Return of the Produce Haul!

I haven’t done a produce haul post in an eternity, if you define ‘eternity’ to mean a few months. But it sure seems like an eternity has passed since I’ve carefully arranged the contents of a shopping excursion on my coffee table, and it’s time to do something about that. I was inspired to do a produce haul this past weekend, when I noticed my cupboards were nearly completely bare. My fruit bowl had 3 heads of garlic and two lemons, and check out my fridge:

Nothing but condiments, egg whites, water, 1 yogurt, and some low-sodium V8 in there!

Being Healthy During a 60-Hour Work Week

Man, how my life has changed. Three months ago I was unemployed, blogging like a madman, working out 6 times a week, and watching a helluva lot of TV. Now things are completely different. And that’s a good thing. But it’s difficult. Here’s why:

Back to Work!

Today’s my first day at my exciting new job! I was never a boy scout, but I am prepared. It’s been a while since I’ve worked, and I wanted to set some habits back into place right from the get-go. So I packed a gym bag and woke up early to exercise before work (that’s the plan, at least… I confess that I’m writing this Sunday evening).

I also packed a healthy lunch. In fact, I spent hours yesterday prepping food for the work week. And I’m not joking around. I literally spent hours. You must be wearing your lucky pants… because I took pictures!

It all started at Sprouts, which is quickly becoming my favorite supermarket, thanks to its prices and its proximity to my gym (two blocks away).

There’s no gentle way to put this:

Oops, I Did It Again

I don’t quote Britney Spears often, but the title of her hit song from 12 years ago (it hit #1 in 11 countries!) seemed fitting given what I just did to myself. I’ll let the photos tell the story:

BEFORE:

My Largest Produce Haul Ever?

First, some housekeeping: I did some much-needed page maintenance to Keep It Up, David yesterday, so click through some of the links at the top of the site when you have a chance. The STAIRS! page is gone, since my two stair climb challenges are over, and it’s been replaced with a new Races & Events page that collects info and links relating to all my fitness challenges. I’ve also revamped my motivational speaking page and changed its name from See Me At Whole Foods to the much more direct Motivational Speaking. On top of that, I added my Brooklyn Bridge “Before” and “Current” photos to the Photo Gallery, my two NYC runs to my Running Chart, and the Burj Khalifa to my Skyscraper Collection. Whew!

So I’ve been back from New York City for four days now, but you would never know it, since all my blogging has been about my trip. After three New York-centric posts in a row, it’s time to move on… to a post about a gargantuan amount of produce!

Costco

The title of this post sorta blows any shot I have of building tension, but I’ll try anyway.

Guess where I went for the first time the other night?

COSTCO!

That above sentence needs some clarification. I’ve been in Costco before. My parents are Costco shoppers, and I’ve gone with my mom to her local Costco in Michigan on numerous occasions. But I’ve never been to Costco on my own, as an adult living in California, to shop for things for my own home. Until the other night.

My reasons for not being a Costco shopper are pretty simple: I live alone, and I can rarely justify shopping in bulk. I don’t need 96 rolls of toilet paper, nor do I have the space to store it. My kitchen is tiny, and while their canned tuna (which I do consume) is very well priced, if I put 18 cans in my cupboard, I’d literally have room for nothing else.

I know I could easily become a Costco shopper if I wanted to. I’ve lived, for the past 9 years, within 10 minutes of the Burbank Costco pictured above. And who knows, maybe down the line at some point my life circumstances will change, and a Costco membership will make sense for me. But for right now, I’m happy not having a membership.

Plus, I have my friend Tiffany. I learned towards the end of last year that Tiffany (who planned last summer’s awesome kayaking excursion and invited me to my first-ever paintball outing) was an avid Costco shopper, and she invited me along to join her at some point.

So the other night we met up, grabbed a cart, and headed inside. Turns out the Burbank Costco is a lot like the one in Michigan I’ve been to: huge.

And it was laid out exactly the same, too. I kinda already knew where we were headed, despite having never stepped foot in the store before.

I had a shopping list in my head: I wanted to load up my freezer with protein options, and I wanted berries and grapes. I love berries and grapes, but they add up so quickly at the regular grocery store, so I thought Costco might be a nice alternative. I wasn’t afraid of buying these types of fruits in bulk – they freeze nicely, so I can load up a Tupperware if I couldn’t finish them before they went bad.

Also on my shopping list: some jewelry, a mattress, 600 pounds of dog food, 15 pounds of mini Snickers bars, a Blu-Ray player, and a tombstone.

Kidding. But all available at Costco.

I also had a price limit: $100. That figure is what Tiffany owed me for selling her a vacuum a few months ago, so if I stayed under $100 (or as close to $100 as I could get), I wouldn’t have to open my wallet at all, and Tiffany could pick up the entire tab.

We focused mostly in the food section, including a lengthy stay in my favorite part of any Costco: the walk-in refrigerator produce room:

I found lots of items that amused me, like the largest can of tuna I’ve ever seen. Here’s Tiffany modeling it, The Price Is Right style:

But I stuck to my list, despite temptations like bathtub-sized amounts of Cheez-Its and 10 pounds of lobster tails for only $171.20.

Wanna see what I got?

Here’s my Costco Produce Haul:

Top row: 1 lb of blackberries ($5), 4 lbs of strawberries ($6). Second row: 1 lb of blueberries ($7), 1 lb of raspberries ($4.50), 4 pounds of frozen peach slices ($7).

The grapes weren’t sweet, and they weren’t, per pound, much cheaper than a regular grocery store (which isn’t surprising, as they’re not in season in the US), so I didn’t buy any. That’s why I bought the peaches. I love peaches! And those berry prices are fantastic.

Now, for the first time ever in Keep It Up, David history, a PROTEIN HAUL!

Top row: 16 Veggie Burgers ($10 – usually this brand is about $5 for 4), 7 zucchini souffles (they may not be high in protein, but I’ve had them before, and enjoy them, and don’t see them that often in regular stores). Bottom row: 6.5 lbs of chicken breasts ($17), 2 lbs of shrimp ($13.79), 3 lbs of salmon ($20). The chicken breasts and the salmon fillets are individually wrapped – perfect for a single guy like me.

No need to break out your calculators. My grand total was: $103.20 – Almost exactly on target!

I’ve never seen my freezer so full before – and I haven’t frozen any of the berries yet! I love having so many healthy options.

Keep it up, David!

PS: What are your favorite healthy food purchases at Costco? What should I keep an eye out for if I go back with Tiffany?

I’m Feeling Ready.

Yesterday was wonderfully productive in a lot of ways. In regards to my health, I checked two big things off my to-do list: 1) a fantastic workout, and 2) a much-needed visit to the supermarket. Which do you wanna hear about first? I hope you said supermarket!

Check out all this produce that’s now in my refrigerator!

From left-to-right, top-to-bottom: One head of radicchio, 4 red bartlett pears, strawberries, 1 bag pre-washed and cubed butternut squash, 1 head garlic, 1 pineapple, radishes, mango, 3 red bell peppers, 1 container pre-washed broccoli florets, bananas, escarole, rainier apples, mushrooms, baby carrots, tomatoes, and 2 bags pre-trimmed green beans.

I could say that I don’t know what I’ll eat first, but that’d be a lie because all the broccoli is already gone, as is a banana.

There were no new-to-me produce items, like sumo tangerines, mini kiwis, or cara cara oranges that caught my eye this time around, but I did find a healthy, pre-made squid salad (!) in the seafood section that I’m excited to try. Something tells me that the idea of squid salad either excites you or grosses you out – there doesn’t seem to be much of a middle ground when it comes to eating squid! I’m firmly on the “yes, please!” side of that fence.

Now, my workout! I had a great day at the gym. I started with the StairMaster, for the last time before my big 63-story charity stair climb on Saturday morning. I went for consistency – I set the machine at a good pace that would challenge but not kill me (70 steps per minute) and saw how long I could last. I lasted a pretty long time! All told, I spent 24 minutes on the StairMaster, burning 370 calories and climbing 100 stories – what a nice, round number!

Which means, of course, that I get to add another building to my Skyscraper Collection! There’s a 100-story building that I’ve had my eye on for a few months now, and I’m glad I can finally add it to my list, because it’s the tallest building in the world that I’ve been to the top of (in an elevator, not the stairs). It’s also a major landmark that you’ll probably recognize…

The John Hancock Center in Chicago! (It’s the tallest building in the photo.)

Of all the buildings in my Skyscraper Collection, this is the one I’m probably most familiar with. I already mentioned that I’ve been to the observation deck at the top (about 5 or 6 years ago – amazing views!), and I’ve also admired it from the street more times than I can count, because my brother, sister-in-law, and nephews used to live two blocks away. Quite literally in John Hancock’s shadow. It’s quite an impressive building – as it should be, given that the roof is over 1,100 feet off the ground – but the giant X-braces that criss-cross up the exterior, spanning dozens of floors, really add heft and make the building that much more imposing and dramatic.

There’s always something to learn, though – and here’s some John Hancock trivia that I just learned while researching this post:

• Jerry Springer owns a condo on the 91st floor, and his neighbor used to be Chris Farley.
• It was built on land that, prior to the 1870s, was part of Lake Michigan. After Chicago’s Great Fire in 1871, cleaning crews and builders began using Lake Michigan as a dump for all the rubble and debris the disaster created, eventually extending the edge of the city hundreds of feet into the lake.
• John Hancock hosts an annual charity stair climb event, much like the one I’m doing in two days, at the end of every February, called “Hustle Up The Hancock.” This year’s fastest climber, a 24-year-old named Justin Stewart, made it to the top in 9 minutes, 44 seconds. HOLY CRAP, that’s fast!
• The elevators that take people to the observation deck are the fastest in North America, making the 1,000 foot ascent in 40 seconds.

With this final preparatory StairMaster workout under my belt, I feel ready for Saturday’s stair climb up the 63-story Aon Center in downtown Los Angeles. And I won’t be resting before then – I may be done with my prep work on the StairMaster, but doesn’t mean that I’ll be sitting around twiddling my thumbs: I’ll have a full workout today, and a lighter workout on Friday that’s upper-body focused (I don’t want to wake up Saturday morning with sore, heavy legs).

I’m ecstatic about the fundraising I’ve done for the event’s organizer, the American Lung Association. After upping it numerous times based on the incredible response I received, I settled on a final goal of $630 – that’s $10 for every floor in the Aon Center. So far, you guys have driven me way past my goal - my current fundraising total is at $697.38. That’s so freakin’ awesome!

OH – I NEARLY FORGOT! You guys helped me win a prize! There was a fundraising contest – whoever raised the most money during the week of March 12-16 won a free $100 pair of shoes from a local running store. I heard about the contest but didn’t really do anything above and beyond what I was already doing. But you guys stepped up, and now I’m getting a free pair of shoes! I’ll be sure to share which pair I pick out – and thanks so much!

You still have until Saturday to donate – and please don’t let the fact that I’ve already reached my goal deter you! Click here to make a donation on my personal fundraising page. Or, if you’d prefer, I have a second stair climb event coming up in a few weeks, and I’m still a couple hundred dollars shy of that goal (which benefits the awesome Whaley Children’s Center in Flint, Michigan) – Click here and donate to help me reach that goal.

Between the two events (read about both of them here), I’ve already raised over $1,350 for charity. Wow! You guys are the best. Keep it up, readers! And…

Keep it up, David!

Produce, Produce, Produce!

Yesterday, I had a fruits and veggies situation – I was running out of them. It wasn’t quite as dire for veggies, but I was precariously low on fruit. I was down to two oranges in my fruit bowl, and I picked one up yesterday and discovered this on the underside:

GROSS. I hate throwing away food, but I had no other option. That left me 1 other orange, which looks mold-free, but I will examine it thoroughly tomorrow morning before I make it part of my breakfast.

It was time to go to the store. In recent months, I’ve begun frequenting the Whole Foods in Beverly Hills. There are three or four other Whole Foods (at least) that are technically closer to my house, but this location is literally blocks from Slimmons, and I’ve gotten in the habit of stopping by after leaving Richard Simmons’ classes. And that’s what I did last night.

My produce procurement actually started at Slimmons. Before class started, my friend Joanne offered me a couple oranges from the tree in her backyard. I love backyard produce! She had brought in a big bag of oranges to share, and I got the last two (next time I’ll have to arrive earlier, I guess!):

Thanks, Joanne!

It was a fun class – my dear friend Vikki, whom I haven’t seen in forever, came for the first time and had a ball. Afterward, I threw a hoodie over my sweaty workout clothes and went to market. Curious what a Richard Simmons’ aerobics class is like? Read this recent post.

I kinda like the Beverly Hills Whole Foods. It’s not a huge store, but their produce section (my favorite section) is sizable. Plus, it’s never that crowded, and parking is a breeze (maybe because I’ve only gone on Tuesday or Thursday night around 8pm).

Sometimes I breeze through the produce section, filling my cart and moving on, and sometimes I linger and really examine the offerings. I’m not afraid to fondle the melons, stroke a banana, caress a peach, or tickle some plums. Sorry, couldn’t resist! (But please note I’m an equal opportunity molester.) Today I must have wandered around each display 2 or 3 times, because it seemed like I was in that produce section forever – and that’s a feeling that I don’t mind at all!

Here’s what I came home with:

• Top Row: mushrooms, bananas, baby carrots, blackberries, green beans.
• Middle Row: lettuce (more on this in tomorrow’s post), zucchini, a container of pre-cut celery, yellow cherry tomatoes, comice pears, black seedless grapes, kiwis, apples (a variety called Lady Alice, which I’ve heard of before).
• Bottow Row: pineapple, baby bell peppers, broccoli florets.

This is where this post will sound like an informercial, because that’s not all! I also picked up a few other things, including…

Rainbow Carrots! I’ve bought them a few times before – here’s my favorite post about them – but I’ve never bought them with the greens attached. Pretty, aren’t they? They makes me want to eat them Bugs-Bunny-style, which I suppose would be pulling them out of my pocket, chewing with my mouth open, and asking “What’s up, Doc?”

I also bought…

Starfruit! It’s been nearly a year since I’ve had one of these suckers, and even though they weren’t my favorite fruit, I thought I’d give it another go.

Lastly, I stumbled upon a vegetable that is so stunning that it quite literally makes me weak in the knees. I’ve seen them before, at farmers markets, but I’m pretty sure I never bought one before. Ladies and gentlemen, take a look at this:

It’s called romanesco broccoli, and I could stare at it all day. It looks like it shouldn’t belong on this planet – like aliens left it behind when they left behind E.T., or built the pyramids, or covered the planet with all those thetans. I don’t know yet what I’m going to do with it, but in the meantime, I’m going to enjoy looking at it. Is it not the coolest produce item you’ve ever seen?

I seriously can’t stop looking at it. I’ve opened my fridge twice in the past half hour just to stare! Once I do eat it, I’ll be sure to share the pictures with you.

And, in my next post, I’m going to be quite literally putting a new spin on salad!

KEEP IT UP, DAVID!

Dragon Fruit

Have you ever seen a dragon fruit?  You have now:

That is one beautiful piece of fruit!  It stopped me in my tracks when I turned the corner at Whole Foods and saw a whole display of them.  I had never seen a dragon fruit before.  I’ve heard of them, because I remember seeing, a few years ago, a dragon fruit-flavored Snapple product, but I didn’t assume it was an actual, real fruit.  I thought it was a made up word for marketing purposes, like how Kool-Aid made up a flavor when I was a kid called Purplesaurus Rex, which, believe it or not, was neither the name of a flavor found in nature NOR an actual dinosaur.

Dragon fruits are real, though.  And as I stood in Whole Foods, turning them over and over in my hands like they were rare and luxurious jewels, I knew I had to buy one.  So I did.  Of course I did.

And then, when I got home, I saw this:

“Magenta inside”!  I have so many questions!  1) How do they know for sure?  2) What other colors could it be?  3) Are some colors poisonous?

After a little bit of research, I found out that there are three main types of dragon fruit:

• Red-skinned with white flesh
• Red-skinned with red or magenta flesh
• Yellow-skinned with white flesh

I also learned that they’re native to Central and South America, but now they’re grown on 6 continents and are especially popular in Southeast Asia, with Vietnam being the leading exporter.  They’re also known as pitaya.  The name dragon fruit stems from a legend that involves fire-breathing dragons that would also, um, barf up dragon fruits.  The legend says that soldiers collected the barfed-up dragon fruits to present them to the Emperor, and the legend also says that the most prized cut of dragon meat was near the dragon’s butt, where the dragon fruits were said to originate from, and it was desire for this cut of dragon meat that led to the extinction of dragons.

It’s not a very good story.  It kinda sucks.  But that’s OK, because the story isn’t actually folklore, it was invented to help market the fruit when it was first introduced in Asia.  Seriously.

Time to see what this barfed-up dragon part looks like on the inside:

WHAT?  Are you kidding me?  The sticker was right: that sure is magenta!  I didn’t think this color existed in nature.  I thought it was invented by wig makers and neon-sign manufacturers.

This may be the most beautiful piece of fruit EVER.

Following a piece of advice of saw online, I got my spoon and scooped out the flesh, like you would with half of an avocado.  Dragon fruit skin is tough, leathery, and unedible.

Dragon fruit kinda reminded me of cactus pear (also known as prickly pear).  They’re about the same shape, are filled with little seeds, and it turns out they’re both the fruit of cactus plants.  Even though I hadn’t tasted the dragon fruit yet, I already knew I liked it more than cactus pear, because cactus pear are dangerous: they’re covered in terribly painful thorns (its recommended you handle them with gloves), and the seeds are big and hard enough to chip a tooth.  The dragon fruit’s exterior is thorn-free, and these seeds are teeny-tiny, like a kiwi.

So how does it taste?  I cut my dragon fruit into pieces…

…and grabbed a piece:

I was expecting a big bold flavor to accompany the big bold color.  And, well, it turns out the flavor of a dragon fruit is neither big nor bold.  It’s good, but it’s very mild.  It has a watery crunch, like a watermelon, with a kiwi-ish taste.  It’s very juicy, and I didn’t notice the seeds at all.  I would totally eat it again.  I’d love to add it to a fruit salad.

Some nutritional info:  An ounce of dragon fruit has around 20 calories, no cholesterol, and trace amounts of monounsaturated fats (a heart-healthy fat) from the seeds.  Dragon fruit is high in vitamins C and A, and the red and magenta varieties are high in lycopene, a fantastic antioxidant.

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged about a new-to-me fruit of vegetable – I think my last post was about white eggplant – but it’s something I do regularly, and you can see all my new fruit and veggie posts on the My Favorite Posts page.

Keep it up, David!

Produce Haul and New Skyscraper

Now that I’m finished telling my tales about Las Vegas, Nevada and Seattle, Washington, it’s time to play a little catch-up on what’s been going on since I got back.  I have two topics today – one involving food, and one involving exercise.

Let’s start with food, shall we?

1) Produce Haul.  Knowing that I’d be gone for 6 days, I had carefully orchestrated my eating and produce purchasing before my trip so that I didn’t leave behind much produce to potentially go bad.  It worked – when I left for Las Vegas, the only produce in my kitchen was 2 lemons and 1/2 a head of garlic.

That meant that a big shopping trip awaited upon my return!  I arrived home on Tuesday night.  I thought about my lack of fruits of veggies as I was driving in from Vegas, and decided to stop at Whole Foods and put together my dinner from their salad bar.  I built a tasty dinner, but because I was so exhausted from my nearly 12-hour travel day, I decided that the big shopping trip could wait until the next day.  I just wanted to get my salad and go, which is exactly what I did, with the exception of grabbing a couple apples for breakfast the next day with my oatmeal.

Then, on Wednesday, I had invited a friend over for dinner, so after the gym, I swung by Whole Foods again.  But because I hadn’t made a list of what I wanted and needed (something I always like to have while shopping, to curb temptation and impulse purchases), and because I kinda hungry (I don’t like shopping while hungry, because my stomach tends to encourage me to buy things that I wouldn’t otherwise buy), I decided to pick up the few things I needed for dinner, and that’s it.  You’ll see what I made, by the way, in an upcoming blog.

So it wasn’t until Thursday that I went to Whole Foods, for the third time in three days, with a list in hand and after eating lunch.  Here’s the produce bounty that I brought back home:

What do we have?  Here’s the inventory, going (generally speaking) from left to right, top to bottom:

Bananas, 4 zucchini, blueberries, mushrooms, prepackaged kale salad, apples, a 2-pound bag of baby carrots, cherries, 3 black plums, 1 tomato, 1 cucumber, celery, 3 pluots (which, like apriums, are a plum/apricot hybrid), a yam, a green pepper, strawberries, 3 peaches, 1 elusive purple bell pepper, green grapes, a red onion, a container of sprouted black-eyed peas, and asparagus.

That’s a lot of produce!

2) New Skyscraper.  Yesterday at the gym, I completed 40 minutes lifting weights, and then climbed on the StairMaster for the first time in about a month.  In case you aren’t familiar, since I’m not a fan, I have a little motivational trick to get me through StairMaster workouts: I find a skyscraper equivalent to how my flights I climb, and add it to my collection of conquered skyscrapers around the world.

Yesterday, I went 15 minutes on the StairMaster, burned 280 calories, and was pooped.  I ended up climbing 83 floors!  For today’s skyscraper, we head back to the architecturally prominent city of Chicago, Illinois, which is known for its buildings, but has only made my skyscraper list once before.

The third-tallest building in Chicago has exactly 83 floors, and it’s called the Aon Center.  I looked at a bunch of pictures before deciding on this daunting shot from the ground up:

That’s TALL!  I climbed that!

Some Aon Center fun facts:  It was completed in 1973 as the Standard Oil Building, and for a short period, was the tallest building in the city, earning it the nickname “Big Stan.”  It was also completely covered in marble (except the windows), making it the world’s largest marble-clad building, but that proved problematic, because just a year later, one of the marble slabs fell off the building and crashed through the roof of the building next door.  Oops!  Crews then installed metal straps to hold the rest of the marble in place, and eventually, in the early 1990s, the owners spent an estimated $80 million replacing all the marble with granite, a harder and stronger stone.

Oh, and does anyone want to guess how many elevators are needed to service an 83-story building?  Anyone?  Anyone?  Bueller?  The answer is the end of this post.

Time to add Aon Center to my skyscraper collection!

• Aon Center, Chicago, IL (83 floors, climbed 8/5/11)
  
• CITIC Plaza, Guangzhou, China (80 floors, climbed 12/1/10)
• JPMorgan Chase Tower, Houston, TX (75 floors, climbed 3/9/11)
• Renaissance Center, Detroit, MI (73 floors, climbed 6/19/11)
• The Sail @ Marina Bay, Singapore (70 floors, cilmbed 11/9/10)
• Yokohama Landmark Tower, Yokohama, Japan (70 floors, climbed 4/11/11)
• 900 North Michigan, Chicago, IL (66 floors, climbed 4/1/11)
• Vista Tower, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (62 floors, climbed 7/2/11)
• 1000 de la Gauchetiere, Montreal, Canada (51 floors, climbed 11/3/10)
• Ernst & Young Bldg, Los Angeles, CA (41 floors, climbed 10/3/10)
• City Place I, Hartford, CT (38 floors, climbed 5/11/11)
• Ocean Towers, South Padre Island, TX (31 floors, climbed 1/20/11)

Whoa! I set a new personal record!  That was a complete surprise – guess I haven’t been paying attention to my StairMaster accomplishments!

Keep it up, David!

PS. The Aon Center has 50 elevators.  Were you right?  Oh, and be sure to come back for tomorrow’s post, which is going to be all about my evening at… a strip club!