I'm back now from Washington, and the journey back wasn't nearly so bad as
when I came back from Nashville, or at least the jet-lag isn't, anyway. The fact
that my flight left Washington at 8.00am, and got in to Heathrow around 8.30pm,
meant that by the time I got home I went straight to bed and woke up as normal
around 7.00am local time, getting me back into the new time zone. Given the time
difference between the US east coast and the UK, the only way this would work is
if you got a really early flight, but it gets all the travelling into one
"logical day" rather than stretching into two, and you then having to "catch up"
with the time difference whilst you're tired out from having not slept one
night. Anyway, I'm up and about now, but as my wife Janet pointed out earlier
this evening, I seem to have brought an extra something back with me - about an
extra half a stone to be precise, which I suspect has got something to do with
being away in a hotel for the best part of June, and a few too many cooked
breakfasts in the morning.
So, being the sort of person who always seems to need something
to do, and I've just got a bit more free time now the various conferences are
out of the way, I think it's time for a bit of exercise and a diet, with the
objective being to shift one stone within the next four weeks. Being the sort of
person I am, I've checked out the old "life hacking" websites and came across
the "Hackers' Diet" by John
Walker, the founder of Autodesk, which treats weight loss in the same way as
debugging a faulty program:
"...The absurdity of my situation finally struck home in
1987. "Look," I said to myself, "you founded one of the five biggest
software companies in the world, Autodesk. You wrote large pieces of
AutoCAD, the world standard for computer aided design. You've made in excess
of fifty million dollars without dropping dead, going crazy, or winding up
in jail. You've succeeded at some pretty difficult things, and you can't
control your flippin' weight?"
Through all the years of struggling with my weight, the fad diets, the
tedious and depressing history most fat people share, I had never, even
once, approached controlling my weight the way I'd work on any other
problem: a malfunctioning circuit, a buggy program, an ineffective
department in my company."
Well that sounds interesting to me. Of course being over in the
States, a little bit of a "dad's belly" is nothing compared to the morbidly
obese people I came across at the hotel (ODTUG was running alongside the
United Steelworkers
convention) but it's the best thing to nip this sort of thing in the bud,
hence I'm going to give it a go for the next month or so. I had considered the
Atkins Diet, but it looked a bit too faddy for me, and I do actually do a bit of
exercise - I'm off to the gym tomorrow and I'll go at least one more night next
week - but I thought it'd be interesting to try out the Hacker's Diet and report
back on how it goes. It'll make a change from transportable tablespaces anyway.
Anyone else had any luck shifting a few pounds in a "non-boring
way"? (apart from contracting dysentery on holiday, or something else similar).
Anyway, I'll give it a go and occaisionally report back.
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