Wednesday, October 10, 2012

On creature munching...

I recently had an appointment with a dietician, who informed me that I wasn't eating enough protein. this came as a bit of a shock, considering the fact that I had eschewed carbohydrates to some extent, replacing them with foodstuffs which used to be critters. Indeed, as a girl whose youth had been misspent playing strength-related sports, and as a result has a solidly solid mass of muscle to maintain (DEXA scans are awesome. If you've ever wanted to know your bone density or lean muscle mass, this is the way), the amount I was ingesting was nowhere near adequate. It was in fact about half of what it should have been. Surprise.

This does however explain why it is that during debating room parties I tend to be able to stay rather not shitfaced... but I digress.

Either way, I was provided with ways to up my protein intake to a level more suited to one such as myself:

Breakfast - Protein shake and 200g greek yoghurt.
That's a lot of yoghurt. A LOT.

Morning tea - 1/2 cup of nuts.
This doesn't sound like all that much until you actually look at it. To provide some perspective, make a fist. Now cut it in half. That's about half a cup.

Lunch - Protein shake and can of tuna.
Protein shakes aren't all that bad, as it happens. They're like Up and Go, only without the strange mushy weetbix flavour.

Afternoon tea - Protein bar.
Sensing a trend yet?

Dinner - Meat totalling ca. 60g protein i.e. 300g chicken or 250g steak.
Add to that all of the vegetables required to force in some vitamins, and the orange a day I've started eating in order to allay scurvy.

Suffice to say, it's a lot of protein. Five days into this regimen, I had a bit of a breakdown.
I came home after a day of university, to find a raw chicken breast sitting in the fridge. Faced with another evening eating 'chicken with lemon' or 'chicken with garlic' (Exactly what they sound like) which is all I have time to cook, I lay down on the sofa and almost burst into tears, much to the surprise of my mother who had never thought she'd see the day when her most carnivorous daughter would say "I hate meat".

So now, in an attempt to continue ingesting the protein (which one would assume would be having an effect on my crappy nails... I'm waiting), I will be trialling different recipes in an attempt to find things which are palateable.

Tonight, I began preparing tomorrow's dinner - chicken marinated in buttermilk.

So far, exceedingly stress relieveing - I quite enjoyed bashing the chicken with a mallet until it was thin. Hopefully it will prove to be more palateable than 'chicken poached in chicken stock', a suggestion of my mother's which turned out looking and tasting sodden and white.

Nigella recommends dredging the chicken (once it has marinated for 24-48 hours) in crushed Ritz crackers, but this is far too low-protein. So I shall dredge mine in almond meal, in a depressing attempt to get more protein into a meal which is already so meaty it would leave a T-Rex prowling for a nice leafy salad.

Of course on a more entertaining note, at 56 kg of muscle, I have more lean muscle mass than my younger sister has cumulatively.
Yay me.

And now for some meat-related humour - go to 1:40.

Monday, August 20, 2012

IronMen; Popular Culture Zeitgeist; The British Parliament

So this past weekend was the UNSW IV - an open motion intervarsity debating tournament hosted by the excellent peeps at the UNSW Debating Society.

I ended up short a teammate on the weekend (which is a bit of a shit considering the fact that British Parliamentary (BP) style debating is in teams of two), so in a fit of hardcore motherfuckery I decided to just go it solo.

Round 1 I ended up filling in on a University of Sydney (USU) team, debating the motion This house believes that Atheists should organise. We were CG and got the third, arguing that the whole idea of the Atheist movement was that they could go out on their own and figure out for themselves what they believe. The adjudicator was my older sister, so I have a feeling there may have been some unfortunate anti-bias in play there.
Unfortunately, since I was just filling in on a team, my team (team Because Boat Race) didn't get the point credited. This didn't make any difference later on in the tournament as will be seen later, but was still an irritation.

Round 2 I was iron-manning (the term for when one person does an entire team worth of debating) CO that This house would fake it. I got the third again in a heinously misdefined debate. But this is what happens when you let UWS define a motion. Dear sweet squiggly Jesus, they messed that one up.
Since it was such a clusterfuck of a debate, I decided to shrug and make my extension about the sex industry.
 On the topic of UWS, before each round they would psych each other up with a bit of chanting. The words 'not a TAFE' were mentioned. Oh yes, that happenned.

Round 3 I iron-manned again. By this point I was on (officially) one point after two rounds, which is dismal as all get-out, and so I was in the depths of the bin rooms. To add insult to injury, the topic was that This house would let Gotham burn. Needless to say, I had not seen any of the Batman films. Unsurprisingly, given the calibre of the room (two UWS teams along with some random first years from Monash - a bit of a surprise seeing as Monash is usually rather legit at debating) I got the first, which was basically the story of this meme:

Of course I did a damn sight better than speaks of 68. I got speaker points of 77 and 76 respectively (on a side note, thanks to Kristyn for being a touch nicer than I think my speeches warranted). I also got awkwardly hit on by a guy from UWS, so it was a win all round.

Day two and round 4 I had a substitute teammate: Adam M, who was supposed to be debating with Sarah F (one of my teammates from nationals) who was sick on the weekend. We were OO on the motion that This house would take no prisoners. We got the second, and must have done alright with regard to speaks, because round five was the round of death.

It was the round of death because despite the fact that my team only had three rounds of points, we were at the top of the 6 point bracket (nice work on the speaks, Adela), and were thus pulled up into the 7 point bracket. Which was really really bad. For me. Because I was against a whole bunch of scary excellent debaters who had all been debating for ages and had all garnered much success during their debating careers. We're talking top speakers at Worlds kind of success.
Add into this the fact that I was OG and thus actually had to set up the debate, and the fact that I was again iron-manning. I may or may not have spent the first 10 minutes of the 15 minute prep pacing around the room, swearing to myself.
The motion was that This house celebrates the rise of Fifty Shades of Grey. It didn't go well. At all.
I cringe at the memory.
Although I do thank Parker, from team Scary Cabal of Old People (not the actual team name, but that's what it was in reality) for asking a point of clarification. Because when your case is built on a foundation of smoke and mirrors and you're not entirely sure what it is you're arguing, a nice point of clarification can help sort shit out. Of course I still donutted hard.

By the time the semis and the final were on, I was so exhausted I thought it would be a good idea to do a Physics quiz (rookie error; I was clearly not a rational actor at the time). Of course, I can be smug in the knowledge that on aggregate speaker points, I was the best speaker of the tournament.

Is this because I did three more speeches than everyone else? Perhaps.

I regret nothing.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Engineering, and other masculine pursuits

So today was my fourth day of engineering.

I started off with a maths lecture (Calculus 1100 - 1200, Algebra 1200 - 1300), after which I had an hour before Engineering Design and Innovation (ENGG1000 henceforth). Math was quite enjoyable (I know, surprise), and I've been getting some quotes for The Week, which I should be restarting rather soon.

During Monday's ENGG1000 lecture they had told us that MechSoc and ElSoc were having a BBQ and touch footy from 1200 to 1400, and being a sucker for friendly sporting activities, I went.

Of course, being an engineering event, I was the only girl playing. No matter. The gents were delightfully chivalrous insofar as there was no stacks on.

I then had to ditch early because I had to get from the Physics Lawn to Mathews, which for those of you who don't attend or have great cartographic knowledge of UNSW, is a pretty darn unpleasant walk.

Today's ENGG1000 class was an impromptu design task, wherein we were in groups of five or six and had limited supplies with which to create a build which would launch a projectile 2500mm over a 400mm wall. To say that our build was utilitarian would be reasonably charitable.

It was however quite efficient. Not bad for half an hour's work.

Note the deliciously post-ironic smiley face on the arm. That's the kind of thing to strike the fear into the Palestinians.