Friday, February 27, 2009

Cupcakes & 24-Packs

On Valentine's Day we went over to the Christensen's and frosted cupcakes with Kelsey, Leslie and David. Kelsey made the cupcakes and we just brightened them with colored sugar. Marianne made the first one with her favorite color blue as the background and an "M" (can you guess what it was for?).

I made a smiley face on my cupcake and my face and both were probably the best I've ever done/made.

David made a tooth because he's a dentist AND an artist.

The creator of all the cupcakes, icing, and party idea.

Maggie with a football flying at her head that Chris threw.

Marianne's cupcake is a little child swaddled in a blanket representing the one we are expecting on August 27 of this year. She is 14 weeks along and does not like being sick. Hopefully trimester number 2 is less harsh. All we know right now is that the child is human and obtained 23 chromosomes from me and another 23 from Marianne. We don't know any genotype and obviously we don't know any phenotype. It will be cool and interesting to see if any recessives pop up and what they are. We love genetics. Right now the little chicken is about the size of a lemon. A LEMON! I told Marianne once before we were married that when we had a kid it would come out and take a big bite of an apple and after hearing the heartbeat a few weeks ago, I still believe that. It's so weird how it "wooshes" instead of "lub-dubbing" (both are examples of onomatopoeia). We're excited to be parents and I know I have been watching parents all around me and seeing what seems to work and what definitively does not. And anyone who knows me knows that I absolutely love to be around kids so this is obviously the best news of our young marriage. We've known for a while but as our odds of miscarriage continue to drop significantly we feel more comfortable shouting it from the mountaintops (blogging about it). Since I don't have to be the pregnant one it's all excitement for me. I'm sure Marianne will let you into the darker side of this new experience for both of us. (This is Marianne, feeling sick, and right now it stinks most of the time. I think when I start feeling it kick around in there it will be awesome, if I am not still sick.)

In other news, we bought 2 24-packs of Gatorade at Sam's Club a little while ago. Between my obsessive sports participation and Marianne's love for those sweet beverages, this will presumeably not last as long as you might guess.(This is Marianne again. I think Gatorade makes me sick now, so my side is still pretty full. There must be a link between ascorbic and citric acid and my stomach exploding out my esophagus, pharynx, larynx, oral cavity and onto to some innocent bystander, because orange juice does it, apple juice a little bit, cheese has done it, artificially flavored things . . . oh I DON'T KNOW! It's so frustrating.)

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Joys of Primary

Last Sunday I was teaching my 5 and 6 year old primary kids about prophets. I told them that only a man could be the prophet. I was trying to prompt them a bit so the following conversation occured.

"Why can only a man be the prophet?"

silence

"What is something that only a man can have?"

silence

"It starts with a P?"

Luckily, silence.

As I realized what the most obvious, but incorrect, answer was I quickly prayed that the kids wouldn't yell it out and further prompted them "It is a long word that starts with a P that only men in the church can receive . . . "

Finally a little girl yelled out PRIESTHOOD!

I was so relieved and we quickly moved on to another subject. phew.

Monday, February 23, 2009

2009 Utah State Championships

Yesterday I competed in my first weightlifting competition. It was fun and gave me some insight on how the competition's format works and how I can prepare myself for the Utah Summer Games. I was in the under-94kg weight class (that's under 206.8 lbs for those who are metrically-impaired). I'm grateful to those who attended the competition and supported me (Marianne, Kelsey, Clark, Leslie, David, Alisha and Am



You all who attended are probably wondering how your long experience at that competition could have produced such a short video. It's a power sport, that's how. Also, the music was just to add something and I apologize that it's not on beat. I love for things to be on beat with the music so it was tough for me to see as well.


This is the U of U Weightlifting Club [from left to right: Mike Waller (head coach), me, Zach Gee, Jason Miller (assistant coach) and Adam Dietlein.]

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Softball Teams

Layton City Rec adult softball summer league begins in April and registration starts in March. I want to get a team (or teams) together for the league.


Coed games are on Tuesday nights with games at either 6:30, 7:30, 8:30 or 9:30.
Men's games are on Friday nights with games at the same times as above.

The cost of registering a team is $300.00, so with the minimum amount of players that is only $30/person. Coed teams must have at least 5 females and 5 males. Comment if you're interested.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Russell Westbrook

Russell Westbrook (UCLA) dunk



This is awesome.

Monday, February 2, 2009

HAES

This semester I am taking a nutrition class as one of my final required classes to obtain my degree. The class is called Weight Management and is taught by Beth Wolfgram, who, among other things, is the dietitian for the Utah Jazz. She uses a new, alternative approach to weight management that greatly differs from the traditional approach. The traditional approach involves using dieting (as defined by restrictive eating to lose weight) and exercise to create a caloric deficit on a regular basis that will lead to weight loss. To put it simply, calories in (food) should be less than calories out (exercise) to lose weight. This subject is of importance and interest among most people because of the ongoing reports linking obesity and disease. There is, however, an enormous problem with this approach.

Marianne has taken this class from this professor so I had some exposure to this new approach. Although my exposure has been brief, I have examined it and believe that it is a far better approach. I believe it is so much better that I’m presenting it here in order to get the word out. It’s called “Health At Every Size (HAES).”

An important first point for this is that 95% of those who attempt to manage their weight by means of the traditional approach fail to lose any weight at all long-term. Behavior change is hard. Losing weight is hard. The traditional approach is “weight-centered,” meaning success is defined by losing weight. Anyone who has studied exercise for very long will tell you that this approach is bound to fail because it is but one part of our overall health. For a moment, I would ask you to indulge me and think about this scenario: A 40-something woman resolves on December 31st to lose weight. Right now she is fairly inactive and eats “too much junk.” Her doctor has told her if she doesn’t lose weight, she will die prematurely. This is not the first time she has resolved to lose weight, but she feels committed this time. She works hard to get to the gym nearly every day and limits the food she’s taking in to create a caloric deficit (traditional approach). After one month of hard work she steps on the scale and has lost 1½ pounds. Her goal was to lose 50 pounds by the end of the year. Her friend tells her, “It’s not working,” and she quits, gets depressed and accepts she will die early. Keep this story in mind as I explain the three major tenets of the HAES approach.

Self-Acceptance. Somehow over the last century our culture has become fat-phobic and obsessed with weight. Influences from all over (I would single out the media) have led us to believe that thin people are healthy, attractive, happy, successful, active, rich, smart, disciplined, popular and good while fat people are unhealthy, ugly, depressed, failures, lazy, poor, dumb, gluttonous, losers and bad. I’m sure you can think of all the influences in your life that teach you that. I’m also positive you can think of exceptions (many of them) to each of those stereotypes. We’re so obsessed with fatness that 42% of s in 1st to 3rd grade want to be thinner and 81% of 10 year-old s are afraid of being fat. Self-loathing is unlikely to produce long-term change. I worked as a personal trainer for a while and I was amazed that all people seemed to care about was whether they lost weight. Genetics influence weight more than you might suspect. Because of genetics, some people will never dunk a basketball. Some people will never run a marathon under 3 hours. Some people will never run a marathon. Yet we have trouble accepting that some people have a higher set point for their weight. The supposed correlation between obesity and premature is not as clear as your doctor, favorite news anchor, or TV personal trainer has expressed to you. And it’s definitely not as clear as the infomercials publicize it to be (they always say “results not typical. Why not? Because not everyone is meant to be thin!). Learn to love yourself and accept who you are. This is the most important tenet.

Pleasurable Physical Activity. I shudder to think that anyone outside running in the cold, polluted Salt Lake air during the winter isn’t doing it because they truly enjoy it. I can’t do it. I don’t want to do it. And I WON’T DO IT! Physical activity is a very important aspect of health. But don’t do something you can’t find passion in. Exercise is not simply for burning calories. Do you think that crosses my mind when I’m on a basketball court? NO! I love it. If you haven’t found an activity that you really enjoy, keep looking. In the spirit of Yes Man (I really thought that movie was not only funny, but inspiring), get out and try different activities. (As a side note, it wasn’t until the day that registration for indoor soccer teams was due that I thought about using this blog and Facebook to organize teams. If you want to play some sports, please, talk to me, I live for it. I’m obsessed with playing and watching sports. It’s a little disturbing but at least I have passion.) Exercise without weight loss would produce positive results in improving various risk factors for diseases (high pressure, high cholesterol, elevated glucose, etc.). Find pleasure or social connection in activity. It may help to separate health from physical activity and just playing baseball until the sun goes down (or whatever you like).

Normal eating. Normal eating is also referred to as intuitive eating. As kids, we eat when we’re hungry and stop when we’re full. Somehow as we grow up, we forget that and think we need to intellectualize our eating. That is how dieting got started. Here’s a quick reminder: Diets don’t work. Use your internal cues to regulate how much you eat (hunger, appetite, satiety). Some people think (I know I used to) that if they eat a brownie or some ice cream that they are ruining their soul (body and spirit). It’s important to make healthy choices (wholesome foods) but don’t become obsessed with which food is good and which is bad. You must have a healthy relationship with food and your body will tell you what, how much, and when to eat. If you are calculating the calories you eat throughout the day, you may have disordered eating (an unhealthy relationship with food). Find pleasure and satisfaction in the foods you eat.

This may be a new paradigm for you and I can direct you to other resources to help you better understand this (obviously I’m a new disciple and do not yet understand it all as clearly as I’d like). If you know me, you know I’m somewhat low-key and like to keep things light but I think this is extremely important. Health is defined by more than just weight. Fitness level is a stronger predictor of premature death than Body Mass Index (BMI). Participants in the HAES approach have improved depression levels (41%), reduced body dissatisfaction (22%) and reduced disordered eating. Self-esteem and body image improves in children who are taught this approach. Hopefully discrimination against fat people can be eliminated (Fatism – one of the last socially permissible forms of bigotry. Check the statistics, fat people are less likely to get high-paying jobs, promoted at work, etc. There are more likely to be teased, insulted, etc.) And maybe the most important statistic is this: in a study comparing these two approaches to weight management, after a 6-month program and 6-month maintenance period, 40% of the “diet” group had dropped out. Only 8% of the HAES group had in the same period. Retention is of vital importance. You can ask me for links or additional information if you’d like. I can email it to you. Link anyone you want to our blog if you think they may benefit from this. It’s not for everybody but hopefully it can help bring about change.