Blog Post by Jason

Resolutions are for governing bodies and legislative precincts. I am overweight, but I’m not that big.

Instead of going on an ill-fated new-years resolution (I resolved about 10 years ago to never make another resolution, and I’m not about to break fail now), I’m working on what the late Mr. Valentine would call a “self-improvement project”.

Mr. Valentine was my high school psychology and history professor, who often proudly proclaimed that “my body is a temple”. Well, his temple accepted alcohol and nicotine for sacrifice, and it must have worked, because he’s now met his maker.

But I stray from the subject at hand. New years resolutions fail, because they only consider one aspect of behavior. You can’t quit smoking unless you know why it is you smoke, what drives you to smoke, where you are when you typically “need” to smoke, etc. Those circumstances need to be counter balanced. You also need to understand the biological impulses and learned habits, and you need to have a plan to deal with those. Most people would just ignore all that, focus on the singular action and not the root causes that drive them to that action, and say “This year, I’m going to quit smoking.”

And they fail.

This is the knowledge I’m taking into my 4th attempt at P90X. I made it all the way through twice, and stuck to the diet for half of one of those times (which splits them into a fraction I can’t even measure). I didn’t even know I was taking such a self-improvement attitude into it until I was already underway.

I was perusing the P90X diet guide for crap to eat at fast food joints that wouldn’t totally blow my diet, and found the selection lacking. Candice suggested that I check out the website (milliondollarbody.com, not hyperlinked because it’s really not a good site) to see an updated list. It wanted me to create a free account before it showed me any content, so I did. I never did find my fast food catalog (well, indirectly I did: don’t eat any fast food), but I did get my own personal trainer!

His name is Sterling Purdy (or at least, that’s what is friends call him). His blog is worth a perusal, and I’ve found one of his most oft cited links indispensable.

Sterling advised me to use intermittent fasting (IF) twice a week, to skip the recovery drink entirely, and to run a sprinting workout once per week. I live in Illinois, and I’m not paying for a gym membership, so the sprinting is pretty much out of the question until Spring. I already shelled out $80 to GNC for my recovery drink, and it does too well as a breakfast replacement (occasionally), so I’m sticking to that. As for IF, well, I’ve actually adopted it.

Every Monday, I eat dinner, then lounge around and go to bed. Then I don’t eat again until dinner Tuesday. I repeat the process on Thursday into Friday. If I was following my typical eating habits (I still can’t bring myself to call them my “old” eating habits), this means that I skip lunch the next day (since I never used to eat any breakfast anyway).

The biggest thing I’ve learned from Sterling is that you can lose weight if you just move more and eat less. You can only drop pounds by creating a calorie deficit; burn more calories than you take in. At my present body weight, I burn 2200 calories if I just sleep all day. So, throw in a 500 calorie workout, and then eat a 2000 calorie/day diet, and I’m set to lose a pound per week. I then take out the calories from IF, with the Tommy LaSorda approved “Sensible Dinner – even pasta!”, and I’m even closer to 2 pounds per week.

The secret really is to just PUT DOWN THE FORK. After I’ve dropped below the level of obesity, there will be more things nutrition-wise to think about. I’d elaborate, but I am still obese. At this point, losing tonnage is its own reward.

I didn’t take full measurements before starting, but I can say this much: After 3 weeks I’ve dropped 12 pounds! Candice says that if I looked normally like I look with my stomach sucked in all the way, then I could suck in my stomach all the way and look like a normal person!

Also, I know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like half of you half as well as you deserve.*

Bottom line: I’m getting THINNER… but without the help of a gypsy. Perhaps I’ll share my workout and diet log, which are conveniently stored as Google Docs. It would require a great Internet-ian uprising, though, as I’m not partial to posting my dietary and physical habits all willy-nilly. Maybe it’s time for another vote….

* Bilbo should have added that he wasn’t sure if those halves were mutually exclusive. The quandary becomes yet more perplexing when applied to a physical specimen, as in my metaphor. After all, if you always step half the distance to your goal, you will never reach it.

As we get ready to welcome another member to the Solomon-Strutz household we decided to transition Nicholas from the crib to a twin size bed. Jason and I both agreed to skip the toddler size bed since Nicholas is constantly growing and a twin bed purchase could presumably last until he is a teenager. So last week I went ahead an ordered a low to the ground twin bed with storage drawers. Luckily the bed frame arrived during the holiday weekend so we had time to assemble it right away. Of course, assembling the frame was quite a feat within itself because Nicholas wanted to help instead of take his regularly scheduled nap. Nothing like your toddler grabbing a hammer and exclaiming “I’ll fix it, I’ll help fix the bed.” Eventually Jason got frustrated and Nicholas was banned from the area until the project was completed.

After Nicholas woke up from his nap he saw the new bed frame and appeared impressed enough to climb up on it and start playing with his toys. So far so good… until he found his crayons in the storage drawers! Of course a few minutes later when I returned Nicholas had decided to display his artistic talent on the bed frame. I was less than pleased and proceeded to wipe down the furniture and of course now the crayons are completely out of reach and can only be used when Mommy and Daddy are present to help him color in his coloring books.

Next step, purchase a mattress and bedding so that Nicholas could truly test out the bed. Luckily I had to run to Walmart and get some ice cream and stumbled upon the bedding section. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Walmart carried both twin and full size mattresses and that they can in compact boxes with wheels.

I was easily able to roll the box out the store and fit it in the back seat of CaJar w/ the car seat still in the car. I was ecstatic about this fact but a little concerned now about the quality of this mattress. On the brief drive home I wondered if I would have the blow this thing up or do anything special to get it to expand to full size. However, once the mattress was removed from the small box it expanded into a complete twin size mattress in less than a minute. Cool beans! Both Jason and I tested it out and it passed the comfort test with flying colors. So we quickly put on the bedding and in a couple of hours the true test would come.

Around 9:30pm I went to read Nicholas a bedtime story and tuck him in. However, this process continued much longer than normal. He loved being able to climb out the bed, grab a book from bookshelf and bring it back to the bed. 10pm had arrived and Nicholas and I had made it to our 8th or 9th book. Enough was enough I turned off the lights and put on his sleeping cd and then shut the door. Of course that didn’t work because Nicholas knows how to open his bedroom door. So in a matter of 30 seconds he hopped out the bed and followed me down the hall. Great! This was obviously not working well so I caved and held him like he was an infant and waited for Nicholas to eventually fall asleep. There was crying but soon enough he was asleep and I ensured he was secured in his twin bed. Excellent now I could get some rest.

Unfortunately, this was not the case. The entire night I continued to wake myself up because I was hearing things and Akilah was being difficult. Midnight – I thought Nicholas had woken up and went downstairs. 1:30am – Did I hear a door close? Perhaps he locked himself in the laundry room. I actually can’t explain why I was being so paranoid. Around 2am I got up for the last time to check and Nicholas was still in his bed asleep so I finally passed out . That only lasted until 4:30am when felt my son touch my arm. He had his favorite blanket in hand and wanted to “Come on up.” Yep, he wanted to sleep with Daddy and Mommy 🙁 I helped him up in our bed and he said “Goodnight Mommy” and he feel asleep within seconds. At that point I was too exhausted to bring him back to his bed. Overall it wasn’t a complete disaster but I believe it will take some time for Nicholas to become adjusted to the “big boy bed.”