I ate Chinese food and made a nice card...

There is no picture to show the amount of Chinese food I ate today due to stress. Chinese food in Peru is not just Chinese food! They put all these ingredients there that make it special Chinese food and so I ate like a pig. Sorry. Sometimes I think I will just lose this and live with the belly. But I won't. I will bounce back from all this. I have an extra week here now to prove that I can do it.

But that is not all I did. I spent the whole day making a card for my wife. To do that I searched through all the pictures in my 1 terabyte hard drive for the past 29 years that I have digitized there. I put them in the right sequence and I put music to go with it (well, I was going to sing but the software is not working as it should - Smilebox - and I had to go with what it offered.) I think the song is good but I wanted it to be me singing for her, like I did for our 25th anniversary. Humm... Here goes if you want to take a look at it:

HAPPY 29TH ANNIVERSARY SWEETHEART!

This free scrapbook design customized with Smilebox

They made me stay in Peru on my Wedding Anniversary!!!

Well, just when I thought I was going back to Utah and eat normal (yesterday, the 16th), the company asked me to stay one more week here. I had two huge reasons to say no: my wedding anniversary and to help my youngest daughter move to her own place on Monday - the nest will be empty! But then the project is in trouble and they need to do stuff next week that require me here and there was no way I could go. That was one hour before the cab arrived to take me to the airport!!! So, I had to call the airline company and the hotel and change it all so the cab took me back to the hotel instead.

I was tense! There was my wife on Skype saying "But it is our anniversary!" and the boss on the speaker phone "But it is best for the company that you stay!" and this picture shows me as I was listening to both and having to make a decision. So, my wife who is a true saint let me stay. But it was not easy, I know she is sad. The whole week I have had heart burns because of so much spicy food but today was the worse of all I think because of all this. Thank goodness for Salt de Frutas Eno (it is an anti acid for situations like this. I bought 15 packets now.)

I ate too much with the Chapeyquens!

Brother Abraham Chapeyquen is an artist ( ) and a Patriarch in the LDS Church in Lima, Peru. I always visit them when I come here and it was not an exception on the 15th. But that can be a good thing or a bad thing. Good because they are very nice people but his wife cooks like she got the cookbook from those gods of the Inkas and she makes big plates because she wants her husband and sons very well fed... and that includes the visit.

I cannot resist that and that is why I lose to the belly in my fight. I need to learn to control myself when int he house of nice friends and relatives who cook this good. Take a look at the plate! It was fish, but it was fried and then Peruvians eat potato like Brazilians eat rice and beans but Peruvians eat rice too... a lot! So, I am having this huge diet and potatoe with lots of meat and amazing sauces this whole week. How can I win???? Where is my hope??? (Note I am just posing. The plate she made for me was huge and there was a serving of potatoes before it that she did not include in these pictures just for the blog... she is smart! But I will eat there again and this time I may win!)

Merceds Vegas - The nurse!!!

This morning the waiter asked me: Did you sleep well Mr Bueno? (but it was in Spanish) Then I answered: "You know, I have this pain in the neck. I am not sure if it was the pillow or the bed." Then she went and called a nurse!!! And they switched my room to a better one! I cannot tell how concerned the people at this hotel are that I am comfortable and that I cannot say that one thing was not satisfactory! They are all very nice and the food presentation is always impeccable and so is the room and the way the door man greets you and all the cab drivers. No grouchy people at the desk in the lobby!

But here is the best: the nurse came and took my pressure and told me it was high and I had to go easy on the salt. She checked my muscles on my neck and went to check my pillows along with the lady that supervises the rooms. So I get a new room today and they will make sure I get the best feather pillows they have. Oh the hospitality of the Peruvians! I was not complaining, I just answered a question but they are amazing! Here are the videos of my early morning check up... hehe.




Here is when she checks my blood pressure the second time! Awhhhh it is so nice to be taken care of!

Pictures of the fruits...

Well,

Lat night I had two mini desserts after I ate 2 empanadas (deep fried meat pockets), two mini ham and cheese sandwiches (when I say mini it is like 1.5 in x 1.5 in more or less) and some fruit and 3 mini chicken nuggets - all at night. You will first see the pictures of the mini desserts:

A delicious chocolate/passion fruit cake in a little ceramic serving plate delicately decorated. They always do a good job with the presentation at the Sheraton.

The other is a mini lúcuma alfajor. I think lúcuma is the fruit that mostly identify Peru. The color is just like everything Peruvian and it is sweet and soft. An alfajor is two sweet crackers with something in the middle covered with chocolate. In this case they put Lúcuma in the middle.

The picture to the left shows my options of fruit this morning at the hotel. Enjoy the pictures:

A slice of Passion Fruit Chocolate Cake

Alfajor de Lúcuma

A plate of Tumbos

One Tumbo in detail

A plate of Granadillas

One Granadilla

A plate of Tunas

Exotic Fruits Video

This morning I tried some fruits I bet, if you have never been to Peru, that you are not aware of their existence. The three fruits I am showing here are: Tumbo, Granadilla, and Tuna (not as tuna fish... this is a fruit.)

I made some videos that explain about that. If I find time I will write about them, if not watch the videos:

Eating too much in Peru

I think I am eating too much I guess. This is my second day in Lima, the capital of Peru. I travel a lot and it is hard to not eat the good food in these countries I visit.

Every morning I am having a "choclo." Tomorrow I will put a picture of it here. It's basically a gigantic corn. Anyway, today I ate chicken in some amazing sauce, rice and then jell-o. I had this weird craving for chocolate cake too. I don't even like cake... not that I don't eat cake... it is just that I don't go after it. Who knows why I had to have cake today? Is there a craving devil that tempt us? What was that? I will not get rid of my belly this way! Help!!!!

I was talking with my friends here at El Comercio where I am working for this week and they showed me this picture from 2004 when they were impressed at how fat I was... hehe. But then I decided to do something about it and was very successful. I had a reason!!!

The next year was going to be my daughter's 15th birthday. I wanted to look good and wear my son's tuxedo. So, I started doing the things my wife would tell me from her Weight Watche's program.


This is how I looked 3 months after that picture taken by the Peruvians and then in June (six months later) without any exercise in the beginning but then I was running and lifting weight at the end losing a total of 40lbs:


The question is if I can do it again. I think if I have this commitment to write here what I eat during the day, then if I fail it will be recorded here, but if I succeed then one will know how I got there. I can tell you that sometimes I don't think for a second before eating too much. I may just write here for myself or maybe people will come and give me support with their own experience or ideas for recipes and stuff to eat that will keep my calorie intake down until I exercise again and have muscles enough not to worry about eating a big stake in Buenos Aires or lots of Baleadas in Honduras.

The first day of a battle that may last forever...

This is my first entry of my battle against my belly. I hate it but I am used to it and although I want it gone sometimes I see something very tasty or I want to stay awake because I did not sleep well and I eat it... and the belly stays. There is always a way this entity controls me so it gets fed and it stays there for me to carry it around. I don't consider myself overweight or that I have a horrible belly that I cannot reasonably hide with a dark shirt, but I definitely have something that was not there in 2005.

So, this blog is to follow my progress as I try to curb my eating habits and work towards my best shape which I achieved for my daughter Wendy's 15th Birthday. Let's see how I do. I notice that I make these decisions and I find myself eating without some sort of control although I have been very successful with Weight Watchers in the past (2005 in this case.) I will look for some pictures to show that it can do this... I just find it more difficult this time around and don't know why.