Category: Personal

So, with one week of stats under the belt now, according to what I’ve been tracking at TDP I consumed 12,227 calories over the last week. At my weight at the time and ‘light’ activity level, I should have burned 22,337 calories (3191 x 7), for a difference of 10,060. Using the guideline that losing a pound of weight requires roughly a difference of 3500 calories, the expected weight loss should be 2.87 pounds. Actual weight loss over the last week was 1.0kg, or 2.2 pounds.

So it’s off by about 30%, which isn’t too bad for an inexact science like this. I suspected that the calorie counts on some days might be underreported a bit due to uncertainty about sizes and inexact matches in the database, and the physical activity level is very rough and leaves a lot of room for error.

If I assume that the calories consumed is correct, then the average number of calories I burn per day is actually closer to (12,227 + 2.2 x 3500) / 7 = 2847. If I assume that the calories burned is correct, then I’m actually consuming (22,337 – 2.2 x 3500) = 14,637 calories, about 20% higher than what I entered. But the reality is probably somewhere in the middle between the two.

I finally got around to buying a scale, so I can start officially tracking with numbers. I was a bit depressed at the actual starting weight, though; it came out as a bit higher than what I guessed I was way back at the start of this, so I expected to be even lower than that. Oh well.

This scale also measures body fat, though that won’t really matter until towards the end (right now all it really needs to say is “too high”). It’s debatable how accurate these kinds of scales are for that, but it’s fine as long as I can actually see a difference occurring.

You’ll also be able to click on the “Change” field on the right for a graph of my progress. Well, once there’s more than one data point…

Well, I still have to buy a new scale to get specific numbers, but so far I’ve been able to move down one notch on my belt.

I’ve also been avoiding pop for the last couple weeks, as I used to drink a lot of diet colas but started to get worried about all the caffeine. The local Safeway has a lot of lightly-flavoured waters, but it’s tougher whenever I go to a local cafe for lunch or the food courts at the malls, as then it’s either pop, way-overpriced small bottles of water, or nothing.

So far I think it’s made me a bit more tired in the mornings, but that might be because it’s affected my sleep a bit. I’m getting to sleep more easily, but still waking up a bit tired; I’d been getting by on 6-7 hours of sleep before, but I seem to need a bit more now.

I need to get back to losing weight again. Yeah, I was moderately successful at it once before, getting down to within 9 pounds of my target, but then some stress at the office and other things hit, I fell back into old habits, couldn’t exercise the way I’d gotten used to, etc., and eventually got right back to where I’d started.

But that was a couple years ago, and I’ve been moping around in my current condition for far too long, so it’s time to do something about it again. Roughly the same plan as before, as it was working fairly well (the main problem was psychological), with a couple twists:

1) I can’t really start out exercising like I did before, due to some complications, so I’ll be relying mostly on controlling food in order to kick off the weight loss until I reach a point where it’s more practical.

2) And in order to track food, I’m going to try using The Daily Plate, and you can even spy on what I’m eating here. It won’t be entirely accurate as you sometimes have to fudge or guess the numbers a bit (damned if I know the exact weight of the noodles in the Chinese food I had for lunch), or settle for a close match in their database, but it’s better than nothing.

I’ve been managing to lose weight fairly steadily since the beginning of the year, but it’s starting to plateau a bit and I can’t get in as much walking as I used to, so I need to try something different. I’m going to spend more time with my PlayStation 2.

Not with DDR, the primary cliche of geek exercise, though. Instead, I found a title called yourself!fitness, that’s supposed to analyze your current fitness, set up a workout program depending on what you want to focus on (weight loss, upper body strength, flexibility, etc.), coach you through the exercises, and track your progress. I have it set for weight loss for now, but the other goals will come in useful as well, lest I wind up thin-but-wimpy… You can also tell it if you have any extra equipment like hand weights or an exercise ball, and it will incorporate additional exercises using those. There are also different difficulty levels, so that you can bump it down to something easier if you’re having trouble keeping up, or ramp it up if you’re not exerting yourself enough (for example, at lower levels you do bent-knee push-ups instead of proper full-body ones).

I originally set it up for half-hour sessions every day, but hesitated and set it to 15 minutes for the first day, just to test. The workout went well enough, but upon waking up this morning I was still too sore to do a morning workout as I had planned, so I’m definitely way out of shape and can forget those 30-minute sessions for now.

The only problems so far are that it assumes that you have a lot more free space around you than I have in my living room, and it takes a while to familiarize yourself with the different exercises. Each workout goes through a number of different stages and exercises, and by the time I’d figured out how to match my movements to hers, that part would be half-over. And, of course, you look like an idiot while doing most of these, so make sure the blinds are closed…

There’s a meal planner as well, for sticking to a certain calorie limit. I’m a horrible cook and lazy though, so screw that. I’ve got better things to do than track down huge lists of exotic ingredients every day. :P

Now if only they had a 360 version so I could earn gamerscore points…

I’m not particularly introspective, but as time goes on it’s harder to avoid thinking of most of the problems in my life, and the things I should do or have done but haven’t. Why not? The pat answer would be that I’d be afraid of failing, but I don’t think that’s quite right. I’ve already failed at them by not even trying for so long.

No, I’m starting to think that the answer may actually be that I’m afraid of success. Succeeding always sounds great, of course, but it always brings additional complications, responsibilities, and other unknown factors into your life, and I think that’s what scares me the most. I’ve gotten comfortable in my little life as it is, and become suspicious of any potential changes to it.

Damned if I know how to fix it, though.

I’ve alluded to it, but for those of you who don’t already know, I got to spend a little time vacationing at the Foothills Medical Centre recently. Just in case you’re curious…

(Warning: long, boring, full of self-pity, and possibly TMI)
Continue reading “The First Thing I Remember Was The Belching”

If you want an idea as to how bad the housing market is in Alberta right now, you just have to ask my mother.

She’s been looking for a new place to live for a couple months now, but without any luck so far. Even if you ignore financing problems, she hasn’t even won a single one of the dozen or more bids she’s placed so far. People are bidding 30-40k over the list price, and there are enough bids on any single house that your options are limited. You can’t even ask for an official inspection; there’s enough competition that the sellers can go with a slightly lower bidder that doesn’t ask for an inspection than take your higher bid and risk having the inspection knock its value down.

Trying to find a rental unit hasn’t been any easier, either. She wants to keep her dogs, but very few places have any vacancies right now, and even fewer would allow her to keep two large dogs. Even townhouses are tending to prohibit pets nowadays, for some reason.

I really should be getting back to my own search now that I’ve recovered, but her stories aren’t filling me with confidence…

It’s always nice to be offered money. And not from the widow of a dead Nigerian prince, for a change.

No, I just met with a mortgage specialist and nailed down some of the details for a pre-approved mortgage from my bank. Despite the current housing crisis, I should at least give the search a shot, so now things are finally in motion. The mortgage was the easy part, though — actually finding a decent house is going to be the painful part.

It’s not like the market is completely dry; there are still houses to be had, but I have to be careful. My somewhat limited mobility prevents me from rapidly running around from place to place. I need something with relatively good public transit connections. I don’t really know what a lot of neighbourhoods are like. I don’t want something that’s on the verge of falling apart, too small, too shoddily built, too heat-inefficient, too crime-infested, etc. But I can’t be too picky either, since my budget does put a limit on what I can look for.

Hopefully I won’t let desperation pressure me into making a bad choice now that I’m under a time limit. The pre-approval isn’t a commitment, but a current special discount rate will have expired by the time the pre-approval period ends, and house prices will have gone up even more (right now the average price is going up by something like $1,000 per day), so if I don’t get one within the next ninety days I may as well just wait until the cycle busts again. Considering the current furor over oil though, that could be a while…

I think I really need to do this, though. I’ve wasted too much of my life putting off plans and purchases for some future ‘settling down’ time that never seemed to come, so now’s the time.

Ugh, I just did a search on homes in Calgary within my price range and only got seven hits, whereas I’ve seen dozens before.

I really should have bought something a year or two ago, but kept putting it off as I didn’t feel ready for such a huge committment. Now I’ll either just have to put up with staying in an apartment for the near future and hope for a bust, or spend extra on a good realtor who might do a better job of looking.

This morning I finally mailed off my taxes, and much to my surprise I’ll actually get a fairly decent refund this year.

This afternoon I got home and there was a notice on my door, explaining that my rent would be going up in a few months.

Oh well.

Well, the first phase of spring cleaning is done, and I can once again see the surfaces of my kitchen table and bedroom desk. Huh, I guess it *is* wood…

Although I did throw out a few bags full of junk in the process, most of this was unfortunately accomplished by simple relocation of items. I’ve long since passed the point of having more ‘stuff’ than ‘room for stuff.’ What I still have to do, and this is always the hardest part, is to go through and actually throw items out.

There’s a large dictionary on my bookshelf that consumes a lot of space that could be taken up by other books that I use more often. Who uses paper dictionaries nowadays anyway, when it’s far easier to just plug ‘m-w.com’ into the address bar, or install some browser extension. But…it was given to me by my parents over 20 years ago, and was one of those first early bits of encouragement. How do you throw that away? But damn, it’s big and heavy…

I really should have bought a house a couple of years ago.

I could have, but every time I thought about setting things in motion, the sheer magnitude of all of the effort required and risks involved overwhelmed me and sent me scurrying back into a “oh it’s not so bad as it is now” frame of mind. Really though, at my age it’s far past time I started facing those kinds of responsibilities.

Of course, now the question is, do I grab something soon and just accept the increased cost, or try and wait it out if it’s a temporary ‘bubble’? Try and do something creative with terms and interest rates? Consider moving somewhere cheaper? Adjust my lifestyle to accommodate a smaller budget?

Dammit, I’m starting to feel overwhelmed again…

I’m horrible about seeing doctors.

Last night I couldn’t sleep because of some abdominal pain that started in the mid-evening, peaked around 3am, and finally subsided around 4am. This isn’t the first time though, and I usually write it off as indigestion or acid reflux or such, as it never gets too serious and seems to correlate with overeating (I had some sunflower seeds late in the day).

After finally getting to sleep last night though, I woke up and was once again struck with abdominal pain around 5:30am. It felt slightly different and I wasn’t sure what to make of it, so I started considering calling in sick and hoofing it down to a nearby clinic. But, as usual, I managed to plague myself with all sorts of doubts and concerns (Is it really serious enough? Would I just be another hypochondriac clogging the system? Would they resent some fat weirdo just wandering in and whining?) and convinced myself not to go.

Fortunately, after a nice, hot shower it has subsided again, and on the theory that something really serious doesn’t just go away, I think I’ll be fine. But if it flares up again today, I’ll hopefully be able to convince myself… :-P

I have to admit, I’m not exactly the best at keeping my place clean. In fact, it can be weeksmonths in between cleaning binges.

It was thus an unpleasant surprise when I got home late today and found a note taped to my door explaining that the building admins were going to be coming in and doing repairs on all units over the next week or so. Being on the ground floor, I can guess who they’re going to check first, too…

So, that’s why I just finished running around like the cliche’d teen who’s just had a big party and discovered his parents are on the way home from the airport… It’s not that I want to impress the landlord, I just don’t want to get kicked out.

There are still books and computer parts and boxes scattered about, but oh well, at least the place is clean. Well, cleaner…

I am *so* out-of-shape. Despite having lost weight, I still have horrible muscle tone, which isn’t too surprising considering the dual geek combo of desk-job and desk-hobbies… :-)

So, I figured I should start doing some basic exercises in the morning, and today I managed to get all of 10 push-ups and 5 sit-ups in before getting exhausted. And they weren’t even properly executed.

Oh yeah, off to a great start… :-P