I am experimenting with my eating and exercising. This week I'm not exercising at all to see if it makes a difference to my weight loss. I weigh myself every morning when I get up, and from what I can tell, I'm still on track to lose two pounds by Saturday. I'll probably go back to walking 5-6 miles a day next week. I miss the time and quietness the walks afforded me. I think about things as I walk, and these sessions help to reduce my stress level.

My low calorie eating plan is going well. I'm not as strict as other low calorie eaters. I found a formula in the book Dieting Dummies, which I used to calculate how many calories I would need to eat to lose two pounds a week. You take your current weight and multiply that number by 10. Then you multiply your current weight by your activity level, the scale being 1 to 5. Then you mulitply your current weight by 1 to account for how many calories you burn for bodily functions. I think this is the formula. I have it in a spreadsheet at home, so I'll have to check if it's correct. The final amount is the number of calories you need to eat every day to maintain your current weight.

This the how I calculated my low calorie eating plan. My current weight was 168 pounds. 168 X 10 = 1,680. 168 X 4 = 672. I used 4 because I'm walking 5-6 miles a day. 168 X 1 = 168. These numbers together add up to 2,520. To lose two pounds a week, you subtract 1,000 from your total. You use 1,000 because you need burn or restrict 3,500 calories to lose one pound. To lose two pounds, you need burn or restrict 7,000 calories. 7,000 calories divided by 7 days is 1,000.

I'm looking at my formula, and I'm thinking something about it doesn't look right. I didn't buy the Fitness for Dummies book either, so if got it wrong, I'm like whatever. It's working.

Anyway, I try to eat 1,520 calories a day. Since I make my living as financial/reporting analyst, I track everything in an excel workbook complete with a graph and trend line to monitor my progress. Every day I input what I eat into a worksheet and the amount of calories per food item. Since I tend to eat the same foods, it's been relatively easy. I eat whatever I want, and there are no forbidden foods. But every day, my calorie total has to 1,520 or less.

Every day for work, I consume a breakfast of 300 or so calories. Breakfast is always the same. One Richard Schulze superfood shake with one cup of apple juice, one banana and water. I eat one packet of oatmeal sweetened with Equal, when I get work. I also drink two cups of coffee, with equal and soy milk or lactose free fat free milk.

Yes, I'm one of those people who drink soy milk. I was told I was lactose intolerant, so I drink soy milk or lactose free milk. I'm totally picky about my soy milk too, and only buy soy milk with less than 10 grams of carbos. There is no reason why soy milk should have more than 10 grams of carbos. If the soy milk does, then the manufacturer is putting lots of sugars into it, and there's no need to do that. I buy organic soy milk from a california grocery chain, not a health food store mind you, because they carry an organic soy milk brand with less than 2 grams of carbos. I used to only drink soy milk, but I'm experimenting with lactose free fat free milk for cereals.

For lunch, I usually have two cups of soup. I try to find a soup where one cup equals 100 calories or less. I also eat one serving of some kind of cracker or bread that is 100 calories or less. I also usually eat two pieces of fruit as a snack in the morning and during the afternoon. Fresh fruits are good snacks since one piece of fruit is usually 100 calories or less.

By the time I get home, my calorie count is usually about 800-900 calories. Most of my calories come at dinner, which means I can either eat out or have a dinner at home and have lots of snacks. I normally eat a handful of almonds every day, which is about 85 calories. A healer told me that if I ate at least 3 almonds a day, I would never get cancer. It sounds odd, but I'm doing it and I love eating almonds anyway. If I have a low calorie dinner, I splurge on snacks. I buy all my favorite low calorie snacks at places like Trader Joes. My low calories snacks include cheese puffs, cheese crunchies, caramel popcorn, graham crackers, sugar free chocolate, and english ginger cookies.

Eating has become like a fun game to play. I enjoy counting and measuring out my food. I am seriously thinking of investing in a scale, because not all food labels are precise about what constitutes one serving. Like how am I supposed to know how much one ounce of something is without a scale? Not having a scale has seriously decreased my snack options, since I only buy food that's easy to measure or count. I also enjoy surfing the net to find out how many calories are in restauarant food, if I do eat out. My analytical side gets a kick out of tyring to estimate how many calories are in a dish like pad thai.

As I noted in previous entries, I've had days where I can't follow my low calorie plan. These free for all days don't seem to have affected my weight loss rate, but I'm also only in the beginning of my new eating plan. A day or two off the wagon probably isn't going to affect my weight loss just yet. It will be interesting to see down the road, if a couple of free for all eating days will affect my weight loss trends. Right now, I think it's too early to tell.

I'm noticing that I do really well with a disciplined way of doing things, where I can combine my natural analytical side with my creative side. My current job as a financial reporting analyst appeals to both these sides. Someone tells me they want to see a certain data set. It's my job to figure out how to get that data set out of a large database, consisting of a million rows and up. It's up to me how to get the data, but I also have to be able to verify and justify the way I gathered the data to my bosses, clients and an auditing firm. My method has to make sense logically and also add up. Most of my job is just creative problem solving, how to get from point A to point B, but I also have to make sure that whatever I come up with adds up and makes sense. I'm alot like a regular old programmer designing reports, but I can't just spit out a report and hand it off to someone else to verify for accuracy. I'm the one who has to verify the accuracy of my data and my reports. You could say, I'm a little above a programmer, like a programmer plus.

I became a programmer plus by accident. I used to work at this one company where the reporting programmers in the IT department would create reports, but always said that the accuracy was totally dependent on the user/creator. As a user/creator, I hated their response and so did my bosses. I didn't understand why a programmer couldn't tell that their report was off, and then do something to fix it before it got to my desk.

I got started doing what I'm doing because the financial analysis group that I was working for, decided that they would bypass the IT department all together and have me program reports. I was the user/creator and the programmer all wrapped up in one. If my department wanted changes, they could have them right away and didn't have to wait for some crusty programmer's schedule to open up. It was a more hands on way of working for them, and I was good at it, very good. That was about 10 years ago, and this is the fourth company where I perform this function. What can I say, it's a living, it's creative in its own way, it pays the bills quite nicely, and I have my own office now.

Still no car today. I called my car dealer at 4 pm, and VW repair guy says that they're replacing the window parts on both my front doors. A three hour job has now turned into a five hour job, but he says tomorrow definitely. The old window parts were made of plastic, and the new window parts are made of metal. VW repair guy says if they don't replace the passenger side door, it will probably break in six months anyway. Again, it sounds like I am not the only one who's had the window up and down thingie breaking in their car.

I guess I can't complain, because VW is doing the job for free. VW repair guy said the job would normally have cost $400. He's calling it a goodwill repair, because it's been 3.5 months since my warranty ended. My extended warranty would have covered it anyway, and I paid extra to have a zero deductible. I bought my extended warranty from them. Isn't it on my record? Whatever. I just want my car back.

Getting up an hour earlier is really wrecking my sleep pattern. By 11:30 pm, I am so sleepy. Being tired at that hour is so strange for me. I'm not making my own coffee either, and instead have been having coffee at work which is making me feel totally jittery. My gourmet coffee beans are a low acidic blend, so they don't mess with your tummy and your nerves. Who knows that the office coffee is made of and where those beans came from? I tried taking a new coffee thermos to work, but they always leak and coffee stain everything in my bag. I hate this! I sound so darn whiney.

My poor car. I know my baby wants to come home. I know he hates being in the car hospital like this. VW repair guy said my car would be ready tomorrow, which is Thursday. Something is telling me my car won't be ready till Friday. This is one time I hope my intuition isn't right.

Below is a couple of paragraphs from an email I received, written by a member of my church (ST) on the US going to war against Iraq. My church is full of people who think very deeply about issues, and aren't "knee-jerk" reactives.

"I am concerned about a unilateral, as opposed to a multi-lateral or United Nations approach to Iraq. Any use of force, even in international matters, must be based on the rule of law. However, to say that one can use force against an international outlaw only when he is armed to the teeth and is ready to start an offensive is an invitation to a most destructive and horrific scenario. In the last couple of years, I visited parts of Germany and, even 55 years later, the signs of the destruction of World War II are almost unbelievable. What if Hitler were stopped in the mid-1930's when he started building up armaments and when he occupied the Rhineland?

Christians are sometimes "knee-jerk" pacifists who reject any use of force, even when it aims to prevent the threat of far greater danger. I do not necessarily agree with Bush's approach, but I also don't agree with the opposite position."

I completely agree with his sentiment about our country taking a unilateral approach to Iraq. There are no other countries, with perhaps the exception of Britian, supporting us in a war with Iraq. To go to war without worldwide support is such a mistake. And like some people, I need to also know what our exit strategy is when Sadaam Hussein is overthrown. Who takes his place? What will the USA have to do to keep peace in the country once he's gone? If Hussein is toppled, will Iraq face threats from Iran? And if Iran tries to take over Iraq, will we be forced to defend Iraq?

Or will Iraq go the way of the former soviet republics after the fall of soviet communism, and turn to civil war or ethnic cleansing. If I'm not mistaken, Hussein is a Sunni muslim and the majority of Iraq is composed of Shiite muslims. Will the Sunnis and Shiites battle for the control of Iraq? Will Iraq turn into another Korea, where years after the Korean war, the US still maintains a demilitarized zone (DMZ)? Can the US afford to have another country where we need to keep peacekeeping troops or some kind of troops, just to keep peace in the country?

It is interesting thought to think about the question, what if Hitler were stopped earlier?

Taking public transportation to work is like anything else in life ... it's all in the timing. If you miss your connection, you're messed, especially if you're riding buses in two different counties. SF Muni I understand; I've been riding it for years. SamTrans is a totally different story, moreover, it's a totally different county.

But there's something universal about taking a bus. In Bali, London, Honolulu, NYC, Chicago, LA, Washington DC, Virginia, Maryland, and the SF Bay area, the buses always run late.

From Israel 21c, an essay from former Senator Paul Simon from Illinois entitled Scarce water at core of Middle East issues. Could this be true?

From The Middle East Times, More than water in the Israel-Turkey pipeline, another take on water as a source of midldle east tension.