trying to believe

Last Saturday I started WeightWatchers with my mom. My weight is something I struggled with all throughout my adult life. After one week on the Flex Plan, I have lost 20.4 pounds. I am exceptionally encouraged by the progress I have made in such a short amount of time, and I am enthusiastic about continuing to shed all of the excess weight I have burdened my body with for far too long.

I’m 26 years old. I weigh way too much, and it’s not healthy. It’s easy to loose control, and it’s safe to say that I have been without control for way too long…

It’s time for me to retake control of my life, and stop giving food a higher priority in my life. I’m tired of being heavy. I’m tired of feeling tired all the time. I’m tired of the extra strain I’ve put on my body. I’m tired of being disgusted with my body. I’m not going to take it any more.

This week, I’ve learned several things that have helped me immensely:

1. Have faith in our Creator. He is the greatest help you can ever have. Prayer has helped me stay more focused this week, because I have Him on my side.
2. Watch your portions. Down-size your plate, or put less food on your plate!
3. Subsitute good foods for bad foods! Want that extra hamburger? Try eating some carrots instead! Or grab a small cup of pretzels. They’ll help fill you up, and won’t impact you as badly as that extra hamburger might.
4. Eat slowly. I’ve found that if I take time to enjoy my food, instead of scarfing it down, I enjoy it more, and I get full before I finish eating.
5. Drink lots of water. It will help you during the time between meals where you might feel hungry, plus it keeps your body hydrated - which is a good thing.
6. Stay away from “Clown Food”. Fast food is bad. It’s super-loaded in calories, fat, etc. The more you can stay away from “Clown Food”, the better. I used to stop at places nearly every morning to get breakfast on my way to work. I’d get a sausage biscuit (or two or three), a large Coke, and a couple of hashbrowns. (Just for breakfast!!!) Now, if I do stop, I limit myself on what I get… one sausage biscuit, a hashbrown and an orange juice instead of Coke. It’s not the greatest meal I could have in the morning, but it’s a lot better than what I had been poisoning myself with before!

Anyways… I thought I would share my experiences thusfar with everyone… Pray for me as I continue on this new chapter in my life.

Here’s a “trick” from Rbird.com’s About Design blog on how you can update the appearance of Basecamp with these treats. (Kill me for my puns, I beg you.)

I wonder if it would freak our clients out if we changed how Basecamp looked all of a sudden? Hmm….

This gives me an idea… it would be cool to provide a resource of “theme” ideas for Basecamp. I know I struggled somewhat to come up with the right color combo for the PowerServe Basecamp…

Hat tip: Signals vs. Noise

October 26, 2005 - 13:32 EDT Zondervan has partnered with Talking Panda to release the TNIV Audio Bible for iPod in February 2006. This marks the first audio Bible available in Apple retail stores. “To be able to carry and access the entire text of the Bible in a device that fits in the palm of your hand will be a great convenience to allow time- starved people to read or listen to the Bible whenever it suits them,” said Mark Hunt, VP and publisher of new media for Zondervan. “This product allows users to read the text of the Bible on their iPod screen while listening to it on their earphones, which we think will be well-received by iPod enthusiasts.” The TNIV Audio Bible for iPod will be priced at US$49.99.

Hat tip: MacMinute

Just got my grubby little hands on the Flock Developer Preview (0.4.8) and I gotta say… wow.

If I have time tomorrow, I will post screenshots. I like what I’m seeing so far. I’m not going to go so far as to say it’s a Firefox-killer or anything, but it’s definitely a great little browser.

More later. I promise. Now it’s time for bed.

Really.

No, I mean it.

…

While checking out some of the new Movie Trailers over at Quicktime.com, I noticed Apple is now posting a link to a Quicktime 7 Standalone Player… Several of my friends have not upgraded to QT7 because Apple has bundled it with iTunes by default now. They’ll be happy to know, this is no longer the case.

So, if you’ve held off on upgrading to QT7, I urge you to reconsider… being able to watch MOV files that use the H.264 codec is more than reason enough to upgrade…

Happy to report that I am not dead yet! Just been busy with work, life, and in general…

I tweaked the design somewhat this morning. I eliminated the Google Search and Google Adwords elements from my site. I also removed the center column, which listed out the latest entries, and links to archives… (Both lists were getting way too long, and rather unmanageable.) Now, archives can be accessed by visiting the Archives section of my site… If I start feeling scrappy, I might even incorporate some sort of search into the site… but until then, the archive setup will have to be dealt with.

I love CSS. It’s amazingly easy to use. I spent a little under an hour this morning tweaking various attributes, attribute values, etc… and was able to significantly change the look and feel of the site without messing with the HTML code at all. Gotta love it.

Anyways, as soon as I get some free time, I’ll post some more. Until then, please bear with me.

Rolling Stone’s review of Switchfoot’s new album contains this priceless jewel: Yes, Switchfoot’s members are Christians, and yes, there are lyrics on Nothing Is Sound that refer to the Lord, penitence and “the meaning of existence.” Even if you’re the sort who’s cynical about that kind of thing, the San Diego band offers enough in the way of high-voltage buzz-saw riffs and irresistible melodic hooks to make up for it on this considerably better-than-average follow-up to the group’s multiplatinum major-label 2003 debut. (Hat tip: ThinkChristian.net)

It’s interesting to see Switchfoot discussed like this… because the band appealed to me a lot before I even knew they were Christians. Funny thing is… I would hear their music being played on some of the local rock stations here in Augusta, and I never knew who they were or the name of the songs, or anything… but I love the lyrics, and love the sound… Flash forward to about a month and a half ago… I was changing channels and heard “Meant to Live” being played during the Christian program that was on TV… and the spark hit…

Meant to Live by Switchfoot

Fumbling his confidence

And wondering why the world has passed him by

Hoping that he’s bid for more than arguments

And failed attempts to fly, fly

 

[Chorus]

We were meant to live for so much more

Have we lost ourselves?

Somewhere we live inside

Somewhere we live inside

We were meant to live for so much more

Have we lost ourselves?

Somewhere we live inside

 

Dreaming about Providence

And whether mice or men have second tries

Maybe we’ve been livin with our eyes half openMaybe we’re bent and broken, broken

 

[Chorus]

 

We want more than this world’s got to offer

We want more than this world’s got to offer

We want more than the wars of our fathers

And everything inside screams for second life, yeah

 

We were meant to live for so much more

Have we lost ourselves?

We were meant to live for so much more

Have we lost ourselves?

We were meant to live for so much more

Have we lost ourselves?

We were meant to live

We were meant to live

This song… that I assumed was secular, was about so much more… Once I started to really listen to the music, it touched my soul more and more. God works everywhere…through everything.I’m glad Switchfoot’s new album has been well-received by the mainstream. I’ve really enjoyed “Nothing is Sound” so far, and encourage you to check it out if you have not yet done so…

Over 200 significant updates and enhancements, including:Better control. Safely delegate updates with a new review and approval system; repossess checked-out documents with the lock-breaking UI; and designate who can edit, approve, or publish with subsite support.Empowered users. Subsite support, file deployment management, RSS activity feeds, and a lock-breaking UI to repossess checked-out documents.Learn more…

Jason Fried posted a teaser screenshot of a new layout they’ll be rolling out for Basecamp in the Basecamp Forums. I’m liking it so far… This is also cool, because this marks the first time (that I can recall) where 37Signals made users aware of a change before they made it… Nice work guys!

Woohoo… I’m a Certified HTML Developer according to W3Schools.com now… took an “exam” that covered three topics: CSS, HTML and XHTML - and passed! (Got 66 of 70 questions right.) I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t do better, but I don’t think my results were that bad, especially considering I did absolutely no studying whatsoever before I took the test.