WHAT CHANGED?

Many times over the past two years (in fact, tomorrow will be the two year anniversary of this blog) I have reminded what few readers this blog has, that that real reason that I do this every day is because I personally enjoy going back and reading some of these daily entries as time passes. I admit that I try to make this blog somewhat interesting for the few people who have the spare two minutes each day to see what I am pontificating about. For many months, the average number of visitors each day has been somewhere near fifty. Beginning on December 7th, for a reason that completely eludes me, the daily visitors to this blog has 'skyrocketed' to nearly 300. I have no idea why. I always thought that I might be 'discovered' if not for my successful weight loss, then at least for my 'razor sharp' and/or  my twisted political viewpoints. However, before I get too jazzed about my increased readership, here are the stats from 'drudgereport.com' which is a website that I visit numerous times each day. For comparison, my blog has accumulated just over 50,000 hits in two years. 

VISITS DRUDGEREPORT.COM 12/25/2016

020,179,375 PAST 24 HOURS
853,034,180 PAST 31 DAYS
10,675,624,505 PAST YEAR.

It's time for me to do my 'Rain Man' thing.  If the Drudge Report had 20,179,375 visits in the past 24 hours, then it was visited approximately 840,807 times per hour, which translates to 14,013 visits per minute.  In the last four minutes, the Drudge Report has had more visitors to its website than my blog has had in the past 2 years. But we should compare apples to apples, right?  How many minutes has my blog been active?  Two years, is 730 days, which is 17, 520 hours, which further is translated to 1,051,200 minutes.

Now I have a good comparison... My blog needed to be active for over ONE MILLION MINUTES for it to be visited as many times as the DRUDGE REPORT is visited in just 4 minutes.  OK, on second thought, perhaps I should have not reported that my visits to the blog 'skyrocketed' beginning on December 7th. But they did increase. What changed? I do not know. 

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Your Food Diary For:

Saturday, December 24, 2016

BREAKFAST	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g
Quaker - Instant Oatmeal- Maple	800	160	10	20	1,300	60
Kirkland - Pre-Cooked Bacon	240	0	18	18	1,050	0
	1,040	160	28	38	2,350	60
L U N C H
Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich, 2	760	60	34	18	310	34
	760	60	34	18	310	34
D I N N E R
Home Made - Potato Latkes	852	186	28	34	4,524	15
Black Angus Sirloin Steak	360	0	24	33	0	0
	1,212	186	52	67	4,524	15
S N A C K S
Klondike Vanilla Ice Cream Bar	500	70	34	6	170	56
	500	70	34	6	170	56
Totals	3,512	476	148	129	7,354	165
Your Daily Goal	3,495	437	116	175	2,300	131
Remaining	-17	-39	-32	46	-5,054	-34
	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g
	*You've earned 1,565 extra calories from exercise today

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       Your Exercise Diary for:

Saturday, December 24, 2016

Cardiovascular	Minutes	Calories Burned
ELEVEN MILE URBAN HIKE	166	1,879
Daily Total / Goal	166 / 30	1,879 / 590
Weekly Total / Goal	929 / 210	9,885 / 4,130

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During my eleven mile urban hike yesterday, I tried my new headlamp. I know that it looks a bit goofy. I also know that there have been a few times in recent weeks when this would have come in very handy when my hiking extended into darkness, especially where there was very little light to mark the way forward. These days, I always carry a flashlight with me. I also think that this headlamp will be permanently stowed in my backpack for the times that it is necessary. 

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from wikipedia...

Rain Man is a 1988 American road comedy-drama film directed by Barry Levinson and written by Barry Morrow and Ronald Bass. It tells the story of an abrasive and selfish young wheeler-dealer, Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise), who discovers that his estranged father has died and bequeathed all of his multimillion-dollar estate to his other son, Raymond (Dustin Hoffman), an autistic savant, of whose existence Charlie was unaware. 

Charlie learns more about Raymond, including that he is a mental calculator with the ability to instantly count hundreds of objects at once, far beyond the normal range of human subitizing abilities. 

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subitize

[soo-bi-tahyz]

• Word Origin

verb (used without object), subitized,subitizing. Psychology.

1.

to perceive at a glance the number of items presented, the limit for humans being about seven.

I personally, do not have any subitizing abilities, nor do I have a mental calculator. The reason that I identify with the character of Rain Man is that sometimes I just need to carry out mathematical problems to somewhat absurd exactitude.

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30,000 VISITS

As I have written before, I have recently developed new hobbies. Last year, my new hobby was losing weight. This year, that hobby has been altered somewhat, now I am simply trying to maintain that weight loss and perhaps eventually lose a bit more. Another two new hobbies that began last year was the inauguration of this blog and my daily exercise. The daily exercise has absolutely positively become part of my daily routine. Before I started exercising, I was actually very worried that I would start and fail to keep up with it. That simply has not been a problem - I enjoy too much the self-satisfaction of completing some kind of workout each day - whether it is brisk walking, treadmilling, or time spent ellipticalling. It makes no difference, the good feeling that I feel upon completion of a workout is too good of a feeling to give up. It does take effort to make time for exercise each day. Sometimes in order to get this accomplished I have to be at it as 5:00AM, other times, I have had to get to it prior to midnight. It takes way more effort to skip a day than it does to workout on any day. In fact, skipping a day, has continued to be an ongoing problem as I try so hard to avoid that.  The last hobby that began last year was this blog.

The blog has been my own personal diary. For example, it is great fun for me to read some of the things that I was writing as my weight dipped below 300 lbs for the first time. There have been many blog entries that have been fun for me to revisit. It has been great fun seeing from what countries the readers of this blog live. It is truly amazing that somehow, there have been visitors to this page from all over the world.  I did not know when I started if there would be anyone beside myself and my immediate family that might be interested in my daily musings. It turns out, there have been.  Today, February 4, 2016 will be the day that this blog will have its 30,000th visitor.  As a comparison, the popular drudgereport.com website had about 8.5 BILLION visitors last year.  So, evidently, I still have room to grow. Anyway, the true purpose of this blog has never been about other people reading it...It has always been my own personal diary which I have tried to make mildly amusing in case anyone else wanted to read it.

My intention is to keep going with it... I am afraid to stop, just posting (most) of the things that I eat on a daily basis is a helpful thing to remind me to ratchet down my caloric intake. I suppose that I could continue to record my calories without actually posting them - but as I have written, I enjoy it. I thought today I would post some of the stats from my blog as I approach my 30000th visitor.

February 4, 2016 is the day that this blog will record its 30000th visitor

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THESE ARE THE TOP-TEN MOST VISITED POSTS

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My most favorite post aside from my DAY 365 | BEFORE/AFTER PHOTOS posted on December 23, 2015 was LOST WEIGHT? WHERE DID IT GO (posted on July 5, 2015). I am also partial to the number 1 most popular post, RABBI HILLEL DIET as my daughter supplied the artwork for this post. In essence, it was a commissioned work of art.  I have no recall that I actually paid her for it, but nevertheless, it was commissioned.

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This chart shows where the visits have come from since the inception of the blog.  I wish that there was some way to make a list of countries that was more than just the top ten - as I have noticed visits from many countries, including some that I have barely even heard of before.

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I find it a bit interesting to see the various operating systems around the world that people are using to view the blog.  Looking at this list, it does appear that the iPod touch might soon be going extinct!

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Your Food Diary For:

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

BREAKFAST	Calories	Carbs	Fat	Protein	Sodium	Sugar
steel cut oatmeal - steel cut oat meal, 1/2 cup	300	54	5	10	0	2
Apple - Macintosh, 154 gram (medium Apple)	80	22	0	0	0	17
WHOLE FOODS - DRIED MANGO SLICES	110	28	0	2	1	20
Cheerios - Honey Nut Cheerios Medley	240	48	3	6	240	18
	730	152	8	18	241	57
L U N C H
MARIANO'S SPINACH SALAD	375	0	0	0	0	0
Cashews - Dry Roasted & Unsalted	320	18	26	8	0	2
	695	18	26	8	0	2
D I N N E R
Roasted Beet & Quinoa Salad, 100 g	200	13	15	3	60	3
Southwest Roasted Corn, 0.67 c	160	17	9	3	260	3
Teriyaki Salmon Steaks, 6 oz	270	3	8	47	365	5
WHOLE FOODS YOGURT ALMONDS (24 pcs)	440	44	28	8	40	38
	1,070	77	60	61	725	49
S N A C K S
Kind - Salted Caramel and Dark Chocolate, 1 bar	200	16	15	5	120	5
WHOLE FOODS - YOGURT PRETZELS  (approx 16 pcs	380	56	0	4	360	38
	580	72	15	9	480	43
Totals	3,075	319	109	96	1,446	151
Your Daily Goal	4,978	622	166	249	2,300	186
Remaining	1,903	303	57	153	854	35
	Calories	Carbs	Fat	Protein	Sodium	Sugar
	*You've earned 3,048 extra calories from exercise today

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       Your Exercise Diary for:

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Cardiovascular	Minutes	Calories Burned
PRECOR AMT (ADAPTIVE MOTION TRAINER)	125	2,418
MFP iOS calorie adjustment	N/A	630
Daily Total / Goal	126 / 30	3,048 / 590
Weekly Total / Goal	378 / 210	7,980 / 4,130

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total calories consumed 3075 calories

total calories burned (125 min elliptical) 2418 calories

total net 657 calories

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fitbit day 151

26790 steps
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