Fatherhood changing the way I look at aging

   Yesterday evening my wife and I and our four-month old twin boys were shopping. She was walking slightly in front of me so she was facing away. I sometimes struggle to hear my wife when she is not turned directly toward me. She said "Now I just need one more thing, some _____________." Can't even recall what it was. The male brain is not wired to remember those types of details. For men, long-term memory is remembering at suppertime what we ate for lunch.

   Whatever it was she said, I didn't hear her, but I could've sworn she said she needed to get PAR HAR HAR HAR.

   Seriously. PAR HAR HAR HAR. That's what I thought she said.

   I've noticed some minor hearing loss over the last decade or so, and it's starting to affect my job this year for the first time. Apparently, it's also hurting my ability to hear my wife in conversation, which mostly consists these days of she in the rocking chair holding one baby and I on the couch holding the other baby.

   This hearing loss also tells me I'm starting to get old. I turned 37 a week ago today, and yesterday I began a one-month leave from work to stay home with my children. My wife went back to work, so it's just the three of us boys. So far I haven't struggled to hear their crying.

   This hearing loss, while certainly disconcerting, does not bother me. Would I like to hear a bit better? Sure. But it's like anything else in life. Would I like to be 20, 30, or 60 pounds lighter? Sure. Would I like to be able to reach that itchy spot on my back like I could 10 years ago? Absolutely. Would I like to be able to tie my shoes while standing up? It'd save me a couple minutes getting ready in the morning, so of course.

I want to be healthier for the same reason I've wanted to be healthier for the last 13 months. I have these babies for whom I want to help raise and see grow. I can't do that if I'm dead, so health now has a purpose. Still, I've struggled with it.

   But aside from the hope of being healthier, I have realized something: I am getting older. My body doesn't function quite like it used to. It hears the person five feet away say "PAR HAR HAR" when they actually said _______________ (I still can't remember). Since these boys arrived in July, aging no longer bothers me. See that gathering of wrinkles on my forehead? They now represent something. And that clutch of white hair along my hairline, it also represents something. The more regular aches and pains are also representative.

   For every day I grow older, so do Beckett and Ike. Every year that passes and brings me closer to 40 and beyond is another year in their development.

   So maybe I can't do a single push up any more where I used to be able to do 25. Now I pick up babies instead. And when I pick them out of their crib each morning and they smile at me and I kiss their puffy cheeks, I know this aging this isn't going to be nearly as bad as advertised.

Weighing in on Weight Watchers and my upcoming temptation situation

I am surrounded by current and former Weight Watchers participants, both family and friends. Women and men. Success stories and non-success stories. I have purposely not joined, which has angered some in my family who have had success with it. Interestingly, I believe in the company's mission and appreciate their goal of getting people to change their lifestyle instead of profiting off a get-thin-quick plan.

Probably the only thing that's kept me away from joining Weight Watchers is my own stubbornness. That, and I hate having to pay for something I should be able to take care of and control myself. Much like my views on counselors, marriage and otherwise, I don't discount their success, but just know they are offering professional advice on something I feel I should be able to handle on my own.

Yet clearly I haven't been able to control my weight, based on the last 20 years. So I'm proud to say I've lost 10 pounds since starting this blog. Yet in that time I've wasted a lot of opportunities to double that. I should be closing in on breaking the 200-pound barrier, which I haven't seen in many years. Yet I'm still hovering around 220.

And now it's only going to get harder. The Minnesota high school golf season starts tomorrow and I'm a golf coach. Come mid-April through the end of May I spend a lot of time in a van with growing boys. After walking 18 holes of golf they are usually hungrier than the annoying geese that often inhabit the golf courses these boys just walked.

Our team restaurant for a couple years was Culver's, which if my waistline had sponsors would occupy a solid piece of real estate. My wife is from Wisconsin and I have endeared myself to that state's love of cheese. Also, the Culver's nearest our house serves Spam Burgers, and I have also endeared myself to that company's mystery meat. Hormel also should own advertising on my belly. If it came in trade for Spam I would probably do it. In fact, I'm going to start researching Spam tattoos right after I finish this blog entry.

The last couple of years the golf team members have most often picked Chipotle. Nothing screams GORGE YOURSELF quite like Chipotle. Nothing represents the U.S.'s obesity issue quite like this Mexican restaurant. In fact, going there was one of the first signs of aging for me, as I have always been able to eat a lot of food. Yet I never enjoyed eating their burritos. Too big.

Not sure what this year's golf team delicacy of choice will be, but something tells me whatever restaurant finds their favor it will have a limited menu for those of us trying to eat healthier. This will be the true test of my will. As long as I keep the babies currently floating in my wife's belly in mind, I should be able to resist the power of Spam and its fatty fast-food brethren.

I originally intended to write about Weight Watchers' theory on weighing in (hence the first two words of the headline), but I am going to save that for a separate entry later this week. Also on the docket: dieting while married to a person pregnant with twins and the challenges that presents.

As Kai Ryssdal of NPR's Marketplace program would say, "Let's do the numbers."

I worked out four times last week, which is one or two more times than my average times per week and more than the last couple weeks combined. I burned the following calorie amounts in four workouts last Sunday through Wednesday: 542, 564, 805, 335. With that weekly total of 2,246 calories burned, my total of calories removed for the year is 64,768. Almost two third of my way to my goal and only one third of the way through the year. I have to be happy with that. And I still have a few tricks up my sleeve. :)

In the presence of weight loss greatness, and I came up empty (or rather overly full)

A week ago I boarded a bus for the Twin Cities to cheer on the high school wrestling team at the state tournament. In the town I reside, wrestling is king. The team owns 20-some conference titles and either wins the section or finishes runner-up every year. This year the team continually improved and out-did most people's expectations.

They practice a couple times per week before school, then practice again after school. There's no doubt wrestling is one of the most strenuous sports available to high school teens. It takes the ultimate in dedication and a lot of watching one's weight.

So there I sat last Thursday, watching a room full of dedicated athletes from all over the state, plowing through stale pizza and overcooked mini-donuts and various others. I spent $20 on nothing tasty. Nothing. And I wasn't satisfied. In fact, I was the opposite of satisfied ... which now that I think of it would simply be unsatisfied. (I originally thought there was going to be another, more creative word. Shucks.)

It felt like the ultimate irony. I was being so undisciplined in the company of all these disciplined people.

No excuses. Just disappointment. I'm still hovering around 10 pounds weight loss, but that day's poor eating choices have seemed to follow me since like a shadow. Since then I have eaten pizza nearly every day. Not going to lose weight that way. Since then I have only worked out once. Since then I've not been proud of my choices.

But that's partially why I have this blog, to hold me accountable. I'll pretend for this moment that I have 100,000 readers watching me flail. It's believable, to me, but so is my dream of finding a healthier me.

On two tread mill workouts I burned 991 calories, putting the 2011 missing calories report at 62,522.

Weighty, yet peaceful moment in time (or the calm before the storm?)

The two cribs waiting for mattresses, mattress covers and two little babies

       In my adult life I’ve never owned a weight scale, so I don’t know for sure what I weighed the day my wife interrupted my morning shower to tell me the heaviest news I’ve ever received. A pregnancy test she’d just taken came up positive.

       That was nearly four months ago. My best guess is I weighed about 230 pounds that day in early November, a couple days before the first snow storm hit Southern Minnesota (which now seems like eons ago, right?). That’s about the same weight my father carried for much of his adult life. He died at age 52, after years of diet and weight-related ailments. I’m 5 foot 8 ¾ inches tall. Like my father, I was not meant to carry 230 pounds.

       And so the news from my wife that morning hit me extra hard, like a cast-iron frying pan to the face. I had only weeks earlier turned 36, a man so content with his existence I’d never seriously considered having children. No need, I thought. I see 150 children a day, five days a week for nine months a year. Best job in the world. This job will be my baby, sans diaper rash.

       But what hit me so hard was the mathematics. My father lived to be 52. My father’s father lived to be 54, so there’s a pattern already started. If I die at the same age as my father, my children will be learning to drive without me. Some things are out of your control, such as cancer, which runs rampant in my family. Other things, though, can be controlled, like the types and amounts of foods I ingest and the exercise I partake in.

       The frying-pan-to-the-face-news in early November served as a needed wake-up call. If I want to increase my chances of being a successful parent (not sure what that even means) I better get my body in better shape before they arrive this summer. Yes, that’s right. I said THEY. The man who never envisioned himself a parent will be papa bear to a pair -- identical twin boys -- by early July.

        The pastor at the church I attended in high school once told me he wanted to be able to beat his son in a game of one-on-one basketball when his son turned 18. That thought hasn’t crossed my mind, but I would like to be able to teach my kids to do the things I loved to do (and have in recent years given up), things like slalom water skiing and downhill skiing, although I suppose they’ll want to barefoot and snowboard. I want to be able to walk 18 holes of golf using my push cart alongside the two of them carrying their clubs. Whether I beat them or not is inconsequential.

        So I started a blog to track my progress: www.onehundredthousandcalories.blogspot.com. While I haven’t written as much lately, I have logged some valuable information along the way, including but not limited to the number of calories I have parted ways with when comparing my 2011 self to my 2010 self. I originally envisioned the blog as a way to count how many calories I burned on the treadmill, but instead it’s made me more reflective and aware of what foods I shovel down.

       The school’s scale (I still don’t own one) on Tuesday morning said I was just a few ounces shy of 10 pounds shed since January, when a few teacher buddies and I started a weight loss challenge, which we’ve all agreed is less about the weight loss competition and more focused on each of our individual goals and the overall aspect of getting healthier. Our health insurance provider should be happy to hear this.

       Speaking of insurance, I should mention before I forget that it’s thanks to a friendly Albert Lea insurance salesman that I am an expectant father. Almost exactly nine years ago I received a call from this then-future insurance salesman letting me know he was in town for the night in the town I then called home. He asked if I wanted to meet up with him and a couple of his friends. That evening, with his help, I met the expectant mother of these identical twins. Neither she, nor I, nor the man responsible for she and I, knew we’d all someday live in Albert Lea. Thank you to you, Mr. Friendly Albert Lea Insurance Guy … and thank you to fate as well.

       There’s a lot of unrest in the world right now, over such weighty issues as democracy in the Middle East and about how to best use tax dollars in the debt-saddled U.S. I pay attention to the news. As a newspaper guy, keeping abreast of current events is a large part of my identity. It always will be.

       Yet despite the unrest surrounding me and some of the personal feelings I have about those on-going situations, I am personally more at peace than ever before. The looming birth of these twin boys and the resulting weight-loss effort seem to be having a calming effect on me. With the loss of a few pounds it seems I’ve also shed some unnecessary mental baggage.

       Just in time, I guess.

Back blogging again and bye, bye potato oles

       I haven't written a blog in awhile. Almost a month, actually. I wrote a short entry just prior to leaving on my weekend vacation to Phoenix in early February, but it didn't save. It's somewhere out there in cyberspace, one blog in search of an author to claim it.

       A lot has happened since then, so I'll probably do a couple entries today, one with a focus on catching up on my caloric countdown to 100,000, and another blog highlighting some of the latest news we've received.

       While my workouts have not been as often as I'd like, they haven't disappeared either. I have had five workouts since my last blog, with the following calories burned: 344, 705, 580, 1,008, 459, 345. That adds up to 3,441 calories burned via exercise. Calorie count for 2011 now stands at 19,051. I have lost 8.5 pounds this year, which is great, but admittedly it's been slow going since the week before the Phoenix trip. Good news is I gained a couple pounds in Phoenix, but lost them right away with a return to more normal ingesting habits combined with what I am referring to as my "Guilt-induced workout."

       That 1,008 number above is not a typo. I walked on the treadmill for 90 minutes and burned 1,008 calories, mostly because I was angry about giving back a couple of the pounds I'd worked so hard to shed. Within a couple days I was back to my pre-vacation weight. I am currently standing on the precipice of 220 pounds. Can't quite get under it, but I'm going to work out today, which will be another guilt-induced workout after a less-than-stellar caloric weekend, full of pizza and fast food while cleaning our house in preparation for the babies.

       So this seems like a good time to use one of my trump cards to keep my caloric dispatch on pace. I have eliminated Taco John's meal #6 from my 2011 life. Well, to be more clear, I have expunged all Taco John's food from my diet, but that's the same as the previous statement because I always get meal #6, which is a grilled burrito, with the option of chicken or beef (no option necessary … I always ordered the chicken), plus the heavenly-est side in all of the fast food kingdom, potato oles.

       Oh, and of course a diet soda pop to maintain my girlish figure.

       Sometimes I'd order a large, sometimes a medium (in shocking fast food honesty, small was not an option). Grilled burrito: 580 calories. Oles: 600 for a medium and 770 for a large. I ordered the medium more often, so for our stats we'll go with that. (I went on a roll for awhile buying a churro for dessert, but not regularly enough to include in this calculation.)

       1,180 calories times 3 meals per month (I would say that's on the low side, if anything) times 12 months = 42,480 calories. Boom, baby (er, babies).

       Total calories eliminated (assuming I avoid Taco John's for the remainder of calendar 2011):

61,531 calories … adios mi lovely Oles.

       To finish, I must confess one thing. In December my wife delivered Taco John's to a work night at school. This was a fairly regular occurrence. We'd have Taco John's and watch all the cable channels in my classroom we are too cheap to pay for at home. But this time my grilled chicken burrito was a tad bit cold and tasted odd. Just not right at all. I can't nail down what was so odd about the taste, but something was different. I got sick shortly after, but not super sick. I think I may have made myself sick thinking about how my favorite fast food meal was not good this time. Much like someone who threw up from their last shot of tequila often says "Yuck. I can't drink that anymore," I now say "Yuck, I can't eat that meal anymore." In fact, the thought of ordering that meal now makes me a bit nauseas.

Crazy week not particularly crazy, but not a waste, either

OK, so my mentor who sent me the kind and encouraging email tell me to "go crazy" – in a good way, of course -- and I are different people, namely in that he's amazing and I'm a bit of a slug, BIT being the optimal word (not slug, thank goodness).

Sunday: 224 calories burned on the fly on a worn out bicycle machine. Monday: 362 calories burned in a hurry between dinner and evening commitment. Then Tuesday: You can't make this up, 717 calories burned in one hour on the trustee tread mill machine-friend. And those 717 calories burned while reading a Time article about the recently famous "Tiger Mom." She's fascinating, and not nearly as crazy as her own book makes her out to be. In fact, the most crazy thing of that hour was nothing of which the Tiger Mom spoke, but instead that I discovered I was capable of burning 717 calories in one hour of fast walking on the tread mill.

That's 1,303 calories burned. Nothing to scoff at. Then I ate one too many bowls of cereal Wednesday night, thought one too many times about the stress pouring down on me with grades due. Next thing I know I'm on the couch sleeping.

That's what we call a Workout Death Sentence trifecta. In the biz.

Minutes later I was asleep in my new comfy bed, my "crazy week" suddenly arrested on the other side of my eye lids. Unless, of course, chainsaw-type snoring burns mega loads of calories.

There is one reason for hope. I have a long weekend on the road, which means no workouts and possibly sketchy food choices, so I've committed myself to a 5 a.m. workout tomorrow morning. I checked the website for my gym, and they are, indeed, open at that time. I don't foresee this morning thing becoming a habit, but it must be done.

"Crazy" needs a kick start.

2011 total caloric disappearance: 15,610, with more to go bub-bye about seven hours from now. Have a good weekend.

Cinny-Minny gooey goodness … gone

My wife and I have a fairly consistent ritual when we go out to eat for breakfast. Or, for that matter, when we go out to eat any time of day at a breakfast-type restaurant. We begin by ordering the breakfast version of an appetizer. A cinnamon roll. See accompanying photo, which will be explained in a moment.

We always say the same thing: "We'd like to start with a cinnamon roll, warmed up, with butter on the side and two forks." I or she point at the other at this point, to indicate we plan to split the roll.

As part of my quest to eliminate 100,000 calories from my existence, I have vowed not to order cinnamon rolls. The caloric reduction will be quantified at the end of this blog entry.

This morning my wife talked me into going out to eat at one of our favorite restaurants in town. A quick history on this restaurant: It opened about five years ago near our home and we loved the people who owned it and the food they served. A good combination, no doubt. Then the restaurant disappeared, for reasons unclear. The building became a Laundromat. Suddenly, word spread the restaurant had re-opened in a small town just north of us. We went there one time, but it was a bit farther drive than we'd like to drive for breakfast.

Suddenly, this winter we noticed a restaurant with the same name open in the downtown area of the city we reside. Finally, this morning we investigated. It, indeed, is the same wonderful people and much of the same wonderful food.

We found a seat near the kitchen and near a half wall separating the seating area from the food prep area. The attached picture – I am not making this up – shows what sat atop that separating wall. Yep. A big piece of cinny-minny gooey goodness (see photo).

My wife took a picture, because it captured so perfectly the way I am going about this diet. I am purposely not eliminating the temptations from my life, because they're always going to be there in some form or another. In this case, they just happened to be about two feet and a piece of plastic covering away from my mouth.

We will continue to eat at this wonderful breakfast location despite the well-placed cinnamon rolls. To their credit, that spot is perfect to encourage impulse purchases. I just have to learn to control my impulses.

NOTE: One piece of collateral damage exists in my goal to eliminate cinnamon rolls from my life. My wife, with whom I always split these pieces of cinny-minny gooey goodness, is rightfully bummed. Sure she could order one by herself, but check out the picture. Do you see the size of it? Ordering that alone may ruin the breakfast that follows.

She is pregnant, though, with twins. Maybe she could eat it all and just say she's splitting it with Baby A and Baby B instead of with me.

Calories eliminated: I estimated my wife and I would split a cinnamon roll about 10 times a year. That means I eat five a year. According to http://www.nutrientfacts.com/, one large cinnamon roll is 310 calories. That's with raisins and I don't eat rolls with raisins, so we'll go with 300 calories. Although I contend the cinnamon rolls in many restaurants are larger than large. Regardless, we'll go with 300. That's 1,500 calories eliminated in cinnamon rolls alone.

In addition, I burned 343 calories at the gym in 30 minutes on Friday. I didn't work out Saturday (no good excuse, really), but I am on my way to work out right now. I will log those calories burned on my next blog entry. Remember, this week is "crazy week." I am down another pound on my weight loss goal, but this week I hope to lose a "crazy" amount. We'll see what that proves to be.

TOTAL CALORIES PARTED WITH in 2011: 14,307