Longwinded Health Post

So the last time I went home to visit my parents, my mom sat me down to have a little discussion.

Mom: Jason, you are going to have a heart attack by the time you hit 50. [pause] ...Well, I'm glad we had this nice chat. I need to go switch out the laundry.

I managed to tease out a bit more information from her over the course of the rest of the visit. Primarily that every single male member of my father's side of the family has had some sort of serious heart trouble by age 50 going back at least three generations. And this will no doubt be handed down to me, thus is the luck of Jason that we have all witnessed.

This news is not cool.

Because, I am not healthy. I mean, on a sliding scale of every person I know, I'm probably last in the line in terms of eating right. Heath food is just a nebulous concept out in the world to me. Something that other people speak about, like heterosexuality, or the enjoyment of Everybody Loves Raymond. I down Coke, Pixi Sticks, and pie as a common dinner meal. I have at least one cake available for eating in my apartment at all times. It's against the norm when I don't have at least one meal of fast food per day.

In general, I think nature supports me in this endeavor because no matter how much bad food I eat, I stay the exact same size. Even when I was downing protein shakes and working out 3 hours a day, I gained a grand total of 7 pounds. My weight is a natural constant, and eating healthily would just be spitting in the face of the grand design of things.

Or so I manage to rationalize. Whatever keeps me in sugars and tasty high caloric content.

Compounding this is the relatively new fact that with my day job firmly in place as Guy Who Sits Around Staring at a Computer Screen for Eight Hours a Day, sedentary is the new best adjective to describe me. As was made painfully obvious this weekend when I got winded again carrying the groceries from my truck to my apartment.

And now my mother foretells my doom - I am predisposed to having heart problems at an early age and she acknowledges my universal bad luck that if something can go wrong with me, it probably will. Perhaps I should have checked up on this preexisting health condition before I embarked on my quest to eat at McDonalds at least once every 54 hours.

In any case, now I'm all weirded out and certain that everytime I have heart burn it is the onset of a cardiac episode. Which is fun for everyone else, I am sure. LaSister has perfected the look of put upon/mild amusement/skepticism to adopt the second I go flailing through the living room, clutching my chest and running for the aspirin. We've taken to leaving a bottle of Rolaids prominently displayed on the kitchen counter to remind me to go for the obvious solution first.

Because I'm already a very nervous person. As alluded to above, I am one of the few 23 year-olds who needs to keep a bottle of Rolaids on hand at all times. Very easily stressed, with poor eating habits is a difficult but integral part of my life. When you throw in this whole malfunctioning heart thing into the mix, I become a ticking time-bomb of neuroses, actively checking the internet to see if they sell those little chest-paddle-shocker things to the public and asking LaSister if her First Aid training includes all manner of life saving, including that thing where you ninja chop people on the chest to get their heart going again (her response: eye roll).

So in an effort to cut down on my chances of freaking out and calling the paramedics after I have one too many cupcakes for dessert at some point in the next two weeks, we have implemented Project Get Jason In Mild Shape.

Project Get Jason In Mild Shape, is very simplistic in nature, because damn if I'm going to put forth any real effort into additional work. I'm tired when I get home, by God. There are three prongs to the projected plan of attack:

• Prong One: Better eating. This is the least effective prong, because I hate to compromise on food. I have to make detailed guidelines with many provision, like some sort of long drawn out union contract. The guidelines are: a) Real Fast Food may only be eaten in two meals per five day work week, b) At least one meal per week must actually be healthy, and c) "Cake and Coke" can no longer be considered a dinner meal.
• Prong Two: Active Lifestyle. Okay, this prong isn't effective either, but it's pretty straightforward. All current lifestyle choices are fine, no matter how video game oriented they are, but at least 30 minutes per day must be added that include a medium to high level of physical activity. That level will be scaled with time, depending on how winded I am as the weeks go on. Additionally and superficially, I would like to have my abs back.
• Prong Three: Being Less of a Spaz. The goal here is to be much more calm and centered and less clumsy and dramatic. There are no objectives to detail, other than "don't freak out, and work on your balance." I like to think this prong has a high chance for success, but I'm really just deluding myself. Heh. Less clumsy.

This is a foolproof plan, no? I'd like to see a heart attack beat this system! Actually, I wouldn't, which is why it's being implemented, but you get my drift. I am now taking bets to see how long I keep this up. For right now, I'm shooting on getting all the way through July, but I promise nothing, as I can already envision a night within the week where I'm sitting at my computer playing Warcraft, eating cake and drinking Coke all the night through.

But I feel better that it's at least all written out. Go me!