White men can't jump?

Recently, I been playing basketball with friends every saturday (check out this site http://www.recsports.ufl.edu/swrc_camera.aspx, I may be playing :^}). Basketball is not my sports, soccer is my game (and occasional running). Since soccer is an outdoor game, and summer is right around the corner, I decided to play basketball.

Between you and me, I'm not good in playing basketball. I can dribble, pass and shoot, that's about it. Making the shots is a different story.

Week by week, I realized that I love to defend than to dribble the ball. In soccer, I love to defend more than weave into defenders. I love to take the ball from the person (or take the person from the ball, which is a foul and a last resort). That's me.

Observe the evolution of the game anyway, you will realize that basketball is a game for blacks . It's not about who defends best or scores how many points. If you are a basketball fan, the last great white professional basketball player was Larry Bird, circa 1980s. Nobody came close to him. What followed was a domination of great black players: Jordan, LeBron James, Grant Hill, Shaq etc. Although there are whites here and there (Steve Nash), their credentials were not comparable to Bird. Are whites incapable of jumping? If you agree, you will also conclude that blacks are not suppose to round the ice hockey. Almost all of the hockey players are white (except for Jerome Iginla, a mixed black-white).

Down to 167 lbs

Numbers don't lie, and I'm down to 167 lbs from 170. How about that? The good thing about achieving goals early is that it is a good motivational factor: If I did it this week, I can do it next week.

Losing 3 lbs. is within the range of your hydration. You can increase your weight by a glass of water. I know somebody, a professional triathlete, loses 10 lbs. in a hard training of running and biking. I'm not a professional triathlete, I only lose 3 lbs the most in a hard run.

Nevertheless, 3 lbs is 3 lbs.

Increasing caloric expenditure

Our bodies are product of billion years of evolution. If you think back how our ancestors lived a long time ago, they were very active. They have to hunt in order to eat or escape from predators hunting them. It's an active lifestyle no doubt.

Our lifestyle, and not our body, evolved so fast to computers, cars, grocery stores and the internet. We are not running away anymore from predators and hunt in order to live, instead, we work to pay the bills. Unfortunately, our body is still in the active, primitive mode, that's why we need to exercise.

There are a lot of things to do in order to increase your caloriec expenditure: use the stairs instead of the elevator, park your car away from your office in order to walk and all of those good things you've heard before. Mine is simple, I use the bike going to my laboratory and if i use the bus, I walk two blocks to the next bus stop.









My preciuos bike in the middle
of high tech research instruments

You only see what the headlight can reach

(Note: That's me at the right warming up at my apartment complex' fitness room. I'm warming up by reading a science magazine with my navy cap.)

This day is part of the single step Confucius refers to his "thousand mile journey". The variation is that you can only see what the light of your car can reach, however; by small steps, you will arrive at your destination. I push myself to workout, wake up early in the morning and sleep early the night before.

This single step is crucial because you want your body to adapt the active lifestyle that you want. You can't get up of bed early in the morning if your body is not use to it. So what I usually do in the first few weeks is adjust. Adjust your waking habits and sleeping patterns. Science said that the optimal hours of an adult is 7.5 hours. I target 8 hours: sleep at 10 PM and wake-up at 6 AM, coffee and then workout.

How do I wake up early? Motivation. You should have a burning desire to workout.

How do I wake up early? Sleep early. Turn off all distractions around 10 PM. Pain of Discipline, or pain of regrets? You take your pick.

So, you want to lose weight?

Weight loss is tricky. Even so, follow my journey as I plan to lose weight this year, 20-lbs to be exact. That will be my goal. Currently, the weighing scale measures 170 lbs. In the end of this year, it will be 148-150 lbs. If my calculations are correct, that's 10% body fat. (Compare that to Lance Armstrong of only 5%).

I'm not an elite athlete, I'm a regular mortal like you. My weight has always been my concern.

To achieve my goals, I'm using my tools and gizmos; motivation, technology, science, calorie counting and dealing with frustrations. I'll be losing weight in my busiest year ever, because of a baby coming in June and an oral examination, a requirement to become a Ph.D. candidate. Top that with frustrating (but exciting) research.

At this stage of the battle, my knees are not yet ready for the pounding of running so I'll be using the fitness first elliptical machine at my apartment complex's fitness room (pix on above left). It is a small room but it serves the purpose of burning calories. Don't get me wrong, I like big gyms, but the fitness room in my complex is a little bit convenient.

It's just the start. I lost weight before, I will be doing it again. Next year, I'll be running the Disney Marathon then.