Diary Entry

I've discovered that having a baby around the house can be great exercise. I'm not talking about the usual picking up/carrying around/etc. stuff that's a normal part of baby care. I'm talking about real exercise in which the kiddo is an important part.

One of our favorites is World's Tallest Baby. I lay flat and hold him "standing" on my chest. From that position, I lift him straight up 10 times, then lift him and "fly" him up past my head 10 times. He loves the movement and the change of view, and it works my arm and chest muscles.

Baby Crunches are another good one. With him sitting on my chest (often drooling on my shirt, he's teething), I do gut crunches while making googly eyes and making goofy, non-exercise-related wheezing noises. He tends to laugh constantly.

When I'm feeling especially brawny, I'll do the Monkey Dance. That involves holding the boy at arm's length and swinging him gently back and forth while making monkey noises. Just like the others, this is an "exercise" best done when there are no other people around. It cuts down on the mocking.

When he's a little older and can sit on his own, we'll do pushups with him sitting on my back. I draw the line at a saddle, though!

The point of it is that, while I've heard a LOT of people use having young children as an excuse for not getting exercise, I've found a way to make my son part of my exercises. And it doubles as playtime, helping him work on his trunk and neck muscles and balance.

There's a beautiful synergy at work here. I'm working out and losing weight because I want to be around when he's older, and in a way, he's helping me do it.

The Great Diet Earthquake

In case you've been living under a rock for the last month, prepare for a shock: Atkins Nutritionals, the company responsible for the near-simultaneous boom in the beef industry and depression among breadmakers, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Almost as quickly as it dominated the industry, prompting even such diet monoliths as Weight Watchers to launch a "Core" program that's very Atkins-like in scope, the company vanished.

It all started when the Food and Drug Administration murmured something to the effect that maybe, just maybe, eliminating an entire food group from your diet might not be the best idea in the world. That was the pebble in the pond, and it wasn't long before the lines at Panera Bread were back to their former length.

So what does this mean for the wider diet world? Should we throw out all our beef and pork and pack our pantries full of pasta and Twinkies?

You know better.

The simple fact is, as long as your doctor clears it, any plan that gets you started losing weight is a good thing. Being overweight may be the biggest single threat to your health short of smoking, sticking needles full of illicit substances in your veins or working as a convenience-store clerk in a bad neighborhood.

I know people who have used the Atkins collapse as a sorry excuse for giving up on losing weight altogether, acting as if Atkins was a close, treasured friend who had betrayed them. Perhaps more aptly, they act as if Atkins was their One True Love, and now that they've been left alone, they'll never love again ... and turn to consoling themselves with as much cake and pie as they can cram down their gullets.

If you lost weight on Atkins, and your health is still good, the only thing the bankruptcy means is that you might not get hit up to buy books, tapes or CDs concerning the plan quite as often. If you owned lots of stock in the company, you have my condolences, but other than that this should not affect your long-term weight-loss plans in the least.

Don't let some bean-counters' bad business decisions lead off the path and back into the fat forest.

Got a question? Comment? Brag? Drop me a line, anytime!