I’ve been here in Thailand for about 42 months. As you may know, Asians don’t eat like us in the west. It’s really different and a bit tough getting used to, but once you’re here for a while eating hot spicy pork noodle soup or sliced chicken breast over rice with some ginger/garlic sauce in the morning this will seem like normal operating procedure. At this point to me it even seems natural.

Occasionally though I get these wicked cravings for oats, wheat germ, peanut butter and other protein rich, grainy foods. I guess I’m lacking protein in my diet - or maybe types of amino acids or something because my protein intake is primarily pork for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Occasionally, say twice a week, I’ll have chicken.

Twice I’ve bought overpriced Mueslix and some Muesli from Switzerland in a western type store, but it’s more expensive than it would be in the USA - and that’s usually a no-brainer. I avoid anything more expensive here than the USA.

I decided yesterday that I was going to create a breakfast I really love and save some cash. I started having this breakfast in Hawaii after a friend from Sweden made us some muesli with fresh fruit for breakfast before we went on a killer mountain bike ride through the mountains. Christian is living the dream doing Hawaii appraisal on Oahu, Maui, Big Island and Kauai! The trail was a walking trail that was even tough to walk on during some points. I fell off my bike 3 times and that was being VERY careful! Roots would stick in my crank, path would drop away down the hill as I rode over it… a series of stones bounced me right off my seat and sideways off my bike.

Anyway, let me get on to talking about the breakfast of champions… Muesli!

My friend whipped us up a batch of muesli with sliced banana, some plain yogurt, and some papaya if I’m remembering correctly. Papaya is everywhere on Oahu and it was either that or mango. No matter - any fruit you like will do. I’ve had it with pineapple, mango, oranges, apples, rambutan, longan, grapes, raisins, and 15 other fruits.

I went to the “Makro” grocery store in Thailand which is their version of “Costco” and I bought 3 things to create my muesli masterpiece, my “Breakfast of Champions!”.

The first was a bag of, guess… MUESLI! It was “Tilo’s” brand muesli from Belgium. Their email is: info@muldernaturalfoods.be so you can write to see where they distribute this stuff maybe near you. If you’re in Colorado, some parts of California, Maui or Canada I think you should be able to find things like this pretty easily. The date on the bag shows it good for 6 months from the time I bought it. Perhaps it lasts a year or more. That’s plenty long to ship to America from Belgium. I’ll bet someone has it imported. The ingredients on this bag were, in order: Wheat flakes, oat flakes, barley flakes, raisins, hazelnut pieces, sunflower kernels, sesame seeds. In 100g there are 11g of protein, 61g of carbs and 4g of fat. I bought a 1000g bag for 80 baht which is almost $3 USD.

Second item was a box of “Hahne” PREMIUM Muesli from Germany! This one is High quality muesli with 40% dried fruit content. I bought 375g for 90 baht (3 dollars). The ingredients are: Dried fruit (sultanas, banana chips, coconut oil, sugar, honey, flavors), pieces of apricot, plum peaches, appples, dates, figs, pears, strawberry, raspberry, whole wheat flakes, whole oat flakes, cornflakes, whole rye flakes, apricot and maracuja fruit powders. 100g gives 7.8g protein, 63.5g carbs, 5.4g fat.

Adding a certain amount of dried fruit like in this premium muesli is pretty key as you’ll need something to be sparking your saliva glands to keep working so you can easily swallow a bowl of this. Grains are very dry stuff even with cow or soy milk - and this mixture had little sugar. If you add sugar or honey to yours instead of fresh or dried fruits - easier to swallow!

The next item I bought tells something about my American background. Unfortunately Kellogg’s company has had an ongoing advertising blitz since the early 1970’s (or before) in which they crammed into our heads that we need CORN FLAKES to better our odds at longterm survival! Apparently that’s still in my subconscious because when I saw the bag of Hahne cornflakes for 60 baht (2 dollars) I grabbed it without thinking. Damn I hate advertising campaigns. You could probably do without this item but it does add some bulk and is low fat! Ingredients are: corn, sugar, cooking salt, barley malt extract. In 100g protein was 7.3g, carbs 82.4g and fat at 1.2g. Vitamin information not listed. Maybe there isn’t any!

Now, I needed something to wash it down with (mix with it) so I bought 12 boxes of my favorite vegetarian soy milk mixture, Lactasoy, from a smaller grocery. 100 baht for 12 boxes of 300ml capacity. Ingredients: water, soybean, sugar, vegetable fat, vitamins and minerals. It has no cholesterol and one 300ml box of it breaks down as: protein 8g, carbs 23g, and 8g of fat. The vitamin content is pretty impressive… Vitamin A, Calcium, Vitamin E all at 30% of Thai RDA. Vitamin B1 is at 25%. Vitamin B2, Iron, Vitamin D, Vitamin B6 all at 20% Thai RDA. I drink this stuff like water - even mixing it with my instant coffee (at room temperature, if hot - the soy milk clumps up and goes bad.) If you’ve heard bad things about soy milk please don’t write me, I’m happy in my ignorance at the moment and I have a hell of a lot of it to drink. :)

Total spent: 330 baht. That’s about $10 USD.

As I mixed them all together and stored it in a 6 liter plastic water container I counted out 42 scoops of muesli cereal. Then I grabbed 2.5 scoops and put it in the bowl for the first taste. So - this mixture will last about 14 days I’m guessing. Sometimes I’ll eat more than I did this morning. For somewhere around 70 cents I can have an amazing breakfast with lots of nutritious grains and probably the whole spectrum of amino acids, vitamins and minerals. Just in case I’m missing anything I have a daily multivitamin that covers most things. The pharmacy sells them for 1 baht each (about 3 cents), buy as many as you like.

So - that’s my Breakfast of Champions! Yes, there’s some fat in it - I think you can’t go through life without it - so why try? If you’re exercising daily - at least walking 2 miles you can afford to eat 10-20% fat in your diet. For your health you need to eat 5 or 10%.

As a side benefit to eating all these delicious grains I noticed an immediate stirring in an area below the stomach just 30 minutes after finishing my first bowl. Oh, this truly is - THE BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS!

Best of Life!

Vern

Hello, and welcome to Vern’s secret lifehack for losing about 32 lbs. of weight without hardly trying.

I call this weight loss lifehack “Thai Style”, but only because I was in Thailand at the time. I’m not sure what the Thai food has to do with it, and I think other things can be substituted in place of what I ate if you can’t find it.

I’ve never written anything in my life about losing weight. I’d never before felt like I needed to lose any weight.

I’m not selling fatburners or rubber waist twisties or anything like that either.

I just noticed that I lost some weight recently and I wanted to share this lifehack about losing weight to see if it helps anyone and see if anyone can duplicate it. For me it was almost effortless. I’ve now started to eat more because I lost too much for my comfort-zone.

When this happened I was in Thailand. That probably doesn’t have anything to do with it - except that I was eating certain foods, but you can eat these same foods in any large city in the USA or Europe with a visit to your asian grocery.

I made this half-hearted decision to lose some weight a few months ago. In a matter of four months I lost about 32 pounds… but I didn’t even notice because it was so gradual. I now know a secret lifehack for losing weight. I guess you could lose as much weight as you desire, but I can’t say that for sure because I didn’t lose 100 lbs, only 32.

I don’t know what happened biologically over the course of a couple months but I went from 184 lbs down to a low of 152. Losing weight was something that I didn’t think I’d EVER have to even think about before my late 30’s. I’d been a soccer player, runner, bicyclist, and triathlete up through my mid-thirties. I never weighed more than maybe an extra 5 -10 lbs over my own idea of my “ideal weight”.

About 6 months ago a friend had taken a photo of me sitting without a shirt - sitting shirtless on a bench outside and when I saw that picture I realized - holy YIKES man, you got FAT over the last few years. I’m 5′11″ in height and at 180+ I was (in my eyes) flabby. I could pinch about 2 inches of fat in my stomach and, dare I say it? My “love handles“… It was the heaviest I’ve been in my life by far.

So, I saw this photo and realized something maybe should be done before I blimp up like a typical American or something. Vern needed to lose some weight. It seemed like I was sort of at that critical point where the pot belly would be growing out of me if something wasn’t done.

I’ve always run a few times per month, but it looked like something happened on the other 25 days in the month when I wasn’t running. I thought to myself, “Vern, you should be a little more conscious of what you’re eating.”

That’s it. That’s what I said to myself.

I didn’t think I was eating too much. I wasn’t gaining much each month, maybe 1-2 lbs. The trick is, once you reach what you consider your ideal weight - not to gain or lose any. It’s kind of tricky to stay exactly the same weight over the years, no wonder we have problems. Add to that our metabolism changing as we get older and things can get hairy scary.

My girlfriend consistently eats MORE than me and she clocks in at about 95 lbs. She doesn’t exercise at all. Nothing! She has a great metabolism though, one which I know millions of people would PAY big money to have.

Typical Consumption before “Secret Thai Style Losing Weight Lifehack”:

Breakfast
I would have “gwit diao moo” which is a simple pork broth noodle soup with vegetables and sometimes meatball type things. I’d estimate 1 1/2 cups of noodles. I also had some instant coffee with milk.

Lunch
In the afternoon - always something with rice - gai pad king (chicken with ginger) over rice or kowl pad moo (pork fried rice).

Dinner
In the evening my friend would cook and she’d make these big AWESOME Thai food meals for just two of us. I’d typically have 3+ cups of rice and eat until I was so full I couldn’t move. I ate so much most nights that it was a chore to get my butt away from the computer and play some badminton with her in the street later if I wasn’t glued to the chair at the computer.

Typical food Consumption after I started to implement the “Secret Thai Style Losing Weight Lifehack”:

Breakfast
I continued to eat my same morning breakfast. Yes, that is a lot of noodles. You should have seen the veggies in that bowl too. The bowl was enormous and held a cup of “too-uh ngoh” (raw bean sprouts) as well as some “Koon Chai” (leafy greens), or “pak boong” (morning glory). In addition there were many spices. There were small pieces of salted pickled radishes. Garlic pieces, black pepper, salt, a bit of fish sauce, and I always added a mega-dose of dried red peppers to make it so hot & spicy that every morning at 7:20 am as I drove to work on the motorcycle I was sweating. I continued to have a large glass of instant coffee with a quarter cup of milk. Sometimes it was whole milk, sometimes skim, sometimes low-fat.

Lunch
Sometimes for lunch I’d have just 2 medium-sized dragonfruits (Pitaya) and a cup of coffee. Sometimes over the couple weeks of first starting this new lunch meal I needed to eat something else around 3 pm - a couple cookies or something. I ate them if I needed it. I hate to be hungry at all. That’s the thing, if I was hungry - I ate something else. It’s not about having the discipline to never give yourself something if you’re hungry. WHO can do that? Not many of us. Not me!

Dinner
For dinner I cut down slowly on what I ate. I did it so gradually that I hardly noticed. Actually, the way it started out - I didn’t even know I was going to lose any weight. I just kind of resolved in my mind that I wouldn’t eat until I was stuffed anymore. At first I had just 2 1/2 cups of rice because I felt full at that point… then after a week or 2 I was down to 2 cups, then in another 2 weeks 1 1/2 cup… then after 2 weeks 1 cup of rice with dinner Sometimes there was so much of the food that goes over the rice that I’d have no rice at all. We had many different things to eat for dinner. Thai food has such variety, it’s an amazing cuisine. We ate everything at dinner, squid, fish, noodles, bamboo, coconut milk curries, tom yum, everything and everything. Oh, I did pretty much eliminate pork at dinner where usually that was a staple 4 out of 7 times per week.

Something that probably bears mentioning is that I ate SPICY food as much as possible. It started with a heaping tablespoon of dried chili pepper dust at breakfast, and it didn’t end there. If I was eating rice at lunch - I was eating rice with the entire small bowl of sliced chili peppers in fish sauce. If I could eat everyone else’s I would do that too. Depending on the company at lunch.

Fish sauce is salty and slightly oily. The small bowl they give with the fried rice and other dishes has a bit of lemon juice and cut garlic slices. Dinner was usually served on fire with spice. We ate Isaan style food - which is the Northeast part of Thailand - it is where they are known for the hottest food and the most spice. I loved the spices, eating it 6 out of 7 days each week for dinner on average.

What I was basically doing as I ate - and I think this is one of the BIG keys about eating right - is that I was just eating until I could feel the food heavy in my stomach - not stuffing myself past that point. I think that most of us were brought up as kids to eat until we’re full. Not just full, but jam-packed with food. I guess I was. I didn’t noticed it until I started to be mindful about it.

If your stomach is used to being overflowing with food - then that is “normal” eating for you. Anything less and you think you’re hungry. But, I think Americans in general maybe - have this distorted view of what a full stomach really feels like. If you pay attention to your stomach as you eat you will notice something.

There is a point where you can feel the food sitting in your stomach. You can tell it’s there. It’s heavy a little bit. If you reach that point, THAT’S it. Stop eating. You’ll be fine, really. In a few minutes you’ll feel more full if you just stop right there. Most of us eat so fast that our stomachs need to catch up. It takes about 20 minutes before our minds “feel” the fullness that our stomach is at. It’s like a slow response gas tank indicator. Our gas tank is full, yet, the dumb lever on the dashboard is slowly rising over the course of 20 minutes from the time we start eating. When the gas level indicator reads “full” - we have already been full but now the mind knows it and feels it too.

I didn’t always have the same dinners, but lunch was pretty much just what I said. My dinners would change a bit… Sometimes I’d have 2 BIG corn on the cobs and I was so full I couldn’t eat anything else. The woman at the market dipped the corn cobs in some salty water - and that was enough flavor since the corn was sweet. Sometimes I’d still put some butter on it - maybe one out of every 3 times. No worries though. This is a diet of moderation. Not extremes. I think it’s not good for us to set up in our minds that we CAN’T. When we say c-a-n-’t then there is this auto-reaction that pushes us towards, w-a-n-t-i-n-g what we can’t have.

That is, what I think is behind our cravings for ice-cream, buttered popcorn, pizza with extra-extra cheese on top and cheese in the crust. I think it’s behind our buying candy bars to eat when we’re alone - and scarfing them down before anyone sees us. We want food we can’t have. So, I don’t tell myself, “You can’t have it”. I can have anything - and do. I eat Swenson’s ice-cream once per month on average and I really enjoy it. I love ice-cream, but since the “can’t” isn’t in my mind, there’s no need to eat it more than that.

Other times for dinner I’d have a plate of Kanoon (jackfruit). Sometimes I’d eat some dragonfruit. Sometimes I’d have just eat a plate full of whatever my friend made, but without rice. Sometimes I’d have BBQ chicken (gai yang) and some fruit. Sometimes a big fish (bpla Nin) - a grilled Tilapia. If I did eat meat, I always peeled away the fat. I never ate the skin on the chicken, but if the chicken was dry, I ate some skin. It was always - just take some if you want it, kill the craving for it and move on. I didn’t beat myself up over it. If I thought I ate a lot of something that wasn’t low-calorie I would think - I’ll walk a little extra that day.

I started to drink some water with my food instead of waiting until I was finished with the meal before eating. Then before long, a month I think, I was drinking a full glass of water with my meal. I noticed I ate less when I did this - as water takes up a lot of the stomach and is heavy - filling the stomach up more quickly and making me feel like the stomach is quite full with food.

I started to walk every other day no matter what - rain or shine. I’d go walking… and usually after 10 minutes of seeing everyone passing by me that was running - I HAD to be running too. I’d run until I felt tired and walk some. In Thailand one need not run a couple miles continuously to get some respect. Some Thais run… walk… run….walk… If you get too tired, just walk for a while. There’s no shame! Don’t let this stop you from going out in America either! Just by being outside walking you’re a one-percenter. If you’re running you are 1 out of 500 in the general population (my estimates). It’s OK to “just” be a one-percenter. Really!

So I made these simple changes to my diet… and you know what? Over a couple months I lost a bunch of weight. None of my pants fit, I can see veins in my arms, stomach, legs, and forehead. Not that veins are a good thing mind you. But a good thing is that now my stomach is ripped like a school boy gymnast! The killer was seeing myself in the mirror when I smiled and saw my smile had wrinkles!

I got down too low before I even realized what was happening. I remember stepping on a scale after wondering - did I lose weight - because so many people were telling me I had lost a lot. When the scale told me I weighed 156 lbs. I thought, “that scale is broken, let’s try another one”. When the next one showed lower, “152″ lbs., I realized - I lost 32 pounds without hardly trying. Trips to other scales confirmed, 152 lbs.

I felt good.

No, I felt awesome!

Running has never felt better, I am so light and I have so much energy it’s a lot of fun to run.

Now, here’s the thing… My stomach has shrunk to the point where I can’t eat enough to gain back some weight! It’s been a long road trying to gain something (3 months) but I’m finally starting to eat more and I must have gained back 8-10 pounds by now, though I’m afraid to get on the scale because maybe it’s not that much. It is difficult because I really came to like the feeling of not being bloated after I ate. Now, if I don’t feel bloated - I didn’t eat enough to gain something…

The trick once I hit the perfect weight for me - about 162 lbs., is to STAY THERE!

OK, I’m off to grab some of my favorite Haagen Dazs… coffee…. chocolate chip… pistachio!

Anyone with me?

If you have a story to share about some way that you lost weight without hardly trying I’d love to hear it. So many times we hear of these crazy diets that are so extreme, and they work for a while before people go back to their old ways because they can’t assimilate the new way to eat into their regular lifestyle. Or, it’s dangerous to eat on the diet for too long, or it’s meant for short term weight loss only.

I’d love to hear a story if you have one!

Best of Life!

I’m a very positive person 99.7% of the time. It’s just natural. I see life as a big game. I don’t take too many things very seriously. There isn’t much that brings me down emotionally, and if you know me, you’ve likely NEVER seen me in a bad mood.

That being said let me tell you about one aspect of myself that you may not know…

I am a whining baby when I’m sick. If I don’t have my girl friend around to take care of me I might as well die.

So, I really don’t like getting sick. If my head hurts, glands hurt, nose is stuffed full of crud and my throat hurts, I don’t want to do ANYTHING.

Vern is SICK ——— Vern is Healthy!

I don’t know how some people continue to come into work day after day like that. I am NOT going to work if I feel like that. There’s just no point. How can I focus on work if I can’t even breathe?

Breathing is necessary for work. I know this. Breathing is just barely necessary for sleep and so I usually choose to sleep.

Sleeping is not good for productivity. In fact, it’s the antithesis of productivity at work - yet, it is actually doing some good for the state of my body - so I sleep a lot when I’m sick. My addiction to blog is still stronger than any sickness so far so I still sit at the computer and blog for a couple hours, but mostly I just sleep.

I have some secret lifehacks for not getting the common cold. As I get older I get smarter.

These are Vern’s 15 secret lifehacks for not getting really sick with a common-cold:

1. I eat spicy food as much as possible. Living in Thailand for a couple years gave me a mouth that can withstand nearly any level of spicy chili peppers. I noticed when I was in Thailand I was only sick a few times in a couple years! I attribute it to some degree from eating spicy food every day and nearly every meal. It’s my own private logic - don’t question it. :)

2. If I notice my nose is getting stuffed up I will immediately change to this diet: HOT, SPICY SOUP for every meal. I’m not joking about this hot, spicy idea. I usually have onions, garlic, Thai chilis, and some noodles for carbs. That is my diet until I’m not sick anymore. “The Body” quickly works out that it’s not getting anything but this, hot coffee, hot water, and bananas which form the complete sick diet for this guy. There is something about eating hot and spicy that keeps the nose juice flowing. Nose flow is GOOD because the alternative is “nose no flow” which leads to sinus headaches which leads to being more miserable that a person has a need for.

3. If I notice I’m getting sick at all - I do not eat ANY dairy products at all. Zero. My friend in the Air Force had a saying… he made it up at the dinner table once as we were talking about what we do when we get sick. He said, and I quote, “Butter builds snot”. There is so much wisdom in what he said. I have noticed that it is entirely true. If I have milk, butter, cheese, yogurt, ice-cream or any other dairy product (are there more?), my nose condition instantly gets worse and worse throughout the next few days, regardless whether I have any more dairy. Now I don’t know if I’m allergic to dairy at some level, but when I’m healthy I can eat quite a bit of pizza - every day for months as I did in NYC - and no problems result. I think it’s only when I’m sick. Trust me on this one, I think it’s universal.

4. If I have exercise planned and I”m feeling the first stages of a cold - I GO exercise anyway. Unless I’m feeling soreness in my glands and muscles - as is the case with flu. Then I’ll wait a day and see what’s going on. On occasion I will purposefully go exercise when I’m sick with a cold - as it clears it right up during exercise and sometimes I swear it gets me on the road to recovery faster.

5. If I happen to be near the ocean I will go surfing, bodyboarding, bodysurfing, or swimming for a couple hours. Why? Invariably I swallow salt water and it gets up my nose a lot - especially while bodyboarding in Waikiki or at Bellows AFS on the Windward side. When that happens for some reason my nose clears RIGHT UP and either stays like that all day, or just doesn’t get bad again. Of course I need to blow my nose in the water about 19 times to get it all out - and I don’t make any friends on these trips, but it makes me feel VERY good.

6. If sex is a possibility - I try to set that up. Not solo sex, but involved with my girl friend sex. For some reason certain things really clear up how I feel. And, it’s something I’m giving, not receiving. I don’t know why, but during and after sex - my cold seems to disappear. Are you the same? I’d rather not get into exactly what the secret act is on this, you can figure it out from my one clue I think… Are you with me? ;)

7. Two words. Two very long words: Pseudophedrine Hydrochloride. Aka: Pseudaphed I think it’s called. These are small red pills - in generic or brand name form at the medication section of your grocery. You CAN take the $1.99 package of 24 pills in the generic form, because it’s all the same drug. Be careful not to take a pill that has any added ingredients because the ones they add make you sleepy. ESPECIALLY anything for chest congestion. At least they do for me. They KNOCK ME OUT if I take them. Be careful and just look for the 30mg small red tablets and read the label. I take one initially and drink a lot of hot water while I’m on them because they dry me out if I don’t.

8. I drink hot water and never cold. I don’t drink anything cold if I am beginning to get sick. If I do, I immediately feel much worse and it usually leads to a full-blown cold.

9. Ice-cream, as you can imagine - is the worst thing you could possibly have if you are feeling a little bit sick but it’s not full blown. I never have it if I feel anything except perfect, healthy, fit, and slim. LOL. But when I do have it, I could eat a quart of Haagen Dazs Coffee flavored ice-cream.

10. Do not under any circumstances marry or date a teacher, nurse, doctor, dentist, or cub scout leader. You are just ASKING for an extra 4 colds per year if you do so. Anyone that interacts with many people each day - whether touching people or not - is asking for it.

11. If I touch a doorknob or anything that others touch - I wash my hands, use the 99% germ-free alcohol gel, wipe my hands on my pants, and I’m very conscious about not touching my face - including blowing my nose until I’ve washed my hands. In the restroom I get some toilet paper in my hand before I hit the lever to flush. If there’s none available, I don’t flush. I’m not touching that thing without it. I then wash my hands. I then grab a paper towel or more toilet paper and open the restroom door, tossing out the paper into the trash that is usually right next to the door.

12. When I must grasp a door handle to open the door I try to grab it in a location where others don’t normally grab it. It’s difficult - and I look funny doing it - but I believe it helps.

13. My girlfriend doesn’t get touched or kissed as long as she is sick and for a few days after. This seems cruel, but she asked for it because she got sick. ;)

14. I keep myself warm when I’m sick. Too warm. I actually want to make myself sweat if possible. If there is a sauna nearby, I’m in it. If there is a jacuzzi - I’m there. When I sleep I put a shirt over my head so my breath stays hot while I breathe in and out all night. I don’t ever have a fan on when I’m sick.

15. Part of the reason I don’t like office-work for others is that they use the air conditioning too much. Even if I have air-con I like to use a fan instead, or open the windows up so they’re blowing. Air-con dries the sinuses and makes me ripe for colds. If I have a cold there is almost nothing worse than sitting in air conditioning eating ice-cream and cheese covered pizza for someone’s birthday party.

Those are the things I do to try to avoid a cold before I get it. Sometimes I still get one though it’s rare now. On average I get a cold 1 time per year. I don’t mean influenza, I mean a simple, common-cold that lasts 1-4 days. I noticed that when I moved away from the North USA (Pennsylvania and New York City) that I get fewer colds too.

Best of Life!

What are your tricks for avoiding common colds?

What about once you have a cold, how do you lessen it’s effects?

Do you know someone that NEVER gets common colds? What do you think is the secret? Can you ask them and write a comment on this post?

Do you know of any other blog posts that are about this subject? Can you send me the links?

Stay away from getting sick…

use these common-cold lifehacks!