Tag Archives: change

Accuracy

Posted on February 18, 2012 | Leave a comment

I know I still need to write my review about my Fitbit. (Short review: I love it and it loves me. I know this, because it told me that once.) But I do have something to say around measurement and accuracy. And I’ll have to bring the Fitbit up because it is doing a lot of that measuring for me, bless it’s wee little heart.

In my attempt here to lose weight and be a healthy size (finally), I am using a few different tools for measurement:

1. A Withings scale – to track my weight, BMI, fat mass and muscle mass
2. The Fitbit - to track my food, activity, sleep
3. Runkeeper and Fitocracy - to track my exercise
4. A kitchen scale and all the little measuring cups and such
5. Measuring tape.

These are my measuring cups. Cute, eh?

 

None of these things are always 100% accurate.

The Withings scale I know is weighing me light. When I went to the doctor’s office, I weighed in heavier. And I don’t completely trust it for the body fat percentage either.

The Fitbit doesn’t know my heart rate, so how can it measure my caloric burn exactly? And some of the time when I enter food, I over-estimate. Or I over-simplify… surely not all “chef salads” are the same, so wouldn’t there be some caloric variances from that salad from the salad I ate if I choose that?

Runkeeper and Fitocracy are as accurate as the information I put into it. But I think the GPS on Runkeeper gets lost sometimes. And I can’t always find the exercise I am doing (like Tabata sprints or reclining rope pull-ups) on Fitocracy, so it doesn’t get recorded.

And the measuring cups and spoons? I may not always fill them properly. I don’t think everyone does. It’s either a smidgen too little or a little too heaping.

And I’m pretty sure I have no idea how to properly measure myself with that tape thing. In fact, I know I don’t.

This is definitely not my body. Yet.

But does this matter? I don’t think so. It isn’t that it is 100% accurate that matters. What matters is that you are getting feedback about what you are doing and how you are doing it. It matters if you are becoming more aware of your actions.

As an example, the  scale that (very kindly) weighs me light by a kilo or so… does that matter? Fuck no. What matters is that the number keeps getting smaller. That’s the part I should focus on.

Same with the Fitbit. It doesn’t matter if it is 100% accurate about my caloric burn versus the intake. What matters is that I am paying attention to what’s going into my body and how active I am being. And I can see that it doesn’t matter that I went to the gym that day if I’m going to eat an entire large Papa John’s pizza that night.

I think that’s what I need to keep in mind. It doesn’t matter if I’m measuring accurately. What matters is that I keep things moving the way they should be.

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Who let me in the kitchen?

Posted on February 12, 2012 | 2 Comments

Yesterday Tyran bought this mixer machine thing. I’m pretty sure that’s what it said on the box.

like the window full of herbs and lemons?

There it is! It has other marvellous attachments (like a blender… Welcome to Margaritaville : Population – Me).

You can see in the picture I made some mayo (that’s the gloop in the jar, and I’ll write more about that later). But the very first thing I did was cut myself on the fucking thing. Twice.

first boo-boo

 

second boo-boo (the big cut)

After some emergency first aid (and a hell of a lot of whinging) I used the machine to first make mayonnaise and then the MOST GARLIC-FILLED GUACAMOLE IN THE UNIVERSE.

five cloves of garlics. and a shallot. vampires beware.

Now that I had some deliciousness happening, I decided I should probably pull something together for lunch. I had a butternut squash hanging around, so I thought I would roast that as a start.

I usually buy the squash already cut up (I’m lazy, yo), but this time I had a whole squash to cut up. Fresh-cut butternut squash smells good. It is like pumpkin… but more apple-ly. I was surprised that there were seeds in there. I don’t know why I was surprised. I suppose that’s what happens when you are used to buying all your food already processed.

lookit all those seeds!

Seeing those seeds gave me an idea: Could butternut squash seeds be roasted just like pumpkin seeds? They sure look the same. So I thought I would give it a try. Win! They did roast up exactly the same and were super delicious.

In the end, my lunch ended up being home-made mayonnaise (with chipotle paste – so good) with roasted butternut squash, guacamole (again, home-made – I rock) and tuna wrapped in seaweed with glutton-free soy sauce and with butternut squash seeds to finish. SO YUMMY.

I also had fresh iced tea. I used the blender to crush the ice for it (fancied it up a load, didn’t it?). It is just rooibos tea with ice and a sprig of mint. I’m getting very used to iced tea with no sugar or other sweeteners. Some teas (like rooibos) are fairly sweet naturally, so you don’t need to add anything to it.

nom nom nom

This lunch was WAY too big. It ended up being 1067 calories. I should have had half the amount and saved the seeds for a snack later. But it worked out okay – I ate this late in the day and just didn’t eat again, so I came out ahead of my ‘allotted’ calories that day (thank you Fitbit for tracking all that for me!)

It’s been an interesting month of eating well. It is delicious but a hella lot of work. I would definitely make this again – but would eat less of all of it.  Either just the tuna and avocado wrap or the squash… or half servings of both.

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Disclaimer

Posted on February 5, 2012 | Leave a comment

I’m going to try to write this before I lose my nerve.

No big confessions… but I am going to publicly announce a goal, which I’m not a big fan of doing.

Why? Because then I will feel like an absolute asshole if I don’t stick with it.

I have made public announcements on resolutions/goals before, with mixed results.

While still in university, I called off eating McDonald’s for a year. Doing that now would be so easy… I don’t even remember the last time I ate it. It’s been ages. But during uni? Easily twice or more a week. It was cheap and it was fast and I swear it is addictive.

So I called it off and announced that I was doing so. And I did it for the entire year. I had nightmares during the year, now and again, about breaking the resolution, but I never actually broke it. I did have a Big Mac on the first of January as soon as the year was up, but I made the year.

But last year I publicly announced that I wasn’t going to drink for the year. And I made it until April before I decided to completely eschew from drinking was ridiculous. Somewhat hilariously, when I started again no one said a word. It was strange that I stopped… no one thought twice when I started again.

But this year… this is a big one (no pun intended) that I’ve tried and failed again and again. I’ve never shared about these struggles… I mean, people can *see* that I struggle with it, but they don’t know how much. Okay. This was the disclaimer post about my fears around sharing this. The next one will be the share.

raR. Here’s hoping being public will help me stick with it this time.

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Year of the Dragon

Posted on January 12, 2012 | Leave a comment

FINALLY.

The Year of the Dragon. I’ve only had to wait 12 years for it. The last time it was the Year of the Dragon was 2000 – 2001. I was 24. I had just graduated Univeristy.

And I would have never dreamed that by the time it came around again I would have travelled all this way, met all these fabulous people and be living in London. No one dares to dream that big.

But here I am.

And although I have come a long way, I still have a long way to go. And I would like to focus on some of that stuff this year.

I don’t know how well a Fire Dragon (that’s me) will do in a Water Dragon year. But I have some plans to get where I want to be.

There are improvements I would like to make in regards to my creativity, finances, health, lifestyle and relationships. I’m putting a big focus on my health, and I’ll post more details about that soon.

I hesitate to call any of my plans this year “resolutions” or even “goals”. I think I’ll stick with “plans”… but they will be measurable plans. And because they are not going to be NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS, I’m going to wait until after the Year of the Dragon officially kicks in… and after I’m back from Vegas (work trip) before I get going on anything in earnest.

Here’s to making this year a good one!

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Quittin’ Feels so Good

Posted on November 2, 2011 | Leave a comment

So.

I dropped the Introduction to Databases Course a while ago. It was just getting too much on top of all the maths I was trying to learn for Machine Learning and the (I think I forgot to mention this one) Scrum Master course I’m doing. It seemed like the right thing. My attention was all over the place. Not good.

And now I’ve dropped the Machine Learning course as well. It is just too advanced for me. I’m missing the prerequisites for the learning and I’m so lost. I got a handle on the basic linear algebra… and that turned into advanced calculus (damn it anyway) somehow.

I’m going to keep up brushing up my maths skills though. And I’ve decided to focus more on learning a programming language (most likely Ruby). This way, next fall when they (hopefully) offer the course again: I’ll be ready.

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There and Back Again…

Posted on June 10, 2011 | Leave a comment

It has been a long and strange journey with my poor old blog. Started back in 2005 (2005!) just before I left Canada for Korea as a way to keep in touch with folks without bombarding my contacts list with group e-newsletters. I was supposed to be gone for a year and I expected the blog to last about that long. That was six (six!) years ago now.

The blog started on MSN Spaces… back when I had “upgraded” from using Yahoo email to Hotmail. (AH HA HA HA HA! – “upgrade to Hotmail”)  At the time, it was all that I needed, even when it did funky things when I was posting from the PC Bang (internet cafe) in Korea.

I’m not sure what eventually drove me away from Spaces. Perhaps it was because I had been using Gmail for awhile and was drifting further and further away from Hotmail and all things associated with it. And because I used Google for email, it made sense (at the time) to move my blog to the Google-sphere… hello Blogger.

Continue reading →

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Two More Down

Posted on June 9, 2011 | Leave a comment

I just went in and deleted my Gowalla and Foursquare accounts – geolocated social “interactions” that don’t amount to anything.

It’s another game I can’t win. I don’t even know how to win… I guess getting a “mayorship” or on the “leaderboard” or by checking into the coolest places. GAH.

I can still tell people where I’m at via Facebook places if I really want to. But now I don’t have to feel like it is such a quest.

Now I’m down to just a few social sites – Facebook, Instagram, Flickr and Twitter. Oh, and this blog. I’m feeling more and more free to be social with my friends all the time. Awesome.

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Purging

Posted on June 8, 2011 | Leave a comment

First, a caveat: By purging I do not mean eating a bunch of shit and then barfing it back up. I do need to lose more weight. And although I’m not very good about eating less (or exercising more, for that matter), I hate throwing up so much that I can’t see binging and purging as a viable solution to my weight issues.

No, by ‘purging’ I just mean getting rid of shit I don’t need.

I have lost a bit of weight since the beginning of the year (I’ve slowed down lately, but do want to pick it back up) and I am hoping to share more of that journey here going forward. So I have a bunch of clothes that are too big (whoop whoop) and others that just don’t look good. When you are fat, a lot of times you don’t have much choice when it comes to clothes… you just buy what fits, not necessarily what looks good. Which isn’t cool, yo.

So first – I’ve purged my closet. A few weeks ago I took some bags of clothes (and some other stuff) to the charity shop. Tonight I took six more grocery bags of clothes to the charity bin. I have very little left for clothing, but I’m okay with that. What counts is that I like what I have left. Bam.

Second – I purged my friend list on Facebook. I was appalled when I first learned that ‘unfriend’ had become an entry in the dictionary… but I’m coming around to this idea. I’ve done a culling before – the first time my friend list got up to around 320 people I went through and dropped folks until I was down to 299.

There have been studies to show that we are capable of maintaining relationships with around 150 people – about the size of a tribe. I was back up around 320 ‘friends’ on Facebook, so I’ve gone through the list and knocked off about 40 of them.

Over the next couple months, I’m going to try to get that list down to around 100. That’ll leave me room for friends in real life that don’t use Facebook.

I’ve also stopped other websites/services from posting to Facebook – so no longer will every tweet and every check-in (I’m most likely going to nix my Gowalla and Foursquare accounts over the next few weeks anyway) show up on my feed. And I’m planning on tweeting much less.

I’ve decided to do this because I would rather have more quality than quantity in my life: I would rather have three pairs of great shoes than thirty pairs of cheap uncomfortable ones. I would rather have one pair of amazing jeans that I feel good in than several mediocre ones. And I would rather have 100 real friends than 350+ virtual ones.

I would rather communicate with those friends directly and with some real thought and content personalised to them (or to my specific group). And when I do have something I want to say to a wider audience, I’d rather create a blog post with some substance than just spitting out multitudes of tweets with not much thought behind them.

Quality. Not quantity. Hopefully!

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2011: Year of the Restrictive Rabbit

Posted on April 27, 2011 | Leave a comment

>So far, 2011 has been the Year of the Restrictive Rabbit. I gave up drinking (nearly) entirely and with a few devil-may-care weekends, I’ve been following a very strict diet six days a week. I’m even forcing myself to exercise, which goes against the very core of my lazy being.

And now it looks like I will have to add spending to my list of things I have to get under control, which means restricting what I can buy. I made that decision this month, when my pay somehow ran out by the seventh.

The seventh. I didn’t even make it to the mid-point of the month. Sad.

More restrictions. I can feel my inner six-year-old starting to rebel. Something has to give. I’m bad at self-parenting – I’m too cute to tell me ‘no’ for very long. I sense an imminent bad-behaviour explosion unless I let something go.

So I’ve voted to lift the drinking embargo. I made the resolution in the first place to show myself that I don’t need to drink to have fun or to deal with my life. And I’ve proven that to myself. So I’m tossing out the resolution.

But not entirely.

You see… I’ll still have to restrict the drinking. Drinking goes against the diet. Which will be in full effect still from Sunday to Friday.  So the only day I will be able to have a drink is Saturday (plus the exceptions, should they fall during the week).

I have a bad habit (just one – ha ha) of going to extremes. Eat “better”? NO! Eat perfectly! Do “some” exercise? NO! Run 5km every lunch! Drink “in moderation”? NO! NO DRINKING.

The trouble with that is how hard it is to maintain. Now, don’t get me wrong… I could finish off the year without drinking. But I worry if I hang on to that one I may let one of the others slide, and the others are more important to me.

This doesn’t mean I’ll see you in the pub this Saturday. But if I do… feel free to buy me a pint and help celebrate my newly discovered moderation.

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No beer and no pizza make Jodi something something…

Posted on February 6, 2011 | 1 Comment

Actually, to be honest? It hasn’t been all that bad. Or that hard.

So, just following on from my previous post when I talked about the changes I had made starting this year and how they are going.

I’ve had no problems whatsoever with the alcohol aversion, other than having to constantly explain to people why I would do this to myself. I don’t even miss it. And I am LOVING the hangoverless mornings. Fact.

Worth noting is that while we were in Vegas (work thang) I didn’t follow my rules. The No Drinking Rule has the “out of the country” exception so I did take advantage of that a wee bit… and I just wanted a Slurpee so badly the sugar thing had to go too.

I wasn’t as bad as I thought I was going to be (or as I could have been). I had drinks, but didn’t get drunk. I ate whatever I wanted… but not too much or too bad (except that first night meal at Dennys. YOWZA.)

Other than Vegas though, I’ve been sticking with it.

On the food front, things are going well. I’ve only had a couple of mornings since the beginning of January where I have wanted to punch breakfast right in the cock. Some mornings are hard! I found that it was the worst when I didn’t get enough sleep or ate really, really late the night before. Most mornings though it is no problem. If I’m being lazy (or woke up late) I just have a couple of eggs and I’m sorted.

The rest of the food thing is going well too. I think the Saturday gorge-a-thons are really, really helping with that. Before, I would have the restrictions in place every single day, and after a few weeks I’d implode and eat a pizza. And then I would slide right back into my old habits… usually very quickly.  Now, if I crave something that I’m not supposed to eat, I just say to myself, “Patience, my pretty. Patience. Soon it will be Saturday.”  This Saturday was about eating mashed potatoes. I wanted them so badly I would have killed a kitten for them.

Other than the time in Vegas (and the jet-lagged work week full of training the new peeps following it) I have been an utter rock fucking star about going to the gym at lunch. I do some core training on Mondays and Fridays… and the rest of the time I just run around like an idiot on a treadmill.  I even went swimming last week.

::SIDE NOTE::

One of the ‘core training’ exercises that I’m doing is a two-hand “Russian” kettlebell swing. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, this chick in this video demonstrates it pretty well:

I’m using a 20kg kettlebell and currently doing 5 sets of 15 reps, trying to work my way up to just doing 75 straight reps with the damned thing.

This is hard.

On Monday, after the first 15, I thought I was going to throw up or pass out. Most likely both. I had to put the stupid weight down and pace about for a good two minutes before I was ready to even think about picking it up again.

I was sore for the next three days, with Wednesday being the worst. On Wednesday, sitting down caused me pain. SITTING.

The good news is that when I did it again on Friday, although I still thought I might throw up after the first set, it was much easier and two days later I’m not sore. HOORAH!

::END SIDE NOTE::

Something I’ve learned about me and exercise: Like fuck I’m going to do it first thing in the morning. NO NO NO. So I’m not even going to try it any more. It is stricken off my list of things to do.

I’ve not been doing evenings either… but I may try that one again once it is lighter later. We’ll see. As long as I keep the gym sessions, I’m not too fussed.

I’ve been sleeping great. GREAT! I don’t think I have ever said that in my life ever. I think the melatonin and magnesium is helping… but so is the exercise and the fact that I’m not eating so much shit.

Overall, this experiment is working. My weight is slowing dropping, so are inches. Which is good. And my energy is up. Also good. I sleep better – excellent. And the best part is that I just feel better in general. Happier. And seeing how at this time a year ago I was the most stressed, angry and unhappy that I had ever been (and, although I didn’t know it then, just a few weeks off from being hospitalised)… I think being happier and less stressed is the best thing in the world right now. Awesome.

*I realised after posting that some people may not get what the post title is referring to. Which is sad. SAD. If you don’t know what I’m referencing, watch this clip. (Sorry about all the Hulu shit… I’m hoping that the heavy advertising means they won’t take the clip down…)

And if you don’t know which movie the Simpsons are parodying in that clip, well… there is nothing more I can do for you. You are obviously a culturally retarded cave dweller and I have nothing more to say to you.

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