Chase Nelson

Fauxbesity Challenge: The Wrap-up

January 16, 2012

I didn’t win the fauxbesity challenge. I’m a very competitive person and this upsets me greatly but the competition was fierce and with a challenge like this everyone wins.

My weigh-ins over the course of the 8 week period are here:

Date	Weight		%
11/7/2011	193.3	0.00%
11/14/2011	191.5	0.93%
11/21/2011	191.4	0.98%
11/28/2011	184.9	4.35%
12/5/2011	190.1	1.66%
12/12/2011	187.5	3.00%
12/19/2011	193.5	-0.10%
12/26/2011	187.5	3.00%
1/2/2012	185	4.29%

My low was actually a 181lb weigh-in which I recorded two weeks in a row before and after Thanksgiving. Those recordings were taken mid-week and didn’t count as official weigh-ins. I did get cocky half way through and fell off the program with some family in town. No excuses though – play like a champion.

On the final day, I tried to make a comeback by using this hot bath dehydration method. I last an hour in the bath and lost a bit over 3lbs in that period of time. It was really hard to stay in the tub as prescribed and I have a whole new respect for guys that are about to shed 15-20 pounds in a single day doing this. Nuts. This is not fun at all.

In the end, the victor lost almost 20lbs and I send my praise (and money) his way. I look forward to giving this a shot again next year.

Posted by Chase in Health and Fitness.

Poem on Enterprise Software

January 10, 2012

timeline pulled out of ass by executive management
timeline shared with client due to fear
product cuts scope until functionality equal to worthless
everyone forgets purpose of functionality
development slaves away towards timeline building worthless functionality
voices raised, tears shed
timeline met, functionality unused
rinse and repeat

Posted by Chase in Uncategorized.

Weight-loss: Slow carb, cold showers, Crossfit

November 19, 2011

Recently, I wrote about the Faux-besity challenge that has me trying to lose the most weight possible over 8 weeks and during the two most gluttonous holidays America knows.

My approach is to first establish a solid program and get my body used to being at a lower weight as quickly as possible. Even though a lot weight can be dropped over a 24 hour period with some intense methods, I first intend to drop my overall bodyweight 10-15 pounds in 3 weeks and get my body used to that going into the final 5 weeks.

My program involves three critical elements:

One: Slow Carb Diet
The slow-carb diet was introduced to me in the book 4HB by Tim Ferriss and on his blog in this article. I used it before to lose 20 pounds in 6 weeks with some slacking off so know I can do the same again easily.

I break it down into these quick rules:
A: Avoid white carbs like bread, tortillas, noodles, rice, potatoes.
B: Eat high-protein breakfast within 30 minutes of waking.
C: Drink a lot of water…and then more.
D: No alcohol save 1-2 glasses of red wine per night.
E: Give yourself a cheat day once a week. Make it the same day.

Two: Cold Exposure

For the 8 weeks I will be purposefully exposing myself to cold and forcing shivers. This includes nothing but freezing cold showers for the next 8 weeks. I’ll tell you more about this in a future post.

Three: Crossfit

I tried Crossfit with a friend of mine years ago and it was by far the most effective exercise methodology resulting in improved overall fitness, weight-loss and bad assery. I recently started this at San Francisco Crossfit and won’t change my plans of going regularly as part of this. Gaining muscle may jeopardize my win but it is a risk I’m willing to take.

Leave any other tips you may have in comments.

Cheers,
Chase

Posted by Chase in Health and Fitness.

Faux-besity Challenge: Week 1 Review

November 17, 2011

A friend of mine, codename Jorg Jorgensen, suggested that we have a weight-loss challenge…over the holidays. It sounded like a good opportunity to win and therefore I took him up on the challenge. We’ve rallied together a group of like-minded faux-bese friends and family to take part in the challenge.

Challenge is taking place from November 7th to January 1st. The winner is the individual that loses the highest % of their total body weight during that time.

Start: 193.3 lbs
Week 1: 191.5 lbs

I plan to dominate in this competition through hard work, discipline, treacherous undermining of my competitors. Stay tuned for details my program, progress and undermining.

Posted by Chase in Health and Fitness.

WOD Review: Nov 10

November 10, 2011

Today’s WOD Review:
Front-squat 5×3 – work up to heavy weight and then complete the sets
Front-squat test – no racking, squat once every 15 seconds, I forget how many minutes it was…
Tabata Burpees

Results:
The coach, Carl, gave me some instruction on form and suggested that for the next 8 weeks I focus on super light weight to ensure I’m activating certain muscles that haven’t recovered properly since my knee and ankle surgeries. Therefore, my initial front-squat was just with the bar. I have to tense my muscles so hard through my legs and core to get close to the proper form that even this is very fatiguing.

The front squat test I added 20lbs and completed all sets. This is a killer on your arms but great practice for getting flexibility up top and getting the bar on top of your chest.

Tabata Burpees. Just brutal. Lost count the first round and never got it back. Gotta work on keeping track and logging my baselines.

Awesome workout.

Posted by Chase in Health and Fitness, WOD.

WOD Review: Nov 8

November 8, 2011

I joined San Francisco Crossfit a few weeks ago and am working through serious beginner stage. The coaches and other crossfitters kick ass, provide great instruction, and are so friendly. This place rocks.

Today’s WOD Review:
21, 18, 15, 12, 9 Thrusters and Toes2Bar (I subbed Knees2Elbows)

Results:
Reached time cap at 20min on the round of 9 which was pretty embarrassing. That said I still kicked my own ass. I need to improve my kipping motion to make that more efficient. My arms are toast in a few minutes just hanging from the pull-up bar and most my time was spent trying to do proper reps of knees2bows. My burning arms and fatigued core brought pukie pretty close. Thrusters (with 20 pound dumbells) were the bright spot. My squat form is getting better as I’m really focusing on my hip flexibility so it is slowly getting easier to get my knees out and into my corners. A long way to go still and need to improve locking out the arms and getting the head through and forward.

Posted by Chase in Health and Fitness, WOD.

Image: The Handshake

August 22, 2011

Whether we like it or not, the handshake is one of those critical elements of a first impression. If I have children I will certainly advise them that to get to know a man is “to shake his hand…to look him in the eye”. I loved seeing this image therefore from the Art of Manliness (one of my favorite blogs):

Posted by Chase in Uncategorized.

The Common Sense of a Giant

August 16, 2011

My brother, Craig, does new employee training at our family business and presents the following as being representative of the company culture we strive to maintain and grow. I keep it next to my desk at home as a reminder of both how to act and the type of people to invite into my life.

The Common Sense of a Giant

Stealing shamelessly from Marvin Bower once of McKinsey & Co. I want you all to know what kind of behavior we admire, and what kind of behavior we deplore:

First, we admire people who work hard. We dislike passengers who don’t pull their weight in the boat.

We admire people with first-class brains, because you cannot run a great organization without brainy people.

We admire people who avoid politics — office politics, I mean.

We despise toadies who suck up to their bosses; they are generally the same people who bully their direct reports.

We admire the great professionals, the craftsmen who do their jobs with superlative excellence. We notice that these people always respect the professional expertise of their colleagues in other departments.

We admire people who hire people who are good enough to succeed them. We pity people who are so insecure that they feel compelled to hire inferior people as their direct reports.

We admire people who build up and develop their employees, because this is the only way we can promote from within the ranks. We detest having to go outside to fill important jobs and look forward to the day when that will never be necessary.

We admire people who practice delegation. The more you delegate, the more responsibility will be loaded upon you. The more you trust others to do their job, the more we all get done.

We admire kindly people with gentle manners who treat other people as human beings. We abhor quarrelsome people. We abhor people who wage paper warfare. We abhor buck passers and people who don’t tell the truth.

We admire well-organized people who deliver their work on time.

We admire people who are good citizens in their communities — people who work for their local hospitals, their church, the PTA, and so on.

We admire people who accomplish a great deal while having fun.

We admire you.

I couldn’t find the orignal source for this as I have it in hard-copy. I don’t take credit for the content here but support the sentiment.

Posted by Chase in Uncategorized.

OLO: Only Laughed Once

July 2, 2011

I can be a pretty exuburent laugher but let’s be honest LOL doesn’t really apply to me. When I’m on the web, if something drives me to laughter it is generally a single half chuckle. Therefore instead of typing LOL, it feels more appropriate to type OLO. You’re welcome.

Posted by Chase in Uncategorized.

Google TV Review

December 17, 2010

Expectations are the devil:

There was a boat-load of excitement on my part when this came out. So much so that I took the Best Buy gift cards that had been in my drawer for over a year and without thinking twice marched to Best Buy to get one. I had messed around prior and created my own HTPC using many of the methods you can find online but they just never got it right. I was thrilled to think Google had tackled this challenge.

Positives:

Initially, I wasn’t entirely let down. I was scared of the Sony controller so I went with the LogitechRevue (and I already had a TV). The keyboard had some great features like a dedicated search button with which you can search the internet or TV shows currently playing or playing in the future. There is a nice trackpad in the upper right which allows for easy mousing about. The keyboard is super light as well which is not the reason I am so tempted to toss it out the window…

Track This, Pad!

Although I just listed the trackpad as a positive it has some major shortcomings. The first, is that the trackpad doesn’t click itself. It’s not a button. Ok that’s fine. There is a button under it. But only one button. There is no right-click button. If you’re only going to have one button, make the track-pad itself the button. Furthermore, right next to the mouse-click button is the ‘Back’ button. Easily 75% of the time I’m trying to click the mouse button I click the ‘Back’ button. What’s more, there is no forward button in sight to quickly reverse the mayhem. Enough on that.

Wire…less Refresh

The wireless on the revue device seems pretty horrible. I barely get any wireless reception. Yes, I have it on the shelf of a TV stand (so wood on all sides but one) but…they should have planned for that. So while browsing, really enjoying surfing the web mid-TED talk and the internet gets lost. Let me hit the refresh button. That’s right, to compound the problem there isn’t a refresh button (unlike their new notebook). I know that I can hit Ctrl-R but I’ve gone one hand on the control and the other wrapped around a Super Burrito. Give me a friggin refresh key.

Au Reviour Alt

Onwards. I mentioned the awesome search button but, alas, it replaced my favorite ‘alt’ key. That’s right my favorite ‘alt’ key. I do not care for the ‘alt’ key whatsoever on the right side of the keyboard. I only use the one on the left. Now it’s gone. So to restart the revue, I now have to press Ctrl with one hand and alt and delete with the other hand. I feel the carpal tunnel creeping up already.

TV Integration

So I don’t pay for cable. I don’t steal it…but I plug my TV into the wall (or my wall into the TV) and I get channels. This doesn’t Jive with GoogleTV so I don’t reap most of the benefits that it offers like searching your show directory, live TV, and PIP. Those things will be sweet one day… For now though, they aren’t sweet. What’s also not sweet is that the keyboard control doesn’t allow you to switch inputs on your tv. It does act as a universal remote and I can set up hotkeys but come on. Their is an input key (FN-TV) but all that does is take me from any other input on my TV to GoogleTV. It doesn’t take me back. Sad faic.

So although I eagerly await HuluPlus (or Hulu hack) and the Google TV App Store to make this purchase worthy of my nearly free purchase (remember the gift cards). Overall, I say give this another 6 months before you think about buying yours. If you have a cable box and want to be able to search that directory it may be worth it. For me, right now, it’s not and it may see the old Customer Service/Returns desk at Best Buy real soon.

Feel free to ask me any questions you may have. Happy Travels.

Posted by Chase in Uncategorized.

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