Monthly Archive for October, 2008

A while back, I posted: Why I Wear the Same Clothes Every Day.  Today, I’m going to talk about why I eat the same meals every day.

Before I do, let me make one thing clear:

I Love Food.  I Love Cooking.  I Love Eating.  And there isn’t a food I won’t try twice.

Then why would I eat the same food every day?

Before I continue, you should know:

• I eat no less than four times a day.
• I eat for no more than $5 a day.
• I’m never hungry.
• My energy levels are always consistent…I never have energy spikes or dips.
• Eating this way is not only healthy for me, but I’ve also lost fat mass while increasing muscle mass.
• One day a week, I eat whatever the heck I want.  And I take full advantage of it.

Just as with the benefit of wearing the same clothes every day – that I free up mental space for other things – I’m able to do the same by eating the same foods every day.

Additionally, this kind of routine allows me to find the best prices for food, the fastest ways to cook and prepare my food, and the healthiest ways to eat.  I do it over 20 times a week, after all.  You end up getting pretty good at doing something you’re consciously trying to improve 20 times a week.

What your body really needs in terms of food.

Your body is pretty simple.  The human body hasn’t changed much in its requirements in thousands of years.  What has happened is that people have changed as a result of their nutrition and diets.

I’m going to cut the science that some people find boring, but that I’ve become fascinated with over the past year.  Here’s what you need to know.  Click the links if you’re interested:

• Your body probably needs more protein and less carbohydrates than what you’re currently eating.
• Your body functions better with carbohydrates low on the Glycemic Index.

An exception to what you probably think you know:

• You don’t need carbohydrates to live and be healthy. (Though they do help with some things.)

So…..what the heck do I eat?

Every meal I have consists of the same structure:

• At least 30g of protein from a source of complete protein.
• About 3/4 cup of a low GI carbohydrate source.
• About 1/2-3/4 cup of vegetables for vitamins.
• About 1/4 cup of a legume for a complimentary source of protein and low GI carbs.  In addition, these are a great source of fiber which is fantastic for several reasons.

What my meals look like…

Here are the meals that I have eaten regularly over the past three months…it’s like a game…Mix and match to win!

• Protein: Chicken breast, eggs, beef, fish or a protein shake.
• Low GI Carbs: Brown rice, couscous or whole wheat pasta.
• Vegetables: Spinach, various mixed vegetables, broccoli, etc.
• Legumes: Quinoa or lentils.

For flavor (if I decide to add anything), I usually turn to hot sauce, red pepper flakes, etc.  You’d be surprised at how much you can do with that basic structure.

I just couldn’t do that.  Don’t you get bored with it?

This is the most common response I get from people when they find out I eat the same meals.  My answer?

I very specifically made the decision that food was going to be much less of a source of happiness for me, and more of a source of nutrition and physical value.  My happiness comes from what I’m able to do by being in shape, saving time, saving money, etc, rather than food.

Basically, I have things that I want to do that, in order to do them, my body needs to be functioning well.  This includes playing hockey, riding my bike, rock climbing, hiking, etc.  I’ve had times in my life when I’ve been out of shape.  The reality is that you have more opportunities to do awesome things when you’re in good shape.  That starts with eating right.

But wait, there’s more!

Once a week, I eat whatever the heck I want.  And I mean, whatever I want.

Most weekends (most being more than 50%), I eat no less than a half gallon of ice cream, quite often, a full gallon is had during that day.  I just really love ice cream.  Seriously.  It’s all cold, and sweet, and delicious…..

Last week, it was two bags of gummy worms in 3 hours.  I totally could’ve eaten another two bags, but I paced myself since I was climbing the next day.

Final notes…

• I’ve been experimenting with this in other ways recently.  For example, I’ve eaten a gallon of ice cream over the past 4 days.  You’ll have to do it to know how it works.  Interestingly, though, I find that that much sugar on a regular basis now makes me tired.
• Buy your food at Wal Mart.  If you have ethical reasons for not shopping there, fine.  If you don’t shop there because you “feel bad” shopping there, get over it and cut your food bill in half.
• A downside of this is that whenever you go out to eat and get your $15 bill, you’ll think to yourself “Crap.  That’s three days worth of food.”  You might find more common ways of eating to be more ridiculous.
• I cook my carbohydrates in bulk and in advance.  I would say that the total time I spend preparing food each week – all of my meals – is less than 2 hours.  Think about that next time you’re on a solo one-hour lunch break.

The Legal Note:

I can’t recommend that you do this.  Consult your doctor.

A friend of mine is an artist.  She’s creative, smart, and thinks in pictures.

I’m definitely (perhaps) not an artist.  My creativity comes from other places, my intelligence is often debatable, and I think very much in words.

She showed me her thesis project in school and explained what it communicated.

When she was done, she said…

“I don’t know.  I wanted to say something.  I could have written an essay about it, or I could have made art to say it.  I chose to make art.”

And I choose to write (or think…in words).

We May Not Be Too Different, Though…

Paul Graham makes art with words.  And businesses.  And technology.  And paintings.

His book, Hackers and Painters, is a series of essays he has written, the most well known being…well….Hackers and Painters.

In the article, he he fundamentally proposes that…

“What hackers and painters have in common is that they’re both makers. Along with composers, architects, and writers, what hackers and painters are trying to do is make good things.”

Going back to my friend and our differences, it seems that the only difference may be our medium.  Hers being imagery and the moods it creates, mine being language and the value it creates.

Thus, I would also add to this list: Entrepreneurs.

It’s Easy to Think of an Artist as a Maker of Art…

But it’s not so easy to see an entrepreneur – or better yet, a businessperson – as a maker of art.

The most common conversation that I have with people about the idea of business people as artists, is that what is produced, is received – or interacted with – very differently than art.

To appreciate a work of fine art is to almost give yourself to it and allow its influence.  Our demands of art are subtle, but they exist; if it doesn’t capture our attention, we move on, disallowing it to receive our appreciation.

My friend once told me that what defines the quality of art is how well it captures your attention.

I might argue that businesses are interacted with in a similar manner.  That a consumer yields oneself to a product or brand and allows it to influence how we choose to live our lives.  Likewise, if the product or brand doesn’t capture the attention of consumers, it, too, is passed over.

The Artistry of Business…

…comes from an understanding of consumers and their psychology.  What are their needs?  What are their wants?  What are they willing to exchange for those needs and wants to be met?

For a fine artist, you might say that a similar thought process is generated.  They must take into concern those who will be appreciating the art, what they wish to see, and what they’re willing to give in order to appreciate what is offered.

When communication is designed to meet the requirements of its customer in a way that captures the customer’s attention, the business person becomes an artist.

The artistry, here, exists in how well this single thing is accomplished.

There is no other metric.

I like free.  I think that there’s so much free software out there that it doesn’t often make sense to purchase software – especially for a small to medium sized business, the expense can ramp up pretty quickly.

For a (relatively) independent contractor, such as myself, free is fantastic.  Especially since my work is quite technical, my needs push the limits of most users.  At the same time, I do things that some people don’t know that they can do…and if they knew they could do them, they might think of how to solve some problems a bit differently.

I’ve put this post together in the hopes that you’ll find some new ideas for how to do things for yourself or your business.

Run a Web Server

There are a ton of reasons to run a web server.  For me, I use a different operating system (Linux) for my public web servers.  However, my private web servers (three of them) run on the following configuration which is free, easy to install, and amazingly powerful.

It’s called XAMPP, and is a combination of Apache (web server), MySQL (database application), PHP (programming language) and Perl (programming language).  All of those applications are free, and will let you run almost any application – certainly any application that can be developed.

XAMPP also comes with a mail server, FTP server, etc.  It’s an all-in-one install that’s deliciously easy. You can also download XAMPP for Linux, Mac, and Solaris.  I also run it on OSX and haven’t had a single problem with it.

Automate Your Processes

I <3 automation.  It’s efficient, easy, and lets you work without doing work.  For me, I constantly have at least two computers that are churning through massive amounts of data….all because of:

AutoIT

Until I recently found AutoIT, I had used other, much more expensive software to perform my automation.  Now, I just make a text file of reports to run, and my AutoIT scripts run my computer as if I were there, 24×7.  The most basic use of this that I’ve implemented has been to read a file for a report to run, run a report, save the report, then go to the next report in the list and do it again.  I’ve written about using this before, and can’t speak highly enough about it.

If you think that it’s only for internet-based applications, consider that a friend of mine in a non-internet industry is using it to run through highly time-intensive printing jobs that often take up to an hour per document.  In the past, they had to have someone sit at their computer and use an entire day to print documents.  Now, they let it run at night, and it’s done in the morning.

FTP Files To and From Your Server

I have no idea why I hadn’t found this before.  I even paid for an FTP application for my MacBook while going through the process of looking for a solid FTP application.

I’ve been using FTP since about 1998, and have used almost every application out there.  FileZilla…well, it just works.

Office Documents: Like MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc.

Most people/businesses don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars for Microsoft Office.  They just don’t use the functionality to justify the cost.  The answer?

Open Office.  I’ve been using Open Office for over three years now, and other than some of the beta versions, have never had a problem with it.  I should note that I only use the Text Document (Word) and Spreadsheet (Excel) applicantions, because that’s all I need.

Through the years, I’ve opened thousands of documents from clients, websites, etc, and probably sent the same number to clients without a single mention from the client.  IMO, that’s the ultimate standard for performance.

Defrag Your Hard Drives

For some people, that sounds “technical.”  Well, it just means that your disk drive is usually so much of a mess that it slows down your performance.  The way to remedy this is to defrag it.

The default Windows defrag utility is actually (I’ve heard) wayyyy outdated and stripped down version of a commercial application called DiskKeeper.

But, you don’t need to purchase the new version of DiskKeeper, you can just download:

Smart Defrag

There are two things you want your defrag utility to do: defrag, and shift files to one side of the drive.  This does both.

Oh, it also does background defragging.  And scheduling.  And it’s fast. No need for anything else.

Other Free Utilities I Use (Some of which also work on Macs)

Mozilla FireFox: Web Browser

uTorrent: Torrent Downloader

Adobe Reader: PDF Viewer

Domain Name Analyzer: Bulk Whois Lookup

EditPad Lite: Text Editor (I love it for its simplicity and multi-line search and replace…been using it for years.)

Xenu’s Link Sleuth: Check Broken Links on Your Website (I’ve put this application through the ringer and had it fail only once in 8 years)

If you have any others that you’d recommend, leave a comment below – I’m sure I, and others, would love to hear what you use!

Last Saturday, Dylan and I hit two 14ers…Torrey’s Peak and Grey’s Peak.

We left the house around 7am (I can’t believe I was up that early, either), and got out there around 8:30.  We decided to let our masochistic sides come out, and went with the hardest way we could do them, by taking the class 3 route up this ridgeline:

Near the top, things got sketchy in several places, getting the most heady as you straddle a narrow 30 foot long edge of rock, with 1,000 foot drops on either side of you.  Thankfully, I’ve spent the last 9 months working out my fear of heights.

By the time we summited, I was feeling good.  The technical climbing worked well for me as it was slower paced – after all, I’d only been at altitude for a week, coming from sea-level.

Views from the summit of Torrey’s Peak:

We descended the saddle between the two peaks, toward Gray’s Peak.  We kept an eye on the weather, knowing snow storms were coming.

When we got to the base of the saddle, Dylan checked with me to see what I wanted to do….descend, or try and hit Gray’s as well.  The mere fact that he was asking should have alerted me to the fact that there was something I was likely to be ignorant of.

I told him we should also hit Gray’s and try and get it in as well (we’ve got 7 weekends to do 10 peaks, after all).  After all, it looked easier…just a steady incline.

After only a couple minutes of ascending Gray’s, my entire body started shutting down.  Dylan kept a slow pace, while I got in 15ish strides before stopping.  15ish strides, then rest.  Over and over.  It was completely miserable, but I loved it.

Apparently, Dylan said I had “the look” that someone gets on their first 14er.  Apparently, this look is one of complete exhaustion.  Thankfully, he didn’t have his camera out.

As with Torrey’s, we summited sooner than I thought we would:

At this point, I’m pretty stoked to have hit my second, despite sucking wind for the past several hours.

We didn’t spend much time on Gray’s because the clouds started coming in stronger.  As we start heading down, it starts sleeting…which we dealt with for most of the 4+ miles back down.

Definitely a good time.

So, the next day, we decided we hadn’t had enough, so we went climbing at Clear Creek Canyon…knowing rain was coming, we ended up getting in 3 pitches, two of which were linked.  The first was a 5.9 which I ended up leading.  The second two were a series of 5.8/5.9 routes with a few 5.10c moves thrown in…nice, flowy routes.  No pictures from that…other than stop-motion of Dylan being Dylan.

And then I found five dollars.

I implement a lot of change in my life.  Constantly.  You might say that I get bored easily.  Or perhaps I’m simply easily distracted.  Either way, the change happens.  Often.

One thing that I’ve learned through the process of taking things out of my head (thinking about them) and moving them in my body (doing them), is that for the change to happen in the direction of my objective, I have to live out my plans of change.

In the past, I used to dream up all of these things that I could do that would be oh-so-awesome.  I still do, I guess it’s part of being a bit of a romantic thinker.  The difference now, however, is that I’m much more discerning with how long I let those ideas (more accurately, fantasies) live in my head before I take action.

In hindsight, it’s a downfall for those who pride themselves on their intellect and thinking.  Our braynz get in the way of taking action.  All of these apparently fantastic ideas exist in our heads.  We’re solving complex problems that may or may not exist.  But they’re elegant.  Thorough.  And complete.

Or so we think.

When action is taken toward executing those ideas, we quickly find that what existed in our minds is not how the situation really exists.  Quickly, we find ourselves navigating a seemingly endless interpretation of new problems to be solved…new problems grounded in reality, rather than our own fantastical minds.

One of the single greatest lessons of Road Trip 2.0 was that as much as you plan and think about a situation, nothing compares to the experience.  An experience seems to have an unlimited number of data points, lessons and realities.  Meanwhile, our thinking about something is, quite simply limited by our own minds which have been constructed from our contextual and historical experiences with the world.

Since this realization, then putting it into practice, “Ready, Fire, Aim,” has taken on a whole new meaning.

“Innovation is Execution.”

Plan only as much as is necessary to take those first few steps in a new endeavor.

Then execute.

Then think and calibrate.

Rinse, repeat.