I'm Not Afraid to Use the "F" Word Anymore

I have always been a "big" guy.  This is in part because of my height - six foot, three inches, but in the last 10 years, maybe more, I started getting fat.

Yeah, I said it: Fat.

I actually remember the first time anyone noticed that I was putting on weight.  It was about 15 years or so ago.  I was shirtless in my mom's house and my brother Scott was there as well.  My mom said I was getting a little "pudgy."  I got defensive, probably overreacted, and it was instantly an awkward moment.  I don't think I can recall my mom ever saying anything like that again unless it was a topic I brought up and honestly, I don't think she's ever uttered the words:

                                                          Chris, you are fat.

Because who does, really?  In our culture, this is one of the taboo subjects.  We have found a lot of nice ways to say we are fat, because no one wants to utter the "f" word.  

• I'm struggling with my weight.
• I'm not as in shape as I used to be.
• You know Jane, she's the heavyset one?
• I've been exercising lately because I want to get healthy.

Consider this story about a school board president being forced to resign over calling a mom "chubby" and "fatter each meeting".  Note in the story, the comparison that calling someone "fat" is the same as a racist comment.

But the truth is, many of us are fat, and depending on how you measure these things, more than a third of us are obese.

I remember the first time I started eating poorly.  Actually, I don't.  I was four months old.  My mother started giving me formula and a short time later, she gave me rice cereal (in my formula). Currently, the most basic nutritional information on Gerber Rice Cereal paints what seems to be a pretty picture of vitamins and minerals.  But realize that even today it has 2 grams of sugar per fourth a cup. Formula today has healthy sounding names, but is loaded with things that baby does not need.  The common problem between both of these early foods, especially when I was born (1975) is that they are full of sugar.  And at less than one year old, I was hooked.

Now I'm no nutritionist, but I can read and I can listen and I can understand what I'm being taught about sugar today.  And looking back, I realize that my sweet mother fell into a trap most parents fall into: feed your kids what you can afford, what you have time for, and what everyone else is feeding their kids.  Here's a list of things I remember eating as a kid, which really didn't change until my 30s, when I met my wife (while my home diet improved a little, my out of the house, independent diet remained awful and actually got worse):

• Coco Puffs
• Fruit Loops
• Corn Puffs
• Lucky Charms
• Pretty much every cartoon character cereal out there
• Peanut butter and Jelly sandwiches on white bread
• Pizza (and by the time I was a pre-teen or teenager, I could eat a large pizza by myself at one sitting)
• Ice cream of every flavor
• Fast food from every place
• Casseroles full of white pasta with canned sauces full of sugar
• White rice at most meals that had steak or chicken 
• Brownies
• Cookies 
• Some fruit (but a lot of fruit in a can "fruit cocktail" it was called)
• Some vegetables (every salad I had had dressings full of sugar)
• And so on

This list is but a small example of the sugar based foods I was eating at an early age.  And my mom knew no better.  During my early years, she was bombarded with a dietary message that taught her not to feed me fat. So she went out and bought me yellow chemicals called "Country Crock" and later on "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter".  She thought she was acing the mom test when she said "only two scoops of ice cream and that's if you finish your pizza".  She didn't know the dough was full of sugar.  She often made me eat my whole "Happy Meal" before I could get my ice cream cone, not realizing that the cheeseburger itself was full of sugar (even in 2010 it had 7 grams of sugar, plus check out the graphic below with the sugar content of a full Happy Meal. What's so happy about that?).

Recently, I began a weight loss challenge with my wife.  I had a moment, an epiphany, if you will.  I honestly don't remember what ignited the idea.  It could have been a glance in the mirror.  I tried playing basketball and I could barely get up and down the court.  I got winded playing with my kids.  I don't know what it was. But I had a moment, and I looked in the mirror and I realized, "I'm fat."

And so I began a journey of losing weight.  A normal guy, with no real knowledge of health and nutrition, and no great experience with health and fitness.  

It's been approximately sixty days and I'm down over 20 pounds.

I have many pounds to go.  I'm going to document some of my challenges and successes and teach what I've learned and have yet to learn.  But consider this your first lesson as it was mine:  Added Sugar is killing you. It is a poison.

 I will dedicate an entire blog post to this (and probably many more).   You can start learning more by watching this video. 

I hope that some other fat people find this motivating.  I think that would be a great reward to me.  But not the greatest.  No, the greatest reward is my own health.  It's there, off in the distance. It is a long road, but one worth traveling.

Am I Angry Enough to be a Republican?

Yesterday I was driving from a court assignment in Phoenix and was listening to some conservative talk radio.  Now, a little background is necessary here.  I have been listening to talk radio for years.  In the beginning, I listened to the classics- Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.  I have moved over to Dennis Prager and Michael Medved.

At heart, I am a conservative person.  It matches my faith and my general sense of the world.  I was registered as a Republican until about two or three years ago, when I switched to Independent.

So while listening to a little Sean Hannity (he had a guest on I thought was interesting at first), I realized how loud he was.  I mean, he is such a loud talker.  And then I thought about Rush Limbaugh and even Glen Beck.  These are loud dudes too.  And angry.

I thought about all the angry facebook posts I read from angry Republican  and Tea Party people.  People push aside their Christian tenets and say despicable things about members of the other side. 

I realized that while I may be a conservative, I am not a Republican.  I'm just not angry enough.  I don't have the mindset that somehow my vote will matter more if I shout louder or say nastier things.  I realize that right now, there are more of them than there are of me and that if I want to see things change, I have to work with them and the people I vote for have to work with them.

I hope to see a leader like this come out of the woodwork.  I think Mitt Romney was that type of person.  He wasn't embraced by the Republican party because he wasn't angry enough.  He didn't spit far enough to reach the face of his opponent.  Spitting at his feet wasn't good enough.

Just wanted to let you know that the only thing that I worry about with Homeschooling is the dress code:

All Fun and Games Until Someone Gets Hurt

Our homeschooling experiment went pretty well yesterday.  Grant was able to complete his math, reading, and writing assignments before 11:00 a.m.  We also began a unit from Discover the Scriptures series, which uses the scriptures (we're starting with the Book of Mormon) as a literary piece.  He has to answer questions, fill in the blanks, do a word search, draw a picture and so forth for each unit.  There are about 40 lessons that take roughly 8 weeks to finish, if you do it day by day.

Jenn took the kids to the library as well (forgot her card though).  She took them on errands and was able to buy three costumes on discount (cowboy, swamp monster, spiderman).

Unfortunately, Nora busted open right under her eye when she fell and hit the bed frame.  No stitches needed though, and a neighborhood nurse helped us apply a simply skin glue.  It looks great this morning.

Just a normal day.  I like normal days.

Homeschooling is for Weirdos

It's nothing more than a coincidence that the first blog post is about homeschooling.  This is not a homeschooling blog.  It's probably more of a personal and family journal, an attempt to do my part in recording the history of this family.  But it's also a place for me to share my thoughts on various topics that affect me, or affect my family. 

We (re)started homeschooling our children today.  Really, we only have one school aged child (first grade).  We have a preschooler who attends an in home preschool two houses down our street.  He thinks he is being homeschooled too.  And so does the two year old.  Each has a desk set up with appropriate tools to use.  But really, the curriculum is geared toward the first grader.

We actually have homeschooled already.  Grant, our first grader, was homeschooled for kindergarten.  We enrolled him for about a half week and found it to not meet our needs, or his.  We took him out and homeschooled him. 

We enrolled him this year in first grade because we just felt we couldn't "handle it".  We had just had our fourth child (yes, we have four children under 7) and felt that sending Grant to "regular" school was the right thing to do.

Until it wasn't.

We pull him out of school Friday for so many reasons.  The main reason NOT being that he wasn't excelling academically or that he had bad behavior in school.  He was and he didn't.  In fact, he enjoyed school. 

The problem was that he wasn't eating.  Really.  Grant wasn't eating more than a bite or two of his lunch and then might snack on a cheez-it or two.  His behavior after school, during that oh so precious time between coming home and going to bed was awful.  He couldn't function after starving himself and going through a grueling almost eight hour day (including travel). 

We had to ask ourselves, "why are we doing this?" This is not an adult, teenager, or even preteen.  This is a small child.  Our child. 

So, we put aside the quasi-embarrassment of changing our  minds again and pulled him out.  This morning was great.  He had breakfast with his family.  His mom was prepared with his math and writing assignments.  The other two children "worked" at their stations.  Mom took all four to the library and to run errands.  When they return, some reading and religious education will take place.  He'll be done by 2 and have read more than most his peers will in a week.  He'll have eaten a complete meal for breakfast and lunch.  He'll have played sufficiently.  And when his peers get off from school, he'll play and socialize with them.

For now, this is an excellent environment for him to grow and learn.

We're pretty happy and will share our adventures, mostly with ourselves, on this blog.