Monthly Archives: June 2009

Store Reviews

Visiting Bates Nut Farm

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Bates Nut FarmEarlier today I attended a company picnic that was being held at the Bates Nut Farm in Valley Center, California. The locally infamous venue often due to the name “Bates” and seemingly endless jokes in reference to the movie Psycho or local DJs referring to it as “Nate’s Butt Farm” is actually a really nice place. They have a lot of land that they often rent out for company parties and the sort, but what they’re most known for is being a purveyor of nuts from around the world. Their “General Store” that’s located on the farm is like an old time candy shop where they make their own chocolates and fudge as well as offer the opportunity to purchase nuts from around the world often in several varieties such as roasted, raw, salted, unsalted, and more. The store also has a section that’s like a craft store with a variety of items for home decor that would fit into a country theme.

For my visit, I enjoyed browsing through the shop. They had several interesting variety of nuts from around the world, but ultimately all I bought from the nuts section was a 7 ounce bag of raw Macadamia nuts as I love to chop those up and add them to my sugar free cookies. I also decided to purchase a small box of their deluxe sugar free candies. They had a variety of them from truffles, to cream filled ones, to some very good peanut butter cup ones as well. The best part is they had some in milk chocolate kind as well. It seems a lot of places if they have sugar free its all dark chocolate and I just don’t like as much. Definitely will have to be stopping back here on occasion for some really delicious sugar free candies.

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Belly Fat Cure, Health & Fitness

Making Hot Dogs Compliant With The Belly Fat Cure

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Hot Dog For Belly Fat Cure ProgramSometimes all it takes to convert a meal that would have too much sugar and too many carbs into one that would meet the recommendations for Jorge Cruise’s Belly Fat Cure are some minor tweaks. Take for example of a lunch consisting of a hot dog. A lot of Americans will grab a hot dog at their local Costco Membership Warehouse, and why not? It’s a great deal as the hot dog includes a soda in addition to the hot dog all for the amazingly low price of $1.50

Between the bun and the dog, it would have a Belly Fat Cure Sugar/Carb Value (S/C Value) of 11/3, based on the nutritional information found at TheDailyPlate.com. The information doesn’t specify if any of the condiments Costco makes available are on the hot dog or not. The condiments available are ketchup, mustard, relish, and onions. Whether or not these condiments are included in the nutritional information, the Belly Fat Cure program recommends a meal consist of no more than 5 grams of sugar and two carb servings or an S/C value of 5/2. (To learn how to figure out an S/C value, download the free Belly Fat Cure Report from JorgeCruise.com). This means the Costco hot dog has more than double the allowed sugar grams and slightly too many carb servings.

The most likely cause of the overage in the Costco hot dog is the bun. A lot of bread products are loaded with sugar as a lot of bread is made with High Fructose Corn Syrup. And the bun is also the cause of the carbs as the wiener in the hot dog is an all beef meat product. And of the condiments, if those are included in the nutritional information, the ketchup, relish, and onions would be the cause of additional sugar. If the ketchup is made by Heinz, then the ketchup has 4 grams of sugar per serving and since a single serving of ketchup (about 1 tablespoon) isn’t going to cover much of a Costco hot dog, most people would pour on considerably more than one serving. So how do we turn this into a Belly Fat Cure acceptable meal?

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Movie Reviews

Transformers 2 – Decent But Not Fantastic Sequel

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Transformers 2I went into seeing “Transformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen” with fairly low expectations as it’s not been reviewed very positively by critics and a few of the people I follow on Twitter didn’t have the best of things to say about it. But I wanted to see it anyway and so I went with a couple of people from work today and I thought it was just okay.

The movie itself had a reasonably decent plot line, and the stuff involving the parents of the main character, Sam, were fantastic comedy bits. As with most Michael Bay movies, it was loaded with lots of explosions and as one friend on Twitter put it, a great recruiting video for the Armed Forces. The explosions were definitely bigger and better than the first movie. One of the nice touches I liked was the return of the same voice from the animated Transformers cartoon for the character of Soundwave. Fortunately, they didn’t make Soundwave a tape deck, but rather a satellite in space who taps into a US Military satellite and relays information to the Decepticons below. I think from the animated show the voices of Optimus Prime and Soundwave definitely are key to those of use nostalgic enough to remember the original cartoons back when they were at their peak of popularity.

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Belly Fat Cure, Health & Fitness

A Great Introduction To Jorge Cruise’s Belly Fat Cure

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Jorge Cruise's Belly Fat CureI often get a lot of questions about my recent weight loss, mostly from people who see me in person. Obviously they can see the changes, and I don’t exactly pose for a lot of photographs let alone post them here online to show the changes either. But in any case, since I get asked, I wanted to have a great resource to point people to in order to get additional information.

Since Jorge Cruise’s Belly Fat Cure program doesn’t officially get released until the end of the year, what is available is a free downloadable special report (JorgeCruise.com) that highlights the key aspects of the program. There report is available freely on the main page, there is no need to give an e-mail address, and you can read it and if you want additional information, you can sign up to received updates from Jorge Cruise. The report comes in a PDF file so it’s easy to download and read as well as print out if you wish. The Belly Fat Cure is a very simple program, and I’ve had remarkable success with it. In two months, I’ve lost 37 pounds and 7 inches from around my waist. It’s been amazing.

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Concert Reviews

B-52’s Rock The San Diego County Fair In Del Mar

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B-52's LiveLast night at the San Diego County Fair, I went to go see the B-52’s perform with some of San Diego’s bear community. Roughly twenty or so of us went and we squatted out a section of free seats in the grandstand with a great view of the stage even though we weren’t that close. The tickets were amazingly cheap. Entrance to the fair was $13, but if you hit an Albertsons grocery store, you could get $11 tickets. The concert was included in the fair admission price, and there was an opportunity to upgrade the tickets for reserved seating, but where we saw the group was just fine.

I wouldn’t consider myself to be a giant fan of the B-52’s but I do like them a lot. I’ve never been obsessive about getting all their albums. I would say my B-52’s collection consists of a greatest hits album, the “Cosmic Thing” album, a single for “Good Stuff”, and the “Funplex” album from last year. Oh, and the “Flintstones” movie soundtrack where the B-52’s became the BC-52’s to perform “The Flintstones Theme” and “The Bedrock Twitch.” Not quite the obsessive fan I tend to be about other groups. However, I think I may be adding a few more of their albums following the show.

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Belly Fat Cure, Health & Fitness, Product Reviews

Zevia & Clemmy’s Makes Amazing Sugar Free Ice Cream Floats

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Orange Zevia FloatHave made some awesome Sugar Free Chocolate Milkshakes the other day (click here to read about it), I was curious of other ways to experiment with the sugar free ice cream. And since it’s summer here in the Northern Hemisphere, a great summer treat is a float. But traditional floats can be loaded with sugar between the ice cream and then when you add on top of a soda, you’re just asking for sugar overload.

Well since I have some Clemmy’s Sugar Free Ice Cream on hand in the incredibly awesome Vanilla Bean flavor, it’s perfect for mixing into a float. And since I’m also a big fan of Zevia‘s Natural Diet Soda in all it’s flavors (Cola, Twist, Root Beer, Orange, Black Cherry, and Ginger Ale) I’ve got plenty of opportunities to try the various combinations. I was certainly leaning towards the Root Beer and Cola flavors as most people usually do A&W Root Beer Floats or Coca-Cola floats, but I ultimately decided I wanted to try an Orange Float in the hopes it would taste a bit more like an old fashioned Creamsicle. I was not disappointed.

Zevia‘s Orange soda perfectly compliments Clemmy’s Sugar Free Vanilla Bean Ice Cream. The treat was completely sugar free and the ice cream does add a couple of servings of carbohydrates, but nothing out of the ordinary. This is a perfectly delicious treat to try if you’re on Jorge Cruise’s Belly Fat Cure Program. It comes out absolutely delicious. It tastes just like a Creamsicle and isn’t going to blow your diet since there’s no sugar at all in the treat.

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Belly Fat Cure, Health & Fitness, Product Reviews

Experimenting With The Recipe For Sugar Free Cookies

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Sugar Free Chocolate Chip Cookies Made With Hershey's Sugar Free Chocolate ChipsAs I mentioned in my June 16th post about the Amazing Sugar Free Chocolate Chip Cookies (read it by clicking here), I was planning on experimenting on the recipe by adding some sugar free Maple Syrup to the recipe instead of some of the sugar and see how they came out. Well today was the day I decided to try it out.

I was originally planning to substitute half the Xylitol used in the recipe with the Maple Syrup, but my mother had said she had tried doing that and the cookies came out very floppy and didn’t quite harden up nicely, so I thought, okay, maybe a little syrup goes a long way. So I used the syrup for roughly 20 percent of the sugar substitute total amount I had used before. And this seemed to work very well. The cookies firmed up completely the way you expect homemade cookies to do so.

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Belly Fat Cure, Guilty Pleasures, Health & Fitness, Restaurant Reviews

Red Robin Bottomless Fries Are A Guilty Pleasure

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Red RobinOne of the indulgences my roommate and I have liked to do since we’ve been roommates is a make a run to Red Robin for bottomless fries and milkshakes. We would do this about every couple of months or so. But when I decided to start a running program in December and my roommate getting a little more serious about his fitness level as well, we hadn’t been to Red Robin since 2008. So we decided it was time to make another trip to Red Robin.

However, the only problem now is that I’ve been working hard on Jorge Cruise’s Belly Fat Cure program for the last couple of months and now that I’ve officially lost 37 pounds in two months time, I was a bit torn if I should allow myself this indulgence. It’s not so much the Red Robin‘s wonderful streak cut french fries, as a couple of baskets isn’t going to ruin my program. It’s the milkshake that’s going to completely blow the program because it’s going to be loaded with sugar, not only from the ice cream, but also the added milk and flavoring as I usually like to get a chocolate one. Granted, the Belly Fat Cure allows me 15 grams of sugar per day and I have only used my full day’s allotment once since being on the program, I could theoretically enjoy one with all the sugar grams I’ve saved over the last two months.

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Belly Fat Cure, Health & Fitness, Product Reviews

Zevia’s Black Cherry & Ginger Ale Flavors Are Awesome

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Zevia Black Cherry & Ginger AleAs I originally wrote about Zevia in my June 15th Blog post (click here to read it) I had only been able to try four of the six Zevia flavors. At long last I finally found a local store that carries the Ginger Ale and Black Cherry Flavors of Zevia’s natually sugar and calorie free diet sodas. My mother had tipped me off that her local natural foods store, Frazier Farms, had them when I was visiting my folks for Father’s Day. So on my way home, I took a quick trip over to Frazier Farms to see, and sure enough, they had some Black Cherry flavor and the Ginger Ale flavor, the two flavors that have been so elusive to me when looking for Zevia.

Unfortunately, there was only one six-pack of the Black Cherry, so I made sure to grab that one before anyone else did. Then I also picked up three of the Ginger Ale flavors. Since Ginger Ale is one of my favorite flavors of soda and Frazier Farms is way out of the way for me, I thought it best to stock up on the flavor. And the good part was they had the same low sale price that Henry’s Farmers Market stores have for the Zevia at $4.99 a six pack.

Well it was going to be a few hours before I’d take the chance to sample one, I didn’t want to spoil the experience by pouring warm soda over ice, I quickly got some of the new Black Cherry and Ginger Ale cans into the refrigerator to chill. Normally I would have waited to try them the next day after work, but because these flavors had been so elusive in trying to find them, I decided to take a can of the Black Cherry with me to work and drink it on the way. Again, I am absolutely gob smacked at how much flavor is packed into a single can of Zevia. The cherry flavor is very robust and the soda tasted to me a lot like Dr. Pepper (which I do like) but with a lot more cherry flavor. The fact the Black Cherry has no calories and no sugar, it’s a no-brainer as to which soda I’ll be happily buying in the future.

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Health & Fitness, Product Reviews

Who Knew 3M Makes Toothpaste?

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3M ESPE Clinpro 5000 ToothpasteWhen I got my teeth cleaned during my most recent bi-annual visit to my dentist, my hygienist and dentist decided that a couple of areas on my teeth warranted some additional protection to prevent them from becoming problems. Apparently what’s occurring is that the enamel has weakened in those spots and to prevent them from becoming full blown cavities, I was prescribed some 3M ESPE Clinpro 5000 Toothpaste, which apparently has three times the amount of fluoride found in store bought toothpaste as well as additional calcium and phosphate which allows for the teeth to remineralize and become stronger.

Personally, I think that sounds like something that happens to the dilithium crystals on the Starship Enterprise in Star Trek as opposed to what can happen from this prescription toothpaste. In any case, I’m going to use it because I didn’t enjoy the process of having the few cavities I do have filled. Granted, those were all preventable on my part, I just never took the flossing requests of my dentists seriously until I finally had some cavities, all of which in the gaps between the teeth where floss can reach but a toothbrush can’t.

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