For dinner, we went to a restaurant called db Bistro Moderne Singapore, at the Marina Bay Sands to celebrate a friend’s Birthday. The restaurant, part of the Daniel Boulud empire, specializes in burgers. I had the amazing “Original db Burger”, a Sirloin Burger filled with Braised Short Ribs and Foie Gras. Heaven. Oh, and their Pretzel Rolls – wow!!

Since we unfortunately don’t have a grill, I needed to be a bit more creative to enhance the already amaing flavor. I added Rubbed Sage, freshly ground black pepper, freshly ground sea salt, a bit of coriander, and butter. Mmmm…

Look at how red it is, when compared to what NTUC Fairprice sells? (a local supermarket here in Singapore).

I also experimented with a veggie dish. Red and green capsicum, enoki mushrooms, king oyster mushroom, bok choy (chinese cabbage), leek, and garlic. Seasoned with just a few drips of light soy sauce and some crushed chili pepper.

I did two batches of beans that I’ll be freezing and eating for the next 2 weeks or so. First, a batch of Orange Lentils (seasoned of course), and second, a simple batch of Black Beans – plain.

Tumeric Orange Lentils

I added about 400mL of Lentils, and about 2 times that of water. Tumeric powder, Chinese Five Spice, Coriander powder, Cumin powder, black pepper, and tons of garlic.This batch will give me enough for 18 meals!

Boring Black Beans

These are exactly that – boring, but flexibly useful.

Dried, and then frozen, these should last about 2 weeks.

I started off with a standard healthy, high-protein, zero-useless carbs, breakfast. The usuals: Lentils, Spinach, 3 eggs (1 whole, 2 whites), and seasoning. I have grown fond of dousing my eggs with Tabasco these days. Mmmm

Afterwords, Melanie and I had a 9am appointment at the KettlebellH.I.T gym at Horse City, (#01-02K, 100 Turf Club RoadSingapore 287992) where we would be getting an hour and a half introductory lesson on Kettlebell exercises. I had the intent on buying a Kettlebell so that I could do the exercises at home as recommended in The Four Hour Body. There are a few options of places to buy Kettlebells in Singapore, but I ended up going with KettlebellH.I.T since they offer 2 free courses when you buy a Kettlebell to teach you how to use it. Plus, it seems from the Youtube videos of these guys, they know what they’re doing. I went in thinking I would be getting something around a 20Kg Kettlebell, as Tim Ferris suggests that most men should start with that weight. Well, let me tell you, try before you buy! I ended up with a 8Kg Kettlebell – and this one is pleanty for me for the time being. Yes, I’m a wimp.

Unfortunately, the 8Kg Kettlebells are pink. Oh well.

Following the workout and purchase, Melanie and I went out to Kranji to hit the organic farms, specifically Bollywood Veggies, an organic farm that has a pretty good restaurant. This was actually our second time going (our first was back in March with some friends) – I wanted to have a good healthy cheat-day lunch with foods that I know aren’t poisoned with hormones and pesticides (so I would feel a bit less guilty about stuffing my face with way too much goodness!).

And by the way, their banana bread is awesome! Thank goodness it’s a 4HB cheat day.

Finally, for dinner, well, I haven’t had it yet, but I plan to have Mexican! We’ll see how good it is – some of my colleagues have ordered it in the past and said it was good value for money.

]]> http://www.cdrum.com/2011/07/30/kettlebells-organic-food-and-mexican-fajitas/feed/ 0 http://www.cdrum.com/2011/07/24/apartment-construction-update-vacanza-east-in-kembangan-singapore/ http://www.cdrum.com/2011/07/24/apartment-construction-update-vacanza-east-in-kembangan-singapore/#comments Sun, 24 Jul 2011 15:08:25 +0000 Chris http://www.cdrum.com/?p=690 Melanie and I went to check out the status of our apartment construction yesterday (23rd July). We walked from the Kembangan MRT station and it took only 10 or 15 minutes to get to the complex – shorter than we thought (a good thing!).

I am happy to see concrete! They seem to be actively working on foundation on some of the blocks. But, the showroom is still there, so they haven’t even broken ground on about a quarter of the complex.

We asked the agents in the show room when they thought the foundations would be completed for block 40 (the block we bought) – they estimated around September. We think it will be more like October or November!

There seem to be 130+ units still unsold (out of 472) according to the status board in the show room (the photo below shows each unit, and a dot for those that are sold). I’ve included a couple other photos of the construction site as well.

I especially like the alternative to conventional wisdom he presents (based on clinical research) on how Insulin affects fat storage and weight loss, more-so than Calories. To augment what I am learning from this book, I’ve started reading The Primal Blueprint (written by the guy behing Mark’s Daily Apple) which goes into a great more detail on body chemistry and how certain foods affect your chemistry and longterm weight gain, or loss. Like, for instance, did you know that Cholesterol, by itself, may not be all that bad?

“Excessive insulin is also now believed to be a central catalyst in the development of atherosclerosis. Insulin promotes platelet adhesiveness (sticky platelets clot more readily) and the conversion of macrophages (a type of white blood cell) into foam cells, which are the cells that fill with cholesterol and accumulate in arterial walls.” from The Primal Blueprint, Kindle location 1912

The biggest thing I’ve learned from these two books (they really complement each other) is how Grains, both processed and unprocessed, aren’t as healthy as we have been lead to believe.

I began my “eating habits change” (I don’t want to call this a “diet” – because of the connotations associated with the term and high rate of failure) 2 weeks ago and have already seen and felt results. I am down almost 6kgs (at least, before yesterday’s cheat day!). I’ll happily stick with this and see how far I can go. My goal: 30 kgs of body fat in 6 months.

Each day I feel a more consistant amount of energy throughout the day – most likely a result of bringing my blood glucose/insulin levels into more consistant levels with the sharp reduction of crap carb intake during the day. (Oh and an elimination of weekday beers).

This is some of the awesome healthy stuff I’ve been eating:

Sadly, I’ve had to give up some of the stuff I have grown to love: Bread, potatoes, deepfried breaded foods, sugary stuff, and beer (at least for 6 days of the week). But, It really isn’t that hard – healthy stuff, much to my surprise, can actually taste excellent!

I hope to continue writing entries in this blog to detail my progress and what I am doing to support said progress. Until Next time…

More on that later!

I sourced a replacement digitizer (glass screen) via Alibaba from China. I had to buy bulk (10) – so anyone in Singapore who has a broken Nexus One, email me. I’m selling.

I fixed it, took about 2 hours, but it works! No left over screws!

Thanks to iFixIt at http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Nexus-One/1654/1!

My photos are here:

Nexus One Digitizer Repair