Studio711.com – Ben Martens

On January 1, I weighed 227.2 pounds. Last Friday, I weighed 201.8. I originally set out to get down to 210 but then decided to get to the point where I was no longer classified as “overweight” according to the government BMI charts. That meant getting under 205. I’m pretty proud of this process because it’s the most weight I’ve ever lost and the longest I’ve stuck with anything like this.

I don’t remember what I weighed when I graduated from college but I think it was right around 210. For most of the years, I fluctuated between 215 and 220. When I hit 227 after the holidays, I knew I needed to make a change and tackle the problem while it was still manageable. Then I kind of got into the groove and just kept going. On the last day of the diet, I woke up and weighed 205.4. Knowing I was so close, I basically starved myself and ended up losing 3 pounds that day. Ha! Obviously I gained some of it back but I declared victory. I’m going to try to keep it under 210 and I think that’s pretty feasible given the improved habits I’ve formed over the last 5.5 months.

Everyone wants to know how I did it. Before I give any answers, I’ll say that this is the diet that worked for me. This is by no means a recommendation for you or a commentary on your choices. That being said, there are two parts to the question: what did I change with my eating and how did I stay motivated?

Eating changes:

• Avoid carbs. I’ve blogged about it before, but carbs are the biological start of generation of fat cells. I was unwilling to cut out carbs completely (I love beer and rum!) but I did scale way back. Most mornings I scramble eggs and throw in onion, sausage or ham, and cheese. It’s a very low carb meal and because I have everything chopped ahead of time, it’s super simple. I also stopped drinking orange juice in the mornings. If you’re doing a truly low carb diet, you should shoot for around 30 grams of carbs per day. One glass of OJ has about that many carbs! I ate a lot more salads at lunch with lots of meat on them and we cooked a lot more low carb dinner recipes. Genaw.com is a great resource for easy low carb recipes that generally taste good. We also stopped buying chips and desserts as an easy way to halt those temptations. I started going to the butcher regularly too so I could buy lots of delicious meat for the grill. All that being said, I still eat lots of carbs. The difference is that now I know when I’m doing it and I can balance it out. Cutting them out completely would have demoralized me and I wouldn’t have stuck with it. I found a balance that worked for me to lose weight but still enjoy some rum and Cokes or a burger with fries.
• Eat less. This is pretty obvious but eating less was a big key to success. More specifically, eating less at dinner is important for me. I can have large (but still relatively healthy) breakfasts and lunches, eat a smaller dinner and still lose weight. To help me eat less at dinner, I store the leftovers before we eat so I won’t be tempted by seconds and we use smaller plates. The upside of eating less is that each meal goes farther reducing the grocery bill and decreasing the number of nights when we have to cook.

That’s pretty much it. Simple, right? There are other things like shopping on the edges of your grocery store (produce, dairy, meat) and avoiding the aisles (processed foods, etc) but in general it all goes back to eating fewer carbs and eating less food. But how did I stay motivated? I’m a geek and I my day job is all about big data, so my motivation was data!

• Fitbit. Our health plan at work gives us some money to buy fitness related items so I picked up a Fitbit at the beginning of the year. It has been a very interesting source of data, but not nearly as helpful in losing weight as I thought it would be. I’ll show a data breakdown in a later post that will explain why.
• Scale. Every single morning, I stepped on a scale. It’s important to weigh yourself at the same point of your day every day because your weight varies dramatically over 24 hours. I’d always weigh myself as soon as I woke up before using the bathroom or eating anything. I logged that weight every day too. That was the biggest single factor in keeping myself accountable and motivated. I knew I had to write down my weight the next day and that I’d be disappointed in myself for splurging on food the day before.

This post is getting very long already so I’ll save the charts and graphs for another day.

A lot of friends and family have told me their losing weight right now. If you add up the weight loss from Don, Tim, Tyla and me over the last 6 months, you’d have over 100 pounds! Each of us is doing it slightly differently, but the results are all good. The “trick” is to define a sustainable plan that provides enough measureable improvement to keep you motivated. Don’t worry about following my plan or someone else’s plan exactly. Chances are, as you go through phases of weight loss, you’ll need to adjust your approach anyway. As long as you’re staying healthy and losing weight then you’re probably doing it right! (Or bonus points if you are already at your goal weight!)

As Tyla and I were discussing yet another public shooting, I made the comment that we shouldn’t get discouraged because this kind of thing has always happened throughout history. The difference is that now we hear about every single instance because of the Internet. When I said that, I was referring to the content of a book called The Better Angels Of Our Nature. The author goes back in history and shows that we’re living in the most peaceful time ever.

But then Tyla said, “What about compared to 10 years ago?” Umm… I don’t know? To the internet we go!

I found crime data for the last 55 years, pulled it into Excel using Power Query and then made a nice chart. I only showed every 5 years so that it would be a little more readable. The answer is yes, the US is a safer place than it was 10 years ago.

This spring has been WET. It’s so wet that even if we didn’t get another drop of rain until August 1, we would still set the record for the wettest February through July ever in Seattle! That’s saying a lot because spring is incredibly wet around here.

Since we started the yard project one week ago, we’ve had 70-75 degree sunshine every single day. It’s mind-boggling how nice the weather has been and how perfectly it lined up with our project. I’m so thankful! Heavy rains would really have changed this project.

I’ve been using Untappd.com for the last 18 months. It has been fun to keep track of all the different beers that I’ve had. While we were sitting in the stands for the Indy 500, I popped the top on my 100th different beer! It was a Schell’s Deer Brand straight from New Ulm, MN. I suppose technically I’ve had more than 100 different beers but I’m not counting any that I drank before I started using the app.

So now that I have all this data, what are the best beers? First I should start by explaining the rating scale that I use:

1. This isn’t what I call beer.
2. If somebody hands me one, I’ll drink it, but I wouldn’t pay for it.
3. If I can’t find #4 or #5, this is a good choice.
4. If I go to buy beer and this is on the shelf, I will almost always choose it.
5. Stockpile this beer! It’s awesome!

I also won’t let a beer get to #5 unless I’ve had it on multiple occasions. Sometimes a beer seems more delicious based on your social situation or the food you’re eating. A 5 star beer should be good any time!

So far, I’ve only given 5 stars to three beers:

• Galley Mac Amber Ale – This is the recipe that we used when we made our own beer. It’s a copy of the Mac & Jack’s African Amber recipe.
• Mac & Jack’s African Amber – The brewery is only a couple miles from work but I’ve never been there. WHY!?
• Deschutes Brewery Red Chair Northwest Pale Ale – This is only made 5 months out of the year so when I see it, I buy a lot of it.

There aretwo more beers that are vying for a spot on the 5-star list:

• Bell’s Brewery Two Hearted Ale. I had it for the first time on this last trip to Indianan and loved it. It’s similar to the Red Chair that is already on the list.
• Hopworks Velvet ESB – I had this in Portland but can’t find it here!

There are lots of four star beers on my list: Fat Tire, Redhook ESB, Alaskan Amber, Double Take Amber, Widmer Hopside Down, 10 Barrell Hop Project #37, Redhook Audible Ale, Anchor Brewing Liberty Ale, Fish Brewing Spire Mountain Cider, Gustav’s Enchantment Ale, Great Lakes Burning River Pale Ale, Left Hand Sawtooth Ale, Gallagher’s Cealidh Wheat, Gallagher’s Hals Celebration, Goose Island Honker’s, Silvery City Ridgetop Red, Pyramid Pale Ale, Manny’s Pale Ale, Hopworks Velvet ESB, Alaskan ESB, Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA, and Bell’s Two Hearted Ale.

That’s a lot of 4 star beers. I’m thinking I should run through them all again and see if they really are worth of their 4 star rating. Sounds delicious… challenge accepted!

Happy Memorial Day! The first thing that might pop into your mind is beer and barbeques, but don’t forget to thank a veteran today.

Memorial Day has a long history dating back to the 1800s when people would decorate the graves of fallen soldiers. There’s a lot of controversy about exactly how it started, but it was declared an official Federal holiday in 1967. At that point it was moved from always being on May 30 to being the last Monday in May. Can you imagine what would happen if they changed the date of a holiday now?

I first saw Zane Lamprey on a show that began in 2006 called Three Sheets. He traveled around the world learning about local alcohol and drinking customers. It was educational, intoxicating and funny all at the same time. The MOJO HD network got canceled and the show ended with it. The reruns fluttered around on various networks like FLN, Travel Channel and Spike but never got picked up for new episodes. You can still watch most of the episodes on Hulu for free.

His next show was called Drinking Made Easy. It was a similar idea except that this one featured a lot more of his friend Steve McKenna and it seemed more about drinking and less about education. I watched all the episodes but it never had quite the same appeal to me that Three Sheets did.

There were 50-60 episodes of each series before they died. Zane did some podcasting for a while but was always trying to find a way to get something like Three Sheets back on the air. It’s apparently very difficult to get TV studios and networks to pony up money for this type of show. So instead, he turned to his rabid and slightly inebriated fanbase in the form of a Kickstarter. The goal was to fund about 6 episodes of a new show he called “Chug.” The name is a reference to both drinking and the trains he’d use to travel from city to city. The funding campaign was an enormous success allowing them to produce more episodes and longer episodes than initially planned. The first episodes are coming out now, but you had to back his Kickstarter to view them. (Lucky me!)

In addition to the crowd funding, Zane put a bunch of his own money into the project too. In the end he had a show that was exactly what he wanted and he started shopping that around to the networks. But this time, instead of asking for money to produce the show, he was selling them the rights to air his program! What a different conversation! National Geographic liked it and will be airing the show. If it does well, they’ll fund another season out of their own pocket.

I’m not only happy for Zane and happy to see the new episodes of Chug, but I love this new model of funding your dreams. You no longer have to convince somebody behind a desk that your passion is worth their time. If your dream really does have a chance, you can prove it all on your own with crowd-funding from a site like Kickstarter. You cut out the middle man and go directly to the people.

I would have been even happier if Zane didn’t try to shop this around to the networks and instead did a completely web-based show, letting the people fund future seasons, but I guess there’s still enough money and distribution left in the networks to make that a worthwhile path. I’d be polishing my resume if I worked at a network though. Their days are numbered.

I’ve said this enough that you probably know it by now, but even though people think about rain when they think of Seattle, we actually get less rain than most other major cities in the country. That being said, 2014 has ben WET. At this point, we’ve already received the amount of rain that we normally get by Halloween! Last Saturday was the second rainiest day in May ever. Even if we got no more rain for the rest of the year, it still wouldn’t be the driest year on record.

The long range forecast says we’re heading toward an El Nino weather swing which generally means drier weather for the Pacific Northwest so we’ll see if this keeps up. But for now, our umbrellas are getting a lot more use than normal. [source]

I let my NRA membership lapse. I had it for a year because it was a requirement for joining the gun range. It was a tough call because overall, I generally agree with the things that the NRA supports. I started off in their corner but they turned me off.

1. As soon as you join, you’re automatically signed up for more junk mail (both electronic and physical) than you can imagine. You have to unsubscribe one by one and it takes forever.
2. There’s a non-stop call for more money. The world is going to end and Obama is going to personally come to your house and take your guns if you don’t give them money NOW.
3. They don’t come off as a level-headed organization. Just because the anti-gun lobby is whacko and illogical, that doesn’t mean that the NRA should go to the other extreme and scream just as loud. Why can’t they provide calm, logical arguments? It seems like that would go over a lot better with the public. Just being louder doesn’t mean you’re right.

If you thought that you got a lot of mail when you were a member, wait until you try to quit. It keeps coming and so do the phone calls. Finally one of the callers started the conversation with, “Is this a good number to call you at?” I replied, “No, this is a bad number. Please don’t ever call it again.” So far that seems to have been the end of it.

So while I still agree with most of their stances, I’m out. I know some of you are lifetime members and that’s great. I’m probably going overboard, but I have better things to spend my money on right now. If it was free I guess I might still have my name attached.

The Internet has enabled anyone to become a content creator. Quality content isn’t common, but there are more than a few people producing incredible content. The trick has been for these Internet shows to get enough money to support their high production values. Enter a website called Patreon.com. Patreon provides an easy way for viewers to give money to the people producing the content. Some content producers balk at this and view it as begging for money. I think the opposite is true: if Internet content gives me value, I want to give them money so they can keep doing what they are doing. We both benefit from the relationship.

The general format is that users say they will give $X for each episode but they can also set a monthly limit. So I might say that I’ll give you $1 per episode but I’ll limit it to $2/month. If you make three episodes in one month, you won’t get any money from me for that third one. So when you see total donation amounts per episode, remember that’s only guaranteed for the first episode of the month. It will probably drop down a bit for any episodes after that.

It has been quite successful for a couple of my favorite shows.

• Cordkillers has 1761 patrons giving them roughly $2300 per episode.
• Smarter Every Day has 1022 patrons giving him roughly $3600 per episode.

I’m hoping that some of the other web content I enjoy moves to this model so I can help support them and keep them “on the air.” The whole idea is a throwback to the middle ages when the wealthy would pay musicians and artists. The difference is that now we can crowdfund these and make it all happen with a tiny amount of money from a large number of people. I’d much rather give money directly to these independent creators than the huge chunk of money that goes to the cable company every month.

We’ve had our Escape for over a year now and we have just over 11,000 miles on it. I thought it was time for an update on our experiences.

The more I drive the car, the more I like it. Maybe it’s because I drive an economy car but I’m regularly impressed by the smooth and quiet ride of the Escape. The car had a bunch of features on it that I never would have thought I’d really want but some of them have grown on me. The biggest one is probably the memory seats and mirrors. I’m so much taller than Tyla that switching drivers takes quite a while. For a family vehicle that we both drive regularly, this feature is awesome. The power lift gate has been very handy too. With one arm full of baby and the other carrying bags, we just swipe our foot under the back bumper and the rear hatch opens automatically. That hands free goodness also lets us unlock the doors and start the car, all without digging out a key.

I put our Ford My Touch/Sync/Navigation in the “meh” category. It’s nice to have it all integrated and the big touch screen is good for displaying lots of info. The audio system has a bunch of inputs (radio, Sirius, USB, SD, etc) which is nice, but the actual user interface of the whole thing feels sluggish. Why can’t we just have a head unit that is basically an Android/Apple/Windows tablet? This interface already feels a big sluggish and out-of-date. What’s it going to feel like in 10 years? While I love having a nav system built-in to the car, I don’t know if I’d shell out the extra wad of cash to get this whole system again, especially when I think how it could be done better with a tablet at a fraction of the cost.

It has been in the shop for one issue which was covered under warranty. The coolant bypass valve failed which made the check engine light come on. They diagnosed that quickly and while it was in the shop, the parts came in for a recall. We had them keep the car and do it all at once. Our car was the first time they had run through the fairly involved recall repair and they ended up a part short which added more time. Once it was all done, they had kept our car for a week but they gave us a loaner so it wasn’t a huge issue.

I’m biased because my uncle works for Ford and pretty much everyone in my family drives a Ford. I was one of the oddballs who stepped out of the Ford family and went for a Subaru. But after driving this car, and after reading about what Alan Mulally has done at Ford in the past years, I’m pretty confident that our next purchase will be a Ford. The Subaru has just over 100K on it and is still going strong so if all goes well it will be a few years before we have to buy something new. But if I was buying a new car today, I’d probably go for a Focus as my commuter car for work. I’d love to get a big F150 but it’s hard to justify the cost at this point.