Pounds Off Profile: Hunter Morris, Auburn First Baseman

I finished my softball season two weeks ago.  If you’re new here, I wrote about getting back to organized sports after 20 years off and adventures with a pulled hamstring the first, frigid night of the season.  I’ve resisted a full season play-by-play, so as not to really bore you.  But now that it’s over, I’ll say it felt good.  I came around and found my line drive stroke, and I can still pick it a little at first.

That being said, I couldn’t help but wonder what it’d be like if I were even half-way back to my high school playing weight.  Sure, I’d found my line drive stroke, but I couldn’t generate that explosive rotation that results in the long ball.  And I was really, really slow.  (Even for a guy who once singled off a fence 315 feet from home plate!)  NFL commentator Hugh Millen describes slow, pocket quarterbacks as “potted plants”.  That’s a pretty good description of my defense.

Maybe that’s why Hunter Morris’ story resonated with me.  Morris, who just completed his junior year as Auburn University’s first baseman, has lost 25-30 pounds, apparently mostly through determination.  The Anniston Star (which sounds like a supermarket tabloid devoted to former Friends actors) writes of how Hunter Morris improved his game by losing weight.  He says it improved every aspect of his game – hitting, running, and fielding – and I don’t doubt it.  Morris was just drafted in the 4^th round by the Milwaukee Brewers.  It’ll be fun to see if he ever makes the show.

I hope I get to play again, and if I do, I hope what works for a prime college athlete can work for an old-timer like me.

Shame on you, McDonald’s

Did you know the Chicken McNuggets McDonald’s serves in America are higher in fat, saturated fat, and calories than the ones they serve in England?  Dr. Gupta from CNN has the facts on how four piece McNuggets sold in the U.S. have 20 more calories, 3 grams more fat, and 1 gram more saturated fat.  Plus some chemicals I can’t even get my head around.

It is a bit strange how viscerally angry this makes me.  I’ve long thought many restaurants at the very least turn a blind eye to the destruction they are inflicting on our country.  If I had a year off, I’d write a book comparing the damage to the health and economy caused by the obscenely unhealthy food served at chain restaurants to the heyday of the tobacco industry.  And I have self-published a study that shows the absurd amounts of sodium in restaurant food.

No, what makes me angry is that McNuggets are targeted to kids.  That one of my own children would eat them daily, if we let him.  That McDonald’s knows all of this, and yet they choose to serve our kids slightly more of the things that correlate with bad health outcomes than they do kids in a country that won’t accept it. 

I haven’t ordered Chicken McNuggets since reading that chicken have breasts and legs, but they don’t have “nuggets”.   But try explaining that to a kid as they unwrap their Happy Meal toy.  

McDonald’s, why?

Week 23 Recap: Eating Alone with My Thoughts

This Week:          -0.4 pounds

Total Loss:           22.2 pounds

You know what’s weird?  Of all the plans I’ve tried, this one has scared me the most.  I actually experienced some anxiety – what would I do if I couldn’t read or watch TV while eating?  I never eat alone with my thoughts. 

Here are some examples of how the week played out.

Monday lunch.  When I don’t have a lunch date on workdays, I always read while eating – email, an article, something on my BlackBerry – anything to make maximum use of the time (or so I deceive myself).  Instead, I invited a coworker to lunch.  She is an amazing mom to a disabled adult daughter and we had a great conversation about that.  (Shannon thinks being a little less connected to my BlackBerry and a little more social is a good thing.)

Monday dinner.  Now this was creative.  I’m in crunch time at work (yet again) and had a deal in place with Shannon to work Monday night.  Every other time this happens, I’d go to a restaurant and read.  This time, though, I drove to our friend’s son’s Little League all-star game and ate dinner in the stands.

Tuesday breakfast.  I had Trader Joe’s High Fiber O’s cereal.  The TV would normally be on, but we left it off.  With nothing to distract me and the house pianissimo quiet, I couldn’t believe how loud the crunching of the cereal was.  This is my favorite cereal and I had never noticed that.  (And get this...As I was eating, I grabbed my BlackBerry from its charger to put it with my work stuff and instinctively began reading an email that had arrived overnight – literally unaware that I was doing it.  Shannon busted me.  It was like sleepwalking.  Weird.) 

Tuesday night.  Gosh, this post is getting long already, but these experiences have been fascinating to me!  I went to the Mariners game Tuesday night and didn’t eat at the ballpark, so I had a snack when I got home.  Shannon was in bed already.  Again, I was alone with my thoughts.  I stood awkwardly in kitchen, and couldn’t wait to finish what I was eating so I could go on-line.  I guarantee you without the “No TV/Reading” rule I’d have had three more items as I read on the web or watched TV.

I have examples from the rest of the week, but you get the idea.  I thought my weight loss would have been greater, but when I did eat, I ate out several times, and Father’s Day was a party, and I had dessert, etc.  No question in my mind though, “No TV/Reading” while eating is a powerful tool, and I’m looking forward to seeing the two week total.

By the way, my bike got its first flat tire yesterday!  Must be doing something right! ;-)

Friday Funnies

Two quick anecdotes to share today.  The first is an NSV.  For those of you new to weight loss blogs, that’s a “non-scale victory”.  These are important as your weight plateaus, especially when you’re building muscle. 

My NSV came when I found a pair of brand new jeans in the back of my closet.  I bought them years ago, only to discover the waist was my size, but the cut was more “athletic”.  Long story short, they now fit.  And my wife complimented me.  I think her exact words were, “It’s a good thing you save everything!”* 

*I asked permission to run this and she said as long as I note the sarcasm.  Duly noted! J

The other is from my nine year old son.  Friends of ours are going to Yellowstone next week.  His comment, “Yellowstone is a park?  I thought it was an ice cream store.”  Oy, that’s not a good sign.*

*Maybe he, too, was being sarcastic?  

Pounds Off Profile: Cristie Kerr’s Weight Loss

Professional golfer Cristie Kerr is the first female athlete featured in a Pounds Off Profile.  By 1999, she was carrying 185 pounds on her 5’4” frame and it was causing her back pain and affecting her swing.  More importantly, her family has a history of weight related illness. 

Over the next two years, she lost sixty pounds and found her game.  Kerr’s before and after pictures are proof positive.  She has spent the last seven years ranked in the top ten on the LPGA tour.  Most impressively, perhaps, Kerr has kept the weight off.

Kerr has four rules for healthy eating:

1.       Eat your vegetables, and then your protein, before eating carbs.  That way, you’ll be full when you get to the high calorie foods.

2.       Carry healthy snacks at all time, so you won’t reach for the chips when you get hungry.

3.       Keep a food diary and write down everything you eat.

4.       Give yourself a “cheat day,” but don’t go crazy. 

If you know of more female athletes who have a weight loss story, let me know! 

Eating Plan Profile: No TV or Reading While Eating

On Mother’s Day, we went out to eat and as I was scouring the grill’s menu for the best option, my nine year old asked what I was doing.  Shannon explained about the P.O.P. and went into some of the plans.  When she got to the current plan, my son said, “What do watching TV and reading have to do with eating?”  Good point.

Except that there’s a chance I wouldn’t be overweight at all if I hadn’t spent the last twenty years doing exactly that.  I remember it starting in college.  A few times when I was dealing with a lot, I’d make one of the few escapes I had the resources to pull off, walking (no car) to Rochester’s Mid-Town Mall.  I’d purchase The National Sports Daily for the then princely sum of $.75 and sit down with fries and a Frosty at Wendy’s. 

In the years since, eating and reading have practically been a hobby, almost as eating pastrami sandwiches and watching TV were for George Costanza (I said almost ;-).  I won’t drag you through the details, but there are some issues of Baseball America and Perkins, some graduate statistics textbooks and Baja Fresh, thousands of work emails and takeout, that could tell stories.

I could give you links to sites that articulate clearly why it’s bad to eat while engaged in something else.  It keeps you from paying attention to how much you’re eating, savoring the food – yada, yada, yada.  For me, though, this is a personal challenge to see if I can break one of my main bad eating habits.  Two weeks from now, I can tell you how it went.

Week 22 Recap: Am I Full Yet?

This week:          +2.8 pounds

Total loss:            -21.8 pounds

Happy Father’s Day.  Hi Dad!

Are you ready for the first round to be over?  I am.  No, I’m not talking about the World Cup (although I could be; New Zeland ties Italy, and it’s an “upset”?)  It’s my beloved Pounds Off Playoff.  Too many plans that just can’t work, at least not for me, and they’re slowing down my weight loss.  I’m looking forward to September, when there’s a workable plan every week.

A few things I learned this week:

-          Eating plans need to address quantity and quality.  Ok, so I’m a “3” (hungry) and it’s time to eat.  So I eat processed foods which are designed to mask your feeling of fullness (“Bet you can’t eat just one”).  The “Hunger Scale” would have worked better if I’d have stuck to whole foods.  Processed foods, which are  in many ways “pre-digested”, don’t register satiety.

-          In the real world, sometimes you have to eat before you’re hungry.  With my job and family commitments, I couldn’t just eat at 9:30, 1:30, and 5:30, if that’s when I felt hungry.  The Hunger Scale is helpful in stopping before you’re stuffed, but it’s not always realistic about what time you can eat.

-          I have trouble eating responsibly when I’m tired.  I knew this before, but this week it just became so obvious.  One night, I slept eight hours, felt great, and was in total control.  Other times, I was short on sleep and sore from exercise, and my eating had little connection with my actual hunger.  Ideally, I need consistent sleep, but in the real world, if I’m short on sleep, I need a structured eating plan that doesn’t rely on my eating “intuition.”

Still, the “Hunger Scale” is a good tool.  It gave my wife and I language to discuss eating.  I have no doubt this technique could be a helpful part of a larger eating strategy.  But as a person who has eaten past full for years, I’m going to need a more structured plan than this.  Tomorrow, I’ll be back with an introduction to the new plan: no eating while reading or watching TV.

Article on Hunger Cues

I’m a big James Earl Jones fan, and since he’s the official voice of CNN (deep baritone voice:  “This is CNN”), they must know of which they speak.  This week, cnn.com ran an article by Corrie Pikul on the need for Americans to reconnect with their hunger cues.  Ok, it was reprinted from elle.com, but I’m going with the James Earl Jones analogy.  It makes me feel more manly.

Aside from the hyperbolic and misleading headline (remember, this is CNN), it’s a helpful piece.  The article points out that Americans get their cues to stop eating from the size of their portion or when their company stops eating.  While the French, for example, savor their food and leave themselves wanting more, we clean the plate.  This contributes to an eating culture of extremes, ranging from famished to stuffed, rather than staying in the “satisfied” range most of the time. 

Pikul also suggests that the brain over time “learns” that certain foods satisfy hunger.  If you reach for an apple when you’re hungry, you’ll start to associate hunger cues with reaching for an apple.  But if you reach for a Snickers bar, the sugary, nougaty snack will become the go-to.  I was in a workshop this week on an entirely different topic, but the message was similar: the brain forms neural patterns (habits, in layman’s terms) that function like grooves in a road.  Once you establish them, the brain will look to repeat the pattern.

The end of the article mentions a variation on the traditional hunger scale, this one ranging from 10 to negative 10, with zero being neither full nor hungry.  The lesson is the same as my current “hunger scale” plan, that we need to consistently check in on our real level of hunger and reconnect with our body’s natural hunger cues.  I’ll be back tomorrow to tell you how this worked for me.

Pounds Off Profile: Shawn Kemp’s Weight Loss

Shortly after I moved here, Seattle entered a golden age of professional sports.  I arrived in 1994.  The following year, the Mariners staged a historic comeback from 13 games behind, wining a one-game playoff over the Angels and a thrilling ALDS series over the Yankees.  The next year, the beloved Sonics made the NBA finals, playing well against the juggernaut that was Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls.  That Sonics team was led by the gruff, loveable George Karl (get well, George!) and the sensational point guard Gary Payton, a.k.a. “The Glove.”

This week’s Pounds Off Playoff, a basketball player in honor of the NBA Finals, features the other leader of that 1996 Sonics team, Shawn Kemp.  In his prime, Kemp was among the most dominant power forwards in the league.  But by 2003, he had played his way out of the league.  Kemp was out of shape, ultimately ballooning to 330 pounds.

We join the story in 2006, as this New York Times article profiled the comeback of Shawn Kemp.  Out of basketball for three years with a variety of problems, Kemp got himself into shape for a comeback attempt.  His plan was a combination of diet and nutrition.  His diet was eating three meals a day of oatmeal (not something I would recommend) and running as many as seven miles per day. 

Kemp’s comeback attempt was ultimately unsuccessful.  His life is a cautionary tale, an example of the kind of guy who would have been much more successful if he’d have taken care of himself (and not made terrible decisions with drugs and women, it should be noted).  And really, we all are that guy, although the rest of us can get in shape successfully without meeting the expectations of the NBA.

Four years after this article was written, Kemp’s comeback is a fading memory, Coach Karl is in a fight for his life with throat cancer, and the Sonics are history.  Kemp’s story, and the characters in it, reminds us to make the most of the moment, and our health.

Week 21 Recap: Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooal!

This Week           -2.4 Pounds

Total Loss            24.6 Pounds

Some programs you can just start and be up and running.  Calorie counting, eliminating processed foods, and eating more fruits and vegetables require knowledge, but it is knowledge that is easily available on the Internet.  What I am learning about the Hunger Scale is that you learn as you go.  After years of being out of touch with my hunger cues, I have been relearning to recognize those cues.  In reality, what I did was more to avoid 8’s, 9’s, and 10’s (on a scale of 1 being famished and 10 being stuffed like at Thanksgiving).  Hopefully next week I can provide better insights into this plan.

Announcement

Most weight loss blogs are built around a weight loss goal.  I have avoided this because “lose a bajillion pounds” sounded more like a hope than a strategy.  But I’ve been plateaued and am looking for a little extra motivation, so here goes: My goal is to hit 50 pounds lost on the Pounds Off Playoff by Labor Day.  That’s a little more than 2 pounds a week, so it’s a push, but doable.  And I figure I will be a little more active in the summer, when I actually get a little time off and it’s not raining practically every day.

So, in honor of the World Cup, that’s my Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooal!

Do you have experience with weight loss goals?

What’s With Notre Dame and Donuts?

 My uncle – let’s call him Big Mick – played basketball for The University of Notre Dame, a.k.a. The Fighting Irish, a.k.a. God’s favorite university (just ask them).  Big Mick is the fun uncle you always wanted and he’ll think nothing of making new friends on a vacation, riding scary roller coasters, and whatever.

One object of his affection is donuts.  When he was in Seattle visiting us a few years ago, part of the itinerary included visiting a donut shop.  Now, Big Mick is a tall drink of water, and you’d never know about the donuts by looking at him.  As you might have guessed, he married into the family! (Different gene pool than me!)

Why the rambling about my uncle and donuts?  Because he’s the first person I thought of when I heard that Golden Tate five-finger discounted maple bars from a donut shop.  As Seth Meyers would say, “Really!?!?”  This happened at 3 A.M. on a Saturday morning.  Really, Golden Tate, you make NFL money and you're out at 3 A.M. stealing donuts. Really!?!?   It could have been a scene out of Confessions of a Carb Queen.  Tate, a recent second round draft pick of the Seattle Seahawks, lives in a condo above a Top Pot donut shop.  He apparently smelled the maple bars upon his return to the building (“irresistible,” he later said of the smell), found a door left ajar by an employee, and helped himself to some of Seattle’s finest donuts.  Then he got caught.  It’s a comical scene to imagine. Fortunately, there is a 911 recording to help your imagination.

Note to self: Take Big Mick to Top Pot next time he’s in town.  But remember to, you know, pay for the donuts.

Rex Ryan’s Weight Loss

Growing up in Philadelphia, I got to enjoy the Buddy Ryan era.  Ryan, the Eagles rumpled head coach, was an unlikely strategist.  His “46 Defense”, imported from Ryan’s days with the 1986 Chicago Bears, led the Eagles to several successful seasons, if not the Super Bowl.

What I remember most about Ryan is his decidedly non-Hollywood style that fit in well in Philly and his willingness to say anything, exhibiting a refreshing openness with the media.  They broke the mold when they made Buddy.

Except, they didn’t.  Jets coach Rex Ryan, Buddy’s son, has the same witty tongue, with an even better sense of humor.  And like Buddy, he’s not out of central casting.  Unfortunately, Rex’s weight woes have been so problematic that he had to have lap band surgery in March.  Rex has lost 40 pounds in the two months since.

Now, Rex is back in the news again, having challenged players Kris Jenkins and Damien Woody to a pre-training camp weight loss challenge.  Both players are closer to 400 pounds than 300.  (Their weight loss plans are natural, not surgery.) 

NFL players have notorious post-career health issues.  Ryan’s weight loss challenge could make the Jets better in the short term, but hopefully the players, and the fans who follow their lead, will enjoy benefits off the field for many years to come.

Eating Plan Profile: The Hunger Scale

Perhaps you’ve heard of this one.  The “Hunger Scale” is a simple concept: use a 1 to 10 scale to self-assess your hunger level.  The theory is that people who eat too much have lost touch with their normal hunger cues and can reconnect by becoming conscious eaters. 

Many versions have clear, down to earth descriptions of each hunger level.  For instance, Bob Greene (of Oprah fame) labels a “10” as “so full you feel nauseous.”  If you want a slightly more detailed treatment, look at this hunger scale from MIT.  It describes a “1” as “BEYOND HUNGRY: You may have a headache. You can’t concentrate and feel dizzy. You may have trouble with coordination. You are totally out of energy and need to lie down. This may happen during a very restrictive diet.”

The “Intuitive Eating” blog captures four different versions of 1-10 hunger scales.  Just as important, it shares recommended trigger points for starting and stopping eating.  Basically, you don’t want to begin eating until you’re definitely hungry and you don’t want to keep eating after you’re beginning to feel full.  For the Pounds Off Playoff, I’ll try to eat at no higher than a 4, and occasionally a 2 or 3, and stop no higher than 6.  You’ve heard me refer to my occasional eating “disasters”.  Those are the 9’s and 10’s of the hunger scale, and for the next two weeks at least, those days are behind me.

Week 20 Recap: Restaurants, I Can’t Quit You

This Week:          +2.5 pounds

Total Loss:           22.2 pounds

1800 Calories advances

Rule of 7 is eliminated

It’s been a tough week in the weight loss blogosphere.  People have been weighing in (sorry) with their gains following Memorial Day weekend.  When weight loss blog superstars like Tyler and Jack are posting big gains, you know it’s bad. 

It was for me, too.  This diet’s a dud.  NOT because restaurant food isn’t a huge problem.  It is.  But as I’ve learned over and over again on the P.O.P., if my plan isn’t comprehensive and flexible, it won’t be effective.   The Rule of 7 doesn’t address any eating outside of restaurant meals (not comprehensive) and it can’t adapt to the challenges of real life (not flexible).   It basically says “only eat extremely healthy at restaurants.”  And since that’s damn near impossible, I’m back to improvising.  And I don’t improvise well when it comes to food.  (Or jazz, but that’s another story.)

This week fed me a steady diet of curveballs (the only diet not in the P.O.P.!)  We were on the road for the weekend, eating out five times between Sunday and Monday.  I had dinner with a colleague before a 6:00-8:00 meeting on Thursday, then joined my softball team at a restaurant after (it was our only outing all season and I didn’t want to stand them up).  And Saturday night, we had dinner at the Sounders FC game*.  I am trying to frame these as challenges I need to overcome, to take accountability for my actions.   The people who succeed in turning their life around do this.

I will be back on track this week.  I will be accountable.  Look for a description of my new plan, “Hunger Scale,” tomorrow.

* We bought four tickets for the Sounders on the loge level for $30 each.  Our seats were actually in the very last row of the portion of Qwest Field they use for soccer.  The seats’ price includes an “all inclusive” pass for food.  This means all-you-can-eat hot dogs, nachos, pretzels, popcorn, peanuts, and pop (and nothing remotely healthy).  You are limited to four items...per trip to the snack bar.  Who in their right mind would think of this system???  I’m just learning to turn down free food, but this was “free” food...that you have paid for!    

Ironically, they had defibulator stations right by the snack bars.  Like they said, all inclusive.

Junior Griffey Always Homered, In My Mind

The first time I saw Ken Griffey, Jr. in person was in 1992, also my first trip to Camden Yards.  In my mind, Junior homered.  It seems like Junior always homered when I went to the Mariners.  But he didn’t.  I distinctly remember that game also being Bret Boone’s major league debut, and Retrosheet and Baseball Reference – indispensable sources for checking your baseball memory – inform me that Junior only doubled on August 19, 1992.  What I remember is Griffey facing either a really slow curveball or maybe even an eephus and moving up in the box with the pitch en route, like you occasionally see in slowpitch softball.  In my mind, the ball flew over the fence.  Maybe it was really a double, or a loud foul.  The memory resonates because it fits with my belief: Griffey was an amazing player who moved at full speed while the game went on slowly around him. 

Two years later I moved to Seattle and saw Griffey play in person dozens of times.  It seemed like he homered every game.  Majestic blasts to right and laser shots to left.  Sometimes both in the same game.  I saw Mike Schmidt in his prime, the best third baseman of all time.  I saw Edgar Martinez in his prime, an amazing hit machine.  Ditto for Ichiro.  I saw Alex Rodriguez’s first six years, a precocious talent.  But Junior was different, his game beautiful, his swing sweet, his gate majestic.  Kenny was the best I’ve seen.

I was on the phone with my brother for Griffey’s signature moment as a Mariner.  Game 5 versus the Yankees in the ’95 ALDS.  Junior on first, Edgar lines it down the left field line...  I immediately started yelling in my rental townhouse, “Go Griffey!  Go Griffey!  Go Griffey!”  It was a metronomic chant.  He made it.  The Mariners, thought surely to be gone to Tampa Bay, rode the momentum to a new stadium.  Like that home run in Baltimore that wasn’t, Junior may not have literally saved baseball in Seattle, but it sure seemed like it.  Definitely plausible.

Griffey returned to Seattle for a three-game lovefest in 2007.  I attended the Sunday matchup, the third of a three game series.  Griffey homered.  He homered again.  Griffey always homers.

Junior returned to Seattle in 2009.  He was a shell of his former self, yet I was glad he was back.  But he never homered.  Not when I was there, at least.  He somehow managed a walk off liner to the right field corner May 20^th.  It was his last hit.  He was in the on-deck circle when the game ended two weeks ago, the last time I saw him.  He didn’t get in that game, and he won’t be in any more.  Griffey retired today.

My defining memory of the Griffey II era in Seattle actually came before it started, in Peoria, AZ on the last day of spring training, 2009.  We got there early.  Junior was signing autographs down the left field line.   He stood there for 30 minutes solid, smiling the whole time, signing autograph after autograph.  Both my sons – then 6 and 8 – have baseballs signed by Ken Griffey, Jr.   Griffey could be moody and persnickety, but that day in Peoria he was everything you’d want in a baseball hero.

Junior left after he got pulled out of the game, as many veterans do in spring training.  He walked down the right field line toward the clubhouse with his youngest son in tow.  Just as Junior’s dad shared moments on the field with him, he shared this moment with his son.  He was leaving the game, passing the torch.  I snapped a picture.  Today, Griffey left the game for good. 

Pounds Off Profile: Delmon Young

On last night’s Mariners vs. Twins broadcast, trusty play by plan man Dave Sims informed the audience that Twins outfielder Delmon Young has lost 30 pounds.  While others have that story, and even have pictures, Sims (also a Philadelphia native, by the way) got the scoop from the Twins third base coach.  Young’s loss, as reported by Sims, came from reducing calories from 3500 to 2000 and turning to weight training. 

This year, Young is having his best season since 2006.  The sabermetricians say it has a lot to do with Delmon’s having  his best walk and strikeout percentages of his career.  But Delmon says his weight is back to when he was on the Rays.  Maybe, just maybe, that’s what’s behind his improved offensive numbers in 2010.