Category: Life in these United States

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My own private festivus thoughts…

catered-ham-1.jpgI gotta tell you that this Christmas, for me, was a terrible disappointment. But not because of any gifts I did or didn’t get. I particularly like the holidays because of all the family get-togethers and the food and quite frankly, there was no good family get-togethers or food really and that’s just a shame.

We had some family come and stay with us, but as usual, they didn’t get engaged with the boys. Mostly, they just sat on the couch and slept (BTW: they don’t read this blog!). My wife’s family were nearly all in town and when we did get together, it was mostly over at her parent’s house. Even though their house is large, when you put 20 people in one house, including three children under the age of 2, what you DON’T get is a fun, relaxing family yule-tide meet and greet. Add to that the tummy bug that went through the house ravaging random intestines (we were thankfully spared) and it killed any post-Christmas football watching with the family; another staple of the holiday season.

From a food perspective, we ate well at our house, but again, the family dining adventure where you’re supposed to be able to sample something from everyone’s own kitchen, turned into a catered affair complete with flavors completely foreign to most of our experiences.

On Christmas morning, we ended up with two major purchases having to be returned (shame on you Fisher-Price!), but otherwise, it was a grand success. On top of that, I spent an inordinate amount of time on a DVD of the boys over the past two years and not one of the people I sent it to has commented on it. I’m not looking for over-the-top gushing platitudes mind you, but a “How Cute!” would have been nice. (Uh huh, don’t try now…it’s too late!)

I know I should be thankful that we were all together and blah, blah, blah; but Christmas only happens once a year. Is it too much to ask for everyone to put forth a little extra effort into making it memorable? Maybe, stay awake and play with the kids? Cook your own dressing and cranberry sauce? Maybe have regular sweet tea WITHOUT fruity flavoring crap in it?

I told CareerMom that next year, if I have to, I’ll cook Christmas dinner for the whole family myself if it means we don’t have to eat another catered meal. I’m just bummed that I have to wait a whole year for a taste of good, home-cooked turkey and dressing.

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A Boy's Life Dad Blogs Family Life in these United States Society

Body Dysmorphia and Young Men

No fat swimmers allowed!Let me preface this blog by stating the following: I am woefully ignorant about the sport of swimming. I don’t know if there are weight classes and I don’t know what the age divisions are. All I know is that skinny, though usually muscular in the upper-body, people, do things in the water that my frame was not designed for.

Yesterday as I was changing clothes in the locker room at my local L.A. Fitness  (folks, have you ever heard of cleaning the carpets and deodorizers?), there was a group of boys from a local high school in there. As I listened to them talk, it became apparent they were on some local swimming team and one of them was even wearing spandex shorts, which I didn’t know was standard swimming attire, but hey…different strokes for different folks. The boys appeared to range in age from 13 to perhaps 16. The youngest was a tiny little fellow who couldn’t have been more than 4’ 7”. There was another boy in there who was probably 14 or 15 and he was pretty thin and close to my own height of 5′ 8″. Like I said, he was skinny; there were no telltale love handles…nothing to indicate that he was overweight in the slightest.

As I was changing, each of these boys hopped up on the scales (one of the worst indicators of true health if I ever saw one) and when this one skinny kid got up there, he yelled out, “125 lbs!?”  Then, all his friends started jabbing him about his weight. One even went so far as to run back in the shower area blurting it out.

Now as I mentioned, I’m no expert on anything related to swimming, but I am pretty smart when it comes to boys’ and mens’ health. I know for instance, that at 14 or 15 years of age, the male body is starting to put on weight in the form of increased bone density as it prepares for the onslaught of male hormones that will significantly increase the boy’s muscle mass. And I know that in order for any of this to happen as it should, the body needs energy. And unless there’s a new form of energy out there that I don’t know about, food is the only way for that energy to be made available to said young boy’s body. I also happen to know that swimming, especially when not combined with an adequate weight training program, can actually have an adverse effect on the body. Water is the closest simulation that normally people have to being in space, and when in space, the body loses both muscle mass and bone density due to the lack of demands on it. This combination of lack of adequate caloric intake, coupled with an activity that burns whatever energy is available to it, and which does not stimulate lower-body musculature, is a recipe for disaster in teenagers.

Now, I know that girls have been told for years to stay thin and the media haven’t helped that, but truthfully, a young girl’s body doesn’t require the same caloric intake that a boy’s does (if you wanna argue this with me, just look up the caloric requirements of boys and girls of the same age).

So I say all of this only to point out to parents that we need to make sure that we keep an eye on our sons as much as we do our daughters. Fathers especially tend to dote on their daughters while allowing their sons to just “be”, assuming they’ll take care of themselves. But I would say that the pressure to win and to look good (at any cost) is especially prevalent in teens and it’s important that we set the right attitude about nutrition and health when they are young.

Then, when they are older and decide to ruin their joints with weight training (like I have), it’ll be their own decision and they’ll at least have a solid foundation to start from.

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Dad Blogs Family Life in these United States

A bad day of golf is still better than…?

Sad day of Golf

Monday, I took a day off work to play in an annual charity golf tournament for my wife’s company since she does not play. It’s a terrible burden that I have to shoulder, but one which I’ll gladly do in the name of…um…cough, cough….charity.

And while this was a friendly game of golf among mostly men who could not even remotely be considered professional-amateurs, there were still some pretty good prizes such as free rounds of golf ($65) as well as lots of donated gear (by local vendors UPS, PGA Tour Superstore and more…) such as $250 drivers, balls etc. This tournament, not being open to the general public, is really the only chance that average guys like myself (read: dads with too little time to play very often) will ever get to play against similarly skilled golfers for relatively nice prizes. If an average Joe tried to play in a public tournament (which I have), you’ll end up playing semi-pro or retired professionals who will suck up all the prizes and get mad at you for taking more than six or seven swings at the ball on each hole.

So this was kind of a big deal for us and most of us were taking this tournament seriously despite any “Have Fun! It’s for Charity!” hooplah the organizers were dishing out.

This year, there were four players on a team and we played typical scramble rules. This means that each player hits the ball and then everyone on the team hits their next ball from whichever previous shot was the best. So, if I hit it to the 300 yard marker, and everyone else hit to the 280, then we’d our next shot from the 300 yard spot, and so on and so forth until we got it in the hole.

We didn’t really bother with handicaps, which adjust an individual’s score up or down automatically to keep everyone on the same scoring plane, however the men all hit from one set of tees, while the ladies hit from their tees, which are closer to the pin. The thinking here is that the extra distance women get from hitting closer to the hole will basically even out any muscular benefit the men have and thus you’ll have four relatively equally skilled players on the same team even if one or more of them are women.

I said that was the “thinking,” but in actuality, it’s not that cut and dried. The fourth player on our team was a lady in her early 50s I’d say. She had all the necessary gear and she claimed to have been playing for a couple of years along with taking lessons at the local PGA Tour Superstore. So the three of us guys were thinking, “OK, she probably knows how to play. How bad could it be?”

Unfortunately, all that preparation didn’t translate on the golf course, where she could barely hit fifty yards and the only time she helped our effort was on a Par 3 where all of us men-folk put our balls into the sand (hee heeJ). Her tee, being nearly 40 yards closer, and to the right of the hazard, rolled right up onto the green and what was probably going to be a bogey for us, turned into a birdie. The rest of her game was so bad though, that I finally stopped even trying to be a cheerleader for her and started pointing out that if she hit it where she wanted to hit it, she would roll right into the water–which she did several times. So thanks.

At the end of the day, our foursome came in 6th place out of 12 teams, so right in the middle, and the only prize I got was a Titleist towel for my bag (approx. value: $8). However, the three of us men who played weren’t bad and I’m convinced that had we an equal fourth partner, we’d have made it into the top three and garnered some good prizes. And while I harbor no resentment towards our lady-player, I would just like to tell all those would-be players out there that being a newbie on the golf course is just fine…at times. I mean, we were all new players at one time or the other. But when there is money and/or prizes on the line, and you know you won’t add any value to the team, sit it out. Don’t weigh the whole team down just because you wanted to be part of the club (no pun intended).

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Dad Blogs Family Life in these United States Society

There’s a fine line between obsession and crazy…

WeightliftingAt 34 years of age, I’m not old by any stretch of the imagination; however, I’m no spring chicken either. After nearly 15 years of fairly heavy weight training, my joints and skeletal system (especially my back) are probably more in line with a 44 year old. A study back in ’01 revealed that despite any bone density gains weight lifters earn from throwing around heavy weights, once they stop, those gains rapidly diminish. Add to that all of the joint and spinal damage nearly all weight lifters garner, and you gotta wonder why a person does it.

As I was working out this weekend, I noticed a young guy who is frequently there at the gym when I am. He’s probably in his mid-to-late 20s and it’s always been obvious that he has a great body, mostly because when he’s doing legs, he rolls his pants up so everyone can see his quads, etc.  And despite being obviously muscled, I never realized how much until I saw him in one of those tight Under-Armour® shirts (white) this weekend, where you could see every muscle, including one of the best sets of abs I’ve ever seen. Now, despite being 100% heterosexual, I can tell you that, from one weight-lifter to another, the dude looked incredible!

I can also tell you however, that he didn’t get that way naturally. I’m not saying he’s using steroids (I’m not “not” saying this either), but naturally, muscles simply don’t get and stay that full (read: pumped) without some help. It just doesn’t happen.

Of course, I started reflecting back to the time when I was “that” committed to my body. I was never in my wildest dreams as chiseled as this guy, but I was worlds better than I am now and it occurred to me what a young-man’s game this exercise thing really is. Some people might say I’m just being petty and jealous, but the truth is that it takes a phenomenal narcissist to create and maintain that kind of physique.

When I was 25, I once had a date critically tell me, “No woman wants a man who has a better body than she has.”

Truer words were never spoken. The kind of commitment it takes to maintain the thin-skinned six-pack look that models make look so easy requires an approach to eating that is fanatically limiting. It requires that every waking moment that isn’t taken up with work or other essential activity, be spent either at the gym, or hitting the pavement burning off the calories you just ate that your body didn’t automatically siphon off to feed your muscles. It takes the ability to turn the guilt you feel over eating a slice of pizza, into something positive like a few extra reps on the bench press. Basically, it requires sacrificing nearly every facet of your life that doesn’t revolve around your body, and that, my friends, is why you see so few married couples with children who are in such great shape.

Sometimes it takes this kind of mental meandering to convince yourself that you don’t suck. I’ve been really down on myself about my weight gain lately, and although it’s nothing major, it’s a stark departure from my 20s. Plus there’s that whole drive to look good for your mate. I suppose in the end, all you can do is your best and hope that it’s enough.

I mean, with two kids, who has time to be a narcissist?