diff --git a/CNAME b/CNAME index 8b137891791f..36bbcfec1843 100644 --- a/CNAME +++ b/CNAME @@ -1 +1 @@ - +semi-healthy.blog diff --git a/_config.yml b/_config.yml index d4916414195c..3d0e04efe301 100644 --- a/_config.yml +++ b/_config.yml @@ -3,13 +3,13 @@ # # Name of your site (displayed in the header) -name: Your Name +name: Adventures in living # Short bio or description (displayed in the header) -description: Web Developer from Somewhere +description: I'm lost, but I'm searching. # URL of your avatar or profile pic (you could use your GitHub profile pic) -avatar: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/barryclark/jekyll-now/master/images/jekyll-logo.png +avatar: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/raconger/raconger.github.io/master/images/avatar.png # # Flags below are optional @@ -18,15 +18,15 @@ avatar: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/barryclark/jekyll-now/master/images/je # Includes an icon in the footer for each username you enter footer-links: dribbble: - email: + email: conger@hey.com facebook: flickr: - github: barryclark/jekyll-now + github: raconger instagram: linkedin: pinterest: - rss: # just type anything here for a working RSS icon - twitter: jekyllrb + rss: anything + twitter: stackoverflow: # your stackoverflow profile, e.g. "users/50476/bart-kiers" youtube: # channel/ or user/ googleplus: # anything in your profile username that comes after plus.google.com/ @@ -39,9 +39,22 @@ disqus: # Enter your Google Analytics web tracking code (e.g. UA-2110908-2) to activate tracking google_analytics: +# Newsletter/Email subscription settings +# Set enabled to true to show the subscription form +newsletter: + enabled: true + heading: "Subscribe to updates" + description: "Get occasional updates on new ideas, essays, and projects." + # Choose service: "buttondown", "custom", or leave blank for a placeholder + service: "buttondown" + # For Buttondown: enter your username (the part after buttondown.email/) + buttondown_username: "yourusername" + # For custom service: enter your form action URL + # form_action: "https://your-service.com/subscribe" + # Your website URL (e.g. http://barryclark.github.io or http://www.barryclark.co) # Used for Sitemap.xml and your RSS feed -url: +url: http://semi-healthy.blog # If you're hosting your site at a Project repository on GitHub pages # (http://yourusername.github.io/repository-name) @@ -84,3 +97,5 @@ exclude: - LICENSE - README.md - CNAME + +theme: jekyll-theme-slate diff --git a/_includes/email-subscription.html b/_includes/email-subscription.html new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..55c5a63aa498 --- /dev/null +++ b/_includes/email-subscription.html @@ -0,0 +1,41 @@ +{% if site.newsletter.enabled %} + +{% endif %} diff --git a/_layouts/default.html b/_layouts/default.html index b2939c0bc448..8cd00a537068 100644 --- a/_layouts/default.html +++ b/_layouts/default.html @@ -27,8 +27,9 @@

{{ site.name }}

diff --git a/_layouts/post.html b/_layouts/post.html index d27c48066a71..00141e4face6 100644 --- a/_layouts/post.html +++ b/_layouts/post.html @@ -13,5 +13,7 @@

{{ page.title }}

Written on {{ page.date | date: "%B %e, %Y" }} + {% include email-subscription.html %} + {% include disqus.html %} diff --git a/_posts/2014-3-3-Hello-World.md b/_posts/2014-3-3-Hello-World.md index d4665b6d18e9..216cd52f5cde 100644 --- a/_posts/2014-3-3-Hello-World.md +++ b/_posts/2014-3-3-Hello-World.md @@ -3,8 +3,12 @@ layout: post title: You're up and running! --- -Next you can update your site name, avatar and other options using the _config.yml file in the root of your repository (shown below). +Next you can update your site name, avatar and other options using the \_config.yml file in the root of your repository (shown below). -![_config.yml]({{ site.baseurl }}/images/config.png) +Really seeing if it’s this easy to be up and running. -The easiest way to make your first post is to edit this one. Go into /_posts/ and update the Hello World markdown file. For more instructions head over to the [Jekyll Now repository](https://github.com/barryclark/jekyll-now) on GitHub. \ No newline at end of file +![\_config.yml]({{ site.baseurl }}/images/config.png) + +The easiest way to make your first post is to edit this one. Go into /\_posts/ and update the Hello World markdown file. For more instructions head over to the [Jekyll Now repository][1] on GitHub. + +[1]: https://github.com/barryclark/jekyll-now diff --git a/_posts/2019-11-06-the-similarities-between-physical-and-financial-health.markdown b/_posts/2019-11-06-the-similarities-between-physical-and-financial-health.markdown new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..ec4c82f53a8e --- /dev/null +++ b/_posts/2019-11-06-the-similarities-between-physical-and-financial-health.markdown @@ -0,0 +1,18 @@ +--- +layout: post +title: "The similarities between physical and financial health" +date: 2019-11-06 +author: conger +tags: + - +category: blog +blog: true +--- + +Eating more calories than you burn is like spending more than you earn. + +Losing weight is like paying off debt. + +Eating junk food is like chasing the dopamine hit from buying something new. + +Does that make metabolic derangement like a bad credit score? \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/_posts/2019-11-07--real-artists-ship-.markdown b/_posts/2019-11-07--real-artists-ship-.markdown new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..e2a78f93244d --- /dev/null +++ b/_posts/2019-11-07--real-artists-ship-.markdown @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ +--- +layout: post +title: "‘Real artists ship’" +date: 2019-11-07 +author: conger +tags: + - +category: blog +blog: true +--- + +Do I consider myself an artist? No. By the time I finish [Linchpin](https://smile.amazon.com/dp/1591844096/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_Bj4WDb21YPQGG) I may change my mind, but I generally identify with being a person of action. But am I just lying to myself? + +As I found myself reading about yet another writing workflow and digital ecosystem, I felt the comfortable dopamine hit of pretending to do something by reading about others actually doing something. + +Then I read a bit more of Seth’s book and appreciated the simplicity of his message. The ones putting in the emotional labor have to actually _do_ something to contribute. They have to ship, like the Steve Jobs quote above. + +So I bought the domain. I set up the GitHub pages repo and forked a simple Jekyll blog. I copied someone's workflow to make it easy to post from anywhere. I started something. + +An old gym I used to follow had a similar message. It was: + +> Talk - Action = Zero + +So this is me taking action. Let's see if I can keep it up. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/_posts/2019-11-09-stop-looking-for-the-shortcut-or-the-hack.markdown b/_posts/2019-11-09-stop-looking-for-the-shortcut-or-the-hack.markdown new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..56ec0e50176f --- /dev/null +++ b/_posts/2019-11-09-stop-looking-for-the-shortcut-or-the-hack.markdown @@ -0,0 +1,36 @@ +--- +layout: post +title: "Stop looking for the shortcut or the hack" +date: 2019-11-09 +author: conger +tags: + - health + - action +category: blog +blog: true +--- + +This is written as much to myself as it is to anyone that reads this. + +There are no magic pills. There are no free lunches. Pick your metaphor, but there isn't a way to sidestep consistency and hard work. + +Here's my most recent lesson on this topic. + +After most of a year of eating and drinking too much, my shame and self loathing reached a sufficient level to take action. I decided that for the month of September, I'd clean up my act. Here's what my recipe was: + +- Don't drink alcohol +- Severely limit carbohydrate intake (Dietary Restriction) +- Utilize time restricted feeding by only eating in a four hour window a la 20:4 (Time Restriction) +- Eat less than two thousand calories per day (Caloric Restriction) + +Per Attia's elegantly described framework, I was pulling on all three levers at once. How was my compliance/adherence? Pretty good. Most days I hit the time and carb restriction, but I did drink alcohol on some of my work travel. On days when I deviated, I accumulated significant physical activity to offset the caloric surplus. + +## What happened? + +Shockingly, I lost weight. By spending about four weeks in a hypocaloric state, I dropped about fifteen pounds, going from about 215 to 200. It’s the closest I’ve been to seeing my abs since my early twenties. + +## What did I learn from the exercise? + +At it’s simplest, all the funky diets I’ve been tinkering with mean nothing if I’m not in a caloric deficit. Put simply, I have spent a tremendous amount of time reading about different diets and ways to lose weight while not keeping track of pesky things like the amount of food you actually stuff down your throat. + +I’m sure I’ll forget this, but hopefully next time I spend less time thinking about what I should do and put more of that energy towards actually doing something productive. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/_posts/2020-03-29-the-half-life-of-discipline.markdown b/_posts/2020-03-29-the-half-life-of-discipline.markdown new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..2fdfb21a8eff --- /dev/null +++ b/_posts/2020-03-29-the-half-life-of-discipline.markdown @@ -0,0 +1,16 @@ +--- +layout: post +title: "The half life of discipline" +date: 2020-03-29 +author: conger +tags: + - +category: blog +blog: true +--- + +Whether you believe in free will [or not](https://samharris.org/the-illusion-of-free-will/), you need to live with the results. Environment and habits will overcome discipline with time. + +I go through various stages of motivation and in turn, discipline. Stealing from Bridgewater’s model of the economic machine and its short term and long term debt cycle, I do the same thing with my diet and exercise. + +I’m currently in an inflationary period (measured by weight), so I attempt to correct this by slashing my budgets (a diet) or increasing utilization (exercise). What would have a better chance at creating change is increasing the near term cost of my over-indulgence. diff --git a/_posts/2020-03-30-subtract.markdown b/_posts/2020-03-30-subtract.markdown new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..7b2f6a54a193 --- /dev/null +++ b/_posts/2020-03-30-subtract.markdown @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ +--- +layout: post +title: "Subtract" +date: 2020-03-30 +author: conger +tags: + - Less +category: blog +blog: true +--- + +Derek Sivers wrote yet another concise explanation on [Subtracting](https://sivers.org/subtract). It’s a concise variant on Ryan Holiday’s book [*Stillness is the Key*](https://dailystoic.com/stillness-is-the-key/). We require space and margin. + +We know the answer isn’t more. More gear. More food. More time reading on the internet. + +What is stopping you from breaking the pattern? + +Fear of the future unknown? + +Fear of the embarrassment of putting yourself out there? + +The saccharine dopamine hit you get from other watching people doing things that you’d like to do? + +Falling prey to your lizard brain and eating your feelings when life feels particularly stressful? + +It’s curious that we react to feeling out of control by acting less in control. Without paying attention, it’s a sad downward spiral. diff --git a/_posts/2021-05-23-the-only-way-to-win-is-to-not-play.markdown b/_posts/2021-05-23-the-only-way-to-win-is-to-not-play.markdown new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..a9d9e934a515 --- /dev/null +++ b/_posts/2021-05-23-the-only-way-to-win-is-to-not-play.markdown @@ -0,0 +1,14 @@ +--- +layout: post +title: "The only way to win is to not play" +date: 2021-05-23 +author: conger +tags: + - +category: blog +blog: true +--- + +This is just seeing if the shortcut still works... + +Adding text to re-push. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/_posts/2021-07-11-hitting-an-upper-limit.markdown b/_posts/2021-07-11-hitting-an-upper-limit.markdown new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..0f334e29582f --- /dev/null +++ b/_posts/2021-07-11-hitting-an-upper-limit.markdown @@ -0,0 +1,77 @@ +--- +layout: post +title: "Hitting an upper limit" +date: 2021-07-11 +author: conger +tags: + - Nutrition + - sleep + - exercise + - transformation +category: blog +blog: true +--- + +So I haven't taken [my own advice](http://semi-healthy.blog/stop-looking-for-the-shortcut-or-the-hack/) when it comes to diet and moderation. About two years after that post, I find myself at 225 pounds and unhappy with how I feel. Despite that, I've kept a solid streak of working out in some capacity every day, but I've obviously increased my consumption. + +I'm going to try something slightly different this time, with the goal to find a relationship food that is something I can consistently maintain, or dare I say sustainable. What does that mean? Here's my framework for approaching this objective: + +# Objective + +To weigh under two hundred pounds on my birthday (late September). + +# Strategies + +## Nutrition + +Using [Attia's eloquently explained 'three levers'](https://peterattiamd.com/my-nutritional-framework/) approach, I'll do the following for nutrition: + +- **Time restriction** - Generally eat within a window of 2-6pm, fasting twenty hours a day. +- **Dietary restriction** - No added sugar. Minimally processed food. Leaning towards low carbohydrate. Severely limit alcohol. +- **Caloric restriction** - I'm not going to track calories explicitly, but I'm aiming for about 2,000/day while in the dieting period. + +## Exercise + +I'm going to keep with my 45 minutes of Zone 2 four times a week (usually cycling), then fill in the other days with strength training. For the past several months, this has been a mixed back of bodyweight exercises, trap bar deadlifts and kettlebell circuits. + +In addition to that, I want to accumulate activity over the day to increase metabolic activity without driving crazy hunger. + +## Sleep + +This won't change, but the goals are to sleep within the same time range each night and maximize the quality of that sleep. + +# Tactics + +On to the details! + +## Nutrition + +Last time I did this, the Zero app was useful for tracking things. I don't think I need that right now except for the initial fast I'm going to do to kick things off. Starting tomorrow, I'm going to do a roughly three day fast (probably going to be more like 70 hours) to kick start into ketosis and give my gut a well deserved rest. + +Once into that, I'm going to try something like: + +5:00 am - black coffee + +5:30 am - work out + +7:30 am - more black coffee, maybe some Yerba mate instead + +2:00 pm - have a smoothie with protein powder, greens mix, some frozen berries and almond milk. Maybe almond butter too. + +5:00 pm - dinner with the family. Meat and veggies for the most part. + +I'm going to shoot for over 150 grams of protein a day, then fill the rest in with fat and then whatever carbs come along for the ride. Since I haven't explicitly tracked a protein goal like this during a diet before, I'll have to tune things in as I go. + +I know that I'm supposed to eat shortly after weight training, especially when I'm calorically restricted, so perhaps on those days I'll shift into a lunch time workout. + +## Exercise + +Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday I'll be on my bike for 45 minutes. I shoot for a heart rate of 130 and while I haven't done any lactate testing, that's the low end of my [Maffetone number](https://philmaffetone.com/180-formula/). + +Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, I play around. I tend to lean towards upper body (pull ups, ring dips) because of all my time on the bike. During this, I'll be more diligent about getting one good deadlift workout a week. + +## Sleep + +By stopping eating at 6pm, this gives me at least two hours before bedtime where my stomach can start digesting. I then try to keep the room as cold as I can and then use a Chilipad on max cold. The pad bottoms out in the low 60s, so it's either aged or I just generate too much heat. I'll wear an eye mask to keep things as dark as possible and sometimes wear blue light blocking glasses heading into bedtime. + +Well, now that I've set up a plan, time to do it! I'm looking to lose about ten pounds a month, or 2.5 a week. diff --git a/_posts/Why.md b/_posts/Why.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..7a059170fa00 --- /dev/null +++ b/_posts/Why.md @@ -0,0 +1,12 @@ +--- +layout: post +title: "Why” +date: 2021-05-18 +author: conger +tags: + - Less +category: blog +blog: true +--- + +What’s this for? \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/about.md b/about.md index bc21f5731bf4..dad28127cfef 100644 --- a/about.md +++ b/about.md @@ -4,12 +4,29 @@ title: About permalink: /about/ --- -Some information about you! +# Who is this for? -### More Information +I’m a guy in my late thirties with a wife, two kids and a job, trying to keep myself healthy and functional as I get older. I’ve come from a privileged background health wise, playing sports and had a lot of great teachers along the way. This website contains my notes on what I’m doing and why. I’m not a doctor, nor do I really know what I’m doing. I am curious, a little obsessive and intense, though I’m taking myself less seriously than I did in my twenties. This is mostly for me, but I am also writing it for a younger version of myself. Maybe that’s close to you. -A place to include any other types of information that you'd like to include about yourself. +## A little more about me (health wise) -### Contact me +I grew up in New Jersey as the oldest in a family of six. Always trying to play sports, I started playing football at age eight. Given the varied positions, my slow, uncoordinated but large self found a happy role on the offensive and defensive line, a place where I stayed for the duration of my football career. I continued playing through college as a defensive end, and was fortunate, stubborn and lucky enough to start every game of my college (and high school career). Through this journey, I learned how to lift weights and tried plenty of dieting strategies to gain weight over time. + +By the end of college, I was 255 pounds (6'2") and the strongest and fastest (in a 40 at least) that I'll ever be. I tried to play professionally, skipping my graduation for a tryout, but wasn't good enough to make the cut. I decided to go to grad school the following year and lost thirty pounds that summer by not working out much and also not eating to failure. I walked on to the lacrosse team and played for a year, closing out my collegiate athletic career around 225. + +Without having a sport to obsess about, I poured my intensity into work. My first day of an internship, I finished my day to great pain in my legs, realizing it was the first time I sat in one place for about eight hours! Welcome to an engineering job! At the time, I'd dabble with workouts that came out of Alwyn Cosgrove's book or things I found on T-nation, but I didn't have any objectives. Then I moved west as part of my job and found CrossFit in 2008. I dove in whole heartedly (still without an objective) and within weeks I was counting my food in blocks and trying to decrease my time for Fran or a 500m row. The sort of varied exercises and the taste of intensity was exhilarating and I was able to leverage over a decade of strength training. I was too scared to ever try and compete in anything, but loved it. About the same time, I started rock climbing, mountain biking and hiking, though I still felt like hiking was a 'long approach to nowhere' (a la Chris Kalous). + +After a brief but intense period of CrossFit, I started reading more on Mark Twight's Gym Jones website. The mix of CrossFit, climbing, intensity and elitism kept me interested, but my chosen hobbies (climbing, biking, skimo) pushed me towards my endurance energy system for the first time. I was drinking his flavor-aid. I started measuring my heart rate and tracking volume, but stubbornly did everything myself and documented things poorly. I spent far too much time with volume in a crappy zone 3 because long slow days felt lazy, but I did get volume and felt its benefit. In the grand scheme of things, I sucked at everything I did, but the forward progress fueled me. + +The volume allowed me to do things like ski Mount Shasta in a morning, hike 40-50 miles in a day, and then hike 200 miles of the John Muir Trail (starting from Toulumne, not the Valley) in a week. I enjoyed the feeling of pushing my body and having it respond. + +Then we had our daughter, moved back east and I didn't have the time or mountains to play in. I bought a fancy road bike, did a little riding, but generally faded in fitness over the coming years. I did a little working out in the garage, but never had much consistency or structure. In turn, I felt listless, lacking objective and time. I didn't keep very consistent records, but my weight fluctuated from about 200 when I was biking/hiking a lot to 230 after Christmas at the in-laws. I learned that supersetting copious amounts of dessert with alcohol is a recipe for rapid weight gain. + +I changed jobs from an engineering manager to technical pre-sales. With this came travel and expensed meals. I fell into the habit of eating and drinking too much on trips, then trying to recover at home. This short term debt/credit cycle was paired with a longer term yo-yo diet cycle that would occur every few months. I learned about bulletproof coffee and started dabbling with not eating breakfast. My workouts became more erratic and less frequent. I learned to love riding a bike on a trainer. + +We moved back out west and the travel continued, as well as my general lack of fitness. That brings me to today, where the only difference is I’m a little over a hundred day in to exercising every morning. I typically alternate a 45 minute zone 2 ride on my bike with some form of weight lifting. + +## Contact me + +Email me at the link below -[email@domain.com](mailto:email@domain.com) \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/images/IMG_1502.jpeg b/images/IMG_1502.jpeg new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..46c940b1f295 Binary files /dev/null and b/images/IMG_1502.jpeg differ diff --git a/images/Week1-glucose.jpg b/images/Week1-glucose.jpg new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..22460de460b0 Binary files /dev/null and b/images/Week1-glucose.jpg differ diff --git a/images/Week1-weight.jpg b/images/Week1-weight.jpg new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..7aa921b4fea9 Binary files /dev/null and b/images/Week1-weight.jpg differ diff --git a/images/avatar.png b/images/avatar.png new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..50c1642419c9 Binary files /dev/null and b/images/avatar.png differ diff --git a/images/office-pano.jpg b/images/office-pano.jpg new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..4b23663a0fee Binary files /dev/null and b/images/office-pano.jpg differ diff --git a/images/week1.png b/images/week1.png new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..4e1143b0d434 Binary files /dev/null and b/images/week1.png differ diff --git a/index.html b/index.html index 5e0cb3ee5773..66f39c54261e 100644 --- a/index.html +++ b/index.html @@ -15,4 +15,6 @@

{{ post.title }}

Read More {% endfor %} - \ No newline at end of file + + +{% include email-subscription.html %} \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/place.md b/place.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..95b0ce31a96c --- /dev/null +++ b/place.md @@ -0,0 +1,10 @@ +--- +layout: page +title: A place of my own +permalink: /place/ +--- + +While I've been working from home for the past few years, we recently moved into a new house that didn't have an obvious office. That means it's time to build! + +![\_config.yml]({{ site.baseurl }}/images/office-pano.jpg) + diff --git a/style.scss b/style.scss index 3915a9024469..097f3a8934ac 100644 --- a/style.scss +++ b/style.scss @@ -271,6 +271,105 @@ nav { } } +// +// .email-subscription +// + +.email-subscription { + margin: 50px 0; + padding: 40px 0; + border-top: 1px solid $lightGray; + border-bottom: 1px solid $lightGray; + + .subscription-container { + max-width: 500px; + margin: 0 auto; + text-align: center; + } + + h3 { + margin: 0 0 10px; + font-size: 24px; + color: $darkerGray; + } + + .subscription-description { + margin: 0 0 25px; + color: $gray; + font-size: 16px; + } + + form { + display: flex; + gap: 10px; + justify-content: center; + flex-wrap: wrap; + + @include mobile { + flex-direction: column; + gap: 12px; + } + } + + input[type="email"] { + flex: 1; + min-width: 200px; + padding: 12px 15px; + font-size: 16px; + font-family: $helvetica; + border: 1px solid $lightGray; + border-radius: 3px; + background: $white; + color: $darkGray; + transition: border-color 0.2s; + + &:focus { + outline: none; + border-color: $blue; + } + + &::placeholder { + color: $gray; + } + + @include mobile { + min-width: 100%; + } + } + + input[type="submit"] { + padding: 12px 30px; + font-size: 16px; + font-family: $helveticaNeue; + font-weight: bold; + color: $white; + background: $blue; + border: none; + border-radius: 3px; + cursor: pointer; + transition: background-color 0.2s; + + &:hover { + background: darken($blue, 10%); + } + + &:active { + background: darken($blue, 15%); + } + + @include mobile { + width: 100%; + } + } + + .config-note { + width: 100%; + margin: 10px 0 0; + color: $gray; + font-size: 14px; + } +} + .wrapper-footer { margin-top: 50px; border-top: 1px solid #ddd; @@ -286,4 +385,4 @@ footer { // Settled on moving the import of syntax highlighting to the bottom of the CSS // ... Otherwise it really bloats up the top of the CSS file and makes it difficult to find the start @import "highlights"; -@import "svg-icons"; +@import "svg-icons"; \ No newline at end of file