Ask Paul: December 15 (Premium)

Thanks, as always, to everyone who chimed in with some questions this week.

Before diving in, a quick note.

It is not surprising to me there were some questions about my recent post, Health Hacking: Diet and Nutrition. This is a big and controversial topic, I know. And I can tell you that I struggled to even write it for a number of reasons. The science is sound, but it goes against the conventional wisdom, which is incorrect, but seared into our collective minds: Eggs are bad! Orange juice is good! And so on. Plus, we’ve all been victims of various fad diets, and some will believe that this is just the latest. And worst of all, I am absolutely not qualified to speak/write intelligently on this topic. I have no founding in science, medicine, or nutrition. The reasons for my reticence are many and obvious.

So why bother? Because this is important. Because many of you, like me, sit on your asses in front of a PC all day long, every day, and don’t move around enough and don’t eat properly. What I can do is tell you what I’ve done, and what I’m doing, and why. I can point to the science and recommend—as I do strongly—that you read and understand it. I suspect that many of you will be shocked, as I was years ago, to discover the truth.

But there will always be questions and doubters. And I knew going in that I would leave things out, not on purpose, but because this is so big and it’s hard to get it all out. So there will be follow-ups, especially about food. But also things I should have added and just forgot. Fortunately, we can address some of those topics here for starters.

Diet and nutrition

MattHewitt asks:

My question relates to the nutrition article you posted earlier this week. Is your whole family all-in on this? If not, is it difficult being the odd man out? I am interested, but I feel like it would be difficult to have to prepare separate meals every night because so much of what we eat has some type of carbohydrate in it and to completely omit it would be omitting a majority of the meal.

If your wife is low carb/no carb as well, does this have any effect on her participating in races or her training? (I seem to remember her being a runner.)

Feel free to ignore if it’s too personal.

It’s not too personal, but thanks. As noted, this is important. I will be transparent on this topic for this reason. And I’ll try to be brief.

When the kids were growing up, we made a point to eat dinner at the table every night, together. But my son has been in college for over a year, and sometime right around the time that started—say, August 2016—my wife and I actually had a conversation about how this wasn’t going to work anymore. So we no longer do that.

My daughter, who is now 16, is a vegetarian, and she has been for about two years. When she first started down this path, I practically begged her to consider being a pescatarian instead, meaning that she would basically be a vegetarian who also ate fish. Note that this was over a year before I started my keto/low-carb diet: I understood the science and felt that this would be a happy middle ground that we could all follow together. She was not interested, and has maintained her vegetarian lifestyle faithfully.

Tied to this, we had been eating better than most Americans for years. We got vegetables, fruits, meats, and fish from local farmer’s markets. We drank no soda, and ate very little processed foods. For this reason, I had long fretted about what I could possibly cut out: I was already on a good path compared to most.

But in going keto or low-carb, there were some obvious things to cut out. Potatoes, which were perhaps our one main vice at dinner. Rice, which was occasional. Beer, which was almost daily. Bread, which was only a breakfast item for the most part. Pasta, which was pretty unusual for us. And so on.

I discussed this with my wife before doing it. And I basically said that I didn’t need her to change her diet. She was already thin and healthy, had always been. I would just skip whatever carbs occurred at whichever meals.

But she had also read up on the science, and she just decided to cut out most carbs across the board. She does eat more carbs than I do because she can—remember, this is the key to nutrition, that our bodies process the same foods differently—and still drinks beer, still eats fruits, and so on. (I will get into this more in the Food post that’s coming up.) But she dramatically reduced her consumption of carbs. Not as much as me. But still by a lot.

Guess what? She lost weight too. Whatever normal middle age mini-paunch or whatever that she might have been developing is gone. Today, she has the body of a healthy 18 year old, as I would define it. Which means she looks physically better/healthier than most 18 year olds today in America, because many of them are very fat. She was happy about this, of course. But her doctor also commented on it and demanded details. Because my wife, as noted, was always thin already. She got even healthier on this diet.

I think this covers what you’re asking. But as noted, I will follow up the first post with called Health Hacking: Food that explains what we eat each day on an ongoing basis and other related topics.

That said, Simard57 had a few follow-up questions of his own.

Are you taking vitamin supplements to ensure you are getting what you need?

Not currently, but I researched this and found that many take magnesium supplements because of muscle cramps. I actually did experience this early on, mostly in the calf, so I did take that one supplement for a month or so. It went away, I drifted off the supplement, and it has never returned. So I do not take anything today.

Are you under a doctor’s supervision while on this diet and have they recommended any alterations? I wonder what the impact is to your A1C and Cholesterol.

You wonder about cholesterol because you are still worried that it means anything. You should refer to episode 93 of the 2 Keto Dudes, The Big Fat Fix with Dr. Aseem Malhotra, for a good explanation of why your cholesterol numbers can be easily and reliably gamed and don’t mean a thing.

But whatever. This is one of the topics I left out of that original post by mistake, and it is super-important. My mistake.

You should never start on any major dietary change like this without first consulting with a physician.

The trick is finding one that understands the science. The problem is that most doctors—or other medical professionals, or nutritionists—stop learning, just as we all do. I preach the notion of “always learning” no matter what field you’re in. But you can see why this is particularly important in the health fields. Our lives literally depend on this.

The way I personally approached this a year ago was not particularly smart: Despite the urging of my wife, what I wanted to do, and did, was be on this plan for two months and then visit my doctor, so that I could show some improvements from what I knew was a terrible starting point. I very much did not want to know my weight, not just because it was terrible and getting worse, but because my previous experience plateauing in weight loss is what derailed me in the past.

Anyway, I started the diet on December 4, 2016, and in February I did go to the doctor. This doctor, by the way, gets it: She was very much up on the correct diet and so on, and she was so happy with my results across the board—weight loss, which I asked not to be told, blood pressure, even cholesterol—that she did something I have to think is very unusual for a doctor: We sat me down in her office and spent 30 minutes just talking to me. I thought she was going to use me as a study subject; she was very interested in what I was doing and loved it.

I’ve not been back to a doctor since, but not by design. We moved in August, as you know, and life has been hectic, and we’re still trying to find our way here. But I will do so soon. I have no worries about that, for sure.

Anyway. My advice is to find a doctor who didn’t stop learning in the 1980’s or whatever. Make sure they’re up on the science. Hell, demand it.

Microsoft Store device limits

Sprtfan asks:

A few months ago there was some information going around that the Windows Store device limit per Microsoft account was going to be raised to 2,000. I’m still at 10 and was not sure if this is something that is still going to happen or if it was just a bug that a few people had that has been fixed?

I do remember this being a story (from September, as it turns out). But I don’t recall Microsoft actually announcing this.

Looking at my Microsoft account’s Devices page, there is a “Manage device limits” link that lets youmanage your download devices. And that says that I have 30 of a possible 10 devices registered.

A couple of points here.

I recommend visiting this site at least once a year, which I do, to make sure the devices are still in use. If they’re not, remove them.

I have 30 devices registered because I review devices. I should get in here more than once a year, but I bet I usually don’t.

But I have never had an issue download apps/content from Microsoft Store to a PC or other device, ever, and that tells me this is a soft limit.

Also, who on earth beyond a reviewer would ever need to register more than 10 devices? No one, pretty much.

I guess I’d consider the (unreliable) source of that information. Not that it really matters.

Windows 10 Mobile

harmjr asks:

Isn’t it now time to kill off Windows 10 Mobile? If no then why?

Windows 10 Mobile doesn’t really matter out in the real world, per se, but there are some good reasons to keep development alive: Ensuring that the core Windows code runs on ARM is what makes the cross-platform Windows 10 on Snapdragon possible, and there are other products, like Windows 10 IoT and Surface Hub, that have more in common with Windows 10 Mobile than they do with “big” Windows. I feel it’s important for Microsoft to keep the codebase alive, generally.

Also, jrflynn added:

No, they can’t officially “kill” it until specific amounts of time pass from the end of the last device was sold otherwise they risk getting sued. What that amount of time is I have no idea but I’m sure MS legal knows. Additionally, calling out that it is a dead platform does not benefit them if they have to continue to support it via security updates for a bit longer.

It is effectively dead which should be good enough for anyone but clearly some die-hards will continue to ignore what most of us consider reality.

What he said.

Smart pens

timothyhuber asks:

I believe I heard you mention something about smart pens a while ago. I’ve found more and more that having pen and paper is invaluable and of course there are the recent studies about learning/retention being better with handwriting vs. typing notes. I use OneNote on my Surface Pro 4 with pen to take notes, but more often than not grabbing my paper notebook and pen is more convenient.

Right. I just looked for this and couldn’t find it. But the short version is that people retain information better when they take notes via pen/pencil and paper than they do when they type on a computer keyboard or use a smart pen on a tablet.

So to my question: Have you looked at the Moleskine solution, which just came out with a Windows 10 app?

I research this stuff all the time, so yes. This is in keeping with my “embrace change” thing, and when the most recent report came out (a few months ago, I think), I did another round of investigating. The solutions that are most interesting to me involve using a pen writing on paper. This can be a “smart” pen used on regular paper, or it can be a dumb pen and “smart” paper.

The Moleskin solution, which I am weirdly fond of because of an unexplainable affiliation with those notebooks, is the latter type. They’ve long had Evernote- and Livescribe-specific versions, and I see that they now have sketch books for Adobe Creative Cloud too. Smart.

As of now, I have not purchased anything. I still think about this. But last night, as a typical example, I performed a 60+ minute interview that will turn into a site article, and I would have a hard time not taking typed notes. I’ve been doing this so long, it’s hard to switch. So I just keep thinking about it.

Do you have any experience with a smartpen that integrates well with OneNote?

Yes, I’ve used LiveScribe with OneNote. This is the a combination of the two types of solutions (smart pen and smart paper). It’s been a few years though. I wish Moleskin/OneNote integration was a thing. Am curious it is not.

On writing

Finley asks:

I am looking for writing tips. As part of my business (sale and service of marine electronics) I started a “blog” on my website. My aim is to write simple articles covering tips and tricks when it comes to marine electronics and use these as another way to promote my business. I host my website on squarespace and use their blog functions to write my drafts. As you could imagine this is not very convenient and am looking at the best way to record ideas and take those to full articles. Any writing tips you could provide for someone starting out would be great.

This is a topic I’ve been meaning to write about. I feel like I have a good “how I write” article in me. “How anyone can write” is a bit harder. We’re all different, and have different skills and strengths.

In a perfect world, one might use a tool like OneNote or whatever to record “ideas.” And then a tool like Microsoft Word or similar to transform those ideas into articles or similar.

I don’t do this personally, though I do use OneNote daily for a variety of things: Podcast episode notes, tracking my PC review battery life and performance tests, meeting notes, and so on. There was a time a few years back when I tried writing articles in OneNote, and in Evernote, to see if I could consolidate tools. But that didn’t work for me. Again, we’re all different.

Today, I write—and, arguably, think—in Markdown, an HTML- or XML-like markup language, and I use MarkdownPad 2, an unsupported and abandoned Win32 desktop app, for actual writing. I can’t recommend that to anyone, obviously. And I spend a lot of time trying to find an acceptable (e.g. supported and regularly updated) replacement. Everything I’ve tried—desktop apps, Store apps, web apps—has fallen short.

(As a kind of aside, and because I feel like people think I exaggerate the “embrace change” thing, I literally this morning just used Google Docs to write Short Takes. It was a nice reminder of why Google Docs is fine but does not meet my personal needs.)

OneNote is nice because it’s free, is available everywhere (PC, Mac, mobile, web), and integrates nicely with whatever other Microsoft tools you may be using. You can use it to record thoughts and ideas by typing or by talking, too, which you may find useful. But any note-taking app—Evernote, Keep, whatever—probably works similarly. Experimentation is key, and finding that thing, those tools, that work best for you.

Not sure if I answered this one particularly well.

Microsoft Edge

hrlngrv asks:

You wrote an article on Edge adoption being disappointing for MSFT. What do you believe it’d take for Edge to become more attractive to Windows 10 users? Is it the lack of extensions? The slow pace of new features given its update cycle is tied to new Windows 10 versions? Perhaps due to many Windows 10 users also using other PCs with Windows 8.x or 7 wanting to use the same browser so Edge would be out of the question? Plain & simple human inertia? Can MSFT do anything more than what it did for Windows phones, or is Edge’s likely fate as bleak? Well, in addition to pushing Windows 10 S which sets in stone Edge as default browser.

Sometimes I feel like I beat up on Edge too much, at least in the eyes of Microsoft and some enthusiasts. Truth is, I’ve given this browser too much attention, in some ways, because it really does always fall short for me. As I detailed in various articles. So the question, as you ask it correctly, is how does Microsoft fix this?

You may be amused to know that Microsoft has asked me this question a number of times, not about Edge per se, but about various other issues in the past. My answer is that it is my job to point out when things work and when they do not. And that it is not my job to solve the problem for Microsoft.

I don’t mean that flippantly. This is a hard problem. And any ideas I may have would never result in any kind of a turnaround. If this thing was solvable, they very many intelligent people at Microsoft, or working on Edge specifically, would have figured it out long ago. I’m no genius.

But this is the issue as I see it: We all use a browser that we like already. And the decline of Internet Explorer over many year caused a huge portion of the Windows user base to look elsewhere, first perhaps to Firefox and more recently to Google Chrome. Because these browsers just work, and because so many of us have all of our personal information tied to them, it’s the first thing we install when we get a new PC. And then we just get back to work.

Creating an alternative that makes sense requires the established players to have some weakness. That is why Firefox was so successful in its day and why Chrome is today: These products are just better than the alternatives are (or were). Trying to turn the tables on Chrome is difficult, not because it’s perfect—many can point to memory usage or battery life or whatever—but because they just work.

I think you nailed the central issue. As is the case with Windows phone before it, I do feel that Microsoft has pretty much done what it can do to promote this product (up to an including product bundling). And it hasn’t worked. We can talk about more extensions, about better performance, about decoupling it from the OS and shipping more updates over time, or whatever. But come on. None of that will make Microsoft Edge more popular. This pretty much requires Google to stop improving Chrome. And that isn’t going to happen.

Windows Insider program

will asks:

Does the Windows Insider program need a reboot?

Yes it does.

I don’t want to go into too much detail here, because this one is personal, and I really like those guys. But … the program is adrift, and it is not fulfilling what I feel is a very real need to do professional software testing and improvement. I’d like to see engineering be front and center, and all of the side silliness put aside.

But. Yeah. This one is hard for me.

Windows product versions

ChristopherCollins asks:

I know you (nor I) are a fan of multiple Windows SKU’s. Since Win 10 Pro has so much bloatware, do you expect the upcoming enterprise/pro version be be completely scaled back and ready for proper installs in the workplace (ie, no tiles to unpin or candy crush to remove). I haven’t had time to study up on that SKU, but I recall an article you wrote that mentioned it.

I think there should be a raw Win 10 version that isn’t server that is free from all bloat, telemetry (except crash data), etc… I run a large radio automation system and updating to Windows 10 was a freaking nightmare customizing each machine.

This is one of my biggest pet peeves, as you note. Consider rival systems like Chrome OS, iOS, and macOS, where there is only a single product version for end users. And that Microsoft did scale back on the product editions only to spend much of the past year backtracking by adding more to the family.

In the past, I argued that Microsoft should split Windows (and itself, generally) into two, with a business offering and a consumer offering. As I saw it, these two systems would be identical at the core—would run the same applications—but could evolve differently from UI/UX and feature set perspectives.

Today, it’s a bit more complex. The infringement of both advertising and crapware is both troubling and escalating. For all the things I love about Windows 10, there is an equally long list of things I cannot stand. It reminds me of when Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer—then buggy and immature—into Windows NT, ruining the stability and reliability of that system forever. That anyone would take something so important and just shit on it is troubling to me. It’s happening today with Windows 10.

I’d love to have a stripped-down Windows to which I could add the components I need and ignore those I do not. But I just don’t see Microsoft doing this. The only spark of hope, I guess, is the enterprise. We see them rejecting Microsoft’s “Windows as a service” model, triggering exceptions for the support lifecycle. I hope they can be as vocal about the crap in Windows 10, too, and trigger a rethink about what, exactly, gets dumped into the product.

I literally just observed to Rafael (and for the upteenth time) yesterday that the only reason I stick with Windows is that the alternatives come up short. I am no fan of macOS and Chrome OS, or whatever, and still very much prefer Windows. But I also feel, sometimes, that Microsoft is actively working to drive away its users. The changes it makes to Windows, at least many of them, just don’t make sense.

It may be instructional to look at the changes Apple added to the latest macOS version, High Sierra, compared to its predecessor. Say what you will about Apple—I certainly do—but this is the right way to evolve a legacy desktop system (minus their inexcusable refusal to add multitouch and smart pen capabilities to that OS, which is more about promoting iOS than it is about helping users).Seriously, read this page and then wonder how nice it would be if Microsoft just did this kind of thing for Windows. Focused on the basics. Instead of half-assing it.

And now I will put my soapbox aside. Because this really does bother me.

Getting lost

MartinusV2 asks:

How can you get lost if you have all the tech gadget (phones) with all the maps apps there is and GPS? 🙂

I assume you’re referring to the most recent “Behind the Scenes” video with Brad. Honestly, I have a great sense of direction. And I will just credit this to Brad’s desire to make me look bad and move on. 🙂