A little progress, and another step

On July 20th, I wrote about my return to eating in a way more aligned to my genetic make-up.

I'm happy to report that it continues to be easy to maintain this 'no potatoes, no grains, no sugar' diet. It's been 16 days and counting, and to date I've lost 10 lbs. I've had this experience before, but you're never quite prepared for it. Nevertheless, it's a great feeling.

I'll keep going with the diet, and let you all know how it progresses.

The other step, I've taken with regards to my health, is that I've started riding my bike everyday. I sort of got forced into finding other means of transportation when my car died last week, so as part of my daily commute, I now ride the 4.3 miles between my house and the Federal Way Transit Center in the morning and in the afternoon.

I have to say that the first day's ride was not all that easy. Even though I've been riding my bike from time-to-time, I've not done any real hard riding for over a year. I had to walk the bike up a couple of hills, but I made it. Did it again on the way home that afternoon.

This morning was a little easier, and I hope that this increased activity will help me not just lose some weight, but actually get into better physical condition, which is something I've avoided my whole life so far.

So, that's the goal...and that's one of the last hold-outs of my screwed-upness. Wish me luck!

Concerts at White River Amphitheatre

After attending my first concert at the White River Amphitheatre, I thought I would take a second and pass along a little advice re: Traffic and parking, and planning for these known problems.

So, for those of you who don't know, the White River Amphitheatre is a few miles south of Auburn on the Muckleshoot Reservation. The road in front of the facility is a two lane country road, and from Seattle, most take I5 to SR 18 into Auburn, and then off the highway on Auburn Way. As you can imagine, all I can say here is leave early, arrive early. The alternative (which is what Tracy and I did, since we live down here anyway) was go through Tacoma, and into the area via 'the back way'. This was busy enough as it was rush hour when we went through Tacoma, but, was better than the alternative (despite being 10 miles out of our way).

As far as parking goes, there are a few options available.

1. Park at the Auburn Super-mall and take the shuttle.

While this sounds like a good idea...trust me...it doesn't look like it after the show. "The Shuttle" is in-fact a Laidlaw school bus, so not an incredibly comfy ride. In addition, the line waiting for the next available bus looked to be about as long as the line getting into the concert before the gates opened. On the positive side, buses do get priority getting out of the parking lot.

2. Paid 'Premium' parking

Tracy and I did not take this option, however, the benefits of this are: Parking lots are closer to the gate; Some parking lots are paved; not a lot of people take the option, so there is more space around your vehicle; premium parking gets priority leaving the facility after the show. This is a good option for the $20 it costs, since they don't let the 'general' parking move, until the Premium lots are empty.

3. General Parking

The general lots are the farthest away from the gate, but the cost of parking here is included in your ticket. The problems as mentioned above is that you have to wait until the premium lots empty before general parking can move. To deal with, I strongly recommend planning to sit for an hour in your car (or around your car) after the show. Tracy and I had what was left of our snack food, and played a couple of games of cards. Others we noticed had pretty big tail gate parties during the wait. This is much better than some folks, who fired up their engines and sat idling for an hour before they could move.

Once we got moving, it only took us about 20 minutes to get out of the parking lot, and traffic on the Southbound route was not bad at all.

The next show we're going to see is in Redmond at Marymoor Park, so if anyone has any advice about that one, please let me know.

Back on track

It's been 19 months now since I lost my first real battle with my food demons.

When I started on my journey down the 'paleo' road to healthy eating, in January of 2004, I was very surprised by what I found. Firstly, I found that it was very easy to eat according to plan (I'll get to plan in a minute). Secondly, I found that, holy crap...this actually worked. I felt better, had more energy, body seemed to work better, and excess weight was melting off my bones. Crazy.

Well, I managed to maintain that momentum for almost an entire year. Very rarely did I 'cheat', but I was always easy to convince that absolute avoidance of certain foods would lead to increased cravings.

In December, it all went to the proverbial Hell in a proverbial hand-basket. We spent 3 weeks at my mother's house over the Yule season. My sister-in-law got married, and we hosted a traditional holiday feast at the house...including all the sugary baked goods I'd managed to avoid all year.

It's taken me another 19 months to gain back all the weight, and along the way, taken two new jobs (Stressful) and one of those in another country (even more stressful). My eating habits have been terrible since that fateful holiday season, and I've become addicted again to the fast sugar highs and easily accessible (though empty) calories of sugars and starches.

So, here we are, and it's day 2 of complete Paleo-ness.

For those of you who don't know what the "Paleo Diet" is...well, firstly, it's a book...but the book is a guide to eating as our paleolithic ancsetors did...which is to say that the human animal has not evolved much beyond our ancestors of 2 million years ago, and therefore, is built in such a way that our diet is killing us.

The diet of our pre-agricultural ancestors consisted of meats, insects, vegetables, fruits, and nuts. This is in essence the paleo diet. Consume as much as you want of the above five categories of foods (I leave out the insects)...just be sure that what you're eating is actually a nut (Peanuts are legumes, and Cashews are their own category) or a vegetable (Tubers aren't vegetables). Pay attention to your body, meaning eat when you're hungry, and stop eating when you're full.

Avoid the post Agricultural foods like potatoes, legumes (i.e. peanuts, beans, and soy), grains (i.e. corn, wheat, rice, barley, and oats), and processed foods (i.e. sugar, bread, pastries, alcohol, etc.), and in a matter of days, you will not believe how many pounds you can lose of your frame.

So, it's day two...I went to the grocery store today to get some food for the office...in walking around and paying attention, I managed to get myself delicious breakfast, lunch and snacks, without relying on grains to fill in the meals.

We'll see how it goes.

A brisket, a brasket...

So here we are on Monday. It's actually one of the first 'dull' days we've seen in the South Puget Sound area for some time. Barring a day of downpour, it's been clear and bright with temperatures in the 80s for a couple of weeks now.

I don't really have a topic in mind, so I thought I'd just ramble on a bit. Saturday was an interesting day. After Tracy (that's the missus for those of you who don't know me) headed to the grocery store on Friday, all that was left for me to accomplish was getting the 'grill food'. This process entails my trekking out to some market, or butcher shop and employing my skills as a former catering chef to select quality cuts of meat for dishes I feel like preparing through the week.

For this week's grillmaster pleasure, I selected some steaks, some hot italian sausages and a lovely beef brisket. All excited to try out a new dry spice rub on this soon to be slow cooked brisket, I mixed up the rub, and applied to to the sides of my newly trimmed brisket.

I was then informed by Tracy, that as long as this whole process was going to take, was unacceptable to her. In no way, shape or form did my darling partner intend on eating dinner at 8pm. Okay, fine...I'll cook the brisket tomorrow...it'll be better to leave the rub on longer anyway.

Firing up the grill to hotter than BBQ, I readied my chicken breasts and steaks for what was sure to be some good back yard grill eating. Then, guess what...the doorbell wrang! "I thought I'd stop by and introduce myself. I'm your new neighbour."

Now Jennifer (also Jill, Jane and Dave) are great people, and super nice, and we had a great time touring each other's houses in progress (we just moved to the neighbourhood too...so that's kind of fun) and chatting and getting to know each other a little.

The problem is...I had to turn off the grill, and then about 7:30 pm, come back and finish cooking. That's great...except that I had to point out to missus, that had I stuck with my original plan, we could have been enjoying our first bbq'd brisket of the summer.

I have got to remember to listen to my intuition more, and rely on logic as a secondary 'reality check'.

A parent's life for me...

Miriam-Webster's Online Dictionary defines parent as: 1 a : one that begets or brings forth offspring b : a person who brings up and cares for another.

The author of the Wikipedia article on Parenting has a broader definition: Parenting is the process of raising and educating a child from birth until adulthood.

Wikipedia goes on to describe other aspects of Parenting, which go part way to inaccurately describe the responsibilities of a parent.

I propose that the obligations of a parent are simply to not allow their children to lose the ability, desire or passion for learning and gaining wisdom.

That simple statement means a great many things. It means provide food and shelter. It means imparting learnings and wisdom. It means removing barriers to learning, and providing opportunities to learn in whatever way proves best for each child.

What it does not mean, is giving your child over to be raised in an institution while you and your partner go out into the world and seek financial success. It does not mean allowing a state system of institutionalized education to produce a workforce using your children as raw materials. It does not mean allowing a system of enforced mediocrity go to work on your child’s imagination.

It means protecting your child from those things.

Stuck in the sand

A few days ago, I made my first trip to the Pacific Ocean with the family. I had heard, that there were beaches on the coast, where you could drive your car, just like a state highway.

I found out I was right...and wrong. In that you can drive your car onto the beach, and cruise along at a leisurely 25 MPH the beach road is exactly like a state highway.

In that dry sand drifts over the road, it dips close to the ocean, and in some places is completely shredded by 4x4s, not all like a state highway.

I learned my lesson as I got my 12 passenger, 1 ton Ford Van stuck up to the rims in the soft stuff, attempting to find a nice little picnic spot. Several pieces of driftwood, and some sand in the eye of a couple of good samaritin passer's by and we were out and rolling again.

Later, as I was standing in the surf alowing my feet to sink into the wet sand as the tide came in...I wondered what would happen to a car, parked below the high-tide waterline?

Would it completely sink into the sand? Would the sea eventually claim the car as her own? Or would it just rest there, up to the rocker panels, rusting away in the on again, off again salt water?

What do you think?