I’ve never really dieted before. I’ve always been in pretty decent shape, but recently have been on an exercise kick and training for a Tough Mudder event. So when I had the opportunity to trade my pizza stone to borrow The 4-Hour Body by Timothy Ferriss, which I found on a friend’s bookshelf, I jumped at it. Four days later, I’ve already stocked my shelves and have read 300+ pages of the manifesto challenging traditional dieting and exercise.

Since the book is fairly complicated as much as it is simple and by that I mean you can pick out the parts and customize your experience, I’ll try to boil my diet down for you. The Slow-carb diet is the basis for whether you want to loose 10 pounds in a month, or if you want to gain 10 pounds of muscle in a month (just have to add a bit more protein and some fats like milk; plus different exercise).

Basically, I’m following these rules when it comes to eating:

• Avoid “white” carbs (bread, pasta rice, chips).
• Eat the same meals over and over again.
• Don’t drink calories.
• Don’t eat fruit.
• Take one day off per week and go nuts.

The Dark Horse

Okay, so why would I follow a diet by someone who is not a physician, published academic, trainer, or nutritionist? Ferriss, author of 4-Hour Work Week, doesn’t hold the medical credentials but he has been a hard core experimenter and fitness enthusiast his entire life; journaling workouts, testing theories, and experimenting with calculated analysis.

Perhaps, one of the more important reasons to listen to Ferriss is because he is outside the system. As “one MD from a well-known Ivy League university” told Ferriss:

“We’ve trained for 20 years to be risk-adverse. I’d like to do the experimentation, but I’d risk everything I’ve built over two decades of schooling and training by doing so. I’d need an immunity necklace. The university would never tolerate it.”

And from a surgeon at UCSF:

“Kaiser can’t talk to UCSF, who can’t talk to Blue Shield. You are the arbiter of your health information.”

By being the “dark horse,” Ferriss is able to break industry silos and present “findings of more than 100 PhDs, NASA scientists, medical doctors, Olympic athletes, professional sports trainers, world record holders, Super Bowl rehabilitation specialists, and even former Eastern Bloc coaches!

Back to the Diet

My meals go something like this: 4 meals a day and each meal includes protein, beans, and veggies. Wow, so radical! Not really, but you do get kinda tired of eating the same stuff over and over again. Fortunately, I love to cook and I think I’ll start posting my recipes here too.

Here was my first shopping trip bounty:

• organic whole chicken
• package of natural ground beef
• eggs
• saurkraut
• Kimchi
• spinach
• green beans
• peas
• broccoli
• cauliflower
• black beans
• pinto beans
• lentils
• asparagus

Additional crazy things I’m doing

• Cod-liver oil (omega fatty acid)
• Alpha Liphoic Acid (antioxident)
• Cold showers and cold house
• Exercise 3 days a week
• Giving up beer, for the most part

So far, I feel great and I’m definitely noticing my body feels different. I haven’t had a chance to measure my BMI but I will next week. I’m doing this more for my overall health and fitness, so as long as I look and feel great then it’s all good! I’m already looking forward to my first “anything goes” day; I’ll be stuffing my face with pancakes, buttered popcorn, Little Debbie Nutty Bars, and cookie dough!

Photos like this one available in my Etsy Shop

I have a friend who is suffering from Lyme disease. Yeah, you’ve heard of it, because nobody likes ticks. Lyme sucks. It’s chronic, debilitating, and there is very little financial support for those who suffer. So I’m using my photography to donate Kat’s way. Plus, I hope to spread some awareness of Lyme Disease and Chronic Fatigue.

The popular craft and artisan marketplace, Etsy, made setting up my print shop pretty easy. I have plenty of photographs to feature. For a relatively small price you can own a photograph like the one to the right here. For now, prints will be professionally printed on satin photo paper.

So if you are on Etsy, add me to your circle!

Here is a little about Kat’s and her condition:

“Unfortunately so much time had passed between transmission and diagnosis, the bacteria had disseminated and crossed into my brain. I now have late stage (also known as Chronic) Lyme Disease. I would also soon find that Lyme Disease is incredibly controversial and despite strong medical and scientific evidence to the contrary, the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA) denies the existence of Lyme disease that persists after 28 days of antibiotic treatment. The IDSA is who insurance companies listen to when it comes to covering treatment. The Social Security Administration also follows their guidelines when reviewing applications for disability.”

You can also be a hero and donate to Kat!

If you want to learn more about Lyme disease, check out Lyme Disease 101, and the movie Under Our Skin.

I love discovering new music. As a web developer I spend a good amount of time with headphones on. I grew up with Napster and downloading, then YouTube became a ‘go to’ place for streaming, Pandora rocked my sock off but I disliked the eventual loop, Last.fm introduced me to so many great new artists. Finally, Spotify comes around and gels all of them together into the ultimate music machine.

If you’re not familiar, Spotify was developed by the guy that started Napster then went on to help Facebook take off. You might have seen his character portrayed in the movie The Social Network. Spotify uses Facebook by allowing friends to share playlists and tracks. Actually, there is a lot more to the platform. Here are some ways to rock it:

Share your Playlist

By now you probably know you can create custom playlists. I’ve shared a few like my Coachella playlists. You basically can search through the bazillion number of tracks and select individual or whole albums to add by clicking and dragging. Piece of cake.

By default, new playlists are made “public” which means your friends can see them and you can see theirs. You can also share these with the outside world. Just right click a track and you can get a link to the track

Listen to the Radio

I was pleasantly surprised to find that Spotify has added a radio function similar to Pandora and Last.fm. You can activate the radio by right clicking a single track or by navigating to the artists’ profile page. Selection is pretty good and I’ve been introduced to some great new artists.

Link your Last.fm Account

I still have lots of love for Last.fm. I love that I can listen to them through the Xbox 360, and I like their website and the way they lay out member profiles. Bravo. Now you can activate last.fm from within Spotify and still “Scrobble” the tracks you listen to and love.

Follow Playlists

Your friends have good taste. Follow their playlists and you’ll stay in the loop when they add new music. You can also follow public playlists. Spotify is working at making this element more prevalent in their system. To find public playlists, look for them when you use the search function. That’s a good way to find new music too.

Get the Premium Version

For $10 a month you can listen to Spotify anywhere through your mobile device. This day and age of the car stereo that talks to your phone, I highly suggest it. You can sync up your playlists so they go with you too, and you won’t have to hear ads on either your phone or your pc. If you are a Shazam user, you can also Shazam a song right to a playlist, or star it for later.

So there are a few cool ways to use Spotify. Pretty cool this thing, no? You might also consider checking out and subscribing to the Spotify Blog, they have some interesting playlists and updates going out through there. Party on Wayne.

Raw Sports Performance and Center for Strength is the latest addition to my web design portfolio. The Sports performance gym is located in Walnut Creek, CA and is the premier fitness training center for many high school and college athletes in the East Bay. Trainer, Tom Pete, focuses on “function” first – meaning they increase the body’s natural function and flexibility while increasing strength.

I have the pleasure of working out at Raw and can say I’ve never felt stronger pulling tires across a room and doing roman squats. With their personal training and one-on-one approach I feel like I have learned more than my years at the big box fitness place. Grrrrr.

Raw Sports Performance and Center For Strength

Here is the new website I recently launched for them using WordPress.

A friend came to visit last weekend so my friend and I took him down to Monterey, Ca. He’s from Spain and this was his first visit to California, let alone the states. It was a pretty action packed adventure. After heading to the Boom Boom Room in San Francisco for some live funk music, we drove down to Monterey to stay with a friend down there. She took us to a small cafe to see this crazy musician who plays the cello like a madman, Tornado Rider. Holy cow, that was crazy.

The next day, we hit up Pebble Beach and Big Sur’s Pfeiffer Beach. We actually had decent weather for January. On Monday we scored some passes to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. If you have never been, this is a must go place if you are anywhere near San Francisco visiting. It’s a great aquarium. I took over 250 photos that day – yikes! I only posted a handful of the best ones over on my Canon s95 Photo Blog.

It was a great weekend!