One of the major challenges in moving lies in establishing a new set of routines. Rather than merely replicating old routines, I have come to view moves as a short window of opportunity to make profound changes in my habits or lifestyle. My wish list for my move this summer was surprisingly long, but I will  mention only two things in this post: money and health.

Budgeting has never been a strength, and though we have done fairly well on one law professor's salary, money is not sloshing around freely in the Smith household. With one child in college and four more in the pipeline -- and a much larger mortgage payment than we had in Wisconsin -- I decided to take the opportunity of our move to do some financial planning.

As one of its employee benefits, BYU offers a free consultation with a financial planner. So I assembled all of our financial information and sent it to our designated consultant. Apparently, unless you have very obvious problems -- like no retirement planning, no other savings, or excessive credit card debt -- the only thing this fellow has to offer was a slap on the back and a hearty "You're doing great!"

So I took matters into my own hands and started using Mint. The setup is simple -- just create a Mint account, then add your credit cards and checking account. Mint pulls all of your transactions and begins to classify them. At the beginning, some of the transactions ended up in strange places, and the biggest category of transactions was "No category," but I have gotten into the habit of classifying (or re-classifying) transactions, and Mint learns from the past. So I am building a history, which is the key, of course, because Mint is about detecting spending trends. (The service also suggests "Ways to Save," but I have found those suggestions completely unhelpful.) It's too early to say whether Mint will help us to rationalize our spending, but the initial signs are hopeful.

Now the harder -- and more urgent -- change: my health. Actually, my doctor in Wisconsin told me that I am in very good health ... for a fat man. No high blood pressure or high cholesterol. No heart problems or shortness of breath or diabetes. Yet. But I have been gaining weight consistently for the past 20 years, and every time I visit a doctor, the main message is simple: lose weight.

The principle governing weight loss is obvious and we all know it: burn more calories than you consume. It was clear to me that my first step needed to be ... taking more than a first step. My sedentary lifestyle had to go. The problem, of course, is that, like most fat people, I don't enjoy exercise. I needed to find something I could do without the nagging feeling that I wanted to be doing something else.

So I bought an iPod and started walking to work. That's three miles of uninterrupted podcasts/recorded books each way! When I started, temperatures in Utah were mostly in the 90s, but on some days broke 100 degrees. Frankly, I am not sure why that didn't stop me, but I kept walking. In the first month, I lost 7-8 pounds. And there is no incentive for weight loss that is greater than weight loss.

So I took the next step, recruiting my 16-year-old son to lift weights with me three times a week at the end of the workday. He is engaging, funny, and smart. We talk about his school and my work and BYU football. All the important stuff. He is a former football player, and he enjoys lifting weights, so I am counting on him to keep me on task. And to spot me on the bench press!

After classes started, I enrolled in Y-Be-Fit, a fitness and health program run by faculty and students at BYU. For $20 I received a personal health assessment -- including a blood lipid profile, a treadmill test, a trip to the Bod Pod (to measure body fat), a nutritional analysis, and various other evaluations -- and a weekly counseling session for three months. My "counselor" is a BYU student, who checks my progress, offers encouragement, and provides me with information on how to reach my health and fitness goals. Again, this is not rocket science, but it's nice to have the regular visit as an incentive to keep exercising.

As part of the Y-Be-Fit program, I was told by a BYU Professor of Exercise Science that the corollary to the caloric deficit principle (above) is that very few people successfully lose weight through exercise alone. Most of us need to make fairly extreme adjustments to our diets. That probably explains in large part why, after two months of walking to work and lifting weights, I had lost only 10 pounds. (I understand that 10 pounds is a lot for two months, but my point is that most of the weight loss occurred in the first month.)

Over the past two weeks, therefore, I have been speaking to my counselor about the need to adjust my diet. After reviewing the results of my nutritional analysis, my task was clear: less meat, more veggies.  And stop eating out so much!

This has been tough. Despite a scriptural injunction to eat meat "sparingly," most Mormons are far from vegetarians. Having attended a fair number of luncheons since my arrival, I can testify that non-meat options are tough to come by at BYU. But I am slowly learning the tricks of the trade, and I had a very tasty vegetarian rice dish at a law school luncheon today.

Despite these little successes, I have been frustrated by my inability to know whether I was achieving a caloric deficit. During our session this week, my counselor suggested that I try the "MyPyramid Tracker" on the USDA's website. As with Mint, my limited experience may be insufficient to draw any firm conclusions, but I have been able to count calories rather painlessly over the past two days. Entering the physical activity numbers is more challenging, but I am going to persevere until I can develop enough history to get a feel for this new lifestyle.

By the way, at my most recent weighing, I am down 12 pounds since the beginning of August. I hope you will see even less of me the next time we meet.

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