Matisyahu's Blog

End of another week and I’m feeling good with how my weight loss is progressing – I tried on a pair of pants that I didn’t think could fit me but I pulled them up, buttoned the fly and waist with a perfect fit. From the outside it may not seem much but I like when I can see small milestones being met with each passing week. I headed down to the store today wearing them and they’re very comfortable, bought a coffee and a slice of carrot cake, headed to ‘The Warehouse’ and purchased some underwear and wooden coat hangers then took the bus back home. I like heading down to the shops on a Monday because it is quiet so one can relax and look around without the pressure of other people crowding in a store resulting in pressure to get in and out as quickly as possible.

Last night I had a good walk – took the long way around where I walk down to the town centre then loop back up on high street then home which is around 9km. I’ll go for an 8km walk or maybe longer tonight, enjoy the fresh air and calmness to clear my mind which is particularly important after taking call all days and having to deal with many less than desirable characters who see me (as an operator) as an emotional soundboard they can bounce their complains off to even if it has nothing to do with the services we provide. Oh well, on my walk I like to clear my mind, reflecting on the day, the wins that I’ve achieved – focusing on the positives which has been good for my mental health.

The funny part about getting healthy over the last few months has been also how it has improved my financial position particularly when it comes to not using spending as a form of ‘self medication’ – be it buying stuff together that endorphin rush of having a shiny new toy to play with only quickly find that the endorphin rush is temporary and then go searching for the next endorphin rush. At the rate I am going, I’ve gotten rid of my overdraft and then I’m going to work on reducing debt that I have outstanding then gradually chip away at it where I’d like to get to the point that by the end of this year a substantial amount of that has been cleared off the deck and by my birthday next day that I’m completely debt free with some savings behind me.

I think one of the mistakes I made in the past when it came to getting healthy was the idea that if I lost the weight then all the other problems in my life would magically solve themselves – that all the problems I was having in my life could be addressed if I addressed that one thing but the problem is that when I lost the weight I put it back on because I never addressed the underlying issues that existed. Part of that process is finding a healthy way to deal with stress, anxiety etc. and for me it is going for a walk every night that allows me to get out of the house, to work through the days events, to allow my mind to relax with the net result when I come back I feel refreshed. One thing to keep in mind, I’m not going out there and working out until I collapse or completely exhausted but rather at the end I feel refreshed.

As a side note one of the things I have been doing is focusing on making more things I consume from scratch – for example at work I fill up my metal flask with coffee shots (it’s an automated coffee machine that uses coffee beans) so that when I come home and want some coffee milk it is a matter of putting 100ml of coffee shots plus 500ml of low flat milk – no sugar or added ingredients. We (mum and I) had tacos last week – using canned tomatoes that don’t include extra sugar but rather the mince, canned tomatoes that included onions and capsicum then add some seasoning then slow cooked it. The benefit of not relying on those prepackaged sauces is that you know exactly what is in there because when you buy something like jarred tomato pasta sauce there is sugar that is added and it shocked me just how much sugar was added vs doing it yourself you avoid those added sugars other than just the sugar that naturally occurs in the tomatoes, onions and capsicum.

On a side note, at work I use a laptop running Windows 11 and so far I enjoy it quite a fair bit but I don’t think I’ll ever see myself moving to Windows because it lacks the sort of integration that one experiences with Apple and macOS but with that being said, never say never. The one thing I try to do is keep an open mind because at the end of the day I’m an end user not a shareholder or a member of some sort of religious cult of pledges an undying loyalty to a particular business. At the end of the day, if Microsoft and OEMs in the future produce a really good laptop and Microsoft really gives Windows the boot up the backside it needs then I’ll be open to moving, as I’ve said in the past I’m open to Android but the lack of integration into to the Apple ecosystem (relying on third parties to synchronise music, the lack of the ability to answer a phone call on macOS, the lack of Google delivering Quickshare support for macOS while making it available for Windows) but the integration with Windows is great then combine that with the work being done with Windows App SDK I think it’ll be a matter of time when we start seeing those rough edges of Win32 legacy disappear as Windows App SDK becomes the default API used by most developers once it becomes feature rich to be a drop in replacement for Win32.