Well, I have to say for one month this is pretty awesome. See below.

That table above represents the difference between this week and last week.  Below we have the difference between today and when I started this back on February 17th...


This means that in the last month, I've managed to lose 7 pounds, drop 2 inches off of my waist, and drop my body fat % by 3.1 percent, while losing minimal muscle measurements.

Rock on!  And this is just month 1!!!

Some reasonably good results this week, especially when you take into account the net change over the last 3 weeks! We've also learned that apparently we can't measure shoulders worth a damn in the Gray household, if you've been tracking previous weeks!

Overall since starting this three weeks back:

All right, week 2 has arrived.  While less progress was made this week, at least there was still progress!  Note: I'm only using the negative marker for weight and BF%.  I realized after my first week that I'd probably be dropping some slight measurements in my muscles, so otherwise I'd have the whole table in red every week! I've also gone back and corrected nmy mistake last week where my calf measure as much as my thigh, which would led to a very oddly proportioned looking man.

This week:


Overall:

In the spirit of the seemingly random string of numbers I posted yesterday, here's another list of supposedly random items:

• 3/4s of a full roasted duck
  
• One pint of Marble Slab ice cream (coffee flavor with mixins of Reese's Peanut Butter Cup and Skor)
• A 14" meat pizza
• Several brownies
• An entire roasted chicken
  
• One puffed wheat square
• A McDonalds Double Quarter Pounder, 10 McNuggets, and a large fries
  
• One Wendy's Baconator
• A piece of Marble Slab ice cream cake
• Half of another 14" meat pizza
• Tim Horton's Sausage Egg breakfast sandwich
• A Grilled Shrimp Eggs benedict
• Two Wendy's Spicy Chicken Sandwiches + a large fries
• Another pint of Marble Slab ice cream (same as before, but this time with Butterfinger mixed in as well)

While this list *does* describe a sure road to a heart attack, it actually represents *some* of the food I ate in the three days between 7 PM on Valentine's Day and the night of Feb 17th.

I think we can all hail this as a spectacular achievement in raw gluttony than anything else!!  I know I amazed myself with this!

Now I'll solve the mystery of the random numbers, and you'll see how this relates:

• 20.2 - my current body fat percentage
• 42.25 - my current chest measurement in inches
• 45.75 - my current shoulder measurement in inches
• 14 - my current arm measurement in inches
• 190.4 - my current weight in pounds
• 22.5 - my current thigh measurement in inches
• 14.5 - my current calf measurement in inches
• 39.5 - my current *WAIST* measurement in inches (before anyone debates this, take a measuring tape around the largest part of your stomach, *not* where you cinch up your pants below that gut)

All of these measurements were as of this Monday morning.  Neither of these lists really sound like the rampaging success story my "In 6 months, everything changes" post was leading to, was it? 

In normal posts of this nature, you get a lot of hand-wringing, possibly some tears and most importantly, a laundry list of excuses.  This post is not one of those!  You know what, everybody fails.  However, not everybody posts about it publically.  Has Steven Rockarts posted about his repeated forced trips back to rehab?  Has Donald posted about his struggles with "Hello World"?  NADA.  I am okay with failing, and I'm okay with telling you all about it, mostly because it is from this failure I intend to have success.

When someone has a spectacular success, you can't *avoid* hearing about it. But when someone doesn't knock off a goal as they intended you're not likely to even hear them talk about the original goal itself - it's quietly swept under the rug as if it never happened.  Luckily most people know I am anything *but* quiet. 

Yes, I was accountable to the people who read this blog when I made my initial proclamation and I didn't make it.  But I'm not going to pretend I never made that commitment.  I wrote this post to be a marker for myself and all of you: I am going to rededicate myself to this goal until I actually get back into shape.  Unlike the last time I did this, I am *also* pledging that every Sunday from now until such time as I am around 12% body fat, I will be posting the same measurements on this blog.  Sure, there are those who will complain as they did with D'Arcy when he posted about his training goals. Unlike Mr. Lussier, however, I don't have the disadvantage of people reading this blog for technical content!  HA!

I've talked about this industry being in several crisises before, most notably the tail end of my presentation at DevTeach 2007 (and we'll be discussing this a little more in a little while).  But one crisis I didn't mention is the *health* crisis.  Yes, not every developer is remarkably out of shape, but many are, weaned as they are on diets of pizza and unlimited pop beverages.  Well, someone needs to be a better example and I am going to get back in shape because I want our *industry* to get into shape.   Yeah, sure, I'll be happier with 6 pack abs but I'll be really happy when our industry can also focus on looking better and feeling better as well as coding better.

I've failed tons of times.  However, I've also succeeded a bunch of times, and most often after picking myself up off the ground.  We need more stories about people who tried, failed, tried again, perservered and succeeded beyond measure.   

Mark my words when I say this is going to be one of those stories.  I promise you that.

"Like I said last week, this is just the beginning.  After all, if you want to change the world, first you have to able to change yourself.  

And who doesn't want to change the world?"

Last week, I posted my six month goal to read one development book a week for the next 27 weeks.  At the tail end of that post, I promised:

"If you think this is all crazy and aggressive, I've got news for you; I'm just getting started.  Wait until you see the goal I am posting *next week*.  Trust me - you've been warned."  

I was in excellent shape when I was 25.

I haven't been in shape for about 4 years now.  That was a long time ago. I can tell you that when I look in the mirror it feels like it was forever ago.  I'm not ridiculously overweight or anything, but I am out of shape. 

I'm tired of being out of shape. 

However, the one thing I am tired of more than *being* out of shape is *telling* people that I'm out of shape, and telling people that I used to be in shape.

I got into great shape at 25 because I trained regularly and ate healthy.  However, I also:

• I set a goal with a firm deadline (June 22, 2002)
• I told absolutely everyone I knew about this goal

I have been going in circles with my training for a long time now.  It's hardly any surprise, when my training regimen over the last 4 years has consisted of:

• working out hard for a week or two
• taking a week off and having 2 Medium Pizza Hut pizzas, a box of chicken wings, a KFC Big Crunch sandwich, a Tim Horton's breakfast sandwich, and a 2L Skor ice cream (this is all in a Sunday, BTW - my wife has anecdotal evidence)
• repeat

But that ends today. 

No, I will not be achieving this by
a) going on the 'roids like Bristowe and Belcham
b) binging and purging
c) getting calf and abdominal implants

I will be achieving this through 2 things:
a) diligent regular exercise
and more importantly,
b) eating healthy on a consistent basis.  Yes, this means I have to ditch eating entire cartons of ice cream at a time, but I'll live.

So I am telling everyone who is reading that on July 25, 2007, I am going to be in the best shape of my life (between 9% and 13% body fat).




This post isn't without some degree of risk.  But nothing great in life comes without great risk.  I didn't post this because I thought, "Wouldn't it be great to write a post that totally destroys my credibility and becomes a public embarassment to me for the rest of my life?"  In case you haven't noticed, I write posts that destroy my credibility every *day*!!   I posted this because I am going to pull off the greatest physical transformation since Optimus Prime himself and I want you all to know - publically - that I am going to succeed; I want you along there with me.

Like I said last week, this is just the beginning.  After all, if you want to change the world, first you have to able to change yourself.  

And who doesn't want to change the world?
 

[addendum: for those of you coming here from Daily Grind #1181, there's also a followup that checked up on the posts from the original people who've responded to the call thus far.]

Be prepared - this blog post is the beginning of a movement that might *change the world*.  By the time you get to the end, you'll see why.

There are two ways to help yourself accomplish a goal:
a) write it down (as we've discussed earlier)
b) share it with someone else

Today I am doing *BOTH*.  In fact, I'm sharing this goal with everyone who stumbles across this post. 
It's one thing to set a goal for yourself, but making it public takes you into a new level of accountability.  Now I am no longer accountable to just myself - now I am accountable to everyone else who regularly reads this blog. 

Among many of his other tips for becoming a better developer, JP Boodhoo advises reading one new development book a month.  I am going one better and making it public: I am telling you all now that I am going to to read (and *comprehend*) a new development book every week for the next 6 months. 

Yes, that's right, by October 21st, 2007 I will have read a total of 27 development books.


Some of you are reading this and thinking I'm crazy, and that this is impossible.  Even more of you no doubt think it's even crazier for me to publically commit to it.  That's fine - but I'm going to prove you wrong.  What sort of a goal is "Well, maybe I'll read a new development book every week for 6 months if I get some spare time?"  BULL.  That's a wishy washy goal that involves no commitment and no real pushing - no real stretching outside of the comfort zone.  "Hopefully I can get this done?"  *Forget it*.  I am *definitely* accomplishing this and that is not wishful thinking - that is a fact.

You can see my reading list below, along with the date I plan to have finished each book.  I still need your help, however; the astute among you will notice that the bottom four entries are the ever-fascinating "???".  This is where *you* have a chance to help guide my destiny.   I need four other books to read and I need the community's advice as to what it should be.  And before you mention it, I know that "Code Complete" is missing from this list; so is Rapid Development, as I have read/re-read both books about 25 million times.

April 23rd: Beyond Code [my review]
April 30th: Head-First Design Patterns (re-read) [my review]
May 7th: Applying UML and Patterns [my review]
May 14th: Working Effectively With Legacy Code [my review]
May 21st: Refactoring [my review]
May 28th: The Pragmatic Programmer [my review]
June 04th: Domain-Driven Design
June 11th: Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture
June 18th: Enterprise Integration Patterns
June 25th: Applying Domain Driven Design and Patterns, with examples in C#
July 2nd: Refactoring to Patterns
July 9th: CLR Via C#
July 16th: Mastering Regular Expressions
July 23rd: Mac OSX: The Missing Manual
July 30th: .NET Framework Annotated Reference Vol 1
August 6th: .NET Framework Annotated Reference Vol 2
August 13th: Algorithms in Java
August 20th: The Algorithm Design Manual
August 27th: The Little Schemer
September 3rd: Windows Presentation Foundation Unleashed
September 10th: My job went to India: 52 ways to Save Your Job
September 17th: Javascript, the Definitive Guide (5th Edition)
September 23rd: CSS, the Definitive Guide (3rd Edition)
September 30th: ???
October 7th: ???
October 14th: ???
October 21st: ???

So, ladies and gentlemen?  What else do you want me to tackle on my literary odyssey? 

For that matter, what are *you* doing over the next 6 months to improve yourself as a developer? 

With that, let's talk about the world-changing part.   You've seen those "tag" posts where we share 200 facts about us that aren't well known or variants of that.  This time the tagging *starts* with me, but I am going to make this a slightly more productive exercise.  I want everyone who I tag with this post to:

a) write a post about what *they* will have done 6 months now in becoming a better software developer
b) tag 4 other people and get them to do the same.

To start this off, I'm tagging Donald Belcham and the three guys who tagged me previously: D'Arcy Lussier, James Kovacs, and George Clingerman!  Special bonus tag to Jason Row since I know he loves getting tagged on these things.

If you think this is all crazy and aggressive, I've got news for you; I'm just getting started.  Wait until you see the goal I am posting *next week*.  Trust me - you've been warned.