J . M A I L

First Impressions Review: Microsoft Wireless Mobile Mouse 6000

Picked up the Microsoft Wireless Mobile Mouse 6000 today. I was trying to decide between a bunch of different mouses. Most were too expensive. I was also looking at the VX nano logitech, the v550 logitech, and the microsoft arc mouse.

The arc didn’t have one of the new nice super small usb connectors that can be left in all the time. This mouse features something microsoft calls  Bluetrack, which the arc also didn’t have, which is supposed to allow this mouse to track on any surface. I will mostly using this new mouse on my couchs arm rest with the new laptop so that is perfect for me. The logitech offers were all more expensive and I thought this new ms tech, supposedly the next step up from laser mouses, sounded smart.

The mouse feels good in my hand. I havn’t been able to make it looks tracking on any surface yet. The holder in the mouse for the usb adapter is really nice but I doubt I will be using it. Luckily this mouse has an on off button so I don’t have to put the adapter in the mouse to turn it off. No clue on battery life yet but microsoft says 10 + months.

The bad is the extra front left side button is too far forward which is a bit annoying as I have to readjust my hand on the mouse to use it. I don’t find the same problem with the extra front right button.

The size of the mouse fills good in my hand, the build quality seems top notch, and the finish and style of the mouse perfectly match my computer which is a big plus for me.

This mouse ended up being cheaper than any of the other mouses I was looking at after I price matched it at Future Shop with NCIX for $50.

For the features this mouse offers and that I was looking for (small usb adapter, good any surface tracking, and price) I think I found a winner.

First Impression Score: 8 / 10

First Impressions Review: Gateway EC Series ULV 11.6” Intel Core 2 Solo SU3500

I bought a new laptop! This is the first new one since the 7” eeepc, which was a waste of money, and the computer I first got when I came to Guelph for undergrad in 2001.

It’s a Gateway EC Series ULV 11.6” Intel Core 2 Solo SU3500 (currently only selling at future shop, not yet for sale in the states, it actually only came out friday at my local future shop, which I happened to visit randomly with a friend last friday). Usually when I think gateway I think ewwww but this machine caught my attention. The high rez LED backlite 11.6” (1366x768) screen present a real usual resolution. The older 10.1 ” and smaller netbook don’t have a workable resolution in my opinion.

It’s based off the new low voltage intel chipset with a core solo processor. Almost every other 11.6” CULV computer coming out comes with an atom processor. I think the single core 2 solo offered here is a better choice as I am using this maching as a desktop replacement / all round machine. With 3 gigs of ram and a 250 gig hd I have enough of ram and hd space standard.

One nice feature of this 11.6” plateform is the full sized keyboard if offers. However, the biggest issue so far for me when it comes to this computer is the keyboard. Although it is apparently stiffer then the competing 11.6” model from Acer (acer owns both acer and gateway) the english/french keyboard means the enter key is taller and skinnier and the left shift and right : and right \ are positioned in a funny way. I expect in time I will get used to it.

Battery life with the 6 cell battery is about 5 + hours. The new culv system and the led backlite screen makes this model great for battery life.

The touch pad is ok thus far but I dont know if I will use the gesture feature.

The left click button is a bit annoying. You can’t really click the far left of the key to depress the button because of how the button mechanism works. You have to press more towards the middle of the left click button to make it work. Same with the right click but the right side of it is hard to click in it’s case. I think I will get used to this as well.

As for video performance.

The good: 720p works and plays back smoothly. HD flash youtube works smoothly.

The bad: 1080 p does not play back smoothly. (I don’t download 1080p content so I can live with this)

The black casing on this machine is a finger print magnet but looks very nice. I like that the gateway logo on the lid is small. I am considering covering it on the underside of the monitor.

BTW I am running this machine with Windows 7 RC. I have no idea about running it with xp, vista (which is ships with), or linux.

Price: $560 (taxes in)

First Impression Score: 9 / 10

UPDATE:

I just wanted to update to say the scroll pad click buttons problems I was finding are really a non-issue.

I also discovered with the right video player I am able to play 1080 p content smoothly.

I got used to the keyboard in a week and now the enter key and left shift key are no longer an issue for me.

I often find the speakers in this laptop to quiet even when the system volume is a max.

I am still find this computer quick even when working with photoshop, dream weaver, firefox, and office at the same time. Still really happy with the purchase.

Anatomy of a Cutting Diet

Today I begin my third cutting diet. I am currently 170 pounds. Soon I will be 155 pounds.

Let me start from the beginning. I could say that today I start my diet but that wouldn’t be specific enough. Really, we are all on diets all the time. We tend to associate the word diet with an effort to lose weight but a diet can be program to gain weight or simply a word to describe what we tend to eat. Diet need not be a four letter word. It is a descriptive word and an indication that we are giving conscious thought to what we are putting into our bodies.

Many people have tried changing their diet to lose weight. Almost everyone who is reading this will have tried at one point or another to diet in order to drops some pounds. It seems odd to me that something that is attempted by so many people is so poorly understood by almost as many people. I would like to describe to you what I feel a cutting diet should be like, the basic principles behind an effective diet from my own experiences, and correct some misunderstandings that lead to people beginning a diet and ultimately failing to lose weight.

Let’s start all the way back at the beginning. Without a foundation in the basics a diet is much less likely to work. The human body is an amazing thing but luckily it tends to operate in three simple states. The body is either growing, shrinking, or staying the same size. It is very important to understand that these states do not normally occur at the same time. This is important because it means it is foolish to attempt to gain muscle while losing body fat or vice versa. It just doesn’t work. When we decide to diet to lose weight we have to accept that we will lose some muscle. Do not believe any trainer that tells you that they can help you put on muscle while at the same time losing fat. This is why bodybuilders have two typical states of training: one called bulking where they gain fat and muscle and one called cutting where they lose fat and muscle. Their ultimate goal is to gain as much muscle and the least fat as possible while bulking and lose as much fat and the least amount of muscle when cutting. We should all be looking to do the same while cutting whether we be men or women.

The second basic misconception I hear a lot is that fat turns into muscle or vice versa.  This is entirely impossible. The human body does not work this way. Fat cells cannot change into muscle and muscle cannot change into fat. A fat cell either fills or is emptied of its fatty contents. It will not change into a different type of cell through exercise. What this means though is that once we have this fat cell it is easier to fill then to produce a new cell and fill. What this boils down to is that once we get fat and diet down it will be easier for us to get fat again later on as compared to someone who never had as many fat cells in the first place.

It is also important to use the right language to help us on our cutting diet. The terms we will use will be anabolic, meaning to grow, or catabolic, meaning to shrink. We will approach our diet with a systematic approach. We do this by realizing what a diet really is.

A cutting diet is forcing the body into caloric negative state or a catabolic state. That is the be all and end all of what it means to be on a diet in order to lose weight. Anything other than being in a caloric negative state will not result in weight lose.

This is the most important thing to know for a cutting diet. Eating the same foods as always and adding exercise may not work. If you already eating too many calories and are in a caloric surplus state then exercising won’t do anything to help you shed the pounds.

We will get to a caloric negative state by first understanding our caloric maintenance requirements. That is, we will find out how that range of caloric intake where we will neither be gaining weight (growing) or losing weight (shriking). This may be a small range or a large range depending on your body and your metabolism. We figure out this caloric amount through trial and error, guessing, and estimation. For me I know that if I eat around 2200 calories I will lose a bit of weight. Above 2200 calories my bodies just stays the same. Therefore when I am trying to lose weight I want to eat 2000-2200 calories a day and here is why…

To be dieting to lose weight I want to be in a catabolic state, a state in which I am losing weight. However, I don’t want to lose a lot of muscle while I am loosing body fat. I don’t think anyone, men or women, really ever need to lose muscle. In order to lose body fat while limiting how much muscle I lose I want to be in a catabolic state BUT JUST BAIRLY.

Like I said before the body is pretty amazing and if we force our body into a deep catabolic state, i.e. a very low caloric intake that becomes a large caloric negative state, our body will respond by slowing our metabolism and go into what is normally called “starvation mode”. If this happens our weight lose will happen just very very slowly. What we really want to do is to “trick” our body into losing weight. By consuming a diet with a slightly deficient number of calories while allowing our metabolism to stay elevated. We will be in a caloric deficiency but our body will not respond as if we were starving.  Our high metabolism will cause the weight lose and not our exercise and we never want to negatively affect our metabolism by eating too little!

There are tools we can use to help us attain this state. This is where exercise comes into play and also the timing of how we eat our food.

When it comes to dieting to lose weight EXCERSICE IS SECONDARY TO EATING CORRECTLY. Exercise will be a tool we use to keep our metabolic rate, or our metabolism, elevated. That is all it will be used for. I actually recommend you totally forget about the number of calories you burn during exercise. It is almost meaningless for most people. Exercise burns so few calories it is not worth worrying about until we are at an advanced level of dieting and have practiced with dieting. Why exercise does work to help us burn calories is because it gets our metabolic rate to become elevated and this metabolic rate stays elevated even after the exercise is over. Most of the calories burned from exercise happen after we have stopped the exercise! We continue to burn calories for hours after we stop exercising.

What I personally recommend is weight lifting instead of cardio if one wants to lose weight and only has a short bit of time in the gym. Weight lifting will raise your metabolic rate more than cardio will and has the benefit of helping you maintain muscle mass while your body loses muscle and body fat during the cutting diet. If cardio is fun for you then short (15-30 minutes) of low intensity cardio should be enough (120 heart beats a minute) to get your metabolic rate up. Again, don’t worry about the calories burned during exercise.

Other important things to know… two things that burn A LOT of calories… having muscle mass and EATING. Someone with more muscle will burn more calories just sitting on their butt then someone will less muscle sitting on their butt. Having muscle increases your metabolic rate and it is important to know that muscle has a higher caloric requirement then body fat in a resting phase (the phase we are in most of the time). As important to know is that eating burns a lot of calories. Eating is a great way to lose weight!!!

Repeating again… eating is a great way to lose weight. Eating burns calories and increases our metabolic rate!! Hooray! This means we should be eating all the time right? Correct!

If we are eating all the time it should be easy for use to avoid going too low into caloric deficiency and therefore into starvation mode. How do we eat all the time but stay out of our caloric maintenance phase and in our caloric deficient phase??? We eat a lot of small meals throughout the entire day :)

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Here is an example of what I mean:

Based on a 2100 calorie cutting diet for my body:

Meal one:  400 calories (A big breakfast is really important, it gets your metabolism going after sleeping. During sleep your metabolic rate slows and this is not what we want when dieting to lose weight. This should be the biggest meal of the day!)

Meal two: snack 200 calories

Meal three: 300 calories (lunch)

Meal four: pre gym meal 300 calories

Meal five: post gym meal 300 calories

Meal six: an hour after the gym lets eat again – 300 calories

Meal seven:  right before bed to keep our metabolism going before sleep let’s eat 300 calories

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This diet outlines how we can get the calorie count we want and spread it out throughout the day. 200-300 calories isn’t a lot but if you eat often enough you should never be that hungry. (keep in mind you caloric requirement to cut weight will not be the same as mine). If you do get hungry try downing an entire glass of water in one go and then wait 10 minutes. In our North American society we often mistake thirst as hunger, how crazy is that!

What do we eat for those calories throughout the day? Healthy food. You already know what they are. Vegetables and fruit. Good slow absorbing carbs like oatmeal or non-white pastas. Brown rice. Lean sources of protein, chicken, steak, turkey, pork, ect … good fats from things like almonds and other nuts along with fish, drink lots of water, whey powder if you want before and right after the gym. We don’t have to be too strict here we just have to know we are inside our caloric window. This typically means that eating out at restaurants is hard though because we can’t be sure what we are getting. Cooking at home isn’t really a big deal though and it allows us to know exactly what we are eating.

The best part, take one day off your diet one day a week and eat whatever you want! This is called a “cheat” day or if you prefer a “cheat meal” (this is one cheat meal instead of an entire cheat day). It gives us a rest from our diet. It makes you pumped to get back on your diet the next day after  you cheat and it gives your brain a rest from dieting. It also gives your metabolic rate a kick in the junk and helps insure we don’t fall into the dreaded starvation mode.

So now you know what I think about dieting. Forget eating a cupcake and running on a treadmill to burn off the exact number of calories, it just doesn’t work as a long term solution. What does work is cutting the way I have outlined above until we arrive at our desired body weight and then switching back to caloric maintenance amount. Using the approach above you can expect to lose 0.5-2 pounds a week. Ideally we don’t want to lose much more than 1 pound a week. Crash diets don’t work in the long term. If you find that you are not losing any weight then reduce you daily calorie intake by 200 calories, reduce each meal throughout the day appropriately. Repeat this 200 calorie drop until you are at about a 1 pound loss a week and then maintain that level of calories for the day.

(just a note: if you finding drops the calories isn’t working try eating more! I have made this mistake before. I was eating 1800 calories a day, my diet started to stall out, and nothing was happening. I upped my calorie intake to 2200 and the weight started to come off once again)

I hope this was all helpful. If you have any questions just ask. Happy dieting :)