2011, year of the babes

What in the hell happened to 2010??!! I know it's cliche, but I truly have no idea what happened to this year. Oh wait, maybe it was happening whilst I was busy jamming my head full of knowledge while trying to hold down two jobs. Unforntunaltey, when you try to do too many things, you end up doing all of them half-assed. Which was my case this semester. Oh well. You live and learn and then overeat and over imbibe during the holidays and hope you don't get fired and hope you do pass your classes.


So now it's 2011. I'm officially declaring 2011 the year of the baby. Almost everyone I know is getting pregnant or has just had a baby. I mean EVERYONE. It's a little strange to be the only one of your friends who will never be pregnant. Oscar and I decided long ago we are far too selfish and irresponsible (read self-absorbed and stupid) to have kids.Thus far it hasn't really been an issue but suddenly, everyone around us is el preg and we can't even decide what kind of dog to get.It's slightly disconcerting when you realize everyone around you is taking giant leaps into adulthood while you are still mucking around in late adolescence. Don't get me wrong, I'm really very excited for my friends to start having kids. I used to refer to kids as sticky, whiny balls of neediness, but I'm beginning to realize it's all in the parenting.

I've really warmed up to kids quite a  bit. The last few years, especially this year, has forced me to come to terms with the fact that some children can be all right, particularly if they have the right parents. Fortunately I generally tend to surround myself with awesome people, therefore I also tend to be surrounded with awesome kids, even if they do invade my every sense of self.  For example, I adore Oscar's niece and nephew whom I believe have seen me naked over the holidays  more times than I care to count due to the fact they have no sense of privacy. They walked right into the bedroom every time I was changing and just waltzed on into the bathroom not once, not twice, but three times in the same day. I even love them even though his nephew climbed into bed with us every night and snored directly into MY FACE. I also love, love my niece who is the picture of adorable. However I still struggle.  I don't really know how to talk to kids. I tend to treat them like adults. I also tend to forget they don't understand sarcasm. This Christmas, Oscar's niece Kayla came into our room and asked me "Do you like Nino Oscar"? I dead panned replied "No." Kayla:"What? Why don't you like my Nino? I love my Nino?" She was on the verge of tears. Me: "I'm kidding!! I love your Nino! He is so great!" Kayla was  unconvinced and I noticed her eying me suspicously between bouts of Hello Kitty coloring sessions the rest of the night. Do you see what I mean? Sometimes I feel like I am going to break children, or lose them. They are so damned interested in everything! Also, since displays of emotion in general freak me out, I am instantly terrified when kids start to cry. I usually start laughing out of sheer nervousness, which honestly has a pretty good turnaround rate.

Anyway, I'm definitely excited for all my friends who are expecting kids. As if in a mockery to me, NPR aired a great show today on the importance of folic acid for expectant moms. According to the Institute of Medicine, certain requirements for women will increase during pregnancy due to the synthesis of the new fetal tissue as well as maternal tissue. Amongst these increased requirements are kcalories (+10 during the 1st trimester, +340 during the second and +452 during the third), protein & vitamin C but the one that receives the most attention is folic acid. Folic acid needs rise during pregnancy in response to mom's making extra red blood cells as well as the prevention of neural tube defects (NTD). Folic acid is traditionally found in things like spinach, broccoli and lentils but in the 1990s grains began to be enriched with folic acid to thwart the rise of NTD. The RDA for folic acid is 600 micrograms (mcg) for pregnant women. The Institute of Medicine recommends that 400 mcg of the 600 should come from  folate fortified foods or supplements as it is better absorbed, the remaining 200 mcg should come from food and drink. The tolerable upper intake level (UL) is 800-1000 mcg a day. I really liked this table which shows the RDA's as well as foods which contain them.

I won't pretend to understand the ins and outs of a pregnancy, but a little awareness and good nutritional habits will benefit both mother and baby.

Sugar rush

Because I am just so good as sucking the fun out of everything, I thought I'd post the nutritional information from some of the more popular candy items seeing as how Halloween is tomorrow.

Fun Size skittles:

Calories60
Fat 0.67g
Carbs 13.67g
Protein 0g

Calorie breakdown: 10% fat, 90% carbs, 0% protein

Fun size original M&Ms:

Calories 150
Fat 7g
Carbs 21g
Protein 1g

Calorie breakdown: 42% fat, 56% carbs, 2% protein.

Mini Snickers Bar:

Calories 170
Fat 9g
Carbs 22g
Protein 3g

Calorie breakdown: 45% fat, 49% carbs, 6% protein

Midnight Chocolate Milky Way Mini:

Calories 180
Fat 7g
Carbs 29g
Protein 1g

Calorie breakdown: 34% fat, 63% carbs, 3% protein.

Milky Way Minis-regular:

Calories 190
 Fat 7g
Carbs 30g
Protein 2g

Calorie breakdown: 33% fat, 63% carbs, 4% protein.

 Smarties:

Calories 25
Fat 0g
Carbs 6g
Protein 0g

Calorie breakdown: 0% fat, 100% carbs, 0% protein.

Mini Twix:

Calories 50
 Fat 4g
Carbs 10g
Protein 1g

Calorie breakdown: 45% fat, 50% carbs, 5% protein.

To give you a reference, I've also included the facts for a piece for cheesecake:

Calories 300
Fat 21g
Carbs 24g
Protein 4g

Calorie breakdown: 63% fat, 32% carbs, 5% protein.

Yikes!

A couple of bags/pieces of candy and your already looking at the same amount of calories in a piece of cheesecake. If you think about it, you're probably not going to be eating just one or two pieces either. Bear in mind the average American should be eating around 2,000 kcalories a day,and as little as 10 extra calories a day can lead to a pound of weight gain a year. That's not to say you can't still have fun on Halloween though. A few tips? Try these out:


For you:

• If you have kids and are planning on taking them trick-or-treating, make sure you all eat first, that way you're not hungry and munching on candy rigth when you get back. 

• This one may sound  little silly but try it anyway. Chew on a piece of sweet flavored gum while you're trick-or-treating, or right after, or both. The sweet from the gum may satisfy your urge for sweet from the candy.If you're at a party or a place where there is candy out, try the gum thing too.

• If you'll be at home entertaining or handing out candy, avoid having candy out in dishes around the house. You'd be surprised how many pieces you will mindlessly eat without even realizing it!

• Pick out 2-3 favorites and limit yourself to those for the day. Store extra candy, kids candy or other treats out of sight so it's not as accessible.

For the kids:

• I thought this was such a great idea: try paying your kids for their candy. A couple dollars for a pound of candy is well worth it if you think of all those dentist bills you won't have to pay.

• Try making the day/night more about events than just getting candy. Games, crafts, family friendly costume parties, haunted houses and harvest festivals are all fun things you can do together that don't involve a diabetic coma.

Be safe and have a great Halloween!


I got the nutrition facts from Fatsecret.com.

  

Mangia a lotta

So after bombing a test, massacring my presentation and turning in the most remedial paper I had ever written in my life, I decided a little celebrating was in order. Since I miraculously did not have to spend my Friday night studying, Oscar and I decided to go to dinner. Actually, I was too lazy to cook and posed the idea of eating stale chips for dinner, or going out. As exhausted as we were from the week, the stale chip plan almost won, but we finally decided to attempt some form of social interaction and headed out. 

Deciding on a place to eat was near impossible. Oscar wanted tacos, I wanted wine. The problem with dating a Chicano is that average tacos are just not going to cut it. Being less than 10 minutes from the border of Mexico, you really would think finding a decent taco place would be easy, but you would be wrong. Well maybe I need to clarify here, a good taco shop is very easy to find; a good taco shop when neither one of you has any working brain cells left and can't communicate past a caveman grunt, is hard to come by. 

I finally texted my girlfriend who recommended an awesome place. We wound up at Il Postino  in North Park. Not exactly tacos as it's an Italian place, but seriously good food (bear in mind I've been eating the real deal for my entire life thanks to Grandma Flo being right off the boat). 

We had the calamari appetizer and an squid ink pasta with shrimp and scallops. Our slightly spastic waiter was not the best server, but he made up for it by giving us some free lemon cello at the end of dinner. Anyway, if you are in North Park and need a reasonably priced place with excellent food, give this place a shot. Mangia!

Well I tried

The official results of the antioxidant test are in and.....my beer didn't fair so well. It was below the various assortments of naked juice and green tea BUT, it did better than the two energy drinks and even a chai tea latte. I believe the beer had a TEAC ( a measure of antioxidant capacity) of less than .06 per mL, which isn't great, actually, it isn't even good. To give you an idea, I've included a table from a study done on antioxidants in drinks to give you a reference. So far, pomegranate juice is the standard and has the highest levels of most drinks. Well thanks a lot for embarrassing my beer, pomegranate juice.

Are there words?

A friend of mine told me about this site. I had no idea people really ate like this. But here is the proof. Seriously, ham and shrimp cake?? I have no words.

Drink it down

Okay so I am officially in the middle of my semester. This means two things: 1) the misery if half over 2) I have two midterms, a 10 page paper, and a twenty minute presentation all due on the same day. It also means I spent my Saturday night working on homework until 12:30 a.m. Oh well. Nothing a bottle of wine won't cure.

Onto something more positive: Antioxidants! Last week our whole class brought in a drink of which we tested the antioxidant capacity. Some people brought in tea, Naked Juice, energy drinks. I brought beer. I cleared it with my professor first and although it was a little strange to cart around a bottle of beer on campus all day, I am pretty excited to see the results. My selection? An oatmeal stout from Trader Joe's.

We get the results on Wednesday. I'll be sure to post them, unless my beer didn't come back full of antioxidants. Then I'll just say the results got lost.

Hello school? I'm calling in sick and tired

I can't believe I'm not even halfway through this semester and I'm already burned out. I am so, so sick of school. Sick of it. I'm sick of circling the parking lot like a shark circling its prey at 2 miles per hour for a parking spot. I'm sick of hauling my backpack around like a damn turtle shell attached to my back all the freakin' time. I'm sick of said backpack giving me back sweat. I'm sick of my butt going numb from sitting for hours on end and sick on holding my pee because I'm too terrified of pissing off my instructors to get up and leave class to use the restroom. I'm sick of eating my meals out of an insulated lunch bag or buying some soggy overpriced sandwich on campus. I'm sick of taking notes at warp speed on my lap top-I swear sometimes I can see smoke coming off my fingers. I'm sick of trying to read my awful notes afterwards too. In my haste to take down notes I don't even bother with spelling, AND I'm not a great typer which means come test time, I'm asking my friends to try and decipher what the hell I typed. I'm sick of taking four bags to school with me every morning: backpack, lunch bag, gym bag, purse. I'm sick of hauling 75 lbs around on my back all day. I'm sick of using the gym at school where I am constantly reminded I am only getting older. I'm sick of panicking on Mondays and Wednesdays because I think it's Tuesday or Thursday. I'm sick of panicking on Tuesday and Thursday because I think it's Monday or Wednesday. I'm sick of the fashion show at school. Can't we all just agree to look like crap? I'm sick of paying $200.00 for a book I will get maybe $25.00 for when I sell it back. I'm sick of my idea of a current event being the funny thing my professor said in class. I'm sick of being slave to my day planner and tests and papers and presentations. I'm sick of listening to the sound of my own voice while giving a presentation I know my classmates are praying will end soon so they can text or surf the web on their I-phones. I'm sick of listening to students try to outsmart each other in their presentations so they can impress the professor by including the name of a 45 syllable long chemical no one has ever heard of. But most of all, I'm sick of wearing myself out, spreading myself thin and working myself silly just so I can, at the end of it all, apply for an internship I probably won't get and IF I do, I will have to pay $14,000.00 for. I have to keep telling myself this is all going to be worth it in the end, but-and I'm not sure you caught this-I'm getting real sick and tired of being exhausted all the time and having no idea what is going on "out there". I love learning, and I do love being in school-usually. It's only one more year, and I'll make it through. But seriously, I want my life back, please.