I can feel the whole diet/exercise thing slowly losing momentum this week. Just kind of getting bored with it all after two months I suppose. I’m currently 7.6 kg down in under two months believe it or not, but I still have about 2 kg more towards my target. It’s just a hell of a lot harder to lose now that I have lost so much already and my body has woken up to what’s going down.

Anyhow, I didn’t manage to make time to make lunches this weekend so I’ve been kind of winging it a a bit. I threw together the last two days of this week tonight by making two salads, a tiny amount of chicken, and some throw together prepared stuff like a microwavable chicken patty and yogurt.

I plan to go bouldering tomorrow after a two week hiatus which I am rather looking forward to. I also managed to run another 10k last weekend, but it was just as hard as the first time I did it (but my pace was actually pretty decent). While my diet has kind of been in a slump though, the other activities in my life have been good — been making a lot of progress with multiple projects. Even managed a little family time this week. I think I want to make my next week to be more about balance — trying to get both health and productivity in.

Anyhow, got another early morning tomorrow so I’m going to head in. Till next time.

I have been wanting to do this for a while but finally gave it a shot: imitation North Carolina Style BBQ:

Back home, we usually cook an entire pig over an oil drum but being as that’s logistically a bit difficult in Tokyo, I discussed some ideas with my brother and put together the following: taking some pork blocks and baking the fuck out of them over really low heat.

I marinated the blocks overnight and baked them for almost eight hours.

Then I pulled the pork and added somewhat too much spice, and the vinager based (eastern NC) sauce:

It didn’t have that smoked flavor and all, but it wasn’t horribly far off either. Turned out much better than I imagined it would.

Just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Definitely not a baby any more.

I think 90% of the Japanese went to his sister and he got all the US and German. Or does it not work that way?

I think it does though because the princess definitely got my OCD and bad fingernails.

We set up the princess’ hina-ningyo for the first time to celebrate hinamatsuri (dolls day):

She inherited this massive seven level hina dan from her mom, who inherited from her grand parents. It’s absolutely gorgeous, but it also takes up like quite literally half of our living room.

I posted a full picture of it from my iPhone up on twitter here.

I should be sleeping but apparently I don’t do that anymore anyway so I figure there’s no need to start now. Had a early start (and a late end) to work but I still managed to go run 5k after I got home believe it or not. It actually wasn’t that bad after I got my ass out of the house. It’s a much different atmosphere than running in the morning, but I guess I’m probably going to have to get used to it because I’m going to have to start work crazy early from here on out with our shift changes — meaning there is no way in hell I’m going to run in the morning cause I would have to get up by at least 3:30. Which is fucking night still, not morning.

By the way bouldering absolutely killed me yesterday. The last two times I have been I have gone with people doing it for the first time — so I was doing the lowest levels with them first. This time I went by myself and just started at my level (which granted, isn’t all that high). First one I climbed though, I got to the last hold which was a good reach off from a flat wall off to one slanted forward, pretty far up in the air, and it wasn’t that hard, but it still scared the shit out of me. In short, I need to warm up better I think. And all this calorie cutting isn’t helping.

I did however climb one “at my level” that I haven’t done before, and I found one a step above my level that I think I actually have a fighting chance at if I work at it. I got halfway up last time. And the people there are super nice as always. Some total stranger yelled “gamba!” behind me as I was about to give up on one — and I managed to finish it with the engorgement.

“Gamba” by the way is kinda weird: it’s a shortening of “ganbare” which is something like “go for it” or “you can do it” but I’ve never heard it used outside of that place — but everyone there uses it . I’m assuming it’s Japanese climbers slang — but it could just be normal slang and I’m getting old.

This month I managed to:

• Read three books
• Run a 10k
• Run a total of 62 km
• Start eating more healthy
• Lose 4.6 kg (10.14 lbs)
• Exercise 19 out of 31 days (61%)
• Start studying for the JSDA Level 2 Exam
• Start developing the San-Sonnet site

Not too bad.

Managed to continue through another week of pre-prepared lunches and watching my calories, but my exercising died down quite bit – partially because I was working a lot more and partly because it’s been so damn cold. It’s been hard for me to force myself outside to run. I did run 5k this morning though, so I guess that’s something.

Anyhow, I managed to make another batch of lunches for next week with just two changes:

1) No cucumbers (just because I had so much other stuff)
2) More eggs (just to try them)
3) Introduced some pork this time:

Two more days till the end of the month. Guess I should try to make the most out of them!

Ok, so in one day I managed to:

• Run 10k (one of my goals for this year!)
• Weight-lift at the gym for around 2 hours
• Go out to eat with the family
• Go to the dentists
• Go grocery shopping
• Make dinner
• Make another week’s worth of healthy lunches

I did learn that salsa is crazy low calorie though! I plan to use it more.

The above is one of my vegetables portions. I have these microwavable packs of meatballs and chicken patties that I’m going to combine with these for half lunches. Partly a shortcut and partly for variety.

I decided to add some hard boiled eggs this time, and finally got use out of this cool thing:

We bought this cute microwavable egg cooker decades ago but this is the first time I have used it. It’s great though! Really easy, and it can hold 4 eggs at one time.

By the way, the results from last week were as follows: a 1.2 kg (2.65 lbs) drop. Less than the first week, I know, but I was aiming for that because I was loosing weight too rapidly and was staying pretty hungry.

Things I have changed/learned:

• Celery has gotten a bit old to me and I don’t like the liquid it leaves in the Tupperware (drowning the other food) so I decided to ditch it this time.
• Egg whites are just awesome but I can’t bring myself to throw away the yolk of the egg. I know eating like that adds extra fat (about 4 to 5 grams per egg?) but I’m not really concerning myself too much with fat. The calories aren’t too horrible so I can mix them in some.
• I really like cucumber in apple cider vinegar! I can’t get enough of it! Which is fantastic because one serving is all of 7.5 calories. Seriously. I’m going to increase the amount of these next time and have them with almost every meal!

And I have a really bizarre, but potentially cool idea for yet another chicken dish. I also bought some pork to play around with for potential new main portions for next week — assuming I’m still doing this nutty shit next week.

I did a whole bunch of mess today like work, continue to eat healthy, bouldering (with Maggie this time), etc., but most importantly, I really find myself missing Eastern North Carolina BBQ. I swear there is very few other things better in the world and you will forget even those things temporarily if you get some in your stomach.

Apparently the correct way is not to do it on a Train in Tokyo during rush hour so I’m going to revert back to just my book reading I think.

Just got finished with “Candide” by Voltaire which was not only extremely witty, but rather risque even by today’s standards. I’m thinking I will read “Water for Elephants” (Sara Gruen) next — from my massive stack of books I got in the states. I just picked the book up based off of reviews on Amazon but apparently, it has a movie, and apparently, the movie is also really good. But please don’t tell me because I want to read the book first!

Oh and by the way, I am studying for the second level JSDA exam — and I find it horrifying that I find it easier to study in Japanese than English (and there is better study material anyway). One of my goals is to get this, and then maybe the first level registration this year. Just something I need to do sometime, so I figure now is as good as a time as any.

Speaking of goals, this is my list as of now:

• JSDA Level 2
• Run 10k
• Lose the post-smoking weight gain (want to lose around 10 kg total)
• Launch a start-up
• Create and setup a mini home studio / office
• Two potential yet-to-be-named music projects

Not trying to be too ambitious or anything.

I also want to try to imitate eastern North Carolina BBQ in Japan somehow and make my own cola, but may it’s best not to list those in the same list containing “lose weight.”