@brookr yeah, I'm going to try to write something there for sure. I need to figure out how to change the photo on the right... in reply to brookr1 hr ago
Look, I know I don’t need to lose weight. Let’s get that out of the way now. I’m not trying to lose weight. I’m trying to lose body fat. “But you’re so skinny already”. I’m not trying to get skinnier either. I’m trying to lose body fat. Why? Because I want to feel good and I want to look good. I also want to know how to make my body fat fluctuate.
I know how to add more fat around my waist and on my chest: eat more fried food and drink more beer. Easy. But when I stop eating fried food and I stop drinking more beer, I just go back to this normality. I don’t want my normal to have a slight fat ring. I want to have muscles showing.
I Eat: My Diet
People talk about diets that they’ve done and I’m sure some of them have worked, but I needed to be presented with something by someone who was going to try to explain the diet to me. So I picked up The 4-Hour Body by Tim Ferris. Honestly I got it because I had met Tim Ferris a couple of times and liked the ideas he presented in the interviews I filmed. Based on what I already know of Tim I figured at the very least the book would be entertaining.
First off, this isn’t a diet book. It’s a book about the body. In fact there are multiple diets in the book and I plan on trying a few of them. I decided to start with the Slow Carb diet. I’m going to explain it to you, then I’m going to ask you not to say anything like “but you need carbs.” Look I’m doing this diet, and it’s probably not going to kill me, so just let me do it. If it kills me feel free to say I told you so, but know you’re a jerk for saying I told you so to a dead guy. Jerk.
It’s simple. Eat beans. Black, red, pinto, etc. Eat greens. Spinach, Colored greens, kale and the like. Eat lean meat. Chicken, lean beef, pork. And eat them for every meal. Don’t eat anything white or anything that could be white. That includes rice, tortillas, and breads. That does not include cauliflower. It does include cauliflower with swiss cheese on it. Drink lots of water. Don’t drink milk or anything that has sugar in it and that include juice. Don’t eat fruit: it has sugar in it.
I don’t know exactly why it works but I know there is not much fat, there is nearly zero sugar and it’s been working for me. I don’t remember the last time that I had so little fat around my belly or chest. Meals are definitely repetitive but it makes preparing them easy.
Weight fluctuation seems to be based off of how much fat you actually have to lose. If you have 8% body fat already, it’s unlikely that you’ll lose much (or need too). Tim explains that some people lose 20 pounds in under a month. I lost 7 pounds, which I’ll explain a little more later. I have a few friends that have been doing the diet with me and one of them claims to have lost 8 pounds in 2 weeks, even while cheating on the diet here and there (He likes beer, too.) Some people at the 4-hour body site have reported to have lost 15 pounds in the first week and up to 30 pounds in the first month. Again, I’m not trying to lose weight, I thought you might be interested.
Fitness: My Workout
Over a year ago, I joined a gym. I didn’t really know what I was going to do when I got there so I spent a year experimenting with many different workouts. Really I spent a year familiarizing myself with the equipment, the culture and my body. I started noticing how easily I could put on muscle but how hard it was for me to take off fat. For a while, I was running but I found that I wasn’t losing fat the same way that I’ve seen by changing my diet. With that said I will report that I went into the gym on the first day with 14% body fat and when I checked just before starting the diet and workout a few weeks ago my body fat was at 10%. That’s significant. Getting to 8% would be great.
I started doing specific workouts explained by The 4-Hour Body. The workout I’m doing is super simple. Don’t confuse that with easy – it’s simple. On Mondays and Fridays I do the same workout: kettle bell swings and 15 bosu ball situps. You don’t have to do many to feel the pain, trust me. On Wednesdays I do three different lifts, all of which are explained in the book.
I’m proud of my progress with this workout. It seems to be complementing the diet quite well by making me more lean from waist to neck, and stronger in my feet, legs, arms and hands. The book suggested that I do 75 kettle bell swings with 53 pounds. My gym has 50 pound kettle bells so that’s what I use.
Workout #1 (Monday): I did 25 swings at 50 pounds then rested 2 min. Did 25 more. Rest. Finally another 25 to equal 75 total swings. 5 sit-ups, rest. 5 sit-ups rest. 2 sit-ups. Dead.
Workout #6 (Friday): Same as above but 15 sit-ups with 5pounds. Dead.
Workout #7 (Monday): 90 swings. 15 sit-ups with 5 pounds. Still dead.
Now for that explanation of my weight fluctuation. I lost that 8 pounds but put 4 back on from muscle pretty quick. So not only am I leaner now but a bit stronger, too.
The Best Part
The diet has an amazing catch. Once a week I get to binge eat. I’m talking about eating whatever I want. I’ve started taking mental notes of things that I crave throughout the day then try to eat almost all of those things on my off day. In the past I would eat something like half a cupcake and feel like I was breaking my own health law. Now I know that there is a day that I get to eat whatever I want and not feel bad about it.
I’m not going to act like I fully understand why I’m allowed to do this in the diet. Ferris explains it, but I was more worried about getting to binge than I was worried about the reason my body actually needs that day to break down sugars and do other health stuff I don’t get. I’ll tell you this. On Saturday I had two breakfasts; a huge lunch; seconds at dinner and dessert; and as many beers as I wanted.
This week my binge day will be Sunday. Super Bowl Sunday! I’m thinking I’ll put Popeyes Chicken on top of some sloppy nachos. I’m going to eat cream cheese dip possibly with some chips. I’ll put on weight, but by Tuesday I’ll be back to normal. That seems to be the cycle. Gain a little on the off day, lose it all and be back where I was the day before the binge only two days later.
The Best Best Part
Simply put, I like seeing results. My body is changing and I like that I know how to create this change on my own. I’ll likely keep it up for a few more weeks.
The next diet will likely be a muscle gaining diet, but I’ll tell you more about that when I’m finished with this diet. If you would like to talk to me about this diet, please feel free to contact me. Also feel free to follow my blog or call me if you have my phone number. If you really want to know more about the diet you should get The 4-Hour Body by Tim Ferris. No, I’m not getting kickback from this recommendation though I’ve probably single-handedly sold seven of them.
I’ll also remind you that you can sign up for my very infrequent e-mail updates. You’ll get reports such as “I’m making a movie and I’d like you to watch the trailer” or “You’re awesome.” You know, basic banter.
There have been some big changes in my life recently. Most notable to others, I no longer work at Seesmic – where I was for three years. Most notable to me and Claire, Buster Ashley Posey. That’s our dog.
Named after the San Francisco Giants catcher and the National League’s Rookie of the Year, we had Buster named before we met him. Luckily the dog that found us had the name Scooter, so making the change to Buster went rather easily for our one-year old pup. As far as we can tell, Buster is a Corgi Mix. Mixed with Lab perhaps? Strutting his short black hair, tiny little legs, and oscillating ears, Buster has brought a new chapter to our lives. This chapter I title “Routine.”
“Hey, I need to pee” he says by placing his paws on our bed at 5am. “Down” or “Nooooo” is how we respond until he settles back into his bed. At 7:30 there is no fighting it anymore. By that time our bladders need to be taken outside too. It wasn’t easy leaving him at home for the first time. Walking away from his little whimpers was difficult, but it was something we were both going to need to get over if this was going to work out.
Our best guess is that he sleeps on the couch when we’re not home – otherwise he knows he’s not allowed on any of the furniture. When I come home from the coffee shop for lunch each day, he’s either sitting right by the door, or he comes running down the hall. Running down the hall with the “I didn’t do anything” look always has me suspecting that he was on the couch. I haven’t set up a web cam in the living room to prove it one way or another.
Buster and I have several activities that we do together throughout the day. He sits just outside of the kitchen while I prepare my lunch. He chases after his rope and brings it back to me as I request. We go on 30 – 40 minute walks which, I’m trying to extend to an hour. I’m always surprised at the fact that we’ve only been out for 30 minutes when it feels like so much longer. Buster is not surprised by how quick it’s been. He shows his lack of surprise by laying on the tile in the foyer pretending to be a bear rug and refusing to walk up the stairs to our apartment.
This is the battle we fight at least 4 times a day now. How do we get up those oh so daunting stairs. Imagine a stair case in equal size to your body. You wouldn’t want to finish your walk that way either. To bad, you do. Good dog.
Buster didn’t know his name was going to change when we got him, but now he knows. He didn’t know “sit” and now he does. In fact, less than two weeks into having him, he’s started to understand the basic premise of sit, lay down, stay, leave it, get it, and drop it. In the house these are almost a done deal. Outside with all the SF distractions – just walking has proven to be a challenge. Luckily he gets to practice many times a day and he’s a quick learner.
Buster works hard and for that I very much appreciate him. He wants to learn all the commands and I want to keep giving him more.
When he’s done he’s tired and Buster tired is now a daily highlight of mine. No matter how sleepy he is he tries to stay awake with you. He’ll lay down in whatever room you’re in and just look at you. His eyes start getting heavy. Really heavy. His head starts to tilt to the side until finally it almost hits the ground, startling him, forcing him to lay on his side to rest his head.
Two big events happened with Buster yesterday. First – he was neutered. Then – he officially became ours. The paper work is signed making it official. Now we have a drugged up pup who’s ready to go to some doggy training and take on the world. We’ve had Buster for eighteen days and I’m happy to say every one of those days has been awesome.
A few days ago, I was browsing Netflix as I often do at night. Claire and I were trying to decide what movie or television show we wanted to watch on “Instant”. I find that searching for something to watch on Netflix isn’t so bad of an experience. I’m feeling like an Action movie; go to the Action section and scroll right and left – easy enough.
But I’ve spent a lot of time coming across movies that I may want to watch in the future that I’m not in the mood for now. These go in my Queue.
The Queue sucks. It’s just a list. The best thing that it does is remind me of movies that I thought I wanted to watch. Other than that, it allows me to move a title up or down in the list. This is pointless when what I want to watch changes depending on my mood, making the top of the list arbitrary.
What if I could categorize these? What if my choices of titles came up just like they do when I’m browsing – Documentaries and Action films separate? Movies that my friends liked in another section. Then the order that I want to watch them could be another section. And instead of reading the titles, I would see the image for them as I do in all the other sections.
I want Netflix to become a place where I collect movies on a shelf like we used to do at home. I want a section of all the movies I’ve ever seen and I want them to look like they are sitting on a shelf like the iPad does with books. I want to be proud of my collection like we are of our personal collections at home.
Click on “Instant Queue”, BOOM! Instantly see all the movies in your list displayed. Click. Watch.
My birthday was on the 1st of January. I celebrated with some friends. That took all day. On January 2nd my wife and I got dog. On the 3rd I washed all the floors in our apartment and washed the dog. Today I am attempting to start what will be my “New Self”, or “Continued Self”, or “Whit 2.0”. Call it what you will – this is what I’ll be focusing on before I turn 30.
Work, Body, Self
My Work
The long short; I’ll be attempting to create a film.
This is a process that I began over five years ago, but was put on the back burner as I started a full time job. I won’t be telling you all about the film in this blog post, that will come in the not so distant future. Part of this process will also include:
- Filming interviews of people who help me throughout the process
- Blogging about the process
Lets be clear that there is a lot of work to do on this project, including a lot of writing to be done, but I’m starting to get my ducks in a row. You will be able to find everything about my film on my blog.
My Body
Setting specific goals for my body. I’m a pretty skinny guy with not so big muscles. This may not be a big deal to you, but adding 20 pounds of muscle to my body would be huge. Last year I joined a gym and have noticed what a difference it has made in how I feel from day to day. Not only do I have more energy, but I have more drive. If you work out, you probably know what I mean. For those of you who don’t know, I play ultimate Frisbee. So it’s not that I don’t run around all the time. In fact, I’m a very active person. It’s just time to set actual goals for my body to track any physical change.
There are three entrepreneurs who I look up to that are very conscious about their physical being; Loic Le Meur, Tim Ferriss and Dan Martell. All three of them openly talk about how important exercise is for them. I’ll be writing about this more soon, but to give you an idea of what I’ll be doing you can check out Tim Ferriss’ new book “The 4-Hour Body”. Getting in to the specifics – I’ll start with a slight diet change and a slight workout change. More to come on that. Tim, I’ll be trying to track you down for advice sometime soon.
P.S. I met Tim Ferriss once when he came into our offices for an interview. Seems like a very nice guy.
Self
I’ve done a lot of thinking over the past few years, wondering exactly what it is I want for myself. I’d like to explore this some more, and now I feel as though I’ll have the ‘space’ in which to do this. You’ll probably see my reflections on this in random blog posts moving forward.
There are several people who I have contacted to help me through this process. This isn’t a journey I plan on doing alone.
I could use help from anyone who is interested. Please contact me via my contact form if you are. If you would just like to follow along please to follow me using RSS, or e-mail where, yes, I will e-mail you when I update my blog. *old school*
Today I gave notice to Seesmic, the company I’ve been working for since October 2007.
When people ask what I do at Seesmic, I tend to say I’m a producer. When prodded a little more, I explain how I was hired to produce a daily show about how to build a company. “You see,” I go on, “My boss Loic Le Meur, CEO of Seesmic, is a famous French entrepreneur and blogger. He had his success in Europe and decided that his next business would be started in San Francisco instead of Paris. When he moved, his fans wondered why; instead of blogging about it as he’d done in the past, he decided to create a show about the change.”
This is my story, and it’s probably not the same as his.
I remember the day Loic and I met. We had decided on a coffee shop on Haight street. I showed up to the wrong one about three doors down. I bought myself a large latte and started to drink as I waited. I then received a call saying he was here. I knew what he looked like thus knew he wasn’t where I was, and instantly knew I was at the wrong “here”. I was telling the truth when I said I was right around the corner. I went into that first meeting with Loic all jazzed up and jittery after slamming the latte. Unsurprisingly that became a theme for me in the coming years.
I remember bits and pieces of our conversation over that first large coffee that Loic bought me at the other cafe, but what I remember most was his enthusiasm. At this point in my life, I had produced a few cool short videos, but what impressed Loic most was that I had just returned from a trip around the world, had blogged about it, and made videos in most of the cities I visited. Because I did this he knew I could produce his show. What neither of us realized was how crazy the next 170 working days were going to be.
On October 1st 2007, we went to the Apple Store and bought the computer I’m typing on today. We then went to 365 Vermont and opened the doors to the original Seesmic headquarters for the first time. We stepped over the giant rolls of carpet being laid down and avoided leaning against the freshly painted bright red, blue and green walls. Day 1 was pretty harmless. Day 2, the day we titled “Day 1,” was when the madness began.
The show that became known as “Seesmic du Jour” took us on dozens of adventures, including interviewing people Loic hired, meeting most people from the Seesmic team, bringing community members to the offices to help us build sets, and countless interviews with bloggers, entrepreneurs, celebrities and more. It would be ridiculous for me to recount my favorite episodes but I will say I’m impressed with the episode where we filmed Emma Thompson, Bill Gates, SF Mayor Gavin Newsom and Anee Wojcicki & Linda Avey of DNA testing company 23 and Me, at the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland.
Eventually the show became difficult to maintain. Loic was very busy with the company and I was now a part of an internal team that created online content. A highlight for me was traveling to Santa Barbara with Dean Whitbread and VinVin to interview John Cleese (Tour of house). But I also loved working with the rest of, “Suite G” as we were known, on all the other projects.
I would be remiss not to mention other people who stood out in making that first year so special for me; like Cathy Brooks who helped us put together our first studio and introduced me to many of her friends in the tech world.
Giselle Kennedy created a show called Seesmix that mashed up user generated content on a daily basis. She was amazing as was her show. I always smiled with Giselle around.
I learned so much from working alongside three great producers, Rachel Joy, Sukhjit, and Vinvin. And I owe a debt of gratitude, for the lessons I’ve learned in editing and general filmmaking, to Jeremey Lavoi.
It would be ridiculous for me to talk about all the people who influenced me in my time at Seesmic: there have been so many. There have been great coworkers as well as an amazing community that I still socialize with daily online. But again I would be remiss not to mention the influence that Thomas Knoll had on me and my involvement in the tech world.
I knew that working with Thomas Knoll was going to be awesome when the first thing we ever did together was make his Seesmic introduction video, “Seesmic du Jour 160: 10 Q&A to the Q&A guy.” There was no chance on earth this guy and I were not going to win a car together in the future. Which we did a year and a half later with the submission of this video to Ford. (Incidentally, we both now own Ford Fiestas.) Thomas was the person who introduced me to what I would call “my tech world,” which was a lot different than Loic’s tech world. I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to be involved in both.
I would probably not be wise to claim that I’ve learned more about creating a company from working at Seesmic than I would have if I had gone to business school. But I never would have gone to business school, and I’ve learned a whole lot about starting a company at Seesmic. I’ve met with investors. I’ve had dinner with influencers. I’ve sat in on dozens of conversations between successful entrepreneurs. I’ve seen a company start on day one, have its ups and downs, and be versatile enough to push through a market crash. I know that I have spent the last few years working in a position that other people pay to experience in business school.
I also know that my time is up at Seesmic. Like many employees at start-ups looking to start their own ventures, I know that it is time for me to make my next move. After long deliberation with my life partner, I’ve decided it would be best to pursue personal projects. There is so much to talk about and so much to look forward to, but for now I’d like to keep this post dedicated to the company that represented the last three years of my life and helped shape who I am today. But most of all I wanted to send out to the ether a huge thank you to everyone that has made these last three years so incredible. I can’t list you all, but let’s keep in contact.
The blog post about my next moves will follow, and it’ll probably be a doozy, too. Stay tuned!
ps. Following me on Twitter,RSS on my blog or over on Facebook would be awesome of you.
I just drove my 12 year old Jetta for the last time. I drove it 2 blocks to where it would be towed then donated to KQED. I never thought I would have been so emotionally attached to a car, but looking back over the years it’s no wonder this process has been tough. I got the Jetta handed down to me by my mom around January 2000. I don’t remember the day specifically but I do remember being so excited to drive it. That excitement stayed with me all 10 years I owned it. I was always proud to be the captain of that car even when two of its windows stopped rolling down, the CD player stopped working, the tape deck stopped turning, then the new stereo was stolen. None of that was the Jettas fault (and we put Sharky our pet shark who watches over the car in too late). The Jetta just wanted to get us from one place to another.
176,500 miles is a lot of distance to have memories of. They aren’t all mine but I’ll share the memories I have that coincide with photos I’ve recently come across. If you have any memories of the Jetta that you would like to share, I’d love to see them in the comments.
Traffic somewhere between LA and New Mexico. We get out of the car and make friends with a truck driver. The CD player worked at this point, thus Steve is choosing good “standing on the freeway” music. Note my ridiculously long hair. That night I slept with the back seat down, feet stretched into the trunk which we had cleared out.
The time I fell asleep behind the wheel with a big rig heading straight toward us. The guys thought it would be a good idea to grab a quick photo before waking me up. I’m glad they did. Date?
Surfs Up! Pink giant surfboard coming out of the sun roof, blue giant surfboard had to be held. Trunk open for good measure. Date?
The Jetta parked in front of our first apartment in San Francisco. Circa 2005.
The Jetta freezing it’s hubcaps off in the greater Tahoe area. This photo comes with a video.
The video that comes with the last photo.
I drove to and from the Bay Area a lot with the Jetta. This time was with Thom Smith on our way to “Beware O the Sombrero”, an ultimate tournament in the South Bay. I believe we were listening to AC/DC?
In college Steve and Drew would have been two of the more frequent riders of the Jetta. Both putting in their time in the back seat. Steve driving a bit and Drew doing his best to stay awake while I drove through the dark of the night.
It’s fitting that this next video be put in this post. It’s probably the video with the most Jetta exposure even though it’s a video I made to win a Ford Fiesta for 7 months. The car that ended up replacing the Jetta.
It’s no surprise that Claire would be sad to see the Jetta go. Claire easily put the second most amount of time spent in this car. Together we drove up and down the West Coast. The Jetta kept us warm, safe, and took us everywhere we asked it to. We’ll remember all the ultimate tournaments we went to in it, the times we went camping, or took it a bit more off road then it would have wanted. It drove us up and down the hills of San Francisco, through the Grapevine connecting Northern California to Southern, and through both Shasta and Tahoe. This car was ours through and through and we love it.
