Archive for 'daily life'

January 2012 : Get Fit

Posted on February 1, 2012, under daily life.

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As I posted a few weeks ago, I’m getting back on the getting fit vibe. It mostly entails going to the gym more often, and thinking more closely about portion sizes. It does take a quite few weeks to get into a rhythm of going to a gym. Starting is hard enough, but sticking with your plan is the real challenge.

Measuring Progress

How do you measure that you are getting fitter ? Tim Ferris, in the 4 Hour Work Body, talks about TI, or total inches, which is possibly a better way to see if you are getting fit and in shape. Basically you measure your arms, legs, waist & chest, and sum up all the numbers to get your TI number. Nonetheless tracking your weight will also show you your level of progress to a certain level of accuracy. There is of course a lower limit that this will approach, so you should also check out the chart for your ideal weight for your height. BMI is another metric that’s often thrown out, where anything under 25 is considered ‘healthy’. It’s calculated by the following forumla

BMI = ( Weight in Kilograms / ( Height in Meters x Height in Meters ) )

My January chart is displayed below, and as you can see I’m just on the tip of the overweight / ideal weight border.
January 2012
Overall I’m happy with the progress, but I don’t track my progress just by my weight. Other aspects like energy levels or time for a 5km run are other ways of seeing how you are progress.

Calorie Accountancy

Posted on January 16, 2012, under daily life.

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I’ve harped on before about my plans to get fit, and well it’s been a bit of a struggle. Generally we are capable of starting out well, where it’s gets difficult is to stick to it on those days that you’re feeling tired, crappy, unmotivated, etc. Having a slimming buddy is one good strategy to keep you focused, especially if you don’t want to go down the road of an expensive personal trainer. That being said getting fit is an investment in yourself, and things like gym membership, runners and healthy food all cost money, and of course your time. Getting fit can be done on the cheap, but it’s certainly not free, and needless to say, the resulting benefits outway the cost.

So once again I will say that this is the year that I get fit. Who knows I might even push myself into doing a 10km run somewhere in the summer.

A look at 2011

Below is my weight chart from last year, and as you can see that when last July I posted my progess, I was on track to hitting the 75kg mark in September. But as you can see here, that really didn’t happen.

2011 Weight chart

The gray dots are some of the measured points, and the blue line is the average weight and predicted time I shall hit my goal.

You can see a lot of improvement in the early days & weeks, but after a while it started to slow down. The challenge here for me was to keep motivated and to push on, especially when I was starting to see some real results. You can see here that towards the end of the summer the weight started to creep up. It probably wasn’t helped with being at the Oktoberfest 8 times either ;)

Also throw in the mix in November was a new scales, which miraculously added 2kgs to me. I updated from a mechanical scales to an electronic one, that also does body fat measurements & water weight.

While this result is a bit saddening, it’s also important to note that people’s weights do change in the seasons. It’s the same for athletes, they go through different cycles of building muscle and loosing fat and then recuperating. Now I’m not saying this is what I’ve done, but maybe some of the re-weight gain was due to this natural body craving to store up some fat for the winter.

Life Changes

Besides going to the gym, I’ve started to take a closer look at what I eat, and how much I eat. Portion control is key, and it comes back to the title, calorie accountancy. There is a simple formula to loosing weight, basically you need to use / expel more calories every day than you’ve consumed. If you can manage that, you will loose weight. There’s no magic secret to getting fit / loosing weight, it’s just you have to do it.

Useful Tools

In 2011 I started using the fantastic Weightbot app by Tapbots to record my weight. Generally I try to record at least 3 weights each week, with at least one at the weekend. During the year I picked up, and am still going through, Tim Ferris’ book the Four Hour Body on this recommendation.

I’ve also been inspired by some other people doing the same, reading Pat, Michele, Paul & James on twitter and their blogs has helped me to stay focussed, and has reminded me that there are indeed other people working hard to get fit out there, that I’m not the only one.

Back to the grinding stone

This year I’ve been hitting the gym a lot more often. For the past 3 weeks I’ve been going 4-5 times a week. The results have been good, I’ve lost 3kgs enough so far, but again it’s not the quick fixes that are needed. 74kgs is a more long term goal I know.

This year's progress

The plan for this year is to do at least a small update on my progress every 3 months. So see you in March !

Sam I’m not your father

Posted on July 10, 2011, under daily life, randomness.

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I’ve been getting an increased level of emails from people I don’t know. I don’t post them all here, but they’ve been concerning various random topics, from readings of my gas & electricity in the UK, to an ad for a 2001 Chevy van 2500 in Elmira NY, to investment details from Hinduja Bank in Switzerland. I really don’t know why people don’t check email addresses, or make sure that they are giving out the right email addresses when they sign up to services. It can’t be that hard, and if you are having issues telling people your email address, then you should either get an easier one, or maybe consider giving up on email all together.

This morning I was greeted with another one, from Sam who was looking for his father. What’s interesting is that Sam sent the invite to gmail to a gmail address, wft ? Either way, Sam I’m not your father….

Tweet Up in a Brewery #tub4

Posted on January 10, 2011, under daily life, Living in Germany, tub.

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Christmas is well and truly over, the Christmas markets are disassembled and people are back in work, so it would be the perfect time for some midweek beers to talk about random tech stuff. So presenting the next instalment, #4, of Tweet Up In A Brewery {aka #tub4}.

About Tweet up in a Brewery

A few English speaking tweeters in Munich have come together and decided to have an informal tweet up. It’s open to everyone, the language is generally English, but most of us speak-the-german too. Think of it as an open coffee club meeting with beer ! We generally meet after work in a central bar / brewery in Munich and chat about a whole host of topics.

A quick thanks to equinux who sponsored a few beers at tub3. They showed off their new prodcuct Tizi, which turns your iPad into a digital receiver, and picked up the tab while we oooh and awwwed over it.

Details of TUB4

Signup for TUB4

The event have ended - no more registrations are allowed.
Upon sign up you’ll be send to the twitter search results page.
Total Attendees: 7

# Name
1. Carlo
2. Geoff Teale
3. paul savage
4. Adrian Thomas
5. Mike
6. Haentz
7. Jason

Previous Tweet up in a Brewery

This is the 4th meeting in the series. [1] [2] [3]

HashTag for the event : #tub4, a list of some previous attendees can be found here.
See you there !

Travel travel travel

Posted on January 5, 2011, under daily life.

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Last year was a very strange year for me, strange in the new sense of the word. I started to travel for work contracts, and got to see some amazing parts of the world for the first time (especially the Baltics). There was a few firsts, like going business class trans-atlantic flight and navigating cities like Belgrade on my own (top tip, make sure you get a map that has Cyrillic names of the streets, and make sure the address you want to go to also is in Cyrillic), and having a business trip based on hobby website of mine, (my skiiing tips website).

Travel for work can be fun, but it can als be a little over rated, it’s great to get to see these places & meet people face to face, but besides that, there generally isn’t such a great attraction to travelling for work. More often than not, travelling for work is done on tight schedules, so you don’t always get a full feel for a place, like you would on holidays. On the other hand, trips are a great change from working in an office on your own, where after a while the walls start to get a little too familiar.

Later on in the month I will try to do a post with my favorite picture form each place I took. But for now there is just a list.

The trips taken in 2010

  • Cork, Ireland
  • Boston, US
  • Florida, US
  • Zurich, Switzerland
  • Austria
  • Rome, Italy
  • Paris, France
  • Valetta, Malta
  • Dublin, Ireland
  • Krackow
  • Galway, Ireland
  • Skopje, Macedonia (Former Republic of)
  • Tallinn, Estonia
  • Belgrade, Serbia
  • Florida, US
  • Jamaica
  • Dublin, Ireland
  • Cork, Ireland

I’ve started to put some of the trips on Dopplr, (my profile) if you are bothered to look. What does 2011 have in store for itself ?

Update : 18/2/2011 There is another email doing the rounds, this time from http://www.revenue.ie.casefileform.com/refund.php?form=19294030 Again it is a phishing attempt to get you fill in your details. On the 2nd page it take you to a page where they ask you for your credit card details. The from email address is listed as service@revenue.ie

Hello random stranger

Posted on September 21, 2010, under daily life.

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Some random couple at the space needle in Seattle just sent me their picture. I don’t know who these people, but they fall into the category of people who email me although I don’t know them. Either way they look like they are having a great time.
So if you are a Paul Savage and are googling yourself, maybe you can let me know who the couple is.

Photo Tours in Munich

Posted on August 20, 2010, under daily life, Living in Germany.

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Yesterday I had the chance to pop on a personal tour of Munich, with a nice lad called Dave Douglas. Dave runs GuidedMunich.com, which offers photo-tours with a twist. With the decline in the price of DSLR cameras, more and more people now posses one. Dave aims to teach you how to use your camera, in the tourist setting of Munich. The idea is quite a unique one, because well you get  photography tuition from an expert photographer, while being brought around Munich by someone who has some great insider knowledge of the city. It’s a nice mix, especially if you are visiting on a limited time schedule.

Pictures of Munich

Here are some of the images I took on the trip. Despite it being an overcast day, we still managed to work with the light that was there, and in some pictures used it to a good effect.

We went through all the different modes of my Canon, and we tested out some of the more advance things I tended to avoid in the past, such as Exposure compensation, and when to use shutter vs. aperture priority.

Dave climbing to get that picture

So if you are looking for interesting things to do in Munich, I would advise you to check the tour out.

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