Category One Shot Goals

Goal Met: Write a Song

Anthony Panariello Leave a comment

I’ve been playing guitar for years and in the last five or so I’ve been mixing in vocals and learning new songs but they’re all someone else’s song. I’ve always wanted to write my own songs but never really went through the process. I did have a notebook (electronic) where I jotted down ideas, snippets of a verse, a few chorus lines, even just some ideas or rhyming words that I thought might be interesting. However, I never really did anything with it.

I decided that one of my goals this years was to sit down, sort through these ideas and come up with at least one full song. It was a struggle sorting through those notes to find ones that spoke to me and even more of a struggle to fill in the rest of the song. I watched some songwriter videos on YouTube and studied the structure of a lot of my favorite tunes and as inspiring at they were I still struggled to write a song that flowed the way I wanted it to.

The first song was one I wanted to write for my daughter for years – from the viewpoint of a father telling his little girl that no matter what happens she will always have a home with him. I had a handful of lyrics I’ve written over the years and with a little cleanup and polish I had a few verses I thought were pretty good and the chorus was where I struggled then in my notes I saw a line  that just said ‘flying or falling’  and from that line the entire chorus was born and the name of the song ‘Flying or Falling’ (This turned out to be a common theme as there are a LOT of songs on Apple Music with that title) – the bridge came easy as well, I think once I had momentum on this song whatever creative blocker there was just vanished.  Since my voice was in rough shape due to an ongoing fight with some sort of illness I wasn’t happy with the vocals as they were – however in my other goal of researching AI and various tools I found a site that lets you upload a melody and create a song using AI singers to ‘cover’ your song and while it was a long process of trial and error I finally got something I thought was the exact sound I was going for- they even added a full band accompaniment which was really awesome.
 

A few weeks later I wanted to work on another song – feeling inspired from this one. I had just one idea jotted down in my notebook “You say we’re like ships passing in the night, we’re on the same sea’ and I built an entire song from that idea weaving in elements of being lost at sea, the light finally breaking and being able to navigate again. I mixed in references to the sea and nautical terms but tried to not overdo it and this song came really easy to me because it was just me talking to my wife after she had a hard day really – just in lyrical format. I wanted it to be a slower tempo song with some piano work (of which I am not very skilled at all) so I worked out the melody line on guitar and then had the AI transpose it to Piano and went with a female singer because after a few hours of trial and error trying to get it right whatever combo I hit gave me something haunting yet powerful. I really love this song and am proud of it and my wife cried when she heard it (well to be fair she cried at the song for my daughter too)


I gave them both the songs as a valentines day present which went over well. My son wanted to know where his song was, so I’m working on my magnum opus – a song about dinosaurs dance battling in space.

Goal Met: Create Family Cookbook

Anthony Panariello Leave a comment

I love cooking. Most of my skills in this area were honed when I worked as a line cook in various restaurants but they started watching people in my family cook.  My grandmother was your typical Italian Nonna, always at the stove making something delicious. My mom wasn’t what you’d call a great cook (she liked to overcook everything “just to be safe”) but she had a handful of go-to recipes that we all loved. There were other people who had signature dishes that they always brought out during the holidays.

Over time I started developing my own recipes and I was pretty haphazard about where I kept all my notes. Most of the ones I really liked made it into a small notebook that saw a lot of use (it’s currently held together at the binding my duct tape) but there were papers stuffed into folders, notes written into cookbooks with alternate ingredients / timings and in text files on my computer.

I decided to collect them all into one definitive source a ‘family cookbook’ that my kids could one day reference when they want to make the nostalgic meals that they remember from their childhood or have a recipe be passed down to another generation.

My recipes were easy – bit by bit I imported  them into OneNote and formatted them into a logical cookbook format (ingredients, methodology, cook time, etc.). My family’s  recipes were a bit harder as most of them were never written down. I narrowed them down to a few that I felt were important enough to include then dredged my memory to try to recall the ingredients and methods that were used. I had to get creative and try different approaches but I think I came as close as I possibly could.  I did have a copy of my grandmother’s recipe notebook which contained all her baking recipes. The only issue there was it was written completely in Italian. Luckily I was learning Italian this year as well so it was a win-win translating the ingredients and instruction into English!

As I was developing these I took lots of pictures but there were some recipes where I either didn’t have a photo or the ones I did have weren’t very good. I absolutely was shameless in finding a stock photos that looked exactly like what I made only with better lighting. I wasn’t trying to publish this book so I didn’t concern myself with the ethics of that decision, I just know some of these stock photos were really good and representative of what I was putting out.

I tinkered with InDesign to see if I could make a standard cookbook but instead opted for a web service as their drag and drop methodology was much easier to work with and I could see in real time what the results would be.

All in all I was happy with how it turned out – going to wait until a sale comes around on the book publishing site before I get a physical copy – sometimes those coupons they send can be a real value!

Goal Met: Meditate 50 times or more

Anthony Panariello Leave a comment

I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of meditation – the idea that you could train your mind and bend it to your will through breathing exercises seemed, on it’s face, a bit silly. However two things happened that caused me to reevaluate my ideas.

The first was reading a book called “The brain that changes itself” by Norman Doidge. I forget why I picked up this book specifically, I suspect I was just looking to learn something new and this was on their new release shelf. The book is about neuroplasticity and the science behind how the brain changes itself. The brain essentially rewires itself based on a specific set of criteria as a response to external factors. I found it fascinating and it kicked off a journey down a rabbit hole of books about the brain and how it works (one of the major finds is how myelin works and how intentional practice can help you develop skills very rapidly, which I found super useful to pick up new things). This primed me for being more open to things like meditation as now I could see the pathways in which it could work

The second was Covid-19. That was a stressful time and I really needed a way to manage that stress effectively so I turned to the internet and found some free guided meditations that helped me walk through the process of breathing and being mindful.

I struggled to maintain a practice however, even when I committed to 10 minutes, because my brain is like a sack full of angry cats. Whenever I tried to meditate I’d focus on my breathing and my brain would just open up it’s cabinet of curiosities and start throwing things at me. It wasn’t really anxieties as my stoicism practice kept those pretty much in check but it was just random things that I needed to do, memories of people and places (both good and bad), random facts, ideas for some of the projects I was working on (although I did have a pad and pen to record anything really insightful) what I should make for dinner and who the Yankees are playing this weekend.

Meditation teaches you to simply acknowledge the thought and let it go but that’s hard to do when they are flying at you like angry bees. I found that if I count the breaths and focus on the counting and the breathing that was much more effective and I was able to still my mind for a few minutes at a time. That’s when my brain got worried that it wasn’t in full ADHD mode and did one of two things. It either started making up stuff to fill the space where I’d just start daydreaming something wild and wouldn’t notice for several minutes that it was happening which was alarming or it would simply say ‘naptime!’ and I’d fall asleep.

So this time around I committed to 50 times meditating of 10 minutes or more. That averages out to almost once a week. I know more frequent practice results in better outcomes but I understood how I struggled and given all the other things I needed to accomplish I felt that it was still a worthwhile goal.

Looking at my records (I tracked everything this year) I saw that instead of doing it once a week as I planned I ended up doing it in spurts. There would be a week of doing it every day then two months would pass and then I’d do it for ten days then take another long break. Out of all the goals I finished this year this one was the hardest for me to stick to. I don’t know why – it’s only 10 minutes of my day, it should be easy but for some reason my brain did not like it and would find all sorts of reasons to skip it.

I’m not sure I can sustain a long term practice but I’d still like to find a way to incorporate mindfulness into my daily life as I find even the few times I manage to get a streak doing I do feel more calm and in control.

Goal Met: Eat at Michelin Starred Restaurant

Anthony Panariello Leave a comment

When I was younger I worked in various restaurants as summer jobs and really enjoyed the experience. I know it’s probably the naivete of youth but for a while I considered trying to stage at some fancy restaurants in NYC to build a career as a chef (this was before the food network and the age of the celebrity chef) -I ultimately opted out of that dream and continued to cook for various places at the Jersey shore until one of my friends recruited me to come work in IT support as it paid much better and I could sit all day.

I still loved cooking and continue to pursue it as a hobby and I appreciate a restaurant that gets it right, since I have unfortunately worked at places where cutting corners was gospel. So I’ve always wanted to go eat at a Michelin star restaurant and experience a world class dining experience.

I knew I had to go into NYC so I went to the Michelin guide and  filtered for starred places and it came back with a lot of options. I first wanted to go to Per Se as I’m a huge Thomas Keller fan but I couldn’t find a reservation at a time that worked for my and my wife plus the cost of $500 a person before extras was a major factor, especially coupled with my general dislike of seafood as Keller uses a lot of fish in his tasting menus.

I ultimately decided to Torrisi (https://torrisinyc.com/) was the right option for us (Shocker I picked an Italian restaurant). I preferred A La Carte dining as I could ensure the food I was getting was something I would enjoy and I was able to get a lunch reservation which worked out perfect so we could go during the week while our kids were in school.

The menu was simple – which I like as I’d prefer a few things made with exacting care as opposed to a huge menu. I just feel that allows the chefs to perfect their skills.

We walked in and were greeted warmly by the hostess who seated us promptly even though we were 15 minutes early. The servers were attentive and ensured our drinks were replenished and to check on us to see if there’s anything else we needed. The place was beautiful, located in little Italy in the Puck building. 

The dining room features soaring 17-foot ceilings with original crown molding and ornate brass chandeliers. The walls showcase custom murals depicting New York scenes in muted gold and cream tones.

The space is divided into distinct areas: a curved marble bar with leather stools, banquettes upholstered in deep blue velvet, and intimate tables arranged around a central dining room. Brass accents, mirrored panels, and vintage-style sconces create warmth throughout.

The design blends 1920s glamour with modern Italian-American elements: terrazzo floors, leather-bound menus, and custom wine displays. White tablecloths and fine china maintain formality, while exposed brick walls and ambient lighting create a more relaxed atmosphere.

We decided to each get a pasta dish (they were small) and split an entrée. I had a few cocktails (including the signature Torrisi Spritz which was a play on the standard Aperol spritz) and my wife had some white wine.

They brought out some sourdough bread first – soft open interior with a crackling sesame seed crust this was bread as it ought to be. It came with an herb infused butter that elevated the whole experience. It was served twice – once right after we ordered and again with our pasta for “fare la scarpetta.”

We started with their signature ‘American and Italian hams with zeppole’. I know I thought the same thing, zeppoles? But it was something everyone who went there raved about so we tried it and it was a sublime experience. You wrap the super thin prosciutto around the zeppole and pop the whole thing in your mouth. The salt and fat of the ham plays against the slight sweetness of the zeppole creating a compelling contrast – I just wish they had as many zeppoles as pieces of ham because there were three more slices of ham on the plate and I wanted to keep going.

For the pasta I opted for the classic cheese tortellini as that was the dish they are known for. It was tender fresh pasta with just the right amount of bite and the filling was texturally complex with a strong bite of sharp cheese at the end. The sauce was light and flavorful – I suspect it was just tomatoes cooked very briefly as they tasted super fresh. My wife went with the special which was truffle tortellini in a truffle sauce, topped with shaved truffles. That’s a lot of truffles, I thought to myself as she was ordering but it was delicious and I say that as someone who really doesn’t care for the taste of truffles.

The main was chicken alla griglia (we shared it). Perfectly tender chicken with a crackling skin covered with a sauce fragrant with rosemary and oregano. I was surprised at how well the crust on the chicken held up against the sauce. Chicken can be hit or miss in most restaurants so seeing it done to perfection was great.

After dinner they brought us a sampler of ices to help cleanse our palette; Green apple and lemon were selections we were given. Then they brought out a plate of Italian cookies with our dessert menu. At this point, I was getting pretty full but felt like if we were here for the full experience we should try something off the dessert menu. I knew most people recommended the affagatto but I wasn’t in the mood for that so opted for the almond cheesecake.

They brought out a slice of cheesecake that had a marzipan topping piped onto it – we barely finished it between the two of us due to its richness. I mean, it was great but I felt like I needed a nap when we finished. 

Overall it was a great experience. The food was amazing, the ambience and service were good and I felt like I was getting a Michelin star type of experience.

Next up – let’s see what a two or three star experience is like!

Goal Met: Vegetarianism

Anthony Panariello Leave a comment

This one wasn’t actually that difficult in concept. I’m just not a big meat eater. I do enjoy beef (in all it’s glorious varieties) and chicken and eat them often but only a few times a week, trying to balance them with vegetable heavy meals. I enjoy pork in sausage or bacon form but that’s about it and I don’t eat seafood, veal, lamb or pretty much any other animal. The one thing that I thought might be am issue is my Saturday cheeseburger. It’s a nice little treat at the end of the week that I do look forward to. I doubted I would embrace the ‘lifestyle’ but I do think reducing meat consumption overall is good for my health and the environment so wanted to give it a shot and see how it went.

The first issue is by the time I got around to scheduling this it was well into winter and the vegetable options available were pretty slim. Lots of root vegetables and your standard hydroponic greens along with stuff trucked in from who knows where. You ever have a supermarket tomato in January? It’s enough to make a grown man cry (I took down my tomato garden to make space for my kids to play in the backyard and I hope one day they appreciate that sacrifice).

However, since it was winter it was a perfect time for soups and stews which mostly used canned vegetables since they are designed to be made in the winter. I busted out some favorites like butternut squash soup and minestrone (without the pancetta of course) mixing in some new stews from around the world. Maafe was a big hit.. A sweet potato stew with chickpeas and coconut milk that I had several bowls of.

Pasta was featured prominently as well. Nothing fancy here just the usual pasta with a variety of sauces (tomato and pesto) with bread to scoop up all the sauce. I usually make pasta twice a week or so but it became my go to when I needed something quick for lunch or dinner.

I.. Tried to eat salads. I really did. They have a really nice salad bar at work and full of optimism I created a complex salad with greens, vegetables, and even come microgreens. Maybe it was just the time of year or the fact it’s a corporate cafeteria but the salad was really bland. The greens didn’t taste like much and the vegetables were all kind of listless. I have a personal thing where I just refuse to keep buying food if it isn’t any good so I had to pivot off the salad bar idea.

I knew getting greens was critical so I turned to powdered greens, mixing them into smoothies to take the rough edges off the taste. I will note that those smoothies powered me through the afternoon better than caffeine sometimes which I thought was odd so I double checked the greens and I saw that the one I got had ‘plant caffeine’ so yeah, I’m glad I wasn’t taking them at night because that would have backfired on me.

The only thing that concerned me was how much protein I was taking in. I wanted to ensure that I was getting enough to support my activity level so I used a two fold approach. I got some pea-protein to add to my smoothies (around 30g) and I went all in on the bean train.  I added them to everything. Making a soup? Beans. Nice stew you got cooking.. Beans. Hey is that pasta? OK hold up keep your damn beans off my pasta. Vegetarian Chili? That’s good man.. Load up them beans. Needless to say my poor stomach was very confused at this sudden intake of fiber and started wilding out but after a few days we stomped out our beef (get it?) and things returned to normal.

The two weeks went pretty quick and I found that it wasn’t that big of a life change. I mean, I can still eat bread, pasta, and pizza so really those are the holy trinity for me. I thought that maybe this is something I should be doing?

Then I had a bomb cheeseburger at a restaurant and said ‘Forget all that noise’

Goal Met: See All NJ/NY Sports teams

Anthony Panariello Leave a comment

Sitting down and trying to come up with 50 goals for a year is not as easy as you think it would be. Once I got up to 30 or so I started to slow down and really struggle to come up with goals that were interesting and actionable (something you can measure with experience or learning). I had thought maybe seeing if I could cross of a few more baseball stadiums from my bucket list to visit all the stadiums might be a worthwhile goal but with kids there was no way to guarantee I’d find the time to accomplish it since the remaining stadiums are in far flung places like Minnesota or Kansas City. That got me thinking about sports and goals and I landed on seeing every NJ/NY based sports team in a 12 month span.

The first step is filtering out what sports to include, and what teams qualify and which teams to eliminate based on location or other factors. I landed on the big 5  (Baseball, Football, Basketball, Hockey, and Soccer) and constrained the teams to New Jersey and the 5 boroughs of  NYC. This eliminated teams like the Bills and The Islanders as they were outside of this scope. I also decided to not cheap out on seats. While I wasn’t going to spring for the $500 seats I also wasn’t going to sit at the top of the upper bowl. If I was going to do this I was going to find a good seat to enjoy the game from.

The list of teams confirmed I set about looking to fit these games into my already hectic schedule. Times when I was in New York for something else I always checked to see if any teams were playing and a few times I lucked out and was able to attend a game as a tack on for some other things I was doing. I also tried to ensure I went to games when the weather was nice. That meant midsummer for baseball and early in the football season. The first time I failed in this was going in early March to a Red Bull game but that was to see Messi. However, he pulled out of the game last minute due to hamstring issues so I sat in the freezing rain and never got to see him play. The second was going to a Jets game in December – I just couldn’t get any of the earlier dates to work because for some reason they had the Jets on primetime a bunch in the first few months and that conflicted with work and events for the kids.

I really enjoyed this goal. I don’t get to many games due to the costs and logistics so I was just used to watching the games on TV (Which, to be honest, is a great way to experience them – 4K on a large flat screen is a pretty sweet experience) so getting out there in the crowds and being part of that energy was really fun. I didn’t enjoy the cost however. Some sports were cheaper than others but they all were pretty pricey. The food and drink was also ridiculously priced and rarely was good enough to justify that cost. Also getting to these places can be a bit of a challenge as traffic into New York is always a problem and the trains/subways  can take upwards of two hours to get to Queens or the Bronx.

I think I’ll go back to relaxing on the couch with my kids watching the games and cheering in the comfort of my home. I’ll still try to go to a few Yankees games a year because I’m a diehard fan but for all the other teams and sports – I’ll see you on my TV screen.

Goal Met – Learn 10 new songs

Anthony Panariello 1 Comment

I’ve been playing guitar for over 30 years. I would say I’m an intermediate guitarist, mostly in that I can play a lot of songs, I can sight read a tab and pick it up quick.  I know my scales and chords, circle of fifths and all that jazz but I never really took that leap as time to play was almost always limited.

It wasn’t so in the beginning. I bought a guitar when I first moved out into the wide world and was living on my own (for the young folks who might be reading this: There was a time you could have an entire apartment to yourself and still have money left over for stuff like buying a guitar). It was a green Yamaha acoustic that was on clearance at Sam Ash and since the price was right I walked out the store took it home and to quote Bryan Adams ‘played it until my fingers bled’

Since I had moved to a new area and didn’t have may friends yet I would come home from work, put on the Yankee game and just practice. That amounted to 2-3 hours a day for almost six months. I took a few weeks of lessons but eventually stopped going as the teacher and I didn’t really vibe and there wasn’t anyone else in the area giving lessons. I turned to the internet and guitar books (this was before YouTube)  and got pretty good at playing and even started coming up with my own tunes.

The only thing I couldn’t do for some reason was sing while I played. It just seemed terribly difficult because if I focused on my singing my guitar playing would suffer and vice versa. It wasn’t until maybe 10 years in that I understood I needed to KNOW the guitar parts, anticipate the chord changes and riffs. Practice so much that it was completely automatic. Once I did that I found I could focus on singing the song and the my hands would handle the guitar part on their own.

Around this time I got together with some friends for an impromptu jam band where we’d get together and play songs and that really taught me more about music and timing that almost all the time I spent practicing alone. It really drove home the fundamentals of music. I think mostly it was the singer yelling at me that I’m in the wrong key or tempo.

The issue I wanted to solve is that  I would sing from the tabs or lyric sheets since it was easier. I mean, I was at home practicing and I’d just print out music and words and use them. I’d bring printouts of tabs to the jam sessions (in almost all the videos everyone else is jamming out and I’m staring at my music stand). Whenever I was out or someone asked me to play something, I couldn’t. I could play them the music but I couldn’t dredge up the words without bringing them up on my phone. I also notice that without memorizing the songs you miss some of the distinctive vocal parts that make the song unique and it wasn’t as dynamic as it should be.

I determined that I was going to change that – and this year I was going to memorize at least 10 songs so I could play them all from memory. I know I put it as 10 new songs but there were a few songs I already knew  that I really wanted to master. It’s a bit of an eclectic list but here’s the songs I masted this year and a little bit on why I chose them.

Brown Eyed Girl – Van Morrison: The ultimate campfire song. The opening riff is iconic and the chord progression is really simple. The vocal parts weren’t demanding and everyone loves belting out the ‘sha-la-la’ parts.  The lyrics weren’t overly complex and there weren’t any technical parts to bog down the learning process so this one was a good one to start with.

Stick Season – Noah Kahan: I was perusing some guitar website looking for tabs for other songs when I noticed this song was suddenly in the top 10 most visited tabs on the whole site. I popped over to YouTube to see what the fuss was and I absolutely loved it. It was a complicated song to pick up as it starts with an annoyingly complicated finger picking part, has some frustrating barre chords and the vocals had a syncopated rhythm to them that was very difficult to pickup. I ended up just listening to it over and over during my commute to work until I nailed down the timing. Once that all came together it’s now one of my favorite songs to play and sing

A Bar Song (Tipsy) – Shaboozy: This was the song of the summer for 2024. It was all over the radio and for some reason my kids absolutely love this song (my son crushed it during a Karaoke party). It was super catchy and only had 4 chords so I decided to entertain my son I’d learn the song so he could sing along with me.  I picked up the song in a couple of days. It was probably the quickest I learned a song this year but I just clicked with it and it stuck in my memory better than any of the other songs. It’s super fun to play and a really good singalong song (also a Karaoke staple for me now)

Elderly Woman Behind a Counter in a Small Town – Pearl Jam: I’m of an age where grunge was the formative music of my generation and Pearl Jam was one of my favorite bands. This song off their second album quickly became one of my favorite songs so I wanted to add it to my repertoire.  The chords were pretty basic and it was a fun challenge trying to replicate Eddie Vedder’s complex voice.

Wild World – Cat Stevens: Ok Ok, I’m a junkie for 1970’s singer songwriters. Cat Stevens, Carole King, Harry Chapin, James Taylor and their contemporaries. I just always loved Cat’s voice and this song always resonated with me for some reason. This one was a bit more complicated as there were a lot of chord changes and the riff during the chorus gave me fits.  I had learned it in the past as part of the jam band but never tried to sing and play at the same time and it was a real challenge. It took me a long time to figure out how the vocals laid over the chords but it was a really great feeling the first time I nailed it start to finish.

Merry Christmas – Ed Sheeran / Elton John: I needed a holiday song in my catalog and this one is such a great tune and the lyrics are full of hope and love. It’s my wife’s favorite Christmas song so I wanted to learn it for her. It was a challenge transposing the piano chords into guitar chords but I dug up a few vides on YouTube that explained it and after a little trial and error I was able to work it out. I found that as I was singing I would modulate my voice to better match Ed Sheeran then drop it a bit to be closer to Elton John during his parts. It was subconscious but I decided I really liked that contrast and kept singing it that way. The intro and outro were a bit different but the rest of the song used the same chords so it was pretty easy to learn.

Norwegian Wood – The Beatles:  I mean, I have to have a Beatles song, right? I was in the mood for some music from the fab four and was streaming their songs when Norwegian wood started playing and I remember 30+ years ago that it was one of the very first songs I tried teaching myself how to play. I wondered how much of it I remembered so I grabbed my guitar and I was shocked that I could play that little melodic riff on the first try. I guess that lived in my brain somewhere permanent! I spent a week or so memorizing the words and learning how to sing over the melody and chords.

Black – Pearl Jam: My absolutely favorite song of all time. Such a powerful performance and the lyrics are so stark and painful. This one is a bit of a more vocal challenge as Vedder really pushes his voice on the bridge and completely commits to the random noises.  The chords were super easy to learn but the vocal timing was a big pain as he draws out certain words over two bars instead of one and I needed to figure out how he worked that into the overall song. It took some time but I figured it out. It’s still a challenge to belt out “You’ll be the star in someone else’s sky but whyyyy whyyyyyy can’t it be miiiiIIIiiine” I find I can’t start with this song. I need to be warmed up and maybe have one or two teas with honey before I can commit to that level of anguished yelling.

The Book of Love: The Magnetic Fields / Peter Gabriel: Steven Merrit of Magnetic Fields adds a gravitas to this song that I found poignant but man did Peter Gabriel crush this song when he covered it (Check out the final episode of Scrubs where the song is featured). It’s such a simple song but the lyrics are beautiful. My favorite part is “the book of love is filled with music, in fact that’s where music comes from, some of it’s transcendental some of it’s just really dumb.. I love it when you sing to me” the song has only 4 chords that repeat but are played in a pretty complicated way. Once I figured out how to replicate that (with a mix of plucking and strumming) it all came together.

Perfect – Ed Sheeran: One of my wife’s favorite songs. I really wanted to learn this one to play for her. It helps that Sheeran’s voice is well within my vocal range and he tends to keep the guitar parts pretty straightforward. It was actually really difficult to memorize the vocals as in each section they are similar but he changes the wording a bit and I keep messing up and repeating the first verse instead of the correct words. It took a really long time before I was able to get it right and I was annoyed that he shoehorned in a  few extra syllables in the second chorus “Darling, just hold my hand, be my girl, I’ll be your man” I mean it took a long time for me to try to replicate the timing of that (I had to just keep doing that part over and over until I worked it out). It seems small but it upsets my timing and rhythm a bit so I wanted to ensure I transitioned into the next line with the right timing.

Overall I’m excited at the progress I made. I make sure at least a couple times a week I practice the entire set and if I make an error I stop and practice the part I made the mistake at over and over until I’m sure it’s resolved. I also made a playlist and a few times a week I’ll just listen to it on my commute and sing along to try to keep my memory sharp.

Oh, and I also bought a metronome – you’d be surprised at how effective it can be in keeping you in time.

[I have a few more I’m working on but haven’t completed yet and I’ll update this list as appropriate. ]

Goal Met: Dopamine Detox

Anthony Panariello Leave a comment

So.. I listen to a lot of podcasts and something that kept popping up across some of them was this idea of a dopamine detox. A dopamine detox is basically hitting the reset button on your brain’s reward system. Think of dopamine as your brain’s “feel good” chemical – it spikes when you do anything pleasurable, from scrolling social media to eating junk food. The problem is, we’re constantly bombarding ourselves with these quick dopamine hits in our modern world, which can make normal activities feel boring and unsatisfying.

During a dopamine detox, you temporarily cut out highly stimulating activities – things like social media, video games, excessive Netflix, or processed foods. It’s like turning down the volume on life’s constant excitement to help your brain recalibrate. When you’re constantly chasing these high-dopamine activities, it’s similar to turning up the volume on your headphones – eventually, you need it louder and louder to feel the same effect.

The benefits kick in when your brain adjusts to lower stimulation levels. After a detox (usually lasting anywhere from 24 hours to a week), people often report better focus, more enjoyment from simple activities, improved mood, and better impulse control. It’s not about permanently giving up enjoyable things – it’s more like pressing pause to help your brain remember how to find pleasure in everyday experiences. Just imagine how much sweeter that first bite of chocolate tastes after not having any for a week.

So I looked at all the things in my life that fall under the dopamine bucket and I just cut them out for 7 days. No social media, no movies/shows or video games, turning off all notifications on my phone, no reddit, no YouTube, no sweets, fast food, or processed junk food. Living a spartan lifestyle as off the grid as possible (with the exception of screens for work – but work emails don’t hit those dopamine receptors like personal stuff)

It was.. actually pretty difficult. My brain actively fought me on this trying to sabotage me by overriding my conscious thought and steering me towards something sweet, or social media. Knowing this is how it sometimes happens I took steps by blocking all the sites on my router for my devices and removing any tempting foods from easy access (hard to do with kids, but I managed)

Once I made it to 7 days I did start to notice some differences in my mood – I was more even keeled and when I did partake of something that creates a dopamine hit it had a bigger reaction for me.

I’m not much for such a Spartan lifestyle so after 7 days I reintroduce some things back into my life but the one I didn’t was reddit. I realized that I doom scrolled reddit in an echo chamber of just depressing stories and angry people. I feel so much more optimistic now about things and don’t miss Reddit at all – and I genuinely believe my mental health is better now that I’m not constantly bombarded with negativity.

Goal Met: Intermittent Fast for 30 days

Anthony Panariello Leave a comment

Now, I’ve done intermittent fasting (IF) a few times in the past, notably during covid out of necessity to stretch the groceries we had as we were only going one once a month to stock up. It’s a simple thing really – just don’t eat breakfast and stop eating at 6:00 pm every night. The food window was 12-6 and you can easily get all the food you need with a healthy lunch, a sizeable snack and dinner.

I had tried it in fits and starts before then – mostly inspired by a few Netflix documentaries I saw on the health benefits of fasting – specifically around autophagy and its role in disease control and weight loss. Armed with the knowledge that it was not just a diet but a way of aligning with how our bodies worked I did it for over two years until about halfway through 2022. I’m not sure what happened but I just kinda gave up on the idea and started eating breakfast again and sneaking in late night snacks.

I realized with this challenge that yes, I’m 50 now and the risk factors for certain diseases start rising – and I should be leaning into IF / periodic long fasts as a way to help control these risk factors. So I made sure there was a section in the goals for both of these fasting methods.

for the IF I used the free version of the zero app to help track the times. It’s pretty simple interface and allowed me to log fasts with a simple click of a button and it also tracked a countdown to my goal and when I started the different phases in a fast (glucose depletion, fat burning, autophagy). I found it helpful to keep me on track as I’d need to physically get my phone and click the button admitting that I didn’t fast as long as I wanted so it was a nice deterrent. I also used the streaks app to track how many days in a row I was doing (I used this app for most of my 30 day / 2 week goals) and getting to see that streak climb was another deterrent. I mean every little bit helps!

The first few days were filled with morning hunger pangs but on the third or fourth day my body remembers this is something we’re doing and I’m fine. I don’t feel hungry until lunch and I stop craving snacks at night. A week in and it was becoming routine again and something that I automatically did without thinking about it too much.

At the end of thirty days I felt a bit better – not much weight was lost (around 5 pounds) but I wasn’t focusing on lowering my caloric intake too much as I was playing basketball and training for a 5K and running a caloric deficit during this time would have impacted those activities.

I know that the things happening in my body during a fast have longer term metabolic effects so I wasn’t expecting some miracle where I suddenly felt 25 again but I was content with the knowledge that I was doing something good for my body.

After the 30 days I continued as best I could – usually doing IF during the week and enjoying a breakfast on Saturday morning (usually an egg sandwich on a bagel). Yes, there were days when I ate a snack late a night or grabbed some breakfast on the way to work because I was really hungry but overall I’m working IF into my life again and I hope to keep it that way for the foreseeable future.

Goal Met: No Fast/Junk food for 30 days

Anthony Panariello 1 Comment

This one was a bit more of a challenge than I originally anticipated. While I don’t frequent fast food places with any regularity I did hit them up a couple of times a month when I was in a hurry or was leaving work late and needed to grab something for myself on the way home. Tacking on “junk” food also ramped up the difficulty because I do love snacking throughout the day. Given all these factors, I knew that I would need to plan accordingly to counteract some pretty ingrained habits.

I stocked up on healthy snacks like nuts and fruit and in order to not grab a McMuffin on the way to work (a sometimes vice I quite enjoy) I opted to make this 30 days the one where I did intermittent fasting as well. By avoiding breakfast altogether there’s no need to figure out what I needed to replace my weekly stop with.

The first week was the roughest – mostly due to having to reprogram some habits that were pretty ingrained. Late afternoon hunger hit and where I would normally grab some chips or something like that I opted for some cheese or fruit. It just didn’t hit the same though. When I switched to some bread and olive oil with some spices in it that really became my go to snack.. sometimes with a bit of mozzarella or some fruit I think it was the savoriness I was missing which the peppery olive oil seemed to satisfy.

The weeks after because easier as I settled into a routine. The fasting helped by resetting my hunger signals (which has happened all the other time I fasted as well) allowing me to make more reasoned choices instead of just deciding to grab a burger or slice of pizza for lunch I opted for healthy choices instead.

I did, however, have pizza during this but it was pizza I made myself so I knew it was clean and had no chemicals or any additives but towards the end I really was craving a burger and fries.. so at the end of the 30 days I went to Red Robin with my kids and housed a burger and fries with complete abandon.

While my taste buds were happy the rest of my body was like ‘Bruv – what you doing?’ and I regretted not easing my way into a junk food meal – maybe a small burger and fries would have been a better option? I guess we’ll never know…

Regardless I found the month off junk food to be a mixed bag. I thought I’d feel healthier and have more energy but it was about the same which I found really odd. I know that the food is really not great for me so I’ve committed to eating less of it overall but cutting it out entirely? I don’t think that’s really something I’m willing to do as pizza and burgers are my comfort foods and my go-to when I just need something to slam my salt and fat receptors and kick off my dopamine rush.