Everyday Systems

Hi Larissa, Here's a thread on this subject: http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=833 You don't have to run! 13 flights of stairs is plenty exercise just walking. The far more important thing is to do it consistently. I've found the easiest way to do it enough is to do it always. Just a sug...

Welcome, thejnaitor. Shovelglove and biking/running complement each other well. Keep us posted.

Congratulations, Tricia! Totally ok. People who post unrelated stuff here but nothing else are spammers, but for a regular like you it's all related.

I might have to ask you some questions about Lulu at some point. Madison avenue is taking a little too long to discover me

Reinhard

Hi Larissa,

Great to see you here again! And with such a solution to your problem!

Systematic or not, congratulations!

Any chance you'll put up little mp3 audio samples?

Reinhard

Thanks, David!

Assuming it worked? I'm glad weekend luddite is catching on. I've found it very useful. So much so that I'm expanding it to weekday mornings (I tried evenings but that was a dismal failure). I've been doing mornings since the end of August and although it was very tough at first, I think I've got it...

hlidskjalf, Congratulations! 7 is a numeralogically significant milestone! And uncharted territory. Glad to see that so far the 21 day goal is yielding fruit. Mozart with shovelglove? I like it... Wagner is the more obvious choice, but Mozart might make for a fuller body/soul workout. Sorry it's bee...

I'm really impressed with your determination and high standards. Keep it up!

Welcome, Eskh. Good, terse, successful start.

Welcome! Great start. Congratulations on becoming a father and taking the job seriously! Hope you can pull off your fourth restricted "S," that sounds tough. Do be sure to give yourself sufficient starchy reward on the weekend. If you do find it's too tough, there's no shame in going back to three e...

Sure it's possible. But it isn't very likely, for most fat people. The obesity rate in well-fed populations who move and eat meals is about 4%. Ours is over 30%. Same genes. So it seems that the vast majority of fat people today would not be fat if they behaved differently. If you look at the statis...

Sorry it's been forever since I popped in here... and sorry now that I finally have to see you've run into some trouble. You've made such great strides the last few months. I hope you won't let a lousy weekend completely derail you. Best of luck getting back on track and looking forward to hearing m...

New episodes of "health hacks" and "everyday systems podcast" are out. I did another segment on the nosdiet

Both are now in itunes.

Subscribe to one or both if you have a chance. Don't be shy about leaving comments in itunes! There's some critical mass to be built...

Reinhard

Josie, Congratulations! This is fantastic news. Wow. 289-193=96 pounds. Not that we obsess about numbers here, but wow. It's even more impressive considering you are not starving yourself but eating moderately and well. Thank you for posting! As for the exercise, 3 miles up and down hills sounds pre...

I've been shugging to foreign language podcasts/audiobooks, alternating between french, hebrew, and german. I count reps in the language I'm listening to. It's good practice because numbers come up a lot and are otherwise boring to practice and it's a very natural context. It's pretty automatic for ...

Took 1 "special" S day since last checkin (Labor day). Otherwise no funny stuff on any of the systems I'm tracking here. (weekend luddite, glass ceiling, nosdiet). I guess I'll report violations of shovelglove and urban ranger here too.. but I can't remember the last time one happened so I don't exp...

Saveferris, Taking my own advice, I just want to add: your post was funny and had some interesting (if incomplete) truths in it. It would have been a great blog rant directed against no one in particular. But this isn't a blog, it's a bulletin board, and that means we have to be a little more carefu...

Welcome, CipherSwarm.

I'm honored to have been noticed there, but, man, tough crowd, those commenters!

Reinhard

I'm glad to hear it, David.

If anyone has ideas for products I should feature on the main page or if one of my featured items becomes unavailable, please don't hesitate to let me know. I think I've got every available supersaver-shipping 36 inch sledgehammer amazon carries there right now.

Reinhard

I delete about 3 new spam accounts every day from this board, usually before they can post anything but sometimes one gets through. Sorry!

Need to write a program to automatically do this... it's very obvious which are spam accounts.

Woah. No flame wars while I'm doing weekend luddite please! 1) Yes, there is a lot of Eastern inspired snake oil being sold. But that doesn't mean it's all crap. And as David pointed out, I'm not aware that any of my everyday systems have come to the attention of the scientific establishment either....

It was just too irritating to keep up to date. Amazon has a new thing that lets you create your own virtual store on their site. Note that all the hammers listed on the main page are either in stock or about to be release AND they are all eligible for super saver shipping. http://astore.amazon.com/e...

Jason,

Thanks for following through with this!

In a way, "Urban ranger" is really just one aspect of the "permaculture" you describe. It's the low hanging fruit that is easiest for most people to incorporate into their lives -- and probably makes the biggest difference.

Reinhard

Thanks, guys. You are the virtual shock troops of shovelglove.

I guess I need to get that bigger, more self-explanatory video up pronto...

Reinhard

Welcome, Benjumanji! No snacking really is easier than people think and even if it starts out hard, strictness makes it easy. To quote Shakespeare (who knew everything about everything) on the reformation of a rather different habit: Assume a virtue, if you have it not. That monster, custom, who all...

Welcome back, Jan! I'm so happy to see you here again. I'm even happier to hear about your new job.

You were able to stick with no-s under far less ideal conditions for quite some time, I'm very optimistic about this round.

Reinhard

I love it! 1) it's a fun poem on it's own merits 2) it shows how historically unacceptable "snacking" is. Much better to call it what it is: "eating between meals" than legitimize it with the cutesy term "snacking." 3) it gives a wonderfully awful image to knock you into line if you're tempted to st...

I'm honored that someone this exalted would notice my existence:

http://www.freakonomics.com/blog/2006/0 ... excercise/

Now if only Harper Collins would notice my existence...

Reinhard

Glad you guys liked it! I hope to do one a week until I run out of material. James, thanks for the offer! May take you up on it... For now, you'll have to listen to the larger health hacks podcast for bells and whistles of any kind. Monica, if you go here: http://reinhard.libsyn.com/ and right click...

I can only assume this poor ignorant poster didn't know that this clip was part of something bigger. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGU9ySV-1vA#GU5U2spHI_4 Perhaps someone here would be good enough to (gently) set him straight? I have a little too much self respect to comment on my own stuff like so...

Enjoy your martini(s), it's ok!

1 or 2 drinks is not something to worry about either for diet or otherwise.

Europeans drink at least than much and are much thinner, right?

Reinhard

Welcome! Congratulations. Which systems are you doing? No-s?

It's tough, and you can ask him to be more discreet about it, but ultimately you're going to have to harden yourself. It's not him that's going on a diet, after all. I think the trick (if there is one) is to: 1) be really super clear and strict with yourself not to snack. 2) resolve not to resent th...

Congratulations, Deb!

Not only have you come along way, but you've brought us a long way.

I don't know what this site would be without your support, humor, and example.

Thank you!

Give my best to Richard,

Reinhard

http://www.healthhackspodcast.com/ Should also be in itunes, but I can't find it. You can play it through your web browser by scrolling down a bit and clicking the little play arrow button labeled "hipcast." I'm experimenting with re-releasing my segments as a separate podcast. Not sure if I'm going...

The first official health hacks podcast episode is up, with a segment from me about the nosdiet. Mostly as an experiment, just to see how this works, I also set up a separate everyday systems podcast for just my segments. You can find links to both here: http://everydaysystems.com/podcast/ Reinhard

It's not just Europe -- we in the states used to eat (and move) like this too. It's true that we've built up some big structural problems: like big, spread out unwalkable living arrangements. But I hope and think people are becoming aware that car convenience has it's downside... and hey, the real e...

Like plate size in no-s, I don't have a rule about glass size. Yes, this means opens the door to excess, but because the excess is obvious, shame mostly keeps you in line. Speaking of drinks, I have another technical no-s failure to report! I had a glass of lemonade without thinking one night last w...

Wow. I need to spend some more time poking around this site. Very eager to try some of these feats myself...

Thanks for the post!

Reinhard

Welcome steve! Glad you're finding it good for your back. The used to say, "back breaking labor," which might have been accurate when you had do do it 14 hours a day, but I think shovelglove's 14 minutes is back building labor. It's our leisure that's back braking, in a slow, degenerative way. Hope ...

Depends what you want to optimize for. For safety, go low. For saving money by avoiding unnecessary upgrades, go high. Normally I'm advise erring on the side of safety, especially since the sums of money involved are tiny, but if you're strong already, and go very, very slow, 10 sounds pretty reason...

Welcome, Jid!

Taking a camera is a great idea... though with my voice recorder in one hand I'm probably I'm dragging around enough stuff already.

Maybe you can use "personal olympics" to spur you on to your goal:

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=1159

Reinhard

S days are supposed to enhance your motivation, by giving you a reward to look forward to. I find the best way to keep them both reasonably moderate and sufficiently rewarding is to plan something nice in advance. Give yourself the best, the sweets you most desire, and you won't stuff yourself with ...

I think I used up all my good relevant quotes on the home page... To contribute something, here are some not very quotable but still relevant and enlightening, I think, passages from Xenophon Memorabilia on Socrates as highbrow self help specialist: From: http://perseus.uchicago.edu/hopper/text.jsp?...

We cook dinner pretty much every day. Some dinner tricks we've learned: 0) you do not have to make *everything* from scratch that night. Yes, it would be nice, but it's also probably not possible most of the time, and it's much better to do something rather than thwarted perfectionist nothing. By fa...

My next segment is up.

Fat Guy Gets Fit #15.

http://www.healthhackspodcast.com/

They bumped me up towards the beginning. I guess that's a good sign!

I guess since it wasn't a total disaster I should start promoting it more actively...

Thanks again for your kind words, Deb!

Reinhard

Shovelglove is actually great for abs -- all the twisting. The original inspiration was the reportedly great abs of 19th century French coal miners. I haven't done a crunch or a situp in years and I have a discernible (if not exactly bulging) "six-pack." As for legs, shovelglove focuses on the upper...

Welcome back, CarrieAnn.

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

-- Winston Churchill

Reinhard

Christi, 21 in a row is primarily a motivational tool -- if it's not motivating, but depressing you, then use something else. Here's a good alternative, or something to use in parallel: keep a baseball style "habitting average." Just 3 numbers to keep track of: success days, failure days, and "exemp...

A shovel sounds perfect. I sometimes recommend starting with a broom (even lighter). The most important thing is to build the habit and to get comfortable with the movements. Don't rush to upgrade. Do this for a few weeks first and see how you like it and whether you're actually able to convince you...

Alas, no specific mention of "shovelglove." From: http://www.starpulse.com/news/index.php/2006/08/11/michael_clarke_duncan_lost_weight_with_u Michael Clarke Duncan lost 90 pounds after adopting a farm-style workout regime he created for himself. The star, 49, weighed in at 360 pounds a year ago when...

I wish I did more ranger rangering, but I'm pretty city bound these days..

But much better to do the thing we're all pretending to do than merely pretend.

Happy trail finding!

Reinhard

Thank you, Joel! Just plowing through my email now.

Your site looks pretty excellent. And if you're running short on material, shovelglove fits into 20 minutes with time to spare

Reinhard

Welcome, Lolly23. Most of our lives are not ideally set up to keep our minds on food -- that's why we unthinkingly overeat. Because society no longer demands it, because it actively distracts us from it, we need to force ourselves to pay a little attention. You're going to have to do this with your ...

If you're like most of use starting out here, after years of permasnacking, hunger is a totally unreliable guide. It's like a stray dog that does whatever it wants. You've got to train your hunger. Have meals at set times and hunger, like Pavlov's dog, will start to drool when appropriate. It'll tak...

Excellent! Glad this seems like a useful structure to you guys. The day after I posted this I hit my silver goal for pushups, and this morning I hit 47. I guess I'll have to start thinking about what to do if you hit gold in your allotted time frame soon... I've got a good micro goal keeping system ...

Good to see you again, Chris, and thanks for the link.

Good to see word of the system, like the system itself, making slow and steady progress.

Reinhard

Thanks for the favorable review, Deb! It's amazing how much stage fright I can work up in a room by myself in front of a computer.

"The woody allan of workout" -- I like it. A little improbable, maybe, but inspiring to all those whiney nerds who get sand kicked in their face

Reinhard

I've agreed to do a regular segment for a new "health hacks" podcast (formerly fat guy gets fit). My debut is towards the end of what's currently called Fat Guy Gets Fit #14. http://www.healthhackspodcast.com/ If there's any interest, I might rerelease my segments as a seperate everyday systems podc...

I like it. Except I'm more into neolithic. Better tools.

Reinhard

My only problem with the slow stairs thing is it sort of blunts the "purposeful" part of rangering... also I might get some funny looks. Though I guess the way I bolt up stairs now also gets me some funny looks. Thanks for the tip, though!

Reinhard

I love it! I look forward to the stairmaster version.

The following clip is less intentionally funny and not walking related, but it's exercise and pretty friggin hilarious:

Japanese Exercise Video - Zuiikan English

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P9X8zjdksw

Reinhard

This is a little subsystem I've been using successfully for a while for various things. The idea is, binary success/failure is great for many things, but for others it makes more sense to have a few more gradations of success. I figured if 3 classes of Olympic medals can spur on athletes to almost s...

Samurai,

I'm happy to hear the worst is behind (God willing).

Best to you in these coming weeks and looking forward to you having the luxury of worrying and posting about diet again,

Reinhard

Hi Lizbeth,

Birthdays (your own or of a close friend or family member) are totally legitamate S days, you don't have to reset your count.

Enjoy!

Reinhard

As I just posted in the movements registry discussion, all the movements now have youtube video clips: If you feel compelled to rate them highly, I see no reason why you shouldn't :-) Next step is to get a bigger clip for my publishing contact to publicize. Maybe save your rating clicks for that if ...

I've finally updated all the movements in the registry so they have youtube video clips. http://shovelglove.com/movements/ Now to update the links on the rest of the site... Then I can start thinking on how/whether to make these pages more collaborative. Maybe I could just plug into a certain design...

Oh, I guess I should report the extent of my glass ceiling failure, since that will help in damage control if things get out of hand again. If I know I have to report the number of drinks, I'll have incentive to reign in the number even once I've technically failed. Don't want to catch myself thinki...

Thanks for this post, germanherman. Though I find dualism an attractive and useful proposition philosophically (not a popular position today), it's terrible for diet and exercise. For mind to tell body what to do and then go to sleep or turn to something completely different is boring for mind and u...

Welcome, Anna. My position is exactly what operababe and deb said.

Enjoy!

Reinhard

2 non weekend special days since last checkin (vacation). 1 funny stuff weekend time shift, Friday night to Sunday night. Been a while since I indulged in this particular bit of funny stuff. We had overnight guests visiting Friday night and it seemed inhospitable to offer them dessert while I loured...

James, Thanks for posting here. Because you're proof that no-s isn't too late. Good point about the numbness. It sounds like it's largely precisely the feeling that it is "too late" to do something about a problem, so what the hell. Thanks and congratulations for showing that even in these cases it ...

Congratulations, Robin! Sorry I didn't get a chance to respond till now, I was on vacation and travelling.

Your doctor have any interest in doing a book endorsement?

(Just kidding, I'm still a long way off from the hunting for endorsements stage)

Reinhard

Thanks for checking in, Shelly. Sounds like your doing well, big picture. Slow progress is good -- as long is you don't get discouraged by the slowness. Sounds like you're managing to do both well.

Enjoy your virtual orange,

Reinhard

Glad this idea has been yielding fruit for you guys as well. This is what my routine has been looking like for the last few weeks, incorporating some low rep count sessions: M: multiple 7 rep sets T: single 14/21/42 rep sets W: single 14/21/42 rep sets Th: multiple 7 rep sets F: "freestyle friday" (...

And with minimal downtime.

Good riddance slowest, flakiest t1 in existence... (verizon).

We now have a theoretically slower, but cheaper but hopefully more reliable connection with comcast.

Reinhard

Good to see you here again and good for you for catching yourself relatively quickly. If no sign is a bad sign, maybe you should make sure to sign. Explicit bad signs are preferable to absence-implied bad signs because they're an extra little nudge: because they're more painful they're also more mot...

Thanks for popping in again, Carolejo. Sorry to hear things are so crazy, but glad to hear that 60% no-s is holding up the dikes. Best wishes and looking forward to that proper online time,

Reinhard

Youtube is much better than google video for my purposes, because I can embed the video on my site. This is perfect for the movement clips. Here's the new drive fence posts: http://shovelglove.com/movements/drive_fence_posts/ (clip lifted from the google video, but I think you'll agree the presentat...

Your English is great, germanherman, viel besser als mein Deutsch. About the mocha, Hilary, it really depends on how much sugar they put in it. If you can count the teaspoons on one hand, ok, fine. But some of these coffee drinks are essentially hot soft drinks, in terms of sugar. It shouldn't be to...

Thanks for the update, creaky. Sorry to hear about your arm... I guess it's still going to be a little while before you start swinging around a sledghammer again?

Phaze, I'm glad to hear shovelglove's working so well for you and thanks for posting your detailed routine. If you don't mind, I'll stick this in the new shovelglove "routines" section I'm working on (once I get the movements section redone). I've been alternating between small reps sets some days a...

Great to see you again here, david. To any other possible hesitating "refreshers" -- please come on in.

I would say no, it's not a snack (or a sweet). Go ahead and have your juice. Unless you find yourself drinking enormous quantities, I don't think this should be a problem. It's probably not ideal, but much better than breaking the literal habit of no food between meals. Juice is very caloric. But it...

Wow. 30 pounds. Tell him about shovelgove. Maybe he'll have some tips for us!

Congratulations, Deb! I'm so happy to hear this. As great as your closing in on the elusive 200 mark is, the temporal milestone of being on no-s 2 years is even more impressive. Double congratulations and looking forward to the big day.

Reinhard

This is awesome. Thanks for posting this, navin.

Here's another idea: be a volunteer mover. Now that's a full body workout. I guess it would be hard to do in discreet little chunks throughout the week, though.

Reinhard

Germanherman,

Du darfst ruhig auf Deutsch weiterschrieben, besonders zu diesem Thema. Für mich wäre es gut mein geschriebenes Deutsch ein bißchen zu üben!

Reinhard

Just wanted to post that I'm still doing this -- I haven't used the elevator since my last post, and walk up those 175 steps twice a workday.

Congratulations, Deb! Both on the loss and on your strict behavior. It's nice to be able to eat some junk as long as it's walled in by the rules, isn't it?

Lotta ACs to compete with.

I find that when I'm excessive on at S day, than unpleasant feeling strengthens my resolve to make my N days count. I also find that my N day habits really have started to carry over to S days. I often find myself dutifully filling up one plate per meal and then catching myself, "wait, I don't *have...

Samurai,

Sorry to hear about your grandson. Wishing him a speedy, total recovery.

Reinhard

Very elegant concept. It's like "carbon trading" (except less susceptible to manipulation by corporate scumbags).

My only concern: it sounds like a lot of keeping track.

I assume you're volunteering to be the first guinea pig for your system? Let us know the results as they come in.

Reinhard

Thanks again, Deb and David, this is very helpful. 1. I'll keep my shirt on. 2. Glad you like my speaking voice. Funny that I'm more nervous about that than about appearing half naked. 3. The before/after flash is a good idea... 4. Yeah, a little more description for each move and the whole thing wo...

Thanks for posting this, phayze. I'm not much of a stretcher myself, but if it's for you, an unobtrusive system like this sounds great. I build in work breaks by drinking a lot of coffee, tea, and water -- ensuring frequent trips to both the coffee machine/water cooler and the bathroom. And then of ...

Apologies about the tone of my last post. Gluttony is a powerful thing, and probably doesn't do much to help self esteem. Too fat? Feel worthless. Feel worthless? Might as well eat more. Might as well punish worthless self. Even fatter? etc. If I hadn't come up with nos/shovelglove/urbanranger, I mi...

cyt0plas, As I say on the home page: If you are anorexic, or considering it, view this diet as a healthy weight gain/maintenance plan. It works both ways, which I think is further confirmation of its fundamental elegance and sanity. Not that you're anorexic, but if you're closer to the Scylla of wei...

Thomsonspier, Thanks for posting this -- though I sort of wish I didn't see it. I don't mean to disrespect anyone on this board who may be x-ray proof fat, but man, to do that to yourself, it's beyond gluttony, it must come from some deeply self destructive, self loathing impulse. It must be hard wo...

While working on the new shovelglove video, I've been doing just 7 reps a set (and then repeating as I had time), because I figured people watching the video would be bored by my usual 14/21/42. I was surprised at how hard and fun it was. It was hard not in a "I can't do this!" way but "man am I bea...

Everyday Systems

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Shovelglove Sledgehammer Store updated (er, replaced)

Freakonomics blog post about shovelglove

Someone has dissed youtube drive fence posts!

No S Diet Podcast Segment (Podcast = Internet radio)

Shovelglove goes to hollywood?

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Personal Olympics

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Really Low Rep count (x7) sets