Stop taking diet advice

It's no wonder the health and wellness industry is worth a trillion dollars, and when you add the fitness industry, you can now see what all the nonsense is about.

There are so many speakers, YouTubers, podcasters, writers, salesmen (and women) clamouring to get a piece of that industry and the confusion that ensues is truly breathtaking.

From full on vegan, raw food, diets, to carnivorous ones, and everything in between, you can get any advise you want. And there's no consensus on what the truth, if there is a truth, is.

While our most trusted experts, the doctors, who are supposed to know this stuff intimately, are also arguing amongst themselves. They understand the biochemistry and so are placed in the best possible position to tell us the effects of overindulgence in one thing or another.

Oh, there is some consensus. Over sugar for sure. Everyone says it's bad for you, only some say stay away from it, as you would from cyanide, and others say, it's OK just to have a little bit. So what is it? None or a little? 

We need to be clear.

The various biochemical processes that take place in the body are well known. They've been studied up the wazoo and it's clear what happens to your blood sugar (blood glucose) when you eat certain foods. Our lab researchers have done all of this on mice and told us that this food will make you fat, and this one, well this one seems to make mice fat, so you may also get fat if you eat it.

There are vegan doctors just as there are carnivorous doctors. There are medical vegan doctors as well as holistic vegan doctors. And these vegan doctors tell you never, ever, ever to touch meat. It's a carcinogen, it's got all kinds of hormones and you can find better alternatives for the good stuff meat has in plants.

And there are also medically trained carnivorous doctors as well as holistically trained carnivorous doctors. They'll tell you the bad side of plants. All about the lectins, alkaloids and phytotoxins. And that plant proteins are not wholly usable for the human body.

So then, who do you listen to?

I've almost tried them all, and the final one was the Keto diet, a relative of Atkins. Low carb and restrictive. I think they have the right idea, especially in this day and age of sedentary lifestyles. I was a vegetarian for a couple of years. I found that I simply didn't have enough energy for the amount of training that I was doing. Maybe I was doing something wrong that I couldn't find enough energy even though I consumed carbs without caution. And I wasn't fat.

Keto asks you to limit the sugar (which are essentially carbs) that you're eating. And the Keto advocates are nice enough to give you a number. Some say 20 grams, some say up to 50 grams. But you get the idea. Stay under 20 grams of carbs, and you're OK.

The only problem with this is now you have to start counting carbs. And it's mentally excruciating. Reading all the labels to see how many carbs, or checking carb values online for fresh foods. Then trying to remember how many you've consumed so far, so that you can check out your carb balance for the day. Like a bank account that limits you to spending twenty dollars a day without a rollover plan.

So I decided to dive into the biochemistry, learn what my body's doing with all that food. When I eat glucose chains (otherwise known as starches), what is the chemistry that goes on. And when I eat proteins, what happens.

It's not a surprise that eating carbohydrates initiates insulin which ensures that the sugar in your blood stays within a certain concentration. Excess glucose, if not consumed by cells, gets shuffled away as glycogen, or as fat. Your body's smart enough not to chuck it away. To keep it for when there's no food. Because when there's no food, your body can burn that glycogen first for energy, and when the glycogen's finished, burn the fat.

But in real life what happens is that when the glucose from the starch is all gone, your body asks for more food - it intentionally makes you hungry. So that you can eat more food. It doesn't want to consume the glycogen or fat that it saved up. Why oh why?

It's left up to you to determine that the hunger is not real, and then fast. And when you fast, your body then reaches out for those stores.

But fasting is tough, requires will power. And while you may be willing, in today's world, where food is cheap and full of glucose, its rather easier to grab a burger than try to coax your body into burning this morning's breakfast.

So I figured that the carnivores may have landed on a solution for this. If we want the body to burn fat, then give it fat, not carbs. It so happens that your body cannot distinguish between the fat in the cells in your body and the fat that you ingest.

So a couple of things happen. Your body switches from carb burning to fat burning. And all of a sudden, you're burning body fat. The reverse process of the fat storage takes place. Instead of storing glucose as fat, fat is converted to glucose. And miraculously, without eating carbs, you get the glucose your blood needs for sustaining you.

I can attest to the fact that it works, though I'm not sure it's a solution for everyone. I'm certainly not going to join the millions of health and diet wannabe experts and tell you this is a safe choice, and I wouldn't even advocate for veggies either. It's a complex subject and everyone needs to explore it on their own.

For myself, I'm sticking very close to the carnivorous side of life, with small exceptions in the vegetable world, very, very small.

Keeping to-do lists

When you have a number of things going on at the same time, stuff at home, stuff at work and personal stuff to do, lists are an essential part so that you don't fall behind.

This is especially important if you manage a cross-functional team, where you're not the expert.

In my old job, I managed software developers and computer network installation and support teams. The skills required are not the same, though to anyone not in the business, a computer guy is a computer guy.

Now I manage a couple of businesses. One dealing with homes and tenants. The other with farms and crop production. I'm no expert in either, and to be fair, most of the actual team members don't have a global outlook, but are good within their swimming lanes.

There are many small things going on. Rent collection, home repairs, working with surveyors, lawyers, auditors, the tax agency. Working with suppliers, contractors and other consultants. And on the farm side, casual labourers and unskilled workers. Agricultural products suppliers. Managing crop cycles and monitoring farm health.

It's nothing like the computer world that I was so familiar with. And so lists and note taking have become my world. Not only so that I don't forget to keep track. But also as a mechanism for learning.

THE ONE BIG LIST

In my old world, it was easy to keep one list of everything that's going on and what everyone was doing. The same list contained what I was supposed to do with respect to the budget, as well as who was working on what bug in whatever software product we were looking at. The main problem with this list is that it grew exponentially. Stuff could remain on the list for months, and because it was literally a manual list, in an A6 notebook, I had to keep flipping back and forth. If an item dropped more than a few pages back, I brought it to the front of the list.

There was no concept, back then, of assigning a date to a list item. It was just a to-do item. I didn't even put dates on when some of the stuff was supposed to be completed.

The point was simply not to forget it.

So that's a start, but the main problem with the big list is once it starts growing. From a few items, to a page, to two pages and so on. Some items are so old, they seem like they'll never be done, but I can't take them off the list for fear of losing them.

So they stay.

And the list becomes unmanageable and useless.

MANY SMALL LISTS

In my new world, I keep many lists. A list for groceries, a separate list for each business, and within each business, lists for various things. There are even lists for each employee. Lists of stuff I've asked them to do, so that I don't forget it. And of course, there's a list of my plans, my projects and even this blog.

And how's that working out, you may ask?

Decidedly better than the single list, but not great.

Now I have a table of contents, which lists my lists, and reminds me to check each of the lists. And so frequently during the day, I pull out my Smartnote tablet, in it's small A6 size, and run through each list, taking note.

One of the single most important aspect of the list is following up. When someone promises to deliver, or when I promise to deliver, it goes on a list. And this time, the list item has a deadline. And because of the deadline, most of that stuff now gets done.

I've written about perfectionism before, and these lists are now culled very often. Items that age too much get removed unceremoniously, without fanfare, quietly. It's as though they were never there. They don't even leave a mark, or a whisper. And the list stays pristine and current.

On today's list was writing this piece, and then move on to some program refactoring (boring I know). Again, that's where a distraction free environment, like my BOOX Note Air 3 (not the C version, but the black and white one) come into play. No YouTube distractions, no Netflix distractions, no side-visits to check out Snapchat or WhatsApp. Just writing and a little browsing - for example to check out the spelling of gluconeogenesis. Even a simple excursion to check out a spelling (online) or to use the online thesaurus could get you into trouble, down that rabbit hole they call social media.

But anyway, to-do lists, while annoying, and boring, help structure a day.

And there's something satisfying about crossing things off your list.

Keto Experiments Part 1

The Keto diet aims to help manage weight by controlling the carbohydrates you eat. It's a low-carb, high-fat diet. The aim is to switch your body from burning glucose for energy to burning fat.

Depending on what sources you read, the total number of grams of allowable carbs are somewhere between 20g and 50g. This means that you have to carefully check the foods you're eating to make sure that you stay under the allowable grams. It's quite a task. One slice of bread, for example, has around 13g of carbs. So if you're targeting the 20g limit, one slice is over half the allowable amount of carbs.

Somewhere late 2022 till early 2023 I tried the Keto diet, thought it would be better for my health since I was slowing down on my jogging exercise. I couldn't afford too many carbs, and my mid-section was starting to complain.

But counting carbs proved to be more of a challenge than I originally thought. Carbs are everywhere! In milk, in every vegetable, and loaded in fruit. For my challenge, the Keto direction proved to be impossible. So I decided on a very tough approach, removing all but green leafy vegetables from my diet. No wheat, no rice, no potatoes, absolutely no starch and very little fruit.

But that was also a loosing battle since when I counted up the grams at the end of the day, truly counted them, including the greek yoghurt and milk in my coffee, I was somewhere in the mid 40g range.

Is 40g Keto? Depends again on what you're reading, but it's definitely borderline and bound to spike insulin levels, but perhaps not enough to push you out of ketosis.

Somewhere late last year, I decided that counting grams of glucose (a.k.a., carbs) was a time-consuming, challenging and marginally successful way to lose weight. And I ran into the carnivores.

The carnivore diet is a type of Keto diet which reduces the carb intake to near zero levels. In fact, you don't count at all. You simply avoid any foods with carbs. Which means, avoiding all vegetables, fruits, nuts and so on. The mantra is, if it comes from an animal, then it's OK. If it does not come from an animal, then it's NOT OK.

As usual, I did my Internet research, watched hours and hours of testimony in favour of the carnivore diet, and lots of vegans quite against it. Doctors on both sides. And supposedly health professionals on both sides.

Each camp of the argument very well equipped, and eloquent.

The vegan camp absolutely adamant that you can do 100% without meat products and talking about the risks of lack of fibre and vitamin C, both of which you cannot get, in sufficient quantities, in a carnivore diet.

And the carnivore camp saying. that plants have toxins (such as lectins) and other defence chemicals, as well as the all encompassing substance of all fat - glucose - which is absolutely unnecessary since the body can make its own from the animal fat and proteins.

And it seems that the answer is somewhere in the middle.

But I decided to kick the gram counting and dive into meat eating so that I wouldn't care about the carbohydrate problem. And I have incredible results to report. Within the first six weeks, I lost more weight that I'd lost in the last 6 years.

Every year I seemed to gain a pound, which means that I returned back to my previous 10-year weight, something that I had in my 30's and 40's also. I completely erased all the weight gained in my 50's in one stroke, and took my body back to my late 20's.

You'd have to try it to believe it. And I wasn't even on very strict carnivore since I spiced up my steaks with questionable spices, ate tons of yoghurt (plain Greek) and drank milk in my tea and coffee. And also drank Coke Zero which most studies seem to indicate does nothing to blood sugar (since it has no sugar) and also does not trigger an insulin response.

The cephalic phase of insulin secretion by the pancreas happens in preparation for a boost in blood sugar. The body tastes something sweet in the mouth and then prepares for a blood sugar spike. This spike is usually small, but it's there.

Surprisingly, most of what I read is that aspartame, the sweetener in Coke Zero, doesn't contribute to the cephalic phase, bur some of the other sweeteners, like saccharin might.

CONCLUSION

Where do I go from here? Well, it appears that I may be onto something that will help me for the longer term. I've never felt better, but have some concerns from some of the arguments from the other camp. Like lack of fibre and it's effect on gut bacteria. And the lack of vitamin C, found in very small quantities in meat, but larger quantities in organ meat.

So it looks like a small injection of some plant food might be worth experimenting with. So I'm bringing back moringa (in its powdered form). Low carb, packed with vitamin C and fibre. A single element which is the perfect way to single out whether or not it will have any side effects.

I'll report back when all of this is done.

I've cancelled my NordVPN subscription

NordVPN is among a host of VPN providers. Their VPN is considered one of the best in the industry.

The purpose of a VPN is to secure your connection to the internet. This is what keeps you safe when you're using the unfriendly internet. Say you're sitting in an Internet cafe, connected to their free (and super slow) Wi-Fi, you can fire up your VPN software, which will make sure that the Internet cafe's free Wi-Fi isn't listening (or peeking) into what you're doing.

The other thing that you can do with a VPN is hide your location. Which is good when you need to access services which are not available where you are. Some Netflix content, for example, is only available if you are in specific countries, so different countries see different content.

This can be frustrating if you're away from home and you need to get something from your home provider, whether it's Netflix or whoever.

I'm Canadian, and I have content I bought via Google which I can only see when I'm in Canada. So when I used to travel, I'd switch on my VPN (in this case NordVPN) and then see my home content.

NordVPN was affordable when I first got it, must have been that 2-year low entry fee trap. But then it quickly doubled. The first year was $89 for two years, so that's roughly $45 per year. Now it's $115 each year.

And all I use it for it login to a couple of servers (a provider who I have since ditched) and see some of my Google content.

Other than that, it's quite good for protecting me when I'm out and about using my laptop, or my iPad or my iPhone.

In fact, I've noticed in the past year, I probably only used it once or twice. So I'm really not getting value from it. When I'm out and about, I use a personal hotspot from my mobile phone provider, who is more secure than free Wi-Fi. And clearly I don't miss my Google content.

So goodby NordVPN, I'll use my $115 somewhere else.

How to use your technology

I have two laptops, a Linux laptop and a Macbook Air.

I also have this iPad that I'm posting this note on.

I have a number of Raspberry Pi devices, an iPhone a separate digital player (for my purchased music as well as for streaming music) - all because I don't want to burden my iPhone with the job of doing music as well as all the other stuff it does.

And all that tech is expensive, really expensive.

And because of that, I rarely carry it around.

Take this iPad for example, before I bought it, I had ideas of major productivity. I could see me sitting at a cafe, latte next to me, small pad and paper for the ideas I didn't want to escape and writing and coding productively - or is that profusely?

None of it ever materialized. The beautifully expensive iPad with it's similarly expensive Magic Keyboard mostly stay in my home office. They get transported to my work office occasionally - but not needed, and used when I feel guilty about not using it too much. Oh, they also get used to stream my Netflix movies when I'm on my elliptical machine - a few hours a week.

Incredibly, my paper notebooks are taken everywhere, and get written on constantly.

That's a Cambridge Executive, around an A6 size, and I write using a Pelikan Inky pen. Small and light.

So, my tech is really not productivity tech, it's treated almost like you'd treat jewelry. Delicately and tentatively, lest I drop it and it breaks.

But when I bought my Supernote E Ink tablet, I decided that enough was enough, no more babying this tech. And that device goes everywhere with me.

It is white, with a white pen, and it already has scuff marks, the mark of being active and used. The technology is not new, but I've adopted it really quickly. And I'll write more about that in a later review, but for now, I'm enjoying having it to pen a thought at any time.

It' snow 2:06 AM on Wednesday (7 February 2024) as I write this, on my iPad, having one of my bouts of insomnia. I'll get to sleep soon, I have my ADV Sound 500's (tiny earbuds) playing my Top Songs of 2023 playlist from Spotify streaming from my HiBy digital player.

Eeesh!

But another thing, this iPad will be getting out more, it's gotten fat and lazy and enough of that.

Supernote Writing

I have a Supernote A6X2 tablet. It's the best thing, and we're slowly getting to know one another. It's only a few days (well almost a week) old, and already it has a few dirty patches on the cover (which was white and clean when I bought it) but that's OK. We're friends.

I'd read that this tablet had the best writing experience of all the E Ink tablets out there. And in fact, I'd originally bought a BOOX Note Air3 C, which I returned for reasons given in another post. But this one's a keeper since I've discovered the secret of getting quality handwriting, handwriting that looks pretty close to my handwriting on real paper.

Here's a sample - written in the evening, when I was tired, which is the best time since it does really show how my writing looks like when I'm not even trying.

Supernote	My Notebook

The faintness of the left image is the pen that I chose, but pressure also works.

So, while the feel isn't exactly like paper, and there are very few tablets that can simulate paper, there are a couple of things you can do to make the experience better - even on an iPad.

1. Get a good pen, or change the nib. If the screen is glass, get a soft rubber tip for the stylus.
2. If the screen is glass, consider a screen protector.
3. Apply some pressure when you're writing. Unlike paper, the plastic, matt or glass surface isn't really being written on, there's digital magic under the screen, and so the pressure is only there to stabilize the pen in your hand.

With the Supernote, and specifically the Supernote with the FeelWrite2 screen protector from Wacom, pressure is your friend.

Buying an E Ink tablet from Amazon

Last year, early December, I bought an E Ink tablet from Amazon. A BOOX Note Air 3 C. I used it for about a day. Really used it. Then promptly repackaged it and sent it back.

It's been more than a month, and as I try to remember why I returned it, a couple of things come to mind.

1. I was looking for a tablet that I could write on, something that simulates pen (or pencil) on paper.


2. Something light.


3. A device with tons of battery life - measured in days, not hours.


4. With an easy navigation and file management system.


5. And perhaps, some integration with Microsoft OneDrive, or Google Drive.

Not much to ask eh?

Well I bought a BOOX Note Air3 C. About a week later, I returned it. I paid close to $800 for it. About $500 for the device, additional money for the cover, plus an extra Steadtler stylus. And then shipping and customs charges to Kenya.

The notetaking was OK. The feel wasn't really pencil on paper, more like a gel pen on paper, the surface of the tablet was quite smooth, even though BOOX has tried to make it scratchy by applying a screen protector at the factory.

After some effort, I got Microsoft Office installed, but I have two accounts - work and home. I didn't know it at the time, but there's a way to install a separate copy of Office accounts. So I was able to get the work tools working, but the home tools wouldn't connect.

But that's not the reason I returned it. Excel wasn't as smooth as on my iPad. Neither was OneNote - a tool I use extensively. I'd planned to keep using Excel and Word on my iPad, and then use OneNote on the BOOX, along with the handwriting notebook. I also wanted to move my reading tasks over to the BOOX, so I installed Libby and the Kobo reader.

Both readers were excellent, and in fact, Autodesk Sketchbook was surprisingly good.

But you must agree, for Libby, Kobo and Sketchbook - and handwriting notes - $800 is a bit on the high side.

So I returned the BOOX Note Air3 C and continued my search. I came across a different company, Supernote. Their products don't have the Google Play store, so they are limited in features, but YouTube reviewers all agree, the note-taking ability of these tablets is super.

And I found just the right one. My regular notebooks are small - around the size of an A6 (which is 4.1 x 5.8 inches). Not for drawing out huge plans, but very portable, pocket and knapsack (or backpack) friendly

On the left's my regular notebook - and the Pelikan Inky felt tip pen that I really enjoy writing with. And on the right, the Supernote A6X2, the latest as of 4 February 2024, and its basic pen. The Standard Push-up pen. The pen feels like a gel on paper with Wacom's FeelWrite2 screen protector which is factory installed.

My Notebook	Supernote

The Supernote is exciting technology. So far, I've created a number of notebooks to keep track of work in the office, as well as jot down thoughts during the day. Because of its size, I carry it everywhere. The retractable pen fits in the holder and because the nib (ceramic) retracts, there's no fear of damaging the nib should the pen fall down.

And this notebook was much cheaper at $300 for the tablet, and about $130 for the pen and cover. As usual, I had to pay about $70 more to get it to me, but I wasn't asking for too much this time. Just a great small notebook that I could enjoy using.

Today I ordered the latest tablet, released in December 2023, by BOOX, the black-and-white Note Air3. No colour. No BOOX Super Refresh technology. And 10.3 inches in size.

The tablet and cover cost $400 and $50 respectively. But because of the reduced specifications, I'm hoping this time I'll be able to get better battery life, get OneNote working (both for work and personal accounts), get Libby and the Kobo reader and anything else will be icing on the cake.

I'll carry both of them, because that's what they're for!

Here's a photo of the small size of the Supernote - so lovely

Supernote A6X2

THE PROCRASTINATING PERFECTIONIST

Already 14 days into 2024 and I have not kept up with my commitment to write - at least in this blog. I have been journaling daily, because for me, journaling is like eating. I have to do it. My journaling is therapeutic more than anything.

And I have had this idea of writing at least weekly, and as you can see, it's the end of week 2 - and the only thing I wrote was on new years day, signalling the start of a year of writing.

But I'm here to try to analyze this thing that's stopping me from being as productive as I was back in 2011 (most prolific blogging year) or even 2022.

And I have narrowed it down to 3 rules. I'll give you the rules now, and then walk you through how they came about.

I started out with a table, listing side-by-side, what some of my reasons to procrastinate are, and why I think I tend to be a perfectionist. Here's what I jotted down.

PROCRASTINATE	PERFECTIONIST
1. Too many alternatives (options) can't decide	1. Goal is still not clear, "I want this to be perfect"
2. Not sure how/where to start.	2. Don't know everything yet, so I won't start until I know everything
3. I have lots of time, don't need to rush to start or finish	3. I fear criticism if it's not perfect, so I won't do anything until I know it will be perfect to avoid criticism
4. Analysis-paralysis - I don't have all the information to start so I won't start.	4. Too many options - should I use paper, computer, Word, OneNote...
5. If I wait, I will think of ways to make it better.	5. I don't want to have to start over, so I cannot start till I know I will be able to finish in one shot.
6. I'll spend time doing more thinking so that I do this once, and once only.	6. Until I can confirm that this will be my best effort, I keep thinking about it.
7. I'm always thinking about things, never actually doing.	7. Mediocre is not an option, neither is average - so nothing gets finished.
8. I don't have enough knowledge, constant Internet research.	8. Always starting, never finishing.
9. The end seems a long way away, I must think of all the steps before I even begin.	9. I don't want to start and then have to go back to the start again.
10. Could be lazy, can this wait? For what? Till I feel like it, or I'm ready?	10. Now the end goal seems quite foggy, not clear, blurry. Don't know if this is my best effort.

There are some common elements among both of these.

• Difficulty starting anything, unless everything is known.

• Fear of being less-than-perfect - not just wanting to waste time being wrong, or going down the wrong path, wanting to be perfect.

• Overwhelmed and confused at having many options. Cannot proceed until all of them are evaluated.

• Desire to please - perfectionism asks that there should be no criticism.

• Overthinking - the mental picture of the desired goal is very grand; but it is also foggy, unclear.

• Blank Page Syndrome - don't know where the first marks should go. So nothing starts.

Here are some thoughts:

PROBLEM	SOLUTION
Unclear goal - "I sense what I want, but I cannot visualize it clearly"	Write down the target: Write the email. Outline the Strategic Plan. Finish two chapters. Send the template
Not sure how to start.	With what you know. With what is visible. You can even start in the middle, or the end. You can always refactor.
I don't have all the information with me, let me collect it first.	Move straight to the output (forget about rough drafts).
I don't know it all (similar to above), fearful that I'm on the wrong path.	Most of the time, the first thing that you do will be the best. Most of the time.
I cannot visualize the finish line (the final thing)	Then work only on the middle.