Eating Healthy
Taking a Break to Focus on My Health
This was going to be a goodbye post, but a couple of people whose opinions I respect have convinced me to make it a “so long for a while” post.
Why I need a break
I love food and I love writing about food. I the former too much and the latter helps me justify acting on the former. I truly enjoy finding and trying a new restaurant and sampling its food, and when I do that, it’s really easy for the writer in me to enable to food lover in me to try an extra dish, or dessert when I really don’t need it. I also enjoy frequenting my favorite restaurants, as much for the relationships I have formed with the owners or employees as I do the excellent food they serve. For me, eating out is as much about enjoying the experience and atmosphere as it is the food, and I like the smiles I get when I walk into a place as a regular.
But the simple truth is that I’m a big guy - no, I’m a fat guy, and I’m tired of it. I need to lose a lot of weight and work on getting more fit. I can’t do that if I keep eating out 5-6 nights per week and indulging my Southern hankering for fried foods and lots of beef.
For now, I need to focus on losing weight, exercising more, and eating the right kinds of foods in reasonable quantities, and two of those would be difficult, and history suggests impossible for me, if I keep eating out and blogging about it.
I’ve been asked if I might want to blog about my efforts to lose weight, and the meals and products I’ll be trying along the way. My response to that is no, at least not until I’ve made enough progress to prove to myself that I’m writing about something successful, not another failed attempt to lose weight.
So Long, Not Goodbye
For now, this is so long. Once I’ve made more progress and once I’ve proven to myself that I can balance my passion for writing about food with my real need to stop indulging my love to eat that food, I’ll return to being the Geek Food Critic. Until then, I’m going to be the Geek Weight Loss Trainee.
A Random List of Great Places to Eat
In no particular order, I’ll list some of my favorites, and my reviews if I’ve posted them.
It’s All So Yummy - Sandwiches, Soup, and Ice Cream in Knoxville
Mario’s Pizza & Grill - Pizza, Sandwiches, and More in Knoxville
Forte’s on the Square - Pasta and More in Crossville
McNamara’s Irish Pub - Irish Food in Nashville
Blackhorse Pub & Brewery - Burgers, Pizza, and More in Knoxville
Long’s Drug Store - Lunch Counter, Tater Tots, Milkshakes and More in Knoxville
Little Joe’s - Pizza and Pasta in Knoxville
Champy’s - Fried Chicken and Hot Tamales in Chattanooga
One Geek's DIY Smoothies
In an effort to be a completely unique snowflake, I decided to start exercising and eating better at the beginning of this year. I've started going to the gym with my boss and a couple of coworkers at least a couple times per week, with a goal of working my way up to going every day. I'm starting off fairly slow, because I'm not just out of shape, it's been so long since I've done any regular exercise that I'm in the next county away from shape. There's a Smoothie King inside the fitness center on campus, and after looking over their nutritional information, it seemed like eating a smoothie for lunch would be quite a bit healthier than what I normally eat, especially after realizing I could knock a couple hundred sugar-based calories off the smoothie by asking for them to "make it skinny" and leave off the honey and brown sugar compound.
Still, a medium smoothie costs me $7.09 with tax, and I figured I could probably do a lot better than that if I just made my own at home. I spoke to my boss since I know he makes his own smoothies, and he sent me his basic recipe. I made a quick trip to the grocery store and began making my own this week. Here's my modified version of the recipe:
1 cup Milk (2% right now, switching to Skim next time)
1 cup Yogurt (Stonyfield organic)
12-16 oz Frozen Fruit
2 Tbsp Almond Butter
2 scoops Whey Protein (will buy vanilla next time)
I use a Ninja Master Prep blender system to make my smoothies, but any decent blender should do. I got an awesome deal on a new Ninja at Woot.com, but here's a link to the same thing at Amazon. I estimate it takes me about 15 minutes to get all the ingredients out, portioned, mixed, and poured into cups for the next day, and I'm sure I can shave a few minutes off that as I grow more used to the process and avoid doing things like forgetting to add the whey protein powder.
These ingredients produce 2 or 2.5 servings, depending on the amount of fruit. I used a 16 oz bag of frozen strawberries tonight. I just realized I forgot to take a picture of the milk, but I ran upstairs and noted its serving size is a cup, and it contains 120 calories and 8 grams of protein. Adding all of that up, the smoothies I'll have for breakfast and lunch tomorrow should contain a total of 860 calories and 59 grams of protein. I've had a banana as a snack about mid-morning each day as well.
Tomorrow will be my third day of eating these homemade smoothies. Aside from an unfortunate taste combination of frozen mango and chocolate whey today, I'm loving them, although I'll be avoiding mango and choosing vanilla whey from now on. I'm going to set myself a goal of eating these every day for the next two weeks.
I'll post pictures of all of the ingredients below, as well as a before and after shot of the mixer pitcher.
