A Mission Almost Accomplished

One of the important goals, or mission statements, that I have while in BOP custody is sound health. This has been one of the easier metrics I’ve been able to achieve since I have been here for six months. On the first day, I walked around learning where everything was located, worried about stepping out of bounds. I found a few good people to assist me along the way; I avoided the dreaded shot! On the second day, I strapped on my BOP boots and took to the track for an hour, and I repeated this strategy every day for the next month. The only difference was my footwear; I purchased a pair of tennis shoes to make the walking routine more enjoyable.

I began a regime of intermittent fasting every morning. I skipped breakfast, avoided coffee and salt, and ate chow at the mainline during lunch and dinner. I finished dinner at 4:30 PM most days and fasted until lunch the following day, or about sixteen hours. The first month I lost fifteen pounds. The following month I began walking two hours every day while remaining disciplined about the intermittent fasting routine and only eating at mainline. I lost another 10 pounds the following month. In the third month, I picked up the pace to three hours of walking every day while intermittent fasting between meals. I lost another 15 pounds in the third month. I upped my game even more in the fourth month and dedicated myself to walking four hours every day. This became difficult to maintain between programming and working, but I honored my new routine and lost another 10 pounds. What a nice reward. I continued my routine, walking almost four hours every day, but no less than three hours each day when my busy prison calendar became burdensome. And then I transferred to a new camp.

The transfer experience is a nightmare on steroids. I was generally locked in a tiny cell between 21 and 24 hours per day. At the Oklahoma Transfer Center (OKC), I invented a new routine to maintain some level of physical activity. I walked the upper platform in the prison pod area. This included 30 steps up and 30 steps down, and a roundabout circular route passing every cell, about 45 heavy steel doors, on the menacing upper terrace. Most of the guards didn’t mind the healthy effort, except for a bullheaded guard hell-bent on stopping all productive activity save sitting in the corner sucking a pacifier. I became strategic by rapidly walking across the tiny concrete courtyard as if it were a hamster wheel. I walked this way for 31 days at OKC.

I enjoyed a free 10-day holdover at the Terre Haute prison in Indiana where the BOP misclassified me as a medium security risk and I shared a cell with a really scary kid who couldn’t seem to get his life in order. After seven days, the guards finally realized their error and moved me to a different cell with another camper. The level of incompetence is staggering, as well as the unreasonableness of a 24-hour lockdown with only 20 minutes every other day for recreation and a shower and being cut off from your loved ones. And obviously, I couldn’t walk at all. I learned there are exactly 110 steps from corner to corner in the Special Housing Unit at Terre Haute, and it takes quite a bit of effort to walk one mile, let alone 12 miles in one day. I was forced to take a holiday from my walking routine.

Eventually, I made the move on a BOP bus to the prison in Oxford, Wisconsin, for a one-day holdover and finally arrived at my new camp. The first piece of business was finding the chowline, laundry, phones, and emails. I called home the next day, caught up on email messages, and found the track. I jumped right back into my walking routine and discovered I had become weak; I couldn’t walk twelve miles with serious exertion and needed several breaks in between miles. It’ll take some work to build back up to a twelve-mile day with little effort, but I’m confident I can find the routine once more. The next day I found a scale and to my surprise I lost 56 pounds in six months.

Currently, I am enjoying the RDAP program that’s in full swing and learning the ropes, so to speak. I remain in the dark as to the actual treatment plan and should find out my specific treatment plan in October. For the rest of the month, I suspect I’m supposed to learn the vernacular and systems surrounding the RDAP program.