Daily 5 Minute Journal - Jan. 6, 2016

Health

Blood Sugar seems to be improving slowly (97 at 9 AM, 100 at lunch and 89 at dinner). I'm trying to get my blood sugar < 90. My weight down to 163.8.  I'm trying to follow closely the ExcelDiet.com which I've tried a number of times in the last year but failed. The diet uses the acronym (MEAT)

• Measure
• Enter
• Adjust
• Talk

I measured and entered but didn't adjust and talk about it. The key is to be very aware of whether I'm above or below my goal and to adjust based on that. 

I was drinking Bulletproof coffee for a while but it didn't really work. The drink is about 500 calories for 2 cups and I was usually still hungry. 

Today I skipped my usual 6 mile walk because I'm ahead of my goal. I'm considering having ice cream if my family wants it.  

Work

Work has been a little more interesting as I've started working more with some new tools:

• Tableau
• MapR

Tableau is a dashboard system that takes data and creates interactive dashboards and MapR is a system that managed Big Data. 

A strange thing I noticed today is that we hired a new employee who is black. My co-worker is black and she hired another person who is black. It just seems odd to me that her group has 3 blacks in it. I guess people will hire people who are like them.  Many years ago I noticed the same thing in a department at a finance firm where all the employees and the manager was black. I feel more connected to them than to the foreigners at work which are either Indian Chinese or Russian. They're all very nice people, though I dislike when the Indians eat in our lunch room and talk in Hindi, makes me feel excluded.

One annoying thing at work is I can't load software to my computer. I have to learn this software but until it's officially approved can't use it. This really sucks.  

Happy and Depressed

I'm a little down from the short days, long nights and cold weather in NY.  When I walk my dog no one is out, it's very quiet.  I've been enjoying my older son being home from college as we've been playing chess and watching Curb Your Enthusiasm. 

Idea

To day on my phone I can say "OK Google" and it allows me to talk to it. I asked "What song is this?" and then whistled 2 songs. It wasn't able to guess it, but it should have asked me if I knew and then improved it's guessing via these types of "training sessions."

Goals

My month's goal is to weigh < 160. I've also have some goals from previous months, to declutter and to lower my blood sugar.