Sunday once again and time for another weigh-in.
Going to be kind of a hodge-podge this week I think. Firstly, I would just like to say, in case any of you didn't know already, that Renaissance Festivals are awesome. Why does this have anything to do with this post? Well, Ren Fest has a lot of walking around and being outside involved, both of which are great for you, but the more relevant thing is that for me anyway they also involve costumes. Previous years I had gone with a nice all consuming cloak that Lara and I made, mostly Lara I will freely admit, a few years back. This year I was, as is often the case, bit by the creativity bug and so we embarked on a new costume quest. The result was a kilt and a Jacobite shirt. Mostly I brought this whole anecdote up to brag about the fact that the shirt, according to the pattern it was based off, is a size medium. Considering I used to wear shirts in a XXL, I'm calling that a hell of an accomplishment.
Secondly, I started using a new iPhone app this week to track my food and my weight. Meal Diary has served me well for a good while now, but with my food choices straying further and further from my original printed list over time, and no sign of going back any time soon, it's categories are becoming less useful. Further complicating it's usage is the fact that with my bulking phase upcoming I find myself needing to track my caloric intake and specifically my protein intake more accurately than I had been previously. For this, and because as an added benefit it allows me to enter my body fat when I make the measurements, I have switched over to using Daily Burn's iPhone app. The design is rather nice, and since I already had an account with them which I had been rarely using it was a simple setup. For any food that I eat which is packaged or from a restaurant I can just search for it, select a number of servings, and be on my way. For homemade food they also have a database of USDA food options that you can use to compose your meals, or in some cases I just find the closest thing that I can manage and call it good. So my method may not be perfect, but it's more detail than I had before. As an added benefit it tracks micronutrients like various vitamins and sends you an email every day letting you know if you are getting way too much or too little of certain nutrients.
That's about all for this week I think. Next week I'll be back with something, most likely details on the specific caloric plan I'm working with for my bulking phase, and what I'm going to need to do to accomplish it.
So what does the scale have to say this week? 202, same as last week, though my body fat trend line is now below 10% for the first time in recorded history. So while progress is slow so far, I'm also not actively into my bulking phase quite yet. So until next time, be the you you want to be.
Showing posts with label Review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Review. Show all posts
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Weekly Weigh-in (Week 58)
Sunday yet again, and time for my weekly weigh-in post.
Well, this week has been one much like many others. The main difference was that some apartment hunting happened. But I also picked up something for my wife, and got directed at a few blog posts from feeds I read, that got me to thinking about a post for this week. So, here goes.
Take a look at your feet. What do they look like? I don't mean generally, they'll be foot shaped and all, but specifically right now. Do they look like feet or do they look like shoes? Those of you who know me at all can probably guess my answer to that question, they look like feet. For as long as I can recall I spend all the time that I'm at home, and usually at anyone else's as well, barefoot and loving it. It's comfortable, natural, and leaves me feeling lighter and more maneuverable than where I to be wearing shoes. These goals have impacted my choice of casual footwear at least as heavily. My feet developed a deep rich tan matching whatever my current sandals were. But recently that tan line has been changing, a trip to Disneyland helped with that.
What has brought about this change you might wonder, and to what. Well, a change in footwear of course. Around 8 months ago now I picked up a new pair of shoes from the REI that had just opened in Tucson. A pair of Black Vibram Fivefingers Classics. At the time I picked them up to use as running shoes, and that was pretty much their exclusive use for me until mid-January or so. They did very well at that and when it warms up enough that I get back out running in the mornings again they will resume being used for that if things continue as they are now. But last month I started wearing them as my wearing around shoes instead of the Birkenstocks I had been wearing. I don't regret this at all and I don't plan to go back.
Now, a lot of you will look at these and wonder how on earth anyone could wear those. They look ugly you might think, they can't possibly be comfortable, you'll hurt yourself if you run in them, they'll destroy your feet, ruin your arches, etc. Well, I can gladly report that I've found that, potential ugliness aside, after the first week or so there was no pain at all, and the other possible issues were also non-existent. The pain was something I fully expected, and it was much reduced as I had worked out most of the kinks in my stride during my running in them. If you look at most tennis shoes and various other types of footwear you'll likely find that there is a lot of padding in the heel of the shoe and that the insole has a very defined arch built in. These things have a couple of effects. The heel cushioning reduces the impact force of your heel hitting the ground first when you walk in an effort to minimize the amount by which you are damaging your leg joints and hip joints. The defined arch keeps your foot in an arched shape at all times rather than letting it flex downward over the course of your stride. Compare those behaviors to how you walk when you are barefoot, you land further toward the front of your foot (personally, I land on the balls of my feet but others seem to land with the ball and the heel at around the same time) and your arch flexes to absorb impact.
There have been a number of studies on human strides that I won't delve into too much here, though you will find links at the end of this post, but suffice to say that the more natural impact, and the lowest force applied to the joints, happens when you don't land on your heels. As to the arch, the human body is a funny thing about that. While you might think that you need arch support to keep your foot functioning properly, structurally speaking supporting an arch is the worst thing you can do for it. Support in the middle of the arch actually weakens it dramatically, which in the case of your foot means weakening the muscles and tendons in the area and limiting how well they can do their job. In this case that's a very important job. Your foot is built so that the arch acts like a spring, absorbing impact force and then letting it back out when you take your next step. Using this absorption in your arch your stride becomes more energy efficient and you can keep walking or running over a much larger distance.
The Vibrams, and other shoes like them, have almost no cushion on them at all, and minimal structure let alone arch support. This forces your stride into a mode that better mimics the barefoot behaviors, but has the benefit of that rubber sole keeping you from cutting yourself on the glass and rocks that are so often strewn about in our modern environment. I love these shoes and can tell you certainly that they are the most comfortable shoes I have ever worn. They may seem expensive at first, but they are cheaper than the Birkenstocks I was wearing before and comparable to standard running shoes and various other high quality footwear, many of which are far less comfortable.
Speaking of comfort, here's a great example of that. I wore these shoes for 5 solid days of walking around Disneyland with minimal pain, certainly much less than I had the last time I was there for 3 days and had my Birks and a pair of sneakers, which is understandable when putting in that much mileage, even still I felt light on my feet to the point of jumping on and over random obstacles as we traversed the park. I got no fewer than 17 people asking me over the course of those 5 days about my shoes, most of whom had never seen them before, and a few of whom had considered them or just didn't think wearing them to the park was a feasible option. I even ran into one woman who also had the idea to wear hers to the park and we had a fun little chat about them with some other guests waiting near us. Shoes that are comfortable, and a conversation starter. Can't go wrong there. Plus, they are machine washable.
Well, having ditched the weight of my Birks in favor of the much lighter Vibrams has left me feeling lighter on my feet, but has it left me lighter elsewhere? Probably not, but let's see what the scale says about it. 199.5 this week, down .1 from last week. Weight staying fairly steady as is to be expected. Well, that's it for this week, until next week, go out and be the you you've always wanted to be.
P.S. For those of you wondering what it was that I got for my wife it was a pair of the Vibram Jaya's in the Black/Grey color. My only complaint from what I've heard about them so far is that they don't come in sizes big enough I could wear them.
Consolidated research on barefoot walking/running:
Unshod.org Research Page
Harvard's Barefoot Running page - amazingly comprehensive guide to what I'm talking about here
New York Magazine Article on Barefooting
Well, this week has been one much like many others. The main difference was that some apartment hunting happened. But I also picked up something for my wife, and got directed at a few blog posts from feeds I read, that got me to thinking about a post for this week. So, here goes.
Take a look at your feet. What do they look like? I don't mean generally, they'll be foot shaped and all, but specifically right now. Do they look like feet or do they look like shoes? Those of you who know me at all can probably guess my answer to that question, they look like feet. For as long as I can recall I spend all the time that I'm at home, and usually at anyone else's as well, barefoot and loving it. It's comfortable, natural, and leaves me feeling lighter and more maneuverable than where I to be wearing shoes. These goals have impacted my choice of casual footwear at least as heavily. My feet developed a deep rich tan matching whatever my current sandals were. But recently that tan line has been changing, a trip to Disneyland helped with that.
What has brought about this change you might wonder, and to what. Well, a change in footwear of course. Around 8 months ago now I picked up a new pair of shoes from the REI that had just opened in Tucson. A pair of Black Vibram Fivefingers Classics. At the time I picked them up to use as running shoes, and that was pretty much their exclusive use for me until mid-January or so. They did very well at that and when it warms up enough that I get back out running in the mornings again they will resume being used for that if things continue as they are now. But last month I started wearing them as my wearing around shoes instead of the Birkenstocks I had been wearing. I don't regret this at all and I don't plan to go back.
Now, a lot of you will look at these and wonder how on earth anyone could wear those. They look ugly you might think, they can't possibly be comfortable, you'll hurt yourself if you run in them, they'll destroy your feet, ruin your arches, etc. Well, I can gladly report that I've found that, potential ugliness aside, after the first week or so there was no pain at all, and the other possible issues were also non-existent. The pain was something I fully expected, and it was much reduced as I had worked out most of the kinks in my stride during my running in them. If you look at most tennis shoes and various other types of footwear you'll likely find that there is a lot of padding in the heel of the shoe and that the insole has a very defined arch built in. These things have a couple of effects. The heel cushioning reduces the impact force of your heel hitting the ground first when you walk in an effort to minimize the amount by which you are damaging your leg joints and hip joints. The defined arch keeps your foot in an arched shape at all times rather than letting it flex downward over the course of your stride. Compare those behaviors to how you walk when you are barefoot, you land further toward the front of your foot (personally, I land on the balls of my feet but others seem to land with the ball and the heel at around the same time) and your arch flexes to absorb impact.
There have been a number of studies on human strides that I won't delve into too much here, though you will find links at the end of this post, but suffice to say that the more natural impact, and the lowest force applied to the joints, happens when you don't land on your heels. As to the arch, the human body is a funny thing about that. While you might think that you need arch support to keep your foot functioning properly, structurally speaking supporting an arch is the worst thing you can do for it. Support in the middle of the arch actually weakens it dramatically, which in the case of your foot means weakening the muscles and tendons in the area and limiting how well they can do their job. In this case that's a very important job. Your foot is built so that the arch acts like a spring, absorbing impact force and then letting it back out when you take your next step. Using this absorption in your arch your stride becomes more energy efficient and you can keep walking or running over a much larger distance.
The Vibrams, and other shoes like them, have almost no cushion on them at all, and minimal structure let alone arch support. This forces your stride into a mode that better mimics the barefoot behaviors, but has the benefit of that rubber sole keeping you from cutting yourself on the glass and rocks that are so often strewn about in our modern environment. I love these shoes and can tell you certainly that they are the most comfortable shoes I have ever worn. They may seem expensive at first, but they are cheaper than the Birkenstocks I was wearing before and comparable to standard running shoes and various other high quality footwear, many of which are far less comfortable.
Speaking of comfort, here's a great example of that. I wore these shoes for 5 solid days of walking around Disneyland with minimal pain, certainly much less than I had the last time I was there for 3 days and had my Birks and a pair of sneakers, which is understandable when putting in that much mileage, even still I felt light on my feet to the point of jumping on and over random obstacles as we traversed the park. I got no fewer than 17 people asking me over the course of those 5 days about my shoes, most of whom had never seen them before, and a few of whom had considered them or just didn't think wearing them to the park was a feasible option. I even ran into one woman who also had the idea to wear hers to the park and we had a fun little chat about them with some other guests waiting near us. Shoes that are comfortable, and a conversation starter. Can't go wrong there. Plus, they are machine washable.
Well, having ditched the weight of my Birks in favor of the much lighter Vibrams has left me feeling lighter on my feet, but has it left me lighter elsewhere? Probably not, but let's see what the scale says about it. 199.5 this week, down .1 from last week. Weight staying fairly steady as is to be expected. Well, that's it for this week, until next week, go out and be the you you've always wanted to be.
P.S. For those of you wondering what it was that I got for my wife it was a pair of the Vibram Jaya's in the Black/Grey color. My only complaint from what I've heard about them so far is that they don't come in sizes big enough I could wear them.
Consolidated research on barefoot walking/running:
Unshod.org Research Page
Harvard's Barefoot Running page - amazingly comprehensive guide to what I'm talking about here
New York Magazine Article on Barefooting
Friday, May 7, 2010
Wine Reviews
Today I'm going to post two wine reviews that I've had waiting to go up for a while. I've still got two more waiting to go up, and I'm hoping those will make it up sometime next week or so. I've been sitting on these quite a while waiting to have the time to get them posted, and now it's that time. Hope you enjoy.
Review: The first wine is a 2008 Sauvignon Blanc from Steven Bannus of Sonoma California, the bottle identifies the appellation as the Russian River Valley. The first thing that struck me when I went into the first glass was the smell, hints of apple, honey, and apricot. The taste also came off with hints of the apple flavor, and an almost flowery flavor. It became a little sharper in taste as it warmed up, but was very well balanced and remained drinkable even as it warmed.
Price: Normally it's priced at $14 a bottle, but I picked it up during a 'buy one get one for a nickel' sale so it worked out to about half that.
Rating: 9/10 The wine was excellent, well worth the $7 I paid for it and worth the normal $14 as well. It was good enough I'm going to strongly consider keeping some Sauvignon Blanc around in addition to the Riesling that I normally keep around.
Review: The second wine on the list is the Firehose Gewürztraminer. The first time we opened it, it was bitter and practically undrinkable. We closed it up and put it back in the cellar for a month, nearly two, and when we tried it again it was much more palatable. While I will say I was disappointed by the first impression, I plan to give it a second chance to make sure it wasn't just too young the first time around, or otherwise just a bad bottle.
Price: Average retail is around $10-12, and that is about what I recall paying for it, though I no longer have the receipt or the records to verify that.
Rating: 6/10 As I said, I don't really feel this bottle can be considered representative, it's the only Gewürz I've yet had, so take this rating with a grain of salt. When I have had a chance to make a second assessment to determine if this was just an off bottle I'll make sure to post the results.
Review: The first wine is a 2008 Sauvignon Blanc from Steven Bannus of Sonoma California, the bottle identifies the appellation as the Russian River Valley. The first thing that struck me when I went into the first glass was the smell, hints of apple, honey, and apricot. The taste also came off with hints of the apple flavor, and an almost flowery flavor. It became a little sharper in taste as it warmed up, but was very well balanced and remained drinkable even as it warmed.Price: Normally it's priced at $14 a bottle, but I picked it up during a 'buy one get one for a nickel' sale so it worked out to about half that.
Rating: 9/10 The wine was excellent, well worth the $7 I paid for it and worth the normal $14 as well. It was good enough I'm going to strongly consider keeping some Sauvignon Blanc around in addition to the Riesling that I normally keep around.
Review: The second wine on the list is the Firehose Gewürztraminer. The first time we opened it, it was bitter and practically undrinkable. We closed it up and put it back in the cellar for a month, nearly two, and when we tried it again it was much more palatable. While I will say I was disappointed by the first impression, I plan to give it a second chance to make sure it wasn't just too young the first time around, or otherwise just a bad bottle.Price: Average retail is around $10-12, and that is about what I recall paying for it, though I no longer have the receipt or the records to verify that.
Rating: 6/10 As I said, I don't really feel this bottle can be considered representative, it's the only Gewürz I've yet had, so take this rating with a grain of salt. When I have had a chance to make a second assessment to determine if this was just an off bottle I'll make sure to post the results.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Musings on iTunes 9
As many of you are probably aware, iTunes 9 came out today. I felt that I should bless you all with my thoughts on the changes.
iTunes Store features:
First, I'll be discussing the two features that I probably will be least likely to use, but still bear mention. iTunes LP is a great step forward in the field of replacing hard copy CD sales in my opinion. Album art, Liner notes, and Lyrics (which hopefully will be automatically added to files) are great additions that could prove a turning point in how some people buy their music. Extras for movies could similarly prove to be a turning point feature for some peoples movie purchasing.
Neither will change my buying habits much at all simply because of my preference for getting a hard copy of media I purchase. They are closer than ever before to the point at which I switch, but I'm a stickler for the physical copies of my DVDs and music.
Aside: Just in case you are a person who purchased things using the Shopping Cart be aware: it isn't there anymore. It's been replaced with wishlists, see this TUAW Article for details.
Genius:
I've liked the Genius feature since I tried it for the first time. However, I've always had one minor problem with it, the playlists it created were too short and so I heard them over and over again in many cases. iTunes 9 fixes that for me. Genius Playlists now have a length that can be set at 25, 50, 75, or 100 songs. This is a great thing in my opinion.
Another new feature in this version is Genius Mixes. They look promising, but I haven't had the chance to play with them too much yet. They look like they may be a great addition simply because they will keep playing without me having to intervene at all for the duration of my listening session. I'm not sure how you "seed" them or select what their themes are at this point however so it remains to be seen exactly how useful the feature will prove.
Smart Playlists:
Smart Playlists just got smarter in iTunes 9, with the inclusion of a trick from Finder's Smart Folders. Smart Playlists can now include multiple sections broken up with their own criteria, for example the Classical Music playlist that I found added to my sidebar when I launched iTunes 9 for the first time. Using this ability I was able to merge what had previously been 3 playlists I used to make sure my music had all the proper meta-data set the way I wanted it became 1 playlist, and 2 playlists to control the syncing of my Nano became 1 playlist.
Syncing:
This sounds like a good time to talk about the changes to how syncing works. Now instead of just being able to sync using playlists you can tell iTunes to sync all music by artists you select, all music within a genre, and playlists you choose, all at the same time. This is something a lot of people had been using Smart Playlists to do for a while, and now it's built into the core feature set. I'm told photo syncing has been improved to interact with the '09 version of the iLife suite, ie Faces and Events, but I can't confirm this as I don't have iLife '09 to test it out.
Sharing:
Home Sharing is a feature that I probably won't take too much advantage of, but it's certainly useful if I choose to. Being able to share music within a household is something that I'm of the opinion shouldn't be made difficult, and it would seem that Apple agrees.
Social Media sharing seems to have come to the Store, at least in some respects. iTunes still lacks the sharing feature that I would like, but am well aware is unlikely to ever happen: integration enough with Facebook so as to show what's been played recently by my iTunes from within my Facebook as I currently do with iLike. I'm understanding that it is unlikely because it means Apple would have to either acquire iLike or make a Facebook app duplicating the functionality, neither of which is likely. Frankly, that's fine with me.
Final Thoughts:
For the price it's a really great upgrade. It fixes some annoyances I've had because of the way in which I use iTunes, and made those things much easier to do. I still can't search for music based on whether or not it has artwork or lyrics associated with it, but those are probably not features that the average user would have a need for. I like the changes to the appearance of the player and the store, though my gut tells me that the search for podcasts is less flexible than it used to be, I suspect my gut is saying that under the influence of a quesadilla.
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