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25 August 2008 tagged food, weight loss, weight watchers with 2 comments
First off, I’ll just say that this is one of those threads / memes / topics that I haven’t really ever gotten into when it comes to blogging. I know Jason had some great success documenting his process, Joe Jaffe as well, so maybe I’m late to the game, but whatever. I’m adding my own secret sauce, if you will.
Cutting to the chase, though, and I’m happy to admit that as of this morning, I’ve lost 15 lbs. since July 13, 2008. Taking a tip from The Fiancee, I decided to, partially in support of her efforts and partially because I thought it was a good idea, join Weight Watchers - I’m really just using it to keep track of what I eat, and to have a grasp of what “costs” what when it comes to food. What I think has been the biggest thing for me is how easy it’s been to lose weight, without TOO dramatically hindering my ability to like food, which I do. I still eat ice cream - just not as much; I still drink soda - but have switched to something like Sprite Zero, Diet Dr Pepper, and so forth. I’ve never really been a fan of the “diet” versions of most of the colas and such I like, but from time to time I’ll give them a whirl.
That said, here’s the quick and dirty - I get a certain amount of “points” per day that I can eat on Weight Watchers’ “flex” plan. Additionally, I get a number of points that I can use throughout the week, on days I might go “over,” have dinner out, or something else. You don’t have to use those extra points, but you’re supposed to use all of your daily points. To give you some perspective, it’s all about calories, fat, and fiber - that’s how the points are figured out. The thing that gets you thin(ner) is the perspective, if you ask me. For instance, a can of regular soda, most of the beer I’d drink (I don’t do light beer), and a few other things I liked to have on a regular basis all have a value of 3 points. Sprite Zero? Zero points. Three buffalo wings? Nine points. A cup of penne pasta? Four points. And so on.
Let’s just say that the biggest difference - seriously - that I’ve made is that I’ve stopped dropping 9-15 points a day in random things. Beyond that, I’ve started to get my sugar cravings out of the way with one- or two point J-ello puddings, for instance. Some things are surprisingly high in points - most PB&J sandwiches I’d make run about 8 or 9 points. Heck, a hot dog might be five points, but the bun is typically three! Might not sound like a lot, but it should when that’s about a third of the points you’re supposed to take in during the day.
I’ve never really, in my life, gone on any sort of “diet,” weight loss regimen, or followed any sort of plan for eating. Weight Watchers says, publicly, that it’s not a diet, and I have worked with a few people who’ve handed PR for the brand, and they tell me much of the same. I’m not going to compare it to anything else or any other diet, because I’ve seen great results on a lot of people from a number of different areas, but what I will say is that having some level of consciousness about what I’m eating is pretty much the big hitch. I’ve gotten fast food at least once per week while I’ve been doing this, and while I might have tweaked what I’d normally get, I’m not forbidding myself from eating anything - hence my being pleased with the situation.
I’m pretty psyched about the whole thing and while my “goal” is to lose about another 6+ lbs, I’m thinking I can actually take it a little further, and I’m sure I’ll have to add a lot more fitness-related things to get to that second point. I’m just flat out surprised that it was so relatively easy - with its periodic frustrations (no really, I’d like another glass of red wine, please) - to change eating habits and not really doing anything different w/r/t the gym, running, and so on. If only everything else worked this way. For someone who isn’t really a process / order guy, I’m surprised to be bought into something, but I guess that’s the point, huh?
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23 August 2008 with no comments
Okay, so I caught this the other night and actually watched it two or three times on the DVR - in a row - before moving on and finding it online, and I’ve had the browser tab open ever since. Check out the Monday Night Football spot below, featuring a notable performer in recent times, and a nifty dream sequence. Oh yeah, it’s all about the dream sequence.
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18 August 2008 tagged Blogging, chris thilk, Movies, spout with 1 comment
Okay, aside from the SEO game that my headline is trying to play here, I’d like to take a moment and congratulate Chris Thilk, my former team member at MWW Group and fellow writer from the days of AdJab, on accepting a new gig with Spout, where he’ll be the director of marketing. This is a really awesome move for Chris and I’m psyched for him, as he’s going to be working wall to wall on something he loves — movies.
Mid-July was the first time since 2005 or thereabouts that I haven’t been working “with” Chris in some fashion, and I’m sure I’ll go into some sort of mental recession about it in the coming months, but for now, I’ll just wish him good luck and all that stuff.
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1 August 2008 tagged animation, get your war on with 1 comment
Just read, via Eliot, that Get Your War On is now available in fun and exciting animation. Check it out here, from 23/6. Oh, and it’s definitely NSFW.
Make sure you go back and check out the time when Voltron showed up one day - “Damn I can’t believe he’s TRULY MADE OUT OF MECHANICAL LIONS!!!” - or when the guys looked at “Matthew Brady daguerrotypes of battlefields” from the Civil War. So random.
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1 August 2008 tagged beer, Photos, yuengling with no comments
Thought I’d share some photos we took last weekend out in Pottsville, PA at the Yuengling brewery. Definitely worth the drive, and it’s a pretty neat little town to check out, too. During the week you tour while the brewery is running, unfortunately not on the weekend - so no cool stuff to see going on, but fun nonetheless.
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25 July 2008 tagged jobs, PR, public relations with 7 comments
It’s been awhile since I’ve had some solid time to write anything of note here, but I figured this was a good time. Thought I would update all of you with the news that I’ve left my agency gig at MWW Group, and have joined MTV. I’ll be working with the awesome MTV Press team, where I’ll be building on my PR and marketing roots and applying my social media skills. You’ll probably see me working on biz press, ad sales, metrics, and digital news, of which the company is doing a ton of pretty awesome things that I’m excited to see first-hand.
It’s a great opportunity to be a part of something very awesome. I’ve always had a thing for MTV as it’s pretty synonymous with my generation’s interest in television, from way back when we had a console TV and this Jerrold box to control our cable. Combine that with my interest in media that came to life via a few blogs I’ve been a part of (not to mention the ones I read on a daily basis - Lost Remote and Rexblog, I’m looking at you) over the last few years, and you’ve got a great mix.
I’ll still be blogging here and a few other places, and am not sure what my current plans are for The Media Drop. I’d hate to put the kibosh on it, but I can’t say that I have the ability to dedicate a certain amount of time that it deserves, and frankly a whole lot of things I’d be writing would probably be somewhat conflicted, and I’d rather not leave readers looking for more than I can crank out.
In any case, it was great having exposure to a lot of great people, awesome clients, and some irreplaceable experiences for the last (just about) three years, and I’m psyched to be starting a new chapter, especially somewhere that I’ll be able to learn a ton and be able to apply almost all of my career experiences to my day-to-day. I’ll take a minute and throw some special thanks to all the fine folks that gave me an awesome shot in starting off a digital media team at a bigtime PR firm (you know who you are), and the teams, clients, and other shops who I was able to work with. In addition, I’ve been able to become great friends with some very cool people, like Josh, Jeremy, Chris (who I had on my team for 2+ years), John (who I had on my team for about a year), Phil, Mike, Dave, and a slew of others that I’d probably get busted down to a PR of 0 for link farming if I continued linking to. You know who you are and I probably owe you all a beer or two.
I’m still reachable at all the usual email addresses, IM accounts, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and so on, so don’t worry about needing to track me down.
Feel free to look me up the next time you’re in the Times Square area, and you can buy me a coffee. Okay, okay, I’ll buy.
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22 July 2008 tagged iphone app with no comments
Just testing out the new iPhone application for WordPress!
Wondering if I can publish multimedia on this thing at some point….
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7 July 2008 tagged beijing, bob silver, emily silver, olympics, swimming with no comments
Just wanted to throw out a hearty congrats to Emily Silver, the daughter of a colleague of mine, who came in 5th during Friday’s Olympic Trials in the 100m freestyle, qualifying her to go to Beijing as an alternate. She broke two fingers on Saturday’s semis for the 50m freestyle, but is still all set to train starting this week and head out to Beijing. Very awesome!
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2 July 2008 tagged gear, puma, sale, sneakers with no comments
If you’re looking to snag some Puma gear, you can do so and get a 20% discount at puma.com if you enter the code “RWB20″ at checkout. Looks like it’s good for anything but Mongolian Shoe BBQ. Woot!
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26 June 2008 tagged Colorado, Pete Lacis, seo with 1 comment
I’d just like to take the time to point out this article from FOX Business about my former colleague and current Colorado-living pal Pete Lacis and his latest biz conquest in the search engine optimization space. My reasons for posting this are twofold - one, because it’s pretty cool when someone you know gets a great hit like this (where’s my shoutout, dammit?! Just kidding.), and two, because I made an SEO-related bet with someone about this blog post.
Let’s see how this works out. Oh, and congrats, Pete! You had to expect some good natured ribbing after an article like that, right?
