Jason's Notes About Stuff

Here is the update to my post last month entitled " Losing weight is hard ". Through a program of restricted eating and intense exercise, I was able to lose most of my December "Christmas baking" weight: I'm back down to around 160lbs and about 13.5% body fat. Surprisingly, this is still on the high end of normal! Mid-range for my height should be about 155lbs and 12.5% body fat. That will be my goal after we return from the wedding. Even 130lbs would still be in the "healthy" range. I can actually remember quite well when I was 130lbs. It would have been in high school, where admittedly, I was a bit of a beanpole :-) Another interesting chart is my one-year plot (missing the period when the scale was being shipped ): When I look back and see how I was up over 170, that seems so high, but meanwhile it had become the "new normal." It's important to keep things in perspective, and I've found that our Internet scale

A formula for success and happiness, in both business and life: Keep your own expectations tempered, but always try to exceed the expectations of others.

Stocks have been on a major upswing for the past five years, but haven't gained quite as much as the big 1990's bull market: But the big question on investors' minds is: When will the next crash happen? This article about bull markets shows us how the current market compares historically. We're at about the median time length, and not quite the median gains. So although it's quite possible stocks will keep increasing for another year or two, it's unlikely to go much further than that. Another unique factor with this market is that it is being infused with money by something called " quantitative easing ", a large financial experiment with unknown side effects. Meanwhile, corporate profits are doing very well, but earnings ratios are starting to get high. And interest rates continue to stay extremely low . It will be interesting to see what direction the stock market takes in 2014/2015. More reading: How Does Our 5-Year-Old Bull