Motivation is a b*t*h

It's hard to stay motivated without a goal. It's hard to define a goal when there is no desire for an outcome.

Did a fairly intense 8x60m sprint workout last week. But am not being consistent.


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Super customer service!

I got an Airtel 3G sim for my iPad and had it cut down to microSIM size at one of the shops at Fountain Plaza. Biggest mistake. It wasn't cut right and the damn thing jammed the sim tray and it wouldn't come out.

So I took it to the apple service centre -which luckily happened to be 2 minutes from home.

The guy there took one look at, tried to pop the tray out and filled in a job sheet. 3 days later I have a new iPad!

Wow...

That's customer service. No question of trying to repair it.

I am turning into an Apple fanboy!


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The iPad lifestyle

Been using the ipad for a while now. The experience has been nothing less than spectacular. Wonder how long it will last.

Here's what I use it for:

1. Reading, reading, reading
2. Email
3. Facebook, twitter, and all that jazz - most likely the first thing to drop off my list things I do with my iPad.

Have jus started to blog with it. I do other random stuff like tracking my workouts, goals etc. But it's not very efficient at that.

Wonder if I should consider an ipad2...

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Location:Chennai

Eating 80% at every meal

I have not been able to regularly work out since I hurt my back last year. The obvious result of this of course has been 4 kilos of fat in all the wrong places. I have resumed working out mid Jan this year. For a while I struggled with different work outs - primarly lost the habit of getting to the gym. Work outs were not enjoyable, appetite was not good - I wouldnt want to eat - but would eat anyway. Before and after a meal didnt feel any different in terms of satiation - just discomfort.

So I made a couple of changes:-

First was to make it a habit to get up at 5 AM everyday. I used to do it before hurting my back. But after I couldn't even walk, I used to sleep later and awake even later - sometimes as late as 9 AM. So making the change to 5 AM was a task - but that was the only thing I focussed on. Not really worrying about working out or anything else. Just waking up at 5 AM. Been doing it consistently for the last 3 weeks now.

Since I have been waking up so early, I have been able to fit in 3 -4 workouts a week now. That is making a big difference to my timing and my appetite. I feel hungry on the clock and when I finish eating I feel sated and not uncomfortable. For the last 2 weeks though I have also got into the habit of eating only 80% at every meal. Basically its just a case of being conscious of what I am eating and stopping when I feel just about to become full.

My weight has dropped from 76.5 to 74.5. Lets see if I can hit my current goal of sub-74 - I think I will.

Until next time.

Returning to running and blogging

My last attempt at making an entry in this blog was on October 21, 2010 - about a month after a microdiscectomy for my L4-L5 disc. I find that its still in draft and incomplete. So this attempt is simply going to be a quick one to break the cycle.

I've been trying to get out of the pre-surgery routine of lots of TV, daily junk food and late awakening. It looks like the extruded disc that I had did more than hurt my back. The psychological impact has been significant. My best habits of getting out of bed early, eating well, staying fit, etc. have all been shot to death.

I am trying to build that base of good habits again. For the last several weeks now, I have been able to more or less consistently wake up at o500 every morning. I am also eating much less junk and there is a less of a tendency to swig at parties or evenings out.

Been reading Robin Sharma and interestingly the first thing he talks about in his book "The Leader who had no title" is about the daily habits of leaders. Ha - someday I'll be a leader without a title as well! (Of course, I think the best way to become a leader without a title is to start with one. Somebody somewhere will likely knock you down and strip it off you - so maybe I'll go and buy one)

Been doing a bit of running now - not jogging much - walking up to Pachaiyappa's and doing 60m strides. Sprinting is still way in the future it looks like. Need to get into some serious weight training before I can do that. Found that put on a track suit between sets on benchpress really helps. Can stay warm and definitely flexible.

Fixing the hack and 2 game changers

Had a rough time finding out how to stop my blog being hacked. Figured out that my blog was configured to receive updates via email. Looks like a virus of some sort has picked up my blogs' email addresses and was mailing them. So after hemming and hawing for several days and threatening complaints to Google (just a generic threat - didn't know who to blame anyway), I decided to disable the email accounts. So far nothing has happened since then. So I think I solved the problem.

Since I am not running because of my back (which I happen to throw out again!), I thought I might as well talk about a couple of game changers. A game changer is a technology or fad that will fundamentally alter an industry or commonly prevalent paradigm - maybe even kill some paradigms. I am now officially hooked to two solid applications that I believe will change the way we work.

The first is something called FeedJournal (www.feedjournal.com). Its a kind of blog syndicater that combines various blogs into a single newspaper like interface. Personally, I read a lot - and I cant always read from a computer screen. FeedJournal is such a life saver that once a week I can print out all the posts from all the blogs that I read and I have a custom magazine with only the articles that I like. I believe this is a game changer because it could potentially change the concept of a magazine over the next 10 years or so. Imagine a world where you didn't have a traditional magazine like Time or Newsweek. Just authors whose feeds go into various custom magazines.

The second is something that could have a much faster acceptance cycle than FeedJournal. I recently saw a presentation for Google Wave and was blown away. Wrangled an invitation right away and was as impressed using it as I was seeing the demo. GW's paradigm is that a Wave is like a thread that you start and share with whoever you want. All those you share with can modify or reply to your wave. Modification is particularly useful if you are collaborating on something - like say a report or a plan. Replying is useful when you are trying to get consensus on something (this is not so cool - since email already does this)

The modification feature is really something to rave about. We use it in my company for our status meetings. So I create a status wave and invite my team to the wave. Each one is tasked with updating their part of the wave. Where it gets really cool is that they can simultaneously update the wave. Think of it as a "merge" in real time - for those who are familiar with merging code.

In real time, each member of the wave can see the other updating his or her section as it is being done. So you can react right away to posts by others and get your plans in sync. For the first time, one-hour status meetings actually finish in one hour as opposed to the several hours it used to take.

Right now I'm not too clear how Google is positioning Wave. But positioned right, I believe Wave will change the way we think about collaboration and so qualifies as a game changer in my mind.

Well until I start running/sporting again, expect a lot of non-running posts from me.

Until next time.

Hacks and race walking

Looks like my blogger account was hacked! So posts extolling the virtues of strange sounding drugs. Rest assured I am not selling them! Thanks to George for pointing it out for me.

In the meantime, my disc prolapse is really killing me. So I have started race-walking. Check out the entry in Wikipedia for what race-walking is.

I can tell you, even though it looks funny, its no where near funny. I have been doing my 200m and 400m repeats while race-walking. What it did do on the first day was chafe my inner thighs pretty badly.

Another thing it did was introduce me to calf muscle torture. Not sure whether thats because of walking or because Im so unfit. Either way started a slow job today. Hopefully my back will sort itself out and I can lose the 3 extra inches on my stomach sometime soon. (Can't seem to lose the extra beers and whiskies though)

Until next time.