Tips for Healthy Lifestyle Changes in the New Year

In September of this year I was informed by a health care professional that I had high blood pressure. To me this was a sure sign that I needed to make some changes in my life. The first of which was to lose weight. I wasn’t crazy about the idea of going on a fad diet, instead I wanted to do make some lifestyle changes that would last a lifetime. This blog entry is about the changes I made in my life that resulted in me losing 15 lbs in about 2 months. Not only did I lose the initial weight, but I also did not gain any weight over the holidays, even though I did not watch what I ate.

Anyway, I recommend speaking to your doctor before you engage in any of the activities to make sure that they are the right choices for you, as this program is also not for pregnant or nursing mothers. Here is how I started living a healthier lifestyle in the 4th quarter of 2008.

First you will need a few things.

#1 a Cell phone that allows you to set reoccurring reminders, preferably one that you can sync with your Outlook if you are on the computer all day at work.

#2 a Magic Bullet Blender.

#3 a Detox system. I used Dr Natura’s 3 month Toxinout and Colonix system available online at DrNatura.com

#4 healthy groceries consisting of the following: frozen or fresh fruit, vanilla soy milk, fresh OJ (I prefer not from concentrate), 1 55 count variety box of flavored Quaker Oatmeal (from BJ’s), organic non-fat milk, soups (I like Wolfgang Puck), salads, or low-fat frozen entrees. 

#5 I also recommend perhaps disposing of any “temptations” you may have laying around the house for those late night munchies.

The first step to this process is to set cell phone reminders when it’s time to participate in the system, and then supplementing that with a few basic healthy food choices. At no point was I hungry or craving food. My goal is to instill good healthy habits that I don’t even have to think about for the long term. I don’t always follow the program on the weekends, however I do recommend that you begin it on a Saturday, as you may find yourself spending some quality time in the bathroom during the first 24-48 hours of the detox.

This is my regimine during the week:

When I wake up in the morning, first thing I do in the kitchen is I drink a glass of water, and I take the Dr Natura Paranil (Liver and Colon Purifying Complex) pills. These pills are not consistently taken out throughout the process, you would have  to refer to the Dr. Natura instructions for the complete schedule.

After I make breakfast for my son, I make a delicous fiber smoothie drink in my Magic bullet blender:

1 cup of frozen mixed fruit (available at Publix for about $7.99, lasts about 2 weeks) 
microwave it for 1 minute to partially defrost, fill the rest of the magic bullet with:
2/3′s vanilla soy milk
1/2 banana
and the rest OJ

I add the fiber to this smoothie, and it is delicious. This takes about 2 minutes to make, and it makes enough for both myself and my husband. This drink starts my metabolism, and it keeps me full for at least an hour.

When I get to work, I dock and turn on my laptop. I then grab a packet of flavored oatmeal, and some decaffeinated tea (I’m sure some people would insist on coffee). I make a packet of oatmeal with fat free milk. Then I get working.

At 11:45 my phone reminder tells me to take the Dr Natural Toxinout Pills (Heavy metal/Toxin removal and liver detox support). At 12 I go to the gym and do 25 minutes of cardio and some Nautilous machines. However the first 3 weeks of this program I did not work out at all and I still lost the most weight.

Sometimes on my way back to work I grab a salad, or I keep soups at my desk. I also have healthy microwave dinners in the freezer at work (I recommend Healthy Choice or Amy’s). After I eat I take my DetoxiGreen pills to replenish  Antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and enzymes that may have been removed with the detox system.

When I get home, I make a sensible low-carb dinner. There are a few things that I try to completely avoid: sodas, pastas, white rice, white breads, and potatoes. Instead I use Flatout low-carb wraps, brown or wild rice, flatbreads (BJ’s has awesome artisian flatbreads that i make pizzas with), and sweet potatoes. Pieces of meat should be kept to smaller than the palm of the hand. I also use low-fat sour cream, and yogurt for sauces. Greek yogurt is awesome, you can mix it with 1/4 packet of powdered ranch dressing and it has a ton of uses. The goal at dinner is to think low-carb, a little carbs, and a little fat is ok.

I also started to keep a record of recipies that I’ve made that are easy, delicious and healthy. Sometimes when I get home I’m too brain-dead to come up with an original meal, so it helps to have a record of things that I know have been a success to use as a resource.

At night, I wrap up my detox system by taking my Dr Natura Pro-biotic, this replenishes your bodies good bacteria which research also links to body metabolism. Before bed there is a drink called Kleratea, which I think is very tasty, but I’m not always the best about remembering to make it.

I hope sharing my experiences with choosing a healthier lifestyle can be an inspiration to what ever path you decide if you are making resoultions for 2009 and beyond.

Slaving away in the icon mines…

December has been relatively slow on the  human factors front. Not to say I’m not busy. I’ve been working on converting over 440 icons to a more contemporary version. I think I’m about 3/4 of the way done. I’ve never really liked making icons that much, but recently I’ve started having a fun time with it. There’s definitely a challenge in trying to convey a message or an idea in an 18×18 pixel square. And the thing about icons is that usually less is more. You don’t need to have all of the complex details that you would show in say a 64×64 pixel space. I think the most important thing to do is to keep your ideas simple.

In January I hope to go on a Contextual Inquiry visit with a customer. In this visit I will do an interview while watching the user perform tasks that they do in their everyday work flow. This is a discovery visit where I will collect user information so that I can use it for future personas, and/or mental models. Until then I will continue to work on my icons, and try to enjoy the holidays. The good news is that I finally got my Holiday cards out!

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… 2008

I read the blog of my friend designer Brenda Kato, and she did a touching piece on good things that happened to her in 2008. This inspired me to contemplate all of the good things that happened in 2008 that I have to be thankful for:

• Taking my son William to the park on beautiful days.
• Watching William learn how to sit up, crawl, walk & talk.
• Celebrating my husband Damion’s 34th birthday with family and friends.
• Getting to see my friends Scott and Korey visit from Wisconsin in February, we had a great time!
• Having fun at Tracey’s BBQ over memorial day weekend.
• All of the fantastic times we spent at the beach.
• Starting my blog.
• Getting in touch with old friends I haven’t spoken to in over 15 years on Facebook.
• Visits from my mom.
• Enjoying great times with great neighbors, the Symes, Jaci & Sean, Arelis and Will, & the Troops.
• Going to Web Summit 08 in Coronado California, and learning about Mental Models, and Twitter.
• Celebrating my sons first birthday with about 80 friends at William’s Island.
• Going on bike rides with William, and Damion.
• Visiting our family in Ohio over father’s day.
• William recovering fully from his knee surgery over the 4th of July.
• Having a BBQ with my brother and his family, and Brooks, Linda and Graysen.
• Celebrating Krystal, Kelvin’ and Auria’s birthday, and getting to see old friends together.
• William recieving better care and making new friends at his new day care.
• Going to Arelis and Will’s fantastic engagement party.
• The nights we got to go out at night because Grandma was able to baby sit.
• Watching William ride a carnival ride with his daddy for the first time.
• Going on my first customer visits for work to NYC, and getting to spend time with Brenda.
• Delicious dinners cooked by Chef Daveo.
• Getting the new iPhone 3g.
• Dancing with William and having a great time at Patty and Jose’s wedding reception.
• Bowling with my coworkers, and getting to know them better.
• Going to Orlando with Jaime, and Matthew, and getting to see Carolina and her family.
• Losing 18 pounds and counting!
• I’m thankful that Barak Obama won the Presidential Election!
• Getting to see Amanda visit from Oklahoma, and seeing the great transformation she’s undergone.
• Getting to meet for the first time my extended family on my husband’s father’s side for Thanksgiving.
• Learning about User Centered Design and the crash coarse in  Human Factors I experienced this year.
• Really enjoying my job and coming into work every day, and enjoying working out at lunch.
• Eating healthy delicous food.

I feel truely blessed, as 2008 was a great year.

To Sort? Or not to Sort? That is the question.

Have you ever been confused as to where to find an item on a website? Does the primary navigation always make sense? Are things hidden in sub-levels that are confusing? Do you know where something should be located on a website?

I have recently been tasked with creating the navigation for a complex web enabled application. I started by creating a list of Activities that the user should be able to perform on the site. From that I created a knowledge map of all of the areas, and I derived the Information Architecture from the map that I created. Technically Information Architecture should be based on the data collected from performing a Card Sorting Exercise.

What is card sorting? According to Jed Wood and Larry wood’s article from the Journal of Usability Studies, “Card sorting was originally developed by psychologists as a method to the study of how people organize and categorize their knowledge. As the name implies, the method originally consisted of researchers writing labels representing concepts (either or concrete) on cards, and then asking participants to sort (categorize) the cards into piles that were simliar in some way.”

As you may be able to guess, this could be very useful for finding out where users think things should be located on a website, or in a web enabled application. So I wonder, should I be able to use the information architecture that I generated from my own experience, or should this order be dictated by the users. I will look at the results of my validation exercise, and if I am not happy with the results, then I may have to look into performing a card sorting exercise of my own.