Working My Ass Off

Feb '14, weighing 5kg LESS than Jan '15

It’s January 5, 2015 and I’m at the gym looking down in disbelief. How did this happen? How is it I gained so much when I had a whole thought-out and documented plan to get fit in 2014?

Bigger hips, a rounder ass, and fuller breasts would not have bothered me. Voluptuousness is stunning. There are so many women who naturally have the shape that made Marilyn Monroe so alluring. However, when I gain weight, I look pregnant. The pounds don’t go anywhere else. I can’t tell you how many well-meaning students in Asia asked me if I was going to have a baby and who just looked confused (rather than embarrassed) when I said I wasn’t. When I get fatter, my core feels heavy. It’s a constant state of bloat that doesn’t go away.

I began 2015 weighing more than I ever had in my life. 80.6kg. 177lbs. More than when I tried to lose weight before I turned 40 last year. The internet agreed that it was too much. It may not be enough to get on Biggest Loser, but if I continued the trend of gaining 10kg every two years, I could easily be contestant material in 10 years. Not to mention that my metabolism came to a screeching halt in the last couple of years and I don't imagine it will experience any resurgence.

How did it happen? That’s easy. After not meeting my goals by the time I turned 40 last July, I just gave up. After I finished the half-marathon in September and ticked that box, I secretly and consciously gave myself a pass to forget about it. I ran 13.1 miles without stopping!! Of course I deserved fish & chips and six different pints of craft beer. Weekly. Then there was the long weekend in Lyon in October where I ate nothing but butter laden dishes morning, noon, and night. Then winter came and with it fat-hiding jumpers and pyjamas put on when the sun sets at 4:00 pm.

There was the discovery of the Hungarian Chocolate Balls. Actually, I don’t know if they really are Hungarian or if they’re called Chocolate Balls, but what I do know is that they are sold in the shop next door and are possibly THE most delicious things I’ve ever eaten. For nearly two solid months I had one or two of those after dinner. Dinner which, though healthy-ish, involved several portions. Once a week there was half of an extra-large pizza delivered with fries, Cokes, and unnecessary dip. There were post-pub cheeseburgers, post-work cheeseburgers, and post-waking up cheeseburgers. There was cheese, Spanish ham, chorizo, and countless full-on taco nights.

Oh and Italy. Like the lover you know is going to wreck your life but whom you just can’t get enough of. The eleven days in December flowed by in a constant stream of pasta, pastries, pizza and mind-blowing foodgasms. Followed by Christmas and all its gloriousness. New Year’s Day came and went without resolutions. I felt so gross. My clothes didn’t fit. I started absent-mindedly stroking the beginnings of a double chin.

1 of about 3 pictures of me in Italy because I didn't want to see my body

And then I booked a trip to Iowa and made a plan. Lose 10kg (22lbs) before I go to Iowa in 16 weeks, but in a way that I would be able to maintain. In other words, “lifestyle changes” rather than starvation or kale cleanses. I narrowed down my bad habits to these three: 1) unnecessary sugar/desserts, 2) too big and too many portions, 3) alcohol. I started by eliminating the easiest one first, sugar and desserts. I’m more into savoury foods and usually just eat chocolate and sweet stuff because it’s there (as a result of living with a sugar addict). The first week back to work after the winter holiday, I was met with everyone trying to pawn off their leftover Cadbury’s from Christmas. There were mountains of chocolate on every staffroom table. I grit my teeth and resisted.

Every website I looked at dedicated to weight loss recommended keeping a food journal. I rolled my eyes at this, thinking it was so lame. But I was willing to do anything, so every evening for a month, I crawled into bed with the laptop, entered the data into my Word document, and calculated the calories. It made me accountable as for some reason, I felt it would be embarrassing to have to enter in “Hungarian Chocolate Balls”. And in order to be able to honestly enter “1 medium portion”, I started giving S a lot more than myself and putting a portion away for lunch the next day. I ate an orange for dessert and brushed my teeth soon after. Who wants to disrupt that clean and minty fresh mouthfeel?

Alcohol was trickier as I do love me some wine while I cook, but then I discovered that two glasses of wine has over 300 calories, which is like eating a big slice of cake or pizza. I could only have 1500 a day and it just didn’t fit into the calorie budget, so I *mostly* cut it out during the week.

When I tried to lose weight last year, I made Friday the “cheat day”, but somehow it always ended in a three day binge involving pizza. I decided cheat meals were acceptable but not entire days. And cheat meals could not involve sugar/desserts or fast food. The weekends are still my Achilles heel, but I’m getting better.

To help create the calorie deficit, I added more exercise to my routine and started walking to and from work every day, which is 45 minutes each way. It’s actually about the same time as the bus when you factor in walking to the bus stop and waiting for the bus (which is never on time).

The first week, I lost 1kg. That was all the motivation I needed to continue. I honestly think that if I hadn’t seen a result after the first week, I would have given up. I became a bit obsessed and spent hours looking at websites, searching for recipes, reading success stories, reading (often conflicting) articles about food and nutrition. It was a bit over the top, but motivating.

After a month or so, I noticed a shift in my thinking. During the first month, every time I walked past the countless pubs, restaurants, and chippers on my walk home, I felt a sense of sadness and longing. I felt I was being denied something that everyone else in the world got to do. Oh woe IS me. Why can’t I have a kebab or a pint with a side of crisps? Then I remembered my 20s. Long nights in bars, chain smoking and flirting with strangers. Jukeboxes, pool, and correcting the bad grammar of the graffiti in the toilets. I have no desire to go back to that lifestyle, fun as it often was. So couldn't bad food be like that? A thing of the past—a closed chapter? Not having a cheeseburger is not denying myself pleasure anymore than not going to night club is. I’ve had more than enough cheeseburgers in my life. I’ll always have fond memories of all-you-can-eat Chinese buffets and foot-long subs with extra mayo.

I reached the goal and the fact that I did is more satisfying than the thinness itself. When I do feel tempted by something I just remind myself how much exercise I would have to do to burn it off. 20 seconds of pleasure is not worth the 45 minutes of torture on the cross trainer machine. I definitely still indulge in naughtiness such as craft beer or pizza, but I figure out a way to make up for it. It’s a constant balancing act but the calculations have become almost automatic.

In the last two years, I've been astonished to discover that if I set a goal, I can accomplish it. I've never been a goal-oriented person. I drifted through university in a daze, found travel destinations by gut feelings, and have always approached work as a series of tasks to be done as efficiently and effectively as possible. But these goals of running and weight loss are physical and tangible.  I've never had big GOALS in the realms of my personal and creative life. If I could only figure out what these more elusive goals are, I might be able to start a plan to reach them....

 

Argentinian Christmas Tapas

No matter what country we're in, on Christmas Eve we eat a lot of home cooked food, drink (copious amounts) of red wine, and watch "It's a Wonderful Life". In 2012 it was Mexican lasagne in Thailand, in 2011 sangria and snacks in China, and now that I'm sitting here I can't actually remember 2010 (China) or 2014 (Dublin, 4 months ago). Must not have been that exciting...

2013 was our first Christmas in Dublin as a married couple, so what better way to celebrate than to make non-Christmasy food from a country I've never been to.

I like to eat food that takes a long time to eat and can be nibbled on throughout a night. These meat pies fit the bill. I perused a lot of recipes and combined a few into one. Now I can't remember which sites though :(

Empanada dough
3 cups all-purpose flour (I used cream flour; is that the same?)
6oz unsalted butter cut into pieces (I used Alton Brown's method of using a cheese grater)
1 egg
4-5 TBs of water
1TB white wine vinegar

Mix ingredients into a ball and flatten slightly. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Roll out dough and cut circles (I used a glass). I ended up rolling out the circles thinner before adding the filling.

next time: more vegetables and less meat

Filling
500 grams minced beef
2 white onions
2TB smoked paprika (maybe too much)#
2TB cayenne
1TB oregano
1/2 TB ground cumin
2 green onions finely chopped
2 diced hardboiled eggs (the first time I ever made HB eggs!)
1/4 cup sliced green olives
some capers

Cook onions, add meat and spices. Mix in green onions, egges, olives, and capers at the end.
Let mixture cool and then put a dollop in the centre of a circle of dough. Seal edge by braiding dough and use a fork. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Bake in oven 18-25 at 375.

I served with chimichurri sauce:
1 1/2 cups parsley leaves
6 basil leaves
leaves from 3 oregano sprigs (I couldn't find, so I used dry)
4 cloves of garlic
6TB olive oil
3TB white wine vinegar
1tsp cayenne
salt and pepper

Mix everything together in a blender.
Serve in small bowls to dip empanadas in.

I served these with warm salad of chorizo, red pepper, onion, tomato, and parsley. Also roasted mushrooms marinated in olive oil and balsamic and filled with feta cheese and spinach. I also bought a ham and cheese platter from Tesco. It was so-so.

Overall, the empanadas were good. The dough was a bit hard and a little too vinegary. Maybe I overworked it? But for that night, they helped make for a wonderful life!

MEAT! MEAT! MEAT!

When I was growing up, we didn't go to church and I think as a result, didn't have a "Sunday roast". Sure, we had pot roasts. Lovely, tender hunks of beef slow cooked for hours with potatoes, onions, and carrots and then topped with a rich milk gravy made with the au jus. But other animals or fowl weren't represented. As I mentioned before, I never had roast lamb until my 20s when I dated a guy whose parents were English.

For Christmas 2013, I bought this cookbook and set out to practise cooking basic fundamental dishes that most people probably learned while still in primary school. The book is well-designed with plenty of pictures and easy to understand steps. With the exception of liver and onions and other crimes against food, I've made at least half of the recipes.

Nowadays I don't eat big hunks of meat, so this a post of nostalgia more than anything else. Oh how I do miss big pieces of tender, juicy meat covered in a layer of flavourful fat and seasoning.

Leg of Lamb

I can't think about lamb without hearing Granpa Simpson saying, "Call me mint jelly, cuz I'm on the lam!"

I bought this leg at the Asian shop for about 5 euros. It weighed .725 grams.

 Cut little slits in meat and stuff with cloves of garlic and rosemary sprigs. Drizzle with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Surround the leg with shallots still in the skin and carrots.

 

 

Add caption

I looked on lineand found that a general rule is to allow for 25 minutes/500g. I cooked it at 230 for 15 minutes and then 180 for 35. It was perfect. However my sauce (not pictured here) was meh. Used 1/4 cup of stock, 1/4 cup red wine, 1/2 tsp blueberry jam, 1/2 tsp cranberry jam. I don't think I let it reduce enough. Served with red wine risotto (Giada de Laurentis recipe on foodnetwork.com), peas, asparagus. End result was a bit too salty. I realized that since I've never had risotto at a restaurant, I don't really know what the consistency is supposed to be. But it was pretty good overall.


 

Standing Rib Roast

This meal was a bit of a splurge, both money and calorie-wise. I bought this rib roast at Buckely's. 1.5kg and 26 euros.
Rub all parts with olive oil, salt, and cracked pepper. Rub fat part with mustard. This is a standing rib roast recipe so I had to prop it up with onions on each side.

 





The internet told me to cook it at 200 for 15 minutes, reduce heat to 180 and then cook 12-15 minutes per 450 grams. By my calculations that was 36-45 minutes  My oven tends to be overly hot, so I cooked it for 35 minutes and let it rest for about 25. I then discovered I didn't have a clue how to cut it and definitely didn't have a sharp enough knife for beautiful slices. So we ended up with chunks and bits.

 

The result was a bit on the rare side but that's how I like it. I served with mashed potatoes, red wine sauce, and sautéed spinach.

Pork Belly

1kg of pork belly bought at local butchers (FX Buckley's).
Marinade:
6 cloves of garlic, 1/2 tsp fennel seeds, ground black pepper.  I did not have juniper berries or peppercorns.
1tsp of wholegrain mustard
Grind ingredients in mortar and pestle and rub on pork. The recipe calls for scoring the skin with a knife but I found I couldn't do it. Need a sharper knife?

Preheat oven to 240. Put 3 halved onions on bottom of roasting tin and put pork on top, skin side up. I forgot to do the very important step of putting 1/2 of water in the bottom of pan but remembered 10 minutes in. Roast for 40-45 minutes or until skin is bubbly. Mine only crunchy and bubbly in parts. Maybe I needed more time? Did the lack of water at beginning have anything to with it? The internet told me that getting the skin right takes a lot of practice....

Reduce heat and cook 30-35 minutes more. The meat was so tender and succulent but the skin was not edible.

Served with  roasted apples.

4 cored and peeled apples. Melt butter in a frying pan and sprinkle 3TB sugar and add white wine. Add strained juices from roasting tin. Simmer for 10-15 minutes. The result was a bit too sweet for me.

Served with mashed potatoes and braised fennel.

I used the leftover pork belly to make hui gou rou (twice cooked pork), a Chinese stir fry.

Mexican Lasagne

In addition to shower curtains and certain lady products, one thing you won't find in some parts of Asia is an oven. I didn't know how much I missed having an oven until it became apparent how many dishes I was unable to make: cookies, muffins, roasted vegetables, roast chicken, cannelloni, pizza, and anything else with brown, bubbling cheese. During my last trip to Thailand, I decided to spend the equivalent of $25 or so to have a toaster oven. It was a fantastic investment, breaking up the monotony of rice or noodles, and allowing some Western comforts.

One dish that satisfies several comfort food cravings at once is Mexican lasagne. I am so lucky in that I have a couple of friends in Iowa who were willing and able to send me things that I couldn't find in even the best stocked foreign goods stores. Over the years, they sent me a tortilla press and masa flour, several bags of dried chipotles, Tapatio hot sauce, and other treats including Nerds and giant dill pickles.

Kidney beans, vegetables, and even cheese were easy enough to find in Songkhla, Thailand so with a bag of corn tortillas and dried chipotles, I was able to make a spicy, cheesy, yummy trip.

round pan batch

Sauce: In a pot, I boiled tomatoes, onions, cilantro, lime juice, garlic, dried cumin, salt and pepper. I used a potato masher to get into a smoother consistency.

square pan batch

Assembly:
I used cake tins to do all my baking because I couldn't find any casserole dishes anywhere. On the bottom, I ladled some sauce, followed by overlapping tortillas, beans, chopped carrots and spinach, feta cheese. Layers are repeated and the whole lot is topped with sauced and grated cheddar. I baked it in the oven for 30 minutes or so. After resting, cut into squares and serve with expensive avocados sold at Carrefour, an hour away by bus.

this one was made in China with flour tortillas

Blown Away: Pompeii and Vesuvius

When I was a little kid, I cried at everything. I cried when I got a kitten because I was sad I'd taken her from her brothers and sisters. I cried for days after watching "Bambi" and I cried during class when we watched a documentary about animals being killed to make way for shopping malls. I still remember the exact moment I cried when watching a documentary about Pompeii. It was in our duplex on 5th Street and I was curled up on the gaudy brown flowered sofa. When they showed the casts of people in their horrified death poses, I cried at how sad and terrifying it must have been. Never did it enter my simple 9 year old brain that I might some day actually see the place that put in me in a state of melancholic shock for days.

before

after

On this stunner of a December day, we felt as if the place was ours. There were a few big tour groups in their matching visors, but for the most part, they didn't venture to the outskirts of the town. Wandering down streets and in and out of former shops and houses, Vesuvius was always looming in the background, scenic and not at all menacing. We had rented audio guides but after awhile, I stopped listening to mine and just tried to imagine what Pompeii had been like before being covered in feet of volcanic ash. It was by far, one of the best trips I've ever done.

The next day we went to Vesuvius itself, being escorted to the top by a taxi service, and walking up a steep incline for about 15 minutes. The day was cold and cloudy but it was still worth it to see the crater and smoke, not to mention the view of Naples Bay.

stones are for crossing road during heavy rain