Skip to content

Posts tagged ‘jointhereboot.com’

Jun 13

215

June 13th: First Workout since May 26th

215 is the # of calories I burned during my 63-minute workout this morning. I think I can burn more calories just blinking furiously. Or updating the blog. Or thinking through a really difficult problem.

Oh well. I did work out at least. It is better than not working out and complaining about how I can’t workout.

Unlike other workouts, this time Christina watched me walk on the treadmill for 15 minutes. Shen then watched me unsuccessfully pedal on the elliptical (this machine used to be touchstone… we made many good memories, going up to levels 16 and 17…now I failed at level 5 within 3 minutes). We did recumbent bike for 10 minutes at low rpm and level. We then did a light upper body workout: Over the ball plank, adduction, machine rowing, inner and outer leg extensions, some pulling, etc. Like I said, it was light and unexciting but it still constituted ‘movement.’

Anyway, my house is full of vegetables and fruits. In fact, it is overflowing. Juicing side effect, I suppose. And bad planning on my part. Since we no longer have a commercial fridge (I had to leave it in our other house due to its size… Now our renters have a fucking amazing commercial size fridge… Pisses me off… Anyway, I digress.), we are having issues finding room for stuff.

It started with a Costco run yesterday morning. We bought $232 worth of vegetables and fruits. That kind of money may buy you two grocery bag full of air and mung beans at the stupid farmer’s market and you might even score a condescending remark or two but at Costco, it buys a lot of stuff… Spinach in a 1 million pound bag (i think it was only 5 or 10 lbs actually), 10 lbs of celery, 10 lbs of carrots, 20 lemons, 20+ limes, 10 apples, 10 pears, 10 tomatoes, many bananas, 6 English cucumbers, portobello mushrooms, two giant bags of almonds, 6 of the 35-oz Fage nonfat yogurt containers, strawberries, pineapple, massive watermelon, lots of bok choy (not sure what we will do with all of that) and more… Then we went to the Ballard farmer’s market.

I really don’t know why I go to farmer’s market. Every time I go, I walk away disappointed, disgusted and angry. It is not cheap. There are barely any farmers anymore (it is all lotions, potions, cheese, meat, flowers, crappy jewelry, tea and soaps). And I question the local nature of the produce but my #1 problem: Lack of variety. There is nothing remotely diverse or interesting. It is the same week after week…. Same shit you find at the hip grocery stores or at laughably expensive ones like Whole Foods, but only more expensive. And with a slap in the face: inconsistent quality. At least, when I pay $5 per lb of organic fucking cherries at Whole Foods, I know it will be decent quality. Anyway, despite all of this, I ended up buying some vegetables and fruits that I couldn’t find at Costco (Kale, radishes, beets, cherries). We then stopped by Whole Foods to get the remainder of what I needed: Jalapenos, acorn squash, parsley and planks for the grill.

What I completely didn’t factor in was that this was the first week of our CSA (community supported agriculture) delivery. In case you don’t know, CSA is a way for local farmers to distribute their crop to local residences directly by charging an annual fee ($400-$700). Farmers deliver a box of vegetables, fruits, herbs and flowers – whatever comes off the land- every week, June through October. What’s in the box is a crap shoot generally and usually the consumer (We) ends up looking in cookbook to figure out what is what. The farmers include a list but if you don’t know what mizuna or sorrel (not the mushroom) or red giant mustards look like, then you gotta look it up!

Anyway, we had some guests for dinner so that should help with the consumption of food but still. The fridge is full.

I am out of containers to store juice in. Plus, I am not sure how long they last so I don’t want to do too much and watch them go bad.

By the way, I am realizing the juicing is skewing my nutrition balance. I see less protein and more carbs in my diet. That could prove to be a problem but I like the flush the juices give me. Not sure what it means but it is something different and I will try it out for a while to see how I feel about it long term.

Jun 11

WASLA_Madrona_Creek_Bridge_big

June 11th: A Nice (Short but Pleasant) Walk

My friend Shama and I took Beyaz for a nice and pleasant walk this morning. We were chatting about the weather at some point and I realized I was wearing what I used to wear for morning walks with doggie back in February and March time frame (a T-shirt, a sweater and a light jacket). And it is June 11th, for God’s sake.

Anyway, we walked through (the neighborhoods as opposed to main drags) Denny Blaine to Madison Park and took Mc Gilvra and Lake Washington Blvd back – a 3.6 mile route, with a generous break at the Madison Park Starbucks after the first 2 miles so I can rest my back. So many doggies out today.

We started our walk around 8AM and despite the fact that it wasn’t that early, it was eerily quiet everywhere.

The semi-juicing efforts yesterday went well. I ended up having my usual breakfast (20/20 high protein vanilla shake with almonds and half cup of berries). For mid-morning snack, I had 8 oz of the juice I had made in the morning (a blend of kale, spinach, celery, apples, ginger and lemon). For lunch, I had 16 oz of the juice. Although I hadn’t planned on it, I skipped the afternoon snack since I was not hungry. For dinner, Rich grilled some halibut and Copper River King Salmon, on cedar planks… Oh my God. The Copper River salmon is already amazing but put it on a plank and grill it to perfection (barely more than really rare) and it is just superawesomemindblowingalmostbetterthansexamazing. It was by far the best salmon I’ve ever had. No argument. Halibut was not bad either but it paled in comparison. Halibut, being a tasteless fish that takes on the flavors of what you cook it with, sucked the plank flavor to a fault but I still enjoyed it. Rich served all this with grilled asparagus andgrilled prawn appetizers… So good. All in all, it was a low calorie day (less than 1,300) but certainly didn’t feel that way. The food was just so damn satisfying.

After my walk this morning, I juiced some more… This time around, I juiced some kale (4-5 leaves), celery (6 medium stalks), carrots (6 small), apples (2 large), strawberries (a cup), tomato (one half), red bell pepper (one half), lemon (1), lime (one half)… 202 calories of goodness. It looked somewhat funny but it sure tasted good. (see image to the left).

This being the weekend, I am somewhat concerned with the fact that I am not getting as much protein as I usually get (protein and/or fat keeps me satiated hence less hungry longer than a bout of sugar). I usually am hungrier over the weekends since it is not as busy as I normally would be during the week with work keeping my mind off of food.

Anyway, while the juices prove to be a challenging adjustment (they offer practically no protein), I really appreciate the dose of vitamins or nutrients they provide. The juice I made today has copious amounts of Vitamin A, C and other nutrients. Here is what the nutritional information looks like:

Jun 10

juicing1

June 10th: A New Fad or A Decent Supplemental Effort?

I had another good day of food intake on Thursday. 3 days in a row now. Suffice to say that I am through the rough patch.

I am going to try something new going forward. I am going to supplement my food intake with juice. Before you panic, let me explain what it is and how I came to decide to go this way.

Juicing is the activity of juicing vegetables and fruits in a healthy manner. It is NOT drinking Welch’s or some other abomination brand’s overly sugary drinks and going into a sugar comma.

I got the inspiration from a little movie called Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead (available on DVD). The move is about Joe, a 100-lb overweight guy who has a rare skin condition. Joe tries juicing for 60 days driving across America and in the process loses the weight and the necessity to take heavy drugs he had to take to treat his condition. He also runs into Phil, a 200+ pound overweight  guy (at a whopping 428 lbs), who has a change of life following Joe’s footsteps. This is a very inspiring movie about people’s determination to get healthy. How they get there is juicing. The part I found inspirational though was the human element and the power of willingness/desire to change and NOT the juicing. I don’t think juicing is for everyone (definitely not for me) but I think with some consideration, it can improve my diet (diet as in overall food intake, not as in dieting).

I did a little bit of research on the subject and my findings tells me that a completely protein free diet is a challenging and at times dangerous proposition. So, instead of following juicing religiously, I am going to pursue a hybrid method.

There is a website called Reboot Your Life (www.jointhereboot.com) that really provides a comprehensive approach to juicing. I really enjoyed it.

So, yesterday, I bought a juicer. It turns out juicer are expensive by the way. The one I ended up buying is one of the best regarded among juicing appliances. Who knew there was a ranking of juicers???

Anyway, I even made my first batch of juice this morning. A bunch of kale, 2 cups of spinach, half of a cucumber, half of a lemon, 1 inch ginger, 2 green apples and 4 stalks of celery. It doesn’t taste half bad. Rich thought it felt like he was drinking the garden.

I’ve accepted that I will not discontinue proteins from my diet but I will be more selective and resort to fish and chicken and soy protein more. Given that, here is how I intend to incorporate this into my diet is as follows:

  • Replace lunches with juices that are 250-400 calories, but loaded with micronutrients
  • Supplement my yogurt snacks with small amount of juice (rather than have it with berries)
  • (Eventually) replace vegetable and fruit portions of my dinner with juice while keeping protein intact

Today is the first day I am planning to replace lunch with juice. I will keep you posted on how it goes. My research showed that transition to juicing is a very difficult one for many: The body goes through withdrawals and toxin release for the first 3-4 days, making the person feel like shit. Tired, cranky, hungry and miserable. I know a thing or two about that. Since I am not doing it 100%, I should be tired, cranky, hungry and miserable for a significantly shorter amount of time.

Over time, I’d like to get to a point where I can do juicing to the T, for a few weeks at a time to realign my body, rid it off of toxins and just cleanse.

Is this a fad? Probably. A new beginning? Maybe. I don’t intend to become a permanent juicer (I can see on the reboot your life website that some users are on it for 40-60 days at a time) but I do intend to be able to take a few weeks every other month to reboot my body. If nothing else, that is what I’d like to get out of this initiative.