Charts like this one have become all too common in the news of late — making investors panic, pension-holders fret and politicians do very little to effect meaningful solutions to the varying crises reflected in these charts.

But the chart above is not an index of the Dow Jones or an index of consumer confidence or an index of Congress’ approval ratings. Rather, this particular chart has me encouraged. In fact, it’s got me jumping for joy! It’s the index of my weight loss since the beginning of the year. And what it shows is that, as of today, I’ve lost 34 pounds in 66 days! With less than a quarter of the year gone by, I’m already nearly a third of the way toward my goal of losing 106 pounds by year’s end!

I have to admit that I’m pretty proud of myself — not only because of how much weight I’ve lost, but also for sticking with it for this long and for my commitment to continue on to my goal. This is certainly change I can believe in!

After I last mentioned my weight loss journey, I received several questions about what I was doing, like what diet I was on. Well, the short answer is that I’m not on any particular fad diet. I’ve quite simply changed how I eat, what I eat and what activities I do.

One of the first things I did was stop drinking soft drinks and I’ve also avoided adult beverages for the time being. I essentially drink mostly water — at least 80 ounces each day, sometimes as much as 120 ounces. I usually drink at least one juice a day, typically a V-8 vegetable juice can or a fruit juice like pineapple, grapefruit, grape or cranberry.

I also began to diligently count calories with the very helpful aid of an iPhone App called “Lose It.” Counting the calories helps me make much better choices and choose healthier foods that don’t have a lot of empty, fatty or generally unhelpful calories. I haven’t given up good-tasting food though. With the help of several cookbooks and nutrition books, I’ve learned (and continue to learn) what foods are lowest fat, lowest calories and gives the most bang for the calorie when it comes to energy and feeling satisfied. I’ve also found some low-cal recipes that are actually really, really good — which helps alot.

The other major thing I’ve done is to start exercising again. My job has me sitting in front of the computer or sitting in meetings 8 to 10 hours each day. That doesn’t allow for much exercise or burning of calories (unless I look for specific opportunities to do so, like taking the stairs to the other floors whenever possible). So, the only way to get fit and burn calories is to do actual exercise.

Because of my initial weight, a regular gym workout wasn’t as appealing because of the pain and discomfort of my joints. So at the advice of professionals, I started out with water aerobics. I started the third week of January and have continued through this past week. As of this weekend, I’m now moving to gym exercise for cardio and strength training. As a family, we also enjoy recreational swimming and racquetball at the YMCA. In addition, we invested in a Wii Fit, which has proven to be a very fun way to get some exercise without it necessarily feeling like exercise except afterward when you feel absolutely worn out!

Because I’ve gotten so many questions wanting to know more, I decided a couple of weeks ago to start a new blog dedicated to this effort — a personal journal of my journey to lose weight, get fit and become a healthier me. I plan to document the journey with my thoughts, my observations, my frustrations and my encouragements as well as log what I’ve been eating and doing for exercise. And I launched that blog this morning. Introducing, Brad Neese — Getting Fit …

Check it out!

House Democrats are likely to jettison family planning funds for the low-income from an $825 billion economic stimulus bill, officials said late Monday, following a personal appeal from President Barack Obama at a time the administration is courting Republican critics of the legislation.

Several officials said a final decision was expected on Tuesday, coinciding with Obama’s scheduled visit to the Capitol for separate meetings with House and Senate Republicans.

The provision has emerged as a point of contention among Republicans, who criticize it as an example of wasteful spending that would neither create jobs nor otherwise improve the economy.

Under the provision, states no longer would be required to obtain federal permission to offer family planning services — including contraceptives — under Medicaid, the health program for the low-income.

That’s one less thing the GOP can use as an excuse not to work with the president on this stimulus plan. So far it has been the president who has done the most compromising, at the detriment of his own party, to try to achieve compromise and agreement. I don’t see the same effort on the part of the GOP to come to a consensus. Are the Republicans going to be part of the solution or just an obstacle to any solution?

If we leave it to Congress, CEO’s and lobbyists, we will just get evermore bits of amended gobblity-goop that results in endless taxpayer debt to bolster bad business practices.

So here’s my one-size-fits-all, nationwide socialist, U.S. corporate bailout proposal:

1. Remove government subsidies, tax breaks and loopholes for business.
2. Institute basic national single-payer health insurance for workers and families.

The country is going deeper in debt anyway, so wouldn’t it be better to use it to help U.S. companies and give health care to Americans, than just give it to the same people who created the mess?
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Yes we can!

I took a picture of what I look like when I’m ready for bedtime, but it was just too embarrassing to post. The photo on the right shows what my CPAP nasal mask and headgear looks like (without me wearing it). Now imagine it on me with a long air hose coming out of it. It looks like I have an elephant’s trunk.

It looks funny — actually, it looks ridiculous — but it certainly works. The first night I wore it, which was last Wednesday night, I sleep all the way through to my alarm without waking up. Karla said I didn’t even move. I didn’t snore once. What a difference this one little machine can make.

It’s not been without a couple of challenges. The first is that it’s taken a little bit for my body to adjust, but that’s really been minor. The second challenge, which is a much bigger issue, is the nasal mask itself has been irritating the bridge of my nose. I didn’t really notice it much the first night. I noticed it more the second night. By the third night, it was really starting to feel uncomfortable and waking me up early. By the fourth night (Saturday night) it was irritating me enough that I woke up in the middle of the night and eventually took the mask off altogether and went to sleep in my recliner in the living room. Sunday night it wasn’t as much of an issue because I had taken some sinus/cold medication that helped me sleep, but then ended up being up half the night with the storms that went through.

I have an appointment tomorrow with the sleep clinic to try another type of mask — a nasal pillow (which I’m not sure what kind yet, so I can’t show a picture of that just yet). Hopefully that will resolve that challenge and I’ll get even better sleep. I can tell you that even with that challenge, I’ve slept much better than before getting the CPAP. It’s already making a difference, although I feel like my body is making up for lost sleep because I feel like I can now sleep much longer than I have for years!

On a related note, my brother in Houston just did a sleep study as well — prompted in large part by my participation in a sleep study. He likes doctors and medicine even less than I do and was even more reluctant than I was about doing a sleep study — which I didn’t think was possible. But once I scheduled mine, his wife scheduled one for him — and he relented, perhaps because he had a brother going through the same ordeal.

Well, let me tell you, I thought my results were bad… I had an AHI of 92, meaning I would stop breathing or have at least 50% obstructed breathing for at least ten seconds an average of 92 times per hour. His AHI was over 120. We were all floored — and scared for his health and well-being. My oxygen level was around 75% — normal being 95% or higher. His oxygen level, surprisingly, was around 85%, which is actually better than mine.

In any case, he’ll hopefully get his CPAP machine soon and re-discover what good sleep can do for his physical and mental health.

If you think you might have sleep apnea, you need to get tested. It’s a very serious issue. And it doesn’t just affect people like me who are overweight. Take this quiz to see if it might be an issue for you.

As a reference, here are a few definitions and standards by which sleep disturbances — and specifically a diagnosis of sleep apnea — are evaluated by. Wikipedia’s article on sleep apnea has the most concise and informational explanation.

Polysomnography of sleep apnea shows pauses in breathing that are followed by drops in blood oxygen and increases in blood carbon dioxide. In adults, a pause must last 10 seconds to be scored as an apnea. [...]

Hypopneas in adults are defined as a 50% reduction in air flow for more than 10 s, followed by a 4% desaturation, and/or arousal. The Apnea- Hypopnea Index (AHI) is expressed as the number of apneas and hypopneas per hour of sleep.

My AHI was 91.8, meaning that on an average of 92 times per hour I had apnea or hypopnea. To break it down, about every 40 seconds I would stop breathing or have severely obstructed breathing for at least 10 seconds. That’s scary.

Normal oxygen levels are around 95%. Mine was 75%. That’s scary.

No wonder I was feeling awful every morning, with headaches that rivaled (and sometimes even surpassed) a nasty hangover — and, yes, I do know what those feel like too, thanks to my college education. No wonder that I felt dizziness anytime I woke up in the middle of the night to use the restroom or get a drink or take some pain reliever. No wonder I was having trouble with sleepiness throughout the day, to the point of even having trouble staying awake during my daily commute to and from work. No wonder I was having trouble concentrating throughout the day.

Needless to say, the official diagnosis was severe, severe sleep apnea. They were concerned. I was concerned. Leaving it untreated would likely have profound consequences. Untreated, sleep apnea can cause high blood pressure and other cardiovascular disease, memory problems, weight gain, impotency, and headaches, and it can lead to strokes, heart attacks and even death. Reggie White is one example of where sleep apnea is believed to have contributed to his death.

There was some good news from the study as well. The contrast between my sleep with and without the CPAP machine was dramatic. After I was placed on the CPAP, my AHI dropped to near zero and my oxygen level went up to 94%. Before I knew the official results, I could immediately tell the difference when I woke up, as I related in my previous post.

So, I look forward to getting a CPAP machine. I’m waiting to hear from the clinic about scheduling an appointment. I can only imagine how much better my days will be once I get a good night of sleep with normal breathing and normal oxygen levels.

Stay tuned.

As the final minutes ticked down before my appointment Friday evening, my anxiousness manifested as surliness that unfortunately bit at those around me. Compounding my unsettledness, severe weather moved through our area about the time I was getting ready to leave, which seemed an ominous sign of things to come. The reality was that it was a perfect picture of my evening: a brief tempest followed by a very calm, uneventful rest of the night — and my personal tempest ended when I walked in the door of the sleep clinic.

Something about just walking in the door instantly settled my nerves somewhat, perhaps because it was a resignation that the inevitable was about to happen or perhaps because it was so calm and quiet in the clinic. The clinic was very unclinical in its appearance, instead it was more like a nice, warm, welcoming home that happened to have several bedrooms. I was greeted almost instantly by one of the sleep clinic technicians whose calm, pacifying demeanor also set me at ease.

I was shown my room, which had a nice regular queen-sized bed in it along with a television, nightstand with reading material on it and a ceiling fan (which was perfect since I sleep with a fan going because I need moving air). I ended up waiting a while before I got “hooked up” because one of the other earlier appointments was quite late and delayed the schedule. So I sat there for close to 45 minutes with a few remaining butterflies fluttering about in my stomach as I still fretted about the actual sleep study.

One of the sleep technicians finally came into my room and began to wire me for the test. I must have had a couple dozen leads connected to various areas of my body, the bulk of which was centered around my face and head. Both technicians described what they were doing and what would happen during the test, and they generally assuaged my anxiety with a sympathetic discussion about my sleep symptoms, reassurances that I wasn’t that uncommon and assurances that there are treatments that will help. After I was all hooked up, I laid down for the night.

The first half of the night — I’m not really sure of how long it was because there was no clock in the room and I forgot my iPhone at home — was fitful and restless. My sleep was erratic at best and I repeatedly woke up. At one point, I was awake for a while and determined that I was going to have to visit the restroom if I hoped to resume sleeping. I pressed a button that called the technicians and they came into my room right away. After disconnecting me temporarily from the monitors (by way of a detachable central plug of sorts that all the leads attached to my body were connected to), I was able to accommodate the call of nature (with a little bit of extra effort with all the wires hanging from my body).

When I returned, the technician told me that they were going to go ahead and hook me up to a CPAP to see if it would help in my breathing and, as a result, sleeping. He noted that, although he would leave the details for my doctor to explain, I was suffering from “rather significant sleep apnea” that was serious enough that they were just about to wake me to have me try the CPAP. After fitting me with the mask, I laid back down to sleep. I immediately could tell a difference in my breathing with the aid of the forced air. Within a couple of minutes, I was fast asleep.

The next thing I knew, they were waking me up. I felt like I was waking up from a very hard sleep. But within a minute, I was wide awake and felt amazingly refreshed. And I mean I felt the best I have felt for a very long time even though I only had a very short night of actual good sleep. I was immediately sold on the CPAP. Others had told me that it made a huge difference in their lives, but experiencing it made me a true believer and evangelist.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to take a CPAP home that morning. I have to wait for my doctor to see the results and make his determination. However, I would be very surprised if he didn’t see a significant need for it and if he didn’t also see the marked difference in my sleep before and after the CPAP from the clinic’s test readings.

So, I survived the test. I’m glad I went. It wasn’t as bad as I was worrying it would be. The sleep clinic was excellent. The test was enlightening and the tested use of the CPAP was encouraging. I just might be able to sleep well after all. And I’ve been told by the doctor, the sleep clinic technicians and by others who have been through this that it can literally change your life when you are able to get the sleep your body needs. Well, I need to have that type of change because my current pattern is slowly, but assuredly, wearing my body down.

The one thing that stuck out to me most was just how precious air is and just how precious effective breathing is. I’ve struggled with asthma all my life, so I’ve never taken normal breathing for granted. But this study reinforced how much of a blessing that good breathing can be and how refreshing a breath of fresh air can truly be.

Tonight, the whole focus of my going is for someone to actively watch and monitor my sleeping. The very thought could potentially keep me awake if it wasn’t for the fact that I am so utterly exhausted. Even so, I’ve been fretting this all week and at a much more heightened state of anxiety for most of today. Even now, my stomach is churning. I wouldn’t be doing it if it weren’t absolutely necessary.

We — the doctor and I — suspect I may be suffering from a pretty serious case of sleep apnea. Aside from the very real, potentially life-threatening symptoms of sleep apnea, my poor sleeping patterns are adversely impacting my daytime activities in a significant way — my ability to concentrate, my ability to stay awake while at work (even though I have more than enough to keep me busy) and my ability to function effectively throughout the day. Even worse, waking up in the middle of the night gasping for air because you’ve stopped breathing in your sleep is a very terrifying experience. it’s happened enough times now that I couldn’t wait any longer.

So, I fretfully await my appointment as the clock slowly ticks down to that dreaded hour…