Life is what you make it

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Posts tagged with "food"

In-n-Out 4x4

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In a recent post i wrote about the In-N-Out Animal Style burger, which is available from the secret menu not listed in the restaurants.

Another item on the secret menu is the "X by Y" burgers, where you choose X meat patties and Y cheese slices. The maximum is 4x4, so of course i had to try it! bigsmile

I have no idea what the calorie count on this is, nor do i remember how much it cost. Maybe i had a meat and cheese induced blackout, but all i remember is that it was goooood. Maybe a tiny little too much cheese, but other than that i have no complaints. I'm giving this a up

Here's a cheesy picture. Can you see all the four meat patties?

The KFC mashed potato bowl

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Last night i finally tried the Mashed Potato Bowl from KFC. It's mashed potatoes, corn, small pieces of crispy chicken (which wasn't crispy at all), gravy and cheese.

It looks pretty good on KFC's website, but the reality rarely matches the PR photos. Here's what mine looked like:

OK, maybe that's not too bad... But unfortunately this meal was just as salty as the Double Down sandwich which i ate just before i ate the bowl.

The meal is eaten with a spork that came with the meal, as the meal is sort of a porridge. Sounds good, right? Well, it wasn't really. Another down for KFC.

The Double Down sandwich

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I'm going to keep this post short, as i feel the picture says it all. I tried the KFC Double Down sandwich last night. It was smaller than expected, and salty. And i mean SALTY. And greasy. And fatty.

If it hadn't been for the overdose of salt, i might have liked this sandwich, but no.. down!

Del Taco caramel cheesecake bites

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I recently went to Del Taco for some 39 cent taco's, and for dessert i decided to try the Cheesecake Bites. These little treats are 110 grams each, and pack 215 calories. Over half of these are from fat.

They consist of a lump of some cheesy substance and a small layer of caramel, wrapped in some sort of dough. It's then deep fried so the dough becomes crispy and the cheese and caramel melt.

It was really good, but i don't think i could handle more than one of these... especially after eating 5 tacos knockout


The Epic Chicken

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Since My Opera has a Cooking Challenge contest going on, i thought i'd share one of my favorite dishes. It's fairly simple to make, and tastes really good (provided you like chicken, of course).



Step 1:
Chop vegetables and onions into big chunks. I use tomato, zucchini and onions. You can also add potatos, carrots and whatever else. Put them in a large baking dish, and season with salt and pepper.




Step 2:
Put a whole, fresh chicken on top, like this:




Step 3:
Peel an orange, stick it where the sun doesn't shine:




Step 4:
Pour some oil (olive oil or similar) in a small bowl, and add rosemary, salt, pepper and bell-pepper powder. Mix it with your fingers, they are about to get dirty anyway.




Step 5:
Gently loosen the skin on the chicken from the meat. You probably need to use a knife to loosen it from the chicken breast. Use your fingers to do the rest, and try to loosen the skin from the legs too. I was a bit too reckless, so i managed to rip the skin a bit.. ideally the skin should cover all of the meat.



Step 6:
Take some of the oil & spice mixture and rub it under the skin, try to cover the entire chicken. Whatever's left once you've done that, you can rub on the outside of the skin. Make sure the outside of the skin has some oil on it, to prevent the skin from getting too dry. Add a little more spices on top.




Step 7:
Cook in an oven at 350 degrees F or 180 degrees C until the internal temperature is 165 degrees F or 73 degrees C. You probably would want to use a cooking thermometer for this.




Step 7:
Enjoy alone, or together with potatoes, rice and/or bread!


The price of being huge

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My brother just sent me this video, i found it quite interesting/fun. It follows a bodybuilder on his weekly shopping trip for groceries at Costco, which is my favorite store in the US.

It's the place to buy BIG packages of food; if you want a bag of potato chips they won't have the 200g bags, but they'll have the 2 kg bags instead. Ok, maybe that's an exaggeration, but you get the point bigsmile

Skip the first 20 seconds to get straight to the point:


So this guy eats 4,5 kg steak, 11 kg green beans, 11 kg fish, 3,5 kg oatmeal, and a bunch of lettuce and cucumbers IN A SINGLE WEEK. And i bet he uses quite a bit of supplements (protein powders, etc) in addition to that. Holy crap. eek

I'm on a diet - final results!

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That's it, i've had enough! knockout Today i decided i've had enough of my diet. I've lost 8 kg in 9 weeks, which is more than i ever thought i'd lose in such a short amount of time. It's time to give a summary of the results, start eating normally again and in general just enjoy the summer cheers

Let's start with the weight:
My weight started at 82 kg (morning) and ended up at 74,1 kg (morning). That's a loss of 7,9 kg.
As you can see on the graph my weight has slowly decreased at a fairly steady pace, and most of the spikes have been on my eat-what-you-want-saturdays.

And now, let's go straight to the before and after photos!

Front:

Ok, so i had to use my spotlights to create shadows in the right places, but hey.. if bodybuilders can do it, so can i! As you can see i don't have a full sixpack, but i'm still satisfied with the result. Maybe next year my abs will be bigger and bulkier bigsmile My brother says i look too skinny in this photo and i should straighen up more, but if i do that my abs disappear..

Back:

So to sum it up, it's been quite rough, especially the past two-three weeks. I underestimated the mental aspect of the diet, it's been harder than i thought. Once you get hungry, your mind starts going crazy and may actually work against you, making you focus too much on negative things. It's important to stay focused and keep going. With that said, it's been totally worth it. If i ever get chubby again, i won't hesitate to go back on a diet.

However, i don't intend to get chubby again! Although my 3 week vacation in USA this summer may change that.. whistle

I'm on a diet

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During the winter-months i've been eating a lot so my body could build the most muscle possible. Although i've mostly stuck with healthy foods, i've also had an occasional burger, soda and other unhealthy foods/snacks. The result is that i've gained some extra weight, and not all of it is muscle. No reason to panic, it's all part of the plan. What's also a part of the plan, is to go on a diet during spring.

This week marked the start of my diet, which is a nutritional plan i found at www.tomminutrition.com. The website is owned by Tommi Thorvildsen, one of the best Norwegian bodybuilders. He also runs a supplement shop in Oslo, and gives customers free advice. The diet is made for my body weight (80-90 kg), which on Monday was approx 82 kg.

The goal

Since i'm not exactly fat, a lot of people have been asking why the heck i'm on a diet. Well, it's not about being fat or not. It's about having the lowest fat-percentage possible, and it's also a competition with myself to see what i'm capable of. I guess the main goal is to get rid of the little(!) lump of fat around my belly, by bringing my fat-percentage down to 6-8% (i believe i'm currently 15-20%) In comparison the normal body fat percentage for a male is 18–24%.

The diet

The diet consists of four main foods:
In addition, there's some essential supplements:
The meal-plan i'm following looks like this:
  • Meal 1: 100g oat meal, 45g whey protein, 1g vitamin C, multivitamins
  • Meal 2: 175g chicken breast, 150g sweet potato, 100g broccoli
  • Meal 3: 175g chicken breast, 150g sweet potato, 100g broccoli, 1 tbsp Udo's Choice oil blend
  • Meal 3B (30 min pre-workout): 2 capsules Kre-alkalyn, 20ml amino acids, 30g carbohydrates
  • Meal 4 (post-workout): 45g whey protein, 50g carbohydrates, 2 capsules Kre-alkalyn
  • Meal 5: 175g chicken breast, 100g broccoli, 1 tbsp Udo's Choice oil blend
  • Meal 6: 50g casein, 1 tbsp Udo's Choice oil blend, 1g vitamin C.

The 150g sweet potato can be switched with 50g brown rice, and the 175g chicken breast can be switched with white fish or lean beef for variation. The total amount of calories is approx 2300 per day. Once a week i switch one of the meals with whatever i want, preferably something rich in carbohydrates like pasta, white bread, hamburger, etc. This is mostly for motivation, because after an entire week on this diet my body is screaming for something unhealthy. This week in my "special meal" i ate an entire pizza, which had about 1300 calories (keep in mind the normal daily intake is 2300 calories for an entire day on this diet!).

The workouts

Of course a diet also should include some exercise. I've been going to the gym regularly for approx 5 years now, so i'm used to that. However, i haven't always been good at doing cardio, such as running/jogging (with the exception of my 10km marathon challenge). My workouts now consist of approx 1 hour weightlifting, followed by 20 minutes of cardio. I do the cardio by walking on a treadmill, set to 6 km/h and a 10% incline. On good days i increase the speed and/or incline.

Pictures

Whenever i set a goal, whether short-term or long-term, i find that taking pictures along the way is a great motivator. Pictures are a great way to see if what you're doing is working or not, and if it is working, it's really fun to watch how your body has changed. So before i set out on this diet-journey, i took a bunch of "before-photos". When (or if) i'm satisfied with the result of this diet, i'll probably post some "before and after" photos.

I'll keep you updated now and then, and let you know how the diet is going.

Dear chicken

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I YOU

Food in the US

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I went to the grocery store today and found 1 litre og eggwhites for $5. I take 200 ml of that and throw in 1 whole egg and have it with my breakfast. It's the best protein you can eat!

I also bought 12 cans of the best soda in the world; Root Beer (it's not beer, though!).