The Truth About Dieting
...It's
freakin' hard.
Cursed by the fat gene, each meal for me is a painful struggle over that sweet joy of fat melting on my tongue or the parched deserted wasteland of a tasteless calorie-less fat-less affair. Why oh why couldn't I be blessed with the skinny gene?
Why must my happiness be dictated by food?
What is it about a bloody rare piece of marbled USDA Prime that makes my knees tremble and a smile of glee form on my face?
And it's not just the type of food too. It's the quantity. Cold tofu for lunch is healthy, but 20 pounds of it in a week doesn't really do me much good.
Someone asked me the other day, "what's your secret?" Honestly, I really don't know. But I do know that there is no "magic bullet". I didn't just wake up one day and bam -- fifty pounds gone.
Nope, it took
years of a steady increase in weight, and relentless nagging by your closest friends and family. It was the embarrasing snoring problem that kept getting louder and louder. It was the frustrating pain of a more frequent and increasingly acute gout condition, hobbling my ability to walk for weeks at a time. It was my father's diagnosis of adult onset diabetes. It was the automatic self-deprecation every time I saw myself in a photo. It was hearing of an old coworker's sudden death by massive heart attack (sitting at a traffic light!) at only thirty something years old. It was the constant worrying that I was
not healthy, and definitely
not happy. And so I made that commitment to myself, quietly: No more Doritos. No more chocolate. No more breads. No more beef (err...not as much beef). Shop right, buy the right foods in the first place. Hit the gym.
...Commit to the lifestyle changes.
And so after a now six month hiatus (damnit!) I'm faced with those daily (same) battles once again. The constant struggle to quit procrastinating and force my lazy ass into the gym. The never ending fight against the desire to eat "just one more piece", "just one more bite". And that's how it all started in the first place. All those little decisions you make all add up, and pretty soon you find yourself with a six inch bigger waist.
You want to know what the secret is? Someone has to kick your ass. And it's not going to be your family or your friends, it has to be YOU.
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Filipino Foods
My cousin sent me this interesting
article on Filipino food. It's a worthwhile 10 minute read.
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Goal #13: Build A Race Car
Let's see how far this (mis)adventure goes. Follow the story
here.
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You Don't Have To Be Rich.
During our outing to the fancy shmancy Westfield San Francisco on Sunday, I was reminded of an old Prince song... Sure, you don't have to be rich to be my girl, but wouldn't it be loads of fun?
That world of the ultra rich is just so foreign to me. Especially looking at the price tag of a simple cotton/polyester zip up hoodie at (teenagers really buy this stuff?):
Riiiiiiight.
Or that
Omega watch that James Bond wearsDoes the two grand buy you the debonaire looks and Walther PPK pistol too? The best part was after a failed search for the Hamilton watches at that Tourneau store, the attendant politely put us in our place: "Oh, we carry that in our
back store. Go to Watch Gear, right next door." Nevermind that my cherised Christmas present cost someone quite a pretty penny.
Right.
Or how about that nine dollar bag of Cocoa Bella chocolates (that's FOUR pieces of chocolate for those keeping score at home):
And the chocolates weren't all that great.
All complaints aside, it was kinda fun playing rich and famous on a relaxing Sunday afternoon.
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4 In The Morning
Man, I'm really digging
this song right now.
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DA BOMB
I've been locked away in my dark room working all morning. My only entertainment is wasting time in conversations over IM. In one of these fascinating exchanges of useless information, I started to rant off a bunch of -isms (not sure what to call 'em?) and thought I could probably make a list:
- Rad
- Hip
- Pimp
- Phat
- Fresh
- Off the hook
- Off the chains
- Awesome
- Dope
- Da Bomb
- Sick
- Neato
- Cool
- Bad ass
The thing is, I know there's got to be a lot more out there that I'm missing. But I can't think of 'em right now.
Suggestions? Anyone? Bueller?
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The Power Of White Sauce
I've always been a sucker for fat. Packaged in little rectangular boxes of yellow sweetness that melts into a hot pan for shrimp scampi, or sitting in between the crunchy skin and dry meat of lechon kawali, the stuff just makes me go crazy. So standing in line at the cafeteria for my boringly usual routine of a Chicken Caesar salad (with extra anchovies, please) my attention was diverted by that fantastic sound of fat sizzling on hot pans over open flames. Or maybe it was those 3 young attractive women standing in front of the food stand? Whatever the case, I couldn't help but investigate the commotion...two chefs banging steel pans against the heavy wrought iron stove top grates, yellow flames erupting 2 feet into the air as the grease spilled onto the stove. "Pasta Bar," the sign read. "Choose your pasta, protein, and sauce". Hmmmmm... I better get in on the action before it got too popular. Penne or bowtie pasta?
Bowtie, definitely. Chicken, sausage or veggies?
Chicken. No, wait...sausage sounds SOOOOOO good. Sausage it is. Sauce: white or red?
That white sauce must have cream. And you KNOW where you'll end up, you dumbass lactose intolerant asian. Stop fooling yourself that you can eat more dairy, I don't care if you could eat little scoops of ice cream without the magic pill, your late thirties tummy won't be able to handle a full on dish of cream sauce. And aren't you supposed to be on a diet? "White sauce, please"
The worst part is that I told myself long ago to not waste my calorie allowance on mediocre meals and bland food. Oh, temptation...when will I ever learn?
And so not more than two hours later did my body pay the price.
What blows me away was the dude in the stall next to me was talking on the phone!!! Naaaasty!
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Hold your wee for a wii
It's really a sad state of affairs when
someone dies trying to win a game console for her kids.
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Farewell My Sweet
Nine Thousand Revolutions Per Minute. That's how fast the forged crankshaft spun around its tiny little bearings in the motor when that red band reached the far right of the digital tach. At those speeds, the pistons in that tiny Honda moved faster than the slugs in a Formula 1 race motor. And to this day, that banshee wail of an unmuffled intake tract reverberating off the walls of a canyon road in the hills above San Joaquin Valley still sends shivers down my spine. BwwaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!
I still love that amazing precision of the rifle-bolt-action shift mechanism (once the oil got warm) ... So buttery smooth and snickety snick snick short even when toddling around town at a Civic-like pace.
And the tail-out, full lock-counter-steer shenanigans of the last few weeks knowing that the end was near.
Yes, I will miss thee, oh gold-digging topless black mistress. It was fun while it lasted. I hope (pray?) that your new (inexperienced) 18-something-year-old owner takes care of you well.
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Bliss...
...thy name is Stewed Beef and Tendon Noodle Soup.
Queen's House in Mountain View officially has the Soup that I've craved for ever since Beijing. Big huge tender chunks of fatty beef, rich & dark broth, and thick & chewy hand made noodles. Yummy. Next time I'm bringing the camera. And 3 friends so that I can order a whole lot of the other Taiwanese food.
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Post # Three Hundred
Hm... A new year.
Seeing as how
my year isn't coming for another six weeks or so (Year of The Boar, woo hoo!!), I thought I'd mark blogger post #300 with a commemorative list for 2007.
List Of "Top Twenty Or So Things That I Really Should Do About Myself In 2007 Because Heck, It's 2007 And One Can Never Have Enough Lists Of Things To Do" List- Stop writing so many lists
- Eat more sugar (because sugar is good, and you can never get enough!)
- Drink more Scotch (because Scotch is good, and you can never get enough!)
- Say "I am a size 32 waist" without actually lying through my fat teeth
- Take less pictures - I have now hit 7,237 photos. SEVEN THOUSAND PHOTOS. I ask you...how the @#$(*! am I going to find enough time to see 100 pictures, let alone sevnen thousand?
- Drive 150mph. Not sure if there's a track where I can do this, but the thought of it gives me the willie nillies. That's over twice the speed limit on the 5.
- Ride a bike.
- Ride a snowboard.
- Ride a .... oh wait, I already did that.
- Order a Five by Five at In-N-Out. Because you can.
- Be nicer to nice people
- Be meaner to mean people
- Use the bathroom in at least 5 continents. I'm almost there
- Listen to an F1 race for 20 seconds with no hearing protection
- Go to the park and learn how to properly throw a 10 yard fade route on a three step drop. I tell ya...One day this will come in handy, and you'll kick yourself for not knowing how.
- Do a big fat smoking burnout. ...Cuz burnouts are hella cool.
- Learn CPR
- Spend more - oops I mean "less"... LESS!
- Work less
- Love [food/chocolate/people/life/cars/music] more
- Live life to its fullest. Because stupid is forever but forever can stop at any time (saw this in an e-mail the other day)
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