David Lat

Project Truman Show: May 31, 2008

1. What did you eat today? For breakfast, coffee with milk and a Starbucks reduced-fat banana chocolate chip coffee cake (300 calories). For lunch, half of a whole wheat pita, arugula, hummus; half a cup of soy milk. In the afternoon, an iced coffee with milk, and two of those tiny vanilla bean scones at Starbucks (yes I'm their #1 customer). For dinner, I indulged and enjoyed the vegetarian bento box at Whole Foods (edamame, three avocado and cucumber rolls, miso soup, tofu skin dumplings, and vegetable tempura -- fried, and therefore delicious). After dinner, a small decaf coffee with milk, and one more of those little vanilla bean scones.

2. What exercise did you do today? I ran this route (5.0 miles, 50:00, or 10:00/mile) with a friend. I was slow because (a) much of it was uphill -- up Massachusetts Avenue, into the hills -- and (b) in the middle of our run, a heavy thunderstorm started. The rain was torrential; by the time I got home, I was completely drenched.

I also did a fair amount of walking, in the course of running errands: 2.5 miles. Although I ate a lot today, at least compared to other days this week, I think the exercise may have covered it.

3. What is your ATL email backlog? 4,927 (last reading: 4,962; change: -35).

4. What is your personal email backlog? 499 (last reading: 558; change: -59).

5. Additional comments: A quiet Saturday, but pleasant and productive. In addition to exercise and email, I also did laundry, ran some errands, and got a lot of newspaper and magazine reading done.

Project Truman Show: May 30, 2008

1. What did you eat today? For breakfast, a bowl of low-fat organic cereal (Mango Passion) with soy milk (about 300 calories). Coffee with soy milk. For the rest of the day, one and a half whole wheat pitas, with hummus and arugula, and a bag of Baked Lays (210 calories).

2. What exercise did you do today? I ran what I'm going to call the Short Mall Route, turning around at 7th Street (3.8 miles, 34:30, or 9:05/mile). I also went to the gym (standard workout).

3. What is your ATL email backlog? 4,962 (last reading: 4,983).

4. What is your personal email backlog? 558 (last reading: 574).

5. Additional comments: I'm glad that this week is over, and I feel that it went well. I'm going to make some serious inroads on my email backlogs this weekend.

Project Truman Show: May 29, 2008

[Note: I'm going to be doing a little bit of backdating. Going forward, I'm going to date these posts with 11:59 PM for the day that they are summarizing (unless I actually write earlier). Otherwise it gets hard to keep track of which day is which.]

1. What did you eat today? For breakfast, a bowl of low-fat organic cereal (Mango Passion) with soy milk (about 300 calories). Coffee with soy milk. For lunch, half of a whole wheat pita, a few tablespoons of hummus, some arugula.

Then I was somewhat bad. I met up with a friend for drinks at Fado, and I felt slightly pressured by the waiter to order some food. So my friend and I split an order of potato crisps with dip. It was sinful, but delicious. I also had half a beer.

Then I met up with some more friends for drinks at Rouge. I had a diet Coke, but then we decided to go for dinner, at Trio. They ordered grilled cheeses and french fries (which I envied them). But I was pleasantly surprised by how tasty my tomato and mozzarella salad was.

2. What exercise did you do today? I went for a run in the morning -- yes, the morning! And it wasn't that bad. I ran with a friend around the Mall, turning around at the street before the Capitol (4.6 miles, 44 minutes, 9:34/mile). In the evening I did a lot of walking -- roughly 3.5 miles, according to Gmap pedometer.

3. What is your ATL email backlog? N/A (alas, I failed to take note of this at the end of the day).

4. What is your personal email backlog? N/A.

5. Additional comments: I ate more than I intended, but it may have been offset by the healthy amount of exercise (running and walking).

Project Truman Show: May 28, 2008

1. What did you eat today? For breakfast, a bowl of low-fat organic cereal (Mango Passion) with soy milk (about 300 calories). Coffee with milk. For lunch, half of a whole wheat pita, a few tablespoons of hummus, some arugula. For dinner, a tofu noodle salad (at Teaism), plus a small cone of vanilla frozen yogurt (at Gifford's; they were having an anniversary sale; how could I refuse?). Two Hershey's kisses (at the theater). That final brownie (small, and just to finish the pan; I won't be replacing it).

I'm drinking lots of water these days. I'm also taking vitamins and nutritional supplements (a multivitamin, vitamin C, folic acid, lysine, fish oil).

2. What exercise did you do today? Sadly, not that much. It was a busy day in the blogosphere, followed by dinner and a theater outing with friends ("Julius Caesar," at the Shakespeare Theatre Company).

I walked approximately 2 miles (to the theater, plus additional walking). I also did some minor weight lifting in my living room while watching "The Daily Show." Hey, every little thing helps.

3. What is your ATL email backlog? 4,983. This is barely an improvement from yesterday's backlog of 4,990. But I just want the number to keep on decreasing each day, even by a single email. Given the tremendous volume of email that I receive each day, to end the day with a smaller backlog than when I started is an accomplishment.

4. What is your personal email backlog? 574. Yesterday: 589. Same comment as (3), supra. Baby steps.

5. Additional comments: On the physical front, I noticed soreness in my chest and upper arms, which is a good thing. Overall I'm feeling good; my energy level is decent.

On the email front, it's going to get harder and harder each day. Right now I can score cheap points by archiving/filing or deleting things like listserv messages, newsletters, press releases, etc. But once I've burned through those, I'm going to have to tackle substantive emails if I want to make any progress.

Project Truman Show: May 27, 2008 (Week 0)

For background on Project Truman Show, if you're not familiar with it, click here.

This is Week 0 of Project Truman Show. First things first:

How much do you weigh? 169 pounds (as of this morning, before I ate anything; this is when I will weigh myself every week). My weekly shirtless photo appears above (on the right).

On to the rest of the questions:

1. What did you eat today? For breakfast, half a brownie -- I'm finishing off a pan from before I started Project Truman Show -- and a coffee with milk (whole milk -- I still allow myself some indulgences).

For lunch, half of a chicken pasta salad from Starbucks (210 calories), with added arugula. For dinner, the other half of the salad (another 210 calories), with added arugula. After my run, the other half of the brownie, with a tablespoon of light ice cream.

(I realize brownies aren't very ascetic. But everything is relative, and I have to start somewhere.)

2. What exercise did you do today? I went to the gym, for the first time in months, where I spent about half an hour using a combination of machines and free weights. Then I ran 4.6 miles (in 44 minutes -- so maybe that's more like a jog, but I'm seeing the glass as half-full, and calling it a run). This was in the evening.

3. What is your ATL email backlog? 4,990 messages. By "backlog," I'm referring to messages in my inbox, which I use as a repository for pending messages. Messages that have been acted upon get filed into one of many folders (or deleted).

4. What is your personal email backlog? 589 messages. ("Backlog" here is basically defined in the same way as it is for my blog email account, except that in my personal email account, which is a Gmail account, I simply archive processed messages -- I don't really use folders or even labels. Gmail makes it so easy to find old messages; "folderizing," to use the favorite neologism of a partner I used to work for, isn't as essential.)

Additional comments: Today I went to get measured for a groomsman tuxedo (for my college roommate's wedding next month). I was embarrassed to say my weight aloud to the salesman taking my measurements. Also, my neck measurement is now a depressing 16 inches (when it has been 15 and a half for almost my entire adult life).

But at least I am moving in the right direction. "The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step."

Project Truman Show: Welcome!

On the legal blog that I run, Above the Law ("ATL"), I write about people -- law students, lawyers, and judges -- who engage in embarrassing, unethical, or even criminal conduct. ATL is a self-described "legal tabloid," a gossip blog. Writing about this stuff is my job.

Sometimes the people I write about, or their friends or family members, email me to complain. They usually don't claim libel or slander (since truth is an absolute defense in a defamation action, and what I write is true (most of the time, anyway)). Instead, they  claim that I've violated their "privacy."

I try to explain why what I've written about is a legitimate subject of discussion, why they have no reasonable expectation of privacy in the matter in question, etc. I try to be nice about it.

But sometimes I just want to say: "I don't believe in privacy. Privacy is the refuge of scoundrels. People who aren't doing anything wrong don't need privacy." As Judge Richard Posner has noted:

[W]e tend to place somewhat too much weight on privacy. The word "privacy" has strongly positive connotations (like "freedom"), which obscures analysis....

[P]eople try to "put their best foot forward." Often this involves concealing information that would cause potential transacting partners to refuse to transact with them or to demand better terms as a condition of doing so. Such concealment is a species of fraud....

No one wants privacy more than criminals!

Indeed. Privacy is what allows us to eat pints of Ben & Jerry's ice cream in a single sitting, to cheat on our spouses, to pick our noses, to watch porn, to abuse our children. Privacy facilitates all sorts of unsavory, unethical, and even illegal conduct.

Privacy is an antiquated notion in the internet age. Gossip about an event can hit the blogs before the event is over. Photographs and video of scandalous conduct can be uploaded to Facebook or YouTube in minutes (or even seconds). As I once quipped before a group of Yale Law School alumni I was addressing, "Privacy is roadkill on the information superhighway."

As Nietzsche might say, "Privacy is dead." Or, at the very least, "privacy is so twentieth century."

My thesis: If we had less privacy, we would be better people. As Justice Louis Brandeis once observed, sunlight is the best disinfectant. He was talking about public institutions, but it's equally true of private individuals.

If we are constantly being watched, like Truman Burbank of The Truman Show, we will lead better lives. We  will commit fewer crimes. We will eat healthier foods. We will call our mothers more often. We will treat our fellow human beings with more respect. Would law firm partners yell at their associates as much if they knew that their rants would show up on the internet (a la Alec Baldwin's phone message to his daughter)?

I've decided to harness a lack of privacy for my own self-improvement. I have the following goals:

1. To bring my weight down to 145 pounds (and to be in better shape overall).
2. To bring my Above the Law ("ATL") email backlog down to under 500 messages.
3. To bring my personal email backlog down to under 50 messages.

Welcome to what I'm calling Project Truman Show. I'm making myself the star of my own reality TV show, exposing myself for all the world to see. Every day, before I go to bed, I will log in to answer the following questions:

1. What did you eat today?
2. What exercise did you do today?
3. What is your ATL email backlog?
4. What is your personal email backlog?

And on a weekly basis, every Monday morning, I will log in and answer the following question:

1. How much do you weigh?

(I don't want to track my weight on a daily basis because it can fluctuate for all sorts of random reasons. Instead, I'll do it on a weekly basis. I'll weigh myself every Monday morning, before I've eaten anything for the day.)

On Monday I will also take a shirtless picture of myself and upload it to the site. Why? When I ran my "Project Truman Show" idea by a friend, his skeptical response was: "Okay, how long until you start lying?"

I assured him that I wouldn't lie (and swore on the grave of my recently deceased grandmother, my Lola Ever -- may she rest in peace). I also asked him: What would be a way for me to prove I'm telling the truth? He suggested that I post shirtless photos to my blog. So I said fine -- done.

The image on the right is a thumbnail; click to enlarge. (Warning: You might be grossed out by how fat I am.) The photo on the left is was taken in the Philippines, where I was vacationing, in December 2004, back when I was in fighting form. The photo on the right is what I look like today -- three and a half years, and about 25 pounds, later.

My goal is to return to what I once looked like. Please help me along in my journey. Check in on this site regularly, to see if I'm making any progress.

Make rude comments about what a fat pig I am; shame me into slimming down. If you notice progress, post a compliment or some encouragement. If you notice a lack of progress, or slacking off on my part, call me out on it.

I can't do this without your help. The more public scrutiny, the better. Send this link to your friends, so they will watch me too.

Project Truman Show starts tomorrow. Tomorrow is a Tuesday, but since today is a holiday (Memorial Day), I will treat Tuesday as the start of the week. I will post my weight tomorrow morning. I will start publicly tracking my food intake, exercise, and email backlogs tomorrow as well. (Today I'm going to pig out, of course, enjoying my last few hours of freedom.)

This is going to be an interesting journey. Thanks for joining me for the ride!