2011 was not a good year for blogging. I’m hoping to get back into the game in 2012. The blog posts won’t be about swashbuckling athletic adventures as I just had extensive knee surgery.

A HTO (High Tibial Osteotomy) was performed by the renowned Dr. Jack Farr at OrthoIndy. A cut was made through the tibia bone just below the knee and a wedge made of synthetic bone was slid into the cut to correct the misalignment of the leg due to deterioration of the medial meniscus. The wedge is held in place by a plate and screws. Sound painful? Yes, it was! The advantage of this surgery is that I will be able to return eventually to a normal active lifestyle.

In the meantime, I have plenty of time for blogging.

I’d like to tell some witty anecdotes and explore some ideas. Despite my earlier protestations against politics, I find no alternative other than to vent on the state of the nation and the state.  I’m still available at me@danthomas.me if you have any suggestions for posts or just crazy random ideas.

Franklin County High School

Yesterday I traveled to Franklin County to do an annual Ironman presentation in my sister’s English classes.  The classes have read the novel Ironman by Chris Crutcher.  The novel revolves around a troubled teen who finds resolution and redemption in the world of triathlon.

As always the classes were very attentive and welcoming with a lot of great questions.  Thank you for allowing me to come and share my passion for triathlon.

Alright, it’s been one month and I’m still going strong.   I’ve lost 3 inches around the waist at the navel  and 2.5 inches around the chest.  My percentage of total body fat is down by 3.8 % in one month.  At one point I was down 12 pounds, but the increase in muscle mass has made it a net loss of 8 pounds at this point.

After a month I’ve found that the keys to this are the strength training and the lean proteins.  With lean proteins (unlimited quantities) you get the feeling of fullness without the resulting crash two hours later.  Examples of lean proteins: egg whites, chicken breasts, legumes, fish, lean pork cuts, hemp protein.

“The ducks never get into a row.  Shoot them and enjoy the soup.” –Dan Thomas 2011

Accountability posting.

“That which gets measured, gets managed.”     A mistake that I’ve made in the past with weight-loss is rolling by the seat of my pants. Ya’ need data in order to manage effectively. So, here’s this week’s data:

Waist at navel: 39 inches! (yes! I couldn’t believe that number. down 2 inches in one week!)

Chest  40.5 inches (down .5 inches)

Weight: 192 lbs. (down 6 lbs.)

I was elated at these numbers. Makes me feel like the effort was well worth it.  Tomorrow is my scheduled binge day.  You read that right. A binge day. It’s part of the rules.

Oh! By the way, here are the rules:

1.) No white foods. (Or foods that could be white) No breads, no pasta, no rice, no cereal, no sugar.  No starches.

2.) Eat the same few meals over and over. Simplicity is best. Lean proteins are best. Lots of vegetables.

3.) Don’t drink your calories. Avoid calorie-rich drinks. Diet drinks cause a rebound hunger. Drink lots of water.

4.) Don’t eat fruit.  Eat your fill on the off day.

5.) Take one day off per week. My favorite rule. Avoids the body going into a starvation mode and hoarding fat. Plus, increases long-term compliance in the diet.

That’s it.  Courtesy of The 4-Hour Body by Timothy Ferriss

Susie was horrified when I told her about blogging about my new healthy lifestyle and had posted all my stats. Not horrified that I did it, but just couldn’t imagine doing that herself.

“The biggest lies are the ones we tell ourselves.” Total honesty is essential to make this work.  Accountability is another key component.  When coming up with a strategy for my new healthy lifestyle, I searched through a lot of the literature on weight loss. Much of it is a rehash of the same old thing. Calorie theory is great if you’re talking about burning wood.  Calorie is a measure of food actually being burned as in incinerated.  None of it factors in the fact that individuals have widely varying biochemical make-up.  

The 4 Hour Body only spends one page on the diet.  It spends much more time on motivational tools to actually follow through on that one page. Ultimately, that is where “diets” go astray.

Also, there is the need to keep accurate stats.  Without a measure of success or failure we are adrift.  A daily assessment of status allows us to adjust and make changes before the whole program goes awry.

Day 1 was a success.  One adjustment is to stagger meals out so I’m not as hungry at night.

Before Picture: January 1, 2011, 198 lbs.

Unvarnished. I’ve noticed in social media most people portray themselves in the best possible light.  And some post pictures that were taken decades before and falsify stats.

I’m fat. Let’s not mince words. For this accountability post on my blog to be helpful it needs to be honest.  I could go into a myriad of excuses as to why I am currently fat, but that would not be helpful.

Today, January 1, 2011 I weigh in at 198 lbs. My chest circumference is 43 inches, the widest point of my gut is 41 inches.  I’m not planning on monitoring weight, however, as I find Percentage of Body Fat (PBF) a better yardstick of fitness.  Today my  PBF is 24.5%.   Statistically, not terrible. But, definitely out of my comfort range. My goal is to get back to the fitness I enjoyed in November 2005.

As a general strategy I’m using advice from Tim Ferriss’s Four Hour Body. Increasing muscle mass to burn fuel more effectively. Low glycemic carbs, high protein diet. Unconventional wisdom.  Follow my progress. 

November 5, 2005: 168 lbs. 11.5 percentage of body fat. GOAL

Hoosier sweet corn

Related Sidebar: Every summer my family looks forward to delicious sweet corn.  We buy ours from a flatbed truck on the side of Highway 258 near our home.  The sweet corn is piled onto the back of the flatbed truck and there is a blue Maxwell House coffee can that you put your money into.  There is no set price or anyone tending the corn.  You pay what you think it’s worth.  We usually pay $2.00 per dozen. It wasn’t until the third summer that we lived west of Cortland that I actually saw the farmer.  I asked him about the coffee can and he said, “If you expect people to be honest, they usually are.”

On the completely other end of the spectrum we have the Indiana State Travel Department.  State employees submit their travel mileage on a cumbersome paper form.  For each trip made, state employees need to attach a printout of the mileage from the Rand McNally website.  For some reason a given trip can vary from day to day.  The Earth must expand and contract between Seymour and Freetown.  Generally, it takes a state employee around three hours to complete the mileage reimbursement form each month.

Once the form is properly filled out it takes between four to six weeks to receive the reimbursement. Why?  Each and every form is inspected by the Travel Department.  The State of Indiana pays a group of sex-starved hags $18.00 per hour, if you include benefits, to go through each travel form with a fine-tooth comb.Not randomly audited,mind you.  The forms are sent BACK to the local office for the slightest infraction.

Bitter sex-starved hags

For example,  all state forms MUST be signed in BLUE ink. Our local office director forgot to sign the forms in blue ink and all the forms were returned.   One month, my form was sent back because there was a 40 cent discrepancy due to the variation in the Rand McNally website mileage.  This 40 cents required a series of emails back and forth with the sex-starved hags.  So, now you have a couple state employees spending precious work time haggling over 40 cents. The State of Indiana pays an employee $18.00 per hour to catch a 40 cent error. It is common practice to add a couple trips to the mileage as a form of “F__k you!” tax because of the hassle and time spent filling out the form and dealing with the sex-starved hags.

The State of Indiana also pays fraud investigators who audit Medicaid, Food Stamp, and TANF benefits paid out.  If you include benefits, the state pays $45,000 a year per investigator.  In a given year, a fraud investigator will never catch $45,000 in benefit fraud. The most common error is that families are not including household members that would entitle them to more benefits.

Ultimately, behavior is a self-fulfilling prophesy.  If we expect dishonesty, it is what we receive in return.

“If you expect people to be honest, they usually are.”

My nemesis

I hate THE BOOT.

The boot is my enemy. Yet, it is also my constant companion since Thanksgiving. I broke a metatarsal  bone in my left foot. Not a good bone to break, as it take a long time to heal.

The boot has affected all aspects of my life.  Not only can I not run, I can barely walk.  The boot throws me off balance and is also like a ski in the snow.  I’ve had several spills trying to walk down our hill.

Alas, I am down, but not out. As luck would have it, I should be free of the boot by January 1st.  I plan to start the New Year with renewed resolve to get back to my sparring weight and get into top form.  I’ve done several times before and I can do it once again.

December 22, 2004. It snowed. A lot.

By the time the snow had subsided on December 23rd, we measured 29 inches total.  Our quarter-mile driveway had drifts above my waist.  Barb, a lady from worked, called and asked if we needed her brother-in-law to come plow our driveway with his tractor. Of course, I said “yes”.

On the trip over, the tractor stalled on the steep hill leading to our driveway and skidded out of control. It took out our mailbox and landed in the ditch. Now our only access out was blocked by not only drifts of snow, but a tractor as well.

It was all fine for a while as we had plenty of provisions stocked up.  A cozy fire in the fireplace and some hot chocolate and all was well.  Then the realization dawned that we could not get out for Christmas.  There was no way a car could get out.  We would have to travel over to the highway as the county roads has not been plowed yet. If only we could come up with some kind of sled.  I was rummaging through the barn for ideas when I spied the canoe that my dad had made nearly 30 years earlier.

Home Sweet Home

It just might work.  I tested the canoe out and it glided perfectly across the snow.  Christmas morning, Susie and I loaded up the presents and strapped the kids’ car seats to the canoe.  Susie carried a backpack with our clothing and supplies for the weekend.  The plan was for my cousin to meet us on the highway in his Jeep.  As I strapped on the harness attached to pull the “sled”, I felt that my dad was there pulling along with me.  When the canoe reached the deepest snow I was eye-to-eye with the kids in the canoe.  It took us about an hour to reach the highway in a trip that normally could be walked in ten minutes.  My cousin was waiting and we loaded the kids and presents in the Jeep and hid the canoe in the woods until our return.

The Christmas celebration had been saved.  I wish each and every blog reader a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

The Blogger.

Thomas Family, Banner, Virginia, 1932

I come from a long line of storytellers. One of my favorite childhood memories is sitting on the wrap-around porch of my grandparents’ home in Virginia on summer evenings listening to my grandparents and their eight children (my dad included) telling stories.

The home was nestled in a deep bowl surrounded by the Appalachian Mountains.  In front of the house were railroad tracks that carried coal from the nearby mines to the distant shores of Norfolk.  Lightning bugs would perform a magical show as a backdrop to the stories.

The stories were entertainment. Not a concise recitation of the barest facts, but meant as a means of sharing an experience.  The sounds, the emotions, smells, and feeling that everyone had made the journey together.  I remember these words as if they had been spoken just yesterday. My grandfather, A. B Thomas, said, “Ya’ never tell a story in strict chronological order.  Start at the end.  Hook ‘em! Then slowly reel ‘em in.” And reel me in they did.

Time didn’t seem to matter. After all, there wasn’t a precise 30 minute time-slot to fill.  No commercial breaks. The best stories took a circuitous route with elaborate sidebars and seemed to spin  out of control, only to be brought deftly full circle.  The stories had to connect and be brought back to the original starting point. Oftentimes, it appeared as if the storyteller was lost and would never make it safety back. Then, WHAM! there they were back at the beginning and applause would ensue.

Embellishment was fair game. It was the difference between riding in First-Class or riding in the cargo hold.  “Color” was the term used to describe filling the story with sights and sounds.  The characters in a story weren’t two-dimensional stick figures, but drawn from real life. And like real people, they had history, motive, texture.  Yet,  while embellishment was perfectly legal, it couldn’t alter the essence of the story.

There was a moral. While the stories were mostly humorous, often touching, occasionally bawdy; there was meaning.  My grandfather had fought the mine owners at Matewan and my grandmother was the daughter of George Swim, a colorful Indian gambler and racketeer. So, mostly the stories were about the dangers of Republicans, rich people, and those who would block the progress of anyone trying to make a better life for themselves and their families.

Karma.  If I had blurted out the word “Karma” as an 11 year-old listening to these stories, I likely would have drawn a blank stare.  Yet, Karma was the common theme among these stories. That good triumphs over evil and that, in the end, people ultimately reap that which they sow.

The story will live on.