Why Exercise Might Not Help You Lose Weight

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This article on Time.com fascinated me.

In case you’re short on time, here’s the gist of the article. Despite the conventional wisdom of the last few decades that says exercise is beneficial if not necessary for weight loss, many people still have trouble losing weight despite hours in the gym. Why?

  1. People who exercise often eat more because A) the exercise makes them hungry, and B) they feel they have “earned” the right to eat more food or less healthy food.
  2. Because they get tired after exercising and feel they have “done enough” for the day, many exercisers are actually less active the rest of the time.

So for some people, despite the other health benefits, exercise is actually counterproductive for weight loss. Surprised? I was, too, but it makes sense based on my own experience and what I’ve heard from other people. If I run for half an hour, I might burn 300 calories and then decide I deserve a 1000-calorie Braum’s milkshake as a reward. Then I’ll relax in my recliner the rest of the night watching a movie. Sound familiar?

So, according to this article and much of the current research, the traditional adage still holds true:

Weight Change = Calories Consumed – Calories Burned

The problem is that many who exercise are consuming more calories and burning fewer than they realize.

Worst Movies Ever

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Tonight Jenny and I watched Disaster Movie, one of the many cheaply done spoof flicks. My expectations were very low – thin plot, cheap effects, marginal acting, with (I hope!) enough laughs thrown in to make it worth my time. I’m still debating. Although a few parts were amusing and I enjoyed two of the performances, it was so mind-numbingly dumb and over-the-top that I must rank it among the ten worst movies I’ve ever seen. So I got to thinking – what would my Bottom 10 be? IMDB’s Bottom 100 list has plenty of ideas, many of which I’m happy to say I haven’t seen.

Of the movies I have actually seen, here’s my preliminary Bottom 10, in no particular order:

  1. Disaster Movie
  2. The Stupids
  3. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (possibly a stretch for this list, but it’s fresh on my mind)
  4. McHale’s Navy
  5. Blair Witch 2 (I actually enjoyed the original, though)
  6. Teen Witch (sorry, Lisa!)
  7. 2001: A Space Odyssey (sorry, I know it’s a classic and all, but I just couldn’t like it except for the theme song)
  8. Die, You Zombie Bastards! (we rented this one WANTING a bad movie, but it still counts)
  9. Batman and Robin
  10. Anaconda

What would you put in your Bottom 10?

Observations from a First-Time Daddy – 1 Year Edition

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Now that you’ve gotten to enjoy a year of Jenny’s observations, I guess it’s time for me to throw in a few of my own. Fatherhood is a wild and wonderful adventure!

  1. When people ask me, “how’s fatherhood?”, it’s hard to give them a simple answer because it’s such a complex, multi-faceted experience. I answered one friend with a laundry list of descriptors: wonderful, amazing, difficult, frustrating, scary, fun, empowering, worrisome, joyful, confusing, awe-inspiring.
  2. I always thought my parents were overprotective because they worried about my safety and wouldn’t let me do whatever I wanted. Now that I have a child myself, I understand why they felt such a responsibility to protect me. Although I try to restrain myself to an extent, I do worry about him a lot, mainly when he is moving. I see a few trips to the urgent care docs in our future. My challenge will be to balance my responsibility to keep him safe with my responsibility to let him try things and learn for himself. Sometimes parental intervention is the best teacher; other times it’s the pain of making your own mistakes.
  3. I knew parenting would be a lot of work, some of which would be unpleasant. What I didn’t understand is how much fun it could be. Brenden makes me smile every single day. Sometimes it’s watching him learn a new trick. Sometimes it’s seeing him run to me when I offer him a hug. Sometimes it’s seeing him smile sleepily when I show up to lift him from his crib.
  4. Now that he’s a little older and understands more of what we say, I am amazed at how much he can actually understand and interact with us, even if he can’t talk back. A perfect example happened this week. A storm was north of us moving south, and the winds had picked up. Thinking he might find the wind interesting, I took him out to the driveway and started explaining to him about gust fronts. Jenny joined us. After hearing what I was doing, she asked him if he had any idea what Daddy was talking about. He shook his head.
  5. It still seems weird to me to compare my job to Jenny’s. I get paid well for doing a job that’s fairly easy most of the time, lasts only 8 hours a day, and provides several days off every month. Jenny gets paid nothing but room and board for doing a job that’s physically, emotionally, and mentally draining, requires either working or being on-call 24 hours a day unless someone else can relieve her, and provides NO days off unless we arrange for me or the grandparents to watch Brenden for a while.
  6. As much as I try to enjoy each day, I can’t help but wonder what the future holds for him – what he will like and dislike as he grows up, what talents God has given him, how his personality will change. Even though his face and body are obviously very similar to mine, I don’t want him to be a carbon copy of me. I want to introduce him to a wide variety of experiences (sports, hobbies, places, people) and let him decide which directions he wants to go in life.
  7. I now understand why those people who always talk about their kids are always talking about their kids.
  8. After our struggles with infertility, I try to be sensitive to others who might be fighting the same battle. But now that we are “past” that battle and have one child and another on the way, I have to resist the temptation to talk about him all the time around everyone. It’s easy to forget how painful that journey was. A couple of people in my office actually lost babies at the end of their pregnancies, which must have been unimaginably painful. I never know where to draw the line.
  9. Despite some people’s fear of dirty diapers, somehow they aren’t so bad when they belong to your own kid. But sometimes they are. Wow.
  10. I am a very production-oriented person, as you probably know. I want to get things done and get frustrated when things don’t get done. However, as all of you parents know, getting anything done while taking care of a baby is very difficult. When I watch Brenden, I am remarkably unproductive in the traditional sense. The yard isn’t getting mowed. The laundry isn’t being done. My disaster of an office isn’t getting cleaned out. However, spending time with him doing “nothing” is irreplaceable and infinitely more important. On my deathbed I won’t look back and say, “You know, I really wish I’d spent less time with my son.” Brenden helps keep the various pieces of my life in perspective.

Sharks and Cage Diving

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As a kid I read a lot, hopping from topic to topic. One of my favorite topics was sharks, which interest me to this day. One of my favorite times of year from a TV perspective is Shark Week, the Discovery Channel’s annual homage to the the shark. Although it tends to focus too much on shark attacks since people are so interested in them, it also includes programs about the scientific side: diet, behavior, differences among different regions and species, and conservation efforts. I have watched a LOT of shark shows this week and hope to catch or record many more. It’s like Christmas in August!

Although many people find them terrifying, I find them fascinating. Sure, my heart speeds up a bit if I see one while snorkeling, but for me it’s more of a healthy respect than terror. I think people have mostly accepted that man sits comfortably atop the worldwide food chain, especially with today’s technology. But swimming with sharks unprotected knocks us down a level. The great steward and “master” of God’s creation suddenly becomes potential prey, and many of us don’t like that idea. The movie and book Jaws (which was based on a true story, by the way) and tons of hype by the media have grossly overemphasized the danger that sharks actually pose to humans. This demonization of such an amazing creature both angers and frustrates me. It also gives people an excuse to tolerate overfishing of sharks even if they object to whaling or the accidental killing of dolphins or sea turtles in fishing nets. Here are a few interesting facts I’ve gathered so far:

  • Each year, humans kill 100 million sharks. Some are killed just for their fins, some for meat or skin, some for sport.
  • Each year, sharks bite about 100 humans worldwide. Yep, 100. That’s less than one every three days, somewhere in the world. Of those 100, maybe five are fatal. In other words, we kill 1 million sharks for every one that even attacks us and 20 million for every one that kills a human.
  • In terms of recorded shark attacks, Florida is the most common location, followed by southern Australia and then South Africa.
  • Experts believe that many shark attacks are preventable. Victims are often involved in high-risk activities such as spearfishing, swimming alone, or swimming at night, dawn, or dusk.

Before I die, I want to dive in a cage with great whites. You probably think that’s either awesome or crazy. Either way, I won’t be going any time soon because the trips are expensive. But how thrilled and honored I would be to see one of the most powerful and capable predators in all God’s creation in person. There are three main areas to dive with them: southern Australia, Isla Guadalupe in Mexico, and South Africa. Here are links to three dive operators that serve these areas, in case you’re interested (hint, hint):

Rodney Fox (Southern Australia)

Cage Diver (Isla Guadalupe, Mexico)

Dive South Africa – In one area of South Africa, great whites are spotted jumping out of the water like a whale during attacks on seals.

Not into great whites? You can also dive with enormous but harmless whale sharks, which eat plankton and can grow over 50 feet. Belize, where we spent our honeymoon, is a good location:

Belize Scuba

We Doan Need No Stinkin’ Gallbladders

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UPDATE: Jenny is out of surgery and resting in her room. Everything went great, and she is testing out some graham crackers and Sprite. Despite some soreness and discomfort, overall she feels pretty good and looks forward to a real meal.

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It’s amazing how quickly your life can change. Tuesday night Jenny and I put Brenden to bed, had a nice dinner, and played some Wii before I went to work. A few hours later, Jenny texts me to report horrible abdominal pain, worse than labor had been a year ago (!). We went to the doctor Wednesday morning after I finished my shift and then to Baylor Irving for a sonogram. Diagnosis: gallstones. Yikes! Apparently pregnancy significantly increases a woman’s chances of gallstones due to changes in hormone levels and digestion. Thursday morning we met with a surgeon and agreed to have Jenny’s gallbladder removed. Right now we’re at Baylor Irving, and Jenny is in the operating room for a laparoscopic cholecystectomy, or gallbladder removal through tiny incisions in her abdomen. She hasn’t eaten anything but Jello since Tuesday night, so she’s both hungry and lethargic. Lisa came by to check Newbie’s heartrate before surgery, which we greatly enjoyed. Her anesthesiologist is my parents’ next-door neighbor. I’m taking advantage of Baylor’s free Wi-Fi while I wait. Dr. Clifford will meet me back here around 10:45am with an update while Jenny is in recovery. I’ll update you guys later.

A few random thoughts:

  • I am SO thankful to live in America, have good medical insurance, and have access to quality health care with so little wait. In less than 2.5 days Jenny went from excruciating pain to the OR in a top-notch hospital with skilled doctors and nurses. Had we lived in another country, we might have been waiting for weeks to reach this point. If we lived in rural Africa or another poorly developed area, she might have to endure the stones permanently.
  • Jenny might or might not need to significantly alter her diet without a gallbladder, which helps the body break down fat molecules. Some people need to nearly eliminate fatty foods. Others can keep a pretty normal diet. She’ll have to experiment a bit to see what her body can handle.
  • Of all the times during the pregnancy for this problem to pop up, this is ideal since she’s in her second trimester. Surgery during the first trimester is too risky because the baby is developing his major organs. During the third trimester there’s not enough room to perform this surgery safely. The second trimester is the only available time.

College Costs

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I keep getting calls from Baylor asking for money. I kept ignoring them, hoping they would give up, but they called almost every day for the last two weeks. Finally I answered. A pleasant young woman was looking for donations for the Honors College, preferably in the $500 range. (!) Three different times I told her that I could not give anything at this time before she finally gave up. I just emailed them and asked to be removed from their mailing list.

It’s not that I don’t love Baylor, because I do. But I can’t give to every cause out there, and we’re putting all our educational money into Brenden’s college fund, hoping that the stock market will cooperate and we’ll be able to put him through a state school without student loans. Tuition at all four-year schools is rising at a ridiculous rate, around 6 percent per year. Unless Brenden and Newbie can score some wild scholarships, private school might be out of the question and even public school a stretch, especially since they’ll probably be only one year apart in school. For the upcoming school year, Baylor’s
annual costs for undergraduates for 2009-2010 total around $40,000 including room, board, books, and other expenses. Gulp. Many people don’t earn that much in a year. If you make it out in four years, that’s $160,000 with NO tuition hikes.

For Brenden, if the cost continues to rise at 6 percent annually, four years at Baylor would cost around $440,000. Switching to a four-year state school might drop the price to $220,000 for four years. Newbie, if he/she attends the same school, will more than double the cost. Double gulp.

Sorry, Baylor. Unless that lottery ticket comes through someday, you are out of luck.