Happy Veteran's Day

How sad is it that I don't have any digital photos of myself in uniform?

We celebrated the weekend by watching the new Bond movie* with our friends G&P and taking a day trip to Tagaytay with the kids. We ate at Antonio's and hit up the lake and spent a small fortune on flowers and produce thanks to all of the stands along the road.** Antonio's is a great deal. By far the best meal we've had in the Philippines, and we only spent about $120USD for 5 people to eat lunch with drinks. The location is also gorgeous. It's basically a big, plantation like house that was converted into a restaurant, and you can walk the grounds between courses, which was a welcome break for the kids. There's also a big koi pond, which was a great kid draw, and they accepted A's order of "yummy egg, please" without hesitation, even though it was 1pm and there was no kids menu. Can't beat that!

*Pu review: very Bond-y

**Even outside Manila traffic is piss poor thanks to lack of infrastructure, so what should be a 20min drive turns into a 2hr drive and you end up buying things just to pass the time!

Happy Election Day!!!!

So it's a wee bit late to be posting that, but I was proud to do my civic duty many weeks ago when I mailed my vote in. It's kinda cool to be a voter in a state like Florida versus the last few presidential elections when I was a resident of Washington.

Husband and I were watching the election results trickle in on AFN during our lunchtime gym jaunt at the Embassy, and I marveled that the thing that struck me most about watching all those crowds of happy Obama and Romney-supporters was how much freaking personal space they all had!!!! It's the little things, people, the little things that you miss the most. While I love me some Asia, there's almost nothing I wouldn't give for some Western-concept of personal space/alone time.

Manila Shopping: Salcedo Market

So I wrote a bit about the Legazpi market a while back, but really it's the Salcedo market that's most well known. Salcedo is larger and has more diverse vendors. You can find everything from Cuban food to Vegan mushroom burgers. Salcedo has way more food vendors than Legazpi, and I think their meat, seafood, and organic produce selection is far superior. But while I like to explore Salcedo to dig out fresh new vendors, buy organic produce, and get fresh seafood, but I prefer Legazpi for its smaller crowds. After you've been living in a city where 13% of the country's population lives (oh, and that's just Metro Manila, not including Greater Manila)...well, you're always grateful for places with smaller crowds.

Happy Great Pumpkin Day

If you happen to live in a place that actually has pumpkins that it.* It's Halloween, ya'll! Like, the actual day here in the Phils anyway. We already did our trick-or-treating put on by the CLO a couple weekends ago, and we had our own adult Halloween celebration over the weekend. There's no real tradition of trick-or-treating here in the Philippines, but in some of the more affluent villages the kids do walk around a bit, though they're not really in costume. Our yaya took the kids around since apparently trick-or-treating only happens in daylight hours. So the only nod we had to Halloween today was buying Frankie Halloween donuts from Krispy Kreme *sad face*

So in the spirit of all things spooky - go out and watch thee a scary movie. Whether it's old school horror, new school gore fest, or classic spine tingler - according to this article you could burn about 200 calories just by watching a scary movie. So feel free to sit back and down a few snickers in celebration of the best holiday of the year, you've earned it!

*You can find pumpkins here, they just cost about 4x as much as they would in the US

Fitness...Er...Middle of the Week

FYI - YogaDownload Fall Sale is on! 50% off ain't too shabby!

Halloween Pilipinas-Style

Shhh, Don't Tell

But, I think I know Super Dog's secret identity

Fitness Friday: Fitness Foodie Finds

First things first - more inspiration! It's truly never too late to start your journey into healthy living :)

Okay, now on to the meat of our post (pun intended) - clean eating - what is it? and how do you start? (and how do you start part two!). Once you've got a good foundation goin' on in the kitchen, you can start to plan out your meals. Times when I stray away from my usual dietary principles are times when I don't have any food prepared (which happens embarrassingly more often than I would like now that I've joined the FS!).

What to Eat:
Fit Family Meals
A Life to Brag About 
Sorey Fitness
The Gracious Pantry
Clean Eating Online

And, of course, there's always Tosca Reno's Clean Eating Magazine and Clean Eating Books

Where to Shop:
Besides the usual local markets and co-ops, Whole Foods and Trader Joe's are usually good, easy bets to find whole ingredients.** If you live in a small town and don't have access to these chains or specialty stores, it gets a little bit tricker...a trickiness gets taken to a whole other level if you happen to live overseas! Thank god for the interwebs - there are options at last!

Netrition
King Arthur Flour
Shop Organic
Lowes Foods to Go
Benefit Your Life

and, of course, there's always Amazon ;)

Recipe Sites:
And just for good measure, here's a couple of places I love to peruse for awesome recipe ideas.

Chocolate Covered Katie
Little B's Healthy Habits
Heather Eats Almond Butter
Kalyn's Kitchen
Clean Eating Chelsey
The Clean Eating Mama
Oh She Glows


*especially if you live in a country where women's fitness magazines still advocate lifting light weights so you don't get "too bulky"!!!
**I'm partial to Trader Joe's over Whole Paycheck, but, then, I went to college in Seattle

How Not to Explain the Electoral College in a Foreign Language

So I know election season is upon us because holy crap do we have a lot of speaking engagements lined up to talk about the American electoral system! While not as cool as getting your own sign, I did have my first radio interview on Monday and explained how to register to vote in Tagalog...I think. I may have said something entirely different, but since we did the interview over the phone, I had no visual cues to see if I messed up. So I guess as far as I'm concerned, it went great! ;) I did the rest of the interview mostly in English since I am too much of a pussy to try and explain things like the electoral college in a foreign language yet. Baby steps, people, baby steps.

I'm quite interested in this year's elections because I think we're at a really pivotal moment in our history. I can't tell you how incredibly frustrating it is to see the level of unemployment and economic uncertainty in the US while simultaneously approving work-related visas (especially now that I have a clearer understanding of how the petition process works). My ballot's already cast* but I still wish I could see some of the debates in real time. Even more than the presidential candidates, I wish I could have seen these two live! Never thought I'd say this, but Bill O'Reilly was spot on with his comment, "The display that you saw tonight is why America is America. Robust, creative, no holds barred. You can call it whatever you want, but you wouldn't see this in a lot of other countries."
True dat, Bill. True. Dat....And that's why I fucking love America....And also this.

Totally Random Aside For My Assload of One Dutch Reader:

Stemming from the incredibly wrong, hilarious, and totally politically incorrect** Stuff White People Like, I recently came across another blog that, while not as laugh out loud funny, would still make people who live in der Nederlander chuckle.


*Having lived out of my state of residency for literally my entire adult life, I have never once voted in person, which means the debacle of 2000 really hit home! 

**And usually pretty accurate

Sometimes You're Down and Sometimes You're Up

Goddamn do I love football. The Bills and Redskins win, and the Pats and Cowboys lost. Doesn't get much better than that!* ... or This.

*Unless you count actually winning in my FFB league - Fuck you, Malcom Floyd!!

Fitness Friday: Free Fitness Finds

So we did some foodie finds, and now we have some fitness finds. Yay! First up, a little inspiration in case you're feeling not so motivated. Okay, now that we've got that out of the way, I thought I'd list a bunch of Youtube fitness channels that offer free (that's right, free!) workouts. Most of these either use minimal equipment or don't use any at all, which should free up some of those excuses bumping around in your head. Even better? If you don't have a Mac*, you can easily use a free (free!) program like Youtube Downloader to download these workout directly to your computer so you don't have to worry about your internet connection in order to stream them. Isn't that fabulous?

Zuzana
Do Yoga With Me
Myomy TV
Fitness Blender
Livestrong Women
Jennifer Aguirre
Be Fit 
Funk Roberts
Strong Like Susan
Vivace Fitness
Vai Vai Fit
Melissa Bender


*You can get this type of program on Mac, too, but it's a little more complicated. So if you've got a Mac and you want to download videos from youtube, just google it to get the directions. 

More Manila Foodie Finds

Yowza, has it really been so long since I posted? I have found that my periods of blog silence tend to coincide with periods of trouble in the realz life of Pu. Nothing to be worried about - I'm going through a bit of a "thing" at work. These things happen from time to time, part of the growing pains of transitioning to a new job and new lifestyle. I still love what I do and adore my coworkers (they really make the job for me, in many ways!).

I've been keeping quite busy. Last month was my rotation to the American Citizen Services section (where Husband normally works). While the work is interesting and there's always something new and outrageous to face every day, I can safely say that I was happy to return to my old section for the normalcy of a daily routine. ACS work in Manila is very trying, and my hat is off to my colleagues who work there for longer stretches. I don't know that I have it in me to do that! I did have the opportunity to go on an ACS Outreach to Angeles City and Olongapo (where Clark AB and Subic Naval Base used to be before they closed in 1991). I won't say too much, but I would encourage you to google either location to see what they are famous for. I can also share that the highlight of the trip was when colleague S and I were waking back to our hotel down the Angeles "strip" from dinner one evening and were "Sir/Maam-ed" for girls rather than for something like bags or shoes. Stay classy, Angeles City.

But, I digress, I titled this post foodie finds for a reason. As we explore out city's culinary offerings (slim pickins, I'm afraid), I like to add what little tidbits I can find. Recently I discovered igourmet, which is a website that will ship many refrigerated items like cheeses to DPO addresses. This was a revelation for me, and I am thrilled to be able to order different varieties of gouda in addition to my beloved goat cheese! Husband and I are also on the hunt for a restaurant (any restaurant) that is worth the cash. While you can get cheap meals in Manila, believe me, you know they're cheap. If you want good quality food, you're going to pay for it. And, in my personal opinion, they're almost never worth the cost. Meals that go for American prices are rarely of American quality, and you have to avoid the pitfalls of everything being doused in sugar. I had a caesar salad yesterday that was totally inedible thanks to the amount of sugar dumped into the caesar dressing (who puts sugar into caesar dressing??), and that was at an upscale restaurant in Serendra (a fancy area in the Fort). Just gross. We did have a good meal last night at Kashmir, which we went to for a girlfriend's birthday dinner. The samosas were delicious and the food was pleasantly spicy (hard to find here) and flavorful. We also tried Cirkulo and were spectacularly unimpressed. Not only did they allow me to make a reservation for a time when the restaurant was closed (we arrived and they had yet to open the doors, they finally let us and in and then we sat around and waited for another 15 minutes before we were able to flag down a server)* but I was also underwhelmed by the food. I found the tapas to be of huge proportions and lacking in flavor, and the prices were outrageous considering the quality. If this is the restaurant that tops "best of" lists...well, let's just say I've become a lot more forgiving of the mid-range, mediocre restaurants because at least they're a better deal!

Anyway, here's some more foodie blogs for your reading pleasure.

Foodie Manila
The Manila Girl
Runaround Girl
Midnight Mercato
Salcedo Market

*And judging by the responses of my colleagues to my story, this is not uncommon. No one wants to turn away business so instead of telling you they're closed, they will allow you to enter and sit in the restaurant, but won't actually acknowledge or serve you until about 15-20min after the official opening time (island time, you know). 

Fitness Friday: Exercise - It's Not Just About Lookin' Good

It's really about overall wellness and health.

There has been a lot of talk lately about what America's obesity scale looks like now and what it will look like in a few years. These figures are scary for a number of reasons, but maybe our biggest concern should be for overall health dollars spent on what are entirely preventable diseases.

Let's not fool ourselves, this has become an important national issue with repercussions we have yet to reap. What happens when these overweight/obese children come of age and have chronic health problems to deal with? How are they going to get insurance? What happens when they can't? It's extremely unfortunate that these aren't rhetorical questions. And as much as I focus on the US, we're not the only country that should be worried. Where are you on the global fat scale?*

My numbers? Turns out I have a BMI 65% below the global average and 90%(!!) below the national average.

What. The. Eff.

That is just crazy. 30 years ago my weight would have been average. How have we become this fat in such a short period of time?

That's why it is so important to get your family started on a healthy lifestyle early. Exercise helps combat obesity in a variety of weighs (ha ha). Being "skinny" is the least of our worries.

*Yeah, I know, but I didn't name the damn thing.

Wait, I Thought I Was Signing Up for a Vacation

So I don't usually post awhole lot about my work, but I had a conversation today with some colleagues that made me feel like I should put into words some of my thoughts on recent events in the diplomatic world. There's been a lot of positive commentary recently on the difficult job of foreign service officers. I guess all it takes is the senseless murder of a few of us for the world to notice that we're not just a bunch of faceless bureaucrats traveling the world on the taxpayer dime! As someone who made the transition to State from the Department of Defense, I feel quite secure saying I felt far safer serving overseas in the military than I do in the Foreign Service. We go into some of the most volatile places in the world at the behest of the American people to represent our country's interests abroad. We work to protect Americans abroad and to promote American interests in the countries we are posted to without the benefit of secure bases or large contingents of armed personnel to protect us. FSOs get deployed to active combat zones just like military personnel with one very big difference - we can't carry guns.

So how do we keep our Foreign Service personnel secure? To be honest, we have to rely on our host countries for most of our protection. There just aren't enough Marines to go around. I can't comment about posts I haven't been to, but I can tell you that hearing things about local protection fleeing their posts and countries that refuse to allow the U.S. to send more Marines in to help protect our people* doesn't exactly give me a warm fuzzy about the situation.

To make matters even worse, there seems to be an awful lot of just flat out acceptance of the situation. I get that there are reasons for people to react in a given way to certain situations, hell you can rationalize away just about anything, but the idea that the reasons proffered somehow excuse the use of violence against innocent people is acceptable is just completely unfathomable to me. I cannot comprehend how anyone could ever accept this kind of behavior.

I won't go into specifics about how I feel about our government's response to the events occurring around the world, but I can at least say that I think we've not done nearly enough to express our outrage and work towards protecting our people abroad. I hope these events at least spark a larger conversation about the contributions of our brave men and women out of uniform, and that the tragic loss of our colleagues in Benghazi means a greater recognition of the amazing work done every day by the incredibly dedicated people of the State Dept.

My heart breaks for the families of Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, and Tyrone Woods. They gave their lives in service of our great country, and their sacrifice is not forgotten.

*cough, cough* Sudan *cough*

Fitness Friday: Strong is the New Skinny

So I think everyone knows what a huge fan I am of girls like Jennifer Nicole Lee and Jaime Eason. They have those amazing, sculpted bodies that I aspire to imitate. These gals are figure models, and their training regimes tend to be pretty intense and specific to achieve that kind of look. I do like lifting heavy, but I find that if I can't keep my diet under very strict control, that heavy lifting does not do much in terms of weight loss for me. A lot of women I talk to claim that heavy lifting made them "bigger" and therefor they blow it off as a key to weight loss. So why do so many fitness professionals claim heavy lifting is the key to weight loss? Well, it turns out that they're not entirely wrong. Many female fitness professionals state that heavy lifting is not only desirable but necessary to achieve a great physique. This article by by the founder of Girls Gone Strong really clears up that concept.

Another great resource for understanding this phenomenon is Jaime Eason, who has a great program called Live Fit, which holds some explanation for us in its design. As Jaime explains, it's really important to have that lean muscle on your body to burn more fat and add those lines we're looking for. But, in order to have that muscle show through, you have to combine it with enough cardio and the right eating regimen to keep that extra layer of fat off. Therein lies the problem for many of us (me included!). I'm not a very big girl. Just barely clearing 5'1" means I don't have a huge calorie allowance to play with. In order to keep that "extra fat" layer off, I've got to keep my daily caloric intake around 1200 calories...I think anyone who's ever watched me eat can attest to the fact that I eat about 1200 calories before lunchtime :)

I also really enjoy cardio. I like the endorphin rush I get, and I like the feeling that I can jump higher, further, and complete more reps than anyone else in the room. So tend to end up doing either cardio-based programs or interval training where the weights are lighter in nature than a true weightlifting plan. This is exactly what JNL's Fusion program is all about. I actually ended up doing my JNL Fusion rotation for a couple of extra weeks, I was enjoying it so much. And, while I am still loving the set, I am definitely getting to the point of workout fatigue.*

There's just a couple more months until marathon time, so I'm not going to tweak my routine too much at this point. For the time being the cardio component will have to stay strong, and, in fact, I'm starting to add in speed work and an additional day of HIIT training to increase my cardio capacity. Once the marathon is over, I'd like to give Jaime's program a try again and see if I can't get the eating portion under control enough to see the results I'm looking for.


*Meaning that I'm tired of doing the same workouts not that the workouts make me tired, lol!

A Tragic Day

It's been a very sad day for the Department. My thoughts and prayers are with my colleagues in Benghazi and also with those in Cairo. It's hard to remember sometimes that even though we aren't being shot at on a daily basis, we do have dangerous jobs. I am filled with sadness for those brave men and women and their families.

I H8 the Foosball

Pick 6, kickoff return, running touchdowns, passing touchdowns, 27-7 at half-time, the Bills were lookin' ... oh wait, that was the Jets...against the Bills. Fuck you, football...fuck. you. *

*I'm just kidding. I still love you, football. Don't ever leave me again. RGIII!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's My Bag, Baby, Yeah!

Baguio, that is. And it is totally my bag. I freaking loved it there. It was by far the most awesome place I have been to in the Philippines. Known as the City of Pines, Baguio is a stunning city in the mountains about 5-6 hours drive from Manila. I was up there for work, but the ambiance made it feel like a vacation. I was lucky enough to stay at the Ambassador's Residence there:



My stay was made all the more significant considering part of the reason for the trip was to commemorate the anniversary of the end of World War II in the Pacific. How incredible to stand in the very room where Gen Yamashito signed the Japanese surrender. And the views, I could not get over how gorgeous the city views were.

My photos are a bit crappy since I am the world's worst photographer, so google some better pics to do the place justice.

The staff at the Residence are amazing, and although it is not an easy place to get to, I can't wait to go back again and take the family.

Manila Shopping: Legazpi Market

There are lots of open air market options in Manila. We live in Makati, and, thanks to copious traffic, we tend to stick to markets that are in our neighborhood. There are two main markets here: the Saturday Salcedo Market and the Legazpi Market, which happens on Sunday. The Salcedo Market is mainly food oriented but also has things like fresh flowers and some local non-edible goods. For today's post, we'll concentrate on the Legazpi Market mainly since I forgot my camera the last time we went to Salcedo.

The Legazpi Market has a wide variety of different items for sale, including all sorts of local-made goods like the cool salad bowl my husband got me for my recent b-day. There's also a variety of vendors with everything from toys and candy to jewelry to hand-crafted furniture. There are still a few fruit and vegetable stands, though not nearly as many as in Salcedo, and my favorite poultry people are there selling free-range chicken products (although you've got to get there on the early side if you want boneless, skinless breasts). I also like the honey people who sell three different varieties of locally produced honey based on the types of flowers the bees get their nectar from. I tend to get my eggs at Legazpi, too. There is a vendor there that sells free-range eggs in reusable crates, and if you bring your crates back they will take P15 off the price of another dozen. There's a lot of plant vendors, too, which Husband likes. Husband has bought a few small plants, and we've acquired two small fish* and two small turtles along the way.

Legazpi also offers a bit of pre-made food vendors, and we almost always buy some lunch on our way out. My favorite food vendor is the Indian lady who sells pre-made fresh or frozen samosas along with cumin scented veggies. Husband's favorite is the green smoothie place which sells smoothies to go in old water bottles for us to take home for the week.

Although Salcedo has the wider variety of food products, I tend to prefer Legazpi because there are less people. I can still get most of the produce I want and there's less hassle, which is a welcome change from daily elbow-to-elbow Manila life.

*and these fish are har-dee. These be Manila Bay fish!

Fitness Friday: Let's Hear it for the Buns

Whether you love your butt, hate it, or just like to sing about it



there's no denying that a nice round butt is either something you're born with, or something you have to work really, really hard at.* Besides the aesthetic benefits, a well-rounded butt** helps with all kids of other athletic endeavors. For example, as I continue to work through my ITB issues on our way to el marathon de Bangkok-o, I am finding that my pain likely stems from a variety of form issues which have resulted in weak and relatively inflexible hip flexors and glute muscles. How crazy is that? I've spent so much time trying to figure out how to fix my knees that it never occurred to me that the knee pain could be a result of under-training other, linked areas. T-Nation has a great article***on the basics of why glute training is so important, and I've decided to devote at least 2 days per week to additional glute training based on this Bret Contreras article because, well, it's been at least two weeks since I fucked with my routine and that's reason enough!

*sadly despite my prodigious butt mass, it mostly hangs flat :( 
**pun intended
***FYI - moderately NSF thanks to some creative pictures!