The New Food Plan

Frans wanted to know what I was doing for my food plan. There are the meals:

The Fiber One cereal is because, well, I’m descended from the goodly folks of the Mediterranean Basin and am pushing 40. A cup and a half of Fiber One and I’m perfect. Other folks may not need as much. Obviously cereal needs milk, so there’s the cup of 1%. Perhaps I should use skim, but I’m not that strong. The eggs are hard-boiled to save on frying calories (ostensibly) and to save precious morning time (really). I have a latte in the morning because I am Seattlite. I sweeten with sucralose. That took the most getting used to.

For lunch and dinner, right now I’m having 6 ounces of shish tawouk (chicken kebabs for the uninitiated) and a very large salad. My salad is a cup of a salad mixture I create at the beginning of the week (6 bell peppers of multiple colors, 3 English cucumbers, two onions—all diced—yes, I am a Levantine), half a Romaine heads, chopped finely (about 4 oz) and a diced roma tomato. Kraft fat-free Italian is only 15 calories per tablespoon and doesn’t taste bad at all. I imagine I’ll have to develop a few alternatives, as even I can’t bear this much repetition for weeks on end. I’m throwing in 6 oz of roast, which actually has fewer calories than the chicken this week. I’m also looking at a black bean and corn salsa to alternate with the salad.

Snacks are pivotal to this plan, as I eat something every two hours. This way the body is always digesting and, hence, burning more calories. Moreover, this way I avoid hunger. Weight Watchers is clever about rating hunger on a scale on 1-5, where 1 is ravenous and 5 is stuffed. You eat at 2 (hungry, but not like a wolf) until you get to 4 (approaching full, but not there yet) so that you spend most of your day at 3 (neutral—not hungry, but not full, not engaged with food). Mine are pretty plain:

The apple treat probably won’t work for most folks, but I like it. I dice an apple and crush an ounce of walnuts and throw them in a bowl. I then sprinkle with 4 packets of sucralose, liberal amounts of ground cinnamon and a light sprinkling of nutmeg. Cloves are nice if you have them, but I’m out. I have a serious sweet truth and this gets me close to desert without breaking the diet or creating refined carb cravings.

The total caloric intake is roughly 1969 calories. I often have a second latte in the afternoon, so I’m hovering below 2100. As I weigh about 210, 2100 is my goal (10 calories per pound I weigh). Maintenance is supposed to be 15 calories per pound I weigh. I’m doing my pathetic version of weight lifting, so hopefully I pack on some muscle and don’t lose much weight, but just burn some fat. I’ll keep you guys posted.

Transformations in the Works

Two things have happened this weekend. First,

I Did All My Food Prep

All of that food prep I spelled out in the last blog entry? I fucking did it all. And I did most of it tonight. Only thing that sucked today was that I didn't make it to the gym. Let's hear it for Vitamin B-12, the MS wonder drug! This wasn't as much work as the old Talal would have done, that's true. But, get this--I don't give a fuck because it's beginning to approach respectability!

Neil Parekh Has Taken Up the Quest for My Baseball Soul

Get this, all ye non-pedagogical baseball fans who care nothing for my sporting soul. My friend Neil is actually taking up the challenge of trying to convert me into a baseball fan. At stake is my long-standing pledge to swear undying loyalty to the team of the friend who achieves this feat. So while Michelle and Gretchen will be pleased, the rest of you are screwed, 'cause Neil Parekh is a fan of the Evil Empire of the sporting world--the New York Yankees.

Last night, Neil went over lesson one. "Repeat after me: The Yankees are not evil."

"What do you mean, the Yankees are not evil?" I ask. "They can buy whatever the hell they want, right? If I'm to sell my soul here, damn it, they'd better dominate!"

Neil spewed a list of impressive names that included Derek Jeter (see, I've learned one name already and I allegedly think this sport is boring--maybe Neil's magic is working) and said, "These guys are the core of our team! All of them came up through the farm system!"

I leaned in closer to him and said, "Yeah, sure, they farmed the core of the team, but the Yankees can buy whoever they want, right? Biggest market in baseball, right?"

"Well, yeah, it's true. But there are limits to that. We haven't taken the pennant since 2001..." This was a moment of troubled reflection, but Neil quickly switched to a different, more urgent line of thought and said, "But, Talal, you've got to drop this evil empire crap. This would be like if I went to you and said, 'I want to become an ardent student of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. I hear the Arabs are a bunch of terrorists.' It would never work."

"Ah," I said. "But if you said to me, 'I wish to become an ardent student of the Arab-Israeli Conflict--teach me and I will become an Arab,' nothing you could say could bother me, for I know your soul will be mine. Powerful Jedi am I."

By the way, my pledge is no cheap offer either. I'm not that low-caliber kinda geek, here. If Neil can teach me to yearn for pitchers and catchers reporting to camp every spring, I have sworn to him that I will go with him in full Yankees-fan gear to Fenway Park itself. Pam, Neil's wife and my dear friend and stalwart colleague at school, is already worried about hate crimes if she gets a job in Boston. Of course, I wouldn't mind working in Boston either. That's the scary thing about this pledge. Imagine if I lived in Boston. It would be like doing field research in Tel Aviv... Oh, wait. I'm doing that, aren't I? What was that thing they were saying about "Never saying never?"

This brings back memories. My first live Wings game was at the MCI Center in Washington, DC. I went with Aram Mohamed (who was the reason I became a Wingnut) and Brian McGrath. There were these pseudo-hockey fans behind us trying to act like they were all tough. This is DC. This is the wrong city and sport combination to have tough fans of any sort. Aram leans over to Brian and me and says, "If these guys want to make trouble later, are you guys behind me?"

"Sure," I say. "But you do realize that the guys behind you will be Brian and me, right?" Boston ain't DC. This time I have to be prepared. If Neil succeeds, I'm going to have to take a martial arts course.

And of course, the worst thing will be that Kirk's wife, Keriann, might not let him play with me anymore. You should have seen the look on her face when I gave Kirk a Red Wings jersey. Like I'd let him become a Bruins fan and doom him to a lifetime of disappointment.

Today is food prep day. The list runs:

1. Prepare the ribs with rub-rub and wrap them up for freezing. I bake the individually wrapped ribs in a foil-covered baking pan at 200 degrees for about three hours before grilling.
2. Prepare the teriyaki steaks with ginger rub (lots of ginger, and a little powdered onion and garlic, and of course a little black pepper) and wrap them up for freezing. I usually use round eye steaks for this. The cut is a little tough, but again, I bake the individually wrapped pieces in a small, foil-covered baking pan at 200 degrees for about three hours before grilling). That gets them nice and tender. I grill them, brushing on my home-made (homo-made, too, come to think of it!). When they're done, I slice them up thinly using an electric knife and pour a little more teriyaki sauce over them.
3. Slice, spice and freeze the salmon (I use a little soy, a little olive oil, onion powder, garlic powder, cayenne pepper and ground sage. I wrap the pieces in foil, freeze them. I defrost them the morning before we eat them and grill them up in the foil.
   
4. Slice celery for snack packs and for black bean and corn salsa
5. Prepare black bean and corn salsa and store in refrigerator. This has canned black beans, canned corn, celery, red onion, sweet red peppers some lemon juice, salsa and cumin. I usually have a big helping of this with my lunch.
6. Slice, mix and store the pepper, cucumber and red onions that form the base for daily dinner salads (I slice the lettuce and tomato just before serving, as these parts get soggy or create sogginess and must be cut in real time).

I just got back from my workout and I actually feel a little tired this time. I went up in arm weights yesterday, and I'm a little sore as a result. I notice that soreness and fatigue correlate really well. This makes good sense. The body is healing and healing takes energy. I don't know if I should make a point of skipping the day after I go up a set. We'll see how sapped I am with the vegetable knife this afternoon.

The dinner menu looks like this:

SUNDAY: Salmon and salad
MONDAY: Roast AND salad (this should have leftovers for lunches)
TUESDAY: Teriyaki and salad
WEDNESDAY: Barbecue chicken and salad
THURSDAY: Ribs and salad
FRIDAY: Steaks and salad.

Craig doesn't mind the repetition of large dinner salads as long as the meat keeps changing. That said, there's too much red meat there and too much use of barbecue and teriyaki sauce. I need to integrate more chicken there. I need to start making stir-fries again. I tend to like stir-fries for lunch, as I tend to like them over brown rice and I like to keep my starchier carbs for earlier in the day. I'm going to have to mull it all over.

Gotta get back to work. I have a lot of vegetables to cut.

On The Horizon

This summer is shaping up to be busy. Here’s what’s on the horizon.

Organization and Food Prep

Craig and I both did a whole shitload of shredding this week. Sorting mail has been a weak suit for both of us. Lately, however, in no small part due to Craig’s initiative, we’ve really been keeping up with mail. Almost the whole of the several years of backlog that has amassed have been shredded. In fact, we need a new shredder. The old one is giving up the ghost.

My office is nearly together. All that’s left is the desk. I’m really hoping that I might improve enough to arrive at the “clean desk” policy I had at USAID back when I was a bureaucrat. My desk was spotlessly empty every night. To do it, I need several “current project” folders in the file cabinet. This sounds a good dealer easier than it will actually be. I need a lot of work habit changes. I need to learn to work incrementally. Incrementalism has always been a concept that I despised. Frankly, “slow but steady” offended virtually every one of my childhood sensibilities. I organized my habits around avoiding “slow but steady.” Now, there is no other way that I realistically can work. Of course, not being able to suppress emotions means I can’t just “force” myself to do it. I need to work on becoming “good” with it. Being “good” with anything is invariably a slow process. This is why I preferred suppressing the hell out of my emotions. It’s far more convenient.

Tomorrow has to be a shopping and kitchen day. This is especially important because Sunday is PRIDE, so we won’t have the day to prepare for the week. This year, damn it, we’re going to the parade! Craig is very hesitant about PDAs except on Capitol Hill or in other “gay” spaces, such as the parade route. Goddamn it, I like being touched. I don’t like missing opportunities. Plus, the parade is a lot of fun. My favorite group is still Dykes on Bikes! I love watching them roll in like valkyries in leather! What a fuckin’ entrance!

I gotta admit, I love seeing the Seattle Quake Rugby team, too. I wasn’t able to be a rugger for very long, but just being around those guys really helped me come out. Plus, not only are they hot, but at the few tournaments I attended, I could say with pride that we were definitely hotter looking than the other gay rugby teams. Right now, they’re really good players, too. They’ve closed the gap between us and the SF Fog quite nicely. If I could ever get into a non-pathetic shape, I would love to go out for it again. But the fitness demands for rugger are very rigorous.

Back to kitchen day. The basics for the week have to be made. Craig and I have both been working on keeping up with dishes. This is imperative, as it’s very difficult to but groceries away in a dirty kitchen. So we shop and, thanks to B-12, I’m not dead after the expedition, so I can chop. In my kitchen prep, there are three labor intensive tasks that I need to accomplish.

The first is creating “snack packs” for the week. I do way better on keeping on a healthy food plan if I manage hunger effectively. To do that, I need snacks, especially for while I’m at school. So I make snack packs that include (1) 10 oz of celery, (2) 10 oz of carrots, (3) an apple and (4) a bottle of water. The carrots, fortunately, can be purchased peeled and sliced into “baby carrots” perfect for snacking. All I have to do is bag them. The celery is harder work. I buy two bags of “celery hearts” at Sam’s club. There are three hearts per bag. Sliced, that provides six or so bags of celery. The apples require no work beyond rinsing them off.

The second is making the base salad mix for the week. I’m trying to make sure Craig and I both have a big salad with dinner every night. What can be done in advance, must be. Being a good Levantine Arab (actually, I’m pretty shitty at being a good Levantine Arab, coming out and MS will do it to you) my salad is diced, so the flavors of all the vegetables mix properly. The prep for this is to dice six long English cucumbers (penis length, obviously), eight multi-colored peppers (I try for four red, two green and one yellow and one orange), and a large red onion. Since these are the least “soggy” oriented elements of the salad, you can make them advance and they’ll still be in excellent shape after several days. The key is to store the mix in gallon zip lock bags with two or three paper towels folded at the bottom to absorb excess moisture. The two components that have to be done just before serving are the lettuce and tomatoes. I split a Romaine heart and dice half for Craig and half for me. I also dice us each a Roma tomato. Craig’s favorite dressing is blue cheese and he often throws cottage cheese into his. I put low-cal, fat free Italian on mine. I usually grill chicken breasts or a steak, or serve pot roast with this.

The third major chopping job is making Weight Watchers’ black bean and corn salsa. The chopping is not hideous for this, as the black beans and corn come straight out of cans. The black beans do require rinsing, but that’s all the prep needed there. I just need two cups of diced celery and two cups of diced red onion. Since this is more carby, I try to have this more for lunches.

Damn. As I read this, the healthy living shit reads like a fuckload of work. No wonder no one does it. GOAL: Get a real job so that Craig and I can afford to get a housekeeper who does all this chopping for us.

The Gym Situation

I worked out for the last time at the Renton Bally’s this morning (arms and legs, no cardio). I spoke with Bally’s Corporate a few days ago. It only took an HOUR to get through their customer service queue (no exaggeration for effect here, literally 65 minutes). The guy told me that Craig and I were month to month already and that our initial contract was just for one year. Given that I think Kent is too far away, I cancelled. I can use any Bally’s facility in the city until July 15.

A client of Craig’s told him that he was buddies with the new owner of the former Gold’s gym that’s across the street from the supermarket near our house. He said that the guy is planning on being a lot of new equipment for the gym. And the price is right (roughly $35/month for the two of us and a one-time processing fee of $25), so we signed up today. The way I look at it is that I’m way more likely to lift on campus when I teach. I just need regular access to an ellipsis machine and a convenient back-up for when I’m not going to campus. I’ve got to imagine I won’t have trouble getting on one of those at the ex-Gold’s gym. I’ve promised Craig that if he uses the gym regularly and wants to move in January, we can get a membership at LA Fitness. After all, if he gets on the wagon and does a good job sticking to a routine, by God, he deserves to sweat in splendor with the other fags. I love my Big Bear.

The Trip to Tel Aviv

Thanks to my mom and my Aunt Charlotte (God rest her soul), this is working out really well. My sister-in-law Lisa got us an excellent flight. We also have an apartment. We need to apply for passports. I also need to head to the camera shop and start getting together all the equipment.