Category: Fitness + Nutrition

Happy Trails

Anyone else notice the continuing trend of athleisure wear? I’m not one for jumping on to band wagons but I am for utility, comfort and looking good while doing it.

One of the many things I want to do this year is to get outdoors, explore more trails, hunt for geocaches, and grab fresh air because these four walls close in on me while working from home.

I grabbed the new Nike All Conditions Gear trail shoes and dry-fit shirt in anticipation of getting outside more. Just like Apple, Nike is a luxury item with excellent quality materials that last. Leisure, luxury and the outdoors, apparently is something more of us can do with during these pandemic years.

So much orange.

It’s time to take this outside. Happy trails!

MORE PHOTOGRAPHY PRODUCTIVITY

SIMPLIFY YOUR PHOTO WORKFLOW WITH THESE SUGGESTIONS.

.jpg for daily snapshots, .dng for the keepers. Take it from someone who has been shooting RAW images, these files take up a lot of hard drive space. RAW files are slow to transfer from one location to another. Do yourself a favor and shoot in jpg format whenever possible. 

SIMPLIFY YOUR PHOTO WORKFLOW

Apple Photos is a stock app on every Apple device. Photos is a basic processing and organizing application that is great for quick and simple photo edits. Free, and your photos sync to your devices automatically thanks to iCloud. Save the heavy edits and large files for Adobe Lightroom. 

GET OUT

I intend to travel more in 2022 with road trips and quick turnaround weekend flights. This is possible now that I am finally content with my camera gear. Want to buy a new camera or lens? Be content with what you have and save the money on experiences like travel instead. Photographers love to capture new experiences and explore new photo opportunities. 

TAKE A HIKE

I am a big fan of hiking and photography. The fresh air, the thrill of discovering what is around the corner or over that hill gives us a new perspective. Photo walks around town can be included here. Plus, you want to get increase your daily step count as exercise, right? 

PHONETOGRAPHY OR PHOTOGRAPHY?

Take your iPhone or your camera to your next photoshoot. Want to capture the moments with simple snapshots, use the iPhone. Want to capture lasting memories? Take the camera.

UPDATE YOUR OWN WEBSITE

After self-hosting my website for a decade, I decided to simplify and host on WordPress.com. I can publish images or text to my site on the go thanks to Ulysses, Lightroom, and WordPress from my phone or iPad. I am really enjoying this mobile darkroom and publishing setup. Forget social media and stake your own claim to the World Wide Web.

Watch Out

I love my Apple Watch. My Apple Watch, Chronos, can also be annoying.

Apple Watch’s Fitness app encourages me to close three rings; the Move ring, which indicates calories burned while moving. The Exercise ring for your activity, and the Stand ring to encourage you to stand at least twelve times a day, usually at the bottom of the hour. Apple Watch will also prompt you to do these things throughout the day. I also receive notifications to earn badges, such as a Perfect week of activity. And lastly, notifications of other Watch-wearing people I am connected to and all of their daily and weekly goal achievements.

That is a lot of notices.

Give me a break. I know what my mind and body need right now, and it isn’t constant notifications. In fact, I just disabled notifications and will enjoy the other benefits of the Watch without the distractions.

13th Annual Groundhog Resolutions Day!

It’s that time of year again! This is my 13th attempt at creating life-long habits for myself for the whole year. I realize that after the end-of-year holidays I am not mentally or physically capable of sticking with resolutions for the upcoming new year. No new year day resolutions for me. I need a break so I will take off November through January and enjoy.

My resolutions, goals, best intentions, and life-changing habits are listed below. I will check in every month and then review my progress next on March 3 (3/3). After that will be 4/4, 5/5 and so on. Here we go!

Physical

The immediate goal is to drop 25 pounds quick. Last year I had a brief flirtation with the keto diet and was pleased with the results. But this was costly during a pandemic due to meat processing factories shutting down. I’m leaning toward this again and again, only for the quick results and then maybe switch it up to a low carb, more protein diet.

In addition to being more deliberate with my nutrition (I’m no longer calling it a diet) I will combine this with training (no longer calling it “working out”.) The phrase “Eat clean, train mean, get lean” comes to mind. I’ve registered in two obstacle course races this year. The Rugged Maniac course is in June followed by my third Tough Mudder course which is in November.

I’ve been on a 2 month perfect streak with my daily fitness goals using my Apple Watch. Combined with the Apple Fitness service, I think I’ll have my indoor cardio training set. Rounding out the training-from-home goals will be free weights and resistance bands with yoga. I’m eager to get back into the gym for some strength training and considering the risks/benefits thanks to the pandemic.

Throw in some fun activities like hiking, trail running, photo walks, geocaching and disc golf, I’d say this is going to be a great year.

Creative

Music

My fat fingers plucking tiny plastic strings on the ukulele at awkward angles? Stay tuned.

Photography

Sorting and organizing thirty years worth of photography has been a major pain in the ass, but worth it and about 95% complete.

I’ve been enjoying film photography lately and probably need to set up it’s own budget because film and development is a costly but rewarding endeavor to me. In addition, I want to finally frame some prints and be surrounded by my images. A few photo books will be on order too.

Writing

More short stories, micro fiction, One hundred word stories.

Work on that novel. Its been ten plus years and I still can’t get all of this out of my head.

Journaling my thoughts and experiences in addition with collages and white-out poetry.

Finally

Maybe I’ll throw in more fun stuff I’ve been thinking about like short podcasts, and exploring ham radio. Just because.

Knowing myself all too well, I could end up adding or subtracting this or that. Either way, I’ll check back in here on 3/3 for the first review of how I do!

62*

I just wrapped up another month of closing the Move, Exercise and Stand goals. Perfect score since December 1st and I am motivated to do the same for February.

Why the asterisk in the post title? Well, Apple thinks I stood only 11 hrs that day instead of the targeted 12. #fakenews