It's time once again for a few healthy eating tips from David the Dietician!*
(*note - David is not an actual "registered" dietician in the strictest sense of the word [if by "registered" you mean qualified in any way to give dietary advice], but just because he's never taken a dietetics class, read a dietetics book or [if you want to get technical] eaten an entire vegetable, doesn't mean he doesn't know enough about dietetics to have survived to the ripe age of 27. And if that's not enough, his sister is a dietician...and we're pretty sure these kinds of things are genetic.)
People approach me constantly and ask how it is that I maintain my fantastic figure while consuming a diet made up almost entirely of otter pops, corn dogs and Hostess products. They often marvel at the fact that I haven't intentionally consumed a so-called "vitamin" or "mineral" since 1972. I've always been one to give the public what it wants...and so in response to repeated and adamant inquiries, I've compiled this list of David Keithly's Do's and Don'ts of Dining Dietetically:
1. DO freeze your hoho's before eating. In addition to rendering them absolutely DELICIOUS, this quick and easy solution also helps to burn calories. Think about it - what is a calorie (also known as a megawatt)? It's the amount of energy it takes to raise 1 gram of water 1 degree celsius. So, in order to bring the temperature of the hoho up to a digestable level, your body will literally have to use at least (insert large number here) calories. The more you eat, the more calories you burn. Also, the colder the hoho, the more calories you burn. So, if you have one of those industrial strength freezers, or some liquid nitrogen, you can go ahead and throw away that gym pass.
2. DO NOT shop at Trader Joe's...unless you're buying their holiday caramel corn with peppermint and dark chocolate - OR the candy cane oreos. My reasons for a ban on Trader Joe's are almost too numerous to...um...number. For one - only tree-huggers shop at Trader Joe's. Secondly, they no longer carry the sugar-coated dried pineapples that were, for me, the only reason to enter the store outside of the holiday season. Finally - the word "organic" in Navajo actually means "death to the white man"...and while you may think it's worth the risk to go there and buy your vegan pork tenderloin, you'll thank me when the scalping begins.
3. DO skip breakfast. Contrary to popular belief...and the advice of so-called "experts", breakfast not only is the LEAST important meal of the day, it's also the only meal that was actually created by Satan himself. You'll find this somewhere in the Bible. Breakfast has been proven to increase energy levels and brain function early in the morning - and, let's face it - nobody likes a Spunky Sally before noon.
4. DO NOT, under any circumstances, eat mushrooms. Some people might argue that mushrooms are both safe and delicious - but the thing that they're not taking into consideration is that they're idiots. Mushrooms are deadly...I've lost dozens of friends to mushroom attacks in the last year alone. And while we're on the subject - who in their right mind would want to eat something that grows on urine soaked carpet if left untended? This one may require some explanation - back in the 80s (which was a horrible decade, but that's a story for another entry) we lived in a large house on a golf course. Now, because this house was fancy-shmancy, some misguided homebuilder decided to put carpet in the boys bathroom upstairs. With four boys regularly using the bathroom, and two of those boys under the age of 6, let's just say that the collective "aim" of the younger generation still required a bit of honing. As a result, occasionally urine would end up on the aforementioned carpet. One fateful day, I woke up and found my way to the bathroom to get ready for school. When I went to use the facilities, i looked down and saw that mushrooms (similar to the ones you crazies pay good money for at the store) had sprouted from the urine-soaked carpet. Now, I agree that carpet in bathrooms is a bad idea, especially in cases where at least 50% of the end users don't value "aim" - but on that day I learned a valuable lesson: mushrooms show up when your little brothers pee on the carpet. So the next time you're ordering that pizza and you're thinking - "ooh, mushrooms sound good"...I hope you remember this story - and remember that most mushrooms are made up of over 83% urine.
So, until next time - remember: frozen food is ALWAYS better (and better for you)...and beware the Indians at Trader Joe's.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Faith
Since I was a boy, I've believed that my life would end up a certain way. One day I would grow up and when I crossed that threshold into adulthood, there would be certain things just sitting around waiting for me - there would be a great job, a wife, a few kids, a couple of dogs (although I've never been crazy about them), a house with a white picket fence, and all the junk food I could possibly eat. For the longest time, this was more than some ethereal vision of what my life would some day be, I viewed these things with a sense of entitlement that defies comprehension. And yet part of me knew with near-perfect faith, that those things would one day be mine.
Now, had things worked out as I had envisioned, I certainly wouldn't have time to blog - what with all the kids and dogs and picket fences running around causing a ruckus. But since the only thing waiting for me when I crossed that threshold was the nearly unlimited supply of junk food, I find myself wifeless, kidless, dogless, houseless, and fenceless...with plenty of time to blog and plenty of questions about faith that need answering.
See, I always learned that faith meant believing in something you couldn't see that was true. I also learned that God loves all of his children and wants the best for them. So when you add the simplified version of faith with the idea of a loving God, you get my recipe for the ideal adult life. And the best part about it is that all you have to do to make it happen is believe (I feel a Disney song coming on)...and somehow all that belief travels to some metaphysical realm where's it's transformed into tangible reality and delivered back to you with a big red bow. Somehow I made it through quite a lot of my adolescence with this "faith is like an ez-bake oven" theory firmly entrenched in my mind. It wasn't until I grew up and didn't find my perfect life waiting that I really started to question this theory.
Now I realize that there are plenty of problems with the above theory...and I have neither the time, nor the energy to explore each of the many fallacies I happily ignored for all those years. But somewhere along the way, I started to doubt. I doubted my theory. I doubted the premises upon which I had based my theory...and ultimately I found myself in a decidedly unhappy place. I had developed a certain sense of entitlement...and like a spoiled child who doesn't get his way, I felt somehow betrayed when I wasn't given those things I felt entitled to. So there was a lot of complaining and mumuring and listening to whiny music...until I finally realized what it was I'd been missing.
This is extremely simple, but also extremely important, and disturbingly easy to forget or even miss altogether. The reason faith works, and the reason my ez-bake oven analogy didn't is that faith is a principle of action. So faith leads to miracles and all sorts of other fantastic things...and all because ordinary men and women find the courage and tenacity to step out of the realm of belief and into the realm of action.
So here's the moral of the story - the wife, the kids, the dogs, the house, the fence, the job, the candy...they're all out there...they're just waiting for you to stop waiting.
Now, had things worked out as I had envisioned, I certainly wouldn't have time to blog - what with all the kids and dogs and picket fences running around causing a ruckus. But since the only thing waiting for me when I crossed that threshold was the nearly unlimited supply of junk food, I find myself wifeless, kidless, dogless, houseless, and fenceless...with plenty of time to blog and plenty of questions about faith that need answering.
See, I always learned that faith meant believing in something you couldn't see that was true. I also learned that God loves all of his children and wants the best for them. So when you add the simplified version of faith with the idea of a loving God, you get my recipe for the ideal adult life. And the best part about it is that all you have to do to make it happen is believe (I feel a Disney song coming on)...and somehow all that belief travels to some metaphysical realm where's it's transformed into tangible reality and delivered back to you with a big red bow. Somehow I made it through quite a lot of my adolescence with this "faith is like an ez-bake oven" theory firmly entrenched in my mind. It wasn't until I grew up and didn't find my perfect life waiting that I really started to question this theory.
Now I realize that there are plenty of problems with the above theory...and I have neither the time, nor the energy to explore each of the many fallacies I happily ignored for all those years. But somewhere along the way, I started to doubt. I doubted my theory. I doubted the premises upon which I had based my theory...and ultimately I found myself in a decidedly unhappy place. I had developed a certain sense of entitlement...and like a spoiled child who doesn't get his way, I felt somehow betrayed when I wasn't given those things I felt entitled to. So there was a lot of complaining and mumuring and listening to whiny music...until I finally realized what it was I'd been missing.
This is extremely simple, but also extremely important, and disturbingly easy to forget or even miss altogether. The reason faith works, and the reason my ez-bake oven analogy didn't is that faith is a principle of action. So faith leads to miracles and all sorts of other fantastic things...and all because ordinary men and women find the courage and tenacity to step out of the realm of belief and into the realm of action.
So here's the moral of the story - the wife, the kids, the dogs, the house, the fence, the job, the candy...they're all out there...they're just waiting for you to stop waiting.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
"Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition" - Alexander Smith
I remember one Valentine's day a few years ago when I was still in college. Since I'm a huge slacker, I was single at the time - but rather than sitting at home staring at the walls feeling sorry for myself, I decided to stop being such a bum and bring some Valentine's joy into the lives of some of the single ladies in my ward. I went to Sam's club and bought enough chocolate to feed a small army of single women, and went door to door bestowing boxes of chocolates and reciting poetry - like some strange love child of Cupid and Santa.
And so although it's a little impossible to deliver chocolate via blog - I can continue the tradition with a couple of my favorite poems. So here's a little reason to hope for everyone else who's sitting at home alone tonight...and a little reason to thank God for those who are lucky enough to find themselves in the arms of a lover.
And perhaps my all-time favorite poem:
And so although it's a little impossible to deliver chocolate via blog - I can continue the tradition with a couple of my favorite poems. So here's a little reason to hope for everyone else who's sitting at home alone tonight...and a little reason to thank God for those who are lucky enough to find themselves in the arms of a lover.
Sonnet CXVI
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
--William Shakespeare
And perhaps my all-time favorite poem:
somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands
-- e. e. cummings
Have a very happy Valentine's Day!
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Colorado
I recently spent a few days snowboarding in Colorado. Word to the wise - if you're planning snowboarding for three days in a row, it's a good idea to let your body know what's about to happen. Unfortunately, I gave my body no such warning. Surpringly enough, it's not the best idea to go for three months with your exercise consisting of playing guitar hero on "hard" and then suddenly expect your legs to cooperate on a double black diamond. I praise the heavens for Advil and Ben Gay...and had a fantastic trip! It snowed on the first day we were there so we got to board VAIL with 6-8 inches of fresh powder.
Other than the boarding, I'm going to say that the best part of our trip had to be the hotel room. If you're ever in a town called Frisco, you'll have to check out the Woods Inn. If you're lucky and you slip the receptionist a $20, they just might put you in room 201...and THAT, my friends is where the vacation begins. "I didn't know you could get that much animal hair onto one bedspread," you might say, but I wouldn't worry too much about that, you won't be getting much sleep on the sleep-defying mattress. You'll be thankful that the last guests left some coffee in the cups for you...and for the claustrophobic guest who's afraid of the "cozy" bathroom, they thought of that when they left the "ventilation hole" in the door. The adventure continues with the cable...which works like a dream provided you change the channel every 6.3 seconds...otherwise you may run into some trouble.
Here are a few pictures. We spent a little time in Denver too...but, trust me, you wouldn't want to see pictures of the Denverites. Colorado may have the lowest percentage of obese people (bravo!) but after spending some time there, I'm fairly certain that the ugly stick lives and works (and works hard) in Denver.
Other than the boarding, I'm going to say that the best part of our trip had to be the hotel room. If you're ever in a town called Frisco, you'll have to check out the Woods Inn. If you're lucky and you slip the receptionist a $20, they just might put you in room 201...and THAT, my friends is where the vacation begins. "I didn't know you could get that much animal hair onto one bedspread," you might say, but I wouldn't worry too much about that, you won't be getting much sleep on the sleep-defying mattress. You'll be thankful that the last guests left some coffee in the cups for you...and for the claustrophobic guest who's afraid of the "cozy" bathroom, they thought of that when they left the "ventilation hole" in the door. The adventure continues with the cable...which works like a dream provided you change the channel every 6.3 seconds...otherwise you may run into some trouble.
Here are a few pictures. We spent a little time in Denver too...but, trust me, you wouldn't want to see pictures of the Denverites. Colorado may have the lowest percentage of obese people (bravo!) but after spending some time there, I'm fairly certain that the ugly stick lives and works (and works hard) in Denver.
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