- Diner Breakfast (poached eggs, sausage, toast, hashbrowns): (630)
Lunch:
- Giant Mixed Salad, light dressing (140)
Dinner:
- 12 spears Steamed Asparagus + light sauce (70)
- 1.5 bowls of homemade Cream of Veggie Soup (370)
Snacks:
- 5 cups Coffee: (25)
- Mixed unsalted nuts (brazil, almond, cashew, walnut) (240)
- Apple Sauce (45)
- 2 slices deli turkey meat (40)
Ye Grande Total: 1560 calories
Spent the weekend in Drayton Valley, visiting Christine’s family. Spent the daytime at their local, volunteer run ski hill. Spent the evening playing The Urbz on XBox with Christine’s brother. It was surprisingly addicting, and also pathetic. There we were, two grown men, playing with what basically boils down to a sophisticated digital doll-house. We had to dress up our voluptuous digital barbie dolls, waltz them around town and work menial jobs to buy yet better clothes to fit into the local goth/skater/model/art/hiphop scene and to buy more stuff for their apartment. The apartment didn’t come with a working toilet, which we learned when my Sim peed herself and made a puddle on the floor. Later this damned puppy shows up and it just kept pissing all over the apartment. We had to chase it around with a mop. Anyways, creepy how sucked into it we got. Also picked up a copy of Burnout III; Takedown (Racing game). We’ll see if that one lives up to the reputation (Penny Arcade listed it in their top ten of 2004).
Had a nice greasy truck-stop style breakfast (YUM) in Drayton this morning, so tried to make up for it with a really awesome soup I made for dinner. Holy crap it was tasty. Cream of Veggies (Cauliflower, Broccoli, Celery, Potatoe, Carrots, Onions, Garlic), spiced with curry and pepper. Orgasmicly good, and low cal except for the bit of evaporated milk to give it the cream taste. Stole this recipie from my parents.
Saw the dentist today….turns out I didn’t have a cavity afterall. It was just a fleck of pepper wedged into a groove in the top of my tooth. Haha. Oh well, I was due for a check-up anyhow.
Currently Listening to: Remix Dystemper by Skinny Puppy
- Banana Blueberry Smoothie w/ Soy Protein: (340)
Lunch:
- Chicken Curry w Mangoe Chutney, 1/2 cup of rice (375)
- Pint of Stella Artois (200)
Dinner:
- Subway turkey wrap: (220)
- Giant salad w nut mix, 1 tbs greek dressing: (280)
Snacks:
- 4 cups Coffee w Cream: (60)
- Fruit Leather (50)
- Granola Bar (160)
Ye Grande Total: 1685 calories
Ahh, work today was fun, not just because of the fine pint of Stella at lunch time. The debate raging in the office today was blink vs throb, and bright yellow vs something more subtle. The issue? We need a more obvious way to highlight the current player at the poker table. We currently just switch the rectangular ‘seat’ graphic with a dark green one that has a whiteish border. It’s not terribly obvious unless you look for it. I’m making the push for maintaining subtlety, but having it animate as a slowly throbbing seat that throbs brighter like an Apple PowerBook’s throbber in sleep mode. Some of the office-mates really think a violent blinking is the way to go. Next thing they’re gonna want to use BLINK tags on our website. . Then Scott introduced a violently yellow seat graphic for the highlighted seat. Hating it instantly, I did my best to hurt his feelings as much as possible. Unfortunately, this had little effect. What made things worse was Terry becoming enraptured by the yellow seat. Caught like a deer in headlights, Terry spent the large part of 10 minutes exclaiming how wonderful it was, as if he had finally attained nirvana. This did not help my case.
We can only hold our breath and hope that throbbing, the one true way ™ will prevail.
Yay the penis spam people have found my comments!
1750 cals today
Breakfast:
2 Sherm’s MegaMuffins (150 calories each),
a Nectarine (70)
Lunch:
Leftover Yams & Kale (260)
150g 1%mf Cottage Cheese (128)
30 grape tomatoes (80)
Almond Raisin Granola Bar (144)
Dinner:
1 Sherm’s MegaMuffin (150)
3 small purple potatoes, steamed (290)
12 brussels sprouts, steamed (100)
melted cheddar (140)
100g low fat turkey (62)
3 cups Mixed salad (125)
1 tbs Greek style dressing (66)
14 g Salad nut sprinkle (pumpkin, almond, sunflower seeds) (80)
——————————–
Ye Grande Total: 1995 cals
With the knowledge that about 4 or 5 people occasionally read my blog, I’m feeling IMMENSE pressure to post more often. Even if I have next to nothing to talk about. Thing is, I probably have plenty to talk about, but for some reason I can’t imagine why it would ever be exciting enough for anyone to read, most of the time, and so I just don’t write anything at all. I know this drives my dad crazy (hi papa), because he is very vocal about wanting to know what the hell is going on in my life, but getting information out of me is near impossible, especially at long distance.
Yesterday, however, was a very fun day indeed. I took the day off work to attend Aubrey de Grey’s talk at the UofA, on the forseeability if real anti-aging medicine. About 160 people showed up, which was far more than expected. Afterwards, Christine and I had lunch with April and Michael, two CRON folks. I went into uber-sponge mode for the brief visit, soaking up as much knowledge from them as I could. Both of them were completely delightful people.
A lot more cals than usual today, but I got my fat% down and protein% up, so that was good. I’m now at 177 lbs (184 lbs 3 weeks ago). Dropping a little faster than I wanted to, but not at an unhealthy rate.
Those MegaMuffins listed above are the bomb. They are delicious, with no sugar or oils in the recipie. Amazingly nutritious and filling. The only downside is that they are incredibly hard work to make (a huge list of ingredients and lots of mashing and grinding and preparing). Christine surprised the crap out of me by spending all afternoon while I was at work, making them for a Valentine’s day present. What a sweet surprise 🙂
Okay, obviously this diet experiment of mine is occupying a lot of my attention span at the moment. What else can I yap about? Hmmmm. Naw, talking about video games is boring. I’d talk about work, but I don’t want to get mired in the ethics of blogging about one’s workplace. Don’t want to spill the beans on what we’re working on either.
Oh yeah. Was flossing my teeth last night before bed and found MY FIRST EVER CAVITY since my baby teeth, in my back left molar. Right in the top center. I can’t believe it. I brush all the time, gargle listerene, and barely eat any sweets. WTF? Stupid teeth. Seeing the dentist on Monday.
Currently reading: War in Heaven by David Zindell. Book four of a Science Fiction series.
Currently reading Beyond the 120 Year Diet by Roy Walford. It is too bad it is named and presented as a diet book because it really is not, nor does it deserve to be lumped in with all the other diet and fad-diet books. This book is based on hard science, and presents a large body of research that shows that caloric restriction with optimal nutrition works (in mice, chimpanzees, and human experiments). Along the way, it stresses critical thinking, rallies against the blight of fad-diets based on pseudo-science, and encourages readers to form their own rational options based on the experimental results. It also stresses how little we really know about nutrition, digestion, and aging, and that education and research should be ongoing.
Perhaps the biggest thing it really got me to see differently is how eating crappy food, and excessive calories is FAR WORSE than smoking as far as its impact on your health, lifespan, risk of diseases, and cancer. For instance, eating processed foods brings a far higher risk of cancer than smoking does. Now I’m either going to have to stop giving smokers a hard time, or give just about everyone a hard time, just to be fair.
Of course, trying to get people to accept that or care enough to eat better is a lost cause. Which brings interesting political dillemas. In my country, where we have publicly funded, universal healthcare, how can we allow (and afford!) people to continue destroying themselves as they do? Costs are skyrocketing. We already tax the crap out of ciggarettes, which helps play the bills for those same smokers down the road. What about food? Should crappy nutrient-free processed and refined foods be taxed? Or should healthy quality food be subsidized? Should we just carry on as usual, until so many people are sick, we can no longer afford to help them all?
Been working furiously on a redesign on the mprize.org website. I hope it goes over well with the methuselah mouse folks, cuz it’s been taking a long time fustzing with stupid CSS and the inconsitencies between all the major web browsers. Uhg.
It’s been a little over two weeks for the CRON diet. I’ve shed 4 pounds, which seems a nice healthy rate. Breakfast today was an egg scrambled with diced tomatoes, onions, and a little cheddar. Lunch has been a half cup of grape tomatoes, an orange, and a half a cup of fresh pineapple. Dinner is stewing in the crock-pot. A mix of veggies, lentils, barley, and kidney beans, and an indian style curry seasoning.
Chilling out today listening to Aphex Twin: 26 Mixes for Cash.
Had a full weekend — my dad was in town for a funeral thingy, and so got to hang out with him since Thursday. I’ve managed to stick to my crazy new CRON diet for over a week, and still going strong. I’ve been eating about 1500 calories a day on average (assuming I’m counting correctly!). So far, it’s been pretty easy except when eating out and large portions of delicious calorie laden food are placed in front of me.
We’ve been VERY busy at work as well…but I can’t talk about it yet, as it’s top secret.
Three days into my new diet and I already feel more energetic than usualy, although it’s likely placebo. Making a lifestyle change like this is often accompanied with a rush of motivation. Got a tasty smelling bison-yam-lentil-garlic-broccoli stew brewing in the crock pot. Started it a bit late, so I won’t get to dinner until later, but it smells so good it will be worth the wait. Seasoned with turmeric, paprika, and parsley. Stick that in your crock and smoke it, Betty Crocker.
I’ve kept under 1700 calories per day for three days going now, and honestly haven’t felt as hungry as I thought I would. I think the hardest part is just not eating big heavy meals when I am eating out (which I do quite frequently, as a social thing). It can be tricky to convince people I am on a strict diet now, since I am notoriously dubbed ‘hollow leg’ by some, and at 184 lbs, 6’0″, I don’t need to lose any weight; although it would be nice to shift 10lbs from my belly to my muscles 🙂
All last week I’d been tearing my hair out at work (where I am lead developer for Poker Academy) trying to figure out a bug some users were reporting in the latest version. None of us could figure out why it was crashing for these customers, and we couldn’t reproduce the problems at all on our work machines, or even at home. Let me tell you, a bug you can’t even observer or reproduce first hand is damned tough to debug. Even if you think you’ve found the problem, you can’t verify if it is fixed or not, until the user who was having the problem verifies it for you. It’s like doing open heart surgery blind-folded. Well we finally found ‘the bug’ today and let me tell you that was a relief. I just hope it’s the only one.
Can you smell that? It’s the fresh smell of new blogging software. No longer using blogger.com, but instead using the locally hosted nucleus package. Now I need to make it not look so…..defaulty.
Mmmmm, can you smell that? That is the sweet smell of debt, my friends.
