Updates from Grammy

Henry always says funny stuff, but it is so hard to remember. Luckily, Mary remembered some from yesterday when watching Henry. Here they are.

#1. Henry said to Mary, "I'm not good at swords on Wii Resort any more. I keep losing because my power is gone. I keep banging my head and if I banged my head one more time we had to turn it off and go downstairs. I banged my head one more time so it got turned off. We went downstairs and had mac & cheese."

I do remember this incident. He gets frusterated when he is loosing. Sometimes he does just the practice mode in the game just so he won't looe. This particular time he was hitting his head on the carpet and we pulled the plug. He had a little rug burn for a few days after that.

#2. Henry and Mary were looking at a photo alburm from Mary's recient trip to Spain. They were looking at a picture of the ocean.
Mary: " Have you ever seen the ocean in real life?"
Henry: " No, but I would like to. Today when my daddy picks me up I will ask him to take me to see the ocean and he will and we'll go see the ocean, then when I get home I'll play Wii."

I should mention that when he was 4 months old we went to California for my cousin's wedding that was on a boat in the ocean. For some reason, he doesn't remember it.

Well, thanks for the help Mary/Grammy.

Milestone

I have now reached my first major milestone. According to the medical definition, I am no longer obese, just plain overweight. Isn't that great? It seems so funny looking at me, but the American definition is much different. The medical definition is based on BMI. A normal BMI is 20-25, overweight is a BMI of 26-30 and obese is anything about 30. BMI is weight for height based and although it does have its limitations, it works for me. My final goal is to be in the normal range, but to be honest, I have never been there. Right now I am 5 pounds away from the heaviest I ever was before Henry. When I started medical school, I had a BMI of 29. I started exercising and brought it down to about 26. Then I got married, had Henry and here I am.

These last 2 weeks with a personal trainer has helped a lot. It really breaks down the monotony of exercising and it makes me feel stronger. I can already tell I can do more sit ups than before. I read somewhere that it takes at least 4 weeks to really feel a difference, so we'll see at that time.

I am also cooking more, and when I cook, I choose to do healthy foods. I am enjoying the cooking (but not the clean-up). Sometimes it is hard to think ahead for grocery shopping and preparation time, but really not too bad. I think Aaron and Henry like this new plan too. My Henry is such a great eater I never have to worry about cooking special meals for him.

My weight loss was starting to slow down, but with these two things listed above, it has kick started again. It is a great feeling of self satisfaction that I can do this, although I never really doubted it ( I am glad it is working faster than I feared) . I don't think I have as much emotional attachment to food as some and I don't really mind working out. I am in the best shape of my life and look forward to all the new things I can do.

The Knights of Henry

Maybe it was because I wrote about it, maybe it is because Henry is getting tired or matured, but whatever the reason, the last couple of nights have been great. Each night he has come into our room once and easily goes back to bed... and that's it! It's amazing how refreshed you can feel with a solid chunk of hours.

Henry has been saying some funny things. Wish I could remember them all, but the most recent one was driving in the car. He said " I bet the clouds are saying ' no, don't get night time.'" Isn't that cute? He not only empathizes for people, but clouds too. My boy is definitely not autistic, although I could have told you this long before.

He has also been trying to negotiates more, which means he just states what he wants things to be. For example....

Me: "It's time to get in the car"

Henry: "No, it's not time to get in the car. It's time to play Wii"
Me: "Let's go"

Henry: "Okay, but after the car I get to play Wii" Then he willingly gets in the car with the expectation to play Wii later. Tricky guy. What am I supposed to do with that? Usually when we get home, he does not forget.

Gotta love him.

1-2-3 Yodo

Last night Aaron was searing some steak (very very good by the way) and there was a lot of steam. Henry and I were in the dining room and he got a little scared. He asked for it to stop, but we couldn't. Then, he put it hands over his ears and kept repeating "1-2-3 yodo, 1-2-3 yodo, 1-2-3 yodo." He was upset, but he wasn't crying or anything. I asked him where he heard of that and he didn't know. Strange, but kinda cute at the same time.

These last few days nights with Henry has been pretty miserable. Aaron and I have been pretty consistent on not letting him come to bed until 5:00AM, but that doesn't stop him from trying. Man, he comes in every 2 hours or more and then usually has to come 3-4 times each round. It's almost like having a newborn.... I thought it would get better by now. I guess we spoiled him for so long it takes time. We might have to change tactics a little. If it is attention he wants, then maybe we shouldn't talk at all to him and shouldn't re-tuck him in. What a hole we've gotten ourselves into. I dream about the day when I'll have one big block of uninterrupted sleep, but I think so do most parents.

I'll keep you guys posted.

Who needs a personal trainer?

So, with being a member of the YMCA, you get three free sessions with a personal trainer. This last month or so, I've been very static with my exercises and I felt I needed a change. I have thought about seeing a trainer before, but it always scares me. I guess I feel like he would be very negative and I would come out exhausted and unhappy. Not exactly sure why, but that's how I feel. Now is the time.

Last Monday I had my first appointment. Before I started, I was quite nervous. It felt like a basketball try-out or something. While walking in the gym I was rehearsing in my head what I wanted to say (why I'm here, what I want to get out of this, why I let myself get this way, etc). I always want to be prepared.

Once I got there, things were fine. He felt circuit training would be good for me, so we went at it. It really felt funny to start doing pop-ups, and planks and things like that. Some of it was hard aerobically (but not all) and there was only a couple of moves that I couldn't do muscularly. The trainer said he was impressed and that made me feel good.

I fear this blog post is getting boring, but I wanted to give and update. I am meeting this guy once a week for 2 more weeks. A few days ago I did the routine with Aaron and I believe we got a good work out (we're going to do it again today). It is hard to find time for running and circuit training.

Also, since I am using a trainer, I thought I would put in an extra effort to eat better. I went on epicurious and they have a great meal planner that we are using this week and so far it is going really well. I made some great ginger pumpkin muffins, a winter bean-pesto soup, a Thai tofu red pepper thing and more. Honestly, it's hard to keep up. Exercising and cooking take a lot of time (not to mention Henry and my sewing).

Don't get me started about sewing! All I have to say is that there are too many babies in the family for me to keep up with (really it is not bad, but I don't like to think I am behind).

Henry does well with the cooking. He really likes to help and now has started cracking eggs for me. The only down side is that it takes so long with him "helping." It's worth it. Maybe someday he'll be a chef, or at least cook me some meals.

We'll see how this week goes.

New Years Resolutions

Everyone has them, right? Eat healthy, exercise more, live with no regrets.

I never think exclusively of new years resolutions, but I do have goals. This year Aaron piped in; he wanted to run more races and run more every day. He made a goal of 15 miles a week. I figured I was running about 10-12 miles a week so the extra 3 wouldn't be so hard. Also, it is a nice concrete goal. Really, you either do it or you don't.

These last few weeks have gone relatively smoothly for me. Unfortunately, not for Aaron (he's having a lot of shin pain). For week 1 and 2 I did 15 miles no problem, and for week three, I did 21 miles!!! Woo hoo! I finally got a little sore last night, but I welcomed it. I just keep pushing my body and it responds well. I ran 5 miles twice and then 3-4 miles the other times. I did one run in intervals and ran parts of it under a 10 minute mile (tough for me). That was a little rough. As I walked home, my body didn't know if it wanted to puke or go the other way (if you know what I mean). That was the only time I felt bad.

Right now I'm sorta running on an extended half marathon training schedule. Every few weeks I'll increase my mileage. Not to bad. All this running kinda makes me feel that the rest of my muscles are getting neglected. I don't want to stop running to do other things. Isn't that a funny phrase that I never thought I would say? Before this exercise excursion, I never liked running. It was just a means to the end. Now, I actually like it and enjoy it during the process, and especially at the end of the process. When something makes me mad or frustrated, I think "I want to run." I think my brain has changed, and that is great.

Anyway, tomorrow is the big 6 miles.

Hidden Benefits of Exercise

Alright,

I think everyone knows that when you exercise you can loose weight and your heart gets more in shape (mostly by increasing your stroke volume), but there are things that happen even beyond this. I was reading up on the subject and wanted to share some cool things.

Let's start with the muscles, shall we.

When you exercise, the muscles can break down (that is why you are sore), but they they actually increase in the end. Mostly it is by increasing the slow twitch muscles. These help with overall strength (and not the fast twitch ones that are instrumental for the sprinters). When you are using the muscles over and over, the capillaries around the muscle actually grow so there is more oxygen sent to the muscles. This sounds pretty crazy, but great. In the muscle cells, the mitochondria, which is responsible for most of the cells energy, will increase in number so you can have more energy at the cellular level. The muscle cells can also store more glycogen (glucose in the storage form) and they can utilize fat much better. This is all pretty great. In a nutshell, muscles have more energy available to them, and they can use all more easily.

On to the heart.

Like I said before, there is an increase in stroke volume, which is why your heart rate goes down. This makes the heart more efficient. I always wanted my heart rate below 60 because I felt that would be a good number. Let me check it right now. Hold on... okay right now it is 74, but I just had my morning coffee. Still not bad. Exercise can also decrease your blood pressure modestly. This is a little bit more medical, but it can help with coronary artery disease (why you get heart bypass surgery), by both making the vessels larger and protect the vessels from getting smutz in them.

The lungs, well not too much. More blood vessels will come to the lungs so you can extract more oxygen, but that is about it (sorry to disappoint).

Immune system.

Exercising moderately actually boosts your immune system. It seems to improve the function of most of the immune cells (B-cells, T-Cells, NK cells and macrophages). This is for moderate exercise. Once you get extreme, your immune system goes down. Working at a pediatrician's office gives me lots of opportunity to get sick, so any extra help I get is a bonus.

There is also some hormonal stuff that gets better but it is too complicated to write, so lets just say it helps.

Lastly, and in my opinion, the most interesting is that exercise extends the telomere length of cells. Well maybe not extends, but people who exercise tend to have longer telomere's that comparred to others. What is the big deal with telomere's anyway, right? Well, they are at the ends of every DNA and usually consist of some pattern and they are just there to protect the goods in the middle. When we age, they usually start to get cut off and then once they are gone the real damage can happen to the cells. In my opinion, I want the longest telomere's possible, and if exercise is going to help, so be it.

Those are the most direct benefits. Of course, there are life changes that occur (less depression, less obesity, less cancers), but not as basic as listed above.

These are all really great things to have happen to your body and totally worth the effort. Hope you enjoy these facts, and if you don't understand them, let me know.