Atkins study
Posted on May 19, 2004
Filed Under Life | 1 Comment
Found “this page”:http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99995003 via “Dean Esmay’s site”:http://www.deanesmay.com/archives/007430.html
bq.. Stern’s year-long study (Annals of Internal Medicine, vol 140, p778) was twice the length of any previous study. Half the patients followed the Atkins regime, limiting daily carbohydrate intake to just 30 grams. The rest tried losing weight through a conventional low-fat diet much richer in carbohydrates.
By the end, both groups had lost about the same amount of weight, between five and eight kilograms for the Atkins group and three and eight kilos for the low fat group. But the Atkins dieters lost almost all their weight in the first six months, then remained at a steady weight.
p. A whole year. Woo hoo.
March 3, 2004 was my 3 year anniversary of making my goal weight with “Weight Watchers”:http://www.weightwatchers.com after losing 50 lbs. It took me about 11 months to lose the weight. I haven’t been perfect, but my weight has been within 5 lbs. of goal ever since. I had been battling my weight since I was about 10 years old. I graduated high school at about 180 lbs. In college I went on Herbalife and got down to 128 lbs. but that wasn’t healthy for me at all. I couldn’t maintain that and gained it all back, most after my father died (and Laini was diagnosed with Autism around the same time). I joined Weight Watchers (again) in 2000 after I was turned down for donating blood. It wasn’t due to my weight, but I knew I wasn’t healthy and I was sick of it. Literally. Now I wouldn’t define myself as “skinny” by any stretch but I’m a comfortable size 8 (size 6 depending on the cut) and that’s good for me and I can stay at this weight and eat this way for the rest of my life.
Anyone can lose weight. Really. Eat less, move more. Do it for long enough and you lose weight. The hardest part is *keeping it off.* If you have a lot to lose, the challenge is in sustaining the enthusiasm to make it to goal once the novelty starts wearing off. Especially for women. We come out of the womb conditioned to say “I need to lose weight.” We are constantly in diet mode, and we never learn how to maintain. We have to learn how to indulge for a special ocassion and get right back on program without giving ourselves a guilt trip. We are either overeating, or we are depriving. The middle ground is the hardest. And I’m sorry, but I think Atkins is a fad. I know there are many that have been successful on it, but come back and talk to me when you have enough people like me…people who have maintained their weight loss for 2 years, 3 years. Or longer. There are people who have lost significant amounts of weight on Weight Watchers and have kept it off for 15-20 years. All the studies in the world aren’t going to give Atkins that kind of credibility yet. Find people who have maintained weight loss for years, and you’ll find that they did it the old fashioned way (Weight Watchers and/or fat & calorie cutting). There’s no shortcut. I think there’s validity in cutting back on carbohydrates. I know that when my weight creeps up, the first thing I do is cut back on the carbs and it goes right back down. But long term, the key to sustained weight loss is *moderation* not deprivation.
BTW, I had a page on my old site design that had before & after pictures of Eric and me since we lost weight. “You can see them here.”:http://www.momathome.com/misc/weightloss/ It’s one of those pages that I haven’t gotten around to bringing into Movable Type yet.
Caller ID - a cell phone saga
Posted on May 19, 2004
Filed Under Misc. | 9 Comments
First of all, I really do like “Cingular”:http://www.cingular.com as a cell phone company overall. There is no better coverage in this part of Connecticut. Besides, I’m indentured to them for another 2 years so like it or not, I’m stuck with them.
But what I thought was a simple matter has been dragging on for months, and I have to vent about it. Because if you can’t vent to the world on your blog, where can you vent?
I have a cell phone with Cingular. Eric has a cell phone with Cingular. We have a home phone with SBC local and long distance. At one point, Cingular, SNET, SBC or whatever were all the same company. So we have what is known as “combined billing.” The bill for both cell phones and our home phone local & long distance come all in one package. On some months (particularly when we were out of the house last year and using our cell phones constantly) the total on this one bill could pay off part of the national debt, but it’s been reasonable the past few months as I’m home more often and using my cell phone less.
The good thing about combined billing is it’s all in one place. The bad thing is that I can’t check my minutes online and when I call someone from my cell phone it appears as “Eric Sohn” in the caller ID. This bothers me. I love my husband, but if I’m calling a client from *my* cell phone I want the call to appear as coming from me. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.
About 3 months ago, just around the time I got the “new phone”:http://www.momathome.com/viewfromhome/misc/who_said_convergence_is_everything.php I called Cingular and asked them what would it take to change the caller ID on my phone. “Well, it’s not your phone. It’s your husband’s name on the account. He has to make any changes.” Okay, fine. I have Eric sign a piece of paper giving me the authorization to make changes on *our* account. I call back. “I’m authorized. Change the caller ID on my phone to my name.” I would have been happy if it at least said “Eric & Judi Sohn” or just “Sohn”. No, can’t do that because it’s a combined bill account. The only way to change the caller ID on one phone line is to separate it from the account. Fine, I say. Separate it. “Well, even though you are authorized on the account you can’t make this change. It has to come from your husband because the account is still in his name.” Fine. I have Eric call Cingular. Eric tells me that they’re mailing the necessary paperwork to transfer my cell phone account only from his name to mine. About a week later we get the paperwork, fill it out and send it back. Then nothing. Weeks go by. I can’t face calling Cingular again, so last Saturday we stopped by a Cingular store. I explained the situation to the nice woman at the store who pulls my account up on her computer. She has a record that I called to ask about the change, she has a record that Eric called, she has a record that the paperwork was mailed to us. Nothing after that. The woman at the store was very nice, and she ran interference for me. She called the line sales people can use and went through all the hoops that I did. I filled out the paperwork *again* and 20 minutes later she assured me that I would receive a fax on Monday confirming the transfer. Monday, no fax. Tuesday, no fax. Today I had a meeting near the store so I stopped in afterwards. The same lady was there. She was surprised I hadn’t received anything, so she called again. It took another 20 minutes of sitting there while the sales person spoke to her call center, and I was finally assured that the account was separated. Sure enough, I now have a separate account number and can check my minutes online. When I log in to the Cingular website it shows the account as being in my name.
But when I call someone, it’s still showing as “Eric Sohn” in the caller ID and the person at the Cingular Store can’t figure out why. ::sigh::
Update 5/26/04: Yesterday I received a phone call from Cingular that the Caller ID issue had been fixed. It now says “Judith Sohn” when I call someone from my cell phone. Yah!
But now my Fast Forward doesn’t work. 
I get the green light when I put the phone in the cradle, but calls are not being routed through to my home phone even though “Fast Foward” does appear on my account as added service.
Is Cingular really a house of cards, or am I just “lucky”?
Millionaire
Posted on May 18, 2004
Filed Under Entertainment | 4 Comments
Eric and I have been watching the new “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire”:http://abc.go.com/primetime/millionaire/index.html
One thing really annoys me. The guy doesn’t know the answer to the question (and I’m typing it from memory so it’s probably not exactly right):
bq.. In the oft-hyped 2004 series finale of Friends, what treasured possession did Joey destroy?
A. Barcalounger
B. Refridgerator
C. Stuffed Penguin
D. Foosball Table
p. Pretty easy question, but that’s not the point. The guy didn’t know it and had to call a friend. The friend is on the phone, and the contestant reads him the question and the choices word-by-word. By the time he finished reading the question and repeating the choices there was maybe 4 seconds left for the answer. Lucky for the guy on stage, he got it right (it’s “D” for duh).
If it had been me, I would have been on the phone to Eric for example “Real quick hon, what did Joey destroy in the Friends finale? Fridge, chair, penguin or foosball table?” That would take maybe 10 seconds and then I’d have 20 seconds to discuss the answer with my phone a friend.
I see the contestant carefully read every single word of the question and the choices each time and it drives me crazy.
Of course, it would never be me. While I can answer many of the questions, I am not good at those fastest finger questions they use in the phone rounds.
That’s my kid - the sequel
Posted on May 18, 2004
Filed Under Kids | Leave a Comment
I’ve already “posted”:http://www.momathome.com/viewfromhome/kids/thats_my_kid.php about Emily in the digital age. Now here’s one about Laini.
She’s in 2nd grade and each week she has a list of spelling words. She has to write sentences using the words. This week she had the word “sink” and the sentence she wrote was “I’m in sink.”
Living in a house with 3 desktop computers, 2 laptops, 1 iPod, 2 cell phones and 2 Palm PDAs I can’t imagine what she was thinking?!?
How I use Movable Type
Posted on May 18, 2004
Filed Under Uncategorized | 2 Comments
The folks at “Six Apart”:http://www.sixapart.com/ are continuing to respond to the very public lashing they got in response to the new licensing. They now “want to know”:http://www.sixapart.com/log/2004/05/how_are_you_usi.shtml how people are using Movable Type.
I’m not one who complained on the first go round, but I’ll still post my information for their data collection. This site is just two blogs, the main one here that also has the static “about” pages and a second blog for the portfolio. One author. Simple. I also have a sub domain with a separate installation of Movable Type (and a separate MySQL database) that I use to test plug-ins and templates. I don’t publish the URL. It’s where I plan to install Movable Type 3.0D first to make sure everything’s working before migrating it here. I don’t think I should have to count that.
My question is still whether my site falls under a personal or commercial license. Yes, Mom at Home Design is now a business (at least in the eyes of the IRS and the State of Connecticut). However, this site is more “me” than business. I don’t see it as being any different than an author who has a personal website and a link to the books he/she has written. Those sites seem to fall under a personal license and I believe my site does too.
The “license” states:
bq. “Non-Commercial Purposes” means use of the Software by an individual for publishing on a personal blog site on a single sever that does not directly or indirectly support any commercial efforts. Use of the Software for any purpose by any non-individual entity, including but not limited to any commercial entity, corporation, non-profit organization, educational institution, governmental body or group, is not permitted under this Agreement. Affiliate or associate fees that are earned by a personal blog site and are payable to a single individual and that are earned through activities incidental to the main purpose of the site are permitted under the Non-Commercial Purposes of this Agreement.
“the main purpose” of this site is not to drum up business. It’s my tiny corner of the world. I’ll talk about my favorite TV show one day, new software the next or maybe my opinion on parent advocacy or gay marriage. If that’s not the definition of a personal site… but the language “does not directly or indirectly support any commercial efforts” makes me nervous. What does “indirectly” mean in this case?
