Live Blog : 3-Day Reboot, Day 3

Current Weight : 308 pounds

Yeah, so I’ve dropped 7.4 pounds since Friday. I can’t say I’m upset by that, although I’m perfectly aware of the fact that if I went back to eating the way I was before we started juicing it would come right back on and bring a few friends.

Not a lot of updates yesterday because, well…it pretty much sucked. Energy levels were pretty low for most of the day, even though we did manage to perk up enough at one point to go for a walk to the grocery store. Unfortunately, that pretty much killed us for the rest of the day. Had some gastric issues yesterday as well that I will spare you the details of. Last night while we were watching TV together we were both pretty much miserable and hating life.

Today, though? Feeling pretty great so far. We were out of the house within an hour after getting out of bed to run to Home Depot for a [amazon asin=B009378AG2&text=composting bin], and then it was off to the produce stand for more supplies. Energy levels are pretty good so far, too. Lisa has decided to start experimenting with different juices that she is making up on the fly, and she’s had some great success so far. All things considered, I’d say it’s been a positive experience so far.

Now we just have to decide where we’re going to go from here. Are we going to continue juicing? Are we going to try and eat vegan? The answer to both seems to be yes at this point.

More updates as the day goes on if they occur to me.

[liveblog]

Live Blog : 3-Day Reboot, Day 1

Starting weight : 315.2

It’s odd how weird it feels not to be doing our normal routines this morning. I laid in bed for about 20 minutes thinking “I should go make coffee. No, wait. I’m not having any coffee today.” That part is really kind of freaking me out a bit, because oh do I love the coffee. I also drink a lot of it. Will be interesting to see what kind of side effects I have from suddenly going cold turkey. What I’m drinking instead, though, is some how water with lemon. Mmmm! Tasty!

Actually, it’s not really that bad. At least it’s hot. That’s kinda tricking my brain a little, I guess.

[liveblog]

On Veganism, Juicing, and Making A Change

Image courtesy of Paul Downey via flickr

Image courtesy of Paul Downey via flickr

I’ve Seen Better Days Than This One
I’ve Seen Better Nights Than This One
Tension Is Rebuilding
Something’s Got To Give
Something’s Got To Give

– The Beastie Boys, “Something’s Got To Give”, [amazon asin=B000TEPD6I&text=Check Your Head]

In the interest of avoiding repetition, I’m going to do my best to avoid spending much time on the “I’m going to really focus on putting content here” part of this blog post. The small handful of you that are still following this blog have heard it before, and it isn’t worth my time or yours to spend time on empty promises. We all know it’s going to come down to time, interest, and motivation. If I post, I post. Same goes for Rafe and Tessa.

Sure, that sounds kinda negative and defeatist, but it’s not. It’s just reality. We’re busy, we have active lives, and ShrinkGeek is a labor of love for us.

Obligatory apology/disclaimer done. Moving on.

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Best. Corned. Beef. And. Cabbage. EVAR.

St. Patrick’s Day is right around the corner, and as I’m a person with a “Mc” in front of his last name I believe I am legally obligated to eat Corned Beef and Cabbage while drinking beer on that day. I’m pretty sure the Irish Mafia will come take me out if I don’t or something. In any case, I found a recipe a VERY long time ago for pretty much the greatest corned beef and cabbage I have ever had. It was in a book called All Around The World Cooking by Sheila Lukins, which is apparently out of print so I don’t feel bad about posting the recipe here (I can’t say that fact really comes as much a surprise to me, as this is one of the cookbooks I lost in my divorce back in 2001).

And now, without further ado, the recipe of awesomeness…

  • 1 lean corned beef brisket (4 to 5 pounds)
  • 3 medium onions, peeled
  • 9 whole cloves garlic, peeled
  • 4 ribs of celery, with leaves
  • 14 carrots, peeled, 6 halved and 8 cut into 2-inch lengths
  • 6 flat-leaf parsley sprigs
  • 2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar
  • Strips of whole peel from 1 orange, pith removed
  • 16 small new red potatoes
  • 8 medium leeks (2 inches green left on), roots trimmed, rinsed well
  • 1 medium-sized green cabbage (3 to 3 1/2 pounds), cored and cut into 8 wedges
  • Salt and coarsely ground black pepper, to taste
  • 4 tablespoons coarsely chopped flat-leaf parsley

1. Rinse the corned beef and pat dry. Place in a large ovenproof casserole. Stud each onion with 3 cloves and add to the casserole along with the 6 halved carrots, the garlic, celery, parsley sprigs, and orange peel.

2. Cover the meat with vegetables and cold water and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer, partially covered, until the meat is very tender, about 3 hours. Skim off any foam and turn the meat every 30 minutes. When the meat can easily be pierced with a fork, it is done. Remove to a plate, cover with aluminum foil, and keep warm.

3. Meanwhile, trim the roots and tough outer leaves from the leeks and discard. Trim the remaining leaves to about 2 inches and cut the leeks in half lengthwise. Stir the vinegar into a large bowl of water, add the leeks, and leave for about 30 minutes. Then rinse and drain the leeks.

4. Strain the broth and return it to the casserole. Discard the cooked vegetables. Add the potatoes, leeks, cabbage, 8 cut-up carrots, salt, and pepper. Bring the broth to a boil, then simmer uncovered over medium heat until the vegetables are tender, about 30 minutes. Stir in 2 tablespoons of the parsley.

5. Before serving, slice the corned beef and place on a large decorative serving platter. Arrange the vegetables around the corned beef. Ladle some hot broth over all to moisten. Sprinkle with the remaining parsley. At this point the recipe says to serve with two sauces that follow in the cook book, but I do not have those recipes. I generally just serve it with horseradish sauce, if I serve it with any sauce at all. It stands perfectly well on its own.


Equivalencies

Photo courtesy of Archigeek via Flickr

I recently celebrated my 10th anniversary with Weight Watchers.

Honestly, I can’t say that I really “celebrated” it. Hell, I didn’t even go to my meeting that week (not from a lack of desire to do so, but we have been down to the final few weeks of a show that I’m in and I haven’t had the time). One would also think that, after ten years, I would have hit Lifetime status and that my relationship with Weight Watchers would be restricted to maintaining my goal weight.

That, unfortunately, is not the case.

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The ShrinkGeek guide to healthy eating at Gen Con

Gen Con. The Best Four Days In Gaming. This weekend long gathering of geeks in downtown Indianapolis is one of the few times in your life where the large majority of people who you meet on the street will have a set of polyhedral dice on their person. Call it a bad stereotype if you like, but chances are a lot of the people you meet are (or should be) trying to shed some of their natural encumbrance. Unfortunately for them it’s difficult to eat wisely when you’re at a convention, but it isn’t impossible. All it takes is a little homework and self-control.

We here at ShrinkGeek are going to do some of the homework for you.

Underneath the cut you’ll find a list of some of the restaurants in the downtown Indianapolis area that Gen Con attendees tend to frequent. We’ll give a brief overview of the restaurant itself and try to point you toward some of the less calorie blasting choices off of the menu. Check back often as we’ll be updating this list as we gather additional information and take suggestions from some of the attendees themselves!

See you in Indianapolis!

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The end times are here

I browse through a lot of health and fitness related news every day in order to try and find things that can help our readers here improve their lives. In doing so I come across a fair number of unusual topics, but more often than not most of the things I read tend to get repetitive. That’s why, when I opened up my reader this morning, I darn near spewed a mouthful of coffee all over my dual monitor setup after I saw one of the headlines.

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Unexpected additives found in many weight loss supplements

steveb_ohio via flickr

It isn’t easy to achieve or maintain a healthy weight. If it was there would be no such thing as a multi-billion dollar weight loss industry. While we contend here at ShrinkGeek that the only tried and true method of losing weight is to eat less and exercise, we concede that there is no such thing as a “one size fits all” solution on the best way to get there. The struggle to find the combination of diet and exercise that works best for your particular personality and physiology is probably the hardest part about losing weight, and frustration over finding out what you can and can not live with can be a potentially crippling road block to your progress.

Many people chose to rely on “natural” dietary supplements to aid in their weight-loss efforts, and with good reason. The ability to consume a product that can help you lose weight without introducing any man made chemicals into your system is pretty appealing! Unfortunately, it appears as though a lot of people who use these products are getting considerably more than they bargain for.

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Truth in advertising

Advertising Fail courtesy of the Fail Blog

If you’ve watched television at all in the last 10 years or so you are most likely familiar with the name Jared Fogel, and if not you’d likely recognize him if you saw a picture. Jared is “the Subway guy.” For those of you who are not familiar with his admittedly impressive story, the Reader’s Digest version is that back in 1997 Jared lost an incredible amount of weight by following what he termed “The Subway Diet.” The diet program in and of itself was pretty simple. Jared, who had been consuming what he estimates as nearly 10,000 calories a day, replaced two of his meals with six inch sandwiches from Subway’s “7 under 6” menu (sandwiches with a total of less than six grams of fat). He also walked pretty much everywhere and added other types of exercise on top of that. In the end he managed to lose over 240 pounds, and when the advertising executives at Subway caught wind of his success they hired him as a spokesman. That move turned out to be a smashing success for the restaurant chain, and Jared has been associated with them ever since.

While many restaurants have tried to duplicate the success that Subway had marketing themselves as a diet-friendly fast food alternative there is little doubt that Subway has remained the uncontested king of the healthy lifestyle hill.  So far they’ve managed to fight off all other pretenders to their throne, but it looks like they may be facing a new challenge from a fairly unlikely source.

Taco Bell.

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User Queries: It’s good pho you!

Image courtesy of stu_spivack

Image courtesy of stu_spivack

While there are some great resources out there for this question  (Dotti’s Weight Loss Zone, Weight Watchers, Daily Burn, etc) , none of them have a clear answer on one of my favorites: Pho (Vietnamese noodle soup).  While I am elevating ShrinkGeek to the level of the oracle on Delphi, do any of you guys know? Or – how about just a Boolean: Is it healthy, or not? BTW: I’m talking about restaurant Pho, not the crap in the ramen noodle aisle.

I tried to take the easy way out of this question and defer the answer to Jaden Hair, Tampa Bay area food celebrity and author of The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook.  I follow her on Twitter and am constantly assaulted by posts about the amazing Asian recipes she talks about so I figured if anyone would know it was her.  Sure enough, she has a recipe for Pho on her site that sounds absolutely amazing.  Unfortunately for me when I asked her if she had ever figured out the nutrition information for the recipe she replied that she had not, and that we should all follow the advice of her Mother who so wisely said “Just eat!  It good for you!”

Which, I suppose, answers the second part of the question.  So much for this being an easy assignment.

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