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I’ve done a horrible thing to myself. Last year I wrote bunches of posts about how I was exercising, eating right, and losing weight. In about 3 months I lost about 20-25 pounds. People were coming up and telling me that I looked great, looked like I lost weight. My motivation was my upcoming wedding and not wanting to look like a fat slob in my wedding pictures that I would look at the rest of my life.

I achieved that goal and I am happy with the way I looked in my pictures. And then I went on the honeymoon, and then I started grad school, and then my back pains started happening, and one excuse after another caused me to stop exercising.

Fast forward about 9 months, and after just celebrating my one year wedding anniversary, I have put back on all of the weight that I had originally lost. What I worked so hard for in 2-3 months, was lost in 9. I can not contribute everything to not exercising, because my eating habits went down the toilet too. I started drinking the occasional energy drink and soda. Fast food started creeping into the weekend meals. Overall is was everything I wanted to stop doing, and I started right up again.

So here I trying to get back into shape again, and this time come up with a better maintenance plan. The good news is that Stacy is working out with me. We just started this past Sunday, and have been very sore the past few days, but just as of this morning, the soreness has started to fade, and I am hoping that muscle memory kicks in and I will be able to resume what I used to lift in my work outs in a shorter amount of time.

I’m not about to just give out the family recipe to our Thanksgiving stuffing, but here is a tip that you might want to try.  Cook your stuffing in muffin tins.  The result is a nice crispy top, a perfectly cooked center, and an easy way to give out portions to everyone.

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So every year at about this time eating establishments begin to roll out there autumnal offerings.  To most people, this means pumpkin flavored foods.  In my casual consumption of such things, I noticed some variety, or distinction between products that even shared the same time: pumpkin scone.  Surely a pumpkin scone is the same wherever you order one.  Not so!  To which I present to you, the pumpkin scone off!  Starbucks vs. Peet’s.  (Apologies to people that prefer mom and pop coffee houses, I do too, but haven’t found any good ones since I moved out here.) Continue Reading

I’ve been pretty busy this week so I haven’t made any posts. But I wanted to give a quick update on a few things going on, so I will just touch on them all quickly.

• I took some photos for an upcoming article. I think people will enjoy this one.
• Thanks to the advice from livingoffdividends.com, I bought some NLY stock the day before it announced it was increasing its dividend.
• I survived my two midterms in my first semester in business school, getting an A and a B.
• I started making the purchases for my father’s high dividend portfolio, but I will provide more details on that later.

And that’s about it. I have a bunch of homework to get done today, so I am going to get back to that now. Peace!

Stacy and I went out for a steak dinner last night to celebrate a few things. I actually surprised her and we went to Alexander’s in Cupertino. She was so busy telling a story on the ride there, that she didn’t realize it until we were pulling into the parking lot. For those who are not familiar with it, this place is incredible, and blows away the usual suspects of Boston steak houses. Everything I’ve ever gotten there has been amazing, so last night I pushed the idea of the tasting menu on my wife and we went for it.

Statement 1: I am spoiled by what Jamie does when I go to his restaurants, and that is not the usual tasting menu experience.

Statement 2: Steak houses are great at making steaks. The more they deviate from steaks, the more it goes downhill.
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As I have talked about before, I am on what is known as a CKD diet.  It’s somewhat strict when it comes to the foods that you can consume, and the whole thing can go wrong if you take in too much sugar/carbs.  So in the process of researching it, I found lots of meal plans that people had put together for an average day, which was very helpful.  But in reality, we don’t always want to eat the same exact thing every day, and even if we did, we need to buy the right types and quantities to last until the next shopping trip.  Enter this guide, a virtual walk thru the grocery store.  Some facts about this guide:

• I live in California and shop at Safeway, but this guide should work at any grocery store
• I went early Sunday morning.  It’s a calm time in the store, but if you want fish, its a bad time to shop
• Click or mouseover the links to the food names and you will get a little popup with more info
• Bookmark this page!  I’ll keep it updated with new shopping suggestions.

So lets get started with…
THE PRODUCE SECTION Continue Reading