Endless Thread - Bonus: Dad Bods And Guppies

Episode Date: July 22, 2019

Remember in January when we talked about New Year's resolutions in our 'Get Motivated' episode? Well, 2019 is half over, so Ben and Amory give an update on their progress.

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Produced by the ILAP at WBUR, Boston. Hey, remember in January when we talked about New Year's resolutions? Oh, you don't? Shocker. We barely remember either, but we made a whole episode about it. And we told you we would update you. It's endless thread bonus update time. So, Ben, as you may remember, when we did our Get Motivated episode back in January, we each made a resolution for ourselves.

Yeah. And we asked some listeners about their resolutions just a couple weeks ago because we were six months in. We're halfway through now. If you haven't started trying to accomplish your resolution, you still have... Times a ticking. Times a ticking, but you still have half the year. So maybe don't throw them out just yet. So we got a wide range of responses.

Yeah, we did. Someone said they wanted to get engaged, so keep us posted on that. Eating less meat, that's good. Avoiding fast fashion. Exfoliating more. I liked that one. Quitting smoking, very noble. Stretching more.

Getting better at budgeting. Journaling every day. Sending more cards, like birthday cards and thank you cards. I saw one that was like, I want to be good enough to be ill. lead climber, like a rock climbing person, and also like get in better shape and I think get my finances together and find a suitable, I was going to say find a suitable mate, but that's so weird. I mean, you know, find a person to spend my days with.

Yeah. And that person had, I think, accomplished most of those but hadn't quite found a soulmate yet. Well, that's a big item. That's hard to. That's not accomplished easily. Well, so a listener from Dallas named Kyle sent us a voice memo about one of her resolutions. Okay. And it was to lead a song in her church choir. So I am leading my song of worship this Sunday.

I'm nervous because I'm an introvert. And while I do worship with them every Sunday or most Sundays, It's completely different when you're singing by yourself. So she did that just, I know, I know. Kyle, you got this. She's got this. She did have it. She did it just last Sunday, actually, and she sent me a video of it.

Oh, amazing. Yeah, and so when she first starts out, she sounds lovely all throughout. But when she first starts out, you can tell that she's feeling tentative, at least. Finding her feet. Right? So here's Kyle in the beginning. But by the end of the song, Kyle was freaking owning it. People in the audience start standing up.

She had kind of like transported the whole room. Check it out. She's feeling the Holy Spirit. That's right. Well done. Kyle, congratulations on crossing one of your resolutions off. You crushed it. And thanks for sharing it with us.

Totally. Okay, now maybe less triumphant. Our resolution. You want to go first? You want me to go first? I can tell you mine. Okay. So I actually posted to the Luzit community.

It's basically a community for people who are looking to, you know, shed some weight, shed some pounds, get into shape, get a kind of positive routine going. And the title of this post is, I may not like it, but this is what my peak 38-year-old dad bod looks like. I have a plan, but I'm not sure it's the right plan. advice. And I got 55 comments on this thread. Some of them obviously are me, but I got a lot of feedback. Diet. I had get a fitness app that'll help me count calories. Yes, I started to do that, and then I stopped doing it. That's a lot of work. It's a lot of work, man. It's like hard enough for me to like get the food on my table, let alone try to count the calories of each meal. It's tough. There's no joy in that.

But it is actually really good sort of self-surveillance of how you're doing. Cut out all refined sugar called turkey. Well, it's been a lot of donuts between then and now. Carbs only one meal a day and have to be whole grain or whole wheat carbs. I've actually been pretty good at fully switching to whole wheat. Okay. Every once in a while I eat some white bread, but I've been pretty good in general about really making the move to whole wheat. only. And I have actually slimmed the carbs in my consumption. Lose the beer, swap out for spirits and

wine. No way. I think I've been doing all of the above. So no eating after 10 p.m. I am actually better about that. But every once in a while, if I haven't eaten enough for dinner or something like that, you know, I'll sneak something after 10. But usually I've been pretty good about that. Eat butt ton loads of veggies, drink but ton loads of water. I've been pretty good on those fronts. Probably not as much water as I should. Generally cut back on dairy. Chill with the cheddar cheese swap whole milk for skim or soy.

It's a little tough. It's been a little tough to do that because I live in a house with two small children who like basically drink gallons upon gallons of whole milk all the time. So it's like it's kind of weird. Blame it on the children. Yeah, it's my children's fault. But no, it is kind of weird to like go to the grocery store and like buy two different kinds. of milk. I don't know. That's been kind of a thing. But I actually have been cutting down on dairy.

Four hours per week of exercise, I'm actually kind of doing that. Yeah. You come in talking about your workout in the morning. Bragging about my workout? No, I have been. I have been pretty good about that. I feel like if I were had to fight somebody to the death now, as opposed to back in January, I might live slightly longer in that fight now. Okay. get more sleep, I've been doing pretty good on that front too. Okay. So I just really need to, I think, get back to my commitments on the food front, especially the, like, cutting out sugar, cutting out beer, you know, this stuff is tough.

That, yeah, it is. And that's what I was going to ask is six months in, halfway through, are you feeling like you want to crack down on what you called Operation Dadbod to Radbod? or are you feeling like, did you not remember that you called it that? I forgot that I called it that. Oh, I remembered. Oh, man. Are you feeling like you want to crack down and keep pushing forward?

Or are you feeling like, you know, I've made some improvements and I'm happy with these and try again next year? This is a good question. I think I feel good. I think I feel like I've made some positive improvements. I'm not in the Radbod zone, as we all know. But I have. Our listeners don't know. They've probably never seen you.

You guys, I have a radical bod. You could say you had made it to rad pod. They've seen my pictures in the plates episode. That's right. This is not a good look. But yeah, I feel like, you know, recommitting to some of the diet stuff would help me move farther. And a lot of people in the Luzet community actually sort of talk to me about this and said, like,

look, this is a journey. It's not something that you're going to do immediately. it's something that you're just going to have to keep working on and make slow improvements over time. And I feel like I'm on that track. So I feel pretty good about it. Well, speaking of slow improvements. Yeah, man, you've been making these swimming appointments for it feels like six months.

Well, I'm going to tell you about my resolution in a minute. At Radio Lab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science, neuroscience, chemistry. But, but we do. also like to get into other kinds of stories. Stories about policing or politics. Country music. Hockey. Sex.

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Reach new audiences. Whatever your goal, we can help. Discover how the magic is made at WBUR.org.org slash creative studio. All right. So my resolution, as you may remember, was to learn how to swim

because I'm a good treader of water. I think we call it Operation Guppie to Operation Minnow. Great white. Yeah, but my swimming technique is, it's just non-existent. And I wanted to change that so that I feel more confident in the water. So I found a swim coach for myself on Reddit. Hi, I'm Leah. I'm actually a nurse out at MGH. I swam since I was six. I swam collegiate for Butler, did masters. I swam in Canada and a couple other countries. And, I'm a lot of We're here to do a swim lesson. So Leah's clearly legit.

And clearly in the pool. Yes. Like at the pool. Exactly. So I met Leah for the first time at the beginning of June, which means it took me about five months to take my first swim lesson. Mm-hmm. But I met up with her at the gym that I go to. And here's proof that I got in the water.

And here's a little bit of me mid-swim lesson. You did do it. What did I do? Yeah. It sounds a little bit like you went under there. Or at the very least, it doesn't sound like you're moving quickly. I probably did. You know what?

It was so freaking hard. I'm a runner. And so I just thought like, this won't be that bad. I just need a little bit of technique, but I have all the strength. So wrong. So wrong. And the technique is, for anyone who actually is a swimmer, knows that the technique is not just like arms, legs, good to go. It's like, she.

You know, it's head and breathing. Yes. was calling me out constantly on like cheating on my breathing and doing that wrong and like you're supposed to as you drag your arm out of the water you're supposed to make a nice shark fin position with your elbow and keeping all of that in my head while just trying to literally stay alive in the water was very stressful so I told her at the time that I would swim once a week and I have not gotten back in the pool since that lesson. You know, I feel like this is like unfair because I feel like you are so good with eating food

and I'm so good with swimming. We should just trade. We should just trade resolutions and then we'll be crushing it. Yeah. But it's not because of Leah. Leah was amazing. She really gave me like a nice progression of things to try. Nice.

And yes. And I'm a little bit injured right now, but I am determined. She really did motivate me to get back in the pool. So I will. I promise. Get in the pool, man. Okay. And to all of you out there who made resolutions... You get in the pool, too. You get in the pool, too. Good luck.

No running. Everybody in the pool. No running. And just know, we are right there with you. We really are. I'm Ben Brock Johnson. I'm Amory Sebertson. And we'll talk to you on Friday.