Saturday, June 30, 2012

So healthy

Good old Red Vines. Always fat free so it must be good for ya!

Bring it On


Last night I took the wife to some trendy restaurant and ate wild caught fish and locally grown stone fruit salads and whatnot.  It was really cool but I'm guessing the caloric intake wasn't anywhere close to what I should be eating.  Now here's where the problems always start.  Last night was a foodfest.  Tonight, I'll be having choripan (pictured above) and some beverages.  Knowing I'm going to be pigging out, I should make a conscious effort to eat VERY healthy all day right?  Well, its a gorgeous day, I'm feeling good, and I can already tell there won't be much healthy food on this fine Saturday because I'm playing that stupid game we all play where I say to myself "Well, last night I blew it and tonight I know I'm going to blow it, so I might as well just live large and I'll get back on it tomorrow or Monday."  We all know this is a pointless exercise yet we still do it.  Why?  I don't know and I'm not going to try to explain, I'm just going to probably go buy a huge breakfast burrito and choke it down.  So there.

I sound like a chick.  Hold me.

Friday, June 29, 2012

Pipes Ahoy!


What?  You heard there was a massive explosion of testosterone and rage in Orange County today?  Oh..no need to worry, that was just me, doing a near record breaking upper body workout after riding Serena to the gym.  See folks, here's the dealio, I likes to pump some iron and I've gotten to be pretty good at it.  In the photo above, you can clearly see the business end of what was about to become a 185 pound bench press (six reps).  If the fact that I rode to the gym, THEN worked on the upper body doesn't set off a flood in your britches, then just know this...afterwards, I rode home too.  POW!

As impressive as all this sounds, I know full well that starting today, I'm headed into a weekend of complete excess.  I've got an all day kids pool party today, tomorrow we've got people coming over for a pool party/bbq and they will be staying over so we can watch the Euro 2012 final game.  It's going to be hotter than a well digger's asshole this weekend and that means there will need to be cool beverages.  Rumor has it, there may be some drinking and eating going on.  Therefore, I pledge to spend the weekend trying to completely undo any good I did with my exercise this week.  That is all.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

From Hard Farts to Heart Smart


Yesterday started off great with an awesome workout followed by a healthy Grimace smoothie and the world was my oyster.  Then disaster struck.

I was supposed to have a business lunch with an old colleague/friend and he got hung up in traffic, it was already 1:40pm, all I'd had was my Grimace smoothie so I cancelled lunch and did the sensible thing:  I had a can of Dennison's hot chili with cheese and watched a three hour long documentary called "Endgame:  Blueprint for Global Enslavement" about how the elite of the world are trying to establish a new world order, eliminate 80% of the world's population, and control us all while sucking the world free of resources for themselves.  Obviously, when you've been healthy most of the day, the thing you want to do is have an 800 calorie lunch and watch TV for three hours.

After my lunchtime debacle, I got back to business and had a very healthy dinner of Talapia and quinoa.  Unfortunately for me, the wife brought home delicious It's It ice cream snacks so I had to have one (blaming her like Adam blamed Eve)...see below


Just to make sure I fully sabotaged myself, I followed up the Its It with some goldfish crackers and wine.  On the bright side, the combo of Dennison's Hot Chili and an It's It gave me the most prolific gas in the history of mankind.  My family was in awe as I peeled off Chicago roaster after Chicago roaster.  At one point, I think my seven year old lost consciousness  It was epic.  They must be so proud.

Now, at long last, we come to this morning.  After yesterday's failure to stick to Operation Savage Fist, I decided to have a healthy breakfast (see below)


What's that you say?  That looks like a big old cheesy omelet?  You're partially right.  That's a two egg omelet with a slice of diced lean ham, sauteed green onions, and a tiny smattering of cheese.  Most people would think that's a not so healthy breakfast but I have it on good authority that done right, and not using butter or salt, the above omelet is not only delicious, but also extremely healthy...so suck on that naysayers.  Now I'm not going so far as to say the omelet is as good as a can of Dennison's Hot, because its not even close.  Dennison's Hot is like mana from heaven poured over the nipples of Venus and into a can.  Nothing is as good as Dennison's Hot but my omelet this morning was delicious, healthy, and my heart and poop chute, which is still burning from last night's epic fart performance, are both thanking me.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Purple Drank


This morning I got out of bed, had some coffee, cleared the decks in a huge way, and then did the ride to the gym, core workout, and ride home.  A glorious morning indeed.  When I got back to the house, I was powerful hungry so I had the wife mix up a concoction in the Vitamix 5200 that I highly recommend.  Almond milk, Greek yogurt, blueberries, frozen grapes, half a banana, spirulina (can't forget that stuff), and cinnamon.  When this sucker was done, I dubbed it 'The Grimace' in honor of the famous McDonaldland character of the same name (above).

Here's a couple of shots of The Grimace smoothie below:




I highly recommend mixing up The Grimace as a refreshing smoothie to get you to your next meal.  My next meal will probably be something large and greasy but that's because I'm awesome.

Bonus Material:

Descriptions of the McDonaldland gang:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimace_(character)#Characters

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Highway to the Danger Zone!

There was no post on the Gut Chronicles yesterday because even though I rode my bike and did an upper body workout, I was clearly not on my game due to many beers all day Sunday.  I was a mess and just the fact that I didn't shit myself on my bike ride was victory enough...felt no need or desire to write about it.

This morning, I realized that even though I've been living the high life, I am dropping a couple of pounds so I decided to get off my arse and go for a run.

On today's run, I decided to do something I've always wanted to do...risk my life for this stupid blog.  There's a stretch of dark path that connects a park by my house to the main trail I jog on and for years, this 1/4 mile stretch of un-managed trail has lived in dark neighborhood legend like some sort of forbidden zone that swallows up puppies and causes even the bravest of men to turn and run in fear.  It is that place where ye must not go.  Since I'm a big brave stud, I decided to check it out today....


Sunday, June 24, 2012

Goooo England

Here's yours truly at the Amtrak station preparing to ride to LA to go to a bar and watch the England v Italy soccer match. I haven't eaten breakfast which means as soon as we get to the bar, I'm goong to scarf. Not good for the nutrition front but a man's gotta do what a .man's gotta do

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Master Craftsman of the Smoothie



Check it out, the first smoothie made my me in the Vitamix 5200.  I added lots of strawberries and grapes trying to make it red but the spirulina and kale just trumps everything so it was a green one with some silent red.  That baby went down real smooth after my bike ride.  Its good that I'm going healthy right now because I'll be going to Angels Stadium tonight with Captain Tim and the wives and I'm guessing there will be some beers consumed..

Bike Jam 2012


I decided to get on Serena this morning and do a ride for my Saturday exercise.  I rode 15.25 miles at a brisk pace so I'm pretty proud of meself.  I chose to ride north on the SART this morning because I wanted to be able to pedal unobstructed for the full hour.  To my unpleasant surprise, I think the rest of Orange County decided to ride the SART this morning.  There were literally a couple thousand cyclists on the SART this am, it was nuts.

Most of this morning's riders were large packs of 30 or so dudes all going berserk on their road bikes.  Then there were a couple hundred casual riders who were doing their thing too.  The lame part was that there was a whole lot of expensive equipment out there moving waaaaay too slow and blocking the lanes.  Normally you just fly by these douchebags on two wheels but the SART was so busy this morning, you had to really wait for a golden opportunity to make a move.  Fortunately for me, Serena is awesome and I'm a total badass so everything worked out fine.  One guy got a little miffed that I passed him and two other people on a curve going uphill but screw him, he was in the way and the rule on the SART is survival of the fittest!

I looked up some stuff on cycling etiquette and there's some pretty good stuff for group rides (see link below) but very little on what the proper procedure is when you're solo and some assclown is taking up the whole lane and going too slow.

http://www.bamacyclist.com/articles/groupridetech.html


Friday, June 22, 2012

What The Hell Is That Stuff?


I was at the store yesterday and I saw an end cap display of this giant can of Nacho Cheese Sauce.  6.62 fucking pounds of that shit.  Now don't get me wrong, I've had more than my share of that stuff back in the day but as I sat there looking at this can of orange goo, I wondered what the hell it really is.  Well here's the answer:

I couldn't find the answer.  I could find that it contains virtually zero nutritional value, 80 calories per 1/4 cup and 6 grams of fat, and tons of sodium.

Anyone know what the hell that shit is?

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Lunchtime Musings

My youngest and I discussing the health benefits of the turkey sandwich I had for lunch yesterday....


Wednesday, June 20, 2012

SARTORAMA!!!


Hell yeah!  this is a panorama photo I took of the SART this morning.  Beautiful day.

Operation Savage Fist is going along pretty good but I'm still overdoing it on the food and drink.  Screw it, how often do you get to be unemployed and loving life?  Workouts have been strong.  For instance, this morning, I did a 25min ride to the gym, followed by core work (pathetic), followed by a 25 min ride home.  Not bad if I do say so myself!

I'm trying to eat healthy today and so far so good.  Who knows what will happen tonight.  If the Dodgers tank another one to the lowly A's, I'm going to drink heavily

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

The Vitamix Rides Again!


This morning, I flew out of bed at 6:30am (pretty good for an unemployed dude) and went for a big run (three miles....which was tougher than it should have been for me) and was powerful hungry when I got home.    Since I'm master of my own destiny now I figured I better figure out how to use the Vitamix 5200 on my own.  So, just before my wife went to the gym, I ordered her to show me how to work the Vitamix at once.

I put way too much spirulina in so she took over from there adding cinnamon.(above)


After the powdery substances, you add the fruits, kale, and anything else you want to go in there.  At one point, the wife said "I need a banana" and I replied with "Whoooa babe!  The kids are awake!"  She doesn't think I'm funny.


This part is key...after you add all the ingredients, you put it on variable speed level 1 and turn it on.  Then...you gradually increase the Vitamix 5200 speed from 1 to 7 (Lord only knows what happens if you blast that sucker all the way to 10).  Once it gets going at level 7, you hit high and watch it just liquefy the shit out of everything in the container.


After about 30 seconds on high, you power down the Vitamix 5200 and you're left with a delicious and nutritious green smoothie.  The one above is extra green because of my spirulina overload.  This morning's smoothie had a very earthy taste to be sure.


Sunday, June 17, 2012

Father's Day Special!


Recently a few people have commented that they'd like more videos on the Gut Chronicles and in particular, they'd like more videos featuring my zany kids.  I'm a man who likes to please his audience so I decided yesterday to try a video of me, doing a radical running flip into the pool while encased from armpit to calf in four of the floating rings pictured above.  I did two trial runs and my kids said it was 'stupid' and 'a dud' and since I hurt my eye on the second attempt, I decided to scrap that video idea (Hey, it was physical fitness, just in a more free form way).

That takes us to this morning, Father's Day 2012.  My wish for Father's Day was to get up early and go on a family bike ride to my favorite breakfast joint.  The wife and kids indulged me and by 7:15am, we were off on our adventure.  Enjoy the video.  (side note, if you open this and say to yourself "That crazy dipshit actually posted a 10 minute long video of him and his family riding to and eating breakfast???" The answer is..  Yes, yes I did)


Friday, June 15, 2012

Wild Animal Loose on the SART!


Ok, so maybe its not an animal loose on the SART but I have been known to have animal like characteristics, just ask the wife.

Anywhoo...just because I'm not working, it doesn't mean I can't still patrol the SART and be all manly bike dude looking good on Serena.  This morning I decided I needed to ride to the gym for my huge upper body workout.  I hit the SART around 6:10am so I had to activate the alien flasher rear light as well as Beamer 3 (front light) just in case.


Yes, that's me just before 7:00am, all alone, in the weight room, just getting ready to put on a one man pipes display.  I'm pretty sure other folks wanted to work out too but they were intimidated when they saw me go in.  Probably thought I'd be using all the iron and they'd have none to lift.  So I did a great workout post bike ride and was going strong, making it happen to the sound track from the movie 'Hair' (and yes, it was the movie, not the stage play.  Don't ask me how I know this, I just do).  I had just finished a set at maximum effort with Age of Aquarius blast in the background and I was feeling pretty good about myself, when all of a sudden, this tiny teenage girl comes in, knocks out an impressive set on the bench and then goes and fires off like 25-30 chin ups like they were nothing.  At this point, I decided to take my leave because lets face it, nobody likes a showoff and that girl was clearly trying to act like she was all that and I was simply not going to tolerate it.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Trials and Tribulations of Operation Savage Fist


This morning 's breakfast was a triumph.  Lean Canadian ham, eggs (no butter), and fresh cherries.  Its cool being able to have breakfast with the kids and enjoy the time I've got with them.  On the dark side, the past two days have been filled with end of school activities and that includes eating not so healthy.  Don't get me wrong, I've been working out and eating fairly well but its not as easy as I thought it would be.  Take yesterday for instance, my oldest girl won some prestigious awards at school so I took her to a decidedly unhealthy lunch where she ordered this massive sundae and made me eat some of it:


Yes, I've taken to blaming my own children.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Breakfast is Served


There she is folks, about a gallon of something the wife mixed up for me in the Vitamix 5200 this am.  So far this week has been great on the exercise front and much better than average on the nutrition and sleeping front.  Oddly enough, that means I've lost about three pounds in two days.  Strange how that works isn't it?

Today's pretty much going to be a bust because I've got this three hour shindig end of the year award ceremony at my kids' school and I'm taking one of them to lunch after that.  I may try to do an afternoon hyper-ride on Serena followed by swimming with the kids to at least get some exercise in.  At some point I should also try to look for a job too...but who wants to do that?

Btw, don't laugh about swimming with the kids as exercise.  Swimming with my kids is something like a combo between an MMA fight, trying to escape from a piranha attack, being drowned, and doing power lifting.  Its no joke.

Monday, June 11, 2012

The Day is Upon Us! IT IS TIME FOR MY ANNOUNCEMENT


Without further ado, I'm finally going to make my big announcement:  I quit my day job.  That's right, you heard me...done, quit, jumped off the cliff and there's no safety net.  I am a free agent and I'm going to set the artist free! (Probably just end up getting another job).

There, announcement over, and now its time to fully commit to Operation Savage Fist.

Since I'm now unemployed, I figure its going to take a bit of time to find a new gig and I plan on using that time to throw myself at my nutrition and fitness regimen.  Gone are the days of me snacking and boozing and carrying on like some kind of cretin.  Operation Savage Fist isn't about decadence, Operation Savage Fist is about enjoying life, taking care of the body, and getting myself ready for whatever comes next.  Respect Operation Savage Fist or be run over by it!

I got on the scale this am and have determined that I need to lose 42 pounds.  If you're about to rapidly scroll down hoping for a 'before' photo with me being shirtless, you can just fucking forget it.  I don't need public scorn and ridicule, I need motivation.  I need Operation Savage Fist to work like a champ and be slicker than Katie's legs.

This morning I hit the gym for a massive upper body workout.  Tomorrow will be cardio day, and so forth.  I plan on mixing in many adventures with my beloved bike Serena too!

If you follow the Gut Chronicles, you'll note that exercise really isn't my issue.  My issue is shoveling massive amounts of food and booze into my gullet and just going for it on a daily basis.  So clearly, if Operation Savage Fist is going to work, I need to get back on the nutrition plan as well.

My lunch today was a delicious tortilla crusted talapia served over micro greens and salsa with a nice side of quinoa.  Check it out folks (first pic is just the food, 2nd pick is the wife enjoying her post workout portion)


Saturday, June 9, 2012

Bag in the Tree

For about three weeks now, there's been a bag just hanging from the neighbor's tree looking all ugly.  I documented it on Facebook well over a week ago and the damn thing was still there this morning.  I'm convinced the reason nobody's gotten said bag out of the tree is because there's probably shit in the bag and everyone is afraid of said poo falling out of the bag and getting on them.  Long story short, this morning I got tired of the bag being in the tree so I decided to take action.  Here's the video of this daring operation.


Sunday, June 3, 2012

Aloha

This is how its done people. Loco Moco before the flight home. Whoever is in seat 14 bravo is doomed.

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Aloha Day 3: Lessons in Golf

Here I am on day 3. Time for the final round of the trip. I'm in 2nd place in both the individual contest and the team contest so I'm looking to bring it all home with a good round.

Overall I feel pretty good...back's a bit stiff and my calf muscles are a tad sore but I do have one troubling issue:  underwear selection.

I can't stress to you folks enough the importance of proper underwear selection when golfing. This morning, I wasn't thinking straight and I just grabbed any old pair of skivvies. The pair I am wearing today, after playing 54 holes in two days, is a bit too snug in the 'zone'. After all the walking and sweating I'll be doing today, I have a strong feeling my taint's going to look like a piece of ahi sashimi by the time my round is finished. I'm going to have to try to minimize my walking and do constant junk adjustments while I play. Wish me luck.