Impossible is a typoRunning my pants off and loving myself along the way

Step 1. Put eggs in pot

Step 2. Cover with water

Step 3. Put on high heat

Step 4. Check your email

Step 5. Tweet

Step 6. Check Facebook

Step 7. Realize your eggs have been boiling for god knows how long

Step 8. Burn fingers taking pot off stove

Step 9. Crack one egg and view the horror inside

This is an EEF - Epic Egg Fail

Step 10. Toss eggs

Step 11. Go to market

Step 12. Buy fresh eggs

Step 13. Force yourself to remain in the kitchen as you cook the eggs correctly the second time.

“Anybody can boil an egg” just isn’t true. Well, OK it is true. Anyone CAN boil and egg but it could come out a green horrid mess. A really good boiled egg, no HARD COOKED egg, takes a wee bit of finesse and that finesse comes down to timing.

The perfect hard cooked egg

Fluffy perfection!

Put your eggs in a small pot and cover with cold water. Fire up the heat and JUST when the water has big boiling bubbles starting to break, take it off the heat (you don’t need a full rolling boil). Cover the pot and SET A TIMER for 10 minutes (you might want to go down to 8 or 9 minutes if you’re using large or medium eggs as opposed to “Jumbo” or extra large). Now don’t leave the kitchen! The second the timer goes off, dump out the water and run cold tap water over the eggs. Keep running the water till the eggs are cool to the touch. Then pop them right in the fridge.

That’s how you make a hard cooked egg that is firm with a fluffy yolk.

Not everyone can boil an egg

Four years ago as the Olympics were approaching, there were endless media stories about Michael Phelps, the swimmer, and his 12,000 calorie diet. People were like “Of course he can eat like that, he’s working out so much.” But when you do the calorie math, it just doesn’t make sense.

So, an active, average man burns about 3,000 calories just being alive. And an hour of pretty intense swimming burns about 450 calories an hour. That would mean to burn off all those calories, Phelps would be spending 20 hours a day working out at high intensity levels. That just doesn’t make sense.

Then I read Tim Ferriss’ “4 Hour Body” where an engineer suggests that it’s not the physical activity that allows Michael to eat that much, it’s the fact that he spends so much time in the water.

That makes sense if you think about it. When you’re in the pool, your body is working to warm yourself up and the water around you, not to mention the physical exertion you go through.

Now, The 4 Hour Body is chock full full of crazy nonsense. Seriously. It was an amusing read but for me, I’m not willing “experiment” on myself to that extent.

I am however, willing to test out new theories and ideas and see if they make sense for me.

OMG? or freaking nuts?

Like the cold bath idea. I’m reading another book right now called “Six Weeks to OMG” and it recommends a regimen of cold baths every morning. Recently, I’ve been indulging in bubble baths that are on the cool side. NYC is great for many things, but summers can be brutal, especially when you live on an upper floor of a building. When it gets hot, it’s just hot and there is no way to escape the heat. I’ve been enjoying cool baths lately as a way to unwind and get my head on straight, and cool off.

So when I read about the Skinny Dip in OMG my brain started turning it over. Could 10 minutes in a cold bath really help you lose weight? Only one way to tell, and that is to test it out.

The author recommends a bath that’s 69degrees. That is CRAZYPANTS cold. Seriously. It’s cold. I started off at 80 degrees this morning and that was rough. There are some other really radical things this author suggests, that I’m going to write more about later.

There are tons of kind of wacky things out there that people do in the name of weight loss and fitness – Food combining, cranberry pills, carbo-loading, pole dancing, just to name a few. I once had a nutritionalist recommend orgasms as a way to end late night cravings. I won’t comment if that tip was successful or not.

So the question remains – What wacky things are you willing to give a try to get to the weight you want?

I don’t know why, but right now, Veggies (and their buddies, Fruit) and I are not on speaking terms.

No, wait, I do know why. Life has been stressful lately, I’m dealing with a lot of stuff and damnit, Mac and Cheese just makes me feel better.

The only problem is that it doesn’t.

Crazy Inner FatGirl runs the show when things get rough. She moans and whines and complains like this:

Look, things are rocky right now. Making a salad is just too involved and takes forever to eat. A box of Mac and Cheese takes like 42 seconds and it will hit the spot. We just don’t have time for blending a smoothie or cooking up a piece of fish. Blech. Hey look, French Bread Pizza is on sale and all you have to do is pop it in the oven. Let’s just eat and get back to work, mmmkay?

So yup, I’m in junk-food-carbo-loading mode like I’m a 14-year-old boy, eating all the things I shouldn’t be.

And the kicker is, I know eating this way doesn’t make me feel good. I feel like a sloth, my skin is all gross and I’m so low-energy that getting out of my Hello Kitty jammies seems like a Herculean effort.

While at the market last night shopping for the aforementioned French Bread Pizza, I spied these little gems.

Know what these are?

Do you now what they are? I first encountered these ruby gems traveling to Asia with my family like 30 years ago (OMG, I did I just say “30 years ago”. Holy Handbags, when did I get old?).  Eating them always fills me with this child-like glee, that feeling of discovery and adventure you have when EVERYTHING you encounter is new and exciting. And that got me thinking… what if I approached every meal with the excitement of discovery? What if, instead of leaning on well known comfort foods (let’s get real about that, it’s not comfort food, it’s “numb” food, things to eat in hopes you don’t feel things, but alas, that’s a different post), I started eating exciting foods? What if I started looking forward to meals?

Now that’s an interesting idea.

I’m terrible about keeping files all tidy and organized, especially photos. I have a tendency to drop files in one folder and then sort through them at a later date. And I actually do that, but not as often as I should. A few times a year I purge old computer files and ditch pictures that aren’t good or I just don’t need… During said purge, I stumbled across this little beauty…

They like me! They really like me! Thanks Larabar

I totally forgot that Larabar sent me a little surprise gift of their new line of Uberbars. I hooked up with Larabar at a blogging conference and I have to say, they are very good to bloggers. Every now and then I’ve gotten a little gift box from Larabar and it always makes my day. Just finding this picture made my day.

And the bars? Are they tasty? They sure are. The Apple one tastes very much like apple pie crumble with big nutty chunks and everything. They say they are “sweet and salty” and to be honest, I didn’t really experience the salty part. They just tasted sweet. I have to say however, I do prefer the original Larabars. It’s a texture thing. I really love that super dense chew of the original bars.