12 weeks of Summer

Last week went by more quickly then the one before. This Sunday I went for a walk with my husband to accomplish two things. I wanted to get some exercise and I wanted to take photos of other people's homes, particularly the ones I liked. I want to get my house painted this summer and there a couple of houses in my neighborhood that I like I wanted to try and remember the color schemes. We ended up walking about two miles which sadly completely tired us out. There is a website devoted just to walking http://www.thewalkingsite.com/beginner.html that has advise for people like me that are just beginning their walking routine. I'd rather go slowly and walk longer although the site suggsts walking 45 to 60 minutes at a brisk pace for weight loss. If I can do anything routinely that would be a step, no pun intended, in the right direction. There are only 12 weeks of summer left before school starts again. There are a number of 12 week programs for walkers and I hope I can stick to one of them.

The Lost Week

I have not posted a blog in a week. I didn't get home till about 9:00 pm every night last week and I was too tired to write anything (or exercise or do anything else to work towards my goals). The week culminated in Commencement Ceremony on Friday. This is probably one of the best days of the year. I find it personally rewarding to watch other people accomplish their goals and although it may be a cliche it is as much as a beginning as it is an end. It also signals the beginning of summer. Technically summer begins on June 21st but on the academic calendar it begins the Monday after Commencement. So as I do with every Monday, every first day of the month etc. I intend to renew my efforts at weight loss. Not forgetting my overarching goal of being the best 50 year old I can be... I feel it necessary not to define myself by my weight alone. I will be honest, if not for my weight I like myself and I like my life. I keep letting the routine of the life that I like get in the way of the very best life I could have. I was not at work late every night this week because anyone was making me stay there or I had demanding deadlines that I had to meet. I just found things that I wanted to get done.

In retrospect I am not the ideal candidate for writing this blog because I am not coming from the depths of hell and climbing out. I have a great job at a wonderful university. I'm happily married. I have a great husband and I have two great kids. This isn't by chance. I didn't just get lucky. I had to make trade offs. For example, I am not either of my daughters' best friend. I chose to be their mother, an authoritarian figure in their life. I decided (and regretted from time to time) to never read someone's book on how to raise my kid. I figured that they were probably writing it to please their mother and had to fill up the pages with something to say (with all due respect to the fields of child development and psychology). If I was ever anything but myself, I think that would have been dishonest and manipulative. I vividly remember being derided in hushed tones by one of the other mother's at the infant care center of my youngest daughter. It seems I was too harsh with my older child, my four year old that I was hurrying along out of the rain. "Come on, move, move, move. Let's go. We are going to be late," I said. How horrible.

The last time I saw this woman, her kid was throwing a tantrum and spewing up on himself because she was leaving town for a few days. I remember she sat on the floor next to him at the day care center cooing, "Mommy's o.k., your o.k., we are both o.k." I'm sorry, but I don't think so. You are not ok when you are vomiting on yourself. I think if I could find this kid now, he's probably a disturbed young man.

I was going to blog today about what I need to improve in my life but when I started writing the good stuff just cannot be ignored. What I wanted to write about is the need to save for retirement. I don't do enough of that mainly because my kids needs are more important to me. I figure I have about 20 good years of work life left to make up for it. Here is an article from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that explains this. Pay attention to the life cycle theory on saving

http://www.bls.gov/opub/cwc/cm20050114ar01p1.htm

Day 324, 323, 322, 321

I don't really remember Wednesday or Thursday. I know I went to work. Oh, Wednesday night I had to wait up for my daughter to come home from rehearsal and then I tried to stay up long enough to see my husband who had been on a business trip for the past three days. He called me from the airport around 11:30 pm. It turned out that Interstate 10 was shut down so he had to come up the Pasadena Freeway which had all but one lane closed. I have this weird sense of how long it takes to get from one place to another in L.A. so I woke up at midnight when he wasn't home and started to think he'd been in an accident. I would have just called him but then I'm thinking he might be driving on the freeway and me calling him might distract him and cause him to get in an accident. So I just laid in bed for the next 20 minutes thinking of all the really bad stuff that might have happened and what I would do if this turned out to be the case until he pulled up in the drive way.

When my husband is away I have to take on a variety of little chores that he usually takes care of before I get up. Not a big deal but chores that cannot be ignored, like feeding the dogs and cats. My husband gets up before dawn every day and the cats (we have three) want to eat as soon as he gets up. When he's away they come and get me up by meowing at the door. Now, if I were a morning person, I probably wouldn't be writing this blog because I'd be up in the morning exercising (which by the way I did do on Wednesday morning. Thursday and Friday were lost) and most of my problems would be over. For those of you that have been living under a rock, exercise is the magic to health and happiness. See this article from the Mayo Clinic if you need any convincing http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/exercise/HQ01676. But knowing is not the problem, right?

Thursday was along day because I had to stay late to take care of logistics for a dinner going on at work that night. On Friday I had planned to take two of the students who work for me out to lunch because they are graduating next week. We went to Olvera Street http://www.olvera-street.com/ in downtown Los Angeles. I knew that I would not make a smart choice for lunch so I just didn't eat anything else that day. In the evening I went to see my daughter's play. When I got home I waited for her to come home around midnight and well now its Saturday.

I'll be up tonight waiting.

Behavior Change?

Why am I still in my office at 7:10 p.m. ? I need to go home now and eat dinner. Last night I got home too late to eat and then I was hungry all day today. Sadly, I've been in pain all week from working in my garden but I think I'll feel better tomorrow and once again will attempt to get up early and exercise.

The Weekend: Day 329, 328 327

This weekend I worked in my yard trying to save my tomato plants. Hopefully the warmer weather will encourage them to grow. I reorganized my pantry and I am gearing up for a garage sale. I would like to part with a lot of what I have been carrying around for the past 20 years. I have everyone's old furniture and old letters and old records stored in my garage. My house is relatively clutter free but my garage is where all the old memories go to die.

Day 330:

After reviewing my blog entry for yesterday I realized I lumped anger and stress into the same paragraph. At least for me anger is a reaction to stress. Stress is kind of hard to define and you just sort of expect to hear people say they are "stressed out" I never seem to be out of stress. I always have too many things to do and not enough time to do them. Usually when I'm feeling "stressed" it really helps me to write everything I need to do down in the form of a "to do" list. Simply doing that helps me feel in control and when I feel in control I feel less stressed. That said, my stress is about really mundane things. I remind myself that my biggest problems are credit card bills and weight gain. I could be stressed because I have no job and nothing to eat. My stress is certainly nothing compared to the fear someone feels when facing a great danger like a bear or a tiger. I'd much rather have my problems then someone with a sick child and no healthcare. I've got it pretty good. Let that be the lesson for day 330: appreciate what you've got. A few years ago a friend of mine gave me a book called Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach. The author suggests keeping a gratitutde journal, writing down all of the the things you are greatful for. You can go to the simple abundance website at http://www.simpleabundance.com/homepub.html There is a a section on how to create a gratitude journal. Honestly, I never finished the book. If I recall there were so many suggestions on getting in touch with your inner self and being happy that it just stressed me out. I do agree with the being grateful for what you've got though.

Day 331: Anger Management

Most of the healthy aging literature will tell you that anger or stress management is part of healthy lifestyle. I think that most people would tell you that I have a very bad temper. I would say that I am emphatic and when I am annoyed I may appear to be angry. Anger is a really subjective thing. I do get angry but when I do I rarely have any outward signs of emotion. When I am really angry, I become very calm and I start to weigh all my options. I am not above revenge. Sometimes revenge can be as simple as taking the moral high ground and therefore becoming morally superior to the offending party. Sometimes revenge can take the form of making the offender feel guilty. This revenge is most often reserved for my children. Many times when I am angry I feel the need to explain my feelings to the person I am angry at. This seems like a mature idea, right? Maybe its mature but its not always smart. If they made you angry chances are that they don't really care how you feel. They may act like they do to be polite but really they are just thinking how awkward it is that they are being confronted by an angry person.

The Mayo Clinic offers 10 tips to help keep anger under control http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/anger-management/mh00102. Revenge is not on the list.

The weekend and more: 336, 335, 334, 333, 332

I am beyond 30 days into my last year before I turn 50. I have about 11 months to become better or at least the best 50 year old I can be. I've admittedly been lollygagging (is that a word?) As far as health is concerned, I don't have far to go at least this early in the game. I have lots of time. I really need about 18 weeks to transform my physical appearance and physical strength (as opposed to internal strength of character, spirit, etc.). There seems to be nothing that motivates me to get a handle on this. I just organized a conference on aging research and attended a weekend retreat with lots of lectures on the latest and greatest on healthy aging. But I need more than knowledge. I can not approach aging successfully with a diet or exercise routine alone. I need to be in the right mind set and concentrate on behavior change. I'm working on it.

Day 337

Today I had to get ready to go to a three day "Healthy Aging" Retreat. This has required numerous days at the mall trying to make my extra 50 pounds look less noticeable. Despite the clothes melt downs and frustration, this is one of the best parts of my job. Each year the school that I work for holds a three day retreat at a great location and offer workshops on healthy aging. This year there will be some very interesting sessions that go beyond the usual exercise and fitness presentations that you might expect. I need to get to sleep because I am going to have to wake up super early to get to my meeting 110 miles away by 10:00 AM. I plan on getting some physical activity in this weekend as well. Let's see how that works out....

341, 340, 339, 338

I'm sorry. I've gone under the wave of a conference. I have been off line since Saturday. Every waking second for the past four days have been devoted to making sure things went perfectly. Things didn't go perfectly but things went pretty well. Over 240 people attended the What's Hot in Aging Research at USC conference--a whirl wind tour of the best of the best of cutting edge research. You can check out the webcast of the conference at www.usc.edu/gero/USCAgingResearch. It started out being an internal conference where researchers could learn more about what was going on across campus. It ended up attracting not only researchers, but product developers, service providers and even a few media types. All in all it was a great day. Today was just a recovery day. I've ignored everything including myself for the last ten days or so.

The man who is widely considered the father of gerontology, Jim Birren, attended with his wife Betty. Jim was born in 1918 and is the founding Dean of the school that I work for. He is amazing. You can check Jim out on Wikipedia by googling him. His most recent passion is guided autobiography. We offeer a guided autobiography course developed and sometimes taught by Jim but I have never had time to take it. I wonder how much it is like blogging.

Day 341

Tonight I attended the student/alumni dinner. Let's not discuss the calories beyond it was worth it. It was nice to relax and not be responsible for th eevent. The students did a great job pulling everything together. I had to leave my husband at home because his Rheumatoid Arthritis flared up. We think there is some connection with his diet. We have read on the Internet that fatty meats seem to aggravate the symptoms but that has not been confirmed by his doctor. I went to the Farmer's Market this morning and bought brie made from Goat's milk. We think that the high fat content in the cheese might be responsible. Really we just don't know.

Day 342

I have been working on a conference related to aging research. It looks like it will be very successful. Check it out at www.usc.edu/gero/USCAgingResearch.com

Day 342

I just got home and want to post something before it turns mid night. I worked on reducing my calorie intake today because I didn't have to time to eat.

Day 343

It is after 10:00 pm and I just got home from work. I am waiting up for my 18 year old to come home and I am resisting calling my 22 year old to make sure she is o.k. I didn't have time to eat much today and I am not really hungry. This is strange. I realize that I am well into my journey to 50 and I haven't really changed many of my habits. I stopped exercising in mid February.

I wish I had two more days left in the week.

On days like this I have to remind myself why I am writing this blog. I don't have time and I am not taking action to change what needs to be changed. But hey, I received my copy of Martha Stewart Living in the mail yesterday. I love this magazine almost as much as I love Oprah. MSL is a little different though it holds out a lifestyle this is almost impossible to obtain. I want to be Martha I really do, but its just this little thing called a job I have that gets in my way. And then there is the family. Martha never has to deal with any of that at least in her magazine. She has birthday parties for dear friends, yoga, horseback riding and really nice looking dogs. I guess I want people who read this blog to read about a real life or maybe I should say an average life. I'm sure Martha's life is real...I just don't think she shares it with the public. I don't think my life is exactly average though. I think I have a pretty good life. I work every day to make sure it is even better.

MId-week: Day 344

I'm watching a re-run of Alice Waters on Bill Maher right now. I wish I could be so wonderful. But come on...She wants to feed every child every morning, lunch and afternoon snack for free. Awesome. So do I, but how does that work? She's a nice lady but come on...She is anti-micro-wave oven. Alice, we would have to completely change how business is done in America. That's not going to work unless there is some big economic shift.

O.K, so if you have read any of my past posts you know that I am super healthy except for the weight problem. The weight problem is a result of the fact that I have a job that requires me to sit in my chair all day and work on my computer and get no physical exericse. The up side of my job is that I get a lot of information about health all the time. I am not dismissing the weight thing but I have to consider the whole of my life and what that means. For the past 24 years I have been happily married. I have two beautiful, smart and on their way to being very successful young daughters. I don't have much to complain about. But I planned it this way. I had a very hectic, very emotionally weird childhood, that resulted in me being hyper vigilent about anything effecting my adult life.

I had a conversation with a woman who I have known for about 23 or maybe 24 years about this today. I met Linda when I was 22 years old. A year younger than my oldest daughter is now.

I like Linda. In 23 year or 24 years I have never known her to be anything but hard-working and completely competent. She is the kind of person that does not cause stress, but rather relieves it. She's a good person. I believe that is the highest compliment one person can give to another person. I think we all have a responsibility to be competent and hard working at our respecitve jobs. When we are not we cause stress and consequently poor health outcomes in other people. I don't care if there is karmic pay off or not. If you want to lead a good life, try and be a good person.

Day 345

I'm feeling pretty good about today. I had very little to eat and I got a lot done at work. I had a nice conversation with one of my daughter's on the way home. But today started out with a dreaded task. I had to go to the DMV. I bought my younger daughter a used Mini Cooper in September. The previous owner had personalized license plates so we had to wait for new ones. They never came. I ended up spending a couple of hours at the DMV getting new ones. Long story-short, the registration was still attached to the old plates and I had to undo that and get tags for the new plates today.

I have a love hate relationship with the DMV. What I hate about it is not really knowing how to get through the system and the other reason is that I have to wait there for a really long time to get done what I need to get done. Today started out poorly. I forgot the paperwork I needed at home and that cost be about half an hour. When I returned to the DMV I had to wait in a line that wrapped around the building while it was raining.

The thing I love about the DMV is that its full of every kind of person on earth. You have lots of time to hang out with total strangers and make friends with people you would otherwise have no reason to meet. Today I made conversation with a Fed Ex guy. His name was Randy and although he is much more complex than merely a Fed Ex guy, I got to find out a lot about how our packages get shipped across the country.

Day 346

I think that my life is pretty good. We talk a lot about making trade offs and balance in our life. There are whole books, magazines and talk shows on television and radio that discuss balance. I think this is just another illusion. Balance? What's that? Can you balance your life on a daily basis, weekly? monthly? or do you just balance the whole thing out over the years? I work when I need to work and most of the time I need to work. I'm a little awkward with my spare time. I try to garden but I don't really know what I'm doing. The beautiful thing about growing food is that you don't need to know much to make something happen. Better yet, we don't really HAVE to garden because someone will sell us food at the grocery store. I must admit I have turned into a food snob. Most of what is at the grocery store is mushy and bland. One of the things I want to do this year is to grow really good vegetables. One's that taste good and can liberate me from what's at the grocery store.

Day 347

Last night I watched Alice Waters (www.chezpanisse.com/about/alice-waters/) on the Bill Maher show. I knew her name and associated with cooking but I never really knew what she was about. She is a pioneer in promoting eating food in season and grown locally and is considered the creator of California cuisine. I feel really ignorant that I don't know that much about her. It makes me wonder what else I don't know. I am a big believer in locally grown produce. That's why I am such a big fan of the Farmer's market. I didn't know that there was a philosophy behind it and people and movements. I just know that the carrotts I buy at the Farmer's market are smaller but sweeter than what I buy at the grocery store. (I think I've covered the blue berries which are a thousand times better when they are fresh). Ms. Water's is the co-owner of Chez Panisse in Berkley. I've never been there but I have been to a resturant in Napa named Mustards Grill. Cindy Pawlcyn is the owner and she has a garden right outside of the resturant and according to their website, www.mustardsgrill.com, they have a two acre farm that provides at least 20% of the resturant's produce. This is probably one of the best places I have ever ate in my life. The only problem is trying not to get full before you get a chance to try everything. Check out the website and the menu. She owns several resturants in Napa but I keep going back to Mustard's every time I go up to visit.

I am trying to grow my own produce and my container garden in the backyard is coming along but I think I will not have anything to actually eat until late this summer. I planted micro greens and they have grown in pretty well. I'm not sure when they are ready to be cut. I think I want to try and convert some of my yard that is now covered with grass into a garden in order to produce fresh food year round but I am worried that I will treat the garden as I do my own body. I take really good care of it for a while and then I get really busy with something else and it falls a part.

Day 348: Mid-Life Stress

The days seem to be drifting away. It is Friday evening and I am getting ready to start my weekend. Two days hardly seems like enough time to recharge and five days is never enough time to get everything done that I am attempting to get done. Yesterday I helped one of my colleagues Dr. Anne Katz promote a conference on Mid-Life Stres and Working Women. You can check out the conference at http://life-long.weebly.com/.

The one day conference is on Saturday, April 17 at the USC Andrus Gerontology Center. The conference will focus on identifying the physical manifestaton of stress and look at ways to reduce stress by promoting balance between the demand of work and home. I remember that this was an issue that Michelle Obama talked about frequently in the presidential campaign and that's what made me pay attention to her before I started paying attention to her husband.

There are several one hour workshops. One is entitled "The Back Stabbers: Peer-to-Peer Conflict in the Workplace," and another entitled, "On My Last Nerve: Effective Strategies for Managing Stress in Everyday Living." I think I'm going to sign up for that one.

Day 350 and Day 349

Somehow Tuesday and Wednesday of this week have been blended. My efforts to eat foods that are good for me have worked out but at the expense of taking in way too many calories. I havn't gained any weight but I am in danger of doing so. I've been way too busy to plan any meals and have to take advantage of food when I can. This means box lunches and working lunches and frozen food when I get home. I will elaborate tomorrow.

Day 351: Botched

I have no sage advise to give today. Maybe I don't have any sage advise to give at all but on some days more than others I feel I am making progress and coming to realizations about the art of living well. Today was a big mixture of emotions and priorities, commitments and opportunities. My husband is out of town so all of the household duties fall on me. This involves feeding two dogs and three cats starting at sunrise. My youngest was back to school after a hectic spring break and my oldest was back to northern California. Then I was off to work a couple of hours late. I had scheduled a lunch with one of our alums, a student who had worked for me for five years as an undergraduate and masters level student. He is now a medical doctor. This is one of the best things about being part of an academic community. It takes time, but eventually you get to see people blossom.

In my excitement to see him again, I scheduled lunch at the same time I had a standing meeting with the Dean. The Dean was good enough to reschedule our meeting. I had already skipped breakfast and lunch out was way more food than I wanted to eat but I was really hungry because I didnt' eat breakfast. When I got back to the office I met with the Dean and then had a unscheduled staff meeting that I called because I felt like I was out of touch and needed to regroup. I don't understand how people can take off more than a day or two of work. Its really kind of stressful for me not to be at work. That's sad isn't it?

When I returned to my office our web master Trevor Nelson had left me a container of spare ribs that he had slow smoked on the weekend. Yes, I ate them. All of them. They were delicious and then I skipped dinner. So not the right way to eat. I know better. I realize there is a pattern between friends and family, and food.

Day 352: A day well spent

I took the day off today to spend with my oldest daughter who came down from the S.F. Bay area for Easter. After spending most of the morning talking with her we decided to visit the L.A. County Arboretum. My younger daughter met us at there. It is a beautiful time of year to go for a walk in a garden. This is the time of year wisteria is in bloom. Wisteria comes in many different colors including lavendar, pink and white. They have a great lavendar wisteria vine at the Arboretum. We are lucky enough to have our neighbor's wisteria vine growing along through the trees in our backyard. No matter how despondent I get about all of the repairs I need to make to my house, I can always look in the backyard and feel pretty good about where I live. Connecting with the environment is essential.

I don't know how to express this in more sophisticated terms. I intutively know this is true. I just feel it. I ran across a blog on the Huffington Post by Ervin Laszlo www.hufingtonpost.com/ervin-laszlo/quantum-consciouness-our_b_524054.html on quantum-counsciousness that alludes to being atuned to the greater world around us and to each other. I have not had the time or perhaps the capacity to think this out intellectually but I sense that it is true and we have to be connected in order to achieve a sense of well-being.

Day 353:Easter Sunday

I hoped that I would not spend the entire day in the kitchen but I did spend the entire day in the kitchen. It takes a lot of effort to put an entire meal on the table. Today I made osso bucco and whole wheat pasta and a basic egg pasta with basil. I found a great website http://www.cookingforengineers.com/. This website had a great osso bucco recipe that is similar to Mario Batali's. What I love about the site is that it is written very clearly and has photos that you can follow along with. I don't have much experience cooking anything other than steaks so this was pretty challenging for me. I bought two beef shanks at the farmer's market from a rancher that sells organic, grass-fed beef. According to Americangrassfedbeef.com grass-fed beef is lower in fat and is better for your health. I think it taste better too.

My husband made chocolate truffles and all in all we enjoyed ourselvles today. The scale may dampen our spirits in the morning. It takes a long time to make things froms scratch and even so we use items that are store bought such as cream and butter. Tomorrow I will start watching calories much more closely.

Day 354

Today I went to the Farmer's Market, the Honey Baked Ham Store and to Claro's ( my local Italian Market). I still don't know what I am going to make tomorrow but I have enough to make something good. I tried to make a lamb cake today. This is a cake made from a mold shaped like a lamb. My lamb's head fell off and now I have kind of a Easter egg cake. I use my imagination, OK.

Anyway, two nights ago I must have slept the wrong way on my right arm. I woke up with a very limited range of motion and my arm felt like someone punched me. This is nothing that will keep from doing whatever I want to do, but I am a little slower. I am shocked at how rude people are in public when you don't get out of their way fast enough. Today, when pulling in to the Farmer's market (remember this is early in the morning when people are hob knobbing with their local farmer) I had someone honk at me because I wasn't making my turn in the parking lot fast enough. I wondered if this person had any idea that I might be temporarily disabled or that I enjoy calling people out on their behavior. But today, I didn't really feel like getting excited about this idiot. Then I went to the grocery store and even though it is fairly painful for me to move my arm I found that people are not willing to wait a fraction of a second for me to get out of their way. I feel like their should be a public awareness campaign on treating each other with dignity including those with varying abilities.

Day 355

I'm getting ready for Easter Sunday. I have one day to shop and do any prep for my Sunday dinner. I am slightly conflicted because I would like to spend the day in my garden but I realize I cannot do both. I have to decide on what will give me more satisfaction before returning to work next week. My oldest daughter is driving down from the San Francisco Bay area a brief weekend stay. I may have friends over for Easter dinner. Regardless, I plan on making a lot of food. I like to cook or rather create food that gives others pleasure. When I see people eat what I have made and enjoy it, it makes me feel good. I'd like to be able to create art that makes people feel this way, but food is more universal and more pragmatic. You have to eat, right?

Tomorrow I'm going to the farmer's market. I'd love to be able to go in my own back yard and pick what I am going to cook but I hardly have more than seedinglings and a few herbs right now. I plan on buying fennel, green garlic and baby maui onions. This will make a great side dish when combined with cheese. I haven't decided if I'm going to make a ham or pork loin or maybe a pork crown roast. I do plan on making another batch of home made pasta but I'm not sure if I'm going to do a cream sauce or something else. Remember, I'm not doing calorie restriction for Easter. I showed a small loss on the scale this morning so maybe I'm feeling a little cocky.

Both of my children are out in the world tonight. I'll stay up until I know they are safe. I hope tomorrow's blog space I can spend telling you about what choices I made at the Farmer's market.

Day 356

Today started early. My 18 year old daughter was involved in a student film making project that wrapped about 2:30 AM. She got turned around on her way home and by 3:00 AM we both pretty much knew she was lost. By the time we figured out where she was and how to get her back home it was 4:00 AM. It was one of those times it seemed silly to even be angry because I was so glad she was safely at home. Lack of sleep can really take a toll on your body. I think most of us are capable of withstanding a few nights of sleeplessness but when it becomes chronic it really takes a toll on your overall health and well being. Researchers at Harvard host a web site, http://healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/healthy/matters/benefits-of-sleep, on healthy sleep patterns on the overall benefits of getting a good night's rest. Dr. Edward L. Schneider, the Dean Emeritus of the USC Davis School often cautions us to sleep in an environment free of distractions including unnecessary noise and light. For example, the light that comes from digital clocks, cell phones and ipods may be preventing us from getting a good nights sleep.

Day 357

Today I attended a student award recognition committee meeting. Hundreds of students are nominated each year to recognize outstanding achievement both in terms of academic distinction and volunteer service to the University and the community. This commitee volunteers their time to identify those that are most deserving of recognition at graduation. Its a hard job and I could spend many hours discussing how a student's academic and service contributions are evaluated. However, this blog is devoted to how to create behaviors that contribute to successful aging. So what I am focused on is the box lunch. I am probably missing a few things about the social interaction that transpired today but I can not scientifically vouch for the benefits of meeting a few new people. I can however analyze what I recievied in cardboard box. There was a package of corn chips (350 calories), a ham sandwich (estimated 650 calories) and a chocolate chip cookie (390 calories). That's 1,390 calories for lunch! I ate half a sandwich (325) and the corn chips (350 calories). That's 675 calories for lunch which by comparison is quite austere but in terms of weight loss is about 275 calories over the limit. I had the option of not eating dinner or having any snacks but the truth of the matter is those 675 left me feeling hungry . So I sucked it up and had a normal meal for dinner. I consumed about 400 calories.

Today I focused on what I ate. More importantly is how I felt and how I responded to the day. I woke up this morning to find that a few of the pumpkin seeds I planted sprouted. That was enough to make the rest of the day start humming along.

Day 358

At the beginning of the year I started a very calorie restricted diet. I lost about 15 pounds. Then I visited my doctor and he told me that he recommends people try and lose about 1 pound per month. I feel like he gave permission to cheat. So I had my little fling in Chicago (which included deep dish pizza, genuine Russian dumplings, some wonderful small dishes at a place called the Purple Pig and the best Brazillian Barbeque I've had in my life). I've been lingering at the same weight ever since. Now, I am psyching myself up to go for another restricted calorie binge. I think I need to get through Easter before I taske a serious stab at it. I can see why one pound a month makes much more sense than 8 pounds a month. One is sustainable and the other is not. The only problem is that it takes a lot of motivation to deny yourself one of life's most satisifying activities..cooking and eating. Food is what we use to celebrate and to sustain our lives. I'm going to make my family a great Easter dinner. I am enjoying planning it. I plan on buying cream and butter. I don't know what I am going to make with it yet...but I am going to use those two things in something I make. I may make my own chocolate truffles. I may make a great cream based sauce for my home made pasta. I feel like rebelling before I gear up for at least three weeks of extreme calorie restriction. I know that this is not the advise you may be looking for. This is not the stuff of the next best selling diet book. But this is my life. I'm really healthy. I feel really good about myself. I only wished I looked better and I was stronger. I have to balance that out with enjoying my life and ensuring I live my life well.

Day 359

Today was a Monday. Thankfully it was fairly uneventful at work and I got to leave on time today. I was anxious to get home while it was still day light to see what had happened it my garden today. My pumpkins have just begun to turn into seedlings. FYI...pumpkins are a superfood. They are filled with antioxidants. In addition to being a fun food at halloween (which if you are growing your own, don't start as seeds any later than mid July), pumpkins are good for you and can be incorporated in a variety of dishes. The extension at the University of Illinois has a very good website devoted to the anti-oxidant protection that pumpkin provides this information: www.urbanext.illinois.edu/pumpkins/nutrition.cmfs.

Day 360

Somehow Day 362 and 361 merged. I think I ended up writing this blog late at night. Today is day 360 for sure. I am frequently up late and night when my days sort of blend together. I'd like to tell you that the reason I am awake is because I am researching the latest and greatest on aging science but the truth is much more mundane. I have two beautiful daughters. My oldest will turn 23 next month and my youngest just turned 18. Both have active social lives and are out and about late at night. That means I am up waiting to hear from them wherever they go. Last night I stayed up until 2:00 AM until my youngest daughter reached her final destination... a cast party for a play she had just been in at the Los Angeles Theatre Company. She is a relatively new driver and I make her check in with me from each point of departure to each point of arrival. I have a very good sense of how long it should take to get from one point in Los Angeles to another. Whenever she takes a little longer than I think it should I start to melt down, thinking of all of the things that could possibly have happened and why I did not prevent it. If you are one of those individuals that think I worry too much and should take life as it comes...you are delusional. I have been described (or really accused) of being too controlling. Let me assure you, I only try and control what I care about. The rest of the world can conduct itself in whatever manner it may to whatever results it may. When it comes to those that I love, I will try to exert whatever control I can over what ever circumstance I can to ensure an optimal outcome.. That's just how it is.

My Mom was 42 years old when I was born. By the time I was a teenager she was a single mom who was the only source of support for me and my brother. After working all day and taking care of us she was usually asleep by 9:00 pm. I think I knew that if I stayed out too late she would wake up and start worrying about me but I always tried to avoid that happening. We didn't have cell phones or email in those days so it was up to me to check in with her. Let's just say I was trained to check in and be home when I said I would be.

My Mom was a wonderful person. As far as I was concerned she had a tragic life. She was born into a family of Italian immigrants from Sicily. She was the third child in a family of five. My grandparents immigrated to Beaumont, Texas from Palermo, Italy. Not exactly the stereotypical Italian immigrant story portrayed in so many movies. My family tried quickly to assimilate and within a generation the language was lost and cowboy culture was adopted. Whatever this strange cultural mix produced in her, she had the audacity to endure some of the worst curve balls life had to throw at her. She was four foot, eleven inches tall and the biggest person I have ever known.

When she was ten years old she was involved in a terrible car accident. It was 1929 and her family had moved from Texas to California seeking a better life during the Great Depression. On a family outing to the beach, the car she was travelling in collided with one of the "red cars," the now defunct rail system of the greater Los Angeles area started by Henry Huntington. She was in the back seat and the car door opened and her arm was drug along the street. She was taken to the hospital and her arm was sewn back up with gravel inside. This resulted in gas gangrene. Although I can not authenticate this, she told me she was the first person to ever be spared the loss of a limb with gas gangrene due to the efforts of a Dr. Love. I tried to google this doctor to no avail. I do remember hearing his obit on the radio in approximately in 1988. For reasons that are somewhat foggy to me, my Mom's 14 year old sister was asked to sign a document consenting to the amputation of my mother's arm after gas gangrene developed. She refused and a young doctor asked if he could then try an experiment. He tried skin grafting from healthy parts of her body on to her arm. He was successful. Although her arm was badly scarred as was her abdomen (where the successful skin graft occurred) she lived. She had stayed in the Los Angeles Children's Hospital for 9 months before she was released.

By the time she was sixteen years old she had met and married my father. She had six children with him including my only sister who died when she was two years old. My sister's name was Shirley Anne. From what my mother tells me, Shirley was an "RH" baby. Her doctors told her that it was amazing that she lived until she was two years old. You can find out more about the "RH Factor" at www.mayclinic.com/health/rh-factor/AN00566.

I was an RH baby too but by the time I was born in 1961 the medical community figured out a way to deal with it. I hate to write down what I have been told because I can not vouch for how accurate it is. My understanding is that I was kept in Children's Hospital for two weeks after I was born and under went a blood transfusion. Today I understand babies with RH Factor are treated in vitro.

Intentionally or not, I have been raised to believe that my mother and I were both spared untimely deaths through scientific intervention. My Mom lived until she was 69 years old. By today's standards she died fairly young. When I think about her life though, I think it was long and drawn out. First dealing with the death of a child when she was a teen ager herself. Her oldest child was a schizophrenic. My father was a adulterer who eventually left her with nothing but her youngest two children to raise by herself when she was 50. I was eight years old and my brother was 12. Granted the extra years you are given through science are something to be gratful for, but how those years are experienced rely on many variables including life style choices and an each individual's response to what life throws at them.

Day 362: The Weekend

Today I made pasta from scratch. It was delicious. I used a basic egg and flour recipe. I have wanted to do this for a long time but I never had the equipment. I have always made sauce from scratch but never the pasta. My husband gave me the attachments for my blender that included a pasta roller and a two pasta cutters for my birthday. I made a thick cut pasta and a tomato sauce with fresh herbs from my garden. I have a very small garden but I am hoping to expand it this summer.

Last month I went to the farmer's market in the rain and quickly picked up a few things I needed for lunch including two non-descript tomatoes. Had it not been raining I never would have grabbed them. I would have spent much more time inspecting all the varities and trying to find the firmest, reddest tomatoes I could find. Due to the rain I had to just grab and run. They were small regular looking tomatoes, not Roma or Heirloom. I sliced up the first one for my sandwich and it was the best tomatoe I have ever had in my life. It was sweet and the flesh was meaty. It wasn't acidic at all. So, I seeded the second tomatoe and planted the seeds. Now I have about 40 small tomatoe plants growing in pots in my back yard. By this summer, I should have enough tomatoes to use in my sauce. Tomatoes are one of the many superfoods that should be included in your diet. You can find out all about tomatoes at www.tomatoesweb.com. In addition to nutritional information you can also find tips on how to grow them. I think you will be surprised at how much a tomatoe can benefit your efforts for successful aging. For starters they contain a nutrient called lycopene. Lycopene is an antioxidant that reduces DNA damage at the cellular level.

I also walked for about an hour today at the Los Angeles Arboretum www.arboretum.org. I doubt I burned too many calories, it was more a symbolic gesture of becoming more physically active. It is also a place that you can learn about plants and gardening including fruits and vegetables. For example, this summer they are offering a certificate in Permaculture Design. I don't think my tomatoe farming efforts require me to step up to the next level of sustainable land use management, but you never know.

362: Friday

Today I got off track at lunch. I was invited to see a presentation of a new technology enhanced learning program and a boxed lunch was provided. I picked egg salad thinking it was the best choice. The problem was the bag of potato chips and the peanut butter cookie that came with the meal. I ate a snack for dinner rather than an entire dinner and hoped to make up for lunch. This entire week I had occassion to eat out just about every day for lunch and I am starting to want to go out to dinner more for entertainment than for food. Still I think I hit 2,000 calories, more than I needed. If I exercise this weekend for several hours I can rectify some of what went wrong this week.

The Beauty of Dull: Day 363

Today was wonderful because it was non-eventful. You need non-eventful days once in a while. Today I was able to eat three sensible meals. I had five servings of fruits and vegetables and kept my total calorie count under 2,000. There are many websites that can tell you how many calories you need to maintain your weight and to lose weight; www.calorieking.com is one of my favorites. Sure, I'd like to have logged in at 1,500 calories but I didn't but I didn't stray either. Talking (or blogging) about calories is so boring. Who wants to know what I ate today? Nothing special, I assure you. Last week, I was in Chicago. Now, what I ate there was much more interesting....and responsible for about 2 extra pounds. I'm happy to sacrafice two weeks of austerity for just a few really, really good meals. Email me if you want the details.

Here's the thing. When we talk about healthy aging it seems like we are talking about a destination. Some place we arrive at some point in time. But aging is truly a journey. Just like today most of the journey is pretty uneventful. We can exercise good judgement and make healthy choices without many problems and in the end those occassional sidetrips are just that. They've made the trip more interesting but did not lead us off our path.

Mixed Emotions: Mixed Results

Today I got to work late. There was an ambulance and public safety officers in front of my building. I asked what happened and I was told that a woman was hit by a car. When I asked who it was it turned out it was a woman I have known for 20 years. She is a role model for successful aging in every sense of the term and one of our instructors. I was told that she would be o.k. but i will find out tomorrow the extent of her injuries.

The public safety officer asked if I could contact her husband and let him know what hospital she was brought to. I felt like I was helping sort of so I was glad he asked me to do it. At the same time I had a prospective student waiting to talk to me about a new career in gerontology. The woman had driven 50 miles in morning traffic to make it on time to see me and I felt compelled to spend enough time with her to make sure she felt like all of her questions were answered and her time was well spent. She was a perfect candidate--academically accomplished and passionate about improving the lives of older people. Somwhere in between I had to check my email for today's little dramas not worth noting.

By noon my husband called to tell me that a "big envelope" had come addressed to our daughter from USC. He was planning on picking her up at 1:30 pm for an appointment with the orthodontist. She had called him ahead of time and asked that he bring her all of her mail. I have been waiting for that "big envelope" her entire life and I refused not to be there when she opened it. I had also scheduled my annual vision exam for 2:00 pm. I ran to the bookstore and bought cardinal and gold roses (o.k. they were yellow and red but to us they are cardinal and gold) and another $100 worth of USC paraphernalia. I had 20 minutes to make it to her high school where I met my husband with the envelope. In the most wonderful 45 seconds, I watched her open the letter and finally see "Congratulations!"

I had less then 30 minutes to make it to my appointment in Pasadena. I slid into the office two minutes late. I book my annual appoints around the time of my birthday so I will remember to do it. So after the vision exam, I headed off for my annual mammogram. By this time it was a little after 3:00 pm and I had not had lunch. There was a Burger King across the street from the imaging center with a drive through. In an instant I assured myself I could make a smart choice. Note to self: entering any drive through when super hungry is not a smart choice. I got a grilled chicken combo with a diet coke...but shoot, the french fries were not diet fries, but they were good and they satisified me.

I tried to make amends at dinner and will try harder tomorrow. So, I get credit for making my appointments and getting my annual exams taken care of. I'm not going to beat myself up over a bag of french fries at least not on day 364.

365 and Counting

Today is the day I start acting on all of the knowledge I have in order to be in the best shape I can be when I turn 50 a year from now. I don't just mean physical shape although that was my original motiviation for doing this. I also mean financial, mental and spiritual shape. I think it is important to define what successful aging means to you as an individual. In his book, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People," Dr. Stephen Covey http://www.quickmba.com/mgmt/7hab/ suggests that we "begin with the end in mind" He has six other great suggestions but that is the one I find most useful in both long term planning and in my daily routine. Without being morbid, I often visualize my own memorial service. What do I want people to say about me when I'm gone. Who will be there on that day? I always imagine my two beautiful daughters sitting together. They are accomplished and dignified. I am hoping that a few close friends of mine will be there and I hope they remember me as someone who truly cared about them. After that my vision is fairly muddled. What more is there?

It is my nature to stay at work until I'm so tired I start making stupid mistakes. That's when I know its time to go home. Tonight I've imposed a time limitation on myself. I must leave my desk by 6:30 PM.

Fiscal Fitness

Tomorrow is my birthday. I'm looking forward to starting on a journey to health and happiness by the time I turn 50. It is a long term commitment that I hope will produce the kind of behavior change I know is necessary in order to stay as active and independent as possible. I just got back from a conference devoted to aging in Chicago and I heard an interesting bit of information. A 50 year old woman with no previous history of cancer or heart disease can expect to live to be 92! So in addition to my goal of becoming fit and healthy, I need to figure out how I am going to support myself for an additional 42 years. Time to monetize!

The "M" Word

Whitney Fountas brought an interesting article to my attention. Everyone has heard that wine, especially red wine, has many health benefits. Unfortunately, they always put the word “moderation” in the same sentence. Well now there is a new study out from UC Davis Department of Food Science and Technology that reports that beer has health benefits as well. Namely, beer contains “a significant source of dietary silicon, a key ingredient for increasing bone mineral density,” according to ScienceDaily.
A connection can be made that “moderate” beer consumption can help reduce osteoporosis. Now, I’m not a big beer fan but I know that some of you are so I went to an osteoporosis expert and one of our faculty members, Joanna Davies, M.D. and asked for her opinion on the benefits of beer and here’s what she wrote:

“According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), dietary silicon (Si), as soluble OSA, may be important for the growth and development of bone and connective tissue, and beer appears to be a major contributor to Si intake. Based on these findings, some studies suggest moderate beer consumption may help fight osteoporosis, a disease of the skeletal system characterized by low bone mass and deterioration of bone tissue.How does the medical community define moderation? According to the Mayo Clinic website, moderate drinking is defined as two drinks a day if you’re a male 65 and younger, or one drink a day if you’re a female or a male 66 and older. A drink is defined as 12 ounces (355 milliliters) of beer, 5 ounces (148 milliliters) of wine or 1.5 ounces (44 milliliters) of 80-proof distilled spirits. While most of the experts agree that moderate consumption may have benefits. They clearly to not recommend anyone begin drinking alcohol to treat or prevent diseases!!!!!"

Ok, so everything in moderation. I get it.

What have you heard about soda? First I heard it “bleached your bones” and now I hear it wasn’t the soda that was bad, it was drinking soda instead of milk that was bad. What’s the latest?

Time to Celebrate

OK, so I don’t want to brag BUT my total cholesterol count is 147 and my blood pressure is 110/84. My fasting blood sugar is 88. Since I am not at my ideal weight I can at least gloat that my “other” numbers look good. My doctor said I have good genes (little does he know). I think my lifestyle choices have a little to do with it as well.

Speaking of lifestyle, last weekend there was a lot to celebrate. For one it was a three day weekend and my brother and his family came to visit me. It was my youngest daughter’s 18th birthday, President’s day and Chinese New Year’s. How could we not have a party and eat! I went to the farmer’s market early on Saturday morning where I bought fresh fish, scallops and shrimp. Then I bought all kinds of fruit and vegetables. I bought fresh goat cheese and bread for an appetizer. We ended up grilling the fish and I made two kinds of salads and two vegetable dishes. I thought it seemed like a typical family feast and everyone had a good time without the usual calorie intake. For desert I bought dark chocolate to melt and fresh berries. I like to buy my berries from a grower from Pismo Beach. I have actually done a taste test between these locally grown berries and the ones you can buy for much less at the grocery store that are grown in another country. The extra dollars are worth every penny. If you have a choice buy locally grown berries. They are delicious.

The next morning we had dim sum. Dim sum is dicey as there are many temptations in the high calorie range but there are also several smart choices on the menu like Chinese broccoli and shrimp har gow. If you can resist eating too many, you can keep your calorie intake down to about 400 calories and still enjoy yourself.

The food part is never that difficult for me. It’s the wine. I love red wine. My friends and family all know I love red wine so they give me bottles of it for presents. My husband gave me a membership to a wine club for Christmas so it gets shipped directly to the house. How’s that for temptation? But because I don’t need the extra calories I swore of it and have not had a drop since New Year’s Eve. That is until last weekend. I had so much to celebrate AND my family was in town. After a great meal and all the dishes are cleaned up, I love to plop on the couch and drink wine with my sister-in-law. I love staying up late at night and talking to my brother about when we were kids, about our kids, about what we did wrong and what we did right. More about doing the right thing next time.

The Results are In

When I made my appointment for my annual physical exam with my doctor (which for me is more like a quadrennial exam) I requested that I have my lab work done in advance. It has never occurred to me to do this before. I usually go and my doctor gives me a referral to the lab and then I never go. It works out pretty well for me that way. This year though, I thought it would be a good idea to find out in advance of seeing my doctor if anything is wrong with me. This way, if there were anything wrong, I could talk to him about it when I see him.

I highly suggest that everyone start doing this. Maybe you already do, but most people I know report that they have been seeing their doctor first and then referred to the lab. Well, all of my lab results came to me in the mail and from what I could tell (which wasn’t much) I have GREAT results. Everything was in the normal range. I don’t think they really tell you if you have awesome results. I think your choices are normal and high. Well, normal isn’t good enough for me. Call me an overachiever or just sadly in need of external validation but I wanted to find out that my lab results were better than most others. Since I have no one to compare myself to I went online to try and find out how great my scores actually are only to find out there is a whole body of literature that suggests that cholesterol levels are over rated and that there is a cholesterol debate. What can you tell me about this?

Super

This week it rained. It was suppose to have been the wettest week in Southern California in five years. I spent most of the weekend at home reading mostly about nutrition. I found a list of “super foods” such as blueberries, avocados, garlic, spinach, sweet potatoes…all the usual suspects. Each has its own super health benefit. The problem is that there are very few foods that produce an immediate effect. So, I’m always left wondering how much I have to eat and how frequently and when will I know when it works? I guess you just have to have faith that they will work but what is your daily dose of spinach look like? Do you have to eat all of the super foods every day? If you google the term “super foods,” you can find tons of lists of super foods. Three years ago, there were ten super foods and now there are several lists of 25 super foods. For the heck of it I googled “mushroom super food” and guess what? It is a super food! And guess what? So is zucchini! Who knew?

Right now my goal is to lose weight so I’m not going to be eating dark chocolate or drinking red wine (both super foods) for the time being. I will have to forgo those health benefits for a while, but I am working at trying to eat five fruits and vegetables a day. It is not that easy. I did discover one new super food that I had never heard of before, at least not in terms of nutrition. I bought a canister of crushed chia seeds. Yes, chia like the chia pets but these are the seeds and not the sprouts. It is suppose to be really good for you but it is also really high in fiber so it fills you up (an immediate pay off) and you feel fuller and therefore eat less.

An Exercise in Concern

January 16, 2010

I am addicted to news. I’ve been watching CNN all day today on the continuing coverage of the earthquake recovery efforts in Haiti. I keep hoping that they will find someone alive under the rubble. After a while the news cycle starts repeating itself but somehow I feel like am I am helping by staying with them and watching. So that means I’ve been sitting on the couch all day.

I was multitasking though because I also read the entire February issue of Oprah that contains tons of information on health and nutrition. As a bonus it had a special supplement entitled “The Best of Dr. Oz,” with “effective tips for a stronger, happier, healthier life.” I read it cover to cover. I know this doesn’t count as exercise but I feel it is a step in the right direction. If I am nothing else I am very well read on all of the most popular diet and nutrition advise available. I have a not so small collection of nutrition and diet books that share space on the same bookshelf as my collection of cookbooks. Did I mention I have two gym memberships?

The good news is that I was home today so I had a much higher degree of control over what I ate. I am working my way towards a 1500 a day calorie diet but for the past two weeks I’ve been averaging about 800 calories a day. I know, my metabolism is going to slow down, my body will go into starvation mode, etc. but after what happened over the holidays I had to take drastic measures. It was challenging last week because I had three business lunches. I tried to make smart choices like ordering a half sandwich and soup combination. I tried to make lunch my main meal of the day keeping it under 500 calories. This wasn’t too hard because my husband wasn’t home and my daughter had rehearsals all week for a play she is in this weekend.

So my goal for the coming week is to work in 90 minutes of aerobic exercise. I also feel like I have repented for any holiday sins and now I am back to my normal overweight self and I can afford to take on conventional dieting advise. Wish me luck.

Thinking Ahead

It’s a brand new semester, a new year and a new decade. It feels good. I’ve always been a big fan of January. That’s when all of the magazines come out with resolutions to health and prosperity. It just feels like a new chapter. This year kind of feels like a new book. This year I turn 49. That means I can start counting down 365 days until I turn 50. Granted, I’m getting a little head start--my birthday is on March 23—but I have a lot to start working on. My goal is to be the healthiest, happiest 50 year old I can be. For starters that means being in great physical condition.

This is going to be a challenge for me because I’ve never developed the kinds of behavior that puts my physical well-being ahead of everything else. The first 25 years or so I got free pass. I’ve been blessed with good health. The last 23 years or so haven’t been so bad either, just little by little I’ve lost my upper body strength and somewhere along the way running became hard. This might have something to do with working at a desk and commuting two hours a day. I keep fantasizing about getting up even earlier then I do now, but that’s just not been happening for me. I’ve been really busy and when I am not busy I’m really tired. I’ve been really busy for the last 23 years. Ironically, much of what has occupied my time has been devoted to improving the quality of life of older people in one way or another.

I work at a research university in a school devoted to the study of aging—for the last 23 years. That means I’m exposed to cutting edge research on how to prevent diseases and the decline associated with old age. The last few years I’ve started to cringe a little when I see statistics related to morbidity and belly fat and lack of physical activity. I’ve somehow avoided getting diabetes (that I am genetically predisposed to) but I always sense it is lurking around the corner. I haven’t had a physical exam in the last 4 years, but when I did all my lab work was outstanding. But I’ve also gained 40 pounds in the last 4 years and I haven’t been at my ideal weight since having my second child in 1992.

Right now, I’m just dealing with the weight issue . Later on I’ll deal with the supplements, exercise, meditation and the three million other things I know I should be doing to ensure that the next 50 years are healthy and happy years. This blog is intended to chronicle behavior change- day-by-day. I am doing this to help motivate myself and hopefully motivate other people like me. I don’t think that people that don’t exercise are lazy, especially people who work full time and then go home to be a mommy or a daddy. It’s really hard to do everything we need to do in one day. I don’t have time to write a long blog entry and I don’t think anyone has the time to read one. But if this can serve as encouragement to busy people that need to reinvest in themselves, then it is time well spent. I plan on this being the longest blog entry I make. I won’t tell you what food I consumed or what exercises I did, but how each day I changed my behavior.

I came across a statistic while doing some research on a talk I was giving on healthy aging---every seven seconds in America someone turns 50. Next year that includes me. I started thinking about all the things I know about healthy aging and all of the things I don’t do. I needed the motivation, for lack of better words, to get my head in the game. I know I have the knowledge and the desire but without making significant changes in my behavior, my 50^th birthday will come in 2011 and I’ll be in just a little worse shape then I am now.

I have neglected myself for 23 years, I can take one year of my life and make my health a priority. After all the world might end in 2012 and I want to be fit enough to see it through.