SXSW has decimated my life points and i ‘relaxed’ my rules for the week. Please help me with some fruit.

<p>It has been a full month since I’ve started the ‘new me’ project. I’ve been pretty good at sticking to the different elements of my program so far. While I’ve been accurately recording, reporting and tracking the various aspects in of my health the past month, more so than ever before, some of the things have ‘stuck’ and some have gone by the wayside. </p> <p>Things I’ve ditched:</p> <p>Food Photo Blog - This was good initially, it got me in the mode of thinking pretty carefully about what I was about to order because I knew there would be proof for my friends to give me shit about. I was pretty good about taking photos for the first 2 weeks or so, then something shifted in how I was eating and it didn’t seem to make as much sense to keep doing it. I’ll keep it in my back pocket as something I might pick back up in the future.</p> <p>‘Going To The Gym’ - I think one of the big ways we fall off the exercise wagon is that we tie the activity to a place and not a mindset. Over the past month, I’ve moved from thinking of exercise as something I HAVE to do, in a funny clothes, in a special place, for a set amount of time. I’m now just working it in to my life. I started walking to work a couple times a week (It’s about 2 miles each way, 30 min. or 1/2 of a ‘this american life’ podcast), I’m choosing to walk more to the corner store, to dinner, leave myself some space and some time. It’s also giving me more time to think, clear my head, de-program from the day. </p> <p>Things That Are Working:</p> <p>4-Hour Body - This program just works, at least for me. It could be working for a variety of reasons, but the leading one is that I’m able to stick to it and have noticed significant changes in my body over the past 30 days. </p> <p>Health Month - The daily rules keep me honest and keep me thinking about the choices I’m making through out the day. Plus, I’m playing with friends so I’m getting support and motivation.</p> <p>FitBit - This is been good for tracking my overall activity over time. It’s really easy to convince yourself you’re more active than you really are in the day to day world. FitBit can be a harsh realization that you are indeed NOT as active as you’d like to believe.</p> <p>Looking forward, to Feb. I’ll be doing more cycling, continuing 4HB and sticking with health month. I’m liking the changes I’m seeing so far, looking forward to more this month. I’ve also added a wi-fi scale to the mix to help me track my weight easier. We’ll see how that goes.</p> <p>Next up: Measurements & Updating My Before / After Photos, which are still top secret.</p>

<p>It has been a full month since I’ve started the ‘new me’ project. I’ve been pretty good at sticking to the different elements of my program so far. While I’ve been accurately recording, reporting and tracking the various aspects in of my health the past month, more so than ever before, some of the things have ‘stuck’ and some have gone by the wayside. </p> <p>Things I’ve ditched:</p> <p>Food Photo Blog - This was good initially, it got me in the mode of thinking pretty carefully about what I was about to order because I knew there would be proof for my friends to give me shit about. I was pretty good about taking photos for the first 2 weeks or so, then something shifted in how I was eating and it didn’t seem to make as much sense to keep doing it. I’ll keep it in my back pocket as something I might pick back up in the future.</p> <p>‘Going To The Gym’ - I think one of the big ways we fall off the exercise wagon is that we tie the activity to a place and not a mindset. Over the past month, I’ve moved from thinking of exercise as something I HAVE to do, in a funny clothes, in a special place, for a set amount of time. I’m now just working it in to my life. I started walking to work a couple times a week (It’s about 2 miles each way, 30 min. or 1/2 of a ‘this american life’ podcast), I’m choosing to walk more to the corner store, to dinner, leave myself some space and some time. It’s also giving me more time to think, clear my head, de-program from the day. </p> <p>Things That Are Working:</p> <p>4-Hour Body - This program just works, at least for me. It could be working for a variety of reasons, but the leading one is that I’m able to stick to it and have noticed significant changes in my body over the past 30 days. </p> <p>Health Month - The daily rules keep me honest and keep me thinking about the choices I’m making through out the day. Plus, I’m playing with friends so I’m getting support and motivation.</p> <p>FitBit - This is been good for tracking my overall activity over time. It’s really easy to convince yourself you’re more active than you really are in the day to day world. FitBit can be a harsh realization that you are indeed NOT as active as you’d like to believe.</p> <p>Looking forward, to Feb. I’ll be doing more cycling, continuing 4HB and sticking with health month. I’m liking the changes I’m seeing so far, looking forward to more this month. I’ve also added a wi-fi scale to the mix to help me track my weight easier. We’ll see how that goes.</p> <p>Next up: Measurements & Updating My Before / After Photos, which are still top secret.</p>

<p><img src="http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_led5amnzHU1qb70n9.jpg"/></p> <p>New Year’s resolutions are SO tired and generally don’t survive past mid Feb. (just try finding a free elliptical trainer at the gym before Valentine’s day, the following week, not so hard). So this year I’ve decided to make a ‘New Me’ resolution. The idea isn’t just to make a change that will be sustainable for 2-3 months, but fundamentally change something important and make it stick.</p> <p>This past year, I have been making small incremental changes to how I approach my health, and for the most part I’ve made some progress. Not earth shattering, but I’ve lost 8 lbs. over the past 3 months and for the most part have managed to keep it off. The keeping it off part might be surprising if you follow me on <a title="Foodspotting" target="_blank" href="http://www.foodspotting.com/ddukes">Foodspotting</a>, <a title="instagram" target="_blank" href="http://instagr.am/">Instagr.am</a> or <a title="Facebook - ddukes" target="_blank" href="http://www.facebook.com/ddukes">Facebook</a> and see and endless stream of pictures of food from some of the top restaurants in the country. I do enjoy my food.</p> <p>For 2011 I’ve got some new tricks up my sleeve, I’ll go in to the first one today and will write up the others shortly. </p> <p>Trick #1: <a title="Health Month" target="_blank" href="http://healthmonth.com/">Health Month</a> - I came across this site 3-ish months ago and have been hooked on it ever since. The site is the brain child of <a title="Twitter - busterbenson" target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/#!/busterbenson">@busterbenson</a> and is designed to turn your health in to a simple and easy game.  To play, before the month starts, you create an account and choose from 1 to 70+ of the rules. You can make your game easy or hard, simple or complex, but once your rules are set, you’re locked in for the month and your rules are fixed. After each day has elapsed you ‘check-in’ by self-reporting your success / failure with your rules the previous day. For rules you follow you get points, for rules you break you lose a ‘life point’ (You start the month with 10 and the goal is to finish the month with at least 1 life point left). There are some other aspects to the game that help keep you on track and encouraged, you’re put in a cohort group with peers that have a similar level of rule difficulty as you, you can post weigh-ins, thoughts and learnings. Also, a proper Web 2.0 application, it has all the requisite features such as the ability to post messages to your group, follow friends or other people who will help keep you on track, and you can even setup or join a team in addition to your cohort group. The game does cost $5 to play for a month (you can also buy a year long subscription for $50 2 free months FTW!) and is ad free. To put that in context, $5 bucks a month is less than most fancy coffee drinks or the price of the co-pay at the doctor’s office when your heart starts to pump butter. Also, if you can’t commit $5 to your health each month, how are you going to stop smoking or make it to the gym a couple times a week. </p> <p>Buster’s also constantly adding, fixing and generally expanding the game aspects with the goal of making being healthy more fun! Yay! We all love fun!</p> <p>I’ll be writing about my experiences with Health Month in Jan. so you’ll hear more about the details as I play this month. </p>

<p><img src="http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_leittezduE1qb70n9.png"/></p> <p>As a product focused entrepreneur, one of the product development models I’ve been paying attention over the past year or so, is the Lean Start-up model. At the core of the methodology is the notion that you develop a hypothesis, test it, course correct and retest. One of the key tools of the process is a data dashboard. The dashboard tracks your progress and your rate of growth against a set of goals. You still have to pick the right goals for the product but assuming you know your business that should be pretty straightforward. So how does this relate to your own health? Think of your body as the product. </p> <p>I’ve recently started reading the book ‘<a title="Amazon Link - 4 Hour Body" target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/4-Hour-Body-Uncommon-Incredible-Superhuman/dp/030746363X">4 Hour Body</a>’ from Tim Ferriss (author of the NYT best seller The 4-Hour Work Week). Pretty quickly, I began to draw parallels between the methods that Tim was outlining and some of the concepts that <a title="Steve Blank's Blog" target="_blank" href="http://steveblank.com/">Steve Blank</a> outlines on his blog and in his book. At the heart of both processes are goals, data and measurement. </p> <p>I decided that if I was going to be successful in getting to my health goals I needed a dashboard and more importantly needed simple, effective tools that help me track my data points with as little work as possible. </p> <p>The tools:</p> <p><a title="Health Month" target="_blank" href="http://www.healthmonth.com">Health Month</a> - Data Resolution (Daily) - With Health Month I outline a set of rules and check in with them each day. I self report how I’m doing, get points for following the rules and lose points when I don’t follow the rules. I just looked back over the past 3 months of using the service and it’s a great way to see how my will power over specific vices is growing as my rules get harder and my success rate increases.</p> <p><a title="Fitbit" target="_blank" href="http://www.fitbit.com">Fitbit</a> - Data Resolution (Daily / Hourly / Seconds) - Fitbit is a sleekly designed pedometer that is tied to a website and wirelessly updates every time you walk by your computer. In addition to measuring calorie burn, distance, steps taken it has a plant that grows the more active you are through out the day. Additionally, there is a mode that helps monitor your sleep activity. All the data is collected and uploaded into a slick dashboard with goals you can set. Via the web you can additionally track other exercise, food you’ve eaten and weight. </p> <p>The 4 Hour Body Metrics - Tim Ferriss defines a simple dashboard for you in his book: Weight daily, Measurements Weekly, Body Comp at regular intervals. For Weight you just need a good scale, Measurements a tape measure and friend (or a fancy one-handed measuring tape) and for Body Comp there are number of tools ranging from systems integrated into a scale to the Bod Pod which uses a variety of methods to determine your body comp. Pick your tools and you’re ready to set your baseline.</p> <p>Before / After Photos - While these can be pretty tough to look at they give you a great baseline for how far you’ve come and may highlight changes in your appearance that don’t show up in the data (i.e. you’re gaining muscle definition, but not losing weight). So take them, in your underwear, and put them some place where you’ll see them daily, but maybe not where your friends can find them, as a reminder to what you’re working towards.</p> <p>Food Photo Log - I tried doing a food journal for a while, huge pain in my slightly oversized butt and I just didn’t keep up with it. I’ve now moved to a public food photo log and this serves as an easy way for me to shortcut the whole process and helps me identify changes in my diet over time. The side benefit is that now I know what I’m eating is public and my friends know I’m trying to eat better the photo log creates some social pressure for me to keep it real and since I’m taking pictures of EVERYTHING I have to decide before I put that slice of Little Star Pizza in my mouth that I’m ok with it showing up on the food blog.</p> <p>My Fitness Dashboards:</p> <p>Health Month: <a title="Health Month - ddukes" target="_blank" href="http://healthmonth.com/profile/ddukes"><a href="http://healthmonth.com/profile/ddukes" target="_blank">http://healthmonth.com/profile/ddukes</a></a></p> <p>Fitbit: <a title="Fitbit - ddukes" target="_blank" href="http://www.fitbit.com/user/22BSD7"><a href="http://www.fitbit.com/user/22BSD7" target="_blank">http://www.fitbit.com/user/22BSD7</a></a></p> <p>Food PhotoLog: <a title="ddukes - food" target="_blank" href="http://ddukes.posterous.com/"><a href="http://ddukes.posterous.com/" target="_blank">http://ddukes.posterous.com/</a></a></p> <p>Before / After: Posted to my mirror in my bathroom. I’m sure I’ll post them at some point, so you can see the transition. </p>

<p><img src="http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lex4gdVoxT1qb70n9.png"/></p> <p class="p1">Here’s the scenario: You’ve traveled all day, alarm at 545a, quick shower and race to the car park, through security to catch a 720a flight from SFO -> JFK, taxi and traffic makes you almost carsick on the way in to the city. It’s snowing. It’s cold. You head out to dinner with friends to a new restaurant called <a title="Beauty and Essex - Yelp" href="http://www.yelp.com/biz/beauty-and-essex-new-york" target="_blank">Beauty & Essex</a>. </p> <p class="p1">A very cool place, you enter through what appears to be a working pawn shop storefront, walk through a door that leads not to the back storage, but to a combination swanky english apartment / lounge and two floors of drinking and dining. </p> <p class="p1">You’re seated, menus are dropped an amuse arrives quickly. You glance down the menu you do your best to order with in your Health Month rules for the month (No Wheat, No Fried Food, No Dairy…), not really paying attention to what your friend has ordered. They serve family style, but the portions aren’t buffet sized, just a taste among friends so you have the shared experience, something we’ve done to build community, togetherness, right? Sure. That’s when the lobster bisque dumplings arrive. </p> <p class="p1">Let’s break it down: lobster in a cream sauce, wrapped in a dumpling wrapper and deep fried. You bite in to it and the warm herb infused bisque fills your mouth bringing with it tender chunks of sweet lobster then it finishes with the crunch of the wrapper which has soaked up some of the bisque. It is a pretty amazing bite of food and I don’t even really like lobster and bisques usually too rich for me. Also consider this, in that simple act of picking it up, and popping it in my mouth, without giving it the slightest thought I lost 3 life points. </p> <p class="p1">So what’s the big take away? Surely Health Month isn’t designed to make you a slave to your rules. Quite the contrary, you’ve got life points and a community of ‘friut-rich’ friends to give you a hand up with the reality that no matter how good and diligent we all are, no matter how thoughtful you are about your rules, LOBSTER BISQUE DUMPLINGS HAPPEN! </p> <p class="p1">The hope is that these things happen less. For me, I’m starting to see the world as a series of life points on Health Month and it seems to be working, or at least giving me pause.</p>

<p><p class="p1"><img src="http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lfagp6VZUp1qb70n9.png"/></p> <p class="p1">With the Lobster Bisque Dumpling Incident fresh in my mind a couple nights later I had just gotten back from trudging through a snowy, cold NYC in my best, but insufficient west coast ‘warm’ jacket. I was almost back to the hotel when I passed by a slice joint. The NYC slice is something special, it’s a little thin slice of NYC that is often imitated, but never duplicated and when you’re cold and someone has just pulled a hot, steamy, gooey pie out of the oven and the smell of tomato, oregano and bread waft out across your pathway it gives you (or at least me) pause. So I paused. I had just finished a pretty good meal, not an hour before, there was no way I was hungry, there was no way I NEEDED more food, but I paused. </p> <p class="p1">A slice of pizza for me, would be best case 2 life points, and in reality more like 4 as the slice would be paired with either a diet coke or a lite beer and we all know the best pizza has either pepperoni or sausage or both. I had already lost 3 points the previous day, could I really afford to lose 2-3 more life points? I mean we’re barely through the first week of Jan. this did not bode well for the rest of the month. </p> <p class="p1">Then it crept in, a little voice, saying ‘It’s just you, who’s going to know, Health Month is self reporting, It’s just a little cheat.” Then I paused again.</p> <p class="p1">Here’s the thing, I recently read this <a title="In Over Your Head" href="http://inoveryourhead.net/how-to-waste-your-life/" target="_blank">How To Waste Your Life</a> about how every day we’re placing bets. The post basically says that with each decision we’re betting we will or won’t do something. We do the thing, we win, we don’t, we lose. When I play craps in Vegas, I place my bet, hedge with odds and then the dice come down, I win, I lose, but there’s no cheating. When you set up Health Month, you make a contract with yourself, if you cheat you’re just cheating yourself. You may snow the community or get your ill-gotten points, but you’ll always know that they weren’t yours to have or that you really should have 3 fewer life points to end the month. </p> <p class="p1">Basically, if you’re trying to be healthier, no matter if it’s 1 rule or 80, you have to be either transparent or truthful. By transparent I mean the following: you outline a rule it’s impossible to keep you disclaim on the game wall that you can’t follow it and you’re transparent. Truthful is harder, because it comes down to just you and clicking the red box or the green box and nobody but YOU can make you accountable. </p> <p class="p1">If life is a series of bets, bet on yourself and bet on the support of the community and play fair. The other option is to look back a year from now, see a spotless record of life points, but a scale that hasn’t budged, the pack of cigarettes still in your purse or a thousand other ways we cheat ourselves, one cheat at a time, until the cheat becomes habit.</p> <p class="p1">I took one last inhale of the pizza aroma, noted that the voice had been silenced, trudged on and the next morning I got to check the green boxes. </p> <p class="p1">Pizza Photo from: <span><strong class="username"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurafries/" target="_blank">LauraFries.com</a> on <a title="Laurafries" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurafries/172143438/" target="_blank">Flickr</a></strong></span></p></p>

Help!

I’m recovering from an over indulgent weekend, more concerned with where i’ll be this coming week, not really this week.