Friday, June 6, 2008

First Real Fast Day

Yesterday went really well on the fasting front. My intake consisted of:

  • Black coffee, 2 cups
  • Strawberries,
  • Water, lots
  • Zone Bar

Hunger really wasn’t an issue. Sure the feeling popped up as the day went on; but I’ve had worse, it was more an annoyance than anything else.

Beginning today I’ll be replacing the Zone bar with two or three boiled eggs. Other than that and switching up the fruit, I think I’ll be keeping the above list as my limit during the fast period of my day.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Daughter Pushups

I got a small workout in last night and my main issue was knee pain during squats. At first I dismissed it as phantom pains due to my past MCL tear; but it continued so I stopped performing squats. I’m glad that I stopped because my knee has been achy this morning.

I can’t do pushups with my daughter around. Whenever I try, she gets on my back and I end up doing pushups with a 25 pound living weight on my back.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Back to The Daily Plate

Today I started using The Daily Plate again to track my food. I’ve used it in the past and it helps greatly when tracking calories and macronutrients. I prefer it over FitDay due to the layout and the number of foods that are already in their database.

Monday, June 2, 2008

I'm Fat

Ugh, I’m disgusted with myself. Through a period of laziness of managed to balloon myself back up to 180 pounds. I’ve been finding too many excuses not to exercise and I haven’t been watching what I eat. There have been far too many calorie heavy lunches during the workdays (which have the added side effect of making me feel tired for the rest of the day) and too much snacking before supper.

It’s time to buckle down get serious about dropping this flab around my middle. A large portion of my clothes don’t fit and the ones that do fit certainly don’t fit well. I’m down to three different pairs of dress pants for work and two pairs of jeans.

What am I going to do to get back in shape? The root of everything is diet and I’ll be returning to an eating style that’s worked for me in the past: an altered version of The Warrior Diet; which is a version of Intermittent Fasting (IF) where one fasts during the day each day (as opposed to every other day, 24 hour fasting). Even though it’s a fast, a small protein intake or two is acceptable.

On the exercise front I’m mainly suffering the loss of my BJJ classes due to having to be at home with our daughter while my wife goes to work. So I need to do more at home exercises as well as go out bike riding more. I have a seat for my two year old daughter on the front of my bike, so there’s no reason why I can’t go riding more often. Inside I’ll just have to concentrate on bodyweight exercises, especially pull-ups.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

What I’m Playing – Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune

This game has been repeatedly hailed as one of the few PS3 exclusive must-play games. I must say that it deserves that reputation. Not only is the game visually stunning, the story and gameplay are engaging as well. My wife isn’t into games beyond XBLA and Pogo; but she was captivated by the screen while I was playing. She couldn’t help but watch me as I played and she actually enjoyed the cut scenes.

Even if one could find this game at a reduced price, I’d still have to classify it as a rental due to its short length. Another negative that rears its ugly head a few times are the “push this button now!” mini-games which mean instant death if you miss the button press. This ticked me off in Resident Evil 4 and my ire is even stronger now. The jumping from ledge to ledge eventually gets old as well.

Rent this game, you won’t regret it.

Monday, February 25, 2008

New PS3!

I am now the proud owner of a PS3. I’ve updated my Netflix account to reflect my new Blu-ray player.

I haven’t purchased any games yet; but I have rented Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and it is beautiful. I’ve also added a few PS3 games to my GameFly queue (the Netflix of videogames); but I don’t foresee any PS3 title purchases in the immediate future. Most of the really good games on the PS3 are multiplatform and I’d rather play them on the 360 due to the larger online community.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

It's Dead

Well, that’s it; HDDVD is officially dead.

In a statement on its Japanese website Toshiba says it has "decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders".

Toshiba said it will begin to reduce shipments of HD DVD players and recorders to retail channels, with HD DVD to be withdrawn completely from the market by the end of March 2008.

My HDDVD collection consists of 300, plus the free movies I got as a rebate for buying the Xbox360 HDDVD add-on. The only additions to my library of this format will be $10 and under titles from the future sales that are sure to materialize.

I guess this makes it a really good time to buy a PS3 as a Blu-ray player.