Freedom Food

A few months ago I hired a personal trainer to help me meet my fitness goals. I’ve been working out for years, but it just got boring doing the same stuff over and over again. I needed a new challenge. The personal training sessions were 50-minute “hours.” I thought to myself, “You’re cheating me 10 minutes!” However, when the first session began, I wanted to quit 25 minutes into the workout. It completely redefined my idea of “working hard.” After a few months of going through these new workouts in order to improve my performance, I’ve come to realize that I need to take the next step, which is eating healthy.

I’ve eaten a lot better ever since I got married because my wonderful wife has done her best to limit the crap I put into my body. But I’ve been known to sneak in a doughnut from time to time and the occasional carne asada burrito (I’m being generous when I say “occasional”). Recently, my sister decided to start getting fit. It’s improved her quality of life. I’ve been telling her to start going to the gym for years, but like most things I tell her, she has to do it when she wants to do it. Then it was all her idea to begin with. This time, she’s even gone as far as “meal prepping,” which means mapping out everything you’re eating, everything you’re going to eat, and the right portion of supplements I can’t pronounce. She lectures me by saying, “You workout extremely hard, imagine how much better you’d be if you ate better, foo!” Yes, that's how she talks to me.

Well I’ve decided to take the plunge- and my sister’s advice- and start eating better. I don’t even mind giving her credit. I’m giving her 6 weeks to tell me what to eat, and I’m going to commit to it. She even came over and mapped out everything for me. I got dizzy just listening to her tell me what to eat and when to eat it. It's imperative I keep track of my intake. This is something I've NEVER done. I've just eaten when I'm hungry and then I stop eating when I'm full, end of story.

Once my friends caught wind of this, they all mentioned how much I was going to complain about this during the course of 6 weeks. So this is me front loading the complaining so I don’t have drive my friends and family crazy. Although I'll probably do that anyway.

Eating is a wonderful gift from God. As any good gift from God, it can be abused and used in ways that it was never intended. I don’t think I’m a glutton, although if you see me eat you might challenge that idea. Having a doughnut once in a while to me is like, “Stopping and smelling the glazed covered roses.” You have to enjoy the little things in life or you’ll go mad. After a hard day’s work, almost nothing is more soothing then a nice juicy steak for dinner. Now I’m voluntarily giving up my dietary freedom (and paying an arm and a leg) in order to see how the results will affect me physically. Eating boring food is well . . . boring.

So I begin this new journey and new challenge with an open perspective that giving up small luxuries will give me a far better outcomes than the minor indulgences I enjoy daily. After I finish my last box of doughnuts of course.

See you in 6 weeks.

Bedtime

The other night, my wife was looking at video footage of Joelle when she was younger, still crawling around and laughing, and felt a tiny bit of sadness because she was growing up too fast. I thought to myself, “Relax. She’s not even two years old yet.”

A couple of days later my wife told me, “We need to get a bed for Joelle because she’s getting too big for the crib.” I said, “Okay,” but thought “How much is this bed going to cost, and will I have to be the one putting it together?” My wife recognized the look on my face and said, “It’s going to cost around $200.00? And yes, you’ll have to put it together.” Well then, I guess that’s that.

We took an early drive to IKEA and purchased the bed we wanted for Joelle. It was surprisingly easy to put together. I didn’t drop one F-bomb while I was assembling it. Once we finished setting it up in Joelle’s room, we were excited to see how she was going to react. Joelle was excited and jumped on the bed and had an ear-to-ear smile that would melt your heart. The true test, however, would be if she would actually sleep on it. The evening came and so did bed time. Joelle began complaining immediately that she didn’t want the bed and started crying. Instead of fighting her all night about it, my wife decided to put her back in the crib. What a waste of $200.00. I could’ve bought some new Kobe shoes with that money or spent at least 20 minutes at the blackjack table before losing it all.

My wonderful wife, however, came up with a plan to rearrange the furniture so the bed was in the same place as the crib in order to give Joelle the same perspective of the room while she was sleeping. As it turns out, it worked! It worked during nap time anyway. I had yet to see if it would work through the night. Again, the evening came and it was bedtime for Joelle. Our nightly ritual includes reading some stories to her, my wife putting her down, and then I close with a kiss and tucking her into bed. Last night was a little different though. I sat there on her new bed and held her reciting scripture and telling her the Lord provided a new bed for her. I also kept telling her how much I loved her. I could’ve been there on the bed all night with her it was so much fun. I tucked her in and told her “good night” as usual. After I closed the door, something hit me. My little girl IS growing up. She’s forming into a little person with her own thoughts and feelings. She tells me she “loves me” and can’t go to sleep without “daddy’s kiss.” Maybe she’s just posturing because she doesn’t want to get kicked out when she turns 18. Or maybe she knows I’m one of two people in the house who knows how to work the DVD player and can turn on Baby Einstein for her. Either way, if I were capable of crying I think I would have.

Eventually my little girl will grow up and be less affectionate, more independent, and start dating someone I disapprove of. But for now, I’m going to enjoy these moments with my daughter because it’s worth more to me than a hundred pairs of Kobe shoes.