Niki Lauda is my new hero

After work on Fridays night, I usually, not to say always, go to the movie. And yesterday I saw Rush, a must see movie that totally worth the $12.99! The story of James Hunt and Nicki Lauda is just very moving and fascinating. Two men willing to do anything to drive in Formula one. 

And during that time I had reached a newest low in my diet. I am just 3.8 lbs away from my monthly goal. Its actually getting a lot easier. A couple of months ago I had bought a book, The Body Reset Diet by Harley Pasternak. But its only shortly following my birthday that I seriously began dieting. so I am on a diet since August 30th. I am not following exactly Harley Pasternak diet, let say I am borrowing a few tips from him. One of the major reason is that I don't a blinder. I shop around but I couldn't find one that could fit my budget. So instead, I had  focused on Meal Replacement Shake.

I began dieting the hard way. I start by drinking Complete Meal Replacement Shake by Life Brand. You can purchase those at Shoppers Drug Mart (which happen to be my latest stock purchase!!). 

Green apples play a capital role in my diet. Between meal, anytime I feel like starving, I eat a green apple. And trust me, it work! A green apple worth about 88 calories each, so it make it the perfect diet friend. Green apples work better at calming starving than banana. Almonds work great too, but I find I eat too much of them. And almonds are also very expensive so better skip them! Something else that work well is bold eggs - and its a lot cheaper too. In average, Eggs are very great because they don't cost much and they bring protein to your diet. Green vegetables are also great to calm a fantastic appetite. The result, like eating a green apple, is immediate.

According to Pasternak, the best way to kill fat is to eat fiber at each meal. I eat fiber between meal. For lunch, I have my Complete Meal Replacement Shake that I happily shake at work. And I eat apples, celery, cucumbers. The water in the celery help to reduce starving. 

I eat fruits and vegans more than ever. I don't eat  fast foods anymore, and I always bring my lunch at work. That help a lot. The only place I go if I feel hungry and need an immediate solution is a Tim Hortons soups (another stock of mine!!). But temptation is always there to get a sweet donut!

Basically, I respect everything included in The Body Reset Diet, at the exception of the blender meals.

I barely never eat chip or drink pop, my health problem is sugar and junk food. I actually eat a Tim Hortons donuts last night. I cheat on my diet sometimes, but never on something big, and I eat something sweet maybe just two times a week and it work just fine for me. The trick is to fine a balance. And I discover I eat probably too much for my daily needs. I am losing weight, but slowly, even if I eat really reasonably. So this mean that I had been eating too much for what my sexy body needed.  

This is what a typical diet day is like:

Breakfast: oatmeal and coffee. One capsule of E Vitamin. Milk in oatmeal and coffee. No SUGAR in coffee. I never add sugar in coffees anyway, diet or not.

I try to avoid bread and potatoes as much possible in my diet. So no toast. Always oatmeal. It full me for a couple of hours.

Around 11: I eat a clementine (small orange) and a yogurt. Or an apple. Or an All Bran bars and a yogurt. 

Its been proved that dairy products help weight loss. 

Lunch : Around 12 h - 12h30 or 1 h, sometimes a bit later: I drink my Complete Meal Replacement Shake.

When I feel hungry in the afternoon, I eat a green apple. I will sometime feel hungry again so I eat... another f apple. lol

I can easily eat 3 apples a day. Green ones are the best.

Harley Pasternak said that we have to drink 4 lbs of liquid a day. I never been a heavy drinker, but I try to drink 2 big cups of tea at work. I never drink one entirely yet, but I am slowly going there.

Before leaving work, I eat an apple because around 5 h, I begin to feel hungry again.

Dinner: It depend of my moon. I get salmon or a more regular meal at least 3 times a week. If I see that on a certain day I gain weight, I will drink a shake for dinner. Sometimes I get celery and a orange.

I eat something whenever I feel hungry. The trick is not to let yourself starving because you will end up eating more. And I try to avoid any kind of cheese because I like cheese and I eat too much of it in one shot.

Other tricks: eating a orange kiwi or pamplemouse every 3 hours can, just like milk, help to lose weight. Vitamin C is very helpful, but you have to eat the fruits and not get a Vitamin C capsule.

I find that carrots open my appetite so I don't didn't have carrots at all so far but I am thinking of adding in to get a few Vitamin A. Maybe for dinner.

As for the physical activities, I only walk. I walk every day to go to work and come back home, but I try to walk a  bit more after work. I try to get up earlier in the morning so I could walk a 30-45 minutes more, but that never work so far lol.

Basically, that's what I am in to these days. I lost 9 lbs so far in almost one month of dieting - not too bad. But I wish I would had lost more. I plan to diet that way until the end of the year. I hope to begin 2014 at my best. Its giving me more than enough time. And I not suffering from obesity, just in case you wonder. 

Ok, enough of diet stuff for now.

Next Friday, I will be getting my paycheck so in the meantime, I was planning to finally pay off my RBC credit line using my margin money. And I have plenty of it for now....  A bit more than 14k left out of my $121 305 non registered portfolio. I am cautious, so once the paycheck  will be in, it will go back on the margin.

Next thing I want to put cash in is my 9% TD credit line, which is at 10k when no margin money is being transferred to it. It will take a long time to be paid off, about 7 months or so. And after that will come my 5k credit line at 8.75%. And in the in-between, will come the maybe of my American Express at the end of March, a good 2k. Its a pain, but once done, it will light up my budget of certainly $200 per month. I don't plan to pay ahead of time my student loan.

Once those debt paid off, I will try to leave a 1k in the two banks account I used to save the fees of $6 per month. My minimum living budget could drop to less than 1k per month, which is very good. From that point, I won't be missing that much from my dividend income to cover my fix expenses. And that's getting interesting. And that's why I am thinking more and more of getting more involved is my self-employed work or get a second job or something because its getting so close of getting much  much better financial situation.

As always, I am counting my pennies.