Day 399 - Vegetable

I've never been one to actively seeking out eating vegetable. I ate vegetable when the rest of my family have theirs. When they don't, I have to resort to eating kimchi to get my daily quota. Perhaps it's time for me to start drinking the V8 low sodium in earnest.

116/76/49 180.6lb 94 mg/DL

Day 393 - Eating Out

We went back to StoneFire Grill for Labor Day lunch yesterday. This time, I've learn my lessons from previous visit there. I gave myself, one small portion of salad, half of a bread stick, 2 slices of tri-tip beef. 2 slices of BBQ pork rib, and one small chicken drum stick. And I stick to the meal plan and not eat anything else.

Unfortunately, I decided to finish off the Sam Woo BBQ pork for dinner, with the rice. That actually set me into mini-insulin shock. The numbers this morning is still good. Lets see me stick more to the plan.

119/75/52 181.2lb 95 mg/DL

Day 392 - Defrosting Meat Quickly

I do quit a bit of my grocery shopping at Costco. Due to what they sell, I tend to buy things in bulk. That means the pork chop I buy from them have to be pre-sliced into individual serving size (usually 6oz) and put into zip-lock freezer bag for longer term storage.

When I have to inclination to prepare the pork, I run into the issue of defrosting the meat. Previously, I tried to thawed it using microwave at small time increment. The result tends to be cooked bits around the corner.

My brother suggested yesterday to put the freezer bag with the frozen meat right on top of the metal plate portion of the counter top range (in between the burner). The metal plate act like a heat conductor that accelerated the defrost process without doing anything else to it. I tried it, and within 10 minutes the meat is soft enough for me to cut, and process. Lets see how it turns out.

110/74/54 180.8lb 90 mg/DL

Day 380 - KFC Leftover Experiment

And you honestly expect anything other than failure?  Yes, I can tolerate the chicken, even the breading.  No, I don't think that third piece was wise.  I didn't reheat the chicken, opting to just eat it straight from the fridge.  Not that I think it'll make much differences.  (BTW, the experiment is from Monday's dinner, I only get to blog about it today).

I simply lost an hour this morning.  Normally my alarm goes off at 4:45AM, and it'll take me almost 10 minutes to actually get out of my room and start my morning routine.  Usually I hit the treadmill at about 5:15 AM.  Today, when I finally look at the clock when I was ready to go, it's 5:45AM...

107/69/50 184lb 96 mg/DL

Day 369 - Friday Night Dinner

I usually go to Rose Hills on Friday afternoon, and having Chinese dinner in Alhambra.  It's one of my few indulgence I still practice.  I've noticed that the past few weeks, I tends to pick up very salty soup that I parceled out the rest of the weekend meals.  And my weight loss seemed to stall or go in reverse.

This week, I did  a couple of things.  I bought a more fitting belt.  I know that I'm due for another set of wardrobe changes, but I can hold out until I hit my goal weight.  I also cut back on my morning eggs from three to two.  And I try my best to drink as much water as I can.  Thus far the result has been encouraging.

I also decided to change out my weekend routine a bit.  Yesterday I went to Noodle King in Alhambra.  I usually order one plate of fried stinky tofu, but not this night.  What I want is protein, and what I order is a slice hard tofu with shredded beef tripe and tendon with spicy sauce.  This is what it looks like

And I ordered a plate of oyster omelette

I used to go to Kang Kang food court for the omelet, but their quality (at least on Friday night) have been slipping.  I also order a set of pan fried pork bun, which my brother actually preferred.

In terms of eating these, I purposely save half of each plate for lunch today, and only eat half of each plate.  That turn out to satisfy me just fine.  Albeit, the big cup of Starbuck coffee actually managed to push me into a hypoglycemia state (61 mg/DL).  I'll see what next week brings me.

122/78/54 184.8lb 97 mg/DL

Day 358 - A Bit Alarming

I'm not sure how to explained this, but with the last 5 days, I've gain 4.6 pounds.  Now some of it I explained, but at least 3 pounds of it I cannot.  I've got to stop doing experiment like that turkey pot pie in yesterday's lunch.  Next 3 days, I'll have training that I'll be doing from home.  Perhaps this is time to reset my diet a bit and stop eating junk.

113/75/49 192.6lb 91 mg/DL

Day 350 - Starbuck Coffee Spinach Wrap Experiment

I had my quarterly (and hopefully soon just bi-annually) 12 tube vitamin blood test this morning.  Since I don't usually eat anything other than water prior to my blood drawing, I was kind of at a loss at what to eat for breakfast.  I also started my on-call for work this morning, so my time is at a premium.

At Starbuck for my morning coffee, I noticed that they have a spinach breakfast wrap that basically whole wheat tortilla wrap with cheese, spinach and egg.  It doesn't have as much protein as my usual 3 eggs in the morning.  But the biggest challenge is that whole wheat tortilla wrap.  I tried to make sure that everything is chewed well enough, but still, 2 hours later, I'm still feeling that single tortilla wrap.  So I guess this isn't a good idea of a meal.

One major benefit of me loosing weight is that I'm now a lot easier to have my blood drawn.  In this morning's session, the technician just use 1 wrap, and only did a cursory tap at my arm to find the vein.  In all, the experience is more painless than usual, 

112/74/59 188.8lb 94 mg/DL

Day 347 - Chicken Caesar Salad Experiment

I ordered small Chicken Caesar Salad from Speciality's for lunch today.  I pick it primary for the 36g of protein it has.  However, the relative high calorie (it's about 100 higher than the meals I usually eat for lunch).  And the fat content is also a wee bit high.  I didn't eat the roll that comes with it, but the croutons doesn't seemed to be a problem for me.  It's still a bit more than what I should be eating, so I might need to figure how to handle this in the future.

108/69/46 189.2lb 96 mg/DL

Day 342 - End of Week 49

08-07-2010 Front

08-07-2010 Side

07-17-2011 Front

07-17-2011 Side

As part of going to Rose Hills on Saturday morning instead of on Friday afternoon, I have more time to spend in going to lunch.  I opted to revisit the Korean BBQ place that I've frequent several times since my surgery.  I did myself no favor by getting a Papaya Milk while waiting for the restaurant to open.  Naturally, I over ate.

My brothers was too tired to cook dinner, so I picked up some take out from Sam Woo in Van Nuys, and this naturally also lead to over eating at dinner.  Overall, it could've been worst.  I only gain 0.8 pounds over yesterday, but gain overall of 1.4 vs last week.  Got to stay on the plan.

On today's picture.  I realized that I hadn't had the picture taken when I've already wear the knee bracers.  My brother is already away on-call, and I really don't have time to remove them.  So now you know what I have to use every morning as part of my exercise routine.

114/72/52 189.8lb 96 mg/DL
Week to Week -1.4 lb
Total Weight Loss 138.2lb
Body Mass Index 27.23 

Day 339 - Wonton Soup Dinner

Some of my co-workers was craving Ding Tai Fung dumpling on Tuesday.  I end up having too much food for lunch, as usual, and I ordered Wonton Soup take out for meals later.  That later turns out to be yesterday.  I was able to consume the wonton without much difficulty, but the soup is a bit much.

I'll try out something else for lunch today. 

118/75/70 189.8lb 98 mg/DL

Day 332 - Some Progression

Progression in World of Warcraft that is. After 1.5 weeks of banging our head against the wall, and having to endure pug dps/healer/tank, our raid group finally down the first boss in Fireland raid instance. It took 3.5 solid hours of wiping, but down he went. Tanking pants drop, and of course, I didn't get it :)

I found out that the treadmill elevation at 4' is wrong setting, and it has been lowered to 3', which makes my workout a bit easier. With the weather currently hot and humid, even early in the morning, I loss almost 1 pound with 45 minutes of walk at 3.9 MPH.  The machine claimed that I burn about 246 calories, I'm not sure how they managed to get that.

I'm not sure what accounts the dramatic drop of weight back a couple of days ago.  I still have 2 pieces of StoneFire Grill chicken that I need to finish up before I can start on my garlic marinated pork.

In terms of my weekday meals, I've really simplified my plan a bit.

Breakfast: 3 eggs over easy, with 3 dash of Tabasco sauce.  8 oz 1% milk for my double shot latte.
Snack: V8 Low Sodium
Lunch: Healthy Choice Steam Lunch
Snack: Beef Jerky single serving
Dinner: Fish/Pork/Beef/Tofu, with soup.

I'll also have some sugar free ice cream bar for after dinner snack.  I can probably cut this out, but it doesn't seemed to be hindering my plan.

117/69/58 189.8lb 94 mg/DL

Day 311 - Walking 40 minutes

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I did 40 minutes of walk this morning at 3.9 MPH.  It's definitely a pace I can maintain, I do feel good afterward.  Since I can't go any faster, this is probably my only solution to increase the exercise.

I also tried something different yesterday when I restock for lunch at the office.  I usually buy the Healthy Choice steam lunch frozen meals, but I tried out Marie Callender's version to go for different flavor (and they're on sale, 5 for $11).  The first I tried is their macaroni and cheese, which unfortunately is full of carbohydrate in form that I really cannot tolerate well.  I won't be having that in the future.

106/67/50 198lb 103 mg/DL

Day 291 - Korean Tofu Hot Pot

Another late post.  Being rather busy today, trying to get to the cemetery and beat the Memorial Day Weekend getaway traffics.   Managed to get myself stuck in traffic for almost 3 hours, going to and back from Rose Hills.

My work let us leave early for the long weekend, so I went to the Korean BBQ restaurant for the first time in months.  As usual, I go for a small pot of Pork Tofu Soup.  And this time, my stomach can handle the meal a bit better.  On my way home, I pick up some hot and sour soup from Sam Woo restaurant that serve as my dinner tonight and lunch for tomorrow.  Lets hope this act of stupidity doesn't cause any permanent issue. 

115/67/66 200.8lb 92 mg/DL

Day 278 - Yogurt Fruit Smoothie

I've decided to mix things up a bit.  Instead of using the protein powder in my morning latte, I'll mix it into a smoothy consist of 1/3 fruit, 1/3 Greek Yogurt and the rest milk.  I still have a full tub of uflavored powder that really doesn't go well heated.

The batch I did this morning works as well as can be expected.  Next time, I'll put in fruits first, powder, milk and then the yogurt before blending.

110/74/51 204.6lb 101mg/DL

Day 230 - End of Week 33

08-07-2010 Front

08-07-2010 Side

03-27-2011 Front

03-27-2011 Side

The verdict for the experiment yesterday is still uncleared.  I can digest the beef noodles, but with all of the things I ate, it's a wonder that I only gain .6 pounds from yesterday.  I still need to drink more fluid than I am doing now at home.  It seemed that at work, I can regiment myself better to the drinking schedule.

110/69/76 212.6lb 100 mg/DL
Week to Week 1.6lb
Total Weight Loss 115.4lb
Body Mass Index 30.50

Day 229 - Beef Noodle Experiment

A bit of a late post (19 minutes past Saturday).

According to my brother, Van Nuys Costco supposedly have better selection than our local store.  After I look through the place, the one and only item that they seemed to be carrying that our store is missing is Healthy Choice ice cream.  Well, one is more than none.

We have the beef noodle take out from Noodle King for dinner.  In the past, I opted for just the soup.  Today, I tried to eat 1/2 of the soup and 1/2 of the noodle.  We'll see how this pans out.

108/66/66/ 212lb 94 mg/DL

Day 204 - Photo of Basil Omelette

I decided to use Magic Bullet to blend the basil leaf and eggs this morning to make the basil omelette instead of hand whisk with chopstick.  It works well enough, although I always though that the blender always added too much volume by adding air into the liquid.  While the meal itself was ok, I did went overboard on the speed in which I ate.  It's 90 minutes later, and I'm still feeling the effect of the meal.

Here's what it looks like before I eat it:

Basil Omelette 03-01-11

Regarding my reading this morning, my weight should be a bit lower as I'm working to deal with the return of constipation again.  Ate too many iron pill yesterday by mistake.  The glucose reading can be explained by the excess sauce on the leftover Japanese meal.  My number should be better tomorrow as I'll be having just steam fish with ginger tonight.

113/70/66 221.2lb 99 mg/DL

Day 201 - Basil Omelette

I have a craving for some comfort food.  So on Thursday, I went to the Chinese market and bought a bunch of basil for this morning's breakfast, Basil Omlette.  It's fairly simple dish to make.  3 eggs, beaten.  Minced green onion saute on the pan until slightly browned.  Add salt into the beaten eggs and basil leaves.  As I type this up and eating it, I realized that the amount of salt I put in was insufficient.  Nothing that some soy sauce won't fix.

I was originally planning to go to Rose Hills tomorrow due to the weather, but the sky looks very cleared, so I'll be going today instead.

103/61/52 220.8lb 90 mg/DL

Day 199 - Surviving Brazilian BBQ

There's a local Brazilian BBQ that I used to visit weekly prior to my surgery. It was on my restaurant farewell tour. Yesterday, my co-worker wanted to eat something nice within walking distance. So I figure it's time to experiment. I most definitely over ate. I had:

Small portion of rice with salsa.
Very small portion of salad.
3 Brazilian Sausage (this is one item that I was addicted to in this restaurant).
1 slice of Top Sirloin.
1/3 slice of Tri-tip
1 small piece of Pork loin
1 small piece of garlic steak
1 small slice of Brazilian steak

Even looking at this, it's amazing that I actually was able to walk out of there.  I'm not going back there anytime soon.

I had defrosted a piece of steak in the morning in preparation for dinner.   Naturally, I opted to skip that.  Instead, I made my breakfast latte shake and drink that instead.  I'm still feeling the effect of that meal 19 hours later.

Today's meal:
Breakfast Protein latte
Lunch: Healthy Choice Steam Kung Pao Chicken
Dinner: 6oz Grilled Steak, 1/2 Brown Onion pan saute, fishball soup with ginger.

114/65/56 221.2lb 91 mg/DL

Day 188 - End of Week 27

08-07-2010 Front

08-07-2010 Side

02-13-2011 Front

02-13-2011 Side

Other than being sick, this has been my best week of weight loss since November.  I cross the century mark in weight loss on my 6 month anniversary.  My belt size went down another notch yesterday.  My blood sugar is still in good control despite the experiment I had yesterday at Noodle King.  Now, with my new non-hair cut, I need to find some caps to keep my head warm.  Unfortunately when I went to the Dick's yesterday, I was surprised that their local facility has closed.  Time to find another place.

I went out a bit late yesterday for the weekly visit to Rose Hills.  So I opted to have lunch first.  I have my usual fried tofu and for experiment purpose, I ordered a plate of oyster omelette.  In Chinese food, oyster omelette consist of oyster, green vegetables and eggs, covered with sweet spicy sauce.  I was wondering what the sauce would do to my morning blood sugar measurement.  The number is still good.

111/74/65 223.8lb 93 mg/DL
Week to Week 5.6lb
Total Weight Loss 104.2lb
Body Mass Index 32.11