Tole's Take

How to lose weight: the first 20 pounds are the hardest

I lost 20 lbs. last year, and you can too.  How?  I'll lay out a series of topics below that I'll cover in future posts, but there are a few overriding principles that you'll have to get your head around to make this happen:

• No "diets".  A diet has a start date and an end date.  You have to look at the structure of your overall life, and your nutrition in particular, in order to make lasting, meaningful changes.
• Take the long view.  You didn't get to this point overnight, and you won't get out of it overnight either.
• Be realistic.  Your initial plan will undoubtedly be overly optimistic in what you can achieve.  Make your plan and then scale it back by 25% to make it achievable.
• Make time to exercise.  Look at your daily calendar.  It's likely filled with lots of meetings, appointments, and other scheduled events; treat exercise just like any other recurring event and put it down in your schedule ahead of time.
• Set goals that are defined, measurable (to assess progress), and have a date attached to them.  The last is key to sharpening your focus -- it's been said that "goals are dreams with a deadline".

If you love the sport of cycling, you should be rooting for Team Slipstream-Chipotle

Jonathan Vaughters, the director sportif of Team Slipstream-Chipotle (team links here and here), was interviewed recently on The Competitors Radio by Bob Babbitt and Paul Huddle, and you can find the podcast here.  If you haven't heard their weekly podcasts, you are missing out on a ton of knowledge (and laughter) about endurance sports that make all those long runs & rides less boring and more entertaining.

Vaughters gives the most open and honest appraisal I've ever heard of the predicament that professional cycling has gotten itself into, and his team's approach to taking the first steps to solve it.  It involves thousands of drug tests, an open-door policy for any media outlet that wants access to such results, and, most importantly, sponsors who share his vision that race results are not the ultimate prize.  The last reason is critical since this is what has bedeviled cycling for the last decade -- by simultaneously demanding top results from riders in order to stay employed but turning a blind eye towards what those riders were forced to resort to just to stay competitive, cycling teams created and fostered the drug culture which is only just starting to loosen with the coming of age of the young generation (witness rising American star Taylor Phinney's sticker on his top tube: "Dopers suck").

Here are the podcast notes:

Jonathan Vaughters was a professional cyclist who basically quit his sport young, at the age of 30, partly because he was frustrated by the rampant drug use. Now Vaughters is running the Slipstream Cycling Team and accountability is the name of the game. His team will administer 1200 drug tests to their athletes this year alone and the media will be invited to training camps so that they can see that Team Slipstream is clean. He is out to change the culture of the sport of cycling by hopefully proving that you can be competitive and drug free at the same time. Vaughters was incredibly open and honest in this conversation.

Highly recommended listening.  If you are a cycling fan who loves this beautiful sport, you should be rooting for their team to experience success in the Grand Tours.  While you're at it, throw a little love to the sponsors who make it all possible; a list of the oh-so-tasty Chipotle restaurants in your area can be found here.

The fracturing holy trinity of the Republican party

The Republican party has historically had 3 archetypes in its presidential candidates: the social conservative preacher, the fiscal conservative Wall Streeter, and the national defense conservative hawk.  Ronald Reagan was the only candidate in the last 35 years to unite all three wings, which is why every new candidate seeks to cloak themselves in his mantle.

Most GOP candidates in the last 3 decades, though, have represented 2 of the 3 wings.  The current President Bush is an example; his 2000 campaign featured his background as a born-again Christian (the preacher) and a fiscal conservative who had run the state of Texas and promoted tax cuts to spur growth (the Wall Streeter).  To shore up what he lacked in the national defense wing, he brought former Defense Secretary Dick Cheney onto the ticket to give him street cred with the military hawks.  Their administration has strayed far and wide from these initial campaign principles, but that is another story ...

Turning to the 2008 campaign, there are ominous signs ahead for the GOP since this "holy trinity" of the 3 wings has splintered badly, and no candidate unites even 2 of the 3 wings.  Prior to Mitt Romney's exit this week from the race, here is how things stood:

• John McCain commands the national defense wing, but he is despised by the social conservatives (for some socially liberal stands and his past comments about the religious right being agents of intolerance) and by the Wall Streeters (given his self-described lack of knowledge about economics)
• Mike Huckabee has become the standard-bearer for the social conservatives (and in fact he is a preacher), which kept this wing from any thoughts it may have had of coalescing around either Romney or Fred Thompson.  Outside of this wing, he has zero credibility with the other two wings.
• Mitt Romney was the choice of the Wall Streeters, with his long and successful career in the private sector.  But his campaign struggled to rally the social conservatives to his cause, and he made ham-handed attempts to mollify the military hawks (doubling the size of Guantanamo? electing a Democrat would be a surrender to terror?).

As the presumptive nominee, the big problem for McCain is that the vote against him in nearly all the Super Tuesday states far outweighed the vote for him -- it wasn't like he had one main rival who was siphoning votes, he had two.  It's unlikely that he will be able to pacify the Wall Street crowd (see his reception of cheers and jeers at the CPAC this week), so in order to unite at least one of the other wings to his cause, he will have to tack dramatically to the right and risk losing his strength with independents.

Conceivably, he could pick Huckabee as a running mate to shore up this support.  But that seems increasingly unlikely; Huckabee is the youngest candidate in the GOP field, and his surprisingly strong showing in this year's campaign has given him a new level of name recognition on the national stage as the undisputed leader of the social conservative movement.  He may very well decide to cultivate support in one of the other two wings to craft a presidential run in 2012.  Romney is likely thinking the same thing, broadening his support  beyond fiscal conservatives into one (or even both) of the other wings.

The prediction here is that McCain won't be able to rally enough conservatives to his his side to prevail, and Huckabee and Romney fight it out for the nomination in 2012.  After all, the GOP is a party of primogeniture and the candidate who came in second last time often gets the nod the next time around (see, e.g., Reagan's losing efforts in the primaries of 1968 and 1976 before finally prevailing in 1980).

Question on "the vegan paradox": do hard-core vegan mothers breastfeed their babies?

It was a completely random question that came up in conversation today.  Is breastmilk an animal product, and therefore not suitable for vegans (hard-core ones, e.g., them + baby), or is it acceptable -- are humans a different sort of "animal" in this context?

Not looking for any hate mail, just thought it was a something to ponder ... Kind of reminded us of the Kobayashi Maru of Star Trek fame.  Here's a sample of one of the many funny, yet rather strident responses to this topic on Yahoo! Answers:

Breastmilk is vegan because it's completely consensual and there was no exploitation involved. Similarly, other bodily secretions (hint hint) of humans are also vegan if consensually given.

Cows' milk is for calves, not humans. However, in farms cows are treated as nothing more than milking machines. They are constantly kept pregnant and their calves are taken away at birth and if male, are slaughtered in a matter of weeks for veal. There's a saying that goes "Every glass of milk has a little bit of veal in it".

Humans are the only animal that drinks the milk of another animal... and past infancy too. It's funny that a lot of adults think drinking human breastmilk is completely gross but it's acceptable to drink the milk of another animal. I never really understood that cognitive dissonance.

Veganism opposes all animal exploitation. It is not about purity as many omnivores like to think, it is about resisting exploitation and commodification of sentient beings.

The Great Game of Search: Why Microsoft + Yahoo will work

There has been endless amounts of ink shed on this already.  That said, I'll offer a few words from the perspective of someone who was on the frontlines of this battle for a long time (I was with Yahoo! for 5 years, and handled business development for the search team when things were booming).

Search is the new Great Game, as Chris Sherman termed it a few years ago.  The term was originally coined by Rudyard Kipling and refers to the struggle for empire in Central Asia between Great Britain and Russia, with a host of proxy states and battles in between.  If you want a riveting account of how the Great Game played out, and how it's impact is still being felt in the global economy and security situation, read Peter Hopkirk's book (link at left), which is even better than a work of fiction.

So why will Microsoft + Yahoo work?  First, to paraphrase James Carville: it's the economics, stupid.  As BusinessWeek aptly puts it, "More than $400 billion in global advertising is looking to make sense of online media, and no garage-based startup, no matter how visionary, can meet such high-volume needs. For the foreseeable future, it will be the reigning behemoth of the PC operating system vs. the emergent giant of the online world, competing for online consumers with resources of gargantuan proportions."  A combined Microsoft-Yahoo will still be #2 in this market, but even #2 can make a lot of money in the near term.

Second, there's been a lot of talk about the culture clash involved in putting together a Redmond software company and a Silicon Valley Internet outfit, see, e.g., Fake Steve Jobs' take on it.  This issue is way overblown.  People forget that when Yahoo! bought Overture in 2003, who were Overture's two largest distribution partners?  Yahoo! and Microsoft.  And guess what?  Microsoft was happy enough with the relationship to re-up for another two years, so (at least on the search side) the two corporate cultures have worked quite well together in the recent past and forged a bond over their shared dislike/fear/concern about Google.  Sure, there may be some culture clash in other business units but ultimately this deal comes down to search and advertising, so those are the two groups that matter most.

Finally, while some talent will undoubtedly bail out, I've spoken to enough talented engineers on the Yahoo! Search team who have spent the last 5-7 years trying to out-Google Google (some as far back as Inktomi and AltaVista), and they don't want it all to have been in vain, e.g., throw in the towel and simply outsource search to Google.  Their view is, if Microsoft really wants to win in search and has the deep pockets and corporate commitment to do so, they are willing to redouble their efforts to try and beat the Mountain View boys.

Enjoy the Great Game in the meantime!

Giants win the Super Bowl -- another NY football upset!

Wow, talk about an upset of epic proportions -- this has to rank up there with Broadway Joe Namath (at left) predicting that the Jets would beat the Colts in 1969 and then going out and doing it.

Great work by Eli Manning and the gang, especially as a testament to the value of perseverance and never giving up on oneself.  Belichick storming off the field like a prima donna before the game was even over -- now that showed an incredible lack of class, but par for the course by the Spygate mastermind!

How much more fit is "Ultramarathon man" Dean Karnazes than you?

This one blew me away when I heard it on an archived Competitor Radio podcast (which I listened to while running, appropriately enough).  When Dean Karnazes, author of Ultramarathon Man and all-around ultraendurance guru, was training for the North Face Endurance 50 (running 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 consecutive days, which he completed in one piece),  he worked with Chris Carmichael, Lance Armstrong's coach, to fine-tune his training.

In addition to using 100-mile ultramarathons like The Western States Endurance Run as mere training runs (!), Dean and Chris established a benchmark that let them know when he was ready for the Endurance 50:

>> Complete a sub-four hour marathon with an average heart rate of 110.

Read that last part again -- an average heart rate of 110!  Most people hit that getting off the couch; try running even a mile at that HR and you'll know what I mean.

Wow.  Double wow.

Rules for Startups #5: CEOs should be like Tom Brady

Without a doubt, Tom Brady is the current golden boy of the NFL who is a winner on and off the field, having inherited the mantle from Joe Montana and Joe Namath. 

Tom also encapsulates and manages to put into words what it means to be a quarterback in the NFL (from the NYT):

He said that the best advice he received from Montana was to remember who you are in the huddle. “When you’re the quarterback you’re one of the guys, but you’re not really one of the guys because you’re kind of the coach on the field,” Brady said. “I’ve come to experience that and realize what Joe’s talking about. You can’t be a goofball and all of the sudden show up and expect those guys to perform great.”

While I'd never compare the rigors of professional sport (split-second decisions while 300 lb. behemoths bear down on you) to the daily life of a startup CEO, his underlying point still rings true.  Everybody has a role to play in your startup's success, and your role is to lead by example, provide direction, and always let your people know where you stand on the issues and priorities facing the company -- to go back to the football analogy, in your company's "huddle" you are one of the  guys, but you're not really one of the guys, so don't even try to pull it off.

Jack Welch has some wonderful podcasts on this and other management topics on the BusinessWeek site, which you can also subscribe to with iTunes.  Another recommended listen is the Manager Tools podcast.

Johan Santana's a Met!

Unbelievable.  Amazin' even.  I'm a die-hard Mets fan but I never thought this would happen.  After the Yankees and Red Sox were falling all over each other this winter to try and pry Santana, perhaps the best pitcher in baseball, away from the small-market Twins, Omar Minaya earns his stripes and reels him in for the Mets!

Easily an upgrade over Tom Glavine, Santana is sure to make Met fans forget about their epic collapse at the end of last season.  Combined with a full year of a healthy Pedro Martinez, the Mets have to be the early favorite in the NL East and likely the whole NL.  Giddyup!

Why Hillary will win the Democratic nomination going away

Those who know me, know that I am a bit of a political junkie.  There's never been a better year to be one either, with both the Democratic and Republican nominations showing signs of going to a brokered convention for the first time in 20+ years.

Democrats have an easier time of it.  They have the political wind at their backs -- any one of the 3 candidates looks positively sparkling compared to the current administration -- and the economic as well now that the economy looks to be teetering on the brink of recession.

Barack Obama has garnered the lion's share of the press in the past week, with his decisive win in South Carolina, bitter infighting in the Clinton camp over Bill's role in SC, and the twin endorsements of the Kennedy family evoking comparisons to JFK.  He's got a lot going for him and he is a great candidate, and he may very well get my vote in California's primary next week (nice to have an election where we finally matter out west!).

That said, we're going out on a limb with the first Tole's Take political prediction of 2008: Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic nomination handily, wiping out Obama months before the convention. 

Why?  There has been a lot of ink spilled on this already and there will surely be a lot more in the coming months, but in all the coverage I've seen there has been scant mention of the fact that the Clintons haven't lost an election in 25 years.  That's 2 terms as Arkansas governor, 2 terms as US president, and 2 terms (and counting) as US senator, all the time with ~50% of the country completely & utterly detesting their very existence.  In case your memory has faded on this, think Rush Limbaugh and Ken Starr as the standard-bearers ...

The point is that the Clintons know how to campaign, and how to do it well.  Tony Blankley eloquently expressed it when he said Bill Clinton is a "world-class message-deliverer [for the Democrats]; every time he turns a little red in the face the media rushes to cover his every word."  Keep it in mind next time you hear the media wring their hands and ruminate over whether Hillary can recover from this latest slight, or whether Obama's momentum makes him unstoppable with the broader Super Tuesday electorate -- Bill might just be planting the seeds of a message and the media won't realize they were unwittingly delivering it until it's too late.

Just a thought.  Until then, enjoy the political theater!