Dogs Of Chinatown

Drove to the location with Ray, Huyen, and Minh. Learned that there are Vietnamese dialects and that Northern Vietnam isn’t as upfront as Southern Vietnam.

The location is a furniture warehouse. We had to wait around until 4pm to start the buildup to the fight. Did a little bit of action with Ray and Randal, got shot, spit some blood around, took a nap, and finished off by struggling with Ray over a gun. Tomorrow’s the big fight.

Blake took me and Ray to the store to get food afterward. During dinner at the location I couldn’t seem to get full, and was constantly hungry. I kept eating the sliced turkey and fruit, but couldn’t get enough to make me feel satisfied. Instead I was getting sleepy. I think eating this super-processed sliced turkey for lunch ain’t working for me. Only real meat can do it.

Also, I’ve been avoiding corn syrup, bleached flour, hydrogenated oils, and processed foods in general. You know what that leaves me? Almost nothing. I practically lose all the following (exceptions apply): ketchup, bbq sauce, sliced meats, sliced cheese, soda, sweets, most breads (even ‘whole grain’ breads have corn syrup in them), fast food, nuts, juice from concentrate, packaged sandwiches at the supermarket, most pre-made pasta sauce, almost all non-organic cereal, and practically all instant food. I’m going to end up cooking way more often just so I can avoid this garbage, which might seem like it’s costing me more, but will actually cost less in materials, even with organic ingredients. The hardest part is not snacking. Snacking on crap has been something I’ve done every day of my life since I could chew. Seeing people snack on cookies and chocolate has been driving me insane. But I know it’s not hunger, so I don’t eat any.

This makes me realize why I’ve always had more fat than I wanted, despite all my efforts to work it off in the gym. I might have muscle, but my body fat percentage was never exactly stellar. Now that I’ve been avoiding the excess garbage for a month, I’ve noticed a big change both visually and in terms of my performance. Also, since I’m eating real food that actually makes me full, I store less fat.

I’m not gonna be a blow-hard and tell everyone to eat smart. It’s either expensive or takes more time than most people have. Plus I’ve only been doing it for a month, and I don’t know crap, and there are still studies out there saying that corn syrup has about the same glycemic index as sucrose (55 versus 45 or so), or that the processed meats have all the nutrition as real meats, maybe even more… but these are chemicals. We’re supposed to eat food. And when they mix vitamins and minerals into a powder that they inject into six different animal meats, blend it all together, treat it, kill it, treat it, kill it again, preserve it in a tube with sodium for three months and say, “This food has everything you need,” I have a suspicion that our body tells it to fuck off just because it knows better.

And nothing says ‘fuck off’ like going into a food coma or getting fat.

Part of me feels really snobby for refusing to eat all the food that Micah and crew are buying for us, but fortunately it’s eaten anyway. I just have to request all my hippie crap. On the other hand, I’m being hired to do three weeks of physical work, and if I’m going to be on the ball, I need to stay healthy by eating right. And fortunately these guys are more than happy to accommodate me. Much appreciated.

My thanks also go out to Matt Lucas for the education.

Submitted by: Eric Jacobus