Not the actual soup...

So yesterday I called into [social twitter=5fm]5fm[/social] and spoke about a soup recipe that I’m quite enjoying whilst being on my diet. There was some Twitter interest in the recipe afterwards, so I thought I’d pop up the details here.

Ingredients

• Cup (~300ml) water
• 110g Mushrooms (can be any kind.. I quite like the “exotic” mushroom mix from Woolies, but any old button mushrooms will do too)
• 2 table spoons of curry (optional.. can be replaced with another of your favorite spices)
• Half teaspoon of garlic (optional)
• Handful of chopped up coriander
• Sprinkling of black pepper & salt
• 140g meat (of your choice – I’ve used fillet, prawns, calamari – all of which work nicely)
• Quarter cup of balsamic vinegar

Method

Chop up the mushrooms and meat into bite sized pieces. Get the water boiling in a pot/pan and throw everything in together. Cook with a lid on to speed up the cooking process, which shouldn’t take more than 5 – 10 minutes.

Complicated hey? Enjoy!

The shops

I might be the only one, but I’ve until recently viewed Checkers as my last port-of-call when it comes to grabbing a few quick groceries. I remember it being a dirty, lower-end store – similar to the 7-Eleven’s of old. But recently the store got a massive upgrade. It seems a memo was sent out to clean up their image and it’s worked. The branches have improved their image greatly and it’s now right up there with the above 3 mentioned stores.

Pick ‘n Pay is old faithful. It’s always been around, it’s always been cheaper than most and it’s branches are fairly similar when it comes to quality and service. Their business ethics and income model aside, the store has kept their reputation decent and recently their online presence has been drastically improved and it seems to be working very well for them.

Woolworths food stores have long had the image of being the “rich man’s grocery store”. Their prices always seem to be higher, with the justification of quality being their selling point. The store’s are always impeccably clean and the staff are generally very helpful and with more and more dedicated Woolworths Food stores popping up, they’re getting increasingly accessible. But you go there always expecting to pay a bit more than Checkers or Pick ‘n Pay. Or do you?

The reality

I found some very interesting trends in the supermarket comparison chart mentioned above. Note the prices of these day to day, non-food items:

With toilet paper being the exception (in Woolworth’s favor by a good few rand), the prices are within a few cents of each other. Woolworth’s is not hugely more expensive as you might’ve expected. So you get the benefit of a spotlessly clean store and great service, without forking out extra for it.

However, note the price differences when it comes to fresh produce:

Woolworths is consistently more expensive, in the case of the potatoes, by more than R10. But let’s face it, Woolworths is synonymous with quality and you certainly don’t want to skimp on quality when it comes to buying fresh produce. I find myself having to wade through mounds of somewhat sketchy naartjies in Pick ‘n Pay to find a few decent ones, whilst at Woolworths, I know I can grab hand-fulls without worrying about quality – I know it’s going to be great.

Personally, I don’t mind paying a few extra rands for Woolworths fruit & veg items because I know I’m getting (in most cases) hand picked, fresh fruit. I don’t want to have to dig in a box of fruit to find a few good ones. I don’t have the patience. For this peace of mind, I’ll pay the extra.

It’s really about personal choice, but I found it quite interesting that for random non-food related items, Woolworths is no more than a few cents more than other grocery stores. So if I can enjoy my shopping experience in a better, cleaner store for 10 cents more, then why not.

A few friends of mine had done a diet by a certain “Doctor Cohen” and had achieved amazing results. So I investigated it for myself. Basically what happens is you go for a blood test and then those results get submitted to Dr Cohen. He analyzes it for certain markers etc and then puts together a diet specifically designed for you. You receive your meal portions and details on when to eat them and you also receive quite an interesting list of foods that you’re NOT allowed to eat. For some people, pork (for example) might be off limits, but for other’s its fine… This is where your blood tests come into play by determining what your body likes and doesn’t like.

The food portions are exceptionally small and the first 4 or 5 days are a nightmare. I was crabby, depro and listless. But I pushed through it. By day 6 or so, I was feeling awesome. The hunger pangs had gone, the cravings had gone and I was in a good routine. Slowly, after much consideration of my allowed foods & spices, I came to find foods and combinations of foods that I really liked and I started to look forward to my meals. Although small, they were very yummy. After about 2 weeks, the small portions started looking like mountains of food and I felt quite full after meal.

Exercise is not really an option on this diet. Not only do they tell you that people who do loads of exercise often lose slower than those who don’t, but you’re eating so little anyways, that your energy levels are just enough to get you through the day, let alone let you spend 30 minutes on the treadmill. When I do find that I’m wanting a bit of outdoors entertainment like having a surf or doing a mountain walk or something, I rely on my fruit to give me the energy I need. I’ll have a naartjie or apple just before I head out into the waves and I find this keeps me going quite adequately.

The principles of the diet are:

• Eat strictly. The portions are very specific for a reason and you must always be within 5 grams of your portion. (Check my recipe for a great soup that I’m loving at the moment)
• Water. AT LEAST 2 litres of water everyday are required. This does help you lose faster and gets you feeling better quickly too.
• Fruit. Your specific diet will let you know how many fruits you can have per day. They can be big fruits. If you only have those smaller Golden Delicious apples, then have two.
• Snacks. Provita’s, Crackerbreads, Ricecakes are your carb extras. You can have these along with your meals to give some crunch, or you can have them inbetween meals as a snack.
• Timing. 5 hours between your meals. This might take some planning because you can’t eat after 9pm either, so your last meal would have to be before 4pm

You can drink yourself into a coma (not literally please) on this diet. In addition to your 2 litres of water a day, you can have teas and coffee’s (100% coffee only – no blends like Frisco etc), up to 1 litre of Sprite zero a day and a can of Schweppes lemon light. If you need some sweetness in your tea/coffee, you can use sweeteners like Canderel etc. Note that absolutely ZERO ALCOHOL can be consumed on this diet.

Once you have reached your goal weight (calculated for you on your initial consultation), you then go onto a refeed. This is a 19 day period where normal foods are introduced back into your body and quantities are increased. This is pretty much the clincher of this entire diet. Unfortunately many people apparently get to their goal weight and then sit back in their skinny glory and think that they’re all done and they don’t need the refeed. These are the people who relapse into fatness. By just going back to normal eating, your body isn’t trained to maintain the current weight and you’ll pick it all back up again in no time. So do the refeed…

It’s also a fairly pricey diet. The diet itself will set you back around R2 200. The blood tests (required up front, then after 4 weeks, then after another 8 weeks etc) are around R600 each, depending which clinic you go to (although these can be put on your medical aid). The food that you’re buying, both in nature and in quantity, will save you quite a bit no doubt however, so if you need to justify the cost, just think of what you’ll save by not buying fast foods etc.

Because of this cost, this diet isn’t really recommended for people who have a couple kilo’s to lose. If that’s you, just put down the donut and go to gym. If you have quite a chunk to lose, then go for it. It’s a great diet that gives you rapid weight loss and by far the highest record of post-diet weight maintenance that I’ve seen.

It works. After around 6 weeks, I’m 18 kilograms lighter and feeling fantastic. I’m fitting into clothes I haven’t worn in years. I’m getting compliments from people left, right and center. It’s great :)
My goal weight is 90kg’s so I still have a ways to go, but I’m totally committed and motivated to push through and get this done.

Remember, nothing tastes as good as thin feels.

If you’d like to do this diet, drop me a mail (mark at yellow-llama.com) and I’ll send you the details of the place and they’ll get you hooked up.
Good luck!

UPDATE – As of 20 May 2010, I’ve lost 24.6 kilograms in 69 days.

I’ll have Adobe CS4, but i’ve heard Coda is fun to use? What about FTP? Other productivity apps? Wasn’t there a bundle on offer a while ago that offered a few top apps at a good rate?

Give me some suggestions please?

The purpose of this blog, isn’t just to brag :P. It’s more so a comment on the awesome service received from Morne, Caroline & the team at Eastern Cape Motors.

When we were done with the last signing, a bell was rung (to signify a sale) and all the staff gathered near the car. We were asked to stand on a red carpet next to the car whilst the sales manager (I think) came to congratulate us and present us with a little hamper of chocolates etc. Pictures were taken of us standing next to the car whilst the sales team applauded.

It was a simple, little touch that really made quite the difference.

Lesson: When you have lots of competition, it’s the little things that make all the difference. Whatever you can do to increase the level of your service to your clients, WILL pay off. Word of mouth will always be the most influential form of marketing.

Thanks Morne & EC Motors.

There’s wallpaper sites a plenty to be found on the interwebs, but unfortunately most of them are biased towards half naked women and random abstract images.

Wallbase.net is different.

Essentially a crawler/scraper site that collates wallpapers from all over and lets you choose the exact type of image you’re looking for. You can choose your level of NSFW, SFW, or “sketchy” as well as resolutions, aspect ratios’s, even color schemes!

It’s a great site that makes finding a quality wallpaper online, that much easier.

So to continue with my national tour, I’m suggesting a Cape Town meetup on the 17th of October at the legendary sushi bar, Tank. It’s in the Cape Quarter, just off Somerset Road in Green Point.

Let’s make it for 6pm… That should accommodate most people… I mean its Cape Town on a Friday…

So once again, please leave a comment here if you’re going to make it and help spread the word on Twitter etc…

Lekka, cya guys then :)

But either way, its done. @Garsen has been kind enough to keep Cappello’s open late for us on Friday the 10th of October to accommodate a meet for anyone who’s keen and able to join us.

So just to confirm the vital details:

• Venue: Cappello’s Sandton
• Date & Time: Friday 10th October at 7pm
• Welcome: Anyone!

Please leave a quick comment here to confirm your attendance so we know who to look out for :)

Looking forward to meeting/seeing you all…

UPDATE (LIVE FROM THE EVENT)

Having a great time… So far the attendee’s that I’m aware of are:

• mikestopforth
• afromedia
• nolwagen
• islmaild
• victoireo
• eric from afrigadget
• armanddp
• nicharry
• andrevr
• gustav
• eved
• za5
• me

…and a couple other guys that I haven’t met yet and don’t know who they are. Thanks very much to Garsen and Cappello’s for the usage of their venue and for the free shooters :D.

Click on the image above to read the copy.

Essentials: Faraday Nkoane, the leader of a youth group told his followers to stop stealing from blacks because they will bewitch you etc. Rather, go steal from white people, because their ancestors took stuff from our ancestors, so now its payback time.

Taking from whites is not a crime because you repossess what belongs to you. But make sure you are not caught

If he feels so confident that they’re not doing anything wrong in taking from whites, then why worry about getting caught?

Man, this kind of attitude embodies the current state of South Africa. Shocking.