Friday, March 30, 2012

The War Rages: My March Cancer Peep

Alexander Jack Green

I received an email in September from two sisters, Sandful and Sandless. They had gone to high school with JD and knew about my cancer journeys. Sandless’ son, Alex, was approaching his two-year cancer-free anniversary of Wilms’ tumor, a childhood cancer of the kidneys. The Sand sisters invited me to participate in their special event, “Alex's 3rd Annual Walk Toward Wellness 2011.”

On a beautiful Saturday afternoon in October, I joined the large close-knit Sand family and friends at Burke Lake Park in celebration of Alex. If I hadn’t been told that Alex’s mother was Sandless and his aunt Sandful, I would not have known who shared more genes with him. Their joyous tears and elation revealed a similar love for 7-year-old Alex.

I met the anniversary boy. Through a likely combination of not remembering his cancer, not understanding, and not wanting it to define him, he was reserved. I approached him as a football fan instead of a fellow cancer survivor, admiring the child that he was.

I spoke about Alex’s achievement, signed some books, hiked around the lake, and then departed. I would look forward to “Alex’s 4th Annual Walk Toward Wellness 2012.”

Bright blue-eyed Alex loves the Steelers and playing basketball. He is shy, competitive and determined. He likes Nintendo Wii, pizza, and cookies. He is also no longer well: his 27-month restaging showed a mass in his abdomen. While resecting the majority of that, other small tumors were found in his bowel and spleen. Alex’s surgery left him unable to move his legs, and it is his competitive spirit that drives him now as he rehabs at the National Rehabilitation Hospital in DC while receiving new rounds of chemotherapy.

The latest news is the mass in Alex’s spleen has remained unchanged, and his parents (and aunt and so many others) are awaiting results of his PET scan. While reading Sandless’ update blog, her anxiety is piercing. I am reminded of the life of a family at war with cancer: isolated, purposeful, scheduled, fearful, hopeful.

I am hopeful that I receive an email from the Sand sisters inviting me to participate in Alex’s next “Walk Toward Wellness.” Whenever that may be, count me in.
Alex Green playing football

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Monday, March 26, 2012

6.5% Body Fat, ± 2%: The Terror

Read these first:
6.5% Body Fat, ± 2%
6.5% Body Fat, ± 2%: The Sacrifice

Baltimore Orioles spring training in Sarasota, Florida
Orioles spring training game in Sarasota: awesome stadium and atmosphere
La Mole knows my fitness obsession is insane (or has made me insane, or that I’m insane—take your pick). She told me so when I visited her and PepperoniNip’s new home in beautiful sunny Fort Myers, Florida, last weekend. When I shared how I would take cold showers or lay on ice packs to accelerate fat burn, she wasn’t surprised.

Baltimore Orioles spring training facility in Sarasota, FloridaBaltimore Orioles spring training in Sarasota, Florida
I am as tormented about re-regaining fat as I was to lose it. This derives from experience. In 2009 I reached minimal body fat after an 18-month effort, and then proceeded to eat all the foods I had deprived myself of, one each day. I figured I could target 2,000 calories per day, with the occasional overload, and maintain my slimness. I didn’t account for acclimating to increased intake and decreased exercise, and needing fewer calories after having lost 18% of my body mass.

Before my Birthright trip last year I reached peak fitness again, and then set a rule to prevent fat recurrence: don’t buy high-calorie foods. But if crap foods were presented or made available to me then that was ok. The problem is I’m very sneaky, so I snagged pocketfuls from the office candy bowl, and snacked incessantly at events or others’ houses. I realized my potential error but was too scared to revisit the scale or body fat calipers, and as it turns out fat creeps up quickly and with little notice.

This time I am leaner and massed with more muscle than ever before. This is the new, permanent Cancerslayer. To prevent the punishment of having to re-attain Cancerslayer again, terror steers me in the form of new rules (rules appear to be a running theme for me despite living free to choose, to move, and to function; free of ports and IVs and restrictions; free of disease):

Continue eating healthy and semi-restricted, regardless of food procurement method
Hunger is ok, especially before bed
Measure body fat and weight regularly
Wait to eat until hungry and then maybe a bit longer
Reward with every or alternate week “cheat meal” in order to feel sated, preserve metabolism, hormone balance and sanity, and generally live life

Living off-diet, as well as with this new terror, is a difficult learning process. I can now eat based on hunger rather than a schedule (“brain fog” is far less likely now). Calorie-counting should be abolished, especially during my cheat meals in which the purpose is to eliminate all mental and belly constraints. And I must accept staying within a range of fat rather than absolutes.

Others continue scolding me for not living free and “normal.” Rather, consider this my sacrifice for a flat stomach, which costs willpower, more frequent taste-sensory enjoyment, and money (restaurants charge extra for substituting vegetables over processed white carbs). As frugal as I am, that last one is a tax I’m happy to pay. Well, at least until the upcharge reaches 6.5% of the total.

Keep reading:
6.5% Body Fat, ± 2%: And Beyond

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Thursday, March 15, 2012

6.5% Body Fat, ± 2%: The Sacrifice

Read this first:
6.5% Body Fat, ± 2%

Eating beyond necessity led to regret. Serious overeating led to self-loathing. My goal was “the complete elimination of all visible body fat”—specifically, the inability to pinch excess skin at my navel when I bent forward. After the third month of my journey I lost patience. I was obsessed.

For simplicity, consider that in order to lose a pound of fat you must burn 3,500 calories more than you consume. I exercised every day, sometimes for two hours, burning some 2,500 calories. My maximum tolerable differential seemed to be 1,000 calories. That meant I hoped to consume just 1,500 calories. This put me at a two-pound-per-week pace. I tried eating almost no carbs—known as the ketogenic diet—but that left me nonfunctional.

But as I pushed further, that 3,500 calorie generalization diminished, as did the marginal benefit of my efforts. My two-pound-per-week pace ended at one-pound-per-month.

Calorie-counting was automatic, and I withheld eating foods in which I couldn’t estimate the caloric content. I exercised after dinner and ate nothing after my post-workout protein shake, leading to “brain fog”. I considered this good: after work and exercise, I didn’t need to be functional, and the hungrier I was the better. Sometimes I’d wake up to pee and be too hungry to return to sleep. This I considered not good.

The journey to single-digit body fat may never be healthy, but I contend that my method was better than others. I refused to eliminate all carbohydrates and other foods suggested by fitness experts, like carrots and fruit. Friends encouraged me to be “normal” and indulge on occasion, but the punishment I went through was horrific, and being “normal” would set me back days or weeks, a punishment I wouldn’t tolerate.

The health of my psyche, of course, was another story.

Eating was no longer prompted by hunger, but rather to prevent brain fog, which could arrive suddenly. So eating became clockwork: 50-100 calories two hours after breakfast and lunch, and every hour thereafter until the next meal.

I did this almost every day for ten months. In this time I declined holiday treats, and foods unique to my vacation spots. I declined birthday cookie cake, a tradition. I declined Roman Delight Pizza, my all-time favorite. In that timespan Roman Delight Pizza went out of business.

I declined social invitations if I’d be pressured to overconsume. I would weigh the benefit of the event with the cost of my missed exercise and ultra-reduced consumption. My goal of “the complete elimination of all visible body fat” consumed me.

I couldn’t measure that goal, and I didn’t trust body fat calipers, so my goal became a specific weight, the lowest threshold I was willing to go. Weight is a poor measurement since it doesn’t account for muscle mass. But because I kept weightlifting and eating lots of protein, cutting weight meant cutting body fat.

Weight is also meant to be measured as a trend, since water can alter the scale by a few pounds from one day to the next. If my scale trended up over a few days, despite my daily 800-1,000-calorie differential, I felt despaired.

I came to within 0.2 pound of my target weight. I felt I had failed. My obsession blinded my reality and tunneled me to just a number. Just before my photo op I remarked how angry I’d be if I measured any higher than 8% body fat (I had not been measuring my body fat before that, and did not know where I would fall). I also jokingly told my photographer not to laugh at my physique. She acted impressed through the photo op, just to be nice, I assumed, until I finally looked at the camera shots and saw.

I reached 6.5% body fat. What the fuck did you do today?

Postscript: I've come to understand that "the complete elimination of all visible body fat" is achievable only through gene therapy with alien or cockroach exoskeletal cells.

Keep reading:
6.5% Body Fat, ± 2%: The Terror

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Wednesday, March 7, 2012

6.5% Body Fat, ± 2%

“I don’t know why you put yourself through it,” JD said.

I do it because I have the capable genetics. And the willpower to deprive myself and suffer, day after day, month after month. Because I can.

I do it because I established a goal that needed to be achieved, to perfect what I reasonably can of myself; to strive for my peak potential. I do it to regain my arrogant cancerslayer aura. Consider that aura now fully radiating.

I do it because the technician who performs my echocardiogram says I "take really pretty pictures," clearly displaying my strong heart through my lean tissue.

I do it because now there will be fewer places for something to hide inside me.

I do it to get the girl, not in the general sense, but the girl. If only it worked that way.

I do it to show that we can—us pediatric and young adult cancer survivors who face challenges that society can’t fathom, and not because of poor morals or decisions, but because we accepted the cures, one of which is derived from mustard gas, with the promise of future struggles, in defiance of death.

Young cancer survivors choose unhealthy lifestyles. I understand some of the reasoning: I’ve already survived cancer so what is the worst that can happen? Or, Nothing I do will compare to what’s already been done. I challenge this group to think differently. I want to educate young survivors on the risks we inherited and ways to mitigate them—not to scare, but to uplift.

With immense pride in conquering one of my life’s toughest challenges, I share the results of my ten-month journey towards physical transformation (or four years, depending on how you look at it). My unique challenge, case in point: I can’t run (cancer stole my hip), and I have anemia (acquired from my bone marrow donor), meaning I have to work harder, with limited calorie-burning options, to accomplish this goal. Did the Super Man Cancerslayer hear challenge?

Benjamin Rubenstein six percent body fat
Benjamin Rubenstein six percent body fat
Benjamin Rubenstein six percent body fat
Benjamin Rubenstein six percent body fat
Benjamin Rubenstein six percent body fat
Benjamin Rubenstein six percent body fat
Benjamin Rubenstein six percent body fat
Benjamin Rubenstein six percent body fat
Benjamin Rubenstein six percent body fat
Benjamin Rubenstein six percent body fat
My cancerous left hip was removed, and the radiated joint was left deformed and necrotic. After 16 months of intense re-hab I could walk without a cane or crutch. I feel very fortunate to function pain-free. In order to maintain that, my physical therapy is lifelong—or what I like to call, "maint-hab".
Benjamin Rubenstein six percent body fat
Make the best with what you've got. To Health!
Find the complete photo album on Facebook

Keep reading:
6.5% Body Fat, ± 2%: The Sacrifice

Photographs Copyright Rebecca Ames © 2012. All Rights Reserved.

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