Adjusted Reality

I am pretty much a cam-whore these days.  No, not in the get-on-the-webcam-for-extra-money way, but I like being in pictures.  I figure it’s excusable, because I have quite a few years of hating pictures of myself for which to compensate.  However, I’m only sometimes-photogenic and have to take a lot of pictures to get some good ones.  Getting good ones of me and Zliten is like a miracle – either he looks fantastic and I am sporting chins I didn’t know I had and half closed eyes, or he’ll look like he’s about to attack someone while I have the most darling smile that could melt an iceberg.  Since I’m having a week of sort of “outtakes”, or posts I sort of let rot at the bottom of the draft bin, I figured I might as well make fun of myself here.

Last week I thought I looked pretty cute in my new spiffy red shirt and lipstick, so I tried to get a good picture of myself.  Here is probably what I would pick out of the bunch:

But the reality of night is I probably looked more like THIS gem:

Oy, mama would be proud.

Then over the summer, this pic was snapped, which is actually one of my favorites of all time and is my facebook profile pic:

And then, the same night, this wonder was snapped:

I am totally never going to be president.  Of anything.

I guess the moral of this story is no one is completely un-photogenic, you just need a lot of practice to figure out how to make the most of what you’ve got in pictures. The best way to practice is to take lots of pictures, you’ll look good in some of them, and you have a much better chance of figuring it out if you’re snap happy.  Usually the best ones happen when you’re not really trying or paying attention.  Or maybe the moral of this story is to hide the camera when you’re drinking.  Whatever the moral is, have a good chuckle, on me.

This is not the healthiest fare, but when served with a big ol’ salad with low cal dressing, it makes a hearty and yummy part of a balanced meal.   I do want to note, in the interest of full disclosure, Zliten made this all.  I pretty much took pictures.  All you veggies out there, I suppose you could make this sans ground beef, but you might be better off getting some of those soy crumbles that are supposed to be ground beef-like.  However, being omnivorous myself, I haven’t tried it.

Start by browning the thawed ground beef.  We use 96/4 (the leanest stuff you can get) so you pretty much don’t have to drain it.   If you get anything less lean, drain it before you continue.  Then, add 2 small cans of tomato sauce and about 2-3 cups of frozen mixed veggies.  Previously, we used a can of corn, can of carrots, and can of green beans, until we realized that our frozen costco veggies took care of that need and added yummy peas.  Extra credit: you can also add garlic, onions, and rooster sauce at this stage for extra spicing.

This is what you should be looking like now.  In another pot, make your potatoes.  Normally, we go the lazy way and get a package of instant taters, but a friend had just brought over his perishables since he was leaving on a 3 week trip, so we had a bunch of potatoes staring at us with their ever-growing eyes.  Five little ones became this:

Quix’s perfect mashed potatoes – cut up potatoes as desired and throw into water.  Leave the skins on, as mom said, they have all the nutrients (and I think they taste better).  Extra credit: throw in garlic and onions.  Pretty much anything besides cookies are going to have that extra credit direction – btw.  Leave an itty bit of water in and mash ’em up.  Add about a tbsp of low fat ranch and a tsp of light margarine, a handful of blue cheese, dill, rosemary, fresh ground pepper, and stir.  These, however, weren’t made by me, which was fine, they tasted great.  Just don’t know exactly what went into them.  For this dish, you can skip all the flavorings above and just do taters and lube (butter, ranch, or both) because the bottom is so flavorful.

Next, pour your meaty concoction in something you can throw in the oven.  Spread the tater goodness on top of it.

Now, the important part, the cheese.  Sprinkle a thin layer over the top.  Cheddar is the best, but we had Italian blend, anything is ok.  Just keep in mind, fat free cheese sucks at melting well, so you might not use that.  I guess you could skip the cheese, but I don’t suggest it.

Throw it in the oven for about 25 minutes on 350.  Go do something else for a while.  I suggest sometime during this time make yourself a salad to go with it or you’ll want to eat the whole pan of it.  Because shortly, you’re going to pop it out of the over, and it will look like this:

Hey there, beautiful.  My name’s Quix.  Wanna come to my plate for dinner tonight?  Just you, me, and salad.  Om… nom.. nom…

Oooh.  Sorry.  Got caught up there a moment.  So the calorie breakdown on this bad boy is approximately 400 calories per quarter section (which is a good size serving with some sort of side dish, I highly suggest a salad with but I can’t control your whims), and should feed 4 normal humans (somewhere between birdlike eaters and garbage disposals).  Time invested is about 30 mins prep, plus about 30 mins wait/cooling.  Feel free to liberally douse with more rooster sauce if you’re spicy like us.  Enjoy, and thank me later!

Since it’s Christmas Eve and I’m probably the only sucker at work (besides the few suckers still sitting here with me).  I am pretty much counting the unidentifiable minutes until they send us all home early *crosses fingers*.  I think any deep, meaningful thoughts I might have on the brain are being eaten by the bouncing up and down in my seat listening to my crappy pop pandora station and waiting for the moment I tear open the new DDR disc and start playing.  Yeah, we open presents on Christmas Eve in this house.  Makes up for my parents making me wait UNTIL AFTER CHRISTMAS DINNER when I was little.  I’m pushing 30 here and am still not over that.  Parents, don’t do it.

Anywhooo, here is how we celebrate the day before the day before Christmas in the Quix-Zliten household…

I got crazy and painted my nails.

My toes are all that green color, but I couldn’t resist doing at least ONE nail on each hand too.  Also, because it will unnerve my mother all day tomorrow and make her more susceptible to losing at games.  Oh yeah, we’re competitive in this family.    Tangent- an effect of weight loss I did not expect initially – my fingers went from sausages to not-so-sausage-like.  Here was a picture from the day I got the ring:

My ring was a 9 1/2.  I am now wearing a 6 1/4 and it’s almost a little loose again.  And this was actually the BEST picture of my fingers, I remember rejecting the ones where I laid the ring out flat because they looked even more sausage-like.  Interesting observation.

Anyways, my dearest Zliten baker-man made cookies.  Lots of cookies.

These are all for the neighbors – but we still have some of the dough in the refrigerator for baking of individual servings of fresh hot cookie goodness.  Or Quix walking by, throwing caution to the wind, and munching on the dough.  Salmonella be damned.  Just don’t tell Zliten or he’ll yell at me.

Last night about 4pm, when I was still at work, he had chinese food syndrome – ya know, being hungry a few hours after eating.  I told him to eat a snack, which he did, and headed to the gym.  I got im messages while the arc trainer was beating him up saying how HUNGRY he was (he uses his phone as an mp3 player).  Then, he went home and I went to the gym and was incommunicado (I leave my phone in the locker or it would probably be broken by now).  Apparently he baked over 6 dozen cookies, still feeling just as hungry hungry, and only ate one little one.

I come home and we start talking about what’s for dinner, and he has this gleam in his eye. Something like this:

I recognize this gleam, it’s sort of like our carnivorous lizard when he has a taste for man flesh.  If he could have grown a tail right then, I would have been tailwhipped when I talked about maybe starting to thaw some fish.  Instead, I did the quickest change out of my sweaties ever and we headed to the soup and salad bar before my arm looked like a viable option for dinner.  Soon, he looked more like this:

And that, dear friends, is our day before day before Christmas tale.  Happy Holidays, yet again, and make sure to feed your families and pets appropriately so they don’t start looking for body parts!

Well, I was going to post on New Years Resolutions today, but it appears that I have more thinking to do.  When I read over a resolution and don’t know exactly what I’m trying to say myself, I do believe I need to make some revisions.  Goals don’t work so well when you don’t have a specific course of action to take to achieve them – like in 2006, when I said I wanted to lose weight, it totally didn’t happen.  In 2007 when I decided I was going to count calories and work out at least 3 days a week to hopefully “de-porkify” (my own words from 2 years ago, good to know I had a sense of humor about it then too!!!), it totally did.  So back to the drawing board with those, and I’ll post some Tuesday randomness instead.

1.  You ever just have one of those workout days where your body just feels like it “leveled up”?  Like all of a sudden, what you were doing before is too easy and you have to go harder?  I had that yesterday.  All last week I’d actually had trouble completing my intervals so I took it a little easier, and weights just seemed heavy.  I had a full rest day Sunday, I barely left the couch!  Yesterday, I actually upped the recovery speed and went back to the same all-out speeds I was pushing myself to do the week before and didn’t feel like I was going to die.  Then, I upped about half of my weights/reps during strength.  It felt really good!

2.  I seem to be slightly stuck around 163-164 the last two weeks.  It might have something to do with cookies and candy replaced my breakfast foods half the mornings.  I know its my fault for eating them, and I’ve definitely been moderating (I threw half the delicious cookie away today), but still – homemade goods are my weakness.  And anyway – why does every holiday have to revolve around sweets or fattening food?  First we have Valentines Day (chocolate and Guilt), then Easter (marshmallow and Lamb Cakes), then Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day (fatty meat and mayonnaise-y salads, plus BEERBEERBEER), then the End of the Year Trifecta which is Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.  Then, of course, there’s NYE and St Patties, which are binge drinking days (I mean, what holiday isn’t, but these especially).  I propose squeezing a few holidays in there we celebrate by gathering around a plate of veggies and lo-fat dip.  Like, official “eat-like-a-rabbit” day.  How about one where we eat grilled fish, brown rice, and veggies and go running?  Who’s with me?

3.  It’s a little sad to see a lot of people so frantic around the holidays (to the point where they drive and act rude) – but it makes me so happy we keep it low key.  It’s just my parents, Zliten and I having stouffers lasagna, playing games, and drinking some wine.  Though it looks like a different sort of fun, I’m glad we’ve never had huge family Christmases.  Helps that half the family is Jewish!

4.  Even after the great Grinching of 08 at work where they took away our Holiday break, I’ve accumulated enough time off I had to use by the end of the year, so I’m here until they shoo us away tomorrow, have Christmas off, have to come in a half day on the 26th, and then I’m off until Jan 2 (where I come in for one day and head out for the weekend).  I still have a pretty nice long break (even if I should have been off starting the 19th!!!).  Besides continuing the workouts and trying to not feed the inner cookie monster, I plan to scan some old photos, lose at least 1 day playing some sort of video game, organize my underwear and sock drawer, bag up all the clothes that are too big and donate them (and by donating them, I get 20% off so I HAVE to shop, hehe), have a good absinthe night, go rock climbing, go roller skating, figure out my new years resolutions, blog at least once or twice, and spend some quality time with Zliten, but that goes without saying.  I am so exciting, I know…but sounds like fun to me.

5.  I dunno if I’ve pimped this yet on the blog, but if I haven’t it’s so worth it.  Pandora is a fantastic free streaming music service that will get you into music you never thought you’d like.  You start a station with an artist you like, and thumbs up/thumbs down music as it comes along.  You can add artists or songs as well, and the station evolves over time, and with care and attention, 90% of the stuff that comes up will kick ass.  It not only pays attention to artist and genre, but stuff like whether it has major/minor/augmented chords.  Apparently, I like chick singers, upbeat music, lots of guitar, and augmented chords across quite a few genres.  The best thing – no audio ads.  Just banner ads which don’t interrupt the music.  Go check it out!

So, I’m not taking an “official” vacation over Christmas/New Years from the interwebs, but I don’t expect posts to be as frequent until 2009.   So let me take this opportunity to wish everyone a joyous Christma-Hauni-Kwanza-Festivus-Whateverus, and a Nappy Who Beer!

So I’ve had a lot of people ask me what’s involved with Dance Dance Revolution.  It’s actually one of the integral reasons I am no longer 265 pushing 300 lbs.  When I could do NOTHING else right or healthy with my life, I made time (on and off, but more on than off) to play at least 20 minutes of DDR a few times a week.  I had a free fitness center at my apartments, a pool right down the stairs, and a huge complex to walk around, but this was the only thing I could ever do with regularity because, well, it’s fun as hell and you don’t have to go outside.  They so should hire me as their spokesperson, but I think it would be a conflict of interest.

Anywhooo, it’s pretty daunting to get started, even if you are a techie-type, but especially if you’re not.  I’m going to try give a comprehensive guide to getting started and assume you know nothing about DDR and are starting from pure, unadulterated cluelessness.

Things you need:

-A PlayStation2, an Xbox or Xbox360, or a Nintendo Wii.  If you have none of these to start with, let me recommend the PS2 because it’s the cheapest, also plays DVDs, you can also pick up Yourself!Fitness which is good to alternate with DDR for some variety (which I still use for yoga), and has a huge cheap game collection you can entertain yourself with when you are not getting your heart rate up.  Yes, I worked for Sony for 6 years, so I might be biased.

-If you’re using a PS2 (or an Xbox, I don’t think it has a hard drive, never owned one though), you’ll need to make sure it has a memory card, which should come with it unless you’re getting it from a friend or off ebay – I’m pretty sure even refurbished consoles come with them but you’ll want to ask.

–A dance pad.  Any old cheap one will do to give the game a go.  The best way is to grab a game bundle, but we got ours from a ToysRUs that was going out of business for 5 bucks.  The cheaper the better, though, because you’re going to do one of two things within a week – either the game and pad will gather dust in a closet, or you’ll want to order a better pad.  This is the one I recommend , however, it seems to be either sold out for the holidays (I hope) or not made any more (eep) at the official site.  We got two of them 3 (maybe 4 now) years ago and they are still ticking, and I use it without fail, at least once a week for an hour.

-A TV.  Any old TV will work.  Yes, Ms Turtle, a PS2 will hook up to just about anything, I used to play on my TV from 1993 before I upgraded.  I’m hooked on playing on my 57 inch screen (and insisted that TV went into the workout room when we upgraded the living room) but any TV will work. =)

-Room to lay out the pad, move any sharp or breakable objects around in case you fall.  If you do not live on the first floor, make sure to let your neighbors below know what’s going on so they don’t call the police.

-Here is a good set of instructions to help you hook up everything, but instead of a controller, hook up your dance pad (unless you just want to have really strong thumbs).

Once You’re Set Up:

-Clothing tips… some people like to play in their socks (me) and some people like to play barefoot (Zliten).  Try them both.  I used to DDR in whatever I was wearing, but you might want to change into workout clothes and for us ladies with healthy racks, you will definitely want a sports bra.  I put it somewhere in between running and walking – maybe a “meduim impact” type activity.  I can get away with the cheapo sportsbras here where I need the “extreme support” type while running.  I’m sure you all really wanted to know that much about my boobs, but I’m just sayin’.

-You will make a fool of yourself the first couple (thousand) times you play.  Accept this and move on.  You will suck.  If you are the kind of person that does not like to suck in front of people, play alone for a while.  I danced my whole life and it took me MONTHS to graduate from Beginner Blue to the next Yellow level.  It took me about 3 years to even TRY and fail most songs on the Green and Purple settings.  Don’t worry about and just keep trying.

-Game play mode is fun to start with (if your disc has it).  It should start you on the easiest songs and lead you through difficulty-wise, plus give you a goal besides burning calories.  However, explore all the modes.  Putting together a course (2-20 songs in a row without stopping) is fun.  Some versions have 2 player attack modes, which are novel.  Endless is fun, I think collectively Zliten and I have made it 102 songs (trading off every 20-30).  I pretty much stick to workout mode because I want to know how many calories I’ve burned, but you will want to play the game to start with to unlock more songs.  Don’t be afraid to look up “cheats” or at least walkthroughs on the internet – I googled “DDR Supernova Walkthrough” and got to this.  Just replace “supernova” with the name of whatever you get, and you’ll know how to get more songs!  Usually, just playing will unlock most of them but if you’re a completionist, this will help!

-Tweak the settings so you do not immediately quit out of songs if you fail, and explore other options that might help.  Don’t want to do the fast steps or jumps?  Turn on workout mode.  Just make it fun for you even if you feel like a Cheaty McCheatpants.

-Don’t overdo it at first.  You may find that you actually have to stop yourself, but you don’t want to hurt yourself or be too sore after a session that you associate pain with it (unless you’re crazy like me).

-If you play regularly for a month or more, please do yourself a favor and grab the nicer pad.  Your ankles (and knees and back and well, your whole body) will thank you.

-If you’re in relatively good shape starting it, you probably won’t get much of a workout right away.  Play for fun until you can do pinks and some greens (or ’til you feel you work up a good sweat during a session) before you really try to replace whatever else you’re doing with this.

-Some days, it will be like, “Wheee, I’m playing a game” and some days will be like, “Ugh, I have to play a game”.  Just remember, this is probably more fun than the last exercise thing you tried and tough through it.

In summary – give it a try, especially if all you have to do is grab the game and dance pad (you can find deals and pick up the basics for under 50 bucks), or if you can just borrow it from a friend/the library/etc.  If you have kids, even better – you have a fun activity you can do together that just happens to be a good workout, and you *probably* already have one game console or another.  If you’re stuck with the burden of buying everything (the PS2, game, and pad is a healthy investment), maybe hit up an arcade and drop a few credits in sometime when it’s totally empty and there are no kids to laugh at you.  Just try to think whether it would be fun, at home, with no one watching, and unlimited time to practice, and ignore the “I am such a dork” feeling.

If you’re debating between a wii fit and DDR, and can only choose one, let me heartily endorse DDR.  It took me from barely being able to walk up a flight of stairs without being out of breath, extremely weak ankles that hurt after walking less than a mile, and barely being able to do 20 minutes on beginner – to relatively fit little me who is 100 lbs heavier, can run 5 miles comfortably, and can do 60 minutes on expert/challenge with weights strapped to my arms.  There were a few periods where DDR was my main or only workout and I lost weight.  I imagine that someday I might outgrow DDR as a workout completely, and I hope that day doesn’t come for quite a while.  Wii fit is a great start or addition to whatever cardio you are doing, but for the investment, DDR will go much further.

If I was asked to create a program for a true beginner, here is what I would suggest.  Of course, check with your doctor/therapist/mother/dog/higher power or whatever, I take no responsibility for you breaking a pinkie toe, falling down your stairs, and ending up with 3 broken ribs and bi-polar disorder and a case of born again hinduism.  I’m just a workout nut who had some success with this kind of thing, and this was essentially my starting plan a year and a half ago.

Day 1: 15 mintues strength training: (all 3 sets of 10 and add reps as it gets too easy) wall or knee push ups, crunches, squats.

Day 2: 20 minutes of DDR

Day 3: 20 minutes of DDR, 15 minutes strength training: (all 3 sets of 10 and add reps as it gets too easy) tricep dips on bed/chair, side crunches, lunges

Day 4: 20 minutes of DDR

Day 5: 15 minutes strength training (same as Day 1)

Of course, you can do it all on 3 days (eliminate Day 2 and 4) but remember to not strength train on consecutive days.  Or do something completely different – the most important thing is to get moving and try new things!