Who said that an old woman can’t loose weight? Yes, it is harder than it used to be when I was younger, but it still works the same way it did 30 years ago: you have to watch what you eat, when you eat, and what you do while you’re not eating.
For me the hardest part was figuring out when to eat, but once I got that figured out – I’m now following a very easy intermittent fasting schedule of 10 hours feeding time, and 14 hours fasting time – the weight started to come off at a healthy, slow and steady, pace.
Today I reached a personal milestone: body fat percentage below 30%
Gorilla glass on most cell phones supposedly doesn’t need a screen protector, but I’m not sure if I want to trust that claim. So the first thing I always do with a new phone, or tablet, or e-reader, is get a screen protector for it. Not just any screen protector, though. I am very picky when it comes to that. It has to be a matte, non-glare finish. Definitely no tempered glass, if I can avoid it. With most devices now having more or less curved screens, application can be a real problem – unless it is a wet application film.
There are only two companies in the market offering my kind of screen protector: Armorsuit and IQ Shield
Since Armorsuit doesn’t make screen protectors for devices that aren’t available in the US, I had to get the wet application film for my new Samsung Galaxy A50 from IQ Shield. Perfect result, makes me happy.
Like many others I have been struggling to keep my weight under control and my body in shape for what seems like “all my life”. I tried anything and everything, educated myself on nutrition and exercise, listened to “gurus” and “specialists” and “scientist”….. but realized, that everybody is different. What works for one person, may not work for another. Even just for one person – like myself, in this case – what worked 30 years ago, may not work today.
So, after coming back from a two weeks vacation in Germany last year with an additional three pounds of weight packed on, I promised myself a birthday present: revisit the “body improvement project” in the light of my 62 years old self. It was surprisingly easy to go from 178 pounds (80.8 kg) back down to 168 pounds (76.5 kg) over the course of the past five months. More to go, though.
Here’s how I did it – just in case you want to try the same thing for yourself (not that there’s any guarantee).
The basic rule of weight loss is still valid – have less calories coming in than what you spend over time. Of course you need to make sure there’s no shortage of macro- and micro-nutrients. My first step was to identify “useless” calories that I was ingesting, to be able to lower my intake. In my case, the “culprit” was the mindless snacking that I used to do five nights a week, right after coming home from work – hungry and stressed out.
Once I knew what was causing my weight to creep up (I’d known that for at least 10 years, though), the tricky second step was to find a way to eliminate the problem without too much “sacrifice” or “will-power” necessary. Like all ingenious ideas, the one I had here was extremely easy to implement! I simply switched the meals I have at work around. Now I have my “afternoon snack” at 11:30 a.m., and my “lunch” at 4:30 p.m.. That way I am not hungry at all when I come home, not blindly munching on junk-food anymore.
Just one very small change is all it took for me, and the results have encouraged me to try adding one more small change on the other end of the equation: spend more calories by adding muscle mass. I’ll keep you posted about how this will go.
Just a few years ago I thought smart phones are unnecessarily complicating people’s lives. Who wants to drag this clunky, expensive, overpowered pocket computer around at all times? But then Google Fi came around, and I caved in. Smart phone it had to be, even for me. It isn’t so bad, now that I solved the “how do I carry that thing?” problem by inventing the ExxoPok.
Last weekend I had another crazy inspiration: an ExxoPok for two cell phones!
Now, that’s phone pouch overkill, you might say. Who’d want to carry two smart phones around? I’ll let you know, that I’m seriously considering doing that myself some day. A few people I know do it already – for different reasons: one phone is for work, one is personal; or you live in an area where network coverage is choppy, so you have two different carriers; or you travel the world, and want to use a local phone at your destination.
But, there are dual SIM phones available, you might say. While that is true, they are all just DSDS – means Dual SIM, Dual Standby – I haven’t seen one true DSDA (dual SIM, dual active) device yet. So, if you are one of those select few who already knows why you need two cell phones, now you could go to my Etsy shop and order one beautiful, handmade by me personally, ExxoPok for them.
If you are like me – holding on to old things, resisting change that doesn’t promise tangible improvements, at least within the realm of my personal world – you are probably still running Windows 7 on at least one of your personal computers.
If that’s the case, Microsoft now wants you to buy their newest flavor of everything – because Windows 7 is doomed. They call this “End-Of-Life”, just to make it sound more dramatic. No life will end, though. Not yours, not your computer’s, not even your computer’s software’s. You simply won’t get any updates for your Windows 7 operating system anymore after January 14th 2020.
Remember when Windows 10 first came out? Back then I was introduced to the concept of “nagware”. I spent days searching, just to find out how I could get rid of those stupid, constant messages from Microsoft, telling me I need to have Windows 10 now. I got smarter back then. So, when a new piece of nagware tried to make a dent in my resistance to this latest change, it only took me 30 minutes on Google to learn what’s going on.
Yesterday, when I went to search for updates, and then installed the ones that were “recommended”, my computer had to revert to the previous state – retried the update – restored again – finally came back to life, telling me that update KB4493132 failed to install. That is actually a blessing in disguise! That update is Microsoft’s nagware for the Windows 7 EOL. If it installed successfully, you will receive constant messages about the imminent End-Of-Life for the rest of the year. Maybe even beyond that.
So, next time you do an update on your Windows 7 machine, watch out for this KB4493132. If you already have it, uninstall it – I hope that’s possible. If you don’t have it installed yet, hide it – and make sure it stays hidden.
Who said that an old woman can’t loose weight? Yes, it is harder than it used to be when I was younger, but it still works the same way it did 30 years ago: you have to watch what you eat, when you eat, and what you do while you’re not eating.
Here’s how I did it – just in case you want to try the same thing for yourself (not that there’s any guarantee).
