3/31/2010

As you know, we are trying to eat as much organic food as possible (available, convenient and affordable) so we did some web surfing and found that around a million websites contain lists of the 12 foods that you "should always buy organic"  As an aside; The list changes yearly as farming practices do.   Almost none of them had the list in the same order of importance.  That got me to wondering, just how many combinations can you get out of twelve items? Answer: 479,001,600.  So I randomly picked a webpage to quote.  Here they are in one of the 479,001,600 possible combinations.

• Peaches
• Apples
• Peppers
• Celery
• Nectarines
• Cherries
• Strawberries
• Lettuce
• Grapes (imported)
• Pears 
• Spinach
• Potatoes

Then we started looking around at what foods are least important to buy organic.  Go back and re-read the first paragraph but change the 12 into 15 and 479,001,600 with 2.44796 to the 16th power.

• Onions
• Avocados
• Corn on the cob
• Pineapples
• Mangos
• Asparagus
• Sweat Peas
• Kiwi (that one surprised me)
• Cabbages
• Eggplants (Even though 2/3 of the Worlds eggplant is grown in New Jersey!   Did you know that there are actually two types of the common eggplants we eat? The first has an oval dimple at the blossom end and has less seeds.  The other has a very round shape and more seeds.  Some people say that there are male and female eggplants with the males being the ones with fewer seeds.   It is also widely believed that Thomas Jefferson was the first person to bring eggplants to America.)
• Papayas
• Watermelons
• Broccoli
• Tomatoes
• Sweet Potatoes

You should really wash your fruits and vegetables before cooking or eating. If you use any of the commercially available "Veggie" cleaners, Stop.  It has bee proven that a quick bath in distilled water or a quick spray with a mixture of 1/4 white vinegar to 3/4 distilled water (we use tap water as it is purified "in house") then a rinse in clean water, is just as, if not more effective than the commercially available fruit washes. 

That's it for tonight, eat well!

Bald Bill

3/30/2010

Reading all the opinions of various nutritionists, dietitians, and doctors is like listening to two politicians debate.  I just read on one website that agave nectar, while high is fructose it has a low glycemic index and is fine in moderation.  Not five minutes later a received a newsletter with the heading: "Shocking! This 'Tequila' sweetener is far worse than high fructose corn syrup.  Luckily, for me I'm not a sugar junky.  So cutting sugars (except for naturally occurring sugars in whole foods) out of my diet is pretty easy.

I think that my head is going to explode!

The 'Oses'.
You are probably familiar with; sucrose, fructose and glucose .  I have been reading up one the properties of each.  In my head I think of them as the three stooges, read on, it will make sense.

Sucrose (common table sugar): is broken down in the stomach, by a process called "acidic hydrolysis" into glucose and fructose.  Turns out that their are two forms of fructose.  Monosaccharide (free fructose) or as a disaccharide (sucrose).  Fuck me! these bastards are going in a fucking circle!   Your body will readily absorb "Free" fructose and use it as fuel.  When the disaccharide version of fructose, which is really sucrose hits your small intestine some fucking enzyme cleaves it into one part glucose and.... wait for it... it's coming... one part fructose!  This 2,347,817th version of fructose gets spat out of your intestine through the portal vein and sent to the liver, where it gets turned into fat.  But wait!  it gets better!  I got this next bit from the British Medical Journal:  In order for the liver to process fructose, it must be phosphorylated by removal of phosphates from adenosine triphosphate.  The adenosine triphosphate gets converted into adenosine monophosphate, and then into inisotol monophosphate, and were not dot quite yet...finally into uric acid.  Too much uric acid and you get Gout.


So, what did I get out of all that?  A headache.   Actually I think that I may have a tiny grasp of what's going on.


There are two types of fructose, monosaccharide (free fructose) and disaccharide (sucrose).  Free fructose walks on through the small intestine unscathed and is then easily absorbed by the large intestine.  Sucrose walks in to the small intestine and promptly gets mugged by a bully an enzyme called sucrase (NOT sucrose) in the small intestine, where it is split in two.  One unit of glucose which you body can use and one unit of fructose, which some fucking reason I still don't get, it gets kicked out of the small intestine via the portal vein before it could get to the large intestine.  It then gets sent to the principals office liver where it gets detention stored as fat... and uric acid.


Fruc, gluc and suc (sounds kinda dirty when I put it that way!)can all be present in a food, in varying levels.


So, the sugar found in your sugar bowl and soda can will make you fat.  The sugars found in fruits and vegetables are better for you...unless (you knew this had to be coming) your a guy and your triglycerides are high, then you may not want to go on an all fruit diet.  As apparently; "fructose can produce much higher fasting plasma triglycerides when compared to glucose".


Aw...come on!  This is more fucked up than a football bat!


I just found this:


Says Meira Field, Ph.D., a research chemist at United States Department of Agriculture, "but every cell in the body can metabolize glucose. However, all fructose must be metabolized in the liver. The livers of the rats on the high fructose diet looked like the livers of alcoholics, plugged with fat and cirrhotic." While a few other tissues (eg, sperm cells and some intestinal cells) do use fructose directly, fructose is almost entirely metabolized in the liver.


BOOM! That was the sound of my head exploding!  


Heres what I'm going to do: (once I clean up the blood and brains, which are splattered all  over my office)


I'm going to stay away from fruit flavored vodka.  That shit must be a double whammy!


Until next time...


Bald Bill
P.S. I did lose two pounds last week.

Week three is done!

When I woke this morning, I got dressed, had some coffee, ate breakfast and then realized that today was weigh in day.  Ooopps, I'll have to do it tomorrow morning.

Over the weekend I was remiss on my water intake and had a little more vodka than I have been allowing myself.  I'll be happy if I managed to lose two pounds.  My goal is two to three a week.  That seems to fall within most conventional wisdom as a safe goal.

I just watched the news and they had a feature on the "Fast-5 diet" While I will read it, my initial thoughts are that it is not a great idea.  The concept is simple enough; eat and drink whatever you want, as much as you want.  The catch is this, you have to do all of your calorie intake within five hours a day.  Hypothetically, lets say you pick the hours 5:00 PM till 10:00 PM.  At 5:00 PM you have a big mac and large fries and a milk shake.  At 7:00 PM you eat a big bowl of mac and cheese.  At 9:45 you get some chicken McNuggets and a pint of vodka.  According to the fast-5 diet, this is fine  (as I said I have not read the diet, this is only from what I learned watching the news).  Will you loose weight?  Beats the fuck out of me.  Is this a healthy way to provide your body with the best possible nutrients, vitamins and minerals?  No fucking way!

I looked in on the cheeseburger, it looks exactly the same.  Surprisingly the fries have shrunk a bit.  New photos soon.

Short post tonight, I'm heading to bed.

Thanks for reading,
Bald Bill

3/27/2010

Milk.

It does not matter if you like to drink milk or not, odds are that you consume cows milk on a daily basis, it might be the cream in your coffee or cheese or any one of countless other forms that we ingest.

There are several websites that point out that drinking cows milk, the product of a 1,000 plus pound  animal that is not human, is not good for humans.  They say that the fat and calorie count is appropriate for a calf, not a baby human .  On the surface that makes sense to me. (side bar: Though I have no children... that I know of, I am a firm believer of moms breast feeding for at least the first few weeks and I also think you should save the cord blood. While on the subject it seems to be fast becoming common practice to take newborns blood for DNA.  That a bit to much "Big Brother" for me; you can refuse this  At the very least ask your doctor about it.  Say they learn to predict if your baby has have a pre-disposition develop certain diseases, your child will be tainted for life and may have a hard time getting health insurance.  If you haven't already guessed, I'm no fan of big government.  I'm not a republican or a democrat, I do believe that smaller government is better.  Look at every thing they run, do they make a profit, no.  I am a firm believer in free market capitalism.  Shit!  I try like Hell to not let politics intervene in this blog.  I'm dropping the subject!

Back to milk...

Don't get me wrong, I love cheese!  If and when I retire, I hope to open a cheese shop.  I love cheese!  The other day Lisa and I were at whole foods.  Unbeknown to me there was an elderly woman within earshot when Lisa asked me If I wanted to get some raw milk Jarlsberg cheese, to which I answered "buy some? I want to make love to it"  The elderly woman cracked up!

Something is wrong here.  Some cultures around the planet eat lots of cheese and live long, healthy lives.  Why is our milk worse?  Once again many hours of reading led me to a possible answer.  In the US, we pasteurize and homogenize our milk.  Why do we do this?  As far as I can tell their are two reasons: One: the conditions that most dairy cows are kept in are so bad that disease is a very real concern.  So they pasteurize the milk to kill bacteria.  They also Homogenize the milk.   Homogenize comes from Latin: To make the same.  Simply put it means that the molecules of fat/cream are bigger then the molecule of the milk. So they force them through tiny screens so that the fat molecules stay in suspension.  That is why the cream no longer rises to the top.

From what I have learned, the only reason to do this is to cover you ass if you have shitty practices in place.  Fresh, raw milk is worlds better than the processed crap sold in most stores.  I'd still prefer beer over milk but what do I know?

Raw is not bad, if you get it from a local and conscientious source. If you are a milk fan you will probably have an orgasm when you taste "real" milk.  Think about it.  When you were a nursing baby, was your mothers milk the homogenized and pasteurized?  Of course not!  Same goes for every mammal on the planet.  Homogenization and pasteurization are not necessary, they are ways to extend the shelf life and correct bad farming and storage practices.

Do you use "half and half" in your coffee?  Do you know what each half is?  Have you noticed that some are labeled: pasteurized and others are labeled: Ultra pasteurized? Do you know the difference?  It is the temperature and time that they are heated.  What is the difference?   Storage time before opening, thats it. Ultra pasteurized will last longer, unopened in the fridge.  Once you open either one the spoilage clock starts.  Buy a half pint of each.  Open and taste them, I will bet that you will agree that the pasteurized tastes better than the ultra pasteurized.  Totally natural fresh raw milk and cream (they come in the same bottle) taste soooo much better.

By the by, I know that you know about skim, 1%, and 2% milk, but do you know the fat content of whole milk?  It averages 4%.

Have a great weekend!

Thanks for reading,
Bald Bill

3/26/2010

Welcome to Friday evening!  I don't know about where you live but here in the 'burbs of Philly, after a nice run of warm weather we have a frost warning for tonight.  I'm chilly!  Hmmmn?  That's odd, I am never chilly.  I break into a sweat if I even think hard!  Could it be that the 10 pounds I lost are making a difference in how hot or warm I feel? Note I did not say "cold"  I still have sufficient blubber to keep me from feeling cold, save for if I happen to fall into a dewar of liquid nitrogen I which case I might feel cold.

Back to the grass fed beef  vs. conventional beef saga from the other day...

Cows are made to eat grass, they are not made to eat corn.  Conventionally raised beef starts out eating grass but is later "finished" by feeding it lots and lots of corn, this is also typically when they give them steroids, growth hormones and antibiotics.  It turns out that this change of diet has profound effects on the cows body.  I'll put it this way,  Beef contains both Omega 3 and Omega 6 fatty acids.  Omega 3 = good for you. Omega 6 = bad for you.  An ideal ratio of the fats is 1 to 1.  Why the fuck it is not 1 to zero is beyond me... anyway...  The happy cow who lives out his days on a sunny green pasture eating only grass has a fatty acid ratio of around 4 (bad) to 1 (good).  Bring that same walking dinner into a feedlot for a few weeks of "finishing" and his ratio of bad fatty acids to good fatty acids jumps to around 21 to 1.  It get worse the longer he continues eating corn.

After cooking, Omega 3 fatty acids remain liquid at low temperatures, Omega 6 fatty acids solidify.  Which would rather have running around your veins, arteries and heart?

Another reason that you might want to eat grass fed beef is that is typically raised on smaller ranches.  Smaller ranches differ from the gigantic production line ranches.  I will not go into all the gory details about how a large processing plant that can process over 300 heads of cattle per hour dispatches and butchers them, except to say this:  Moving at such a fast pace, knifes slip.  Intestines and bowels get ruptured, spilling their contents on the meat.  This is a major source of e-coli contaminations in the US beef supply.  Now the big meat industry is coming under increasing pressure to do something about it (ya think?)  Do you think they decided to slow the the fucking production process down a little bit and raise cleanliness guidelines?  Nope!  They want to irradiate all their meat, in order to kill the bacteria... which wouldn't be there if they had higher cleanliness standards in the first place.  Then they realized that Americans might be turned off by the words "IRRADIATED MEAT"  so they are trying to get approval to rename this process "Cold Pasteurization"  

I don't know jack shit about radiation but I do know that when I get an x-ray they give me a lead jockstrap for Little Bald Bill and the Twins.  And the doctor gets the fuck out of the room.  Beats me if there is any residual harm done to irradiated meat but everything else being equal, I'll take my meat non x-rayed thank you..

On another note, we have been kicking the idea of building a small chicken coop to house 5 to 7 hens (who do not crow at dawn.  One day of that shit and we'd be inviting you all over for a big chicken dinner) for fresh eggs and when their egg laying days come to an end, humanly dispatching and eating them.  To that end I've been subscribed to Poultry World magazine for a few years.  I have learned a lot, which I will not bore you with, lets just say that  industrial chicken processing makes the beef processing look like high end hospice care!  Buy free range chicken from local farmers whenever possible.

That's all for now, I'm going to watch some Formula One practice.

Thanks for reading!
Bald Bill

The burger update

As you know, I have a burger in my office that I am watching to see if it ever spoils.  I was going to add a truly fresh, organic burger and compare the results.  I also told you that neither of my cats expressed any interest in the burger...

Two things happened.  One, I decided that I did not want the smell of a rancid cheeseburger in my office, so I decided to include some lettuce and tomato and an order of small fries.

The second thing... my cat George ate the fucking burger.  He is a rescued stray and will eat anything (he likes Tabasco) so much for the "even my cats won't eat it" theme.  Hey I'm nothing if not honest.  So the new burger is only one day old, but the bun is the original.  My office door will remain closed so that George does not eat it

3/25/1020

I know that I told you that today I would resume my findings on the beef industry, however I am compelled to write this instead:

The more you read about the food we eat, the more you will become scared shitless of eating anything!  But lets face facts.  Yes most of todays food is not as healthy as it was 50 years ago.  Yes, there are more toxins in fish and mollusks than ever before (but I will still eat them and raw too!).  The return to "real" food is on the upswing, which is great.  However there are plenty of people eating this crap that go on to live long lives.

In writing this blog, know this; I am not trying to convert you into an "organic only" lifestyle; Remember I'm just a fat guy trying to loose weight.  I'm just trying to pass along some of the information that I have gleaned from all that I have read.  Much of it I am trying to incorporate into my eating habits, as I am trying to find a way to eat whatever I want and not only hold my weight but loose weight.  When I get to my goal weight I will move toward a "hold my current weight" strategy.  I can't weight (sic) until I can allow myself to eat a hot sausage with sauerkraut and mustard! (once or twice a year)

Undoubtedly organic food is a much better alternative to "conventional" food but in the world as it stands today it is just not practical 24/7.  My goal is not to preach to you but to save you a shit load of reading and pass along some of what I have learned in a concise manner (like any of my posts are concise!) I do think that you should choose organic when possible and shop at local farmers markets when you can (many are organic but lack the certification) and eat seasonally as much as possible (tomatoes this time of year are harvested thousands of miles away while they are still green and then shipped in containers filled with ethylene gas to turn them red, Yum!  Yeah that's natural)

I learned that there have been recent changes to the wording of organic products; ironic timing, no?  I'll fill you in later.

Remember Jim Fixx? The running guy/health nut.  He fell over dead from a heart attack.  If you eat a perfectly healthy, Earth sustainable, organic diet; you will probably get killed buy a runaway Prius!

Was this the most wishy-washy, disjointed post ever?  Yeah, I thought so too.  It's just the way I'm feeling today.

Thanks for reading, I promise it will get better!

Bald Bill

3/24 or 3/25 2010 as I cant sleep.

As I can't fall asleep, here is a tid-bit of information that I just learned.

Let's assume that you have decided to eat as healthy as possible, from everything that you have read, you surmised that "Organic" is the way to go.  So you trot off to your local hippy dippy "natural" foods co-op and buy "organic" foods.

Yes, this is probably better than buying factory raised and grown foods....... but did you know; there are several terms that each mean a different thing?

Below are several labels that you will encounter, and what they mean.

100% Organic:  This is the holy grail.  You may rest assured that from the guy that planted the seeds to the farmer that watered and harvested "it" to the packaging plants and distributors that finally brought it to you,It is "Organic"

However if it says "Organic" it only needs to be 95% Organic, the remaining 5% must meet guidelines set by the FDA

"Made with organic" or "organically made" means that 70% of the ingredients are organic  As far as I have found there are no restrictions on the remaining 30%.  I could be wrong, so don't quote me on this or anything.

Remember:  I'm just a fat guy, trying to get healthy and blogging about it.  Don't believe anything I write; check it out for yourself!  My only goal is to (hopefully) inspire you to get as healthy and strong as possible.  Hopefully my blog will save you some time, researching and separating the wheat from the shit.  In the end you will have to find your own healthy diet plan.

All that said, I did manage to lose ten pounds in two weeks while eating more food and drinking more water than I did before.  I hate to call it a diet as most diets I've tried suck!  I changed the origins of the foods that I ate, not the types.

Shit!  It's late, I need to go to bed!

Please sign up and follow this blog if you have found even the smallest sliver of good information.

Thanks.
Bald Bill

3/24/2010

Today is/was Harry Houdini's birthday.  The previous sentence as absolutely nothing to do with todays post.

I'm pretty sure, no scratch that, I'm positive I did not drink enough water today.  It was just one of those days where I kept finding myself without a bottle or glass of water handy.  I still have a few hours to get in another 32 ounces.

For the past two weeks, if I'm not working, taking care of bodily functions, shopping for "good food", cooking "good food", eating "good food" or sleeping, I have been reading about food, diets nutrition, food science, and farming etc..etc.etc..  I like to think that I have a pretty good Bullshit meter.  You do have to be careful what you take to heart.  I know that I've covered this topic before but it bears repeating.  Try your best to fact check everything!  At least the best you can.

Some things are quite eye opening.  I started reading "Food Inc."  it is the companion to the movie of the same name (yeah, I never heard of it either).  I'm only about a quarter of the way through it but I recommend that if you are at all curious about where most of the food you eat (supermarkets, restaurants and fast food chains) comes from, it is a must read.

By the way, if you see Yellow text from this point forward, it is an indication to you that it is a clickable link.  If you see blue or pink text, it is just me trying to cover my poor writing skills and help you to follow if it is me (blue) or Lisa (pink) that I am quoting.

I've been reading about the difference between grass fed beef and feedlot, grain, corn and corn finished beef.
I love steak.  This may come as a surprise to some of you that know me and consider me a gourmand (if your being polite) or a food snob (if your not) but I think my favorite meal would be a Prime NY Strip steak, a baked potato, steamed broccoli and a wedge salad w/ Bleu cheese dressing.  That said it has always been my experience that I prefer the other feeding styles over grass fed.  After what I red today, Fuck me!  It looks like I'll only be eating Organic, grass fed beef from small ranches (if possible).   If I can come around to the taste, I'll be fine as it is getting easier to get the above mentioned beef at more and more stores.

Well, that's it for tonight.  I want to relax on the couch and watch a little TV before bed.

Tomorrow I'll continue on about what I'm learning about beef.

Until then, thanks for reading!

Bald Bill

PS
Please take a moment to register and then "follow" this blog.  It will go a long way towards my someday being able to "monetize" this blog.  Thanks!

3/23/2010

Today we decided to make our own mayonnaise, as we can't find a commercially available one that does not have soy oil and a bunch of other crap in it.  We did find that Heinz makes a 100% organic ketchup and it's quite good.  Back to the mayo.  I ran upstairs to my office and Googled "home made mayonnaise"... a video from Gordon Ramsey pops up on Youtube.  So I clicked and watched it , twice in fact.  I'm all set, I go to the kitchen and tell Lisa "I need three organic egg yokes, juice from a half of a lemon, a teaspoon of English mustard and 750 ml. groundnut oil, salt and pepper to finish"  "What's groundnut oil?" Lisa asks.  "Beats me, I thought you would know"... back upstairs... Google "groundnut oil"...I learn that it's oil made from peanuts...makes sense to me, peanuts are really legumes and grow in the "ground", so why not groundnut oil?  back to the kitchen.  "Lisa groundnut oil is peanut oil"  "Great we have peanut oil in the basement fridge!"  I pull out the food processor and Lisa informs me that she forgot to tell me that she broke off the little thingie that acts as a safety, without it the thing is as useless as a 8mm projector.  I can make a work around!  (Yeah I know how dangerous it can be to modify a food processor to work with the lid off, blah, blah, blah, I remember Geroges Perrier)  Down to the basement I go; I grabbed some wire, duct tape a hammer, three paper clips, a can of cat food and a pair of pliers.  Two minutes later the processor is working just fine (and the cats are fed), cover on or cover off (the food processor, not the cats).  Fuck, MacGyver. Now I'm in business!  I do exactly what Gordo told me to do:  Put three egg yokes in food processor, add the mustard and give it a quick spin.  Then very, very, actually glacially slowly pour in the oil.  After thirty seconds you can add the oil a little faster.  It was at about the 25 second mark that I began to get an inkling that something was going awry. "Hey Lisa, is it supposed to look like a fucking golf-ball rolling around the food processor?" Uh...no, I don't think so came the reply.  I decided to continue to add all 750 ml of oil.  When all was said and done we had a bowl of what looked like curdled buttermilk with maybe a little more yellow added.  Still we decided to taste it, YECH! Coagulated chunks of peanut flavored tapioca, floating in peanut flavored oil with snot.


We threw it out, cleaned everything up and tried again.  This time we would vary the rate at which we add the oil. (does it really take an organic chemistry major to make mayo?)  For a brief second it looked like it was turning into something that might be related to mayonnaise.  Sadly a mere nanosecond later it took on the consistency of eggnog, worse yet, it still tasted like peanut flavored phlegm... back up to the office to delve a little deeper into the groundnut oil mystery.  Himmmmn, turns out that groundnut oil is oil made from peanuts, nowhere did it say it was peanut oil .  After a few more searches I learn that almost any type of oil can be used to make mayo...  Thanks for the heads up Gordon!  Ya Limey bastard...  Back to the kitchen I go.


Lisa was just finishing cleaning up the evidence food processor.  By now we have wasted consumed all our peanut oil (not that it mattered) Lisa went to the basement and quickly returned with some sort of oil that is on our "good foods" list, I don't know what kind it was.  At this point I really didn't care.  I was fantasizing about blowing the shit out of the Goddamn, worthless piece of shit, good for nothing, cock sucking, food processor with a fucking shotgun!  We put the fucking three organic egg yokes, the teaspoon of Fuck you Gordon Ramsey! English mustard in the fucking food processor,  give the stupid piece of shit a quick spin and then slowly, drop by fucking painful drop add the muther fucking oil...   Know what?  Once again we ended up with fucking, Goddamn, phlegm flavored Eggnog oil and snot!  


Time for a vodka!  Oh baby was it time for vodka!


As we're throwing back an ice cold shot of mothers milk vodka, it hits me like a ton of bricks.  I know what I did wrong!  Did you pick up my mistake?  I'll give you a hint, it was the same mistake each time....


Jumping Jesus on a fucking pogo-stick!  I forgot the fucking Lemon juice!!!
So for the fourth time, we start the process; only this time with the lemon juice. Long story short; Guess what?  It turned out pretty damn good, if I do say so myself (which I just did)

We are now the proud owners of 750 ml. of what is absolutly (sic) the worlds most expensive mayo.

Gotta run Lisa just called me to dinner....

(30 minutes later)............................................................

Through no fault of our mayo, the meal was bordering on inedible!
It was a chicken, water chestnut casserole, normally a favorite.  However this time done all organic etc..etc... Some of the sprouted hippy dippy grains in the bread that we are eating these days got so hard, it was like trying to bite down on a 1/8th carat diamond.  I was actually scared to take each bite!  Thankfully no teeth were broken during the meal.

Tonight we had our first failed meal of the new health regime.
One out of 15.  I can live with that; after all we still have vodka!

More tomorrow...
Bald Bill

Week two is finished!

I made it through week two!  This morning I got on the scale hoping that I did not put weight on.  I am pleased to report that I lost 3 pounds.  I know that six pounds in the first week was going to be an anomaly, if I can lose two to three pounds a week, I'll be very happy.

I'm reading all this stuff about glycemic loads and indices, how keeping your blood glucose levels from spiking in either direction is a key to fat burning and weight loss.  How the fuck do I know what my blood glucose levels are?  Lisa, the smarter of the two of us called one of those "we'll send you a free meter" diabetes commercials.  A few days later it arrived.  The push pin and hypodermic are for size illustration only, they did not come with the kit.  The lancet looks much wider than it is.  I just drank six ounces of vodka, you want me to operate a digital SLR?  More on the vodka in a bit...

You know how on those diabetes commercials they brag that "their" meter needs no coding?  Well, the free meter I received was not one of those; it needed to be coded.  Holy shit, I'm not diabetic, I don't know shit about this stuff.  How the fuck am I going to code this thing, I don't even know what it means!!!  Turns out, coding a blood glucose meter involves this:  Turn meter on, hold the down arrow until a flashing dash mark appears and then using the up arrow enter the code number found on the little container of testing strips.  Fuck me!  It took all of 30 seconds.  People complain about this step?

Next up was the little pricker thingy.  It's a spring loaded gizmo that looks like a nose hair trimmer.  You insert a lancet and set the depth of pricking (one is the lowest and nine is the highest)  Then you press it against the side of your finger and press a button, the lancet springs forward and punctures your skin.  Yeah right!  For the life of me I could not get this thing to work.  I took out the lancet out of the springy thingy and jabbed it into my finger, it worked just fine.  After all we are talking about a little tiny needle that measures .2 mm in diameter and 2.5 mm in length.  For comparison the needle used to give you a shot of Lidocaine measures  .4 mm by 11.5 mm.  A push pin measures 1.2 mm by 10.5 mm.

I spent the day sticking my finger every hour or so.  The good news is that I am nowhere close to being a diabetic, the bad news is that 2.5 mm is deep enough to hit a capillary.  I had several pin pricks that bled for two or three minutes, it does not sound like long but it drips and is a nuisance.  I did finally get the springy thing to work every once and a while.  From waking up to soon after eating my glucose levels were between 90 to 130.  I'll keep doing random test over the next few weeks to see what if anything that I'm eating really spikes my blood sugar.

I was curious to see what effect six ounces of vodka would have on my blood glucose level (the things I do for you!  Subscribe to this blog already)  So, purely in the interest of science I drank six ounces of vodka and stuck myself an hour later (prime time for a glucose spike)  My glucose only raised nine mg/dl.  No big deal (blood sugar wise, if you bring up liver wise I'll beat you with and old cheeseburger!  Which brings me to the cheeseburger test.

Yesterday 3/21/10 I bought a cheeseburger and opened it up on a small coffin in my office (don't ask) next to an open screened window.  On 3/22/10 I took a picture of it.  I will do so every Monday for as long as my wife will let me.  I'm thinking that it will not attract any bugs nor will it mold, but what the fuck do I know.  We will find out together.  Eat food not science experiments!  God damn it!  I sound like a hippy tree hugger!

With that, I'm off to bed!

G'night my friends!

Bald Bill

Friday 3/19.2010

Welcome to the weekend!

Once again, curiosity got the better of me and I crept onto the scale.  I'm loosing weight but I'll not say how much (that was a really bad homage to Billy Bragg)  I try and not bore you to death with the minutia of my day in day out diet but let tell you about tonight's dinner.  Tomato and cucumber salad with Basil oil and vinegar. All organic and unprocessed... etc... etc... etc... NY strip steaks (click the "steaks" link!) medium rare, cooked on the B.G.E.  Steamed artichokes, char-grilled red onion's and a broccoli, walnut and dried cranberry salad, dressed with a yogurt dressing.  I do try to keep the meat portion reasonable and by that I mean 4 to 6 ounces but other than that I eat however much I want.  It did take us a full week to find out where to buy the various foods but now that we have fully stocked and know where to go, I'll be damned if I know that I am on a diet.

I've been eating some cheese, raw, unpasteurized, unhomogenized cheese made by Hippy's in a commune, if you are out of your mind, you could buy it at almost any tree hugging, dirt eating "health food" store.  But be warned, if you try it, when you go back to "normal" cheese it will taste like shit!  I'm a raw cheese convert!  And I run with scissors too! (from what I've read, kids and old folks or people with a compromised immune system should not do this, eat raw milk cheese that is... but I guess that the same holds true for running with scissors).  Remember: I know nothing, nothing (Sargent Schultz rules!) about food or nutrition.  I'm just a fat old bastard trying to get healthy.

I've been trying to keep an eye on how I feel before I eat as well as how I feel afterwards, not to mention how I feel in general.  Here are some random observations:

• I'm not as cranky when I'm hungry.
• Despite being totally stressed the fuck out, with our business circling the drain.  I'm actually dealing with the stress a little bit better.
• I feel a bit bloated.  That might be the fucking Olympic swimming pool of water that I'm drinking daily.
• I crap and pee more than before, a fact that surprises even me, as I have never been lacking in that department!
• I'm still out of shape; today I carried a few hundred pounds of "stuff" down to a customers basement and while I took three trips to carry down around 180 to 220 pounds, I was panting like a priest at a middle school wrestling meet.  I'm going to start riding my bike (the pedal one not the vroom, vroom one)
• I sleep like the dead and have an easier time waking up.  Then again, it could be that I drink my vodka on the rocks right before bed.  Yeah, I know how bad it is to consume calories, especially alcohol right before going to sleep.  Whatever!  I'm loosing weight and not going insane.  I'm okay with it.

I ripped off  had a great idea that I saw in several places on the web I'm going to start over the weekend.  I'm going to go to a giant chain restaurant and buy a cheeseburger, then I am going to make one at home using all natural, organic ingredients.  Next I'll plate them both and put them in my office (Lisa asked me, or actually forbade me to do this anywhere else in the house) and take their picture... everyday for a month or longer if the smell of the "real food" rotting does not kill me.  What am I attempting to prove, you ask?  Beats the fuck out of me!  It just sounded kind of funny to see if a McShit burger will ever start to decay.

Well it's time for vodka and TV, more tomorrow!  Thanks for reading!

Having problems driving your Prius watch this video, it'll help you out.

Bald Bill

3/18/2010

Before I give my diet update I have to ask a question:  Was today drive with your head up your fucking ass day?
I was watching the news and they had, not one but two stories of jackass' who were "under the influence" when they ran into the back of a police car!  Holy shit!  That raises the stupidity bar not new heights.  I don't know about you but if I have had anything to drink, the sight of a cop car is like a triple shot of espresso.  Then there is the fact that most police cars have all sorts of reflective tape on them to make them more conspicuous at night.  How the Hell do you drive straight into one?   Then we had a 16 year old steal a SEPTA bus, which he promptly crashed into 12, count 'em 12 parked cars.  Joy riding is one thing.  In my youth; I may have or may not "borrowed" the occasional golf cart from the local country club.  I might have "relocated" a police car while they were busy raiding the underage party i was attending.  But stealing a SEPTA bus?!  They have big numbers painted on the roof and follow prescribed routes, where are you going to hide it assuming you manage to get more than a few blocks???  Then there was the accident that I witnessed the immediate aftermath of:  Both cars were traveling in the same direction on the same two lane road.  The lead car was a shinny new BMW 7 series, driven by a guy I'll call Chad.  The second car was a old busted up Dodge Neon, driven by a guy I'll call Beavis.  Chad has finished work for the day and is heading to the country club for a few martini's, as it is rush hour there is a lot of traffic on our little two lane road, so he cannot make his left.  He comes to a stop and has his left turn signal on, waiting for an opening in the flow of traffic.  Along comes Beavis, thinking to himself "driving is cool, hea, hea, hea."  Bam! straight into the back of Chad's bemmer at 35 or 40 miles per hour.  Broad daylight, no clouds, dead straight road.  On that note go here and sign this petition.

The kids today (I sound like my dad) can't drive!  If you have a child about to start driving, do them, you and the rest of us a favor, send them to a professional driving academy.  Many of the nations top racing schools have programs for teen's.  Send them!  Yep! It will cost you several thousand dollars.  However it will more than pay for itself in lower insurance premiums or possibly their lives.  Not to mention you save yourself all the aggravation of teaching them to drive (not to mention wear and tear on your car).  Did i mention that my neighbors son just totaled his first car?

I'm too tired now to update you on my diet, sorry.  More tomorrow.

Bald Bill

3/17/2010

Happy St. Patrick's day, though I really don't understand why we Americans celebrate it.  But what the fuck!  It's an excuse to drink and we all know we need more of those!  You do know that St. Patrick was not Irish, nor was his name Patrick?... but as usual, I digress.  Oooh, one more thing, for any Vegan's out there, along with milk (most commercial milk is fortified with vitamin D which is synthesized from pork skin) ) and U.S.  Paper Currency (it has hide glue in it) you can't drink Guinness either.  Isinglass is used in the production of it, though only trace amounts remain.

We did find an all natural corned beef without nitrites but it looked like shit, so we went with an organic flank steak, grilled over natural lump charcoal (never use lighter fluid, even if you are eating over processed hot dogs, never use lighter fluid, it ruins the taste of anything cooked over it) with grilled radicchio, red onions and red peppers.  Damn, that was a good meal!  One last thing about grilling or barbecuing;  Go buy a Big Green Egg!  Yes they are expensive but worth every penny and then some!  We have had ours for over a decade and it is still going strong.  We have a Lynx gas grill that is one of the best gas grills out there, however it goes mostly unused, save for the side burner which we use to boil corn in the summer.

A few of you have asked me about "sprouted grain" breads.  "Are they as good as regular bread?"  No, but they are not bad either.  Ezekiel 4:9 is not bad at all.  Sprouted refers to the fact that the seeds or grains have begun to sprout before being made into bread.

Several people have also inquired into the whole water intake thing.  I have to admit I quit keeping track of exactly how many ounces I am drinking per day.  I do know that it is a boatload!  At least 125 ounces.  I do pee a lot through out the day but oddly, I do not wake up during the night to pee as I did when drinking a lot of beer.  Water does curb your appetite.  You probably have read that, often when you feel hungry you are actually thirsty.  They might be onto something there.  I'm not sure I'd drink tap water, my own tap water sucks!  I could not stand the smell of the chlorine when taking a shower.  We installed a whole house water filtration system, long before this eating experiment.  Now it tastes as good as the best bottled water.  It is something you should look into.

I noticed an odd thing last night while suckling at the teet of the boob tube; when a fast food or chain restaurant commercial came on, I thought to myself  "God how much shit is in that"?  Just a week and a half into this whole eating healthy thing and already I see my mindset changing.

Eat, Drink and be Healthy my Friends!

Until the next post...

Bald Bill

3/16/2010

When the alarm went off this morning, I awoke with a very sore throat and that feeling of a full head.  These are normally the precursors to my annual spring cold.  Year in, year out, I seem to get this cold and it inevitably ends in my having to take an antibiotic and spending three or four days in bed.

This year I decided to try some of the wacky shit I have been reading in order to see how it compared to taking antibiotics and feeling like shit for a week... Before i go on, let me say for the umteenth time:  I am not a doctor or a nutritionist, no did I play one on TV.  Viral and bacterial infections are different, if your doctor thinks it is prudent for you to take an antibiotic, take it!  He or she has insurance and I don't!

I years past I have gotten "my spring cold" and it usually settles in my sinuses, and I end up going to the doctor and getting a prescription for the antibiotic dejour.  A week later i feel better.

This time i drank water, chicken stock (Organic, free......you get it) with Tabasco sauce, gargled with raw apple cider vinegar, several times (swallowing each time... No jokes.. it is too easy) and slept as much as possible.  Know what?  I feel fucking great!  I heading to bed with a full day of work planned for tomorrow.

Remember, I am a very big skeptic, the fact that any of this shit works amazes me as much as it does you. 

The day I wake up and find that I have gained 20 pounds, I promise that i will post it here.  I promised you at the beginning of this experiment that I would post each and every relevant component, and I will.

For now: woke up sick, feel great now; heading to bed... lot's to do tomorrow.

Thank you for reading!
Bald Bill

Week one is done!

Now that we are stocked up with foods that meet my self imposed criteria, it does not feel like I'm dieting at all (kinda the whole point of this exercise).  I am actually eating more food then I was before.  Lisa often needs to prompt me to eat.  I can definitively say that I hunger is not an issue.

Alcohol, the 500 pound gorilla in the room.  While I did cut my beer intake way down, in fact I had exactly three 12 ounce Hop Devil's over the first week, my vodka intake actually we up a little bit.

I was thinking of all these things as I approached the scale this morning.  Specifically I was thinking of how I was going to feel like a jackass telling you that I gained weight and that was totally incompetent to design a healthy diet.  So... as nervous as the proverbial whore in church, I stood on the scale.  That was the longest two seconds of my life!  Then the display lit up... I lost six pounds!

Needless to say, I'm very happy!

I'm still reading everything I can find about nutrition and food science and it is exhausting.  Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one but most of them stink.  I've come up with a filter.  When reading anything about how what and why our bodies do what they do with different types of foods, I look for one thing, a tangible reference to some well known medical institution's study.  You can find contradictory information on everything! Carbs bad, carbs good.  Fat is bad, fat is good.  Eat high protein foods, eat low protein foods and on and on.

In the end I'm following my gut instinct "Eat the most natural, un-fucked around with foods you can find.  Eat a good variety of foods in reasonable portions.  Drink a shit load of water"

One thing I have found that falls outside of my all natural mantra is this;  Whole grains probably should not be included in your diet.  Yep, that whole wheat bread should get chucked in the trash.  I won't go into great detail but basically it goes like this:  A seed sprouts and grows into a wheat plant,  a cow happens by and eats said wheat plant.  Even with four stomaches Mr. cow does not digest the wheat kernel or seed, instead he craps it out where it sprouts and grows into a new wheat plant and the cycle repeats.  When humans eat that same wheat, our stomaches do break the seed down but in doing so the liver gets sidetracked and is distracted from doing its normal liver thing.  Eat sprouted grains (they are more plant, less seed)

Did you notice that I did not site a major medical institution? If you follow my advice you should ignore what I just said!  But then again, I never claimed to know jack shit.  Seriously, that info was corroborated I just can't put my finger on it right now.

More later.... I need to get some work done!

Regards,
Bald bill

Friday 3/12/2010

Cats know what to eat.

Lisa and I have had two cats since we got married; Wack-a-do and Bandit.  Later we adopted a mangy, half dead, flea infested, sorry excuse of a cat, we named him George.  We gave George the feline version of an extreme makeover. He has since thrived and wormed his way into our hearts.  In the same time frame, Bandit who had epilepsy from when she was a kitten got much worse.  A year and a half ago we made the difficult decision to send her to "a beautiful farm with a crystal clear stream running through it , where she could chase mice and birds every day"

Trust me, I assure you that you are reading my weight loss blog, not an article from cat fancy.  Hang in there, I'll spin this yarn into a pertinent story, promise.

Both Bandit and George (Wack-a-do has until recently displayed no interest in "people" food) were and are beggars and beggar, respectively.  They were not too bad.  They would get under foot if we were preparing a meal.  They would do the figure eight through our legs (cat people get this others... not so much) but that was about it.

Now we find ourselves with just Wack-a-do and George.  With almost a week our our diet experiment under our belts we have notice a surprising change in the cats behavior.

For years I have had a yogurt first thing in the morning, first "normal" yogurt later "diet" or "lite" neither cat paid this any mind.  Now I am eating totally natural, organic... blah, blah, blah yogurt.  Both cats go bat shit wild over it.  When I finish, I put the bowl down and they descend upon it like crack whores in desperate need of a fix.  It gets better.  When we sit down for dinner (all natural, organic, meats, poultry and fish)  both cats are right there, Wack-a-do sitting like a lady, patiently waiting for a morsel and George circling the table like a pedophile at a playground.  They go nuts!  Paw fights regularly breakout over whatever scraps we toss their way.  The chicken we ate two weeks ago, regular supermarket fare, they showed little to no interest in.  Tonight's organic chicken, prepared the same way, drove them wild.  Both cats meowing and batting each other in the head as each scrap hit the floor.  It was anarchy I tell you!

Cats know what to eat.

A late night Canned Tuna tidbit...

Did you know that a six (6) ounces can of tuna is only required to have 3.5 ounces of tuna in it?  Yep, it's true, the rest can be oil, water etc...

You know that I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV.  I'm not a nutritionist either.  I am not in any way affiliated with any company or product that I mention on this blog.

In my quest for truly healthy foods I am learning a lot and wish to share my findings with you.  To that end:
Do you eat tuna fish, the canned variety?  If you do, you want to look at this company; Oregon's choice.  They actually put six ounces of fish in each can.  And they seem to have much higher standards compared to most other "big" companies.

Spend a moment and check their site out:  https://www.oregonschoice.com/home.php

If you find anything of interest on this blog, please subscribe to it and suggest it to a few friends!

Thanks,
Bald bill

Day Three. Some observations and thoughts.

I'll not bore you with all the details of what I ate today.  I'll also no longer mention that the foods I'm eating are organic, free range, growth hormone free, antibiotic free etc...etc...etc...  I will mention any new foods that I try and really like or for that matter can't stand.

There is no doubt that Americans are getting fatter by the decade.  I'm sure that their are many contributing factors but a few thoughts crossed my mind today that I'd like to share.  I'm now eating more food than I was before I started this experiment.  That got me to thinking, back a half century or so when American looked like a Norman Rockwell painting.  It was the norm for the man to work and the woman to cook and clean.  I bring this up because it takes a lot of time to prepare not to mention shop for all natural, free range...you know what I mean.  "Back in the day" most food was free of all the crap that is so prevalent in todays foods.  Meat came from the butcher, who got it from the rancher, who raised it in a field where it ate grass.  Today it's a big fucking deal to find a steak that wondered around eating grass for all of its days, most supermarkets do not carry any grass fed beef, let alone antibiotic free etc...etc.  So back to yesteryear; The guy comes home, the family sits down at the dinner table (For the kids:  A dinner table is that big table covered in all kinds of newspapers, magazines, laundry, book bags etc, you know, the one that you only eat at three times a year) and eats a healthy meal, a big healthy meal.  Contrast that with today.  Odds are both the man and the woman work full-time.  We wake up in a rush, no time for breakfast in the traditional sense, so we grab a cup of coffee and a bagel at the local quickie mart.  We then eat and drink while drive to work.  Lunch is where most of us really screw the pooch.  I can't count the number of Wawa shorti Italian hoagies I've eaten.  570 calories of which 230 are from fat.  The sodium comes in at 2,220 milligrams.  That is roughly a teaspoon of salt.  In one shorti Italian hoagie.   A "classic" size has 3,030 mg's.  The maximum amount that is recommended is 2,300..per DAY not per sandwich! By the time we get home from work we are beat and neither the man nor woman feels like cooking, so we order take out or heat a frozen meal, which we inhale while watching a little TV before rushing out to our next obligation.  No wonder we are getting fat!

Time is a bitch!  Time that is the first real obstacle that I have encountered on this experiment, and Lisa does all the shopping and cooking!  I just eat it!  Eating these increased quantities of food, while trying to take your time and not eat with the table manners of a feral child is a bitch.

Before you ask, yes I was a little worried that eating more would prevent me from loosing weight or at the least hold me at my starting weight, so I cheated.... Last night I got on the scale...  I lost four Fucking Pounds!   "BUT you have not been drinking!" you say.  Well my last dirty little secret it this; I have.  I have been drinking 6 ounces of vodka on the rocks each night. 2oz times three.

It is waaaay too soon to really know if this idea will work, I realize that; however this might just work.  Imagine, eating your fill, (reasonable) drinking In moderation  (moderation is an imaginary place that exists where ever I happen to be) and loosing weight at the same time.  If it works, I should write a book!

Until tomorrow...

Regards,
Bald Bill

Day two 3/9/2010

Jumpin' Jesus on a pogo stick, I made it through day two!

Last night I slept well. I awoke this morn, right on time and began my day.  I first I thought that I would try and skip my morning coffee,  That seemed to go okay, for the first hour or so but then I went off the rails.  I put the cat in the freezer, flushed my breakfast down the toilet and  I'm not going to tell you where I had my morning constitutional, but my neighbors' plants will likely do well this spring!  Okay, that's not quite what happened... but it could have!  I gave in a drank a cup of organic, grown on the sunny side of the mountain, harvested by....... fuck, you get the idea!   I drank a cup of good (healthy?) coffee and I felt much better.

I am trying to have small meals every few hours, in order to .... I have no clue.  Keep my metabolism up?  Anyway I eat every few hours and I never seem to get too hungry before the next meal time rolls around.

Two foods that I am incorporating into each days meal plan (that I have yet to tell you about) are Flax seed Oil and Organic unfiltered apple cider vinegar.  There seems to be a lot of people touting them and none, that I've found speaking against them.  The flax seed oil it not too bad tasting, a little more woody or Earthy than most other salad oils.  The cider vinegar is great!  I could drink this stuff from the bottle.  The only thing that pisses me off is that they have the "Christian" fish on the label, along with 3 John 2.  Now I am all for freedom of religion, Hell, I'm for all freedom... well up to a point, total Anarchy would be going a little too far.  But I digress.  I'm not sure why it pisses me off to see a company put their faith on display on their products but it does.  That's between you, your family, friends and your priest, dominatrix or toaster.  Leave me out of it!  That said, I looked up 3 John 2 and basically it reads;  "Dear friend, and I pray that all goes well for you. I hope that you are as strong in body, as I know you are in spirit"  That's not so bad... still...


All in all, so far so good.  I have no idea if I'm loosing weight and I will not, until next Monday but I'm suffering no ill effects, save for pissing more often than a cocker spaniel at a fireworks display.

On that note, I have to pee!

Goodnight, check in tomorrow!
Bald Bill

I made it through the first day!

With day one pretty much under my sizable belt, I have made a few observations.  If what all the nutritionists are saying is true, this will not be too hard at all.

As per my normal routine, after waking up I ate some yogurt ; only now instead of Danon lite, I had some organic all natural Greek style yogurt, about three ounces.  A cup of organic coffee, black.  A little later I had two slices of sprouted grain toast, with two organic free range , certified happy, eggs (over easy) and a third of a Granny Smith apple.

I ate 10 raw almonds as a little snack but it did the trick.

For dinner I had fresh line caught flounder about 6 ounces.  Stewed tomatoes and white beans and free range spinach.

The deal on water intake is this:  take your weight in pounds and divide by two.  This is the number in ounces that you should drink every day, plus add 8 more ounces for each caffeinated beverage you drink.  For me that is 133 ounces (a gallon is 128).  The kicker is that this (formula) is what all people should be drinking... all the time.   It goes like this.  Drink some water.... work a little while.... stop to go pee... work a little while.... stop to drink some water... work a little while.... stop to go pee... work a little while.... stop to go pee... work a little while.... stop to drink some water... work a little while.... stop to go pee... work a little while.... stop to go pee... work a little while.... stop to drink some water... work a little while.... stop to go pee... work a little while.... stop to go pee... work a little while.... stop to drink some water... work a little while.... stop to go pee.  Repeat.

That's it for today, tune in tomorrow!

Regards,
Bald Bill

Here are the starting days numbers...and photos.

Well... I stood on the scale this morning to record the official starting weight.  I could swear that I heard a cartoon like sound of a spring 'Sproinging" as I stepped on it.  My starting weight is 249.5 pounds.

My chest measures 49.5 inches.
Waist (at belly button) 45 inches.
Hips 43 inches No wonder my 38" pants are so fucking tight!
Thigh (at midpoint) 24 inches
Bicep (not flexed) 16 inches.


And now the "Before" photos.

I'm headed back to work.  I'll post my thoughts on the first days food, later this evening.

Regards,
Bald Bill

Sunday 3/7/2010

Well we went shopping for a stockpile of whole, organic and or raw foods.  While shopping at Whole foods, I ordered and ate an Italian hoagie, damn it was good!  I'm going to miss them.

We bought eggs from chickens raised in a million dollar mansion, attended to by a bevy of butlers. They drank only Dom Perignon and ate only foods prepared by Georges Peirrer.  When they crap out a free range wunderkind, organic, certified happy egg they are given 2 hours of praise and a pedicure.  We also bought totally natural, not heated or processed salt, that was formed millions of years ago only to be covered (protected) for millenia upon millenia by a think blanket of volcanic ash.  Now it is harvested 200 feet below ground by blonde Swedish virgins.

Evidently, nitrites are bad.  Most bacon has them (they help make it look pretty and pink)  We purchased nitrite free, uncured, organic, free range, certified happy, kosher bacon.  Plus a ton of other shit that I will not bore you with (Agave syrup.  It's the new sugar!)

Then we were off to Tavern on Broad to see Greg Davis and his trio of the week.  This week it featured Mark Teague and Dave Uosikkinen, so with members of Beru revue and the Hooters the Nom dejour  was Berooters.
What a great night!  We ran into a bunch of old friends and made a few new ones.  We also ate French Fries and Chicken Wings, Drank Victory beer and on the way home, stopped at Lorenzo's on South Street for a slice of pizza.  If you don't know Lorenzo's, their slices are pretty close in size to a flat sheet for a twin bed.  So that was the last Hurrah.... except for the vodka on the rocks that is staring me in the face.

In the morning the bullshit stops and the serious business of loosing weight in a healthy and sustainable way begins.

Watch this space!

Night all!

Bald Bill

Saturday 3/6/2010

Our friends John and Heather invited us out for dinner.  We went to la Loconda in Edgemont, Pa (across the street from YBH Audi and VW, 252 and 3... which my friend owns, should you ever be in the need of a VW or Audi)

I had a salad and eggplant Parm.  Really good.  Judging from everyone else's meals though, I'd have to give it a C+.

We stopped at the local health food store and stocked up on tree hugging, dirt eating foods.  I have to admit that the sprouted grain bread was pretty damn good!  The coconut oil  (google it, some say it is bad some say is good; it seems to come down to processing...who the fuck knows)  However it does not taste bad! and you can fry with it.  At room temp it looks like Crisco.  At 76 degrees it melts and is good for cooking up to 350 degrees.

We also bought really raw honey (honey with wax and bee parts, but damn tasty)  I have to say that after tasting everything we purchased... all of it tasted good, not diet good, really good.

Fuck me!  I feel like a condemned man!
  I have 24 hours (more or less) to eat and drink anything.  Truth be told, I am looking forward to this.  Yeah, I will have a hard time with some things (ALCOHOL, CHEESE and BREAD) but I need to and am ready to do this!

So many of my friends have come forward supporting me (Shhhh, don't tell but Lisa is doing this too) and saying that it has inspired them to begin eating healthy; that I have decided that I will done a pair of boxer shorts and nothing else, and have my picture (s) taken.  Please bear in mind that our business situation has precluded us from a vacation for the past six years.  I'm damn near translucent  View at your own risk!

One more day and I will stand before the whole internet and bare what I have been trying to hide from friends and family for years... the fact that I am fat!

I'm going to kick fat in the ass!  Fuck my insecurities!  If you know me, you either like me or don't.  In my mind I am still that 19 year old with a 29" waist, weighing 160 lbs.  I have no delusions that I can or even want to get back to that point but I do want to get healthy and down to 200 to 205 lbs.

Photos, weights and measurements will follow, I have put pride and vanity on the shelf!

Okay, I'm off for one more vodka...... and tomorrow, the last open day...

'Night my friends,
Bald bill

Friday night... Three days 'till the official start of eating well

As you know, I have been spending this week slowly easing into my new, healthy eating regime.  Today... not so much...  I had an "Everything" Bagel with cream cheese for breakfast,  Lisa's homemade macaroni and cheese (very spicy) for lunch and dinner at the in-laws.  Fried Chicken cutlet, Broccoli Rabe and a simple salad with bread.  I'm now enjoying a nice tumbler of Vodka on the rocks.

Monday I start in earnest.  However over the weekend I need to have one last hot sausage with mustard and sauerkraut, and a chili cheese dog from the Last Stand.

Monday, I will post my starting weight as well as my measurements, maybe even a "before" picture (shield the very young, the very old, the infirm or any one else with delicate sensibilities)  Thereafter I will do my best to post each day, what I ate and drank, what, if any exercise I did and any other pertinent details.

More tomorrow...

Bald Bill

Day two update...

As we still have a decent amount of food (that will not fit into the new eating plan) in the house, we decided to ease into this change of diet.  That is probably a better idea than just picking a random day to completely alter our eating habits.  We are drinking lots of water & I've cut my beer and vodka consumption by more than half.  We may even go to John's Bar & Grill for one last "Taco Tuesday"  I still have a few "light and Fit" yogurts, which when finished will be replaced with organic plain yogurt.  All in all, I'm actually looking forward to improving my diet, although pizza, pasta, nachos and chicken cheese steaks, not to mention most breads and cheeses, will be a little tougher to say farewell to.  After all it will not be a final farewell, I'll be able to add them back in in moderation after I've settled into my healthy eating plan.  Hell I may even end up not missing them... Hey!  I can wish, right?

This has absolutely nothing to do with diet or food or weight loss.  It just put a little smile on my face, which is a good thing as I've been in a stressed out mood all day.  Not enough blood in my alcohol system!  Anyway... To bands I loved "back in the day" have either re-formed or never really went away.  They are Dread Zeppelin and The Dead Milkmen.  check 'em out on Youtube.

Hours pass...................................

We did go and have tacos, and I only had ONE beer and a light on at that!

Now I'm going to watch a little TV and go to sleep!.. after 12 more ounces of water.

Until next time,
Bald bill