The kind people at St. Joseph’s mercy care gave me some truffles yesterday! I of course had to go home and photograph them. :)
About a month ago I posted about how I was in a place where I was trading efficiency, rest and progress for 45 extra minutes on tumblr scrolling through nothing of consequence. And so I promised myself (and you, friends) that I'd do better in a measurable way.
So three things happened as a direct result of that decision.
1) I aquired a walking treadmill
2) I started tracking my sleep hours and movement at night
3) I changed my diet to one where I am guaranteed an increase in mental clarity
It's been three weeks now and I have some awesome results to show for it. All three changes were made in a way that didn't require much willpower. I'm not a master of doing the harder thing consistently. I just don't. Maybe it was my upbringing or just my genetics or how I choose to implement my free will but that's just the way it's been so far. So the approach to each of the improvements had to change. I needed to use my laziness to my advantage.
Exercise. Jeremy got me a treadmill desk. This instantly increased my activity level from a sedentary 2miles of walking a day to 10 + miles a day. I don't have to think about it. I don't have to try. Using the computer comes naturally. It's where I do my work, my entertainment, my finances, my news, my social interactions, my business. Now I do all those things while walking. It's NO effort now. I have to be on the treadmill to use the computer. I am never going to not use the computer. So that works.
Sleep. I am in bed by 12 and I sleep until at least 8. This too was more easily implemented after my treadmill desk became part of my life. When someone as out of shape as me suddenly walks nearly a half marathon a day they get tired. The kind of tired you should be to fall asleep really fast and sleep HARD. I sleep about 45 minutes more than I did before. I thought it was hilarious that it was cut by essentially my tumblr time. And guess what's been missing from my life for a few weeks? Tumblr. It's not a loss. I'm not in some weird fog at the end of the day where my body isn't tired enough to warrant a trip to bed. I always want to go to bed. The sleep when I do fall asleep? Deep. I can't remember the last time I had this many dreams. They're all good dreams and I move a lot less at night ( according to the iphone app that measures movement ). I wake up well rested. I can see the difference because my eyes dont turn red around 6pm.
Food. This is a big one. Jeremy and I have started the ketogenic diet together. It's essentially grain-less paleo the way we are doing it. It is nothing short of amazing. The first three days were rough. Just dropping grains and sugar is really freaking hard for someone who… loves sugar. I love sugar. But after the sugar cravings died, the hunger disappeared altogether. That's an amazing effect of the diet. There is also a significant increase in mental clarity and focus. We made this a no-brainer by cooking it all up front on one day and having every meal planned for days. They're all tasty, and laziness wins out everytime. No thinking + eating immediately > Thinking + Eating out.
You know what a fun side effect is? Weightloss. It's not much. Probably just less water but Im enjoying the slightly less tight pants. :p Still kinda tight though.
Thank you laziness for improving my life!
Also this is the image I got when I googled progress and change. I'm just going to go with it.
This photo was taken July of 2005, at a petting zoo. I’m only nineteen in this photo! But more importantly LOOK AT MY WAIST. It is SO SMALL. I was about 180lbs in this photo. I’m headed back there! :P
I also love this photo because photobombing goat.
[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_single_image image=”25282″ border_color=”grey” img_link_target=”_self” img_size=”large”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]December 2008. It had been a year since I left school. I went to an eyebrow threading place and the lady made my eyebrows super freaking thin. I still have reservations about threading today.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
I was thinking the other day, while hanging out in my 8-ball PJs, if I am too old for clubs now. I’m almost 29, and I certainly still love dancing. I dunno. There’s always a blurry line where you’re stepping from one stage of life into another. This photo was taken at a Paul Van Dyk concert years ago. Actually, I’m most proud of it because I took it with a sony cybershot, and not an SLR.
I’ve successfully filled my life up with a long todo list. Last night I got to bed at 10:30pm for the first time in god knows how long. It’s not really a complaint that I\’m too busy,but an observation that I have been skipping out on sleep that I need.
When I woke up this morning I felt like a new person. I have been more productive and felt better about the product of my work today. Ironically, I had been delivered this article from Zen Habits just days prior. He makes two points about sleep that I found to be completely true.
- If you don’t get enough sleep, you will fail at changing habits; and
- If you have a lack of sleep, your motivation will drop tremendously.
Yes. Yes I do, and yes it does.
The same is true of exercise. As soon as I sacrifice exercise and sleep for what I believe is in exchange for increased productivity in both my technical career and my creative one, I lose. I’ve already lost the moment I go home instead of to the gym or decide to keep working once the clock strikes 10.
The biggest struggle in my life is not knowing what the right thing to do is. I almost always know what to do to improve my situation. My biggest struggle is to simply do those things. Whenever I hear the verse “the truth shall set you free†I think it’s not a universal truth. Shedding the shackles of laziness, habit, and stubbornness would really help set me free. The truth is, I need sleep. The truth is also that I will browse tumblr for an additional 45 minutes after bedtime. I use Any.Do to keep track of my tasks but I think I will attempt to implement the Eisenhower Decision Matrix to help me do a better job of choosing important over urgent when working and scheduling rest. I never thought I’d see the day I had to schedule in rest but here I am. Is this part of getting old and approaching your thirties?
As for sleep, I need 8-9 hours a night to feel good the next morning. At least 7 of them need to be uninterrupted. I\’m going to try to get ample sleep again, this week. I don’t have any weddings, just smaller gigs like engagements and parties, for another two months and I only have one major development project outside of my 9-5 this week. I can focus on improving my sleep health, without too many distractions.
Wish me luck (and perseverance).
I was visiting Jacksonville, Florida in 2008 when I managed to get up for sunrise and grab a photo of the sandpipers on the beach. I’ll probably always love the challenges of photographing people but the opportunity to photograph nature scenes brings me a sense of peace I haven’t been able to replicate shooting anything else.
Anyone who knows me, knows I love the aquarium. The biodiversity presented to you all at once makes you thankful to have been born in this era. I really enjoyed photographing animals I will only see a few times in my life. It was also a challenge to shoot through the plexiglass or whatever they use on the displays. I’ve gotten pretty darn good at shooting through both flat and curved glass, if I do say so myself. Here’s a few of my favorite shots from our visit to the Tennessee Aquarium, which although smaller than the Georgia Aquarium, is in my humble opinion, way better than the Georgia Aquarium.
Our friends Sam and Val had told us about a migration that happens every winter up in Tennessee last year, and this year Jeremy and I decided to join them. We set out early morning and drove about 3 hours north of here. I was geeking out about the sunrise, much to the amusement of everyone in the car. Yes, I’m that lazy that I never see a sunrise.
Whenever I do engagement sessions, I ask the couple to get up really early. I usually feel bad about it but the natural light that presents itself is worth losing the couple hours of sleep over. These horses just glowed in this light. And I took this photo while we drove by in a car. That’s how great morning light is!
Unfortunately once we arrive to the pier where the boat tour would have taken off, we were informed that the ice was too thick to break through and that the boat wouldn’t be going anywhere.
NOOOO. As a southerner I hadn’t even considered that there would be thick ice much less ice so thick it meant we went nowhere.
Two good things happened though. One, I got to play with three inches of ice. Two, we met this sweet old country dog named Bear who stopped in for pets and backscratches ( and a portrait! ).
We chose to drive around instead and we found ourselves with much closer experiences with the Sandhill cranes than we expected (or would have gotten on that day cruise). They were strewn across fields, scattered among cows, and flying overhead every few minutes.
And then we hit the motherlode of bird congregation. We had spotted them while passing over this bridge earlier in the day. Parking off to the left side of the bridge, we hoofed it to the middle and I was granted the opportunity to shoot these!
Just look how many there are!
It was totally worth the disappointment and detour. And I caught a Bald Eagle in flight.. our national bird!
