Weekend Would You Rather - Work Travel

Would you rather:

Travel all over the world for work (you'd have some time to see the sights here and there, but your primary purpose would be to accomplish work)

or

work every day in the same office within miles of your home?

Bonus question: What would change your mind?

The "Starter" Home

We sold our house on Tuesday. Closed. Done. Strange. And a bit of a relief. Here are some of the things I've learned from our "starter" home experience. I'm no expert, but I wanted to get my thoughts down in writing for at least our future selves when we decide to buy again:

1 - Buy low, sell high. Not the other way around. This involves both timing the market AND finding a great deal. We bought at the peak, but it was a pretty good deal, so it didn't end up setting us back too much. We also bought small, which limited our upside potential, but also served to minimize the downside risk. Which brings me to the next item:

2 - Buying a home is a big, risky investment (don't listen to anyone who tells you otherwise), especially if you ever plan to move. We closed on Tuesday, and though we lost a few thousand in equity because of all of the costs of selling and closing (the selling price was actually slightly higher than what we paid for it, but commissions and fees were a considerable chunk of change), we're grateful not to have to bring a bunch of money to the table to sell our house.

3 - Contribute a 20% (or more) down payment. It avoids the requirement of paying mortgage insurance, helps you get a better rate, and makes it less likely you'll ever get caught upside down in your mortgage (though there's no guarantee - there are plenty of people who have lost a lot more than 20% of their home value in the last 2 to 3 years, which again is evidence that buying a home is a risky investment).

4 - Find an excellent real estate agent. Don't settle for less than the best, whether you're buying or selling. It makes a huge difference to have someone who really knows how to price a house, find good deals, make sure everything runs smoothly, document everything properly, be your advocate but also a voice of reason, etc. We've really been impressed with our real estate agents (they're a married couple that work together) and feel very grateful to have found them through our friends' referral.

5 - Have more than one exit strategy. It was very comforting and useful to know that we didn't HAVE to sell our house if we couldn't negotiate a win-win deal with the buyer (we were ready to keep it and rent it out as an investment property). If we didn't have that option, we may not have been able to hold our ground during negotiations. It's never fun to have your back up against a wall during the negotiation process, especially when it's something as significant as a house. Which also implies that you should:

6 - Buy within your means. A home should be a blessing, not a leash/tether/chain that binds. Buying something you can reasonably afford without maxing out your budget is wise. If you don't have a good amount of leeway in your budget for saving money each month, you're stretching your paycheck too thin. There are other houses out there for less money. Leverage is only a good thing up to a point, even for businesses.

7 - Expect all kinds of unexpected costs. Like the deductible on a new roof after a serious hail storm. Or a new air conditioning unit when the old one dies. Or even just the money it takes to furnish and decorate your home to your satisfaction. The list of ways you could spend money to fix up, take care of, and decorate a home is lengthy, to say the least.

Those are the big ones. Did I miss any?

In our case, these suggestions will have to wait several years before we're ready to apply them. For now, we need to re-learn all about renting! Any pointers? Janssen's in Boston right now to find a nice little apartment to call our new home.

Stand

After taking a mid-term exam at school this morning, I came home and made a peanut butter and jam sandwich.

As I finished the last few bites (it was very satisfying), I noticed I was still standing/leaning up against the counter and staring out the window while eating over the cutting board on which I had made my sandwich.

Janssen thinks I'm a little crazy for eating while standing up at the counter. She much prefers sitting down at the table where she can read a book or open google reader on her iBook.

Admittedly, I sometimes sit and read while eating, too. But more often, if I'm eating alone, I stand and think about whatever happens to be on my mind. Standing is less of a commitment, is more convenient, and is surprisingly liberating.

As you can see, crazy things happen when Janssen's away.

Home Price Predictions Through 2012

I found an interesting article on Yahoo Finance that predicts how the real estate market will progress over the next three years. It helps me feel that much more comfortable about our choice not to buy another home right away in Boston.

Predictions, as a whole, are based on the idea that the overall market will still see another year or so of decreasing home prices, and then it will take at least another two years after that to recover to end-of-2008 levels.

Here's the link for Yahoo Finance. It specifically mentions Salt Lake City, Phoenix, and Las Vegas.

The full slide show that includes a brief prediction for every state can be found here at Business Week.

Working Out - A Weekly Minimum

Part Trois
(See also Part I: Waking Up and Part II: Turning Point)

A Supplementary Element to Weight Loss
Had you challenged me to lose 20 pounds in January, I would have immediately pictured myself spending hours and hours exercising at the gym.

That much extra time - maybe 1 or 2 hours per day - would have seemed doable in the short-run if I made it a high priority, but in the long-run, when I have less flexibility in my schedule (school is a flexible, self-motivated kind of busy), allocating that much time to exercising consistently over the years seems much less sustainable or desirable.

Fortunately, I've since learned that exercise need not be the main driving force behind weight loss. With my change in diet alone, I had enough of a daily caloric deficit to be able to lose weight without exercising much at all.

That said, regular exercise can provide a ton of health benefits, and even if it wasn't the main driving force of my weight loss, it certainly helped to burn calories, tone muscles, brighten my mood, strengthen my bones, strengthen my heart and lungs, and increase my energy levels.

A Minimum
Thus far, aside from food choice and portion control, I have solidified only one part of my long-term physical fitness goal - exercising a minimum of three times per week for the rest of my life.

I love that goal. It has proven enough to provide all of the above-mentioned benefits, and it has also proven to be fairly easy to accomplish as long as I get out to the gym at least by Tuesday.

I could certainly do more. I could get into better shape by adding all sorts of cross training, weight training, and core/leg/upper body exercises to my current routine.

But I find great comfort in knowing that I've found a reasonable, minimum workout schedule that provides all sorts of health benefits and that I can realistically hold myself to for the rest of my life. That's sustainable, healthy living.

Current Routine
The length of time, intensity level, and type of exercise I do are elements of my routine that will remain flexible. So what you see here is subject to change. But this is what I've been doing for the last three months:

• Time: 30 minutes
  
• Intensity level: I push myself to go a little faster each week.
• Type of exercise: I run on the treadmill (occasionally outside, where I tend to run further and longer, but where it's blazing hot and uncomfortably humid)
• Other: I do at least 60 push ups using the Perfect Pushup every other day at home, I do a minimum of 35 pull ups at the gym after running, and I try to stretch and do 100 sit ups each day. None of these three additions to my routine take very much time at all, they're all doable even when I don't have access to a gym (pull ups can take some looking around, but most parks have some sort of bar you can use), and they cover some of the major muscle groups without requiring a lot of extra time and commitment.
  

Over time, I intend to add a wider variety of exercises that I can rotate through to touch more of my muscle groups. But I don't plan to change or increase the minimum amount of time I spend exercising, and I do plan to develop a solid minimum goal for the off-day exercises mentioned above so that I never find myself focusing solely on aerobic exercise to the exclusion of all muscle toning.

In conclusion, it's all about the sustainable minimum. It provides a doable plan for when, where, and what I'm going to do for a workout and leaves me free to just focus on "the burn."

Turning Point

Part Deux
(see Part I Here)

By March, I started feeling antsy for change. I felt empowered as I consistently ended each week having eaten two or fewer desserts and no "fast food."

Janssen suggested I exercise more regularly, so I committed to three trips to the gym per week. All I had to do was wake up thirty minutes earlier than usual. [More on my exercise routine later this week]

After a few weeks of that, I felt even more empowered. And I could feel my health and motivation returning. How had I allowed myself to be so inactive for so long? Was I just too busy and unsure of how to make progress when it came to fitness?

Whatever it was that had been slowing me down a little bit more, year after year, was falling by the wayside, and I was starting to remember the enjoyment of disciplined, regular exercise and more health-conscious habits.

But I was still 169 lbs. and my six-pack was still on vacation. Then one day, for some reason, for the first time in many, many years, I was suddenly very open to the idea of changing my eating habits altogether in favor of healthy living.

I had hit what I guess I'll call a turning point. I've personally known several people who have seemed to hit a similar turning point, after which they lost weight and kept if off permanently by changing their eating and exercising habits for good. They were just done being overweight, and that was all there was to it.

I never thought I'd hit that point because I never thought I'd "let myself go." But as I was filled with renewed energy and enthusiasm for healthy living, I started to feel like I really had "let myself go" over the past few years, and the desire to fight against that and to get back on track suddenly hit me like a panda on horseback riding by (just making sure you're still with me). I was ready to change.

On March 25th, as Janssen and I drove home from school, I told her that I was going to start counting calories to gain better control over my body. I didn't want to be in the dark anymore when it came to what I should be eating, and how much of it I should be eating. She suggested I use FitDay.com, which proved to be a helpful tool (I've recently been told that Nutrition Data is equally, if not more, useful).

Counting calories is not something I ever thought I'd do. But it worked like a charm. And I'm now a full and complete convert to the "calories in, calories out" train of thought.

Granted, that description is overly simplistic. I know that not all calories are created equally, and the body has impressive mechanisms for adapting to differing levels of caloric intake and exercise. But by limiting my caloric intake, I started losing weight immediately, which was very encouraging.

And the process of limiting my calories each day made me take a much more serious look at the nutritional values and comparative satisfaction levels of what I was eating. Importantly, such scrutiny helped me develop a much deeper appreciation for healthy food choices [more about counting calories later this week].

I knew I had a few extra pounds. But I wouldn't have guessed that in a little over 2 1/2 months I'd have lost 20 pounds. Twenty pounds! Who knew I was lugging around a toddler worth of extra weight? (to be fair, I readily admit that my body has gotten rid of BOTH fat and muscle, and possibly water, ligaments, and whatever else it felt like it could spare).

Here's my weight-goal graph from FitDay:

It was really gratifying to watch this graph form, week by week. My initial goal was 154, but when I surpassed that last month, I lowered it to 150. Now I've gone below that by one pound, and even now I have some fat left to lose (I'm not talking unhealthy loss, either. It really is amazing how our bodies hide extra weight by distributing it everywhere AND in particular areas).

I don't plan to lose more muscle, though. [More about that later this week]

In the meantime, let me know if you have any questions or comments. I hope I'm not coming across as a know-it-all about this stuff. I'm not an expert by any means.

But I feel like I've made some major breakthroughs in understanding health, fitness, and fat loss, and it's exciting to have developed a new perspective that makes a healthy lifestyle seem much more attainable and sustainable in the long run.

Waking Up

A year ago I posted 10 reasons why I felt old and another 10 defending my youth. Since then, I've changed some of my lifestyle habits and I currently feel better than I have in years. I'm not completely sure about this next claim since 10 whole years have passed, but I seem to be in roughly the same physical shape now as when I consider myself to have been in my peak physical form in 1999.

Two Goals that Woke Me Up
Janssen and I made goals at the beginning of the year to avoid "fast food" during 2009 and to limit ourselves to only two desserts per week.

I don't know if these two goals actually did all that much for my health because I was still eating whatever I wanted aside from those two categories and I wasn't exercising regularly.

But goals that required a weekly accounting to myself and to Janssen resulted in more regular contemplation of self discipline, portion control and health - concepts that were once dear to me, but that had slowly been losing ground over the years to relaxation, plate-polishing, and excessive desserts.

Another Goal to Explain My Dilemma
Admittedly, I made another health-related goal at the beginning of this year. It was to "bring the six-pack back." That only lasted until about January 10th when I realized what a dumb, unsustainable goal that was (it's funny how quickly I rationalized it away when the year actually began). A six-pack wouldn't be worth the struggle, and even if I put in all the effort to actually achieve such a goal, I wouldn't be able to (or want to) maintain it due to the serious lifestyle changes it would require.

I remember browsing various "8-weeks to the perfect six-pack" programs online, and it was clear that it could be done with much sacrifice, but I it just wouldn't be worth it to me if I couldn't maintain it at least to some degree.

Sustainability Is Good, But It Was Holding Me Back
It has always seemed important to me to develop habits that are sustainable through even the busiest times of life. Last summer was the first time I can remember embarking on a fitness goal without believing it was very sustainable.

I was successful at gaining some muscle, but my routine had to be performed at the gym and crowded out other exercise priorities (i.e., running). I didn't like it (nor did I like the beefy look on me - to the very small extent that I started to see it in myself - and I didn't like the extra fat in my face and neck from the oodles of calories I was eating that included supplemental Protein shakes).

Running has always seemed like an ideal exercise because it can be done just about anywhere (even outside in cold weather, though I much prefer the gym), and it has always seemed rewarding in terms of making me feel fit.

But by itself, running has never controlled my weight to any great degree. I can work up to running 3 or 4 miles in 20 or 30 minutes and still be as hefty as I've ever been (granted, that's not very hefty, but it's certainly noticeable to me).

It has always taken extremes, like my Nov. 2007 goal to run 100 miles in a month, to actually lose weight just from running (I lost about 5 pounds that month). It may keep the pounds from accumulating very quickly, and it's certainly good for my heart, but I'm convinced that sustainable levels of running, alone, can't control my weight.

With that mindset, I had long been worried that I might not ever again get into great physical shape and maintain it. And I knew that changing my eating habits was out of the question. It seemed far too extreme. And I didn't want to live a life of HUNGER and DEPRIVATION!

The Wheels in My Head Start to Turn
Then again, Janssen and I seemed to have found some pretty reasonable eating habits that could turn into lifestyle changes without too much effort or sacrifice.

After all, the two desserts per week goal leaves room for some serious dessert enjoyment, just within reasonable, balanced limits.

And the no "fast food" goal is sustainable as a general rule. We still eat pizza (preferably our favorite home made with wheat crust introduced to us by Sarah) and Subway sandwiches here and there. And we may make exceptions for an In-n-Out burger from time to time (I haven't yet. Janssen?), or even a chicken sandwich from Wendy's if it becomes necessary during a vacation or something (don't want to be crazy about it). But it's a good, sustainable general rule to keep us from habitually eating some of the junk food our nation produces so generously.

To be continued . . .