professionals in my life.

Cheers! Ian.

This was Brenda.. a dear friend of mine.

Well boys it looks like at times we all have our relationship issues. I really like your stories E-boy. That is great that your wife can yell at you now. I do yell back at my wife, but no matter what I do it does not seem to work. I am like e-boy in a sence that I do not do conflict. I think my is so much so it is an isssue. I have never had abuse issues with my parents so I do not know why I am so mild mannered. I am very competitive and when in games I have lost my temper.

Ian do not sell yourself short you may be doing much better than you think. I know I thought I was going to be fired from my job and asked only to find they have no clue what I was talking about.
Well back to the physical fitness part. I did not ride this weekend. As you know I am great at wiping out on my bike. Maybe I did not tell you. I have broken both shoulders wiping out. About a month ago I got caught in a road crack and the bike went down hard. I was okay, but the derailer hanger bent a little bit. It caused the chain to skip gears and the chain to rub on the spokes when I was in low gear. I advoided low gear. That gave me a good workout. I took the bike in sat to get fixed. It should be ready today. I got a new helmet. Take care guys,
Jim

Ian,

These days, I am very like you in that I have had no patience at all. My wife is always angry with me, and her being able to yell now, while it is a good thing, has worn out it's charm in a big way.

My normal self is the gentle soul. I spend too much of the time overwhelmed these days though and that is from the fighting. Overwhelmed Dan is no patience Dan. No patience Dan is the guy who finds it to be near impossible to be good natured about the boys incessant arguing. The Dan who the five year old gets mad at for getting after him for being antsy (Five year olds ARE ansty). The Dan who gets into arguments with a 12 year old over household decisions the 12 year old has no say in (I catch myself and say "Why am I arguing with a 12 year old?"). I can be quite Cranky Ian. Though not the down right nasty Guy I was on that bad med mix (Wellbutrin and lexapro don't mix well). When I am not overwhelmed, on the other hand, Patience is something I have in spades. Easy going is the name of the game. I once had an angry gentleman punch me full in the face and didn't lose my temper ( I looked him in the eye and asked what his problem was. Turns out he'd been drinking This was in a bar, I'd just arrived in, so go figure. My reaction wasn't quite what he'd expected. He sort of changed colors and left in a hurry. ;-) Lucky for me he wasn't much of a puncher.). My wife used to say I had the patience of God. Heh. Guess I'd be the devil now...

Don't get me wrong, I'm not as bad as all that. I'm just very reactive. I think I'd fall under the category of not much fun, at my worst.

Hi crew.
It looks like I'll be comfortable with a half hour now. That equals twelve logs. :D

I don't think I'm selling myself short at all Jim. I talked to PU (wife) last night after they all got home and the kids cleared out. Although she was sad to hear of my observations, she did not deny any of it. It was a calm discussion. She was sad.

For a week now I've had a clarity about my position and options that I have not had before. A selfish posture of sorts that leaves me quite focused. I'm not at all feeling like I'm headed off in unreasonable directions on impulse. I'm steady in my actions around the home through the internal roller coaster. This is unique for me.

Over the last month or more, I've taken up a lot more house hold duties and have begun to once again enjoy the kitchen. Work is comming along nicely and the cash flow is on a steady rise. PU has been quite exhausted over that same period and she's very appreciative about the extra efforts I'm making. I'm not doing it explicitly for her where once I would have as part of the "honeymoon" E-boy has spoken so well of elsewhere, but it's nice to be "part of" in what ever way I can be.

I told her about making it possible to leave if necessary and she isn't interested in that but I made the point that if it was ever deemed appropriate it would be much easier to do if I was in a position to actually make it happen myself. It's not that there isn't a bunch of things going well, it's just that my history has left things in such a position that even some of the small transgressions are not tolerated. I certainly feel like I'm losing my kids emotionally if in fact I ever had them. So really it's just a question of keeping the damage to a minimum.

I feel like if I can stay the course with the exercise that all will be well in the end. I have to hang on to something in order to feel like there is at least a rudder in the water. Whether the direction is true I can't tell but one thing is for sure. Without trying to head out on a path there is little chance of getting to making the dreams reality.

I got a lot of things done yesterday while the family was out. I got the new controller unit installed in the range hood and fixed the mini vac.. Mr. fixerupper.. Cleaned up some in the yard as the snow melts and set the repeating trap up in the basement for the spring rush if mice into the root cellar. I also took the time to partition and format a new hard drive so I can finally migrate from this old Redhat system and onto something new like Gentoo and Knoppix. I broke up the 80 gig drive (WD800JB) into twenty partitions for three separate operating systems.. ehhh oh how I love machines..

Gentoo I have built up before but finally found the drive was beginning to fail and causing the operating system to fail each time I got it within liveable configurations. The Gentoo is built entirely from source code against your specific hardware if you really want to play... and I do. It'll mean at least a month worth of downloads and compiling time but hey.. this machine is a hobby not a profession.

Cheers! Ian.

You guys sound so pratical and seem to see what is going on in your lives. It is something I hope to get to soon. I see what is going on around me and know that if I was advising me that I would tell myself that I am not going about it the right way. In a lot of situations I have taken the easiest road and not the high road all the time. Hopefully that will be the case. Good luck and good thoughts to both of you.
Jim

Dan is it ok to refer to you as Dan instead of "E-boy"?

I don't see others referring to your first name and I don't see you posting it in your signature but I'd look forward to talking to Dan..it's easier to type.. heh

I really appreciate the reality check on your patience. I'm not as hot as I made it sound I guess. I have made a lot of headway regarding my impulsive nature, but am still subject to :

HALT or
H = hungry
A = angry
L = lonely
T = tired

One of the things playing a large role in my frustration is the business of not commanding much respect from the kids. If PU isn't behind the idea, it has no teeth and I'm ignored for the most part. Not a good feeling. This is not beyond my understanding. I see how this has happened and this week-end I finally saw that my mistake was in expecting it to be different when nothing has changed on my part.

I don't know how I will or whether I can make inroads in this but I will stick to what I know and try to keep things moving ahead in hopes that things may change for the better. I do get very frustrated when I see that the girls are manipulating events with the knowledge that although I may be correct, without PU's sanction they won't have to submit to anything I might ask. My wife can't mediate all things and shouldn't have to but maybe this is a way for us to team up more intimately again in the parenting. I've quit asking much from the girls. I think this point is worth digging into a bit more with PU and I will.

This forum as a back board to sound out ideas is a very good thing for me. Thanks for hearing me out once again.

Cheers! Ian.

Originally posted by E-boy
Ian,

These days, I am very like you in that I have had no patience at all. My wife is always angry with me, and her being able to yell now, while it is a good thing, has worn out it's charm in a big way.

My normal self is the gentle soul. I spend too much of the time overwhelmed these days though and that is from the fighting. Overwhelmed Dan is no patience Dan. No patience Dan is the guy who finds it to be near impossible to be good natured about the boys incessant arguing. The Dan who the five year old gets mad at for getting after him for being antsy (Five year olds ARE ansty). The Dan who gets into arguments with a 12 year old over household decisions the 12 year old has no say in (I catch myself and say "Why am I arguing with a 12 year old?"). I can be quite Cranky Ian. Though not the down right nasty Guy I was on that bad med mix (Wellbutrin and lexapro don't mix well). When I am not overwhelmed, on the other hand, Patience is something I have in spades. Easy going is the name of

the game. I once had an angry gentleman punch me full in the face and didn't lose my temper ( I looked him in the eye and asked what his problem was. Turns out he'd been drinking This was in a bar, I'd just arrived in, so go figure. My reaction wasn't quite what he'd expected. He sort of changed colors and left in a hurry. ;-) Lucky for me he wasn't much of a puncher.). My wife used to say I had the patience of God. Heh. Guess I'd be the devil now...

Don't get me wrong, I'm not as bad as all that. I'm just very reactive. I think I'd fall under the category of not much fun, at my worst.

Ian
That sounds like a good idea to me!

Wow.. I'll have to print this out and staple it to my forehead so I can never forget that I've been called practical!!! Whooooohoooot!

Just kidding of course although it is true that "practical" is not my strong suit.

I do feel like I can see more clearly just now. I don't know why either although I do hope it lasts. It happened last week-end. Saturday afternoon to be specific. A shift... go figure. All these years and now I feel somehow empowered to look after my own interests. Not to the exclusion of others, just the contrary, but to include myself in the care I take with so many things. Really odd.. I like it very much but the feeling is new and frankly odd.

Thank-you Jim for putting me in the same paragraph with E-boy.. he's got a great rational mind that leads the way.

Until last week-end I felt exactly like you described in your post. It is not a pleasant feeling. Strength to you.

Cheers! Ian.

Originally posted by biking guy
You guys sound so pratical and seem to see what is going on in your lives. It is something I hope to get to soon. I see what is going on around me and know that if I was advising me that I would tell myself that I am not going about it the right way. In a lot of situations I have taken the easiest road and not the high road all the time. Hopefully that will be the case. Good luck and good thoughts to both of you.
Jim

Thanks Ian,
I know I will get there I am still in a situation where as I grow I am forced to justify it and am still looking out for oncoming traffic that sometimes comes way to fasy. Hope I made that clear. You each inspire me in my own way to become a better person.
Thanks,
Jim

Me a great rationale mind?....... Have you been drinking Ian? By the way, Dan is fine.

I have the same issue with my children you do, for the record. It gets to the point where rather than ask me to do something for or with them they will ask their mother. After several go rounds with this I finally told both her and them that I am a person, not Mom's pet and I speak English so if they want something from me they have to ask me. If I say no, asking Mom if I'll do it doesn't trump me, it virtually garranties the answer is no and probably no the next time too. If you want to reason with me and you make good points my mind can be changed. If Mom comes to me independently, and makes good points, or makes the thundercloud face, my mind can be changed (or made up depending on the whys and hows). I am not an unreasonable man. For her part, my wife has the nasy habbit of complaining to the children about my shortcomings rather than just to me. I could see complaining to a close friend or confidante, or even to her counselor, or mother, but complaining to the children undermines my position in a big way and then she turns around and wonders why I have difficulties with them when she is not here. I tell her, "well it might have something to do with what you've been telling them about me" which she tries to deny. When I point out our middle son quoted one of her favorite gripes and rather than just send him out to the salt mines for life as I thought appropriate at the time, he was still in his room. Then she gets mad and asks me what I expect because everyone is angry with me. I tell her I expect her not to sabotage any attempt I make at doing better. Needless to say, it doesn't get substantially better after that. Sounds like you and PU at least are on the same page.

Indeed PU and I are for the most part on the same page. She's not beyond embracing change. The pendulum has swung back and forth during our 18 year tenure. I feel a change coming on. I expect her to see the wisdom of the merits of a united front to help alleviate some of my frustration with the girls. I'm excited about the prospects of what that might bring if I'm able to play my cards at all well.

You two are in a very tough spot in comparison. Funny that it is me who is coming to peace about leaving or at least doing without or something or something.

Jim if you feel inspired it's likely the fault of your willingness to remain open and searching. You offer up what you can, I draw strength from that too. Thanks to you bud. This whole thread is an inspiration for me. David's creating the board another... Andrew, Paul and Tara's wisdom too, along with all the regulars who tread before me, showing us the way. Dan's another story.. ;P~~~~~~ eheh (jk)

gratefully yours. Ian.


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Thanks Ian,
I am ready to learn new things and to come out from the problems in my life. I think I am open to leaving if that will make us both happier. I would not want to do that without saying I tried my hardest make it work. Yes and I agree with you on the others. Dan, I beleive you will be a very good pyschologist.
Jim

And try we do.. and laugh some too.. heh

Now what is that signature all about.. "Shoot low"?
Ian

I love to laugh. It is supposed to be a joke. My brother always used to say that. I enjoyed it. I have a dry sense of humor, but I do have one. Also I love slapstick. Did you ever see the pink panther movies with peter sellers. They are very funny

Yes Peter Sellers is a hoot.. I'll bet the kids could stand an introduction.. hmmm

Dan is another story? Is it a scary one?! I love scary stories! Oooh! Tell me, tell me, tell me the scary Dan story! Is Dan a monster?! Is he scary?!

Sorry... What's all this about leaving Ian? Also, I am sorry about you being up all night on the dexidrine. There was the bit about "Fine tuning" the dosage first. You should be able to take a nap on it. You know Ian, too much stimulant can cause irritability and contribute to mood issues. Or you may well have co-morbid conditions you are unaware of. A full 50% of ADDers do. And a good many of those conditions are mood disorders HINT HINT. My point is Ian, before you go throwing in any towels, and before you accept the judgments passed on you your whole life, you may want to consider these items. Of course, I may be making a giant *rhymes with Bass* out of myself here. You may well have looked into this stuff already. Or you may have done what I initially did, which is to assume the docs would have looked for this stuff automatically. Don't count on it. Even some of the "specialists" seem woefully uniformed these days. The most recent studies are published though. You can arm yourself with information and find doctors who are familiar with it.

Don't mean to preach Ian. You are older and wiser than I. You may not believe that, but I do. I just hate to say anyone give in on the basis of percieved reality when, we, especially we here at the forum, know that what's percieved to be true, even by us, isn't necessarily the truth. The truth shall set you free Ian. Or make the guy with the negatives a little money on the side ;-) as the case may be. My point is, you have a neurological syndrome, that tends to have co-morbid conditions (you may not have been checked for), tends to be poorly medication managed, and the often undiagnosed co-morbid conditions tend not to be medicated at all. This syndrome deeply affects the very parts of your brain that regulate emotional responses, impulse control, and all sorts of other things. I just don't want you to look at this as necessarily this huge unsolvable character flaw. You'd be suprised what the tiniest little changes in the strangest places can do.

A very well written, and well thought out response, E-Boy! :)

I only know the first few paragraphs of the Dan story.. and it's a joyous one so far... at least for me and not scary in the least.. well.. hmmm it's scary how much I like the dood... lol but this seems to be scaring me regarding some others too... ehheh

Re leaving: PU had made a comment the other night after I scared our middle daughter "Boo" about how she thought that "it" would never change. I have no doubt that although "it" whatever "it" is has had some major changes to it's overall makeup over the last three years. Something snapped last week-end and I gained a bit of clarity hitherto unknown to this scatter brain about myself and how I feel and what I need. Although I'm serious about making preparations to be able to leave it's more about calling PU's bluff and saying and feeling that if what I'm doing and have done is not good enough for her then I'm ok with that and I'll be out of here. I feel that this brings to a head the need for some perspective on just what the realities are here. She's a workaholic and looks like a bag of dirt most days. She's having a tough time keeping her eyes open after about 8:30 in the evening. She's got glaucoma on the rise.. recently diagnosed with pre-diabetes.. can't sleep.. All the while Ian is lightening up and contributing more and more financially and being so much more active in getting garbage can's emptied, meals thought up and prepared, repairs to this that and the other thing. And best of all happier.

PU's still rational for the most part but the focus is beginning to shift. I've got good colour in my face and my body is loving the increase in activity. I just think it's best to put things in perspective. If it was determined that my leaving would lend our girls a leg up or somehow help them to flourish with more vigour having me out of the house then why not leave? However I think what will happen will be that the pendulum will shift once again here, and the current realities will come more into focus and not the entrenched views that were developed over the past year as I crashed and burned.

The girls are already showing signs of looking at me in a different light. If I left, I'm quite certain that things around home would not be better off at all. I expect that it would be much worse in fact. I think everyone knows this but the kids have been riding a wave of "Mum control" with limited to no input from Papa and that now is coming to a close... PU seems not to recognise it but I think the girls are at least thinking about the smell of change in the wind.

If it turns out that I was the "stick in the spokes" then I'm better off away from them and they can blossom to their hightest potential. I'm not going to drop out of sight. I just won't be "live in". Or at least that's what I'm proposing. Nobody else here is approving of this plan but me and I'm not pushing it, I'm just tossing it out as a wise option if I'm as destructive billed or not able to change in ways that PU deems appropriate. I feel it is important to make the point that PU is entirely spent and that the girls are using her lapses to take advantage of some behaviour I don't think should be sanctioned under the "good parenting" flag. Like throwing out silver ware in the garbage because it's easier than having to deal with the lunch kit you have left for a week at room temperature.... repeatedly.. enough times that people notice how much is missing when they set the table for dinner. The dog showed up with a couple of spoons and I figured out where it was all going. The burning barrel!

There are a number of things like this that aren't helping. Things go missing, messages don't get relayed. Tonight after work, PU apparently drove two hours out of her way to pick up kids from drama only to find they had not gone to rehearsal. PU had asked specifically of both older girls that they contact her at work if there was a change in plans as I was gone until late tonight. This is an ongoing slack that PU picks up and I only appear to be interfering with when I try and address this type of thing. Th