The missing link

This real story is about 8 years old. In the August of 2005 I recieved a parcel from my then-best-friend AA. Found a small letter attached with it which said the following.




Dear Shubhu
I am fine here. My studies are going on fine. 
Occasionally I do also get to talk to Vivek over the phone when he calls me at my hostel posing as my cousin brother(ha ha ha !). 
Anyways, his birthday is nearing and I wanted to gift him something. SO I am sending you this parcel. Please hand it over to him. I AM TWO HEARTS OF CLAY.
AA
PS: Parcel khol mat liyo varna tera sar phod dungi.  

\
Now the letter was all fine except the line (which I have highlighted). I didn;t understand what she meant by "I am hearts of clay".

I couldn't figure out the meaning of the sentence. As requested I handed over the parcel to AA's boyfriend Vivek. But the phrase continued to haunt me.

For more than 4 months I kept thinking time and again the meaning of the sentence but couldn't figure out. The sentence didn't seem to make any sense even contextually. It was frustrating.

November end AA returned home and came to meet me. Even before she could greet me I placed the letter in front of her with the sentence underlined. "I am two hearts of clay"???  I asked and explanation. What dos it mean??? And she read it and laughed. The she wrote something and gave the paper back to me.

It read, "I AM SENDING TWO HEARTS OF CLAY".

The packet contained two clay hearts as gifts.

 

My BMI Problem - Part II

In the last post I posted about the problem I am faced with. It has been around three days now and I can see a slight reduction in my weight. From 95 kg it has come down to 92 kg. So In about  4 days I have reduced approximately 2-3 kgs. That is fairly good.

My game plan.
I have understood two reasons for my condition.

1. Extremely Sedentary life style
2. High Calorie food - Carbs.

So I have started to do the following.

1. Contrary to popular concepts starving or too mush reduction of diet will never lead to a permanent reduction of weight. The moment the body understands that it is starving it switches from burning reserve fat to burning muscles. That can be dangerous to both muscles and kidneys. So I decided to eat the same level to keep myself from starving but instead of carbs and fats I have decided to replace them with high fiber and protein food. So wheat (rotis) and rice are nearly out (being born in a BONG family you can never really give up rice) and replaced with oats. The following I have done.

Breakfast - Before (2 + 2 rotis and veg / eggs) Now(skimmed milk + oats and some veg/eggs)

Lunch (Not much change has happened as my wife and mother both are against giving up rice altogether so I have reduced the quantity of rice to half and increased the consumption of dal, veggies, fish and other stuff which are less on carbs.)

Dinner - Before (4/5 rotis and veg/eggs) Now (2 rotis and veg/eggs)

2. Also I have added walking (brisk) to my schedule. So that I may be able to burn off whatever calories I am adding. (Free hand exercise is still not added as the pain is still there)

I hope this will work.

I am not a gym person. Went to gym twice in the last 6 years and ran away from there too. It is not my cup of tea.
Jogging and running is also nearly out of question because of my extremely pathetic stamina as well as laziness.

So I hope my game plan will work. Lets see.

My BMI problem

I don't know about others but I definitely work on the principle of Rocket. Unless my a** is on fire I usually don't move(read work). And this became even more clear with the new trouble that I am faced with.

I am not a typical fat person. No way. But what I do have is a huge pot belly which has become so huge that it literally hangs out nowadays. In fact a good friend of mine once joked, "shubham's belly walks ahead of him."

And I never really took care to reduce it or control my eating habits at all. But as it was to be God has had some other plans for me. Since last to last saturday I was having a bad backache which limited my mobility to the extent that I had to remain confined to the bed for longer periods.

A recent x-ray confirmed my worst fears. The lower spine  Lumbar L5-6 hsa developed a small gap. This is due to the fact that I am massively overweight as well as i have a very sedentary life style.

The following are the stats right now.
Height - 1.7 m
Weight - 95 kg
BMI - >32.5
Age - 31.7 years
Waist - > 44 inches
Body Fat > 29 %

Now that was alarming for me. Doctors said that if this continues for another couple of years then I am looking at the possibility of a slip disc.

So that means I have everything against me right now and I need to address this problem rightaway. So here is the game plan that I am following right now.

My target is to give myself a gift on the birthday. And the gift will be Weight < 80 kg; Waist < 38 inches; and no backaches.

For this to happen I have started to monitor my weight and waist on a daily basis. I will update as often as I can.  And that too on FB. I hope my friends will keep reminding me of the fact that this is very important for me to stay alive, fit and healthy.

Installing Whatsapp on Linux/ UBUNTU Laptop / PC / Computer

Hi there.
Finally I was able to install whatsapp on my laptop. This I had to do because my smartphone broke down and I couldn't help stop using whatsapp. So had to find a way out.
Here I am sharing with you the method to do the same.

I have done this on UBUNTU 12.04 LTS.

To run Whatsapp you need android. So let us first install android emulator. The following steps should be followed as is.  Open up the terminal. Then type in the terminal the following

sudo apt-get install openjdk-6-jre openjdk-6-jdk icedtea6-plugin

Then type the following.

wget http://dl.google.com/android/android-sdk_r20-linux.tgz

Wait for the download to complete. Then type the following.

tar -xvzf android-sdk_r20-linux.tgz

Then type the following

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

Once he download is finished type the following.

cd ~/android-sdk-linux/tools

Followed by

./android

The Android Virtual Device configuration set up will open up.
If the AVD manager doesn't open up then try the following command.

./android avd

Go to “Tools” > “Manage AVDs” on Android SDK Manager’s menu. It will open up AVD Manager.

Click on “Add” button to create a new AVD. An example configuration of a new AVD is shown below.

If an AVD has been successfully created, you will see the following confirmation.

You can check the list of available AVDs as follows.

 ~/android-sdk/android list avds   

 Available Android Virtual Devices:  
   Name: my_avd  
   Path: /home/xmodulo/.android/avd/my_avd.avd  
  Target: Android 4.2 (API level 17)  
    ABI: armeabi-v7a  
   Skin: 800x1280  
  Sdcard: 1G  

To launch Android emulator with the AVD that you have created, highlight the AVD on AVD Manager, and click on “Start” button on the right sidebar.

Alternatively, you can start Android emulator directly from command line as follows. In this case, specify “@[your_avd_name]” as an argument to the emulator.

 emulator @my_avd   

Booting up Android emulator may be slow (even taking minutes) depending on your hardware. Once Android emulator is successfully launched, you will see an running instance of Android device.

- See more at: http://linuxicle.blogspot.com/2013/06/how-to-run-android-emulator-on-ubuntu.html#sthash.tGRleQ1e.dpuf

 In the "tools" under "Manage AVDs" set up a new AVD. Then start up the avd and wait for the emulator to open up. Once done you will have your android up and running. Thereafter visit the play store through your emulated android and download and install whatsapp as you will do on your smartphone. And enjoy!!!

Go to “Tools” > “Manage AVDs” on Android SDK Manager’s menu. It will open up AVD Manager. Click on “Add” button to create a new AVD. An example configuration of a new AVD is shown below. - See more at: http://linuxicle.blogspot.com/2013/06/how-to-run-android-emulator-on-ubuntu.html#sthash.tGRleQ1e.dpuf

Go to “Tools” > “Manage AVDs” on Android SDK Manager’s menu. It will open up AVD Manager.

Click on “Add” button to create a new AVD. An example configuration of a new AVD is shown below.

If an AVD has been successfully created, you will see the following confirmation.

You can check the list of available AVDs as follows.

 ~/android-sdk/android list avds   

 Available Android Virtual Devices:  
   Name: my_avd  
   Path: /home/xmodulo/.android/avd/my_avd.avd  
  Target: Android 4.2 (API level 17)  
    ABI: armeabi-v7a  
   Skin: 800x1280  
  Sdcard: 1G  

To launch Android emulator with the AVD that you have created, highlight the AVD on AVD Manager, and click on “Start” button on the right sidebar.

Alternatively, you can start Android emulator directly from command line as follows. In this case, specify “@[your_avd_name]” as an argument to the emulator.

 emulator @my_avd   

Booting up Android emulator may be slow (even taking minutes) depending on your hardware. Once Android emulator is successfully launched, you will see an running instance of Android device.

- See more at: http://linuxicle.blogspot.com/2013/06/how-to-run-android-emulator-on-ubuntu.html#sthash.tGRleQ1e.dpuf

Go to “Tools” > “Manage AVDs” on Android SDK Manager’s menu. It will open up AVD Manager.

Click on “Add” button to create a new AVD. An example configuration of a new AVD is shown below.

If an AVD has been successfully created, you will see the following confirmation.

You can check the list of available AVDs as follows.

 ~/android-sdk/android list avds   

 Available Android Virtual Devices:  
   Name: my_avd  
   Path: /home/xmodulo/.android/avd/my_avd.avd  
  Target: Android 4.2 (API level 17)  
    ABI: armeabi-v7a  
   Skin: 800x1280  
  Sdcard: 1G  

To launch Android emulator with the AVD that you have created, highlight the AVD on AVD Manager, and click on “Start” button on the right sidebar.

Alternatively, you can start Android emulator directly from command line as follows. In this case, specify “@[your_avd_name]” as an argument to the emulator.

 emulator @my_avd   

Booting up Android emulator may be slow (even taking minutes) depending on your hardware. Once Android emulator is successfully launched, you will see an running instance of Android device.

- See more at: http://linuxicle.blogspot.com/2013/06/how-to-run-android-emulator-on-ubuntu.html#sthash.tGRleQ1e.dpuf

sudo apt-get install openjdk-7-jdk

sudo apt-get install openjdk-7-jdk

sudo apt-get install openjdk-7-jdk

sudo apt-get install openjdk-7-jdk