Tag: food

I’ve done some stupid things in my life

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

But I’m about to do one of the more dumber things that I probably don’t really need to be doing.  Especially when I’m already starting every single day at like an eight out of ten on the stress level as it is.  But who knows, maybe this is something that can serve to be a distraction to how discontent I am with certain aspects of my life, and such would be tremendously welcome to help take my mind off how much my job makes me completely miserable.  But on the flipside, as a result of this little experiment, I might be hangry all the time, and serve to make not just my own life, but those of my wife and child miserable if I’m a torrent of anger all the time.

For the next month, or rather 28 days, I’m going to be embarking on the Dr. Nowzaradan diet plan, of 1,200 calories a day, high protein-low carb.  Or, for however long it takes for me to tap out and give in to the hunger, to which I really don’t want to fail because I don’t like failing in anything that I set out to accomplish.

Why the fuck am I going to be putting myself through this kind of hell?  I don’t weigh 600 lbs. I’m not trying to get weight loss surgery.  But after years of watching My 600 Lb. Life on TLC the greatest network in the history of humankind, I’ve been clowning on the people who appear on the show for ages now.  They’re fascinating specimens of human beings, and it’s not so much of the train wreck of watching another human being that has somehow managed to balloon up to 600+ lbs. as much as it’s always interesting to learn about their history and their mental conditions that led to such horrific downward spirals.

But the fact is that I have been clowning on the vast majority of the people, especially the ones who are quick to say yes, that they can cold turkey embark on the Dr. Now diet of 1,200 calories a day, but then fall so tremendously short of their initial weight loss goals, which has fluctuated between 50 in a month, 60 in two, or for those who really break the scales at first weigh-in, 100 in two.  So, as mythical wife and I were watching the latest episode (S9 E12), and Tammy bungled her way through her first period of time and naturally missed the mark completely, and I asked her, I wonder if I could do the Dr. Now diet?

And just like that, the ball began rolling, and here I am, on the cusp of putting my life into dietary hell, for literally no reason at all other than to see if I can do it.  I spent what little time I had today to do some cursory research on what kind of meals I could be eating, along with what foods I should be avoiding, and I’m more or less prepared to dive right in starting tomorrow, and only time will tell how miserable I’ll be, or how it’s not that hard after all, and perhaps I’ll lose some weight in the process.

Naturally, my goal isn’t just to do the diet, but also to brog about it each and every day, as if I didn’t already have enough things going on in my life to also take a slice of time to throw down some words about the experience.  But who knows, much like the beer testing in December, maybe it’ll encourage me to write more, and maybe I’ll actually spit up some quality words in the process.

So the parameters are quite simple:

  • 1,200 calories a day; most likely spread across three meals, and maybe some compliant snacks, but the end goal is as close to 1,200 calories at the end of the day as possible
  • I will continue doing my usual exercises, which has really been reduced to 100 push-ups a day, and running three miles, typically three times a week
  • I will try my best to document the food that I am eating for each meal, photos if I’m feeling ambitious
  • In the event that I tap out, it will be announced that I have tremendously failed and admit that I’m an asshole who doesn’t actually understand just how hard it is for the people on My 600 Lb. Life to do their thing

But if I do succeed, hopefully I’ll have lost some weight, and maybe have broken some bad habits in the process.  All the same, I’m already thinking of the things that I’ll probably go apeshit on once the diet is off, and the primary reason why I’ve chosen 28 days is that any longer collides with my birthday, and I think the chances are higher that I’d want to indulge in some capacity around then.  Who knows though, either indulging will wreck me, since I’d been eating clean for 28 days, or I’ll have gotten so used to eating clean that I won’t want to break the streak of cleanliness, even for my birthday.

An unprecedented season of My 600 Lb. Life

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

If this post sucks beyond the reason than you just don’t happen to like my style of writing, it’s because Windows sucks, and locked up trying to go into fucking screen saver mode, and my only option was to hard reset, and I lost my original post and trains of thought.  Whenever something like that happens, I write with salt, because I’m determined to get my point across, but at the same time too exasperated to try and remember all the things that I wrote prior.

Anyway, what we have here is that lost amidst the oceans of television content out there, is an unprecedented season 9 of My 600 Lb. Life, where we have literally had a season where six episodes in, not a single patient has successfully made it onto the surgery table and had weight loss surgery.

Obviously it’s not much of a show about weight loss if every single patient in the season is failing, but the reality is that My 600 Lb. Life really isn’t so much about the weight loss itself as much as it is putting the spotlight on trainwrecks of human beings, making bad choices, dealing with mental issues, and because humanity seems to have a strange fascination with watching people eat, watching morbidly obese people eat terrible, horrible choices. 

I like to think people like to watch, because they can try to vicariously live through them in eating all of the delicious guilty pleasures in the world, without doing it themselves and then ballooning up to 600 lbs.

Anyway, it’s still amazing that we’ve had a season where nobody has succeeded.  One patient succeeded in losing the initial weight, but there were some overlying medical conditions that made the surgery inadvisable despite the fact that he met Dr. Now’s milestones, but the episode still ends with them not getting surgery, and likely to be followed up on My 600 Lb. Life – Where Are They Now?

Obviously, coronavirus has a lot to do with some of this, as I’m sure it’s been real difficult for TLC to scrape together a roster to film for season 9, because if there are any people who are the very definition of at-risk patients, it’s the morbidly obese.  But as those in the biz often say, the show must go on, and by hell or high water, My 600 Lb. Life has continued, and not only have we viewers seen a tremendous amount of failure throughout the season, we’ve seen some other anomalous things, like Dr. Now making a house call for the very first time (that I’m aware of), and I’m pretty sure one of the patients actually never made it to Houston and did their entire episode from wherever the fuck, America they were.

Honestly though, the failure doesn’t even matter.  It’s hardly a show about the weight loss anymore, as I previously said.  I think that viewers are more intrigued by the characters on the show, but none more than Dr. Now himself, who has either by directive of showrunners, to turn the heat up and deliver some more biting and meme-able lines, or just by virtue of dealing with so much bullshit, so many false promises, and seeing so much failure first-hand, that his resolve for his patients has deteriorated to where he’s snippy and claps back with some truly great remarks.  I can’t really speak for anyone but my wife and I, but we most definitely take a lot of enjoyment at the ironically entertaining things he says to his patients after he gives them three munt to lose 75 pounds and then they come back having lost anywhere from 8-14.

By now though, I’m actively rooting for a season in which we have a 100% failure rate.  I doubt it’s going to happen, but it would be truly epic on the lines of a 72-win Bulls season if we were to actually have a single season where nobody makes it onto the table.  And the best part of the show is that even if and likely when I get debunked and proven wrong, it’s always a delight to see the people who do get their shit together and drop weight, get surgery and then drop even more weight, because when things are going right, it’s really easy to root for these guys.

Make Em Say Ughhhh . . . on the crapper

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I grimace face’d: has been rapper Master P releases line of instant food with the intention of replacing Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben, aptly called “Uncle P’s”

Lately, I’ve been in one of my writer’s ruts.  My janky ring finger that makes it occasionally difficult to type, combined with the fact that now that my brog is back up, I haven’t really found a good rhythm to write, and I’ve kind of lost touch with all the sites I used to hit up to seek out inspiration.  And then there’s that thing called “the baby” which commands the vast majority of all my days, and I sometimes struggle to find things to want to write about, or find the time to carve out in which to do some writing.

It’s times like these, when stories like Uncle P’s Louisiana Seasoned instant food line, kind of help trigger my brain into spurting out words again, and see if I can break some of the rust that’s forming on my writing chops before they go too dormant.

Honestly, my first thought when I read the headline and then saw the hero image was, is this for fucking real??

I haven’t heard Master P’s name since like, 2000 when he showed up on WCW to do a rap vs. country music storyline that ironically ended up with the heel country faction helmed by the late great Curt Hennig inadvertently getting super over, when it was obviously clear that the rap faction was the intended stars.

He also released this shitty song that somehow was always in the top-5 music videos on MTV that I used to watch the countdown after school because I literally didn’t know what else to watch and MTV seemed like it might be cool.  Coincidentally, the lyrics are what I would imagine the average Uncle P’s customer would be doing, while on the crapper after eating too much of Uncle P’s hackneyed instant food products.

Continue reading “Make Em Say Ughhhh . . . on the crapper” →

Grasping at the low-hanging fruit obvious joke

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A Maruchan plant in Chesterfield, Virginia reported seven employees testing positive for coronavirus.

If they were forced to destroy all product manufactured in the presence of these infected employees, Maruchan stands to lose $7.82.

Don’t get me wrong, few things are as guilty pleasure than instant ramen and their 9 billion grams of sodium per pack, and as a proponent of limiting waste, I don’t like to hear stories of so much food having to go to waste.  But the joke is so obvious, it has to be made.

How is this even a debate?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Chick fil-A. Waffle House. American Deli. The Varsity.  Four Atlanta-born restaurants; if you had to kill one, which one would it be?

I think it’s safe to say that Chick fil-A and Waffle House are immediately safe.  Jesus’s chicken, although I would still slot it underneath Bojangles, still has the greatest app in the history of apps, and its ease of use probably drives more Chick fil-A visits than the average fast food joint for me. 

Waffle House also holds a special place in not just mine, but should in just about every breathing human being alive.  Whether it’s the garbage food that always hits the spot, the fact that they’re never closed, or the stories of interesting characters we’ve all seen, there’s absolutely no reason at all to even consider Waffle House for the chopping block.

Now American Deli, I had no idea was even started in Atlanta, much less considered remotely respectable to even be put into this competition.  I always associate American Deli’s as food options always seen at the sketchy mall or shopping center, and that in spite of the “American” in the name, I don’t think I’ve ever once seen someone that was probably born in the United States actually working at one.  The menu is homogenized and overpriced, and there’s never an instance where there’s not a better option available around one.

Which means The Varsity has to fucking go.  Honestly, this really shouldn’t even be a debate.  The Varsity is pretty much the worst food available in the entire city of Atlanta and the state of Georgia.  I mean look at the food in the picture above; I’m pretty sure I could have a bowel movement onto a bun and it would look more appetizing than that trash.

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Impossible Burgers are pretty good

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

For a while, I’ve wanted to try an Impossible Burger AKA the meatless, plant-based burger that allegedly pulls off pretending to be a beef patty, impossibly well.  I was pretty alright with the idea of swinging by a Burger King to try an Impossible Whopper to see what all the fuss was about, but mythical wife was convinced that I needed to try one at a real restaurant and not a fast food joint, so that I can get a more accurate bar of what an Impossible Burger was capable of.

It also doesn’t help that maybe it’s just Georgia, or the general state of Burger King as a company, but I realized it’s pretty challenging finding nearly as many Burger Kings these days as there are just about any other fast food joint out there.  Needless to say, I ended up waiting a little bit before I would get my chance to try one of these hamburgers of myth.

But over the weekend, I finally got to try one.  Mythical wife took me to the restaurant she had in mind where I should try one, and I was pretty excited to get to try it finally.

Honestly, if nobody ever told me that what I had eaten was an Impossible Burger or any other plant-based, meatless hamburger, then I probably wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference.  It tasted like a hamburger, the consistency was that of a typical hamburger, and like I said if I didn’t know it wasn’t actual meat, then I would’ve just figured I had a regular beef hamburger.

In all fairness, I have a tendency to like my burgers pretty loaded, so what I had eaten was with lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, grilled onions and ketchup and mustard, so the general flavors do get jumbled up in some bites.  Admittedly, there is a slight flavor difference in the patty itself, but it’s pretty miniscule and I ask myself if I’d even have noticed it if I didn’t already have in the back of my mind that what I was eating wasn’t beef.  It’s kind of a slightly more earthy flavor, which isn’t necessarily bad, but it’s the tiniest hint that it wasn’t real beef.

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It couldn’t have happened anywhere else

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In short: 28-year old man stabbed to death over Popeyes’ chicken sandwich in Oxon Hill, Maryland

Honestly, I’m more surprised it’s taken this long for there to be any killings over Popeyes’ chicken sandwich (that I haven’t been able to try but am highly skeptical that it has any possibility of living up to the hype much less being superior to Chick Fil-A or Bojangles).  Maybe there have been, but considering that nothing’s made the news like this one, I’m led to believe that this is the first.

But there we have it: a person was killed over the artificial mania created over a fucking chicken sandwich.

If this really was the first incident of someone dying over the craze over the Popeyes chicken sandwich, I have to say that it really couldn’t have first happened anywhere else than Oxon Hill, Maryland.  I’m actually quite familiar with Oxon Hill, and it’s not just me flinging shit and generalizing because I have an innate disdain for the state of Maryland; seeing as how my parents’ old barbecue restaurant was in Oxon Hill for seven years, and how I worked there for the last two, is specifically why I’m familiar with Oxon Hill and had developed such a disdain for the state of Maryland.

In fact, my parents’ old restaurant was literally two doors down the strip plaza from this specific Popeyes’ where a guy was stabbed to death over a chicken sandwich.  One my biggest pet peeves I had when I worked there was when people would get their meals at Popeyes and bring them into my parents’ restaurant and bought a small drink from us so they could justify sitting in our tiny dining area to eat because our business was so poor the last few years.

Continue reading “It couldn’t have happened anywhere else” →