Make it EASY For Me

I want it to be easy. Everyone wants it to be easy.

For the last few weeks, I've fallen back on easy - I've been eating more microwave meals, fast food, and creamsicles, which is odd since I've barely ever bought icecream to keep at home, but I guess the heat got to me. I experienced a power outage, about 9 hours, and if I'd followed the recommendations of the FDA's website, I'd have discarded everything in my refrigerator/freezer, which held a significant (for me) amount of meat, eggs, and dairy - a good two weeks' worth. So while I considered the contradicting testimonies on the forums populated by regular folk (if it doesn't smell bad, eat it), I dined on meals from Taco Bell and Wendy's. The weather forecasts have been full of warnings and watches about possible storms, which could lead to more power outages, and my logic told me that the preservatives in microwave meals would leave them much less likely to spoil during an outage.

So I gained a couple of pounds. I'm still 10 pounds ahead (that is, lighter than when I started), but the scale can sure bring a person down.

In the meantime, I found out about this book, Wheat Belly.

The public library has a few copies, but they're all checked out, and when I requested it, there were 24 requests ahead of mine. So I bought it.

It's not really a difficult read, and it's not actually as repetitive as other weight-loss books I've read. I'm glad I bought it, though, because everything didn't sink in on the first read, so I'll need to reference it, at least until I get myself wheat-free.

Sometimes, especially in the weight-loss area, things are too good to be true. But Dr. Davis has me believing, if he hasn't completely won me over, because in looking back at what I was eating in the first 12 weeks since I decided to eat "healthier," a whole lot of what I'd reduced in my diet was wheat. I did not plan this.

I'd been grossed out at the thought of eating breads after reading about a dough conditioner, L-cysteine; depending on who you believe, the majority of the world's supply of L-cysteine may or may not be derived from human hair, as some sources claim it's usually created with duck feathers. Mom used to say that if you thought about where everything came from, you'd starve to death, but something about L-cysteine really turned me against most breads, and I'd even toyed with the idea of baking my own. But it's summer, and baking would make the house too hot, so I'd shopped for breadmakers yet wasn't satisfied with enough of the reviews to actually purchase a cheap one. I had just mostly quit bread, although I occasionally bought a store-baked loaf that didn't list the dreaded ingredient on its label.

I had also greatly reduced my pasta intake by decreasing my reliance on microwave meals. Those things really are mostly pasta, but until reading Dr. Davis' book, I hadn't realized that even without the pasta, one of the many additives in processed food is wheat. Wheat is pervasive. It is in canned creamy soups. It is added to a variety of products to add fiber, or fortify it with "whole grains."

I'm still not clear on a lot of this stuff. While reading the book, I was reminded of the Atkins (aka FATkins) Diet, and while I know there are differences, I don't have those down yet. I found a comparison here: http://diet.pikimal.com/vs/atkins-diet/wheat-belly-diet#side-by-side-comparison
I'm having a particularly tough time with the gluten-free versus wheat-free aspects.

One thing I've learned is that Budweiser beer is wheat-free. http://www.wheat-free.org/is-budweiser-beer-wheat-free.html Apparently, Budweiser briefly offered a wheat beer, but decided that such a "craft" beer wasn't in line with their marketing of their products as fun (http://adage.com/article/news/bud-light-killed-golden-wheat-created-platinum-lime-a-rita/234582/) Beer is an important food group for me.

It really can't hurt to try it, can it? I know Atkins was criticized when its creator suffered a heart attack, but really, he was 72 years old.

Now, I must shop for nuts.

Summer...It Turns Me Upside Down

Summer, summer, summer... it's like a merry-go-round.

The video for this classic Cars tune can be found here: http://youtu.be/-hHTpoqYsaE

Ric Ocasek has never had to worry about having a fatass.

Summer has really messed with my plans. Temperatures in the 100's in June is some crazy shit. My part of the country is typically hot and unbearably humid in July and August, but not normally in June. Maybe it's indicative of a climate shift, where autumn might start in August; I can only hope, because I don't believe I can afford the utility bills with the a/c cranked up like this.

I cooked bean soup a couple of weeks ago, and having the range on for several hours heated up half my tiny little house to the point I was dripping with sweat well into the evening hours. So, for the most part, I haven't been cooking anything that can't be cooked in the microwave. On the fourth of July, I had hoped my kindly neighbors would come over and invite me to their cookout -- but just for the food part, because I sure as hell didn't want to sit outside for any length of time. I guess it was Memorial Day when I had something cooking and one of the kids from next door knocked and asked if I wanted to "come over and fix a plate," since they had a lot of leftovers. I hoped for that situation to repeat itself on the Fourth. I planned on it. However, I ultimately spent the afternoon with a couple visiting their daughter at her newly acquired condo, and on the return trip, a stop was made at the Rally's next to a gas station. If I haven't sworn it enough, let me swear it again: if there is such a thing as the Devil, fast food is Satan incarnate. I said I didn't want anything, because if I'm going to eat fast food, it's gonna be Taco Hell. But there I was, handed a box containing bacon cheddar fries. It was a huge mound of french fries, topped with melted cheese and a ton of bacon bits. Yes, I ate it all, and it was delicious, but a bit too salty for my tastes. But seriously, deep-fried potatoes (I've been mostly avoiding potatoes) covered with Rachel Ray's lover and bacon. They should just call it "express lane to the fatass." I think these fries are supposed to be a side item, as in, you're supposed to add a bacon cheeseburger or fried chicken and a shake and make a meal out of this. My arteries harden further just thinking about it. A Rally's meal probably has the US Recommended Daily Allowance of fat and calories of 25,000%.

The sad thing is, I completely understand if people eat more fast food in the summer, because it's too hot to cook. I went to Kroger, and they had a container of romaine lettuce on manager special for $1.54 (regular price: $2.99). I bought it, knowing I'd have to use it up within a couple of days, so I made bigass salads. They weren't healthy salads. I threw in grape tomatoes, hard boiled egg, some carrots, and some bottled spicy ranch dressing (the ingredients of which I refuse to think about for a second). Remember, I'm not trying to diet, I'm trying to eat healthier than I was before.

I've also been eating a lot of fruit, because it doesn't need cooking, of course. Fruit has a lot of sugar, so for the past couple months I thought if I ate vegetables I could avoid fruit. However, I've had some foot and leg cramps, so I bought a bunch of bananas for the potassium. I've also been eating some pink grapefruit in the morning because it's too hot to drink coffee and the grapefruit makes up for the lack of coffee. When you're eating bananas, you have to counteract it with something so you can take a morning constitutional.

I think tomorrow will be a tuna salad day. I am so off-track. Summer, summer, summer....

Who's your (fat)daddy?

Yahoo's home page today included a story from Canadian news organization CTV. 


Obese dad plans hunger strike after kids ordered adopted | CTV News

I can't figure out how to embed the video that accompanies this story, so here's a still. The video isn't really useful, anyway, since the law in Ottawa prohibits his identity from being revealed, I suppose because it would result in effectively revealing the identity of his children. Eh, all the video really shows is the guy from this angle talking to a reporter, and some clips of him with his face pixellated out moving down some stairs and using some exercise equipment.

So the story goes something like this: fat guy previously weighed over 500 pounds; he has lost over 100 pounds recently and is down to 360. He has two sons, aged 5 and 6, who lived with their mother (his ex-wife) until a year ago, when the mother was hospitalized for a mental breakdown and suspected drug overdose.  The boys were placed in foster care, pending an investigation regarding their return to a parent's custody. An agency that is responsible for such things evaluated fatman to assess his fitness as a parent, and concluded that the children should not be placed with him. As a result, a judge ruled earlier this week that the boys should be placed for adoption.


The story purports that their decision was based on his weight. The CTV article cites a report from the evaluating clinic that states that the father's history of struggling with obesity would impact his ability to keep up with the children. Apparently, no one on the government's side was allowed to discuss the case. For his part, fatman claims his weight was one of the reasons he was denied custody; he apparently has had some brushes with the law, but claims he has taken anger management classes and given up marijuana, so those things shouldn't be a problem now.

In the interview, the guy says that he is a stress-eater. However, he planned a hunger strike to protest the ruling.

I read some of the "related stories," and it sounds like this man, at least at one point during the evaluation process, could barely walk a few steps without huffing and puffing. His breasts appear to be about a C cup, even now, but maybe he doesn't lose weight in his bust first as many women do.

The big question is, can a person be too fat to parent? Additionally, how fat is too fat? Is obesity an issue because it impairs the parent physically, or because it represents the parent's inability to keep themselves healthy and thus presumes they will inflict their dietary and exercise shortfalls on the children?

One thing that struck me was if this guy can barely get around, he surely can't be out there committing too many crimes, and if he was, he could reasonably be expected to be apprehended by the law without much difficulty.

And that makes me wonder if the guy has a job.

I don't know how Canadian law is, but there are certainly people in the U.S. who get a government check for their obesity disability. I know, because my neighbor's daughter's boyfriend does. I wondered the other day if I should look into this, because I am one of those fatasses that leans on their cart while shopping. I did this the other day when I went to Meijer for some shit, and I leaned on that buggy all the way back out to the parking lot until I loaded my stuff into the car and then scanned the receipt because the total seemed higher than I thought it should be. And damn, if they hadn't charged me $48.80 plus tax for my carton of Marlboro "Special Blends." I've been smoking the SB's for several months now, since a cashier at Circle K told me they were $8-$10 cheaper than the non-SB's. So I marched my ass, sans cart, back into the store with the cigs and the receipt, and maybe it was the 95-degree heat and humidity, maybe it was my fatass, maybe it was both, but I was sweating and breathless by the time I got to the service desk. Oh, maybe my cig-damaged lungs played a part, too. Anyhow, I told the young woman at the desk this HAD TO BE WRONG, since just 9 days before I'd paid $30.98 plus tax for these at Circle K, and I showed her the Circle K receipt. She scanned the fucking carton and said, "yes, that is the correct price," and I said, "duh, that's what scans, but it has to be wrong." She told me they didn't refund cigarettes, so I asked for the store manager. He looked at my receipt, checked the time, said, "go ahead and give her the refund." And then I had to stop at Circle K for cigs, a trip a couple miles out of the way that I'd wanted to avoid, to get cigs. They were $32.85 including tax. It was worth it to save almost $19.

Boss- da plan! da plan!

I have bitched here before about microwave meals. I guess one can never bitch too much about them, so I might as well bitch some more.

Most microwave meals, whether "diet/low-fat" or not, are either pasta or rice based. I am not lying. The rest of them are things like meatloaf or salisbury steak, and those often taste like what I imagine dog food tastes like. And even the salisbury steak meals usually have a side of macaroni and cheese with them. For years, microwave meals were my supper almost every evening; the other evenings, my supper was fast food, because microwave meals are monotonous. They're cheap, though; I usually bought Stouffers (tm) (I'm not sure whether or not to use a comma, since on their own website, sometimes they do and sometimes they don't - http://www.stouffers.com/products.aspx) or Boston Market (tm), and they could be bought for $2.50 - $3.00.

So, I've backed off microwave meals significantly in the last couple of months. And I have been losing weight. However, I don't know if that's because of the sodium or whatever content in the meals, or because pasta and rice are just not conducive to losing weight, at least for me.

Today, I fell back on what has become a once-a-week-or-nine-days deal for me: chicken and rice with vegetables. Ever since my sister gave me Natalia's fool-proof method for making rice, it's just so easy. When using frozen vegetables, I nuke them for about half the recommended time, and throw them in with the rice just as I'm about to clamp a lid on the rice for 20 minutes. If I cooked the chicken the day before and refrigerated it, I throw the chicken in then, too, otherwise I just throw the chicken in the pot after the rice is done. Chicken and rice is so easy, and while I know the combo that works for me is 1 chicken breast + 2 cups veggies + 2/3 cup of uncooked rice, it still makes 3 or more bowls of the stuff, so I eat it over a couple of days --- or like today, when I didn't have breakfast, I had it for brunch and dinner plus Jeopardy! snack. I think it's a lot of rice. I hear Kiefer Sutherland, as David in The Lost Boys, saying, "What, you don't like rice? Tell me Michael, how could a billion Chinese people be wrong?" And I think, yeah, for me, rice or pasta can't happen more than once a week.

So this evening, since I have been contemplating sopes for about 2 weeks now but I don't have any lettuce, I thought that if I am going to the grocery tomorrow, I should plan some meals, for a week in advance. So what meals can I make? These:

1. Chicken and rice with vegetables
2. Parmesan chicken, aka crack chicken
3. chili
4. white chili
5. spaghetti
6. lasagna
7. halushki

Four out of those 7 contain rice or pasta. Actually, 1 contains rice and 3 contain pasta. I can't plan a week's worth of meals, since I can't cook a week's worth of meals. So my mission this week is to collect recipes of meals that sound good to me, but that do not contain rice or pasta. I have a feeling this will be quite a challenge.

The Biggest Loser - Safe, Effective, Fair?

Since only my sister reads this blog, and she doesn't watch tv, I am going to begin by explaining what "The Biggest Loser," ("TBL") is. TBL is a reality show/contest, whose contestants vie for the titular title and cash prizes by a combination of losing weight and manipulating the other contestants. The show is hosted by actress Allison Sweeney, best known for portraying Samantha Brady on the soap, Days of Our Lives; Ms. Sweeney was at one time a bit on the chunky side, and I suppose after her own dramatic weight loss, NBC decided she'd make a good host for TBL (since I don't think she was the original host).

So people send in their home videos of themselves engaging in lardporn - that is, in varying states of undress, revealing their massive fat rolls, and eating in the most disgustingly gluttonous manner. Sometimes contestants arrive in pairs, such as siblings, mother & daughter, father & son, and variations on these combinations. They gather at TBL ranch, which I guess is somewhere in the Los Angeles area. And they are divided into teams. Now, I have only watched the show for about a year, I guess 2 seasons, so I'm not absolutely sure that what I've seen is representative of all of the seasons, but sometimes they split up the teams that arrived together. Anything for the drama.

Anyway, everyone is immediately immersed in tough workouts, led by whichever trainers are working on the show. The first season I watched had Bob Harper, Dolvett Quince, and tennis player Anna Kournikova as trainers. They're mean-ass meanies, pushing the contestants to the point that they all end up using the puke buckets placed in the gym. (Good fucking grief, who has to clean those fuckers?) Each week, contestants are subjected to a weigh-in, whereby the person who has lost the most weight, relative to their weight from the week before, is immune from being voted off of the ranch. The team which has the collectively lowest weight loss for the week has to vote someone off - but it's not necessarily the person whose weight loss was smallest. That's where it becomes a popularity contest. In the middle of this there's lots of crying by the contestants about how they didn't realize how fucking fat they'd become, and they beg their teammates not to vote them off because they are "single mothers" or whatever and think they "need" to stay on the ranch longer for whatever reason. And challenges are held, in which rewards of some sort are given for the winner, such as a 2-lb advantage at the weigh in, or 6 months of Biggest Loser (tm) meals. Often, there's some sort of contest which requires contestants to gorge themselves on their favorite food for some advantage. It's all somewhat sick, in a way, and from what I've read on the internet, a lot of people watch this show while eating pizza or having drinking games that involve chugging or taking a shot every time someone uses the word, "journey."

These contestants, more often than not, post HUGE fucking numbers. I understand that they're pretty large to start, but most of the men seem to hit double digits in terms of weight loss in a single week - and sometimes some women are right up there with the men.

Ten, twelve, fifteen pounds in a week? Really? The show has doctors on the staff, who are mostly seen informing the contestants in the early episodes that they are (pre-)diabetic or have other issues, and sometimes some contestants aren't "cleared" to participate in some of the physical challenges, but most often the restrictions on participation seem to be related to an injury as opposed to heart or sugar concerns.

I liked watching this shit, seeing how the contestants changed in appearance from week to week. But the most recent season sucked; the winner was still a fatass, his sister was a total bitch, and there were several quitters who were fucking crybabies. It was a mess, and I couldn't root for any of them. I hope they ALL gain back the weight.

Often, a contestant has either ganed a couple of pounds or not lost what they thought was commensurate with their work for the week. Most of the time, these are women. I've never heard anyone on the show mention anything about their periods, but some of these damn women must be having them. I have never had a period where I didn't gain at least 4 pounds, and I've seen women whose asses seem to have exploded over night due to their periods. The show always seems to write it off as reaching a plateau. 

Historically, most of the contestants have gained at least some weight back after the show, even if only a couple of pounds in contrast to losing 100. Some of them have done quite well at maintaining, and look damn healthy. But I think I feel for some of those who gained back weight, because the show is all about dramatic weight loss in a relatively short period of time. The winner of each season gets about $250k, and probably the chance to make more in endorsements. Money is a motivator, so I can see how some people can do it for the money and then go to shit afterwards. I've seen some episodes where they bitch about having had nothing to eat but chicken, and I understand that.

But I don't think most people can adhere to a diet where every food that they love is a never-again food.  I certainly don't plan to have never-again foods, except in cases of allergies (mine is strawberries; and I may have a lactose intolerance or some gluten issues, I don't know). I've been blogging and making slight changes for about 7 weeks now. Things I have given up: diet soft drinks. Things I have cut back on: microwave meals (this is the big one); fast food; beer; bread. I haven't been exercising, but there is probably some calorie-burning in standing at the counter to cut things up and cook them, and getting up to check on them, and washing the dishes. Net weight loss as of this morning: 8 lbs.

But I'm on my period.

Looks can be deceiving.

They really can be.

The above is a frittata I made. I'm not much of a photographer, just as I am not much of a cook. This looks like a total mess, doesn't it? Well, it was delicious. Awesomely so.

The last time I made a frittata, I made it with turkey sausage (which sucks, I can never stress that enough), egg substitute, cheese, and mushrooms from a jar. I was terribly disappointed with the results. There was water in the bottom of the pan, and it just wasn't all that. So this time, I took a few suggestions from a comment made by Jesse'sMom, and well, I didn't really follow it completely, but I tried to come close.

I don't normally buy potatoes. I've bought small bags before, and I usually end up throwing away half of them because they have sprouted and/or become soft. Potatoes are work. You have to peel them. I know that sounds stupid, but I'm a little phobic about using sharp implements. Mom had a big, old, dull-looking knife that she used for peeling potatoes, and I honestly don't know how she managed to keep all her fingers. I have a lovely vegetable peeler, that I sharpen with a paring knife before use, like in this video.

Note the clean fingernails. Yum, this guy cooks food for people for a living. Ok, so maybe that's potato grunge.

Anyhow, so I didn't have potatoes, but I had some frozen tater tots in the freezer. I put 5 of them in the oven, since I was going to heat the kitchen up with the broiler, anyway. I also didn't have fresh onion, since when I pulled the half of one I had in the fridge out, it was growing something out of the middle. I took 2 (regular) eggs, added a little salt and pepper, a few sprinkles of dried chopped onion, a sprinkle of dried garlic (because I thought an entire clove might be too much) and about 2 teaspoons of shredded cheddar/jack cheese, and beat it all together. It looked a little slight to me, so I slopped in a little bit of milk, probably a quarter cup, and forked it again pretty briskly, then poured it into a hot skillet and added about a quarter cup of diced ham and about a quarter cup of mushrooms. I let it cook until it set up, then scooped it into an oven-safe aluminum pan, over top of the tater tots. I sprinkled about a tablespoon of the cheese on top, and put it under the broiler for about 6 minutes, and I got what is shown in the picture above.

And I ate all of it, by myself, even though it looked like it was at least 2 servings worth.

Calorie count:
Tater tots (the package says 9 tots are a serving [wtf?], @160 cal per serving X 5 tots used = 89
Eggs, 2 scrambled, 199
cheese - the package says 1/4 cup is a serving; an online calculator says 4 tablespoons equals 1/4 cup, and while I think I used closer to just 2 tablespoons, I'll go with the full quarter cup = 110 calories
Ham, cooked, 2 oz = 70
Mushrooms, 1/4 cup = 10
Total calories, not counting "spicers" = 478, and that's for the entire frittata.

Rough calculation of sodium: ham, 650 mg (27%DV); cheese, 160mg (7%), mushrooms from a jar, 195mg (8%), added less than 1/8 teaspoon of table salt, 288mg(12%); total = 1293/less than 60% DV.

This was not the healthiest meal in the world, but it kept me from making a run for the border.

The Science of Fattitude

This one might just be far too much information for anyone but myself.

Sometimes, I perform experiments. Some of these experiments involve cooking, but since I am usually hungry like the wolf, I try not to veer too far off the tried-and-true.

Sometimes, I just experiment on myself, as I have this week.

I have digestive issues. I know everyone gets them, but it seems to me that when I was growing up, I didn't know a single person with peanut allergies, lactose intolerance, or celiac disease; however, maybe people just died in the olden days when I was a kid, and maybe medical science is just identifying things that everyone seems to have in order to prolong our lives so that we can die of something else, smelling of Old Person Smell. Anyhow, I first noticed that I had a problem with iceberg lettuce about 15 years ago. At that time, I was trying to eat salads pretty often, thinking they were healthy, but I'd get the severe shits (sorry) within an hour of consumption. Within a short time after I noticed this, I'd also get severe abdominal pain, and since I'm not a fan, I eliminated the iceberg variety from my diet forthwith. Within the last couple of years, I've noticed a similar problem with raw broccoli, which I used to add to my romaine. I've read that this is not uncommon in people in middle age, so I now only eat broccoli that's been cooked in some fashion, and while it still makes me fart, the pain no longer accompanies the acoustic and aromatic signs of my consumption.

For the most part, I've figured that some of the flatulence and poo issues involve my consumption of beer. I like beer.




But I've been skipping beer during the week, and haven't been seeing/feeling a difference. So this week, I skipped my usual cereal with milk for breakfast and smidgen of milk in my coffee. Tada! I thought, this must mean I am lactose intolerant, but after googling the symptoms, I'm not so sure that's the case. So I looked up celiac disease, and it sounds somewhat related to the dairy thing.


Webmd has some info here: Celiac Disease Symptoms. Very interesting stuff, especially the part that says celiac disease is associated with autoimmune thyroid disease. Hmmm... maybe too much information isn't such a good thing.