Carl's Jr Famous Star

Got back from OFC at about 7:45pm, and found that last week's chicken and fish were bad. I didn't have any protein left in the house, so I figured I'd walk to Carl's Jr, which is about 400m from my house. Of course, I didn't see anyone trick-or-treating in my neighborhood. I saw many more people walking at the Embarcadero tonight by far. I passed one guy walking, and saw one group of kids trick-or-treating.

Of course, the drive-thru had a steady stream of customers. A few people were seated inside too. There's always some stragglers here, myself included tonight. I've walked in early on a Saturday morning (like 6:30 am), to get some Minute Maid Lite Lemonade before spinning, and I always see a few men who look like they've been up all night. This is a pretty nice suburban neighborhood. Maybe they just like getting out of the house and sitting in a booth the whole morning. I don't know.

Anyways, I picked up a Famous Star, dry, with no mayo or any sauce. I don't care what Paris Hilton says, this is the best way to have it. It's pretty nutritious this way. The only bad thing is the beef, which has a strange texture that's not found in real food. Otherwise, not a bad meal. Too bad you can't get real beef at a fast food joint.

OFC was a great workout tonight. Sherri and I made it, and Jason led us through custom workouts. We did a lot of leg work, and after I told him my legs don't usually burn from stair work, he made me do a bunch of jumping squats that made me feel it. It was very warm tonight, and overall an ideal workout, since I didn't really want to sit at home and wait for the few kids that would come by. What's the Halloween version of "humbug"?

Melted All The Candy

My bright idea for hiding the Halloween candy in the trunk of my car would have worked if I didn't have a rear-engine car. I had to go back to the store today to pick up some more candy, because the other two bags were a molten mess when I checked on them before heading home.

Spinning at 24 Hour Fitness is cancelled, but there's an Outdoor Fitness Camp tonight, so I'm saved. I did an hour of lifecycle this morning, averaging about 200W, at 75% MHR. I haven't used the bike much since watching the Tour de France in June. Then, I used the bike to get jumpstart my programme, until I felt comfortable going to the gym. After that, it pretty much sits there.

Halloween Pledge: I Won't Eat Any Candy

I waited until last night to buy two bags of cholocate candy to give out tonight. I left it in the car trunk, instead of brining it in the house. It's worked so far, and the bags remain unopened. I'm making a pledge now that I wont eat any of this cholocate that I'm giving out. There shouldn't be any at work today, and I'll make it a point that we won't have any about tomorrow either. This could be a no-candy Halloween for me. I certainly need this boost to get back on track.

Full Day, Full Menu

After OFC yesterday, I stopped by Saffron Chicken to buy some healthy salad rolls, and I ended up leaving with the salad rolls plus an entire chicken. I figured the chicken would taste better than my own cooking, plus, it'd take a while to finish. Well, I ate the whole chicken yesterday, all the salad rolls (3), and had probably 4 slices of pizza, a chocolate cupcake, a couple pieces of chocolate, a bunch of tortilla chips, and god knows what else. On the other hand, I did play basketball for a couple of hours (but at the 10-year old level). I don't feel that stuffed, but I'll be avoiding the scales for a few days.

Meet My Homies

Very Anonymous Mike, part of the San Diego Outdoor Fitness Camps crew, is online and blogging his experiences at Weightlifting, Weightdropping. He writes with a sense of humour, but remains open and honest. We both live in the same city, but he blogs in pounds, feet and inches, while I blog in kg and meters, and anglophile spelling. Explain that. Please drop in and leave him a comment. We'll be linking in the whole OFC crew eventually. Maybe next week we can all go to a Starbucks or something and setup Jason with an online poker account with signup bonus. I can show him how to give bad beats in $50 max-buy in PLO.

Saturday OFC

I couldn't get up for spinning, but I did make it to Outdoor Fitness Camps this morning. I stopped by Ocean's 11, where I haven't showed myself in like 3 years. I wanted to see what the poker boom did to the casino, and to see people's reaction at my resurrection. They've opened up the tournament room on a permament basis for the low-limit ($1/$1, $1/$2) NL games. They've done a reasonable, but cheap job of trying to make the room something like the Bellagio poker room. Meaning they put up faux-architectural columns, moldings, wallpaper, and oil paintings of 19th century Parisian street scenes. But mostly, you see a bunch of tables of young posers losing small sums of money to bad beats and the $4 rake on a $1 blind game.

Of course, I lost $41 USD, and a few hours of sleep I would have gotten had I driven directly home. It was nice to remind myself why I don't go to these rooms anymore. I saw a bunch of faces that look just the same. Colin was working the floor now, and Carla is a dealer (but probably still a maniacal omahalic). Josh is still alive and working graveyard floor in the low-limit room. (He thought maybe I fell off the face of the earth.) Mike (Mohammad) saw me and was really keen on having me take a look at some new game, and analyzing it. He's pretty exciting about it, because he thinks there may be an edge that no one knows about. I love looking at these kinds of things, and it may end up being interesting. I gave him my email address, and asked him to send me the details, because I was really tired from the long day and drive, and wanted to get home as soon as I either doubled up or went busted. Acutally, someone else went busted, and we broke the game, which I took as an excuse to get home by 2 am.

OFC was a good workout this morning. In the picture above is Mike, Angie, Sherrie, Kirsten, me, and Randy, who ran the session with Jason. I didn't have time to run before class, but I skipped breakfast (just ate an apple), and held off on Tacos El Gordo, and instead had 1 1/2 tofu salad rolls and a chicken leg and wing. I'll try to get out of the house and keep busy for the rest of the day. After I take a nap.

Crying While Eating

Boy, the internet just keeps feeding my obsession. I told someone I photoblogged what I ate, and they told me about Crying While Eating. Once I saw it, I almost broke down crying at the beauty of the site.

Lunch On The Road

We had pizza for lunch, but I didn't go crazy. So far, only two slices, and a bunch of salad. Had eggs and bacon for breakfast, and a slice of toast. More than I normally eat, but less than I normally binge.

Ate A Whole Lot Today

The slightest amount of travel really triggers off an excuse for me to binge. I was hungry during the day, so I ate a bunch of potato chips. I did spinning and strength training, and I started off well at Whole Foods with an Ahi tuna sandwich and two salad rolls, but I had to drive up to LA, and I ate a package of chips, a container of Tic Tacs, a roll of Sweet Tarts, and a cookie when I arrived at the hotel. I would not have done this on a normal day, but it could have been worse. It might be worse tomorrow, depending on what's around for lunch.

Fantasy Gym (Jillian Michaels)

Well, I missed the Jillian Michaels personal appearance last night at her book signing, so I made up for it this morning by doing a little cyberstalking. I found out she has a penthouse gym and spa overlooking Beverly Hills called SkySport&Spa. You can actually arrange for personal training sessions with her. Wow. The rates for her other trainers are very reasonable (or at least competative), so how much could it cost for Jillian Michaels' time? Bad question. It's probably like $1200/hr, or 20x the market rate, if you can schedule her.

Anyways, I'd love to work out at her gym. Too bad they don't have any weekend classes. I'm not sure if that schedule is updated for 2005. Classes are pretty cheap, $12/session in volume, which is pretty cool. Nothing makes me feel better about myself than indulging in cheap luxury.

I made Outdoor Fitness Camps last night, since I didn't want to spin three nights in a row. I was considering a rest day, but I'm glad I made it out there. We did a bunch of work on the huge stairs at the Convention Center. Very nice night, and pretty close to a penthouse workout, but without the attitude. It's still ok, even in Fall. It'll probably be fine in Winter as well. Actually getting outdoors is a great way to really use your body, instead of the limited routine of the gym.

79.2 kg

Another reasonable food day yesterday, another low weight this morning. Breakfast: 1 egg, tortilla, chicken; Lunch: fish sandwich, 5 pc sushi; Snack: peanuts, chips, apple, energy bar; Dinner: 280g buffalo steak, veggies, muslix, milk, grapes. I estimate this to be about 2000 calories.

The Biggest Loser (Season 2, Week 7)

The game is getting serious now, with the Blue (girls) and Red (guys) teams broken up, and reformed into 3 coupled teams for Week 7. There was some initial drama and tension at the rule change, but as soon as it was done, the new teams worked together, and all hatchets were buried. Actually, Andrea and Mark looked like a cute couple.

Some of the guys continue to amaze me with unbelievable weightloss. After not losing any weight last week, Matt (above) loses 17 lbs, or 6% of his body weight. The eliminated player, Pete, lost over a pound a day. Seth didn't lose any weight this week, but maybe it's a tactic, since he won immunity after the challenge. He says he worked out 20 hours for the week, and I doubt he was binging on food. Probably he was sandbagging this weigh-in, over-hydrating immediately before, so he can use his real weightloss the next or following week. Again, more goes on behind the scenes than we know.

There was a commercial by Bob the trainer for The Big Loser Book. The exerpts don't look very compelling, but I'm sure a lot of people will buy it. I heard that Jillian Michaels is doing a book signing today in Santa Monica. I'm half tempted to drive up there, but it's like 2 1/2 hours. I'd definitely make it up there if it was on a weekend. I should try to find out if she'll be down here soon. Then again, I could just go to my local strip club for the same (or better) effect.

79.4 kg

Made another low this morning, probably because I didn't overeat last night. I went to spinning, but didn't have time to do much strength training. I cooked up two chicken thighs, a corn tortilla, baby bok choy, red peppers, onions, and spinach. I had a little muslix w/ milk, and grapes for dessert. For breakfast I had 2 eggs and a tortilla. For lunch I had a roast beef sandwich. I had an apple, 3 pieces of California roll, and a few chips for a snack. I'm guessing my total calories were less than 1800. That's probably too few, but I wasn't really hungry. I'll probably make up for it in the next few days.

Hamburger Blogs

I'm getting a little obsessed about fast food, and how it fits into people's lives. Before I got fit, I was hooked on fast food, and ate it several times a day. I was essentially doing the Super-Size me diet, but not just for 30 days, it was more like a year or two. I got huge, and very unhappy. This is when I hit 105 kg. It started when I was thin, but unhappy, and decided to start eating a huge burrito every night after work. I'd go buy the El Champion burrito at La Salsa, which has over 1500 calories. I'd sit down in front of the television, and cram that thing into my mouth until I was numb and sleepy.

As I got fatter, I'd be ashamed to step into the La Salsa, so I started doing drive thrus. I'd order what Morgan Spurlock did, but I'd eat it alot faster than he would. Most of the time, I'd eat the fries before I got down the road, and I'd be disappointed when I got home and didn't have a massive amount of food anymore, so I started ordering extra items. Sometimes, I'd go out and get more. This required hiding the fast food bags that would accumulate on the passenger seat. I remember when Jack-In-The-Box tacos were on sale 3 for $.99. I'd buy either 9 or 12 of them, and eat about 6 in the car on the 5 minute ride home. I used to hate the fact that they had security cameras at the window of the drive thru, and they showed you the monitor (to remind you not to knock over the joint), and I'd see my bloated face in black and white, impatiently waiting for my 12 tacos.

Ok, I'm digressing. Anyways, I knew someone out there would have a fast-food oriented blog, so I wanted to see what it looked like. I found A Hamburger Today which has excellent posts and pictures from local hamburger stands around the world. Great theme. I don't think the author is obese or anything, he's just kind of has an interest in hamburgers.

I really started off searching for anti-McDonald's blogs, since my evangelism runs along these lines. A quick search found McSpotlight.org, which claims to be the premier anti-McDonald's site. It seems easier to find pro-McDonald's blogs like McDonald's Of The World, probably because of the McLibel result.

Toxic Food Environment

I was listening to an archived episode of NPR's Talk Of The Nation about the government's role in the nation's obesity epidemic (Obesity Part II: Government and Obesity). Dr. Kelly Brownell, author of Food Fight accurately described the food environment we live in as "toxic". This is the first time I've heard our Super-Size, Big-Gulp, Whopper, all-you-can-eat, instant, microwavable food environment described this way, but it's clearly the problem once you recognise it. The amazing thing is that it's actually hard to see, because we're so used to it. And so many of us fall into the trap of obesity, because we buy the 10-pack of Kit-Kats or Reece's Peanut Butter Cups, the chips, the Coke, the Super-Size meals, the McNuggets, because they taste good, they're everywhere we turn, and it's the norm. I mean you actually have to understand nutrition, and go far out of your way to eat real food at every meal.

For example, even sit-down restaurants present a bad food environment, because of the portion sizes they serve. Popular restaurants like TGI Fridays serve whole plates of food, with fried sides, and cheese. Who needs food like that? When did this become food?

I think most of us Americans know the country got fat in the last few decades. Take a look at movies from the 70's. Especially when you see a street scene, you can tell how we've changed as a country. The extras look glamourous by today's standards, because they're so enviously thin.

We've been a fat country for some time now, and for anyone who has travelled abroad knows, Americans are instantly recognisable over there. But, we can take solace in the fact that we're exporting McDonald's and obesity, and the world is catching up. Maybe we'll have the last laugh sooner than we know.

79.8 kg

It's been almost two weeks since I've registered a new low weight, mostly because of eating bad on the road last week. Otherwise, I'd probably have lost another 0.4 kg by now. Oh well, it's not like I'm on a reality show or anything.

In other good news, I've won the Irish Lottery a couple of times last week. I didn't mention anything about it, because I might not do anything about it. I'll have to read the e-mail to see how to collect my millions. But, I'm feeling a little lazy lately, so I might not get around to it.

Country Disco

I've heard about this CD for a while now, where bluegrass and country artists cover 70's disco hits. Can't beat it for $4.49 at Skipping Discs. I also picked up a CD of indie women covering Bowie songs. Perfect concepts. I heard about this label from another great source of fun cover music, the Coverville podcast.

One Long Poker Game

I stayed up all night with my friend playing online $50 max buy-in pot limit Omaha Hi. We started at about 10pm, and we finished at about 5am. That's a 7 hour session. I netted about +$140, so my win rate was about +$20 USD / hour. Not bad, but it's can be a high-variance game, since multiple people are calling all-in bets on draws. Anyway, the total for gambling this weekend is about +$10 USD after playing a bunch of hours over Friday and Saturday nights. My losing sessions at the Village Club were compensated by my wins online. I know the online games are a better proposition, but sometimes I just have to get out of the house, and to talk to people, for 8 hours at a time.

In the middle of the night, the Euros come online, or as I call them, the "+ UTC" crowd. I'm here at UTC-7, and 4am here is probably noon over where they're playing. A lot of them are from Norway and the Scandinavian countries. The play gets slow sometimes, probably because people are multitasking (read: porn). I was screwing around and typing schnell and macht schnell. Who says Americans are rude, and know only English?

I weighed-in at my lowest point this morning (80.2 kg), so I'm back on track to losing weight. Poker is perfect for losing weight -- it keep my mind off food for many hours at a time. It's my Fill The Void diet plan.

Casino Call

My friend called while I was eating dinner at the OA after-party, and she wanted to go to the casino. She's there, but alas, I'm too tired to go. Also, there's a PLO8 game going on in the other window. I'm way too tired from the < 6hr nights this week. Time to sit back with a Coke Zero, poker, and porn. My other friend is playing online with me, and we're chatting.

Too Much Attitude

God, it's 7:15 am on a Saturday, I'm waking up at 6:00am, working on 4.5 hours of sleep, kicking my butt up the "hills", clearly working the Tour de France, and I get attitude from the spinning instructor. Ok, back it up. Three weeks ago, the last time I made the Saturday morning class, one of the desk people (Miguel) at 24 Hour Fitness asks to talk to me aside after class. I ask him what's it about, and he says there was a complaint against me in the class for not bringing a towel. Then he adds, it would have been ok, except you wrung your shirt out on the floor. Okay, I (now) know it sounds bad. But from my perspective, I'm doing the fricking Tour de France. Sweat means work. Lance Armstrong is a spokesman for 24 Hour Fitness. Nobody complains when he sweats as he's climbing up the Alps at an insane pace, breaking the likes of Jan Ullrich and Alexander Vinikurov. I take the class the most seriously by far. I've talked to the other instructors about the sweat, and they said not to worry. But this time, I get a complaint filed against me. It really pissed me off at the time, and I asked who made the comment, and Miguel just said it was "a member".

I think the person who really filed the complaint was the instructor. I know she liked me at first, but I really think I'm getting some attitude now. All the instructors attended some retreat last weekend, and know she's saying there'll be changes to the way things are run. She wants everyone to wipe down their bikes after class. Ok, I'm kind of in agreement with this, but I really don't like the way she's handling it, with all the sudden enforced discipline. She's getting too Nazi over all of this. I used to have fun. We used to have fun. Maybe she thinks I'm psycho for the way I ride. Maybe she feels threatened by my effort. Usually, instructors love people who try hard. But, maybe I'm looking too earnest, trying too hard. I'm doing this for myself, not for anyone else. I'm not getting good vibes from her class. This is silly.

Ok, I've vented. On the other hand, OFC was relaxed today, as a good second workout. Afterwards, two of us went to Tacos El Gordo. Then I dumped $100 USD at the Village Club. Argh. Time to wax the car before the Overeater's Anonymous meeting. I'm going there for dinner.

Run Torrey Pines #2

Ran Torrey Pines last night before heading to the casino. Felt great, and pushed it a bit and sweat alot. This is the 2nd time that I've run it since starting this weightloss and blog. I'm planning to run it more frequently, and post it each time. Running really improves my fitness level and results. It's just taken a long time to get to the point where I can run well enough to want to do the 2km+ hill. Anyway, I spent $125 on an annual pass at the state park, so I better run it a few more times.

I should have left the casino while I was up, and could get some sleep. Instead, I end up -$65 USD down, and leave a little past midnight. I get home, and get online where the games are better, and win $25 back in about 45 minutes. I haven't gotten much sleep lately, and I probably only got 4.5 hours last night. Now, I'm about to take off for spinning, and then the OFC workout (then tacos, then poker). I'm tired.

The Biggest Loser (Season 2, Week 6)

Well, we finally saw both sides of weightloss on The Biggest Loser Week 6. While Pete lost like 14 lbs, Matt ate a couple of extra midnight meals, and didn't lose any weight. Mark went nuts working out 8 hours a day, but only lost 4 lbs in the end. So, we're finally starting to see what really goes on behind the weigh-ins, but we'll probably have to read the book(s) to find out the whole truth.

Mark was working out 5 hours a day prior outside of his team workouts with Jillian. He was sure all that cardio was going to burn fat. He said he was doing 7000 cal burn days, which works out nominally to 2 lbs. But he only lost 4 lbs for the week. So how did Pete lose 14 lbs in the same week? Something doesn't make sense.

I should try putting my fate in the hands of the Outdoor Fitness Camp guys for a whole week. Or maybe they can write me up a plan for the whole week to lose maximum weight. Sure, weightloss is not supposed to work that way, but it really seems to be happening on tv.

Anyways, some other inexplicable things happened on the show. They had a challenge where each team would pick someone from the other team to race in a guy-vs-girl, 2000 step, staircase race. But, instead of chosing their opponent's worst member, they seemed to pick the best member for the race. I guess that's explainable if the sense of good sportsmanship and being in the same weightloss boat made them be civil, and overlook the $5000 prize. Maybe what we're not aware of were the health risks, and liabilities involved with some of the Losers. I'm sure it was something like this. Even so, when the race got started, Mark the-5-hours-on-the-treadmill guy lost badly to Andrea. It was never a contest. Neither of the contestants ever ran up the stairs. Made no sense to me.

-- update ---
I read some commentary from Gary from last season who says

Oh the temptations at the ranch are crazy. Unless you are there you can't even imagine the temptations that are waiting for the cast at every turn. The temptations get changed regularly so some days there could be candy all over the house the next day there could be fresh baked cakes and pies and the next day pizza. You name it and its all there.

Travel Put on 0.6kg

I got back on the scale this morning, and saw that I was 0.6kg heavier than last week. This is from eating junk while traveling, and being around bad food. I'm sure there are travel environments that are healthy, but people really have to make it a priority. Otherwise, the default meals are American junk. It's not what people should be eating, but it's apparently what people want, and what's fast.

The bad thing about getting off track is the wasted time where I should have progressed in my plan. Oh well, that's part of life. It's a small thing, really (even though it's the obsession of this blog). Chalk it up to experience.

Made Halibut Tonight

I did the OFC workout tonight, then headed to the gym on my way to Whole Foods, for a 30 min strength workout. The OFC workouts are really increasing my energy, because of the high-intensity core and abs work that I've never done before. It's really improving my running, and I'm really going to feel great once I lose the final 5-10 kgs. For some reason, I didn't sweat that much at OFC tonight. Maybe it's because it's a little colder already. Or probably because I didn't run right before, like I've done for the last two camps.

The halibut was okay, but I won't buy it again. It's definitely has a light, flaky texture, and it's somewhat mild, but it's not very exciting. I probably didn't cook it well enough, and it probably woild have tasted better baked. Oh well, it's too much trouble. I'll go with simplier stuff that I've liked before. I also made baby bok choy (always good), and multigrain crackers, proscuitto, apple, chicken wrap, and a salad. I'm almost full.

Back On Track

I worked out in the building's gym at lunch, doing 15 + 5 + 20 = 40 min cardio (stairmaster, cycle, run). I plan to make it to Outdoor Fitness Camp tonight, broil some fish, then watch my TiVo'ed The Biggest Loser Week 6.

Movie and Pizza Night

Watched Kung-Fu Hustle tonight with the guys at work, and ate 3 slices of pizza. That goes with the junky Mexican food I had at lunch, and the Enormous Omelet Sandwich I had for breakfast. It's pretty obvious the world doesn't feed you like you should be fed. I really need to travel with stricter meal rules.

Kung-Fu Hustle was very different, interesting, and funny. I'm sure a lot of people point out the Matrix similarities, but I saw a lot of Baron von Munchausen in it. The effects were very good, and the movie got better and better as it worked towards the end. There were some really good moments in the film, where the comedy and style blended together in amazing ways.

Suffering On The Road

This is the kind of food I've been eating while on this trip. Nothing but junk. It all looks the same. Fried, gooey, huge. I'm gaining weight. But, I went to the gym last night with a co-worker, at my local 24 Hour Fitness. If I have to stay out here another day, I'll gain another kg.

Hotel Room Workout

It was raining this morning, and I didn't have a car, so I tried the whole hotel room workout idea, and it worked ok. It's pretty hard for me to workout immediately in the morning, so I started out on joints that wouldn't hurt. Eventually, I got warmed up, and did a bunch of stuff I learned from Outdoor Fitness Camp: v-ups, dips, push ups, jumping jacks, etc. I watched Denise Austin on tv, and tried to keep up with her. Not a bad idea to try to start your day off in front of the tv like this, but I can imagine a lot of people losing interest during the commercials.

Travelling Today

I'm travelling a few days for work, but I'll try to get to the gym tomorrow. I'll definitely get up in time to do a workout, but I'll need to borrow a car to make the gym. I might just end up doing push-ups, squats, lunges, crunches, dips, etc. in the hotel room. So far, a co-worker said he'd go to 24 Hour Fitness with me, but he's making excuses now, and I'm on my own. I had Chinese take out today, and I ate plenty, but probably didn't over-do it. I'm glad I got the morning workout in. We'll see how tomorrow goes. Food isn't too bad a temptation, but I have to remind myself to keep portions small.

Rediscovered My Bike

I overate a bunch of multigrain crackers and humus yesterday, so I figured I needed to get on the bike this morning. I also didn't want to weigh myself. How's that for an eating/weight obsession? So I just got on the bike, and did 60 minutes @ 200 W, which I could do well under 80% MHR. It felt fine, and I watched The Biggest Loser on TiVo. I haven't been on this bike in a few months, even though it's sat here in the living room the whole time. Actually, it used to take some effort to get on it in the morning, because my joints weren't all that great before. The exercise and the Glucosamine/Chondrotin probably helped a lot. It's been a month since I've started taking the Glucosamine, and I really believed it's helped. I'll write more on this later, gotta run.

Chargers Cover

Won my $80 USD bet pretty handily. I was getting a little worried in the 4th quarter, when they couldn't make a few plays that would have ended the game much earlier. Ok, this sportsbet makes up for my Omaha8 loss yesterday. Props to Romy, the Village Club dealer that gave me the heads up on this pick. Sitting in seat #1 helps every now and then.

Chargers -1.5 @ Raiders

Ok, I put myself on the hook for $80 USD on the Chargers this afternoon. I think the Raiders are often horrible, even though it's a home game for them, and inter-division games are tough. But, I think the Chargers are motivated to win this one. We'll find out in a few hours.

Restricting Doesn't Work

Okay, I finished binging yesterday by getting home, cooking 2 sausages, a salmon patty, eating all the bread (probably 400g) and crackers, and a banana and yogurt. When I get overly hungry, I either need to get out of the house, or eat everything in it. I chose the latter. That's why I don't keep dangerous things around the house. Not like they'd last or anything. The last time my friend came over and we decided to get junk food, I ate all the Oreos in about one sitting, and an ice cream bar a day after that.

So, restricting calories doesn't work. I need to eat fats, and to satisfy myself. With that in mind, I ate at Tacos El Gordo today, eating two adobada tacos, and cebollas and tortillas. I did the Outdoor Fitness Camp workout this morning, a small jog before that, then headed to Chula Vista. I had a bad session at the Village Club, losing -$78 over like 5 hours. The guy on my left was a maniac, straddling (my blind) in $3/$6 Omaha8 (which is crazy). He increased the variance, and made my game difficult. It wasn't easy to get into a Holdem game, so I suffered through it. The funny thing is this guy was Middle Eastern (not Iranian), but he spoke like Count Dracula. He would raise and bet on draws and bluffs (crazy in Omaha8), and would say things out loud like "I need the deuce of clubs" (read like, "I want to suck your blood"). Everything he said came out in this Transylvanian accent. "I need a club to scoop". I'm sure he ended up losing hundreds.

So, bad session, but I talked to Monica the dealer when she was in the box. It's easy to have an intimate conversation with the dealer when sitting in seat #1 or #9. In fact, if you get the dealer going about something they want to talk about, there'll be dealing errors eventually. Anyway, it turns out that Monica became certified to teach spinning at 24 Hour Fitness. She has some kind of workout obsession as well, and we talked about the Group X classes. Coincidence! I told her about Wednesday's spinning sub (the Richard Simmons guy), and she knew who I was talking about. ("Right away, when you said 'Richard Simmons', I knew who meant.") Pretty funny. This Imad guy was the person who trained her. We discussed how this high energy class was really popular with everyone, even though to me it was a lot of shrieking. Small world.

I did another strength workout today, before going to Overeater's Anonymous. We all had a fun dinner afterwards. Ironically, I go to OA for the food.

Eating Junk Today

I was really hungry today from the last two days of restricting calories, and I've eaten a bunch of junk today, bringing my daily total to about 1200 after lunch. This is probably 400 calories more than my normal pace, due to the potato chips and candy I've eaten. I'll have a pear in the afternoon, and will probably do strength training tonight, but it's a cardio rest day. I'm sore from running last night before Outdoor Fitness Camp, and there's camp again tomorrow morning (after spinning).

There were some new girls at OFC last night, making it a large class. The two new girls are very young, and I can tell they really like the trainer Jason. It's strange to see so much eye makeup on a girl at an OFC session. I think of it as sweating, and rolling around on the wet grass. Last week a couple of friends commented on girls that go to the gym in full makeup. I guess I can't tell unless it's completely obvious.

A History Of TV Weightloss

I saw a great 2hr special on FitTV called As Seen On TV: Fifty Years of Fitness. It's next airing on 16 Oct, so set your TiVo's. It looks back at the history of shows, products, and informercials on TV aimed at getting people fit. Interestingly enough, when the first shows started (remember Jack LaLaine?), fitness gurus were considered nuts, mostly because people weren't out of shape. Ads focused mostly on how to gain weight, ala Charles Atlas and the 90-lb weakling. Even the 80's weren't too bad, and Richard Simmons focused on what he called "his outcasts". But by the times the 90's rolled around, we were all being screamed at to "Stop The Insanity", even though I really never understood the Susan Powter message. (Geez, I just found out she went bankrupt in 1995. And that's after winning Infomercial of the Year in 1993. Say it isn't so!) Anyway, it's essentially a nostalgia show that you'll enjoy if you're on the weightloss or maintainence track. All the stars of TV fitness share their memories, and review each others products :) What comes across clearly is that they all know, with a burning passion, the simple need for people to eat healthy, and just move!

I'm A Short-Order Cook

Everything I cook is in a skillet, and it's frying up some kind of meat, then saute'ing some vegetable. Tonight I bought some salmon burgers from Whole Foods, turkey sausage, organic bread, a large salad, and baby bok choy. I made dinner out of all of this, and it totaled up to about 865 calories. My daily calories total up to 2000, and I'm definitely satisfied.

We had a sub in spinning tonight, as all the regular instructors are attending some kind of 24 Hour Fitness indoctrination camp. This guy was very Richard Simmons, and turned up the music and yelled a lot. People loved him, and talked to him after class. I will withold judgement.

The Biggest Loser (Season 2, Week 5)

Well, they did it again. The average weightloss on the Biggest Loser last night was about 3.5% of body weight for Week 5. I'm lucky if I lose 0.75% in a week, and I workout 5 days a week, for about 1.5 hours / workout, including very hard cardio. These people are losing weight 5 times faster than I am. (The picture above is of the girl who let down her team by losing only 2.5%.)

I'm tempted again to try some rapid weightloss plan. I think the most I might lose is 1 kg for the week, or 1.25%. In order to do this, I'll have to run a little over a 1000 calorie deficit per day. Supposedly, I'll burn about 3500 calories/day factoring in my sex, age, weight, height, and workout schedule. (My basal was measured at 1920 cal/day.) So, if I can eat less than 2500 cal/day, I should lose about a kg in a week. If I can eat about 2000 cal/day, I could lose about 1.4 kg in a week. Okay, I'm going back to measuring every calorie. You can follow it in my daily log.

80.2 kg

I guess the trail mix binge didn't kill me, at least immediately. I made a new low weight this morning, which is pretty encouraging. As I get closer to my goal weight, I'm starting to think of how to form a life. Eventually, I'll go clothes shopping, and try to look presentable. I'm going to cut down on poker. I'm trying to open up to the world, and talk to people.

Binged On Trail Mix w/ M&M's

I went to Henry's Market to shop today, and picked up a pound of trail mix, thinking I'd just have some for lunch. That worked okay, but after lunch, I ate all the rest. The trail mix was probably about 2500 calories alone. I ended up feeling pretty sick, but made it to the gym anyways, and got in the usual strength workout, and made spinning. I felt a little weak in spinning, but felt a little better after working out. I still had dinner at a friend's, and ate a normal dinner, plus a banana and graham crackers. I'll have to remember not to buy ready-to-eat food in quantities larger than I'd be willing to eat in one sitting.

I Knew I Wasn't Gay

I knew there was a reason why I was inexplicably drawn to the Food Network. Well, okay, maybe not inexplicably drawn, but strangely drawn, seeing as how my cooking skills are summed up as "applying fire to meat". When I was visiting my friend in Scottsdale, we were constantly changing the remote to FoodTV, to check out how hot the host was. Finally, we found Giada de Laurentis, and we watched it like porn. It looks like this phenomenon is well known (i.e., FoodTV popular with the "can't cook, won't cook" male crowd). There's a recent article in Harper's about the parallels betweeen cooking shows and porn, which has been acknowledged for years in the industry. You can hear an interview with writer Fredrick Kaufmann on this article.

80.4 kg

I took off both Friday and Saturday from the workout schedule, because I was pretty beaten up from the 9 straight days of workouts, and especially Thurday's run. Friday was a normal rest day, and when Saturday morning rolled around, I slept in because I knew I was still stiff and recovering.

I played way too much poker over the weekend. I ended up $-14, $+96, $-56, for a net of +$26. What a waste. I wouldn't have logged the $-56 session, except I went with a friend last night, and played in these unprofitable games. It's now Sunday "morning", and I've spent all weekend in a casino. At least I made a new low weigh-in today. I made breakfast when I got back in at 4:30am, and fell asleep. I think yesterday I had:

2 eggs, tortilla
Grape Nuts cereal
salmon salad, 4 crackers
some Reeces Pieces
Rubio's carnitas "street" taco (110 calories)
orange
chicken tender (removed most breading)
celery
banana
5 Starburst candies

Geez, this isn't much over 1300 calories. It looks the an anorexic girl's meal plan. Honestly, I wasn't restricting, I just ate enough to keep from being hungry. I'm going to the gym as soon as I can rehydrate, then I'll make it to Whole Foods, as my refrigerator is down to a few eggs and tortillas.

Short Village Club Sesssion

After spinning, I went to Tacos El Gordo for dinner, and stopped by the Village Club. There was a $1/$3 No-Limit (Max $100 buy-in) seat open, and I took it, because I know it's a better game than $3/$6 Limit HE. In a limit game, I need lots of preflop action, drawing cards, and a flop, several times to win money. In the no-limit game, I need either to isolate someone when I hold the best hand, or trap someone, one time to double or triple up. Well, I pretty much hit the former, and doubled up quickly. I made another hand, but couldn't trap anyone. Then I lost some preflop money, and cashed out +$81 USD for the 2 hour session.

Joe the dealer came up to me tonight, and hugged me, pretty much because he was drunk. He might have seen me counting money in my wallet, because he said something like, you know, sometimes you have to show a little gamble. Meaning he can tell I'm a piker, and miserly tight. Well, I do talk up a loose image, but it's not the same thing. Anyways, he continued to hold me, and confide to me in his uninhibited state. He begins like, "you know, I remember you from way back". And I'm feeling a little uncomfortable, because I think he's going to get all honest, and tell me what a prick I am for coming to the cardroom, to scavage money from these bad gamblers. But, be says he's liked me from day one. I figure he's keeping it together, and isn't completely uninhibited. He sits down into a $6/$12 Limit HE game, for god knows what reason. Drink and gamble, the house specialty.

The game I got up from was really good. There's a young, good-looking Vietnamese kid that makes live straddle bets, and raises out of the blind every chance he gets. He makes it a point to gamble the table, putting in lots of preflop raises. He has a wild look in his eye, that I've seen before. It says uncontrollable gambler. But I've heard him speak, and he's not an idiot. But he's there to gamble. He was winning, pulling down big pots by flopping two pairs, and rivering straights. Most all the players are young posers. Kids are getting busted out left and right. That's why they never really spread no-limit before this TV poker craze. The general consensus was that the house would rather have the players beat each other slowly in limit games, rather than have people going broke to better players in no-limit. Made perfect sense. Why let the better players take the money, when the house could take it all through the rake. Well, there's no stopping this craze for now.

A Day At The Beach

We had another summer October day in San Diego, so I decided to take a run at Torrey Pines State Park, and jump into the surf afterwards. This is my first official run since coming back from obesity, and it felt great. I stretched, then took off running up the 2km hill from the beach to the top of Torrey Pines. The spinning really got me in shape, because I was barely breaking a sweat when I got to the top of the long hill. I actually felt light on my feet, even though I still need to lose another 6 kg. I passed a few runners, and the only discomfort were the outsides of my little toes rubbing against my shoes. That'll get better once I develop some callouses. Honestly, when I was overweight and limping around, I thought my days of running Torrey Pines were through. I thought I threw that all away (via violation of the "use it or lose it" arthritis rule). The run was about 5km, including the 2km hill.

Afterwards, I changed into swim trunks, and got into the water. At first, the water felt prohibitively cold, but after taking the plunge, it felt perfectly warm (it was probably around 20 degC). I walked around and talked to two guys surf fishing. They caught a few perch, and they decribed how they deep fry it. I talked to a German lady on vacation, while her granddaughter was poking at a washed-up jellyfish.

Finally, I met two 20-something guys on bikes packed with camping gear. They just rolled in, and I asked them how far they've been riding. They had grown-out hair and beards, and kind of had a unibomber look to them. I caught them as they were finishing up a trip from Olympus, WA to San Diego, which is like 2250 km. They'd been riding for a month with a group, and were finishing up their trip on their own, before they flew back to New York. Turns out they've been blogging their trip, so you can read about it. Funny when two blogs collide in real life.

More Poker Burnout

It's getting harder for me to go to a poker room, or to stay there once I've started playing. I've gone twice since last pokerblogging, and I've won +$50 and +$20 USD, respectively. It's been a good month, that's paid for a lot of expenses, but I'm really getting sick of being in a poker room. I might have to ressurect some other obsessive hobbies soon.


From the UK, there's encouraging news about solving the childhood obesity problem. Jamie Oliver, the unpretentious Naked Chef had a reality cooking show last year called Jamie's School Dinners, where he critised the quality of the processed, fatty, low-quality food served to British schoolchildren, and instead took it on himself to feed them 20,000 meals a day. The show apparently had an effect on the Blair government, and now several laws have passed to ban junk food from school vending machines and cafeterias. Also, they're adding healthy cooking instruction to the cirriculum. The problem of childhood obesity is reaching epidemic proportions in the UK, which is the fattest country in Europe. In the last 25 years, childhood obesity rates have increased by 400%. It's probably the same here in the US. It looks like Jamie has dedicated himself to this project, which has a website Feed Me Better. He's come over to the US, and was on NBC's Today from Sept 28-30, but whether we'll ever get legislation or awareness over here is doubtful, because our lobbyists aren't like those UK wankers.

The Biggest Loser (Season 2, Week 4)

The Biggest Loser went to Las Vegas this week, which was supposed to be the ultimate in temptation. I'm not sure how many days they stayed in Vegas, but I don't think it was the whole week. The real test would be to leave them on their own, with their families/friends. But they're still learning and losing weight, so maybe that's not the point of the show. But, temptation is nothing compared to a goal.

Anyways, these people did an amazing job of losing weight again. I think they averaged losing over 2.5% of their body weight. Most amazing was the 43 year old doctor who lost 14 lbs (340 to 326 lbs). That's like 4% of his body weight. It's also 2 lbs a day, or running a 7000 calorie/day deficit. To put that into perspective, Tour de France riders might burn 9000 calories on the toughest race stages climbing the Alps.

Ok, I have to admit I believe in the < 1%/week weightloss myth. Everyone seems to say rapid weightloss isn't healthy. I'm losing about .65%/week, and I'm working out 5-6 days a week, doing both hard cardio and strength. But, I just found a Jillian Michaels interview where she says there's nothing wrong with rapid weightloss through exercise. Of course, she's promoting a book, but the results on the show are making a believer out of me. Jillian Michaels' story itself is inspirational. She tells you about her own turn-around in an interview on iVillage.

I'm trying to formulate a workout plan to lose like 2kg in a week. If I come up with one, I'll try it here.

80.6 kg

My weightloss keeps moving forward. Nothing fancy, no starving, just eating Whole Foods, and working out. I can't remember everything I ate yesterday, but here's a partial list:

yogurt
pork filet, bok choy, tortilla
two tortillas
handfulls of Grape Nuts cereal
protein bar
seared Ahi sandwich
tofu salad
cracker and prosciutto
pear

I have no idea how many calories are here. I'm not holding off hunger or anything, but I had to eat the protein bar during spinning class.

Butter Burger

Ok, I didn't eat one of these, but I saw it on Hamburger America, a documentary I caught on the Sundance Channel. It's a butter burger, from Solly's Grille in Milwaukee, WS. It's a simple idea, a huge dollop of real Wisconson butter, on a hamburger. It's the house specialty, and everybody loves them. They serve hundreds of these burgers every day, and much of the staff have been doing it for many, many years.

The documentary is all about these regional hamburger stories. There's no health message here. It's a celebration of tradition, and mild obsession. It's not Super-Size Me.

81.0 kg

I hit a low weigh-in this morning. If you haven't noticed, any time I hit a new low, I use my weight for the post title. Pretty much, I've slept and played poker since my last post. After waking up yesterday, I made breakfast, watched television, and headed off to the Barona Casino. When I got there, I sneaked into the hotel gym to do a strength training session. Needless to say, I was the only person working out there, and I kept the staff member company. Only hotel guests are allowed to use the facilities, which are very nice and upscale. I probably won't be able to sneak in again.

I went back to the casino and played $3/$6 Hold'Em. I won another $217, bringing the weekend total to $319. In total, I probably played 20 hours this weekend, so I beat my $10/hr average. I'll have to keep stats someday. After finishing up in poker, I did the gayest thing ever and went to the gift shop and found these cute Halloween/October themed plates and serving tray. Well, they're more October than Halloween. I mean pumpkin, but not jack-o-lantern, if you know what I mean. I guess I needed some new plates, and I'm not too keen on keeping an entirely matched cubbard, so I picked them up. At least it doesn't have a Barona logo on it, like some of my mugs do.



I guess this is what Barona wants you to believe their crap game looks like. Let me just say that if I saw a scene like this at Barona, I'd ask one of the guys in the pit if they were shooting a commercial. Or, I'd ask myself if I was still in Scottsdale. There are countless things wrong with this picture, but I won't dwell on them. Anyways, we had the usual table of Babel last night, and I was sitting with two siciliani, and the three of us were cracking jokes and having a good time speaking Italian. Since I'm a Chinese guy speaking Italian, there was a white guy speaking Cantonese and Tagalog for balance. This isn't Stepford.

Yesterday I bought a Rubio's fish taco for three seperate meals. I got one before playing at about 12:30pm, then another at about 5pm, and a third at about 10pm. Finally, when I got home, I cooked up the last 100g of organic Rib Eye, some onions, and peppers, and ate it with a sprouted corn tortilla. I think my food yesterday was:

3 fish tacos
Rib Eye fajita
banana
latte
2 scrambled eggs and tortilla

My guess is that it totals up to about 1800 calories.

Saturday Food Audit

I did 2 hours of workouts yesterday, and I also ate a fair amount. Let me add it up, to see how I did.

2 turkey sausage links + 25g crackers
turkey sandwich (Starbucks)
2 carne asada tacos (Tacos El Gordo)
2 $.25 vends of Reeces Pieces
potato soup + 4 saltines
scrambled eggs + 2 slices whole wheat toast
partial beef taco salad

That totals up to about 2400 to 2500 calories, which is probably the right amount for the hard workout day.

Returned To OA

I went back to Overeater's Anonymous tonight, and actually spoke up, instead of hiding in the back. I was actually at The Village Club all afternoon, following the spinning workout at 7:15 am, and the OFC training session at 9 am. I followed my usual schedule of lunch at Tacos El Gordo, and afternoon $3/$6 Omaha at the Village. I ended up +$71 in about 7 hours, then left to make the 6:30pm OA meeting.

I had fun at the meeting. It's always good to talk about things you have in common with other ED people. I really love it when people understand what it's like to buy a Super-Size meal plus 9 Chicken McNuggets at the drive thru, and eat the fries before you get a few miles towards home. Sometimes when I tell people I can eat 1 1/2 pizzas at a sitting plus Buffalo wings, they tell me that they could never do it. Instinctively, I don't believe them, but they insist on telling me they don't do such things. I end up believing them after I get the same blank response from several different people. Anyways, OA people know what I'm talking about. Plus, I believe I can hold my own against the best of them. When I start with a dozen Krispy Kremes (some filled), I will eat 6 immediately before slowing down. Then, I'll eat another two, then I may go to sleep before eating the rest the next day.



We all had a good time at a dinner following the meeting. Everybody loved my "Nixon in '78" t-shirt. This makes the OA crowd very different from the poker crowd, who don't get the shirt at all. There's some humour in a poker room, but it's usually involves a poker hand.

Village Club

Did a strength training workout last night, and went to play at the dive known as The Village Club. It was in fine form on a Friday night, probably because they serve alcohol now. Ended up +$31, and went home to get some sleep for Saturday's workouts.