Month: July 2016

Pokemon Go – Thoughts and Tips!

Now that Pokemon Go has been released to the public (since yesterday, July 7th!) I feel like nearly half the people I see glued to their phones walking down the street must be playing it, just like me! 🙂 So far, I mostly like the game, but it still has some bugs and the servers are most definitely suffering from the overwhelming user load.

One part of these location games that I wish was included was some decent activity to do when you aren’t moving. If you’re unable to move, because say you’re sitting down somewhere, or in an area where GPS is not functioning, the game has very little value. I think it’d be great if they did something to offer unique activities to both situations, moving and stationary.

The game can be a little challenging to understand, as there is minimal in-game instruction provided. Niantic has provided a few official resources (like this one), and plenty of people are also talking about their own discoveries. I wanted to do the same, but go after some of the things I’ve discovered that I haven’t seen documented elsewhere, or was buried and difficult to find.

Tips

Increasing one aspect of catch rate

If you aren’t holding down on the pokeball before you throw it, you’re missing out on the ability to time the target ring (the colored circle around the target pokemon that indicates it’s catch difficulty). As the documentation says, the smaller the chance circle is, the better your chances of catching the pokemon! HOLD the pokeball and throw only when it is as it’s smallest diameter!

Rotating the screen/map

On the map screen, hold down on the screen and move your finger. This will rotate the map around.

Zooming in/out

You can of course pinch and expand two fingers on the screen in order to zoom in and out, respectively. But you can also double tap and hold, then move your finger up or down, to accomplish the same thing! This is useful as it gives you the ability to rotate and zoom with just one hand/finger… probably your thumb, if you’re like me.

Poke Coins

These are the premium currency of the game, and can be bought for real money. But they can also be earned! So far, the only way I know how to earn them is by installing your pokemon into a friendly gym (unlocked at Level 5) and having it survive long enough for the timer located on the Shop screen to reset. So far, I’ve only collected this once, with a single pokemon in a gym… which gave me 10 poke coins.

Faster collection of items from Poke Stops

Some documentation suggests that you “tap” or “swipe” the items that appear when you spin the photo disk at a poke stop in order to collect the items. Did you know you don’t need to do that? Go ahead, spin the disk, and then just close the poke stop screen. You’ll instantly collect all of the items, saving you a few seconds and taps. Kind of nice when you’re in an area with several poke stops and you want to quickly grab all of the items from them.

I’ll continue to update this page with new tips and tricks as I uncover them. If you’ve got any you’d like to share, feel free to do so in the comments below!

Keywords
Pokemon, Pokemon Tips, Pokèmon, Pokèmon Tips, Pokemon Go, Pokèmon Go

Keto while traveling

This blog post is about being on a Ketogenic Diet while away from home. To learn more about the Ketogenic Diet, see my blog post here and this fantastic website Ruled.Me here.
 
Trying to stay on the Ketogenic Diet while traveling, or otherwise away from home, can be difficult for many reasons. Without having the ability or time to prepare and cook your meals, you are at the mercy of restaurant menus and other people who don’t fully understand what Keto is all about. But fear not, all is not lost! There are plenty of ways to try and stay in ketosis, or at least limit the damage caused by eating carby foods.
1. Learn about basic food stuffs/ingredients.
The more you know about basic food ingredients, the better prepared you will be for the curve balls you will encounter when you are away from home. At restaurants and friend’s homes, you’ll be able to pick out the “bad” foods from the “good” foods. This is a large topic, and I cannot begin to cover it here. My advice is to start Googling foods you are unsure about. And understand that sugar and carbs are hidden in many things, so if you’ve never looked it up, don’t assume it’s OK until you learn more.
2. Don’t take advice from friends who aren’t keto aware.
People who don’t know what ketosis or ketogenic diets are will often not understand enough about food in general to give you good advice. I can’t begin to count the number of times I tell people I can’t have carbs, and then they turn around and offer me fruits or a beer. People also have hundreds if not thousands of excuses they are armed and ready to fire at you, to peer pressure you into cheating. “It’s just this once.”, “You can go back on it tomorrow.”, etc. etc. Only you should have the authority to grant yourself a cheat day, based on your progress and you past determination. Do not accept other people’s excuses as your own.
3. Take advance of the grocery store while on travel!
While you may not be shopping for groceries as if you were home, that doesn’t mean the grocery store is no longer a viable option. If you’ve got a refrigerator in your hotel room or friend’s apartment, you can buy some frozen things like Jimmy Dean’s egg and sausage breakfast bowls. If you’ll be around an area for a few days, you can buy some stuff like a package of shredded cheese, which you know if you use it every day for 3-4 days, you could use it up no problem. Also look for hard boiled eggs, which can be a handy snack or breakfast item. You can even find some good stuff at 711’s and other convenience stores. I found a single serve mozzarella stick wrapped in prosciutto the other day, and that was amazing. Prefer fat-protein ratio with virtually no carbs! Also: bacon jerky. Seriously. Enjoy.
4. Watch out for relying too much on protein for calories.
You should not rely too much on protein for your calories, as this will kick you out of ketosis as your body burns protein for fuel. You MUST prefer fat over all other macros. This is why I avoid lean beef jerky and steaks, because they are just too protein focused. As I mentioned above, bacon jerky is a great alternative here, as it has a higher fat content than other jerky.
5. Learn and research common restaurants so you have options when your in a pinch.
Most burger places are actually a pretty good choice, as it’s easy to tell them to hold the bun, swap the fries for a salad, and load it up with bacon and cheese. Here’s a picture of the burger I just had from Erukea! here in Dallas, Texas.
I’m sure I have more advice, but that’s a good list for now. Good luck on your keto journey and feel free to write me comments on these blog posts if you have any questions! For the record, I’m around 193 lbs right now at 15.9% body fat. As mentioned previously, I don’t really care too much about my raw weight, but rather I’m more focused on body fat percentage. I started at about 21.0% so you can see I’ve had great progress so far!