If we consider the first month a trial, then this marks the beginning of a long term lifestyle change.  I just feel too much better to go back, plus I know there are many improvements to be made and benefits to be gained by continuing to refine and improve the diet and fitness plan.

Primal Cookbook Review

I pre-ordered the Primal Blueprint Quick and Easy Meals Cookbook at the same time as the order for the Primal Blueprint book and it arrived this week.  Thumbnail review: Several good recipes, but it would have been nicer had the cover been designed like a cookbook.  Either lay-flat or spiral bound.

Looking beyond the binding, the recipes are organized by suggested meal time, which is great.  There are wonderful photos showing both the ingredients and the finished product. Being a photographer myself, I appreciate the quality of the photos.  Co-author, Jennifer Meier is also the photographer. Kudos! 

We tried the Buttery Eggs with Leeks recipe this weekend for breakfast and I should have made my own photo of Amy’s version. Doh!  Maybe next time.  I loved it.  Amy likes her salsa with an omelet better, but it still gets a hearty recommendation from both of us.

New fitness plan started

I finally got the Primal Blueprint Fitness e-book and familiarized myself with what the “Lift Heavy Things” workout consists of.  Turns out the heavy thing is ME!  The suggested workout movements are simple and use body-weight for resistance.  It’s very intense compared to the Bowflex routine I was doing, but at least I’m not starting at the bottom progression except for pull-ups.  I’ve never done those at all.

Speaking of pull-ups,  I didn’t have a good pull-up bar.  I started out using the upper bar of the Bowflex, but it was really too narrow.  We went to an Aldi grocery store this weekend and they had an assortment of fitness gadgets (go figure!) for $5.99 ea!  One was a doorway pull-up bar so I got one.  The bar was of very good quality, especially for the money. If you have an Aldi in your neighborhood, check it out.

I started with the self-assessment which calls for doing certain movement progressions to failure and comparing the results to a chart to determine your starting point.  The self-assessment kicked my butt!  I went ahead and performed another cycle as best I could, but I had to put three days between the first and second workout, so no sprints this week.  Sprints are another component of PBF along with Moving Slowly, which I did plenty of.

 The PBF plan calls for 3-5 hours per week of “Moving Slowly” in basically any activity which causes your heart rate to maintain between 55%-75% of “max”.  This range keeps your body burning fat/protein without going into glucose reserves.

Without a heart rate monitor I really couldn’t be certain if my intensity level was correct, so I jumped on Amazon, read some reviews and ordered the Omron HR-100C Heart Rate Monitor for under $35. My net cost was $7.99 after using my gift card from Christmas   My copy has worked great so far and I’ve already found out that the first half-mile or so of my 2.5 mi walking route was a bit too slow.  On my last walk, I successfully got my heart rate up to target range and kept it there just about the entire time.  This shaved a couple of minutes off my walk…a bonus.

I must be at what my body considers and equilibrium weight, because I barely lost a pound this week.  That’s ok though, as I said, I’m in this for the long haul and it’s just a matter of time. I haven’t been below the weight I’m at now (about 195lb) in probably fifteen years, so it may be a tough plateau to break through.

New resources

I added two new blogs to my Google Reader this week.  One is by Matt Madeiro, who started his Primal journey exactly a year ago this week and he has some great insights from his experience. Find his Three New Leaves Blog here.

The other blog is The Perfect Health Diet.  It’s written by a husband and wife team of scientists.  I’m using this as another opinion on diet.  All of these bloggers have slightly different opinions and experiences and recommendations as to what can or cannot be included in the optimal eating plan and this is a good addition to the list.

Last but not least, we found a couple of sources for local eggs, so the continuous improvement of food quality has begun.  We’ll probably shop for a chest freezer after the tax return gets here and start looking to buy some local meat to store in it.

That’s it for this week’s update.  Feel free to share your “Primal Experiences” below.

The Primal Blueprint

I have to give a big plug for The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson. I got it this week and have been gobbling up the good info. I read a lot of blogs and books so I know when I see the real deal. Mark Sisson publishes a dizzying amount of content on what he calls the Primal Blueprint lifestyle. I think I want to change my mind and adopt this term instead of paleo If you want to learn more about improving your nutrition, your fitness and giving your body what it was created to have (I don’t subscribe to the evolution idea), then The Primal Blueprint is for you. Follow it up on Mark’s blog called Mark’s Daily Apple.

So far the most eye opening thing in The Primal Blueprint has been the chapter on ‘Don’t Eat Poisonous Things’. I can’t believe how bad for me some of the stuff I’ve been eating for the last forty years has been. Sure, sugar and other sources of carbohydrates spike insulin levels, and that’s bad enough, but poly unsaturated fats and genetically modified foods are downright scary.

Status Update

We received the food dehydrator this week and Amy made our first batch of jerky. Very good snacks. We also tried sweet potatoes with so-so results and we have a batch of bananas drying now. Once we get the hang of it we should have a great source of handy, primal snacks.

A couple of other results from this week. First I learned to make eggs over easy without breaking the yolks. I know, big deal, but you don’t understand how little interest I’ve had in cooking and food preparation in general before now. I Guess I found the geek angle with all the talk about “reprogramming my genes” and that got me interested.

My reflux and IBS type symptoms are still at bay, which I’m thrilled about. I’m still getting used to my new appetite and marveling at how stable it is! I’m down to two eggs with bacon, fried bologna or sausage for breakfast which is proving to be plenty to hold me well into the afternoon. Skipping lunch when I need to is more handy than I could have imagined.

At the end of two weeks I’ve lost four of the seven pounds I gained in the first two months of the year from eating Christmas candy and then Valentine’s candy. The weather is getting warmer and I’m getting in more walks. Push-ups were already a part of my workouts, but I haven’t spent much time incorporating any of the other workouts suggested by Sisson in The Primal Blueprint. One step at a time.

At some point we’d still like to find some ‘cleaner’ foods (organic, etc.), but for now we’re settling for the fare from our local grocer. At this point I’m claiming Sisson’s 80% Rule and not stressing about that. I want to do a little research and see if I can trace back some of their sources. It may turn out to be not all that bad, i.e. 90% rule?

If you’re thinking about giving the Primal Blueprint a try, I encourage you to jump in for 30 days.  I’ve never seen positive results this quickly from following any other eating plan. Period.

A turning point

This is a quick post to document a turning point for me in the health and diet department that should also impact my fitness.

What triggered it

The trigger for this coming change came from an unlikely source. Paul Thurott is the host of the Windows Weekly podcast with Leo LaPorte on the TWiT network.

In a recent episode (more than one actually), Paul mentioned a book called Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It by Gary Taubes.

Paul didn’t go into a lot of detail about the diet because as he and the author states “it’s not a diet book”. It was Paul’s statement that “…it’s not IF I lose weight, but how much…” and the conviction with which he said it that prompted me to order a copy of the book.

The first half of the book is a bit tedious as Taubes gives a detailed background of the digestive process and how carbohydrates affect insulin production and the consequences. However, I started devouring it in the second half when the “What to do about it” stuff kicked in.

To tell you the truth, i don’t know exactly what I’m getting into yet except that there will be very few carbohydrates in my future. It’s not “Atkins” or “Sugar Busters” or any other diet exactly. That’s one of the main reasons the idea appealed to me. It’s a “lifestyle”.

Other stuff I’ve found on the subject so far.

The Taubes book just left me wanting more so I searched for related books on Amazon.com and tried to figure out what some of the lingo was associated with this “dietary lifestyle”. I was introduced to the “paleo-primal lifestyle”. The main idea I’ve found is that we should eat the way our forefathers ate in the times before agriculture. In short we should be eating what was “recently alive and soon to spoil”.

My next book to read will probably be the The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson. He has a great website called Mark’s Daily Apple. I’ve added these blogs to my Google Reader:

• Mark’s Daily Apple
• The Foodee Project
• Everyday Paleo

I’m sure these will lead to others, but that’s as far as I’ve gotten so far.

My first day Going Primal

We just went shopping and re-stocked our “carb cabinet” as I call it last week. I’m anxious to get going with this new dietary direction / paleo-primal lifestyle, but not committed enough to waste a week’s worth of groceries no matter how poisonous.

Today at lunch though, I decided to see what it would feel like to skip some carbs. So I made scrambled eggs and turkey bacon. It was almost three o’clock this afternoon when the big bowl of Oatmeal Squares (which is my favorite cereal) I had for breakfast wore off. I started getting light-headed and had a mild headache. Strange feeling, but in a way I’m looking forward to exploring the paleo lifestyle and getting through to the other side. I didn’t give in to the cravings though and by 7pm I’m feeling much better. For now. :-0

Dinner was roasted chicken and cheddar cheese. Earlier this afternoon I snacked on some pepperoni and cheese. I’m simply stumbling through this for now. We’ll get organized in a few days.

We, you say? Yes, my wife and I are doing this together. She tried Sugar Busters a few years ago, but I scoffed and complained about the whole grain pasta and bread. Stoopid me! “Going paleo” together will hopefully make it easier.

Background coming later

There is some background that needs to be shared before you can understand how I had this seemingly knee-jerk reaction to one guy’s mention of some book, but I’ll save that for another day.

Feedback

What about you? Have you discovered the paleo-primal lifestyle? How’s it working out? Any advice? I’d love to hear about your experiences in the comments.

]]> http://brettweaver.com/dell-inspiron-m101z-unboxing-and-review/feed/ 0 http://brettweaver.com/the-essential-guide-to-lighting-interiors-highly-recommended/ http://brettweaver.com/the-essential-guide-to-lighting-interiors-highly-recommended/#comments Sat, 23 Oct 2010 03:51:59 +0000 Brett http://brettweaver.com/the-essential-guide-to-lighting-interiors-highly-recommended/

I just finished Scott Hargis' new ebook, The Essential Guide to lighting Interiors.  The book is a great compliment to the in-person workshop that I attended with Scott and Thomas Grubba in Raleigh NC in 2009.  If you're a real estate photographer of any flavor, I highly recommend this book.  More info: http://bit.ly/akIIia

I used to read all the time. Louis Lamour and other westerns, Clive Cussler and the adventure genre were some of my favorites. For my return to reading I’ve decided to read business and marketing oriented books to increase my knowledge of my chosen area of expertise.

I got the recommendation for my first book from Cory Miller and James Dalman’s Webdesign.com reading list. It’s called The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell and I thought I’d share my thoughts on it.

This was my first Malcom Gladwell book and I’m sure it won’t be the last. I like his writing style. The Tipping Point is a book about change and some deep thinking on epidemics. Gladwell himself describes the book as an “intellectual adventure story”. It largely exposes some concepts that you will have to walk around with for a while before the practical use becomes apparent. At least that has been my experience.

From the description of the book I was hoping to get some practical ideas for creating more interest in my business, i.e. to improve my marketing efforts. It’s not that kind of book. I think it just might turn out to be better.

In the book, Gladwell spends a lot of time developing the idea of how epidemics are started and spread and gives specific examples. Some of the examples are about disease epidemics as you might expect but the others are about crime, fashion, bad habits and school shootings. I’ll have to admit that in the middle of some of the lengthy examples he almost lost me. If this happens to you, stick with it. At the end you’ll realize that you need the benefit of the examples in order to apply the principles.

Gladwell’s findings are that almost always, a tiny percentage of the do the majority of the work to start an epidemic. He calls this the Law of the Few. The other two rules of The Tipping Point are The Stickiness Factor and The Power of Context. He uses these three rules to organize thinking about epidemics and help us to understand how to create a Tipping Point of our own.

Carrying out the rules of the Tipping Point are three main types of people. Gladwell calls these Mavens (information brokers and are teachers), Connectors (who know “everybody”) and Salesmen (excellent at influencing people).

Again, examples from various parts of history are given including Paul Revere (a Connector and a Maven). Each of these people play a different but vitally important role in an epidemic.

With my subconscious mind armed with the concepts about how and why epidemics are created and spread I am now watching for that piece of information that will help me answer the question that Gladwell leaves us with in the Afterward of the book. That question is: “How do I find the Mavens that will spread the word about my particular business?” or put differently, how do I build a Maven trap?

The last few pages of the book are the best in my opinion, but would be of much less value without the experience of the examples so again, stick with it. It’s worth it.

In conclusion, I highly recommend The Tipping Point. If you’ve read the book and figured out how to build a Maven trap in your business, I’d love to hear about it. Why not leave a comment?

The upgrade process

As I suspected, the hot topic surrounding Windows 7 upgrades was just how far one could go toward performing a clean install with upgrade media.  First to clear up a couple of technical terms. Upgrade media are the disks that Microsoft sells that allow you to install Windows 7, but only activate if you have a qualifying installation of a previous version of Windows. In contrast the Full version of windows by definition can be instlalled on a clean hard drive with no previous Windows install present. The other big thing is that Upgrade media costs less than the full version.

Here’s how my upgrade went. I removed my original 160 GB drive with XP on it, and installed a new 320 GB drive. After printing out the Windows 7 upgrade guide by WinSuperSite’s Paul Thurott,  I booted the system with the Windows 7 upgrade disk in the drive and followed the prompts to do a custom install.  The install went smoothly.  It’s a relatively quick install, but the question was, would it activate successfully once it phoned home to Redmond?  The answer was no. At least not initially.

Paul did a great job researching and experimenting with the upgrade media. His suggested next step after a failed activation was to do a “registery hack”.

Method #2: Registry hack
Note: This workaround is not supported by Microsoft but my understanding is that it has a 100 percent success rate.

The registry hack worked for me. Activation was successful after performing the steps outlined and re-booting my laptop.

On a side note, I have also upgraded my wife’s Vostro 1520 laptop. I ordered upgrade media from Dell (which they sent at no charge). They will only send an equivalent disk. In other words, since the Vostro came with Vista Home Premium 32 bit, they sent Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit. We decided we might want to upgrade the RAM in the future from 3GB to 4GB or more which really requires a 64bit OS. So I backed up and then did a custom install with MY 64 bit upgrade disk from Amazon. After entering the license key from the disk from Dell the activation went smoothly. I wanted to throw that in there in case anyone else is wondering about doing a similar upgrade.

Windows 7 Review

During the summer I got my first case of Mac fever. I read MacBook Pro reviews, watched videos and read message boards.  I made up my mind that I would get a MBP, but would wait at least a year. I think the best compliment for Windows 7 is that I no longer have Mac fever. Well . . . maybe a little!   Microsoft has really closed the gap. Despite the warnings by the aforementioned Mr. Thurott, I have come to really like the new task bar. I can see where it might confuse some people, but pinning programs and re-arranging icons is great.

I wrote about Libraries in Seven during my beta test and that remains my favorite feature I think. On the visual front, I like the semi-transparent task bar and window frames and the “slideshow” wallpaper that changes on set intervals. Speaking of wallpaper, I just downloaded some great wallpaper images from National Geographic. These are great if you like landscapes.

This is getting long so I’ll just mention a couple more things that have worked really well for me. One is networking. Windows 7 calls it Home Group.  It’s just easy. “It just works” is a phrase that Apple fans like to use. Well, so far Windows 7 “just works” for me. The other thing I use all the time is sleep-mode. That’s a simple thing, but XP would lock up coming out of sleep half the time so I never used it.  Now it’s like near instant boot-up out of sleep.

It really is time to move on from Windows XP.   Windows 7 is rock solid, clean looking and runs all my apps and hardware flawlessly. Way to go Microsoft!

Brett

I’m way behind in updating my Windows 7 experience. There’s a good reason! I have had no further experience with Windows 7. No, I haven’t given up on it or changed my mind about how good an operating system I think it is. Fact is I got busy over the summer and had to go back to my XP drive.

I’m not that dependent on MS Office, but I need it every once in a while and I decided it just wasn’t worth the trouble of re-activating it. Also I didn’t want to invest any more time in this operating system that I would have to re-install come October.

So right now I’m just waiting for Windows 7. I took advantage of the pre order for Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade at Amazon.com so I should get my copy on October 22nd.

I plan to install Seven on a fresh hard drive. I need a bigger drive anyway and it would just make me feel better if I had the old XP disk intact just in case I need to revert. There’s probably some licensing issues with that strategy and it’s still not clear if that will even be possible. I’m confident someone will figure out how to do it though. I will report my experiences here so stay tuned.

Brett

I do remember the computer lab in college having some type of Apple computer. Probably an early Macintosh operating system. I never paid much attention to Macs because they wouldn’t run games like Wing Commander, which I spent hours playing between classes.

Lately though, I’ve been bitten by the “Mac Bug”. I don’t play games any more and I just want to get some work done. My main work is processing photos and web development and from what I hear a Macintosh PC is great for that.

I stopped at an Apple Store a couple of months ago and I have been reading a lot of reviews about MacBook Pro since then. I’m wondering if the 13″ Macbook Pro screen will be big enough for those infrequent times that I’m on an overnight photo shoot. Otherwise I’d have it connected to a 22″ Dell 2209WA monitor which is due to arrive here within the hour ~8-)

——–
Sidebar:
The Dell 2209WA display (I got two) arrived as I was typing this. Of course I had to hook one up and I’m looking at it now as I type this. Out of the box it looks great. Maybe too bright, but I’ll adjust it later and maybe do a full review post.
——–

During my Mac research I noticed a bunch of people recording “Unboxing Videos”. So instead of immediately opening their new MacBook they set up a video camera and record their experience. I wanted to make an exaggerated version of those as a parody, but I ended up just doing a “for the record” type of thing with my wife’s new Vostro 1520 from Dell. Her school sytem is actually almost anti-Mac so she decided to go ahead and fit in with a Windows PC this time.

Anyway, enough rambling. Here’s the video I recorded on my Sony Hi8 camcorder and imported and edited with Windows Movie Maker that comes with Win Vista Home Premium. Enjoy!

Here are the specs on this Vostro 1520:

• Intel Core2 Duo 2.24 Ghz
• 3GB RAM
• 320 GB HDD
• 15.4″ Widescreen
• Vista Home Premium (Make sure you specify the Windows version you want when ordering a Vostro. They were going to put Home Basic on this one until I caught it.)
• Webcam built into the monitor
• Express Card slot.
• 4x USB 2.0 Ports (2 left / 2 right)
• IEEE 1394 (Firewire) port on right.
• CD/DVD Burner (Tray-loading)
• LAN and VGA on the back (No DVI)
• SD/MMC Memory Stick/Pro slot and headphone/mic jacks on the front.

Fast forward a couple of years and I still have only touched one system running Vista. I’m going to be a bit more brave with Windows 7. I downloaded the beta over the weekend and installed it on my old system.

My test system is a home brew box vintage 2000 with an Asus main board, an Athlon XP 2200+ processor and the mininum recommended 1GB of memory. I thought this would test whether the system requirements were more forgiving than for Vista as Microsoft clamis.

I did a fresh install on the system partition and it installed without a hitch. I had a major problem right off the bat. The ethernet card wasn’t recognized. It was a Wal-Mart/Linksys/Network Everywhere card. After some research I found out that the drivers were never even developed for Vista.

Luckily I had a couple of other NIC cards in the closet that I had picked up at a computer show out of the two dollar bin. The first one wowrked. I’m not sure what the make of the card is, but Windows 7 recognized it right away.

Ok, so now I’m on the net and I have a clean device manager, but my display is not optimal. My card is an Nvidia GeForce4 4200 with 128mb of memory which should be adequate to run the more advanced features of Windows 7 beta. I guess Nvidia hasn’t bothered to update the drivers for this card for Vista/7 because all I’m getting is the “Standard VGA” card driver. That means 1024×768 max and the refresh rate is noticeably slow.

Summary: It seems stable, it connected to my home network easily and I like the window snapping feature. I just wish I could find drivers for the video card. i really don’t want to sink any money into this old system just to try out Wwindows 7 beta. If anybody can help I’d appreciate you leaving a comment.

I plan on posting again on my Windows 7 beta experience.

Brett