Eat Like Mike

So if you're living under a rock, you don't know that Michael Phelps won 8 gold medals at this year's Olympics. Ok, so everyone knows that, but did you know that he eats 12,000 calories a day? I read this hilarious article about a journalist who decides to attempt the Phelps diet for 1 day, and suffers brutal consequences, and liked it so much I had to share:

DAVE MCGINN
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
August 20, 2008 at 2:50 AM EDT
In bloated, panting-for-breath retrospect, it was crazy to think I could match Michael Phelps.
Not in the pool, of course. That would just be stupid. No, I had the audacity to think I could tackle Phelps at the kitchen table.
Where do I stand against Phelps? He is: 23 years old. I am: 31 years old. He stands: 6 foot 4. I stand: 6 foot 4. He weighs: 195 pounds. I weigh: 198 pounds. He has: more gold medals than any Olympian in history. I have: too much time on my hands.
But I've been swimming laps all summer in an effort to work off my gut, so it really did seem possible. I know, I know. I can hear all the incredulous voices and the head shaking that goes with them: Do you know how much Michael Phelps eats?
It's a whopping 12,000-calorie-a-day diet.
The average 23-year-old man consumes about 2,000 calories a day. And even on the best of days I have to wake up pretty early and work pretty hard to reach the category of an average man.
But who knows, I thought, maybe to swim like Phelps you first have to eat like Phelps.
Breakfast: Obviously, if you're going to attempt the Phelps breakfast you have to work up an appetite. So on Saturday morning, I begin the day with 30 minutes of yoga, 30 push-ups, 90 crunches and a three-kilometre run, burning 936 calories, according to an online calorie counter.
I probably expend more energy prepping breakfast: It takes 45 minutes and uses every single kitchen utensil I own.
I start with the fried-egg sandwiches. I feel it might be possible to eat the whole meal. After polishing two of them off, I move on to the French toast. After eating all three pieces, I'm doing some pretty laboured mouth breathing.
Forcing myself to buck up, I start eating a chocolate-chip pancake the size of my face. Both cups of coffee are done.
What's missing from the meal? Fruit. Seriously, Mike, would it kill you to eat an orange wedge? Parading your bazillion gold medals around is no fun when you've got scurvy.
On the verge of nausea, I force myself to take one bite from a bowl of Cream of Wheat (my substitute for grits, because good luck finding grits north of the Mason-Dixon line).
Feeling like Mr. Creosote from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, I'm one bite away from asking my girlfriend for a bucket. I call it quits after an hour of eating in earnest, leaving one fried-egg sandwich, two chocolate-chip pancakes, most of a bowl of Cream of Wheat, and a five-egg omelette on the table, laughing at me from the heights of Phelpsian wonder.
“Dude,” I curse my Olympian nemesis, “how do you not weigh 700 pounds?”
Lunch: It takes about two hours after breakfast before I can even think about going to the pool, but eventually I get there. I feel more energetic than usual, my front crawl moving me through the water with more power than it has all summer.
Nor am I as tired as I usually am when I hit the wall to turn. But with this many calories coursing through my veins, I should be able to tie a rope around my waist and tug a freighter in to harbour.
My go-for-the-gold confidence crashes when I decide to try the butterfly stroke. I'm able to do about four strokes of what must easily be the most embarrassingly awkward misrepresentation of the form before nearly sinking. The teenaged lifeguard is suppressing laughter.
I swim for 45 minutes, burning 472 calories. When I get back from the pool, I go through my morning exercise routine again, shaving off another 936 calories. By 3 p.m. I'm not even remotely hungry, but I have to have lunch because dinner is fast approaching.
I eat the two ham-and-cheese sandwiches and drink two Gatorades while out on a friend's boat, which surprisingly is not heeling to the side I'm sitting on. When I get home, I eat the pound of enriched pasta with tomato sauce, which works out to be three heaping platefuls.
Starting my third plate, I'm forced to ponder a question I've never faced at a meal in my entire life: Am I having hot flashes? A strange sensation of heat is emanating from the pit of my stomach and working its way up through my shoulders. This can't be good.
Just before the clock strikes 9 p.m., I've consumed in 12 hours almost the same caloric intake I would normally eat over the course of three days. The mouth breathing continues. I have to lie down on the couch.
It's only a mix of what willpower I have left and the sheer terror of eating dinner that forces me out of the house to go running again. My 30-minute run burns just 562 calories. I feel like an over-stuffed sausage.
Dinner: What, no dessert? I'm surprised the guy doesn't finish off the day with 16 quarts of double-churned chocolate ice cream topped with an M&M the size of a country ham.
Still, the carb-heavy menu would have most South Beach dieters making the cross with their index fingers in horror.
OK, throw that pizza in the oven, and let's do this. While the pizza cooks, I turn on the TV and see the U.S. Men's Olympic swim team – fit, trim, healthy as oxen, none of them looking like they would cry like a toddler at the sight of another plate of spaghetti. I don't even bother cooking the pasta.
I manage to drink three Gatorades. After you've been eating all day, each big chug of an energy drink feels like a mouthful of pot roast. I decide to eat only as much of the pizza as I can. I make it halfway through. As I look at the other half, my girlfriend looks at me as if she will never find me attractive ever again if I so much as try to cram just one more piece of pepperoni into my gullet.
I need to lie down.
As I collapse on the couch, Phelps wins his eighth gold medal. My awe for him has tripled.
If he ever retires from swimming, he could make a killing at those competitive eating contests. That hot dog guy's got nothing on him.
I've spent an entire day pushing myself to the limits of intestinal explosion and I still fell short one fried-egg sandwich, two chocolate-chip pancakes, a bowl of grits, a five-egg omelette, a pound of pasta, half a pizza and more than four litres of Gatorade. I feel humbled and crestfallen, the way you do when forced to confront your limitations.
I wonder if I will spring out of bed tomorrow ready to run a marathon, or if I will hide under the covers in fear, trembling at the prospect of eating again. Both seem like distinct possibilities.
Michael Phelps now has 14 gold medals from two Olympics, the all-time record.
He should bring me one of those medals just for eating what I did today. But I'd settle for a bucket.
Special to The Globe and Mail

Catching Up

I, too, have succumbed.

It's like my willpower was only as strong as the self-control of those around me. I always swore I wouldn't get on Facebook, that I wasted more than my fair share of time on the Internet as it was. I even had allies in the resistance. And then the unthinkable happened:
I found out that my kid sister had signed on. Then...
I found out M had signed on (Gasp. Cough. I could hardly breathe!)

I lasted a week after that point. And now, I, too, have a Facebook account. But believe it or not, Facebook is not responsible for my temporary lapse in posting on this blog. No, that has more to do with the general blogapathy that seems to have taken over the blogosphere... That and general beautiful weather in Montreal for a few days, followed by my sudden panic that the summer is about to disappear and so I have to take advantage of what's left of the fabulous weather.
As if to prove my point, the fire alarm went off at work today and we all FROZE in the 10 or so minutes we ended up standing outside, every one of us missing our pullovers/sweaters/light jackets that we'd left at home/on a hanger in our office... Anyway, I digress, back to Facebook:

In my first log in after signing up, I spent about 1 hour surfing to find some friends and rooting around other's pages. But the real kicker, the part that made my new "facebooker" status all worth it, happened a few days later, when I had an impromptu chat with a great friend who's been in Japan for over a year teaching English. There I was, on my bed in my old room in Ottawa, while she was typing away at a desk (in the staff room?) at her school in Japan, and we were writing as though we were talking. It was our first true conversation since we spoke the night before my wedding. Catching up is soooooooooooooooo delightful, and that, alone, was worth the sign-up.

Little Angela Dialect Mix up

The latest adorable phrase out of my Little Angela's mouth in Dubai, via my fabulous, beloved sister whom I miss enormously...
Little Angela speaks the Egyptian dialect of Arabic, but in Dubai is being exposed to other dialects on a more regular basis. She heard them here too when her family was around the Arabic community, but in Dubai she hears the other dialects everywhere, including on TV. There's a great station that plays a lot of kid's music, including a song called "Baba, telephone" (That's Arabic, by the way: Baba = Dad, and Telephone = surprise, surprise, telephone... heheh) about a kid who answers the phone for his dad and then calls out "Baba, telepone."
There's a line in the song that says "tell them I'm not here", using the Palestinian dialect. This is said, "Uleelo moo hon". In Egyptian dialect, this would be said "Uleelo mish hina".
Now that I've laid the foundation, the following conversation took place between my sister and my Little Angela:
Little Angela: Mama, what does "moo" mean?
Sister: It means not
Little Angela: It means not?
Sister: yes, we say "mish" but Palestinians say "moo"...
Little Angela pauses to consider. Then: and cows say "moo" too.

Minor Non-Joy of Summer

Have you ever had a great creative spurt interrupted by the incessant music your neighbour plays at full volume ON THEIR PATIO for the benefit of all around him? Musical taste is definitely in the ear of the beholder, and while "I love Rock and Roll" is not an unpleasant song, it certainly shuts off the creative juices for me, and so my lovely typing is now hampered by the fact that I can't hear myself think. Instead, I can hear a fantastic collection of 80's and 90's music. I'm too lazy/nice to actually go outside and figure out which neighbour this is, and then request a volume modification, but this is one of those things where you expect the courtesy of those who live nearby, is it not?
I'm reminded of a family that lived across the street from us growing up. We were good friends, playing constantly with their daughter at their house, having her over, riding our bikes up and down the street together. One thing though, her father decided to take up the clarinet one year, and he liked to practice with the windows open at 9:30 p.m. He was a novice. End of story.

About the Tea...

I started taking this a while back and posted about it. I've been taking it for a few weeks now, so I think I'm ready to step back and assess, and my assessment is (drum roll, please):
It's a hit! The tea tastes rather plain, which is a good thing. Nothing too unyummy about the flavour, it's like you're essentially drinking mildly flavoured water, so it's easy to just swallow it down hot or cold. And as for the results, it does clean out your system. I feel more energized and I think my system is digesting better now than it normally does.
A moderate change I would make: take less at the beginning depending on your weight. They recommend two 8 ounce glasses with lunch and dinner, and one 4 ounce glass with a snack. I think this might have been aimed at people who are larger than I am (5 foot 4, average weight), so this amount kinda cleared me out a little too fast. I was very low on energy for a few days. The pharmacist recommended Gatorade which got my electrolyte balance back up after I'd been completely wiped. I'm now drinking about 16 ounces a day instead of 20.
Do I recommend it? Yes, especially if you're someone with a sensitive stomach. I'm going back to buy more tonight, about a 6 week supply. I don't know how long I'll keep doing it, but so far, so good.

Can I at least consider it a healthy addiction?

So M and I went to Paragraph, our favourite Montreal independent bookstore, yesterday, so that I could buy or order the remaining Ann Patchett books. Unfortunately, the only ones they had in store were Run and Bel Canto, two of the three I already own. I left the store having not placed the order, but instead with three other books. One, a classic that I've always loved and always wanted on my bookshelf, To Kill a Mockingbird. Two, The Gathering by Anne Enright, winner of the Man Booker prize for 2007, and three, a non-fiction, the latest by John Esposito, called Who Speaks For Islam.
I still have to finish Run before I can start any of these, but I think I'm actually dangerous to myself in a bookstore. If you left me there for a few days, I could easily run myself into debt. I can't stop...

You've been Barack Rolled

If I had a vote, I'd vote for this guy. Since I don't, here's my version of spreading the love:

More of my favourite pictures from Calabogie last weekend... Although these were taken with my dinky digital non-fancy camera... Check out M's pics for the good stuff...

Everybody has a story

My usual Thursday afternoon bus ride had a slight twist yesterday. I often pass the time sleeping, reading, or listening to the radio, but once in a while, the person I am sitting next to exchanges a few words and the conversation doesn't end, and so continues on in one form or another until we arrive. Yesterday, I was sitting next to a lovely Francophone woman who was going home to Repentigny after visiting her grown daughter in Outaouais. We spoke on and off the whole bus ride, mostly about the weather, about whether she'd catch her connecting bus or whether we'd get to Berri on time, about where she lived, about her niece and my niece. In short, lots of small talk.
At one point, our conversation turned to the importance of a positive outlook. How some people manage to get really upset about small things and how we really rarely experience catastrophe's in this part of the world, and so really, we ought to stay relatively calm when we're faced with the small "not good" situations that we're sometimes faced with.
Until this point, the main reason we kept speaking was not because the conversation was particularly interesting, but to pass the time (for her, I suspect) and to get some French practice, for me. A few minutes later, she told me two things: One, her husband had died 7 years ago from prostate cancer that had quickly spread to other parts of his body, and two, she had lived with epilepsy until the age of 42. She'd had three brain surgeries, here was the scar on her head, and she showed me a minor mark which I'd been looking straight at most of the bus ride without noticing anything was there, and was now fully cured and needed no more medication. Her husband had taken such good care of her for close to 20 years, that when he'd become sick, it was as simple as being her turn to take care of him.
The rest of the way home I thought about my own health. My biggest issue is my food restrictions, and honestly, everyday I realize how tiny something like that is. I have never known catastrophe, but this woman had faced difficulties I only imagine. It was very eye-opening.

Hooked

Ugh. Blogger stole my post, so this is my second attempt at it:
I can't stop. I can't help it. It started with Bel Canto, the Ann Patchett book Jen suggested I read when I put out my plea a while back. and it was fantastic. Brilliant. (Hyperbole, XUP, I know, but I really, truly LOVED it). After that, I read another good book by another good author, but then I stumbled upon more Ann Patchett in the form of her non-fiction book Truth and Beauty. And it was on sale. And it was really good too. I finished it yesterday and went on my quest to search for more today. I can't get enough. This woman writes the way I wish I wrote. I flatter myself to think we have a similar style, only her writing is 18 million times better. Today, I started Run.
The good news, and the bad news, is that she's only published 5 novels. I'll be done soon. And then I can come up for air...

As Promised (the ultimate cover)

A few posts back, I posted Native Deen's version of Tala'albadru Alayna, and in the comments there was a discussion about the Yusuf Islam version, which some of you weren't able to find. Well, here it is.
Basically, he uses voices and percussion drums as the instruments in the background. Enjoy:

Too Funny Not to Post

Stolen from one of my favourite hockey sites: habsinsideout.com, here. Don't actually know if this is a true ad, or someone's brillaint photoshop job. Regardless, too good.

I'm trying

to improve my French in simple ways, and all of my French teachers have suggested that letting the radio play in the background is a great idea. My problem is that almost all of my radio listening takes place over the internet, streamed from the station's website, and while I've found radiocanada.ca, once I click on the "Listen Live" icon (okay, okay, it doesn't say listen live, it says "ecoutez en direct", but you get what I mean) it basically freezes. The best I've managed is to get a 4 minute clip of a segment from the night before to play, but nothing resembling live streaming. Very annoying. I'll have to give it a shot again soon, but until I muster up the energy, my English radio listening continues unabated...
P.S. If anyone knows how to get radio canada, premiere chaine, to stream, I'm listening!

This Was Saturday

We're back now. It was awesome. I spent 2 and a half hours at a walk-in clinic this morning only so that the doctor would refuse to give me a referral for the chiropractor without first sending me for X-rays. The X-rays would have also been a walk-in, so I really didn't feel like spending 5 hours of my day off in various waiting rooms. I got to read in my fabulous book, Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett, while I waited (thanks for the suggestion Jen. It's nearly impossible to put down). I also got my other referrals, so not all bad, but still... I know the chiropractor works for me: exhibit A is having my jaw reset after my bike accident... I love the system (sarcasm, sarcasm). They tell you to be proactive in taking care of your health, and then they make it harder for you to do the things that help your health. Not impressed.
After that, I bought more groceries then I could carry back comfortably home on my bike, and so tottered home. But we needed them. And now there are cherries in the fridge. Mmmm... Nice to have a day off for nothing, which becomes all the loose ends you planned on doing at some point, but never had a chance to get to. What I haven't done yet: write. But I always comfort myself that all the reading is necessary to get to the writing, so really, I'm doing my homework.

Calabogie 2008

It's that time of the year again. We're going to be in Calabogie (see it here and here), but this year, we go for only the weekend. Our internet access is dial up there, so if I happen to have something brilliant to communicate, I will. Otherwise,highly unlikely...
On Monday, I have a holiday, and it's another perk of living in Montreal but working in Ottawa... M, my sister, and my brother-in-law will all be back at work. I'm planning a cross between some laziness and some getting things done for my extra day off. Maybe cook? Maybe sleep? Take an extra-long bikride? Maybe read and write? We'll see what happens...

A Great Cover

This song was first sang by the people of Medina to Prophet Muhammad, Peace be Upon Him, as a welcoming when he migrated from Mecca, fleeing religious persecution. I think it's safe to say that it's the most famous song in Islamic tradition. Countless Muslim artists have "covered" it over the years, and I've known it for as long as I can remember. My favourite version has always been the Yusuf Islam version. Today, my sister sent me the link to the Native Deen version. Also very very beautiful. Enjoy:

Shopping in my mother's closet

There is massive "summer cleaning" happening at my parents' place in Ottawa. Left with a huge pile of stuff to store/get rid of from my sister's house now that she is in Dubai, we, or rather they, are going through everything and trying to get rid of what can be gotten rid of to make space for new storage. My instant coffee supply has been instantly replenished. I also now have new scarves (fabulous, I might add), a new skirt, and a new pair of pants, courtesy of some boxes and my mother's closet. I talk to my Little Angela on the phone every two or three days. She tells me every time, as if I don't already know, "Khalto Nonno, I'm in the Emirates." Sometimes, her voice is excited when she says this, other times, it's tinged with sadness. It's hard for a two-year old to understand moving across the world. Exhibit A: a conversation that took place with her mother a couple of days ago (translated from Arabic to English for your benefit below):
"Mama, I want to go to Grandma and Grandpa's house."
"We can't sweetie. They're in Ottawa. It's too far away."
"No it's not. It's close." A pause. "Sacramento's far."
Sacramento is where my other little angels and angela live, with my eldest sister. Everything is relative.
Speaking of little angels, the last few months I've been savouring every last moment with them before they left when I came to Ottawa, but now I focus on some of the big angels in my life. My parents really, truly are angelic. They're brave, they're generous, they're giving, they're impossibly hardworking, they're not tireless, but they don't quit a moment before their bodies just can't take it anymore from pure exhaustion. They are such beautiful, beautiful people, and while it can be tiring to get up at 4:30 a.m. on Tuesdays to catch my bus, and while I miss M insanely for those 2.5 days we're in different cities, this is an atypical kind of blessing I have, to spend such long moments alone together with my parents as a grown woman, to have the great conversations we have so often, to find myself shopping in my mother's closet, kissing my father's cheeks after sunset prayer, eating leftovers together. To bond.

Just Because it Made me Laugh

I wish I had watched more Muppets Show when I was young. I don't think I truly realised their brilliance. Anyway, here's a hilarious little clip, just for the purposes of silliness. Enjoy:

Our Telephones are Haunted (or else crazy)

Strangeness:
I woke up on Saturday night/Sunday morning at 3:30 a.m. to the sound of my cell phone ringing. This, of course, terrified me. There aren't that many people out there who have my number beyond family and very close friends so of course, I assumed something was very wrong with someone I loved. Not the case, thank God. No, this was the case: M's cell phone, sitting on the dining room table, charging, had LOST it and was dialing and redialing my cell phone over and over. Essentially, even though M was inside asleep, his cell phone was crank calling me at3:30 a.m. I checked all five messages that had been left. They were all empty. In the last one, I could here me walking across the room to check my phone.
I couldn't figure out how to just turn off my ringer, so I turned off the phone completely. In the morning, there were 7 more. SEVEN!
It hasn't happened since. We'll see what's next.

A Must-Listen for All Canadians

We're so proud of ourselves in this country for being an open and equal society, for not discriminating against people based on any unreasonable basis, especially race. For the most part, we succeed. But there is something sad and horrible in our past which still exists in our present: the treatment of our First Nations people.
Very little time and energy is spent in the media actually discussing the plight of Native people. Sure, we hear about protests and land claims, but how much do most of us really know about the back story of what these people suffered at the hands of the government. What were you taught in 7th grade social studies? Me, I was only taught about the part where everyone cooperated, not the part where they were killed and manipulated and stolen from. This program on CBC Radio called Revision Quest really helps to shed some light on a serious topic. Don't worry though, if you're not into feeling rotten, the host is a Native comedian, so even though he's dealing with heavy material, he manages to address it in an easy manner. Give it a listen.