December Challenge and the Holiday Hold

Happy December!

With Thanksgiving behind us, and the evil black friday, it is time to get on with the Christmas season. Arisa wasted no time in decking the house out in boughs of folly. No, holly. If you ever struggle with a present for Arisa, a Christmas ornament will always be acceptable.

Per my Holiday Hold post, the goal is to maintain or lose weight through this Holiday season. I weighed in at 167 (clothes on at weigh in for the Hyland Holiday Hold) on the 24th of November. This morning I was 160.4 just before jumping into the shower, so I'm guessing 164 clothed. But I have been at this weight for the last couple of days. Which is a little frustrating. Well, just a little but perhaps more pressing because I am so close to the 150s. I've seen it a couple of times after losing water weight from a workout. But not at a legitimate weigh-in.

Week 1 Recap - Engine 2 Diet 28 Day Challenge

So Wednesday was started Week #2 of my Engine 2 Diet 28 Day Challenge. Normally I would have met with the dietician on Wednesday to review the week and take my Body Fat % measurement with that little gadget she's got. The power company had other plans for us - we were sent home due to a power outage and a failure in the backup generator.

Wednesday is also my spinning class but since we went home early Arisa and I ended up going to Planet Fitness where I did the PF 30 Minute Express circuit for the first time in ages. I really like that workout since you can push yourself as much or as little as you are up to on a given day. And you can see progress over time as the weights or reps increase as you get in better shape. But I'll tell you my arms have been killing me for the last two days because of it! I keep telling myself that old adage No Pain No Gain.

禁煙、ヘルシー食事、運動

昨年末には医者さんのアポがありました。ちょっと恥ずかしいんですが、本当はかなり久しぶりに医者さんのとこに行きました。でも、ありさに約束していたし、年末に余った有休の残りを使う必要がありましたのでアポを取りましたというのhが建前ですが、本当は一番メインな目的がタバコをやめるためにChantixのprescriptionをもらうためでした。それが出来ましたけど、やはり色々なテスト結果があって、もっと健康的な生活を送らないと危ないなと思い始めたのです。ありさに言わせれば、やっと大人になったって、この面に限っていえば。。。笑。

Easy Ramen Lunch

We had a really simple lunch today, instant Ramen really. We did add something to make it something a little more than a lunch of MSG. And since I didn't actually take pictures of last weeks final product, which I'll post about here in a bit, I have decided to use this for this week's GYO post.

We've been growing Bak Choi and it's been doing really well. In fact, I probably planted a little too much of it. But that means we've been eating a lot of it too which isn't a bad thing. Last week we had this version:

 

Today, we grabbed some Bak Choi from the garden:

 

If you notice some holes in the Bak Choi, that would because we are not using any pesticide nor fertilizer on the garden. I may use them next year, but I wanted to see how we did this year. Clearly we need to thoroughly rinse the the Bak Choi prior to using for anything that goes in my mouth. Then you chop them all up:

 

Actually, prior to chopping them up, we throw some eggs into boiling water to get the soft boiled eggs going. We also follow the instructions for the Maruzen Ramen, which basically consists of boiling the noodles for several minutes, adding the soup mix to the noodles. For five people, we actually use only 4 packets of ramen.

Add a teaspoon of vegetable oil in a wok and stir fry the pak choy until it's soft. Pour the ramen into a soup bowl. We actually have "ramen bowls" which we use, but any soup bowl should do. Add the soft boiled egg and the ｂak choi, and VOILA:

 

Probably the hardest part about the above is getting the soft boiled egg just right. Everything else is dead simple. And makes it a completely different dish from plain old instant ramen. And it takes just a few minutes to make.

Update: corrected Pak Choi to Bak Choi