Category: Random

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From Buddha to Adonis (body type) – the 60 Day Challenge

It’s scary to look at some pictures from just a few years ago. It’s so easy to just let life happen and all of a sudden you have sleep apnea. I’ve been telling myself, I need to get back down to 170lbs for the past… since 7 years maybe? Well this post is more of a motivation for myself than anything.

Life Time Fitness has this 60-day-challenge where you get some access to other classes, and “virtual coaches” and diet recipes that help you get to either a goal weight or overall “whole body transformation”. You can actually win some loot. Now there is an associated cost, but it helps drive incentive to perpetual physical activity. 

I feel like I want to join and be on my way to a healthy BMI, but then I start to make excuses… I already don’t have the time to dedicate 100% to working out, going to the fitness classes (which is true, the times are not compatible with current life), I will not have any use for the recipe’s that they offer, and why should I use a virtual coach, how would that help?

Well… as I tell my patients, you have to make the time. There is always time to do something. You may not want to do it, but there is always a way to find it or make it. For instance, instead of working out now, I am sitting here writing this blog (which by the way, I commend anyone who does this regularly because it is hard to do well). As I made the excuses in my head, I realized, how can I expect my patients to take anything I say seriously if I can’t do it myself. 

My current BMI is 26.4 (near my all time high). I do have a family history of vascular dementia, stroke, heart attack and diabetes. So why the heck would I not take my health seriously, and take my own advice. Now As I write this, I have already started to implement some Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes (TLC). On my professional Facebook Page, I have been trying to track my physical activity via PolarBeat. I like tracking my heart rate during exercise as it give me a better idea of the calorie use. I also sport a FitBit (mainly due to the benefit we get from our health insurance). You do NOT need these tech gadgets to be healthy, but I like gadgets.

I frequently ask my patient to use myFitnessPal to track calories and activity to help them stay focused on their goal weight loss. They have Apps you can use for both Android and iOS. I think you can actually watch my MyFitnessPal Diary here. http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/diary/alphapenguin

So back to this 60-day challenge. I’ve tried sticking with P90x in the past but can’t get beyond day 30. Working out about 90 minutes a day takes a helluva time away from the day. Personal trainers are expensive. You know what though, not good excuses. Even if it’s just 40, or even 30, or even 20 minutes a day, it’s better than nothing. Finding ways to multitask works best. Unless you are superhuman and get up at 4 am to workout like some people I know, great ways to get physical activity in is to be active when you choose to be sedentary. Sounds obvious, but I mean instead of sitting down for 1-2 hrs watching NetFlix or a basketball game, get on a stationary bike or a treadmill (if you have one) and watch the Netflix. If you don’t have one, there are ways to get creative to do something. Now YouTube has a lot of great workout channels/videos with exercises. If you want to spend the money, there is the BeachBody On Demand, which gives you access to most of the BeachBody Material via the Android/iOS apps or via the website.

To keep myself motivated and accountable, and maybe to help motivate others that know me (or even the ones that don’t), I decided to publicly journal my strive for fitness. I’d love to have that six pack, but I think I would love even more is to not die of a heart attack prematurely or succumb to diabetes. As far as I know, I have been lucky so far with my biometric screens. Also, it would be nice not to have sleep apnea.

My current Plan to stay accountable:

GOAL: Weight loss down to 170lbs

Commitment:

  • must work out at least 20-40 min in a day, 5-6 days a week, and will provide proof. Will likely update blog weekly. maybe daily? To be seen.
  • must log food/calorie intake daily (will be using myFitnessPal), as above, may update only weekly.
  • will post weekly weigh-in weight.
  • no Fast foods.

how long am I going to last…

[dare i post a before picture here?]

 

Feel free to comment with any thoughts.

 

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The Morning Struggle (with sleepy children)

For some reason, every morning seems to be a struggle in this household (specifically “school days”). Without fail, I find myself in a perpetual battle with my little clones. It’s like a video game. Level 1 is the Wake Up battle. When I enter their room and start the wake-up ritual, I am usually rebuffed with:

I’m too tired… I hate baba… baba hates me… I don’t want to go to school… bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

It’s almost scripted. 

I know I am not the only one who faces this opposition. The Holderness Family on youtube made a very exact/funny music video that depicts the struggle well:

You would think that a 6-year-old should be able to get up, go to the bathroom, and brush their teeth without assistance (since I’ve seen her do it before), or am I expecting too much? Then the ever monotonous “put on your pants… put ON your pants… PUT ON YOUR PANTS… ok when I come back you better have your pants on!” The response usually is “you have to heeeelp meeeee. I cant do it myseeeeelf… WAAAAH!” I know I know, they are just throwing a fit and trying to make the sap-of-dad succumb to their will, but when you are in a time crunch, there is no time to putz around.

Some days they like to do the exact opposite. VBear was actually out of bed. Teeth brushed, and bladder emptied. All she had to do was put on her pants. I give them to her, and tell her I will be back after I take the dog out. I come back and of course, she’s ready… to make me late for work. For some reason instead of putting her pants on, she was sitting with just the undies on. It was comical and infuriating at the same time. She was just sitting there still staring at her pants. She wasn’t laughing or giggling. Maybe she thought it would be funny. Maybe she needed to take her shirt off and socks off before putting the pants on. Till this day I never did get an explanation. 

Now if this was a video game, Level 2 is getting out the door. You have to get not just one but 2 unruly hooligans to get their shoes on. This may seem to be an easy task, but for some reason they can make it very arduous and exasperating. De-Ja-Vu. I hear the words “I can’t do it by myself, You have to help meeee!” mixed in with the occasional cry. Now Jette and Viv both can put their own shoes on. I’ve seen them do it. To expedite departure, I end up helping. 

The odd thing is ViviEtte always give me the wrong foot no matter what shoe I grab. It’s almost like they really think the curved insole belongs on the outside (but I don’t think they are even looking when I am helping.) Maybe they are just f’ing with me.

With one child, I still encountered these shenanigans, but with two the variable of the sibling c0nlfict must be factored in:

 

My beautiful girls in all their glory.

Now once I get them in the car, get to the daycare, we reach the final level. The drop-off. It’s a hit or miss if Jette will happily sit down to eat breakfast, or if she will be like an alien

 

face hugger, and cling on for dear life. Now if she chooses the latter, it’s another 5 minutes of prying her off. Don’t get me wrong I love my penguins. If I didn’t have to get to work, this would be less of an issue. It would still be an issue because these antics would drive anyone insane. That’s a whole other topic. I commend anyone to everyone that is a primary stay at home parent. It’s a thankless job that requires patience and mental fortitude. Every time I go through this I think to myself, I need to give my mom a hug for not only raising me and my brother but also watching my Penguins.

After beating the final level, you think you’ve won, but now its time to play another game… the one called work.  It’s like an MMORPG. Then it restarts all over at 645am the next day.

I commend anyone to everyone that is a primary stay at home parent. It’s a thankless job that requires patience and mental fortitude. Every time I go through this I think to myself, I need to give my mom a hug for not only raising me and my brother but also watching my Penguins.

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What is a contract? apparently nothing

Well I learned recently that contracts dont really mean much, at least to some people. As Einstein would say it is all relative, I suppose.

Today could have been a fairly bad day, but luckily this penguin had the foresight today to have make contingency plans, as it was obvious something was amiss.

Well. There you go. Done. SMH.

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Hoarding: computer edition

*The picture above is not of my house*

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My 2nd PC ever.

On the tail end of my “Paternity Leave” I realized I have not done much to aid MommyMD. Well I cant really breast feed Juliette, but I suppose I could be more pro-active with diaper changing. Then again I HATE POOP diapers. That I can get over, but everytime Juliette eats, she poops soon after. Talk about gastro-colic reflex. When she is changed, it really ticks her off and she cries bloody murder. Once she gets boobed again, all is good.

I digress. So on the tale end of being off work, I told MommyMD her “push gift” was that I would clean out the basement. A big problem in the basement is the mass amounts of computers I collect.

At the office, we had a ton of outdated PCs that were still functional. I took them home to clean them up. It is odd, even when stripped down from the crap-ware, they still seem to run slow. I dont know if I am just used to faster computers, but I assume the continuous updates require more processing power and memory.

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there is more crap than it seems underneath

Suffice it to say, like everything else I hoard, I figure I would be able to find a use for the old hardware. So I keep them. I am finding that I personally dont have any use for these things, and dont know anyone I can give them to to use. I should just sell it! So today I gathered all the outdated, marked-for-disposal equipment in the office, as well as my house. Took it to computerexpress and figured I could maybe get 20$ to buy some pizza at the office.

 Well no. Apparently ink-jets are useless (my sentiments exactly), and anything running XP is too old. Most of this stuff pictured is crap from the office. My main contribution is the old P3 from dell pictured above. Now that computer I purchased for my freshman year at Ohio State. At the time it was rather snazzy and expensive. It has gone through many upgrades and had finally become a ghost of a shell for the past 11-12 years. I dont know why I kept it around really. Maybe it’s the hoarder in me. I do hope one day it does not get so bad I end up on A&E’s HOARDERS.

So I had a decision to make. Let Computer Express recycle it all, and not get the bounty I was hoping for, or try to donate it to get a tax write off, or take it to Ohio Drop off where they may give 3cents/lb of a PC. After mulling it over for a while, and being consoled by the associate at the store (he was very empathetic), I figured I’d just recycle it all. I could have dumped it all in a trash can, but I’ve been trying to be environmentally conscious when possible. Also I dont want sensitive data laying around. When I piled it all up, I literally sat and mourned for about 1 minute. I felt I was quitting some habit cold turkey. I had this sensation of guilt. I felt I let someone down (but who?). I was not able to re purpose (or at least make some money) off of these relics.

Now I am home. ViviBear is napping. JulietteBear must be pooping as I hear her crying upstairs. And MommyMD is obviously mommying upstairs. Strangely enough, I actually feel relieved now that I got rid of that clutter. Now what to do about my plants…

**disclaimer – i did pull and thrash the hard drives before dropping them off**

 

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Farewell Pierre: A fallen goldfish, friend, and family member

In my dreams of having an indoor pond, I started out with goldfish in a large bowl. Not just a fish bowl, but one of this water garden bowls. I started out with two that got rather large in a course of a year, but they met their untimely death by an ill fated water change. You really should not change more than 25% of the water at a time. It was either that, or the fact that was spraying Seven (insecticide) outside prior to doing a water change. After giving up on the indoor pond, I tried yet again with the mini-pond/gold fish. My replacement fish, Pebble and Pierre lived and thrived.

At this time I did have an outdoor Koi pond as well, but with the colder weather, I needed to over winter them indoors, so I built that large indoor pond in the basement. I figured it was time to consolidate ponds, so I plunked the fancy Ryukin gold fish (Pebble and Pierre) into the large koi pond. Little did I know that this was not advised. Prior to starting my new career, I had a bit more time on my hand and tended to the fish more often (fed them). Actually I think it was because my mother was here that the fish were fed more often. I started to notice Pierre was floating weird (still alive). His posterior would be constantly floating up. I figured his air bladder had to be damaged some how (no signs of trauma though). This went on a few weeks, then one day I noticed he had most of his fins bitten off: tail, dorsal, lateral what have you. Not sure what to do, euthanize or try to heal/save (hanks to ChunJaegirl for the link to Kevorkian-ing fish). I went on Dr. Google and found that #1. do not put koi with fancy gold fish. #2. feed the fish.

I think one problem was my first koi (Fat Boy) may be getting a bit large for the pond. Supposedly they get more aggressive if they are much larger than the others. I decided to try to save the poor fish, as I could not bare ending his existence (I assume my fish are males). I separated him and used my pond salt tonic to try to help heal him. He seemed to do well the first 3 days, but he did not seem like he was eating. I did notice the pond water overall was evaporating/getting low, so I started to add more (of course airing it out overnight). Unfortunately I may have added too much at a time to the isolation tank, as Pierre (instead of floating) was non-mobile at the bottom… he had passed.

Now Pierre (named because he looked like he had a mustache, so of course I correlate that with a french name) was laid to rest in the flower bed near the outdoor pond. He will probably be dug up next time MommyMD gardens, or if the coyotes or even combo decide to dig him up.

Alas, farewell my fancy fish friend.

 

Background image was adapted from the creation found on this site:

http://nick-f.deviantart.com/art/River-Styx-Version-3-89170068

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Doppelgangers

By special request, Clement has been asking side by side comparisons throughout the years. From what I could dig up, here you go. I tell you what I hate calculating backwards to figure out ages based on dates. Too much brain power for me. (always makes it tedious to input immunization data and make sure people are up to date/on schedule with shots.

So do you think VviBear will grow up to be as pretty as her daddy?:)

19 Months

imageimage

 18 Months

imageimage

 

16 Months

 

 

12 Months

Newborn (my original post)

The Clones nap
The Clones Nap
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ViviBear – Gangnam Style: The new 17mo developmental milestone

It has been a while since I have made any posts of late, but I am back. Aside from being busy doctoring,  changing out my outdoor pond pump, setting up a new home media server, and setting up our new ViviBear Cam… well this is not 100% accurate. I’ve been doing these things over the course of the past 1-2 months, so I guess I really do not have an excuse as to why I have not been posting. Then again, do I really need an excuse? It’s not like I have dedicated viewers awaiting my every word.

Back to the point: It’s amazing to see such fervor over this Korean Pop/rapper star Psy and his song Gangname Style. Aside from being very amusing, there is some very interesting social commentary embedded in the video/song which is explained in this article here.

Sow now ViviBear is about 17 mo going on 18mo. It is amazing how much development and progress happens over the course of a month. It may be due to her starting daycare, and the socialization process. Not sure, but she is starting to copy more of my words and actions. I decided to take advantage of this and see if I can get her to do the “Gangnam Style” dance. Almost there.  Video is posted below

 

It is unfortunate she falls on the ground crying, but I can not help myself from watching this repeatedly without laughing. One day she will hate me for this, especially when I play this video and all the others at her wedding:)

Knowing she is absorbing everything she sees and hears, I really have to be careful about watching TV these days (I probably should have been more careful about 6 months ago when I was watching Spartacus on Stars (with all the blood, breasts and violence). I was watching some SouthPark, and MommyMD reminded/scolded me for watching it with ViviBear. I didnt realize how engrossed in the show she was… and I realized… hmm bad parenting here.

You wonder why some children run around insane, destroying things and hurt other kids. Likely they are watching their parents behavior and mimicking  That stated, I really hope ViviBear doesnt end up biting people’s ears off, cause then people may think they learned that from us. (well at least combo). It is funny to watch her poke MommyMD’s bum with her finger and say “butt butt”. ~sense of pride~ she’s learning so much so fast.

Maybe this means I need to neater as well. I want to set a good example. Don’t want a slob of a child.

I really hope I dont scar her for life with all these videos and posts:)

Love you ViviBear!

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Runwriting, lets see what you can do

Running and writing

I’ve never really liked running. When I was wrestling in high school, I hated the running part. I never could run far, and I always felt nauseated after running. I figured, who wants to spend their time making themselves feeling like they cant breath and are dying… while slowly destroying your joints. Well somehow this changed when during college when I figured running was a good way to stay in shape, and that you were working out hard enough unless you felt like you were dying. “No pain no gain” right?

Capital City Half Finish Line
Me crossing the finish line with the super speedy 2:26:10

Well some how DP convinced me to train and run the Capital City half marathon back in April of 2005. I figured it was one of those things that I wanted to force myself to do. During my off and on training, the most I was ever able to run in one sitting was 5 miles. I was usually accustomed to running only 1-2 miles in a day. Then my buddy Clement created his “clement two and a half”. This just meant he would run 2.5 miles, but he did refer to it as the “Clement two and a half”. So of course I felt i needed to up my game. I did try my best to follow the suggested training schedule on the Capital City Half Marathon website, but I only try did I do. The most I actually ran ever prior to the actual half marathon was 5 miles during training. Some people would say: “you’re an idiot” for deciding to run a full 13.1 miles while only ever going 5 miles… EVER. Well I was an idiot for that.

I remember on race day that their was a huge snow fall, nay a Blizzard! I was going to use that as an excuse not to attend, but somehow I was able to psyche myself up into going. I also couldn’t let DP do it, and have me wuss out.

Chunks of snow was falling as I painfully pushed my way through all 13.1 miles. After the race, I remember digging my fingers into the available Donatos Pizza to warm my hands up. I could barely walk back to my car because my knees were hurting so bad, and I was exhausted. Then when I actually got in my car, I couldn’t even drive. I sat and laid down in my car for about 1 hr. I  somehow mustered the energy to drive home (in the snow storm mind you) and then laid around the rest of the weekend. Painful.

Alex Run
Using Endomondo to spell my name

Back to the topic at hand. So now I do enjoy running more than I used to. I enjoy the challenge, and the exhausting feeling that I equate to accomplishment. I do hate the difficulty breathing aspect (maybe I have exercise induced asthma…), but running is a great time to get alone time, to think and reflect on anything, and also just to enjoy the outdoors. I’m not one of those trail runners (not yet), since I don’t really go farther than 2 miles at a time usually. I enjoy running in the neighborhood and seeing my neighbors and what not.

Now with the smart phone APPs and GPS tracking, it is easier to log runs, and make things more interesting, by trying to beat prior lap times, or tracking where you were. The other day I had this great idea, why not try to write/draw something with the GPS tracking? Am I the first to come up with this idea? Probably not, but I just havent bothered googling this yet. I am sure others have thought of this, but now I am challenging all those other runners out there to do the same. Write something creative, draw something cool. Whatever. Obviously my first attempt to write my name was in vain, but I think my attempt today was pretty good.

Compare that to the one I did the other day

Runwriting
Runwriting, as good as my handwriting!

I want to see what you guys come up with!

Also check out Endomondo. They have an app for the iPhone and Android (the one I use)

:-)

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Hot to grow a mango from seed PART 2

IMAG1404
sprouting in the containers

 

check out the initial steps to growing a mango from seed or wonderful methods of eating the mango prior to getting the seed

Here is a follow up on my mango growing activities. I figure they are easy enough to sprout, might as well do as many as I can. They do make great gifts, but unfortunately they do require some care.

After about 3-4 weeks

IMAG1405
Sprouting Roots

 

After 6 weeks

IMAG1439
seeing leaves

 

About 7-8 Weeks

Growing
7-8 Weeks of growth

They need to be transplanted into a pot now. I have been putting this off, really not sure why.

 

more to come…

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How to easily peel/eat a Mexican Mango

IMAG1386
Peeled Mango ready to eat
OXO Mango Pitter

Eating a mango always seems to be messy business. They are very tasty, but they have a huge seed in the middle, and they are very juicy. I have tried mango pitters before, but if your mango is too ripe, it will just get squashed. Even if you do pit the seed out, you still have mango juice all over the place now.

Growing up I would watch my mom cut mangoes. She would do what I refer to as the “flower technique,” or inversion technique.

Flower/Inversion Technique for eating Mangoes

She slices the Mango vertically, (lateral to each side of the seed). Then she will slice cross hatches in the mango. Then invert the mango, pushing on the skin of the mango. It makes eating the meat of the mango easier. [image to the left obtained via a google search which led me to http://soupbelly.com/]

*disclaimer, I have not tried this on the big mangoes, just the mini Mexican Atulfo Mangoes*

Somehow I never seen these mini mangoes before until I went to Beijing, China. Odd thing is once I came back from China, I noticed that we should the mini mangoes here in Ohio. Eitherway, I saw someone there eating what seemed to be an oddly shaped banana, but on closer examination, this lady was eating a mango. She had peeled the skin off like a banana. Interestingly it works well with these Mini Mangoes, and is better if the mango is ripe. So here is my take on peeling mangoes. The benefits are great: 1. you dont waste any of the mango, 2. it is less laborious to peel and eat a mango. Unfortunately it does not solve the problem of the mess after.

IMAG1383 Step: 1. Cut the mango skin superficially at 90 deg angles all the way down. Makes it easier to peel (without the skin breaking off mid peel)

IMAG1385 Step 2. Peel the mango gently.

IMAG1388 Step 3. Eat the mango.

Obviously if you are out and about, and do not happen to carry knives with you, you can easily enough just peel the mango without cutting. This is just a tad messier, but better than not eating a mango at all.

on to sprouting and growing a mango tree from a seed