Better Living Through Software

March 25, 2013

I’m getting ready to release my second app with Quiet Spark and it occurs to me that in both cases I created something that attempts to solve a problem I’ve personally encountered. While I can, and do, write software that I personally won’t use, I feel like I can write with just a little more confidence when it’s something that affects me personally.

The first app we created was to help my son with spelling. Not just to help him, but my wife too. There were so many times I came home to Susie and Aaron frustrated over spelling homework. Super Speller was created specifically to make it easier for them to work on spelling homework.

The next one is for me. While I’ve never been formally diagnosed with OCD, it would come as no surprise if I were. Whatever it is I’m focused on at the moment, and you can go back through my blog and discover what those things were, has my complete attention and I tend to lose sight about all of the other things I should be paying attention to as well. I’ve tried and failed on several occasions to find some way to prioritize, and keep visible, all of the various things I should be thinking about.

I want to maintain a healthy weight and exercise. I want to cut back and eventually quit smoking. I want to make sure I’m saving enough for retirement, getting enough sleep, spending time writing, but not neglecting my family, and play. And it would be nice to post something here more than once a year. So I’ve created an app that help me achieve those goals. I can dump all those things into the app and set targets for each. And I can tell the app something like: for each hour I spend on work or projects at home, adjust the amount of time I’m allowed for R & R. Stuff like TV and video games. I wouldn’t say I’m cured, but it really does seem to help keep me focused where I need to be. And I can go back in time and look at all of these various activities so it’s also a visual diary of sorts. Of course I’m biased, but I really love it.

My wife uses it too. She tracks all kinds of crazy stuff, but some of it is extremely important information. For example, my son suffers from migraines and each time he has one she notes the date, time, and whatever additional information might help use discover the source of his headaches.

It’s been a big help and we’ve actually opened up beta testing recently so if it sounds like something that would interest you, let us know!

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A Change of Plans

November 2, 2012

Originally when I started this fitness thing my goals were pretty simple. Lose weight. Specifically, I wanted to get to a “normal” BMI which, for me, is a maximum of 184 pounds. I reached this goal through a combination of diet and exercise, primarily in the form of running. After reaching that initial goal, I changed my focus from BMI to body fat % with the idea that something in the neighborhood of 15-16% would be fantastic if I could do it. I figured 175 pounds would put me in the neighborhood.

Different body types at 10% body fat
How 10% can look different depending on lean body mass

As I learned more about fitness and my weight continued to fall, it occurred to me that 15% body fat can look radically different depending on the amount of lean body mass a person is carrying. For example, consider the image to the right of two different men at 10% body fat. Given the amount of cardio (running) and complete lack of strength training I was doing, I was heading towards a physique like the fellow on the right. Granted this is certainly better than where I started, but I kind of think the guy on the left looks better. To get there I was going to need to begin focusing more on strength and less on cardio.

I initially started resistance training while on a calorie deficit because I still wanted to reach my goal of 175. Although it’s not as great of a deficit as I was back at my peak of around 1,600/day. I figured I would try to eat at maintenance on lift days, and less on rest days. The effect has been that neither of my goals are progressing very well.

So my choices are to remain in this sort of limbo, or pick either weight loss or LBM gains to focus on. In order to increase lean body mass (LBM) you have to have these things:

  • Stress muscles to force adaptation (lift heavy things)
  • Calorie surplus for repair / recovery
  • Sufficient rest

However, during this period of increasing LBM you’ll likely increase fat as well. Typically this “bulking” phase is followed by a “cutting” phase where the goal is to maintain LBM gains while eliminating the fat gained in the bulking phase. It’s a bit complicated.

Since my strength progression is already starting to slow and, in some cases, stall, I’ve decided there’s not much sense waiting to lose this last pound since I’m going to have to go through a cutting phase eventually anyway, and likely more than one cycle.

Here’s the thing though: it’s a little scary. I’ve been being very careful about keeping my calories intake low for so long, that I’m nervous about increasing them. Recall that it was as low as 1,600 a day and now I’m looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,800 a day! That’s a pretty huge difference in diet. Anyway, I’m going to give this a go for a while and see where it leads me. At the very least it’s comforting to know I can revert back to my old routine if things don’t work out as planned.

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Circuit Wallpaper Update

October 27, 2012
CPU Wallpaper w/circuits
Now for iPhone 5

Once upon a time I made a circuit board looking wallpaper for the iPhone which turned out to be pretty popular. Really popular, actually. Kind of cool to see random people out and about using it as their home screen.

I’ve never been perfectly happy with it, but not so unhappy that I’ve gone back and messed with it. Since the introduction of the iPhone 5 I’ve had several requests to create a 1136 x 960 version, which finally gave me an excuse and the motivation to clean it up.

Among the problems with the original:

  • At some point, Apple changed the spacing of the icons on the home screen, but I never updated the wallpaper so icons didn’t quite line up with the CPUs and leads.
  • Some of the leads coming off the CPUs didn’t have anything connected to them.
  • The width and spacing of the traces aren’t consistent and don’t line up on pixel edges.
  • Just generally sloppy

While making the 1136 x 960 version I took the opportunity to fix all those things. And while it still doesn’t make me totally happy, it’s much better. See if you can spot the differences below.

The Old vs New

I ended up making 6 different versions, three at 1136×640 and three at 960×640. One is the complete circuit with CPUs, another without the CPUs, and one that is only the CPUs. You can find them at imgur or flickr. Enjoy!

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Family of Losers

September 14, 2012

This ran pretty long. If you just want to know how things turned out, just jump to the results.

The Problem

For awhile now I’ve realized that our family has had a weight problem. Not just me, but my more importantly, my kids. It was getting to the point that even friends and extended family members would gently suggest that something needed to be done. Especially as the habits we form in our youth tend to be those that carry forward with us for the rest of our lives. The trouble was, I wasn’t exactly sure how to approach it. My sister struggled with weight when she was younger and I don’t think the approach my parents took was an especially helpful one. I wanted to come up with a plan that was took more of a big carrot approach as opposed to a big stick. I also wanted something that was designed to demonstrate how to plan and succeed with a long term goal so that they might apply the things that they learned to other goals later on. I procrastinated for some time until driving into work one day I had an idea.

The Solution

The idea was a contest modeled after The Biggest Loser. Although I’ve not actually seen the show, I have a general idea how it works. I decided on a contest to see who could lose the most weight over a period of 16 weeks. At the end of that 16 week period the winner would receive a generous cash prize. It was a pretty big prize actually. I wanted it to be enough to really get my kids attention. In addition, the 2nd place finisher would receive a prize worth about half as much as 1st place. 3rd half as much as 2nd and 4th would get some amount. The only condition being you had to have actually lost weight. I wanted to make sure that no one ever felt like they were out of it just because they weren’t in 1st place.

However, having been a kid once, I realized that 16 weeks is a really really long time and I was worried that the kids might lose interest pretty quickly. So, I broke the contest down into four four week periods. At the end of four week period the person would had lost the most weight so far overall would get a prize and the person who had lost the most weight for that four week period would get a prize. I later added one modification to the contest as my wife and I began pulling away; that is, whichever of the kids lost more during a four week period got a smaller prize for that period.

Lastly, the contest would not be judged based on absolute weight loss, rather as a percentage of weight lost. This way a heavier person (me) wouldn’t have an unfair advantage over anyone else.

The Process

Step 1: Awareness

I feel that one of the biggest keys to weight management is simply awareness. It’s pretty easy to ignore changes in weight. For me anyway. I had an idea how much I weighed and didn’t much like it, but then again I simply didn’t pay that much attention to it. I think that went for all of us. Several years back I lost a bit of weight and all I really did was to raise my awareness. So, the first thing I did was buy an attractive digital scale. While we have an old analog scale, it was inconveniently located at the bottom of a closet somewhere, and I wanted something that would be prominently located (so it had to look nice) and have a high degree of accuracy. Once I got the scale I actually placed it near where the dining room transitions to the kitchen. There was some controversy, but in addition to wanting a place we could all gather for weekly weigh-ins, I hoped that its presence would just raise awareness especially around mealtimes.

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150 Calories

August 10, 2012

I’ve been told that I can get a little carried away talking about this weight loss thing that I’ve been working on, so I’ve tried to keep that in check on the various social media sites you might find me on. But I read something today that I just have to say something about.

Each day, and sometimes multiple times a day, I visit the Fitness and Loseit sub-reddits for encouragement and support as I continue this journey. It’s not an easy thing and seeing everyone’s progress inspires me to keep going. So many people have made some amazing transformations, it’s just remarkable.

Today I came across this post wherein a woman that is trying to make a healthy change was at the gym and she “heard the girl next to me turn to her friend and say ‘this girl is 300 pounds, oh my god’ with a look of disgust”. She showed amazing restraint with her reaction: “I turned to her and smiled and said ‘I would love to see you do what I am about to do with 200 pounds of weight strapped to your arms, legs, and stomach.’

I’ll have to admit that before I started trying to lose weight, I wondered how it was possible to reach such extreme levels of weight, but the more I learned, the more I realized how a relatively small difference in calories can have such a drastic change on your weight over time. For example, when I started (this time), I weighed somewhere in the neighborhood of 225. For a 6 foot tall sedentary guy that works out to a BMR of roughly 2500 calories a day. I set a goal for myself of 184 and was shocked to see that if I maintained the same level of activity, which was basically none, I would eventually settle in at a BMR of 2200 calories a day. So basically what this was saying was that I was overeating by the equivalent of like 2 sodas a day. That’s it. 2 extra sodas a day equals about 40 extra pounds of weight.

Another thing I discovered as I’ve gone through this process is that the weight I would imagine would look good for me is probably far short of reality, so I’m looking at revising my goals. I’m thinking somewhere in the neighborhood of 175. So let’s look at the numbers again. If I become a lightly active (1-3 days of exercise per week) 6 foot tall guy, my BMR should settle in around 2450 calories a day. That only about 50 calories less than my original calorie consumption! Now imagine I fall back into my old lifestyle and also start eating an extra 150 calories a day. I’d probably eventually settle around 237 pounds. That’s over sixty pounds and a difference between being well into the obese range with a BMI of 32.1 kg/m2 versus a normal BMI of 23.7 kg/m2.

150 calories. One soda. One beer. One cookie. A serving of potato chips. A handful of almonds. That’s all it takes and next thing you know you’re overweight if not obese. It’s not like you have to sit around all day eating buckets of fried chicken. Just a 600 calorie increase (basically one plain hamburger, no cheese, no bacon, no mayo) and next thing you know, you’re looking at 300 pounds.

So getting back to my original point, it really doesn’t take a lot to make a big difference positively or negatively. Although those changes will not happen overnight… sadly. And going back to the 300 pound woman at the gym. I know something of what it takes to make a commitment to a healthier lifestyle and I applaud you. When see really heavy people at the gym sweating on the treadmill, elliptical, exercise bike, etc., I’m not disgusted. Far from it. I’m inspired. Seriously.

And speaking of inspiration, can I just mention this commercial by Nike? I think of this commercial some mornings as I run and I think about easing up, or taking a shortcut, skipping a day, etc. I think about Nathan and the change he is trying to make and it inspires me to keep pushing. Good luck Nathan!

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