Make your presence known & your absence felt! Day 20-21

Just a short and sweet one today, Monday was a wash! Yes the day was a 0 on a contract and I have decided to expel it from memory. Well not quite but I sure wish I could.  There is a lot happening in the financial world right now, with investors looking for the next best thing, emerging markets have seen a lot of growth over the last 2 quarters and we are hoping to maintain this going forward.

Unfortunately here in SA our strengthening Rand has lost a lot of ground in the month of August, predominantly relating to the ongoing Hawks Vs Gordhan saga.

Sufficed to say, it was a busy busy day at the office. I had a bit of a food wobble as well. With all the chaos, I was unable to eat at my regular intervals. I did manage to keep my water quota in tact and did go for my 2km walk, so that was a bonus. After work, I got to Betty (My little Sandero) and noticed that the remote didn’t work, I manually unlocked the car and to my shock horror realised that I had left the lights on accidentally and that she was dead!

This would’ve been absolutely fine, except that I had taken my jumper cables out of the car on Friday when I went to get a new tyre and didn’t; put them back in. The mission to find jumper cables began…strange as it may sound 5 out 6 people don’y have jumper cables, or at least that was my experience. I eventually had a chat with the hotel security staff and they offered to have their CID team come out with a Jump Kit for me. This was at 5:05PM, at 5:45PM I had reached my limit in patience and decided that I would call my insurer: 1^st for Women – after 6 failed calls/dropped calls whatever you want to call it, I eventually spoke to someone and they requested the roadside assistance. At 6:55PM the roadside assistance guy arrived, he gave me a quick jump and I was off. I work in Green Point and live in Hout Bay, it’s roughly a 30-40min drive.

Now yes in fairness I could’ve still gone to gym and returned home at around 8:45PM-9:00PM (1hr gym session and 50min to get there and then back to my house) then gotten the camera ready and cooked a healthy dinner but I didn’t…. Instead I succumbed to temptation and got myself some comfort food in the form of a McDonald’s Big Tasty Burger. Yes I know 800 Calories in one burger, but I really did not give a fuck at that point.

I have to say after 20 days of no carbs that burger was like a blessing!

Daily Food Diary

Water 2.5l (I compensated and drank an extra 500ml with my burger, to aid digestion)

Tea: 2 cups green tea, no sugar, no milk

Coffee 2 Cups, 1 brown Sugar, Milk

Food

1 Medium Sized Apple

1 x Big Tasty Burger

Jawbone UP3 Tracker Data:

Step Goal: 6500                     Actual: 7775

Sleep Goal: 7hr                      Actual: 6hr

Resting Heart Rate: 64 Bpm  

Highest Measured Heart Rate: 81 Bpm

Tuesday Day 21

Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day, I have a beautiful feeling everything’s going my way. Yes indeed, this Tuesday morning was started with clear skies and a glorious view on my drive to work.

I was feeling energized and ready to tackle the day. Only one more day till I could actively start incorporating alcohol back into my eating regime and 3 weeks of for all intent and purpose sticking to my diet.

Work is work and play is play yes, but sometimes I get so upset at the sheer volume of mediocrity I am faced with. People so bloody complacent and content in doing the very least possible. Arghh this is what causes a person to snap! I don’t know I tend to live by the mantra when it comes to work that “ Make your presence known and your absence felt” if you live your life that way, you will always be an asset to your business and in demand for future prospects. I believe no matter what position you find yourself in that you should immerse yourself in it and become the best in it. I think I need to patent that slogan, as my peers from various other industries are already using it in their motivational talks - pay me my royalties guys... Evidently that is not what the rest of society believes and it fucks me right off. Can we please get a grip and start being contributing members of society, or is that too much to ask?

I had a great lunchtime stroll down Somerset Road and have managed to cut my walking time down to 22min, bearing in mind that I am in full office attire and can’t very well run or work up too much of a sweat in them. I have made a decision to start changing into another set of clothes for the walk when I return from Jhb on the 11^th.

It was also back on track with the food day here’s the breakdown:

Water: 2l

Tea: 1 Cup Green Tea

Coffee 2 Cups, 1 Brown Sugar, Milk

Breakfast: 1 Boiled Egg

                   6 Strawberries

Mid-morning snack: 80ml Yoghurt

 

Lunch: Tuna Salad

Lettuce, Herbs, Cherry  Tomatoes,     

Carrot Shavings, Beetroot Shavings,  

Onion 

1/2 can of tuna (in water). 

5ml Mayo

Dinner: Chicken Stir-fry(Great mix to have with some noodles making it a Chicken 

Chow Mein for the rest of the fam)

               

 100g Chicken Breast

 50g Cabbage,

 40gCarrot,

 40gOnion,

 40g Mushroom,

 30g Bean Sprouts

 20g Sweet Corn

10ml Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Soy Sauce

Salt & Pepper

There is no video today as I was crammed for time, besides, everyone of you knows how to chop, and that is all a stir fry is, getting your ingredients together, chopping them up and frying them. Starting with the onions folks, then add the mushrooms, then the meat and then everything else and Viola you have your meal!

 Jawbone UP3 Tracker Data:

Step goal: 6500             Actual: 8928

Sleep Goal:                    Actual: 3h46m (Not great at all, couldn't turn my mind off been worrying about a friend of mine who's gonna have a baby soon - positive vibes to the universe that all goes well)

Today's exercise was something different, I did a little bit of a cardio dance work out at home, it'll get the blood pumping guys, try it if you wanna pump up that booty! Hey O hey o!

 

The Gordhan Saga – my 2c

The “Hawks” investigation of Finance Minister  Pravin Gordhan is having a bit of a ripple effect. This has caused a clear rift between state and business. Weeks after the worst performance in an election, the ANC is succumbing to even further internal divisions – Cyril Ramaposa  (believed to be a possible candidate to replace Zuma after he steps down as the ANC’s leader and eventually as President.  Openly declaring his support for Gordhan is just one thing.

We need to root out whether this public dispute is of a personal vindictive nature or whether there is legitimate cause for concern, to the best of my knowledge and based on what has been made public by the press, this all started when Zuma was pressured into hiring Gordhan in Dec 2015 – after the Nhlanhla Nene debacle.

To give you some background, Pravin Gordhan ran SARS as Commissioner between 1998 and 2009, he later oversaw it politically when he was Finance Minister between 2009 and 2014. Moyane was appointed as SARS boss back in 2014 to allegedly clean up “the mess” at SARS,

After his recent re-appointment as Finance Minister Gordhan pleaded to Zuma to fire the country’s Tax Chief, Tom Moyane, now whether this was a legitimate request, as Gordhan’s spokesperson Phumza Macanda has stated, or simply an effort to prevent certain facts to come to light remains to be seen.

 

There has been an ongoing battle between the SARS boss and our Finance Minister, predominantly Monyane side has claimed that this is regarding a KPMG report that they want to release which will reinforce the allegations of a so-called “rogue investigative unit that was set up within SARS” and that this was overseen by Ivan Pillay – a close comrade of Mr. Gordhan’s 

While the Gordhan side, claims that the whole situation is relating to the operational overhaul and certain report disclosures Moyane’s camp want to make. The truth I believe remains to be seen.

According to a Sunday Times article in late January of this year, “there were 2 independent probes that preceded the KPMG report, which forced several former SARS officials close to Gordhan - including Pillay and former risk and enforcement executive Johann van Loggerenberg - to resign after the rogue unit was uncovered.” - Cited from Sunday Times Article 24 January 2016

The unfortunate thing here is that we as the public, do not have enough information to make informed comments. There are ties to all sorts here, Moyane and Zuma go as far back as their days in exile. Zuma and Gordhan also once allies, worked together in the ANC's underground operations in the 1980s, but in recent years have fallen out several times.

SARS as a whole has been plagued by scandal for a long time and quite frankly there may yet be more skeletons to come a bouncing out the closet. For whatever reason, if there was a need for an additional investigation unit during those years – which were very politically volatile. This would’ve been to uncover upper-level corruption.

There are so many social and economical concerns here, on a far greater scale. The most unnerving thing here is what our Foreign investment sector will do, yesterday we saw the sale of quite a few shares in the local banks by foreign investors, the Rand has also weakened substantially in the month of August. On the 15^th a dollar cost you R13.24 and it looked positive, checking the markets this morning, 31^st August a $ runs at R14.52.  It may just be time to hold your dollars again people, because I don’t see the downward trend stopping any time soon.

Our agricultural industry is still suffering with the effects of the drought and has projected 0% growth for the year, the continuous protest actions, from both public and private sectors over the last few years, coupled with political instability that currently gets hyped up in international news papers regarding the “tiff” between our President and Finance Minister is surely not instilling confidence in investors, add to that the Gupta’s who are looking to sell all of their shares in South African Business is just another factor in this potjiekos pot we call the South African economy. 

3rd Weekend Down - Days 17-19

What a bloody mess Friday turned out to be, I started the morning off by trying to find a tyre replacement place, eventually got sorted at Superquick in Sea Point. 900 Bucks later I had a new tyre. Bleh! Not the best way to start your day, especially not a week before payday.

Anywhoo, the diet damage done by the previous evenings shenanigans also played heavily on me, so much so that I decided to do another semi-fasted day.

I had my 2l of water and split a summer salad into 4 portions. I also ensure that my apple was split into 2. This pretty much made up my daily meals. Now I have been told by one of my mates, who is a dietician that this could work for some but not necessarily for all - she has advised that fasting even for short periods of time may actually halt my metabolism entirely - Bleh, okay then, thanks for the heads up love, unfortunately I don't have 2k right now to run a full blood panel and see exactly what would work for my specific body - for the most part though I feel that I am trying and eventually will stumble onto what works for me - this is about a change in general and not so much a diet, yes I want to kick the pounds too, and with enough exercise I'm sure they will abate. I am seeing centimeter loss and lets face it, most sports professionals/trainers etc will tell you that the real results you will only start noticing in yourself between 4-8 weeks, so we still have a ways to go.

I am back on the alcohol free stint until Wednesday of next week. That makes 22 Days yes, but remember I lapsed on Thursday so I had to add another day.

So regardless of having had several explanations I was still very dismayed and completely thrown by the lack of weight lost over the last 2 and a half weeks but have been told that this could also be linked to my current emotional state. I guess that’s valid, but didn’t quite realize how big of an effect your emotional state/well-being has on weight loss – until I started researching this.

In particular I was floored to find the clinical trials and psychological studies that had been done over the course of the last 2 decades. These were done on a variety of people trying to lose weight. All different shapes and sizes as well as racial demographics. Some only wanting to lose 5pounds others 100pounds. It was strange to find that a whole lot of them showed that a real key to weight loss was not diet or exercise, but is instead a person's emotional state.  A recent study inclusive of questionnaire discovered that 90 percent of the participants ignored the psychological link between food and exercise.

Okay, so yes. I am an emotional eater, yes I have been sad and angry recently. Yes my personal life is an absolute disaster right now…so maybe I need to start seriously focusing on getting my mind right too. The truth is that there are a lot of logistics involved in happiness. So I will now start actively trying to sort out my “shit”. We all have baggage, some only a handbag others a duffel some even vans and vans full of baggage. So in an attempt to “declutter” my personal baggage I will work on some much needed emotional stability, with my recent relocation, being away from my kids(they are furry) and trying the long-distance thing with my boyfriend it has been putting a heavy strain on my chi. Furthermore missing friends and family is hard, but there are always ways around things. I need to go and set a realistic game plan into motion to figure out what I want in life and in love.

Jawbone UP3 Data:

Step Goal: 6500     Actual: 6628

Sleep Goal: 7hr      Actual: 4h22m (Bleh)

Food Intake:

2l Water

Coffee: 3 Cups, 1 Brown Sugar, Milk

Woolies Summer Salad with 1 can of Tuna(in Water)

1 Medium Apple

Saturday Day 18

The day started out fairly normal, I did my washing and went for a stroll in the vineyard. I saw the strangest thing ever! A Hadeda chasing Ducks out of a tree! Yes you heard me right. Now this is not something you see in Gauteng people. You may see ducks on a pond but certainly not in high trees.

A lot of my day was spent on studies and binge watching Felicity. There are so many now famous actors who had small roles in that show. It’s actually funny that I didn’t remember them before now.

Here’s a quick list of the stars and their most recent shows.

Bethany Joy Lenz – Hayley in One Tree Hill

Tyra Banks – Top Model and now her own Talk show

Donald Faison – Best known as Turk from Scrubs

Eddie Cahill – CSI NY, Under the Dome

Christopher Gorham – He played Harrison in the 2000’s tv show Popular and now recently played Auggie in Covert Affairs and can be seen as Wyatt in Heartbeat.

Simon Rex  - Scary Movie 3,4 & 5

Amy Smart – Many movies, recently played Allison in Justified

I didn’t feel like cooking at all this weekend, I did make myself a 2 egg omelette in the morning, filled with mushroom, onion, green pepper and cheese. But when it came to lunch and dinner I opted for a delicious Caesar Salad from Woolies which I split over the 2 mealtimes.

Jawbone UP3 Data:

Step Goal: 6500             Actual: 4991 (Epic Fail)

Sleep Goal: 7hr              Actual: 8hr40m

Sunday – Day 19

Sunday started out all smoggy – for all intent and purpose it looked like it would be a day spent indoors, but with some luck this swung around and by 12PM the sky was clear. For me it was a day of reflection and some much needed introspection. I took a long stroll in the garden, past the pond through the vineyard –  after which I spent some time with my awesome neighbours (They are horses by the way). There are 5 of them, right next door and they are super friendly. I don't know there is something about stroking a horse and looking into it's eyes.

In the afternoon I went to spend some time at my dune.  There were some gorgeous sail boats sailing on the turquoise water – I want one!

That is something I love doing, sailing, yes it's hard and yes we got stuck on a hobie cad in Mauritius for a while, a loooooong while. But sailing is a blast, fishing and diving are blasts too and they all go hand in hand together. Don't get me wrong I'll take a speed boat too, but sailing with wind, is just something else. Ideally I would like to get a combination boat, with sails and a powerful engine.



 

A song in particular that helped me today with my "introspection" is 'Catch & Release" - Matt Simons

Do yourselves a favour and really listen to the words, ah, such a great song. 




The food day was pretty boring but at least I cooked again.

Breakfast - 2 Egg Omlette
                   Cheese, Tomato, Mushroom, Green Pepper

Lunch - Green Salad - Lettuce, Cucumber, Onion, Cherry Tomato, Feta

Dinner: Beef, Green Beans & Baked Mushrooms

Ingredients: 100g Tenderised Steak
                       80g Portobello Mushrooms
                       80g Green Beans
                       30g Grated Cheese
                       5-10g Cream Cheese
                       5-10g Pesto (Mine is made  
                        with Red Pepper, Garlic, Cashews, Spices and Extra Virgin Olive Oil)
10ml Sweet Chili Sauce
10ml Soy Sauce (Can be reduced salt soy too)


Here's the video, it really is super easy! Remember to liven things up through spices.

Phuza Thursday #Day16

In South Africa we have 11 official languages, "phuza" is the Zulu word for “drink”  so a few years ago, society decided that we South Africans like to party on Thursdays too and it was aptly renamed Phuza Thursday’s since it’s inception, many bars, pubs, clubs and restaurants have jumped on the bandwagon and tend to have great live music, as well as drink & food specials running on Thursdays.

Today was not a typical diet regime Thursday, but as mentioned on Monday I knew we would be meeting an institutional partner for drinks after work so I had to provision for those extra calories.  I did this by doing a semi-fasted day.

I had no breakfast or mid-morning snack and had a Caesar salad as a late lunch, to at least line the stomach.

My Chicken Caesar Salad consisted of:

Grilled chicken, Parmesan shavings, Baby Cos Salad and an Anchovy dressing, I did get them to leave the croutons out. There was no egg or bacon in this particular Caesar salad.

I did end up having 3 glasses of Chenin Blanc – 360 Calories
(There are 120 calories in 1 5 fluid ounce serving of Chenin Blanc Wine) 4 Tequila’s – 256 calories( depending on the variant of Tequila there are between 64-69 Calories in a tequila shot.)

This Tequila video is hilarious. 

 




Yeah, in hindsight we ended up having a bit of a late night. But do not be worried, for every glass of vino, I had a glass of water too – this upped my intake of water to 3l for the day, which should help mitigate the damage done by the booze.

I think that realistically it’s okay to “fall off the horse” so to speak, as long as you take your flops into account and ensure you get right back on the horse.

The events of the evening unfortunately did not end there, on the way home I got a flat tyre - FANFUCKING TASTIC! I was between Camps Bay and Hout Bay on an outstretch of road with poor signal. 1st For Women, my insurer were not reachable on their "Guardian Angels" line, so essentially I was Fucked.

I couldn't believe the amount of vehicles who just zoomed by - bearing in mind that I was woman alone at roughly now 12:00AM in the morning. After about the 15th car that just zipped by, I decided to actively wave the next one down - and low and behold they stopped! There are still good people in the world. Initially we tried to change the tyre ourselves but for some reason my "jack" did not have a key. Shame my rescuers as they are now aptly called, offered to use theirs and  in the process it got bent. So that idea was a wash. Eventually after about another 15 min I was able to get a hold of 1st for women, they advised that their driver would be about an hour.

While we waited for the "Guardian Angel" to arrive the 3 of us had a great conversation - they happened to be muso's too. It's really rare to just randomly meet such like minded people, nevertheless we did.  We wanted to get the spare wheel pumped up so it would be a quick tyre change, unfortunately the "car gods" had other plans for me, now of all times, my car's lighter was stuck!!!!! Argh sometimes the saying: "Anything that can go wrong...will" Is too bloody true! Luckily their lighter worked just fine so we did manage to get the spare wheel pumped up. It was closer to 1.5 hours, before the  "Guardian Angel" got there. Through all of this I have to say both Eben and Jana were awesome, they didn't have to wait for me, but they did. My tyre was changed and we all got away from there at around 1:40AM, just goes to show, that you can make friends in the most obb places.

Daily Data:

Water: 3l
Wine: 3 x 120ml Chenin Blanc
Tequila: 4 x 25ml Shots 
Food: Chicken Ceasar Salad 

Jawbone UP3 Tracker Data:
Step Goal: 6500                Actual: 6260 (240 steps short)
Sleep Goal: 7hr                 Actual 3hr 45m (Bleh)

Tomorrow is another day, I leave you with some words of wisdom and a minion meme. Ciao Ciao

 

 

WTF! Sometimes I just wanna scream - Day 15

To give you an accurate picture of my current mindset we have to start at 7:20 AM. I'm on route to the office listening to KFM I was canning myself at the silly little Faux Pas that the DJ's make, so the world is up in arms about a 12 -year old singer that was featured on America's Got Talent - Grace VanderWaal, somewhere in her heritage there's Dutch/German we Afrikaners have the Van Der Waal's  too. She is without a doubt going to be HUGE and I will put money on the fact that she will win America's Got Talent 2016 in a few days. She has a very wistful, hypnotic sound, a sound very similar to the music I love, and make.

If you haven't heard her, do yourself a quick fav and watch her latest performance:

Now I'm by no means saying the girl isn't talented, she really is. But there are artist's out there already with a similar sound, so when people tell me she has a unique sound (the morning show Radio Dj's in this particular instance) I want to flip out. The 2nd blunder in the same sentence, is stating how the US have things right with cultivating young American talent, then they mention "The Biebs" Justin Bieber - Uh hello guys, he is Canadian! Wrong example to use.

The truth is there are many many talented performers out there, the difference between getting discovered or not....is timing.

Being at the right place at the right time, can and will make or break an artist or band. As a qualified Producer myself, with a small independent Production Company, I am fully aware of the greatness that lies out there, it's all about cultivating it. I love finding new talent and working with independent musicians. Here are a few female vocalists, who may not be as "well known" but still have the talent and very similar vocal stylings.

From the US

Gnash Ft Olivia O'Brien - I Hate You, I Love You  
(I'm talking about her voice here folks)

Melanie Martinez - Mad Hatter

Halsey - Ghost  - Please also listen to the Acoustic(Stripped) Version

From South Africa : Ryki - Please Try














UK Based Singers:

Kate Nash - Foundations 

Imogen Heap - Hear me Out (Also known as Frou Frou she was in the Duo)

From Canada

Sarah McLachlan - Angel (One of my all time favourites)

In fact if we rewind to the nineties and earlier, we can look at artists, like Jewel, K's Choice, Lene Marlin, Michelle Branch, Bethany Joy Lenz, Kate Vogel, to name a few this vocal style was and remains loved! - I think I've made my point.

Suddenly Liezl V is telling me(she does traffic on KFM) that a mains water pipe has burst just outside the building I work, and even better the entire block is closed off -this presented several wonderful little "challenges" for me. Why did I use qoutes, so you can sense the sarcasm dripping from my lips. 

Challenge one would be that there would be traffic or should I say, more traffic than usual & two, I would either not be able to get to my designated parking area at all, or it would take a small miracle to get to it. When I eventually got to the turn off, I was met with a complete road closure, I had to circle round the block and attempt to reach it from the other side - nope also sealed. Okay I know what you're thinking, just find street parking...No people this is Cape Town, motorists here have no respect for road rules, they make 'em as they go along. those beautiful Red and Yellow lines, they're for decoration "to brighten your day" what I'm saying is that every possible place to park a car is already taken, including the illegal spots.

After circling round the block twice, I decided to put my hazards on and cornered one of the traffic officers, I explained that they either had to radio up to the other side to move a cone, or let me through that side so I could park inside our office park, the latter won out...finally.

Not the ideal way to start the day, but alas we plunder on. On Wednesday's I don't take a lunch break so that I can leave early and attend a Pilates class at my gym. This also means that I don't get my 2km walk in over lunch, which FYI I already had to skip on Monday cause no one was in the office but me - my step goal is suffering this week. Bleh.

I didn't get away on time and to add insult to injury the stupid closed road, caused a massive backlog in traffic, it took me 22min  to do 1 Kilometer! Sufficed to say, I was late for Pilates - so I opted to take a stroll in the vineyard at home instead.Today was going to be my first weigh in and measuring day to check my progress....why did I say Was??? Because it did not happen - My Landlord's cleaner Wendy comes to my cottage supposedly once a week to wash floors and vacuum(but hasn't for the last 5 weeks) and unfortunately she decided that my sheet of paper with the measurements on was garbage. 
She chucked it!!!!! ARGH ARGH ARGH - ANGRY BIRDS FACE.

Now we start again, look I can see and feel a difference in my tightest clothing and there has been a small drop in weight(from what I remember) but I don't get to phased about the numbers on the scale(mainly because muscle weighs more than fat), to me it's more about centimeter loss, overall BMI and optimizing my health. So...I will weigh and measure myself in the morning on an empty stomach and then have my official first weigh in and measure in 2 weeks time. Such a buzzkill.


Day 15 - Food Diary

Water: 2l
Tea: 1 Cup Rooibos Tea, (2 tea bags), 1 Brown Sugar, Milk
Coffee: 2 Cups, 1 Brown Sugar, Milk Special Coffee: 1 Nescafe Vanilla Latte

Breakfast - Apple

Mid morning Snack: 80g Yoghurt

Lunch - Beef Stroganoff & Cauliflower Rice (made last night)

Afternoon Snack - None

Dinner - Lemon Butter Chicken & Broccoli with Cheese (5-8min cooking time)

I was in a rush today with dinner so it was short and sweet, quite possibly even a bit boring. The key is to use spices of your choice on your chicken after it has been steamed.

Ingredients:
100-200g Broccoli
100g Chicken Breast (Deboned & Skinless)
40g Cheese
Spices of your choice - I used oregano, vegetable spice
Fresh Lemon
My Dipping Sauce : Paarlman's Blue Cheese Salad Dressing

Today I leave you with some inspiration and a laugh. Ciao