Happy Heart Day + 2

This past Thursday, Valentine's Day, was my followup checkpoint 6 weeks after the physical I had back at the new year when my doctor told me my cholesterol was 248. That was a new record for me, that I was none too pleased with. So I was happy that the 6 weeks later number was an amazing 140. Yes, 140. I wish I could say it was all my diligent dieting and exercise, but my doctor had also given me sample packs of Vytorin to take. So what ever it was... It worked. So I got more samples and will hopefully maintain the dieting and exercise.

Speaking of... I just don't understand diet & exercise science. I work out daily and eat well for like 7 days straight, and my weight fluctuates plus or minus a few pounds, but basically, at the end of the week, I've not gone into any new territory. THEN, I have a hectic schedule for 2 days, miss working out for 3 days straight, celebrate my low cholesterol with a sausage and cheese croissant from Burger King, go out to eat Japanese food Thursday night, and end the week at El Dorado, where a basket of chips and fresh salsa await me, followed by The Michael Jordan - aka combination dinner #23 - One taco, One burrito, rice and beans. Then this morning, the scales surprise me. Down to a new low, surpassing the new low from 8 days ago by 1.5 pounds. I guess that salsa had a lot of water in it. It's as if my body was like - "OH NO - The diet is over! Here comes the food! Make room!"

Inspired, and feeling rewarded for my early-week patience, I bypassed the homemade Belgian waffles Lori was making for the kids, and went out for a "run" also known as "a fat guy appearing to jog through invisible Jell-o." I have been working my way up through the stages of running, starting about 2 weeks ago. Run pain walk run pain walk walk walk run pain rest run run walk. Followed by walk run run pain walk run run run walk. And today... walk run run run run slow finally at top of hill run run run pain run pain run walk walk walk. So getting more used to it. It was difficult, but today I was able to get a self photo of my legs as I was running (see left). It's good to get back into good leg shape.

So while I'm running, I get these great ideas like "I should enter a 5k race sometime this spring, and that would motivate me to continue this madness." It's a nice thought, I guess. I really do hate running.

The Diet of 2008

The Diet of 2008, like any of the 13 prior diets I've been on, started out with an index card. The index card is where I write down my daily weight, sometimes erasing and rewriting it if my weight drops a fraction of a pound further during the day. This is different than The Diet of 2002 when I only wrote down my weight when it went down. I should probably have stuck with the 2002 method... That year I lost 29 lbs over 234 days. For the Diet of 2008, henceforth known as D'08, I have to lose 29 pounds just to get to the point when I usually start a diet.

There are other differences in this diet and previous ones. I have a motivational slogan this time, whereas previously I did not. I'm going to lose "40 by the 4th." For D'02, there was no slogan, just bad food and a lot of water.

To me, diets are like relationships. That's why I'm so reluctant to start each diet. Why start this new diet, when the last one just didn't work out? I really thought the previous diet would be my last. I invested time into it. I loved and cared for it. I had the right intentions. But then, I fell out of diet-love. Me and the diet went our separate ways. Perhaps I made some mistakes, but the diet did too. Will this new diet be "true diet", or just a "rebound diet" started too soon after the last diet ended, and after one feel-good night of better eating and a little casual exercise? Indeed, diets are like relationships.

For prior diets, I went into them with high expectations. Like when I did D'04, I was going to forever change the way I ate... I would change my lifestyle. I'm going into D'08 with a different perspective. I plan to lose my weight and then go to Taco Bell and gorge myself on all that which I desire. At least I'm honest with myself.

To more efficiently expedite this diet, I'm also working out about 5 days a week now. Working out is such an appropriate phrase.

"Working" - doing something you don't want to in order to receive some reward that is barely a fair exchange for the effort and time required to accomplish the aforementioned work.

"Out" - not in.

So not only am I doing something I don't want to do, I'm doing it somewhere I don't want to do it. Working out is the dieting trajectory accelerator that can be sustained or squashed depending on which of these 3 variables trumps the other first.

1. Endorphin rush... Endorphins are endogenous opioid biochemical compounds, which is a fancy chemical way to say "runner's high." The runner's high is the good feeling you get when working out, to the point where you crave the feeling, and in my case, even get irritable if I go through withdrawals for a few days. Endorphins are obviously a workout sustainer if you can get into that zone. The brainiacs at my alma mater Georgia Tech likened the runner's high to marijuana. I do know that there is a lot of inhaling when I work out, so maybe there's some truth to that theory.


2. Skipportunity... A skipportunity is a one-time opportunity, usually inadvertently offered by the non-dieting friend or spouse of the dieter, which ultimately leads to the dieter skipping an already planned work out, and all future workouts for that matter. For example, "Honey, I'm going to work out while you're relaxing there watching Oprah." Then Honey says, "Oh, I didn't realize you were going to work out again this weekend." Which really means, "You never spend any time with me anymore," which is a skipportunity, and the beginning of the end of the diet.


3. Injury... Nothing kills a working-out-filled diet like a real injury. Fortunately, this is a real excuse, and sometimes a badge of honor. In fact, if not for the "Running Injury of 1986," D'85 would have been my first, last and only diet.

So here I am, blogging about my stupid diet - The Diet of 08. Again, I'm trying to do this one differently. Not differently in a way that Dr. Phil or Weight Watchers would endorse. But just trying to mix it up a little bit. In all of my prior diets, I did NOT blog about them at all. So, I am on Day 34, and I've lost 15 lbs. Hang on, let me go re-weigh and see if that has changed any since this morning.

Funny Things... The Kiss

Last night at the dinner table, out of the blue, Luke proclaims, "I kissed Claire before." Claire is the adorable little 5 year old girl next door. They hang out, but we didn't know it was serious. An older woman. Go figure. Luke will be 5 next month. "When did that happen?" asked Mommy. "In 2006," replied Luke. So that would make you, uh, like 2? 3?

So then Caleb comes clean. "I've kissed someone too," he said. "Did you kiss Claire, too?" asked Mom. "Noooo," Caleb says with a grin, knowing Mom is one guess away from getting it right. "Anusha?" asks Mom. Bigger grinning Caleb says "Yes." Then after the laughter dies down... "We were watching Harry Potter..." More laughter. Caleb grinning even more. "at her house..." Pause. Grin. ".. under the blanket." Big laughter from everyone. Mommy and Daddy are wondering if their legs are being pulled.

So Mom asks, "Seth, have you kissed anyone?" "No," replies Seth, a little surprised he's such a ladies man but has been beat out by his younger brothers. Caleb gives him some fatherly advice, just as serious as can be... "Don't worry Seth... You will."

The "Game" of LIFE

One of this year's hot Christmas gifts was "The Game of LIFE Twists & Turns". I don't remember playing the original game much as a child, but we've sure played this one a lot in the last 5 days.

For anyone not familiar with the game, players earn LIFE Points and dollars (which are converted to LIFE Points at the end of the game) by experiencing careers, lotteries, job promotions, marriage, kids, cars, houses, vacations, education, and, of course, catching lucky breaks by leveraging your grandmother's cookie recipe for big bucks. The game is divided into quadrants of play called Learn It, Earn It, Live It, and Love It. This new LIFE game even takes VISA! Just what I was hoping to teach my kids at the ages of 4, 6, and 9! At the beginning of the game you determine how many years (turns) you will play, and then once you're done, the one with the most LIFE Points wins.

The first time I played, I severely lost to both Caleb (6) and Seth (9). Seth refused to buy a house or car or take any risk whatsoever. Caleb took the maximum risk at all turns and it paid off every time for him. Having never played the game before, nor having experienced much of "real" life, Caleb won that first game. I made the mistake of getting an education before going off to work. I also steered clear of marriage and kids, trying instead to maximize my earnings in the 10 years we had decided to play. I lost subsequent games with a similar strategy. That $500,000 island I had to buy really sunk me in one game.

Upon reading the detailed rules mid-week, I formulated a new strategy for winning. It turns out that getting married earns a lot of LIFE Points that continue to accumulate year after year. So do kids, but they cost 10% to 40% of your salary each year. (It seems as though marriage does not cost anything.) I also discovered you could forgo moving the number of spaces spun, and instead opt to jump to the starting point of any of the 4 quadrants of the game. The downside is that you don't get to draw a LIFE Card, and therefore don't get to experience any of the fun (or disappointment) of entering numbers into the little computer the game supplies that keeps track of your dollars and LIFE Points.

So I finally won a game with this strategy: I picked a career that earned a decent amount of money after 3-4 promotions without requiring a degree. I started in Love It, and got married first. I got 3000 LIFE Points and 1500 each year thereafter. Then I jumped to Earn It (lost a turn because I jumped instead of taking the spin amount). Got promoted, increased salary. Then jumped back to Earn It again and lost a turn. Got promoted again, increased salary, etc. Continued cycling through Earn It until the years nearly ran out. Towards the end of the remaining years, I had earned all the promotions and salary I could get without a degree, so I jumped to Live It and took a big vacation. By then, I could afford it, and I earned 5000 LIFE Points at the end of the vacation (my last turn). I won big time when I played with this strategy. My opponents tried the same Earn It strategy once they saw what I was doing, but they forgot to get married, and instead just earned a lot of money. My poor virtual "LIFE Wife"... We got married early, never had kids, I worked all the time, lived a boring life, and didn't take a vacation until I retired!

So being that I'm into metaphors, this game has really caused me to reflect on my own life and career. I don't want to win in real life the way I won in the game, but it almost seems inevitable. I've got the wife and kids and do abundantly enjoy many real life aspects of being a husband and father. But my career... While I don't currently "work all the time" pursuing one promotion after another, there is a great deal of melancholy in the way I am in this real life Earn It quadrant. I guess the 40's are the "earning years" and that's where I am. I don't play the lottery (which in the game you have at least a 50% chance of winning!). And I don't do business ventures - maybe I should. I don't have any living grandmothers with cookie recipes.

I am thankful for my job, and I am qualified to do what I do, and I can do it relatively well, and am relatively successful at it, and I've enjoyed it a lot more lately. But it's not my life's passion. It's not what I want to do when I don't have to do it. I don't know how many spins I have left in real life, but it seems like it is going by as fast as it does in the game. I don't want to look back as a 65 year old retiree and not have lived life to the fullest, and fully enjoyed the work I do.

Funny Things My Kids Do

Last night about 45 minutes after the kids had gone to bed (around 11:30pm), I was sitting in the bed typing on the computer. I heard the cat (CoCo) under the bed... quietly making a sound... YACK YACK YACK... complete with some slight wheezing... sounded just like a hairball coming up. This was our new cat's first hairball, and I was trying to recall the cat medicine you give them to help with hairballs. So I jumped down and began to look under the bed. I wanted to see this. I looked under my side and didn't see her. Then I looked under the foot of the bed and didn't see her, but I could see some movement underneath Lori's side of the bed. I called to CoCo, hoping to coax her out, "Are you OK?" Caleb replied in a soft voice, "Yea. I'm OK." Apparently, he can be light on his feet when he wants, but can't hide that little cough he's had recently.