Donna Djordjevich on *

Monday, January 28, 2008

The Donna Diet, part 1

So I have this goal in life that is to be fit, but not too fit that it's unhealthy, to be fat, but not so fat that it's unhealthy, to be strong but not too strong, and limber but not too limber, and fast but not too fast, have fantastic bone density, and fantastic hair and fantastic skin and to look 10 years younger and generally be an all around bad-ass.

To succeed in this, I've begun to develop what I'll modestly refer to as, "The Donna Diet."

Now this is a diet designed for my lifestyle, to suit me. You might find some parts of it worthwhile, or you might not. Either way. See objectives above.

The first thing I have to acknowledge in my life is that I live with my parents. As a result, I simply do not have any choice in what I eat when I'm around them. In theory I do but in practice it's all passive-aggressive nonsense. Much like washing my clothes. I should wash my own clothes and my parents tell me to wash my own clothes but they always go into my room when I'm not around and take all my clothes out of there and wash it for me before I even get home. Then, when I complain, they say I should wash my clothes before they do. In fact, they do it because it makes them selves feel needed. Useful in some way. But they won't admit that. Getting old sucks.

But I digress...

The Donna Diet.

Since I really only control what I eat during work, I have adopted a very strict diet in this regards. In essence, I have to eat ultra-healthy during this time, and work out quite often, because everything I do now must be balanced out by the fact that once I get home, or the weekend hits, I'll be eating like crap.


Breakfast:
- One Eggo waffle. Preferably the Special K ultra healthy version but it doesn't really matter. The point is: One. No butter. No syrup. No jam. Just one, golden brown toasted, Eggo waffle. Don't even think about getting the strawberry ones, or the chocolate ones. Homestyle. Untouched. The point is -- you want flavorless carbohydrate texture. This is not what is supposed to taste good. The next thing is.
- Fruits. I generally have three or more fruits freshly picked from the backyard with whatever is in season. If it's berries, well, I have a small soupbowl of them. When nothing is really "in season", it'll be oranges from the grocery store. The point is, I want to eat so much fruit that I'm "full" but enough Eggo waffle that I'm "satisfied". You can get into organic or not with this debate but, really, with Oranges -- you don't eat the skin, so organic is really moot. You peel off the spray damage. Things like grapes? Yes, go organic. Grapes absorb stuff so even though it's washed you're still eating chemicals. Yum!
- One glass of whole or 2% milk
- One cup of coffee, half filled with boiled milk
- My special mix of morning vitamin pills

Do the commute. One hour later...

Pre-Work Detox:
- One small as possible decaf latte`. Again, boiled milk is key. This heat releases the natural sugar so the coffee won't seem so bitter. Starbuck's generally messes this up because the barrista's will leave the milk out to get to room temperature before steaming (because they're inept). Milk tastes better when it's rapidly steamed from cold to hot very quickly. It just does. Places like Pete's or Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf will add way too much bitter coffee so the latte is "watery". That's just gross.


Lunch:
- One medium bowl of "soup of the day". Now I happen to be a very lucky individual here because there's a "ma-owned" sandwich shop near where I work that makes their soup from scratch every morning. The great thing is, she doesn't add any salt to the soup. So when you get it -- it's "flavorless" except for the natural flavors of the ingredients. This is exactly what you want. You don't need too much salt in your diet and I know I'll get my "due" through all the foods I eat which I have no control over. As such, I'm over compensating here. My "Flavorless Soup" is actually a feature. Why?

Post lunch Detox:
- Fruit. Again, fresh fruit from the backyard. If not that, an apple or an orange. I then couple this with unsalted, and unroasted, nuts. Currently, I use walnuts that I bought from Costco. Every morning just put a palm-full of nuts into a ziplock baggie, and done!


To drink during the day, I'm drinking either decaf coffee or water. Sometimes, I'll buy a carton of milk and microwave it (to boiling) and add that to the coffee. But, generally, I go for 3 milk-based drinks a day. Calcium and protein are good for you. Also, I don't care about growth hormones (big boobs done via milk saves me $10k in plastic surgery later on) so eff organic here, too. Most organic labeled stuff is Whole Paycheck bullshit. Just look for raw, flavorless food in your grocery store isle and you'll be doing great.

Why?

FRUIT!!!

Fruit should be the only thing you look forward to in your day -- outside of boiled milk. If you aren't craving that peach, or pineapple slices, or apple... you're doing something wrong. The natural sugar is key.

Everything else in the world is just necessary texture that serves as the canvas for glorious, glorious fruit.


Then, do Pilates on Monday, Spin on Tuesday, sleep on Wednesday (or Roller Derby whenever that happens), Pilates on Thursday, and Systema on Friday.

On off weeks... it's:

Pilates on Monday, Spin on Tuesday, sleep on Wednesday (or Roller Derby), Systema on Thursday, and sleep on Friday.

Just depends on the travel schedule.

Labels:

Horror Musical

I saw Y!: Sweeny Todd this weekend. I get it. Really, I do. I just didn't like it.

Don't get me wrong, I think the plot was fine. It presented the characters, did the story arc, and tied everything neatly in the end. The gore was there and served as a very important plot element. Coupling that with the stark grayscale of the world and, yes, visually... it complimented the plot perfectly. Great.

What really ruined the movie was this:

The music.

And for a musical? When the music is just boring, repetitive, and downright lame... why bother at all?

Which, really, is what amazes me. I love musicals. Really, I do. But this one? Meh.. they needed to do something to the tunes.. jazz them up w/the images or something. Just.. a miss.

As such...

B-

Labels:

Friday, January 25, 2008

Chumming the Theatre

I just saw Y!: Cloverfield (Pre-order it here: Cloverfield). Total B- rate monster flick.

The gimmick of the shakey-cam was so not worth it, imho. 1 hr and 24 minutes of headache inducing movement. So I get it -- people these days film everything. Sure, ok.

But if I was the writer, instead of following this one group of kids around - I would've rather had some composite from YouTube-caliber cellphone, text messages, some vid. cam, and random news reports. Let the audience play detective. Looking at someone's shoes in the corner of the screen? Really? C'mon. Most cameras these days have shakey detection systems built in anyway so that most of that wouldn't even make the cut.

I guess a romance fits in better when you can see some metro dude play hero. Whatevah.

Oh yeah, the monster? Haven't I seen it before? It reminds me of some generic video game monsters I've seen countless times before.. . .

Take dramamine.

Labels:

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

My next car

Motortrend has a review on the Tesla Roadster.

MotorTrend on Tesla.

I love that car. It is so on my list of things to get.

Labels:

Monday, January 14, 2008

Winter in Hawaii Pictures

So check out some pictures from Hawaii this winter, 2007.

My Flickr Show

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Rock Band

Just because it cracks me up every time I watch it...



Thanks Joystiq

Labels: ,

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Happy New Year

Welcome to 2008, the Year of the Earth Rat.

Given that I'm a paltry Sheep you can imagine how little I am looking forward to this year. Also, given how it's starting out, perhaps even less so.

Although, I'm not Chinese, so I probably shouldn't pay any attention to that. After all, I'm more on the Greek-ish side. So let's see how I fare there...

Sagittarius.

I love the whole work-a-holic thing both of them reference. Me? Overworked? P'shaw, what nonsense! :P


In other news...

I'm not going to mention car problems because they're so obviously there. The sheer thought of bringing them up again will only make me more irritable. Let's just say, "Broken Black Bird's Eye Maplewood paneling."

To avoid being overworked, I've decided to join a Roller Derby league. The San Joaquin Valley Vixens. Now to dig out my roller skates from my closet and get all dialed in. Try-outs are tomorrow. Wish me luck!

I'm toying between two names: "Mad Donna" (a play on Madonna), or "Killah Knightley" (Keira Knightley). Hm.


Recent travel included a trip to Hawaii for X-mas and another to Vegas for New Years.

At Hawaii, I surfed North Shore. Oh la la. I wish I could say it was like 50 ft over head, but, really, there was no swell and it was blown out. I've seen bigger waves in the Delta when I worked at Fish&Game. The Polynesian cultural center was pretty cool. Mai-tai's are stiff. And the condo at Turtle Bay Resort was pretty darn cool.

Oh yeah, my flight out of Hawaii was cancelled. As such, the airline hooked us up with a hotel and some vouchers for dinner, lunch, breakfast. And, best of all, another round-trip ticket anywhere they fly! Yay!


My Vegas trip? Well... what goes on in Vegas, stays in Vegas... as they say.

Labels: