February 2011
27 posts
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Hoppin John Recipe | Michael Ruhlman →
This sounds like a nice base for some hearty meals. It doesn’t have much meat but I bet some good spicy sausages would be good. Ruhlman also suggests in another post about adding a poached egg on top of this.
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What is Biphasic Sleep? | Mark's Daily Apple →
I struggle with insomnia. I go to sleep just fine, I wake up between 2 and 4am, often I cannot get back to sleep. Sometimes I can and then I sleep an insanely deep sleep until 9 or 10 am.
For the past few years I have put this down to chronic jet-lag as I criss-crossed 9 timezones every few weeks. But I am settling down more and don’t want to stress about this anymore. My mom wakes up like...
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Last diet-cheat day for February
A lot has been going on in the past week or so which accounts for the lack of posts. We moved from Europe back to Seattle. Wow, what a change that is. I will need to write something about the changes, the differences. But for now…
Diet cheat day! I started with a slice of cold pizza. Very good. The local delivery chain, Pagliacci Pizza is awesome, I miss pizza a lot on this diet. I suspect...
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41 squats, 30 pushups
I expected worse than this since the last time I really tackled squats and pushups was February 8. Not too shabby then to get a little progress since. Of course I suspect I’d get more progress if I did these more regularly.
We went horseback riding for two hours this morning across an Icelandic lava plain. Kind of fun, not sure I will get into horseback riding in the future. The whole time...
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Spinach Bread | Mark's Daily Apple →
Definitely on my list of things to try. I miss bread and having something on-hand to make a sandwich or something like it might be really nice.
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Diet fail day
First some caveats: we are moving across the world. Which can be a bit stressful. Even with a company to help and a solid plan beforehand there is stress. Last minute glitches and details. And finding healthy food that fits a diet is tough. So yesterday noon rolled around and I had eaten a nice breakfast (three eggs + assorted leftovers) and a few snacks. But for some reason I was hungry all...
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Checking in as we check out
The big apartment move starts today. Since our scale will spend the next 3-4 weeks being carted across the world I won’t be able to weigh in. So here goes…
This morning I tipped the scales at a hearty 91.4 kilos. Two days ago I was 91.8. I don’t think I lost that much weight in between and I feel dehydrated this morning so I will split the difference and call this 91.6.
My...
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England Finds That Olympics Aren’t Spurring... →
Does this surprise anyone? Did the organizers *really* think people would rush out and toss the ol’ discus around with the Olympics coming to town. If so they were naive enough to build a $854 million stadium which isn’t good for anything and needs to be torn down… Oh wait…
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WOW: Grok Ladder | Mark's Daily Apple →
I did this workout, slightly modified. I did pushups and standard squats. No third exercise, no leaping squats. And it still worked pretty darned well.
Round 1: max 12 (78 pushups, 78 squats) Round 2: restarting at 1 was easy! But they got harder, fast. Max 11 (66 pushups, 66 squats) Round 3: sweating now. Max 9 (45 pushups, 45 squats) Round 4: 7, although this wasn’t my max. I had to cut...
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Social Workout →
Hm, another interesting site to try out. This could possibly be my March resolution.
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British Military Fitness →
I jogged to the park this morning and did a workout on my iPhone, the British Military Fitness app. Wow… I have done these in the past but I forgot how tough these are.
I like this app and program a lot. For a variety of reasons I don’t have a gym right now so I need to do strength workouts using my body weight. Which is great but let’s face it: when you have an instructor or...
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36, 26....
Oddly enough my left hip is hurting on the squats, clearly I need to work that thing a little more to strengthen it. And 26 pushups is disappointing after 29 last time.
My weight is hovering at 92.9 kilos. No loss, no real gain.
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Amazon.com: Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About... →
Seems like another book for the reading list. The synopsis boils down to “carbs are bad” which is in-line with Mark’s Daily Apple and the 4 Hour Body.
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35, 29....
35 squats this morning, 29 pushups. Not bad.
Of course everything else on the diet is a massive fail the last few days. Thursday breakfast was fine, lunch too. For my birthday last year my wife bought me cooking lessons at Ecole de Cuisine Alain Ducasse. Look, when you get a once-in-a-lifetime chance to take a cooking class in Paris it’s really not the moment to announce that you’re...
Do Artificial Sweeteners Cause an Insulin Spike? |... →
One of the reasons I like this site is the honesty. I don’t like artificial sweeteners and always worry about the news reports in twenty years when they learn that substance X causes cancer. But Daily Apple at least presents a fair listing that says, in short, they probably don’t cause insulin spikes.
But they still taste bad.
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32, 24....
No, not the start of a measurement, this is the number of squats and pushups I did this morning as part of my new February habit. 32 is kind of lame, my legs are out of shape. 24 pushups isn’t great but it’s better than 18 which is what I maxed at the other day.
Diet note: another notch in the fail-belt yesterday. My food was good all day but come evening-time I just felt like going...
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Failing on the diet
You know what I hate? I hate when I slip up on my diet and the food wasn’t even good.
I don’t mind too much or feel really guilty if I slip up when a good friend comes to town and we sit up drinking too much beer. Or if the fries are really that good. Or you know what, sometimes potato chips are required to watch a movie. Or it’s 2 am and the greasy kebab is calling your name....
