Tag: 23 years

Eat healthier at Subway

On By Michel McDonaldIn Diet, Food, NoomLeave a comment

subway app

I have been going to Subway since I was a teenager when they first came to California.  I even remember my very first subway sandwich.  It was a footlong cold cut combo on white (they only had wheat and white back then) without cheese and with lettuce, pickles, tomatoes and actually I don’t remember what else.  I do remember it had oil and vinegar which I did not like and I haven’t gotten it that way since.  As they added more breads, my order has slightly changed since then, but it has always been a cold cut combo.  I think one time in the last 23 years I ordered the meatball sub, and I think one time I ordered the tuna, but those were the only two times I ever ordered something different.

Their slogan is “Eat Fresh” and they have always had a list of their sandwiches with calories, but you never really knew how many calories you were getting with all of the extras you add-on.  I mean, who wants to get out their calculator to see how many calories they are eating?  You just assume that whatever you are getting is low cal.

We went there tonight and I was looking at the receipt and noticed they had an app for ordering your sub with your smart phone.  Naturally I had to download it.  The Subway closest to us does not have the feature available where I can place my order from my phone, but I asked to be informed when they do.  It would be cool if I could just place my order from my phone and then just go pick them up.  In the meantime, I can see how many calories I am eating.  This is tonight’s sub.

12 inch cold cut combo

Tonight I got a 12” Honey Oat Cold Cut Combo with Provolone toasted with lettuce, light mayo, cucumbers and olives.  That’s it.  That sandwich is 1040 calories.  Keep in mind we buy the footlong and only eat half of it for our meal and the other half for the next meal, so whatever calories it has, divide that by 2.  So 520 calories isn’t that much right?  Well, wrong actually.  Check it out,

12 inch 9 grain wheat turkey

If I changed my order to a 12” Turkey Breast and Black Forest Ham on 9-grain Wheat, no cheese, no mayo, with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber and olives, it goes down to 580 calories.  Now, I can split this up into 2 meals like I typically do and my calories will be cut in half.

I have been eating the cold cut combo for 23 years.  I think it’s time for a change, don’t you?

Skin Tags

On By Michel McDonaldIn HealthLeave a comment

I know, it’s not a pretty picture, or an awesome thing to talk about, but let’s face it, we all either have one or a few, or we know someone who has them.

I had my first skin tag when I was 23 years old.  I was living with my ex-boyfriend in Los Angeles and all of a sudden out of nowhere, these long skinny skin growths started appearing under my bottom lip.  Every time I shaved I would end up shaving them off and I’d have to hold toilet paper on them until the bleeding stopped.  Every time I cut them, more would grow, in fact it would multiply until I had so many it looked like a soul patch, but with skin tags instead of hair.  I don’t know what made me think of it but I shaved them all off one day and then put hydrogen peroxide on a cotton ball and held it against my bottom lip until it stopped bleeding, and they never came back.

Over the last three or four years I have noticed skin tags growing on my neck and my back.  I had one next to my eye but it disappeared for some reason.  But the ones on my neck and back have gotten bigger and there are more now than there ever were before.  I talked to my doctor about them many months ago and he told me that they could treat them there, but they never did.

Yesterday when we went to the doctor’s office I asked him about the skin tags and he had the nurse bring him a little cup with some liquid nitrogen with some Q-tips.  He had me take off my shirt and he proceeded to press the liquid nitrogen against each and every skin tag on my back and neck.  I thought there were only a few, but I think he must have burned about 20 or 30 of them.  He told me that they would take 7-10 days to fall off by themselves.

As we got in the car to leave, I looked at the skin tags on my neck in the mirror and they were red and puffy.  They were definitely swollen.  He told me that it probably wouldn’t work on the larger ones and that those would need to be cut off at a dermatologists office, but he pressed the liquid nitrogen against them anyway.  I couldn’t believe how they blew up like a balloon lol.

Today, the skin tags have shrunk down to more than half their original size.  They are like little tiny dots all over my neck and back.  The bigger ones are still big, but they are smaller than they were before the liquid nitrogen.  I really hope that they do fall off and that there aren’t any scars.  Although, to be honest I would rather have scars than to still have skin tags.

I thought I was getting them because of my weight issue, but he told me that weight has nothing to do with it and that you can be skinny and get them.  Well, I guess he’s right because I was skinny when I had them on my lower lip.  I Googled “Skin Tags” and looked at images (which is where I got the image above) and found pictures of newborn babies with skin tags, so it’s not just adults who have them.

If you have skin tags, ask your doctor about burning them off with liquid nitrogen.  It only stung just a little, it actually felt like bee stings, but helpful bee stings.  Not that I know what bee stings feel like, but I’m just guessing.  But I would look into it rather than doing it yourself.

Gay Pride in Bakersfield

On By Michel McDonaldIn gay prideLeave a comment

I had no idea that Bakersfield ever participated in Gay Pride until a week ago when I received an email from the Human Rights Campaign asking me if I wanted to volunteer.

“Of course I want to volunteer” was my first thought.

I got on AIM and told our good friend Venda that I would volunteer if she would volunteer, of course I was going to do it anyway, I just wanted to see if she would do it too lol.

She agreed that she would do it so I sent her the email from HRC so she could sign up.

You know it’s funny, I haven’t been to a gay pride in years.  The first and last time I ever went to gay pride was when I was 23 years old and that was in West Hollywood.  They had a parade and then they had like this fair afterwards with these booths where you walk around from booth to booth getting free stickers and what not.

The reason it has taken me this long is because when I lived in Hollywood, we just never had the money to go anywhere and then we moved here and we just figured that Bakersfield would never have a gay pride.  Well, they do now.

I’ve never volunteered for this kind of thing so I can’t wait for tomorrow.  It’s like Disneyland but the only mice you will find are really bears.

At first I thought I should be worried about protesters but it doesn’t matter, they can suck an egg for all I care.  I’m not even going to waste my time thinking about them or waste any of the fun I’m going to have when I’m handing out whatever it is I will be handing out.

If you are in Bakersfield Saturday October 15th, come see me at Stramler Park between 1-4pm.  I’ll be the bald guy with the glasses.

Brussells Sprouts

On By Michel McDonaldIn Diet, FoodLeave a comment

Growing up my mother served this vegetable at least once a week.  Brussels Sprouts was a very good idea to give to children to help them get their veggies.  However, my stepdad tainted them for me by calling them “Monkey Balls”.  I didn’t mind the taste of them but the more I thought about the image of monkey testicles in my head the less appealing they were for me.  I would eat them because I had to, I didn’t want to upset mother but at the same time the image in my head was unappealing to me so they became disgusting.

Since I was thrown out onto the streets at the age of 17 I have vowed to never eat them or even think about them again.  Well, it’s been 23 years and I think that I’ve grown enough to get over it.

I didn’t know when they were in season and Albertson’s has had them for a little over a week now so I assume July is their season(?).  I’ve been waiting for them to carry them in the produce (not frozen) section so that I could steam them and last night I finally got that chance.

I posted on my Facebook wall “Cooking a healthy dinner. 4oz boneless skinless chicken breast with 1/2 cup white rice and 3 large Brussels Sprouts. Yum yum.” and got quite a lot of responses.  Nobody ever responds to my wall posts but I guess that one struck a chord.  Apparently people love these balls.  The conversation ended with 20 responses with 2 people “liking” that post.

I discovered in this conversation that it is ok to steam them as long as I keep an eye on them.  I steamed them in the rice cooker with white rice cooking below and the timing was perfect.  When the rice was finished and the steamer button popped to “warming”, the sprouts were finished.  When I cook brown rice and steam veggies, the brown rice takes longer and over steams the veggies so it’s good to know that white rice cooking time is precise.

We only bought 10 sprouts at the store and we each had 3 last night (they were huge) and Darrin loved them so much he ate the rest this morning so we will need to get more.  Although, I don’t want to make this an everyday vegetable, I don’t want to get sick of them too fast.

I have gotten over the name “Monkey Balls” and it’s a good thing because they are only 7 calories per sprout.  Hello!  7 Calories!  That’s awesome.

Longer, Harder and Uncut

On By Michel McDonaldIn Cycling, Diet, ExerciseLeave a comment

Ok.

I thought the ride would get harder because when you push yourself to go that extra block you use more energy to get there.  Well, when I got to Eye st. I decided to just keep going to Chester and I made it so then I was able to turn right and go back to 3rd.  It was actually easier coming home on Chester than it was going to California on H.  Maybe because I knew I was coming home.

Hmmmm, let’s see, what is uncut…  Well, this blog is, there are no commercials.  So there 😛

By the way, going from Eye to H to California to Chester to 3rd then back to Eye was only 1.6 miles and I’ve been going 1.5 miles turning on Eye instead of going to Chester while on California.  I know, 0.1 mile is not a lot and 2 min extra is not a lot but I started out with 15 min for 2 days then got to 17 min.  Who knows, tomorrow I might do 17 min again or I might do 20 min and 1.7 miles.  The point is that I’m getting my legs used to the work.  The first day my legs were in agony, I could barely move.  Of course today when I came home I could barely walk, I looked like i was an old man using a walker again lol.  But that’s what it takes to get the muscles back into shape.  A little pain at the beginning so I can go the distance with no pain at all.  That’s why they say “no pain, no gain”.

I remember as a teenager riding my bike to school in the morning and not being the least bit tired from the bike ride, then riding home, putting my McDonald’s uniform on and going back out the door on my bike to work.  When I got there I had no pain in my legs because I was so used to riding a bike that my legs were never in any pain from it.  I think because I was so thin back then helped my case because I have 100lbs more than I did 22 years ago.

Also when I was 22-23 years old and I rode my bike from North Hollywood all the way to Hollywood and I did that several times a week too and it would take maybe an hour but it didn’t matter, I was never in any pain.  And I never had a water bottle with me because it wasn’t that hard that I needed water.  Although now that I think about it I probably could have used a water bottle lol.  But that trip was uphill and downhill and curvy.

Oh and when I was 19 and I lived in Canoga Park I used to ride my bike once in a while on the Santa Susanna Pass going to Simi Valley to visit my Aunt Betty at Ralph’s.  That never even phased me.  Although I was a bit winded, I needed water lol.  But I got through it no problem and the ride home was a breeze because it was uphill the entire way there so it was downhill the entire way home.