Something wicked this way comes...

EXTREMELY URGENT FLASH TRAFFIC!

LOCK YOUR DOORS!

BAR YOUR WINDOWS!

DON'T ANSWER THE DOORBELL!

Theeeeeeey're heeeeeeeeere...

Once again, I ask the same etiquette question as last year. Do you place your entire order with the first one to ring your door bell or try to spread the wealth?

Monday Night Food and Fitness

Food

Saturday I went to the Basic Adult Leader Outdoor Orientation (BALOO) training for cub scout leaders. Overall, it was a really good experience, and I learned a lot of great information about leading cub scouts on camp-outs and hikes. One of the things we did at BALOO was learn a few simple things that we can cook at camp using foil pouches.

In the first foil pouch, we put a frozen hamburger patty in the bottom, then some potatoes, onions, and frozen mixed vegetables. For the potatoes and onions, we used a french-fry cutter like at In-n-Out (southern California burger joint that makes french fries fresh from potatoes). Then we could either squirt in some Italian dressing or some cream of mushroom soup. [Aside: Thank goodness I checked the ingredients before hand. The cream of mushroom soup had MSG in it and would have made for a miserable day.] The trainer said it was important to use a frozen hamburger patty because as it melted the melted ice would make steam to help cook the food. If it wasn't frozen, he said to just put an ice cube inside the pouch and it would have the same effect. I was really pleased with how well it turned out. I would have liked to put some salt and/or Chipotle Tobasco on it, but it was decent on it's own.

I learned a new technique for making the foil pouches. If you do it so the seam is on the sides and it's symmetrical, then you can flip it from one side to the other to cook it on both sides without putting a seam facing down to leak. After about 20 to 25 minutes when the foil pouch poofs up like a pillow, that tells you it's done cooking. It's important NOT to use any sort of tongs on the foil pouch that could rip the foil. They taught us to use some leather gloves for picking up the pouches off the grill and flipping them over without tearing them.

The second foil pouch was for pigs in blankets. This was something simple enough the kids could get involved in doing it. You just wrap a hot dog in a Pillsbury crescent roll dough and put it in the foil pouch. He recommended spraying the inside of the foil pouch with the non-stick spray, and turning the pouch on the grill every 2 minutes (to keep it from burning on one side) for about 12 minutes.

The third thing we had that the trainer made of us was corn on the cob. He put some butter on frozen ears of corn, wrapped them in foil but didn't seal the ends. They turned out pretty good, too.

None of the things we ate on Saturday were gourmet by any means, but it was easy stuff to prepare at camp. The trainer commented that's why you want to be sure your boys continue on into Boy Scouts, because then the scouts cook their own food and the adults make their own. He said he likes having filet mignon with the other scout leaders while the boy scouts make whatever hot dogs or other stuff they scrape together.

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Fitness

I haven't been doing so hot on wait loss the past two weeks. I've basically maintained my weight, so at least I wasn't putting weight back on, right? One of my problems is I haven't been doing as much PT as I would like. Last Monday at Command PT, I hurt a muscle in the middle of the left side of my back. I'm not sure how I did it, but it came on suddenly as I started my run. I had only run like a block from the Bloch Arena gym when the pain started, and within half a block later, it got suddenly so bad that I couldn't run anymore. It hurt to breathe. I walked back to the gym to find our corpsman to have him take a look at it.

Doc used some highly scientific latin type of name to describe what it was, but I didn't understand it. Not surprisingly, he told me to take motrin, use cold packs on it, and recommended I not go to Command PT for the rest of the week. I needed to do something to burn some calories though, so I just went to the gym and rode the exercise bike on our Command PT days (Wednesday and Friday).

Today I really wanted to get back to running. Of course, it was raining out, and that means the gym was packed with people. Luckily, I got the last treadmill in the gym... but was it good luck or bad luck? The treadmill kept wigging out on me. I was trying to run a heart-rate program with my Polar HRM watch, but it kept suddenly and drastically raising the incline on me (even though my heart rate was above my target zone already) and then not responding when I pushed the buttons to lower it back to where I wanted it. The good news is, my back was a little sore, but it was okay.

It's too bad I missed our Command PT on Wednesday. Apparently our old trainer a.k.a. "PT Nazi" suddenly packed his bags and moved back to the mainland, and all of our single Sailors were rather pleased with the replacement trainer. I hear she's... uh... not bad to look at. I hope it'll boost our attendance at Command PT (yes, everybody's supposed to go to Command PT, but there are always excuses). COB said she "took it easy" on them since it was their first session with her, but she really kicked their butts. It'll be interesting to see how tough the workout is on Wednesday.

Weekly Food Recap

I like the idea I saw on someone else's blog about doing a weekly blog entry for certain topics. Since I do my WW weigh-ins on Mondays, I figured Monday would be a good day to write about food.

So you say to yourself, "Self, why does Kevin write about and post recipe links for food that his wife made? It seems most people who post recipes on their blogs are posting the recipes of things THEY'VE personally cooked." Well, I'm glad you asked. I actually do it for two reasons. First, I do it as a shout-out to show my appreciation for my LW and the time and effort she puts into finding and planning nutritious yet good tasting stuff for us to eat. Second, I do it as sort of a catalog of things I can ask LW to make again in the future.

We have found that planning ahead is the key to being able to stay in for dinner instead of going out to eat every night. If LW hasn't planned what we're going to have in advance, then by the time 4:30 or 5 p.m. roll around and we start the "what do you want for dinner" discussion, then it's really too late to take chicken out of the freezer to thaw, or go to the store to pick up the ingredients, etc. So LW makes a concerted effort to sit down and plan out several meals for the week before she goes to the grocery store, and she frequently hits me with the, "What do you want for dinner this week?" question. Now, given the indecisiveness I feel and the lack of response she gets from me when she asks me what I want for dinner TONIGHT, you can probably imagine how much worse of a blank-stare response she gets from me when she asks what I want to eat for dinner this WEEK.

I do much better when I can choose from selections put in front of me. So if I keep track of what LW has made that I've liked, then next time she asks me what I want to eat this WEEK, then I can look at my list of favorites and pick out some suggestions for her instead of giving her the blank-stare response (or worse - the "Not now dear, I'm playing Lego Star Wars" response).

Now, when I say LW "plans" the meals for the week, I don't mean that she plans we're going to have THIS on Monday and THAT on Tuesday and THOSE on Wednesday. I actually think it's worked out really well the way she has been doing it. She has several meals "planned" for the week that she has purchased all the ingredients for at the commissary. Then, getting back to how it's easier for me to choose from selections put in front of me, on any given day of the week LW will say to me, "Would you rather have X, Y, or Z for dinner tonight?" where X, Y, and Z are meals that she has planned for the week and the ingredients readily available in the kitchen. The results have been that we eat out a lot less and save a good amount of money in the process.

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Restaurant Review: Zia's in Kaneohe

Sunday after church, we were starving, so we wanted to go someplace close. Up until now, we have not been very impressed by the selection of places to eat on the Windward side of the island, with the exception of Haleiwa Joe's in Kaneohe. Haleiwa Joe's Sunday Brunch is AWESOME, but it's also expen$ive, so we tend to go there when we have visitors or for special occasions. We didn't want to spend that much this morning, so we started driving down the street just looking for whatever popped up in front of us.

We found a place called Zia's on Kam Hwy in Kaneohe. If you take H-3 to Exit 11 and turn left onto Kam Highway, it's probably about two miles down on the left hand side, before you get to the traffic light intersection with Burger King and the Toyota dealership. You can't miss it because it's ORANGE and really stands-out. It's a fairly small place with about a dozen tables. It turns out this is their second restaurant, and there's another Zia's in Kailua.

The atmosphere was really cozy and nice. The service was very prompt, professional, and courteous (significantly above average service for Hawaii). They had really good salads and sandwiches, but it's really sort of an Italian place. I had a hard time deciding what to have, because so much of what was on the menu sounded delicious.

They had something I had never heard of before called a plantation iced tea. I found there is a recipe available online here, but the waiter at Zia's told me a couple of extra little sumthin-sumthin's they put in their recipe. I could tell you the ingredients if you want, but it might be more fun for you to try one and guess the ingredients and then ask your waiter. I thought it was pretty good.

LW commented to ES that Zia's might be her new favorite restaurant. I definitely look forward to going back.

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Another Run with Chicken in Aluminum Foil on the Barbecue Grill

I've been surprised by how many people have come to my blog after doing a Google search for some combination of "barbecue," "chicken," and "aluminum foil." Since I've had multiple hits from that flavor of Google search, I thought I'd share that we did another barbecue chicken in a foil packet. LW prepared these teriyaki chicken packets with a chicken breast, some pineapple, onions, and peppers along with some teriyaki sauce. All I had to do was throw them on the barbecue grill for 20 minutes. LW tells me she got the recipe here. It turned out really nice - the chicken was very tender, moist, and not charred black (the usual result of my cooking chicken on the barbecue grill without aluminum foil).

Oh, No! It's started again...

As I came down the stairs from putting the boys to bed tonight, I saw LW had the TV on pause (DVR). She was grinning at me with one of those Cheshire cat grins and told me she had a "surprise" for me. For a moment, I got really excited thinking there was a new episode of HIMYM or Heroes. Then she hit the play button, and that oh-so-familiar and oh-so-awful theme song started for American Idol. The first few weeks of this show each season are just agonizing to watch, and even worse to listen to. It boggles my mind that there are so many people out there who THINK they are good enough singers to go on NATIONAL TV and make total and complete FOOLS of themselves. I would NEVER turn this show on if I had custody of the remote control. Tonight, however, I have actually been pretty amused and entertained by how incredibly BAD the singers are in Philadelphia.

On a similar topic, how does one explain intellectual property rights to a 6 year old? Last night after the boys got out of their bath and we were going to get their pajamas on, ES informed me he "made up" a "new song." I said, "Oh yeah?" He proceeded to sing, "Who let the dogs out - woof! woof woof!" I tried to explain to him that someone else already wrote that song and he must have heard it somewhere else, but he insisted his song was somehow different.

I may have mentioned before that ES has broken the Mommy & Daddy Code. Even as he learned to spell and could pick up on the shorter words, we used to still be able to spell more complicated words or spell them really quickly so it'd be too fast for him to think about it. It just isn't working anymore. He now prides himself on blurting out whatever one of us has just spelled to the other. We've tried asking him not to do that so it remains a secret to YS, but he doesn't think that's any fun.

LW tested out a new code on me on Sunday. After church, when we were trying to decide what to have for lunch, she informed me there was a new foreign residence of tasty flatbreads near our house. It took me a few seconds of churning that through my noggin to realize what she was talking about. I wonder how long this code will last. I'm not that clever, so I'm not sure I could come up with things like that on the fly. Maybe we need to start working on our pig latin.

We didn't end up going to the new foreign residence of tasty flatbreads until tonight for dinner. O...M...G... We got there at 5:30, and we didn't get our food until 6:15! The place wasn't even half full and there were plenty of waiters and waitresses, it was just OUR waitress. We had been sitting at our table for about ten minutes and NOBODY had welcomed us much less taken our drink orders. I had to stop one of the other waitresses to ask her where ours was, and she went to get our waitress. Our waitress came and asked if she could take our drink orders or if we were ready to order, and LW was like, "Uh, YEAH we're ready to ORDER." So we placed both our drink and our food orders, and then... [cue crickets chirping sound effect]. Normally (as in at other locations of this chain), they're very good about bringing your drinks lickety-split. About 6 o'clock, I noticed that the family from the next table over had all left and the father was still sitting there, looking very annoyed. It dawned on me later that he had the same waitress and was waiting for a check. At 6:05, I started suggesting to LW that we just up and leave and go to Baskin Robins two doors down. I mean, hey, if it's okay to have pancakes for dinner, then what's wrong with ice cream for dinner, right? At 6:07, I stopped a guy who had good command presence and asked if he was the manager. He said he was, and I expressed to him my dissatisfaction with the service. He was very nice and very apologetic and said he would handle the situation right away. Our drinks came out about 60 seconds before our food did.

I'm not ruling out going back to this restaurant yet though. It appeared to be just our waitress. We saw coffee and food flying past us in the arms of the other waitresses serving customers who arrived after we did and departed before we did. The food was fine. The waitress appeared to keep a level head and not get a bad attitude about us complaining to the manager, so that was good. She did seem to put forth a little bit more effort to check on us after that, but by then (after we had our food) there wasn't much she could do.

Shifting topics, I was rather surprised when I came home from work today to find YS wearing crocs. No one in my family has had crocs before now, so I figured he was wearing one of the neighbor kids' crocs for some reason. I asked whose shoes he was wearing, and he grinned and said, "MINE!" He proceeded to show off his new bright red Lightning McQueen (of Cars fame) crocs for me.


I was really surprised by this. I could have sworn not long ago we were walking through the Ala Moana Mall, passing by a large display of crocs, and LW commented on how they just didn't appeal to her. When I asked her about it tonight, she said it was the Lightning McQueen that got her, and YS LOVES his new shoes.

Lastly, I've been getting back into the culture of fitness and on track with eating right and PT. I had good results on the scale this week. However, I'm not looking forward to our first session with the PT Nazi tomorrow morning after four weeks of slacking off.

Week 7 Summary
Result this week: 2.2 pound loss
Cumulative Result: 4.8 pound loss
Average Per Week: 0.7 pound loss per week

RANT: Driving in Hawaii is Driving Me Nuts

My good friend EP told me that it's a major milestone when you can complain about living in paradise.

One of my favorite quotes from Hey Shipwreck is, "When I get out of here I'm going to a training command, because it must be really nice to do absolutely NOTHING." I'm now going to modify that to, "When I get out of here I'm going to work for Hawaii Driver's Ed, because it must be really nice to do absolutely NOTHING."

WHY don't they understand the concept of NOT BLOCKING THE INTERSECTION here??? To make matters worse, the traffic lights are HORRIBLY timed, or just simply NOT timed AT ALL. People here MAKE the traffic worse than it has to be, because they keep blocking the intersections. If there ISN'T ROOM on the other side of the intersection for you, I DON'T CARE if your light is GREEN, then DON'T pull out into the intersection and block it!!! Am I being totally unreasonable in this expectation?

Of course, on those occasions when I get up to the intersection and realize there's no room on the other side, I stop to keep the intersection clear, and the people behind me get all pissed off and honk at me for not going.

Then there's the whole shaka thing that drives me nuts, too. It doesn't matter how egregious someone has been in cutting you off or making a right turn from the left lane right in front of you, they think that if they give you the "hang loose" hand sign, then that makes it all okay. "Aloha spirit" - thbbbbbbt! :-P

WARNING: Tangent Ahead

This all got me to thinking. I grew up as a Navy brat. Yes, yes, I know that the traditional or technically correct terms are "Army Brat" and "Navy Junior," but I also know I'm not the only one who thinks "Navy Junior" sounds really stupid and always preferred the term "Navy Brat."

There is such a large concentration of Navy bases and commands in San Diego that you really can homestead there. My mom loved San Diego and never wanted to leave, so my dad did a lot of cross-pier transfers from one ship to the next. We spent almost my entire time growing up in San Diego, except for four years up in Long Beach (a whole 2 hours north of San Diego).

It was always heart-braking to have childhood friends move away when they got orders to their next duty station. I remember asking my mom why they had to go off to far away places like Norfolk, and then why didn't they come back to San Diego after a while. My mom explained to me that there was a difference between "east coast" people and "west coast" people and that some families just preferred to live on the east coast. As I grew older, I learned the stereotype that west coast Navy people were much more laid back and easy going, and east coast Navy people were much more formal and even "stuffy" or "uptight." I always thought of myself as a west coast type of guy.

Well, when it came time for me to head off on my own Navy career, I knew I would be moving every couple of years, and I wanted to see what life was like in other parts of the country. The Navy sent me to Orlando for Nuclear Power School and then to Charleston for Prototype. I volunteered for a boat out of Groton for my JO tour, and the detailer was only oh-so-happy to oblige (I guess nobody else ASKED to go to Groton).

It turns out, I really loved living in New England. I love Mystic, CT. I love Boston. I love going up to Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. I loved the changing seasons, especially the fall foliage and the snow in the winter. [Aside: I sun burn easily, and I kind of have an aversion to the sun in general. LW makes fun of me because I spend like an half-an-hour lathering up with sun-block lotion before we go out to the pool or the beach.] Then we got to go to Virginia, and we absolutely loved living there. My wife actually prefers VA over CT because the winters aren't as harsh and she doesn't have to shovel as much snow (because there is some strange universal law that it has to snow when I'm out to sea, so she's the one who has to shovel it all).

Now, as I find myself living in "paradise," complaining about the "aloha spirit," and wishing we were back in Virginia, I ask myself, "Self, have you become one of those stuffy formal "east coast" people?"

One thing's for sure though. My body has adjusted to the climate here. I normally have the thermostat in my car set at like 77 degrees. While my family was here visiting from Oregon, each time I got in the car after one of them had taken the car somewhere, I found myself shivering from the cold and looked down at the thermostat to see they had set it at like 65 degrees.

Oh, and when we picked up Nate to take him to dinner two nights ago, he did a double-take and commented on how tan we all are.

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Shifting topics... I don't know if anyone noticed that I didn't report my WW results last week. You could easily have predicted my bathroom scale results based on the lack of exercise reported on my PT log and all the good food we ate over the holidays with family members visiting. I gained back 2.6 pounds over the holidays, but it could have been much worse. At least I'm still at an overall loss since I started WW, and now that I'm going back to work, I will get back into our Command PT routine and be able to plan what I eat and not graze so much on holiday goodies laying around the kitchen.

Week 6 Summary
Result this week: 2.6 pound gain (over two weeks)
Cumulative Result: 2.6 pound loss
Average Per Week: 0.4 pound loss per week

LW has made some really good dinners for us lately that were both healthy and delicious. One of my new favorites that she's made a few times is Baked Shrimp in Lemony Garlic Sauce. First ES decided he liked it on a previous run (he gave it the high praise of declaring it, "NUM NUM!"). Then, this time, YS shocked us by not only TRYING it (this was a monumental achievement just getting him to TRY something different), but also LIKING it and EATING MORE! It turns out this one is actually a WW recipe, and it's only 4 points per serving.

Another new one LW made that was a big hit was spaghetti with ground chicken meatballs from a Rachel Ray recipe. One would THINK given YS's addiction to chicken nuggets that it would have been relatively easy to make the "jump" to chicken meatballs. OMG the fuss he made! He refused to try it and pulled the "I don't like it" routine, to which we gave the standard, "You aren't allowed to say you don't like it until you've at least tried it" response. YS wanted a dinner roll, so LW resorted to Uncle Dave's tactic of putting the chicken meatball inside the bread like a sandwich. Will wonders never cease? He tried it and he LIKED IT. After that, he actually sat there and ate the rest of his meatballs without the bread.

Week 4: The holiday battle of the bulge

WW update: First, it's Monday, so that means I got to step on the scale and record my weight for the week this morning.

Week 4 Summary
Result this week: 0.1 pound gain
Cumulative Result: 5.2 pound loss
Average Per Week: 1.3 pound loss per week

Overall, not bad considering the raspberry fudge, the oreo bark, the Christmas cookies, going to Islands, etc, etc, etc. I basically maintained my weight from last week. If I could just MAINTAIN my weight through Christmas, I'd be pretty happy. I'm much better about planning my meals and not grazing so much when I'm at work.

Monday Night Odds & Ends

There are a bunch of things on my mind that I want to write about, so bear with me. I've divided them up into six topics with bold dividers between topics below.

Topic #1: Two of restaurant reviews...

Ruby Tuesday: This afternoon we went to the BX at Hickam AFB and to the post office to mail some Christmas packages to family and friends. As we left Hickam, it looked like the traffic heading back home was pretty horrendous, so we decided to stop at Ruby Tuesday for dinner on the way home. I foolishly thought that the phrase "turkey burger" implied "healthy alternative." OMG... Quick flashback to my explanation that I have a 35 point per day food allowance with WW, and I typically leave myself around 13 points for dinner. Okay, fast forward to dinner tonight where I had that turkey burger. Yyyyyyyeah...

25 points!!!
(just for the burger)

So I went a WEE bit over my food allowance today. Oh, that was a DARN good tasting burger though! Sure glad I did my weekly weigh-in THIS morning instead of TOMORROW morning. Looking at the nutrition information on their website though, I don't think I'll ever eat anything except the salad bar at Ruby Tuesday.

Bravo's: I meant to put in a plug for one of our favorite restaurants on the island. I absolutely LOVE Bravo's. It's an Italian place on Kam Highway just a smidge west of the Pearl Ridge Shopping Center (as you're driving away from the Naval Station, it's on the right hand side right after Pearl Ridge and that little watercres farm). First off, they bring you these little garlic bread rolls that are AWESOME. When the waitress puts that basket of garlic bread rolls in front of me, I just can't control myself and I start scarfing them down as if I hadn't been fed in weeks. Then, you can choose just about any type of pasta you want with just about any type of sauce you want. We went there Friday and I had the capellini with pesto sauce. I LOVE pesto sauce! Anyway, if you want to give it a try, I recommend going like right at 5 p.m. for dinner, because by 5:30 p.m. there will be a line of people waiting for a table.

Topic #2: JAG Lesson Du Jour.

Lessons in Legal Terminology: I learned something new today. Do you know the difference between assault and battery? I didn't. It turns out if you make some sort of a threatening gesture like raising your hand to hit someone, then that's assault (just the threat). IF, after losing a game of pool a Sailor mouths off to the winners of the game and one of said winners punches said Sailor in the nose, then THAT is actually battery because he made "unlawful physical contact." No specific reason for this JAG lesson of the day, just thought you might be curious.

Topic #3: More Poking Fun at My Son's School

As I have mentioned before, ES goes to a Catholic school. It continues to amuse me how the school administration's policies and practices just seem inconsistent with Christianity.

The first of my latest two observations has to do with the school's winter pageant. In today's world of everyone trying to be politically correct and say "happy holidays" so as not to offend any non-Christians, you would think the ONE place you'd find a "CHRISTMAS" festival or pageant would be at a CHRISTIAN school. It just boggles my mind.

The second thing that struck me as odd was the First Grade Idol competition (a talent show like American Idol). Um... my memory is a little fuzzy on this, but wasn't there something in the Bible about "thou shalt not worship false idols"? Okay, okay, so this is not in the same context, but I still thought it was kind of funny.

Topic #4: Bedtime Prayers

Normally before we say bedtime prayers with the boys, we ask them what their favorite part about the day was and say thanks for those things during the prayer. I don't know why I didn't try this before, but tonight I tried something new. I let ES and YS each have a turn to say things they were thankful for during the prayer. Here's what they each prayed for on our first attempt at them contributing to bedtime prayers (listed in the order they prayed for them):

ES:
First Grade Idol
Otis (his favorite stuffed animal dog that has been missing for a while now)
Jesus
Doggies

YS:
"My teachers" - "Miss Tala" and "the other one"
Fishies
Horsies
Baby Jesus
Light Sabers

Topic #5: Shopping

Thanks to those of you who checked the mainland stores for the red light saber ES wanted for Christmas. As LW mentioned in a comment to my previous post, we found the rare variety of red light saber at the Hickam AFB Base Exchange tonight. Hooray!

Topic #6: KLOVE is BACK!

KLOVE has been off the air here in Hawaii for a couple of weeks now since a big storm knocked down a bunch of power lines and trees and made a mess of things. Today while I was at work, I got a phone call from LW all excited because she turned on the radio just to check, and KLOVE was BACK! Hooray!

Week 3: Feast and Famine?

My WW results came out pretty good again this week.

Week 3 Summary
Result this week: 3.4 pound loss
Cumulative Result: 5.3 pound loss
Average Per Week: 1.8 pound loss

Granted, I've only been at this three weeks now, but it seems like I can't win on the weekly thing. Each week I've either been cautioned on losing too much in one week (WW doesn't want you to lose more than 2 pounds per week on average), or on gaining last week. However, I'm pleased that my average weekly loss is, in fact, a LOSS, and it's less than 2 pounds per week. I think that averages out over regular variations in weight.

Time to go to PT...

Fast Food without the Gutt Busters

For anyone else trying to lose a few pounds, I know we've all had those times when you find yourself starving and in need of lunch or dinner and the only thing close and convenient are fast food joints. Of course, a lot of places offer "healthy alternatives," but the healthy alternatives taste like cardboard. So I thought I'd share some of the things I have found at fast food places that both fit decently into my daily food plan AND actually taste good.

Quick background on WW for Men in case you're not familiar with it: All food has a point value based on the number of calories, grams of fat, and grams of fiber. My allowance is 35 points per day, plus I can earn extra points through exercise (normally about 5 points for my typical Command PT).

Breakfast: I generally eat about 9 points at breakfast, something like:
- Raisin Bran Crunch cereal = 3 points
- 1% Milk = 1 point
- Yogurt Smoothie = 4 points
- Coffee creamer = 1 point
9 pts Breakfast so far

Snack: Usually sometime in the morning I have some Powerade for 1 point and a snack like a cheese stick or wasabi nuts for 2 points.
9 pts Breakfast + 3 points snack = 12 points so far

Lunch: At work, I generally have something like 12 points at lunch. For example:
- Flavored tuna pack (my favorite is the sweet & spicy, but the hickory smoked and lemon pepper are good, too) = 6 points
- Crackers to put the tuna on = 2 points
- Cup of mixed fruit = 2 points
- 100 Calorie Pack of Cookies = 2 points
9 pts Breakfast + 3 points snack + 12 points lunch = 24 points so far

After-Work Snack and Dinner: I generally have something like a cheese stick for a 2 point snack when I get home, putting me at 26 points before dinner. So I still have 8 points left on my daily allowance, plus my average 5 points from exercise leaves me 13 points left for dinner.

So that's a snapshot of how my food plan works on a daily basis, now back to the restaurants...

On those occasions when I find myself out and about and the boys demand going to a fast food place for lunch, here are some of my favorite things to get that both taste good and keep me in my target points range. The ones in green are my favorites that I will try and steer the boys' decision toward (when we're letting them choose where to go to eat). The ones in red I just plain avoid at all costs.

McDonald's: (website with nutritional info is here) I actually REALLY like the bacon ranch salad with grilled chicken, and I get the Newman's Lowfat Balsamic Vinaigrette. It was better in VA where the tomatoes were better. The tomatoes they put on the McD's salads here are soft and squishy and I won't eat 'em.
Stay AWAY from McD's french fries - they are the most evil, bad, naughty thing you can get to ruin your diet.

Burger King: I generally don't go to BK. Usually, if there's a BK, then there's probably a McD's somewhere nearby. I've tried BK's salads, and they just don't taste good. So I aim for McD's instead.

Carl's Jr.: If you're watching your weight, avoid Carl's Jr. like the plague. I used to eat there ALL the time. I LOVED their western bacon cheeseburgers with the onion rings on them, but they're more points than I'm allowed to eat in an entire day. I didn't find anything there that was worth eating for a reasonable number of points.

Subway: (website with nutritional info here) Subway sandwiches aren't bad. They have several healthy alternatives to choose from. My main problem is that in Groton, your choices to eat on base are Subway, Subway, or Subway, unless you want to get the greasy artery-buster pizza at the bowling alley. I think I just OD'ed on Subway on my previous tours in Groton, so I don't tend to go there very often. Plus, given my addiction to Mexican food, I generally will choose Taco Bell any day over Subway, and where there's one - you'll probably find the other not far away (except on the sub base in Groton).

Taco Bell: (website with nutritional info here) When I'm concerned about staying within my points allowance for the day, then I'll go with the chicken soft tacos. Ask for them "al fresco" style, and they will just put pico de gallo (tomatos and onions) and lettuce on them - no cheese. They're okay taste-wise. I much prefer the beef soft tacos if I have some maneuvering room in my points allowance for the day.

Chipotle: As I mentioned before, I absolutely LOVE the chicken tacos at Chipotle. I don't put any cheese or sour cream on them. I generally do lettuce, guacamole, and mild salsa. In order to get their nutrional info, you have to hunt for it on their website. Go to Speak -> FAQ, and the first FAQ asks for nutritional info. You'd THINK that if it was the most frequently asked question then they'd just put a link to it on the front of their web page??? Heck, Taco Bell figured that much out and put a BIG link right at the top of their main web page.

Baja Fresh: (website with nutritional info here) The tacos aren't as good as Chipotle, but they're decent and good on the WW points scale. My problem there is I LOVE their burritos, and they AREN'T good on the WW point scale. Maybe it was all psychological and the fact that I was denying myself the burrito I wanted made me resent the tacos?

Moe's: (website with nutritional info here) In response to Sam's question - the burrito I had the other night was a Triple Lindy. I got the ground beef, no rice, no cheese, added black beans, lettuce, pico de gallo, guacamole, and it came out to 13 points - exactly my average budget for dinner. I was ravenously hungry that night and craving a burrito though.
My "usual" at Moe's is actually the Other Lewinsky (two tacos), I would go with chicken, black beans, no rice, no cheese, add pico de gallo, add lettuce, add guacamole, and it only comes out to a whopping THREE, count 'em, 3 points. Then I've still got room for some tortilla chips, maybe a soda, or a beer or some desert when I get home.

Panda Express: (website with nutritional info here) I've recently become a fan of PE here in Hawaii, in part because they advertise that there's no MSG in the food, and I generally steer clear of Chinese restaurants out of fear of MSG. Beware, there ARE some dangerous pitfalls here. The worst gutt-busters are the rice, the noodles, and their darned signature-item orange chicken that tastes SOOOO good. However, the black pepper chicken, the mushroom chicken, the beef with broccoli, and the veggie spring rolls are all very reasonable on the points scale (although not all at once / in the same meal) and taste really good, too.

Wednesday Aches and Pains

First, congratulations to those who screened for department head. It still surprises me that we have department head screening boards now. Retention was so low in my year group that there was no question about it - if you wanted to be a DH, then you were in. It just boggles my mind that there are a lot of guys who don't even get the option to be a DH now. There was a glut of JOs for a few years when we recruited enough JOs to man two VA-Class per year, but we only ended up building one VA-Class per year. Boats had an average of like 12 or 13 JOs (when I was a JO, we had between 8 and 9 JOs at any given point in time). The DH screening board results were released today. This was the first look for YG '03 and the second look for YG '02. I have a bunch of '03 guys on my boat. Two screened this time around and four didn't.

It's Wednesday. As those of you who read my blog regularly know, Wednesday is our interval training day with the PT Nazi. I only jokingly call him the PT Nazi - he's a really nice guy and always gives us a great workout. This morning he surprised us with another new lineup of exercises. We spent almost the entire hour alternating between pushups and squats, with minor variations each time. It went something like this (doing each exercise for 1 minute):

- Regular Pushups
- Regular Squats
- Wide-Arm Pushups
- Squat & Twists (start facing to the right, do three squats, on the third squat you jump up and twist and land facing to the left, do three squats, on the third squat you jump up and twist and land facing to the right, etc).
- Diamond Pushups
- Star-Grabbers (squat down and touch the ground between your legs, then jump up reaching for the stars, repeat).
- Dive-Bombers (start in a pushup position, keep your butt in the air and put your face down to the ground, then sorta swoop your body down toward the ground as your head comes up away from the ground).
- Bleacher Steps
- More pushups
- More squats
- More pushups of another kind
- More squats of another kind
- More
- More
- More...

My legs felt like jello by the time we left the gym. My chest is starting to feel a little sore now - I know I'll really be feeling it in the morning. I should just take some Motrin now before I go to bed.

We went to Moe's for dinner tonight. We used to go to Moe's every Wednesday night because it was kids-eat-free night and there was a guy who came and made balloon animals. My addiction to Mexican food and raving about carne asada burritos in San Diego earned me a Moe's gift card from the Nav at his farewell party.

I wasn't so sure about how going to Moe's would derail my diet this week. I was actually pleasantly surprised to find nutrition information listed on their website (I can't post a link because it's all java, but at the bottom right side of the web page, you can't miss it). It's more than just your standard list of items though. It's a very interactive feature where you can click on each item you put on your burrito (add guacamole, subtract sour cream, change from pinto to black beans, etc, etc), and it shows you a very nice standard nutrition information label customized for however YOU like YOUR burrito. Turns out it wasn't as much of a gutt-buster as I expected it to be, and it fit just fine into my food plan for the day.

I still really miss Chipotle though. Chipotle was my favorite fast-food Mexican place in Northern Virginia. I found their chicken tacos to be downright addicting. I mean, a day after having Chipotle chicken tacos, I would have serious cravings for them again like I was going through withdrawal. Someone told me that Chipotle is owned by McDonald's, but I see on their website that they are a publicly traded company on the NYSE. Maybe whoever told me the McD's story was pulling my leg. Anyway, I checked the nutrition information on the Chipotle chicken tacos, and they would fit fabulously into my food plan... if only there was one less than 2,000 miles away.

We have heard that there is a Mexican place on the North Shore called Chollo's that's pretty good. We rarely go to the North Shore though. It's been on our list for a while now, next time we DO go up there, we'll plan on eating there and write a review here to share our observations. So all five of you who read my blog have that to look forward to reading about. :-)

Exercising with Small Children

I don't know about you, but I found it was easier to involve my boys in my exercise (in other words, take them off LW's hands for a bit but still get my PT done) when they were younger. Back then, they would happily ride in the jogging stroller, I could run (or bike) at my own pace and they'd just enjoy the ride.

It happened first with ES and now with YS that they grew out of it and don't want to just ride in the jogging stroller or bike trailer anymore. Back in VA, it still worked out well for a while there. ES started riding a two-wheeler (with training wheels), but YS was still riding in the stroller. So I could still take both boys with me out for a run. ES lost interest in it and started staying home, but for a long time there in VA, I was taking YS out in the stroller to jog with me on a regular basis.

But alas, it couldn't last forever. YS now knows how to pedal his "bike" (big wheel 3-wheeler) and wants to ride his bike instead of ride in the stroller. Unfortunately, he has neither the speed nor the endurance to go as far as I want to go when we go out running.

Luckily, Saturday I managed to get out for a 4 mile run and the boys stayed home. Sunday while LW took ES to a birthday party, I asked YS if he wanted to go for a run with Daddy. He said, "Yeah! I want to ride my BIKE!" Groan. I decided I was going to get a good workout out of it. So I strapped on some 1 lb ankle weights, and I did a lot of jogging in place (practicing butt-kickers and knee-high running in place for the PT Nazi on Wednesday) waiting for YS to catch up on his "bike," or looping back to get him and continue on. Overall, we only covered 1.5 miles out and back, but from all the doubling-back, I think I had to have done at least 2 miles (I should have taken my GPS - but LW had it in the car that went to the birthday party).

In any case, my legs are killing me today. My hamstrings and my... whatever you call the muscles on the front side of the femur - they're in agony. So, if you're asking yourself, "Self, what's Kevin's point?" Well, I guess my point is that it is still possible to get a good workout even if you've got a 3-year old on a big-wheel in tow.

WW Update: Well, first there was that care package of fantastic baked goods we received... then there was the wardroom Christmas party Saturday night... To make a long story short, I gained a couple of pounds this week. But hey, it averages out with my previous week's loss, right?

Week 2 Summary
Result this week: 2.6 pound gain
Cumulative Result: 1.8 pound loss
Average Per Week: 1 pound loss

Week 1: Survey Says...

Monday Weigh In Results: I did my first weigh-in for WW Online for Men today, and I lost 4.4 pounds. Hoo-yah!

I was a little apprehensive about getting on the scale. I did really well all week at work, but when the weekend came, it seemed as if I left my will-power at work. Turns out I did alright. Although, they say more than 2 pounds per week on average is not healthy.

I really find that keeping a log of what food I eat helps tremendously. I think it's all the grazing and snacking I did that was really killing me.

Feeling Powerless: They craned our screw off... THAT was pretty amazing to see. Oddly, I didn't feel like our Mighty MSP was impotent when we offloaded all our weapons (we could always reload the weapons, right?), but seeing our screw sitting on the pier just really made me feel like the once-Mighty MSP is no-more a warship.

Drydock: Unfortunately, I didn't get to go to Command PT this morning because we had to do our walk-through inspection of the drydock basin at 0630. This is the first time I've ever been in a shipyard drydock. All my previous drydock experiences have been in the floating drydocks in Groton or San Diego. This drydock in the shipyard is absolutely ginormous. They've got all the blocks set up with the proper spacing in the bottom of the drydock, ready for us to set the boat down on the blocks tomorrow. Standing up on the caisson looking down into the basin, it looked like the blocks were set up to receive a dinghy. Our boat is just going to appear so tiny in comparison!

Remote Sensing: I wish I could have taken pictures, but cameras aren't allowed in the Controlled Industrial Area (CIA). Interestingly enough, cameras ARE allowed to orbit the Earth. Here are some shots from Google Earth:

Naval Station Pearl Harbor

PHNSY (Drydocks 3, 2, and 1 from left to right)

Drydock #1 That's what the Mighty MSP will look like by the end of tomorrow.

NPS Online: Totally random, unintended topic for tonight's post... If you're in the Navy and have a little bit of free time on your hands, I HIGHLY recommend the distributed learning programs offered by the Naval Postgraduate School online. There's NO OBLIGATION and CNET fully funded the program, so I didn't have to pay a DIME. I did the Space Systems Graduate Certificate program - 4 classes all online. All of the classes were really cool (at least for geeks like me), but I liked the class Remote Sensing Physics from Space the best.

IF, after you finish the graduate certificate, you want to incur an obligation and finish the masters degree, then you can talk to your detailer about going to Monterey for a year to finish the degree. So it's kind of like a free-try to see if you like the program before you incur a follow-on service obligation (although you lose a year of fabulous living in Monterey).

It's time for a change

In a previous post, I wrote about my body weight cycle from shore duty to sea duty. Every sea duty, my weight has slowly climbed to an embarrassing maximum. Every shore duty, I get back into the habit of going to the gym every day and get my weight back down to my college weight.

Well, I've been living in a state of denial. While claiming to have embraced the culture of fitness and doing a lot of physical exercise, I have not been eating well. I've been in denial about my metabolism changing as I get older. Although the physical exercise has done me well and I was pleased with my PRT results (in terms of pushups, situps, and run time), I have not been watching what I eat, so my weight has stayed the same (and a lot higher than I would like it to be).

Well, over this Thanksgiving weekend, I gained 2 pounds (have I mentioned how much I love pecan pie?), and I crossed a threshold / imaginary line on the scale that I didn't want to cross. I decided I really need to change my eating habits and get my weight down.

So I decided to join Weight Watchers. WW now has an online program for men. One of the first things that flashed across the home page was:

BEER CHEAT SHEET:

Drink beer and still lose weight (really)

I like this already.

All joking aside, I really do like some of the tools that they offer on the WW website. For instance, I find that keeping a log of the food I eat really helps raise my level of awareness about my intake and to stop "grazing" or snacking so much.

We'll see how it goes. I stole the workout log thing on the right side of my blog from Sam's blog. Now I need to find an html thing to keep track of my weight-loss progress, too. WW wants you to weigh yourself once per week to track your progress, so next Monday, I'll post my first week's results.

My hope is that by going public here on my blog, I'm committing myself to getting it done so I can report the positive results here for all to read.