Four years later

Well, well, well.. look who's back and fatter than ever. Reading old posts and looking at photos of myself during those times makes me realize I was an idiot with a morphed self image. I was fine. I was healthy, I was fit and basically thin. But I was still unhappy with my weight and wanted to change it. Ridiculous. Since my 'thinnest' point during these blogging years, I've essentially gained 20 pounds. And not all muscle because I've stopped lifting heavy weights consistently for a year now. This weight is fat. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't call myself a 'fat' or overweight person, but I'm on the heavier side for my frame and for my liking. For real this time. I am the same weight I was in college, which was my heaviest. It's likely due to my excessive drinking, socializing and lack of exercise. I'm not an idiot, I know how this happened. I walk to work every day now (oh, heads up, I don't live in my house anymore with my partner. That's gone a year now and is slowly becoming a distant memory. I'm not getting into that here.) so, yes I walk to work, but its literally ten minutes each way. Not much eh. So I'm lazy and put on weight but that will likely disappear once I get to Paris. Oh, PS, I'm moving to Paris in a month and a half. Read about it at mishkebob.ca if you're interested. I figure I'll be doing a lot of walking with my unemployed time, and not a lot of eating because I'll be cheap and actively trying to lose weight and if I want to get some Frenchman action, it's not going to happen if I'm self conscious, lets be real. SO, here I am, back and tracking my food and fitness because I want to.


Friday, January 13, 2017.

LONG WALK TO WORK

Breakfast:

Some Japanese cookie thing and grapes
Coffee w/milk and sugar


Lunch:
4 small Armenian footballs, one small beef patty from Narine
Carrot muffin stolen from Dr's office.

Snack:
Handful of ketchup chips
Can of beer

Later:
2 Campari sodas, some Pringles omg fat

Dinner:
Three slices of pizza, cheese bread, 2 wine
few olives, some of those pea things

As you can see, Friday was not amazing. This is not a daily occurance.

Saturday, January 14, 2017.

Breakfast:
Coffee

*Going to workout in condo gym, will update on what that is later.

Then I'm having brunch with a friend at Portland Variety. I'll try and keep it decent.

Meh

Breakfast:
Cottage cheese + pomagranates

Snack:
Homemade GF banana bread w/chocolate chips. yum

Few cookies n cream kisses

Lunch:
spaghetti squash w/quinoa tomato sauce
Bite of Ghandi's roti

Snack:
apple w/PB

More banana bread. Deadly, shouldn't have brought a lot.

Dinner? Don't know.

Time is fying

I can't believe it's almost mid November already. What the hell. Friday I went to an Italian resto with my good pal MA. We had olives, bread, pizza, wine, dessert and more wine. Now I know where all my money goes. Entertainment + wine. Better than drugs, no? Better than staying home all the time in a depression spiral. I wish I had a wine cellar and I was able to collect wine to fill it. One day..

yesterday I went to CF and practiced my Oly training moves. It's not easy and I can't say I'm loving it. But I'm sticking it out til the 16 workouts are done. I'm not gonna give up until I know what I'm doing.
Also went to a fancy LCBO in "Leaside" and got carded. She looked at me, asked for my ID, I'm like heck yeah! and she was shocked by my age. Go life! Got groceries at Sobeys and went home. I had a nice nap and made a wicked mushroom risotto. Like, you would die. It's from a Jamie Oliver cookbook I got years ago. Fuckin amazing. Lots of great recipes and who doesn't love risotto?! Had it with a charcuterie board and a great bottle of inexpensive vintage red. What fun it is to be an adult!

This is the book, it's great to have on-hand. Many many awesome recipes inside. Cookbooks. GET SOME.

Should I go to hot yoga for once in my life? It looks too windy to run outside. I need to some some sort of physical activity to work off the rich things I consumed.

That's all I got, I'm just really proud that I made risotto. Hey, it's gluten free at least! But there is definitely butter and cheese :) No regrets.

Week Three

I can't say I'm being great on this challenge. I mean, I want to see a diff in my body but at the same time I need consistency in the long run. So being strict for 5 weeks won't help me come Christmas time naameen.

Sleeps haven't been great. Reasons.

Breakfast:
2 Eggs poached
coconut butter

Snack:
1/2 grapefruit
dried bananas

Lunch:
Chicken breast
spinach salad
tomatos
lemon juice/ evoo

Snack:
coconut yogurt w/raspberries
not necessary

Week 2: Challenge

So far so good. I've only managed to cheat by having some cassava chips also some regular potato chips on friday. What. I'm still clean on the booze-front though! and THAT is the toughest.

Breakfast:
chia pudding w/blueberries/coconut/maple syrup

Yes, I'm not going hardcore this time. Relaxed, healthy approach to "clean eating". Maple syrup is from a tree for fucks sake. Fuck off with that mess. Obv I'm not gonna eat a cup of it, but a drizzle fo shizzle. I'm not dealing with the "quitting sugar withdrawal" this time. THIS time around I'm doing a more realistic, livable approach to eating real foods. Something I can maintain over winter.

Lunch:
shep pie
snack: pistachios

Later, a gross dry peach.

Pre: CF
Banana bread

CF - did not set any PRs. :(

Dinner:
Salmon, sweet potatoes, spinach, bacon.

Went to my first wine class. I was so excited when I got to the building and could smell the wine down the hall. Aww yeah I was in the right place. The lab is set up kinda like a chemistry lab, but with white counters – not black, and a it's all a little more dainty. We each had 3 classes of red wine in waiting for us - not full glasses, like 2 sips each, and our own little sinks. (we had two more glasses with whites in them later) The instructor is a baller in the wine game, he is older with a big moustache and decent sized nose - not a big shnozzz or anything, but decent. it's needed :). He is definitely a "Wine Doctor" and he has published books and written many things about wine. He's traveled and I'm guessing he is a Master Sommelier - clearly a dream come true. Sure! I'd love to go to French/Italian/Argentinian vineyards, get paid and taste things. It was exciting hearing him talk about food pairing, he got really passionate about the foods he was picturing: "I'd make some BBQ pork ribs with this, a reduction with (this wine) and diana sauce, serve it with little roast potatoes.." He was speaking my language. He has a full friggin directory of recipes, tastes and smells in his head. I'm gonna work on building my own mental library f'sho. He spoke about wine production and methods, some I knew from our trip to Bordeaux, but a lot I didn't. I'm so excited to know everything. I've already learnt so much just from the tasting portion - everyone's favourite part. There is a technique, a method, a science to it all. And it's so fun. People who aren't into wine would never know that there is actually an art and science behind it all. I love it. I assumed I'd be amazing at it, and identifiying the smells, but I was like.. "I don't know what I'm smelling. This one smells like Christmas." So I'm learning to identify the different "notes", "aromas" and "bouquets" in wines. You are supposed to guess what part of the world each wine is from. And people were right! WTF I know nothing obviously. Yet. Also I was secretly thinking, "fuck off with your previous wine knowledge". There is a blind test at the end. Excited. I might practice spitting next week though, since I'm not supposed to be drinking. Oh, did I mention our homework is.. wait for it.. TASTING WINE. Ideally what we had in class and practice pairing it with the foods we mentioned. AWESOME. Why didn't I take this instead of Graphic Design? What was I thinking?!! Anyway, I've learned a lot and I'm paying attention. This is a good thing because lots of classes I have problems staying present. Go Jesus Juice!!

So, I drank about one glass of wine total. Not bad. It's just wine, people. It's paleo. :)

Sunday

Breakfast:
"Paleo banana bread" I realize it's dumb but whatever. It was good. Had a big piece.

Lunch:
Leftover chicken/potats.

Other things:
Peach
Well Fed Shep Pie

More banana bread. Gah, I'm a neverending pit today foshe.

Rooibos tea.

I wanted to run but felt fallmode lazy. Meh.

It was the blurst of times

Fine. I'm in fall mode. I want to bake things, make things, cook things, roast things, crochet things, sit on things, drink things and watch things. I want to go to the suburbs on the weekend and smell the fresh air and feel nostalgic feelings. I want to walk into my parents house and smell the roast cooking and maybe sit on the porch with a glass of wine. I love fall, you love fall, we all love fall because it brings back good memories. Well, I hope it brings back good memories for you. It means new beginnings, it means endings, it's a season of change. As much as you all "hated" school, it was an exciting time of year nonetheless. New friends, new classes, new clothes and school gear. All awesome things. I hope you experienced these types of things, and if you haven't, well, I'm sorry.

I love remembering hanging out with my friends September and October nights. We all lived within 5 minutes walk from each other so it only took a phone call to arrange a hangout. Or I'd just hop on my bike and ride over to Stillwater Cres. and see if my peeps were chilling by the green box or outside Christina's house. If they weren't there, I'd check the schools. We'd hang there too. We had a crew, 4 or 5 of us in our grade, and a few that were a year younger. We were an awesome crew of good people. I'll name them off for my own enjoyment:

Me

Christina

Darrin would make an appearance on his bike every now and then. High on something. He's married to Christina now and they have 4 kids. Christina had such a crush on that bad ass!

Julie

Lisa sometimes

Graham

Veronica

Katie

Patrick

"Pun" (like big pun - he was a big guy)

Adam

Kathleen sometimes

Kevin and his stoner older brother

Tyson sometimes

Those were great times. This is around grade 10 I'd say. The crew switched the following year, but that's the natural circle of life.

Damn I wish I had more photos of those times. Christina used to work at the local Harveys, we'd go there late for free things. Julie used to work at Hy & Zels. We won't get into those free things. (*cough* makeup *cough).

We'd get English toffee coffees from Country Style, or french vanillas because EW COFFEE. In the summer or on the weekends we'd hook up when it got dark and rollerblade downtown Brampton to "Gotham" (a car parking garage with many levels) we'd blade up to the top, hang out and blade down the ramps. It was called Gotham cuz apparently when you looked over Brampton from the top it looked like Gotham. No it didn't. Also there was a homeless man who slept in the stairway. We offered him a sandwich once.

I have lots of great autumn memories, I could go on. But I'll save them for future posts. Now it's movie time - another great fall past time.

*****

Sleep was quite nice actually. Since I've had no aclohol at all this week, I didn't have a fucked up sleep at all last night. sure I woke up once and looked for my shirt on the floor beside me but that's it.

Breakfast:
leftover meat/squash

Went to CF, squatted, deadlifted and did some ab shizz.

Ate some healthy things in the afternoon and had Portuguese chicken and potatoes for dinner.

Now, Insidious. Why not. Fall mode.

Food:
Smoothie post-workout
Peach

Dinner:
Portuguese BBQ chicken w/potatoes. Amaze.