Monthly Archives: June 2014

Health

On losing weight (Part 1)

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Many people have noticed that I have lost a lot of weight (almost 90 lbs. as of this writing) and I am frequently asked: “How did you do it?” Unfortunately, there is no simple answer to this question. There is no single “just do this.” No magic bullet. The weight loss that I have experienced is the culmination of multiple small changes made based on a long process of trial-and-error. It is my intention to catalog the steps that I have taken, via multiple blog posts over the next few months, in the off chance that it might be useful (or at least entertaining) to someone. Here’s a sneak preview of topics I intend to cover:

  1. Dan’s Weight History – Everyone has their own reasons for their health, be it good health, or bad health. Every person is a complex combination of body, soul, and spirit, and these pieces affect each other in interesting ways. In order to understand my journey to health, I think it will be helpful to understand the thoughts and feelings that led me to gain weight in the first place, and what motivated me to lose it.
  2. Noom Weight Loss App – The spark that started me on this journey, and one of my main sources of inspiration during the majority of it, was an application that I downloaded for my smartphone.
  3. Calorie Counting – Yes, I count calories. But just counting is not enough. You need to have a plan. Budget your food consumption. Know what you’re eating, and when you eat it. I’ll let you know how I go about it.
  4. Volumetrics – The decisions that I have made in changing my diet have been based mostly around the simple concept of “volumetrics”. I intend to give a brief overview of what volumetrics means, and how I follow it. Hopefully this will illuminate some of the decisions I have made.
  5. Dan’s Eating Habits – Up until this point, it’s all been background information: history and theory. This is the nuts-and-bolts. What specific changes have I made to achieve the results that I got? This section might get a bit long (winded) and may take up several posts. We’ll see how motivated I am.
  6. Other Weight Loss Changes – Researchers seem pretty unanimous in their recommendation that lasting weight loss must come from changing eating habits. Just Google “diet vs exercise” and you will come up with a whole host of articles from various sources that mostly back up this claim. However, I don’t think that diet should be the sole component of an overall weight loss strategy. In my final entry, I will outline some other changes that I have made that I believe have had a beneficial effect on my health.

So if you’re curious, stick around. Who knows. Perhaps some piece of my ramblings could spark something in your own life that starts you on a similar journey to better health. That is my hope, and prayer. I have discovered something that has been elusive to me for years. It would be selfish of me to not at least attempt to share that discovery with others.

– danBhentschel

All Things Dad

Play it again, Dad

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One of my goals as father is to help my children to find joy in their everyday, mundane tasks. I have always been a huge fan of music, and so it seems natural to me to pass on that joy of music to my young charges. With the advent of connected, do-anything, smart phones, these two objectives (enjoying daily tasks and learning music) coincide quite nicely. Let me elaborate.

I have my phone on my person at almost all times of the day. Outside doing yard work, in the bathroom brushing the kids’ teeth, cooking breakfast in the morning… At any time, I can switch on the tunes. My favorite time to crank it up is when getting ready for bed at night. Kids are going every-which-way, bedrooms, bathrooms, up and down stairs. Everyone is tired. Often emotions are high. A little bit of music just helps to smooth things over a bit.

Granted, my little phone doesn’t have the greatest audio quality, but for most situations, it is perfectly suited for some fun, unobtrusive, background accompaniment. I even have a playlist with kid-friendly music setup on my phone for just this purpose. It’s currently running around 120 songs, and I’m constantly on the lookout for new material to add to the mix.

Good sources of new music include:

  • Kids’ movies (especially the end credits)
  • Sports events (including things like Monster Jam)
  • Live shows (musicals, Disney on Ice, circus, etc.)
  • Televised events (parades, halftime shows, etc.)
  • School events (talent show, assemblies, etc.)

I have an application on my phone that I keep handy for just such times. If I hear a song that sounds exciting, or it is associated with a memorable event, then I launch “Sound Hound” on my phone. It listens to the music for a few seconds, and then (usually) is able to tell me the name of the song, and the artist. It even provides a handy link for me to buy the track from Amazon. I normally will do so (only $.99) and instantly add it to the kids’ playlist. Then later on, when they are brushing their teeth or taking a bath, the song will come on, and they will be all excited. “That’s the song from the movie we saw today, Daddy!”

I also get the inverse fairly frequently: we’ll be out and about, shopping at Wegmans or sitting at dinner at a restaurant, and one of the kids (usually Jasmin) will hear a song come on the radio and inform me, “That’s the song from on your phone, Daddy!”

It’s not a big thing. It doesn’t cost all that much in either time or money, and yet it makes quite an impression. I love it when Timmy is all excited to hear the Kidz Bop version of “Thrift Shop” come on, or when Jasmin starts hopping around (often in her undies while dressing) to the sound of One Direction, or when Jacob starts shadow boxing to “Eye of the Tiger”.

It all boils down to one simple fact: Making them happy makes me happy!

– danBhentschel