Friday, October 14, 2005
Mind, body, soul, poker
The Party Poker jackpot is up to $555,000! That's getting pretty large. Let me tell you, the games were juicy last night too. I'm talking some horrible play here. Nothing too unusual.
I finished last night's session with a nice victory. Not the couple hundred thousand I was hoping for, but I'll take it. However, once again, I didn't get to take full advantage of the juicy tables by playing enough hands. I vowed yesterday to play 1000 hands. I got half that. My bad.
It all started with me getting home from work. I was prepared to get some poker played. However, I had 3 shiny new DVDs from Netflix in the mailbox. I gave in to temptation and watched Super Size Me. Pretty good flick that will wing you from McDonald's food. Although I believe it was a bit biased. The dude was from West Virginia which was pretty cool. If I learned anything from the movie, it's that I will never date a vegan.
I also watched part of Oceans 12, but was getting too tired to finish it. So I went to bed.
I had some time to play poker yesterday. I just couldn't make myself do it. I was just tired, my brain was tired, which pretty much put me in a foul/tilt-able mood. That's been happening to me a lot lately.
After watching the movie yesterday, I started thinking. Maybe the reason, I don't feel great anymore is the shitty food I've been eating. I'm out on my own now in a bachelor pad. My diet is for shit right now.
I know one reason that I feel bad anymore is my lack of sleep. Those of you that read my old blog may know that I constantly battle insomnia. I've never been much of a sleeper. However, I'm a night time person, so that is a brutal combination. I like to go to bed late, but I can't sleep good and I'm always up early.
However, I think a healthier diet and exercise, I could only improve my health and general feeling of well being. Here is a list of things I'm doing to try to improve my health.
1.) Cut out all non-diet sodas and limit to 1 diet soda per day
It feels weird to type the word "soda", but I think that's how most of the world knows it. Of course, in my part of the world, we call it "pop". Whatever you call it, I drink too much. I used to drink water all the time. I love water. For some reason, over the past year, I've started drinking more and more soda/pop. So, I'm switching back to water and milk.
2.) NO Fast Food!
This is the biggie. I'm not a big fan of fast food. In fact, I down right hate it. However, it's cheap and easy. Just like my ex-girlfriend. Now, that I'm out on my own, I don't have anyone to cook for me either. I think that if I can get past this hump, then things will pretty much get back to normal. I love salads and they are easy to fix, so I figure I'll start with that. I have some basic cooking skills and a George Foreman grill. I should be able to whoop up a meal that can beat these stats for my favorite foods by fast food joint:
McDonalds: Favorite Meal - 2 Double Cheeseburgers, Small Fry, Large Coke. 1,580 Calories and 62 grams of fat.
Wendy's: Favorite Meal - Spicy Chicken Combo with a Coke. 1220 Calories, 43 grams of fat.
Taco Bell: Favorite Meal - 2 Chalupas, 1 Soft Taco meal with a Coke. 1290 calories, 58 grams of fat
Hardees: Favorite Meal - Sourdough Burger with a Coke. 1801 calories!!!, 97 grams of fat! What the fuck!?! How am I still alive?
KFC: Favorite Meal - Twister Combo with Wedges and a Pepsi. 1080 calories, 50 grams of fat.
Burger King: Favorite Meal - Whopper w/ cheese, Fries, Coke - 1600 calories, 74 grams of fat.
Long John Silvers: Favorite Meal - 2 fish, 3 chicken platter with extra hushpuppies insted of slaw - 1690 Calories, 91 grams of fat!
Arby's: Favorite Meal - Giant Roast Beef with Curly's and a Coke, occasionally throw in some jalapeno kickers - 1161 calories 41 grams of fat, 1470 calories 60 grams of fat with the kickers.
Subway: Favorite Meal - Foot long Subway Club on Wheat (no mayo) with Baked KC Masterpiece chips and a coke - 940 calories and 12 grams of fat for just sandwich and coke. The Coke accounts for 1/3 of those calories. So this is a viable option for eating out. Maybe that Jared fucker is onto something. Cut out the coke, and I got a nutritous meal.
I also kind of like Pizza. Once slice of Pizza Hut meat lovers (my favorite) has 314 calories and 19 grams of fat. I usually eat 3 or 4 slices, so now we're up with the other meals as far as calories and ahead of most of the others in fat.
I knew the numbers were high, but never really paid attention to how high until yesterday. This food is dangerous if eaten in regularly.
So to replace my fast food meals, I'm going to have to cook for myself more often. I love chicken, so I'll probably fix a bunch of that on the Foreman. I also like rice, and salads. I'm not high up on other veggies, but I can stomach things like green beans in moderation.
3.) Exercise
Of course, you healthy fuckers out there know that food is only half the battle. The 2nd half is to get your fat ass off the couch and get some excerise. I'm way out of shape right now. However, I have a health club membership that I never use.
Also, my office where I play poker currently has a desk with my computer and the rest of the room is filled with boxes of shit that I've never unpacked. I'm going to spend this evening cleaning that room out and making room for a treadmill and weight bench.
I do have a friend that is willing to help me with this. I used to go to the gym 5 days a week. I had a friend that went with me all the time. We would work out and then hit the racquetball courts for an hour or two. Talk about feeling great. Unfortuantely, our friendship hit a bumpy road and it sucked going to the gym by myself. A few months ago, I started going back with a girl I was interested in. That shit didn't last long and it sucked working out with a girl too.
4.) Drink a shitload of water
I used to drink nothing, but water. Gradually, I slipped and started drinking more and more soda. Enough where I hardly ever drink water now.
Also, I'm on the lookout for the best price on Fiji water. That shit is the bomb. But the price is higher than camel cock. It's like $25/case or something like that. I tried eBay with no luck. If anyone has any tips, lemme know.
5.) Don't be results oriented
One thing that will drive you crazy in poker and in health is to be results oriented. This should be fairly easy for me. I don't own a set of scales. I don't know how much I weight right now either. The only way I can tell my results will be in how my clothes fit and how I feel health-wise.
6.) Don't treat this as a diet
I cannot treat this as a diet; this is the most important step in my outline. It's more of a lifestyle change. Something I need to burn into my brain. I need my body to know that this is my way of life now. Get used to it. So I'm sure with reduction of calories and suger, my body will go into shock. I'm expecting some sort of withdrawl symptoms. I'll almost bet $5 that I'll have a headache for the first couple days. We'll see.
Well, I guess that's all I have for right now. Hopefully with a healthier body, I'll be able to squeeze in more poker play time which will lead to more poker content on this site.