Primal Blueprint Days 2 and 3

I stopped eating grains a few days ago, and one thing I can say with certainty is that I feel hungry a lot.  That does not make me feel weak, however, as it would if I were eating bread all the time.  Normally, when I am hungry, I feel like the only choice left is the sleep since my brain feels so completely drained of energy.  When I got hungry before, my stomach wouldn't bother me.  If I didn't follow a schedule to eat, I could go hungry and not feel a thing until I was miserable with headaches.  Then I would stop and remember that I had nothing to eat in a while.

For the past few days, I have eaten meat, vegetables, fruit, and dairy.  When my stomach empties, I know it right away, and I have to drop what I'm doing to find some food.  I also fill up faster, though, because I eat a lot of meat and plenty of cheese with the plethora of veggies I consume.  Being full doesn't rob me of energy now.  When I would eat cereal, bread, or pasta, I would get very tired afterward and creative thinking was off the table.  When I don't eat grains, I don't feel the blood rushing out of my head and into my abdomen.  There are still times when I feel tired, but my energy is more accessible than it used to be.  Mark Sisson talks about insulin a lot in the Primal Blueprint.  Eating too much grain can cause an insulin spike and crash which just becomes a cycle when grains are treated as the staple of every meal.  It's only been 3 days, and I am already experiencing what it is like to not be a part of that cycle.  Now, when I need energy I have it.  When I want to rest, I feel calm.  I don't feel like my energy cycle is controlling me like a bus schedule.  My energy is more like a bicycle now and I can get moving when I need to instead of waiting for the next energy spike.

I'm also in a good mood more of the time.  There's something about having readily accessible energy that can lift the spirits of a person.

Primal Day 1 Recap

Reviewing my activities yesterday, I say I followed half of the Primal Blueprint laws.

1. Eat lots of plants and animals
2. Avoid poisonous things
6. Get adequate sleep
9. Avoid stupid mistakes
10. Use your brain

The diet part is most of the challenge for now.  The others were pretty easy.  Recently I've been playing the Star Wars MMO which would be a challenge for law #6 except that I lost my attention span for the MMO formula when I played Warcraft.  Sure it's a new story and the profession mechanics differ, but the combat is essentially the same: find items, kill things, and balance your group with the proper mix of class roles if you want to complete the hard content.  This game still leads you down a predetermined path, although it tries its heart out to make you think you have a hand in the storyline by giving conversational choices.  I've written about choice before and how it can be arranged so that the choice you think you are making is really not a choice at all.  In the case of the Star Wars MMO, my perception of truth leaves with only the choice to stop playing because this is a road of distraction I've been down before, and I know it leads to a dead end and lack of sleep.

These laws I did follow, but they could use some real work.

3. Move frequently at a slow pace
4. Lift heavy things
7. Play

I don't walk enough at work.  I sit at a desk and work with a computer.  There's no denying how sedentary that is.  I do walk around some, but only short distances.  I went shopping so I got a bit of extra walking there.  When I got home yesterday, I decided not to walk my dog, but later I changed my mind.  I felt tired, but it was more mental fatigue than physical so walking was more fun than sitting down playing computer games.  Walking my dog felt more like play than exercise.  It's his favorite thing to do.  I'm just glad that I'm well enough to walk him on a regular basis again.

Then the laws I did not follow:

5. Sprint once in a while
8. Get adequate sunshine

I have not done much running since fall when I used my running app at the river trail.  I have plans to return to jogging soon, and at that point I may throw in a few sprints.  As for sunshine, I work in an office all day.  The only sunshine I get is when I drive to work in the morning, and that light is filtered through my car windows.  Lack of sunshine is my biggest irk about winter.  I almost wish I could switch to a night shift at work just so I could have some sunshine hours to spend in my yard.

I plan to keep up with law #1 for at least 2 weeks.  At that point, if I'm still doing well, I will continue for a full 30 days.  I'm mostly doing this to increase my energy.  If that is what I have at then end of 30 days, then I will commit longer.

Primal Blueprint Day 1

Today I start eating according to the Primal Blueprint.  I cooked a giant turkey this weekend and still have plenty of meat leftover.  That leaves me plenty of time to experiment with vegetable dishes.  Last night I cooked cabbage for the first time.  I've eaten cabbage before but most of the cabbage I've eaten has been in the occasional egg roll.  I waited until the holidays were over to attempt this eating plan because communal meals with family and co-workers can make it very hard to stick to a plan as different as paleo diet.  Grains and beans are extremely difficult to cut out of a diet.  I've heard that the first two weeks will be the hardest.  I plan on stuffing myself full of things I can eat, like meat, fruit, veggies, and delicious fat during this time so that I don't feel hungry.  The body takes a while to adjust to getting energy from fat instead of carbohydrates.

I'm also breaking out the barefoot shoes for running again.  Last year I participated in the Little Rock Women Run Arkansas clinic and 5k in Conway.  This year I volunteered to be a group leader in the clinic.  There's also the Little Rock Marathon to train for.  I have no plans to train for the actual marathon this year, but they have replaced the relay with a 10k so that is my goal.  I have the Couch to 10k app on my phone.  Early this fall was running that program twice in a row three days a week along the river.  I stopped when it got too dark to see other pedestrians on the trail and too creepy to walk to my car at the end of the run.  The river trail is a real spoiler since there are not many hills (only one section forces an incline because it's a quick and dirty detour around construction).  My neighborhood is very hilly, and when I run near home I take my dog which adds an additional challenge of having him dart in front of me occasionally.  To train for running, I will start running and walking multiple laps around my neighborhood instead of just the one I usually walk.

Merry Christmas from Medical Billing

All I want for Christmas is to pay back my student loans.  Instead I get a ton of medical bills.  I just love how everyone waits until the last week of the year to send out bills.  Thank you, Medical Billing Establishments, for procrastinating so thoroughly!  I can't say that I'm surprised, but I can say that having a health savings account with a high deductible medical plan is a real P.I.T.A. when everything than can go wrong does.  I budgeted for this by holding off on paying extra on my student loans.  There's a difference between planning for unknown expenses and actually paying them when it comes time.

I will pay my medical bills with a forced grin: forced because the timing is lousy, and grinning because I should still be in one piece by the time my student loans are actually paid since I did not put off important dental surgery.

Merry Christmas!

Oh that's right, I'm a programmer

While it's fun to spend a lot of time designing gardening schemes and plotting a healthier lifestyle, I feel that can wait until Spring is closer.  In the mean time, I'm going to focus on my bread and butter.  Right now, programming pays the bills.  Developing my coding skills is an investment in the long haul, even though it doesn't directly improve my overall health.  Programming only feels like work when it becomes repetitive.  I'm more fascinated by how computer languages work than what they do.  Learning new languages satisfies that curiosity and keeps boredom away.  Boredom leads to burnout.  Anything I can do to prevent burnout is a good thing for job security.

At my job, I've had many different computer languages thrown at my head.  I've also had a management change up which was confusing for a while.  My last manager wanted us to be a Microsoft shop, working only with Microsoft development products.  My new manager is very much a fan of Linux for any small project that isn't big enough to need customer support.  I like the new approach because it's very old school, and at my work place, I have been deemed a "legacy groupie".

I installed a virtual machine with Ubuntu and then heard that they recently fired Java.  Last time I programmed in Ubuntu I was using Java a lot.  I see this as an opportunity to pick up a new (to me) language to work in.  Using Microsoft Visual Studio the obvious choice is C#.  The first programming language I learned was C++, but I like Java for it's modularity.  C# is like coding in C++ with Java's sense of organization.  The catch with working with a new language is that other people have to know it, too.  Otherwise I would spend 10% of my time writing code and 90% of my time explaining what I'm doing.  Either that, or I would just have to scrap all my work and rewrite it in a different language anyway.  I work with a lot of legacy code, so now is a good time for me to pick up an older language like Perl since I have a few coworkers that work with that language already.

Build a Budget with Google Docs

I graduated college with a hefty pile of student loan debt.  As soon as I got a job, I built a spreadsheet to manage where my paychecks would go.  Google Docs is my preferred spreadsheet because it's free, and I can access it from anywhere.

The first step is to make a summary sheet.  On this page, I calculate my net income and list out each category of expenses.  I designed my budget before I received any paychecks so I estimated how much of my check I would get by taking out a conservative percentage.  At first I assumed that I would only get 2/3 after FICA.  Once I got paid, I saw that it was closer to 3/4 so I adjusted the budget.  As benefit contributions roll in for insurance and retirement, I continue to adjust the net estimation.  It never has to be exact.  I just have to keep it realistic so I'm not budgeting money I don't actually have.

My sample budget template can be found here on Google Docs.  The budget is comprised of the basic layout that I use.  I left in some sample payments just to show how I use it.  The summary page has several breakdowns with the useful ones color coded.  There's the monthly budget and the bimonthly paycheck budgets.  Then there's the balance list that shows each category amount and the total amount for all funds.  These totals are taken from the transactions listed on each category sheet.  Every time a new transaction is entered on a sheet, the balance on the summary sheet is updated.

The category sheets are pretty basic.  There are columns for date, description, amount, and balance.  The balance column adds the previous row's balance with the current row's amount.  To update it I just drag the formula down.  The buffer category tracks income that is over the budget amount.  Extra money like gift checks or odd job payments go here.  I don't track gift cards since they have their own balance.  The student loan category can just as easily be labeled as any other debt such as credit cards or money you owe to someone.  The car category is where I put all car expenses including gas, insurance, and oil changes.  Food is any food expense.  Personal is anything for me that is not food like hygiene products, house cleaning supplies, pet food, books and whatnot.  House is mortgage, utility bills, and repairs or maintenance.  You could replace mortgage with rent.  I could estimate a tighter budget for house, but I like to leave lots of slack because unexpected repairs are rarely cheap.  I also use the slack to save up slowly for remodeling projects.

Installments is something I added a few months after I made my first budget.  I use it to track purchases that take many payments or purchases I save up for a little at a time.  It's easier for me to make this a separate fund than Personal because it gets too messy trying to keep up with it alongside regular expenses.  Installs are also a good way to transition out of using credit cards by treating savings as credit.  This takes two sheets to track properly.  The first sheet is just tracking expenses.  The Install Plan sheet is the goal sheet which lists the total cost of the item, the number of payments planned, and the size of each payment.  There are also dates tracking when I started payments, when I finished payments, and when I actually purchased the item.  I like to color code the dates when they are not finished just so I keep a close eye on those items.  I can make as many payments at a time as the installment fund allows.  Payments made on no interest credit plans don't have any rush so I calculate when the last payment will be and fill it in ahead of time, highlighting it in yellow so I won't forget it's not finished yet.

This budget template is very detailed because it is based on one I use it frequently.  I tinker with mine often based on varying needs.  I used to try to design a database application for a budget, but a spreadsheet is more flexible.  Flexibility is more useful when working with a new budget.  Feel free to copy this budget template for your own use.  That's why I made it public.

Winter + Illness < Motivation + Resolve

After baking through a 102F fever for 3 days, I found motivation a little hard to find.  What a great time to get into the early release of Star Wars: The Old Republic mmo.  Yes, I took it easy on the weekend and did nothing that required motivation.  As the new year closes in, I'm reminded of my gardening goal in 2012.  Nothing is going to keep me back from that.  I'm going to grow vegetables and possibly fruit and eat it.  New Years is my favorite time of year because I like making big resolutions and planning out how I might achieve them.

This year I have a budget in my favor.  I've been working like a dog trying to keep tabs on my spending, and so far I have been successful.  Budgeting takes practice and creativity.  As much as I want to garden this year, my ultimate goal is to pay off my student loans.  That is a goal that will take longer than one year.  In fact, it will take 2 years, and it should be paid off no later than the end of 2013.  My loans were not small, but they weren't Ivy League huge either.  Every semester of college was funded almost entirely through loans.  I could easily pay them off slowly over 20 years, but I despise debt so I am paying them off in 2 years, hence my shoestring budget.  Being able to build up a functioning garden while scraping by on half my income is a feat of strength which keeps motivation in mind and keeps my chin up.  Even if I fail at growing edible food, I will have less debt when I start over with growing a garden.