BMI

Before beginning my exercise program, I needed to measure my starting point. The last time I remember stepping on a scale was after my first year of college. Most newcomers to college experience the ‘freshmen fifteen,’ the fifteen pounds that freshmen put on in their first academic year of higher education.

But I experienced a freshmen forty. September of 1999 when I moved into my dorm at SUNY Geneseo, I weighed 140 pounds. Nine months later I weighed 180 pounds.

Today, in England, my scale read out a small number in stones. After converting it to kilograms the number got larger. Finnally getting it into pounds it was larger still and I discovered that I weighed 212 pounds. I had crossed the 200 mark — by a lot — without knowing.

This shocked me.

I’ll admit to having a prejudice against fat people, a fattist, as I have been called, though like most people with prejudice I excuse those I know personally. My dislike of the obese lead me to create a chart showing obesity rates around the world. The chart’s data is based on a measurement called BMI: Body Mass Index. To calculate BMI you take your weight in kilograms and divide it by your height in meters squared. If you aren’t one for math and unit conversions, you can use a BMI calculator

With a mass of 96 kilograms and a height of 1.82 meters my BMI is 29. To my horror, this is one point away from obesity according to the BMI chart. I had smugly drawn a comic to mock fat Americans while unaware that I was almost one myself.

Time to put the donuts down and get my ass in the gym.

Step 1: Joining the Gym

Now that my wife-to-be decided that change needed to happen, how to start getting in shape after a winter of slothfulness? My usual fitness tool, my bike, needed repairs after six months on the porch exposed to the elements. It did not occur to me when I stored it for the season that bike + rain + time = rust. I regarded the rust as a cosmetic problem but learned this was not the case. My bike doctor diagnosed that my bike needed an everything transplant — from the chain to the gears to the breaks — to keep it alive. Total estimated cost: £200. That amount of money gave me pause and I thought about better uses for it. I had a month until the wedding and I would need to use the bike as much as possible if I expected to see results.

However, this year summer has not happened. It’s been the rainiest June on record in London since records began. This did not bode well for regular exercise. While I know I should still go out in the rain on my bike, I don’t. I tried cycling in the rain last Autumn. It did not go well. I skidded, went over the handle bars, hit my head, blanked out, pulled something painful out of the bloodly mess that was my elbow that I later learned was my tendon, then stumbled home for six kilometers.

Now I stay in when it rains.

Instead of reviving the bike I directed the funds toward a gym membership. I’ve tried in the past to join a gym but after a short time gave it up. I learned from my past mistakes that only one thing matters about gyms: location. If a gym takes any effort to get to, you won’t go. Luckily for me there is a gym across the street.

I paid my £70 one-month-no-contract membership, had a buff man named Gavin show we how to use the equipment to appease the Gods of health-and-safety, and I’m ready to start.

August 2007 Goal: Get in Shape for my Wedding

Some time ago, my girlfriend and I were discussing the seriousness of our relationship and we decided to get married. We fully settled the deal about a month ago with plans to marry one month from now.

On a recent morning, my suddenly-fiancee and I lay in bed, discussing plans and our future lives together when she gently reached over and pinched my chest.

“Oh my,” she said. “You’re developing quite a pair of man-boobs there.”

I objected, but knew that she was correct. Over the past year I have become more sedentary and slowly put on weight.

“You really need to do something about those.”

And so it was. We are to be married at the beginning of August, which gives me this month’s goal: 30 days to get in shape for my wedding. As always, suggestions welcome.

Goal A Month June 2007: Reduce My RSI Pain Results

I’m happy to report that this month’s goal was successfully achieved. There are three main things I changed that have caused the RSI pain in my fingers to subside without a reduction in computer use:

1. Using the trackpad as little as possible

2. Replacing a standard mouse with an ergonomic mouse

3. Forcing myself to take mini breaks

That’s worked for me. If you have repetitive strain injury, and can’t reduce your computer use, try these tricks and let me know (Grey1618@Googlemail.com) if they work for you.

My Savior: 3M Ergonomic Mouse

After realizing that my trackpad caused a great deal of my repetitive stress pain, I spent an afternoon researching ergonomic mice and found one that stood out above the rest: The 3M Ergonomic Mouse.

Under its shell, the 3M is a standard red-light optical mouse, but it’s the casing that makes the difference. The body of the 3M mouse is flat, with a joystick-like projection on the top. You hold the mouse on the desk in the same way you would shake hands with someone sitting across from you. Your thumb rests on the top of the joystick-like part. Beneath your thumb are the left and right click buttons. There is also a button beneath your fingers on the grip for middle clicking.

But, and this is the key to why it works, the 3M mouse is not a joystick. The optical sensor is on the bottom so you move your whole arm to direct the pointer on the screen. I was concerned about switching to a non-standard mouse because I thought that it would have much less precise control over the pointer. Both in the creation of my webcomic, and editing my photographs, I need to move the pointer tiny amounts, sometimes only a pixel at a time. To my relief, the 3M Ergonomic Mouse can do that. Thus, I can use it as my primary mouse, and have come to prefer the way it handles over my old Microsoft optical mouse.

While the price is high, and the profit margin on it must be about 400%, I would easily pay twice as much again for the difference it has made in reducing my RSI.

Purchase the 3M Ergonomic Mouse here.

Know Thy Enemy: The Trackpad

In my experiments this month to reduce my repetitive strain injury I have discovered the main culprit: the trackpad.

The trackpad on my laptop is an easy and lazy way to manipulate the pointer, but it also destroys my fingers in the process. Twenty minutes of trackpad use is like being on the mouse all day.

Sadly, Apple computers don’t come with any alternatives, such as the nipple found on IBM thinkpads, and there is no way to disable the apple trackpad to force me to use the mouse at all times.

However, it is possible to temporarily disable the trackpad while the mouse is connected:

1. Open System Preferences

2. Go to ‘Keyboard and Mouse’

3. Click on the ‘Trackpad’ tab

4. At the bottom, check the box ‘Ignore trackpad when mouse is present’

This has helped me, at least a little, to break my trackpad habit.

Type Less: Textexpander

One of the ways to reduce RSI is to type less. Aside from switching to dvorak to reduce the actual distance that your fingers travel, there is an excellent little tool I found via Merlin Mann called textexpander. Textexpander allows you to type small snippets of text that will explode into longer strings.

For example, when I type ‘wg.net’ textexpander automatically changes it to ‘http://www.WellingtonGrey.net/’. Rather than typing my email address in full, I just type ‘greyat’ and out pops ‘Grey1618@Googlemail.com’. The great thing about textexpander is that it works in every application and is completely invisible. You don’t have to manually start it up or press special command keys to explode the text, it doesn’t interrupt your train of thought so you can keep typing.

Aside from being a productivity tool that actually saves time, on the RSI side I’m using it a lot for reducing awkward commands to type. For example, I write my journals using LaTeX. While LaTeX is a system well-designed for typesetting books, the syntax is ugly and awkward to type. Now in LaTeX instead of reaching for uncomfortable commands like \emph{ } I have simpler snippets in textexpander to create them.

Textexpander costs $30 and is well worth it for the amount of time you’ll save. Download textexpander here.