Free "Mud Pie" at RAM - Wheeling, IL

I went to lunch at Ram Restaurant & Brewery in Wheeling, IL with my brother and two high school friends yesterday to celebrate a belated birthday for me.  After ordering my usual "Reuben" sandwich and fries and a strawberry iced tea, I got a free "Mud Pie" to share with everyone!  It's huge!  The restaurant had a coupon that was emailed to me for my birthday.

That meal added 2108 calories!!  I'm not sure how I did it, but so far, I actually lost 2 lbs in two days this week even after eating that lunch!  I have a lot more to lose to reach my goal of 60 lbs in 6 months.  I'm currently down 34 lbs of weight loss after almost 3 months of dieting.  Maybe I need to eat more Mud Pie?

Chicken Parmesan at Chef Vince's Zeal Restaurant

My wife and I went to "Chef Vince's Zeal" restaurant in Schaumburg, IL yesterday to have dinner and to see a group named "The Moods".  I had photographed a wedding eleven years ago and The Moods were the band for the wedding reception.  I hadn't seen them perform since then, but we decided to go yesterday.

The group was great as usual.  The Chicken Parmesan was good too.  My wife ordered the beef brisket, but didn't like it as she felt most of it was fat and not meat.  She brought it home.  I suppose I'll try it later.

I ate half of my meal and brought the other half home.  I made it into a salad for dinner the next day.

Here's her brisket:

Salad

Salad for dinner. This is a typical one for me. About 1/4 head of iceberg lettuce, some shredded cheddar/monterey jack cheese and about 3 oz of either pork or chicken (whatever I have as leftovers) and Walmart's Great Value Fat Free Ranch "Classic" Dressing. Overall calories about 584 calories. It's a lot of salad for that amount of calories.  It usually fills me up!

The Fat Free Ranch Dressing has 30 calories per 2 TBSP.  That's lower than most other creamy salad dressings.  This why I use it.  I tend to put on a lot of dressing, so it's important for me to get the lowest calorie count dressing available.  I am not a big fan of vinaigrette dressings and prefer the creamy type instead.

Update Note:  After eating the Fat Free Ranch dressing, I've decided I'd rather have Kraft 1000 Island - Fat Free instead.  It's 50 calories per TBSP, but if I put on only 8 TBSP, I can keep the overall count to 557 calories.  The Ranch dressing has way too much garlic for me!

Lou Malnati's "The Malnati Chicago Classic"

We ordered a large Lou Malnati's - "The Malnati Chicago Classic" for our birthday dinner!

My daughter and I share the same birthday (January 15), and we both love pizza, so it was pizza for dinner tonight!  The Malnati Chicago Classic is a sausage pizza with the famous butter crust that only Lou Malnati's can make!

Deep Dish is a Chicago favorite and Lou's is the place to get it.  I also like Giordano's and Nancy's Pizza too which is called "stuffed pizza".  Well, I like just about any pizza really.   While I like deep dish and stuffed pizza (deep dish with an extra top layer of dough), in general, I prefer thin crust most of the time... unless it's Lou's!

Olive Garden Duos - Meatball Breadstick Sandwich with Fries and Salad

My friend Andy took me to lunch at Olive Garden today.  I had the Duos Lunch Special which consisted of a Meatball Breadstick sandwich with fries and the Olive Garden Salad.

While good, there was nothing surprising other than what I expected about this meal.  It was the same salad that they always serve at Olive Garden (it's always too salty to me) and four meatballs covered in melted mozzarella cheese and marinara sauce in a breadstick bun and standard fries.  Cost was $6.99.  Andy had the unlimited soup and salad which I believe was the same price.

The service was very good though.  Our waiter asked us many times if we wanted more salad or breadsticks.  Very friendly guy.

I don't think either of us cared what we were really eating... we just wanted time to catch up.  That's what lunch should really be about with friends, right?

Diet Coke

Diet Coke is changing its looks and adding new flavors.  What do you think?

Costco Rotisserie Chicken

Costco's rotisserie chicken is a dieter's best friend!  At only $4.99, it's cooked and ready to go!  Always a good deal and a fast meal if you don't want to cook.  I've had a countless number of these over the years!

Texas de Brazil - Schaumburg, IL

My daughter took us to Texas de Brazil in Schaumburg Sunday night to celebrate our birthdays just a bit early (we share the same birthday). Our birthdays are on Jan 15.

I only ate a banana and two hard boiled eggs in the morning and nothing else in preparation for the gorging we were going to do at the all-you-can-eat restaurant. It was a meat-eater's dream! Not sure how many calories I ate, but it was a lot more meat than I have had at one time for a long time.

Salad bar was great too, but did you notice there's no actual salad on my plate... just shrimp, smoked salmon, fish and a piece of sushi?  I liked the Lobster Bisque, but I couldn't find any lobster in it.  I had two bowls of it!  My wife had only the salad bar as she's not really a big meat eater.  Besides, she likes everything "well-done".  I don't think there were too many well-done cuts of meat coming out there.  For me, I usually tell people that I like my meat "medium", but I'll eat it any way they bring it out to me!

Sorry, but they only bring you one meat at a time, and so by the time the next person brought another piece, the first piece was already gone... so the photos are rather sparse of the meat on the plate.  I should have counted, but let's say the amount of meat I ate was perhaps 12 times the amount you see on the plate!

Most of the meat coming out were really good.  The only ones I didn't think were really that good was the leg of lamb (we all thought it tasted just a bit off to us, even though we have had lamb in the past) and surprisingly, the BBQ beef brisket.  While the brisket actually was good, it wasn't as moist as I had hoped and it had way too much barbecue sauce on it.  I think I would have preferred it only to be salt and pepper rather than being sauced.  Still good, but not what I had hoped for.  All the other meat was top notch!  I really liked the top sirloin and the fillet mignon!  I passed on the bacon-wrapped chicken though.  I've had plenty of chicken during my diet!  I gained three pounds on this meal, but I'm not sad... I'll lose that again within the week.

OK... back on the diet!

(Edit Note:  I lost all of the three pounds gained within one week.)

Schwinn 270 Recumbent Bike

I bought myself an early birthday present to help my diet... a Schwinn 270 Recumbent Bike.   It was on sale at Dick’s Sporting Goods for $399. I remember that during my physical therapy for my knees, I was asked by the physical therapists to ride a recumbent bike for several miles before each therapy session, so I figured maybe I could get my own and continue this to help my knees and to help my diet!

I took my time building the bike so it took me around 2 hours to assemble it.  It's relatively easy to build actually.  Everything you need is included with the bike for the assembly.  It turned out great!  Instructions were nicely detailed and even your screws and nuts and washers are packed in a cardboard that is shrink wrapped and labeled.  That made it really easy to identify the parts!  While some places offer an assembly option for a cost, I think most people could actually build this themselves and save the money.  You might need two people if you are older just to help steady the bike during the first phase of installing the stabilizer bars for the bike, but other than that, you can do the rest yourself.

As for operation, if you download the Schwinn Trainer ap, the machine will bluetooth the workout session data to the ap. The ap in turn will update your burned calories to the MyFitnessPal ap! Nice!  I use the MyFitnessPal ap to track my calorie intake during my diet.  The console is easy to use, but not that intuitive.  If they had thought this part through a little more, perhaps it would have been better, but after fumbling a bit, I was able to figure out how it works to get the various programs to run.  There's no on-off switch, but the console will turn itself off after about 5 minutes with inactivity.

Even after just pedaling just several miles on the bike, I can tell that it seems really smooth and quiet.  I am finding that my hamstring muscles and hamstring tendon are really aching after even just a few sessions!  I suppose I'll have to work up the ability to do several miles at a time.  When you don't use these muscles as often as you should, you are going to ache after exercising!

While I had hoped to keep the bike in the family room so that I could pedal and watch TV, my wife prefers it in my office, so that's where it will stay.  I'll watch Netflix and YouTube on my iPad Mini and plug it into the bike's built-in speakers.  The built-in fan is nice too to help cool you off while riding.

I am 5'10" tall.  For me, I have to put the seat all the way back.  I wonder for those with long legs or taller than I am, would the bike be too small for them?  It's no problem for my wife or daughter as they are shorter than I am.  I like the pedals to be just under the point where my legs are fully extended.  It's less strain on my knees this way.  Even on a regular road bike, you should adjust the seat post and seat so that your knees are just slightly bent.  Too many people pedal with their seat post too low on a bike.  That's not good for your knees.

Overall, I'd say the bike is really good.  It is comfortable and even with my bad knees, I can pedal away safely.  If I ever do get knee replacements, it will be important to have for my rehab as well.  Overall, a good purchase which I hope to use daily!  Highly recommended for those who need some exercise but must limit the impact on their joints.