April Fools

Sunrise, sunset, another April Fools’ Day has come and gone. And the interwebs have not disappointed. If I were any good at blogging, I would create a “Top N” list for my favorite pranks, but that would take time and I have to get to work some time this morning.

I think my favorite was redsnake (http://redsnake.me/). A combination of Python and Ruby. Brilliant!

I happened to pull a prank of my own that caught at least two people. On Facebook I set my status to, “I’m finally moving to Ireland. Woo hoo!”. This is somewhat believable because I’ve talked about this before. It was just the right amount of believability to fool a couple of my friends (whom shall remain unnamed).

Here’s looking forward to next year!

-Joe

TeiD | DieT

Well, I suppose it really *has* been a while since I posted. Funny thing is, every time I start something like this, I tell myself that I'm going to keep it up. Two months later, lo and behold, I'm writing up a post like this. C'est la vi...

As you could probably tell from the title, I'm currently on a diet. I stumbled upon the Hacker's Diet. It was a quick read, and it's completely 100% free to read online. I don't even think it's published (a crying shame if you ask me).

It was written by the founder of Autodesk, a very successful software company (ever hear of AutoCAD?). After achieving much success in most of his life, he wondered why he was still struggling with his weight. He then began to approach his weight as an engineering/management problem. The solution he came up with is called the hacker's diet.

The basic concept is that if the number calories burned throughout the day is greater than the calories taken in that day, weight is lost. Add up the differences, and keep track of them. One pound of fat is roughly equivalent to 3,500 calories. There was no pie-in-the-sky promises about losing 30 lbs in a week, no promises of eating whatever I want, etc. It was a book that explained why some people are overweight from a mathematical point of view, and how to fix it. Weight would then "peel" away gradually. This made sense for me.

The deal is to plan how many calories I will eat in a day (1300 at the moment) in the morning. I need to update my weight daily at the hacker's diet website so it can calculate a trend. This means if I don't know how many calories are in a food item, I'm not allowed to eat it. This includes restaurants, so if I eat out with any of you be prepared for me to be "that guy" who asks the waiter for nutrition information :-). That is, at least until I can shave off some pounds.

Some of you may think this is madness. Why not use my intuition to decide what I eat? Well, it was using my intuition that got me into this mess. Plus, I can ignore my intuition, eat poorly, and forget about it immediately. If I write it down and track it, I have to look at it the subsequent days, as a reminder of the food I decided to eat.

So I'm on day 5 now, hungry, and miserable. But I am losing weight little by little. When I get back to a manageable weight I can increase my calorie intake to something more sane. You can track some of my progress on my traineo page (http://joemcc00l.traineo.com/), and if you're feeling particularly helpful today, even decide to be a "motivator" for me. Although this site doesn't have the same kind of graph as what I use on the hacker's diet website, I do update it with my weight every day.

I read a post somewhere, that said, "I wouldn't cheat on my wife, why would I cheat on my diet?" That makes sense. Hopefully staying loyal to my future wife won't be as miserable as dieting is ;-).

-Joe

I'm Back, Not Quite Better...

This time last year I made the decision to start living healthier. I had just signed up to run the IOA Corporate 5K in April. Having never been truly healthy before, training was a true feat. Through running every morning and eating healthy, I was able to run the entire race without quitting.

This began a my relationship with running. Throughout 2008 I ran a total of 6 races, 5k each. I was in the best shape of my life. Also, I was the first one in my entire family to ever run a race. By October, I was back to my high school weight, 215 lb. I had lost nearly 20 lbs!

Then final exams hit. The finals kept me up all night, which hindered my ability to run the next morning. Often I slept in, which meant I had to work late after class. After work, it was straight to study time. Excuses aside, I stopped working out. I stopped cooking myself healthy foods. I started to drive-through fast food restaurants so I could eat in my car on the way to work/class. I knew it wasn't healthy, but at the time I had more important things to worry about. "But it's okay, I'll start back up after exams," I told myself.

Well, naturally following exams were the holidays. My family lives on the West coast, while I live on the East. Visiting them meant leaving my world to visit a whole new one. I could eat, let myself go, and return to my normal lifestyle once I got home. Even worse, I didn't really know anyone in California except my family, so I wasn't too keen on keeping fit. Access to plenty of junk-food along with nobody to hang out with meant many evenings watching marathons of Netflix shows and a bucket of popcorn. "But it's okay, I'll start running again and eating healthy when I get back," I told myself.

So I flew back. Classes started again, this time with a lighter course load. This was the perfect opportunity to improve my health and get back in shape. I had everything going for me. I wasn't in a rush, so I could get a leisurely start on my healthy habits again. Honestly, I smiled at the prospect of running again, especially across the finish line of a race. A part of me couldn't wait to start.

But as stories like this often go, I found another part of myself awakened by the late-night study snacks and the junk food of the west coast. This part of myself compelled me to stop by McDonald's before work to grab a sausage biscuit with egg meal, complete with the coffee and hash brown. I found myself giving into the temptation of a $2.99 Double Cheeseburger value meal during lunch and dinner. And of course, I only gave myself time to run in the early mornings, when I had to wake up extra early. Note: I have not been awake to run in yet in 2009.

So here I am today. I went to the doctor yesterday to check out a ringing ear, and they "measured" my health. The last time they did this was before 2008, when I had started running. The result:

Weight: 241
Blood Pressure: Worse (I don't know the numbers)
Height: 6'1
BMI: 31.8

I was in worse shape than before! I took one step forward, and two steps back. I entered my info into Traineo, and I had gained 6 lbs. The doctor recommended that I get screened for diabetes. I knew I was at a valley in my health, but this was a serious wake-up call.