Thayn Moore's Space: Health and wellness

Smaller Patches for Smaller Faces

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 07:28:30 GMT

Our small online business, Eye Mateys, which sells eye patches for children with Amblyopia and Strabismus, has recently released a new product line called: "Smaller Patches for Smaller Faces". These patches are specially sized for infants and toddlers. We are excited about the line since as far as we can tell, we are the first to offer anything like this.

Before we started the business, when we were searching for suitable eye patches for our son to wear, one of the things that bothered us was how huge the eye patches were. They would cover the majority of a small child's face. Since wearing a patch is already often a painful or embarrassing thing, having a patch that obstructed most of our sweet son's face really upset us. It made a hard situation harder.

We had other issues with the available patches, such as durability, comfort, quality, and aesthetic appeal. We had two interesting experiences that motivated us into starting this business. The first was while our son was still wearing a different patch that we had purchased from our Ophthalmologist's office. Frankly, it looked like a big Band-Aid and every time we had to remove it, it would pull at our son's skin, causing pain and a lot of tears. One day Holly was at the store and a little boy asked his father what was wrong with our son, the father responded that "that's what happens when you poke your eye out". You can imagine how upset Holly felt.

Later, after our son started wearing the patches that Holly made, we would get excited and interested comments where ever we went. People instantly seemed to know what the patch was for, and it seemed "cool" to other children due to the graphics. We'd get comments like, "I want to wear a soccer ball like that!" from children when our son would be wearing a patch with a soccer ball on it. Our son also didn't seem to mind anymore when it was time to wear his patch, especially since he had several to choose from.

After that we decided that we wanted to make these high quality, fun to wear patches available to the public. We realize this will most likely stay a small business, filling a niche need with little profit. But we get excited when we receive feedback and pictures from children, whose lives are made a little better by wearing our patches. In that way, we are able to make a difference.

Eye Matey's Amblyopia Eye Patches

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 09:00:55 GMT

We've finally launched our site, www.eyemateys.com, where we sell eye patches for Amblyopia patients. Children with Amblyopia and Strabismus can wear our nice soft felt patches with fun graphics (appliques). Joseph has been wearing these patches for a long time now. He loves the fact that they are fun and unique. He would choose a frog or a firetruck. It made it easier to get him to wear them. He hated the sticky eye patches. The felt ones that Holly makes are great because they fit over his glasses. Please feel free to check out the site, blog about it, etc. We'd love the publicity and hits!

Baby In 3D (3D Ultrasound)

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 08:49:22 GMT

Today Holly had an ultrasound for the baby and they did a 3D ultrasound. It was so cool to see the baby this way. Since the baby is still only 9 ounces, it is kind of funny looking but also so amazing. I'm really happy and excited. Check it out. You can also download it directly at our website (eyemateys.com) Baby In 3D

To find out what sex the baby is, go to Holly's site.

The way I figure it, my house should be worth $200k more today...

Thu, 29 Mar 2007 20:27:38 GMT

...because now its within jogging distance of Microsoft! Yesterday, I ran home from Microsoft. I've figured that my route was about 17.1 miles. I left MS at 4:10 and arrived home at about 6:40, so 2 hrs and 30 mins. That's an average of an 8'45'' mile. That's a bit slower than my average pace but farther than I've ever gone. I started by running down the Marymoor park in Redmond and picking up the Sammamish River Trail. From there I ran up to Woodenville on the trail. At Woodenville I got off the trail and ran past the Home Depot up into the Canyon Park area. It was all uphill at that point and I really slowed down. It took all of my energy and my leg muscles and joints really started to hurt. I ended up on 35th and ran it the whole way home. One other crazy detail is that scouts started at 7:00 so I hurried and showered and went golfing for an hour after that (while drinking about a gallon of water, literally).

Holly was nice enough to meet up with me a few times towards the end and make sure I was ok. Also, Eric loaned me his cell phone, since I'm a loser and don't own one, so that I could call someone if I had real trouble.

Here are some pics from Eric's camera phone...

Here's a picture of me looking pooped...

Our Diet and Lifestyle change

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 00:09:55 GMT

Anyone who has been around Holly and I in the last year has surely received an earful about “the Diet”, but now I’m finally getting around to documenting what we did and how we did it.

Over the last few years, since leaving school, both of us had gained considerable weight. Holly had two children back to back and I started a desk job where I stare at a blasted computer all day. We both quit exercising (the northwest weather didn’t help) and our shared love of cooking didn’t help either. While we never lived on a McDonald’s diet and we’ve always made most things from scratch, we definitely had way too much sugar and fat in our diet. I also began to develop some minor health problems. I kept getting bronchitis over and over again, which as turning into asthma. The cool, damp air in Washington, mixed with my weak lungs added to the problem.

Right after Kaitlyn was born, in the early winter at the end of 2005, I had a really bad bout of bronchitis. I carried it for almost 8 weeks. I went in to the doctor and during my physical I weighed in at 117 lbs! For my short stature that was a ton of weight. Depressed about my weight, I started to cut back and be a little more active. I quit drinking the free sodas at work and in February I did my major kitchen renovation project, which was a ton of physical labor. All through that time I was thinking about how much I wanted to lose weight and make a major change.

I was really inspired by a bunch of the people on my team at work. Several of them were in the process or had recently completed the 20/20 program through the Pro Club Fitness center. It’s a super effective weight loss and lifestyle change program put on by the fitness club that all employees at Microsoft have access to. It costs around $10k for the 12 week course if you don’t have Microsoft subsidy and about $2k with. There’s a stipulation that if you don’t attend enough and/or don’t make the weight loss goal that they set for you, MS won’t foot their part of the bill. You can imagine that most people make their goal weight! Most of the people on my team that did the program lost between 35-65 lbs. As I watched all of these people drop weight it really amazed me. I was gone on my paternity leave in February and when I returned, one guy looked so different I barely recognized him. I started talking seriously about joining the program with Holly. Then, one day while I was talking to a co-worker, I found out that one of the people who had lost all of the weight had done it without doing the 20/20 program, he had done it all on this own.

Well, my friend Matt called me up one day and asked if I was planning on going to our high school reunion. I told him that I was too fat and didn’t want to see all of those people fat. He laughed and said that his twin brother Mike had said the exactly same thing. He then proposed a competition, to see who could lose the most weight before the reunion. That ended up being the final straw towards motivating me. I was in. I spent the next week or so talking all of the “biggest losers” in my office’s ear’s off. I asked them what they had done, how, where, why. I learned as much as I could and got psyched up.

When we started, we made quite a few mistakes during the first week or so. If it wasn’t for the competition I probably would have given up in that first week. We then learned what not to do as well as what to do. What happened is that normally, during the 20/20, you meet with a trainer and a dietitian each week who set your diet and exercise routine. They start you out on basically broiled chicken and protein shakes. That’s a horrible way to live but the idea is to start with a clean slate. They then add in different types of foods a little at a time (vegetables, dairy, fruit, meats, carbs, etc.) about every 2 weeks. They can chart your weight loss and find out exactly what your body likes to hold on to, what makes you gain weight. Well, we started off that way, but we didn’t get enough fat in our diet (there’s a minimum) and it was just miserable. Finally I realized, that I wasn’t a dietitian and I probably couldn’t make those sort of decisions (about what food made me gain weight) very easily by myself so I was just suffering for no reason. At that point we just moved onto eating the way we thought we should eat.

So here are the rules of our diet:

I started at 1500 calories a day, as I got into better shape (so that I was burning more calories during my workouts) I moved to 1650 per day. Holly ate between 1250-1400 calories a day.
25-35 fat grams per day. This was important, if you go below 25 grams per day you start having horrible side effects like no energy, sore joints, and a myriad of other things. We tried to make sure that the most of those fat grams were unsaturated as possible. Things like nuts, olive oil, etc. were great. We ended up getting the majority of our fat from our protein shakes.
7-8 mini meals per day. Keep your metabolism up by continually eating 200-300 calorie meals all day long. You never feel full at the end of a meal, but that’s ok, you’re going to eat again in 2 hours. If you are ever feeling hungry, then you should eat, don’t let your metabolism slow down, your body will try and store whatever it can the next time you eat if you let yourself get too hungry.
Low glycemic everything. You can go online and find charts that show what foods are high glycemic and which aren’t. No bananas, cookies, juice, and a bunch of other foods that might seem healthy but have too simple of sugars. The simpler the sugar, the faster your body will absorb it and the bigger your ups and downs in sugar level are. Check the label on processed foods for the amount of sugar in the serving. We tried for less than 10 grams. Also, cooking a lot of vegetables and fruits raise their glycemic index. That’s because they the sugars simplify during the cooking process. Raw veggies and fruits are best.
Whole grains only. Watch out for “whole wheat” bread that is enriched, go for true whole grains. They are more complex so their glycemic index is lower. We didn’t go “low carb” per se, but we did watch our carbs closely. One of the reasons for this is because they are higher in calories so they will burn up your 1500 calories really quickly and then you are left hungry.
Pair sugars and proteins. Whenever you have a higher sugared food like fruits or grains, try to pair it with something higher in protein like cheese, yogurt, or meat. This will lower the average glycemic index of the meal, and slow the digestion process which will allow you to have the energy released more smoothly.
Get at least 30 minutes of hard cardio 4-5 times a week. This is also key, you can starve all you want, but most people will never see real weight loss until they put in the cardio. After 20 minutes (its different for each body) you’ve used up all of your sugar stores and your body turns to the fat (and muscle) for energy. If your cardio isn’t continuous enough then you won’t burn as much fat because you won’t be burning out those stores as fast.
Muscle training several times a week as well. I wish I had done more than I did. With all of the weight loss and catabolic exercise (cardio) your body is continually looking for places to steal energy. If you don’t use your muscles then it will take it from there. If you are using your muscles then it will take it from the fat. As a self preservation instinct it will always try to deplete muscles before fat.
Plan your cheats ahead. Basically, sometimes you are going to cheat, whether it’s a party you will be attending, or what, it’s going to happen. Also, it’s ok to have cheats once and awhile so just expect it. Life gets really depressing if you never can have a cheat again. Instead, we found that if you plan when your next cheat is, you won’t cheat as much along the way. We would say, ok, we are going to go out to dinner in 2 weeks for so and so’s birthday. We are going to cheat then. That way every time we were tempted to cheat we’d think, well, I can make it until the birthday dinner, especially since I’m going to cheat so much then. Then when it came time to cheat, we enjoyed it and didn’t feel guilty, but didn’t cheat at all the 2 weeks prior to it.

It really comes down to self motivation. I’m glad that I didn’t do the 20/20. While it is very successful for most people, it might not have been as good for me. See, I also learned a bunch about self control and self motivation by doing this myself that I wouldn’t have had if someone was sitting over me. It was really empowering to see the success of my diet and know that I had done it by myself (of course, Holly was a huge help! J). I had a bowl of candy in my office within inches of my hand the entire time during our “big push” and never ate a piece of it. No-one would have known, but I had the control to do it myself, and that made me feel great!

By the time of the competition I had lost 42 lbs. Holly had lost about 25 lbs. I won the competition and I received the best complement that I can imagine at my reunion when someone said, “Wow, you look just the same as when I saw you in high school, you haven’t changed a bit”. A few weeks after the competition I got down to 158 lbs, 59 lbs less than I was 6 months earlier! I also found through that time that I came to enjoy running. I went from struggling through a mile jog to taking fifth in a half marathon (13.1 miles). I also found that my health had improved immensely, my asthma is gone, my lungs and heart are in amazing shape, my cholesterol and blood pressure are super low, and my don’t catch every cold that comes around.

Now that the “big push” is over, we do eat a little less strict, but we still have incorporated our “diet” into our everyday life. Basically, that’s how we eat now days. I’m working now much more on weight training and gaining back the muscle that I lost during the “big push”. I still run as well, and I plan on running a marathon this fall. All in all, it’s been less of a diet and more of a lifestyle change.

Yeah, I took fifth on my half marathon

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 18:57:32 GMT

I was busy last week and forgot to report on my half marathon (13.1 miles). It was the Super Bowl Run in Olympia, WA. There were about 35 people who ran the half marathon. My final time was 1:53.46.

I had been in fourth place the entire time. In the last 1/2 mile a guy passed me, grrr. I had been ahead of him the entire time. When I hit the last mile I really started to run out of gas. I attribute this to the fact that I had run a practice half marathon the Saturday before. I could feel from early on in the race that my muscles hadn't fully recovered from the previous weekend. I also was a dumbbat and was on a low calorie diet all week. I didn't start carb loading until the evening before the run. Silly me.

It rained the entire time and was about 36 degrees out. I didn't really notice, as I was very warm and sweating, but the rain did cause the sweat to pour into my eyes, causing stinging and redness. When I came in (as with everyone else), I was so warm and wet that steam poured off of my for the first few minutes after the race. Once I cooled down, brrr, I was freezing from being wet. It took the entire drive home and a hot bath to warm up.

Here is a very unflattering picture of me after the race. You can see the steam coming off of me and my red eyes. I love the lady in the background pulling the face too.