Making the most of Thanksgiving

I took the whole week off of work and with a little down time am feeling very inspired to resurrect my blog. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. At Christmas we pretend to be about one thing, but are really about getting stuff. But at Thanksgiving, we are just about what we say we are about - eating and football.

I have done some research over the years and would like to share with my vast readership my tips on how to maximize your Thanksgiving dinner this year. I preface these tips with a warning: my "strategy" has only been tested on one Thanksgiving Day meal. Some folks split time between two families and I would not recommend the following information for people in that boat. Trying to pull off "the double" will almost certainly end in disaster for you.

The Strategy:
1. Go to bed at your normal time the night before and get up at your normal time Thanksgiving morning. Athletes will tell you not to switch up any routines for a big competition.
2. Eat a normal breakfast. Most people think it's best to skip breakfast or eat really small. Doing this will shrink your stomach and result in less food consumption when it matters most.
3. Skip lunch. You will most likely eat the meal in early afternoon or around lunchtime. If you are eating the meal at dinnertime or there is more than 6 hours between breakfast and the meal, eat a light snack around lunchtime.
4. This is the crucial step. And you have to trust me. This is a technique that has been battle tested in the professional eating circuits. An hour before mealtime (which is tough to predict in some families that are lax in terms of meal prep, but do your best) drink 2 quarts of water. I know it sounds crazy. You don't have to chug it, but drink it quickly...within 30 minutes. One quart in, you will think I have led you astray because you will feel very full. Two quarts in, you will feel a little miserable (no pain, no gain). But about 30 minutes before mealtime, you will start peeing like mad. And about 10 minutes before mealtime, you will be hungry like you never have before. The water flushes the system out and opens it up.
5. When going through the line choosing food, fill two plates. Hunger is one of the human body's slowest reactions and it takes 15-20 minutes for your stomach to "tell" your brain you are full. So, you have a 15-20 minute window to pound as much food as possible. You don't want to waste time getting up for seconds. Start with two plates.
6. Your posture is important too. Don't sit with good posture. It's best to eat in a "hunched over" position. This relaxes your stomach and allows more food to be crammed in. Once you are finished and you straighten up, you will know for certain you have eaten too much.
7. While still in a hunched over position, you can waddle to the couch and fall onto the couch in the fetal position.
8. Enjoy some football!

Credits: Gary Mayabb, my sports psych teacher in h.s. at Oak Park. He is currently shaping young minds at Staley.

Arguing about sports

It's this time of year, with the NCAA tournament bracket hot off the press, that sports arguments seem to hit the peak of the season. People arguing over which team got screwed out of a bid; others arguing why one team got in over another. I got to thinking yesterday. In an area of life which seems to be so objective (sports), do we ever really know which team or athlete is "better"? In sports, it seems to be so cut and dry. Winners and losers are determined by a game or competition with rules that are predetermined and strictly followed (instant replay is a great example of how closely we follow them). But often even after the game is over, we wonder whether the team that won was actually a "better" team. "They were better on that day" or "that was early in the season" Why did we bother playing the game? Sometimes, after a championship game, we argue whether the best team won. Why bother having playoffs or a tournament in the first place? It seems that we can't even begin an argument about which team is "better" or the "best" until we first determine the criteria for having such an argument. So, sports arguments should begin with a conversation (read: argument) about the criteria or standard that we should use. Then, if we can agree on a criteria for determining better/best team/athlete, then we can move forward with the follow up conversation (which should be a shorter one) about the team/athlete in question. If we can't agree on that, we are wasting our time. Some might say it is impossible to determine such a criteria in any one sport that everyone can agree on; to which I would say that we should stop arguing about such worthless things as sports in the first place. This would shut down the entire sports entertainment industry that spends 90% of airtime arguing about who will win (speculative predictions) and "did the best team win" (waste of time) and only 10% of airtime reporting what actually happened, which is the only thing worth really discussing in the first place.

College football is a great example. We can't even agree on what is the best way to determine the best team. Bowl games or playoffs? The answer seems obvious. But even if we changed to a playoff system, grown men would still sit around for hours and argue about whether the best team won, who got screwed, and why their team should have done better. It seems that polls aren't a bad idea since most things in sports are subjective anyway. Even if we had all 120 or so D-1 teams play each other head to head, we still wouldn't agree on the best team.

Who should/shouldn't have gotten into the tournament? Better conference record, better road wins, better non-conference schedule, blah, blah, blah. Not worth talking about unless we are arguing from the same standard. And we aren't. We are all biased. Just admit it. Our team always gets screwed.

Who is the best basketball player of all time? Before we can even have the discussion, we must first agree on what criteria we are using to answer the questions. Is it number of championships won? Is it total point scored in a career? Number of MVP awards? Why even start talking about individual players until we can agree on this first.

It seems that most things in the sporting world are just people's opinions. Very little in life is cut and dry. We are better off arguing which fast food chain has the best french fries. It's just as subjective. And people don't get their feelings hurt. Unless you tell me that Burger King has better french fries than McDonald's.

Having a girl is cheaper...at first

Found out today that Amy and I are having a baby girl. Also found out that since we are having a girl we will save $362, because we won't have to pay for circumcision. At first, I was excited at the thought of this savings. Then, I realized that a daughter will be more expensive in the long haul. Prom dresses, wedding, dance classes, etc. But, what if I invest that $362? If I punch the numbers into an interest calculator, after 22 years (about the age my daughter might get married), I will have $4,026.37! That's enough to pay for most, if not all, of a wedding. Girls aren't that expensive after all...

Farewell to the $1 cup of coffee

This morning, I stopped in to the best coffee shop in Columbia(Lakota) to get a refill on my mug and do some reading. There was a sign on the counter by the cash register informing customers that they had to raise the price of a cup of coffee from $1 to $1.25. I have long boasted that Lakota was the only place in town (and maybe in the country) that you could still get a high quality cup of coffee for $1 (after tax). There was always something so fulfilling about handing the cashier a one dollar bill and walking away (no change needed). I am proud of Lakota for holding out as long as they could. The sign also informed customers that they had held the $1 price for 10 years! Impressive. And $1.25 is still the cheapest cup in town.

This doesn't affect me too much, because about a year ago, I made one of the wisest investments I have ever made. I bought a Lakota mug. Refills on the mug? 75 cents. That's like 16 ounces of high quality coffee for 75 cents! And they are keeping that price the same.

So, farewell $1 cup of coffee. And thank you to Lakota for looking out for the little guy.

The holiday flab cycle

Every year, I see more than a few articles about "how to keep the weight off around the holidays". I am not sure how many people actually succeed in this endeavor, but I would guess the number to be very, very small. This year, I gave up trying. In fact, I think the flab cycle is natural and may even be a healthy thing for humans.

I became convinced of this yesterday, when my wife had a snow day from school and I decided to stay home from work and spend some time with her. On the way home from my doctor's appointment, we began to crave all sorts of foods. Cookies, chicken fingers, toasted ravioli just to name a few. They were all very fattening foods and it made me ask, "what is it about cold weather that makes me want to eat stuff that will make me fat?" The answer dawned on me - it's my body trying to insulate itself for colder weather. It's a natural cycle of getting fat in the winter and thin in the spring/summer. That's why in the summer I crave fruit and salads and tofu (not really). We settled on making Double Doozies (homemade frosting sandwiched between homemade chocolate chip cookies). We both ate one and then felt sick the rest of the afternoon. But, I recovered and ate 3 more that night.

Also, if on January 1st I am not disgusted with myself enough, I may not be motivated to make that New Year's Resolution of losing some of the flab. So, I need that little extra to push me over the edge of disgust. If I am successful at keeping the weight off around the holidays, I may become content with the pre-Thanksgiving version of myself, which was already flabby, but not flabby enough. So, I think the holiday binge is an important part of actually trying to become healthier in the long term.

fashion

This summer, my wife and I took a trip to Chicago with her parents and brother. Overall, a great trip. We did spend an afternoon on "Magnificent Mile" aka Michigan Avenue. It's not something that I really get into much. I don't buy designer clothes and I hate consumerism more and more every year that I am alive. But, when you go on vacation with other people everyone has to be flexible. I was helping my wife pick out some clothes at the only store that she will really shop at on Michigan Ave. - H&M. I was soaking the whole experience in and thinking about something...

If you really stop and think about how the fashion industry operates; isn't it a little backwards? What is and is not fashionable should be dictated by the consumer, not the producer of the goods. If you think about it, the way that the fashion industry works is that each season, fashion magazines and websites and tv shows (which are driven by their advertisers - the producer of the goods) come out and tell you "here are the new fall/summer/spring fashions". They tell you what is fashionable and then people go out and buy it.

The way that it should work is that they come out with new stuff and people decide whether or not they like it, buy or don't buy it, and the amount of people wearing those items at the end of that season determines what is fashionable and what isn't.

It's sort of like when there was a new kid that moved into your elementary school. Your teacher didn't introduce him by saying, "this is Johnny, he's from Illinois, and he is very popular." Instead, your class got to know him, figured out whether or not they liked him and then he was deemed "popular" if lot's of kids liked him.

Fashion should be determined by the consumer after the fact, not before. After all, the people that have the most to benefit from it shouldn't dictate these kinds of things.

what is a sport?

Can I say that I love the Summer Olympics? It is such a great event. And I plan on spending many August evenings in front of the TV watching great athletes do what God has created them to do. My favorite sport is track and field, but there are very few Olympic sports that I don't enjoy watching. Some of these "sports", in my mind, may not actually be sports. Which leads me to think about a proper definition of what is and isn't a sport. This is a work in progress and I would really love some input here to help me refine this. What I have so far is a one-part definition:

The primary "engine" that "motors" the athlete must be the Human Body.

Does that make sense? What I am trying hard to rule out here is auto racing, horse racing, and any other "sport" that involves a motorized engine. The main objection I have at this point from people is something to the effect of, "you sit in a car for 5 hours in the unbearable heat straining at the steering wheel and see if you make it." I am not doubting that auto racing is difficult, but so is brain surgery and doing wall sits for 5 hours, but it still doesn't make it a sport. In the case of bicycle racing, the human body is still the engine, so it's still a sport. Horse racing is a horse sport, not a human sport. ESPN should have a different channel for horse sports and one for auto sports. An interesting one to think about here is bobsledding. In that case, isn't gravity the primary engine motoring the athlete?

Might be more on this later...Thoughts, please?