Taking the kids to and from school is when I get some of the best gems while talking to Andrew. He’s very focused and is willing to talk your ear off about just about anything.

One thing I’ve been teasing him about, because it makes him SO upset even though it’s nothing, is calling a CVS store Walgreens, and vice versa. This is a short clip of us coming home from School the other day.

Downloads

Apple Devices (low quality)

Apple TV (full HD)

Web Version

Here are some of the photos, way too many more can be found on SmugMug

One of the best Super Bowl commercials from 2011 was the “Imported from Detroit” commercial with Eminem. The music was cool, the VO was cool and the overall look of the commercial made you want to run out and buy a new car from Detroit. This is the original spot.

Not long after that we took one our our usual trips to Detroit and we decided to make our own modified version of that, but based on the fact that I was “Exported from Dearborn” to Chicago. So, on a whim we shot a bunch of footage with our iPhones while driving, and then a lot more footage with the GoPro camera that we just happened to have on that trip with us. I have all the footage to Brenda and the audio track, and she created our own version. This is what that one looks like (if you have not seen the original, watch that one first).

I want to give a shout out to my favorite Aunt Shirley, Shirley Magdan for such a awesome time today. Thanks to her renting out a roller rink we had a great family skate this afternoon. I would have never thought to do it, but it was great fun for even the small children. Thanks Aunt Shirley, we love you!

This video was shot on my new iPhone 4s, and edited using the new FCPx. As a result, the video looks like crap because of pretty much everything being in motion and the rolling shutter problem, and I couldn’t edit in FCPx to save my life, so it’s as good as it’s going to get under the circumstances. But… it’s better than nothing I supposed. Maybe not, you can be the judge.

Room by Ikea

This time we decided not to wait until the bed was being scaled with a single leap over, and got Sydney her own bed. She’s been really good at sleeping on the floor mat at Grandma’s house so we thought she was ready. We waited for it to be assembled before we brought her into the room. I think she was a bit confused at first, not knowing what happened to her crib.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie] ]]> http://tomchak.com/blog/2011/11/12/sydneys-first-bed/feed/ 0 http://tomchak.com/blog/2011/10/10/fun-with-the-miniatures/ http://tomchak.com/blog/2011/10/10/fun-with-the-miniatures/#comments Mon, 10 Oct 2011 16:43:51 +0000 Thomas Tomchak http://tomchak.com/blog/?p=3763 This Sunday was my day with the kids, and we just had a blast. We ran some errands, went to the airport to watch a few plans take off, went to Whole Foods where they each had their own mini shopping cart, and ended the day with playing at our favorite park. Having them all in a great mood made for a really fun day. They can always put me in a good mood.

It’s been just over a week since we returned from CA, and I finally have time to take a breath and add more details about our trip to California. As I mentioned previously, we feel it went very well.

Preamble

Skip this if you just want to know about Dr. Goldberg

It ended up being a long week for many reasons. Not bad, just LONG.

First, we’ve had a small leak in the bathroom for the last 5 years (seriously). A few days before we left I finally had a plumber come out to fix it, only to find out it was not the plumbing, but the tiles on the splash wall of the bathroom were falling off and has been running behind the tiles all this time. Not so good. So not the quick fix I was hoping for, but the bathtub needs to be re-tiled, which involves removing the shower walls and being without a shower for at least a few days.

I was able to quickly find a trusted home repair service to take the job on, and they even came in with a reasonable bid. But then the more we talked it through, I realized that our crappy bathroom floor also needed to be replaced, and it just made sense to do it all at the same time. Fine – now it’s WAY more money than what a simple leak would cost to fix, but at least it’s being done while we’re gone (in both CA and MI), and will minimize the time we have to go without a shower and toilet.

The only problem ended up being that they had to start on the bathroom the day before we left for CA if it was all going to be done by the time we returned.  So, a day before we were supposed to leave for CA we had to get a hotel room near the airport so that we had a working toilet and shower. It ended up being a very nice night/morning and it was fun to stay with Max in a hotel room. He didn’t know what to make of it, but he seemed to enjoy it. Seeing things that area old experiences to you through the eyes of a child that’s doing it for the first time is always so fascinating and enjoyable. It’s one of the most enjoyable parts of having kids.

The next morning (Tuesday August 2nd) we went to the airport for our direct flight to CA. It was very interesting watching Max. You could tell he was just taking it all in. We took a train from the long term economy parking lot, waited in a long security line, and then still had 2 hours to wait for our flight at the gate. During that entire time he was very good. Amazing actually.

When we got on the plane he sat between both me and Brenda and was clearly very nervous. First by the noise of the plane, and then by the movement as we taxied to the runway. We each had a hand on his legs and he stayed calm as we took off, and enjoyed a snack and short nap during the flight. For it being such a long day for all of us, he really did great and was in a good mood up until we got to the hotel and had to wake him up in the back seat of the rental car.

The next day (Wednesday the 3rd of August) was the big day. We took a short side-trip to Santa Monica Beech and then headed to our appointment with plenty of time to spare.

Meeting Dr. Goldberg

We were both nervous and excited about meeting Dr. Goldberg. We had already read his book and felt that we knew a lot about him, but we just didn’t want to expect too much from our first meeting.

Dr. Goldberg runs a regular pediatric practice out of his LA office, but on certain days sees only parents of autistic children, like us. Most come to him because they too have read his book and are curious. Many are from the LA area, but people travel from around the world to meet with him.

Our time with Dr. Goldberg consisted of a very relaxed, informal meeting in the lobby of his practice. This seemed a bit odd at first, but the benefits were clear pretty fast. Max had plenty of room to run around and play, and there was a separate room attached that had plenty of toys to keep him busy. While the 3 of us talked, Max played and occasionally ran up to us to get attention for one thing or another. Brenda and I took turns keeping him out of trouble and dealing with his OCD with light switches.

It was clear right away that Dr. Goldberg had personally reviewed the entire pile of information we had sent him in advance. He had made notes of things he wanted to discuss with us and had mostly wanted to clarify or expand on some of the information we had provided. This spoke volumes to me personally. I have switched doctors several times over the years, and the vast majority of the time my records were never reviewed before my first meeting. It’s always obvious by the questions they ask. One doctor didn’t even know I was Diabetic until I mentioned it to him. RED FLAG! I didn’t have him for very long before I switched again.

Over the course of 90 minutes we talked at length about how Dr. Goldberg has spent years refining his treatment protocol, and how Max may fit into his course of treatment. At almost every turn, Max fit into what Dr. Goldberg calls NIDS (Neuro Immune Distress Syndrome). This condition is based largely around the idea that after a child was born, their immune system was compromised. The causes can be anything or everything from environmental to viral. For a normal healthy child with a well developed immune system, many of these things would not be a big deal. But for a child that has a compromised immune system, it stresses out the body. At some point, the child is actually considered “sick” because the body can no longer carry the stress. When this happens, many of the symptoms that I child presents with are very similar to Autism. In part this is because in recent years something that is otherwise unexplained and has some symptoms similar to Autism, it’s just all lumped together. And as we know first hand, once your child is labeled as autistic, pretty much anything that goes wrong after that is just attributed to your child having autism, and little interest is taken in it. But if Dr. Goldberg is right, a great number of children that are labeled as autistic are not suffering from a congenital neurological problem, but are actually sick. Sick in a way that can be treated. But nobody in the medical community seems to be interested in hearing that.

The other important thing to note is that there is no definitive test to diagnosis your child as autistic. It’s very subjective and based on one or more people’s opinion after spending a hour or so with your child. When Max was diagnosed, there were about 6 people in the room with us that evaluated Max at the time, and they had to have a private meeting for 20 minutes after evaluating Max to decide as a group what to tell us about him. The point is, it’s not black and white in most cases.

So after answering all of the questions, Dr. Goldberg was confident that Max fit his definition for NIDS, so we are now following his treatment protocol, which we started on Monday the 8th.

There are two major components of the protocol. First, the diet is very restricted. He can have meat, most vegetables and a few fruits (no tropical fruits). The major things to avoid are gluten, dairy, sugar and grains. Color dies are a big one as well. In fact, we have to actually remove the blue diet that’s on his medicine before he takes it because many children have negative reactions to food coloring (it’s considered an allergen). All of this may sound like a pain in the butt, but the fact is we’ve been doing 95% of this for a year now (all thanks to Brenda and all the research she’s done on nutrition). So we only had a few small adjustments to make.

The second part is the medicine. Working on the theory that he has a virus in his system, he is now taking valtrex. While this on the surface seems like a radical treatment, it’s easy to find many examples of families talking about how their child was greatly improved by this part of the treatment alone. However, in many cases the child gets worse initially before they get better. I mean this in the sense that they become even more irritable than before, and we have already seen this with Max. He’s much more hot and cold with his moods, and when he’s having a melt down it’s more intense and lasts longer. But on the flip side of that, he has been showing more eye contact this last week and has been more verbal. He’s talking more, and saying new words almost daily right now. Se we are seeing some real positives.

One amazing thing about our visit with the doctor is that we were allowed to both video tape and record audio of our visit, with no restrictions at all. I wasn’t even allowed to have a camera in the delivery room when the kids were born because of hospital policy! If I had to guess as to why he’s so relaxed about this, it’s that Dr. Goldberg wants to get his message out to people. He’s interested in helping as many people as possible, and the only way to do that is to make the larger medical community and parents aware. It’s only through parents putting pressure on the medical community that things will ever change. I have since had our entire meeting transcribed into a text document so that we can review information that was discussed just by doing a word search on the document.

You may be wondering how we can be seeing a doctor and doing such a radical treatment when we’re over 1,000 miles away. There are several ways that it’s possible.

First, Brenda sends weekly reports as requested by the office. They provided a form with specific questions about all aspects of how he’s doing. After they receive the report, the doctor reviews it and the nurse calls Brenda back with any new instructions or changes for the upcoming week.

Second, every 4 weeks we will have a conference call with the doctor, just as if we were there in person and discuss all of the particulars. We also have the option of doing a video call over Skype, which we plan to do.

The next course of treatment after the Valtrex will be decided later after we see how he responds to this part of the process. It can take up to 3 weeks to see significant changes, so we have some time yet.

After our 90 minute meeting with the doctor we were taken into one of the exam rooms where they withdrew about 23 gallons of blood from Max for a variety of tests (ok, maybe only 8 gallons but it seemed like a lot for such a small kid – but he was fine).

After screaming through the entire thing, Max was pretty tired and exhausted. Think about what a pain that would be for a 3 year old. First you have to play by yourself for 90 minuets while your parents more or less ignore you, and then you’re rewarded by being held down and having your body drained of all of it’s blood.

We ended the day by getting max to bed and letting him relax. I think he really enjoyed having a big bed all to himself. He liked when we would tuck him in under the covers every night.

Time to Head Home

We all had a good night of sleep and headed out the next morning with plenty of time to get to the airport. We had about 3 extra hours (by design), so decided to head down to the Hollywood Walk of Fame for a little sight seeing and lunch. We had a great time and we were both reminded how nice it was to just have a single child to focus on and shower with attention, instead of feeling so split with our attention.

After taking in the sights and having lunch at Mel’s Diner (which was awesome) we started our leisurely trip back to the rental car place by the airport. And that’s where the low point of the trip took place.

Sorry About Your Car

I’ll get into the details in a future post (it has gotten very interesting in the last several days) but i had a accident with the rental car. Nobody was hurt and I’m very thankful for that. Especially since I caused the accident. The rental car got the worst of it but was for the most part drivable. We were only a mile and a half way from the drop off location when it happened (another good thing because the freeway would have been out of the question).

So we ended our trip to LA with a big BANG. Like I said, more on that later. This post is already way longer than I expected.

NO SHOWER FOR YOU!

While we were waiting for our flight I called to check in and see what the stays of our shower was. Things were moving along great, however due to a few small problems that had to be fixed along the way, it was not going to be ready when we got home. So, as much as we didn’t want to spend even more money on hotels, we decided to get one close to the house for one more night. We checked in at 2am on Friday, and were up and on the road heading to MI for the weekend by 10am the next morning.

We had a great (albeit very short) visit to MI and collected our other two children from their week long visit with Grandma and Grandpa Tomchak. They both did great in our absence and it was nice to know they had such good bonding time with their cousins as well.

On Sunday afternoon we returned to our semi-remodeled bathroom, and it was A-W-E-S-O-M-E. What we had was so bad for so long that it was hard not to really appreciate the new one. I say semi-remodeled because we didn’t do anything with the crappy walls, crappy bathroom door, or crappy fixtures. We just didn’t have the money, and after all this was a LEAK that had to be fixed. We were already way over budget.

We were so thankful to have Avalon Home Services take this job on. Not only did they make great suggestions and do things to save us money along the way, but they went above and beyond by fixing a few things in the bathroom and not charging us, bringing in the mail every day, and even taking out the trash on trash day. Seriously, they were awesome. So a big thanks to Cathy and Steve for all of their hard work while we were gone. They worked hard to make sure everything was done by the time we got home on Sunday and after the week we had it was not under appreciated! If you’re in the Chicagoland area I can not recommend them highly enough.

What’s Next?

In 2-3 more weeks we will have decided, along with Dr. Goldberg, what our next step with Max is. We are still cautiously optimistic and know that we’re doing the best we can to help Max. The funny thing is, I got the feeling during this trip that Max knew that as well. I really felt like I bonded with him on this trip and got choked up a few times while playing with him on the bed. While he’s very tough when he’s “in a mood”, he’s just so sweet, loving and funny when he’s well. We just love him so much.

More in coming weeks. Sorry this is so long, but I wanted to get it all down before too much time passed.

]]> http://tomchak.com/blog/2011/08/17/the-goldberg-visit/feed/ 0 http://tomchak.com/blog/2011/07/14/spring-cleaning-post-production-style/ http://tomchak.com/blog/2011/07/14/spring-cleaning-post-production-style/#comments Thu, 14 Jul 2011 19:07:45 +0000 Thomas Tomchak http://tomchak.com/blog/2011/07/14/spring-cleaning-post-production-style/ `

Now that we have a little down time, some long overdue maintenance and cleaning started today. It’s amazing how much dust had built up in the rack, and especially in the RAID drive systems. It was so bad we had to roll the RAID systems outside to blow them out one drive module at a time.

I was also able to rework much of the first rack and remove things that we no longer use. We also had a battery backup unit that needed new batteries.

It’s just so gratifying when the plan you had for your life is executed on so perfectly. I finally know what they mean by “living the dream”. It’s all exactly as I dreamed it would be some day.

Location:67th St,Hodgkins,United States

I wanted to get a much wider tire, so I also had to get different wheels, and if you’re going to get new wheels why not make them nice and shiny!

This is a before photo with the stock wheels/tires.

Location:Home

However, my Mom is ready for her first one and being the nerd son that I am, I told her I would take care of securing on for her. Because we’re actually taking a family trip to MI this weekend to visit, I wanted to be sure I had one with me! I never expected them to sell out as fast as they did on release day, so getting one has been more difficult than expected.

But in the end, diligence paid off and I was one of the few who got one on Tuesday morning at the Apple Store in Oakbrook. And once again, they were sold out by the time I was leaving the store.

I am actually more excited to be taking this to my mom, because I know how excited she is and I just know it’s going to quickly become one of those things she just can’t live without.

I know that I’ve been super busy too, because while I’ve had it since Tuesday morning, it’s still in the shrink wrapped box it came in, untouched.

Location:Dwight D. Eisenhower Expy,Oak Park,United States

What’s that, your kids will not eat fruits or veggies? The trick is to turn them into something they like!

We blend strawberries, bananas, mangoes, broccoli, spinach, flax seed and pear into a tasty “shake” that the kids actually ask for. Healthy eating without the battle.

It helps to have a good blender like the Blendtec too.

The trick is to get just the right balance so that the sweet fruit overpowers the more bitter veggies.

Location:Home

Location: Adler Planetarium

It’s a week of on-site translations for a video we did a few weeks ago. It’s being translated into 11 different languages.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

It’s amazing how something so simple is so exciting to them.

On the plus side, I think all things considered I kept up quite well. I have no doubt that taking this class was a good choice, and I think what I learned this week alone would have taken me 2 years to learn on my own, if I was able to learn it at all.

I think part of the secret here was having very supportive teachers that would help you past thing road blocks that you were most certain to hit. Instead of banging your head against the wall for hours or days on end, you could raise your hand and not only get the answer, but usually some other insight into the problem and how to avoid it in the future.

Just like when I took a engine rebuilding class back in high school and had an immense appreciation for the fact that a car works at all given all the things that need to be just perfect, I find that every application I look at now on the mac and especially the iPhone looks different to me. I have a new appreciation for what had to happen for the program to run at all, but on the flip side I can also pickup on some very poorly written applications and have some idea of why they are not working quite right.

The overall summary of this week is two fold. First, I know I can do this. I’ve done more this week and understand more than ever before. And second, this is the start of a long journey. Being a programmer (just like being in the video production field) is something you learn and continue to learn as long as you’re doing it. A year from now I won’t be “done learning” how to program and know it all, I will never know it all and never be close to knowing it all. But I will continue to learn it and improve. The good thing is, I love to learn.

The other highlight of my week was meeting Alex Lindsay. He’s been a star in the video production world for many years and I’ve really looked up to him. Aside from running the Pixel Corp and working on Star Wars, he’s just a very talented person that’s also a great teacher. Through his podcasts and articles on the web I’ve learned a lot from him over the years.

There are so many ways that we’re alike in terms of our interests, lives and careers that over the years I’ve started to refer to him as “My brother from another mother” to my wife Brenda (but eventually just shortened it to “my brother”). So needless to say I was excited that he was taking the class as well this week.

While there were not many opportunities to be social outside of the class, I did manage to get a photo with him at the end of the class.

So all is well that ends well. I’m very appreciative that Brenda gave me her blessing to spend the week being the nerd that I am. Whenever I’m gone it’s always harder and she’s always very good about it. My hope is that in years to come the time/money invested here will start paying some dividends back to both of us.

This is my first official blog post. Hooray for Brenda!

I have always appreciated Tom’s dedication to posting the updates and play by play happenings of what is going on in our household. It is very nice for me to look at old posts and see how our lives are constantly changing. I know my posts will not be as detailed because of my drive-by tendencies in writing anything however I will try to get involved in the blogging game.

Here is a video that I did on my iPhone. This really seems to be the only way I will be able to do any form of editing these days. I did one for Sydney, so now it’s Max and Andrew’s turn for a video.

Sunday was a great day to play outside with the kids. Having the “Tomchak Park” is turning out to be a great use of our long neglected yard.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

So much for the estimated 6 hours for assembly.

The first stop was SuperCuts downtown where she met Sherri, the woman that’s been cutting my hair for over 12 years now.

Then we went for a walk outside since we were downtown in Chicago. Sydney told me the sun was a bit bright so we kept the walk short.

Next stop was the Apple store in Oak Brook, where she was clearly just as excited as I was to be there.

On the way home she asked if she could have some ice creatm, so we stopped at DQ for a special treat. She didn’t eat the whole thing so I had to finish it off.

Finally at home, she passed out. I like to call this photo “Creepy Sleepy” because she’s sleeping with her eyes open. She does this all the time.

All in all, it was a great day with my little princess and I can’t wait for our next date together.

Love you daughter.

I slept here and there on the flight, but probably not more than 7 hours. Of that I’m sure it was not really quality sleep. My butt was so numb I had to keep getting up to walk.

But all in all it was a good trip and I’m glad to be here. I’ll be here 13 nights before I head back home.

As much as I like the occasional travel job as a change of pace, change of scenery… there is also a down side. Once I commit to a job I’m pretty much there for the duration, almost no matter what. That can be tough when your family needs you. This was one of those weeks that if I had the option, I would have left the job early or had somebody else take over for me, things that would have been possible had I been working here in Chicago.

We have all been trading colds for the last several weeks, but when I left it looked like the worst of it was behind us. As it turned out, the worst was yet to come. Sydney ended up getting a cold on top of a cold, which is annoying when you’re a adult but very serious when you’re 7 week old baby and unable to be treated with any type of medication. After 3 trips to the doctor throughout the week, Brenda ended up taking her to the hospital on Sunday night after she turned pale and appeared to stop breathing.

Long story short, Sydney is doing better but is still in the hospital and probably will be there until at least Wednesday. She’s improving but her oxygen levels are still dropping too much, especially when she goes to sleep. Brenda is staying with her around the clock and has only come home to pack some clothes and other daily items.

Andrew is home with me today because he’s still pretty sick and has a fever, Max is at daycare (thank god for only having one today!). I’m very sick and so is Brenda. So all in all, it’s just a little slice of “heaven” around here. It sure makes you appreciate the simplicity of just being healthy.

But I am very thankful that we live in a city that has access to great doctors and that Sydney is in great hands. I’m very confident that we’ll all be doing a lot better in the upcoming weeks.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie] ]]> http://tomchak.com/blog/2010/01/19/the-down-side-to-travel-jobs/feed/ 1 http://tomchak.com/blog/2010/01/12/in-the-snooty-lounge/ http://tomchak.com/blog/2010/01/12/in-the-snooty-lounge/#comments Tue, 12 Jan 2010 13:52:48 +0000 Thomas Tomchak http://tomchak.com/blog/?p=2248 All checked in, through security and in the Red Carpet (aka snooty) lounge enjoying some snacks and wifi.

One for the plane, one for the RedCarpet Club. I’m out the door at 6am sharp tomorrow.

It’s with great pleasure and joy in my heart that I introduce to you our newest special gem.

Sydney Etheena Tomchak

Sydney joined us in the outside world at 9:43am this morning (November 27th 2009), and weighs in at a healthy 7 lbs, 4 oz. and measures 20.75 inches. Mom and baby are doing fine and Brenda is now in her room resting up.

We’ve known since the beginning (even before the boys) that if we did have a girl, some part of the name would be Etheena, named after Brenda’s oldest sister Tina who passed away in 2004. Tina’s legal name was Etheena, but friends and family called her Tina for short. The first name is a name that we both really liked after many weeks of throwing names at each other like darts. It was not unusual to just walk into the room and yell out a name, and the other person automatically knew what you were “asking”.

While it’s true that we would have been happy with a boy or girl, we’re extra happy that we have a girl to round out our family. I’ve said right from the beginning that I really wanted to have a “Mini-Brenda”.  And I know how happy Brenda is that she now has a little girl to go shopping with and do all of the girl things that she misses out on with the boys.

Speaking of shopping, we have a little confession to make. We’ve known from the 20 week mark that we were having a girl, but decided to keep it a surprise for everybody else. We just couldn’t wait to find out this time – we were both pretty confident that it was going to be a girl. The day that we found out, we actually went shopping at the mall and Brenda bought her the first outfit. See the video below for our documented trip.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

We have been in love with her for awhile now, so it’s nice to finally meet her!

More updates and plenty of photos in the days to come.

Click on the image to get a more detailed look.

My sister Dawn, who couldn’t make the trip from Detroit for the birth of #3, sent along a care package for the family. It includes a variety of interesting and useful items for all of us.

Most notably, she thought she would help with the “timing” of any future children, since the timing of this one was not totally of our choosing.

Kind of a conflicting message here.

Thanks Dawn. I love you baby sister.

Another great saturday downtown with the boys. Not many days like this left, summer is nearly gone!

2001 Drivers License – In shape, at ideal weight.

2009 Drivers License – Face is now fat and round, and I’m 35 lbs. over weight (I misreported my actual weight this year, but don’t feel guilty about it)!

I’m not one to celebrate my Birthday. In fact since my late 30′s it has become a day I really don’t look forward to anymore. Why celebrate that I’m even older then the year before? It’s not like I’m trying to be of legal driving age, drink or get into strip clubs in Windsor Canada (I’ve heard some guys do that). I can rent a car without a cosigner, vote, buy liquor without being carded and represent myself in a court of law should I chose to do so.

SO… what exactly am I to celebrate?

In recent years I have become more attuned to my age, and at one point last year I woke up in the middle of the night freaked out by the realization that most likely, I’ve already lived more then half of my life. Up until that moment I had always thought “Ahhh, I have my whole life in front of me”, and suddenly I realize that a good chunk of my life is now behind me! How did that happen?!

I’m not really as bothered about my age as this post may have you believe. I’ve made peace with it for the most part. But the subject does bring me to a great book I’m currently reading. It just made sense to share it on the celebration of my 15,330th day of life on this earth. The books is called “Younger Next Year”.

Here is a synopsis from the publisher.

Announcing the paperback edition of Younger Next Year, the New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly bestseller, co-written by one of the country’s most prominent internists, Dr. Henry “Harry” Lodge, and his star patient, the 73-year-old Chris Crowley. These are the books that show us how to turn back our biological clocks–how to put off 70% of the normal problems of aging (weakness, sore joints, bad balance) and eliminate 50% of serious illness and injury. The key to the program is found in Harry’s Rules: Exercise six days a week. Don’t eat crap. Connect and commit to others. There are seven rules all together, based on the latest findings in cell physiology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, and experimental psychology. Dr. Lodge explains how and why they work–and Chris Crowley, who is living proof of their effectiveness (skiing better today, for example, than he did twenty years ago), gives the just-as-essential motivation.

Both men and women can become functionally younger every year for the next five to ten years, then continue to live with newfound vitality and pleasure deep into our 80s and beyond.

It seems as you grow older staying healthy and at a reasonable weight (notice I didn’t say ideal weight) gets more and more difficult. Gone are the days when I could eat absolutely anything, do nothing and feel healthy with no weight gain. This book really brings this problem into focus in a way that leaves you more educated on exactly what is happening in your body as you get older.

While this book speaks to men 50 and older specifically, it’s obvious that the advice given is good for men and women of any age. I’m only about 25% through the book but I’m finding it very inspirational. If you’re looking for something to give you a good kick in the pants where your health and fitness is concerned, this might be just the ticket.

If you’re interested, click on one of the links below. In both cases you can find reader reviews and get even more information.

Younger Next Year, Audio Version

Younger Next Year, Paperback Version

Now get off that couch and do something!