Ive been reading the book The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite, which I picked up after Brad wrote a post suggesting reading Ian’s blog post about the book.

I havent gotten very far, but so far it makes a lot of sense. Yesterday, I stopped by Boulder Running Company to pick up a Garmin 010-00658-30 Forerunner 405CX GPS Sport Watch with Heart Rate Monitor (Blue). By now, I hope you have noticed that I am using Amazon affiliate links. I am doing this mostly because I think its funny. Why do I think its funny? I dunno, but it makes me giggle.

Being a lover of contrary behavior, I stopped at McDonalds on the way home. After all, I had just bought a super-duper heart rate monitor with the intent of working out more often. To add to the silliness, I broke out the End to Overeating book on my iPhone Kindle app (apparently you cant buy an iPhone through Amazon, so no link for you!).

I mean seriously, can you imagine? I just spent $350 on a heart rate monitor, was eating at McDonalds while reading a book about weight loss? Im high-lar-e-ous.

Anyway, a couple of pages in there is a short discussion about how food logs dont work, especially for overeaters, because they lie. That requiring dieters to photograph their food with a time and date stamp seemed to work better.

I thought to myself, as I ate my second apple pie, “thats interesting.”

Today, I struck out trying to find an easy way to make it happen. First, I decided I wanted to use Posterous. Why? Well, because I havent figured out a great way to use it yet, and I am a big fan of Garry and Sachin‘s.

All day I tried different things. I played with PicPosterous, the iPhone app, but it didnt do exactly what I wanted. (It needs the ability for me to write a short description of the photo).

I tried flickr and tumblr, but they werent exactly what I wanted.

Then I found this out about Posterous. If you send an email to the service name, it will only autopost to that service. For example, if I send a photo to flickr+twitter [at] posterous [dot] com it will only be posted to flickr and twitter (and posterous).

Which lead to to this solution.

I will email photos of what I am eating to twitter [at] posterous [dot] com. Since my twitter goes to my facebook, thats covered. It keeps food photos out of my flickr and tumblr, which is perfect. I will send one email per day, even though it will be multiple photos. You can comment on my food selection on my posterous blog.

Then I will use those photos at the end of the day to update my food diary in DailyBurn.

Finally, I will take a picture of my weekly weigh-in as well.

What do you think? Good idea?

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Im fat.

I took a look at the first post I ever wrote the other day. Entitled Battle of the Belly – Day 1, it proclaimed my desire to lose weight. Then I looked at my second post, Where Have You Been? Or The Continuation of Fatness where I continue to discuss weight loss.

When was it posted? 42 days after the first one. Ouch.

Then over the next 3-4 months, I continued to post about losing weight. Mostly when things were good. Then silence on the fatty side. What happened?

I quit losing weight. I stopped fighting. I failed.

And, instead of standing up and talking about it, I shut the hell up.

For a person that talks a lot about failure, its surprises me a bit that I failed to share in my failure.

Why does all this matter? Well, lemme tell ya!

Im back at the weight loss stuff. I learned over the course of the past year or so that being bipolar made weight loss difficult and weight gain easy. Apparently, most people who are bipolar tend to be addicted to food, drugs or sex. I choose unwisely and ended up being addicted to food and drugs. (If I had only known the choices!)

While its not easy to break an addiction to drugs, its really a binary decision. You either do drugs, or you dont.

I cant stop eating. Well, cant stop for long.

Recently, I found that I am insulin resistant. Due to that, I have started taking a drug called Metformin which is supposed to help my body become less insulin resistant. (BTW, a horrible side effect is it jacks up my stomach. Sometimes really, really badly. Add that to the standard Jewish disposition of having horrible stomach/GI/etc issues, its really, really not fun.)

Over the course of the past few weeks, I am losing weight naturally. Which means, if I want to get serious about losing weight, now is the time.

What’s my plan?

First and foremost, I am using Daily Burn. Daily Burn was a Techstars company last year, and has been doing phenomenally with some great investors. Along with an iPhone app, they allow you to track all your caloric intake (nutrition), workouts and the effect the nutritional choices and workouts have on your body (my belly). What I like about Daily Burn is the addition of social features, which are paramount to success (no one is in this alone, even if you are alone.)

The only benefit of Daily Burn is the ability for me to post most everything I am doing publicly. Here is my Daily Burn Locker Room. Its public. Enjoy. Occasionally it will tweet out achievements and other fitness related information.

I will use Nike+ for when I walk my dogs, or spend time on the treadmill. Again, I will post it on my blog (in a handy dandy widget).  I am going to take pictures of myself now and again, and post them to a flickr set on my account.  And, finally, I will record videos here and there, and post them to LearnToDuckTV.

Finally, I will ask everyone who knows me to keep me on track. If you think I am slippin’ just ask, or kick in my…butt–doubt you could miss it.

And, of course, periodically, I will write a post about where I am at.

As my mom used to say to me when I pretended I wasnt listening to her, “This time I am not fucking around.”

I want to lose about 100 lbs. Ive given myself about a year to do it.

And…here we go.

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Over the past week or so, I have had two friends burn out.

Like most professions people choose, entrepreneurship isnt all play time and money. Startups arent filled with foosball and Mac Pros.

We read about layoffs and think to ourselves “Well, its a startup. They arent making any money. I have no idea why they employed so many people. Whiles its horrible, its probably for the best.”

Or we read about the latest funding and think to ourselves “What? They got $5million dollars? Its just a <insert something here>. They will never make any money.”

What most people dont understand if they havent been in a startup (even those that cover startups really dont get it), is that a startup’s culture always has a few key components (not success components necessarily, just that they exist).

1. A general belief that what the startup is focused on is unique, interesting or better than current offerings in the market place (the old better, faster, cheaper argument).
2. That startups have an end.
3. And at that end, there will be some sort of reward.
4. That working at a startup gives you a greater ability to have a bigger influence on the product, brand, business direction, whatever.
5. That you, the employee, can do whatever is placed in front of you, better than anyone else.

And while its easy to intellectualize the long hours and hard work to get to the end of the rainbow, most people dont understand how the startup lifestyle truly effects them emotionally and mentally.

You can get fired/laid off at any time.

Often decisions are made based on the money in the bank, or the expected out of case position, rather than on the true needs of the organization. Often, there is little determination of the effect less people have on overall workload.

A mistake can be magnified.

Because each person has a large affect on the outcome of the business, mistakes are magnified. Code something wrong? It could push back the next release. Push back the next release, and lose a big deal. Lose a big deal, and miss the numbers you expected. Miss the numbers and the world turns on you. Because most startups run extremely lean, it is imperative that each person is competent. Extremely competent.

All the best work can be for naught.

Do everything right, get the product out the door on time and under budget, make the greatest thing since sliced bread, and watch it wither on the vine. Sometimes, for no reason, a great idea/product just dies. Its a sad reality of the risk/reward game of startups.

All of this leads to high level of expectation and stress.

Which leads to burnout.

Successful entrepreneurs and long-time startup employees understand that burnout is part of the lifestyle they have chosen. Everyone burns out at some point.

So what do you do when you feel a burnout coming?

Most people dont. They work and work and work until they fizzle. Their production decreases and mistakes increase. Soon, they have been let go, and dont understand why.

Here are some early warning signs of burnout:

• You are tired all the time. No matter how much you sleep, you cant seem to “catch up.”
• You complain more than usual. Everyone is a moron. You are the only person that can get the job done.
• You snap at friends and colleagues. Since they cant understand the workload you are under, or how unfair that workload is, you snap. You withdraw.
• You start thinking about quitting. It has to be the company. There is a better job with less stress out there. I just made a bad choice of jobs.
• You take little “breaks.” Today, I am going to nothing that pertains to my job. I know its Tuesday, and we have a release coming up, but I can catch up tomorrow.
• When do you get home, you dont take care of personal business. Dude, I just worked for 12 hours straight. Why should I pay bills?
• You wish you can, or you start, working from home more. There are less distractions (and people). I can work at my pace and I do a better job!

Often the signs of burnout are subtle, and the important thing to realize is that working at a startup is a continual ebb and flow of “completely burned out,” to “almost burned out” and back.

What do you do to make sure you dont completely burn out?

• Pick a project that is just for you. Work it at your pace. Work it in your space. Dont “re-grout the tile” or “pull the storm windows.” Remember your passion. What got you going in the first place. Do that, but do it for you.
• Take some time every day away from the office. I make sure it always take a lunch. 30-60min where the focus is on anything except work. My first boss told me, “The concept of a job is that there is work. When there is no work, there is no job.” 30-60min a day will not put you so far behind that it causes issue.
• Laugh. A lot. There is nothing wrong about finding humor in your day. If its a quick trip to ICanHasCheezburger or a joke with a co-worker, make sure to laugh everyday.
• Learn. A lot. Often, we get so caught up in our jobs, we forget that there is always a lot to learn. It doesnt have to be big. It just has to be something. Ask a co-worker a question. Look something up on Wikipedia. Try some different code.
• Engage. The great thing about startups, is that the team is small enough that you can engage with most anyone. There is no reason to go at it alone. Ask a co-worker to review your work. Get involved in something outside your job. Find a team that you can add value to, and get on it. You can also engage outside the company via a blog, Twitter or some other social media outlet.

How do you deal with burnout?

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