Month: September 2011

My Thoughts on the Death Penalty

As the death penalty seems to be in the news tonight, I thought I’d share my thoughts.

My feelings are not complex: I am not opposed to the death penalty as a concept. I believe that there are some crimes so heinous, that display such a complete disregard for your fellow humans, that it is not unreasonable to deprive the person who commits those crimes of his life.

That said, I am well aware that the American judicial system has massive systemic problems, and that as a result, the death penalty can be (and has been) imposed on people who were not guilty. And that is a terrible wrong. If we cannot prevent innocents from being put to death then we shouldn’t do it at all.

Or put more simply, the American justice system does not work perfectly, but I still think that some really evil bastards deserve to fry for what they did.

9/11 – Ten Years Later

The night of my 18th birthday, I spent with my family eating dinner at Windows on the World, looking out over New York City. I remember Dad bribing the headwaiter to make sure we had a good view. I remember us talking about the history of the city and how all the streets in Greenwich Village were so clearly at an angle from the rest of the grid. It was also the first night I ever tried venison (it was yummy).

Fast forward a few years, and every morning as I left my post-college Soho apartment, I would look to the left and see the World Trade Center rising over 6th Avenue as I headed for the Spring Street subway station. I’d periodically meet friends at Windows for drinks, to celebrate special events. I even considered having my wedding reception there. I’d walk through the Concourse daily, on my way to work at two different jobs. And I still have clothing that I bought in the shops there.

The World Trade Center was an integral part of my life, and of my New York.

Until the day it wasn’t.

Photo by Andrea Booher/ FEMA Photo News

Ten years now. It seems a bit unreal that it has been so long, when I can still close my eyes and go back into the utter horror and chaos and fear that was 9/11/01. I try not to, though. Even ten years later, the memories are too vivid and painful to spend much time revisiting them.

I’m not going to write about that day. I could call up the memories, put them down here, but my story is a simple one, shared by thousands of others, both too commonplace and too painful to retell. Some year, perhaps, I’ll write it all down, but not this year.

This tenth anniversary finds me outside the USA, and I have very mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, I feel like I should be at home, honoring the day in some solemn and proper way. I’m reasonably confident there will be nothing untoward today, but there’s that nagging “what if” that makes me think not being home is a bad idea. On the other hand, I have a job to do and places to be.

And then, there’s Kath. I’m in the country of her birth today.

For the first year or so after 9/11, not a day went by that I didn’t think of Kath. 10 years later, I don’t. But even so, in a way, I feel that I’m living for both of us. Or perhaps a better way of saying it is that I feel a responsibility to use this time that I have, which she did not get, in a way that honors her.

If there’s any lesson to be drawn from 9/11, it is that you can never give in to those who want to bring horror and sorrow and pain into the hearts of others. You must life your life to the fullest rather than embrace fear.

I try to remember that. For Kath, and for the 343, and for all the others whose lives ended so terribly and so suddenly, ten years ago today.

How I Lost 16 Pounds

“How hard can it be to lose five pounds?”

That’s how it started.

For a very long time, I never gave much thought to managing my weight. Bit by bit over the years there was more of me, but I gained weight so gradually, and I carried it well enough, that it rarely bothered me how the pounds were adding up (although I didn’t like that my older clothes stopped fitting after a while). This spring though, I stopped liking what I saw in the mirror. I din’t like it one bit, in fact.

So right after I got back from visiting NY for Passover in April, I decided it was finally time to make some changes.

I don’t want to call it a diet. I’m skeptical of the entire concept, frankly. Especially the big branded ones. Too many of them seem designed to part the dieter with their cash (books, special food, memberships, supplements, and more) than with their extra weight. There’s too much junk science and too many claims I find hard to believe. And too many dieters seem to gain all the weight back once they end the diet. I wanted to do something a little more sustainable.

Instead, I based my plan on two guiding principles:

1) Don’t make sacrifices that you can’t live with over the long haul.
Example: I refuse to give up putting sugar in my coffee. I hate the taste of all the sugar substitutes, and I don’t see the point of putting a bunch of chemicals into your body that trick you into thinking you just ate something sweet. Might as well just make room for the calories and have the real thing.

2) Simple is always better.
I found a great Android app that made tracking my food intake and exercise simple: Noom. What I most like about it is that it tracks your intake in a way that works both at home and while eating out, and doesn’t take a lot of time. For example, if I have a salad for lunch, Noom doesn’t ask me to enter each type of vegetable separately or figure out how many ounces of chicken I put on top. I’d record it as “heaping handful of vegetables, half a handful of chicken, tablespoon of salad dressing”. Done. Yes, it’s not pinpoint accurate, but it’s close enough. And it worked.

So how did I lose the weight? I tracked everything I ate and kept to the daily calorie allocation Noom assigned me.

How? I dropped a lot of the carbs from my diet (although not all) and became much more aware of portion sizes. I ate a lot more beans and salad, and cut down the snacks and sweets. And on the days when I said “the hell with it” and ate steak frites for lunch because I couldn’t bear to eat another salad, I didn’t beat myself up or feel like a failure. I just started again the next day back on the plan.

And it worked. Four months later, I am 16 pounds lighter. That’s roughly a pound a week lost, and I did it during a time period when I took 2 vacations (including a cruise with a LOT of good food and wine). My BMI is nicely in the normal range for my height now, and I’ve lost a full dress size. I was afraid losing weight was going to be a titanic struggle, but aside from the occasional pasta craving, it wasn’t as bad as I expected. And once the scale started showing real results, sticking with the plan got even easier, because I knew it was working.

Oh yeah and that report about women needing to work out at least an hour a day to avoid gaining weight? It’s crap, at least for me. I exercised three times a week in May and June, but I’ve slacked off the exercise more recently (ok, I admit it, I haven’t worked out since mid-July). And I still lost weight in that time.

Maybe I got lucky? I don’t know. I do know lots of people struggle greatly with their weight and that my experience isn’t universal. Still, what I did worked for me, and that’s what matters.

To sum it all up: I lost a bunch of weight. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. And now I need to buy some pants that fit. 🙂