MyFitVet.com What is it? Who is it” Why is it?

MyFitVet.com is a site dedicated to helping my fellow veterans to either get in shape, or avoid getting out of shape. It is so much easier to just stay fit, than to get soft and flabby, and try to get healthy again.

Just so you know, I am a loudmouth class clown type. I am not a combat veteran, I served during peacetime, but, things happen and luckily the VA was there for me. I have the utmost respect for the doctors, nurses, and other people who work there, but, just as anything having to do with Government, it is too big to do, what all veterans wish it could do. In some cases, there is nothing anybody could do, except for us vets.

I served in the 80′s, Ronald Reagan was President, and at that time in my life, I had no plans on relying on the VA for anything, I just knew I would be indestructible and young forever. I was wrong. Now at 47, with over three decades of weight training experience, I find myself having to start all over again, and have joined the MOVE Weight Management Program for Veterans. After the initial questionnaire, a brief orientation, and my first monthly meeting, I found out just how limited the staff is by the rules of Government. The sad part is that it is understandable.

I was expecting some sort of fitness program, fitness evaluation, bodyweight analysis, or something, in fact, anything, but, I was again wrong. Here is what we did.

1. We took turns reading a cute story about the holidays and all the food we couldn’t eat.
2. We took turns reading a story about a woman who weighed 680 pounds and lost weight.
3. The nutritionist asked us a few questions about the stories we had read.
4. We asked a few questions, about various medications and their interactions with certain foods, and discussed it.
5. Us newbies were given a pedometer.
6. We left.

I think I was expecting it to at least be a bit like an AA meeting where we newbies had to stand up and say, “Hi, I am David and I am a Fat-Ass!”, or something, and then the others would comfort us saying that they were fat too, but nope, nothing. Before the group broke up and left, I couldn’t hold back, I had to ask! “Why is all the emphasis on weight, and not body fat?”  “What about measuring us?” I mean after all, just because we are heavy, doesn’t mean we are solid fat, right? If we had a body fat measurement, we would know if our various excercise programs, which are up to us to come up with, were actually reducing fat, or burning muscle instead!

I was basically told that an electronic body fat measuring device had previously been requested, but, that was as far as it went, none was ever received. To this, I was almost ready to explode, and said, “Hey, a caliper is cheap, just a few bucks, I’ll buy one if it will help!” I was then informed that a caliper test was inaccurate. I said, “This is true, but, something is better than nothing, right?” To this, the nutritionist said,  “The VA does not have software to track this information”  Again, I said, “I’ll buy it and bring in my laptop, if someone here will do the measuring, I will record it and print it out”, by now, our MOVE class doctor had already left, and the group was gone. Was it that no one in the class had an interest? I don’t think so, they just saw that my line of questions went nowhere and that the point was obviously mute! Again, I do not blame the staff, their hands tied, kept in check by the big bureaucracy of the Federal Government. You remember the $700 hammer?

With this, you can bet, by the next meeting, not only will I bring the caliper, software and laptop, but, my camera, tape measure and the instructions on how to do it as well! In fact, I have already found the ideal application, complete with instructions, it will cost me like 40 bucks!

Now you know what MyFitVet.com is, who it is, and why it is!