Peru/Brazil/Argentina Day 3: Sacsayhuamán

May 5, 2012
Peru Day 3: Sacsayhuamán

After our busy first day yesterday, we went to bed at 11:30 last night. I actually slept pretty well, only a bit of tossing and turning. We're all finding ourselves a bit thirsty (due to the altitude). The stuff we read said that insomnia is a possible side-effect of high altitude but I was glad to get a pretty good sleep. Up at 6:45 and was excited for the hot shower... and just a trickle of water :/ oh well. "Well, at least there's something", I said loud enough that Kev could hear me outside of the bathroom, and then... "WOOSH!" The water came out like gangbusters and it was very nice and a good wake-up vibe.

Christy arrived! We were so happy to see her arrive safe and sound after her flight woes and she looked happy to be finally here. We all sat down together and had hostel breakfast and it was fantastic - cafe con leche, soft-boiled egg, fruit and yoghurt with some funny rice puffs on it, and some bread. Great stuff.

The most tiny and silly of fire hydrants

Everyone was lining up at the bank for some reason

Kev making sure the sleeping bag would fit him

Off we went to get a Bolleto Touristico for Christy and back to Peru Treks so she could pay her deposit. We got her all sorted out pretty quick and that was great. We wandered downtown for a bit, heading back to BNC Bank. I got such an amazing deal there yesterday, I checked my account and the S/. 700 + S/. 5.60 fee was only $267 whhaaat!! So I got literally the exact exchange rate of 2.64 with only a $5 ATM fee from Wells Fargo. Not a bad setup. This was definitely the way to go. We all got some money out and then headed back to the hostel. I saw a girl carrying a baby lamb for photos and that was the one touristy thing I was totally down for, "Now THIS I am willing to pay for!" I gave them a S/. 10 note (like $4) and I bet that's a lot more than they usually get (maybe more like S/. 1 or S/. 2). They seemed to be treating the lamb very well and he/she was in very good shape. So I wanted to show my support, plus I desperately needed a photo with that cute thing.

Awesome statue in downtown Cusco

Me and a baby lamb!

Christy is here!

Frank took some hilarious photos of me with the lamb, that was fun. We headed back to the hostel to chill for a bit and met up for lunch at a place called Pacha Pappa. I got a Recoto Relleno (Stuffed Pepper) as well as a Potato and Tuber dish in cheese and minty sauce! Fantastic. I also got a Chicha Morada - purple corn, brown sugar and cinnamon juice. This is what Frank and Jess got last night, it's not alcoholic so it was super good and I could have it without messing up the acclimatization pills I was taking. We all shared Christy's dessert.

The view of Cusco hills from our hostel

So, many, potatoes

Corn

Peppers!

Chicha Morada, my new favourite drink

Recoto Relleno

Amazing potato and tuber dish with queso sauce

We walked after lunch past a coca museum but didn't go in, opting instead to continue walking upwards. Up, up, up, all the way towards the Sacsayhuamán ruins. There was one stop which was gorgeous and had an amazing view of the city, we took lots of photos. :) Sacsayhuamán itself was amazing, a crazy huge place with large rocks cut and somehow fused together perfectly, very impressive. I've been taking some photos on RAW so I can edit them later in Adobe Lightroom, but I've got a technique down now - I'm taking a bunch on JPG (if it's just scenery and not an animal that's moving a lot or something), and keep taking until I get the lighting basically correct. Then I switch to RAW and re-take one or two bracketed photos at the same settings. It's working out well.

Frank photographer, Jess photogenic

Cusco from the hills near Sacsayhuamán

Me in my new hoodie

Viva El Peru

Llama walking around

Awesome stone structures at Sacsayhuamán

There were lots of funny llamas walking around, they were crazy!! We walked over towards the Christo Blanco ("White Jesus") statue. I got a cool photo from afar, dark rocks at Sacsayhuamán and the statue lit up by the sky. Good times. As we got closer I realized there was some crazy barbed-wire fencing around the statue and it said "1945" on the back. This was a nice juxtaposition with one side dark, stormy clouds and the other side around the sky was clearing. It was an interesting sort-of unplanned war memorial juxtaposition in a way. (The barbed wire, the year the war ended, and the clouds shaping a sort of "the dark, stormy problems" counter-balanced on the other side of the statue's arms with clear, whispy, carefree clouds. Very awesome! These photos are posted just as jpgs, but that one I took in RAW. When I have a chance I'm gonna spend a bunch of time post-processing that one, and I'll post a fancier version of that one in the future).

"White Jesus" statue and Sacsayhuamán

Llama!!

Go! Go! Go!

1945

Cusco in clouds

Cusco main square

Christo Blanco and Tourists

We walked back down to Cusco, and it was much faster than walking up! We got a cheese empenada and a grande alfajore cookie to share with everyone. We relaxed back at the hostel for a bit, tired from the hiking upwards in the still-somewhat-unfamiliar high altitude. We headed to dinner and tried Bembos for the fun of it, a sort of Peruvian McDonald's. It was not bad, but definitely a bit strange! I got fried plantains and an egg on my burger. The sauces were good, especially the hot mustard.

Bembos Menu, super confusing

A weird and crazy fast food dinner

Fruit mousse

Tall Lemon Meringue pie

 They have Inca Cola here!! It tasted like bubble gum, but it's still awesome. After dinner I headed to the cake shop we'd seen the night before and we were psyched to knock that out. We got a peach gelatin mouse and we also got an amazingly tall Lemon Meringue pie. Very nice. Also I had a coffee with hot milk, a fantastic end to another exciting day!

Headed back the hotel and was just chillin' with Kev. I wrote my journal, sent a few emails. and just chilled out. Tomorrow it's off to the Sacred Valley and Pisac Market. This trip rocks. :)

Microsoft Surface: ballllerrrrr!

Jeez, this is awesome.



Bold and baller move by Microsoft here, and a really exciting looking system. Crazy that Microsoft made their own machine - NOT created by Dell, HP, etc as usual. Really upping the ante for tablet computing.

The screen is 16x9 ratio which is a major gripe I've always had with the iPad - a device meant to encourage video watching and it's not in the correct aspect ratio... always bugged me. Will be fascinating to see how they handle the mobile SD card reading (it has a microSD slot) and mobile blogging (it has this Smart Cover keyboard thing). Could be pretty awesome.

I am definitely gonna be getting Win8 for my Desktop, but I suspect they are putting in a ton of effort to get this Surface and Win8 desktops to co-exist nicely. Very cool stuff.

PS. just saw a blog from the event and they have it running friggin' Adobe Lightroom. Now THAT's a mobile blogging solution. Crazy.

Green Tea is Bruce Banner, Matcha is The Hulk

Ok, this one I gotta try next.

My friend Rachel and I are doing a talk this week at work about the benefits of tea and demonstrating some different preparation methods, styles of tea, etc. We're trying to indoctrinate some more tea nerds!

Anyhow I've been reading up more about tea health benefits and keep circling back to Matcha. The Wikipedia page points to some interesting research from the University of Colorado:

"In 2003, researchers from the University of Colorado found that the concentration of the antioxidant EGCG available from drinking matcha is up to 137 times greater than the amount of EGCG available from other commercially available green teas."

Uh, whaaat?!?!??! 137 times greater?? I'd heard 10 times greater, but not 137 times :) That's absurd!! The real difference between Matcha and "regular" green tea is it's just a ground up leaf, so you're actually drinking the entire tea leaf. This means you get chlorophyll and the usuals (EGCG, catechins, amino acids) in insanely increased quantities.

So basically Green Tea is Bruce Banner (still pretty badass), but Matcha is the friggin' HULK.

I am gonna head to Japantown in SF at some point soon to get a Matcha whisk and bowl and other preparation utensils, and definitely gonna start busting this out. I've had some before but never realized how awesome it is for you, so I want to start drinking this one more often. Matcha... you fiend!

Cholesterol WIN!

Wow, awesome news.

Last time I got my LDL and HDL cholesterol tested they were both out of the standard range - the doc suggested reducing cheese and eggs. The other way to reduce it? EPIC weight loss.

Anyway amazing news, just re-tested and I drastically dropped LDL (by quite a lot) and raised HDL (it's supposed to be higher not lower) and it's now in a good range too. Awesome. It's really easy to see and revel in the obvious benefits of weight loss- nice new clothes, looking sharp, etc. But these "internal" changes are much MORE important in the long run, and you don't see them day-to-day or even really think about them... So that's pretty awesome to see some excellent and drastic changes inside too :)

This is pretty damn motivating actually. You can't "see" it, but your body is really high-fiving your progress.

Peru/Brazil/Argentina Day 2: Lima to Cusco

May 4, 2012
Peru Day 2: Lima to Cusco

Arrived in Lima! And now to Cusco...

And the adventure begins! We arrived in Lima after 100 bazillion hours on the plane and were punched in the face with a gloriously rank odour of fishy sars. I am not sure why/how/what the heck was going on, but seemed like maybe low cloud cover? Anyway we were happy to just be in Lima for a couple hours cause outside on the runway it smelled like a dirty fish shop. Sorry Lima, I'm sure you are usually beautiful. Today, you smelled like my feet are gonna smell on the Inca Trail.

Things were pretty quick-quick and efficient in the airport which was great since we pretty much hadn't slept all night. We met up with Kev (since he had come in on a different flight) and walked pretty directly through the terminal, checking out the food court on the way. There was a McDonald's there (anyone who has read my trip blogs before knows that I LOVE seeing all the localized foreign McDonald's menu items in other countries - it was kinda cool but nothing super weird and wild like Japan. A ham sandwich/tostada thing on the menu, otherwise it looked pretty standard). There was a Dunkin Donuts, but didn't have hilariously unusual garlic or avocado donuts like they did in Dunkin Donuts in South Korea. Meh. :) The place that did rock was one of the souvenir stores which had chocolate covered passion fruit, macadamias, bananas. We helped ourselves heartily to the free samples! Then on we went to Cusco.

On the way to Cusco

More awesome mountains

We arrived in Cusco and the air felt a little thin but not too bad. Jose from our hostel was already there and waiting and very organized. He sorted out the cab for us and off we went towards the city center. There were so many buildings up on the hillsides, so amazing! It was just so inspiring and exciting to arriving in a new country, so many unusual new things and unexpected surprises. You really feel ALIVE at a moment like this! That was nice given the lack of sleep the night before, haha.

Kev and I chillin' with some Coca Tea at the hostel

We got into town and arrived at Amaru Hostel, the place we were staying at in the San Blas neighbourhood. They were immediately very helpful and welcoming and nice. There was hot Coca Tea there waiting for us, to help acclimatize to the altitude. It tastes a bit like green tea, a little bitter, but good. We relaxed for a bit and took pictures. It was quite hot in the sun! We were pretty exhausted from the general schlep of travel so we took a few hours to nap and regenerate.

After a good nap we got rollin' and headed out to "El Buen Pastor", a pastry shop a few doors down which is run by nuns! It was amazing!! I got a queso empenadea (cheese) and it was great. The winner though was the peach custard pastry - man!!!!

THIS WAS AMAZING

Awesome selection of pastries near our hostel

Kev excited for breakfast

Pastry-fest at the "Nun" bakery!

From there we wandered San Blas square, and took a bunch of photos. This was a nice and picturesque place with some locals playing music and selling handicrafts. It was a great vibe.

Plaza San Blas

Cusco hills from Plaza San Blas

VWs seem REALLY popular here

After this we headed to Plaza de Armas, the main square. People were selling stuff pretty intently and were directly targeting tourists (of course), it was ok at first but quickly got annoying. There was some cool stuff like people walking around with baby llamas and you could take your photo with them, that was very cute and the girls/women were all wearing traditional clothing, so that was pretty nice. But so many people were selling junky postcards or offering massages (a bit dodgy?) but at the same time you clearly couldn't fault the locals in the ultra-tourist town of Cusco in the most touristsy downtown center... there are certainly a lot of foreigners here and you can't blame people for trying to make a comfortable living. But anyhow, it got to be a bit too much and we learned quickly that the phrase "No, Gracias" was the one to use. People seemed nice and friendly, but a few people were a bit too forceful. Oh well. Lots of "No Gracias's" today though.

Taking photos, note the girl with the baby lamb (or llama) in the background

We walked to Dos Manos, the place that organized the Huyana Picchu tickets for us. That was very organized and they gave us some bank advice - to take out USD from the ATM and then change it with a local private money exchanger person/store. That seemed a bit strange since they were so hardcore about only being able to take perfect USD bills - anything wripped or torn they weren't able to take, so who knows what quality of USD bills you'd get out of the ATM. Seemed like the "perfect condition only" rules only were for USD, if you have Peruvian Nuevo Soles, anyone would take them. So I ignored the advice from the travel agent and just took out Soles from the ATM and it turns out that was an excellent decision. Other than the $5 USD per-transaction fee from Wells Fargo, I was getting roughly the exact international exchange rate for USD to PEN. Amazing!!!

haha, "fanny"

This was amazing

and in English... "Soursap" juice. It was sweet and weird and good.

After getting our Billeto Touristico (so we could get into a bunch of Inca sites), we went to a grocery store (Gato Market) and then back to the hostel for a bit. This Guanabana (Soursop) juice was excellent!! So good, kinda like guava and pineapple together. Wikipedia calls it a "Brazillian Paw Paw". Either way, it was delicious!!

Back at the hostel, we were so tired so we slept for another few hours. Lonely Planet suggested it was very important to take it easy on the first day at high altitude and we were certainly chillin' out.

Then we headed to Peru Treks to pay the remainder of our hiking fees for the Inca Trail in a few days. We talked to the lady for a while there and she was very nice. She helped answer a lot of our questions. I joked about a few things, like the form asked us to check "Male or Female" and "Male" said "Masculino". I laughed and said, "Si, Muy Masculino!" trying to play-on-words Masculino with "Masculine". I have no idea if that translated but she laughed at my effort in any case. :)

Then off to dinner! The guidebook suggested this excellent chicken place called Los Toldos Chicken. It was some AMAZING BBQ Chicken!!! Or, shall I say, "Pollo Brassa". It was BBQ'd style, rotisserie, char-broiled. Amazing stuff. The salad bar was free and epic - pickled carrots, veggies, potato salad, salad with this great olive dressing... awesome. We got a 1L coke and it was so good too.

To Peru treks to check in

Salad bar at the BBQ restaurant

The dressing was made of black olives, so frickin' good

Sauces for the chicken

Mmmmmm

Amazing place

We wandered the town after that, seeing some city sights. For some reason, all the mannequins in Peru so far have been terrible and scary!! I don't know what's up with that.

One of many insanely scary mannequins we saw

Another terrifying mannequin... why?!??!?!?!

We saw a pie shop and some other cool stuff. Then we headed to Marcelo Batata, a coffee and dessert place. We headed up to the rooftop for dessert and a glorious view of Cusco city lights. Glorious! This place was very relaxing and nice. It was expensive compared to dinner but excellent quality. I got a "Chocolate Calliente" (Hot Chocolate) which was orangey-tasting and made from chocolate from the Sacred Valley. So good. I also got an Oreo Strawberry Ice Cream Sundae which ROCKED. It was amazing and everyone was jealous but I shared.

Haha, wow so much blantant copyright infringement in Peru

Pie shop

These were suppper good too

The most epic orange hot chocolate ever, made from Andean chocolate

View of the city from our coffee place

Oreo Ice Cream mmmmm

Then we headed back to the hostel, and chatted about tomorrow. Now it's time to sleep cause we get up early tomorrow in time to meet Christy - he flight stuff is all sorted out. Tomorrow we're going to do a bunch of city stuff and then head to the Sacsayhuamán ruins. It should be awesome! What a super fun time already, and it's only the 1st day!

Peru/Brazil/Argentina Day 1: Leaving SF

Note: For those of you who haven't read my trip blogs before, I'm actually already back from South America now. I retroactively post my trip blog and photos after the trip now. I'll post the actual date of the blog "entry" at the top of each post. Enjoy!

May 3, 2012
Peru Day 1: Leaving SF

All my bags are packed...

What a great pre-roll to the trip!  I had such an amazing week at work, working super hard to knock out a bunch of stuff before the trip and totally rockin' it. Awesome times. I also saw AVENGERS last night!!!!!!!!!!! Arrgghghghghgggggggghhhhhhhhh soooo ammaazzziing!!!!!!!!!! The Hulk was so epic and was used so carefully and so well in the storytelling. I friggin' LOOOVED it. What a movie! The story was so good and such a great blend of visual effects with a strong and exciting story. Epic job, fellow ILM-ers!!! I spent a lot of time working on the Animation Pipeline for Hulk and it was so awesome to have played my part in such a cool movie. Also... this is my 2nd film credit at ILM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh man, what a credit to get too. I was so excited for it and nearly burst out of my seat when the end credits rolled. What a feeling and what an amazing team to be a part of.

Last night after the movie I had the usual pre-trip "What did I forget?" jitters, cleaned the apartment and bathroom, etc. There's always so much work before you leave for a big trip: take out the garbage and recycling, turn off all your electronics, clean the fridge out BEFORE taking out the garbage otherwise you have to do it again, and so on... lots of work! Given all that pre-trip stuff I had to do, I got to bed a bit late, but oh well.

This morning I got up pretty early and took care of any last minute stuff. Frank picked me up and we went back to his place to wait for the SuperShuttle. It picked us up right on time and we zipped off to the fancy new Terminal 2 at SFO - I haven't been there yet! It was fun to chat with people in line and, of course, we met a random Canadian in line who noticed my flag :)

Ready to rock

My stuff with Frank and Jess's stuff

I am really loving this Triple Aught hoodie that Frank and Jess suggested I buy. It's funny because all three of us are wearing it today and we all look damn sharp. It's made of Merino Wool so it's very soft and comfortable, and also nice and warm. I really like it. This morning I started the Acclimatization Pills and they seem fine, no worries taking them. Everyone else in our group is just planning to take Advil instead, which also helps. I feel better taking them to ward off any potential problems in advance, with all the other general nervousness at the beginning of a trip (is it gonna go well? are we gonna enjoy it? is everyone going to be safe? is anyone going to get sick? etc etc) it's nice to take some things off the list of items to be worried about.

We met up with Kevin and we were all so excited to be rollin' to South Amerrriiccaa!! We had a nice lunchy/breakfast at Rulli's in Terminal 1 and then we left SFO on the way to Miami, intending to meet Christy there continuing together as a group of 5 to Lima. Everyone looks so healthy and thin and fit. We rock for following through on our fitness goals. Oh yes - I almost forgot to mention! Katie at the gym at work did my Caliper Body Fat Percentage test at work yesterday - the acceptable range is 12-22% and I'm 15.9%!! I am so psyched, this is already much better than expected. I will have to continue doing these tests as my weight loss continues... I want to ultimately aim for lower, maybe 12%-ish. (5-12% is considered "Lean").

Pre-trip weight

Turtle Power - funny backpack we saw at SFO

On the plane I read an interesting quote from A.J. Jacobs in the inflight magazine describing his new book "Drop Dead Healthy" about trying to achieve "physical perfection". I'd like to read it. His quote:

"It's incredibly hard to change your habits, but you have to do just that. You have to think of your future self, and treat your future self with respect."

I feel like I would have nodded but ignored that quote 6 months ago - now it really resonates. I'm so happy with my progress and I'm very keen to make sure I keep it going during the trip and afterwards too. I think I'll need some explicit goals to set. Say "Maintain at 170 for 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year." Maybe that's enough to keep me on track until these habits become self-sustaining.

So in the first few hours of the trip, we had a couple mishaps... that's bound to happen. We arrived in Miami to find out that Christy's plane was cancelled. :( Poor Christy. We scrambled to quickly send a few emails to give the hostel and trekking place a heads up. It sounds like it will work out well but we all felt bad for Christy. Jess talked to her on the phone for a bit which was nice and we all tried to help out as best as we could. We all sat in different rows for SFO-Miami and met up at the terminal. Kev turned out to be on a different plane to Lima, even though it was leaving at exactly the same time! That was weird, and a bit of a pain as he had to run across the terminal to re-check in.

We ended up searching for Cuban Food and found an awesome place. It was super good!! I got a flank steak spiced with onions which was fantastic, and some friend plantains which were SOOOOOOOO good, I almost jumped right onto the plate. Also it came with excellent rice and black beans, a great meal to start the trip!

Dinner in Miami, minus Christy :(

Banana Fritters, you epic fiends

Frank, Jess and I headed to our next flight and were chillin', and chatting with some people also headed to Cusco. Now it looks like we're getting some more food on the plane?!?!?! YES!! It was random beef and rice, basically a repeat of what we had for dinner but airline-style... oh well, it's warm food!! Mmm. I totally crushed it and then went right to sleep for 4 hrs. That rocked.

Thank you, Picasa :)

Oh sweet glory.

I am about to start posting my photos like crazy from my South America trip and my trip blog, and Google/Picasa/Blogger/Picasa Web Albums have finnaaaaaaaalllly removed the 5-photo-per-upload blogging limit when uploading :) Oh thank goodness. :)

I've been creatively working around that issue for years, most recently by emailing photos to my special Blogger email-to-post email address and then captioning the photos after they had uploaded to a draft blog post. In the past I also had to have a 2nd window open with Facebook running, so I could type captions into Facebook at the same time as I typed them into the blog. No more! It looks like Picasa sorted this out gloriously, and now I can easily caption the photos in Picasa once and then upload to Google+ and share them (with captions attached), upload them to Facebook and share them (with captions attached), and then load in MULTIPLE PHOTOS AT THE SAME TIME yessssssss into Blogger and have the captions still attached. This is gonna save me years of blogging time :)

Thanks you epic fiends at Blogger/Picasa/Google+, well done!

Weight loss rewards

Holy crap, I really seem to be in the zone about posting health blog topics tonight.

Anyway, a quick tally of the rewards I've given myself after reaching target weight loss goals, and a pledge for what I might get for the last big one :) Just cause I feel like remembering what I rewarded myself with for some reason!

I REALLY wanted to be careful not to "celebrate" with food. That was very important to me because food is so often an easy thing to celebrate with - "let's go out for dinner!" Terrible. The whole point of my hard work is that I'm making the conscious choice to put my long-term health before an immediate short-term enjoyment like fatty restaurant food. Double-negative warning: I shouldn't NEVER eat that kinda stuff :) But I definitely wanted to be sure not to buy food as my celebratory event.

Tea doesn't count though :) Since drinking tea is actually further helping my weight loss (given its properties for epic appetite suppression and also because it is 0 calories), I decided that was a good thing to use as motivation. Plus I am now somewhat obsessively in love with weird and wild teas, I figured this was a good thing to rally behind: I love it, and it's healthy, and it helps me continue on the right trend. Awesome!

I also bought practical stuff which would help me continue the weight loss or gym progress, like a nice gym bag, some running shoes for the gym, and nice and awesome workout clothes that I liked and felt comfortable in. They were pretty nice clothing items too, which I might not have bought otherwise, so it really was special to get some high-quality and nice workout stuff.

• At 200 lbs: Fancy tea kettle and joined the gym at work. Crazy new shoes. New workout Dry-Fit t-shirts and shorts from Macy's.
• At 190 lbs: More fancy tea: from Lupicia, Upton, The Republic of Tea, and more. An awesome Nike workout bag.
• At 185 lbs: Gaiwan tea preparation cup, yes, and even fancier tea from The Imperial Tea Court
• At 180 lbs: Clothing time! This was my first major goal (30 lbs). So this was a big one to celebrate. Getting this far means I'm close to what I expect I'll stop losing and start maintaining at (170 lbs), so I'm close enough where I can start buying some new clothing and giving away old stuff. I got this stuff: Suit, leather jacket, wingtip shoes, new belt in Buenos Aires. Long sleeve and short sleeve collared shirts from Banana Republic, new jeans from Levi's. Sorting through piles of T-shirts, pants, jackets and donating a massive amount of stuff to Goodwill. And of course, more expensive fancy tea in Buenos Aires.

What's next?

Well, I already bought some nice clothes and one shirt from Banana Republic is quite fitted - it's got a little room for me to lose a bit more to fit better in it. So that's a little extra motivation. The next goal is when I hit 170 lbs (or an equivalent low body fat percentage loss).

I am not 100% sure what I am going to get, but I might actually finally buy My Dream Jacket. An amazing $500 Gore-Tex ProShell, a glorious shade of purple, made in Canada, and can defend you from pretty much anything nature can throw at you. I LOVE THIS JACKET. Months and months later, I am still drooling over it. I think this would be an awesome celebration of my commitment to weight loss and also... a GREEEEEEEEEAT way to "bake in the loss" as I mentioned in a previous post. I totally love this jacket and if I spend a damn fortune on it, I sure as hell am not gonna put ANY weight back on that could result in the jacket not fitting well in the future. I actually think for that reason alone this is probably a brilliant idea. I am definitely gonna search around and try to find a nice sale price for it, but I'm starting to think this might be a fantastic gift to myself at the conclusion of the weight loss progress.

Subcutaneous Body Fat Test #1

I didn't realize I hadn't posted the results from my first caliper/subcutaneous body fat test which I did at my gym at work right before leaving for Peru.

This was my first of these tests and I got a value of 15.9%, which I am VERY happy with.

This is a much more accurate reading than the measurements I posted a few months back. Their scale goes as follows (for Males):

• <5%: Underweight
• <12%: Lean
• 12-21%: Acceptable
• 21-26%: Overweight
• >26%: Obese

I was suspecting it would be more around the 17-19% range given my values from the Fat2Fit calculator but yeah, this is awesome. I am excited to measure this every few months and watch this progress in a good direction as I've been doing with the weight loss.

One "problem" about starting to workout and do strength training more is that it will potentially start getting harder to just read the scale and say "Yes, I'm still on the right track because my weight is less!" since once you start building muscle you might put on weight even though you are getting healthier and even losing more fat. So I need to start tracking my success by Body Fat Percentage and not just weight loss anymore now that I've dropped a bunch. I'd like to continue onwards to 170 lbs (another 9 lbs from here), but I've already noticed a stabilization of the weight loss despite the fact that it looks to me like I've lost more fat. I think that's the muscle building from the Inca Trail hike, I bet!

I have no idea how much muscle you need to build before it starts affecting the reliability of using weight as a measure of your fitness success. So I should still keep trying hard to get to 170. But if I get to 175 but drop to 14% Body Fat, I have to make sure I still call this a huge success in my mind... and not just complain or be upset that I didn't get to 170. Keep at it Jutan...

Waist size

Oh baby this is awesome.

I went shopping at the Levi's Store today with Frank and Jess (who have now become my personal shoppers it seems) and it was epic.

Best part about today (other than finding 2 pairs of awesome jeans on sale)... my waist size is now 33. Thirty-frickin'-three!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Actually, even some 32's fit in some styles. Crazy.

I've been a size 36 waist solidly for at least 8 years, maybe even 9 or 10. That's insane. I haven't had this small a jean size since probably Grade 11. This is ABSURD.

I'm so excited and psyched at the news. I was expecting to drop to 34 but didn't expect that 33 would fit. Was SHOCKED that some of the 32's even fit me, that's totally crazy. That's like my Grade 10 waist or something. Just insane.

I was reading some health blogs a while back which said waist size is a very important factor in health and you should really be concerned about a lot of fat - specifically fat placed around the belly area - so this drop is massively awesome.

As with the "Fat Former Self" photos, by buying awesome and somewhat expensive jeans now at this waist size, I'm "baking in" my progress by setting up pillars (in this case, they are made of expensive clothing) so that I have increased self/social pressure to maintain my weight long-term. The thought process is roughly this: "these jeans look great and I feel good in them, plus I spent a bunch of my hard-earned money on them. I have to make sure I get a lot of good use out of them. So I can't put this weight back on! EVVVVVVERRRRRRR!!!" I'm also donating my entire stack of 36" jeans and other pants to Goodwill. This is intentional as well, not only for the clothing recycling aspect of it, but so I can't pretend I have a bunch of clothes that will fit well if I "only gain back a few lbs..." That's where the disaster starts, so I am gonna make sure to keep "baking in" my awesome progress.

Let the fitness goals continue...

PS. Seems like I've been thinking about and writing a LOT about health, weight loss, fitness, healthy eating etc. over the past 9 months. It seems important enough to me now to make it a blog "topic". So I am gonna now try to remember to tag posts with the label "Healthy Living and Fitness" so I can group them all together as I keep writing about this stuff.

Swap it in, Swap it out: Tips & Tricks for using nested referencing in Autodesk Maya

Wicked! My talk from the Autodesk University ADN 2011 conference has been posted to the Autodesk AREA site. Check it out here!

It's called "Swap it in, Swap it out: Tips & Tricks for using nested referencing in Autodesk Maya" and is about some of my recent work.

Fat Former Self (photo #4)

Here is the next installment in the famed "Fat Former Self" photo series! I'm happy to announce, as I was hoping to say, that on my recent trip to South America "I didn't gain a bunch of weight, and I still had fun." Awesome times. I'm now down 32 lbs since I started and sitting comfortably at 179 lbs - easily back at my Grade 12 high school weight. Insane.

The trip was epic and we crushed the Inca Trail - an amazing challenge and a truly fantastic experience. It would have been a LOT harder and wayyyy less enjoyable had I not gotten my act together and still been my previous weight (32 LBS HEAVIER). Crazy.

Anyhow, here's another addition to my self-imposed internet meme "Fat Former Self".

The progress continues! I'm now aiming for 170 lbs as (likely) my end weight loss goal, and I'm going to start stepping it up harder at the gym now and focusing more on strength training in the next 6 months. When I hit 170 lbs I'll post one more "Fat Former Self" photo, but after that I'll be focusing on strength training rather than further weight loss. So perhaps I'll need to start a new series called "Scrawny Former Self"?! :)

(Here's the explanation again, if you think I'm insane for posting these):

Now, why the hell would I intentionally post horrible photos of me at an earlier weight? Well... lots of reasons. It's fun to share a sort of ridiculous before/after style photo with friends, but more importantly, this is my way of increasing social pressure on myself to make sure I maintain this weight loss. By tracking down horrid photos of me as "Fat Former Self" (and also, referring to my old pics as that), I'm celebrating how much happier I am with my weight loss/fitness progress so far. Each photo reminds me further why I'm so glad I've made these healthy changes, and how I never want to drop the ball in the future and end up re-gaining this weight.

Oh, awesome. Phillip Phillips won American Idol!

While I was away in Argentina it looks like the American Idol season finished. Surprisingly, and AWESOMELY, the acoustic/folky/jazzy/rock singer Phillip Phillips won which is super awesome. I didn't see too many of the episodes but I randomly caught a few including his performance of Dave Matthews Band's "The Stone" which is an EPIC and incredibly tough song to do well and he just rocked it so fierce.

This is super cool, I guess as part of the American Idol deal he will put out a record of his own songs, which is awesome cause he seems very stick-to-his-guns style with his musical ideals and he's drawn a lot of comparisons to Dave Matthews over the past few months, (i.e., I clearly am gonna love this album). Psyched to hear that something with some heart and soul can win a pop music contest... that rocks. I'm pretty keen to hear his album. Come on DMB, get Phillip to open for you guys!!

Star Wars 1313: E3 Gameplay Video

Star Wars 1313 E3 Video Released today! Check it out.

Awesome work guys, it looks ammmaazinng.

I didn't gain a bunch of weight, and I still had fun

As I posted back in March, I was very keen to enjoy the hell out of South America, eat lots of interesting stuff, drink 1000's of tasty and epic weird Amazonian fruit juices, and NOT gain weight. I was hoping to say "I didn't gain a bunch of weight, and I still had fun" after the trip...

Verdict is: success!!!!!!

I suspect I lost about 5 lbs on the Inca Trail given that we were expending somewhere around 5000 calories per day and not eating anywhere close to that. But after the crazy start to the trip, I jumped into the exciting culinary epicness of South America and definitely made sure to try everything (except the Guinea Pig, there was no way that was gonna happen).

After a month away of not recording on MyFitnessPal and not weighing myself, I'm down about 2 lbs!! Hoorayy!!!!

How?

Well, I definitely didn't limit my food intake if I really wanted something. Ice Cream, cake, huge steaks in Buenos Aires, tons of fruit juice in the Amazon, etc. I went to town on all that stuff. The big difference between now and earlier trips is if there was food that wasn't special (crappy white bread, boring dry pasta etc) I didn't just eat it cause it was there. That was the main difference. I usually lose weight on a trip due to the 8 hrs of walking every day, but in the past 10 years I've also typically been at a much higher weight (therefore, it was easier to lose a lot quickly by changing a habit like walking a lot every day). So I didn't gain anything on this trip, which rocks, but I also didn't lose a TON. So that probably means my habits are pretty solid, and the fierce exercise while on the trip nicely balanced out my try-everything-cause-it's-new-and-exciting food style.

Now that I'm back, it's back to normal

I had a nice long chat with my bro Heev before the trip about what to do when I got home, and he had brilliant advice: just make sure you go back to your new awesome habits... and you'll probably really be keen to anyway! And that has really been the case - I was so excited just to eat a bowlful of vegetables and have some V8 and Tea and other stuff I am used to. It's taking a little bit to re-adjust but mentally I know I have to. I set a new goal to lose another 10 lbs (or, 9-ish, I'm at 179.6 now and I'm now aiming for 170), and this new goal is helping to encourage me to get right back on the horse. I'm eating carefully and measuring everything with MyFitnessPal again, just like before the trip. I have another goal to reach, so now is not the time to slack off! Back in BIZ, baby.

Lock it in

I just went to Banana Republic today and bought 2 slim fit stretch collar shirts and they look awesome. The craziest part: medium was TOO BIG. So I (wait for it)... had to BUY A SIZE SMALL. Yes... SMALL. I was like... whhhaaaaattt????! Yeah. Seriously. It's a pretty snug fit, but you're supposed to wear those a bit tight, and yeah. SMALL?! Anyway, these shirts were expensive, plus they kinda look amazing, and there is no damn way I want to donate these new puppies to Goodwill anytime soon (sorry Goodwill, but you're about to get a truckload of XL and L shirts...). So by getting these awesome new and quite fitted clothes, I'm encouraging myself to keep things going and on-track and not to fall victim to any bad habits. I also can't treat SF like my trip - food is now a luxury cause I'm not hiking for 8 hrs a day anymore. Food needs to be carefully chosen, and healthy habits need to keep being the top of my priority list.

I'll post another "Fat Former Self" photo soon, I've got a baller photo of me looking like Indiana Jones in Buenos Aires, so I'll try to find a horrible old photo of me and pair the two with the usual cheesy pun. More importantly... back to the gym this week!