Category: Food

Posted on

Weekly Post 10/7/2019

Highlights:

  • Broke under 230 lbs
  • trying out intermittent fasting
  • No work on Saturday

Lowlights:

  • Bad take and bake pizza
  • Bears lost

Goals for next week:

  • Lose 1 lbs

I started to experiment with Intermittent Fasting. I choose to begin with the 18-6 protocol. With a 6-hour eating window and 18 hours of fast every day. This should increase the rate my body drops that unwanted fat I’ve been packing for so long. It will be hard to execute this diet if I have to move off my cushy 9-5 pm work schedule say to my early 6-2 pm shift will make that window to small since I will be up on average for 3 hours than usual. Meaning I will most likely not have a long run but will be having to cycle on and off depending on my work schedule. This will be an exploratory experiment to see if I can handle it and to observe how fast my body and mind adapt to the eating schedule.
It was another tough Bears loss to the Raiders in London. We looked and preformed flat and willfully underprepared the entire game. Credit to Coach Gruden for beautifully scheming Mack out of the game. This is all I want to say about this game as this season is quickly becoming depressing.

There was a sweet deal at Mariano’s for $12 for 2 Take and Bake pizzas. As a big fan of these pizzas, this was a no brainer for me. The 2 types of pizzas were straight sausage and 3 meat. We ate the 3 meat on the first night and it tasted great, the next night we heated the Sausage and boy did it disappoint. There was to much cheese and the cheese tasted watery. It as was painful to eat. I only made it 1.5 slices before I gave up, they were that bad. I finished the rest of my dinner with a nice big bowl of Jerry Garcia ice cream. I will give Mariano’s another shoot if this deal pops up again. Who knows I could have just been unlucky and picked the only bad pizza out of the place, and if it’s just a bad as the first one it will only be a 6 dollar loss and I’ll get to have ice cream for dinner again.

Posted on

Weekly Post 9/30/2019

Highlights:

  • Bears Win again!
  • Famliy Wedding in New York City
  • Big Ass Steak

Lowlights:

  • Drank way to much
  • Barley a healthy meal all week

Goals for next week: Get my diet back on track ASAP!

What a fun 4 day trip to NYC. The weather was just gorgeous for an early fall wedding in the heart of Manhattan. The wedding started promptly at 7:30 pm on Saturday, which gave us almost 3 full days to enjoy the sights and sounds of both the workweek and a sun-filled 73-degree day to have brunch and lunch in the park before it was time to get settled and all gussied up for the wedding at the library. I won’t bore you with all the details of the event except for 2 facts.

1) I was handed a glass of champagne as I walked into the ceremony and my glass was refilled a few times before the entrances started #score
2) Caviar was served – this was my first experience with caviar. It was served on top of a thin slice of butter which was then spread on a thin slice of a hard roll.

I thoroughly enjoyed the caviar and did not expect to like it as much as I did. I will be looking to try this again when I’m back in Chicago and not in the heat of the moment and taste it again with a fresh pallet. I will need to do some research and homework to make sure my second try won’t be tainted with sub-par Caviar (I’m sure that’s a thing, right?)

We had a few warm-up dinners before the reception on Saturday night and the wife and I ordered the 46oz 45-day dry-aged Bone-in Ribeye steak. This thing was massive and took a long time time to eat. It was cooked very well at Medium. With having to cut and chew so much meat the meat cooled off just a bit too much for my liking. The steak was accompanied by fingerling potatoes and cooked radishes, I could have done with something else other than the radishes. It was cool because all the vegetables from dinner were grown in the garden just outside of the restaurant which was a pretty cool garden to table freshness. I also treated my self to a couple of Old Fashioneds that were pretty decent.

Old Fashioned Cocktails with Average Ice
Old Fashioned Cocktails with Average Ice Cubes

It was a banger of a weekend and there was not a moment that wasn’t spent withs friends or family with tons of drinks and delicious food. Coming home from this trip I could feel the difference the 4-day gluttony fest had on my body. I fell so heavy and have lost some energy. I am looking forward to getting back to my morning smoothies and lunch salads and feeling lighter on my feet.

Posted on

Weekly Post 9/8/2019

Highlights:

  • Played tennis
  • Breakfast smoothies

Lowlights:

  • Missed 2 workouts
  • No Golf
  • Chicago Bears Lost

Goals for next week:

  • Make a Smoothie every workday
  • 2 workouts
  • 1 meditation session

There was a lot of expectation for the Chicago Bears season especially with a season opener against the NFC North divisional rivals Green Bay Packers. This whole offseason we heard that Mitch Trubsusky had advanced enough to the level that Preseason game reps were not needed. To be fair this was a trend other teams around the league were also participating in to keep the team as healthy as possible for the entirety of the season. In a knee jerk reaction, a day after the Bears offensive production yielded scary low results. and showed that we desperately needed those in-game reps during our pre-season to tighten up. I will not turn this blog post into a game recap, but maybe I might expand that type of content into an additional post to separate them and keep these short and simple.

I got invited to play Tennis with some old college friends at the park this weekend. I have not played since maybe, gym class junior year of high school? They were able to lend me a racket and a quick recap of the rules and some formalities of the sport. I was little up on my tennis knowledge since the US Open was dominating the sports broadcast world for this past week and a half. It was fun playing some doubles matches on a Saturday afternoon in the park, the weather was perfect for the 2 hours we played and I even was able to score some aces on more than a few serves. It would be cool to get out there and play some more tennis before this Chicago weather kicks in.

I’ve continued to make breakfast smoothies and I feel the difference from eating at Mcdonalds every morning. Not sure if its all the vitamins or the lack of caffeine and milk that I have deleted from my diet but, I feel much better and have also lost a little weight. My body does miss the caffeine, I will have to grind it out to make it past the dependency and come out clean on the other side. Hoping to make my iced mochas a treat again and not an everyday habit. I’m still on a quest to shed some pounds, I’ve never have attempted to lose weight without working out. In the past couple of years, I’ve lost the time and/or excitement to work out, which always has to give me this weird paradox. Working out hard one day and eating while attempting to stay at a caloric deficit but, my body would be ultra hungry for 2 days after I work out and I would end up at a caloric surplus. Missing out on that instant gratification, I would lose all hope to go back to my non-health-centered lifestyle. The major goal here is to lose weight without working out to help curb my appetite. Hopefully, I will gain some motivation to go for a run or lift some weights once my body has adapted to the 2000 calories a day. Overeating at when adapted will only be 800 calories extra meal, which will be in the same range as my workout effort and will my hunger satisfied and not reaching for sweets or that extra meal.

Still Missing out on some golf. My schedule is starting to book up especially with Football back in full swing. My weekends don’t seem to have time to go play 18 holes in a day. Maybe I, should be to playing 9 holes instead? Halfing the holes is still golf and I’ll take any golf over zero golf. It is also time to start thinking about offseason training to make the 2020 season the best golf yet.

Posted on

Weekly Post 9/2/2019

Highlights:

  • 3 Day weekend
  • Took a bunch of time off work
  • Made a Smoothie

Lowlights:

  • Already feels like Fall

The work hours really started to add up so decided to take a soft vacation from work last week and also take even more advantage of the long weekend. I still went in for some hours to keep some of my reports current but all in all, I only worked for 10 hours in total. Man I needed that break though, but I will be playing for it next week as I will have to catch up on all that worked missed #progressdoesn’tstop

With all that free time I made a fruit and veggie smoothie. Usual breakfast is either Mcdonalds or 2 fried eggs and twp pieces of bacon. I figured I could be eating more veggies and ingesting more micronutrients can only be helpful for my overall health.

Smoothie Ingredients:

  • kale
  • Chard
  • Spinach
  • Carrots
  • Apple
  • Blueberries
  • Homemade Kombucha
  • Strawberries
  • Avacado
  • Chia Seeds

This recipe does taste a bit earthy but that can be fixed with the ratios of fruit to the ie mix. I’m going to try and keep refining this recipe t make it a little thinner and try and achieve a fruitier taste to make this my weekday morning breakfast.

We also had a couple of cold days this week. I realized that I am no ready for summer to be over yet. I still wann get out and play some more golf. But Fall weather means football season is just around the corner and hell yeah I am ready for that.

Posted on

Weekly Post 7/15/2019

High Lights:

  • Downloaded a Stretching App
  • League Night
  • Biked Home From Work
  • Graduation Party In the Burbs

Low Lights:

  • My diet

Its time for me to start eating better.  Ive have been ona fast food and take out diet for the past 6 weeks.  Going to subscribe to one of those pre packaged meals services.  avoiding the the trips to the grocery store and and trying to manage the quantity of food needed is the main advantage of these meal servies.  Havibg all of the ingredients measured and ready to go like a cooking show will allow for a faster perp to table time.  Faster cook times will also help gain a couple moinutes of sleep each night with should pay divideds all around. 

My car also got a nail in the driver side rear tire which was a bummer but Costoco was able to plug for less than $20 dollars #Lovethatplace  This causeed me to Divvy(bike) the 4 miles home form work one day it was also the hoyest day of the year so far so I promblty counted that a workout first one also in 6 weeks.  I’m going to trying a bike more to and from work to get some light cardio in to get some fitness back in my life.  On this same note I downalaed a strecthing app to help meet one of my new yeers resoultions goals. If work settles down just a bit i shuld be ablke to carve out 15 minutes in the office to strech it out.

I also noticed that if I bring my own breafast I am not craving a mocha so the Mocah coutn for this week is down. Two thumbs up..we’ll see if it lasts lol.

Capped the week of with a rainy Sunday evening in the burbs to celebrate the gradulation of Highscool. Always fun to head out to the burns and walk barefoot in the grass without fear of stepping in grass and dogpoo. A few beers and some good tacos and old friends really hit the spot. 

Posted on

Weekly Post 7/1/2019

High Lights:

Low Lights:

  • Nothing to bad

The workweek felt like an eternity waiting for the clock to hit quitting time on Friday so we could head up to the lake and take advantage of this summer heat that finally had come.  The usual 90 min drive took almost 3 hours with a baby pit stop and heavy traffic because I think everybody else had the same idea as us.

Fell asleep on the couch way before bedtime and after I finally made it to the bedroom I got a pretty decent amount of sleep compared to the nights earlier in the week. While breakfast was being cooked some of the fams and I decided to try out the new coffee shop in town.

441 Mill St, Fontana-On-Geneva Lake, WI 53125
Coffee @ the Lake

I ordered my usual Iced Mocha and see how it would compare to my favorite Mocha back in Chicago. It was a decent drink that I would give 3.5 stars out of 5, It did taste a little watery and which lead to a lack of flavor profile in the chocolate and expresso departments. But at the end of the day, this is review with only 1 drink tasted and due to its proximity to the house I will be going back here for my Mochas so it passes will I drink here again test and that s the one that really matters.

Iced Mocha from the Coffee Mill

On to the golf portion of the weekend. My brother was able to bring his clubs up so we found a tee time that would fit with our schedule at the Grand Geneva (Highlands) I might do a full course review in another post, which hopefully I will put a link here in the future.

It was fun to play with my brother this weekend vacation. It was 8 AM tee time to help us deal with the heat and humidity and not play when it was the hottest. My only real knock on this place was that the recent rain had made the driving range so muddy that they had to limit shots to 150 yards and less.

Grand Geneva Driving Range To wet to hit balls over 150 yards.

Bummer because that is my 9i and wedges. Not giving me a chance to swing my driver and long irons, luckily we chose to play the Highlands course which has the larger fairways of the 2 course st this golf resort. I needed every square inch of those fairways as I sprayed my drives all over the place, mostly out of bounds. Hot some nice long Iron shoots and put ok to score a 100+ scorecard Beers were drunk and bogeys were plentiful to make it a usual fun round of golf.

Brother on the fourth hole fairway
Posted on

Weekly Post 5/28/2019 Memorial Weekend

Highlights:

  • 4 Workouts in one week
  • Big weekend for grilling

Low Lights:

  • No golf 🙁

The workout streak is still on fire and I was even able to squeeze a 4 round in. This weeks format was exercise Monday, Tuesday rest Wednesday and work out again Thursday, Friday.

MDW is for sure in my top holidays of the year. I have a lot of good quality memories around this powerful Monday and long weekend. Traditionally my family has grilled on Sundays. Though I didn’t get to spend this Sunday with my family I was able to spend it with some close friends and their 3-month-old baby. To celebrate We picked put some Prime Ribeyes from Marianos. Quick side note Marianos has some great meat if you have one near and are into grilling they are a must to check out.

My body definitely feels the 4 workouts I completed this week, but I was able to do it and my body did not fall apart lol. Hopefully, I will be able to keep this up and build some stamina and get my cardio back up the level of my younger years. I can say that all this Olympic lifting has helped my CNS fatigue I encounter playing 18 holes of golf. If I can stay sharper deeper into the round maybe I will avoid those dreaded blow out holes that usually happen around the 11th or 14th hole.