Candies Are Bad For You

I have always believe that in order to lose weight, you must do something harmful to your body to hinder its growth. Back in the days when I was taking biology class in high school, I was told that in order for a plant to growth in its maximum capacity and speed there are a few elements that needs to be there: water, carbon dioxide/oxygen, temperature of around 37 degrees, light and nutrition. If any of those conditions turned out to be lacking, inconsistent or too much, the plant might yellow or wilt. So my theory is that if we need to either eat less or do something harmful in order to lose weight. Well, that or exercise...

Yesterday reading Yahoo! News I saw this kick in the nutsack:



Nutrition professor from Kansas University, Mark Haub, about the same physical attribute I am now eating nothing but Twinkies for two months and losing 27 pounds. His diet is based on the theory that calories intake is the most important element on a diet and understanding that allows him to eat basically anything he wants as long as it's less calorie intake than spent.

He's having one Twinkie every 3 hours and to add variety, he's introducing powdered donuts, Oreos and Doritos. For realsies. Exercise-wise, he's doing 60-80 minutes a week. And for roughage, he's eating a can of peas and carrots or a raw vegetable every night. He's drinking coffee and drinking milk for protein. He's losing weight but still can't determine whether there will be any harmful consequences. This could be a diet that I can get behind, though I have yet to realize that it's not an all you can eat dessert cart.

On other weird dessert news, I have stumbled onto this video yesterday and can't get my head wrapped around one fact:



The average Armenian eats 88 pounds of chocolate a year!? That's roughly 7 pounds a month, 1 pounds every 4 days and 4 ounces everyday. We're not talking about a small kitkat bar, we're talking about 3 of them or a big baking chocolate bar every single day. How is Armenia not the fattest country in the world? Do they eat nothing but chocolate or are they a cold country that doesn't have heat and their citizens just burn calories to stay warm? I don't get it.

Well, I couldn't possibly believe anything I read online. Maybe it was a typo and it's really 8.8 pounds instead. Or like many other European countries, Armenians have the sensibility of eating very small meals and drink red wine to help process the amount of chocolate consumed. Or there's a loveless culture there and the nation needs to compensate and reach euphoria by eating chocolate. Anyhow, the chocolate kingdom of Armenia is on my list of places to visit now.

Read more...

These Hips Do Lie

Via Joe.My.God

Esquire reports that many of the nation's retailers of men's pants are lying about their waist sizes in order to make you feel thinner. It's called "vanity waist-sizing."

A year or two ago, I went to Lucky Jeans to buy a few pairs of new jeans and I was amazed on how I could squeeze in some 34s comfortably with space to spare, because that's almost my high school waist size. While I cheerfully thanked the salesperson for even suggesting for me to try on the 34s and gleefully whipped out my credit card to buy those jeans, I've never thought that the labels would be a lie. Not that I know it's a lie and I can barely squeeze back in the said jeans, maybe it's a great reassurance for me to stick into this 10 days fast thing that I embarked on. It's day 3 and I getting used to not having food, my hunger headache is gone and I'm still a little low on energy around the afternoon but I didn't faint or die so how bad can it be? My recent cravings still include a sushi buffet and the roast suckling pig meal from the Jose Garces restaurant but I think I shouldn't gorge once I can eat, so I don't nullify these 10 days of hunger torture. I should go for my long, long walk to double my effort now.

Read more...

The Carb-less Hours

So I've been in a low carb diet for almost 2 months and I lost about 18~20 pounds. It actually seemed easy enough, I guess even though I'm Asian, I'm not as attached to rice as I should be, nor potatoes. Sometimes, I'd want some bread, especially in pastry form and sometimes I'd want pasta. Most of all not eating chocolate is a bitch.

I'm not following Atkins or South Beach to the tee. I still enjoy my onions, carrots and tomatoes. It's hard to imagine eating salad or cooking without them. But I've demonized obvious carbs like sugar and starch and carb heavy veggies like most of the root vegetables and fruits. So every time I have a craving for chocolate and find myself in the supermarket with it in hand wondering if I should buy them because it sounds so good. I make a conscious decision to say no and put it back down. It's not as struggling and strenuous as it sounds, most of the time I've already decided what I'm going to make for dinner or lunch when I'm at home and with a list in hands, it's easy to just get the things on the list and not stray.

In the case of my sweet tooth, I'm finding that sugar-free jello, and diet cherry coke really helps. If not I can always buy a bunch of grapes, it contains sugar of course but it's relatively healthy. I also find the great spaghetti squash which still allows me to make fake spaghetti dishes without the obvious carb, even though squash might still be loaded with sugar, but there's added fiber which is great as well. It somehow became a culinary game for me to think of things I can make without carb and it can be a lot of fun.

Once in a while if I really crave for something, I'd go for it. I took a week off eating junks that I really wanted, like an Italian hoagie or a slice of mushroom pizza, ending up to find out that the real thing is not really as good as how I imagined them to be. Ice cream and french fries on the other hand is every bit as good as I thought they'd turn out. I guess it teaches me something about how my brain works. I don't mind breaking the rules once in a while to take care of my cravings so I can go back to my diet satisfied. I think it's better that way. (I wonder if that would be my attitude towards extramarital sex.)

You understand my motivation is all because of vanity of course, getting healthier is just a nice by-product. If I can lose 15 more pounds, I'd be very happy with myself, but according to this rate I'd probably have to be on the diet for 3 or 4 more months. Maybe starting to exercise would help. Though these few days, I'm having some problems with my right lower back. I wonder if it has something to do with my previous injuries during my aforementioned canoe trip, or maybe the way I sit, or my lack of exercise as is. My uncle started to have a similar problem when he was my age and it's persistent throughout his life. I hope it's not the case with me.

Read more...

The Heat is Coming

First day of the year going back to the gym, it wasn't too bad. Obviously I don't feel like I can do as much as before, but I didn't feel too bad. I knew I was gonna get achy this morning but generally I'm glad I did it. I plan to go there every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

I intentionally went to NY to walk around as a warm up on Sunday. I had a relaxing day shopping at Century 21. The weather was so beautiful, I felt great. Well yeah, it took me 4 hours on the bus back and forth and I only got to be in NY for 2 hour, but I still had a great time. When I got home it was only 4:30pm, and I get to do my laundry and read my novels. All and all it was a nice day.

I got a nose bleed the other day for picking my nose and it happened again last night when I was sleeping. Must be the exercising that get my blood rushing all over the place. I used to have a lot of nose bleeds when I was a kid, I can go to sleep all fine and wake up with a tons of blood on my bed. It's like "The Exorcist" all over again. I hate it.

Hopefully I can stick with this regimen. Arghh... Summer is coming, I hate Summer.

Read more...

Mismanagement

Had dinner with DC last night and I showed him the weight loss study I'm about to participate in and he told me the drugs they are giving people are for combating depression and addiction. The dosage they plan to use on us are also alarmingly high. He convinced me not to participate in the study just because it will be potential harmful to my brain. So I guess I'll give up, I'm unusually cautious when it comes to my brain.

My green card application finally went in, although I had to go through a lot of hassles to get all the documents I need. It was really not that complicated, I was working on my green card with my ex-boss all along and now my new boss wasn't happy that he wasn't consulted during the process. He want to show me that he's the boss, so he try to make it difficult for me just to let me know. What a jackass? "The salary is too high!", "Shouldn't I be signing it?", "I don't think I've even read what the letter said yet!" Of course, everything is just an act... How can he know the mentioned salary is too high if he haven't even read the content yet? But I'll play along...

He demanded respect from everyone and he got really upset when he found out that some of our staff went to a job fair to look for other prospects. I thought all along that respect is earned but he's starting to run the organization like a dictator. It's like communism all over again. We are not suppose to ask him questions, just listen to what he has to say. He will not tell us what we needs to do, we are suppose to ask he for work when we have the time. He will not tell us when we have important meetings with dignitaries, we are supposed to be always free and ready. We don't have money for office supplies, but we can afford a hotel stay 50 miles away or a weekend trip to Jamaica. Poor communication, poor management is what it is, I wonder how long the organization will survive and which idiots will fund us and what it is based on.

Little meetings with intents to make things difficult for the staff will only create bad feelings. If that how he thinks he can get respect from his staff, he's crazy and stupid. Meanwhile, some of the staff are looking for job, some are about to go on leave soon and the good ones are getting wore out. With our financial state, none of us are gonna get a raise anytime soon and I haven't had gotten one for the past 4 years. Of course there were promises but nothing ever delivered, it has always been prosponed and prosponed. So we asked to do our best to the company but the company doesn't do good by its employee. Whenever there's money coming in, its always the head honchos that gets everything and we have to feel lucky and say thianks that we still have a job. When a staff doesn't see any benefits when we as a whole succeed, what motivations do we have to succeed? What luck is it that we have to work as hard as we can while suppressing any possibility of financial growth and be treated like imbecils everyday?

I thought in time of crisis, the attitude of management is supposed to change to a friendlier tone, after all we are all they have now. Communications are supposed to be as good as possible, hence the benefit of a smaller staff. But maybe it's the first time he's in a position to command the whole organization, his own inexperience leaves him astray. Anyway, I'm glad the application went in. It'll take 12 to 24 months to process, they say. Maybe I'll win the lottery in the meantime and get it over with.

Read more...

A Busy 24 Hours

The past 24 hours has been quite hectic. I have accumulate so much errands and trying to complete all of them in one sitting seems nearly impossible. Before ES left for New Orleans, she told me about a friend of hers changed her cell phone plan to 'pay as you go' and since she's not using her cell phone for much she's only paying for $100 a year. I thought that was cool and after further investigation, I decided to change it to a prepaid plan with T-Mobile. I use approximately 200 minutes and pay $60 per month. After I change over I should be paying approximately $20 a month which saves $40 for something else.

So I got to the mall where Principe works at, but I couldn't find a T-Mobile booth that would change it over for me, probably because they don't get commissions for prepaid plans. Principe's iPod Mini died, when I get to the Apple store, they said they couldn't do anything about it, so I bought him a new 30GB iPod. I was gonna do that or wait for the iPhone, but the sales person said it will cost about $600 and only Cingular is gonna carry that. So since I want to change to T-mobile, I guess I'm not gonna get one. It's would have been perfect for Principe, but I won't spend $600 for a phone that he'll probably break or lose it the next day.

I walked around the whole mall because I wanted to get a duffel coat for myself. The pea coat that I got for the past two year has been breaking apart, the inner seems are deteriorating so fast that my pocket are torn and it's getting quite ratty. I spotted a Burberry duffel coat that I crave, but it costs $600. It's still cold out but it's the end of winter, so I'm hoping for a sale. Maybe I'll go to Century 21 while I'm in New York to see if they have anything, they have it on Ebay too but I'm so used to trying it on before buying. If I see it, I'll try it on and maybe buy the online equivalent on Ebay.

Principe and I went to Legal Seafood last night, I was glad that they have opened one in the mall. I'm a fan, although it was kinda expensive but the food was really good. It was early so we just got a bowl of New England clam chowder each, we shared a plate of crab cake and a small lobster. Everything was great, I hope to go back again and again. Looked for the comic book series at borders, but they don't have the complete set and each one costs $8, so I guess I'll go to New York Chinatown for them too.

Uploaded the website I've designed, had a staff meeting, mailed my grandma a check, uploaded songs to Principe's new iPod and got a haircut as well, but I just found out that my barber of 6 years does not work there anymore. That #$%& doesn't even tell me beforehand. I was filling up a long questionnaire the whole day about history information for the weight loss study, describing my weight history, eating habits, psychological conditions, medical conditions and physical habits. I hope this thing works. Anyway, I about to head out to the T-Mobile store to change my phone over. Can't wait til the weekend, but I guess I'll just be spending money like crazy again.

Read more...

The Study

My ex-colleague JH got a job in a place on my way to work, so he's been calling me every morning so that we can walk to work together. It's funny how he acts as my exercise buddy now. I mean he's the reason why I joined my current gym in the first place, we exercised together, walked to work together, walked home together. I was taking cabs everyday to work and laid off the gym thing after he left my workplace, but now that he found a job along the way, I started walking again.

I was thinking when the weather get warmer, I'll go back to the gym a few times a week again. I need it to be warm enough so I can wear shorts outside. JH is on Atkins now, maybe I'll do the same too. I also joined a weight loss study from an University and they are going to put me on a year-round medication routine, to study the effects. I hope that they don't give me placebos, if they do it'll be such a waste of time. I'm always looking for fast results, I guess it is why I stopped my former efforts, because I don't see any results. Plus it was X'mas and cold outside. (If I wanted excuses, I can always find some) I should get a package saying how it works soon and I'll have my first introductory meeting in two weeks.

Read more...

Long Weekend Ahead

I've been wanting to go back on my diet, or going back to the gym. Given there's really nothing forbidding me to do so, but I just couldn't get myself together for it. i have realized lately how much i enjoy shopping or just spending money in general, I bought me and Principe that pair of G-Shocks, got a bunch of iTunes online and spent my Barnes and Noble gift card on a bunch of CDs. I really have to change my feeling associate with money spending. I need to somehow feel unhappy about it, so I would stop this trend. My dentist office is charging me $135 just for examining and X-rays... They said my insurance should cover it and I won't have to spend a dime, but if they are invoicing me, that means my insurance is not covering it, which they should. So I would need to call them and yell at them.

Thank god this weekend is a long weekend. I always enjoy long weekends.

Read more...

Chop Sueys

I haven't got anything to write about these few days. I'm pretty much living my life like a zombie. Work is boring, so, so boring. Going to the gym every single day but haven't seen any obvious results at all, my muscles are aching though and I keep gaining muscle weight when I don't want any weight gain no matter good or bad. My waistline is still the same.

I was told that I'm gonna get a small bonus next year but my workload will increase. Considering half the people here will be gone after December, I guess it's not a bad position to be in. But, I'm working for a bunch of selfish, moraless people and on top of them they are dumb and lazy as well. What a combination? But I tell myself again and again: "Keep my eyes on the green card." After getting that I'm free to go wherever I please.

I'm due to go to a function tonight, so I'm all dressed up. Although I much rather be in my knitting class. I started to knit a hat already and I'm gonna spend most of my day finishing it. After knitting the scarf I'm actually getting tired of knitting because I spent a few days doing the same thing over and over again. Ultimately I want to make a blanket, that's my goal. Although they really don't offer those classes. Since big man winter is coming, I really don't think I want to start taking up Kung Fu yet. Especially when the place is in a dicier neighborhood, I guess I'll wait for Spring.

Read more...

Change Of Hobbies And Habits

Well, I'm happy to say that my eye is getting better now. Thanks to the antibiotics I'm taking, I think there is still a trace of it somewhere but it has got rid of its ugliness. I blame the gym, I'm very much sure that the towels that they provide are dirty and their floors germ-filled. I laid low for the whole week, stayed home for a day and a half off work resting, no, knitting. My eyes were the excuse why I did not go to the gym. I don't think I've gained my weight back but I did feel a bit guilty.

I somehow got addicted to being out. Half a year ago, I would have been fine staying at home all day watching TV or playing video game. But nowadays since I picked up another hobby that requires the use of my hand, I haven't played video game for a while. My GTA: Liberty City Stories has stayed untouched for a while and I've just heard they are going to publish Vice City Stories soon, I think I'll need to catch up. It is the same reason why I haven't updated this blog for the past few days. I was knitting like crazy trying to make the Thursday class with a finished product. Of course when I showed up with my long, long scarf in class everybody was quite shocked. One, because it was really long and two, they did not even complete half of their own product. Some even asked whether I took off work to knit, I feel like such a loser. I like being outside now. Maybe I closed myself up too long and my body craves for some vitamin B, now I long to be sitting in the sun. My internet connection through my neighbor's wireless has been working, meekly but working, and I'm still dragging my laptop to the nearby Starbucks to steal another wireless connection nearby to go online and type my blog. I'm not a big fan of coffee, especially not starbucks coffee, but I like their giant windows where I can look at the cars and people passing by.

Principe Rana says he don't want to eat dinner at home anymore. He rather eat dinner at work so he won't just eat and go to sleep immediately afterwards. That means I only have to cook for myself at night. I think I'm gonna be depressed because of that. I think a lot of people equates food to love, especially people of color. El Principe already go to work before I wake up and comes home around 11pm at night, if we can't even eat together I would have to proclaim that my love life is non-existent. I can still understand why he don't want to get any fatter, especially with my cooking; it's not in anyway small-portioned and don't mind me saying that it is at times quite good. So in more ways than one, that's why we are both getting fat and he doesn't have the time to exercise, so if we eat every night around 11:30pm and go to bed immediately after, we are bound to get fat. But I will still feel that I'm being rejected somehow. I an remember a time that el principe is mor emuscle than meat unlike now he looks like Senor Porky Jr.

So maybe it's all my fault and maybe his idea is a good one and maybe I'll get over myself. Or he'll change his mind in a day or two and start eating at home again. But for the time being I think I'll just go back on Atkins or make congee everyday and just eat that. I think somehow congee maybe good as a diet, it 's mostly water. Although it might be too easy to digest and absorb... Any case I'll try it for a while. Saw the end of project runway, so ridiculous but that would be the topic of another entry. I also saw a flyer at my gym about some sewing class in the city, maybe I'll join up and try my path as a fashion designer. I did make a pretty nice scarf, "who knows", right? I think it's important to discover any hidden talent that I might have in this stage of my life.

Just talked to DC on the phone, I probably haven't done so for months. Whenever his boyfriend JEW is around, he doesn't want a social life. I find that very strange and irritating. It's not like we are in a love relation, why does he have to abandon his social life whenever JEW is around is beyond me. It's not like he's his slave (or maybe he is?). But I feel like we can't be friends when his boyfriend is around. JEW used to work as the director of Asia for his company and has to live in Asia for months and they only see each other a few times in a year. I acted as a good friend and keep him company on whenever I could. We would go to dinner or the mall together every week. But since his boyfriend came back to the States, he hasn't got the "time" to go out with me and I haven't seen him for months. I feel so used. They say the friendship of gentlemen are as weak as water, and DC always says that you should never feel obligated about friends, so I guess our friendship is based more on his needs than mine. Oh well, what can I do? And to think that we used to put each other down as our emergency contact person. I guess I need a class on people skills than anything else.

Read more...

Lollipop, Lollipop, Lolli-Lolli-Lollipop

The weight-lost lollipops finally came in. They were ordered back in July but they must have been popular because they were all out of them. I was very skeptic about these pops, I still am. How can you suck on a lollipop and lose weight? Plus they are using some kind of new ingredients found in Africa called Hoodia. How much research have they done with the ingredient and how do they know it's safe for constant consumption? It might cause cancer, you know. Everything does nowadays.

The pops come in 9 different flavors: Rootbeer Float, Pina Colada, Cinnamon, Pink Lemonade, Mountain Berry, Butter Pecan, Watermelon, Green Apple and Cherry. So far I had the rootbeer one and the berry one, the rootbeer one taste like toothpaste but the berry one was pretty good. There is a pamphlet with instructions telling us to drink 8 oz of water after each pop and eat a balanced meal. The pop took 45 minutes to an hour to finish and they are a little gritty. Though, my appetite wasn't suppressed at all. However, somehow I felt happier. Maybe because it was friday, but somehow another colleague that took a pop felt the same afterwards, strange.

Another colleague was convinced that it works as mouth plugs. During the whole 45 minutes you can't really eat anything else, so you won't be able to gain weight. Maybe it acts as speed, but I really haven't notice any change yet. Plus, I can't go to the gym now that my back is all stitched up. Maybe I'll gain weight instead. But we were convinced that if our mood were enhanced after the pop, we'll keep on getting them. It's better than taking Prozac.

Read more...

Away

I want to go away. It seems everybody around me are somewhere else but me. My boss and his concubine are going to be in Hollywood, the one in Florida but still they are going to be in Hollywood before winter comes. My best friend DC and his partner are on a mediterranean cruise. My friend ES is going to be in Minnesota. A colleague drove up to Montreal, another one is going to camping this weekend somewhere with his friends. AC was gonna go to Phuket and Jill is going back to Hong Kong two months from now and perhaps Bangkok. Lately I'm just on the treadmill walking 2 miles a day going forward but in fact going nowhere.

I want to go to Greece being around white houses looking out to the blue skies and blue waters. I wanna get lost in the streets of little european cities. Maybe going back to Hong Kong and get to a cooking class or eating and shopping my heart out. What about Las Vegas or LA, even Provincetown sounds good. I'm tired of being here in the city, I need to be away.

If I go to the gym after work like I'm planning to, I would have gone to the gym 5 times in a row. I think I might be hooked to the endorphins that my body is procuing through exercise. They say endorphins can be as strong as morphine. I can offically tell people that I go to the gym "5 times a week" now, it's quite an accomplishment for myself. Tomorrow I'm going in surgery, and the doctor told me that I might not be able to exercise for the next 2 weeks. Well, we'll see.

Met a guy online and I'm thinking maybe I should start a local Mahjong group so people can meet up and play regularly. There are like 23 people who's interested, but if I want to contact those people I would have to pay like $20 a month to set it up. I don't think it's worth it. Especially I don't have a place to host the game, and I don't really know if those people are for real or not. But if i do sign up I might have a great social life and I do love mahjong. I really have to think hard on this one.

ES asked me to go to Mitsuwa with her next week, so it may count toward my wish to do an outing. Maybe I'll just go to NYC again or Atlantic City to calm my nerve a bit. Why can't I be rich, if I had money, I would have just gone anywhere I like and not even worry about it. (Lottery ticket, lottery ticket...)

Read more...

Little Struggles

I had ice cream today. It totally broke my diet but it was all that motivated me for my gym session today. They open on labor day until 2:00 pm which surprises me. I went to the one near my house for the first time, I was upset to find that they have a vednding machine instead of having water fountains in the gym. That is such a scam and I'm so anti-scams. My work-out routine wasn't as complete as I like it today, I only burned like 315 calories and I didn't do any sit-ups. I was kinda fed-up after walking for 35 minutes on the treadmill, all I can think about it having ice-cream as a treat/reward, so I bought a small cup of Mr. Softie. I've been telling myself the whole time that since ice-cream is mostly cream and I'm aloowed to have diary, I should be able to eat it. Thank god I have the sense to throw half of it away and I didn't think about the starving kids in Africa.

I read a friend's blog and he says that the kinda people who over-indulge in advocating for animal rights or Tierschultz, as he called them, are usually anti-social and fails to relate to other human beings, they prefer the company of animals to humans because animals cannot talk back and they don't have any interest in human rights. I wonder, I do have friends that live solely with animals and do not have the ability to make much friends. It's not like I hate animals or anything, I know that I wouldn't be able to take care of animals, so I know I wouldn't become one of those Tierschultz. It's not like I would advocate for human rights either.

As it's standing, I lost 5 pounds in the past 3 weeks, so it's about a quarter pound a day. If I want to lose 30 more pounds, than I'll have to do what I'm doing right now for the next 4 months. I doubt that I can keep up with my diet, or if I want to for that matter. Life would be so unbearable without carbs. No pizza, no cake, no ice cream, no tempura, no katsu, no curry, no orange soda, no rice... that would be hard. It's a struggle between two things I want; To lose my stomach and to fill it with things I like.

Read more...

The Four-Day Weekend

It's the weekend of Labor Day and I took the coming Tuesday off as well, have myself a four-day weekend.

I promised a friend to find a particular piece of clothing for him earlier, so I went to New York and had myself a walk yesterday. It was raining, but I loved it. It's a different city, a whole different environment. That's why I like traveling so much, I welcome the change of scenery. It relaxes me to see different things. But honestly, I only like the urban environment though, I can't deal with rural or even the suburbs much. I like to walk around on my own too much.

I went to a Japanese buffet restaurant for lunch just because I've been there before and liked it a lot. Although for lunch, it wasn't as good as dinner. I'm still on a diet, so buffet it's pretty much the best way to go. After that I walked out to the Korean district right next to the restaurant and found a lot of different Korean joints and they all look very cute and I'm sure their food is good too. Maybe I should stop sticking with what I know and start experiencing new things next time. It's hard to go to a big city on a diet, there's so many great food I want to have but I just can't.

Afterwards I walk around for clothes and found what I was glad to find what I was looking for. It wasn't until I go through six stores that I found the article. The other big find of the day was a chapter of a comic book series that I'm following right now - "Detecive Conan". The chinese version was prohibited to sale in the US ever since the english version got picked up and published. I was very happy that I managed to find the latest chinese installment from a bookstore. I do like detective comics and novels, and television series like the CSIs, Numb3rs, and such...

In the preface of Detective Conan Vol. 53, writer Aoyama Gosho says during the past 5 months, he has been on a diet and he was really happy that he has lost a total of 11 lbs and his colleague complimented his figure. I thought to myself, "He only lost 11 lbs in 5 months???" Why do I have to be such a snob? I do hope I'll lose more weight than that and I'm happy to say that slowly but surely I am losing weight.

Read more...

End of Round One

So I broke my diet. I did it because of my friend's birthday was yesterday. I had cake and udon and fried rice. Feel guilty really, although in the beginning I said I will stop my diet yesterday, but I did want to keep on going until I lose enough weight. And because all the fruit compote that is left with the birthday party, I made almond french toast this morning for the whole office, originally I thought I would just wrap the fruit in crepe along with whipped cream and nutella, but the supermarket don't sell crepe anymore and I'm too lazy to make it myself, so I did french toast instead. They liked it, the whole stack of 25 was gone in 10 minutes. I still have the udon to get rid of though, I'll give it to somebody for lunch and get a salad myself.

There's no way to know how much weight I have lost during the course of the diet. Since I started with my half-broken scale and ended it with my new scale. But my guess is about 15-20 lbs. That's good, I think. Right now I think I still want to lose 30 more lbs. It's very ambitious of me, but I tired of carrying a belly around. My colleague is ready to officially join the gym and he wants me to do it with him. it will cost me $59 a month if I join for a year and $69 a month if I do a month to month thing, given that I might not have a job soon I may do the month to month thing for now. I remember joining a gym class after high school, that and my summer job keep me in good shape.

I need to start waking up early and walk to work. At least I would save some money, so I don't have to take a cab every day anymore. That would save me enough money to pay for the gym. As for the diet, I would kick start again this week, although I haven't decide whether I should get right back on it or if I should wait until next monday so I can have some stuff that I was missing out on before getting back in my diet.

Read more...

Gym Here, Gym There...

One of my colleagues forced to to go to the gym with him. There's this new gym around the office called Sweat (appropriate but ironic), and they have a free 7-day trial thing that we signed up. One of my best friends gave me a 3-month membership at another gym as a birthday gift before and I did sign up at that gym for two years. I might be enthusiastic at first but after that it gets boring then I avoid going completely.

Actually my problem with the gym is mostly that there are like tons of people there fighting for machines and equipments. And the machines were old, the air conditioning non-existant, no music and no TV. It was like paying a few hundred dollars for a second-grade run down gym.

This new gym is great. Tons of machines, don't have to fight for it. And each and everyone of them has a little personal TV with lots of cable channels. I really like it. I might just sign on for a longer period after the 7 days and really start exercising and hopefully losing more weight.

So me and my colleague went together Monday and Wednesday, just for 30 minutes cardio. It was quite intense, I can't barely move afterwards, that's how bad a physical state I'm in. My thighs still hurt like hell. Interestingly, I discovered that my diet is having a strange effect on me, I get tired nowadays easier. I thoguht I was lack of sleep, but when I eat something I feel a lot better. I guess it makes sense to other people but it's the first time that I feel this way.

Also I sneaked a little bit of bread and rice in my mouth yesterday, chewed and spat it out. That's so sick... But I still want to go on this diet, maybe until the end of September.

Read more...

Lion King and such...

I went to see the Broadway version of Lion King with a friend last night. It was in town for the past two months, but I don't really keep track of this stuff. So when I realize that they are actually in town, it's already the very last week of their stay. I bought two tickets and it costs $169. Actually for the past few days I have been online and try to find the best seats, but all there's left are seats that are either behind a column or those that are far, far away. I called them up and they say if you get tickets two hours before the play at the theaters, they are going to be $25 each. But when I got there the line was so long that i rushed to a ticket center and got the better seat. So me and my friend were like 6 seats apart, but we found seats they are pretty close and not behind anything.

The play was quite nice, I've seen some footage of their creative costumes before, so I was expecting to see really elaborate things and they delivered. I have to say I was touched about how they integrated the aspects of Africa into the show. Of course, everybody knows the storyline of Lion King and we have all heard the songs before but seeing the story being told in a different way is very delightful and they did add a lot of "ethnic" chanting in the play. Since I don't understand the language they use, there's so way for me to know whether it is "African" or not, but I've heard that Disney is pretty good with authenticity. Maybe not quite, Mulan was quite horrid. But the entire feel of the show was quite nice.

When the whole show was over, me and my friend when to eat in a neighborhood restaurant. It was like 10:30 pm and I nearly fell asleep on the table. It wasn't a bad restaurant, but I'm so used to the fast service of Asian restaurants that waiting 5 minutes for the waiter after being seated is quite unreasonable for me and it's not like they were busy. I cannot stand slow service, I'm hungry, I'm here to eat. They didn't even give us bread, not that I can eat it but bread is like a common courtesy thing. The food was ok, a bit on the expensive side, the service lousy but I still gave them more than 15% for tips. They are pretty much the only restuarant who still serves at that hour. And I'm pretty sure I took in quite a few carbs either in the tamarind-glazed ribs or the white mussels with chorizo and corn. It's hard to be on a low carb diet when you dine out.

I really need some sleep. I think I'll go to bed early tonight.

Read more...

The Insulting Scale

The whole thing started with my diet, which I'm still on by the way. I wanted to know exactly how my weight would change during this diet by I don't trust the scale I have. The reason why I don't trust it is because when I go to the doctor, I'm like 20-25 lbs heavier than I measure myself at home, so I wanted to get a new one just so I can have an accurate number to work on.

I was just gonna go to K-Mart or Target to get one, nothing fancy, a $20 scale would do just fine. But my Japanese suggested me to find a "Tanita" scale, she has one at home and those scales can measure your body fat, bone mass, water retaining percentage, how much calories you should be eating per day amongst other stuff. So I looked and got one from ebay for around $100. It took two weeks to get here because the seller uses Paypal's money order function, it took a whole week to clear and another week to get here from New Jersey, which is like an hour from here. I could have picked it up myself from that moron.

The scale looked fancy. It's like a piece of reinforced glass sandwiched by these two piece of stainless steel and a lot of buttons on it. I was afraid to get on the scales and break it. It's weight limit is stated as 330 lbs, so I know I should get on it fine. The scale does tell you a lot of things other than your weight, according to this scale, I'm 8 lbs heavier than the old scale told me. More than a quarter of weight in my body is from fat, ew... And from my body rating, apparently I'm "obese". That was a comment that I didn't expect from an object. Insulting and rude, really. I could have handled "Fat" or even "Chunky", but they word they chose was "Obese". I understand its shock value but it's such an ugly word. I was gonna bang that god-darn scale to the wall if it hasn't cost me $100. I should leave the seller a negative comment on Ebay just for selling that rude product.

Adding insult to injury, my friend saw my my pictures earlier and commented how much skinnier i was before coming to the states. I thought it was true, because that was before I know how to cook. I should really stop cooking and just eat bagged salad everyday until I'm happy with my weight. I feel like Urkesh Davlet.

Read more...

Bean Counting

I went to Maggiano's last Friday after work with my colleagues for happy hour and dinner. I always liked Maggiano's. I know is a chain restaurant and all but the food is pretty good in both quality and quantity. I'm still on my diet, so I avoid anything with carbs. I didn't order any wine/beer/cocktails, I had diet coke. Didn't eat bread, no food with breading or pasta. No dessert, not even my favorite chocolate zuccoto cake and the nice tiramisu that they had. I thought I was being pretty regimental and was pretty proud of myself especially when I weight myself that morning and I've lost six pounds in five days of effort.

I knew it will be trouble dining out, all the sauces involved, if I were I chef I'll probably use flour to make roux for sauces and use sugar to make to tomatoes sweeter. But i still went, because one of my colleagues just got a job in another agency as the executive director and I was happy for her. So I tried to be on my best behavior, but I come to find out yesterday that beans have carbs and I ate quite a bit of them when we were out. My colleagues ensure me that beans were pure protein. I had my doubts, but they did taste very good with the mussels. So I gave in. When I weight myself again yesterday my original six pounds lost has lowered to four pounds. I'm quite disappointed. If I knew that would have happened, I would have gone for the cake.

I'm still sticking for my diet though. I don't know why I'm so obsessed right now. I'll be a lot happier if I can lose 20 pounds and I only have 20 more days to go. Last night I made a huge pot of stir-fries with chicken, cauliflower, celery, shiitake, green onion, ginger and garlic. I also added some oyster sauce, soy sauce and chicken broth for flavoring. I figured since soy sauce and chicken broth do not have any carbs, I could use some oyster sauce sparingly. 5 carbs per tablespoon, I used about 3 tablespoons, but I'm not eating the whole thing all in one day so I wouldn't have exceeded my 20 carbs per day limit. Besides, it wouldn't feel right if I cook shiitake and don't use oyster sauce.

In some way, I think you could say the whole diet thing forces me to be inventive in my cooking, but then I can't shake the feeling that the whole thing is quite pathetic.

Read more...

My Heart's Not in The Fight

I'm supposed to stay here in my company at least for another 19 month, but I can't stand it any longer. My boss does not have any vision, and the other bozo is folding paper planes and distracting everybody else during the meeting. They don't have any visions and directions. They don't have any concepts of what work is, as long as they don't have to do it everything is fine. They credit for other people's work and blame others when they screw up. How can I work here anymore?

As you can tell, I'm having a bad day at work. actually I was having a good day until my boss showed up at 3:30pm. I wish he would have stayed home the whole day. It's not like he does not do that two-thirds of the week anyway. And I am not cranky because of my diet, in that department I'm doing fine. I went out with a friend out to a bar yesterday. All I had was diet coke and a bacon-wrapped shrimp and scallop. I really behaved, I even suprise myself. I'm going to an Italian restaurant that have my favorite tiramisu and an outstanding chocolate zuccoto cake. It's like dying and going to heaven; solid chocolate mousse covered chocolate genoise and cocoa powder on top. I won't be having that though.

The weekend is near, I don't know what I'm doing yet. Maybe going to the mall around me, looking for an iPod attachment for a friend's birthday. The birthday is not gonna be until the end of the month. And I really want to go to the beach, if it's not too hot. It cooled down a lot today. I need some 'R' and 'R'.

Read more...