Big Climb v2.0!

Hi everybody. I spent the entire weekend either working or attending my sons' basketball games*. I am way behind on reading your blogs, but I'll catch up.

* By the way, the coolest thing happened in my eleven year old's game. It was the last game of the year for them and one very popular, but very short teammate of my son's hadn't made a basket all year. True story - my son got a rebound with two seconds left, passed it to the little guy, and he made a basket as the horn sounded to end the game and the season. I can tell you every single parent and player was happy for him. What a great way to end the season. 


Announcement: I'm in for the Big Climb 2012! And this time I'm on a team, "The Four Seam Fastballs". My wife and kids are joining me and we're going to get some others into the act before we're done.

The Big Climb is a fundraiser for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. They raise a lot of money to combat blood diseases, like the one that took my father-in-law Stew from us far too early. To donate to our team's fundraising page, click here and be generous.

In late March, I'll be climbing 69 flights in the stairwell of the Columbia Tower skyscraper in downtown Seattle, 1311 stairs in all. You can read more about the Big Climb from my posts last year.

This year's honorary stair training kick-off: Benaroya Hall, home of the Seattle Symphony 

And now we're back to the local elementary school for the real training...in the rain!

SnowmaRainmaIcemaWindmaFloodmageddon

I was going to play it cool and skip the obligatory weather post, but Seattle's big storm of 2012 would not be denied. Check out the crazy weather this week in Western Washington:

Monday night/Tuesday morning - Trace to 2 inches of snow. Some schools closed. Seattle Public Schools had both a 2 hour delay in the morning and a 2 hour early dismissal. Steady superintendents stuck to a 2 hour delay. While the native Philly tough guy in me likes to get out in the snow, unfortunately a few inches and a lack of snowplows makes Seattle's hilly streets a better venue for sledding than driving.

Wednesday -  The Pineapple Express brought heavy precipitation to Western Washington. The heaviest snowfall - more than a foot - was in the Olympia area. My nine year old measured 5.5 inches on our deck. Nearly every school in NW Washington was closed for the rest of the week.

Thursday - About a third of an inch of freezing rain fell on top of the day old snow, leaving a thick layer of ice atop the snow. This one-two punch was too much to handle for the region's deciduous trees, leaving downed limbs everywhere. When whole trees snapped, the sound of a shotgun blast echoed through forested areas, disrupting the peace of the snow-cover. And that's not all that was disrupted, as 300,000 customers lost power. We lost power for 23 hours.

Friday - As temperatures gradually increased, the melt was on and the area braced for flooding. Still, there was enough unplowed snow in our neighborhood that I had to push my neighbor's car out of a snowbank (and I did - still have some muscles in my 40 year old body!).

Saturday - We again awoke to no power. A windstorm with gusts up to 45 miles per hour blew through over night, knocking out power for six hours. Mercifully, the sun came out later in the day and the roads are now mostly bare and dry.

Kudos - To the power crews out there dealing with this mess. The were out there during the ice storm and the wind storm. Also to the unfairly maligned U.S. Postal Service, which delivered close to on time every day through all of this.

Egg white, green pepper, ham, and mushroom scramble

Eating and Exercise

My eating was very uneven this week. I started an emphasis on natural foods this week as a part of the P.O.P. World Series. Some days I did great, but others I wavered. I'll accept about 90% of the blame, but I think circumstances played a role, too. My job this year demands a lot of me when there's snow in the forecast. I need to monitor weather forecasts late into the night and then get up at least a couple of hours earlier than normal to make adjustments for work. I'm just not a disciplined eater when I'm tired.

What I could have done better was be prepared with more whole foods on hand. We had times when we couldn't get to the store and it was way too easy to go with processed foods when the power was out. Preparation would have really helped.

For exercise, I got back in the swing of stair climbing this week. Monday, I went to the stairs behind a local elementary school and climbed 500. Now, last year I did 1311 in The Big Climb, but these 500 - my first since March - nearly did me in. My calves ached for days. But I got back on the horse and did 700 yesterday. Since it was a mess outside, I did those in my house. It was my first time climbing in my two-story house, but it worked great. And I passed the time listening to the crank powered radio I have on hand for power outages. Woohoo! Look for more stair climbing and another "announcement" soon. ;-)

UPDATE: On the Death of Joe Paterno

Those of you who have followed this blog know that I am a proud native of Pennsylvania and a big sports fan. It shouldn't be surprising that I have been a Penn State fan since I was very young. My brother is a Penn State grad and one of my treasured memories is flying to State College to watch a Penn State football game with him. I feel I have a little perspective on Joe Paterno that has not been expressed in the mainstream media that seems to exist to build people up so they can tear them down.

If you only know Joe Paterno from the recent scandal, please keep an open mind to his entire record and legacy. The child abuse perpetrated by a former Penn State assistant coach is horrible. Everybody agrees with that. My heart goes out to the victims. I wish Joe had done more and I wrote about it at the time. Paterno has said the same. But the facts are that Paterno reported what he heard to university officials, believing they had the "expertise" to handle the situation that he did not. His report went straight up the chain of command to the head of the university police. Simply put, they should have acted, period. I haven't worn my Penn State sweatshirt since the scandal broke. I am ashamed by how Penn State the institution failed to protect children. In retrospect, Joe should have done more, but that is only because the district attorney failed to act, the state child protection agency failed to act, the police - who had a wiretap on Sandusky and let him off with a verbal warning - failed to act, and administrators of The Second Mile charity - who knew about allegations for years - failed to act. That Paterno is the primary person who has been held accountable for not doing more is revisionist history in the moment.

What I want you to know about Joe Paterno is that Penn State was widely acknowledged to have the highest standards of conduct among major college football programs. Shortly after Paterno was fired, it was announced that Penn State tied Stanford for the highest graduation rate among major college football programs. And Penn State won the 2011 Academic Bowl Championship Series, in part because Penn State's football graduation rate showed no achievement gap between African American and white players. Paterno gave more than $4 million for the university library that bears his name, and even donated $100,000 after he was fired.

The memory I will take from the last time I saw Paterno, speaking to students on his lawn the night he was fired, was Joe saying, "Go home and study." I texted my brother at the time that maybe college football has passed Paterno by, because I can't think of a current college coach who would have chosen that message to send at that time. No man is perfect, but let's remember Joe in perspective. Rest in peace.

P.O.P. World Series Update and Happy M.L.K. Day!

A rare Monday post...

For those of you following the Pounds Off Playoff World Series (humor me!), today marks the beginning of "Natural Foods" and the end of "Calorie Counting." Every month, I'll do half a month of each plan, with the plan with the most weight loss for the month winning the "game."

From January 1 through January 15, I lost 3.5 pounds on Calorie Counting. I tried to eat 700 fewer calories than I would for my maintenance weight, 500 to lose weight and 200 as insurance against miscounting. Mostly, it was easy to follow and I didn't feel deprived. Now, I shift gears to Natural Foods, which is all about minimizing processed food and maximizing whole foods. We'll see how it goes!

Happy Martin Luther King Day! The picture on my World Series badge is of Willie Mays in the 1954 World Series. It's amazing to me that we wouldn't have that memory if Jackie Robinson hadn't joined the Dodgers just seven years earlier, April 15, 1947. In fact, at the time of the '54 World Series, four major league teams still hadn't integrated! The New York Yankees, playing just blocks away from Mays' New York Giants, didn't have a black ballplayer until signing Elston Howard in 1955. It was two more years until the Philadelphia Phillies integrated (and would you the player was named John Kennedy?), then the Detroit Tigers in 1958 and finally, racially challenged Boston became the last team to integrate in 1959. A little history lesson, and a reminder to all of us not to be the Red Sox!

Let's work for a just world for all our fellow human beings. Happy M.L.K. Day.

The Calorie Counting Continuum

The weigh-in this week was exactly the same as last week. No gain. No loss. I had a good week for the most part, but it was a jam packed week and I had moments of not counting and one jam packed 13 hour workday that led to pretty much ignoring calories that evening. So I didn't crush it this week like Patrick did, but I held onto the 3.3 pounds I lost last week.

I usually learn more from failure than from success, and this sideways week was no exception. After reflection, I have observed that five things tend to happen while I am attempting to implement a calorie counting plan. These five behaviors can be ordered from most to least helpful for losing weight.

Counting. Counting is the gold standard. You are counting when you know exactly how many calories you are consuming. This could because you weighed and measured all of the ingredients, or because you are eating a food with a known calorie count.
     Outlook: Sustained weight loss

Estimating. Sometimes you can't know a food's exact calorie content, but you can make an informed estimate. Perhaps you know the calorie count in the food item(s), but not the exact serving size. Or you know the calorie count of similar foods. Some additional calories may creep in, but estimating will keep you on track.
     Outlook: Slow weight loss

Guessing. Unlike estimating, where you have partial knowledge of the calorie count, guessing is more of a shot in the dark. It's not a sustainable strategy in the long-term, but once in a while it may be the best you can do. A conservative guess will limit the risk. The main virtue of guessing is that it allows you to continue your counting through the rest of the day.
     Outlook: Live to see another day

Lying. You're in trouble when you start lying to yourself about calorie counting. A typical calorie counting lie is  counting one serving's worth of calories, but eating more. Or not counting the mayonnaise on a sandwich. Or accepting a colleague's fib that "these cookies have zero calories." As the saying goes, you're only lying to yourself. The only upside of lying is if a little white lie keeps you from quitting altogether.
     Outlook: Slow weight gain from the extra calories

Quitting. This is when you just give up and stop counting. Quitting for a day is dangerous because in the best case scenario, it will take at least a day or two just to make up for the day you quit. Quitting for a special occasion isn't the end of the world, but not tracking calories for more than a day a month is dangerous territory.
     Outlook: Get out the fat pants

For most of us who live busy lives and deal with real world foods, we'll never spend every meal in the "counting" category. But in our moments of weakness, we can bump up one or two categories. Bad days can become average days, average days can become good days, and good days can become great days. And those days will yield results. Calorie counting works, if you keep counting.

Living on a (Calorie) Budget - A "Do" and a "Don't"

This week: Lost 3.3 pounds!

Calorie Counting like being on a budget

The day after Christmas we went shopping with our two boys and their two cousins. Shannon's mom gave each of the kids $15 to spend as they saw fit. Each made their choices, and then they were done. My eleven year old son chose some small items so that he could buy a gift for a friend out of his $15. My nine year old son shopped carefully before finding a soccer shirt. I was proud of him, as he's learning to be less impulsive and make better decisions with money.

Then, we came across some handwoven bracelets. There was a whole display with names sewn into the bracelets, and one with my son's name had a bright color pattern mimicking the neon green warn by the Seattle Sounders FC soccer team. They were $7. He wanted it, and I wanted him to have it. What's $7 to make your son happy on the day after Christmas, right?

But, of course, my wife and I couldn't buy it. We have to teach our kids to live within their means, to postpone consumption until they can afford it.

Shortly into my first week of calorie counting, I noticed the parallel between calorie counting and living on a budget. Seeing calorie counting plainly as a normal fact of life, like living on a budget, helps me keep perspective and stay on track.

Pad Thai was up for grabs, but I was out of calories

A "Do" and a "Don't" 

DO skip extra calories that show up out of the blue. For me, the test was Thursday afternoon at work. To better manage my eating I split my day's calorie allocation, half for breakfast and lunch, half for dinner and desert. By 1:00 I had eaten lunch and used half of my day's calories. So I was done until dinner.

Learn from me and pass on the extra pickles. Trust me.

And then I got to my 1:00 meeting. There were leftovers from a meeting that had been held over lunch. Pad Thai noodles. Yum! We have excellent Thai food in Seattle and this is my favorite dish. Honestly, before the Pounds Off Playoff, I'd have had a heaping plateful, maybe two. But I passed on account of having already spent my calories.

DON'T eat ten pickle spears, just because they are only 5 calories each. You will pay in other ways. Trust me on this one. 

The P.O.P. World Series - Calorie Counting vs. Natural Foods

Happy New Year everybody, and welcome back to the Pounds Off Playoff for the beginning of a new championship competition. For those of you just joining us, the Pounds Off Playoff began as a 60 week, bracket style tournament of sixteen eating plans. The result: 26 pounds of weight lost and the crowning of 2500 Calories as champion.

After a lengthy off-season, the Playoff is back, this time with a seven game World Series, pitting Calorie Counting against Natural Foods. The World Series format will be a seven game series, with each game lasting one month. The first eating plan to win four games will be crowned champion.

Game 1: Calorie Counting (1/1-15) at Natural Foods (1/16-31)

Game 2: Calorie Counting (2/1-14) at Natural Foods (2/15-29)

Game 3: Natural Foods (3/1-15) at Calorie Counting (3/16-31)

Game 4: Natural Foods (4/1-15) at Calorie Counting (4/16-30)

Game 5*: Natural Foods (5/1-15) at Calorie Counting (5/16-31)

Game 6*: Calorie Counting (6/1-15) at Natural Foods (6/16-30)

Game 7*: Calorie Counting (7/1-15) at Natural Foods (7/16-31)

* if necessary

The two competing eating plans are closely based on the results of the original Pounds Off Playoff. Two of the  top four eating plans were based on calorie counting, with 2500 Calories notching the top spot and 1800 Calories finishing fourth. On the other side are the natural food approaches, with No Processed (2nd), No Junk Food (3rd), and No Whites (6th) all finishing in the top six. The two eating plans in the World Series are close cousins to those original star plans.

Calorie Counting. It's just like you'd think. There are no restrictions on what you eat, just how much, but in reality you'd better eat healthy food or those calories will be gone before you know it. This time around, I will be targeting a 700 calorie deficit, the traditional 500 to lose weight and 200 to guard against underestimating. Using the Mayo Clinic calorie calculator, that puts me at about 2300 calories to start, which will drop as I go along. To ease tracking and discourage late afternoon and late night eating (my weaknesses), I'll allocate half to breakfast/lunch/snacks and half to dinner/dessert/snacks. At my starting calorie allocation, this should be plenty of food.

Natural Foods. The emphasis on eating naturally is to avoid the modern processed foods that add calories and sodium, while stripping nutritional value and the natural cues that prompt you to stop eating. I am convinced processed foods are the number one catalyst of our national obesity epidemic. Ideally, I'll be eating things like fruits, vegetables, eggs, and chicken breasts, but when I have less control over what's available to eat, I'll eat the most natural options available, choosing brown rice over white, for example, and avoiding snack foods and sweets entirely.

Scoring. I'll step on the scale at the beginning and middle of each month, weighing in before breakfast for consistency. The eating plan that produces the most weight loss each month wins. In case of ties, the plan posting the largest percentage loss will be the victor. 

Updates. I'll post how much weight I lose on each plan on the sidebar to the right, as well as in my regular Sunday posts. 

Oh, and if you're not a big baseball fan, that's Willie Mays in the 1954 World Series at New York's famous Polo Grounds. His improbable eighth inning catch of a Vic Wertz drive in game one kept the game tied at 2-2. Mays' New York Giants went on to defeat the Cleveland Indians, four games to zero.

Happy New Year and healthy eating to all!