Category Archives: Food + Wine + Beer

Food + Wine + Beer, Life on the Zone diet

In the Zone (diet)

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Have officially start counting blocks and macros and all that silliness today and I can tell (at 10:00am on the first day) it’s going to be HARD. I pay very little attention to calories and overall diet with the exception of knowing I don’t eat terribly and can say that with relative certainty. That mentality isn’t going to get me very far (or lighter) any time soon, so here I go.

I have done the calorie tracking thing before in addition to exercise and it paid off. I lost about 30 pounds altogether and have kept it off since. At this point I’m dealing with a bunch of things I haven’t dealt with before like wanting to lose weight without sacrificing muscle mass and being over 40. I also used cardio almost exclusively for long stretches to burn calories (1 hour or more) and I don’t have that kind of time now. I’m not even sure if that would work at this point or if it’s the right thing for me. Thankfully my coach will be helping me with tracking my diet.

I haven’t finished the zone diet book yet or figured out a formal plan for the diet so that needs to happen before I can even say I’ve officially done anything but I have a general idea to keep in mind for the next few days before a plan is in place. Looking forward to how it’ll change the way I approach a daily routine since I’m just kinda winging it from day to day. I wake up, go to CrossFit, eat breakfast, go to work and eat whatever then go home and eat whatever. Not a great plan for weight loss.

Food + Wine + Beer, Life, Nonsense

Pilates, Protien and Windows 98

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So I’m on a new get healthy journey, one that involves me working out at home in my undies and drinking fruit shakes with powder in them. I’ve been on a smoothie kick ever since figuring out that a good smoothie can be made with frozen fruit, yogurt and juice. Not to dismiss the goodness that is a fresh fruit smoothie but I don’t have the time to prep all that fruit or the storage space for it all. They’re a good accompaniment to my morning cereal, which is typically Grape Nuts, and then of course my morning coffee. I recently got a new client who’s an Herbalife distributor and among other things, a wellness coach. I went to his shop and had a body scan (I’m not sure on the technical name but it wasn’t a BMI scan) and I found out that out of the 210 pounds of my coffee drinking self, 175 pounds of it is muscle. I thought that was kinda cool and he was even surprised. Based on that, I need more protein. So, I went home with a nice big tub of protein powder that I include in with my smoothie routine. Since then I’ve been feeling pretty good, the muscle aches I’ve been getting off and on are minimized. Nice!

Another part of me getting into a shape that isn’t round, is a Pilates workout regime that my wife talked me into. I am now a convert when it comes to working out at home. I used to hate it, you couldn’t pay me to do it. I felt crappy no matter how good I felt afterward. It always seemed to make me itchy or I’d find something else to complain about and just back away from the idea of it. Now that we’re cleaning up the house constantly—and vacuuming especially—I don’t feel like I’m rolling around in dust and also don’t feel the need to complain about it as much. Sure, working out sucks pretty much wherever but it’s nice when I’ve got a buddy. Especially one who’s cute.

Oh, and Windows 98. I’ve been itching to play some old games lately and don’t have a good way to play them. I came across Earthworm Jim for the iPhone awhile back and the interface was kinda clunky. It didn’t really navigate all that well and it took up about 200 MB of space on my 4GB iPhone. Poor thing can’t take that much for just a game that isn’t played all that often. So basically, I went digging through my disc archives for a solution and I came up with a few old install CDs for Windows. I’ve yet to successfully install it on VMWare Fusion, it keeps yelling at me about not having a bootable disk installed. It’s been so long that I’ve installed anything but XP in a PC environment that I’m taxing my memory banks trying to figure out what to do. There’s games to be played!

Food + Wine + Beer, General, Music

More things that are fun

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Half Acre beer

49th Parallel Coffee Roasters

Spencer Product

Kiehl’s Facial Fuel

In no particular order, these things have made me happy recently in one way or another. I encourage you to check them out. Half Acre beer has a store in Chicago where you can buy most excellent beer in good sized bottles or even bigger bottles if you so desire. 49th Parallel Coffee Roasters I just can’t say enough good things about. I’ve just finished up my first order of three bags and recently took delivery on my second three bags. They do not disappoint.

Spencer Product is an old college friend who made it big in the DJ biz. He released a full-length mix CD awhile back that is in constant rotation on my iTunes and released a single in the middle of last year that has some juicy remixes that are fun to blast in the car. Kiehl’s products I discovered at one of their stores out here in Woodfield mall. I’m prone to razor rash and since picking up some of their Facial Fuel wash and scrub, I’ve had very little problem whatsoever. Recommended.

Happy times!

Food + Wine + Beer

Great discovery

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Found a really great place to go for lunch near my office today. It’s called l’eiffel bistro and creperie, also an Absinthe bar. I’ll admit my curiosity towards Absinthe, especially since becoming legal here in the US, but I didn’t have enough time to try it, another night perhaps.

The room is really nice, older looking tile flooring and really nice woodwork throughout. The bartender was nice and attentive, but really stood out for me was the bread. The roll that was brought out before the meal should have been framed and hung on a wall, it was beautiful. Delicious and beautiful.

Apparently, they make all their bread in-house and the bakers trained for some time in France. I’m curious to know more about the place and will be back for certain. Anxious to try their dinner menu, non crepe items look tasty. Will report back with findings!