Woke Up Early, Eric Visited My Home

1:41 AM

I fell asleep at around 8 PM yesterday, actually let me verify that. Yeah, the last website I browsed was at 8:26 PM, based on my browsing history, so I would say, I fell asleep at around 9 PM. I did not expect to wake up 3-4 hours later at around 12:30 AM. I woke up an hour ago thinking it was morning, like 4 or 5 AM, only to be disappointed that it was only 12 AM still.

Since I was bored, I did my brain exercises. I didn't score exceptionally well on anything. My Peak Brain Score for this one brain training game called Peak, right now is at 567. I got that score yesterday, and, it hasn't budged from there since yesterday. This score goes up and down based on your performance in the brain training exercises. Since the score can increase or decrease, I think it's a good measurement of the "G factor" or general intelligence. It says I'm at the 93rd percentile based on this score. The maximum score is 1000, so you don't even need to be close to that to be doing better than 90% of people.

I think the score of 567 is kind of hard to attain too. Again the score changes based on your performance in the brain training exercises, so if you let someone else play, and they do terribly on all the games, your Peak Brain Score would make adjustments to reflect that. It gives you eight exercises per day I think to train on, let me check. Actually it gives six games per day to train on. If you do badly on all of those exercises, then I'm sure even hundreds of points can be knocked out of your Peak Brain Score at a time.

Someone also can't surpass their current Peak Brain Score capability either. The brain exercises increase in difficulty by a lot, to the point where I'm at the limit to my capacity at some of them. A simple example of this might be a memory exercises. It could be about memorizing 10 digits at the same time, the numbers would flash on the screen for a few seconds, and then you have to type them in again on the next screen. With training and intentional practice, you can definitely improve in this game, you can improve in all of the games. But if 10 numbers is your current level, you can't exceed that, for now. Again, it's possible to improve, but if this is your current limit, then you can't do any more than that right now.

I'm at my limit at some of these games right now. I notice I'm not able to beat my past scores so easily, and that I'm getting roughly the same score each time I play these certain brain training exercises, and that's cool to know. It's cool to know because there are much more difficult levels of these brain training exercises, but I'm not able to reach them yet. Like, the games get even harder, but I can't even play at those levels yet. For the memory game example, it might be that there could be 20 digits that I have to memorize, how can I do that if I can't even remember 10 right now?

The other brain training games that I play are Impulse and Elevate. I've tested and played basically all of the brain training games available on iOS, and these three are the best. The others are good in their own way, but in terms of price and what you get, these games are the top. Impulse, Peak, and Elevate. I play these brain training games in that order too, doing their daily brain training exercises every day. I only started these games this year, so it's not something I've always been doing. However, I think they're helping me. It's really hard to tell, but I think I've improved in my intelligence from playing these games daily.

I pay for these games too. I think in total, I'm paying around $30 a year for these three games. Let me check. Oh, I'm actually paying $43 a year for these games, plus taxes and it's around $50 a year for these games. I'm getting close to the best deals on these games too, I bought them when whatever crazy discount pop-up appeared. Normally these games are like $20 a month, but I'm only paying $7 a year for Peak for example. I'm paying $16 a year for Impulse, and only $20 a year for Elevate. I think they're worth the price for sure, otherwise there'd be a 30 second pop up between each training game, and lots of extras and features would be disabled too.

I'm only writing about this subject because I'm bored out of my mind right now. It's 2:11 AM and I have nothing else to do. I already did a few of my dailies such as sweeping the floor and washing the dishes, and of course doing the brain training exercises. I could work on catching up on my finances right now, but it just hurts to even think about because the work seems overwhelming.

I'm not hungry, nor turned on, nor sleepy. I'm not happy, I'm not sad, I'm not stressed, I'm not elated. I'm just bored. Actually, I do feel like I can accomplish anything in the world right now. I do feel powerful.

Ugh. Since I'm not doing anything else, I might as well work on my exercises now. Then I can eat a PB&J sandwich after or something. I made up a rule just now about how I can't eat unless I first finish my push ups, pull ups, and chin up dailies. They literally take like two minutes to do anyway. Here, let me inaccurately time myself. I'm going to go to my home gym now and do these exercises. I'm not going to rush, I'm not going to do them as fast as I can, I'm going to do them at my normal pace. Let's see how long it takes me to do.

I'm going to write down the current time, and then I'm going to get up from my bed, do some quick warm up and stretching, and then do the exercises. So again, I'm not rushing. I literally have to get up from my bed still, I've been typing all of this from bed the whole time, and wake myself up a little. It will probably take many seconds for example just to get up from bed. And I'm not going to be counting seconds either. Like if the current time is 2:17:50, then only 10 seconds has to pass for me to write down 2:18 as the current time. So I'm saying, even if I write down 2:17 as my start time, it could really be 2:17:50, and if I come back at 2:18:10 (as an example), only 20 seconds has passed, but I'd write down 2:18 as if a full minute has passed.

Anyway, again it's just a rough estimate. Whatever. The current time is 2:19 AM, let's see how long it takes me to do these three exercises.

2:24 AM

Okay the current time is now 2:24 AM. It was probably 2:24:05 or something, really close to the start of the minute, because it's been a while now and it's still 2:24 AM. Anyway, yeah. So it takes about five minutes to do all those exercises. Not quite 2 minutes, but still, barely any time at all. I did 6 pull ups, 6 chin ups, and 26 push ups by the way. Yeah I wrote down that I'd do 25 push ups, but for some reason I just always do one more push ups extra from whatever I aim for. Like my daily was initially just 10 push ups, but I'd always do 11 instead of 10. Then when 11 became too easy, and it was way too easy by like the second day of these push ups dailies, I started doing 21 push ups in a row a day (aimed for 20, but did one extra).

Now I've written down I want to do 25 push ups daily, so I just end up doing 26 instead.

Anyway, I hate being fat. but I have to eat now since I'm getting kind of hungry. I'm going to eat a PB&J sandwich. I'm getting sleepy now too actually. Maybe I should just drink an Olipop soda and go to sleep?

2:54 AM

I ended up eating a PB&J sandwhich and I made another one using just one slice, so I ate one and a half. It is so incredibly difficult to lose weight. I did it easily in November / December apparently while I was traveling in Peru, I lost 6 pounds in a week and I ate every meal of every day too, but when I'm at home, it just becomes so difficult.

Maybe it's because I lie down in bed a lot? Maybe that turns off my fat burning ability. Let me look it up. Yeah, sitting reduces the enzymes that break down fat by 90%. Err, what if I'm just lying down? That's even worse than sitting. Most of my day actually, I'm lying down on my stomach. This is my standard position whenever I'm on my computer. I need to change and use a standing desk like Wahl. She's standing up the whole time throughout the day. I need to do that. It's just hard.

3:07 AM

Okay I am now on my standing desk. I even took out the treadmill and I'm now walking on the treadmill as I type this. This hurts. I can barely see the screen with these weaker strength glasses that I'm wearing.

One of the reasons I lie down when I'm using the computer, is so I can see the screen. I have to put my face right up to it because my eyesight is pretty bad. By standing up and walking on this treadmill while wearing these weaker strength glasses, I am actually improving my vision while at the same time improving my health. I don't think it's a bad thing to do this at all, it is just very difficult and requires a lot of discipline.

I think I need a wrist rest. Also this keyboard that I'm using is extremely sensitive. I might go and buy Cherry MX Blue switches or something because these keys are extremely sensitive, it barely takes any actuating force to activate these keys, it takes even less energy to type on this keyboard than my laptop keyboard. It is harder to type because of the sensitivity of the keyboard. I have to make sure that every press is intentional, and I have to hover my fingers over the keys instead of being able to rest my fingers on the keys like with a regular keyboard.

.Yeah, if I try and rest my fingers on the keys, it actually is able to hold its weight. So whatever.

3:25 AM

I'm tired now. I'm not sure what else to do. I've been walking on the treadmill this whole time, just being bored. I set my laptop's wallpaper to Wahl and I because I like this one photo a lot.

I made it another rule for myself that I wouldn't shave or get a haircut until I'm back to my weight when I was dating Mary. Now I have a full blown beard and medium length hair. I actually do want to shave and get a haircut, but I can't.

I also made it a rule that I can't buy any new clothes until I've reached my goal weight, which is 30 pounds away. So I haven't bought any new clothes in years. Well, I actually did buy some new clothes while I was out traveling in Peru. But that doesn't count I guess since they were also souvenir shirts.

I can't read while walking, or can I? I can't read a book while walking, but I can open up a book on my laptop to read. Let's see if I can do that.

3:51 AM

I'm tired. I want to lie down again. My feet hurt. I think I'm going to lie down again for now..

I did read a little of a book that I bought on Humble Bundle. The information within is superb. I think I get more and enjoy the book more while I'm walking on the treadmill. It's a book about productivity or something. It's some meditative productivity zen book or something. It has chapters like "Be Present", "Savor Silence", "Go with the Flow", etc.

I'm on the first chapter which is about being present. It has one page, like 2 paragraphs about how te be present, and then just pages of quotes related to being present. I mean all of these quotes about being present, enjoying life, the moment being the only thing we have, the moment being a treasure of treasures, and so on. One quote so far stood out to me. I haven't read through the rest of the chapter yet, I'm a few quotes in. But the quote is "These are the good old days" and it's a profound quote.

These are the good old days. Stop looking towards the future, stop reminiscing on the past. Right now, this very moment, these are the good old days.

The quote is just "These are the good old days", I added all that extra stuff above. It is true. These are the good old days. I love it. After reading that quote, I started pacing around my home instead of just walking on the treadmill, because it was getting annoying just being in one place the whole time. That's what I meant by me being able to take more from this book while walking. If I were lying down in bed and I read that quote, I would have not absorbed it as well. Being able to walk, feeling alive, I was able to grasp and enjoy that quote so much more.

These are the good old days. This quote always applies no matter when you read it or think about it. Well, maybe less so when you're 80. I stopped the treadmill a while back by the way. I've just been typing while standing ever since I said I felt like lying down. I still feel like lying down and continuing to read, but I feel like I won't absorb it as well. So I just came up with a new rule, I can only continue reading this book as long as I remain standing up or walking.

I feel so good right now but tired and sleepy too. Ugh.

4:32 AM

I just took a break and sat down for a while, browsed X for a bit. A waste of time for sure, I don't even remember what I did, but apparently a lot of time passed by, half an hour that I can never get back.

Anyway time to keep reading through this zen productivity book. I don't even remember what it was called, it's just one of the many hundreds of books that I have from Humble Bundle. It's called the Joy of Simplicity. Let's see what more insights I can gain from this.

I'm on the next chapter now, "Do Less" and it's literally just one page, a few sentences, then pages and pages of quotes related to doing less. Actually I don't know if it's just one page. I'm reading the ebook in an enlarged font, so I think the page numbers and everything are different, I see two pages, with the second page just being one sentence, but I'm assuming if I made my text size normal, it would all be on one page.

Anyway the chapter was about reducing the amount of items on your to do list, but not necessarily. It also says to break down tasks into smaller ones. I have no tasks written down at all yet, so I can't break anything down. I will though.

Yeah I think this chapter and the previous one are contradictory. The quotes on this page are about not caring about anything basically. One of the quotes is "If you can spend a perfectly endless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live," which I think goes against living in the present, or maybe it doesn't. Maybe spending a day uselessly is the ultimate way to live in the present, I can see that too. However, I think it's more reasonably a waste of a day, since every day is so valuable and important, spending it uselessly doing nothing isn't a great way to appreciate the gift of life and this moment. This chapter sucks.

Okay onto the next chapter, which is "Focus on What's Important". Okay this is a better chapter than the previous one. It's about just focusing on priorities and ignoring the rest. This makes sense, unlike the previous chapter. It's basically the same as the previous chapter, except about focusing on something, instead of letting everything go. I like this quote "Millions of persons long for immortal/ity who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy afternoon". I'm not sure what that has to do with "focusing on the important" but it made me laugh out loud.

4:55 AM

I'm so tired right now from just standing up and walking for most of the past almost 2 hours. I think I'm going to break one of my rules, and continue reading while I'm lying down in bed. I am just too tired and my feet hurt. I'll stand up again later when I'm ready.

4:57 AM

Oh yeah, that feels so nice and so good just lying down again. OHH YEAH... This feels so pleasurable.

I like this quote "You decide what it is you want to accomplish and then lay out your plans to get there, and then you just do it. It's pretty straightforward." I think this one quote can summarize the entire chapter.

10:05 PM

And just like that, a whole day goes by. I took a nap and did some work. Then around 12 PM or 1 PM, I helped Eric out with a favor to drop him off some place, and pick him up again later. This took like two hours. Afterwards we went to my place, and he visited my home for the first time. He checked out every room, and I showed him this website. So he knows about it now. Not sure if he'll sign up or read anything on here though.

After that we went to the gym, and worked out. Then we went back to my place, ate, and he left. I went outside and walked for 40 minutes while listening to some depressing songs. I thought up of some messages to send to Wahl again while walking outside. I though about Mary too. I feel so energized when I listen to depressing music for some reason, especially when my emotions are involved. I've accomplished so much work in the past while in this depressive state, just listening to depressing music while working. I found it easy, but I've never applied this to any of my personal work, just work I was assigned and expected to do.

For some reason, I have an easy time completing work assigned to me. It's harder when it's open ended tasks that I come up with to do. It's harder for me to make a program from scratch, mainly because I have to do all the planning and work and have the expectations for it and everything myself.

Anyway, that was my day today. I tried my best to eat as little as possible, and I think I accomplished that. I now need to be able to go to sleep without eating anything until tomorrow. This is the hardest part for me now, as I am currently hungry. I made myself a PB&J sandwich, but I know I won't lose weight today if I eat that. So I have to starve myself intentionally until tomorrow morning. There's no other way. Losing weight requires discipline,e hard work, effort. It's an incredibly hard thing to do.

The easiest way to skip eating tonight, is to go to sleep. The problem with that is I'm not feeling sleepy at the moment. Oh well. I'll still try.