A traditional "Guernsey" wool seaman's sweater in navy blue. I've had mine for 30 years.
A "Bar style" blender. (Very powerful motor and the jar has the blades permanently attached).
A full set of Henckels knives. Keep them sharp. (I use a stone, but it doesn't really matter... You can even use an old mousepad with a sheet of automotive sandpaper glued to it.)
One especially powerful secret is "decide in advance".
You will have some eating plan in place... then there will come a day when the food available does not match your eating plans, or some social/cultural event, or when you simply have a bad day and "fall off" your eating plan.
The secret is to anticipate/expect these things to happen. Decide now, when you can be dispassionate, where you can compromise, for how much, and how you will get back on track afterward.
Will you eat cake at the birthday? How much?
You fall off the plan. How will you coach yourself back onto it? etc.
Waiting until the heat of the moment is how a small misstep (I planned to have one small handful of [whatever], and I just realized I've eaten half the bag) turns into a disaster (screw it! I already broke my diet. [insert bad self-talk and self destructive behavior here]. I'll just finish the damn bag)
Advance planning is how a small misstep is acknowledged (oh crap, I ate half the bag), then recovered (ok. I ate too much. What's done is done. I can't change that but I CAN stop the damage here so it doesn't get even worse.)
I also successfully set up a "three times a week" running program and typically run 5km each time and sometimes 10km on the weekend. Today I completed Year 2, Week 52, Run 3. So I'm feeling pretty good about that.
>I'd love to know how you pulled this off...
Here is what worked for me. Maybe some or all of it will work for you.
The foundation rule is: I will not injure myself. (I'm pushing 50 and don't heal like I used to)
To avoid all-or-nothing thinking I explicitly decided against making this a lifetime commitment. Instead I would re-evaluate at 4-week intervals if I wanted to continue. Knowing there was a GO/NOGO milestone in the near future really helped me get through the first few weeks. (After the first few cycles I had integrated the jogging habit into my lifestyle and didn't need the GO/NOGO milestones anymore)
Then, I sat down and figured some stuff out in advance. Namely:
1) Deciding (and committing) what days and times I will jog.
For my schedule, Tue/Thu/Sat mornings before work was best.
2) Decide what I will do if the weather is bad, or there is some other reason why I could not go at the scheduled time.
3) Define a set route to follow.
I follow the same route every time. I never need to think about it and I don't get bored since there are several unique stretches of environment along my route. Also all the plants and things change through the seasons which is something to notice and appreciate.
What worked best for me was to follow a set path until mid-way through my run, then turn around and retrace my steps. (Setting a countdown timer on my watch to beep when I was halfway through the session, rounding the session time up a bit if necessary.)
4) Follow an established program.
I chose the popular "Couch to 5K" program. Using the "NHS Choices 5K" podcast with Coach Laura.
5) Set the bar for success as LOW as possible.
For me, a run "counts" if I put on my jogging clothes and shoes. Then step outside my front door and walk even a single step away from the house. Seriously. I can turn around right then and go back inside and it counts as a win.
For my personality, consistency and reliability are FAR more important than time spent or distance travelled.
6) Accept that I'll need to repeat episodes. Let go of needing to progress through the program at the pre-determined pace.
The important thing was getting out and moving. The program is advertised as taking 9 weeks. It took me a lot longer than that but I accepted that up front so it didn't bother me.
--
I quickly found that carrying my phone in my hand was uncomfortable, so I bought an armband holder for about $10.
I also found using wired earbuds was a hassle (the wires) and maybe dangerous (they block environmental sound). So I bought a pair of "AfterShokz" bone conduction headphones for about $150. They're great and I'm glad I got them.
Finally, I should note that I only started the jogging plan after I got my weight down to under 200lb. For that, I went with the "Slow Carb" eating plan since it was simple to follow, seemed sustainable long-term, and gave me a "cheat day" once a week. Honestly, as far as I can tell, just about any popular eating plan will work. So if you need to lose some fat (like I did), just pick one and try it for a few months to see if you like it.
No outrage intended sorry if it came across that way.
I was commenting on the abrupt departure of searchyc not on the new search. Haven't seen the new search yet since it's not working on my blackberry for some reason. And I don't have my laptop with me.
Just off the top of my head here are some unanswered questions:
Why did Comcast shut them down? why did comcast have the authority to shut them down? Why didn't the searchyc admins take their site somewhere else? Why have they said nothing here on hn? Why were they shutdown mere days before pg announces an official search (hopefully just a coincidence). What happened to their data (it's especially valuable now that we can no longer see comment scores). Etc.
Griefing: If the system does not already, I think it should flag for review users who consistently downvote a particular user.
Cliques: Likewise if the same few people are consistently the first to upvote stories or comments of a particular user.
Multies/Sockpuppets: I think votes for a user buy another user from "too close" an ip address should be automatically discounted. I'm not sure how to define "too close" (and I suspect HN already does this)
Anonymous posting: I like the way MetaFilter handles anonymous posting instead of people making throwaway accounts. The downside of this is that 1) Posters have to really trust the site admins; 2) This becomes more work for the admins
Disallow noob posting articles: What % of the [DEAD] articles were posted by users with a very low karma? What % hit the front page?
(Yes, those last two are not directly related to the OP's comment but I feel they're ideas worth throwing out there)