Jason Halstead's Blog, page 50

Ongoing weight change study

The title of this sounds promising, but it's just my observations over the past few years and, in particular, the last few weeks. I make a habit of changing my body composition regularly. Not in some magical shape changing manner but rather by controlling food and exercise. I can't make myself look like a squirrel, for example, but I can pick up or drop a couple dozen pounds when I put my mind to it.

The observations I've gleaned are that weight loss (and gain) is primarily dependent on food. Quantity and type, although principally the caloric intake. I'd love to see a Biggest Loser show that focused instead of exercise on just people eating less. I've had a few people close to me over the years that developed the discipline and support structures necessary to eat properly for their goal (weight loss) and shed significant weight (40 – 100 pounds or more). Some of them even did this without exercise, which would take a lot of the fun out of the Biggest Loser.

Does exercise speed weight loss up? Yes and no. It helps to build and retain muscle, which will slow weight loss but make a body healthier. It also strengthens bones and makes them more dense, another potential weight gainer (and something healthy). All in all, exercise is a good thing and the benefits outweigh the perceived penalties. But it isn't necessary.

Case in point, I spent close to the last three weeks unable to work out. This was due to a ridiculous work schedule or other activities that prevented me from getting to the gym. Very disturbing for me, but surmountable. What surprised me was that my weight over these three weeks continued to go down. I was 214 the other morning, meaning I'd lost roughly one pound a week. Yay me, right?

I went back to the gym this past weekend and wow was my strength shot to hell. I was able to bench 275lbs for 7 – 8 reps (4 sets). This time around I worked up to 275 and managed 7 reps, then 3, then 4, then I stopped. 3 sets only, shame on me. Hopefully some of it has to do with my CNS needing to be retrained, but without exercise to retain muscle, in a hypocaloric state the body wants to get rid of muscle and retain fat.

Why? The body thinks it's starving (it is), so it seeks to eliminate that which causes extra calories to be burnt (muscle) and retain the stored energy (fat) for when things really get rough. The mirror echoed my fears, but already since I've been back in the gym I'm seeing things reshape themselves properly.

The moral of the story? If you want to lose weight and don't care if you look skinny-fat, then just control what you eat. If you want to look good while doing it (or when you drop the weight you want to), incorporate exercise into the process. Likewise, if you want to put on some weight most of us want to add muscle and a good shape, rather than flab – that is done via exercise and eating more of the right kinds of food.

It's not a secret, it's just not popular. We want a magic solution, not another reason why we have to be in control and use our willpower. We've only got so much willpower we can tap into every day and fighting traffic, work, and kids leaves us to drained to fight the urge to grab a pizza or fast food on the way home for convenience sake.

There are some medical cases where things are messed up. By things I hormone levels, which could include the thyroid, pituitary, adrenals, kidneys, or the sex glands (testes / ovaries). That's a minority case, by far, but it's no less real or frustrating. Fortunately we have modern medicine and with determination a person can find a doctor who knows what they are doing and can help. Have patience, most doctors are ignorant, uneducated, or worse when it comes to hormones in men or women. There are some great ones out there, just keep looking.

For everyone else I say suck it up. Nobody makes life better for us but ourselves. It's not easy and it's not fun, but the sooner we remember to stop justifying defeat and accept responsibility for what we do to ourselves, the sooner our lives get better. Most importantly, it's not a lesson learned only once – I keep saying "us" and "we" because we all slip from time to time and need a reminder. Why else would I have spent three weeks losing muscle instead of fat?

Gone Fishin

No real updates other than everything is doing great. More pics, with the coral opening up and showing signs of being happy. Also seem to have a couple of hitchikers in the tank, crabs of some sort. Didn't get any pics of them though, but I've seen them. Can't wait for the new lights next week, should really bring out the colors and help stuff grow once everything becomes acclimated.

More Fish Stuff

My wife insisted I do some more work on the fish tank, after it's set idle for a few months. Well, idle but successful, I should add. In the world of reef aquariums successful = nothing is dying.

So I ordered some new lights for it – a necessary improvement if I wanted to do much of anything more with it. I had a terrible assortment of 18w bulbs (2) with a lighting unit that provided 72 watts via a white and an actinic bulb. All told, some pretty minimal lighting and it wasn't very pretty. Not anymore! Next week I'll have 608 watt unit in place, a pair of 250w metal halides plus two 54watt actinic blue T5 HO bulbs. There's some blue LED moon lights in it too.

That's just the beginning though. To boost the tanks enjoyment factor I also picked up a Coral Beauty, a Blood Red Shrimp, and a Blue Tang (you know, Dori). The Tang is in the hospital tank in the basement – tangs and ich scare the bejeezus out of me and I don't want to go through that again. Added several coral frags as well. Orange Zoanthids, Daisy Polyps, Green Button Polyps, a Kenya Tree, and a Hammer.

75 Gallon Saltwater Reef tank

Wasting Disease

Hopped on the scale recently, after a few weeks or paying no attention to it for a variet of reasons. I find I've dropped down to 215 pounds. That's a total weight loss of 26.5 pounds now over the past few months. Good news, right? Well, not exactly…

The time spent ignoring the scale was also time spent either working crazy hours or being gone on vacation. In other words, no access to a gym. Sure, I've been watching what I eat, but without exercise the weight loss this time around is muscle as much as anything. Not a good thing!

Back into the gym today to see what the damage is, then roughly three more weeks of cutting before I go back on a bulk.

The Concept of Debt

The biggest news recently seems to be about the debt deal fighting its way up capital hill. Obama is trying for a compromise and people are taking shots at him from right and left for it. Whether he's right or wrong, what remains the same is that everybody else is too damn stubborn and, arguably, lacking knowledge / intelligence / common sense necessary to make a hard decision to get us through. So instead they prolong it until the next time around, when somebody else can deal with it. Attaboys.

Capitalism and democracy is a great idea on paper. Heck, it's a potentially great system of governing in practice too – but it requires people of substance and spine to be in the key positions. Like him or not, Obama seems to be one of the few people in those key positions that has a spine these days and everybody else just wants to be on their version of the winning team so they can insure reelection. Oh sure, Obama does some of that too when he can, but he also seems to be trying to tackle the real issues as much as he people around him will let him. And once again for the record I am not an Obama supporter. I do offer him the respect I feel he's earned though, even if I don't necessarily like or agree with some of the things he supports or does.

I grew up having it instilled in me that being in debt is a bad thing. Not financial debt so much as owing somebody for just about anything. Not to mention it really sucks when you lose out on a nice weekend because you owe somebody a favor and end up obligated to help them move!

On the other hand, never asking for help and expecting the same of others has been a social problem for me. It's caused stress in relationships in the past and helped make me a bit of an outsider. So the trick then is to find a happy medium, if such a thing can be found. As much of a personal quest as that might be, I think that happy medium could also be applied up the hill.

Realistic Expectations about Book Sales

This one's for for the would-be writers out there. It's about how much you're going to sell off that first book (or second, third, fourth, etc.). I know you're curious because I sure was when I got into this! In fact, I kept harassing my publisher about it hoping there was some magic number that would guarantee me success and crisp one hundred dollar bills I could light my cigars with. As a sneak preview, no hundreds yet and no cigars either.

So what can you expect to see by way of sales? Assuming your luck is average, it depends on a few key variables. 1) How good is your cover art? That's what sucks people in and makes them want to know more since you will not have a brand built up yet. 2) How good is your book blurb? After the cover this is what people read next (well, most of them). If your blurb interests them then you might just have a sale as long as your pricing isn't outrageous. 3) Do you have any reviews / ratings on your book? If other people read it and liked it (and are willing to publicly admit it), that makes it a lot more likely somebody else is going to give it a shot.

That's it. Three things that matter to the first time writer, independently published or via a publisher. Advertising is a great way to bring attention to your book, but you need the first two and possibly the third as well to really close the deal. Other means of drawing attention to yourself and your book (aka branding) is via blogging, tweeting, social media sites, etc.. Of course getting people to find those is another story (and another post) altogether.

What makes me an expert to talk about this? Not a damn thing – these are just observations I've made. I'm still very much in the branding phase myself and trying to build up a cult – er, loyal following – of people willing to check my stuff out. I've got a few good reviews here and there, but I'm always after more. I've had some great artists in the past and I'm working with more currently, so that helps as well.

But I didn't give a number, did I? Nope, and that's the most frustrating part of this. Realistically for a new title with no brand built up, figure less than 20 books in the debut month (more likely less than 10, unless you've got a big family / lots of friends). Sales drop after that unless it's followed up with some very active promoting or another book. Find people who like your genre and tell them about it, give them the links, and don't ever stop trying to keep the ball rolling.

Now back to freezing my cajones off because the spare lighter is locked in the truck and my family is asleep in the tent where the keys are. No campfire, no coffee. Around 60 degrees and me in sweat pants and a tank top. Brr.

Vacation Blogging

Day 2 of vacation, and a rough one at that. I woke up, got out of the tent (yeah, a tent), got a campfire started and put the coffee pot on. Then the rain started. But it wasn't beating me! I stood over the fire pit with an umbrella, blinded and hacking to protect my precious flames. Quarter hour later, when it really opened up, I surrendered and returned to the tent only to find a new battle needed to be fought against the leaks.

Now, some fourteen hours later, the skies are cloudless and beautiful. Weather.com still tells a tale of isolated thunderstorms but the skies above me sing a song of peace and tranquility. Or mother nature will be a bitch and wait until we fall asleep to unleash her wickedness.

In the meantime, things are going okay. If anyone was ever to ask me if they should take a two year old camping I'd laugh in their face and tell them they were crazy or possibly lacking some important grey matter. That's in hindsight, mind you. Although, having said that, my two year old is finally calming down and getting over the excitement of everything to be more enjoyable. Patience, it seems, is winning out.

Oh, another couple of camping lessons – don't split firewood in open toed sandals (near miss). Second lesson, don't add wood to the fire in open toed sandals (not a miss).

The coffee? Yeah, 12 hours later I finally got it percolated and I must say it might very well be the finest cup of coffee I've ever had. Might be partially due to the taste of delayed victory.

In other news, I received a message from someone new on Twitter that is following me. His twitter name is @ashenclawrealm and he started following my blog out of either hopes I'd return the favor or because he enjoys my twisted sense of humor. In either case, I checked his out and found it equally interesting and thought provoking. If you're into fantasy or useless trivia like I am, here's the link to look into it: http://eyeonashenclaw.blogspot.com/

He's also got a book out: "Covenant of the Faceless Knights" (by Gary F. Vanucci), available on Barnes and Noble and Amazon. I don't readily have those links available but they can be found at his blog. Oh, I haven't read or reviewed it yet either, but his blogs are well written so that bodes well!

A pre-release review teaser for Ice Princess

One of my pre-release reviewers sent me in her review for Ice Princess last night. I thought I'd keep it until I was ready to put the book out there but then I realized, why wait? Ice Princess is ready to go with the exception of cover art… so this gives people a chance to rush out and pick up the prequel, Wanted, to get ready for it!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0053KJ2QU

 

And here's the review:

After reading the book "Wanted" by Jason Halstead, I was left wondering what was next for many of the characters. So I was excited to see that the author had written a sequel called "Ice Princess." "Ice Princess" picks up about a year after "Wanted" ends, continuing the storyline with the original characters and adding some intriguing new ones to the mix. The author surprised me with a couple of twists and turns that I didn't expect. The story moves quickly and kept me interested. Unlike some sci-fi authors who create settings that are so far-fetched they aren't believable, Halstead writes about a future world that is very real and plausible. The author does an excellent job of exploring how far people will go to ensure their own survival. I thoroughly enjoyed "Ice Princess" and hope the author continues with a 3rd installment!

-K. Dawe

What to do when there is no box.

I was asked recently to write up a guest blog post for a place called Prinstsasia.com by Sherri Helms, the Senior Executive of Web Marketing over there. There was virtually no guidance given on what to blog about, so I was presented with a blank page. Ironically, that's a lot harder than you might think it is! Typically we, as humans, like to have a frame of reference. We're problem solvers, but without the problem we tend to wander. It's not about thinking outside of the box, it's about not having a box in the firstplace! I wonder what Shroedinger would have done with his cats in that environment…

So anyhow, I dug through some stuff I had and found something I'd written to myself a while ago where I answered some basic questions about why I wanted to write. I read through it and found the tiny spark of inspiration I needed. What followed was me writing about why writer's write. Or at least why it is that I write. It's not about the money – although I dearly hope someday the money angle begins to play a part in it. I am seeing better sales but it's coming at a nearly glacial pace, rather than by leaps and bounds. I remain undaunted – success by hard work is all I know. I wouldn't mind sampling a few other types of success, for the record, but until such time I'll stick with what I've got.

So anyhow, to read the blog head on over to this link. It's entitled "Have you ever inspired someone."

http://blog.printsasia.com/2011/07/27/inspired-someone

Market Research

This is a horrible attempt at trying to do some market research but what the heck, here goes!

My book, Wanted, is a near future sci-fi action / adventure about some rich kids that are stranded in the southwestern United States after their plane crashes. They hook up with a strung out actress who's running from damn near everything, including herself. In the process they run into a crotchety hermit who'd like to put a bullet in the actress's head and send the kids packing. In spite of his better judgement, he ends up actually being a good guy and helping them out. Damn good thing too, the alternative was leaving them to the mercenaries hunting them down for their own nefarious reasons.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0053KJ2QU

 

Anyhow, this book is doing well for me. Okay, not great by any stretch, but it's my best seller (not to be confused with a real best seller that would give me F-U money… yeah, you know what I mean). Anyhow, what I want to know is why? What is it about this book that makes people pick it up over the other stuff? Is it pure cover art? Did I do a better job writing up the blurb on it? A better excerpt? The fact that it has a couple of 4 star reviews (out of 5)? Or is it genre – do people like the thought of blowing up a large city and trying to survive the aftermath (as the cover portrays)? The truth is the nukes take place before the story starts. Sure, I've got some explosions and impressive gunfire taking place, but that's it for violence.

Hmm, come to think of it, I've got another near future sci-fi story with recent history of nuclear explosions. Maybe I should speak to a therapist about this… That story is Human Nature and it involves aliens and a woman trying to find a meaning to her life after her life is devastated. Ironically, sales have been picking up for that title as well lately. Cover art, in my opinion, is nowhere near as good though. Only one review that I can think of (editorial review too, so the 4 out of 5 doesn't count on most sites).

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0053K3WXO

My question stands – for anyone who's bought one of these, what made you do so? For those that have not, here's your chance! In fact, how about you head out and buy them then comment here or email me (jason@booksbyjason.com) to let me know what tipped the decision in my favor? Heck, you want to earn extra points? Write a review after you buy it. I'll even sweeten the deal – you buy and write a review, then let me know about it and I'll let you pick two other books I've written and I'll generate coupons so you can have them free!

Hmm, does offering bribery count as skewing the results of the study? If this were science, sure, but it's not. Instead it's called marketing!

You see I think I'm being devious here but the real truth is that if I were as smart as I think I am, I might be dangerous…