Ride Your Way Lean: The Ultimate Plan for Burning Fat and Getting Fit on a Bike by Selene Yeager
I ordered this book as a Zip Book. My library ordered it from Amazon and shipped it directly to me. When the library opens again I will return directly to the library and it will become part of the circulating collection. Very cool option!
I’ve been wanting to read Selene’s book for some time after listening to her on the Paceline Podcast. She is also known to Bicycling Magazine readers as the Fit Chick. She breaks down losing weight while cycling in an easy to read and digestible way. I can also tell you from my experience she is absolutely correct.
I’ve lost over 30 lbs mostly riding on my bike. During the COVID pandemic, I’ve been riding indoors and you can burn a huge amount of calories riding if you stick with it. Indoor tools like Zwift make it easier to stick to riding by gamifying the whole thing.
If you are a cyclist or interested in how the low-impact exercise of biking can help you lose weight this is a great read!
A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose by Eckhart Tolle
This is deep stuff. There is a lot of good in this book, but it’s something I will need to study, not a light read. I listened to this on audio and I think I’ll have to go back and re-read this. I would recommend it.
I listened to this audiobook. To be honest, I thought it might be a too new age for me, but it had a lot of people’s recommendations so I gave it a go. I gave this book 4 stars, but I stick with my initial review above, I think I need to read this again. Maybe the next time in print and take my time with it. I’d also be open to reading more from Tolle as I know he has written some other books that have become very popular. No, highlights from the book to share with you as this was the audio version.
Outer Order, Inner Calm: Declutter & Organize to Make More Room for Happiness by Gretchen Rubin
Wonderful. I really enjoyed this book. It encompasses much that has been said elsewhere and adds more to it. It also is not filled with too much other stuff or reiterating over and over. Very well done. One star removed for the final chapter “Add Beauty”. I felt that this last chapter “adds” too much when the idea is to declutter. But as with all books and learning, take away what you want and leave what you don’t. Wonderful book!
Top Ten Tips for Creating Outer Order 1. Make Your Bed 2. Follow the one minute rule: anything you can do in less than one minute do without delay 3. Have a weekly power hour: make a list of tasks you’d like to accomplish and spend one hour, once a week, tackling the items on the list 4. Make it fun to get the job done 5. Don’t let yourself fall into empty 6. Don’t put things down, put them away 7. Don’t stockpile: that is, don’t store more of an item than you can realistically use 8. Keep mementos that are small in size and few in number 9. Keep things organized, but not overly organized 10. If you can’t find something, clean up
Dwelling: Simple Ways to Nourish Your Home, Body, and Soul by Melissa Michaels
The author writes this book specifically for women, mentioning makeup and other female-only topics. The author also spends a lot of time speaking about religion and if you are not Christian you may find this off-putting.
Lowest rating for 2020 so far. I just couldn’t relate to this author and her story as she was too focused on the religion and women for a story that I think is bigger.
The Year of Less: How I Stopped Shopping, Gave Away My Belongings, and Discovered Life Is Worth More Than Anything You Can Buy in a Store by Cait Flanders
My first audiobook of 2020. One woman’s journey to do with less. Less spending and less alcohol specifically. Flander’s relates her difficulties in addition to shopping and drinking and how a bargain with herself to spend less and stop drinking benefitted her life.
I’ve never had these struggles myself, but can certainly understand that they would be difficult addictions to part with once established. While I can certainly do with less (buying and possessions) I didn’t feel like this particular story really spoke to me. I’m married with children, I don’t have a drinking problem, and my wife and I discuss any purchase over $50.
I do think that many of these experiments seem to be young people who are unmarried and without children. These circumstances make it easier for them to make large changes in their life. Not saying it’s not possible for those who are married with children, it just poses more challenges.
This was another book that only received 3 out of 5 stars. I listened to it in only 3 days, but I just couldn’t relate. Not at all a fault of the writing or the author.
Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language by Gretchen McCulloch
Good, but drier than I thought it would be. Interesting stories, but I wanted something more. Something more fun and interesting, that was here but there wasn’t enough of it for me I guess.
Maybe I was overly excited for this one, but it lead me to only 3 out of 5 stars for my review.
In the book, Gretchen mentioned a podcast: Lingthusiam, which I listened to and it also left me wanting more. And that was the only note I took in the 327 pages of text in this book. Sorry for the meh, review, but it was kinda a meh book.
Very thick and full of references. I learned a lot which is why it gets 4 stars. I wouldn’t say this is for the casual reader.
55% of waste in the US is buried in covered landfill.
Kate O’Neill
Besides the above I learned that I live in the state, California, with the largest landfill in the US, the Puente Hills landfill, which was close in 2014.
Sad. This book had some difficult parts to read, but they did tell the story and the author can write well. The story is one that spoke to me in regards to the divide that develops between the educated and the less educated.
I gave this book 4 out of five stars. When I first started reading the book I actually though it was about the education system, but it is a biography of a woman who grew up in a very strict mormon family. They didn’t allow anyone to seek medical attention or see doctors for any reason, including child birth.
It is a wonder she and her siblings survived this upbring. As I said in the beginning it really did remind me that an education is so very important, and just the ones available at institutions like public or private school, but those you can gain yourself just by reading.
This book was powerful and a reminder that people with drastically different views on the world and really any issue have that view for a reason. Don’t count them out, speak to them and try to understand where they are coming from. You both might learn something.
The quote above tells us a lot about Cal’s book. I had really been looking forward to this book. I first her about Cal Newport from The Minimalist podcast. They talk about his book often almost as much as the books they have written themselves. In Digital Minimalist by Cal Newport I learned to delete apps that I use too much. Pay attention to the app usage reports that my iPhone gives me and try to stay away from social media apps, not much to be gained there. Although I do believe there are some good uses, you can just pick up your phone every time you get bored, as the quote above suggests. “Everyone secretly fears being bored.”
Another keeper from Cal is, “…wearing a red shirt on a dating profile will lead to significantly more interest than any other color,…” I love these kinds of insights, although I have no need for that particular one, maybe it will help one of you reading this post!
…the notification symbol for Facebook was originally blue, to match the palette of the rest of the site, “but no one used it.” So they changed the color to red–an alarm color–and clicking skyrocketed.”
Cal Newport
Likes is a behavioral addiction, the drive for social approval. Many are caught up in there. Many also believe that anyone can start a popular, revenue-generating blog. I’ve never made any money on any blogs or the podcast that I ran for years. Some can but it is the minority for sure.
It all comes do to this really…
Digital Minimalism: A philosophy of technology use in which you focus your online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that strongly support things you value, and then happily miss out on everything else.
Cal Newport
The average Facebook user uses the site for 50 minutes every day!
Don’t click and don’t comment
Cal Newport
Authors mentioned in the book: Decartes, Newton, Locke, Pascal, Spinoza, Kant, Leibniz, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Kierkgaard, and Wittgenstein.
A 2015 study found that teenagers use social media (text messaging and apps) about 9 hours a day on average.
In 90% of your daily life, the presence of a cell phone either doesn’t matter or makes things only slightly more convenient.
Cal Newport
Lessons:
Prioritize demanding activity over passive consumption
Use skills to produce valuable things in the physical world
Seek activities that require real-world, structured social interactions
The Dunbar number of 150 is a theoretical limit of the number of people that a human can successfully keep track of in their social circles. How many “friends” do you have?
Your Time = Their Money
Cal Newport
We all need to read and understand what Cal is telling us. We have fallen asleep and fallen into this new digital world, leaving the real-world behind or at the very least largely ignoring the real-world and real people. This book will hopefully, help you make some changes and wake up!
