Raam Dev’s Weblog

Insert the CD you want to create an ISO image from into your CDROM/DVD drive and then launch Disk Utility (Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility). Select the CD underneath the drive listed on the left and then click New Image in the tool bar at the top.

On the Save As dialog, enter a name for your ISO image and choose the location where you want to save the file. Change the Image Format from compressed to DVD/CD master (compressed will save the file as a DMG image). In the example below, I use example as the filename.

Disk Utility will create the disk image with the .cdr extension, even though the image itself is identical to a .iso image¹.

When Disk Utility is finished, you can browse to the file with Finder and rename the file from example.cdr to example.iso.

The ISO image can then be distributed and burned on any system (I tested this by burning the resulting ISO on a Windows XP machine using the free DeepBurner application).

Not a true ISO image?

I have read that the resulting ISO image is not a “true” ISO-9660 filesystem and that you can use the following command to convert DMG images (leave the Image Format as compressed to create a DMG image in Disk Utility) into *real* ISO images using the following command:

hdiutil makehybrid -o example example.dmg

This will convert example.dmg into example.iso. However, after burning the resulting ISO image on a Windows machine the CD was not bootable. Using the renaming method I described above, the CD was bootable and Windows was able to see the contents of the CD without any problems.

I looked over the man page for hdiutil and even tried some of the examples to convert a DMG to a *true* ISO file:

hdiutil makehybrid -o example.iso example.dmg -iso -joliet

But after burning the resulting ISO to a CD, I discovered the CD was again not bootable. Maybe I’m missing something and someone can enlighten me. Until then, I will continue creating a .cdr image and renaming it to .iso.

After a long break, I’m back to bodybuilding. In addition to lots of stretching and yoga I’m concentrating on full-body exercises like chin-ups, push-ups, and leg raises. Cardio always seems to die off during the colder winter months, but now that the warm weather is slowly returning I need to pick it up again. I’ve also started waking up earlier and my goal is to eventually start waking up before sunrise.

Even more difficult than maintaining a good diet and exercise routine is maintaining a good diet and exercise routine for very long periods of time — I’m talking in years, not months. The past 9 years of my bodybuilding career, although mostly beneficial to my health, have been a roller coaster of workout routines and diets. Dedication, commitment, and sheer will-power made me the fittest I’ve ever been, but maintaining that physique indefinitely while being in a career that requires me to sit down will be quite the challenge.

Ever since I started working out regularly, I have been trying to eat more protein while maintaining a vegan diet. I’ve tried making soy, hemp, and rice protein shakes, eating more tempeh and tofu, and even eating more beans (though I must admit that the time required to cook beans and grains definitely prevents me from eating them as regularly as I would like). I don’t know if I have a protein sensitivity or if I’m just not combining foods properly, but every time I increase my protein intake my body seems to reject it and digestion becomes very difficult.

I have thought about how much easier things would be if I could have EAS Myoplex shakes, cottage cheese, yogurt, non-fat chocolate milk, and other foods that I learned how to use to help with keeping protein high and carbohydrates low. Now that I have been maintaining a vegan diet, I feel like I’m starting back at square one; I feel like I don’t know anything about diet and fitness because everything changes when you remove all dairy from your diet.

Earlier today I was actually contemplating switching back to a lacto-vegetarian diet, but then I remembered the promise I made to myself several months ago:

I was born a Vegetarian, but I will die a Vegan.

So to push these dangerous thoughts out of my head, that has become my new mantra. If maintaining a vegan diet means I need to spend more time preparing food and learning how to cook complete meals, then so be it. I was thinking, I should probably tattoo the word VEGAN on my body somewhere so I can simply look at it whenever I’m doubting my commitment to a vegan lifestyle.

As I was cutting these red bell peppers this morning, I was surprised when an open cut on my hand started stinging really bad — as if I had been cutting onions or hot peppers! I knew it wasn’t the water on the peppers because I just took a shower and I had washed my hands without feeling any pain at all. I’m guessing the pain was caused by the trace amounts of capsaicin found inside the bell peppers.

Red bell peppers, like their close relatives the hot peppers, contain capsaicin. Capsaicin is what makes peppers hot, however the bell peppers have a recessive gene that eliminates the capsaicin and allows us to eat an entire pepper without our mouth catching on fire.

Red bell peppers are an amazing food and contain a huge array of vitamins and minerals. They are very high in vitamin C (higher than oranges!), contain high levels of antioxidants, and have more beta-carotene than green or yellow peppers.

This morning I woke up to the worst pain I have ever experienced in my lats. I was unable to raise my elbows any higher than my chest without feeling extreme pain. It literally feels like someone is hammering nails into my lats every time I raise my arms. Here is the muscle in pain, the Latissimus Dorsi:

Then I realized that yesterday was my arm workout day — a workout that I haven’t done in almost a year. I did a total of 47 pull-ups and several other arm exercises, including the dumbbell decline triceps extension which also hits the lats. The pain is excruciating, but it tells me that my muscles are now in the recovery phase and that they will come back even stronger!

I decided to skip todays workout because I think at this point it will do more harm than good. You know I’m really in pain when I decide to cancel a workout.

My new workout regiment, and the changes I’ve made to my diet this week, are really having a draining effect. I used to get tired around one or two in the morning but now I find myself ready to collapse at eleven PM! It’s now midnight and I’m still at the office–I just finished a 4 hour team discussion at work. I’m really looking forward to getting home and laying down on the hardwood floor of my new apartment.

So far this week I’ve been really good with sticking to my workout plan. I randomly picked one of the many workout routines I have saved in the memo list on my BlackBerry. I’ll see if I can post it tomorrow. This week is mostly a warm-up to next week, which is when I plan to really get my workouts revved up.

I woke up last Monday unable to move my right ankle. It wasn’t just stiff, it hurt. It was a very familiar feeling — something I’ve had happen several times over the past few years. I’m not exactly sure what is happening inside the ankle, but it feels as if a bone has moved out of place, creating the same type of pain I have experienced after dislocating my ankle (of which has happened several times to both of my ankles).

Whenever this “micro-dislocation” has happened in the past, I was simply sitting down in a chair with my feet relaxed. Suddenly I would feel extreme pain in my ankle, as if it was slipping out. The pain wouldn’t stop right away but would continue, even after I take pressure off the foot. I would quickly “push” it back into position disregarding the extreme pain, and after hearing a few clicks the pain would instantly subside. I tried this same technique after waking up last week, but it didn’t work.

For the first few days, I had to limp around. It was too painful to walk normally. Climbing stairs felt awkward. After moving around for a few days with a dysfunctional ankle, my knee and hip started to suffer as well, since those joints were not being used properly. By Thursday, my ankle had become quite swollen. So, I iced it every morning after that and by Saturday the swelling was gone.

I forced myself to try and walk normally, but the pain was hard to ignore. I stretched it several times a day, but it felt as if there was something more than stiffness causing the pain. By Sunday evening, I was starting to wonder if I should have a doctor look at it.

This Monday morning I woke up and to my amazement, my ankle had returned to normal. I tried stretching it in several different directions which had caused extreme pain all week and I wasn’t able to recreate any pain! Exactly one week: I woke up last Monday morning with extreme pain, one week went by, and then I woke up yesterday to discover the pain gone. I don’t know how else to describe this other than a “micro-dislocation”.

The whole week I was telling myself how I will start, and stick to, a regular exercise routine as soon as my ankle gets better. I didn’t realize how fortunate I was until I lost the functionality of what I took for granted. What better wake up message than to be crippled for one week and then just as quickly be given another chance.

I have never believed that I was limited by my genetics, nor that I could not change my genetics. At last, epigenetics is beginning to prove that very fact: You are not your DNA, but you are responsible for it.

Our genetic makeup is influenced by our environment and those influences are inherited by our great-grandchildren. This makes complete sense! We know humans are very adaptable, so why wouldn’t our bodies learn from not only our environment, but also from the effects the environment had on our ancestors? The only way for humans to maintain this adaptability through generations would be to inherit the effects the environment had on our ancestors.

Diabetes, cancer, autism, alzheimer’s, obesity — I believe with time we will discover that all of these are a direct cause-and-effect result of changes made to our epigenome by our diet and environment (including those changes inherited).

I also believe that each and every one of us is capable of curing any biological ailment (caused by our individual actions or inherited from our ancestors) by modifying our diet, environment, and thought processes. Additionally, I believe that collectively, this healing power can be amplified without limit.

Imagine a super-human. Someone with the ability to heal not only themselves, but others as well. Imagine a human who had the power to become anything or anyone he or she ever wanted. That person is you.

Download DNA is not Destiny by Ethan Watters and see how it changes your view of genetics.

I’ve been living in the city (Cambridge, MA) for almost a whole year now and one of the biggest things I miss about living outside the city is the cleaner air. OK, the air in Lowell is not exactly clean but I can drive 10 minutes and be in the middle of a 1,000 acre state forest where the air is much cleaner. I used to do a lot of running before I moved to Cambridge, both indoors and outdoors, but now I feel afraid to run. I can smell the pollution in the air simply walking 10 minutes between my apartment and the office — it makes the air dry and thick. I’m not one to quit simply because something is more difficult or because it doesn’t taste or feel good. But when it comes to my health, I can’t help but wonder, will running in polluted city atmosphere actually be worse for me than not running at all?

Every day I see so many people, young and old, running throughout the city and I wonder if the health benefits they are experiencing are only temporary — if by sucking down so many unnatural, unhealthy chemicals they’re actually shortening their overall lifespan. I touched on this subject a few months ago in a post titled Dirty Air. I concluded the post by saying that a healthy lifestyle cannot be had while working where the crowd works. I don’t like to believe things are impossible and I feel there must be some type of balance that can be reached — perhaps a combination of indoor aerobic activity (rowing machine), indoor anaerobic activity (weight lifting), and various weekend outdoor activities when I visit Lowell on the weekends.

I also wondered if running at night, or early in the morning, would be more healthy than running during the day. I noticed the air smells much cleaner during the late evening and early morning hours. My own hypothesis is that when the sun goes down and the air begins to cool, all the warmer air (which was mixed with pollution from cars and buildings as well as heated by the sun during the day) rises up into the atmosphere allowing the cooler, cleaner air (cleaned by moisture in the air, currents, etc.) to sink down to the ground. If this is true, then running at night and early in the morning, before people start leaving for work, could be much healthier than running during the day. Are there any night runners (or early morning runners) out there that can confirm any of this?

You know how when you look at the sun, or another bright light source, and then look away, everything you look at has a big bright spot that prevents you from seeing the details of what you are looking at? Well that happened to me today while reading an article on my laptop. The strange thing was, I never looked at the sun or any other “bright light source”. I looked out the office window at brightly lit buildings, trees, and a clear blue sky, but the sun is on the other side of the building and not at all visible from the office.

It was quite disorienting, this fluctuating prism point of light that prevented me from even reading the text on the screen. My peripheral vision was fine and I could see the text directly to the left and right of where I was looking, but that wasn’t very helpful — I couldn’t concentrate. I tried closing my eyes, flexing them by looking all the way to the left and right, and looking in the mirror to see if there was anything odd in my eyes. Nothing helped, and besides feeling a little dizzy when I got out of my chair, nothing else was wrong physically.

After about 10 minutes, the bright spot got bigger and moved slightly to the left. Now I could see the text I was looking at but there was this huge L shaped blurry spot everywhere I looked. Another 10 minutes went by, and the blurry spot moved further to the left and increased in size, eventually moving entirely out of my vision. By this time, I realized I had a bad headache and decided to do some quick Googling to see if I could learn anything about what I just experienced.

Apparently, those symptoms point to a sinus infection or other flu/sickness. This makes sense, since I have been battling a never ending cough for about a month now. The recommendation? Lots of sleep, water, and no stress. What have I been doing for the past month? I have been getting very little sleep, drinking lots of coffee to stay awake (caffeine results in dehydration), and trying to meet deadlines at work.

But no excuses. I am healthy, I have always been healthy, and I always will be healthy. Life is Good.