Category: General

I'm trying something a little bit new in my constant lifelong fight against fatness. I'm quite sure that this is something that I will be fighting against my whole life. I've been blessed with a slowish metabolism and I've also been blessed with a love for food. These things combine to make for a very large "me" unless I really work against these two things.

A while back, I posted something about skipping breakfast and how that's a way that I combat being fat. That's probably the reason that between mid-November and the end of December, I actually lost two pounds. For the first Christmas season that I remember, I didn't gain a few pounds.

That still doesn't change the fact that, in medical terms, I'm obese. I'm not overweight. I'm obese.

I've tried a couple of fad diets. They worked for me temporarily. The best thing I ever did was when I decided to ride my first century ride a few years ago. I dropped a lot of weight that summer, ending up under 200 lbs for the first time in many, many years. Yet, over the last few years, I've slowly gained it all back.

It didn't help that the one sport I really really enjoyed has been taken away from me. I loved racquetball. It's not going to ever be an option for me again. It didn't help that for a whole year, I couldn't ride a real bike because I didn't have the strength in my right hand to brake. It didn't help that even when I had the tendon problem in my elbow fixed, I didn't get back on my bike again.

Yet those are all just excuses.

So this week, I started an exercise that has been eye opening. I downloaded the "LiveStrong" app for my iPad and I started tracking my caloric input/output.

I'm sure that there are more accurate methods, but for $2.99 plus tax, this has a lot of bang for the buck.

I put in my height and weight and some other information (such as my activity level--sedentary. I'm a computer programmer, after all) and told the app that I wanted to lose 2 lbs a week and the app told me that I can consume 1702 calories per day.

It's actually not so bad, especially since I skip breakfast anyway. On days that I actually do something more physical--such as ride the spinner--I can eat more, because the 1702 calories are "net" calories--the difference between what I eat and what I burn. 45 minutes sweating away on the spinner can buy my a few hundred more calories.

The app also has a pretty large database of foods. It's not 100% accurate, I'm sure, but it's a lot better than not knowing at all how many calories I'm eating. I plan out what I'm going to eat for the day and I use the app to figure out approximately what I eat in a day.

It's been eye opening. Geez. No wonder I'm fat.

So I started this on Tuesday. I don't know how long I'll continue to actually log every single thing I eat, but I think it will be something that I can come back to if I can't figure out why I keep getting heavier and heavier. I think that when I hit a point where I want to just maintain my weight, I'll count calories for a while to figure out how much I can continue to eat.

So far so good. I'm down about 2 1/2 pounds. I know it's probably not all REAL weight loss, but at least part of it is.

I'm also planning on riding my bike this summer. A lot. I'm going to do multiple century rides and I'm going to do the cycling merit badge with the scouts in my area.

I'm hopeful that I'll be able to drop 30 or 40 lbs this year and this will be one more tool that I'll have to keep from gaining it all back. Again.

Wish me luck. I'll post updates here from time to time.

See you in December

It must have been 13 or 14 years ago that we discovered Saturn. We were looking for a new car and we stumbled, quite by accident, into Saturn of Orem.

We weren't really expecting to buy a Saturn, especially since my wife didn't know how to drive a car with a manual transmission, and the only Saturn we could really afford had a stick shift.

The sales lady spent an evening in the parking lot near the Saturn "retail facility" teaching my wife how to drive a manual transmission car.

The next day, we owned our first Saturn. A couple of days later, my wife got to try out her new driving skills as she drove me to the emergency room early in the morning with my first kidney stone.

We liked the Saturn philosophy. We liked that it was a "retail facility" and not a "dealership." We liked the no haggle process. The more we learned, the more we liked,

A few years later, we traded that Saturn in on another, newer one. I ended up in a pretty bad wreck in that one. The truck that hit me mashed the front wheel and driver's side door. I had a bump on my noggin and had nightmares for a while, but was otherwise unhurt.

We again traded up to a newer Saturn back in 1999. This one was a barely-owned fully loaded Saturn. That was the car that we drove all over in with kids' car seats in the back.

When we needed an inexpensive commuter car, we bought yet another Saturn--this one the oldest one we had ever owned. I drove that one to work for a few years. We gave that one away to my sister-in-law and they're still driving it.

Tonight, the "barely-owned fully loaded" Saturn drove away. After a few repairs, another fender bender, and even a teenaged driver, our days of owning Saturns are over. They just don't make it up our driveway in the winter. Not to mention that Saturn, as a company, is no more.

I'm tired, sore, sunburned, and happy!

Over the weekend, the Utah National Parks Council of the Boy Scouts of America held a celebration of 100 years of scouting.  We camped out in Heber City, Utah with 2500 of our closest scouting friends, and we had a very good time.

When we arrived, we found out that we would not be camping in a farmer's field as I had been told.  Instead, we would be camping out in a cow pasture.  There is a distinct and important difference...welcome to "Camp Cow Patty."  But even that is a shared experience that these scouts will continue to chuckle about in years to come.

The boys were able to participate in a wide variety of activities including sports clinics and tournaments, chess tournaments, model rocketry, horseback riding, 5k runs, and vintage photography.  They all seemed to have a really good time.

We ate lots of good food--half of which was prepared in dutch ovens.  We shivered in our sleeping bags as temperatures in the Heber Valley dropped down to the mid-teens during the night.  We sat around the propane heater (no campfires were allowed in Camp Cow Patty), and at times laughed, and at other times were spiritually fed.  During the day, it got up into the mid 70's with full sun, and that led to my sunburn.

My Scouts did well in the competitions, taking first place in Ultimate Frisbee and third place in the golf tournament.  They took fourth place in the soccer, basketball, and chess tournaments--an impressive feat because my scouts (12-13 years old) were often competing against Varsity Scouts (15-16 years old) and Venturers (16-17 years old).

It was a very successful, very enjoyable, once-in-a-lifetime type of experience.

ROFL is a lie.

At least it is for me. I mean, if I'm actually rolling on the floor laughing, I can't really reach the keyboard to type ROFL now, can I?

Next, they're going to tell me that I can't believe everything I read on the Internet.

Yesterday evening, we received a knock at our door. When I opened the door, the two boys who live next door were standing on the front porch with a plate of homemade muffins, a very kind note, and a CD that they bought for us because they thought our family would enjoy it. It's really nice to live next door to such nice people!

They, unfortunately, live next to some very UN-neighborly neighbors. No, silly reader, I'm not referring to my family! I'm referring to the people that live on the OTHER side.

The neighbor in question chased our previous neighbors away. Seriously. The reason that our former next-door neighbors moved was because they didn't feel comfortable in their own house because of the unfriendly and downright aggressive actions of the people next door. It's sad, really.

I'm not going to go into specifics--its really not MY problem, because I haven't had any negative dealings with these particular people. Suffice it to say that the unfriendly, aggressive behavior has continued.

It saddens me. Because my new neighbors who have been so kind and friendly to us have to deal with such ugliness that shouldn't be happening in the first place.

I hope they don't end up feeling like they have to move as well. I would miss them as much or more as I miss my previous neighbors.

Yesterday, older son looked out the front door to see if it was still raining and found a UPS Express envelope on the front porch.  It was from my mortgage company.  I wondered what might be inside.

Advertising.

My mortgage company wants me to refinance my home mortgage.

I looked at the rates and other information and saw that I could cut my interest rate by 1% and have a sub-4% interest rate.  It looked like it might be something that I might investigate further...

...until I read the fine print.

It said that the rates and other information was based on the assumption that the borrower would purchase 1% discount at closing.

Wait, WHAT??

I can decrease my interest rate by 1% by pre-paying the 1% at closing??

In other words, this refinancing plan gives me no advantage at all and the mortgage company would gain thousands of dollars in closing costs.  What a deal!

I've been given a new project at work.  I'm pretty excited about it.  I'll be the "development lead" for the project, which, though a somewhat short-term project, will be a pretty cool opportunity.

I'll be putting together an application that will help track and manage talent for the LDS Church's AudioVisual department.  The major user of this application will be the LDS Motion Picture Studio.  They're currently ramping up to film a huge project depicting scenes from the New Testament.

I'll likely come back to the General Conference project when my new project ends.

Disclaimer - The views expressed here are the opinions of DeShawn Smith and do not necessarily reflect the views of Employer Solutions Group or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

My older son is required to read some hundreds of pages each semester for his English class this year.  He as asked me for help in finding books that he might enjoy.  He is a bit of a "reluctant" reader, so it's going to take more than just a little thought.

Of course, I turned to the source of all Internet knowledge:  Google!  After a short search, I found something that seemed promising:  The Young Adult Library Services Association "2010 Best Books for Young Adults" list.  At least, it seemed promising until I started reading the descriptions of some of these books:

• Lia is haunted by her best friend's death from bulimia, as she struggles with her own eating disorder.
• In an attempt to distance himself from the rest of the students in the school's therapy group known as the Madman Underground, Karl launches his senior year with “Operation Be <expletive> Normal.”
• Anke watches her siblings and mother suffer at the hands of her abusive father until she finds enough strength, through involvement in volleyball, to demonstrate her needs.
• Essie, 16, sews all day for pennies at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory to help feed her fatherless family and now to forget her little sister's death. Then the fire happens.
• Soccer star Devon never admitted to herself that she was pregnant. Now she’s in detention, facing charges of attempted murder after delivering a baby and dumping it in the trash.
• After her estranged mother dies, Shawna Gallagher refuses to accept her dysfunctional home life and attempts to make peace with her mother’s lesbian lover.
• Ellie is pregnant after looking for love in the wrong places with one too many boys. Corrine, Caleb and Josh all deal with the emotions, consequences and difficult decisions ahead.

Really???

No wonder I'm having a hard time finding decent reading material for my son.  I understand that writers are trying to find current topics that teens are dealing with, but I usually read a work of fiction to escape some of the crap that real life throws at me.  Sometimes, it's fun to just read something that is fun or scary or just different.  When a book starts to moralize or preach at me, regardless of whether or not I agree with the message, I stop reading.  There's too much good writing out there to waste time with crap.

If you have any suggestions of good books or good authors for a 16-year-old young man, let me know!

Orthodontia sucks.

I understand that, with my younger son's mouth, letting nature take its course would have resulted in complete disarray and dysfunction.  His teeth came in in rows instead of having the permanent teeth push his baby teeth out.  The words that the Orthodontist used when describing the panoramic x-rays that he took were "train wreck."  Cosmetics aside, there is no way that leaving such things alone would have resulted in my son being able to even eat normally.

This poor kid had to have all but 3 or 4 of his baby teeth extracted at the dentist's office, because they weren't coming out on their own.  When his first permanent molars come in, they immediately put braces on them and on his front eight teeth so that they could put springs in and push everything forward and outward, hoping to make enough room for the rest of his permanent teeth.  He's been wearing braces for years already.

Yesterday, they put on a full set of braces.  He did very well while in the Orthodontist's chair as they removed some of the existing brackets to re-position them.  He sat there, fists clenched, as they put on the rest of the brackets and finally (and a little painfully) put wires through all of the brackets.  As we drove home (via Jamba Juice), I watched the tears run down his face--it's how he relieves stress.

Most of the day yesterday, he wouldn't talk because braces hurt.  He didn't want to move his mouth at all.  I heard him get up a couple of times during the night to take ibuprofen.

Today is his first day of school, and he'll spend the day in pain again.

It's hard for me to watch him hurt.  Even when I know that, in the long run, he'll be glad he went through all of this, it's still heart-wrenching.

I hate it.