Here with Andrew

I wanted to write about this awhile back but it totally slipped my mind for a second. I always remember the reactions that people get when daylight savings comes around and we end up moving our clocks forward one hour. That means…

1) “Losing” an hour of sleep
2) Having to adjust your sleep schedule accordingly that first night
3) Deciding whether or not your cell phone will change its clock no its own and adjust your alarm accordingly (I failed at this on Sunday; ended up getting up late for badminton).

The biggest benefit for me though, which is probably the same case for a lot of people, is that it’s still bright when it’s late. This really helps after a long day of work since i’m able to head home or head out when it’s still bright, even at 6 or 7 pm. Heck, I went for a run yesterday and it was still bright even by 7:30 pm finished.

But what are some other implications of this time change? Apparently, it can also negatively affect people. If people have troubles adjusting to the time, then they’re not as awake. I think there have been studies done to show that the Monday after a time change, drivers are not as alert. That’s pretty scary especially since I was thinking about as I was on the highway on the way to school…

I also think there’s a general lack of awareness of daylight savings. To be honest, I had no idea it was coming up until someone had mentioned it to me. I bet Google gets a significant percentage increase in search results for words like daylight savings, or losing a word, on the few days before and after it happens. Would be cool to know.

Hopefully the implications of Daylight Saving are positive for you and that you’ve adjusted by now. I definitely know how bad it feels to “lose” an hour but once we gain that hour later on in a year, life feels awesome again!

I sort of lagged on the blogging again so sorry for those who were frequent visitors of my site. At the same time though, I don’t necessarily regret it because I can comfortably say that i’m not forcing myself to shoot entries that are meaningless just for the sake of blogging as a chore. Blogging is a hobby, and I intend to keep it that way. Chores just have too much of a negative connotation associated with it. Although the sense of accomplishment that comes up with finishing a chore can be quite nice…

What does the title of this blog entry mean? Here’s some background.

Ever since I was a kid, I loved McDonalds. Having it for lunch on Wedns was a highlight of a child’s day. Having it for lunch while at school was even better. As years progressed, I began to eat it less and less but frequently enough that the golden taste of their fries kept tempting me all the time. I still remember the first time I dipped fries into the ice cream. It tasted so good.

Twice in my life have I had birthdays at McDonalds. Once was when I was younger. We were all sitting at the mock bar and my dad was ordering food for all of us. We had a great time; I wish I could find some pictures to show everyone of it. Even till today that McDonalds is still standing and i’ve seen it go through many renovations. Does anyone still remember the playplaces in McDonalds?

The second time was when I had a mock post birthday one month later event with some close friends from elementary and high school. I worded it as a get together but it was not as “epic”, if you will, as I had planned.. It was very different; we had all driven there and not everyone even ate much. It still amazes me how much time has passed since our childhood.

Now we fast forward to now. Last week I went to see a doctor and she recommended that I stop having junk food altogether. This was a huge lifestyle decision I had to make. I have been exercising fairly frequently the past few years; this really started to be a regular habit probably closer to grade 8. She also recommended that I cut out a bunch of other things but I doubt i’ll be able to keep up with that (beef included). My heart has been very healthy the past few years and i’m proud of it.

Today, my mom decided not to cook and wanted me to buy McDonalds. I have been sick the past few days and didn’t really want it, but I couldn’t think of much else. So I drove off to pick up lunch for both of us.

The quality of the meal wasn’t much different. 10 piece chicken mcnugget meal with large fries, medium Coke, and McDouble (basically a double cheeseburger with no double cheese but two patties) without mustard or pickles. All with Barbeque and McChicken Sauce.

The feeling wasn’t the same though. These past two years, I have started to feel really uncomfortable after having some food from McDonalds. The feeling is great when you are really craving it and you want it really badly. But today, not feeling up to McDonalds plus the after feeling was the deal breaker for me.

I will not have food from McDonalds  anymore unless there are no other good alternatives given the circumstances.

As a company, I think McDonalds is excellent at what it does no doubt about it. My loyalty towards it as a customer for the past 14+ years must mean something. If I had the money, I might invest in the company and buy some shares. Even after watching Supersize Me, I continued to have Mc Donalds. But it’s time to make a lifestyle choice if i’m going to hit my health goal.

I think this is a good decision for me, for now, isn’t it?

Edit: McDonalds is giving out free Coffee March 1 – March 14. Just a heads up for you guys

I bet that if anyone was to ask any of my friends what one of my New Years Resolutions were for the past 10 years, 95% of them would say that losing weight is one of them. Even till today, this happens to be one of my biggest goals. I put in time to exercise (once a day with a break every few days) yet I still continue to gain weight consistently. What am I doing wrong?

I’ve made a move towards the “eat smaller meals but more often throughout the day” lifestyle. Everyone throws this idea around but I don’t think everyone knows the reasoning behind it. Smaller meals are better because this technique keeps your metabolism and digestion working throughout the day and allowing you to burn more calories in that process. Plus, you address that whole hungry feeling that you get that psychologically convinces you that you can eat an entire cow. Unfortunately, this probably leads you into eating more than you should and feeling bloated and terrible afterwards.

I’m not saying it’s a bad thing to eat big meals; i’m guilty and still have been guilty of doing it quite often. The satisfying feeling that comes with having these large meals comes with a trade off (feeling overwhelmed and nauseous for some people).

However, I do not believe that society on average encourages us to “eat healthier” which in this case would mean smaller meals. Take for example my experience at Subway. Jared’s story did great things for Subway not just for attracting customers but for building it’s image. Before hearing about Jared, I never had Subway because I was turned off by the smell of one store that I went into when I was younger. The idea simply didn’t appeal to me either; when I was younger my mom would make sandwiches all the time so subs just seemed boring to me.

I ordered a 6 inch turkey breast on italian today. No add-ons, no bacon (the story about when I went to Subway at 1:40 am and was offered extra bacon by the sandwich master for unproperly moulding the bread thus making it more like a 9″ instead of a foot long still makes me shiver), no nothing. The total cost without making an additional meal was around $5. I could have made it into a footlong for another $2 more. Financially, this was very disappointing for me.

Credit to Google Images

Although i’m making a huge generalization with the following calculation (assumes I eat Subway 3 meals a day plus doesn’t take into consideration tax etc), I would have to incur…

$7.50 * 3 meals a day = $22.50

$5.00 * 6 meals a day = $30.00

That’s a 33.3% percent increase in my costs/expenses because I decided to split my meals up (I hope I never have that much bread in one day). I know this isn’t the likely scenario that anyone faces, but if you pay attention to how much you pay to opt for a smaller meal but more meals, it ends up being quite costly. Not to mention I was pretty disappointed the time I decided to go fruit healthy and ended up spending around $6 on a small plastic box container of cherry tomatoes. (I also realized that you can buy a foot long sub and save half of it, but not everyone likes to do that especially if they don’t have a fridge nearby).

What is your preference and why?