Heath C. Ice

What the hell happened to me ?  It all boils down to the fact that I let myself get heavily involved in a work project that was stressful, required tons overtime, and had me travelling around the country.  I was too busy and too tired to care enough that I was eating too much and being active too little.

It was too easy to not notice just how much unhealthy food I was eating when I was travelling!  Typically, I would be trying to help a business partner integrate our products with theirs as quickly as possible, so I worked a lot of long days.  It was too easy to grab food on the way back to the hotel.  I would swear I was going to exercise, but typically I was so tired I just didn’t care.  I got into a routine a few times on my longer trips, but typically my thoughts would be “I’ll get into an exercise routine when I get home; I’m only here a few days.”

Unfortunately, when I was not on travel, I was working insane hours at work attempting to get the next software release finished so I could then go back on travel to help integrate it!  I would usually be stressed out enough by lunch that I had to get out of the office for a bit so friends and I would go grab a quick lunch that, typically, was not too healthy.  Hell, even ordering a veggie-burger at a lot of the places in town comes with way too much food.  For dinner, I worked a lot of unplanned overtime by deciding I should stay and “get just one more thing done” when all I wanted to do was get home.  Since I was starving though, I would run and get food at the closest, fast place to work; Taco Bell :-/.  Even when I did go home at a reasonable hour, I would feel so drained that the last thing I wanted to do was hassle with cooking when I got home, so I would stop and eat at a favorite restaurant (it didn’t help that there is an amazing Thai place and an amazing Mexican place in this town that were both on the way home)!  I was not much better about exercising when I was not on travel.  I would get home, eat because I was starving, and then feel drained and just want to relax, and exercise ain’t relaxing!  I even tried getting up in the morning to exercise, but I never got enough sleep as it was, so I always stayed in bed!

Throughout the years, there were a few times where I did ok with diet and exercise, but those were few and far between.  I am sure anyone reading this is asking, “So what’s going to be different this time!?”  First, I finally got fed up with being stressed and tired all the time, so I started transitioning roles at work around May, 2010 and my new job is amazingly non-stressful compared to what I was used to.  I love it!  Plus, even though I have to go in a little earlier, I get off work by 4:00 every day!  Now I am not worn out constantly and I actually have time to relax and then decide to cook some food or exercise.

It took one final thing to kick me into gear though.  I went to a short film premiere in LA on February 2.  While there, I got to meet some people (Alex Albrecht, Dan Trachtenburg, and Jeff Cannata) from shows I watch online.  I was able to get a quick picture with them, and, to my horror, here is one of the results.

I look horrible in this picture!!!

I’ve seen pictures of me taken over the past couple of years, but none had the affect of this one of “DUDE, you HAVE to get into shape!!!”  My skydiving pictures were pretty bad too, but at least I could blame those looking horrible on me being in a big blue jumpsuit.  I had told myself “It be nice to probably get into shape so you can go skydiving again.”  I plan on going to a lot of Geek/Nerd events over the next couple of years and there will probably be a lot of pictures taken with me in them that I want to be able to look back on and feel better than I do about the above.

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SO WHAT AM I ACTUALLY DOING ABOUT IT?
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So, what am I doing about it?  I decided the weekend after the above picture was taken that I was going to give $1 to PETA (I hate PETA) for every 100 Calories I eat over 1200 per day.  That Calorie count looks low, but I still sit at a computer all day so I don’t burn a lot of Calories.  I wasn’t planning to start exercising right off either.  I’ve done pretty good about it over the past week.  I do owe PETA $2.00 so far though!!!

I decided this morning to change my plans a little!  I was shown a program aimed at getting your endurance up from a couch potato to being able to run 5k non-stop by building up endurance over 9 weeks.  The program is called “Couch to 5k”. There is an iPhone app I downloaded for the program that helps to keep track of the workouts. I like the fact that the App tells you when to start and stop jogging during the workouts. I am modifying it slightly though and instead of building up my endurance running, I am going to use it to build up my endurance on my elliptical machine. If I attempt to go outside and run, I know I will give in to it being too <cold | hot | dark | sunny | etc>. I am also going to start doing the 100 Push-Ups program again. I have attempted to keep with that off and on for more than a year, but I always gave up after a week or so due to lack of motivation.  The $1 to PETA thing is still in affect, but I am raising it up to 1500 Calories per day since I am actually going to work out and be more active.

My ultimate goal is to get to 160lb.  I will be plenty happy once I get below 200lb again and especially getting below 180lb again.

After a few weekends of eating 12lbs of steak (oh god, those were good weekends!) I decided that I should eat healthy part of the time. One thing that came of this was that I raided the vegetarian frozen section of my supermarket and started trying out veggie burgers and other like products. In my journey I have found that vegetarian chicken SUCKS, at least if it is from Morning Star.

The first fake chicken I tried was Morning Star Buffalo Wings. While the buffalo flavor was ok, the overall texture and quality was HORRIBLE. While the “chicken” nuggets were hot they were ok, but as soon as they started to cool off they became the nastiest densest food substance I have eaten in a long while.

Next, I tried the Morning Star Chicken Tenders. They had the same issue as the Buffalo Wings; as soon as they started to cool off, they became inedible. It was nasty… until I came to the chicken tender to which I had added malt vinegar! While still warm, this “chicken” tender was still pretty good. The good/bad thing about it though was that it reminded me of Long John Silver’s fish instead of chicken. If they would simply add malt vinegar to the chicken tenders and relabel them as “fish tenders,” they might be edible! This same evaluation applies also to Morning Star Chicken Nuggets.

Now here comes the shocker (no, not THAT shocker, you sick person!) Boca Breaded Chicken Patties were actually pretty damned good! I would call them comparable to most any frozen real chicken patty in taste. They had a country fried steak seasoning to them and the texture was very close to actual processed chicken. While I cannot recommend any Morning Star chicken products, I am a big fan of Boca Breaded Chicken Patties!

I got home tonight and suddenly had a craving for something sweet. Since I don’t usually keep such things in the house (as I don’t crave them much) I had nothing to satisfy my craving. I really didn’t want to go across town to get ice cream either. I then remembered that I had some strawberries in the fridge and some almond milk. So, I added the following to the blender just to see if it would make a decent ice cream like substance.

• Silk Almond Milk
• Fresh Strawberries
• Sweetened Condensed Milk
• Lots of Ice

The result was not as great as I had hoped, but it still tasted pretty damned good! I put the remainder in the freezer to solidify it, and so far it is turning into a pretty decent dessert. I will try to upload a picture/video of the final product tomorrow. For now, here are the results directly out of the blender.

I tried a McGangBang for dinner today. If you didn’t read my last post, the McGangBang is made by combining a McDonald’s double cheeseburger and a McDonald’s McChicken sandwich. The only modification I made was to not get lettuce on my McChicken. While McDonald’s burgers are not my favorite, the McGangBang was overall a pretty good sandwich. I did have a bit of an issue opening my mouth wide enough to take a bite of the sandwich, but a bit of smashing helped out.

The McGangBang used to be made by combining two items off of McDonald’s “Dollar Menu.” The double cheeseburger, however, has been moved off of the “Dollar Menu” and is now $1.29 (at least at this McDonald’s). If you don’t mind having one slice of cheese instead of two on you McGangBang though, you can make one by combining a McDouble and a McChicken, both on the “Dollar Menu”.

While I won’t push people over in an attempt to get to another McGangBang (mmmm, Ribwich), I will probably eat it again next time I end up at a McDonald’s. It is a lot of food for not a lot of money (with tax, mine was about $2.50). What this made me really want to try is combining an In-N-Out Double Double with a Wendy’s Spicy Chicken Sandwich. Unfortunately, neither of these restaurants are in my town.

I hope to try the Mc10:35 soon which is a combination of an Egg McMuffin and a McDouble. I think that I will like it much more than the McGangBang.

I was reading through a thread on Reddit when a user asked someone from College Station, TX, “Please tell me it’s true you can order a McGangbang and they know what you’re talking about.” This definitely intrigued me so I had to find out what in the heck a McGangBang was.

A short visit to Google.com later, I found out that a McGangBang is a McDonald’s double cheeseburger with a McDonald’s McChicken sandwich placed in the middle. Minus the lettuce on the McChicken sandwich, I have to try one of these!

A McDonald’s Double Cheeseburger is 440 Calories and a McChicken is 360 Calories. This is a total of only 800 Calories. Granted, when I try it, it will be with a soda and fries, so that’s another 380 Calories for the fries and 250 Calories for the soda. Not the most healthy meal at a total of 1430 Calories, but I figure for something I might eat only every few months, it is fine. I’ll be sure to post so pictures and another blog when I finally get a chance to try this sandwich.

I also still need to try the “Mc10:35,” but that’s a whole other blog post.

EDIT: What I would really like to find is a Wendy’s and In-N-Out close together so that I can try a Wendy’s Spicy Chicken Sandwich in the middle of an In-N-Out Double Double with sautéed onions.

I left work at 2:00 yesterday and I had yet to eat any lunch. On the way to the hotel, I spotted a Long John Silver’s / KFC. As it’s been years since I’ve eaten at a LJS and I really liked the food, I stopped. I vividly remembered what the fish and chicken tasted like and how much liked it, so I couldn’t wait to get my food. I ordered a “Fish and Chicken Plank Meal with added shrimp, and a medium Dr. Pepper.

When filled my soda cup, I found out that there was no ice at all in the building because all of their ice machines were broken. This was never mentioned to me when I ordered. Take note if you work at a fast food place, if you know you are out of ice, tell me this when I order a soda. Fountain soda with no ice, at least to me, taste horrible!!! I was fortunately heading back to the hotel where I had ice in the freezer.

I was back at my hotel room 5 minutes after getting my order and I started to eat. I tried the fried shrimp first and they were great! They tasted like they had come fresh out of the fryer a few minutes earlier. The temperate was just right as they were really hot, but not too hot to eat them in one bite each. The batter was a little saltier than I remembered, but it was the right saltiness that just helps enhance the other flavors! I had forgotten just how grand and addicting the batter was at LJS.

I hope everyone reading this has tasted the greatness of a tray of crumbs from LJS doused in malt vinegar. If you don’t know what I am talking about, I’ll explain. When LJS takes food out of the fryer and throws it into the bins of cooked food, brittle pieces of cooked batter will break off of the food. As they cannot really do anything else with these cooked crumbs, LJS has always given away trays of them for free if you request them. I know that I am failing to describe how good they taste. They are well worth the health-hazards (they are batter and grease) of eating them.

I moved on to the chicken only to have my meal head downhill. The chicken was barely hot and had a rubbery texture. It tasted nowhere near as good as the chicken I remembered. I am positive it had been sitting under a heat lamp for far too long, so I may go to a LJS again while I am close to one but eat in so I can take stale food back if needed. The chicken was always my favorite thing there, but it had to be freshly cooked!

The chicken was a disappointment, but since I was hungry still I moved on to the fish. The meal was redeemed at least some at this point. The fish was almost as good as I remember. It was hot and the batter was amazingly good. Like with the shrimp, it was a little more salty than I remembered, but not oversalted. The fish itself was flaky and tasted good (what little of it you could taste over the joyfully good batter).

Overall, the shrimp were amazing, the fish was really good, the chicken was very disappointing and having no ice was an annoyance. I have been retaught a big lesson though; for the battered food items at LJS to be great tasting, it all has to be HOT and FRESHLY COOKED! If you pick it up with your hand, it should be hot enough that you can only hold it for around 5 seconds. Time permitting, I may go back to LJS, but I’ll make sure all the food is fresh and hot before I walk out of the store.

Edit (June 29): I ate at Long John Silver’s again tonight for dinner. I had not eaten much all day and stayed at work until around 7, so I was starving. Anyways, I ordered the same thing as I got earlier in the article. This time though it was all great! Everything was hot and perfectly cooked! I just wish that I could get great food every time I go there!

One of my favorite things to eat is fettuccine alfredo with chicken and broccoli. I have only two choices when it comes to frozen dinners though; fettuccine with broccoli or fettuccine with chicken.

This has always been a disappointment to me, until tonight! Nothing sounded good to eat until I looked in the freezer and noticed that I had both frozen dinners. Given that one is a “Smart Ones” and one is a “Lean Cuisine,” the combination is still fairly healthy, has just a little over 500 calories, and costs a total cost of less than $5.

I was worried at first that the two meals would not mix well, but I was pleasantly surprised at how good the combination tasted. Bachelors of the internet, enjoy this homecooked goodness.

I am currently staying at an extended-stay hotel that has a small kitchenette. Here are the salt and pepper shakers. I can’t imagine who thought this was a good idea. It serves no useful purpose and makes accessing the salt and pepper nothing but an annoying hassle.

I know this comment probably won’t win many friends, but I am somewhat certain that a guy would never have decided that this was a good idea.

Blog post about my first impression of Five Guys Burgers and Fries.

I decided to eat at the Five Guys Burgers near the Walt Whitman Mall again. This time I ordered fries, a Mr. Pibb, and a little bacon cheeseburger with mustard, pickles, BBQ sauce, and grilled onions. I asked them to cook the fries extra crispy, but the concept seemed to elude the cashier taking my order.

Once again the burger itself was good quality and tasted decent, but it was nothing special. It was served much less hot than I would expect a fresh burger to be. The fries, again, were pretty danged good. I just wish I could have gotten them well done so that they were more crispy.

Since the Walt Whitman Mall location has disappointed me twice now, I will try another location soon. The second location may end up being a lot better. For the sake of all of those who think Five Guys is the east coast’s In-N-Out Burger, I hope the second location lives up to the hype.

I first heard about “Five Guys Burgers and Fries” about 2 months ago via this Reddit articlIe. A few of the comments likened the mainly east-coast chain to the west-coast’s “In-N-Out Burger.” As “In-N-Out Burger” is in my list of top three burger places, I was definitely interested in testing this claim.

Fast forward 2 months and I have finally had a chance to try a “5 Guys” located near the Walt Whitman Mall in Huntington, NY. I ordered a little cheeseburger with grilled onions, grilled mushrooms (an option that In-N-Out would do well to adopt), and mustard; a regular order of fries; and a small soda (Mr. Pibb). My initial reaction to “5 Guys,” unfortunately, is “meh :-/.”

The burger wan’t bad, but it was served lukewarm at best. I didn’t really taste anything special in it over a Hardee’s Mushroom and Swiss burger (btw, if they still existed in a majority of places it would be in my top burger list). I cannot really say there was anything wrong with the burger, but it didn’t hit me as “I HAVE to eat this again.”

Let’s move on to the fries. I loved the fries. as stated on their website, they use thick-cut fresh potatoes to create their fries. This includes skin and all. The plain fries were definitely better than In-N-Out’s plain fries. As I stated on Twitter and Facebook right after eating at “5 Guys,” if you want great burgers eat at In-N-Out, if you want great fries eat at “5 Guys.”

As with any restuarant with which I was not initially impressed, I will give “5 Guys” at least one more chance at the first location and another chance at a second location. I still must try different toppings and I must see about getting my fries well-done.

As of this writing though, I think that the perfect meal combination between the two franchises would be an In-N-Out Double Double with sautéed onions and no lettuce and an order of 5-Guys fries well-done with In-N-Out’s animal-style treatment.

As I mentioned, i will be trying 5 Guys at least two more times in the near future. I will post updates about any changes in opinion.

Blog post about second trip to Five Guys Burgers and Fries.