I'm Back and Bigger Than Ever!!

That's right ladies and gents, the old Gut Chronicles is going to make a comeback and thank God because I've gotten a little large.  Above is a photo of me from a few weeks ago.  Check out that bulging gut and three chins...I'm a specimen of good health.

Here's what's happened in the last 16 months since my last post...in a nutshell:

• Got a  new job
• Moved to NoCal and commuted back and forth to Orange County for six months
• Moved the whole family to an undisclosed NoCal location
• Along the way, I ate and drank everything I could possibly get my hands on.  I was like Agustus Gloop AND his mother in Willy Wonka....I just let it go and loved doing it!

So...in an effort to become normal again, I'm starting the year off right with cutting out so much booze, eating healthy, and getting my fat ass back into the gym I pay for every month but never go to.  To try and hold myself to a better standard, I plan to try and update the Gut Chronicles again too!

I just want to be pretty again...stay tuned for more hot Gut Chronicles action

Holy Fatness

Yes, I'm fully aware that my posting hasn't been up to par lately and I apologize but I just haven't felt much like doing it.  On the good side, Beast Mode is still in full effect and as of this morning, I've dropped 18 pounds.  To give you an idea of how much 18 pounds of fat is, check out the photo above.  The chick in that photo is holding five pounds of fat so I've dropped nearly four of those suckers.  On the down side, I still need to lose another 25 pounds but hell, I'm well on my way!

Don't Judge

Here we are at Chilis in Monterey, CA and I ordered a small garden salad with balsamic vinaigrette but the waitress must have thought I said "I'll have the chicken crispers and a huge beer please!"  Oh well, I'm not one to make trouble so I just ate it...all of it.

The wheels have come off the cart folks.

Confessions of a Lunatic

This is what I had for lunch today.  A nice healthy turkey sandwich with pickles, artisan lettuce (whatever the hell that means), and a slice of Swiss cheese.  Yeah, the sourdough isn't 'perfect' but I was told by my nutritionist once that in the absence of whole grain, low glycemic bread, its a fair choice.  Anywho, the wife commented about how I had a healthy breakfast, went for a run, and followed it up with a healthy lunch.  I was about to just take her compliments and say thank you but I was overcome by guilt and the following words came out of my mouth  "Yeah, I'm feeling bad about eating a whole bag of jelly beans last night".

Now before you say "Well hey man, don't kill yourself, a bag of jelly beans is no big deal", just know when I say a bag of jelly beans, I'm not talking about the Halloween hand out kind of bag o'beans.  I'm not even talking about a movie theater size bag of jelly beans.  I'm talking about go down to Target and pick up a bag of jelly beans that should last you and your whole family a month size bag of jelly beans...and I ate the whole thing, by myself, while I was watching Destination Truth and The Daily Show.

I know, its shameful and embarrassing to admit to such a thing but I think the confession is cathartic and it gives you, my readers, a quick glimpse into the demons that plague me (demons that look like delicious jelly beans with little candy horns).  You're probably asking yourself just how one can sit down and eat a whole bag of jelly beans in one sitting and the answer is:  You just do it.  I'm not saying its easy to power down an entire bag of jelly beans, it takes dedication, discipline, and an unyielding commitment to the job, but what can I say, I'm that kind of guy, a professional.

Anyone know where I can get a good deal on insulin?

Lunch With The Wife and Her Boyfriend, Dr. Oz

So the wife's (and my sister) been on my ass for a couple of months to try this stuff they swear by called 'Psyllium'.  I figured since its the weekend and the day before mother's day, I'd let the missus give me guidance and guide me through the wondrous world of psyllium and a nutritious lunch....

As a side note, the wife is seriously into that feces freak, Dr. Oz.  I swear there's never been someone so into poop since the guy who made 'Two Girls, One Cup'.

Enjoy....

Sneaky Nutrition 101

After my workout today, I managed to get Mark to drive me to El Polo loco since I didn't bring my lunch and I needed food that was somewhat healthy in terms of what you can buy as fast food.  On top of getting mark to drive me, I touched him for eight bucks when I told him after we got there that I needed some coin.  Since I've been riding every day and working out at lunch this week (stud with huge nuts says what?), I got the Original Pollo Bowl and a side salad.  Yeah the Pollo Bowl has 610 calories but I've been burning a lot and I was hungry like the wolf.  I figured the side salad would be a nice next to no calorie filler for me with a little bit of fiber to slick the ol' treads.

Long story longer, as I was munching on the side salad after I finished the Pollo Bowl, I decided to look up El Pollo Loco's nutritional page (El Pollo Nutrition) and see what the calorie count on the Loco Side Salad was.  Any guesses?  If you guessed a whopping 100 calories, you're half right.  That little four ounce sucker is a shocking 210 calories with 18 GRAMS OF FAT.  The entire Original Pollo Bowl only has 10 grams of fat!

So look at it this way.  The Original Pollo Bowl is 18.1 ounces and its 610 calories with 10 grams of fat.  Not great for you, but eh..who cares once in a while and its way better than something fried.  If you take the Loco Side Salad at 4.2 ounces and multiply it out so the serving is the same as the Pollo Bowl, you'd get 945 calories with EIGHTY ONE GRAMS OF FAT.  Sweet mother of crap that is a horrifically bad salad for you!  I threw half of it away.  Never again folks, never again.  Talk about something that isn't worth it!

Just goes to show you that you cannot assume something is healthy or low in calories by looking at it.

Side Note:  Props to El Pollo Loco for having a variety of things that are actually healthy (for fast food) and they clearly designate those things on their menu.

Fear and Loathing in San Antonio

Ahh yes, there she is, the breakfast of the business traveler.  Lonely, sad, not nutritious, lame.  It's bad enough that I have to eat such a breakfast (its free for a reason), but what makes it worse is that I had to eat said breakfast in San Antonio.

The city of San Antonio may not have invented excessive ball sweat but they've sure as hell taken it to a new level.  Virtually all of my day yesterday was spent on my feet and a good portion of it was spent outside in 90+ degree heat with more humidity than a hyper-active steam room.  So essentially, my day yesterday was spent standing, or eating bad food, or having beers, all while working up the sweatiest set of balls in the history of humankind.

Now that we've established my level of ball sweat in this city, let's look at my nutritional intake yesterday as a fine example of why business travel is so incredibly unhealthy unless you seriously plan ahead.

Breakfast - same as the breakfast I had this morning pictured above.  Coffee and raisin bran

Between breakfast and lunch - about 40 cups of coffee and two litres of water (hoping to reduce ball sweat)

Lunch - Thai food and a giant Thai iced tea.  Lunch order was as follows:

Me:  "I'll have the pad se yew with chicken"

Waitress:  "How ha yoo lie"

Me:  "Hottest you've got...five stars, a ten, whatever the scale is you use"

Waitress:  "We go wan to fie.  Fie very ha"

Me:  "Five"

Waitress:  "Ooohhh NOOOOO!  Fie very ha mista.  I think three goot fo yoo"

Me:  "I'm fine, just go with the five, I can handle all you've got"

Waitress:  "Fie very hot mista...I think you no like"

Me:  "I'll worry about that...I want the five"

Waitress: "Okaaaaay.  I try to tell yoo"

Me:  "Gotcha, I understand, let's make this happen baby!"

Waitress:  "Whaa??"

Me:  "Nothing."

Waitress:  "Ok...fie ha"

Me:  "Understood"

Waitress...walking away shaking her head

For the record, 'fie' wasn't very hot but it was a greasy plate of noodles with some sort of meat that resembled chicken

Between lunch and dinner - cappuccino.  Then around 6:30pm at an event I was at, I had three heavy hors doovers and a couple of beers (five).

Dinner (10:30pm) - After walking two miles and generating even more ball sweat, we stopped for Italian food.  I had shrimp scampi which, even though its pasta in cream sauce and shrimps cooked in butter all with cheese on top, was one of the healthiest things on the menu.  I also had a glass of wine (three)

There you have it folks...even though nothing in and of itself felt all that bad at the time, when you put it all together, yesterday was a calorie-fest that was only offset by excessive sweating and roughly five miles of walking throughout the day.

Point being, fuck this place and I'm glad I'm going home today

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To String Or Not To String

I couldn't ride to work today because of rain and there isn't much going on so I was just sitting here having some string cheese for breakfast and wondered if its healthy.  Well, turns out string cheese is healthy!  Low in calories and packed with protein, vitamin A, B12, and zinc.  According to my internet machine, its the perfect on the go snack!  POW!  I bet a string cheese dipped in spirulina and then coated with caccao infused goji berries would be insanely healthy.  Sure, that concoction would tastes like a gorilla's asshole, but just think about the health benefits!

On another note, you know what isn't healthy?  The half gallon of bubblegum ice cream I powered down last night while watching the Dodger game.

The Power and the Glory

Here's me in the middle of my 3.5 mile tune up run on hilly terrain in Maui at 0600 hours today.  Being on vacation is no excuse for sitting around like a fat tub of shit and just letting yourself go.  You need to make time to get your ass out of bed and do some serious exercise every single day whether you like it or not.  That's how serious athletes do it!

And here's me in the middle of having my 1,400 calorie Loco Moco breakfast a couple of hours after my run.  Being on vacation is no excuse for eating like some chick who's starving herself for a swimsuit photo shoot and just being a lightweight.  You need to make time to take advantage of having local cuisine like fried rice, a half pound hamburger patty, and two eggs, all smothered in rich gravy.  That's how serious chunky dudes do it!

Someone hold me

March Badness

 

I realize its March Madness right now and since its been raining all weekend long and I likes sports and whatnot, I thought it would be cool to do an update to the ol' Gut Chronicles that was basketball centered.  So when I went to search for a basketball image I realized that my page views go up when I have some sexiness on the site so I searched for 'hot basketball girl' and this photo of some sexy Asian gal with big cans throwing out the first pitch came up in the millions of pictures and everyone knows that if there are two things I like, its baseball and sexy Asian gals with big boobies so....she had me at konichiwa!

Wait a minute?  What was I doing again?  Oh yeah, there's a college basketball tourney going on and, even though I know nothing about college hoops I'm doing pretty good so here are my pics for the remainder of the day since I will not be riding and I certainly won't be eating healthy:

N. Carolina (-9.5) vs Creightion - North Carolina is a cool place and Creighton is in Omaha which is a city that I think of as nothing more than a place I have to go so I can get to the casinos at Council Bluff's, Iowa.  Take North Carolina -9.5

Xavier (-4) vs. Lehigh - My buddy Dan got his MBA at Xavier.  It's St. Patrick's Day weekend and that means people sing 'Oh Dany Boy'.  Lehigh is in Pennsylvania and ugly chicks come from PA.  Take the Xavier Musketeers -4

Florida State (-2.5) vs Cincinnati - My buddy Dave lives in Cincinnati.  Florida State is the home of Jenn Sterger.  Jenn Sterger is the attention whore who made it so I had to hear about stupid Brett Favre's pecker for months on end a while back so I can't stand Jenn Sterger and therefore Florida State sucks.  Take Cincinnati +2.5

South Florida (-2) vs Ohio - Ohio is a total Cinderella team and they'll probably get stomped but I don't care, take them anyway.  Ohio +2

There are other games but I'm hungry.

Mayan Superfood is the New Black!

The wife is on a health food vibe so she loaded up on some wild stuff this week while I was on the road.  Two of the items she purchased were Wildcrafted Goji berries (from China) and Cacao nibs which, as you can see in the photo, are classified as "Mayan Superfood".

This morning, the missus threw some kale, spirulina, OJ, water, ice, and goji berries into the Vitamix 5200 and let'er rip.  The concoction, while quite earthy tasting, was good, and just to top it off, I grabbed a handful of Cacao nibs and threw them in my mouth.  The sensation I had upon tasting this unholy blend was similar to when He-Man would yell 'By the Power of Greyskull and all hell would break loose with lightning bolts and whatnot.  I had to stomp my foot a couple of times and then just wildly started punching at the air for no reason at all other than I felt compelled to do it because of the sudden, overwhelming sensation of power I had.  Oddly enough, my sister came in the room, took a slug of her portion of the power beverage (she didn't throw back the Mayan Superfood...that was only for me) and she too had a sudden fit of mock combat against an unseen enemy.  What the hell is in that stuff?  Its the real deal!

Flash forward to now...

For the past five hours, I have had rancid, loud farts like nobody's business.  We're talking DEFCON 1, pure evil coming out of my ass in high volumes at all times.  One can only assume that whatever the wife put into the smoothies she made this morning with the addition of Mayan Superfood has the octane level of jet fuel and the radioactive half life of plutonium.  Sweet mercy I am a walking gas-bag.

Holy Quinoa!

This weekend, my sister, who is an actress, was over at my place making funny talk about her favorite vegan bakeries and restaurants, and yoga, and products that make her poo like blocks of Jell-O and I tuned in when I hear her mention Quinoa.  I've heard of quinoa before (pronounced Keen-WAAAA) but have never had it.  I don't know if it was a combination of me being semi drunk or just my natural sense of adventure but once I heard my sis going on about the greatness of quinoa, I ordered my wife to buy some at once (that's not how it happened but that's how I remember it).

Flash forward to last night when I got home and my wife had purchased this sack of quinoa (above) and was preparing it so we could have it for dinner.  To my surprise, quinoa is fan-f@cking-tastic!  This stuff is high in protein and would be something you'd have instead of a starch like rice or potato, etc.  I'm sure there are other uses for it than just a side dish but I'm not ready to go full hipster yet.  According to the package, quinoa comes from Bolivia, and let me tell you, other than the burrito, and the soccer fans below, quinoa has to be the greatest invention Bolivia has given our planet!

Open up your trap and put some quinoa in it todaaaaaay!

Nutritional value:



http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/cereal-grains-and-pasta/10352/2