Originally posted to BMGS 1.0 11/7/2007: 2 million reasons to cut back to 2,300 calories

If you've ever wondered why there have been so many mentions of the Red Sox on this blog that is supposed to be about losing weight, yesterday the planets came into perfect alignment and the question was answered.

According to his "38 Pitches" blog, 40-year-old pitcher Curt Schilling agreed to a 1-year contract to remain with the Sox Monday night, and the contract includes a $2 million weight incentive.

Yes, $2 million. All he has to do for that $2 million is "make weight" at 6 randomly scheduled weigh-ins during the course of the year.

What a country, hmm? It does make good sense both for the player and the team, and my guess is that it will make a big difference in helping Schill to meet the other key incentive in his contract, which parcels out up to $4 million as he hits certain levels in innings pitched.

So, many people might be a little envious here and lament the fact that we all can't pick up a serious check just by having a salad or two, I am a caring, giving spirit (and a Sox fan for lo these past 50 years).

My mission here is to offer some assistance.

The challenge for Curt, I think, is the challenge that I've faced and so many men face when they are at that cusp between the end of their serious "jock" career and, er, whatever it is that comes afterward. Curt's facing it at 40, whereas most men face it in their 20s or 30s.

You believe that you can work your way back into shape just by punishing your body in the gym, on the field, etc. Changing what you eat is only a minor consideration. You think you can cut back on a beer or two, drop the desserts (at least until after midnight), and cover for it all by burning off a thousand calories a day at the gym. A guy who is in pretty good shape can make that work for a while, but he runs the risk of overtraining, especially when his body is beginning to break down a little bit to begin with.

So here's what Curt needs to do. He's 6'4" and he will turn 41 a week from today. Although his baseball bio says he weight 215, I suspect that's what he weighed when he was photographed for this 1988 New Britain Red Sox baseball card. My estimate is that he goes 275 to 280 now.

At 275, with moderate exercise, his basal metabolic rate to maintain that weight is 3,822 calories a day. If he cuts 1,500 calories a day from that figure, he can still eat over 2,300 calories a day, which allows for plenty of good steaks, chicken and seafood and even an occasional dessert or beer. (One or the other, not both).

It's not rocket science. It's that simple.

Do the math, dude.

At that rate, he'll lose 3 pounds a week (1500 x 7 / 3500 = 3) between now and mid-February, when pitchers and catchers report to Spring training. He'll weigh 235 then, he'll look great, and he'll be ready to pitch. He'll still be strong as a bull, and he'll have a little extra jingle in his pocket.

If he keeps it up through the season, he could get down to his rookie playing weight by the World Series and then in 2009, his first year of retirement, he'll be able to run the Boston Marathon with his lovely wife Shonda. Which will no doubt lead to another bloody sock.

The real benefit would be long-term, of course. Like me, Schill has a choice between going through the rest of his life as a load or as a healthy, relatively fit guy. As my friend Nick has mentioned, being 6'4" or 6'5" can cover for you only for a while. I fully expected to start seeing Schill at Subway and BoLoco when I am there to pick up my calorie-counted subs and burritos.

Go, Schill!

Update: As you are probably already aware, the point was moot. Schilling's arm problems kept him from ever rejoining the active Red Sox roster again, and he retired from baseball without -- one assumes -- ever getting paid for a weigh-in.

Student of the month - Originally posted to BMGS 1.0 - Tuesday, October 23, 2007

JUNE 19, 2009: I drove down to my old stomping grounds last night for a nice dinner with a great friend and a terrific meeting back "home." The pillow was awfully comfortable when I first opened my eyes at 6:54 this morning, but somehow I managed to be in the pool an hour later for 26 laps. We endure. Happy Juneteenth!

Originally posted to BMGS 1.0 - Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Student of the month

My daughters were never skeptics about their old man when they were little. They called me “Little Man” 20 years ago, for reasons that I am sure had nothing to do with this blog or its naming. I think it was a nice counterbalance for them, a way of taking me and my deep voice and authority and bringing me down to their scale. It always made me happy that they felt comfortable to do that. They are 29 and 27 now, and for many reasons they do not need to re-name me to bring me down to their scale.

My son, who is 9, is more of a skeptic. Not only about me but about nearly everything. That doesn’t keep him from applying himself very seriously, which is great. He does his homework without being told, he is very good to his mother, and he is the October 2007 Student of the Month at the American Martial Arts Academy in Belmont.

He takes some interest in my blog. I’m pretty sure he’d prefer if I looked like a guy on a SoloFlex commercial. I get no points for having looked like that 40 years ago.

But he did say “Good” when I told him the other day that I had hit “30” in pounds lost. 

Then he said, “You were in the 20s for a long time.”

True enough. I started at 273.4 on August 31. 

It took me 3 days to lose the first 10 pounds.

Then it took me 20 days to lose the second 10.

And 28 days to lose the third 10.

I explained that weight loss does slow down a little the longer you are at it.

Then I explained the more important reason, which may be evident in the food and exercise logs here but about which I may not have been properly analytic.

It’s the Red Sox. Sort of.

I’m not just making a silly excuse. About 8 months ago I stored my TV in the basement. It was taking up too much space, and I almost never watch TV. I grew up listening to the Sox on the radio, and I kind of think that baseball was made for the radio, or radio for baseball, or something.

But comes the postseason, and I am watching a good chunk of every game. When they were playing early enough I could watch at the gym while I was on the elliptical. Now they are starting all their games at about 8:30, and the gym closes at 6 or 7 on the weekend

So I have been a regular, game nights, at the Newtowne Grille in Porter Square. They know me there. A pint is $3 and 146 calories. The food has a few more calories. I have allowed it to put me over my daily calorie target a number of times. Not enough to gain weight, but to slow down the process of losing it.

So, there are only 7 games left. Some I will watch in other settings. But I will try to limit myself to just 2 or 3 at the Newtowne Grille, where I am sure they can survive without me counting their calories. If I stay on track with this, maybe it won’t take me 28 days to go through “my 30s.”

Tuesday's Soundtrack

"At the age of thirty-seven she realised she'd never
Ride through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair
So she let the phone keep ringing as she sat there softly singing
Pretty nursery rhymes shed memorised in her daddy's easy chair."



Marianne Faithfull, "The Ballad of Lucy Jordan"

"At the age of 37
she knew she'd found forever
as she rode along through Paris
with the warm wind in her hair"

Annie and I saw Marianne Faithfull perform live in a kind of recreated cabaret setting at the ART in Cambridge in the mid-90s. She's a remarkable performer, partly for the shocking transformation from what she first seemed when she appeared on British invasion shows as a teenager in the 60s, when one wasn't sure if she was anything more than Mick's arm candy. That was selling her way, way short.

Off to a good start, and "A fundamental struggle - Originally posted to BMGS 1.0 October 21, 2007"

June 18, 2009: Hugely busy day today in which I am trying to squeeze in some househunting, dinner with a friend, and a meeting on the day I already am up against my weekly Kindle Nation Daily deadline. But I have already been to the pool for 26 laps, so I am off to a good start. feeling great, getting my exercise, eating healthy. We had a nice dinner at Kitchen on Common in Belmont, around the corner from an apartment I'm scoping out and a few steps from Danny's next-year middle school. I'd never knowingly had arctic char. It was exquisite.

A fundamental struggle

30 pounds today, which pleases me much more than 29.5.

I seem to have moved beyond a little plateau, by drilling down on the basic elements that have been working for BMGS these past 7+ weeks: pay attention to the calories, and work them off. I shall keep it up.

It seems from the emails I get that nearly all my 50-something male friends are fighting the good fight when it comes to weight. We can do this. There are powerful forces working against us, but together we can fight the power!

To succeed, for me, it has required that I treat this struggle as if it was really, really important. There are ways in which I think it is important, but others in which I know it is trivial. But if I let it become trivial for me, I will fail.

My pal Stewart wrote the other day about the importance, also, of focusing on the things that are really important:

“Do good. We really are in fundamental struggle for soul and future of this country and our kids. Weigh in. We need your voice--in big fights and little ones. For instance, great news about Merle Haggard. Every word and action for democracy and people and justice matters today--great or small. Don't mean to meddle or tell you how to spend your time. But you have a gift for writing. People will read what you write. Values matter more now than ever. The country hungers for honorable and fundamental values and for folks to voice those values.”

Word.

He is right about every bit of it, and I accept the responsibility and the challenge, even as I am still feeling my way into acting on that acceptance again after lo these many years.

That said, I am drawn for a moment back to trivia.

A good night for the Boston 9 last night. Their $70-million right fielder redeemed himself after a season that had some fans calling him Nancy Drew rather than J.D. Drew. (Not me, I am a Nancy Drew fan). Tonight their $103-million #3 starting pitcher has a similar opportunity. They put it away so early and easily last night that I was able to vacate the bar sometime in the 4th inning. This was a good thing. I had worked out at the gym shortly before the game, and consequently was more than a little thirsty. Bud Light is probably not the right way to rehydrate, but it was cold and good, and I had allotted myself the calories for 4 pints. Problem was, at the rate of the pint per inning that I was sucking down, I don’t think I could have gone the full 9 innings if my team had needed me.

I first heard today’s soundtrack back in the mid-80s when I owned a community bookstore called the Dorchester Reading Authority. I used to play a Celtic music show on the weekend, which may have been a precursor of some kind to Brian O’Donovan’s program, and this song seemed to get play every week. Well-deserved play.

Go Sox!

I'm trying not to use sex to sell this blog, but tonight it is important to stand up for what is right.

Soundtrack for Sunday

I would never steer you wrong. This is a song for all ages, all races, all souls. Listen, drink in the music and the lyrics drawn directly from a man's letters to his son who had made the crossing, and the images. It is just an amazing fusion of music and narrative, and yet entirely artless.


The song was written about 25 years ago by a fellow named Peter Jones, and this recording features Robbie O'Connell, Mick Moloney and Jimmy Keane.

"I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscienc

Danger - Originally posted to BMGS 1.0 October 4, 2007

A little after 5 p.m. yesterday I was headed over to watch the Red Sox’ first playoff game with Danny, and I hadn’t made a plan for dinner.

I don’t know about you, but nothing spells danger for me, in terms of food and eating and weight gain, like a couple of hours of watching a baseball game. If there is food in the house, well … isn’t that why they have those 17 little breaks at the end of each half-inning?

I needed a plan.

I needed dinner, but that was only the beginning.

There’s a Whole Foods Market half-way between my house and my son’s, and I pulled in.

Five minutes later I walked out with vast quantities of fresh fruit (strawberries, blackberries, and bananas) and veggies (celery and carrot sticks, cherry tomatoes and broccoli florets). There was a container of ranch dip, but I took a little of that and mixed it with balsamic vinegar to lighten it up and thin it so it lasted longer.

I had most of the fruit for “dinner” while Danny had mac and cheese. Then half the veggies and my “homemade” dip sustained me quite well during the game. All in all it came to just over 500 calories, and the other half of the veggies are in my fridge.

Was it the greatest game-watching fare I have ever eaten? No, but it wasn’t the worst either.

It cost less, even at Whole Foods, than I would have spent if I had sat at a bar and watched the game with a sandwich and a beer.

And the Sox kicked some backside, which is especially nice.

Off to the gym! Have a good day.

Pheromones Redux: Adrienne Campbell-Holt

"Pheromones" is an occasional feature of this blog, in which I will share and share alike from among the reader creations and suggestions that flow back toward me. Feel free to send yours in to me either as comments on the blog or by sending me an email at hppress@gmail.com. In the next few days I will re-post a few past entries that may interest you:

Pheromones - December 8, 2007 - Adrienne Campbell-Holt

Turns out Stephen King's son is a novelist named Joe Hill. I dreamed I saw him. It's kind of funny, though, the things that any of us do to give our children a boost, or to give them distance, or to try not to seem to be giving them a boost.

I am so proud of my daughter Adrienne Campbell-Holt, mentioned here occasionally as Kippy. She is an actor, a writer, a director, a dancer, an artist, a blogger, a runner, a choreographer, a comedienne, a teacher, an arts administrator, a lefty, and a Sox fan. She is bo-coastal, not that there's anything wrong with that. She is at home in LA, Brooklyn, and Dorchester. As you can see above, she is a photographer too. But above all else, as she says on her blog, "you will never meet anyone else like me. I love, and also dance, harder than most people."

There are many other remarkable photographs on her blog, Adventures with Blue Car. And many powerful words well worth reading.

It is clear from her blog that we must see Into the Wild. And so I will.

(Update: Happily, I got to see Into the Wild with Adrienne, which doubled my enjoyment of a terrific movie. More recently, just this past weekend, I got to see the latest blossoming forth of Adrienne's amazing creativity -- she is assistant director of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson at the Public -- and to celebrate her birthday with a lovely outdoor brunch at 5 Front Street under Walt's bridge).