For those of you who made it through your first week of New Year’s Resolutions, good job! Even if you fell off already, allow me to help. I do not claim to be a fitness or health expert,  nor even one on losing weight. However, someone with some moderate success I thought I would share my thoughts on the subject. I think these are vastly different from what you will read anywhere else.

1. Lose weight as slowly as possible

Want to lose 20 pounds in 12 days on the cucumber colonic diet? Great, you aren’t the first.  Come back and read this again after you gained 2x the weight back for the 14th time. There is a reason “diet” has the word “die” in it: you are technically dying, at least if you do it wrong.

It took me a year to lose 35lbs. That isn’t the stuff of big headlines, but I believe it is why I will keep it off. Losing weight slowly lets your body adjust gradually without going into shock, and teaches you how to eat properly to maintain your weight.

You didn’t gain the weight in days, you shouldn’t expect to lose it in days. If you do, you’re already doomed to failure.(again)

2. Change your life as little as possible

Denying yourself is a sure path to failure. Sure you can keep it up for a month or two, if you’re a real masochist, you might even hit your goal. But then you go back to “real life” and you gain it all back.

I didn’t deny myself anything, including my indulgence of calorie rich dark beer. I did learn more about what I ate (see below) and what I was putting in my body. I learned that my “I’m not really hungry for anything” fast food meal was almost 1400 calories! That’s quite a bit for when I’m not even really wanting anything. Now it’s 600. Not bad for fast food.

3. Do one thing and do it well

Forget your carbs, your fats , your sugars, or whatever the fad of the hour is. I focused purely on calories. Calories are energy and fat is stored energy- that’s it. It’s easily trackable and easy to understand.

To an extent, because of this and the next one,  I have lost some muscle along the way. I don’t care at all. Now that I’ve hit my goal, that’s next. It also removes that whole “Muscle weighs more” excuse. (Protip: a pound is a pound)

4. Forget the gym

Let’s face it. You didn’t gain your weight because you didn’t work out enough. Sure, sitting on the couch all that time didn’t exactly help; but the Bon Bons, chips, and pizza you ate while sitting there is what did you in.

Thing about the gym is it’s work, and I’m lazy. Heck, most people who have memberships seem to have to make a strong effort just to GET to the gym.

For the last several years, I’ve spent my summers on a mild workout program. Either pushups and sit ups, dumb bells, or jump rope. Thing is, I ended up hungrier because my body knew it was using more fuel. I also see a lot of people using “I went to the gym today/this week/3 months ago” as an excuse to eat 3x the calories they worked off. My workout programs never got me past the 1st plateau my diet handed me, even though I was steadily increasing reps the whole time. Your body is very, very good at putting the minimal effort into things.

5. Plateaus happen- deal with it

You WILL plateau, it happens in everything you do. You haven’t grown much since high school have you? Is your salary skyrocketing in this lovely economy of ours? Do you learn everything you attempt every time you try? Why would weight loss be any different?  I personally found my plateaus coincided with the weights I spent the most time at on the way up.

A long plateau is a sign that you might have to tweak what you do, but don’t let that violate #2 above. As you lose weight, your body will use less calories to do all that basic stuff like breathing and pumping blood, so you will periodically need to adjust your calories down to match. But once again, these gradual changes are lifestyle changes that will then become permanent.

Realize a plateau isn’t a failure, it is a success. It means you’re now stable at the weight you have arrived at, which is less than it used to be.

6. Log it, damn it

I used two tools to lose my weight. The first is Myfitnesspal.com. It’s a website, but I exclusively used the Android app. In fact, the start of my diet coincided with the day after I got my smart phone. I logged everything I ate, drank, etc with it to the best of my ability. With big chains it was pretty easy, as they have an extensive database of user entered foods (warning: sometimes entered by not the sharpest minds) and with prepackaged foods the barcode scanner made things very easy. Cooking at home or going to smaller restaurants was more of a challenge, but I always did my best, erring on the high side to keep myself honest. You will have many days where you go over, that’s ok, do your best. This is a marathon, not a sprint.

My scale gives me more than just weight. It adds BMI, fat %, muscle %, “body age” and visceral fat %. It also stores it and shows you your highs for x amount of days. Honestly I consider most of these numbers to be BS, especially body age. (I just broke out of my 50s- thanks scale.) But while I don’t believe the values to be accurate, I do at least pretend they are consistent. So on a week where I plateau or even gain a bit, a loss of fat or gain in muscle can lighten the blow.

Also stop fearing the scale. Think of it differently. I logged all the data once a week, on Monday night. (What you weight at your heaviest is still what you weigh.) But I jumped on the scale almost every day, and often several times a day. It might just keep you from having that snack you were considering, but never, ever use it to say “Hey! I lost .2lbs! Let’s go eat Bon Bons!”

There are lots of apps and scales that do similar things. Find one that works for you.

7. Cheat

I do believe in a cheat day. For me it’s Friday. I regularly go several hundred calories over my daily limit that day. However, I don’t use it as an excuse to eat over 9000 calories and undo everything I’ve been working for. Cheat days are to indulge, but don’t set yourself back.

Here’s another idea: Food Vacations! While I’d love to have a formula for this, like your HR department has for your vacation time, I say just use it when you feel in a rut. I tried this with my girlfriend where we took a weekend off. We had a huge list of places we wanted to go to eat from Friday night through Sunday. We actually found that after breakfast on Sunday neither of us wanted to eat anymore. It was an awesome feeling that I didn’t even WANT that food.

Ever wonder why that skinny b*tch eats whatever she wants and never gains weight? It’s because she doesn’t.  You only see her when she’s splurging, and if you eat right most of the time (not starving yourself putting your body in shock) your body will see no need to keep those extra calories.

8. Food Divorce

We live in this amazing time where not only do we have all the food we could ever want, we can eat whatever sounds most delicious at the moment. Chinese, Italian, Mexican, fast food, slow food, home cooked, fine dining, breakfast, lunch, desert… anything. This is incredible, but we are incredibly spoiled for it. Seriously you don’t need to be so indulgent.  Find 5 low calorie things you like to have for lunch all week. Either going out from work or making/bringing from home, doesn’t matter. Mix it up so you don’t eat the same thing every Tuesday and be sure to find new things when you get sick of your existing choices. Seriously, it’s just lunch, not a last meal.

BONUS: A Biology lesson

(Disclaimer 2: I’m not a Biologist, you can learn this as I did in any Bio 101 class)

I think a quick biology lesson is in order for those that get manipulated by fads. Sugar breaks down to ATP in the cell with the help of oxygen. You have about a 90 second supply of ATP at any one time. This is the energy source that keeps you alive. Excess sugar gets packed up- into CARBS. Excess carbs get packaged and stored as FATS.

Now, retrieval from fat will take time, and if you run out of around half your ATP supply you will die. So if you work out vigorously, your body will actually rip power from places you do not want, like your muscles, because it simply doesn’t have the time to get the fat.

So, for those of you who cant imagine not exercising, how best to work out to lose weight? Go for a walk.

Think about it, your ancestors lived a nomadic life.  They went to an area, ate everything they saw, and then walked to the next area. Those that didn’t survive the walk didn’t pass on genes. So we are all great at fat storage, and stubborn about giving it up. Walking gives your body the time to get the fat out of storage and break it down to what it needs.

Good luck!

The Components

For those of you who aren’t aware of Dropbox, it is a web folder syncing program that works with Windows, Mac and Linux. This will focus mainly on the Windows side of things, but I might touch on Linux as well. You sign up, and get 2gb of storage for free. (However, you and I will get a 250mb bonus if you use my referral links in this post.) The software syncs files you put in it’s folder with other computers you have registered as well as the web from when you are away.

Netbeans is an IDE written in Java. I’m no expert programmer, and I only use it for PHP, HTML, CSS type development, but if you use Java or another language Netbeans supports there should be no difference in the setup. IDEs tend to be an almost religious choice among developers, and it will be the most involved part of this setup, but it is still not that difficult.

XAMPP which has cousins for Mac and Linux (although with the ease of setting up a full-blown web server in Linux I am not sure why it is needed) is a bare-minimum and also portable version of Apache, PHP, MySQL, and others such as an FTP server and PHPMyAdmin for a full blown web server that can be trivially added to any OS. There is also a Lite version which is what I use to save on Dropbox’s limited space as I really do not need anything beyond Apache and MySQL.

The Setup

Dropbox

Obviously you first need a Dropbox account, go ahead and sign up. Download and install the software and you are done. One big tip here is that you will want your Dropbox folder installed in the same place across all your machines. By default it is your (My )Documents\Dropbox, with the “My” being for XP (Mac and Linux users it will be a sub directory of your Home folder) I personally recommend you change it to C:\Dropbox. Not only does this eliminate any issue between you having different user accounts across different computers, XAMPP is a bit happier with this setup.

XAMPP 

This one’s easy! I recommend downloading the zipped (not installer) version, and extract it to (dropbox folder)\xampp. (Note: In my case it is xampplite, just use what it wants to use.) Once again XAMPP  is a bit picky on where it likes to be, so I do not recommend renaming the xampp directory. It can be done, but it is more headache than I find benefit to. Jump in there and run xampp-control.exe, click ‘Start’ for Apache and congratulations you are running a web server. http://localhost is the place to go to test it. XAMPP comes with some sample stuff that you will be greeted with, as well as settings and advise on security. Feel free to peruse on your own. Note that your web documents themselves (and the example files) live in (dropbox folder)\xampp(lite)\htdocs.

Netbeans

Now we come to the fun part. None of this is hard, but it is not as cut and dry as installing the firs two. One reason is it does not have a portable installer. So on one machine, simply download (Current version as of the time of writing is 6.9) and install the version with the features you need. The PHP version is what I use, and it has the added benefit of being the smallest. The installer is straightforward and shouldn’t give you any surprises. Don’t try to install to your Dropbox folder at this time, we will take care of that in a moment.

Back? Time to get to work. It installed to your c:\Program Files\Netbeans 6.9 (or Program Files(x86)for 64bit OSes) navigate there and copy the Netbeans folder. Go to your Dropbox folder and paste it in. (I personally create an “Apps” sub directory) Our work is not yet done. We have 2 more things to take care of. One is the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) that Netbeans depends on, and the other is the configuration of the user directory. Full disclosure: Much of this info is from this post, however it is a bit dated and I have noticed a change or two. Note his version is for a flash drive, and he says it would be too slow for real development, but in our configuration we are using the hard drive.

1. Java Runtime Enviroment (JRE) – Ther are two choices to this one. Either download and install it on all PCs you plan on using Netbeans on, or we can add it to the Dropbox folder. To do that, after installing navigate to C:\Program Files\Java and copy the jre6 folder to the (dropbox)\Netbeans 6.9 folder.
2. Make a directory called “NetbeansUserDir” (or anything else you want) in the same directory as your Netbeans directory. In version 6.8, I couldn’t get Netbeans to use a sub directory of the Netbeans folder for this, so I just put it next to the Netbeans folder. Feel free to experiment on your own once things are working. Now it is time to do a bit of editing.
3. In the Netbeans folder you will find an etc\netbeans.conf file. Open this in your favorite text editor. Unfortunately, the file looks pretty messy due to a lack of (or at least non-windows compatible) line breaks, but we aren’t going to change much. First find netbeans_default_userdir= and make it say netbeans_default_userdir=”..\..\NetbeansUserDir” (or whatever you named it.)
4. Now find netbeans_jdkome= farther down in the file and change it to read netbeans_jdkhome=”..\jre6″ go ahead and save the file.

 Note: For this tutorial I am actually replacing Netbeans 6.8 with 6.9, and at the end all my projects, settings, etc had carried over to the new install.

Run!

Now you can simply go into Netbeans 6.9\bin and run netbeans.exe. If nothing happens or you get errors, review the netbeans.conf file from step 3 above. If you get the JDK directory wrong Netbeans will prompt you to download and install it. To test the user directory, once Netbeans is open go to help->about and it will list it in the dialog box at the bottom. Feel free to make shortcuts to C:\Dropbox\Netbeans 6.9\bin\netbeans.exe (or wherever you put it) on your desktop/launcher/start menu/etc however I find the best (and synced!) place is just the root of the Dropbox folder.

Cleanup

You can now uninstall Netbeans from your computer to save space and eliminate confusing shortcuts. Note that Netbeans will leave some ‘litter’ behind in the form of .netbeans and .netbeans-registration folders in your user folder. These should be theoretically eliminated if one were to edit the JRE settings that point to the “${HOME}” system property alluded to in the netbeans.conf, however the files are unsubstantial and I have not found where the settings are kept in my limited perusal. Note that if the registration folder is deleted, Netbeans will once again ask you to register the next time you start the program, which will recreate the file. As Dropbox will only be installed on computers you have control over, and all data is on the hard drive anyway, I don’t see a privacy reason to eliminate these files, however if you were doing this on a thumb drive it might be something to look into if you are security conscious.

Going further

Dropbox can be used for many things. I personally use it for quick copying of files from one computer to another as well as hosting a variety of lesser used apps. Any application that does not need to modify the host computer can live entirely in Dropbox and be synced across computers. A good place to start is portableapps.com which also has a menu system (like a secondary start menu) that will work fine in Dropbox to save you hunting for all the program executable.

Linux/Mac

The Netbeans we installed has 2 files in the /bin folder. The second should launch Netbeans with the same path statements we edited earlier in setup. From there you can edit your local Apache settings to change the www root to the xampp/htdocs folder, or link the two folders, or create a sub-domain. I will leave that as an exercise to the reader (Ubuntu 10.04 does not support my video card you see…) but please comment if get it going.

As for Mac, I honestly do not know. Feel free to educate me below! I would love to update this to being entirely cross-platform, and with your help I can.

The wiki grew with information, and became useful in unexpected ways, such as enabling other departments to look up common parts so they didn’t have to transfer the customer to tech support just to get a part number. The wiki even got slightly better hardware, upgrading to a Pentium IV with dual HD so it was a bit more protected than before from hardware failure.

Alas, with my busy schedule the maintenance went neglected and it chugged along running Ubuntu 6.10 server. Wanting to do some spring cleaning, I decided to update the server. Due to what seems to be a bug with Ubuntu of the day, deleted files on the /var drive were never removed, and the update of the OS put the system to it’s doom.

This is why you have backups, and I certainly had them. I decided to wait for a few torturous days (it really proved just how valuable the wiki was to people I did not even realize used it) to let Ubuntu 9.10 LTS come out. But I also took the opportunity to make the system more robust in the future.

VMwareis certainly the 800 pound gorilla of the virtualization world, and there is nothing wrong with that, but I have been a fan of VirtualBox almost since it’s inception. Little things like using SATA drivers instead of SCSI are quite nice, and I guess I am simply more familiar with it at this point.

So to make things relatively easy on myself (restoration of the wiki was in high demand) I went with 2 copies of Ubuntudesktop, one for the hardware and one virtualized. Uses more resources than necessary, but made it very easy for me to set up quickly and the wiki itself doesn’t need much power to run. To save on our often tight internet bandwidth, I actually did most of the initial install, setup, and configuration at home and exported the OS to a USB drive to bring into the office to add data and do final configuration.

Now not only do I have the ability to move the system to new hardware when it becomes available, (I am pushing for a ‘real’ server which I will endeavor to run VirtualBox via command line) I can easily clone the server for backup and to test things like future updates. If it ever goes down again, my base image plus a backup can have it running again in mere minutes.

Recently, I have been given a new project, to find a way to distribute our customer VPN base to our field techs so we can do 24/7 remote support. However, distributing such sensitive data to systems that are mobile and therefore easily lost, as well as in unknown states of security is what you might call a very bad idea.

Enter virtualization again. By virtualizing the entire VPN system, our people can Remote Desktop over our corporate VPN to remote into our customer base. Not only does the information stay securely inside our corporate network, new configurations are easily deployed. Another huge benefit is that most VPN configurations send all data to the remote endpoint, which disconnects active local sessions. Normally this would cause the systems to disconnect our employees, but as they will remote into the host OS, they will retain full control over the remote even after the VPN is established.

I just love tech, while sometimes needlessly complicated, the whole point of it is to make lives easier and has shown consistent movement towards that goal. Even just a few years ago, the ease of administration and benefit to users and overall cost virtualization brings was a pipe dream. Now almost anyone can do it.

• I don’t want to learn what I call “教科書弁” or textbook language. Japanese (and other Asian Languages) have respect levels, and textbooks teach you the most polite version that is rarely used in everyday speech among friends. While it certainly may be rude not to use in many situations, when watching TV, listening to music, or talking with friends you will not understand much if you only know the formal forms.
• I want to avoid taking a traditional class, mostly for the above reason but also because I want it to be something I do in my free time for fun not out of obligation. (I apparentlyhave a twisted definition of fun.)
• Rather than study, I want to USE. I have been feeling lately like the more Japanese I study, the less I can actually use, which is becoming quite frustrating. I assume (hope) it is just a plateau that I will eventually get over, but the most rewarding part of learning a language is using it, not answering a flashcard correctly.
• There are multiple tools such as Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone that I have always wondered how good they would be if I was starting from scratch with them.
• I really want to learn by studying music, which is what gets me into a language in the first place. Watching TV, movies and eventually conversing are enjoyable and the way I wish to learn.

I only started in earnest about two weeks ago. I have some demos of Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone to test out, and I bought a textbook about a month ago that has mostly been taking up space on my desk so far. So where am I at? In short- frustrated.

• I am spoiled by previously studying what must be one of the simplest languages in existence to pronounce: Japanese. I simply cannot hear the sounds of Korean, no matter how many times I replay it.
• Pimsleur teaches polite form, which is fine at this juncture as I want to just get used to the sounds, but so many of the words sound so similar (especially due to the polite endings) that I just get confused and frustrated.
• Rosetta Stone is what I started off on last night, and it seems to drop you off a cliff into being able to say full sentences that are recognizable to the software pretty quickly. I got frustrated and gave up, but I do hope to give it another shot.
• I stated my reasons above for not wanting to take a class, but I do learn best from a teacher, and I need a foundation in the language before I can really get going. By forgoing the initial classes, I make the first steps harder.
• There are far fewer online resources for studying Korean than Japanese. I guess the difference in GDP and amount of export culture affect the scale of tools available.

So what now? Giving up is always an option of course, after all I am doing this for ‘fun’ but giving up so early just seems cheesy. So I need a different plan of attack.

• I think I will start by learning the Hangul (Korean alphabet) I initially wanted to hold this off until I had the sounds and maybe 50 words or so under my belt, as it is hard to read when you don’t know the words, but hopefully I can get an idea of how the language is structured so I know the morphology of the sounds.
• Try out smart.fm and see what it has to offer. Smart.fm is really an awesome thing, I have played with it for Japanese, but since it is all user-generated content you are never sure of just how focused/useful the lists are. Also the vast majority do not have sound.
• Look for resources of others learning Korean. A tutor or study group would be nice.
• Convince my friend Mina to leave the desert and move out to become my personal tutor.

I thought it might be a nice idea to record my thoughts about this as I started this journey. Hopefully what starts off rocky leads to something fruitful.