Food tastes good

I'm trying to eat better. I haven't been succeeding that much on the weight loss side of things so I was just trying to learn to eat right.

Some things are surprising me. For example, most fruits don't taste nearly as strong as I've been lead to believe. I've so used to candies that are fruit flavored that I had a idea of what some fruits tasted like. Sure candy isn't the best place to learn favors from, but there is that or actually eating the fruit and if I had tried to eat fruit I would have felt under pressure to like it not matter what it was.

As a kid I didn't feel like was allowed much of a choice in what I ate. I am technically a picky eater, but that was because if I tried to eat something my mother made it was a direct insult to her if I didn't like it. And I am sure that I will never like casserole or meatloaf, or anything drenched in tomato sauce, or really any other sauce for that matter.

But getting back to the fruit. It opens up a great number of things for me to eat now that I, well, don't give a crap about what other people thing about my eating habits. 

New difficulty has arisen though. My mother likes to cook dinner. Now if it was just me, I could have control over what I ate. I could have something small if I had a large lunch, or just fill in with snacks, such as some popcorn and fruit, or maybe a sandwich. Instead I have to eat whatever my mother decides to make which is always very complex. We can't just have meat, it has to be prepared a certain way, we can't have leg of lamb, crappy tiny lamb chops are fancier. Now, whenever we have chicken she has to chop out the back to that it lies flat on the pan. The other day she complained about top round of beef, saying that they were too "chewy". 

Really? We can't get the "good" cuts because their too expensive, but the "bad" cuts that we have been buying for the last fifteen years are suddenly too "chewy"? Luckily we've been getting around that with sirloin roasts. They are amazing. Cheap, and they taste really good. He had a sirloin steak the other day - it could have converted a vegan.

So that's my story for this week. Not that I did very well today... too many cheese sticks...

-X

A number of things

So I am starting to write down what I eat in a "food diary". I don't know how long it will be until I get bored of it. For one, I'm doing on the computer, so it won't be nearby for me to write in right after I eat, but it's just a way to make more of my bad days good day in the weight loss game.

Now if I was really nice I would be giving reviews of Shutter Island and Alice in Wonderland, but I don't feel like it. This post seems too important to put in things like that in it. I'm not sure why I think it's important but it is. I just know. In less than one week I will have continued this blog through thick and thin for an entire year. I deserve a cookie, but then I would have to log it in my food diary.

What I would like more than a cookie would be to play all of those awesome videos that keep coming out. I feel very sorry for myself for not getting to play them. And did you know their aren't any emulators for GameCube? Okay I did find some but I couldn't find any games for them, not that I tried very hard. (If you don't know what I talking about it's probably a good thing. Think Napster for video games). Several weeks ago I was walking through the video game section of Walmart and I felt like I was walking up to a drug dealer and asking "Can I just see what you have?". I have a problem. I can switch it on and off, unlike many people who have been known to ruin their lives with gaming.

Now I should be off to do all of the thing I should be doing. How was that for a one hundredth post?
-X

How time flies and how ice melts

I've not really been doing anything the last week or so. Snow is deary, even when melting. At least I can leave my house if I have the urge, which has been more often then not recently. I actually was woken up by the cigarette smoke that billowed into my bedroom. I had to go out to restock my turkey supplies and when I returned it was like a punch in the face.

It didn't help that I also have a headache do to the current cold front, not eating until 1:00 pm, secondhand smoke and drinking less caffeine. I'm only guessing on the caffeine thing because I've been nauseous too. In other words today has not been a great day on the health side. Except for the not eating too much, I actually did okay on that, but exercise was out of the question. Body is willing, head is not.

I did last week bake some white bread. One recipe makes two loaves and I ate one almost all by myself. At the same time I started a sourdough bread, For those of you not in the know, sourdough gets to sit on your kitchen counter for a week while it spoils gets sour. Last time I did it I waited the minimum time and it barely had any taste to it. It's actually really hard to find a sourdough that tastes right. I had one last summer that was gotten from a New York bakery which was actually too sour, at least how we were using it as a dinner bread. It may have worked as sandwich bread since the sour would have been evened out by the meat and condiments.

I have caught up a little bit on my writing. I added a couple new characters and I feel like they will all meet up at some point, I'm just not sure how. Part of the inspirational for one of the new characters was seeing the movie Wolfman, not that I really liked the movie enough to even write an entire post about it, but I had the idea to have a werewolf character. That added into me actually buying the Pathfinder RPG rulebook and seeing that they have proper werewolves in it. By proper I mean that the people turn into wolves, not giant wolfs, not half-man wolves, not anthropomorphic wolves, just normal - if on the larger end of the possible size - wolves. So the character doesn't turn into a monster every full moon, he turns into a wild animal. More interesting, but doesn't make for a good movie.

I'm pausing in my writing today as I try to figure out how I'm going to treat the character. Currently everyone in the town knows he's a werewolf, so I'm toying with the idea that they are pretending to be his friend so that they can kill him on the full moon. I'll say that werewolf hide makes for excellent armor and that the bones cure disease or something. I'm just remembering that I bought an encyclopedia on mythology that I really should pull out right now, if I can remember where I put it. Sometimes writing out your ideas can be very helpful.

Well I meant to hit post about two hours ago.
-X

Another day over

I wasted today. I woke up late (11:00 am) and immediately left to restock on turkey, as that is mostly what I live on. This means I didn't have breakfast until 12:30 (30 min shower and getting dressed, 15 min to get to Walmart, 15 min to get turkey, 15 mins in line, 15 to drive back, 15 min to make sandwich) and of course I waste time while eating so I didn't finish that until... lets not get into how much time I waste eating. Anyway, I turned on my laptop and started to check out my Google reader stuff and my email and posting on the NaNo forums. My mother came home and we ordered curbside Outback, we couldn't eat at Outback because my sister-in-law's baby shower is in a couple weeks (peanut is due on May 1st!) and my mother has suddenly realized that she needs to finish the things she is knitting for it (and decide if she's going up to Michigan for the shower). Afterward we watched Julie and Julia, which is one of the chick flicks I wanted to see. It was okay, but I felt like I wanted to see more.

So, I wasted a day. I should have written person statements for the jobs I'm applying to, and I might do it tonight as I do appear to be in a writing mood.

On the plus side I didn't eat that much today (unless you count the cheese fries). My mother's office has crates of oranges in it that no one eats so she's been taking them home. I've developed a taste for them and am having them on a nightly basis interspersing my grapes and raisins (does that seem redundant?). So healthy diet is getting a step up. Otherwise I feel guilty. I keep thinking that though my wrist still hurts, nothing is wrong with my spine and I should be doing crunches - just to get into the habit. I intend to start the hundred challenges again soon, once I don't have to worry about injuring myself. That is six weeks of physical therapy away, as it is my wrist feels better now than it has all day. Cortisone finally wore off.

Okay, I'm going to take medication and write a personal statement.
-X

The search for fiber

I have discovered that I do not eat enough fiber.

Okay, that was like the pot calling the kettle 'black'. I knew that I was not getting enough as I don't really eat fruit and rarely eat vegetables. I never thought of myself as being constipated, but well, apparently I have been.

Anyway, I decided to find some fiber-y foods that don't suck. My first plan was pyllium husk, which is a pill of fiber - that's really how I roll, but I guess it is only at health nut stores or possibly in powder that you add to water (which definitely ain't how I roll), and well I couldn't find it and didn't get it.

So then I was wandering around the pseudo-Super Walmart (it's being reconfigured and they don't have meat or produce yet) looking for things that I had heard were high in fiber. Most of the things I glanced at were fairly bad, 1g in most thing and in many even less.

Finally I get back home and check on CalorieCount.com and find that fruits will be my best bet. Of course I can't eat anything because I trying to lose weight and I know have to figure out how to add in a lot of fruit into my diet. Maybe the fiber will help clean me out.

On the healthy type movement note, I half raked the yard today. My father wants me to mow this week and I don't want to be pausing every five minutes to empty a bag of leaves. I really hate the number of leaves this house gets.

Now, to exercise or write?
-X

About Me

Today is my twenty second birthday and I am currently on vacation at the beach. In honor of my birthday I am breaking some of my original statements about being anonymous.

My name is Alexander. In real life I go by Alex, but I can't stand to see "Alex" in print. I always sign my full name and it was just a coincidence that I started using "Xander" online. I'm quite use to it now and like it a lot better.

I am a white male, I'm about fifty pounds overweight, actively dieting, and 5'11". I'm a "picky" eater, but what I do like, I like the most expensive, gourmet brand possible. For the most part I live on turkey sandwiches (yes, there is an expensive gourmet brand of deli turkey).

I am a moderate conservative. I completely disagree with the Democrats agenda, and I won't associate with the "Grand Old Party", they are not "Grand" nor are they the "Old Party".

I have a slight New York accent, even though I only visited a couple times. I went to school in southwestern Virginia and became disgusted with the accent I was starting to get so I actively changed my accent. It really comes out when I argue with people.

I live on sarcasm. I don't mean at least half of the things I say literately. I also try to take thing to the next level of odd to see if it can become funnier. This has gotten me in trouble occasionally, I don't mind that much as I consider them to be idiots if they can't take a joke.

My favorite humor is schadenfreude. I actively laugh at others misery, but I've always hated when it happens to me.

I love metaphors, but once again people don't get them. Maybe if it was a movie they could rewatch they could but they never try in real life.

All of my grandparents are dead. Two died when I was very young, the others more recently. I truly wish I could have known the ones who died when I was little, I hear many great stories about them and even more so, how my remaining grandparents changed after their spouses passed away. My friends, whom I did not have many, would tell me that they were glad that their grandparents were not in as bad shape as mine were. I couldn't be upset when they died. It was a relief for me and for the entire family waiting for the time to come.

I do not know what happens after death, but I do not believe it could be worse than anything we endure during life and I refuse to fear it.

I dislike my body.

As I said before, I'm about fifty pounds overweight. I hate looking at myself in the mirror. As long as I don't I forget what I really look like. In my mind I'm some type of perfect weight where my clothes fit perfectly and I don't have to be self conscience. I haven't been that thin since I was twelve.

I will be a clothes horse once I loose my weight. I love clothes. I wish men were allow and/or expected to dress up more often, hell, I already look great when I dress up. That said, I will really be happy when I can wear horizontal stripes, which is possibly a year away for me right now.

Twenty-two years and counting
-X

Pain and agony

Today, I haven't been very hungry. I couldn't finish my late brunch sandwich and I ate very little at dinner. Had a doughnut for dessert and realizing that I really hadn't eaten enough (for a 21 year old 221 lb man) I threw together a peanut butter sandwich.

Then I had to go to the bathroom. Badly.

I was thinking back to last week when I was in Michigan that I had a similar problem, but no reason why. I barely ate anything in Michigan, mostly because I did not have an opportunity. I thought maybe it was crappy food from the 24-hour dinner we kept eating at. Then I remembered those warning they put about dieting, particularly for vegetarians.

The warning are based off of the concept that people who do vegetarianism correctly feel a lot healthier, note that those who do it wrong feel like they want to die. Anyway, apparently if a vegetarian starts losing weight from when they were eating meat it makes them feel like they are eating meat again, which involves bathroom troubles as well as other various ills, such as headaches and nausea.

They also used similar reasoning on an episode of House M.D. where a young man got sick off of an over abundance of chemicals that had been stored in his body fat (vitamins A, D, E, and K can be stored in Fat, among other things) as the young man loss weight.

So I thought, was I not feeling good a couple months ago when I was last in the 220 pounds range? Oh right, that was when I bought and ate a tub of cookie dough a week before it was recalled out of an e-coli scare. I didn't care at the time because I cooked the dough and it was very much gone by then. I wondered if my upset stomach had anything to do with it but it was already mostly passed my by then.

What similar adventures will I discover as I attempt to lose weight I've had since I was fifteen?

-X

Related articles

• 100 things your kids will never know about, old man (inquisitr.com)
• Update on Recalled Nestlé Toll House Cookie Dough (fda.gov)

Losing Weight

I'm a bit over weight. I plan to lose weight. I've been planning to lose weight for three years. Now, I must admit that I haven't tried that hard over the years. This is the first time I've actively tried to eat less. I'm still working on the exercise thing, but the weather is getting nicer and I plan to start walking to class again.

My weight over the last couple of years has varied by about ten pounds, 210-220. What fascinates me that I can see the difference of weight in my face. I don't know if anyone else can, it does seem like the type of thing you only notice while shaving, but it makes me wonder what I would look like if I could successfully loose the other 30 pounds I'm trying for.

So hoping to learn that, I'm am single-handedly working on a large bowl of butter covered popcorn, which I believe is a better choice than having a real meal at this point. I really would like to loose another ten pounds before graduation, just because I believe it is possible, and it will make me feel warm and fuzzy.

There is no theme to my posts.

-X

Reply in minimum of 200 words.

I've decided that my posts need to be longer. My last post was about 175, so from now on I'm going for a 200 word minimum. Honestly I'm terrible about writing large amounts, but I like to challenge myself.

I'm almost over being sick. I went to the doctor, who gave me drugs. Two out of three taste like crap. Two of them I'm suppose to take twice a day which I hate because I'm the type of person who tries really hard to get them at equidistant times.  That's every twelve hours so seven at night and seven in the morning. That's hard to do when you also need to eat a full meal before using one of the medications. I not a big breakfast person, I can't eat breakfast food at breakfast, not sure why, don't mind it at any other time of the day.

In other news the edit box for this blog is being a dick. First, it was running off the page, now it is too big for me to see everything... font size got bigger somehow... odd. But it gave me something to type about for a couple more lines.

I'm a master of BS.

-X

(Note: I just spelled equidistant correct on my first try. I can't spell either, therefore I'm highly proud of myself)

Cravings

I'm starting have cravings for things. This happens everytime I get sick I get cravings for things that should not be eaten while sick. Currently - bacon, Popeyes chicken and french fries, tater tots, instant potatoes, domnios pizza, and the list is growing.

Tried the pizza, it was... okay... Think I'm going for potatoes next.

-X

Far away

So I'm currently out of town looking for a job at a trade convention, which happens to also have a job expo type dealie. I came down early because they mitigate my admission if I do volunteer work during the convention and I was hoping to get some of it done (they want 15 hours) before the convention actually started. That didn't quite work out. I'm now here mostly alone, my friend spent the day with his grandmother, in the downtown area of a major city. In a few moments I get to start looking for not expensive food, a task that challenges me to my core.

See? Still blogging. I bought a week of hotel Internet so I might as well.

-X

Speaking of food...

You know when your thinking of something and something related to it suddenly comes up? Like when you are thinking of someone and you suddenly bump into them? Or you remember an old TV show and the next day you find out it reruns at a time you have nothing better to do?

Or you blog about how your a picky eater and then immediately learn of a site of disgusting food?

http://thisiswhyyourefat.com/

I think I'm going to be ill.

-X

Fingers

I bite my fingers. Not my finger nails, my fingers. Around the nail. Looks really bad right after my shower. I know I do it as a nervous habit, but I have nothing to be nervous about right now - except impending job interviews, but those aren't til the end of the week. I once used that stuff the tastes bad on my nails to prevent it, but I found I couldn't lick my fingers (yeah, a little disgusting) and it tended to get into my sandwiches. That was unacceptable as I kind of live on sandwiches.

I'm a purist with most of what I like: regular coke, (extra) cheese pizza, real mayo and only real mayo on my sandwich. I don't try new things often mostly because I don't know when the next time I'm going to eat is, don't have the money to get it properly prepared, or don't want people mad at me when I hate it. Last one is for my mother - she's used to me not eating her food because I'm "picky", but she'd get a whole other type of mad if I tried her food and disliked it. If I'm somewhere where I can try something without repercussions I do - noting where I am (Chinese buffet - bad place to try shrimp)

This is how my mind works

-X