Friday, May 14, 2010

I Want To Lose Weight: Replace Every Drink with Water

I-want-to-lose-weight column (I have column names so you get an idea of what the topic would be) is about some simple tips to lose weight. These tips are relatively simple ideas that you can integrate in your daily life. No need to buy expensive food for fad diets. Since most of the tips that will be discussed is related to eating healthy, there is basically no danger to it.

Tip: Replace Every Drink with Water
Remember what they teach you in elementary? Drink 8 glasses of water a day. It's common sense to everyone yet I know no one really follows it. Seriously, 8 glasses. You'd think it's easy, but NO! We prefer sugary drinks above plain old boring colorless water.I know I do. You'd probably be saying, "what the hell? DUH!" But wait just a darn second. Let's just discuss why it can help you lose weight.

Here's a tad of mathematical data in some of the regular stuff you drink.

Calories in drinks:

Soft drinks/Pop/Cola/Sugar with carbonated water (330ml or 1 can)
Coke 132
Sprite 137
Mountain Dew 151

Juices/Stuff pretending to be healthy
Fit n' Right Pineapple 100
Minute Maid Orange 100+
C2 Apple 125+
(the bottle near 300ml)

Expensive Coffee (Venti 24oz/with whipped cream and whole milk)
Java Chip Frap 560
Choco Chio Frap 520
Caramel Frap 490

Regular Coffee (1 mug)
Nescafe Sweet n' Creamy Coffee 70

Liquor (General)
Regular Beer(12 oz) 153
Red Wine(5 oz) 125
Vodka, Rum (1.5 oz) 96

Water
Plain Old Boring Water 0

What can we notice from these numbers? Well besides Starbucks' fraps are calorie bombs, there's about 100-150 calories in regular drinks. Comparing these drinks to water, which
has a zero calorie count, we can immediately assume that replacing water can make you drop your calories by a lot.

To put it this way: In the morning you drink coffee for 70 calories. During lunch you drink soda with your fastfood meal adding 150 calories. You get thirsty in the hellish heat of the Philippines and drink an ice tea to cool you down. That's an additional 125 calories (the close to 300ml bottle). For dinner you grab some juice for 100 more calories. Total: 445 Calories

Another variation: For breakfast you grab some juice for 100 calories. Lunch time adds another 125 for your ice tea. In the afternoon you grab a venti java chip with whipped cream and whole milk. An astonishing 560 calories is added. For dinner you drink a can of soda for another additional 150 calories. Total: 935

*Recommended Daily Calorie intake is about 1500-2000 (depends on the person). A Frap is already 1/4th? Shit*

Conclusion
If you replaced 445 calories with zero and obviously 935 for zero, you saved a hell lot of calories. Now, 445 calories is about the same as a light to moderate meal. 445 Calories a day for a week is a lot. That's a reason your putting on weight. Stop obsessing yourself with expensive coffee if you want to lose weight.

Go with water. It never hurts to be healthy right?


Note: Did you know that on the contrary to commercials, C2 doesn't have much nutritional benefits (look at the damn table before you drink it). Minute Maid even though its a "made from real fruit" juice doesn't give you vitamin C (look at the back of the bottle, again). Comparing it to Fit n' Right which gives you 100% vitamin C per bottle though with 22g of sugar, is a better alternative.

Note 2: Numbers are based on google and looking at the back of my favorite drinks. Goodbye expensive coffee. I'll miss you.

Note 3: My sister is a grammar nazi so I edited this post.. a lot.

Around the Web: May 14 2010

Around the web is a column dedicated to showing (or more like linking) interesting stuff on the internet that you might not have seen or read. Featuring probably a photo, a video and an interesting blog post that will surely waste your time.

Photo















Image from http://kotaku.com/5538837/the-star-wars-of-the-new-generation-is

This is why we love Japan. Where else would you find school girls along side Vader himself?

Video

Breakdance Fail with Street Fighter Music

Blog Post
How to Jump From a Speeding Car
http://jalopnik.com/5531539/how-to-jump-from-a-speeding-car?skyline=true&s=i
Because you always wanted to know about it.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Speed up your computer: Disable Start Up Programs

Speed up your computer or SUYC column gives tips about how we maintain a fairly decent computer. Now don't worry, I won't give you fancy words and a hundred steps worth of procedures. I want to make it as easy as possible.

Tip: Disable Boot/Start Up Programs
Booting is the process that your computer goes through before you can click Firefox and open up Facebook. You probably noticed that there's a big difference in boot up time from a new or formated computer from the one your using right now.

What's the problem?
You installed too many programs? That's not the problem. The main problem is that since you just repeatedly press next when installing programs you don't know what they other horrible stuff they do.

For example: Installing yahoo messenger you just harass the next button until it finishes, right? Well you might not have noticed that it also installed yahoo toolbar, it made your home page yahoo.com. One of the things that majority of programs do on default is that they load on start up. Wasting more of your precious time than farmville.

How do you know that you have a slow boot up time?
Well, for one, it takes forever from you pressing the power button to actually using your pc. Another indication is.. you have too many icons. Look at your computer's clock. Do you see that arrow thingy? Click it. Now if you see more than a couple of icons there then thats one of the causes of your slow boot up time.

How do we fix this?
Now I want you to follow this simple steps wholeheartedly.

Step 1: Go to run
What the hell am I talking about? Run is the nifty application that you can use to run programs in a geeky way (or faster too sometimes). For XP users: Click Start then click run. For Vista/Win 7 users: Type 'run' in the fancy search bar after you click the start button.








Xp Users






Vista/Win7

Step 2: Type msconfig

Ok really easy. Do it. Then click Ok. (For Vista/Win7 users don't be afraid to click continue).









Step 3: Click Startup Tab
Congratulations, your almost done. You now see a relatively long list of program names along with gibberish words. Breathe in. Ok now read through some of the program names. If you uncheck the checkbox then click apply that program will no longer start on boot up. (It will still work if you click your desktop shortcut, don't worry).


It's up to you now! Uncheck those programs that you think you wouldn't need to start up in an instant. Tip: If it says Windows keep it checked. Now for the other ones I suggest you read the manufacturer name. Is it your webcam? Keep it checked. Is it itunes or windows media player or even yahoo messenger? Uncheck it.

Click Apply and hope for the best.

Note: Hey either you screwed up your computer and curse me for the rest of my life or you just made your computer boot up a LOT faster! Hopefully its the latter.

Let's Talk About Kwek-Kwek

Authors Note: Due to wordpress annoying quirks. I decided to set-up a new blog here at blogspot.

Let's Talk About column answers your most perplexing questions about a certain topic. Feel free to contact me for suggestions on topics.

Hey! Welcome to the blog where I talk about all things food. Whether I forced you to visit this site or you were just curious as to why I put in such a "unique" blog title I hope you enjoy and keep reading.

To start things off lets talk about the kwek-kwek, what else? So let's answer all your questions about this delicacy.


Image courtesy of Jason Dy

What is exactly is kwek-kwek?
Kwek-kwek is one of the most common street foods available in the Philippines. It's a boiled quaill egg coated in an orange batter. (Food coloring of course). It's deep fried until golden brown or until the vendor decides to take it out of the pan.

What's the difference between kwek-kwek and tokneneng?

According to my google searches, the main difference seems to be that kwek-kwek is made from quiall eggs and tokneneng is made from chicken eggs.

Is it really true that one Kwek-kwek is equivalent to 3/8 regular eggs?
The old myth that moms tell you. Apparently there's some truth to it.
Let's look at this comparison.

Calories
Chicken 147 Quail 158
Saturated Fat
Chicken 3.1g Quail 3.6g
Cholesterol
Chicken 423mg Quail 844mg
Protein
chicken 12.6g Quail 13.1g
More or less they're equal on other words you'd find in the nutritional facts.
-Per 100grams or about two non-genetically modified chicken eggs
-This chart is from some random person in yahoo answer. They maybe totally false.

So with that in mind, its twice the cholesterol. Oh the cholesterol is only found in the yolk. It's also good cholesterol. Contrary to popular belief and according to some ad in Mercury DrugStrore, Doctors say that eating one egg a day is good for you. Just like with everything else. Eat in moderation.

What should I watch out for when eating kwek-kwek?
If you want to be on the safe side then don't eat it from street vendors since you can get all sorts of nasty bacteria oh and don't even think about dipping it in the dip-all-you-can jars filled with things you can't imagine.

I want to try kwek-kwek but I'm afraid, What should I do?
Lucky for you I have a recipe. So go make some yourself!

Recipe:
http://www.pinoyrecipe.net/kwek-kwek-recipe-tukneneng/
http://panlasangpinoy.com/2009/09/07/pinoy-street-food-orange-egg-tokneneng-qwek-kwek-kwek-recipe/

Or if you prefer video

With that my first post ends. If you have more questions. Feel free to put a comment here.