Parenting + Stress = Depression

I hear the saying, when you think you will, then you are.

Sadly it goes for both the negative and the positive thoughts.

Well after all said and done, I tried to do a lots ot activities to help manage myself, but parenthood is simply a "REAL-LIFE" full time job on top of any of my full time work.

I'm depressed.

I'm depressed because I can see how different I have become between when I was just a husband and now that I'm a dad. I realized a lot of things that I never thought of happening whe I became a father. I thought that being a father is something you can solve by reverse-engineering what you've expreienced as a child.

BUT NO...

Fatherhood for me is a phase in my life where the complexity of the individuality of a growing child unfolds right in front of your eyes and 95% of the time you will be caught off-guard. Everything is impromptu and preparation is useless.

Sorry to say this but in my opinion, nobody is qualified to write a book about parenting. Even people with PHDs or MDs are only limited to provide ideas based on psychological pattens and gathered scientific facts. What does this mean? the books are NOT fortune tellers and are only as good as stale news about how childrens and parents were doing in the past. In the end, you as a parent will have to deal with your own child future one day at a time.

How do you solve this issue? Well here's some news for you... YOU DONT.

This is an issue you can't fix why? My theory is because everyday is a new day, and each day promises a person to have new ideas bad or good, and a new way of doing things... new environment, school, diet, culture, psychological interpretations, new peers growing in the same theory.

Where does my depression comes in? well is somwhere between handling 5 BIG projects in work, being a good husband, and a being father with a kid demanding attention to his new-found ideas, activities and thoughts. Sadly on my end, my work has eaten most of my quality time... SHAME on ME for putting my wife and kid's time on the line.

Shrenks will love this question: I love my kid and wife so much yet I'm obliged to keep my family alive. My wife is getting frustrated with my almost immovable time of my ever intrusive business, and stress is leaking out myself that the simple but constant naughtiness of my son has become unbearable.

DUH! it's a rather rhetorical question but seriously where does my road lead to?

Vacation vacation vacation... I really want to have and afford a 1 YEAR vacation with my family. I really havent had any quality vacation for the past 9 years and I think I'm due or I'll bust.

I'm still looking for ways to get over this depression because where I am right now is simply more than a load full for me and parenting and stress changes people a lot.

On the queer side, I hope that

Parenting+Stress+Depression - breakdown= weight loss

that should compensate somehow :-|

Day 9

hey I have some nice news, lost about 1.5kg for the past 8 days. I hope that despite the "evilish" mongolian treat last night LOL, the diet efforts are starting to kick-off.

Breakfast:
actually none yet - BAD

TBC

Day 8

Breakfast:
1/2 cup of coffee
3 bites of the spanish bread (mostly the crust part)


Lunch:
50g asado continued :P


Dinner:
well, my buddy celebrated his birthday and Mongolian dinner was his treat.

For those who are not familiar with mongolian dish, it's one of those food trips where you pick "raw" ingredients on to your plate like raw beef tenderloin strips, chicken and pork. You will also need to pick the "base" of your dish e.g. rice, egg noodles, or clear noodles. Plus, you need to add necessary spices (not the hot ones) like bell peppers, ginger,and veggies like string beans, etc.. finally the sauce or seasoning - there are lots like: oyster sauce, teriyaki, soy, peanut, sesame chili. You then give your plate to the chef and he'll cook/stir-fry it.

My impression/comment is though... for you to appreciate this dish, you need to have a bit of cooking skills - which means you can imagine the fusion of taste after the dish is done. Wrong set or measure of ingredients may result to a very unpleasant taste. And dont expect the stir-fry guy to magically make it taste nice for you. Eventhough thats what the waiter is saying.

Anyway, here's the "buffet" for the ingredients.




Fortunately, I've been cooking since I was 8, I'm not a chef, but lots of experience on various dishes taught me well.

So for my dinner, I got the following:

1/4 cup cooked rice.
1/2 cup egg noodles boiled and oiled already
about 80g of raw beef strips
about 50g of raw chicken

about 8 strips Julienne-cut carrot just for flavor
dash of onion leeks
about 6 strips of ginger just for flavor as well
2 tbsp of mung bean sprouts
1/16 tsp of red chili - careful it's just a dinner plate-size dish
1/8 tsp garlic
1 tsp onion

1/2 tsp of oyster sauce - careful for flavor only, this is very salty
4 tbsp of teriyaki sauce - nice and sweet
1/4 tsp roasted sesame seeds
1/2 tbsp sesame oil
1/2 tbsp roasted peanut
1/2 tsp brown sugar.

have it stir fried...

the result.... :-D

From kikoventure

Overall I'm happy that it turned out to be what I expected... not greasy, sweet, mild, and nutty. What I didn't expect was the serving size - WOW it's good enough for 2.

Day 7

Just finished helping cook viand for the family (Chinese asado). But I womnt be able to eat it because aside from my diet, I have a casual board meeting in guess what... McDonalds - :p the directors "simply" ordered sausage mcmuffins and chucken nuggets.

so here's my breakfast for the 4-hr meeting:

1 sausage mcmuffin with egg.
5 pc chicken nuggets
about 10g of french fries
2 coffee - no sugar and cream

Lunch:
none


Dinner:
2 soft boiled eggs
about 20g of the Asado

Day 6

Kid's school report card day they are starting an hour earlier then usual... good luck.

Morning:

few sips of coffee.
3 1/8" clices of luncheon meat - shool canteen food :P


Lunch:
1 empanada snack size
1/2 syvannas about 5g

Dinner:
3pc dimsum about 45g
1 siopao bola filling - idn't want to eat the flour dough.

Day 5

Breakfast:
1 Spanish bread - damn flour.
sip of coffee.


Lunch:
50g Chinese Kikiam

Dinner:
50g Chinese Kikiam - still

Day 4

Hi, finally got 6 hours sleep my work deadline is still up bu the deliverables are less intense.

Today's Rule moving forward: NO CHIPS! and no White Flour - based foods

I'm starting my day with about
125g of tuna omelette.
1 cup of coffee.


Lunch:
100g Buttered Broccoli with button mushroom - wife's style :D - NICE!


Dinner:
70g Vegetable spring rolls and 4pc steamed shrimp siomai

Day 3

Breakfast:

Orange juice and sausage bun.

Lunch:
50g meat in tamarind soup
10g of potato fries - BAD!
1 sugar raised bun - BAD!
6g tiny thai tamarinds for dessert

Dinner:
just a rewind of lunch no chips.

Snack:
60g Potato Chips - Still BAD!


My wife bought Starbucks iced latte good thing is already almost empty harhar


little note - i'm probably still hungry though but I will need to cut the bread and potato intake since it's not "diet" friendly AT ALL (bye chips! sniff sniff) :-P

South Beach Day 2

sleepless night because of my deadline that only means one thing, working-out can be hazardous.. frustrating! But starting my day off:

breakfast:
1/2 cup of coffee no sugar added
4 pcs (not cans :-D ) of 2" spanish style sardines no tomato sauce... yummy.

lunch: (beef stew)
80g of beef meat and soft tendons - no fats
20g of cabbage

about 30g or 5 teaspoon of sweetend Yam- c'mon it was yummy! :-D

snack:
50g of greasless peanuts

dinner:
1 sugar raised bun
20 grams of cripy chicken cracklings



I havent really mentioned it but I'm a regular water drinker 1L a day is typical for me :-D so no need to mention it here over and over to spare you the monotony LOL.

TBC...


uhm,.. I need to put in more fiber-rich food and fresh veggies or I wont hit my 12-day deadline. oops (last 10 days now) :-( nyt nyt I have another meeting early morning 2hours drive.

SouthBeach Day 1

ok, I got 5 hours of sleep last night and now I'm starting my day with a cup of coffee - with a promise not to do a StarBucks follow through from now on lol. Kiddo have no school today yahoo! Now I'm now back to my laptop, writing codes to finish a chunk of the large project for my client - this project is keeping me awake for long hours really and its due. Anyhow, I'll be out later around lunch for a 5-hr meeting in another client. Promise I'll stick to my diet program ;-)

will update this post later.

ok i'm back, the meeting was a mess because the other party that my client invited in the meeting "had guns without ammos". Anyhow for lunch here's my inital attempt:

- 1 cup of coffee
- 3 siomai (steamed open faced dumpling) about 40g
- 70g of roast pork a little too oily for me though
- 500ml of water.

I wonder what's for dinner :-D can't do rice, crackers and bread :-( white flour and starch. Maybe I'll just pass uhmph!

Health Adventure

It's really weird when you write what you eat. But it paints you a picture of where you're headed.

I'll be frank, I'm a little heavyweight and I'm starting this blog to help me in my journey back to my lightweight days.

Yup , I was a 140lb dude turned into a 210lb guy back in '99 after I got married (yes I love my wife, and she cooks really nice). On my desire to lose weight, I lost 60lbs of which as of October '06 because of South Beach nutrition program which I started march 2005- uh yes It DOES WORK and it's not expensive as others would have thought. My meals like the veggies would cost only 25% of what it would cost you to prepare a pork stew or roast chicken. The only challenge is to discipline your self and JUST DO THE DAMN PROGRAM without excuses.

However, I went on a long pause on the program when I reached SB phase 3 'coz work caught up with me, and stress management became a gargantuan task. In other words, I got unreasonably busy... I closed a couple of large contracts my clients and needed to get my company to perform our end of the deal, and it was my first time being a school parent. Well baseline is, I was overwhelmed with tasks and my naughty side took over my health program.

The result? I'm back at 178-180 lbs... yuck - for me.

Now that I've been on both "weight worlds" being the slim and the heavy, let me share you a piece of my experience on both:

At 150 lbs:

• I can jog 4-5 kms easily in 40mins, and still
• play 1-hour basket ball game, and
• 1 game of badminton,
• 30 push-ups
• 100 sit ups
• 180bpm is manageable
• I can wear nice clothes. My waistline is 32"
• I don't fall asleep in meetings and in front of the computer.
• many other good stuff ;-)

At 180lbs:

• I can only jog at most 2kms
• I CAN'T play basketball or any other workout after jogging.
• I feel old and a typical 160bpm peak makes my head pound.
• I fall asleep in front of the computer and while watching movies.
• My clothes wont fit.
• I feel heavy - my cheeks feels thick, my tummy is sagging, flabby in my arms - it's frustrating.
• 1hr of casual basketball game is very very tiresome - I can't finish the game at all.
• waist line is 36-37"
• need I say more?

Now it's Feb 1 of 2009 I've eaten the last batch of the rather "unhealthy" foods into my body hmmm....
Fried Chicken
Tuna omelet
2 buns
4 glasses of soft drinks
1 roast beef roll
few cookies
and fried squid.

Beginning Feb 2, my journey away from large sizes begins by jumping-back to my South Beach program stage 1 simply because I've done it and it works. The only difference now is that I'll document it here in my blog and risk humiliation - lol.

I'll also start with my moderate work-out program - admittedly I can't jog 5km for now to avoid fatigue and knee injury due to overweight , but I'll start with my typical stuff I did 4 years ago:

5-8hr sleep time
5:30am wake up time
400 crunches
100 obliques
100 lower abs pull
shoulder and biceps pull
15 push-ups
2km walk-jog combo

I'll do this basic program until my weight drops to 168-170lbs - hopefully within 12 days. (Feb 14) :-D from then I'll "add stress" to my work out by increasing the jog distance and lower abs pull. By then should be able to maintain a 1.5 hour workout until I reach my target weight.

My target weight is to lose 35-40lbs which will be somewhere between 135lbs and 150lbs. I think 145lbs sounds good for my height based on clinical computation.

Doable? It's a tall order but YES, been there, done that.

The first 5-10lbs should be manageable in 12 days since it's mostly losing extra salt and fluids and remaining calories from the last meal I ate. The work-out should kick start my metabolism back to fitness mode.

The next 20lbs will be literally crazy because I'll be declaring war on my cravings, "avoiding" foods that REALLY TASTES GOOD, while managing my business stress - oh I haven't mentioned that I work 3 jobs. I'm managing a couple of small corporations and a consultant to another- good thing I like what I do :-D bad thing is there are always free lunch and coffee :-P

Anyway, wish me luck on my journey, I'll need it 'coz will be very difficult and highly mental.

To close my post, here's my personal motivational bullets:

• avoid stroke - you might survive it, but unable to talk about it - veggie brain.
• avoid heart attack - you only have one, and you don't own yours once you get married and have kids who rely on you.
• avoid cancer - uhm let's just say my mom died ealry because of this.
• accept your problems and face the stress - prepare for and deal with them. Inevitably it will always find you in the most inopportune time. Just remember, problems opens opportunities that successful people takes advantage of- go figure.
• it's never too late - if you don't try, you'll never find out.

Tomorrow then!