So tomorrow I begin the long, arduous process of resurrecting my health. I have selected several technology tools over the past few years to help with this, and they are finally to a point where I can use them all together to track my progress and help evaluate what needs to be focused on. Kind of a strange time to begin this process in some ways, but a perfect time in others. You see, tomorrow I have a pre-surgery physical and on Friday I go under the knife for one, probably two procedures. Don’t ask what they are. Neither of us wants to go there, trust me. It’s in the best interest of my health, and the comfort of those around me.

My doctor gave me what amounts to an ultimatum. Not the kind of “Do it or I’m out” thing, but the “If you don’t do X, we have no choice but to start Y, and once we start Y, it doesn’t end until you do” kind of thing. He told me I had to lose 10 pounds before my November appointment. The timing is kind of ironic. It’s almost been 10 years since he told me I had 10 years to get my weight back under control before diabetes won control, changing my life forever.

I started out pretty good all those years ago, but I wasn’t prepared for the injuries or the depression that come from weight and diabetic problems. It has been beating me. I tore my right medial meniscus and had to have it arthroscoped. My left knee gave out last fall, and winter, and spring prompting a stint at the local physical therapy clinic. My back has also had problems around my shoulders and base of my skull, as well as aggravations to my chronic lower back pain from my injury when working at UPS.

Well, I beat the depression (no more meds) and I mostly healed from my physical injuries, so it’s time to take off all the weight I gained in 2001. To do that, I have some basic, necessary equipment at home and my friend Justin (Personal Trainer Extraordinaire check out his group training at http://www.champsfitnessusa-impact.com/ ) needs motivation to do some serious workouts for himself, so he’ll be coming over nightly so we can work out together like the old days. That’s the standard stuff. Now for the cool technological stuff…

Most of my cardio will be at home, despite my desire to walk the half marathon with my wife in October. Next year I will hopefully be well enough to participate in that. When I do go out for a walk, jog or cycle ride, I will tracking my progress using the best damned GPS app available: RunKeeper (http://www.runkeeper.com/ ). I’ve tried several apps and sites and none offer everything I’m looking for, but RunKeeper comes the closest. It’s always getting better, so I have hope it will get where I want it someday soon. The Street Team feature is a nice addition and recently some of my Apple Store buds have joined in, making it even more appealing for me.

For tracking almost everything else, I’m using Daily Burn. (http://www.dailyburn.com/ ) I have long been impressed with their web site. It is much nicer than Traineo or SparkPeople or Livestrong. If you haven’t visited, you really should. The tracking tool s are incredible and the community is very, very helpful. They have companion apps for iPhone that I’ll be using for tracking my nutrition intake while I’m at work and away from home. I have input several goals to work towards as well as joined several challenges. The Food Scanner app is really, really awesome. Scan the bar code and click “I ate this” and all the nutrition data is entered for you.

So I mentioned that Daily Burn will let me track almost everything else. (Nutrition, Meal Planning, Exercises, Workouts, Sleep, Water Intake. Goals and more) So what isn’t being tracked there? Well, it actually is tracking my weight and body fat %, but that isn’t really how I’m doing it. Both Daily Burn and RunKeeper integrate with my Withings Scale (http://www.withings.com/ )that I got as a gift at Christmas. This scale weighs you, runs a body fat test on you, then uploads that information over WiFi to a database in the cloud. While Withings has a nice site for displaying your trends and tracking, and an iPhone app that shows the graphs as well, I prefer seeing the impact of that information with everything else at Daily Burn and RunKeeper. I think that scale was the best invention of 2009.

If you need to get serious about your health, I very highly recommend the three products/sites mentioned above. They are simply awesome, and one can see the convergence toward utilizing the Body’s API.

So 3 days after my last post, my Grandmother underwent Triple Bypass and Valve Repair surgery. Long recovery time and Dawn and I spent a lot of time running around doing. Then, with Grandma still recovering at a skilled care facility, my mom had knee replacement surgery. More running and doing.

Mom was sent home (to Grandma’s so they can help each other recover) and Grandma still isn’t there yet. Fast forward to this week and Grandma goes back into the hospital after less than a week at home because she has a terrible infection. Mom can’t drive and is still in pain, so more running and doing.

I’m typing this now on my iPhone because the lovely Ice Storm has robbed my house of power… And I’m On Call and supposed to be testing a maintenance update. Thankfully a co-worker is monitoring it for me.

Yep sometimes, just sometimes… Life sucks just a little.

Mother Nature decided that we had it far too easy and mild in Iowa last year. She’s making up for it all in one night. As I write this we’re at around 12 inches of white crap and we’re only about 2/3rds of the way through the storm. Yayz. So much for that original 5-8 inches. Missed the mark again meteo-boys.

Thought about firing up the snowblower, but why? It’s just going to dump more snow, and tomorrow it’s gonna blow all over the place. Might as well see where things stand when the 9th plane of hell moves East and leaves us alone for a while…

I am about to embark on a new journey, one that will put my health at the forefront of my attention and efforts. It is simply something I must do. To help myself focus on this journey and as a means to help keep me accountable, I needed to get my blog rolling again. I have been holding off, for years now (heh) until I had the time to design a new skin for wordpress that is more personal and unique. I can’t wait forever though, so I found a skin I like and I’m going forward with it. Maybe someday I’ll have the time to recreate the Vault much as it used to be. Who knows? For now, black, translucent, and colorful gradients are indicative of things I like.

I will be linking this blog to my protected Twitter account. (@cvancleve) That account is, in turn, connected to my Daily Burn account and my RunKeeper Pro account. Coming here will let you see my progress on my journey to a healthier life aggregated from all of the places I will be tracking it. Thanks for coming along!