Bailie.com

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Birthdays do count

Dear Food Diary,

Friday wasn’t such a good day for me. I had worked till the wee hours of the morning on Thursday, and started off Friday with a cup of tea and an early conference call, which is too early for business hours here, and too late for business hours in Germany; just the logistics of business. As soon as I finished that, I had two guys come to give me quotes on landscaping and building a fence for the back yard. I think that triggered a money-anxiety response, because I spent the rest of the day trying very hard to focus on work, but finding my mind wandering and thinking about, what else, food. It’s not like I wondered about cooking techniques or similar. I was fighting a primal urge to relieve the general feeling of anxiety, the knot in the pit of my stomach, by eating something. I know how the feeling goes. As I start to eat, I feel a calming, a let-down, start to happen. Instead, I made tea, I drank water, I updated Facebook and clicked on every Twitter link that came through. I would work and pace, and pace and work. I should have gone to the gym, and in fact was dressed for it, in the hopes that being prepared would make me more likely to “just pop out” and go for a work out. Instead, I was distracted and unfocused. I wrote letters to the strata office, asking for authorization to build a fence, upgrade windows, add a screen door, redirect the downspouts from our yard to points beyond. I prepared my granddaughter’s birthday gift, and wrote cheques to colleagues who needed to be paid for contract work. I made soup with organic chicken with veggies and quinoa instead of barley. I grit my teeth so hard that my jaw hurt. Yes, the anxiety had taken root. Coming from a poor background, there was never enough money. I really hate the feeling of being financially squeezed. Did I mention how much I hate the pressures of financial stress? I don’t know what I’d do if my business dropped off and I couldn’t earn money. Thank God it’s doing alright. I ate chicken soup with quinoa and veggies, and worked until the moment we had to walk out the door to my granddaughter’s dinner.

Ah yes, dinner. A group dinner. A group dinner with that whole social dynamic I just spent the previous day fighting with, and which I lost. My granddaughter chose Italian, and I asked for the calamari not to be breaded, to leave the croutons out of the salad, and drank club soda. But the bread, the never-ending hot bread with butter that was being cut into generous slices and passed around the table. I succumbed, several times, in fact, and though recovered by ordering chicken parmesan instead of a pasta dish, it was too late. The bread slices, the breading on the chicken, and the mozzarella in the main dish set me back. I didn’t even have cake - thanks to her dad having bought an ice cream cake, I was spared that hurdle - but the damage had been done. I may have tried to rationalize away the fall from the wagon as not counting, as it was a special occasion, but my body wasn`t buying it.

Net effect: up yet another 2 lbs and feeling horrible, not just because of the cumulative effects of eating wheat and dairy 3 days running, but not liking myself for my lack of restraint.

Fighting demons

Dear Food Diary,

Yes, I tried. And didn’t do so well. And tried again. And didn’t do so well. And now I’m paying the price and am back on the wagon.

Thursday actually started out as a better day: Tea. Water. Lite matzah with cheese. (OK, so that wasn’t so great, but the matzah was “lite”!) More tea. More water. A half-cup of cabbage/beef/tomato sauce mixture. A half-cup frozen cherries, zipped with a splash of almond milk with the Bamix. A little later, sauteed a cup of mixed seafood and a quarter-cup of green beans before heading out to the gym. At the gym, I realized that the entire day, I’d been anxious. Don’t know where it came from - could have been the deadlines, the work stress, the home stress, a combination of all three - who knows, but by the time I had finished my cardio and was somewhere between the first and second set, all I wanted to do was cry. And not just a little cry, but a big, break-down-and-weep like there’s no tomorrow cry. Of course, a gym isn’t really the place to have a melt-down, and it would have freaked out my trainer completely. So with a little pep talk from him about centering and going to my happy place, I managed to soldier through the workout, figuring that I’d sit in the car later and let it all out. But then I finished my workout and realized that I needed to get back home for the strata council meeting, so didn’t have any time for me, to process my stuff and my feelings.

I headed home, and was intercepted by my neighbour, who was also heading to the council meeting. She reminded me that they were serving food before the meeting; it’s standard procedure. I followed her to the meeting, mentally willing myself to be strong and not touch the food. You can imagine how long that lasted. I helped get out the cutlery and so on, and sat down, but the isolation feeling started to happen, and I could sense that the teary feeling was threatening to well up and spill over. So I took a plate and got some food. As far as choices went, I did the best I could, but it was Canadian-Chinese food, all with starch-and-sugar-laden sauces, and breading and coatings. Despite ignoring the rice and noodles, I knew, even as I was selecting bits and pieces for my plate, that I was being counter-productive. I deluded myself into thinking that, though I wouldn’t lose any weight, I would simply stay the same weight for a day.

What makes it so hard for me to stay away from food in group settings? It goes back a long ways, and the scars run deep. When I was a kid, I was the one at school who stood in the hallway during the national anthem, and didn’t celebrate any - and I mean ANY - of the holidays. No Christmas, no Hallowe’en, no St. Patrick’s Day, no Valentine’s Day, no birthdays. I was made to separate myself from the other kids in the school, particularly around holiday celebrations. So would come the day of a classroom celebration, and I’m sitting in the back of the class, unable to join in while everyone else played games, sang songs, and enjoyed the inevitable feast that accumulated from the collective class contributions. Now, I was an awkward kid anyhow - artsy, geeky, and smart - but this added social distance perpetuated by my mother’s misguided Christian fundamentalist religion was a sure-fire way to malsocialize a child. And the other kids - well, it was in the 60s, in the country, and let’s just say that a lot of them didn’t come from the most sophisticated of stock - were allowed by the teachers to torment me well beyond my tolerance levels. Bullying wasn’t a taboo, as it is now, and the teachers really didn’t have a lot of interest or patience for an awkward kid of a whacky religion. So the torment went unchecked, and I spent the next three decades getting horridly triggered. Triggered by “don’t touch the food when everyone else can” compounded with “being the outsider amongst the insiders”. Hate it, hate it, hate it. And I have managed to shrug it off, mostly. I attended a friend’s birthday party a few weeks ago and managed to avoid everything but a some veggie sticks and a bottle of sparkling water, while everyone around me indulged in pastry-wrapped savory appetizers and chocolate desserts. But every so often, my vulnerability gets the better of me and I succumb. And what made me kick myself was that on Thursday, the food wasn’t even worth it!

Net effect: Up 2 lbs. and now beating up on myself for not being stronger. I know that white-knuckle dieting doesn’t work in the long run, but sometimes I just have to dig in and white-knuckle it to make it through the day.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

IF you don’t succeed, try, try again?

Dear Food Diary,

Yesterday, I got up and put the final touches on materials for a meeting in the afternoon, dealt with some last-minute email and so on, then raced out of the house, realizing I was late for my first meeting of the day. I did have the presence of mind to have a cup of tea and a piece of low-carb bread with almond butter on it, but even as my heels were clacking down the sidewalk towards the car, I thought, “Shit, I’m doing it again. I’m leaving the house without preparing for a day of running around, and I’m going to end up hungry and dizzy and nauseous. So I devised a plan that would kind of keep me going throughout the day.

Meeting 1: Matcha soy latte, no syrup (unsweetened), with a half-packet of some stevia-based sweetener.
Pit stop: Office to pick up mail. A glass of water at the coffee bar while I waited.
Meeting 2: Got there 5 minutes early, so headed to the coffee shop to use the facilities. Ordered a turkey sandwich, ate the filling and left the bread.
Meeting 3: 2-hour meeting with coffee and cookies. Sat as far away as I could from the temptations and drank from my litre-bottle of water.
Pit stop: Starbucks, en route to next meeting. Needed the facilities but ended up ordering a no-syrup vanilla roiboos with soy, and a chocolate croissant because it wasn’t busy and I felt expected to order something. I know, intellectually, that I shouldn’t have ordered the croissant. I can’t explain the emotional trigger, but I do recognize it and usually don’t let it get the better of me; it’s got something to do with having just led a meeting, a sense of “whew, that’s over, I can relax”, and something to do with ... self-reward, maybe? I have tried for a long time to put my finger on it but can’t quite. The croissant was delish, but as soon as I’d finished eating it, I regretted ordering it. I’m not bulimic, but if I were, this would have been a time I would have taken matters into my own hands.
Meeting 4: Coffee meeting, but I kept it simple and ordered a San Pellegrino.
Pit stops: Need to pick up my computer from the repair shop, and en route think to myself that I should get some more protein into me. I go through the McDonald’s drive-through, buy two chicken snack wraps, eat the chicken, and throw out the wrap part. As I eat it, I wonder how many carbs are in the sauce.* Later, I vow to stay away from McDonald’s. Thank goodness there is no food at Best Buy.
Home: The last piece of meatloaf and a few green beans in front of the computer while checking email and waiting for a colleague to come over to work together on a project deadline.

Here’s the kicker, and the part of my relationship to food that trips me up every time: I ate, and it was 10:30 PM. My colleague left, and I had a huge mental exhale. The “go go go go” pace of the day had raised my cumulative anxiety and frustration levels. Frustration at being behind, anxiety about meeting the deadline. And there was a lingering smell of chicken and garlic in the air. I cooked up a stalk of celery, a quarter onion, and some chicken. It may be a low-carb cheat, but it’s still a cheat. I didn’t need it; I ate it because as I was eating, I could feel my frustration level drop. Significantly. It’s a hard one to give up - having a cup of tea doesn’t have the same effect.

Net effect: up 2 lbs, and not drinking enough in combination with forgetting my supplements left me feeling bloated and dehydrated. Ughhh.

* I checked the McDonald’s website, and find that the chicken strip - this is the meat portion! - contains: “Chicken breast filets with rib meat, water, seasoning (salt, sugar, food starch-modified, maltodextrin, spices, dextrose, autolyzed yeast extract, hydrolyzed [corn gluten, soy, wheat gluten] proteins, garlic powder, paprika, chicken fat, chicken broth, natural flavors (plant and animal source), caramel color, polysorbate 80, xanthan gum, onion powder, extractives of paprika), modified potato starch, and sodium phosphates. Prepared with liquid margarine: Liquid soybean oil, water, partially hydrogenated cottonseed and soybean oils, salt, hydrogenated cottonseed oil, soy lecithin, mono- and diglycerides, sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate (preservative), artificial flavor, citric acid, vitamin A palmitate, beta carotene (color). CONTAINS: SOY AND WHEAT.”

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Not eating is as bad as eating

Dear Food Diary,

I left the house with good intentions yesterday. I packed a salad with good-for-you dressing and everything. I went to my first appointment, which took longer than anticipated, and then headed for the second thing on my list, a pit stop at Staples for office supplies. While there, I could tell I was getting hungry, having run out of the door with half-a-cup of tea and a slice of low-carb meatloaf in me. So I bought a six-pack of green tea, sweetened with Sucralose, and drank one of those en route to my third stop.

I got to my client’s office just before lunch time, and he offered to discuss business over lunch, but we needed to look at stuff online, so I declined. He ate his sandwich at some point, but I had left my salad in the car and didn’t want to go back for it because we would run short of time to get our work done. As it was, I was wrapping up instructions as I ran out the door to my next appointment. I had a handful of almonds, which I always keep in the trunk. It’s important that I keep them in the trunk, so I don’t keep eating and eating them. I take out six or eight at a time, which is all you’re supposed to need. Hah! It’s good for the crunch factor, but really doesn’t do anything on the hunger side. I could feel my gut clenching as I got to the coffee shop for my next appointment, which was a networking chat with someone I really liked doing business with last year, and wanted to stay connected to. So I ordered a soy latte, and felt myself getting a little nauseous and very thirsty. I asked for water, but got a 6-oz glass, hardly enough to quench my thirst. So back into the car and another green tea into me as I raced off to my fourth stop of the day: the gym.

After a quick calculation, I realized that I should eat something before I started working out, so I took my fat burner and alpha lipoic acid - in retrospect, that was probably not such a good idea to do that on such an empty stomach - and sat at the bus stop outside the gym to eat my salad. About half-way through the salad, I got impatient and just went into the gym to get changed and do at least some of my cardio before my trainer got there. I could tell that the food hadn’t metabolized yet because, despite eating eight green grapes after the salad, I could barely lift some of the weights. That’s not like me. I’m usually gung ho and ready to push myself. As well, dear diary, there was some neanderthal type there, muscular guy with heavy accent, who was obviously not pleased that a mere short, overweight woman was messing up his equipment by changing the weights. He would throw the padding off the Smith machine and onto the floor, and get that look on his face that I recognize on guys who have a strong misogynist streak. To contain my need for revenge, I had to imagine myself pulling weights that ended with him walking by as I pulled, and smacking him in the ribs. I have no patience for that, so why do these people put themselves in my path? Ick, ick, and triple ick.

Anyhow, after finishing off with another 20 minutes of cardio, I headed for the car, still feeling nauseous, perhaps even more so, despite having drunk a litre of water with protein powder mixed in. Another handful of almonds, this time not counting, so I probably had a dozen or so, and a nauseous drive home. When I got in the door, I couldn’t stand it any more, I was shaking and feeling quite icky by this time; I dove for something quick and easy. A roma tomato on matzah - I know, I know, why did I do that to myself? I’d been so good all day - and a half-hour later, a Lactaid followed by a piece of cheese on a cracker size piece of matzah. I stopped after that, and drank a bunch of tea and water to keep myself full. I also buried myself in work, though I couldn’t seem to stay focused. Facebook was about my speed last night.

Net result: down 2 lbs by this morning, so I lost the 1.5 lb of soy-related water and another half-pound. But I never want to do it by messing with my blood sugar like that again.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Soy sauce is evil

Dear Food Diary,

I was so good for an entire weekend - an entire long weekend, I might add, Easter weekend when normal people eat chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy, and things like pie or, in my case, matza and kugel and desserts that work around the fact that you can’t use baking powder for leavening. I ate salad and meatloaf that used quinoa flakes for filler, and roast chicken with boiled green beans. I drank black tea and tons of water. A kiwi one day; a roma tomato another day. My only indulgence was a couple of low-carb macaroon. (4 carbs per 2 pieces - you think I wasn’t counting? I know the carb count of everything that goes into my mouth. I didn’t eat after 6 PM, except for a little bit of sliced turked one night. I don’t think my carb count went over 40 grams on any given day. I took my fat burners and my nutritional supplements that help with my sinuses and my ... whatever it is that my mother sent me that is supposed to be good for me (and I trust my mother; she’s a gifted herbalist) and the glucosamine chondritin for my arthritis. I ran on the elliptical trainer in my home office. I lost a pound a day, and the whoop that came out of the bathroom as I got off the scale probably scared the upstairs neighbors. I lost 4 lbs over the course of 5 days. On Monday morning, that put me at the 60-lb weight loss mark.

And then there was yesterday. I started off the day much the same. Got distracted by work - 7:30 a.m. conference call from somewhere back east - and drank blank tea until I realized I was hungry. Meat and greens, and later chicken and greens. A few green grapes, a run on the elliptical trainer. Water, tea, water, tea. So far, so good. I ran out of the house at 5:00 to go to a networking event, and knew they would have food there. there, they had sushi. I’ve learned, for the most part to ignore food when I go out. It not so much ignore food as it is acting like a dog on a leash who sees a cat but has been trained not to chase the nice kitty even though its instinct is to RUN, RUN, CHASE IT, HUNT IT DOWN AND EAT IT. So I turn my back, stay at another end of the room, and pretend it’s not there. But another dynamic kicked in, and now I’m the one kicking myself. It’s convoluted but goes like this: Entry to the event is $15; probably 1/2 of that goes toward food. So there’s a sense of entitlement to partake of What My Money Bought. (This goes back to being excluded from events as a kid, but more about that another time.) I can get through that, most times, but I want to network beforehand, and where is everyone congregating? By the food, of course. So I stand somewhere near the back, not too close to the food, with my back to the food table. Someone hands me a bottle of water, and I gratefully accept. And drink, hoping the full feeling will stave off temptation. But just before the speaker starts, my friend takes a roll with her to her seat and I cave, and take a roll to my seat, too. I gingerly pick out the salmon, avacado, and cucumber, and even unroll the seaweed, leaving the rice in a white, glutinous mass in the clamshell container. I finish my water, and have no trouble ignoring the cookies on the table. After the session, I chat with the speakers and then run out, to my last conference call of the day, from 8:30 to 10:30 p.m., and drive home to fall into bed.

This morning I was up 1.5 lbs. Argggggh. And my fingers feel swollen. My ring barely goes past my knuckle. It’s the soy. The combination of wheat and fermentation is deadly. I know this. I know this. So why didn’t I think of it? I don’t know. I can gain weight faster than I can lose it, though, and this has been a setback that is making me crazy right now. So I’m back on the wagon today. A chunk of meatloaf, and take my own lunch for later. I have to go from appointment to appointment today, and won’t get home till 7 PM, likely, so there won’t be much temptation, except for at the coffee meeting. But I’ve pretty well trained myself to be turned off by any baked goods, so I’m safe there. But when I get home, it will be after 6 PM, and if I eat after 6 PM, I won’t have lost any weight in the morning, so I have to manage my food carefully today. Must eat mid-afternoon. What a chore to have to process all this. OK, off to pack my lunch and computer up, and get to my first appointment.

My long view on weight loss: the food diaries

My poor, neglected blog. My business blog is getting updated all the time, but getting the time to create posts for myself always seems to fall by the wayside. Hmm, a metaphor for my life, perhaps? Anyhow, here’s my attempt to not only revitalize my blog but express myself on a topic that is on my mind all the time. You know how it’s said that men think about sex all day long? Well, I think about weight loss all day long. I almost said I think about food all day long - it’s the remnant of an eating disorder spawned as a child (more about that in some other post) that I’ve managed to get a handle on, more or less - but I don’t think about food the way most people think about it. My wife, for instance, will wake up in the morning having dreamt up a new recipe, and say something like “I think I’ll roast a chicken today, with a what’sitmadoodle marinade.” No, I think about food in terms of “will I feel icky tomorrow if I eat this today” (food sensitivities) and “what will happen to my body if I put this in my mouth” (weight gain) and “if I feel hungry, am I really hungry, or just pseudo-hungry?” (emotional eating) and “if I’m truly hungry but eat something at this time of day, what will I feel like in the morning?” (weight gain).

It’s said that people on weight loss program will have a 50% greater chance of success if they keep a food diary. Well, I’ve tried that. It’s a hopeless pain in the posterior. So until I can team up with someone to program a smart phone/iphone app that has the design aspects that will make it actually usable, (instead of throwing in the towel after a week because I’m too busy to update the darned thing), this will be my food diary. It’s a different kind of diary, but I’m hoping it will allow me to vent when I’m frustrated, celebrate my accomplishments, and generally put my thoughts out there in a way that is completely frightening but perhaps helpful to my fellow dieters.

Saturday, March 07, 2009

Water’s Edge Music Festival

Thanks to the good travel writer over at theseboots.travel, I am the delighted recipient of two tickets to the Water’s Edge Music Festival in Coquitlam. It’s at the Evergreen Cultural Centre, where my good friend, Florence Debeugny, is having a photo exhibition called Maillardville 100 and beyond - a celebration of 100 years of that community.

In Maillardville itself, they’re having the annual Festival du Bois. Too bad I can’t get to both festivals.

Friday, March 06, 2009

Becoming a Kiva donor

I’ve meant to become a Kiva donor for a while now, but just got around to it this week. One of the things they ask, as part of the profile that donors set up, is why we donate. When I thought about what drew me to this project, it’s because I grew up poor, and then spent so many years living somewhere around the poverty line that now, I’m motivated to help people who are in poverty conditions, and are ambitious enough to better their situations for themselves and their families.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Can electrical sockets be useful and beautiful?

Some great designs for electrical outlets, especially the ones that make it easy to unplug electronics when not being charged.

Vancouver snow situation and the 2010 Winter Olympics

The snow here, oh, the snow! In our pocket of Burnaby, we had about three feet of the stuff. Its been on the ground for a couple of weeks now, and is slowly melting, although the snow is being replaced by flooding. The snow removal in Vancouver and surrounding areas has been next to abysmal. There was one night where an estimated 8,000 people waited for the Skytrain that never came. As someone who used to live in Montreal, where they have snow removal down to a fine art, I am flabbergasted by the ongoing inefficiencies and lack of services that is [not] provided to residents. Yeah, yeah, I know - they broke their budgets; that just means they didn’t budget well for what was inevitable. We’ve had significant snow for three years now, and each year it gets worse, so it’s time that the city faced up to the fact that they need a snow plan.

In Montreal, we would see a snow scooper tackling the streets, with a series of dump trucks behind it, where the snow would be deposited, and trucked away to dump in a spot where it wouldn’t flood homes when it melted. In greater Vancouver, you’re lucky to see a snowplow on the main roads a day or two after a big storm. And if you live on a side street, forget it. In Montreal, the city takes little Caterpillars along the sidewalks to clear them. Here, there’s an honour system whereby the residents are supposed to clear the snow in front of their buildings. Except when I got off the bus into a large snowbank, I noticed that I was outside of a city-owned park – and the city hadn’t cleared! So clearly, the honour system is impractical.

Keeping the region moving during a snowstorm - this winter was the last practice run to get it right. In a year, a whole raft of tourists will be upon us for the Winter Olympics, but if it snows, they’ll be stuck in their hotel rooms, unable to use public or private transit, and will have to resort to watching events on TV instead of using their uber-expensive tickets to get to the venues. (Who knows, maybe even the athletes won’t be able to attend, if they get stuck in their rooms. Now, that would be funny!) If the government doesn’t go consult with the cities who know how to do snow removal, the right way, these winter Olympics will become the Laughing Stock Olympics. I wonder if anyone is thinking about this other than my friend, L, whose rant on an email list gave me the idea to vent our frustrations here.

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Who knew soy could be so bad for you?

After years of liking soy alternating with avoiding soy, I found some explanation for the digestive problems that plagued me re soy: The Ploy of Soy. When my grandson was young, he had violent gastric reactions to soy, much to the disbelief of some pro-vegetarian friends who insisted on feeding him soy, and from which we suffered from during a ferry ride home.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Update on family news

Well, it’s not exactly a holiday catch-up letter, but the closest I’ll get to writing one.

It’s end of the first semester for my grandson, who has spread his wings and gone off to boarding school. He absolutely loves it. I was worried that he would get lonely after the initial novelty wore off, but so far he’s in his glory. When I asked him about the academics, he replied that they were “challenging in a good way but not rocket science or anything.” Ah, spoken like a true little brainiac. He decided he loves rugby, and helped his school win the local championship. He was always great at soccer, so this news doesn’t surprise me.

One of my granddaughters just joined Air Cadets, which was a huge surprise for me (as well as for her parents!), but E. said it didn’t surprise her. Once I thought about it, I wasn’t surprised, either. She likes structure, and likes the lines of authority to be clear and absolute.  She is also very determined and very capable, and likes camping. I had to chuckle when she even agreed to slather her hair in gel so she could wear it back in a bun. This comes on the heels of her taking up golf. She came with me to a golf lesson, and the pro handed her a putter and encouraged her to participate. She decided she really liked it, and so we now have a shared activity at the pitch-n-putt. This also means that she’ll be able to golf with her brother, who evidently has the gift for it, too.

The other granddaughter is [deleted].

My son is still working at the transport terminal. He upgraded his First Aid certificate to a Level 2, which is good. It means that when the sporadic lay-offs hit, he may not be as vulnerable to them because in an industrial environment, there always needs to be someone with a first aid certificate. This summer, he eloped. He actually didn’t tell me - I found out in a bizarre conversation with a friendly restaurateur who told me a story about a guy too afraid to tell his mother about his marriage because “you don’t know my mother.” Funny, I’ve never thought of myself as an ogre. Really, I’m not. When he decides to tell me, officially, I’ll post it. (I’m letting him tell me in his own good time.) Maybe I should start taking bets on how long it will take to tell me!

As for us, we’re keeping on keeping on. Because I had bronchial pneumonia this summer, I didn’t work for a month. Then, as the economy tanked, I became busier than I’ve ever been. At some point, I had seven simultaneous projects on the go. It’s better now, and I even get a day off now and again. Still, I present at a lot of conferences and so travel a fair bit. (One recent trip involved a Vancouver to Boston to Honolulu to Syracuse to Vancouver marathon.) It’s a treat to stay home for an entire month! I’m giving up the office that I’ve had for a few years now, as the building is going down hill, and I’m tired of being the person who also sweeps up and dusts and does troubleshooting when the phone line goes down. Also, when I bought my midlife crisis car, I decided to work from home 3 days a week, and work from a co-work office a day a week. The last day is my RALAM (run around like a madwoman) day, seeing clients and so on.

I’ve been pretty successful in my fitness quest, working out three times a week and doing cardio other days, and am looking forward to losing another 50 lbs in the coming year. (It’s a great excuse for a new wardrobe, as well.) Thanks to my trainer, Matt, I’m also strong now. He says I now warm up using the same weight levels that I used to lift. And I have actual muscles, for the first time in my life. We’ve done some minor renos in the house (we now have interior doors on the rooms that were missing them - how novel!) and are making plans to do the back yard.

E. continues to do her thing, offering executive career coaching that she does so well, and has become quite the fan of social media. I think it’s a substitute for cigarettes because - and this is the big news - she quit smoking! I am delighted. And finally, the cat is fine, mewling and shedding as usual.

My family back east is having their share of problems - my mother is undergoing chemo, my dad, having had a stroke, is now showing early signs on Alzheimer’s, and two of my siblings have some health challenges. It’s worrying, and frustrating that there’s not much I can do for them from here.

And that’s all the family news, as we come up on my birthday.

Sunday, December 07, 2008

One sexy automobile

Just heard a commercial that asked “When you turn your car on, does it reciprocate?” I snorted with derision but then stopped short. Since buying myself what I call my midlife crisis car, I feel a little like that every time I get into my car. Oh no, I’ve become susceptible to cheesy marketing ploys!

Back to my car. I decided to retire my near-vintage, 325i BMW sedan. Despite it being in excellent condition - original leather interior still in great condition, little signs of wear at all, great exterior condition a well - my mechanic told me that it was time for Dandelion (as my grandson named her) to be turned over to a new owner. He said this car needed to be owned by someone who would treat the need for a replacement part as an opportunity to shop around and lovingly look for bargains. That’s not me. When I need to replace a part, and with clients to see, I’m asking how soon can I get back on the road.

So before I put the car onto Craig’s List, I started looking for a car. A friend approached me about buying his sports car. I remembered when he bought it, brand spanking new from the dealership. I got to drive it, once, and was quite impressed with the features, performance, and power. And, not inconsequentially, it was dead sexy. Is there such a thing as too sexy? It’s the type of car that people stare at. So the trunk is small enough to fit a set of golf clubs or my briefcase. So it only seats two. I decided to buy it.

OK, so I veered off my path of “Prius vs Smart Car” and got my midlife crisis car instead. (It’s not that bad on gas, actually, so I don’t feel as bad as if I’d gotten an SUV, say.) It will be my car for a long time to come, and my next car, if I still need one, will be whatever hybrid is invited by then. My immediate compensation has been to work from home several days a week, thereby saving the commute downtown. I’m also moving my office to a co-working office that I’ll use one day a week.

As shallow as it sounds, I feel good every time I get into the car. There’s a satisfying growl as I go from second to third gear. The features, many of which I didn’t really understand when I bought the car and am still learning the advantages of, give this fine automobile a good safety, as well as performance, rating. Yeah, I know it’s shallow. It’s about as close to mainstream as I’ve ever felt. But I’m not going to let myself be guilted into not enjoying my purchase. And, oh yes, anyone need a 1991 BMW in great condition?

Here’s a photo of my baby:

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Spam (the meat product) vs real meat

Just had a bizarre conversation with the wife, who had asked me to use a plate to eat my artichoke dip with the tofu crackers I made, insinuating that I was being a bit of a hillbilly. Ah, this coming from someone who became a Facebook fan of Spam. And was prepared to defend its merits.

Of course, I couldn’t just take that at face value, so here’s the nutritional breakdown I found:

• Spam: (100 g): 3 g carbs, 27 g fat (6 saturated), 13 grams protein, 310 calories (and 0 g fiber)
• Cooked, trimmed pork (100 g): 0 g carbs, 7.5 g fat, 29 grams protein, 191 calories
  
• Smoked, seasoned, chicken breast slices (110 g): 2 g carbs, 1 g fat, 20 g protein, 100 calories
• Mock chicken loaf (100 g): 4 g carbs, 22 g fat (8 saturated), 12 g protein, 260 calories

Case closed.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

All the reasons not to deal with Wells Fargo Financial

A few months ago, I made a furniture purchase, and was offered one of those “no interest for six months” deals, and took it. I put the sales receipts aside, as the furniture came with a warranty, and waited for a statement from the lender, which turned out to be Wells Fargo Financial to come. Now, six months later, I came across the paperwork and gasped, realizing I’d never made a payment yet. So I called them, and after an incredibly frustrating user experience, I finally got my account paid, and closed for good.

I thought a lot about my experience, because a usability test, or information architecture during the design phase of their site, would not have prevented this user experience from going awry. Instead, it would have required full service design to make this a satisfactory user experience. Here, then are all the ways that Wells Fargo Financial dropped the ball.

(1) Using wrong information. Despite having provided my home address and phone number, they somehow got a partial work address and sent a statement and credit card to that address. This is to an address that has something like 80 companies, and they didn’t use a suite number.

(2) Not making contact. After having my info returned, they didn’t try to make contact, letting months go by without making contact, even after I had phoned them back in January or February.

(3) Confusing me with TMI. When I made contact, they couldn’t find me in the system, then after passing me from rep to rep, each which gave me yet another customer number, at some point telling me that one of the numbers was for internal only. The agents were friendly enough, though, and after we established that my bank wasn’t set up to pay my account, I was redirected to a retail outlet to make my payment.

(4) Lack of customer focus. When I arrived at the storefront office to make a debit card payment, the door was locked because it was their lunch hour. Someone came to the door and suggested I go have lunch and return in 45 minutes. I declined, as I had other appointments awaiting me. However, given that lunch time is probably the most likely time someone can pop out from their jobs (and as a financial institution, I imagine they prefer to deal with people who have jobs) to make a payment. It’s not like they are a 1-person or 2-person shop; I counted six people in the office - you’d think they could split lunch into two shifts so someone is always around to take a payment?

(5) Defending their lack of customer focus. When I called the head office to register my incredulity about the office closure, whoever answered the phone (who insisted that he’d spoken with me earlier, though from his accent, I knew full well it wasn’t him, but that’s a whole other story) became quite insistent that the practice of closing in the middle of the day for an hour was a perfectly logical practice because of the office size and employee entitlement to a lunch hour. He was explaining it to me in a rather condescending manner, as if I didn’t get his justification. Arghhhh. If he’d just said he would pass my frustration along to the customer complaints department, that would have been enough to save the customer transaction, but he couldn’t seem to get what my problem was.

My customer service scale works like this:
A- Great service, real gems, interested in developing relationships; I’m sticking to them like glue. Example: Apex Communications
B- OK, but if a company that impressed me came along, I’d consider switching, if transferring my account
wasn’t too painful. Example: Telus for phone, internet, mobile phone
C- If a more reputable, competent option came along, I’d switch in a heartbeat, even if the process was painful. Example: ICBC (there is no alternative - it’s compulsory to deal with them)
D - Prefer deal with them because the pain of getting involved isn’t worth it; there are better alternatives out there. Wells Fargo Financial
F- I’d prefer to do without than deal with it, I find it so painful. Example: SharePoint

You can see where this company falls on my customer service scale - I’m not impressed at all. Entrepreneurs, here’s a opportunity to introduce them to the concept of service design.