TLDR: Shedding Liabilities and Lbs

Too Long Dad Recap

What life changes have you made this year? I’ve made some moves, including these since the beginning of the pandemic:

• Cars: -1
• Bodyweight: -17lbs
• Household incomes: +1
• Private school tuitions: -1
• Vacation homes: -1

We’ve been taking a hard look at our lifestyle and re-assessing expenses we may not need to continue to incur. We moved one of our kids back into public school, shedding a tuition. A few months back, we sold our third car, it was not longer necessary in the new work from home world. My wife (a CPA) got a new, more permanent job at a great firm. Finally, this week, we sell our vacation home in the woods of rural Pennsylvania.

Shedding Another Liability

We bought the house 4 years ago and had some amazing memories there as a family, but its usefulness has run its course. The house was purchased to serve as a winter and summer getaway place that could be used for ski weekends in the winter and pool, golf and lake weekends in the summer.

We used the house frequently for ski weekends, but we didn’t use it as much in the summer. Then, in the early days of the pandemic, we found we preferred the comfort of our home here. We have more space here at our primary residence, everyone has their own space and things, plus I have the garage gym.

Will I need my car again if I have to be in the office every day and need to get to the airport a couple of times a month? Maybe. But my office is around 1.5 miles from my house, so maybe I can get by walking, biking or scootering there in the future.

Will I regret giving up a cabin in the woods in the future? We don’t think so, we are all ready to travel to different places on vacations in the future. I definitely will not regret saving private school tuition and losing excess bodyweight. There is never a bad time to step back and look at where you can remove excess and retain more for investing or saving.

Things I Ate this Week: Put that Cookie Down!

My diet was on point and I ramped up daily activity levels, but the weight didn’t move in the right direction. It was disconcerting and a wake up call to the fact that my body is not going to let me get below 170 lbs body weight without a fight (last week I hit 170.2lbs, lowest in 6 years). But I know I could have been better and not eaten those couple of balls of frozen cookie dough each day.

My average weight the last 7 days was 172.1 pounds, up from 171.4 pounds last week. The solution is to eat a couple hundred fewer calories, to put the fork down.

Things I Lifted this Week: New Deadlift

This was week 4 of the 12-week strength training program I am currently running. It included a new variation for deadlifts: wide stance, snatch grip deadlifts. That movement was the focus of two separate deadlift days this week.

It felt odd at first, but after receiving some direct feedback (via DM on Instagram) from Jonnie Candito himself (who uses the variation in his programming), the movement felt more comfortable and I upped the weight to 260lbs for 5 reps for the second session. In this block, the goal is to hit 315lbs for 5 reps in a few weeks. We’ll see.

Could Barefoot Squats Be the Answer?

Outside of the deadlift work, my other lifts are doing ok. Squat form remains an ongoing battle. Ankle mobility is lacking, which causes my heels to come off the floor.

Several of my Instagram friends are having success lately by switching from using heeled shoes for squats to barefoot squatting. Some have suggested I might want to try barefoot squatting as a way to fix how forward I get when I squat.

The theory is that if I am barefoot, I can root my heel to the ground, gripping the floor, which can help keep my heel from coming up. It sounds great in theory.

Without an elevated heel, however, I literally fall down backwards when trying to squat to depth and stay on my heels. It may be time to seriously consider some mobility work, even though I generally believe it to be a waste of time.

Things I Watched and Read this Week

• Pivot week video from Alan Thrall was entertaining and informative

• Jonnie Candito video with conventional deadlift max out
  • Pretty great to see what max effort looks like for a pro powerlifter.
  • YouTube Video here
• T-Nation Side Plank March article (article link)
  • Good exercise to try as a warmup before trying to lift heavy to prime your bracing muscles

Dad Report: Golf Musings

I grew up playing quite a bit of golf. It was a great passion of my grandfather, who would take me to play at the country clubs he was a member of in Houston and Colorado (where he summered).

Golf was also something fun to do with my father, while he was still around. With him, I’d have more fun at lower quality courses (public courses in Houston, later the McAllen Country Club in McAllen, TX).

But when I got to high school and college, golf tailed off. My career and kids left little time to consistently play. I average around 1-2 rounds per year now, usually on work outings. Each time I play I am reminded of what a massive time suck the game is.

This week, I had one such work outing, a round hosted by my boss where I was joined by two colleagues. It was the first time the four of us had seen each other in person in 5 months.

I threaded the needle for these types of rounds: played just good enough not to embarrass myself, but not good enough to want to make a habit of playing. I even got a few positive comments on how smooth the swing looked.  A few pars, like 3, several bogeys. I did not lose a single ball, which I do not think has ever happened. Also, my pitching game was solid, maybe that sort of touch just comes with the wisdom of age…