My plan to maintain a steady weekly running plan has been good. I’ve been focusing more on consistency than pure mileage. I may do another DXA scan before leaving for Japan at the end of the month.

Obsessions / Finds

This Is The Admiral’s Ferrari 500 Mondial – YouTube This YouTube video about a US Navy admiral and the 4 cylinder Ferrari that he has owned for more than 5 decades touched my heart.

San Pellegrino Chinotto – link I bought this soda on a whim a few months back, but never drank it until recently. It’s bitter, citrusy and similar to cola. It may be one of my favorite drinks now.

Never Alone (Kisima Inŋitchuŋa) – link Never alone is a puzzle-platformer based on Alaskan indigenous stories. Q and I loved it.

Calendar

November 6-8 // Blizzcon – I went to my second Blizzcon (after skipping last year’s) in Anaheim. A post will come in a few months.

November 12 // Month in Review – October 2015 – post October’s Month in Review post.

November 13 // Star Wars Prequel Trilogy @ Brohaus  – I hosted a viewing party for the Star Wars prequels at Brohaus.

November 14 // Photowalk in SF with Q – post Photos from a photowalk around SF with Q.

November 14 // Q’s Half – runkeeper strava Q hosted a 5k/10k/half race in the baylands. Jeff, Ben and I ran the half marathon.

November 18 // Arizona – Grand Canyon & Antelope Canyon – post Photos from a trip Phil, Sean, Vinny and I took around Arizona.

November 24 // Jordan & Christine’s Wedding – post Photos from Jordan and Christine’s wedding in Texas.

November 26-December 2 // Thanksgiving in Plano – Q and I spent almost a week in Plano.

Fitness

I’ve been focusing more on eating less again. I have found that selective eating can be difficult in social situations, but portion control always works. I have also been grilling my dinner Korean BBQ style after being inspired by this Tim Ferriss show podcast.

I gave up on running a marathon this year and have shifted my focus to building a good aerobic base, where I focus on consistency more than increasing mileage. I have also added pushups and planks to my workout routine. I installed an app for pushup tracking and for plank tracking that you can find under obsessions and finds below.

Here is how my workouts look now.

My pace has been improving continuously over the last few months. At the end of September, I was running around a 10:00 minutes per mile pace at 150 bpm HR. I ended October at around 9:15 minutes per mile. I’m pretty happy with my results and I’m going to continue this for a few more weeks before increasing my mileage again. Also, I returned to my normal mileage in October after September saw a drop to 24 miles from 75 miles per month the 3 previous months.

October also marked 3 months since I got a DXA scan. The results are below.

I lost 4.6 pounds of fat and 1.3 pounds of lean tissue. My bodyfat percentage dropped from 24.6% to 22.5%. I’m pretty happy with this result and will continue to improve my eating habits so that I can drop more fat before my next scan. I also gained a modest .5 pounds in my arms.

Obsessions / Finds

100 Pushups All-Star – iOS My app of choice for the 100 pushups challenge. I’ve been using this to track my pushup workouts. Warning: this app will require an in-app purchase to continue beyond a few weeks.

Plank – iOS I have been using this app to track planks. It will slowly work you up from 30 seconds to 5 minutes over the course of a month.

Neil Gaiman – Inspirational Commencement Speech at the University of the Arts 2012 – YouTube Jeff and I launched our Kickstarter this weekend. I know that failure is a distinct possibility. I couldn’t have watched this talk at a better time. Make Good Art.

Calendar

October 4 // Breakfast @ Brohaus  – I finally got around to hosting breakfast at Brohaus. We had omelettes, hash browns, pancakes and smoothies.

October 5 // Burma – Part 3: The People – post A post about the people of Burma.

October 10 // Month In Review – September 2015 – post The month in review post for October

October 10 // K̶o̶r̶e̶a̶n̶ French BBQ?  – With the help of everyone at the Haus and a few other friends, I was able to mash up French cuisine with the Korean BBQ eating style. We grilled beef on electric grills and dipped them in French sauces.

October 11 // Lucia di Lammermoor at San Francisco Opera  – Q and I watched the tragic opera in San Francisco.

October 12 // Burma – Part 4 – post The final Burma post.

October 17 // Clay Pigeon Shooting and Hotpot  – Natalie and Steve hosted Q and me for a fantastic day of clay pigeon shooting followed by a visit to a pumpkin patch and hotpot for dinner.

October 23 // SEF Dandia  – Q and I dressed up and attended the SEF Dandia at the Santa Clara convention center. pic

October 28 // Hawaii – Birthday in the Aloha State – post Post about my trip to Hawaii with my father.

October 30 // Past-Me Versus Future-Me – post A crosspost of my first ever Medium piece.

October 31 // Halloween in SF  – Q and I dressed up as a bamboo steamer with a dumpling and soy sauce respectively for Halloween and went up to SF. pic

Fitness

My eating habits have improved and I feel great. I decided to bring back snacks into my diet, but in small amounts, just to fulfill cravings.

My weight is dropping slower, but it’s still going down.

I have brought in pushups into my workout routine. Once I have formed a habit, I’ll add more body weight exercises.

Obsessions / Finds

Long Seige – iOS This game is half Bejeweled and half siege game. The art style and gameplay are refreshing. It’s also short enough I finished it in a week. Highly recommended.

Hello From The Magic Tavern – podcast The description for this podcast should be enough. “Hello! I’m Arnie. I fell through a magical dimensional portal behind a Burger King in Chicago and found myself in a strange magical land called “Foon.” I’m still somehow getting a weak wi-fi signal from the Burger King so I host a weekly podcast from the tavern the Vermilion Minotaur, interviewing monsters, wizards and adventurers.”

Calendar

September 3-8 // Reunion in Atlanta – Everyone from my father’s side of the family that’s in the US converged in Atlanta, where my cousin Ananth lives. There were 15 people in the same house. It was tons of fun. Photos from Instagram: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

September 10-14 // XOXO Fest @ Portland, OR – link I attended XOXO Fest in Portland. It was a life changing experience. Hopefully, I’ll get around to elaborating more in a separate post.

September 14 // Month In Review – August 2015 – post Last month’s review post.

September 16 // Winter in Southeast Asia – Singapore – post My first post about my family’s trip to Asia last winter.

September 20 // First Float / Sensory Deprivation Experience – link Ben and I had our first experiences in sensory deprivation tanks. I’ll speak about it more in a future post.

September 25 // Morphology: Brendan Monroe at Heath Ceramics – event Friend and artist Brendan Munroe had his first San Francisco show. Photos to come eventually.

September 26 // Burma – Part 1: The Land of Buddha – post A post dedicated to photos of historical Burma.

September 30 // Burma – Part 2: Today’s Burma – post A post about Burma today.

September 30 // Alina Baraz + Galimatias @DNA Lounge – event Enjoyed Galimatias and Alina Baraz at a private table with friends. Thanks, Jeff for setting it up!

Fitness

In July’s installment, I discussed overeating and how it was affecting my weight and my digestive system. Getting the DXA scan and experiencing serious digestive issues was a real wakeup call. They sparked a few changes:

1. I started weighing myself 2-3 times a day (in the morning, after running, before sleeping). Dustin set me up on his Withings wifi scale.
2. I consciously eat less and eat healthier. I also cut out most snacking. I would rather be hungry for a short time than satiate my appetite and risk acid reflux or weight gain.

Surprisingly, I already see some results. Over the course of the month, I went from 153 lbs to 147 lbs by only changing my diet. I’m hoping it was mostly fat. I’ll know for sure in October when I get another DXA scan. Also, being lighter has accelerated running pace improvements.

In September, I want to run more consistently (without worrying about mileage) and add a weight training regimen.

Obsessions / Finds

Lara Croft GO – iOS Android The second GO game by Square Enix Montreal. GO games are turn-based puzzle games with the characters and settings of other Square Enix games. Hitman GO was great and Lara Croft GO hasn’t disappointed. Thanks Dustin for the recommendation.

Amazon.co.jp – link Jeff introduced me to the idea of buying books and music from Amazon.co.jp. Because of affordable, fast shipping and the great JPY to USD conversion rate at the moment, some books are actually cheaper when purchased from Japan. I used Amazon Japan to buy a handful of design books that aren’t available in the US.

Braun Calculator – link I’ve been looking for a decent calculator I can leave on my desk that isn’t ugly. I picked up this white remake of the classic Braun ET 55 calculator from Amazon. Nothing fancy, but it still beats software calculators for me.

Naval Ravikant on the Tim Ferriss Show  – link I’ve been listening to this podcast for a year or so. Chithra recommended this specific episode. Among other things, they discussed the idea of suffering sparking positive change (just like my digestive problems triggering lifestyle changes).

Happenings

August 9-27 // Chithra in Palo Alto – Chithra started at Medallia and was training in Palo Alto for most of the month. It was the first time since college that we lived in the same city. Time went by too quickly.

August 13-18 // Mexico City – Q and I visited Mexico City for Sebastian and Ari’s wedding. Blog post to follow in the coming months. Photos from Instagram: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

August 22 // My Photo on Reddit Front Page – link Robo convinced me to put one of my photos up on Reddit. It hit the front page with over 2,400,000 views, 8,000 upvotes, 2,500 full size downloads and 1,000 comments. At least 10 people told me that they use it as their desktop wallpaper.

August 29 // Camping  – Q and I spent a night in Big Basin Redwoods State Park. We mostly cooked and talked.

Posts

August 4 // A Quick Stop By Los Angeles – link A stop in LA on the way home from my month in New York.

August 8 // Month In Review – July 2015 – link Last month’s review post.

August 11 // @Large – Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz – link A trip to the @Large Ai Weiwei exhibit courtesy Google.

August 19 // Thanksgiving in Plano – link I spent last year’s Thanksgiving in Plano.

August 22 // Holiday Party – link Last year’s holiday party with Columbia friends.

1. Events
2. Things I found
3. Goals and progress
4. Projects
5. Questions I have

There are a few goals for this new type of post:

1. Honesty. I currently share mostly positive thoughts. It’s not an accurate portrayal of me.
2. Accountability. I frequently make plans, but never follow through.
3. Feedback. I hope that being more open will allow you all to be candid with me.

Please read and share your thoughts. Also, make sure to read the fitness section. I explain how I will literally give you money whenever I slack off.

Fitness

I finally got around to having a DXA scan done. Here are the results.

I’m at 24.6 percent body fat. This puts me between the lower 60th and 80th percentile among 20 to 29 year old males that were tested. After receiving the results, I felt just like what I felt the last time that I failed a test in school. It’s a real wake-up call. What led me here? Eating habits.

Growing up, I usually ate at a moderate pace and didn’t overeat. In the last 5 years, that started changing. Between March and May of this year it reached a peak. I had 4 incidents where I felt so nauseous that I was unable to sleep all night. It had a heavy effect on my life. After a few doctors visits, experimentation and close observation of my habits, I pinpointed overeating as the cause.

I have found that I need to eat more to feel satiated and I frequently tend to feel discomfort after eating. Overeating started weakening my cardiac sphincter, causing acid reflux, which in turn caused nausea.

My eating habits have also clearly prevented me from meeting my fitness goals. Last year, I ran the Big Sur Marathon in 4 hours and 23 minutes, which is roughly a 10 minute pace. While that is a respectable result, I have always intended on breaking the top 5 percent of my age group. Reaching that goal requires running in 3 hours and 15 minutes or under. To get there, not only will I have to train more, I need to eat better and shed some fat.

This is where you all come in. To make sure that I am accountable for my training and more importantly, for my eating, I will make you all an offer. Any time you talk to me in the next year (until August 2016) in person or digitally you may ask me if I deviated from my training and eating goals the day before. If I cheated and I don’t have a good reason (injured, unrelated health issue require diet change, etc.), then I will give you a dollar.

Exceptions and limits: The limit will be ten dollars a day. So, up to 10 people can get 1 dollar from me every day. While on vacation, I don’t need to follow my eating plan, but I do need to follow my running plan.

The running plan is 5 normal runs from Monday through Friday and one long run on the weekend. The eating plan will basically be the Slow-Carb Diet: no white carbs, no sugar, mostly vegetables and protein. Also, I will have 2 cheat meals per weekend where I can eat anything I want. Those don’t count.

Obsessions / Finds

ねこあつめ (Neko Atsume) – iOS Android My latest mobile game obsession. Leave toys and food out for cats. Check back occasionally to see them play, photograph them, name them. Here is a walkthrough and the subreddit.

Moodnotes – Thought Journal / Mood Diary – iOS Mood journalling app from ustwo, the creators of Monument Valley. Grounded in cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and positive psychology.

Design Details – link A podcast that features interviews with product, interface and graphic designers in the Bay Area.

Events

July 8 // Percolate DesignTalk Presents Building from Scratch – link Bumped into Nancy at PA Caltrain Station and rode up together. Learned things in a few of the talks. Met other designers.

July 9 // MUJI Presents “Objective Thinking” with Naoto Fukasawa – link Event celebrating Muji’s soon to open Palo Alto store (at Stanford Shopping Center). Met one of my design heroes, Naoto Fukasawa. Was interrupted by David Kelley, another design hero. I have never seen that many top design people in one place before. Got Naoto to sign a phone he designed. Tom and David Kelley starting following me on Twitter.

July 11 // Canepa Cars & Coffee – link Probably the best Cars & Coffee (meetup of car enthusiasts) in the country at the moment. Met up with Sean at Canepa. Saw something like 5 959s, a EB110, an M1, a (possibly replica) 250 GTO, a Miura and tons of Porsches.

July 11 // K-Pop Dance Festival – Eric and I went to watch and support Michelle at her dance performance. Saw Nancy, Paul and a few other folks there. Fun!

July 18 // The World is Heidi’s Oyster – Heidi had her birthday at Hog Island Oyster Co. in Marshall. Enjoyed shucking and eating fresh oysters and bbq that Heidi prepared with friends. Photos to come (hopefully sooner than 9 months).

July 19 // Renegade Craft Fair – link Many craftspeople and artists gathered to show off and sell their creations. Seemed like an Etsy convention. Q had a great time. Probably better for women. Photos from Instagram: 1 2 3

July 19 // Mathilda The Musical – link Went with Q and Natalie. Super fun. Way different than the movie. Makes me want to read the book.

July 25 // 28 Chinese at the Asian Art Museum  – link Q, Natalie, Dustin, Tiffany, Kevin and I visited the Asian Art Museum to view the 28 Chinese exhibit and the regular collection. Photos from Instagram: 1 2 3 4 5 6

July 26 // SF Marathon (first half)  – link Jeff, Natalie and I ran. Q drove us to and from. We met up with Ming after the race. Jeff and I had a good race. Despite two bathroom breaks, we still managed a 2:13 time. Pace and split information.

July 28 // Cast Party Podcast Festival  – link Q and I watched a live broadcast of the Cast Party podcast festival in a theater. It was ok. I’m guessing fans of the specific podcasts represented had a better time. Wouldn’t go again.