Fresh Salsa

In my quest to discover, taste and create the tastiest and healthiest food and snacks possible - I have discovered Fresh Salsa.

I first thought of this after looking at the back of a jar of Pace Chunky Salsa. I noticed that the salsa had a very low calorie and fat count compared to the portion size yet tasted very good and was full of flavour.

I thought to my self...If I make this myself, I bet it can taste better and be even more healthier (less salt and additives).

After a few bits of experimentation this is what I came up with:


2 Tomatoes
1 Small Capsicum
1 Average Sized Onion
Few Sprigs of Coriander
Small amount of Parsley
2-4 Long skinny red chilies
1 fat red chili
1 fat green chili
2 Limes
Salt

Large Mixing Bowl
Serated Slicing Knife for slicing tomato and capsicum
Chopping Chef's Knife (or cleaver) for dicing
2 Jars for Storage

1. Quarter the Limes and squeeze the juice into the mixing bowl. Fish the seeds out afterwards with a fork.
2. De-seed the Capsicum and dice. Dice the Onion, Tomato and add to the bowl.
3. Finely chop the coriander, parsley, and chilies and add to the bowl. Add more long skinny chilies if you want more heat.
4. Sprinkle salt over the top (not too much)
5. Stir and taste test, add more salt to taste
6. Spoon into jars for storage and keep refrigerated.

I sometimes change the onion, like, add 1/2 brown onion and 1/2 red onion.


Now that you have your salsa - how to use it to make healthy meals. This is what I do with mine:

Breakfast - Poached Egg on Toast, Couple spoonfuls of fresh Salsa on the top.

Lunch - Sandwich, Toasted kraftkorn bread slices with a layer of Salsa, topped with a slice of Turkey Breast, slice of lowfat cheese, and mustard.

Dinner - As an appetizer, Bruchetta style, topped on toasted french bread. As a main, topped on a filet of baked Salmon.

Snack - With corn chips yummmm or flatbread\Pita bread would be great also.


Please post comment if you can think of or have tried anything else =)

-5kg Milestone

I was meant to write this last week but it was a pretty busy week...

I have successfully lost 5kg from my body!! I weigh around 96kg now and it is a noticable amount of loss compared to 2 months ago when I was 101kg.

I was looking at myself in a mirror in an elevator and I could actually see a difference. I was wearing a shirt I havent worn in several weeks and could see that I looked different in it. Mostly in my abdomen and my face the difference in noticeable.

It is a good boost to motivation, more than good, it is hard proof that what I am doing is working and that I am making progress.

Although this a loss of 5kg in 2 months is not as fast as I have done in the past, I think that I did it at a reasonable pace.

You see, I found it was important to keep living life rather than stop all fun and socializing just to focus on my weight loss. Although the results can be good (-1kg per week) That is a bit selfish right? So rather than knuckle down and decline all dinner party invites and other party invites to stick to a strict diet, I chose to occasionally celebrate with friends and break out of the diet rules here and there. A dieting quote I heard being thrown around goes "you can still get 90% of the results if you cheat only 10% of the time"

In the last 2 months in addition to losing the weight, I went out to 3x 5-Star hotel buffet dinners, 1x 5-Star hotel lunch buffet...2 birthday parties (lots of drinking!), 3 long weekend trips out of town with friends (eating and drinking!!), and a few nights out with good friends.

So in the end, I am still able to have a satisfying social life and continue to lose weight on my own =).

I am happy with the result so far considering that my life did not take a huge nosedive into becoming a veggie munching hermit with a gym machine and water bottle as my only friends.

The Audience Effect

Today I had a pretty crappy and unmotivated workout session.

I was struggling to complete lap sets in the pool. Each time I stopped at the wall for a short interval breather, I thought about quitting and just having a relaxing swim for the rest of the early morning.

There was no one watching me, I could quit and no one would be there to accuse me of being a quitter! I began to think in my mind just before my hardest set how easy it would be just to stop and relax then. I was ready just to sit in front of a water jet or float around near the waterfall and watch the sun rise.

But then someone else came to the pool! It was another member at the fitness club - I immediately recognized her as this annoying old lady who sometimes steals the machines that I want to use in the gym. Arrrg you aren't going to steal my lane at the pool now!

Straight away I felt a rush and I pushed off the wall to start my 10x Sprint Laps. I felt energy, and a need to sort of show off to her. Wow! What a completely different change in heart...from being alone and struggling versus having someone there watching you and feeling energetic. Is this the human propensity for competition?

I reflected back to my early swimming days and recalled a pretty girl I was madly in love with on the swim team. Sometimes she would swim 5 or 10 seconds in front of me and I would push myself harder to catch up to her so we could share an underwater smile at the flip turn wall as she allowed me to pass.

Thinking about this more, I realized that most of the times I was able to train hard has been when there are other people watching. Like football players at after school practice, with their cheerleader girlfriends watching them....or all the times my mom followed me to a bicycle race or swim meet. I was able to perform better with an audience.

I guess this can even apply to life - like the way Christians believe God is watching them all the time. They tend to be better people and live a better life. God is their audience, and they live to impress God.

Although my end goal is to impress myself with the weight loss...this is a conflict of interest when myself wants to relax instead of work out. This makes my goal in losing 20kg by myself a little bit harder...as I will not be hiring a coach or trainer to watch me and be my audience. Perhaps I can find some sort of community club, or go somewhere with more people around and use this feeling to motivate myself to work even harder and not slack off =)

A time for Anger

After struggling for several days in a row failing to get out of bed I think I have finally figured out something that works.

Getting Angry!



Anger is one of the fastest occurring emotions in the human spectrum. Reminds me of the bumper sticker "I go from zero to Bitch in 3.5seconds!!"(I know some people I think it goes even faster!) Hahaha!
In the morning when I get out of bed I start turning on the Anger....Angry at my alarm clock sound...Angry at myself for setting the alarm so freakin early...Angry because I have to put on my contact lenses and my eyes can barely open...Angry Angry Angry!!!!!

It really works! You won't turn huge and green but when you become angry your heart rate, blood pressure and adrenaline levels increase. This increased levels of bodily activity really helps you come out of your sleep and lazy temptation to go back to bed.

It totally worked for me this morning and during my workout I also managed to push an extra 10mins longer in the pool. It is common knowledge that exercise is a good way to relieve stress...so really, no matter at the things I get angry at in the morning - I will have a great time working off the extra energy in the gym or pool.

Playing a Game...trying not to lose

I spent the first 10 days of my mission messing around....kind of like the intro sequence of Halo. You know, the bit where you first get handed a gun and if you wanted to you could spend hours shooting and beating up invincible marines as you and your co-op partner race to see who can assassinate the admiral first...hahahaha.
It's a total waste of time which has zero progression to the main storyline. Just the way I blew those first 10 days.

I often think of myself as an living in an RPG (Role Playing Game), especially now with this monitor hooked up to my arm. The calorie counter bar looks strikingly similar to the EXP bar in many RPG games. The calories I have been counting and inputting on my watch every day are kind of like reverse experience points though. The less that I enter during the day, the more I can power up! Of course my overall level is my weight in Kilograms (which tipped under 100 for the first time in ages woohoo!)...golf rules applied of course.

My main quests include shopping for vegetables, signing up for a new gym membership, designing new workouts...and side quests would be repairing the grip tape on my scooter, degreasing my bicycle, or buying a new set of swim goggles.
Cheat codes...that would be hmmm...hiring a personal trainer, liposuction?? I'm never one to cheat at video games but if I do find a superior tactic which is within the rules of the game I would totally spam it.

Lately I have been stuck fighting one of the re-occuring rare enemies- the Early Morning Wakeup. This is a dreadful beast which strikes me just around 5:55am. I think it has sneak ability, because I can just never see it coming! Usually it hits me as soon as I wake up and BOOM I get KOed and stay in bed and skip my morning workout. If I could just find a way to autocast a helpful spell when it starts attacking me...I think I will have a chance to continue on through the rest of this dungeon =)

The Diet

I just made it through my first diet breakfast. 1 poached egg on kraftkorn toast, a massive fuji apple and a can of V8. The apple actually made it a lot more filling than I expected and this turned out quite good....though I suck at poaching eggs.

Snacking between meals, I have a Banana and my yummy David sunflower seeds. Seeds are great unprocessed whole foods and are a good source of the healthy polyunsaturated fats needed for a balanced diet. This should tide me over to my fruit salad lunch.

For dinner....I have instant Pho style noodle soup. Which is basically a salted flavour packet (minus the oil packet), some rice noodles, and random veggies thrown in the mix. I tend to change the flavour up by switching between celery, kangkung, bok choy and chinese cabbage. Also switching the texture by using angel hair style rice noodles vs flat kweitiau style noodles. Also for a bit of protein I add a serving of fish balls.

I find this dinner to be extremely healthy as 1. It contains little fat, 2. High in fibre from the veggies, 3. High in water (as often it is hard to get those 8 glasses a day in right?)

As you can imagine this can get pretty damn bland on a daily basis...so I will break this up by occasionally going out to a sushi place for dinner. Strictly ordering rolls that don't contain tempura prawn or fried chicken. Usually opting to get a fill of salmon...mmmm Omega 3...

And most important of all....if anything starts tasting too bland - just add some chili!! Poached Egg on toast....with chili! Fruit salad....with chili! Noodle Soup...with chili!! Chili is my saviour, and supposedly can help increase your metabolism and lead to better calorie burning...but really I am sure this is due to the sweating and constant breathing in and out "sssssssss ahhhh sssssssssss ahhhh" performed by most chili lovers during consumption.

My Technology

Fitness technology has come a long way since the dawn of the digital waterproof watch.
I have always been technically inclined and jumped at the opportunity to bring technology into my gym workouts.

It's been a long known fact that professional athletes and those serious about sport and training do so with the aid of a heart rate monitor. I researched a lot of the available models out there and have found this neat little model called the Polar WM41.



What makes the WM41 better than your standard heart rate monitor are it's Weight Management functions. It can track your weight, food\calorie intake and even the number of calories you burn in your workouts. It even plans your diet according to your weight loss targets and automatically adjusts itself based on your performance. All of this on top of the regular heart rate monitor functions like training zones and alarms.


In addition to my WM41, I'm going to be using GymTechnik. GymTechnik is an application interface that runs on my Blackberry Bold 9000. It is designed to be a sort of digital personal trainer which keeps track of the exercises and workouts I have scheduled and performed, as well as the weights used and frequency of the workouts.



It has handy stuff like images showing you the specific workouts you should be doing as well as functions to record and graph your weight and fat loss over a period of time.

I'm still pretty new to using this application but will soon break into some of the more advanced functions like customized exercise design; for now I'll just be sticking to the pre-programmed workouts.

Probably the most basic yet important pieces of technology I am using is a Soehnle digital bathroom scale.



This tool gives me my Weight, Body Fat %, Water % and Muscle % all in a quick 10 second reading of my bare feet. This helps as I can maintain a healthy level of hydration as well as not getting freaked out by muscle gains being mistaken for fat gains. I will be using these scales throughout my mission, accurately recording my progress toward losing 20kg.