Monthly Archives: November 2010

Family matters

Perry Mason and the case of getting older and wider

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I’m turning Thursdays over to my brother, who’s sharing his experience with P90X with us (also: he’ll have a bonus post tomorrow). I have to say: It’s breaking my heart to hear how hard he’s being on himself. Also: The “and the case of” titles are wearing on me. We may have seen the last of them. -N

On Sunday, I put in disk 1 of P90X. Hopefully, 90 days later — That’s January 29, 2011. -N — I’ll be able to tell you that (1) I made it through; and (2) I’m better for it. But first, you’ll need to know where I am now. Here are my stats:

P90X vs. cheeseburgersGender: Male

Age: 27

Height: 5’8″

Weight: 172.2 pounds.

The internet tells me this is consistent with an “overweight” man of my age and height.

Body Fat: 25.9 percent.

The internet tells me this is consistent with an “obese” man of my age and height.

Chest: 38 inches

Waist: 37 inches

Hips: 41.5 inches

Thighs: 20.5 inches each

R. Bicep: 13.5 inches

L. Bicep: 13 inches

In addition to these physical composition statistics, step one of P90x is actually to take a physical test to ensure you are physically fit enough to actually do the videos. I passed (barely). Here are my results:

Pullups: 1.75

Vert. Leap: 12 inches

Push ups: 29

Toe Touch: 0 inches.

The Toe Touch exercise requires that you sit on the floor with your legs in front of you, bending at the waist and reaching for your toes. Without bending your knees, you are to measure how far past (or short of) your toes you can reach. I could touch my toes but nothing further.

Wall Squat: 1 minute, 18 seconds.

Think: Back against the wall and knees bent such that you are sitting in a chair with no seat. Hold that pose for as long as you can. You can slide your bum down the wall as you get tired, but time stops as soon as it touches the ground.

20-pound curls: 30.

20-pound weights in each arm, curling simultaneously (not alternating). Women get to use 8 lb. weights.

In-Outs: 42.

Sit on the floor with your legs straight out in front of you. Lean back slightly, and place your arms at your sides just behind your bum for support. Lift your legs a few inches off the ground. Pull your knees into your chest as far as you can, and then extend your legs back out straigh, keeping them off the ground. You’ve completed one in-out. How many can you do without your legs touching the ground?

Finally, I was required to take my resting heart rate, do 1.5 minutes of jumping jacks at a quick pace immediately followed by 30 seconds at as quick a pace as I could manage, and then check my heart rate immediately, 1 minute thereafter, 2 minutes thereafter, 3 minutes thereafter and 4 minutes thereafter. Note that I was truly barely able to complete this exercise alive. Here were the results:

Resting: 74 bpm.

Immediately Post-Jacks: 160 bpm.

1 min. Post-Jacks: 128 bpm.

2 min. Post-Jacks: 115 bpm.

3 min Post-Jacks: 108 bpm.

4 min Post-Jacks: 102 bpm.

So there you have it: The state of me, pre-P90X. I am ashamed. To give you some perspective, 10 years ago I was a wrestler in high school. I weighed 135 pounds and had a body fat of about 8 percent. So, I’ve managed to pack on 40 pounds in 10 years (4 pounds per year) and increase my bodyfat over 300 percent. If I don’t start doing something about this, by the time I’m 40, I’ll weigh 224 pounds, and I’ll have a bodyfat percentage of a gazillion. This is not unfounded for my family, so it’s time to get it in gear.

National Blog Posting Month, Social Media

Blog early, blog often: Finding things to write about

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Works-for-Me WednesdayI’m participating in National Blog Posting Month, which means I have to come up with something to say here every day in November. I do post pretty frequently. Even so, it’s going to be a challenge to come up with something interesting to write every day. (Disclaimer: There’s no way I’ll come up with something interesting every day. But I will post something.)

Writing regularly is a good idea even if you aren’t participating in NaBloPoMo. For me, it helps me feel like I’m engaged in a world outside of peanut butter and fingerpainting. It also keeps my brain a little bit sharper, I NaBloPoMo 2010think. (Except for when I’m taking cold medicine. Like, say, right now. Then I write things like “little bitter sharper,” which is sometimes accurate, too.)

I find that it helps to follow a schedule with my blog posting, and there are a lot of meme-type themes that make that really easy. Here, for example, I regularly do Menu Plan Monday and Works for Me Wednesday. The menu-planning is something I do anyway, and it’s really easy to type that up and share it here (even if it isn’t maybe the most fascinating thing). The “works for me” posts tend to be a little more difficult, because they require more thought. But they have made me pay more attention to what I’m doing on a daily basis in an effort to try to notice things that might be making my life easier. (I feel like that didn’t make much sense. Alka-Seltzer cold, take me away!) I also try to do a little rundown on our homeschooling week on Saturdays. The Daily Meme has a bunch of other blogging memes listed.

Beyond those regularly scheduled posts, I tend to just blather about things. (As I’m sure those of you who are regular readers have noticed.) I’m OK with that, but I might need more focus in November. So I’ve found a few writing-prompt sites that I plan to mine for NaBloPoMo. Maybe you’ll find them helpful, too.

  • Try Creative Writing focuses on prompts for creative writing, which absolutely is applicable to writing a blog. Some of it is clearly fiction-writing stuff, but there’s a lot of personal-experience fodder there, too.
  • The Write Prompts offers a new prompt every day, which would be a clear and simple way to do NaBloPoMo. They do the theme-days thing, too. Wednesdays are all about poetry, for example, and Tuesdays focus on discussing a provided image (much like what Casey and her friend are doing at YouSeeItDifferentlyThan.Me, but on a Internet-wide scale.)
  • Marelisa has put together a list of 119 journal prompts. I especially like the “100 Things I Love” section, in which she suggests subtopics of things like “10 People I Love” or “10 Restaurants I Love.” That would make for a nice series.

    • Do you have a go-to inspiration for writing?

    blessings, National Blog Posting Month

    Sixteen things I like

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    1. My husband. I’ve known him for about 20 years. We’ve been married for 9 years, 8 months and 30 days. And I still find him delightful.

    2. The Saturday morning family cuddle, in which the kids pile in to our bed and watch cartoons while Rockford and I continue to doze.

      3. NaBloPoMo 2010

    3. Most of Wes Anderson’s movies. Especially “The Royal Tenenbaums” and “Fantastic Mr. Fox.”

    4. Ice cream.

    5. The weather these days. It’s cool but not cold. Which leads me to:

    6. Comfy sweatshirts.

    7. Marsha T. Cat, particularly the way she likes to cuddle.

    8. Cuddling.

    9. Books that make me cry.

    10. Books that make me laugh.

    11. The Internet.

    12. Meeting some of the nice people in the internet.


    13. Bill Murray’s face.

    14. Pizza.


    15. My family. All of them. Even my in-laws. They’re all terrific.


    16. The guy at church who plays the drums so joyously that you can’t help but smile.