Doug Siverly and his dog Lacy walk along a rural road near his home on one his daily morning walks. (Charlie Neuman)
Doug Williams
It’s time for lunch and Doug Siverly has transformed into the commandant of his kitchen.
He’s beating a path between his refrigerator and stovetop, reaching into plastic containers of pre-chopped cold veggies in a rainbow of colors and pulling out chunks of salmon and chicken. With two burners going, he’s simultaneously working on a pair of dishes with the efficiency of an engineer (which he is).
When he’s done, he sits down at a table with big-window views of the hills of Valley Center, and enjoys two tasty bowls that combine for about 550 calories.
These days, this is how Siverly, 57, eats. His homemade meals are heavy on vegetables and seasonings and light on sugar and processed products. He shops, chops and stores his food for easy prep. He tracks his calories on an app called Lose It! He also exercises every day.
“I was Joe Six-Pack, stop at McDonald’s, have a Fillet-O-Fish, let’s watch the ‘Monday Night Football’ game, get some wings,” he says. “Life was just stream of thought, from one id-satisfying thing to the next. I’ve gotten a lot more thoughtful.”
That’s what happens when your life spins out of control.
Six years ago, Siverly was diagnosed with cancer, lymphoma of the stomach. At the time he was a heavy smoker. He also was overweight, and as he embarked on treatments, his weight ballooned to close to 330 pounds. Then came diabetes.
The same week he was diagnosed, his daughter told him she was pregnant. When his little granddaughter was born, he pictured himself walking out one door while she walked in another. He knew he wanted to stick around.
After years of chemotherapy, some complications — including a blood clot — and follow-up treatments, Siverly is healthy. He’s lost more than 100 pounds, stopped smoking and has made his well-being a full-time job.
Dr. Marin Xavier, a medical oncologist at Scripps Clinic Hillcrest who treated Siverly from the beginning, says his transformation has been special.
“I’ve seen a lot of patients get through cancer and definitely make some healthy lifestyle changes, but nothing to this degree,” she says. “He’s really transformed his whole life.”
When she first treated him, he was unemployed, had no medical insurance and wasn’t in a good place physically or mentally.
“I couldn’t see anything farther from that right now,” she says of him.
Taking control
Siverly lives on a hilly, 5-acre parcel with a home and separate workshop. The property is filled with avocado, pomegranate, orange, grapefruit, lemon and lime trees. He moved in this fall and has plans to put in a vegetable garden behind the workshop.
Living here is part of the living-healthy process. Siverly, a former disk-drive engineer and quality-assurance manager, used to travel the globe for big companies. His life was airports, hotels and fast food. Now, he works from home. He has a desk in his living room steps from a deck overlooking the fruit trees. He’s outside constantly. He’s a short walk from the workshop where he and a partner are developing agricultural equipment they’d like to patent. His grandchildren visit and pick fruit with him
“For the most part, I’m just now restarting,” he says. “I took a nice long recovery, and I had a supportive family that was around me and helped out. I had the luxury to learn what calories were, and my diet, and how my body was responding and how to exercise again. I’ve kind of re-engineered the foundations (of health).”
His constant companion is Lacy, a black Rottweiler. She’s with him on long morning walks and follows him around the property. As a lifelong Packers fan who grew up in Wisconsin, Siverly named her after running back Eddie Lacy, who later was shipped to the Seahawks.
“Never name your dog after a Packers player until they’re retired,” he says, laughing.
Siverly does about a 5-mile walk each morning with Lacy, then often goes for another walk (or two) in the afternoon (carrying dumbbells) without her. He walks up to 10 miles per day.
When he first began exercising after the cancer diagnosis, he could barely do a few laps around nearby tennis courts. Gradually, those walks extended and he added water jogging in a pool. Walking is his exercise of choice. All he has to do is have some good shoes and sweatpants and exit his front door to walk local roads and trails.
“You can kind of sort things out while you walk,” he says
He’s strict about his diet. He avoids sugar, says he can’t be trusted with peanut butter and doesn’t like salads, so he makes a combination of dishes (bowls, wraps, plates) with the same ingredients: black-bean, turkey or salmon burgers, eggs, vegetables, olive oil and small portions of nuts. On his weight-loss app, he can see every meal he’s consumed the past three years. Cooking has become a way to relax and find control at the same time.
After cancer, a lifetime of smoking and being labeled “morbidly obese,” Siverly is committed to doing the right things. He sees his years of long freeway commutes, airline travel, pressure and junk food as a waste.
“One thing you learn — I don’t know if it’s age or cancer — but the biggest sin, the worst thing I could do to you, is waste your time because we only have so much of it,” he says. “It’s precious.”
Healthy lifestyle
Siverly wants to spread the word about healthy living. He has extended invitations to friends, family and other patients he met to come stay a few days with him, go for walks and eat his meals. He’d also like to teach cooking and lifestyle classes and talk about the benefits of diet at North County farmers markets, where he and his grandchildren can sell fruit from the trees.
He wants people to know that if he can get healthy, anyone can.
“If you change that rut (you’re in) you can change yourself,” he says. “I didn’t get to 330 pounds in a day. It took several years, and it’s going to take several years to get out. You can’t just panic and fix yourself overnight. The key is just slow, steady, thoughtful consistency. It’s out there walking in the cold mornings when no one’s watching.”
Gary Lein, a CPA in Las Vegas, went to high school with Siverly in Wisconsin and says he “has a heart of gold.” They’ve stayed close. Lein says Siverly’s transformation has been remarkable.
“Doug’s a sharp guy,” he says. “When he puts his mind to it, he can do a lot of things. I know cancer was a setback to him, but he’s trying to turn the corner on many fronts.”
Lein says he and a group of longtime friends are happy Siverly is back working.
“Some of us have said, ‘OK, you’ve got to get back into the game,’” he says. “ ‘This is good you’ve got this balance now, but you’re still 57 and still in the prime of your earning potential and you need to get out there.’”
Siverly is doing that. But he had to get his health on the right track, first. There were too many times he didn’t think he’d get to 57.
He attended his son’s wedding when he was at his greatest weight, still dealing with cancer, and recalls looking at his son’s friends — most of whom he’d coached and known for years — and thinking, “Are there six guys that can carry me? I’m 300 pounds. What if I need pallbearers? It would take the whole high school football team.”
Siverly no longer has that worry. Every day is a chance to live healthier. In February, he’ll do his first road race, a 5K, to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Dr. Xavier will run with him.
“I thought a race would be a great way to fully realize the great accomplishments he’s done,” she says.
Williams is a San Diego freelance writer.
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/lifestyle/sd-he-doug-siverly-20180123-story.html