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Being skinny, I feel I can give a advice or two based on my experience.
First, let me tell you that everyone is different what works for one may not work for another. Also weight is not solely depended on how much we eat & how active we are. Some factors are beyond our control like genetics or diseases that make you gain weight.
So now here are some of the reasons I think I am skinny:
- Underdeveloped palate – I cannot tell a difference between 20 different flavors of coffee we have in the breakroom. I cannot tell the difference between cheesecake from McDonald’s and from Cheesecake Factory. Sometimes I feel jealous of people who can tell the age of cow by taste of their steak. I noticed people with really well developed palate almost worship food. They talk about food during meal, after meal, before meal, when hungry, when full, when shopping. They watch food shows on TV. And almost all of them are overweight. I do enjoy my food, just not so much that it is highlight of my day or travel.
- Love of outdoors – Even when it is 100F, I rather be outside than inside. I don’t enjoy indoors especially the home. So whenever I have nothing to do, I end up at swimming pool, parks, coffeeshops (prefer to sit outside), or even malls (yes I know it is not outdoors but it is wide open and you have to walk).
- Hate of stupidity - I cannot stand stupid movies, bad acting, boring stories or slow talking newscasters. There is not much I enjoy on the TV. And there are a very few movies that I really enjoyed. This has helped me from being sedentary in front of TV. I will admit video games are my weakness & I have spent countless hours in front of TV. But in video games I am actively involved & using my brain muscles which supposedly burn some calories.
- Never get Stuffed – I hate feeling stuffed or extremely full. It makes me feel lazy. Sometimes I get in competitive mode with my friends, especially when we go to some place with buffet but then I feel the laziness & upset stomach. So I really try not to go to buffets. In Japan, they have the rule which says to stop eating when you are 80% full. There is a similar rule in Islam too. Easy to see why this will keep me skinny.
- Move Daily – Lastly, I like to do something physical activity daily. While same activity can get boring, something different everyday keeps me motivated. This include running, weights, rock climbing, swimming, yoga, mixed martial arts, even those sports that I cannot play like basketball. I don’t follow any set routine or I don’t freak out if I miss a day or two. And if I feel like running at midnight, I run at midnight. I also never force myself to do any activity but I gotten so used to doing something physical daily that I automatically end up doing something. It seems a lot of people setup these rigid programs that are almost impossible to follow unless you got nothing else to do, hence setting themselves up for a failure. I don’t have time to spent 2 hours in a gym. The rule is simple, just move even it is for just 5 minutes.
- Numbers – I love numbers & really love to visualize & analyze them. Sites like Nike+ & applications like DGMT motivates me to keep going and improving. But I don’t like putting in too much effort to track workouts. So as long as it is automatic like Nike+ or DGMT, I will use it. But if recording my workout seems like a chore then I don’t think it is worth it.
Last night I saw Pirates of Silicon Valley. A lot of bad and awkward acting and a sad story. Basically, assholes win. (Actually, Bill Gates seems nicer than Steve Jobs, so I felt slightly better when he was looking down at Steve Jobs in the end).
But this movie got me thinking, these two guys were selling real physical products which provided actual useful functions to their owners. And their products changed the world literally.
Right now, we have all these web 2.0 and social media websites which claim to be worth millions of dollars. However, they hardly provide any useful service or function to their users. For example, Twitter worth millions of dollars doesn’t provide any useful function to end user other than to let them blah blah blah & let them check how many followers they got. Yes it provides a lot of useful data to marketers but it seems almost everyone on Twitter is marketer or celebrity.
Or we got Foursquare. Again worth millions of dollars, but in my opinion, it provides no useful function to end users. It let them broadcast where they go or stalk their friends. Although I am very impressed how they created a game out of visiting different places. I have been addicted to Foursquare. But it is just a game. It does not help me solve any problem or achieve new level of productivity.
Last example, I got is Facebook. Worth a few billion dollars. I love Facebook, it does provide a lot more useful function than other two websites I mentioned. It let’s you communicate with all your friends from one location, share photos, organize events, & keep up to date with your friends’ activities. But to be honest, if it is gone today, I won’t even miss it tomorrow. E-mail is still a great way to stay in touch with your friends. If you are not a marketer then Facebook does not has that much value to you.
Some websites like Google or Amazon are different from these Web 2.0 in a way that they provide a real useful services. If all search engines start charging a fee to use their service, I will willingly pay it. If GMail is not free anymore, I will pay for it. Without eBay & Craig’s List, it will be very hard to find good deals on used products or rare products. Without Wikipedia, looking up information will be a lot harder.
This just make me worry that with all this focus on Web 2.0 and people putting so much money in these firms, we will have another bubble burst. Burst 2.0.
