Kranji trip: family outing diet xp

Without this review/reflection, I would suffer the self-hate, despair, self-contempt, wipe-out as I completely forget the efforts, the rewards, and focus exclusively on the failures, the loss of control,,

🙂 In the morning I resisted the wrong-time temptation.
🙂 The night before, I had only 2 red-bean pancake, and said no to leftover cooked rice+dishes
At Kranji,

• 🙂 I made the right choice to eat a papaya
• 🙂 I made the right choice about red bean cold dessert. Better than a few other foods. The ice helped a lot.
• By buying 2 cake-history breads, I decided to reward my efforts of the morng + the night before.
• 🙂 .. I delayed the eating of the cakes. I gave myself the chance to discard [1] them.
• 🙂 At cake history, I exercised self-discipline to avoid buying too many
• I did buy a sugary drink, partly becasue it looked novel and it is full of healthy ice cubes.
• .. It proved against that sugar without starch is not so irresistible, thanks to my “system”

🙂 At Admiralty, I didn’t buy any food, even though they are very economical.

— [1] this is an example of the proposition .. buying something only to satisfy a longing, a desire, to be discarded later.
As I grow older, I may need this technique more and more.

• eg: As I shared with Kyle in 2019, on the street of NY I gave away lots of cheap fruits, as the burden was way too heavy for me and I would not enjoy the extra fruits anyway.
• eg: my tanbin.com domain name. I just don’t need it any more. It satisfied my need for a few years.
• eg: buy some gadets for kids …
• eg: cheap toys for kids

HF.Sun meet-up#1300w

I don’t put up a blogpost for Jun.Z, WQ.L, Tanko… because HF.Sun has a family situation similar to mine.

— To HF, do I come across as completely satisfied, without pains? No
1) PIP, bonus, stigma, respect
2) FOLB, exclub peer comparison
3) boy’s “performance” and lack of effort

In terms of livelihood, All my top 3 deep, recurring pains above are “superficial” i.e. not real threats to my family livelihood, largely thanks to my interview skills. But IV is the flagship of a /fleet/ of strengths. I should also give credit to —

• the dev (not just tech) job market and my decision to stick to it. I have key talents to thrive in it such as low cultural bias
• the WallSt contract market that I discovered and held on to
• lifelong wellness habits
• bedrock of stable marraige. I made the right choice.
• bedrock of SG citizenship providing essential protections. I made the right choice.
• my lifelong earn/save/invest and Fuller wealth strengths

My descriptions above tend to lean towards external locus of control, but in reality my personal factors are more important.

I notice three broad topics (beside parenting) in our chat, all related to livelihood. Clearly, HF is not carefree in his late 30’s. Neither am I. How about stressors beyond livelihood? I feel many people in his shoes and my shoes would feel the exclub stress to keep up with the Joneses, and the FOMO. The less blue-collar, the more likely you would feel this pressure.

— Q: which specific statuses are the most enviable?
A: current wellness condition? I think HF appreciates it more than other guys. I feel this item deserve to be #1 , but seems to be ranked rather low in the subconscious of some /stereotypical/ peers a few years younger.
A2: current work-life balance?
A3: long-term career security?
A4: the 6 properties of some ex-colleague? I cautioned HF that under the facade things may not be that simple. I didn’t give specifics, as it would be pulling out a thread from a knitting.

== parenting
When I said I don’t want to telecommute, HF asked me how much time I spend with my kids. I said nowadays I try to make the hours productive towards my personal goals.

HF wants to spend more time with his 2 kids, and prefers telecommuting. I guess he experiences incremental ROTI on parenting. I feel a fundamental reason for our differences is boy’s reaction. I feel like driving with the brakes on, sometimes spinning the wheel. Lack of intrinsic or extrinsic motivation. Without realizing this difference, it’s EASY to fall into the trap — feeling inferior, guilty, a failure, self-hate…
== wellness
Many Singaporean professionals sleep late and get up early, according to HF.
— work-life balance: HF felt current work-life balance is not very sustainable due to a micro-managing boss. HF said in OC he used to have more autonomy as a team lead.

He said it partly in response to my generalized view that the more leadership portfolios you assume, the more stress, and work-life balance tend to deteriorate. His response is basically a counter example. However, is there always higher stress due to higher responsibility? HF’s response echos many manager friends because they all feel confident bout the leadership responsibility. Josh said something about “bigger picture”.

Can he change to a lighter job? I think his chosen domain has poor market depth, or he is not comfortable/confident to beome a job-hopper.

Q: What’s important to someone like Honglin. His kids are working. He has plenty of assets and investments. In his late 50’s he looks like semi-retired.
A: wellness is presumably the most important tangible thing to someone in his shoes. However, I guess he is not that old like waiting to pass on, so he must have his aspirations, and seeking meaning. These are higher aspirations, based on, not competing with, wellness maintenance as a foundation.
— self-discipline:  in diet, workout and (I also mentioned) … self-awareness to “reduce work hours”
— longevity and locus-of-control — HF felt final age of 80 is a realistic target for himself. In contrast, I set an explicit goal of 95, and I FEEL confident about my chance, even though my chance depends on many external factors beyond my control. This “faith” has the power to change my daily behavior at least for a few years [1]. The change in behavior does produce results i.e. lead to change in my wellness.

I would say that “faith” is belief without convincing evidence.

[1] It’s normal to lose the momentum after a while. After the loss, you can rebuild. The power, motivation… to improve lifestyle is a daily battle and a marathon.

== career planning
main street salary: 5-6k, as confirmed by HF

HF asked how my current package compared to OC. I mentioned medical, extra leaves, flexible hours. Lastly I singled out commute as the most satisfying part of the package, suggesting that I might accept a lower salary to work in downtown rather than ChangiBizPark.
— brank peer comparison: HF is no longer a team lead, but earns more.
I am not good at climbing up, so I seek non-mainstream career paths suitable for me. I no longer agree with  German’s narrowing-path assessment.

One of HF’s managers is about my age but not so healthy, partly because of anger and stress. I said I may show the same face when scolding my son.

I said big managers often have heavy job responsibilities, which often means stress. Some can handle it, but it still requires mental effort and stress. In contrast, as a contractor I was carefree.
— churn in the dev job market. I feel this is a common view from the outside. I don’t know if HF is an insider, but I guess he probably doesn’t have my wealth of first-hand tech interview experience. I said more than 200 interviews.

Once again, the interview experiences are crucial in way-finding. I may need to go out and interview again.
— flexibility to move back to tech (current HF is Business-PM). I think he said there would be difficulties.

== per finance: I tried to postpone this discussion to the next meet-up. I was conscious (and fairly successful) to avoid deep dive on personal finance, which has the potential to hijack (i.e. take over) the precious meet-up opportunity. If I were to reveal my specific investments, most likely I would feel the urge to clarify, and reveal more. It’s best to avoid the topic. If not possible, then it’s better to be non-specific. I was positively vague about “no need to work”. But did I come across a bit cocky/condescending esp. on the ffree including 7% return, properties,,, but I did point out “very risky investments”? I think I didn’t arouse any negative reaction to my assessment of dev-till-70, healthy longevity. As to the “parenting” and brank parts, I was humble.
— Replace salary income with dividend income: HF’s friend had this goal and HF felt it was achievable. I used 4% dYield and $5k/M family burn rate to derive $1.5M stock position. I said such a big position is impossible for most of us, assuming we need a home etc. I said I achieved my bare-bones ffree due to lower burn rate and higher yield. I chose not to elaborate.
— portfolio risk and gold: I described my portfolio as high risk. I meant credit risk, political risk. I hope some gold would provide a much-needed stability.
I didn’t say that more important than gold, I rely on my 1)wellness 2)career longevity 3)SG gov providing healthcare, CPF-live, inflation-proof
— inflation post-pandemic — HF raised this point. I feel my family burn rate would not increase like 30% due to consumable inflation. I guess the biggest components of my family CPI basket would be 1)nutrition and 2)utilities+transport

[18] $10k to hit+keep 63kg #Kyle

As I told Kyle,

You can’t swipe a credit card to buy weight improvement. Both calorie restriction and workout are daily battles to be fought day in, day out, both very very hard, requiring unrelenting discipline for a long long time.

In 2017 I asked myself, hypothetically, how much I was willing to spend if there were a way to buy “63 kg”. 63 kg was my lowest weight since 1991 when I came to Singapore and grew heavy. I decided at least USD 10k. As of Dec 2018, I achieved that goal with an expensive shift of focus. My MS work actually suffered from de-focus.

In jan 2019, a few days before my birthday, I asked myself “How much are you willing to spend if there were a way to buy 60 kg and maintain it for 3 months?” I would say at least another USD 10k, because I now realize how hard it is to maintain 63kg.

Now I think two commercial offerings can help ease the struggle

1. fancy foods such as whey and fruits
2. personal trainer to manage the motivation

xp: lengthening meal gaps #absorbency

Analogy — Most untrained joggers would take 4 steps per breath cycle, but I try to lengthen it to 8 or 10.

Similarly, a few times in Bayonne and in SG, when I achieved quick improvement in BMI, I have noticed one effective strategy — aggressive increase in meal gap.

• Clarification — nonfat milk, low-sugar soymilk, chia, fruits and raw veg are considered non-meal, but cooked veg (with invisible fat), egg white, smoothies are small meals.

When I noticed a “power surge” in my endurance (or absorbency), I would lengthen the gap between meals “all the way” until I feel I need a refill. Whenever I push myself to keep up this endurance for a few days, I would see a steady but swift improvement in BMI.

Reliability? 80%-100%, based on a handful of experiences, covering a few months.

wrong-time temptation — is THE show-stopper. When I am in this kind of practice, i feel powerful against the temptation. It typically lasts a few days only.

Absorbency? is an acceptable description. Endurance is a more common description.

Daily battle? Yes for a few days this is a visible, conscious daily battle.

 

starch binge after jog-swim-jog

[F] Now I think the long jog contributed to the “genuine” hunger. In a later review, this contribution may be negligible or it may be significant.

🙂 [F] before the jogging I had only one bao with lots of iceberg lettuce
🙂 [F] after the jog I didn’t go for the ice cream as planned, even after 9.45pm
🙂 [F] I came home and had some watermelon, in an effort to fill-up.
🙂 [F] then I turned away from the oily Chinese bing3 and had lots of soymilk instead

Then I decided to eat just half a bing3. Some may point a finger at it and say I gave in to the temptation, just like the hundreds of surrenders. However, this time I was deliberate in my decision —

I often carefully choose to concede to the temptation and hold the next line of defense as in Bao3shan1 battle. This is exactly such a case. I have often chosen to yield to ice cream, or the bing3 at ShandongDabao. This food is probably lighter than an ice cream (with water), and much lighter than a creamy cake or tart. Therefore, not exactly a wrong-food temptation.

After that half piece, I had further concessions — finished the other half and had two yam buns.

⭐ This is Not another case of the most common wrong-time temptation or wrong-quantity temptation.

⭐ I didn’t lose control in this case.

⭐ I didn’t take in too much calorie, partly because of the earlier fillers.

⭐ After a long jog, sometimes I don’t take in a lot of calories, but most of time I do have that tendency. To counter that tendency is another daily battle.

It’s crucial to take into account these factors + those ‘F’ factors , before I zero in on the alleged “surrender-to-temptation”.  The /concession/  is actually a small albeit crucial part of a far more complex experience.

L@Ctrl^dailyBattle^temptation^badFoodList^sustainable

1. I feel t_dailyBattle and t_L@Ctrl should not appear on the same blogpost.
2. t_badFoodList is strictly for lists
3. if possible, temptation category blogpost should avoid those tags above.

t_Sustainable is about life-long habit and adjustment

9″stubborn”diet Habits ranked by impact@%%long-term health

See also https://1330152open.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=13129&action=edit. This blogpost is Not restricted to slimming.

1. 🙂 [f] don’t eat if not hungry, even when everyone is eating. My parents and in-laws believed we should all eat at the same time.
2. 🙂 [f] skip breakfast + lunch
3. 🙂 self-restraint on oily foods like creamy, deep fried ,,, despite my natural tendency
4. 🙂 [f] delayed dinner. Some people eat dinner early and don’t feel hungry at night, but my body is different
5. 😦 heavy supper after 11pm in my younger days
6. 😦 heavy afternoon snacks of nuts, starch ..
7. 🙂 no coffee, sugary drink or alcohol, despite peer influence
8. 🙂 at food court, I have the habit of picking vegetables that I seldom eat or hate to eat. My body probably need these nutrients more
9. 🙂 raw veg salad to break starch dependency. Raw veg is a common habit in the west.
10. 🙂 as much fruits as I can take in, and then some more
11. 🙂 spot the visible fat. I believe every tidbit counts. I hate paying such high calorie “price” to gain basically nothing.
12. 😦 cake-history buns once a day — once formed, this habit was hard to break
13. [f=intermittent fasting, against the wrong-time temptation]

Promethean[def] struggleS #diet++

Q: Is diet a hopeless Promethean struggle? No we aren’t doomed to lose all effort.

• Coding drill is not only short term.
• Workout is not only short-term. Daily battle
• Flexibility exercise (Yoga) is not only short-term. Daily battle.
• Smoke cessation is not only short-term. Daily battle
• Calorie restriction is not only short-term. Daily battle
• Availability is not only short-term. Daily battle
• If you control availability for 9 months, you would see results (in terms of …).
• If you lose control over temptation for 3 months, you will see results.

By “losing control”, I don’t mean eating lots of bad food for 3 months. I mean the unregulated Availability of acceptable, often healthy, food, such as yogurt, lean meat, …

Too much of these “healthy” food is a major health hazard.

snacking can b good OR bad for an individual

Some individuals take frequent snacks and others seldom take snacks. Both types can be healthy or unhealthy. There’s poor correlation between personal health and snacking habit. (Comparable to the correlation between health and zodiac.)

What matters is possibly 1) calorie 2) quality of nutrition. Let me focus on calorie for now.

Some snackers (me for decades) eat hundreds of calories in a single snack. After the snack, some snackers delay/skip meals while other snackers don’t. The daily total calorie intake can skyrocket.

Effect on daily Total calorie is Mostly psychological in my case. For decades, my brain was trained to crave for snacks in late afternoon and late night. After the afternoon snack, the home meal is a real battle I win or lose every day.

snacking: portion control over Long term

Many studies show frequent snacking can reduce overall intake and therefore reduce weight. What they didn’t tell us is quantity i.e. portion control. I suspect the research used very low quantity. In reality, many snackers take in more snack food than the 3 main meals combined.

Many conflicting studies also show snacking increases food intake and lead to weight gain.

Throughout my adult life, I take snacks everyday. My weight is always lower than average for Asians of my height. Despite my healthy weight, I care about snacking habits. Here are my conclusions:

• frequent snacking is inferior to intermittent fasting, such as skipping/delay meals. I will avoid morning snacks as much as possible.
• consciousness — we need to be mindful how much snack we have taken then reduce meal size accordingly
  • I tend to take heavy snacks esp. before my mid-30’s
• It depends on your /metabolic rate/. I tend to get hungry a few hours after lunch, so snacking is kind of necessary. Also I often get hungry around midnight, so the _only_ way to avoid that last snack is early sleep.
• Modern society offers too many low-cost and convenient food choices. The #1 most convenient among them would be snacks such as those from vending machines. (I’m completely against those, usually unhealthy snacks.) We need to stay conscious.