Food Struggles

Oof, I've eaten like crap over the past four or five meals. I'm really feeling sluggish and weak because of it. I must get back to eating smaller and healthier but I'm still so full from my IHOP breakfast that I just can't fathom eating anything else right now.  It's so easy to slip from eating well to eating poorly and yet so difficult to slide the other way.

Let this be a lesson to me, please. You'd probably never know it by looking at me but I think that food is something I've struggled with over the years.  It's a definite weakness of mine and I find myself (after the fact) eating out of desire and for comfort rather than hunger or need. I've only stumbled like this a million times and yet it feels inevitable that I will fail again in this regard. How can I struggle with something when I know better both intellectually and through experience?

I suppose that "the Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak."

What about you?  Do you struggle with food?  Do you have any tips for overcoming this sort of thing?  Leave a comment and share your advice.

My Dog is Sick

My dog is sick.

If you are not a pet owner then you have the ability to read that statement, acknowledge it and simply move on to the next one. Only those of you who are pet owners, and perhaps dog owners specifically, can truly understand the strange level of concern that statement creates. I’ll admit that having a dog can be a real pain sometimes. In some ways they are more difficult than children. At least you can take your infant with you when you have to go somewhere, not so with the new puppy. At least you can put your kid in a diaper before they’re house-broken, you just get to clean up the floor with that puppy in the house. But all of that care-taking and headache forms a very real bond between man and dog that really does raise that pet into something just below (sometimes above) child status in the house. The big brown eyes don’t help the situation. My wife will be the first to attest that I’ve always been a sucker for a pretty pair of brown eyes. Apparently they don’t have to be human!

Rainey was 6 years old when she came to live with us so we missed the puppy stage with her. Missing the puppy stage definitely affected our relationship. While it was very nice to not have to deal with the chewing, messes, and general disobedience issues, we also noticed that we just didn’t have the same level of love for Rainey as we did with our previous dog which we’d had since she was a pup. The connection just wasn’t there for quite a while and she didn’t have all of that puppy-cuteness and personality to fall back on.

5 years later and I’m surprised at how much her illness has affected me. It turns out I really do care for that dog and hate to see her suffer. I not only hate the thought of having to tell the kids that we had to put Rainey down, but I really just hate that thought on its own. I find myself dealing with the eventuality that Rainey won’t be around anymore and wonder when I’ll have to go through similar feelings about the people that I love.

Rainey has Old Dog Vestibular Disease and while it’s not life threatening it’s obviously causing her some discomfort and confusion. It’s almost like she’s had a stroke. She can’t really walk all that well, won’t eat much and is visibly frightened at times. The vet says that this is very common in dogs, the cause is unknown and the symptoms can last for up to a week at which point they will either go away...or not. If not then we honestly have to consider making a ‘quality of life’ decision for Rainey. I don’t want to have to make that decision for anyone, let alone my dog.

Static Made - Emails to My Unborn Daughter

For the past five years, I’ve been writing emails to my son. Shortly after he was born in 2007, I created an email account in his name so I could write to him throughout his childhood and then turn the account over to him when he was of age. Upon opening the account for the first time, he’d be greeted with an archive of his childhood as seen through his father’s eyes.

To date, I’ve sent him a wide array of messages ranging from short one-sentence emails just to let him know I love him to photos of special moments we’ve shared together to diary-like entries that chronicle his developments and our family’s journey together. Our daughter is due to arrive later next month, and I just created an account for her, now that we’ve decided on her name. I sent my first email to my unborn daughter last night.

Here's the link to the complete post.

I'm honestly disappointed in myself that I didn't think of this when my kids were younger.  My oldest has missed out on nine years worth of emails from me.  Needless to say I'm going to start this TODAY.  Imagine the memories that these personal emails will stir for your children when they are older and even when you are gone.

Ask the Internet: "Obamacare"

As a self-proclaimed "conservative" I know what I'm supposed to think about the new healthcare legislation, known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, more commonly referred to as "Obamacare."  Although sometimes it seems like I'm supposed to be against this thing (and anything else initiated by the current administration) just to be contrarian, I know that there were specific aspects of the bill that small business owners and entrepreneurs really feared, particularly the bits about forcing these small businesses to provide healthcare coverage to their employees.  This despite the absolutely burdensome costs that would literally cause many of these small business to either fire those employees or shut their doors.

I recently came across this article that seems to sum up the major points of the bill quite nicely. Honestly, after reading this summarization I just don't feel so bad about this legislation anymore. My question is this: what have I missed?  Are there points in the article that were not presented fairly? Do I simply not understand the other impacts, either positive or negative that this legislation will have?

I'm looking for honest answers here.  Please leave a comment.

P90X Week 3 Shakedown

In case you haven't noticed, there was no shakedown post for week 2 on P90X.  Rest assured that we completed the workouts that week.  The short answer as to why no posting occurred is this: I AM EXHAUSTED.  

This program has me constantly sore and always tired.  I've literally fallen asleep at my desk at work at 8:30 in the morning at least twice since starting.  Granted some of the reason for my fatigue is that we're getting up to work out at 4 in the morning.  But I'm also generally in my bed and asleep by 9 at night so I'm usually getting a solid 7 hours of sleep.  

No, the main reason I'm so tired is because every single one of these workouts is leaving me in a heaping mass of jelly on the floor.  Doing that every day is...well it's tiring to say the least!

That being said, things are going quite well.  Week 3 is complete, all of my rep counts went up and some of my weight went up as well.  More satisfying is the way my clothes are fitting.  I haven't taped recently but my pants are much more comfortable than they were 4 weeks ago.  I'm not noticing a whole lot of definition yet in my upper body but I haven't taken a second set of pictures to compare yet.  Those should be taken this week.  Eventually, I'll move all of these posts over to a new portion of the site along with the pictures so that you can judge for yourself what the changes were.

This week is a built in 'recovery' week.  I use the term 'recovery' loosely because even though there are no resistance workouts on the schedule this week, there are still 6 hard workouts: yoga twice, core synergistics, cardio, kenpo and a stretching routine as well.  So yes, my muscles get to recover a little bit but we're still cranking out the cardio and body weight resistance exercises.

Next week we're taking a family vacation so it will be interesting to see how the workouts go in a new environment and on a new schedule.  I think we've got it all planned out miss only one workout and continue on the diet as well.  I'll certainly report on how it goes.

P90X Week 1 Shakedown

After one week down I'm really impressed.  P90X is a really great program.  Make no mistake, it's crazy intense, though.  All six of last week's workouts left me completely spent and extremely sore for at least 36 hours.  It's obviously well planned though, several times I noticed that the most sore parts of my body were the first ones stretched out in the next day's workout...I was grateful to say the least.

The diet portion of this program is going really well also.  Lot's of protein, very little carbs.  In my opinion the diet pales in comparison to the workouts though.

Here's the basic workout schedule for weeks 1-3.

 

  1. Monday - Core Synergistics - This is a whole lot more than a core workout in my opinion.  It really works everything from the shoulders down to the quads with a good bit of flexibility and cardio work built in.  I should really say that every single one of these workouts has been a cardio beat down for me with each one pushing me up to at least 180 bpm at least once.  This one is about an hour long.
  2. Tuesday - Cardio X - As the name implies this one is a cardio fat burner.  Honestly, my only complaint about this one is that it's not quite long enough.  So far this is the shortest of the complete workouts clocking in at 47 minutes.  It combines yoga, kenpo and plyometrics to get that heart rate up and keep it there for duration.
  3. Wednesday - Shoulders and Arms/Ab Ripper X - This is the first true weight training workout of the week targeting the shoulders through a bunch of butterfly type lifts along with the biceps and triceps.  I used very little weight in week one as I just didn't know what to expect and wanted to at least try each exercise.  This resulted in a pretty good shoulders and triceps workout but a waste of time for my biceps.  I'm anxious to give this one another try.  I'm not, however, anxious to repeat the Ab Ripper X routine.  It's a killer for me.  It's obvious that my abs need a lot of work, several of the exercises were simply too difficult for my weak body to handle more than a couple of reps.  My abs are definitely a target area for improvement over the 90 days.  60 minutes for the Shoulders and Arms, 15 minutes for the Ab Ripper X.
  4. Thursday - Yoga X - Three words: I HATE YOGA.   Ok, I'm mostly joking about this but this is by far the most difficult video for me to get though.  I'm nowhere near flexible enough to even complete about half of the positions and it's just very difficult for me to 'calm the storm' in this one.  All you manly naysayers out there need to know this though: Yoga Ain't No Joke.  This is the longest workout as well at a full 90 minutes.
  5. Friday - Legs and Back/Ab Ripper X - This is a great hour-long workout.  My legs were sore for two days after this one.  Since we're doing the Lean version of P90X this is the second of only two true weight training workouts weekly and it's a beast.  I feel like I largely chose the right starting weight for the majority of these exercises, but I'm anxious to get to this one again on Friday.  Last Friday my pull up bar wasn't installed yet and so I missed virtually the entire back portion of the workout.  I can't wait to be able to start ripping off the unassisted pull ups...hopefully I can get to that point by the end of the 90 days because I'm sure not there yet!  The 15 minute Ab Ripper X is just an added 'bonus' for day 5...ouch.
  6. Saturday - Kenpo X - I really enjoyed this martial arts based workout.  It was honestly a lot of fun and will really improve my balance, functional strength, and flexibility.  It really stretched out my sore legs from the previous day.  It's 60 minutes long but this one really flies by.
  7. Sunday - This was a much needed day of rest!  I was almost ready to go again Monday morning!

 

The schedule will change to a 'recovery' week in week 4 (that 'recovery' week still looks pretty tough!) and then a completely new set of workouts starts in weeks 5 continuing through week 8.

Motivation is still high and we're seeing some minor weight drops.  We're definitely seeing some performance improvements already though so that's fun to experience.

What are you doing to stay fit?  Leave a comment and let us know!

P90X Kickoff

Gina and I just finished our first workout in the P90X Lean program.

Wow.

Today made me realize just how out of shape I really am.  I made it through half of the 'Core Synergistics' video and was completely gassed.  I got really nauseous and had to sit out a few exercises and watch my amazing wife push through.  She completely showed me up and completed the whole video by the way, she's a rock star.

Anyway, I'm sure there's some performance metrics that I could spout out right now to show how I'm progressing and I'll figure those out as we go.  For now let's just say that day 1 was really hard and I only expect it to get worse before it gets easier.  I'm feeling committed again now but I have to admit I questioned that commitment a little bit when the alarm went off at 4:15am and when my face was buried in our living room carpet at 45 minutes later!

Sit and Be Fit?

Most of us cannot get fit while working our day job. There are the lucky(?) few who get to do something active all day for a living and attain a tremendous level of fitness by simply showing up and doing the work. For those of us with a sedentary occupation, it's up to us to get off the couch after hours (or before!) to get our sweat on. My employer has introduced a new program that has the potential of really changing people's lives and increasing the general fitness level of their employees.

Check out Nuvita.

Yes, this program has tremendous savings potential for the employer by lowering the number of employee claims on their group health insurance. However, as an employee, I'm naturally more interested in what's in it for me. Here's a rundown of how the program works.

  • Health Assessments - Each participant, there's about 40 in our current test cycle, receives a health assessment at the beginning of the 12 week program. They record body composition, blood pressure, cardiovascular health through a VO2max text, bicep strength, flexibility and the results from a blood panel. They use this data along with your age and gender to come up with what they call a Body Age and a Nuvita Age. The Body Age is similar to what you might have seen on Biggest Loser, basically how old your body is acting. The Nuvita Age is the lowest possible Body Age that they feel you can reach if you fully participate in the program. My ages, for instance, are a Chronological Age of 34, a Body Age of 36, and a Nuvita Age of 29. They'll repeat the complete health assessment at the end of the 12 week program to chart your progress.  Obviously the 29 sounds pretty good to me!

  • Coaching - A Nuvita health coach walks each participant through the program. Using the results of your health assessment they create a fitness plan for each individual and monitor your progress. They also provide true coaching value in supplying health lessons and guidance in nutrition and lifestyle changes. My coach meets with us weekly.

  • Exercise Tracking - Each participant is given a heart rate monitor to track their cardiovascular exercise throughout the 12 week program. Mine is a Garmin F70. You keep the monitor regardless of your level of success with the program. You simply wear the monitor when you exercise, it records your heart rate and times the exercise session and then uploads your exercise history to your myNuvita.com tracking website. Your weekly cardio requirements vary based on your health assessment results. The program also asks you log three mobility/strength training sessions per week.

  • Nutrition - Your coach and the website also helps you to plan out a healthy meal plan including three meals and two snacks per day. You're also asked to log your meals within your website along with water consumption and whether or not you took your daily multi vitamin.

  • Competition - To me the real secret to the success of this program is the competition factor. Each employee is assigned to a team of 5 to 10 other employees. You're competing against the other teams in the company for highest cardio time, best meals, strength and mobility workouts and general participation in the program. We haven't even officially begun the program yet and the trash talking has already begun! Of course, eventually this comes down to individuals doing the work, but having a team to support won't hurt one bit.

So that's how Nuvita works. Fire away with questions, I'll try to answer them and I'll definitely keep you updated on my progress.

Church Series Entry 2.0 - What does 'church' mean?

So, a couple of production notes before I get started.

This study has been hard. Like many other subjects, the amount of extra-Biblical text written about this topic far outweighs the amount of text that the Bible itself actually devotes to it. People have written entire books on a word study of 'church'. Blog posts are supposed to be...shorter!

There are some sharply contrasting viewpoints out there about what the Bible means by some of the passages I've researched and I'm sure to ostracize some by tackling a subject like this. That being said, I firmly believe that the meaning of the Scriptures is to be discovered, not interpreted. In other words, Biblical commentary and interpretation can be misled and wrong even though the Bible itself cannot be. In the end, this exercise has made me realize how difficult it can be to discover someone else's meaning when the original text was written many years ago in a different language and in a dramatically different culture. Let that be your proverbial grain of salt...

Let's start with a word study...

Surprisingly, the word that is translated into today's English word 'church' in the New Testament is not a religious term at all. Transliterated 'ekklesia' and shown in the original Greek above, the word was originally used to denote a group of people who answered a calling to assemble for some civic purpose, perhaps similar to a jury summons in modern America. The most common use of the word in the first century is probably better translated as 'legal assembly' as in Acts 19:39. The Bible, however, translates the word 107 times out of 118 as 'church' or 'churches' according to Strong's Exhaustive Concordance. This is mainly due, in my opinion, to the first usage of the term in Scripture.

Jesus uses the word 'ekklesia' twice in the Gospels, both appearing in the book of Matthew. In fact, Matthew 16:16 is the first time this word appears in the Bible. It's a well-known passage where the disciple Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ and Jesus responds with "...I tell you that you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church..." We'll get in to what that 'rock' is in a later post. Let's focus for now on the 'my' in that sentence. Jesus says that he will build an assembly that belongs to Him! This is actually a great definition. The church today is the assembly that belongs to Jesus Christ. It's easy to understand why Bible translators would use a more religious term, like 'church' to denote Jesus' assembly of believers.

The word takes on additional shades of meaning even within the rest of the New Testament. Sometimes it's used in reference to scattered groups of Christians over a wide area as in the "churches of Galatia" (Gal 1:2). Sometimes it's used in reference to a body of Christ followers living in the same immediate area such as the "church at Antioch" (Acts 13:1). It's even used to refer to a small body Christians meeting under one roof to worship together in Romans, First Corithians, Collossians and Philemon. Have you heard 'church' used in these same ways today? While it's important to see the range of meaning for the word, it's also very important to note that 'church' is never used in Scripture to refer to a building or a place to worship. The word 'church' was only and should only be applied to people.

While this is a New Testament word, the concept exists in the Old Testament as well with the Hebrew word translated 'synagogue'. In fact, 'synagogue' was also only used originally to refer to the group of Israelites called together to worship. It was much later that people began to refer to the building where that worship took place as the 'synagogue'. This shows a couple of interesting things. First, the use of this concept shows that both the early Christians and the Jews were eager to show their historical connection to the congregation of Israel which was, in effect, the 'church' of the Old Testament. Additionally, I find it interesting that both the Jewish culture and the modern Christian culture have begun to refer to the 'church' as a place rather than a group of people. I believe that this, at its heart, is an attempt to push God back into his box and squeeze him out of our every day lives. It's a cultural erosion of the truth.

So, for our purposes I propose that the church of Jesus Christ is defined in its broadest sense as the company of those belonging to Christ throughout the world. It ranges down to its most narrow sense referring to the smallest of fellowships as well. I will try to keep that definition in mind as we continue the study.

Next, we'll begin to look at the origins of the church, again focusing on the description of church formations in the New Testament.

I welcome your feedback, questions and criticism.

New iPhone on the way?

Bloomberg reported yesterday that an iPhone with a larger display is in the works.  Apple has apparently placed some orders for larger screens with an Asian supplier.  They also report that Steve Jobs worked on this newly designed iPhone while on medical leave shortly before his death in October.  Apple itself has declined to comment on the report.

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if these rumors are spot on.  The current iPhone form-factor really blew the smartphone market open when it was released several years ago. Today that market is much more mature and, arguably, competitive and the iPhone is the smallest display available.  The success of the iPad has shown Apple what a larger display can do with its iOS so there's some argument that an iPhone with a larger display (or an iPad with a smaller display) is a logical next step for the company.

Let the rumor mill continue!

What is the church...or should that be Church?

Today marks the first of a series of posts on the Christian church. This is also the first of hopefully many posts to fall into the 'Faith' category on this site. I've been turned on to this topic by some studies I've done in the past by Christian authors like Francis Chan, John Eldredge, and David Platt. Each one of those authors seem to say, in one way or another, that when you get really sold out for Jesus you start to realize that the things you might learn from "the church" could be...well...wrong. They could be things that you were raised to believe by your family or by the society you grew up in or even by your current fellowship, but we have to be ready to challenge those beliefs in order to define and pursue the true faith. So my first challenge is to define the church as Jesus would have it defined.

 

I intend to cover some very basic questions over the next several posts like the following:

  • What is the church?
  • Where does the church come from?
  • Why does the church exist?

But I also want to get into some other, more difficult questions, for instance:

  • Who comprises the church?
  • Can any one group of believers or denomination claim to be the true church?
  • Is the church that we know today in the 21st century the same church that Jesus spoke of?

Now, let me be clear about something from the very beginning: I'm no Bible scholar. I'm a layman. Like the majority of Christians today I make my living doing something else. I study the Bible when I can, certainly not as much as I should. Admittedly, there are times when I'm not even sure that I want to learn anymore about my Savior. I know that I want to want that though, if that makes sense. At this point in my relationship with Jesus and in my research on this subject I'm not even sure whether to capitalize the word "church". The point of this exercise is obviously not to show you how much I know but for you and me to learn from each other and from those who have come before.

I will focus this study on the Bible itself and supporting study materials like concordances, dictionaries, and a few commentaries. I've been going through a study of "Grasping God's Word" by Duvall and Hays with some other Christ following men (Hi Guys!) and will try to stick to its methodology of reading and interpreting the Scriptures. I'll try to explain that methodology organically within the posts where needed. That may require a whole new series of posts someday though. The GGW study has been very enlightening to say the least.

Finally, I want to encourage your participation with this series (and this blog in general!). I'm much more interested in a dialogue than a monologue because, frankly, I just don't feel like I'm all that interesting on my own. Tell me what you like, what you disagree with, maybe you could even tell me what questions you'd like answered in a series like this. I'll sure someone out there has some answers that they'd love to share with us!

First up is "What is the church?" Stay tuned...