Salting Meat

One of my aspirations is to become as good a cook with meat as my Dad is.  His tri-tip is just about the best thing I’ve ever eaten.  (Though those Ollalieberries I had yesterday from my neighbor’s yard are up there too.)  I admire those who can just take a steak, throw it on the grill, and end up with something tasty rather than tough.  The people who seem to produce the best meat are those who are able to do very little to it.  Some of my best results with chicken have been when I just put a bit of salt/pepper and oil on it right before baking it. 

Here’s an article on someone who experimented with salting different kinds of meat at different times.  He invited some friends over and did some blind taste tests.  Apparently this guy found it’s best to salt chicken a day before cooking it, and steak/pork does well if you put some salt on right before searing it.  I’d be interested in any grilling/meat cooking tips you have to offer.

Also, here’s a link to a summer grilling guide on the same website.  I haven’t read through it yet but it looks to have some useful info.

How to Eat Better

The most important element of your weight and health is what you eat.  This is also referred to as your diet.  I use the word diet to refer to what you eat, not some special plan you follow for three weeks and then give up.  I’ve changed my eating habits and seen some success doing so.  Most of you aren’t fat like I was, but you can still be “skinny fat,” meaning you’re skinny but your body fat percentage is high and you’re not particularly healthy.  Here are some tips/suggestions for you if you want to eat healthier:

 

Remember: food is fuel.  Part of the problem is how we look at food.  If you look at food as fuel for your body it can help you eat better.  In order to eat differently you must not look at food as an escape or a way to cope or a reward – you need to realize that the food you put into your mouth is used by your body to keep it running and build stuff – be it muscle or fat. 

 

Eat Enough Food!  Too often when people want to lose weight they cut way down and end up with a big caloric deficit.  This can cause your body to shut down and stop working right; you may lose some weight for a bit but it’s your body cannibalizing your muscle rather than burning up your fat.  Don’t just guess at numbers.  Use these resources to figure out how much you should be eating:

Determine your Basal Metabolic Rate with this calculator.  Your BMR is the amount of calories your body would burn if you stayed in bed all day.

Next, use this very simple multiplier to figure out how many calories you need to eat to maintain your current weight.

I recommend you first get used to eating that amount of calories, because chances are you’re not.  Once you’re eating that amount try to cut down a bit, by 10% or so.  See how that works for a while and go from there.  Don’t cut down too much or you’ll shoot yourself in the foot.  Click here for a little more info on changing up the calories to lose weight.  If you want to gain weight, go here.

 

Eat Early and Eat Often!  Don’t skip breakfast.  Eat a couple hundred calories every 2-3 hours.  It will get your metabolism going and prevent you from overeating.  Sometimes I hear people say “wow it’s 3pm and I haven’t eaten since breakfast” as if it’s a point of pride.  It’s not going to help you lose weight.  Eating smaller portions of food more frequently will help keep your blood sugar regular and keep you from eating a bunch of crap because you got real hungry.

 

Eat the right stuff!  There are a lot of different people out there saying a lot of different things about what you should eat.  I can only go by experience and what I’ve read.  I’m currently reading a book called Good Calories, Bad Calories that I’ll post on later.  But for now, aim for 40% of your calories to come from carbohydrates, 40% from protein, and 20% from fat.  This will be tough to get used to but it’s good.  The biggest problem I’ve had is reducing my carb intake.  I still don’t have this down just right but it’s a good goal to shoot for.  This is called your “macronutrient breakdown” and the 40/40/20 ratio is a good starting goal.  Most of us eat almost all carbs and fat with very little protein.  We’ve been taught to avoid fat like it’s the plague, but we load up on carbs in ridiculous amounts and get fat. 

Yesterday for breakfast I had 2 eggs, 3 strips of turkey bacon, and 2 pieces of chicken sausage.  It was delicious, and more healthy than one bagel.  A better nutrient breakdown and less calories. 

Eating the right stuff also means you will likely have to do some cooking for yourself.  You can do so very quickly and easily.  It takes less than 10 minutes to cook up the stuff I had for breakfast.  Make yourself a lunch so you don’t eat crap like fast food.  Plan what you’re going to eat ahead of time so you don’t just eat out.  If you don’t have a slow cooker, get one, because they are awesome.  Failing to plan what you’re going to eat ahead of time will almost certainly result in you being frustrated and staying unhealthy.

 

Track what you eat!  This was the biggest change for me.  Making the above changes is only possible if you actually pay attention to and track what you eat.  Most people horribly underestimate the amount of calories they eat in a day.  You eat more than you think you do.  My stock answer when people ask me “how are you doing it?” has been “I pay attention to what I eat.”  We eat so mindlessly, snack on little things here and there, and it all adds up.  So track what you eat.  I’ve found the easiest way to do this is on The Daily Plate.  Sign up for a free account and start tracking your food.  The site has a large database of foods and in several months I’ve only had to manually add one thing myself.  They also track your macronutrients so you can easily track the 40/40/20 with a neato pie chart right on the front page.  DO IT NOW!

 

If you screw up, don’t stop.  There will be meals or days where you just totally blow it and eat like garbage.  Sometimes for sanity you just need to have a gigantic piece of cheesecake.  You want to change your view of food for the long term, and unless you are some kind of weirdo you are not going to go through life never having another cheesecake or ice cream sundae.  It also might be useful for you to not indulge in these things until you get a grip on your food situation – but whether intentionally or not, don’t stop eating right when you mess up once.  Keep going and remember you have your whole life to drop the weight and get healthy.  Think long term and you’ll be good to go.

If you have any thoughts or feedback I’d love to hear it.  Up next, I’ll write a bit about exercise and activity – another important element of being healthy.

So I lost some weight

As most of you who read this and see me have noticed, I’ve lost some weight over the past year.  The earliest I remember really being conscious of my weight was in 5th grade.  In 3rd grade my best friend was Jeff Fredrickson, and he referred to me affectionately as “lard belly.”  It didn’t bug me at all because I didn’t think I actually had a lard belly.  Perhaps he was a prophet, because I remember from 5th grade on for sure I was conscious that I was a fat kid.  Every now and then in high school I would try to do something to lose weight like eat cottage cheese and a bagel but I never really got serious about it.

In early 2003 I asked my friend Jesse to give me some nutritional pointers and decided to get serious about losing weight.  At that time I started somewhere around 240 and was down to 190 by June.  I ate better and started running around Lake Elizabeth.  In August of that year I met Janelle and my schedule was thrown off.  My motivation also decreased a bit since I’d found the woman of my dreams, and I began my descent (ascent?) back into fatness.  It didn’t get totally out of control until Belle was born.  She was the perfect excuse to completely let go and I got back up into the 245 range, give or take depending on the day.  I’d wear 38/40 waist jeans, and XL or XXL shirts.

I was pretty constantly unhappy about my appearance and low on energy but didn’t do much about it.  I recall a few times resigning myself to just being the fat guy.  Most of you who know me know I have some pretty big self-confidence problems that have been improving year by year.  I used to think that once I lost weight I would feel better about myself.  And that is actually true, I feel way better about myself.  But in order to really change the time had to come when I thought of myself as someone other than “the fat guy.”  I made that change some time in early 2008.  Janelle started to lose weight in late 2007 and she inspired me to do something different with myself.  I was so low on energy, which made it very difficult to help with our crazy daughter and the house and work and school and all that.  It put an unfair amount on Janelle’s shoulders.  I don’t recall a day where I put a stake in the ground or anything but I remember in February 2008, when I got the job as a teacher at Washington, I got serious about becoming healthy, this time for the right reasons.

  I have a family history of high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, and so on.  Being so obese up to this point has generally been an embarrassment but not really a danger.  With a family and a daughter, though, I realized being fat would cut into my time with them.  It was also really impacting my quality of life.  I didn’t have the energy to be the kind of Dad to Belle I knew I should be or the kind of husband I should be.  I have enough problems being the kind of man I should be – I don’t need weight adding itself to my character flaws.  So sometime in February 2008 I decided to get serious and get healthy.  I’m now down to 188 (finally broke the 190 plateau consistently, I need a belt for 34” jeans to stay up, and wear L shirts) and am in better shape than I’ve ever been my entire life.  Not that that’s saying much.

A number of people have asked me “what’s your secret?!”  They’ve  also made comments like “hey now, don’t get anorexic on us” or “don’t lose any more weight” which, while complimentary, have a tendency to be just the kind of external praise to keep me from continuing to lose weight and thinking I’ve done enough.  (I haven’t.)

I educated myself as best I could on how to eat right and get healthy, and then just started doing it.  I’m going to do a few posts on some of the things that have been most helpful to me when it came to losing weight and what I’m doing to be healthier and fitter.  I hope those of you who need some will find some practical help and information for your own health.  I also hope others of you will offer your opinion on the things I say.  I don’t proclaim to be a fount of knowledge or to know everything and welcome people who know more than me offering their thoughts and corrections.  This should also help me stay focused and not rest on my laurels.  I’m proud of the progress I’ve made so far and feel better than ever.  But it would be a shame to stop now, so I’m hoping posting a few things here will keep me in a good, healthy mindset. 

As if I don’t jump around enough topic-wise on this blog…now there are going to be health and nutrition tips.

A Monstrosity of a Shake

I love me a good milkshake.  I tend to prefer the kind with chunks of cookie or brownie or banana or whatever else you put in it to make it wonderful.  I like the contrast of the ice cream with the slightly-more-solid texture provided by the added ingredients.  This means I am also a particular fan of things like Dairy Queen Blizzards, where they thrown in chunks of peanut butter cup in very large amounts.  Because of this love I might be tempted to try something called the Baskin Robbins Large Chocolate Oreo Shake.  Just look at the picture.  Doesn’t it look delicious? 

It has been deemed The Worst Food of 2009 by Men’s Health because of its nutritional content: 2600 calories and 136g of fat (over 1 cup of sugar!).  And if you have any experience with shakes like this you know you can suck them down pretty quick.  In case those numbers are meaningless to you, that’s more calories than you should be eating in a day (body weight x 14 is a good measure for an active person) and way more fat.

Curse you Baskin Robbins, for making something so wonderful but so monstrous.  Click this link to read up on other “worsts” of 2009, including the worst burger, salad, appetizer, etc.  They also have other lists related to food.  It’s interesting and enlightening.

ht: Lifehacker

Salang Pass Restaurant

Sunday night Janelle and I went out for dinner and a date. As we were driving away, leaving Belle in my Dad's capable hands, I realized it was only the second time since Belle had been born that we had some time in the evening with just the two of us. It was nice. We went to the Salang Pass restaurant, an Afghan place in Little Kabul (Centerville area on Fremont Blvd, for those of you not in the know). There's nothing to distinguish it from its surroundings - in fact, even looking for it we drove past it one time. It was a great dining experience, though.

Most of you who know me know that I am a somewhat finicky eater. I enjoy some non-standard things but in most cases I have a pretty particular white-boy palate. I generally don't like weird stuff. I'd been to an Afghan restaurant once and was a little put off by it but heard lots of good things about Salang Pass so I decided to give it a whirl. Any of you looking for a place to go eat that isn't like the usual chain stuff, check out Salang Pass. We ordered Bolani (thin bread with potatoes and leeks and some good spices inside), Borani (pumpkin with spices, really really good) and Mantoo (sounds like a Star Wars planet but is actually some kind of ground beef and pasta dish - I was less fond of this because of the yogurt sauce). I'm looking forward to heading back there to try out some of the other stuff like the Tandoori chicken and some of the curries.

They have a cool seating area where you sit low to the ground, on pillows and stuff - that's where we sat and it was a neat little change. Anyway, check it out. We are in Fremont, we have a lot of internationals and legitimate ethnic cuisine; may as well take advantage.

la moose cafe

Despite the unfortunate name La Moose Cafe won me over today. It's a place in Fremont at the corner of Mowry and Blacow, in the large shopping center that's home to Albertson's. It's next to a Taqueria and a manicure place, I believe. It's where Fruitazia used to be, if you've ever been there. Janelle and I met there for lunch today and it was pretty awesome. They serve smoothies, but more importantly, crepes and awesome sandwiches. I got a crepe filled with ham and cheese and pineapple, and Janelle had a tuna sandwich. The portions were perfect and the prices were reasonable. It also has the benefit of being owned and run by the woman that was making the food. It had a good, friendly feel. They also sell Gelato there, which is apparently the same Gelato they use at Hiltons or whatever. I had coconut gelato and it was really good, with little bits of coconut.

Anyway I highly suggest you pay this place a visit, I don't think you'll be disappointed. It's a good break from the usual, and if it closes I will be very disappointed so be sure to go patronize them.