The scale moved!

So, it might just be a crappy scale, but since I've been at this, the scale now reads somewhat consistently lower each morning. A sign of progress, or a red herring? It *looks* like it's somewhere around 205, 206. And if I'm really dropping 2lbs a week, then that could jive.

When I see the scale consistently at 200, then I'll know there's some real progress.

Consistent exercise and a slight diet change could very well be the ticket. My goal is 190. If I can keep up the pace, thats about 2 months.

More memory for the VPS!

Yay! I asked for a smidgen more memory on my VPS, and NetrackServers.com just gave me a little bump for free. (I had offered to pay a few more dollars a month).

Thanks NRS!

The problem was that sometimes mercury mail would spike, and then mail would go down. And the tomcat container was sorta strained for memory (xms, xmx flags in use), I was able to increase these a tad more, and hopefully make things more stable.

Mold Making article from Makezine

Here's the link:

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/02/letters_from_the_fab_academy_part_3.html#more

At some point, I'd like to make figurines for table top games, this article is inspiring as its the results of a 'maker space' session on molding.

1 week later.

Not that I really expected anything obvious of course. Daily trips to the gym (45-50mins each), no soda, no sobe, no chips, no fries, small caesar salads and chicken teriyaki rice bowls for dinner. I'm trying to drink lots of water. I get a glass of milk and a glass of OJ a day.

I feel OK, I'm eating less, and taking out the extras, and I've started to look at calories and other nutritional info. I probably should create a food journal, and start using the kitchen scale to be sure of the numbers.

At the gym, I'm cycling through arms (bicep/tricep), legs, and shoulders/chest. I do crunches and leg lifts for the abs. I try to end the day with jogging, incline 'power walking' on the treadmill, the bike, or similar exercise.

I'm also thinking I should start tracking the weights at each station, so I can see progress there. I try to do 3 sets of 12 reps for each station.

I'm thinking my personal weight is probably worthless to record, how much I can press, or curl, and if the ol' pants are getting loose is the better way to track progress. My previous weigh ins were bunk anyway, I've switched to 'right out of the shower in the morning', so hopefully that will be more consistent, but I have yet to see anything happen. However, it's only been a week, and the analog scale isn't very accurate. A friend told me once he started up his workout regimen, he gained weight, probably because he was adding muscle.

I really like this idea...

Here is the link to makezine:

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/02/envelope_made_from_google_map_of_re.html

It's an envelope, but inside is a map of the return address. I could imagine all sorts of other pictures going inside an envelope like this. But I imagine the receiver has a chance of severely damaging the 'art' (or in this case map) depending on their method of opening the letter.

If a letter opener is used, the map or art might very well go unnoticed.

Still, this is a very inspiring idea.

OK, so maybe I'm doing it wrong.

Weight this morning 220 - I'm 6'1" so that would be great if it was all muscle, but it's probably 25 pounds of fat.

So, made it to the gym again for another workout. I started on the treadmill again, and my calves were on fire by the 1st quarter mile, and could barely finish a half mile by walking the rest. This is contrast to the first day, which netted 0.5 mile jog and 0.5 mile.

I do better on the bike, as in, it doesn't cause my muscles to catch fire.

However, I was doing more research, and it turns out, cardio alone isn't gonna do me much good if I want to lose weight. "A pound of muscle burns more calories than a pound of fat", granted, me working out 'in general' for 45minutes is better than nothing at all, so my current course would probably do something, however, I like pumping iron more than jogging anyway.

What I'll do from now on is to work a muscle group like crazy, (low reps, higher weight), then perhaps still jog a bit, unless I was working legs. I gotta break through this weird calf burn, I'm guessing it's just pent up inactivity.

My research also was stating to do cardio like activity after the muscle building. Since the building burns the sugars, and then the jogging/bike/whatnot has no choice but to start kicking into the fat reserves.

The other side of all this is the diet. I'm gonna cut back on carbs, like bread, or "those extra chips", and so on. Also, working really hard to avoid soda. The 25c soda in the office is amazingly tempting, and in GA, I think the soda fountain is effectively free, but I just need to develop the right habits now. I've had a water jug on my desk for a long time, and actually use it, but I need to keep it filled, and probably drink at least a whole jug a day.

I probably should research the diet thing a bit more, and figure out what a decent daily diet looks like. I still don't eat breakfast (though I hear thats not a good idea), but I'm simply used to it. I do drink alot of sobe in the morning, and one of those bottles is 600 calories or something insane. Those will have to be taken out of my daily routine entirely.

I'm hoping that by removing the Sobe and "afternoon Dr Pepper", thats close to 800 sugary calories gone *per day*, so I'm hoping that will help a bunch as well.

For now, I just have to go full bore into this, and perhaps I'll see some obvious progress in a few weeks. My weight not actually change though ( exchanging muscle for fat), so I might have to go with measurements versus weight reports.

This time, with feeling

I brought my gym clothes back into the office, since this is my last month here, and I get a free gym to work out in (actually, my new job also has one, but not as nice), I'm gonna try to go every day, since I don't really feel any 'pressure' to complete tasks. Sure, I still have a work ethic, and I'm not gold bricking, it's just that work is finally calmed down a bit, and it's great.

Today, I got a ceasar wrap and left off the usual side of chips. (the tortilla has enough carbs). My goal this month is all about cardio, and starting on tone. So I'm shooting for low-weight but lotsa reps, and then I'll end the session with some jogging. I think I'm at a '20 minute mile" which is sorta pathetic, (mainly cuz I don't think I could even do a mile right now), A decent marathoner does 8 minute miles, and world records are at just under 4. So perhaps 9 is a good goal for a single mile. (granted, real runners can keep this up for miles on end)

Actually, maybe a simpler target first... just complete a dang mile, THEN work on getting the time down.

In fact, what I aughta do is blog my progress to keep track, and maybe inspire some other slob to get in shape.

Choose the right communication medium

Here's how I communicate in the office:

Email: I use this for 'latency tolerant' communication. For example, I've got an issue, but one that isn't too pressing. Email can handle images as well, but I also relegate email to low priority items. I don't expect an email back 'right away' for example. People use email if they want a 'paper trail', I see this used alot in passive aggressive kind of maneuvers, where someone sets the To: line to one person, and CC's the boss or other higher up. While email is very common, I find it almost barbaric. Granted, its enabled by our modern network, and is effectively 'free', but if you want something done, just go talk to that person. Email could be used to broadcast to a group, but many times, the group contains to many recipients, as very few people ever trim the recipient list even if it's obvious who should be cut out.

IM: We have Office Communicator at work, which is basically a stripped down Messenger client (no images, files, etc can be passed through it). This is great for stuff I'd like an answer on 'in the next 15 minutes or so", and that person is far away, or I can't leave my desk just then to go walk over to them. I also use IM for 'private' things. Instead of whispering a joke over the cube wall, it gets sent via IM. Its great, cuz the boss thinks you are typing away on code. I would rather just talk to someone face to face, but I've come to accept this form.

Phone: I rarely use the phone at all in my line of work. Usually, I answer the phone if someone else calls, but have called out for work related issues probably once a year.

Face-to-face: This is my preferred mode of communication. I get up, walk to that person, and talk to them directly. If I need to show an image, I might email them first with the image (or URL), then immediately walk over to them. I get the most done, and it just seems silly to me when people bounce emails one cube over.

Wave: Google Wave fascinates me. while it's not in heavy use as yet, I can see plenty of potential. Seeing other people edit and update entries or widgets is amazingly compelling.