During past few years, I have tried several times to increase physical activities such as walking and biking from home to office, but never be able to lose any weight. Only this time did I lose a significant amount of weight. Why do I succeed this time? This question puzzles me these days, as I am launching another self-directed behavioral change but with little success till now.

Apparently, the desire to change myself is always in my mind. It is the ultimate motivation that gets me started, pushes me through tough time, and leads me to the final success. However, this desire failed to motivate me achieving goals such as stopping procrastination or limiting internet usage. There are some fundamental differences between weight loss program and stopping procrastination.
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Several years ago, I regularly commuted from my hometown to the college by the inter-city bus. The bus drivers were always the same two middle-aged Shanghainese guys. Both of them were typical Shanghainese (not stereotyping): gaunt and shrewd. The bus drivers were also talkative, but mostly speaking to their fellow Shanghainese who either were working in my hometown or came for business. Apparently, they looked down upon the rest of commuters because most of us were from small rural towns.

It was drizzling that day. As a student who always purchased advance tickets, I sat in the front passenger row just behind the driver seat. One driver was busy collecting tickets and shuffling passengers, and the other was cleaning up the front window. While wiping the windows, the latter might recognized me as a regular student commuter and somehow had some respects to me. With a big smile, he started to explain to me what he was doing. He told me that by spraying some diluted detergent on the window and wiping it with the tower, fog would not form in the window. This was his idea, he asserted proudly. He continued to tell me all sorts of tricks he learned or discovered during more than ten years of driving, which I had no faintest idea. Obviously the conversion impressed me so much that even today I can still recall it vividly. His proud speech, his exaggerated demonstration, and his pseudo-scientific knowledge looked funny then and now.
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Addiction was traditionally restricted to substance abuse. Since the 1980s, researchers realized that the definition of addiction should be expanded to include behavioral addiction. For example, there are many people addicted to gambling, pornography, sex, and since the 1990s, computer use and the internet. Nevertheless, addiction is usually associated with negative things.

Is it possible that people are addicted to positive things? How about workaholic? Or even exercise?
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It has been two years since Iris Chang committed suicide in November 9, 2004. Many people tried to understand why she did that, but nobody can give a satisfactory answer. It seems to me that Iris is predisposed to depression and she might have set herself up when she started working on those arresting topics. Nevertheless, the death of Iris is a loss for all Chinese. Except for her untimely death, Iris lived a fruitful life and was a role model inspiring many Chinese Americans.

In memory of Iris Chang, I have thought a lot about depression recently. How can we treat depression? Medication is one choice, but only for those clinically diagnosed depressed people. For many mild cases and those who are always in blue mood, they need some other advice.
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Tonight when I was doing some research on procrastination, I came across Steven Pavalina’s blog (stevenpavalina.com). It is a fascinating site full of informative articles. In one of Steven’s best articles, he proposed one interesting regime to success: 30 days trial for anything. I sincerely agree with that.

I am a fan of self-experiment. During the past month, I put myself on a tough test: can I lose 20 lb of weight simply by exercise and calorie restriction? Happily, the answer is yes. I lost 20 lb within a month, an unprecedented achievement that deserves applause. This is an example of achieving success in 30 days.

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Three weeks ago, I decided to lose weight. There is no obvious reason, as I am always thinking about reshaping my hefty body. I purchased the membership at the U recreation center and did some light exercise that day. I felt good.

I skipped the rest of week, a common phenomenon when initiating a grand plan. Nevertheless, on the next Monday, I got out of my comfy chair and walked into the gym. I walked and ran on the treadmill for half an hour, totaling 2.2 miles.

At the same day, I started counting my calories (see Oct, 2 post). I discovered that my regular energy intake was actually much lower than the reference predicted by all sorts of formula. Those predictions are just nonsense. If I am gaining weight, my energy intake must be greater than my energy expenditure. That is a simple truth.
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Recently, Chinese surgeons made a significant contribution to the plastic surgery. They successfully transplanted a penis for a man who injured his penis during an accident. However, after 14 days, the team regretfully reported that they had to cut the penis off because of patient’s psychological problems.

According to the report, the man complained that his quality of life was suffered greatly after the accident. He wanted to urinate in a standing position and have a satisfactory sex life.

Now he had what he had asked for— a new and young penis with which he can urinate in a standing position, and possibly have sex in the near future (God forbids). Why did he want to take aback what he had requested?

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This evening, I felt sleepy. My head was dizzy, my body was exhausted, and my mind went completely blank. I wanted to lie down right after dinner. But, as a family man, I couldn’t.

No, it is not because I ate too much. I am carefully controlling the amount of foods for each dinner. OK, I confess I have stuffed 80% of my stomach. But that is not the reason. I always ate that much. It was not because of foods, I was sure.

After about an hour’s doze, I figured that I was kind of in a blue mood.
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More than 60% Americans are overweight or obese. A big body is burdensome and not beautiful.

So a lot of people are obsessed in losing weight but most of them fail to achieve any success. They switch from the Atkins diet to the South Beach diet, from aerobic exercise to strength training, and from nowhere to nowhere. Even worse, the majority of them gain weight after the end of weight-loss program. People become frustrated about their weight, their confidence, and their ability. They feel ashamed about their bodies, and some unlucky ones get depressed.

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Time starts with the Big Bang and goes on forever. Theoretically, you can travel backwards along the time axis if you can run at a speed faster than the light. I simply don’t believe that. It is a mathematical trick for self-entertainment, not for my daily life.

Although in particle physics time is measured in milliseconds or smaller, the second, arbitrarily set by ancient scholars, is the smallest unit we human beings can physically sense it. Unfortunately, every day has only 86400 seconds, no less, no more.

Thus, it is a secret art to manage this limited time that God mercifully allocates for us. I have tried numerous ways and used all sorts of gadgets to master this art. But I am still the old me. Time is not a concrete concept in my mind.

Maybe, something is wrong within my skull. No, I am not scratching my head.

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