Shiratake chicken stir-fry

So I just tried shiratake noodles for the first time NOT in sukiyaki.  Thought I better write down what I did because the stir-fry was yuuuum.

Ingredients

Shiratake noodles
Chicken
Broccoli
Onion
Garlic
Chicken stock
Spinach
Capsicum
Water
Kikoman
Peanut butter
Peanut oil

1.  Wash shiratake noodles really well
2.  Par-boil shiratake in a pot with half a garlic clove, half a chicken stock cube, some water and a dash of kikoman
3.  Remove from heat and drain and leave to dry
4.  In a bowl marinate chopped chicken breast with some kikoman, garlic, the other half of the chicken stock (dissolved in a just enough water to make a paste).  Marinate for however long (at least 30min)
5.  Dash of peanut oil in a wok, add onion and noodles and fry until onion is soft
6.  Remove from pan and set aside
7.  Add chicken to the pan (with marinade), about half a tablespoon of peanut butter and fry
8.  Add vegetables (except spinach) and after about 2min add noodle/onion mix
9.  Add spinach just enough to wilt
10. Season and serve
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If you're not familiar with shiratake noodles they are a Japanese noodle that is low cal, low carb, low fat.  Depending on the variety they are around 20 calories, 3g carb (1 net carb because 2g fibre), 0.5g of fat per serve.  They smell like fish at first, you need to wash them really well (they come in a fluid filled bag) and most people par-boil them before using.   Apparently they work well as a pasta substitute in cheese based dishes too, so I'll give that a go at some stage.

I'd eaten these when I was in Japan, and konnyaku (which is the vegetable that it comes from) blocks and thought it was disgusting.  Then again I didn't like miso soup when I was over there either and now I love it.

Neil is thinking of trying low carb as well, he is eating low carb dinners with me but not sure if he has the dedication/motivation.  I hope he sticks with it, will make life easier!

No longer obese!

Well folks, here we are at the end of my two weeks of low carb and the scales are showing a great response.  Now I know that for the most part the major loss at first is water, but the psychological lift has been amazing.  As of this morning I weigh 79.5kg (175.3lb), when I started I was back over 85kg so its been over 10lb lost in the first two weeks.  I lost most of it in the first week, this week its been about 2lb.  And my BMI is 29.4, yehaw. 

I am ok with the low carb, I'm going to continue for a little longer because its helping with the sugar cravings definitely.  So another two weeks and then we'll see.

Man, I can't believe I'm in the 70s.  This is high school weight folks!

Thought of the day

Exercise is you king, and nutrition is your queen.  Together they create your fitness kingdom.

That is all.

NYT: Mathmatical challenge to obesity

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/15/sc...sity.html?_r=1

The interesting parts:

That the conventional wisdom of 3,500 calories less is what it takes to lose a pound of weight is wrong. The body changes as you lose. Interestingly, we also found that the fatter you get, the easier it is to gain weight. An extra 10 calories a day puts more weight onto an obese person than on a thinner one.

Also, there’s a time constant that’s an important factor in weight loss. That’s because if you reduce your caloric intake, after a while, your body reaches equilibrium. It actually takes about three years for a dieter to reach their new “steady state.” Our model predicts that if you eat 100 calories fewer a day, in three years you will, on average, lose 10 pounds — if you don’t cheat.

One of the things the numbers have shown us is that weight change, up or down, takes a very, very long time. All diets work. But the reaction time is really slow: on the order of a year.

People don’t wait long enough to see what they are going to stabilize at. So if you drop weight and return to your old eating habits, the time it takes to crawl back to your old weight is something like three years. To help people understand this better, we’ve posted an interactive version of our model at bwsimulator.niddk.nih.gov. People can plug in their information and learn how much they’ll need to reduce their intake and increase their activity to lose. It will also give them a rough sense of how much time it will take to reach the goal.

Half a week of low carbs

I don't know how people do this for long (I mean years).  It hasn't been too hard but you really need to plan and eating out is a bitch.  While I'm enjoying eating some food that I haven't gone near for ages (like cream), I hate having to think about carbs, is there carbs in this and how much.  I'm sure it gets easy but honestly not sure if I'd stick with it.  What I really want is the psychological hit of seeing some weight drop even if its mostly going to be water weight!  I just need something to get me going again.

Dinner tonight was delicious though, chicken bacon cream garlic pepper parmesan cheese served over sautéed zucchini noodles.  And it is keeping me full which is good.

But I'm not super low carb, I'm not trying to go into ketosis.  I'm aiming for 21g (yay for my fitness pal making logging easy).  But when you do start looking at the sugars in things it really is amazing to see just how much there is.  Low fat mayo = high sugar!

I'm weighing on Friday, I wasn't going to weigh until Sunday but I really want to see how I'm doing just in case I gain -LOL-

So long, farewell, I wish you well but its over...

I'm breaking up with carbs.  Yep, I have decided to commit myself to two weeks of low carb and see how it goes.  I have a lot of trepidation about this journey but yanno what I'm kinda excited too.  I finished the last of my cereal today, I enjoyed a kebab for dinner and though omg this could be my last one for a while, can I do this!?

But its worth a shot right?  Man it so goes against everything the idea of eating fat food.  I've spent the past week flip flopping back and forward, reading up, looking at recipes, thinking omg really how how how.  But the fact of the matter is I am a sugar junky and they past month I have had terrible carb cravings.  Cookies, bread, muffins, pasta, nom nom nom.  I just can't stop.  My weight is still sitting around 85, but I want it to drop dammit. 

So wish me luck, for anyone who is doing low carb any advice?  Recipes you want to share?

Marking come out the waazoo

Alrighty folks, just a wee note to say I'm still alive.  I've got so much damn marking to do its insane.  I've just finished grading essays, this week I have 200+ lab reports due plus tests.  So yep, not much time.

Marking makes me eat, I've been so off plan its terrible.  But weight is stable.  I went for a swim today at lunchtime.  We have an endless pool (current pool) at the gym which is a great work out but so boring.  I didn't realise how much I enjoyed swimming laps.  I thought I hated it, because I hate swimming in a 25m pool and prefer a 50m pool because I hate turning.  But when you swim and don't get anywhere its boring.  My new waterproof MP3 player hasn't arrived yet either so it was super boring.  Oh, plus the pool has two mirrors in it!  So you get to stare at yourself while you swim, man seeing my jiggly bits in the water, emphasised even more by the current pushing on your skin is not pretty.

What I do like about it though is I can go for a 30min swim, not have to spend time showering and changing.  Its just like jump out of the pool, quick dry off and change.  Couple min vs 15min.  So I am thinking I might take my togs (swimmers?  bathers?  what do ya'll call them) with me on Tuesdays too because I might just be able to get a swim in on some days when my morning class finishes early (I teach from 9-10, then 10-1 but this half of the semester my 10-1 class will often be only 2 hours yay).

Happy birthday to me!

Gosh its been almost a month since I last posted, as you can guess life is busy.

I turn 33 today, I'm super happy about it although from a weight perspective I expected to be at goal now, oh well.  Its funny, I'm not losing but obviously I'm losing weight, gaining muscle and the density of muscle yada yada we've all heard that before... because in the past week I've had many comments on how good I'm looking even though these are people that see me regularly so its not like from drastic weight change.  One day I did happen to wear a dress that obviously had a really good cut because it gave me some shape and that day everyone commented.  I will take a pic of it and post it.  I bought it for a funeral ( my great Aunt who was 89 so not really that sad) and then wore it to work one day when I had to look all impressive.

So lets see, anything knew?  Not really.  I am planning on doing a competition called the tough guy tough gal challenge - 6 or 12km run through mud, swamp, under barbed wire etc.  So I need to find some creative training -LOL-  I'm going to run in the current pool, figure that would be a good work out and good training. 

That's all I have time for, I have essays to mark and have been so busy at work training the biology olympics team (yes that is a thing LOL) that I'm totally behind on marking so I'm sitting here at 9pm on a Friday night on my birthday grading papers.  But I have 50 essays that I want to get through before Monday, and then I'll have another 50 to do next week once classes start back and hopefully have them all done (~210 essays all up) before my next lot of major marking comes in the following week (~170 lab reports) plus of course test marking which is a constant of my job too.  Argggh. 

Love to everyone, I hope to make the rounds soon.

Oh yeh, hi muslces!

So I did my first ever pump class.  Oh man am I going to be sore in the morning!  I was shaking so hard from muscle fatigue, and now my biceps in particular are so weak and already starting to get a wee ache on.  I think I will do pump every week, I really enjoyed it.  Luckily my friend Chelsea has been lots so I asked her to come with me so I knew what to do in regards to getting all my bars and stuff.

I like classes because with everyone around you it pushes you just that little more.  And now that I'm not swimming (just no convenient time) I wanted something that wasn't just going to the gym and doing the same cardio/weight combo.

This last 10kg is way too stubborn.  Here is hoping that a little more muscle building will help.

New scales I have defeated you!

So I'm back under 85kg, 84.8kg.  So take that new scales that wanted to throw my game!  I'm daily weighing now, never use to be a fan but I'm finding it is helping me so much with keeping my focus.  I think because I'm within 10kg of goal the battle is just so much harder that I'm celebrating every 100g loss.  And its still two steps forward one step back, but hopefully I'll be under 80kg before my birthday and I'll be able to say I'm in my 70s, which is the range I was in when I was 18.  Ye-haw.

Life's good.  The family drama still sucks but we're dealing with it.  Hope ya'll are happy out there in net land.