song of the road

Had a generaly good day yesterday. Woke up late around 9:30 am. After a sketchy, lazy breakfast, went to gym, met S and gave him the money. Afterwards went to the library to change my books.

 It was almost a month since I changed books. I was reading a rather heavy book called “God’s Little Soldier”. It has some interesting angle on religion and the protagonist is extremely religious. He tries to find himself - first as a born muslim and then later converts to chiristianity and at the end practices hinduism for a while too - all in his about 35 years of life. He feels he is God’s chosen one to save mankind. He tries to do lot of good but because (I think) he is ruthless and in a tearing hurry, he picks up very questionable means to his ends and for most part mankind needed to be saved from him. Then there is his brother and father who are extremely liberal and they have their ways too. It is an engrossing book though a bit scary and can take an emotional toll.

The other one was an english translation of an urdu novel called “Umrao Jaan Ada”. This has been made into a very successful hindi film in the eighties. Umrao Jaan is a courtesan in British India - around late 1800s. This one also is a superb biography novel. It talks of her life from when she got kidnapped at the age of about 12 and how another courtesan buys her and teaches her singing, dancing, poetry writing, her loves and losses - a long journey of a strong woman.

Anyway, this time I just did not want any heavy stuff - so just didn’t veer towards english fiction by Indian writers. I picked up a couple of novels on movies - one I think is “never been kissed” and one more - I have already forgotten the names. To go whole hog on light reading, I picked up a couple of Jackie Collins novels too. One Micheal Chrichton - “Five patients” and a couple more something. As in food, my gluttony shows up in reading too. That is why sometimes I think I don’t enjoy reading as I should. Rounded it all up by buying some magazines for mom.

Did some cooking too yesterday. Made that pasta salad with penne pasta, loads of bell pepper - green, yellow and red, a bit of carrot, onion, garlic and a dash of chilli, vinegar, mixed herbs and olive oil. It definitely was not anything authentic but it was yummy and fun and light too. Made some mixed vegetable curry - carrots, cauliflower, beans, capsicum, potatoes and a lentil soup with spinach to go with rice for dinner. I think I did okay vegetable wise yesterday and had a small bowl of pineapple too.

Did not work out yesterday even though I went to the gym. S was working out all seriously with gloves, belts - the whole paraphernelia. Anyway made it to gym today. Instead of pressing snooze, I stopped the alarm when it went off at 6 and slept on. Luckily the guy who works out before me didn’t come and S called up asking me to come early. I couldn’t go early but made it in time somehow. Worked out for about 2.5 hours - including lower body workouts, abs and cardio. I think making the ticker for walking goal is going to help me out.

S would be changing all the workouts by Wednesday and a new routine will start. Though I think in the last few months, we have not done any routine properly as both S and I kept missing workouts. Hopefully I would do better this time. He said he would give lower weights and higher repititions for next time. Will that be good?! Anyway, lets see for a few days.

By the way, there was a nutrition quiz in the gym on saturday. I would go and ask them the correct answers tomorrow, if I can remember. I did quite badly there. I hadn’t realized that I know so less. Though one question was - “How many calories are there in 60 ml of whiskey?”. Of course I have no clue whatsoever. But I guess that won’t hurt me. Which reminds me, maybe I should look up the calories in 60 ml of vodka, so if I go to a pub next time, I will be able to mar my enjoyment by counting calories. Anyway I hardly ever drink alcohol, so it’s okay.

Maybe I should try to figure out calories of what I eat everyday a bit more. Because we never measure ingredients, it could best be approximate. Then too finding out calorie content of each ingredient - it is going to be complicated arithmetic. So, let me stick to reasonably healthy options and exercise more and let’s see. Though eventually I guess I will have to sort out the eating more, because I may not be able to work out this much always. Hope I can though, because working out is far better than eating restrictions.

On that profound note, let me end my long post. Everybody have a great day in all possible ways. Love you!