Chasing after the Doritos

Over the last 2 years I have lost 35 pounds. The first thing I hear from people I haven’t seen in a long time is “wow, you have lost a lot of weight.” Quite frankly, it pisses me off. I understand it’s meant as a compliment, but I’m annoyed that people make such an issue about weight. I want to tell them that it may be important to them, but it’s not important to me. It may sound like a double standard. You may be asking, “if weight wasn’t a big deal, then why did you lose 35lbs Quinn?” I wasn’t trying to lose weight. I just wanted to be healthy, so I worked out and ate better. The weight loss just happened. Big effing deal. I ’m not going to go into how our culture makes a big deal about weight and how basically it has women everywhere obsessing over their body size. Men too. People have become consumed with weight. Just don’t drag me into it. If you want to lose weight that fine, and if you don’t that’s fine too. I deleted 2 friends from facebook that want to share their weight loss by taking half naked pictures of themselves and posting them. Screw that. IT’S FOR YOU, NOT ME. Keep it to yourself. I understand that people get excited about weight loss and all that, but I don’t value weight loss that way. Often weight loss comes at the cost of health through excessive exercise or eating disorders like anorexia. I would much prefer that people who haven’t seen me to say, “wow Quinn, it looks like you have made a bunch of positive changes over the last year. You seem really emotionally healthy.” Maybe I’m asking too much, but please don’t comment on the size of my belly because I don’t give a shit.

Nia Vardalos wrote an amazing blog about this (Don’t ask why I was reading this. Haha). She also lost a lot of weight and wrote about people’s response to that. I feel like it really hits the nail on the head. She says this:

“So, what exactly is up with my weight loss? I get hit with this awkward question daily and have answered it in press interviews, at the grocery store, at the newspaper stand. Why? Because I see their anxious, open faces needing the secret, the new pill, the cure, anything. Just please share the secret. So I hesitantly answer and am always met with the same response: the glaze-eye slack-jawed face.

Because they don’t want to hear the truth: I had a blood sugar problem so my Doctor ordered me to lose weight, it was really hard but I did it through diet, exercise and it took a year.

This is when the boredom sets in on the querying person. I might as well just shove an Ambien up their nostril. The gleam in their eye fades and they get sleepy.

No one wants to hear the facts about weight loss. It’s simple. Take that bag of Doritos and throw it as far as you can. Now chase after it. Pick it up, do it again.

Or don’t. You don’t have to lose weight, unless like me, it becomes an issue of health. I thought I was attractive when I shot ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding.’ Studio executives and movie reviewers let me know I had a confidence in my looks that was not shared by them. In other words: they labeled me with words like, overweight, unattractive, unappealing. Hey, just say fat. I love the word fat. I used it in the title. It’s actually not a naughty word. We give it a power it actually doesn’t have. So, you’re fat. Big deal.”

The entire post can be found here

I have heard a bunch of people say that you can’t eat healthy for cheap. Or without cooking for hours. Or that it’s just too hard. I want to point out that I still eat dessert and junk food….constantly. I just balance it with healthy stuff too. I make the bad calories count. Just to testify that you can eat for cheap, I have eaten pretty much the same thing for breakfast and lunch every day for 2 years. Without further ado, here is the recipe for the meal that lost me a ton of weight:

The Q sangwich
Deli Honey Ham or Turkey
One pound lasts me a week. This is obviously contingent on how much you use on one sandwich. I put 4-5 slices depending one my workout schedule for the day. I found that honey ham tastes better, but I use turkey from time to time. This is also really good without any meat. For all the gay vegetarians I know.

Handful of spring greens
I buy the organic brand spring greens, but you can really use any blend for this. For ease of use I buy the ones in the plastic tub so I can reuse. All of this is catered to the bachelor, so it requires a little work as possible.

Sliced cucumber
Again one cucumber lasts me a week. I slice and peel the cucumber at the beginning of the week and make the sandwich fresh every morning. It really important that you put the cucumber between the greens and meat, otherwise the bread will get soggy.

Whole wheat bread
I shouldn’t have to tell anyone that this is pretty much the only bread I eat (if I eat any bread). If you’re looking for healthy this is pretty much the only way to go.

Laughing Cow Light Creamy Garlic and Herb Cheese
This is the kicker. Extremely low calorie and super tasty. You can buy it in little cubes or in wedges, so I just throw it in my lunch pail. It takes the place of any condiment you would put on a sandwich. It’s a soft spread so I just put it on at work, so it doesn’t get soggy.

Homemade trail mix
Raw almonds, walnuts and dried cranberries. I buy this stuff at sprouts in bulk and make portions ahead of time. That way every morning I just throw a Ziploc bag of it in my lunch pail. The almonds are about 5 bucks a pound, but can buy 3 pounds for 10 bucks at Costco. Remember they have to be raw (not roasted or salted). This is great for anyone who works out- proteins, omega 3’s and a little sugar. If I don’t have trail mix, I’ll eat a little nonfat yogurt.

2 pieces of fruit
I buy whatever is on sale, but my default is fuji apples.

Try it out and let me know what you think. Or eat a double fucking cheeseburger…who cares.

Bread and Bailouts Pt II - Under the sun

The most frustrating part of the whole bailout thing is the insane amount of injustice. I work for a small company and have to watch single moms get fired while CEOs are sitting on a beach in Greece. It got me thinking a lot about injustice. There is something innately human about desiring justice. I understand why we want to see people punished when they hurt others. Unfortunately sometimes evil can be borne out of a desire for justice. The death penalty is one example. Vigilante justice is another. Think of the abortionist who was murdered at his church by an anti-abortion nutcase. The killer believed he was saving millions of lives by killing this guy. He believed he was carrying out deserved justice. Whether it’s absurd government bailouts or ethnic genocide injustice is part of living in a broken world. It’s brutal and awful.

It seems like a huge mistake to try to measure who deserves justice. We recently consolidated buildings and to see who gets an office and who doesn’t is totally maddening. One conclusion I came to is that my view of what people do for our company is limited that I simply cannot judge who needs an office and who doesn’t. I was mostly upset because I didn’t get one. Do I deserve one? Who knows?!?! It’s easy to rail on the CEOs that are getting large bonuses in this difficult time, but do we really know if they deserve them. Do you know many hours a CEO works? In most cases it’s outrageous. I guess the point I’m making is that I have to believe that I lack to ability to determine justice. I lack the context and unbiased point of view. I noticed in our neighborhood our neighbors think we have money because we live in a newer house than the rest of Coronado. They have no idea that we pay the same as they do and our landlord was desperate to rent it so we got a steal.

I do believe that sometimes good people get screwed and bad people get away with murder. But I think our efforts to determine this often miss the mark. Can we really see situations completely?

“There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: righteous men who get what the wicked deserve, and wicked men who get what the righteous deserve.

In the place of judgment—wickedness was there,
in the place of justice—wickedness was there.

I thought in my heart,
"God will bring to judgment
both the righteous and the wicked,
for there will be a time for every activity,
a time for every deed."

Witness to another one of life's awkward moments

Walking into the breakroom for my afternoon latte I noticed one of the ladies from customer service standing over one of the tables. Out of the corner of my eye I could see her stirring a yellow powder into a pitcher of water. It looked like Gatorade so I thought nothing of it. While waiting for my water to heat I got a closer look and noticed it was some sort of ex-lax. To avoid any kind of awkward moment I quickly turned my back to entire situation. I’m not really prone to breakroom chatter so this was not an issue. I'm known around the office as the guy who doesn't talk to you. Believe it or not, that serves me well more often than not. Another co-worker strolled in for his coffee. So there we were, the 3 of us…and a pitcher of ex-lax. Thinking back I think there were basically 3 things the coworker or myself could have done:

1. Say nothing. The silence may seem awkward, but it avoids a surefire disaster. Bust out the cellphone and look engaged. No harm, no foul. I chose this option.

2. Make small talk. Talk about the D-Backs, the weather, anything but the obvious. I don’t think I would do this because my main concern would be embarrassing anyone. I don’t think this person was embarrassed otherwise they wouldn’t be owning the shit out of it in the breakroom. So light conversation wouldn’t hurt here.

3. Comment on the fact that they are stirring ex-lax powder into a pitcher of water. The coworker went right for this one, commenting “that doesn’t look like very much fun.” I’m not sure why he chose these specific words, but in hindsight I think this is the most awkward thing that could have been said. She looked embarrassed and said, “it’s not.” I did everything I could to avoid laughing and ran away from that trainwreck as quickly as possible.

It seems like my life is full of stuff like this. God wants me to witness moments like this as frequently as possible. Perhaps a lesson in humility.