It’s been a while since my last post, but what can I say? I’m a lot busier at work now that I’m on the DS (Nintendo DS for those of you who aren’t into gaming) team instead of the main GameCube team at the company, and to put it plainly, I don’t have time to post during work hours now, LOL. Why don’t I post after work?
Erm, well…AFTER work hours are for apartment maintenance, studying, visiting friends, and World of Warcraft (Finally broke level 20 with my Tauren shaman, Pocowhontas!). :prop:
This is sort of an evolution in how I prioritize my life. The fitness and diet portions are now on auto-pilot–it’s actually difficult for me to come up with an unhealthy meal given the ingredients in my kitchen pantry–and I’m more or less in shape, so my need to post about every little aspect of my meals and training has faded quite a bit. As my goals and projects change, this blog may become more of a mix of current art work, commentary, book reviews, and recipes as well as the baseline fitness stuff.
One can’t spend one’s entire life flexing for photos and talking about reps, macronutrient ratios, and run times, right?
Okay, I guess one COULD, but not without boring everyone around them to tears. :biggrin:
The Optimum Performance Training (OPT) workshop held by the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM) was very informative this past weekend. The workshop was split about 50/50 between lecture and hands-on exercises, and the information was easy to grasp. Unfortunately, with Hurricane Dennis doing unexpected things last Saturday, my group had their workshop cut short by 3 hours. We missed out on the practical portion of program design and execution–or, as Kyra said in her post a few weeks ago when she attended the workshop in Boston, the bit where the instructors had the students do exercises to failure.
I came out of the workshop with a better understanding of the NASM PT course materials, an improved idea of what working as a trainer would entail, but absolutely no DOMS.
In cooking news, I finally took my Christmas 2004 present from my parents out of my car trunk this afternoon and gave it a go after reading the instructions while noshing an ear of corn during lunch.
People, pressure cookers are SCARY!
Mom and Dad bought me an Ultrex II pressure cooker with pasta insert, meat trivet, steamer, and alternate tempered glass lid (with steam valve), but my kitchen is so packed with cookware already that I didn’t get around to taking it out of my trunk until noon today.
Now beef noodle soup usually takes a good hour of simmering at low heat to prepare, and even then the 1 1/4″ cubed beef often doesn’t absorb enough flavor from the broth until day 2. If you use lean cuts of beef, you end up with somewhat tough meat as well.
Toss all of the ingredients in a pressure cooker, however, and you get super tender, absolutely divine-tasting beef chunks infused with yummy flavor in 15 minutes according to my mother.
Looking at the clock, I decided that I did have 20 minutes to spare for this inaugural pressure cooking journey. I grabbed the ingredients and chucked everything into the pressure cooker. After locking the lid on and turning the stove to high as instructed, I turned to do the dishes and pretty much forgot about the cooker until I suddenly heard a single, tentative metallic rattle behind me about 5 minutes later. The weighted pressure valve had started to move in a jolly fashion, so I set the timer for 15 minutes and went back to doing dishes.
Now my younger cat Neville HAD been hanging out on the breakfast bar counter in front of me while I worked, but suddenly he jumped off the counter top and hustled into the bedroom. I wondered why he was so freaked out, then looked behind me. The pressure cooker valve was REALLY jiggling now, and huge jets of steam were shooting up from it in a very, shall we say, distressing manner.
Maybe I should have gone with Med-High instead of High.
I am not ashamed to admit that I left the dishes with as much haste as Kitty Longbottom and went around the counter to put some space between me and the Death Pot of Explosive Pressure. In fact, I went to my bedroom for a few minutes to hang up my clothes while working up the courage to approach the stove and turn it down. The dreadful irony of being decapitated (and boiled) by a pot full of beef noodle soup was not lost upon me.
I eventually made it back to the stove and turned it down to Med-High and was much-relieved when my new pressure cooker no longer looked like a looped film clip of Old Faithful.
And now that you all know what a weenie I am with pressure cookers, I just want to say that the beef noodle soup that came out of that pot was just as mouth-wateringly yummy as my mother foretold.
I may be risking life and limb on a regular basis now for beefy noodles this good.
:eat:
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Nutrition: 1300-1500 calorie low zig zag day
1: 3/4 c. FF yogurt with cocoa, 3 oz. tuna
2: 1.5 scoops whey, 1 ear corn
3: 1/2 c. rice, 3 oz. beef with eggplant in five flavor sauce
4: Beef noodle soup with 1/2 cup vegetables
5: Thai chicken pasta salad
6: SGX meal
Daily Supplements: multivitamin with iron, calcium 500 + D, 1 T. flaxseed oil or natural peanut butter
Water: 16 cups minimum
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Workout:
REST
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The Awful Truth:
1. Slept in this morning due to WoW. :whistle:
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Brownie Points:
1. Have been lazy about posting, but stayed on plan.
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Short-term Goals:
1. Clean stove, sink, and counters in kitchen.
2. Pick up eggs and fruit.
3. Print out new recipes from eDiets.
4. Plan next week’s workouts.
For those of you who want to reduce the carb ratio, cut out half the noodles and bulk up the meal with extra veggies like spaghetti squash or bean sprouts.