gettin' healthy

i hate it, it's killing me (er, rather, the opposite, but it FEELS like it's killing me), but i have to do it. i joined the gold's gym in town about two weeks ago, just before jules arrived. since jules has gotten here, she's been regulating my caloric intake = starving me. i no longer get a sandwich from the petrol station on the way to work for breakfast. now i get a tomato with some feta cheese. lunch is no longer pizza and sandwiches, i get a salad with salsa for dressing and sometimes soup. for the first time in my memory, i had nothing but vegetables for dinner the other night (peas, brussel sprouts, and beets with goat cheese). it really wasn't as bad as i made it out to be, but i like my meat, and i miss it. mcdonald's and other restaurants of the like are out of the question until i lose 15lbs, then i get a celebratory meal. since i've been doing this i've lost 6lbs (maybe i'll keep a weight tracker... i'm not proud, my first weigh-in at the gym was 125kg, that is, 275lbs... but i carry it well, all belly, no ass). we've been eating lots of veggies and chicken, no fast food, minimal "processed" food (i don't understand her blanket disdain for processed foods). i'm pretty good at the gym. 30 minutes on the elliptical without being out of breath (but i strangely get out of breath on a stair-climber), then 30 minutes or so lifting. jules joined up with me on sunday. i'm trying to go 4-5 times a week (thursday and friday are definitely out as they are "the weekend") jules is going to try to go 2-3 times a week and do yoga the other days. she makes dinner for me for when i get home which is nice. this living together thing isn't too bad, so far.

anyways, i digress. this picture is from a dinner we were invited to last night. our driver invited us to dinner with his family several weeks ago. the first time we had to cancel because i had to go to alex and jules was going with me, and the second time, we had to cancel because TheMech decided to have a barbecue on the same day. so last night was the rain check, though TheLead ended up having to meet up with some people that are basically who we report to for this site. TheLead invited TheMech to go. this caused a bit of a food overage. originally, there were going to be 6 people: me, jules, TheElec(trical), TheLead, TheMech, and their driver. then they told our driver that two more would be coming totaling eight (so our driver's mom bought more food). THEN since TheLead and TheMech went elsewhere (and their guests as well) eight guests became three. we arrived, met his mom, dad, 4 brothers and 4 sisters, sat down and talked a bit, then the feast above arrived. WOW! one things i don't like much about visiting families in foreign countries is their insistence on stuffing all the guests to the gills and then insisteing on just a bit more + dessert. being on my diet, jules let me ave a bit more than i should've but when the hosts piled 3 chicken cutlets and 2 pigeons on my plate, i knew hat me be a bit out of hand for my shrinking stomach. i'm gonna try this... in the picture above you can find (clockwise, starting at the left): kofta, sliced tomatoes, a load of grape leaves with rice, roast beef (in the green pot), samboussek (behind the beef), more grape leaves, a type of rice called "freek" (?), baba ghanouj, rice-stuffed pigeon (egyptian viagra is the lore), more freek, meat lasagna with bechamel, and four game hens. after that, they offered us the sweets were brought them as a gift. it was FAR too much to eat. there were two large trays of lasagna in the kitchen, there were probably 8 pigeons, googly, just far too much food. we are going to be eating it at work for lunch for days. all the food was amazing, his family is incredibly nice, it was a thoroughly enjoyable time. still, we had to cut the night short. TheElec had to get back to the hotel to call his fiancee.

when we got home, we got ready for bed, i kicked on the TV and satellite to see something i haven't seen in such a long time... a NASCAR race LIVE on TV. i ordered this sateliite specifically because it has LIVE NASCAR. so at 10:30PM, i turned on the TV and watched an hour of the pre-race for the las vegas race. i made it through an hour of the race before i noticed i was dozing around 12:30AM. the race was on until 3:00AM. i'm going to try to get a nap next sunday night, so i can stay up late to watch the race.

well, back to work. i gotta get in the mindset to go to the gym, blah, but they tell me it's good for me.