Lindsay

This challenge has changed my life.

A few nights ago Lindsay and I were discussing some of the things we've learned about ourselves since we started this. It was essentially a reflection at the half-way point. We both went into this challenge unsure of exactly what we'd get out of it. Part of me thought it might just last the hundred days and that'd be it. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Lindsay admitted to me that, at the start of the challenge, she was afraid of not being able to find the willpower to last as long as we have. She was afraid that somewhere along the line she'd cheat. Sneak something, find a loophole somewhere. Even with the natural pressure that people put on you (the same things I described in my first blog entry) to try things and the occasional "Ah, one won't hurt the challenge", she hasn't. For that I'm very proud of her. We've both discovered self-control that we didn't know we had. I'm hoping (and I do believe) that we can take this further than the hundred days.

When Linds and I started dating, she was among the pickiest eaters I'd ever met (even she will attest to this!). If it wasn't made of chicken or some form of noodle, she wasn't having it. Okay, maybe it wasn't quite that intense, but you get the idea. Now, anyone that knows me knows that I'm the exact opposite. I'll eat anything at least once. I like to cook, so I do most of the cooking for us (hey don't get me wrong here, I love missing out on the whole dishes thing).

Our differences in taste were... er, stressful... to say the least, but compromises were made and we worked it out. While we were talking, Lindsay admitted to me something that she was doing, without knowing, that I think proves with impermeable certainty that something as simple as a 100-day challenge really can change you: When we started dating, we ate out A LOT. We worked and carpooled together so it was always the easiest thing to do. When I first moved into my place, she stayed with me quite a bit, so we actually ate out probably more than 80% of the time. This continued up until September first. Lindsay told me that because she was a picky eater, she'd always want to eat out because she was afraid of my cooking. Perhaps I shouldn't said "afraid" (come on now, I'm a magnificent chef), but more worried. Apprehensive. She said she was worried about not liking something that I'd cook and so eating out was her scapegoat. If we'd eat out, she wouldn't have to deal with that huge unknown of eating something she'd never tried. Because of the limitations we've placed on ourselves with this challenge, I've started cooking for her a lot more, which in turn has her liking my cooking. Now, we can deduce one of two possible conclusions from this: Either my cooking actually is cataclysmic and neither of us have tasted really really awesome food is so long that we've forgotten the taste, or my cooking isn't too bad and necessity really is the mother of invention. I'm leaning towards the latter of the two. Either way it takes a lot for someone to admit that theyre wrong or that they've made a mistake and I admire Lindsay for that. That's a huge win for her. Well done indeed.

Just as sort of a footnote to that: I've been trying, with zero success, for the past year to get Lindsay to try sushi for the first time. Finally, on October 14th, she said that within the next year she'd give it a try. That means that she has until October 14th, 2012 to try sushi. I think I'm going to add another count-down to the top of this blog. Yes I will.

In an attempt to tackle some of the side-stipulations of the challenge, we've tried to add in the "no food after 8 o'clock" rule to help stave off some of the loop-holes we've run into. By loop-holes I mean stuff like eating things that we probably should have included in the contract, but simply overlooked. Things like Munchies Coated Peanuts (these). Perhaps it's more of a portion control stipulation in these case but I just cannot keep my hands off of them. It's like they're laced with friggin' crack. Or other various, highly-addictive, illicit substances. We've had zero success with this one. It sort of sucks, but I think it's something we'll hopefully still work at. Our portion control is also getting out of hand. Could use a bit of a revamp there too but it's nothing we can't handle.

I mentioned in a previous blog post that I'd started a picture a day of myself and that I was going to post them at the end. Well, I've changed my mind and I think I'll have my web-developer friend give me a hand with some sort of dynamic picture setup somewhere on the blog. Maybe that'll give me some incentive to actually take them off the camera. We'll see though.

I'm 62 days smoke-free.



Oh, if anyone's interested, I took off the member requirement to post comments. Now anyone can post comments on any blog entry if they want to.

Thanksgiving and the Prawns-a-Plenty Promotion

I think I'm just a procrastinator.

I mentioned in my last post that Lindsay and I had had our challenge success tested quite a bit. This week-or-so was no exception. In fact, we were probably tested more this week than we have in the past month.

Last week was Thanksgiving in Canada (I'm not sure how many, if any, American readers I have). Thanksgiving means pumpkin pie, apple crumbles, other pies, other crumbles etc... Well, and turkey of course. Lindsay and I went to her parents' place for dinner on Sunday. So, here's the thing: In the contract we didn't really make a stipulation about pie. Or desserts of any kind for that matter. So, despite our best efforts in the contract creation, we've actually come across quite a few gray areas that we're just not sure of. For example, we've specified "no pizza" in the contract, but does that then mean that we can't go and buy a pizza-bun from Loblaws? Can we just buy the cheese-bun (which is essentially a pizza-bun minus tomato sauce)? We've erred on the side of caution when it comes to most of the gray areas.

Anyway, more about pie. I was in the laundry room with Lindsay at her parents' place (they're so awesome that they let us do laundry there), and she asked me "What about pumpkin pie? Can we have pumpkin pie?". She kinda ninja'd me a little on that one; I didn't know the answer. On one hand, it's a baked good (which I'm not even entirely sure there's a stipulation in the contract for either), but on the other hand, we mentioned nothing about pies in there either. My equally diplomatic and tacful response: "It's your contract too, you do whatever you want to do.".  She didn't eat any of the pie. We're coming up on the half-way mark of the challenge and this proves to be another reason why we've done so well. Both of us are easily able to say no to stuff that we feel would be a violation of the contract. Worlds ahead of where we were on day one.

With the good always comes some bad. Last night we went to Red Lobster to celebrate Lindsay's mom's birthday. They have a deal going on there right now where you can order one of 5 shrimp dishes and you get unlimited "refills" of any of the dishes after that. This is appropriately titled "Endless Shrimp". How original. I'd have called it the Prawns-a-Plenty Promotion. Just sayin'.

Just go to go off on a side note here, the Endless Shrimp deal is awesome. However, the way they have it set up is somewhat annoying. You order 2 shrimp dishes, they come with some sides (the sides don't matter), and you can order more shrimp until you can't possibly eat shrimp anymore. The problem with it is this: You have to wait order "refills" until after your previous order has come out. So I can't tell my server "Can I please have...  um....... nine..... of the garlic ones?". Now, this may not seem all that annoying, but it still takes the same amount of time to come out as waiting for your initial order. So if the restaurant is relatively busy (it was last night), you have to wait quite a while. Oh, and unlike your initial order, you can only order one shrimp dish refill at a time. Don't get me wrong though, the shrimp was delicious. Ahem, back on track.

I placed my initial shrimp order for their Sweet and Spicy Shrimp, and an order of their straight-up Hand-Breaded Shrimp. We wait a while and everything comes out. At this point I'm famished so I devoured my spicy shrimp skewer with record-setting haste (I was supposed to share with Lindsay but I'd forgotten in a fit of starvation-induced frenzy). After that, I start, with relative humanity this time, on my hand-breaded shrimp. After eating a few of them I decided I'd actually took a look at one of them. Dammit... they're deep-fried... So I delegated the remainder of them to the others at the table. They accepted with great haste (who would say no to shrimp?). Although, that's a minus one for me. I slipped. My bad. The rest of the meal/evening was great, there were pictures, cake and good times.

A few weeks ago I made the decision to start going to the gym and working out. I figured if I was doing this challenge which was forcing me to (sort of) eat healthier/not as poorly, I might as well try to make some other improvements to myself as well. I went online and found a decent beginner workout, which I found here for anyone who wants to know. It's been about 2 weeks and I've noticed some really great improvements already. I'm able to run a seven and a half minute mile as opposed to the eleven minutes it took the first time I ran it, which would have never happened had I not quit smoking, I'm lighter than I've been since I was in highschool and I'm now actually motivated enough to go to the gym regularly. It's awesome.

I think I'd mentioned in a previous blog post that I'd wanted to start taking a picture a day of myself for the duration of the challenge. Well, I finally started that (I know, day fifty right?) and I'm about a week or so in. At the end of the challenge, I'll post the results in a slideshow or youtube video or something. I hope to keep that going for longer than the duration of the challenge.

Day 47. Almost half-way.

Portion control and home-brewed soup.

It's been another relatively lengthy amount of time since my last blog update. I'm still somewhat busy with work (which is actually where I've written all of these blog entries). I've also been known to procrastinate a little. Hmm, who knew?

We're actually doing quite well with our portion control endeavour, which was something I thought both Lindsay and I would struggle with. It's slow going though. Breaking habit and routine in terms of what (or in this case how much) you eat is a very difficult thing to do. We're coming along nicely though. We've also been able to drastically reduce the number of times we eat out in a week. I think this past week we only did once or twice. I've also gotten used to not ordering fries with a meal. It's great. I had also wanted to try to take lunch to work (which I haven't in the past couple days actually), so the other night I'd attempted to make some somewhat-healthy homemade soup. It turned out remarkably well. I'll add my (approximate) recipe to the end of this post.

In the past couple of days I think both Lindsay and I have had our challenges tested quite a bit. Lindsay started a new job a few days ago. She was telling me that the first thing her boss had done (I guess they were supposed to have meetings or something) was bring in cupcakes and cookies and candies and other confections for the staff. I know how hard it is to say no to that sort of thing, I can only imagine how hard it would have been on her first day to tell people she'd never met that she was refusing their generous offer of ambrosial baked goods. She did it though and I would have to say that that would count as a triumph. Well done indeed.

We had a baseball tournament this weekend, after which my team decided to order pizza while having a drink at one of my teammate/coworker's houses. I didn't eat it obviously. I had already eaten so that wasn't too bad. I did feel somewhat bad though because the host of the party thought I was saying no to her other food offerings to be polite. It sort of goes back to what I mentioned in my first blog entry: You don't realize how much people want you to eat with them, until you're not eating with them.

Over the past week, there have been 3 birthday cakes in my office. Actually I'm not sure that they were birthday cakes, but cakes for some form of celebration. They're not even the really cheap ones either, I'm talking $50-$60 bakery-purchased, custom-cake excellence. We've also had countless plates/platters of donuts from Tim Hortons, other forms of baked goods, muffins, chocolates, etc... The latest cake was rich chocolate; You could smell this thing across the room. It's been sitting in the lunch-room for two days. I think it might even have my name on it.

It's amazing how much of a positive effect that not eating take-out, junk-food, candies and chocolate has on your body. Both Lindsay (I'm sure she'll disagree with me on this one for eternity, probably longer) and I have lost a noticeable amount of weight. We've both started going to the gym and exercising more. We have more drive to succeed with this. It's really quite impressive.

The last thing I'll mention, I added a javascript counter to the top of the blog so I can tell how long the challenge is set to run for....... I thought it was cool.

Oh, and the soup recipe follows:

Ingredients:

•  8 cups of water (for the stock) and enough extra water to boil potatoes
•  4 chicken boullion cubes
•  2 cups medium egg noodles
•  2 medium boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cubed (or julienned depending on preference)
•  2 cups coined (or julienned depending on preference) carrots
•  3 medium potatoes, cubed
•  4 medium stalks of celery, coined
•  3 tbsp minced garlic
•  2 tsp oregano
•  2 tsp basil
•  1 tsp ground cinnamon
•  2 tbsp margarine

Method:

1. Prepare the carrots, celery and potatoes and place them into separate bowls.
2. In a pot, cover the potatoes with water and boil until soft
3. Bring the 8 cups of water to a boil. When it boils add the boullion cubes.
4. Add carrots and remaining 1 tbsp of margarine to a microwave safe bowl, sprinkle with cinnamon and microwave on high for 6-7 minutes or until soft. Stir them about halfway through.
5. In the meantime, sauteé your garlic in 1 tbsp of the margine over medium heat for one minute, add celery and sauteé another 5 minutes. Add the chicken and sauteé until it's about halfway cooked.
6. Keep the water boiling and add the chicken concoction and basil and oregano to the boiling water and boullion mix.
7. Drain the potatoes and add to the soup.
8. Add the carrots when they're soft.
9. Boil on high for 10 minutes, reduce to low-medium heat and let simmer for about half an hour, stirring it on occasion.
10. Increase to medium high heat, add the noodles and boil until they're cooked.

This will make quite a good amount of soup for two people. Enjoy.