Eat the cookie, don’t eat the cookie…
So, with this move to Huntsville, AL coming up, I’ve been giving the diet and exercise a good hard thought. As opposed to a soft thought, I guess.
Anyway, I’m going up about 4 months before my family so the kids can finish school. Sucks for me. But for my diet and exercise, it could be the best thing to happen in a long time, or the worst. It’s been mroe than 10 years since I lived on my own, and I did a decent job of maintaining my weight back then, but things change. Here’s where I see my opportunities and my challenges:
Pros:
- No competition for my time when I get home from work.
- No one asking to go out to a “bad” restaurant.
- No one bringing food into the house that will tempt me.
Cons:
- No one there to hold me accountable.
- No support, no one to cheer the good days.
- No one to remind me about my diet when I try to eat ribs instead of a tomato and mozzarella cheese, dipped in a little balsamic vinegar and olive oil.
So, yeah, this can swing either way. I’m being honest with myself and acknowledging that there WILL be a change, but it is going to be up to me to work it out.
Tags: diet, exercise, kids, lifeWiiFit just around the corner
I’ve written about how I really like the Wii for a substitute exercise from time to time. Yesterday, Diet-Blog posted about the upcoming WiiFit, which promises to extend the exercise and fitness options to Wii owners.
The base games provided with the Wii is the WiiSports package, which includes tennis, boxing, baseball, golf, and bowling. Most are just fun, but boxing will kick your butt, assuming you do it right - actually ‘throw’ punches, bounce, and duck. It’s something I’ll do on a rainy day, or if I get home late and don’t want to go for a walk in the dark. Plus, it’s just different, which helps body and mind.
I wouldn’t want a video game to replace the exercise options for myself or my kids, but having a tool like this to substitute and shake things up from time to time is a big help. Having more options in WiiFit will help even more. Can’t wait for May to get here!
Tags: diet, exercise, fitness, kids, substitute exercise, WiiExercise and Kids: Preparing the brain to learn
This one hit my mailbox this morning: Exercise Seen as Priming Pump for Students’ Academic Strides
Seven or eight years ago, studies offered mixed results on the question of whether exercise can boost brain function in children and adolescents. Experts are beginning to contend, however, that the case is getting stronger.
“There’s sort of no question about it now,” said Dr. John J. Ratey, a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. “The exercise itself doesn’t make you smarter, but it puts the brain of the learners in the optimal position for them to learn.”…
I see this in myself. When I’m exercising, I find I focus better. I haven’t studied it, but I probably ought to - I have a hobby that requires intense concentration and decision-making, and I saw immediate improvements in the past two weeks. Thinking back two years to when I was exercising every day, I was participating in this hobby successfully with some of the best participants in the world.
A couple of you know my hobby. I prefer not to get into THAT over here - this is my diet and exercise blog.
Reading on:
With his university colleague Darla M. Castelli, Mr. Hillman assessed the physical-fitness levels of 239 3rd and 5th graders from four Illinois elementary schools. Their findings, published last year in the Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, show that children who got good marks on two measures of physical fitness—those that gauge aerobic fitness and body-mass index—tended also to have higher scores on state exams in reading and mathematics. That relationship also held true regardless of children’s gender or socieconomic differences….
…Another study published last year, involving 163 overweight children in Augusta, Ga., found, in addition, that the cognitive and academic benefits of exercise seemed to increase with the size of the dose.
For that study, a cross-disciplinary research team randomly assigned children to one of three groups. One group received 20 minutes of physical activity every day after school. Another group got a 40-minute daily workout, and the third group got no special exercise sessions.
After 14 weeks, the children who made the greatest improvement, as measured by both a standardized academic test and a test that measured their level of executive function—thinking processes, in other words, that involve planning, organizing, abstract thought, or self-control—were those who spent 40 minutes a day playing tag and taking part in other active games designed by the researchers. The cognitive and academic gains for the 20-minutes-a-day group were half as large.
“I was frankly bowled over by the results,” said Catherine L. Davis, the lead author of the study, a preliminary version of which was published in December in Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport. “It’s like a staircase, which is considered strong evidence for causation,” added Ms. Davis, who is an associate professor of pediatrics at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta.
So, they’re saying that exercise gets the brain ready to learn. What they didn’t say was that exercise made you smarter. Just like buying a pair of dumbbells doesn’t give you big biceps. It just enables those muscles to becoming stronger through consistent work. Sounds like the same is true for the brain - exercise prepares the brain to process information better.
I’m no scientist, but I think they’re on the right track.
Tags: brain, children, diet, exercise, fitness, kids, learningMacarena, Electric Slide, Cha-Cha Boogaloo, and the Chicken Dance - and some walking!
I took my daughter to the Father-Daughter dance last night, and my ass hurts.
Ahem.
What I mean is, the big gluteal muscles are sore. Lots of work for them. The thighs, too.
Damn right it counts. Anytime I wake up this sore, it counts. And to think I left work early to get in my walk. If I’d have thought about it, I could have skipped it.
The diet went extremely well this week. I treated my daughter and myself to a milkshake on the way home. I planned for it in my calories, and did all that extra cardio… 
Every 30 seconds
The doctor burst into the room, a concerned look on his face.
“You’re on CPAP, right?”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re on CPAP?” he repeated.
“Um yes, for many years. I went through the sleep study just to get a new baseline.”
“Good. Let me just go check a few notes in my office.”
I knew it wasn’t going to be good. The night of the sleep study was just miserable for me, because I can no longer sleep without a CPAP. My sleep was fractured, and it felt like I hadn’t slept at all.
I was right.
“Congratulations, you’re #1″, he told me as I was leaving.
“#1?”
“The worst we’ve ever seen,” he said, pointing at the number “126″, indicating the number of sleep interruptions I experienced per hour during my sleep study.
Every 30 seconds.
“A dubious honor”, was all I could think to say.
If your doctor is recommending a sleep study, do it. Among the other figures he pointed out to me was that my blood oxygen dropped to 82% without CPAP, and that was after just a few hours. Who knows how low it could go over the course of a night. The stress on the heart and brain would be tremendous.
I honestly believe that if I hadn’t met my wife, who insisted I do something about my snoring and the way I stop breathing at night eight years ago, I’d be dead by now. Suffocated in my sleep, maybe, or a heart attack from the strain of living without deep sleep. Or a fiery car accident when I fell asleep at the wheel, maybe with my wife and kids in the car with me.
Something to think about.
Tags: CPAP, kids, sleep apneaJunk food in schools
eDiets published an article about Texas Agriculture Commissioner Susan Combs, who has been successful in eliminating junk food from schools in Texas. Despite opposition from lawmakers, administrators, and even parents, she has eliminated the sale of junk food from vending machines and the cafeteria, and put restrictions on bake sales at schools.
As much as I hate the “nanny-state”, and as much as this is one of the finest examples of the “nanny-state”, I have to say that I like it. My kids’ eating habits are bad enough, but with the way the schools administer lunches allows my kids way too much choice in their food. We have to deposit money into an account, and the kids are charged for what they take with no limitations placed by the school. Last week, we discovered the youngest had plowed through her account about twice as fast as the older one thanks to desserts.
She’s supposed to bringing lunch now.
But, I just don’t see the point of giving kids sugary, fatty foods at lunch. We know how bad it is for their health and we know how bad it is for their behavior. Maybe it would be harder and more expensive to prepare healthier meals (is it, really?), but isn’t it worth it?
Tags: diet, junk food, kidsYes, I’m still here, and I still suck
Real life is killing me right now, but that’s no excuse. I’m doing ok with regard to food, still bringing lunches to work. Mostly, it’s been lean cuisine supplemented with a side salad that I make myself. But exercise?
It hasn’t been happening. I admit it. I’m going to get back out today and try to rebuild a new habit. I hate walking in the dark because of my tendency to sprain ankles. Since the time change, I haven’t wanted to go out at all. I’m going to start going to parts of town that are better lit, but it’s tough to keep that commitment when I get home from work and there’s kids waiting to show me their schoolwork, dishes to clean after dinner, activities that kids need to be shuttled to, and side work that needs to be done. I don’t know how you all do it, but I could use some encouragement!
Tags: exercise, kidsThe power of groups to motivate in diets and exercise
Are you participating in any organized group diet or exercise activity? Except for this little informal world of blogging, of course.
I haven’t, but I believe they have a lot of value. Some people need organized diets and methods of planning their nutrition. A lot of people also need the motivation of the group dynamic - the weekly weigh-in, the group walks a couple times each week.
Don’t think you have to do it alone. There are a lot of groups and organizations that can help. It doesn’t have to cost money, either - are there a couple friends at work that might want to meet before or after work and walk a couple days each week? Maybe during lunch?
I found a great path at my church last Wednesday when I was waiting for my daughter during her CCD class. It was beautiful and quiet. Will I see other parents there from time to time? Undoubtedly. Will I be open to seeing if they want to have a standing walking time during the kids’ class? I should be, but as I already revealed, I have some issues.
But, I’ll try.
Tags: diet, exercise, kidsSelf-doubt, confidence, and the need to get over myself
Stacey sent my daughter and me a link to a great article at CNN (which I believe is republishing it from Oprah.com) titled Squash self-doubt, find your confidence.
For those of you that are not my cousin, Stacey is my wife.
Despite my seeming extroversion on the internet, I am actually quite introverted in real life. Almost paralyzingly so in social situations, but I can sometimes set it aside enough to participate in business situations. Unfortunately, my daughter is showing similar tendencies at school. She wasn’t always like this, but she was subjected in the past to some cruel children that taunted her about her weight - she is not fat, but she is always one of the biggest kids - and about her intellect (gifted). So, she withdraws in school situations.
For me, I’ve always been shy, but my weight has been a big factor in how I approach social situations as an adult, and I know I am not alone. Some have no problem with this, regardless of their size; a brother of mine is an extrovert and always the center of attention in every room in a positive way, even when he was 360 lbs.
The article I mentioned earlier is about the “spotlight effect” many people feel. In a recent study, it was determined that people typically feel about twice as much attention as they were actually receiving.
So, if you already feel insignificant, you can continue to do so knowing it is a fact.
For me, I am always uncomfortable exercising in public. I believe there is someone behind every curtain in every house laughing at the way my fat jiggles. I handle walking just fine, but when I get in decent-enough shape to start jogging, I typically wait until after sundown or find out-of-the-way, deserted roads to start. I hate gyms for the same reason, and this is one big reason why I don’t go regularly.
And public swimming? Fuhgeddaboutit.
So the task in front me is to get over myself. People I see in passing cars are as blind to me as I am to others when I’m driving. People in their homes are watching TV, not their windows. People passing me on the sidewalk are exercising also, and are worried about how THEY look, not how I look.
Tags: children, kidsDay 4/100
I had to do some planning for today. Scheduling challenges with sick kids, family obligations, and work. Nothing that any of you don’t go through every day.
Breakfast - Went big because I knew I would be eating a late lunch - 2 eggs, 2 slices bacon, wheat toast, 1 glass of milk.
Late lunch/Early dinner - Mixed greens, 5 oz grilled chicken, lite italian dressing
Whatever you want to call it when I finally got home - 1 pint egg drop soup.
Snack - Protein shake
Exercise - check this out:
My workout tonight - 16 steps, 16 times up and 16 times down. You try it carrying 328 lbs. I thought my chest was going to explode, and my glutes and thighs have that so-sore-it-feels-kind-of-dirty feeling to them.
You know the one.
Tags: exercise, kids