Too tired to eat

After arriving at 1:30ish in the morning and getting a few hours sleep, I raided the apartment cupboard and had some protein bars, and a few olives. Packed my lunch (a few protein bars) and then remembered that I had a lunhc date with one of the vistors to the site at Sattyam http://www.sattvamrestaurant.com  (which was fantastic btw!). Second time I have been there and really enjoyed it. 

After a lite lunch we made a pit stop at at a place called Nature's Basket (naturesbasket.co.in) and found a few bottles of Indian wine for a Ottawa based friend of mine, plus the elusive Coke Zero and a number of other international cuisine items (like cheeses). I will try and return there this weekend and grab a few things. Seemed to be cheaper than Foodhall. Oh an bought an apple as I had no fruit today so far. 

After a full day of work, returned home at around 7:30 and stopped in a my local More's to get some of the essentials. Fat free yogurt, some fruit for this week, a few herbs, some chicken. 

Here are some of the prices for freash food:

Around 50 g of green chillies 1.5 INR. or 3 cents Canadian. Oh, btw, we no longer have the penny in Canada so this would cost you 5 cents.

A green pepper was 3.27 INR or 7 cents Canadian.

A cauliflower was 17 INR or 34 cents Canadian.

400g of yogurt is 59.40 INR or 1.20 Canadian.

5 small tomotoes was 5.49 INR or 11 cents Canadian

Coriander and Mint were 3 INR each or 7 cents Canadian each.

12 eggs was 52 INR or about 1.04 Canadian.

2 Cucumbers was 5.67 INR or 11 cents Canadian total. 

Around 15 garlics was 51 INR (and they come in a bag so you cannot buy just one), 1.04 Canadian.

A honeydew melon was 28.21 INR

My big ticket item was 4 boneless skinless chicken breast at 262.73 IN total or 5.24 Canadian, followed closley by 4 royal gala apples at 195 INR or 3.89 Canadian.

So broguht all the food back to the apartment and was too tired to cook. Had a few protein bars, a couple pickles, some olives. I tried to heat up a chili protein mix in the microwave and it ended up boiling over and was ruined. By 10:00 pm I was beat and hit the hay. 

And woke up at 2:00 am. Dang. 

For breakfast, I've planned to go to Mavalli Tiffin Room (MTR for short). http://www.mavallitiffinrooms.com and I'll post that review later today. Unfortunately that means I won't be eating for another 5:00 hours...and I've got a bit of a craving today for some reason. Its a good thing that I don't buy junk food anymore as I think I would be scarfing it down. 

Maybe I'll go for a walk on the treadmill...

Meals from FRA to BLR

Again my meal choice has been predefined as the the low cal option, which in this case is actually pretty aligned with what I can eat. 

About a serving of salmon and of chicken, cooked spinach, lettuce, fresh green salad. 

The lounge

I'm fortunate enough to be able to use the lounge, have a shower and grab a bite. All of the hot meals are inedible for me (cream sauces or carb based), but I did manage to find some of my favourites.

Meals on the way to Bangalore

Decided to document everything that they serve me. Unfortunately my requested meal option (which was no special meal) didn't get corrected on this leg. They still had "low cal" which is not atually something I can eat. Anyway, I got to pick something from the menu anyway which you'll see down below.

I didn't get to stop the stewardess before she served me a huge bowl of nuts. Now I love both almonds and cashews but this bowl is about 4 servings and for reference, I get 7 servings of fat per day brought my own that I count out, so I just have to push the bowl away. They are salted too... Tempting. 

Oops... So eating the food before I take a pic doesn't help the blog :)!

It was a veggie salad and it was right up my alley. Zucchini, eggplant. Sundried tomatoes, peppers all roasted. Yum!!

Had to pass on the fruit as I already had some today and wanted to have a glass a wine, which in this case was Geisen Sav Blanc from New Zealand, which should go well with the fish.

The halibut is pretty tasty and I can eat the chickpeas and zucchini. The dark stuff to the right is eggplant which was pretty good and on the diet! 

Portion size i would have to say that the fish was like 3 servings. I have 5 left for today soon I will have to have a couple of protein bars to make up the deltas.

Ah! No protein bars required! Cheese and roughly 2 oz! Perfect!

After sleeping for a few hours I managed to wake up in time for breakfast. This consisted of a selection of fruits, 2% yogurt (not on the diet but sacrifices have to be made) and 3  protein bars rounded out the meal  This meal marked the beginning of Thursday allotment of food. 

 

Also had 10 almonds.  

Flight delayed

Well luckily in had not left the house here in Ottawa before the flight in Germany to Bangalore was cancelled due to the Lufthansa pilot strike. I'm now rebooked for today. Let's see what happens.

My ticket says 'low cal' meal which the travel agent assure me has been fixed. We shall see. The low cal option is actually inedible and in better off getting the regular meal and picking out what I can eat. 

I'll try and remember to take pictures of every meal this time! 

Returning to India tomorrow

Techincally it will be tomorrow since it's around 12 minutes into Monday and I leave on Tuesday. I've moved into the maintainence part of the duet having reached my weight loss goal. 

For me, maintainence means adding 2 servings of protein and 2 servings of fat per day and then measuring progress. Unfortunately I won't see the weigh loss clinic again for three weeks so I will have to rely on my own scale while in India. 

My Achilles injury continues to heal slowly and I am hopeful that I will be able to at least use the treadmill for brisk walks while I'm in India for the next two weeks.

One added benefit of the weight loss is that I not longer need a cpap machine (woohoo!). Great news for two reasons, a) I don't have to take the machine withe and b) immigration doesn't have to stop me every single time to check it out

On this trip to India, my quest will be to find a source of free range eggs, decent coffee, and a good sharp knife. The kitchen knives u have there are embarrassingly dull and literally I cannot cut a kiwi with them. The diet goal of the trip will be to stick to the program and monitor for gains/losses.

Back in Ottawa this week

Well I'm here in Ottawa for a week and will have a few dieting challenges here too!
Buying the right amount food so that you dont get spoilage is important as no one likes to see food go to waste. Luckily we have a good selection close by at a local grocery store. Not always the freshest of foods, but you can certainly get through a week.

Fat free greek yogurt was one of my first purchases back. I seriously love the stuff and its the ice cream of the diet world to me. My wife did some groceries while I had a few friends over to play some board games. This is usually the first challenge. I provide snacks to them and there in front of me is a massive bowl of junk food. 24 odd weeks in and I have been able to supress the urge to nibble.

The second challenge is that I'm off my routine for evening snack and often either forget to eat it or eat it very late in the evening. Yogurt and blueberries are probably my favourite and I was able to have that last night before going to bed.

What has been really nice these past few days is eating veggies which are uncooked. I'm still not brave enough to try this in India, next week I will be back in India on the Thursday morning at 1:00 am and my goal is to try a few raw veggies on the Friday to give myself the cushion of being potentially sick over the weekend. Yes that sounds crazy to me too. I will definitely be washing them.

Speaking of washing there are a number of products out there that are sold as cleaners for food. However in blind testing they fair no better and sometimes worse that just plain rinsing with water.

I'll avoid broad leafy veggies this time and focus on veggies with flat surface areas (smaller relative surface area) like a tomato versus something like a cauliflower/broccoli which has a massive surface area to hid all those bugs,