Chronicles of a man on a journey. Husband. Father of three. Designer. Fauxtographer. Goa forever. Since MMXII.
Thirty
Pretty ordinary day today. But so much to be thankful over the last decade.
I graduated, fell in love, started on my path to being a product designer, worked at some great companies with amazing people, got married, moved into our very own apartment, brought two beautiful girls into the world, bought our first car, moved onto design management and enjoyed almost perfect health — I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Vinnie has been my rock through it all. She has seen me at my best and my worst. She knows everything about me. And nobody has taught me patience and unconditional love more than Sasha and Sofia. So thankful for all three of them.
Looking forward to the next decade!
Fitness update, 6mo
Woah, I never thought I’d get here! Though I didn’t hit my goal weight of 64 kilos, I came close—I’m currently 67.5 kilos and still losing fat!
What you see above is a graph of my weight loss over the last 6 months, with the data taken from my Healthify.me logs.
It’s not just about weight though, that’s just a number—I feel so much fitter. I’m currently bench pressing around 90% of my body weight for 20 reps, which I’ve read is expected for someone at an intermediate fitness level. My stamina and confidence are at an all-time high.
I’m going to go after my original goal, though I realise the effort required here on out is going to increase and demand more of my time.
I joined DCCPER mid-2015 after connecting with Luke via Twitter a few months earlier.
From its humble beginnings; Luke, Joshua and Co scaled the team to over 60 employees and firmly established it as one of Goa’s most buzzing startups. During my first year here, I had the opportunity to work on some really cool projects for startups in India, Canada and the UK — under the mentorship of a British design director and a French CEO.
In my second year, I was given the opportunity to step up to design management. Though initially skeptical, I decided to give it a shot and it turned out to be one of the best professional decisions I’ve made. I led a team of 3 designers with varying skillsets in addition to my IC capacity, doing the best work of my life in this period.
Mid-2017, the company had a 37 Signals / Basecamp moment and we decided to put all our collective energy into Numadic—a supply chain visibility platform we had been working on many months prior. I came onboard in June that year.
At Numadic, I led the UX function across all touchpoints — reporting directly to Luke, collaborating with Product and Sales to decide what to build, leading the UX team to design and refine features and handing off to Engineering in a monthly release cycle. I also contributed in other ways like designing pitch decks for investor calls and meetings, designing collateral for recruitment drives and other such projects.
It’s been an excellent 3 years at DCCPER / Numadic, and I can easily say we had it all here — a highly talented diverse team, investor funding, exciting projects and products, a culture that rewards meritocracy, autonomy and “never settling”. For a team of our size coming from small villages and towns in Goa, it still amazes me how much we achieved in such a short span of time.
A big thank-you to Luke and Joshua, for always pushing and being there for me. Many thanks to my teammates, especially in the Design Team, for bringing out the best in me over the last 3 years. It’s time to move on to my next challenge, and I plan on taking a short break while I assess my options, and the path forward.
Now Playing
Sunsets, Pt 2
Never heard of SG Lewis before. What a talent!
Final lunch with the Numadic UX Team at Goenchin. Wayne, Mushtaq and Yesh — you’ve been great designers, and even better human beings. It’s been a privilege working with you. I have no doubt you are all destined for great things.
Agonda, at last!
I’ve been waiting for years to take the family to Agonda and Palolem—and we finally made it here this weekend.
These two are considered the last of the “virgin” beaches down South Goa — clean, calm and untouched by domestic tourists. I heard so many good things about Agonda from Luke, Wayne and others and I have to say it didn’t disappoint! Miles of beach stretching for as far as the eye can see, bounded by mountains and clear blue water.
It’s a good 2h drive to get there from Panaji, but it was totally worth it. We stayed at The Gardenia, which was located in between both beaches.
Now that the girls are a little grown up, we’re really looking forward to more trips like this.
Fitness update, 3mo
It’s been almost 3 months since I started my fitness journey. Here’s a quick update—I’ve lost 6 kilos and seem to be on track with my goals. I currently weight 70.2 kilos. Just going to share how it’s going, in case this ends up being useful to anyone out there.
It’s amazing what can be achieved with just a little discipline. Okay, it’s a large amount of discipline, but you don’t really feel that when you’re start seeing the results, do you? Here’s what’s been working for me.
Cut down on desserts big-time
My biggest sin of the last couple of years was gorging on chocolate and sweet stuff after every meal. Now it’s just 2 – 3 times a week.
Maintain calorie deficit
Can’t stress how important this is. I read somewhere that the best way to do this is replace half your carbs with vegetables, protein or fibre. I do this in a number of ways — muesli for breakfast, occasional green salads with a simple dressing few times a week for lunch. If I feel hungry, I’ve been snacking on 8 – 10 almonds. It really is down to the math here — make sure you don’t cross your calorie budget. Healthify has been super helful here, and it says mine is around 1600 kcal for my age and activity level.
Cut down deep-fried food
This means no to fries, KFC, samosas and so many other snacks I love. Sigh.
Be active for at least 30 minutes a day
After going crazy with cardio for the first few weeks (like all of us noobs do), it was Wayne who told me to focus more on weight training. I’ve been doing simple routines with dumbbells, lateral pulldowns, bench press and chest fly. For cardio; elliptical, stationary bike and skipping.
I’m not going to write this and pretend it’s easy. No way Jose. This is hard, especially if you’ve never had to do this before. Sometimes I get cravings so bad, I have to cave in just to stay sane. Finding a time to work out was another important lifestyle change I had to make. I found 06:30am to be the most convenient time for me and I’ve stuck with it very faithfully.
One last thing. It’s difficult to stay motivated during the first few months because you can’t see the results just yet. But I’m slowly starting to see new muscles appear — chest, biceps and back — and that’s very inspiring.
A fit body, a calm mind, a house full of love. These things cannot be bought — they must be earned.
I was super fit until just a few years ago. I used to play futsal with the local boys and never had issues with my metabolism. But one of the side effects of balancing work at a startup with two toddlers at home is that I could never find the time for any sort of exercise in my daily routine. As of today, I weigh a little over 76 kilos, which for my height (5 ft 8 in) is overweight by some means.
That ends today. #noexcuses.
I chanced across this great app called Healthify.me which from reviews does one thing very well — calorie tracking for the Indian diet. There are awesome apps out there like Lifesum, but their Indian food database is poor, so what’s the point? From what I’ve read, portion tracking is the first step. Going to try HIIT too, so let’s see how this goes.
My first goal is modest — lose 12 kilos in 24 weeks. Which means I should weigh 64 kilos by the end of May next year. But it’s not about just losing fat, it’s about being healthier and fitter. And if I gain a little muscle in the process, I won’t complain.
I’m not going to post New Year resolutions, but make this my prime focus for the next year. Here goes nothing!
