Personal Life Updates
This LiveJournal entry is simply an update of minutiae in my life, for those who are interested. To avoid cluttering up the pages of those who are bored with such things, I will now place the ugly details behind a cut.
Diet: back on track, weight loss has accelerated. I am almost fifteen pounds lighter than when I started watching how I exercised and ate. Things that have worked for me: cutting sugar out of diet, sharply restricting carbohydrates and glycemic load of foods consumed, more fresh vegetables of the non-root variety (e.g. broccoli and bell peppers as opposed to carrots and beets), vigorous low-impact exercise (in the form of walking briskly up an incline of >8 degrees for over an hour at a time, mixed with a little jogging and running for interval training), and drinking black coffee. I haven't had this much coffee on a regular basis since my sophomore year of college, and back then I was drinking a "hot milkshake" of sugar, cream, and a little Kona roast for flavoring.
Now I drink my coffee the way a man should drink it: black as night and strong as death. Italian roast, or French, now seem like a medium darkness to me, a light and refreshing drink for mass consumption. For a dark roast, I tend to go for things labeled "ultra-" or "very" dark, or "bay blend." I think the coffee works well to suppress appetite by fooling the part of me that has been deluded into thinking it needs to eat when it doesn't. Fool Thyself.
Incidentally, some diets that didn't work well for me: vegetarianism, "detox" (which was Veganism in a trojan horse, and loaded with too much sugar), standard American Heart Association low-fat bullshit, eating Subway all the time like Jared. [The best advice I've found is a slightly modified "Mediterranean" diet that's low on things like bread, pasta, and starches, and the Ray and Terry's plan in Kurzweil's Fantastic Voyage. Your mileage may vary: everyone's metabolism is different.]
Cleaning: I just looked over some old posts, and it appears I've been very, very close to finishing the organization of my papers and so forth... for about the last three years. I'll work on it some more after I finish this post. I recently got rid of several books, either trading them in for new ones at the used bookstore or giving them to charity. And I moved one bookcase out of my office and put it in the living room, stuffed with fiction hardcovers and trade paperbacks. It looks quite comfy in there now, like a big den.
Writing: not nearly as much as I should be. I had some ideas for the Phast Phiction Phriday stuff recently, and I may start that up again soon, if the time can be spared and I can come up with a coherent outline. If I wasn't serializing it, it'd probably be easier, but with serialization comes the difficulty of not being able to edit large plot points without obvious retconnage.
Painting: not nearly as much as I should be.
Drawing: I've been practicing hard, and some of my discouragement is fading. It's still a hell of a long way from where it needs to be, though. Must practice practice practice.
Job Hunt: About an hour ago, the HR office from a permanent position I applied for just called: they offered me $2.50 more per hour than I'm making now, and want me to start on the 23rd. This is the only reason I'm considering restarting the Phriday stunt -- I may have access to the internet again. Joy joy joy. And in addition to finally having enough disposable income to afford tuition, this job is actually willing to work around a class schedule. Grad school, here I come... in a year or two. Maybe.
So, how have all of your lives been? Post something.
Diet: back on track, weight loss has accelerated. I am almost fifteen pounds lighter than when I started watching how I exercised and ate. Things that have worked for me: cutting sugar out of diet, sharply restricting carbohydrates and glycemic load of foods consumed, more fresh vegetables of the non-root variety (e.g. broccoli and bell peppers as opposed to carrots and beets), vigorous low-impact exercise (in the form of walking briskly up an incline of >8 degrees for over an hour at a time, mixed with a little jogging and running for interval training), and drinking black coffee. I haven't had this much coffee on a regular basis since my sophomore year of college, and back then I was drinking a "hot milkshake" of sugar, cream, and a little Kona roast for flavoring.
Now I drink my coffee the way a man should drink it: black as night and strong as death. Italian roast, or French, now seem like a medium darkness to me, a light and refreshing drink for mass consumption. For a dark roast, I tend to go for things labeled "ultra-" or "very" dark, or "bay blend." I think the coffee works well to suppress appetite by fooling the part of me that has been deluded into thinking it needs to eat when it doesn't. Fool Thyself.
Incidentally, some diets that didn't work well for me: vegetarianism, "detox" (which was Veganism in a trojan horse, and loaded with too much sugar), standard American Heart Association low-fat bullshit, eating Subway all the time like Jared. [The best advice I've found is a slightly modified "Mediterranean" diet that's low on things like bread, pasta, and starches, and the Ray and Terry's plan in Kurzweil's Fantastic Voyage. Your mileage may vary: everyone's metabolism is different.]
Cleaning: I just looked over some old posts, and it appears I've been very, very close to finishing the organization of my papers and so forth... for about the last three years. I'll work on it some more after I finish this post. I recently got rid of several books, either trading them in for new ones at the used bookstore or giving them to charity. And I moved one bookcase out of my office and put it in the living room, stuffed with fiction hardcovers and trade paperbacks. It looks quite comfy in there now, like a big den.
Writing: not nearly as much as I should be. I had some ideas for the Phast Phiction Phriday stuff recently, and I may start that up again soon, if the time can be spared and I can come up with a coherent outline. If I wasn't serializing it, it'd probably be easier, but with serialization comes the difficulty of not being able to edit large plot points without obvious retconnage.
Painting: not nearly as much as I should be.
Drawing: I've been practicing hard, and some of my discouragement is fading. It's still a hell of a long way from where it needs to be, though. Must practice practice practice.
Job Hunt: About an hour ago, the HR office from a permanent position I applied for just called: they offered me $2.50 more per hour than I'm making now, and want me to start on the 23rd. This is the only reason I'm considering restarting the Phriday stunt -- I may have access to the internet again. Joy joy joy. And in addition to finally having enough disposable income to afford tuition, this job is actually willing to work around a class schedule. Grad school, here I come... in a year or two. Maybe.
So, how have all of your lives been? Post something.