Real Age: 5 Foods that Boost Weight Loss
“I miss the church bells,” I said to AdventureMan last night as we welcomed in the New Year. In Germany, all the bells peal at midnight on New Years, it is a wonderful, rollicking sound. Here in Qatar, where New Year’s is a little suspect, a Western innovation, there is no official countdown, no fireworks – but there are parties. We could hear them!
Traditionally, January is when people get serious about weight loss and better health habits, partially in response to the excesses of the Thanksgiving/Christmas celebrations and partially in anticipation of the austerity of Lent. And the swimsuit season . . .
RealAge sends me the greatest tips, and this is one of them:
5 Foods That Boost Weight Loss
Ready to lose a few pounds in the new year? There are five foods that can help.
And the best part is that you won’t feel like you’re “eating light” with this group of weight-loss-boosting noshes. In fact, it’ll still feel like the holidays!
Salmon: Seems the omega-3 fatty acids in this fish may turbocharge your body’s fat-burning engines — especially when coupled with exercise, one study found.
Eggs: They’re back on the healthy-foods list. In one study, dieters who ate eggs for breakfast were able to stave off hunger longer than the folks who loaded up on carbs at breakfast.
Peanuts: May seem counterintuitive — after all, they are high in fat and calories — but a small daily serving of peanuts may discourage weight gain, research suggests. Possibly because the healthy fats in peanuts are easier to burn off than the unhealthy fats from other fatty treats, like cheesecake and chips. Just make sure you substitute the nuts for another high-calorie food.
Apples: Munch on an apple before every meal and you’ll be less likely to clean your dinner plate, research shows. Apples are fiber-filled yet low in calories, which means you fill up on less.
Fava beans: Why fava beans? Because these creamy beans are loaded with flavonoids. And a 14-year study in women showed that high flavonoid intake may help ward off belly fat.
From the Fireworks Crew
As a reply to one of the comments on an earlier post about the Qatar National Day Fireworks Program, the crew that planned, organized and executed the fireworks display commented:
21 crew, 8 x 40 foot shipping containers of equipment, 2 weeks setup, 3 days of bloody rain, 17 pontoons over 3.2km, 1 island with 25 firing positions, kilometers of cable, countless hours of programming, 18 minutes of show, 4 days to pack it all back up and then fly home…great show, but exhausting! Very glad you enjoyed it!
Imagine! Imagine the work that goes into those 18 minutes. . . .
And I bet they are off soon to do New Year’s in some other fabulous location. Imagine, what a life that must be!
Souk al Waqif: Men’s Souks
AdventureMan and I have a tradition, and that is we like to go shopping together before Christmas, helps him help Santa Clause with things to put in my Christmas stocking, and gives us precious time together in a relaxed setting.
So of course, we headed to our favorite place, the Souk al Waqif, where I discovered that the place I love the most to buy scarves – he always has things no one else has – was totally out of scarves! Well, he had six hanging up, but they were not special. I said “Where are the scarves??” and he laughed and said “Sold out!” and I said “Well that is good for you but not so good for me!” and we both laughed. He said he will be getting more early in January, but that is no help to Santa!
Then we wandered over into the older area of the souks, closest to Grand Hamad street. There is a new shop with beautiful misbah (worry beads) and unusual treasures. We wandered further, and came upon the falcon souk.
OK, I get it, the rest of you knew all about it, but I think because I usually go early in the morning, maybe this area isn’t open when I go – I have seen the seats outside, the majlis area, but I never saw the falcons before, not in the new souks. What fun! But aside from tourist women, there are no women in this area – the falcon souk, the camping souk, the hunting souk – these are very masculine domains, Guy Souks.
And they are equally lovely:
In this hallway, everything is giant. Hanging up above is a giant falcon glove, a giant falcon hood, and at the end of the hall, where the men with falcons are entering, are two gigantic falcon stands.
Look at this beautiful space! I think there are some offices around this space, as well as shops:
The camping and hunting souks have all kinds of tentings, bedrolls, washing up fixtures, etc, not so good for camping in the Pacific Northwest, but great for desert camping and hunting:
When the hardware souks and shoe repair souks were cleared out of the main street, I wondered where they had gone, and last night we found them. To my joy, I also found the scribes! I had been told they dispersed, went to various police stations to do their translations, fingerprints, etc. but last night I found them here! Right next to the police station! How have I missed them, all these evenings in the souks? I didn’t see them!
When first in Doha, where there is not one single modern hardware store, and before I had discovered my neighborhood hardware area, (remember, my secret vice is that I love hardware? and hardware stores?) I would go to the Souk al Waqif and start at one store saying “I need 3/4 inch masonry nails” and I would show them one. The man would leave his shop and take me to whichever of his buddies carried those nails. Or chains. Or bungee cords – they always had what I needed, or something close I could use. I’m glad to see the hardware shops are still there, along with the fishing and boating supply stores, and those huge pot and griddle stores.
Did you know Souk al Waqif had it’s own fire truck? Neither did we!
Ritz Carlton Doha Christmas Tree Disappearing Act
I love the Ritz at Christmas time. They decorate so beautifully, and I especially love the huge, tall Christmas tree in the main lobby as you enter – it’s always a great spot for photos with friends and family, before brunch or after afternoon tea.
But when we went to the Ritz for brunch on Friday, Qatar National Day, the tree had disappeared! I guess it was too incongruous to have a huge, gorgeous Christmas tree inserted in all the special activities of Qatar National Day.
Here is what the tree looked like, LLLOOOOLLLLL!
Round 2, Why You Should Always Carry Your Camera in Doha
“HOLY COW!” I shouted at AdventureMan, as I am already digging for my camera. He hates it when I do that, he things maybe I have spotted some danger or something and it gets his adrenaline going. I couldn’t help it. I was shocked, and I said “There’s a CHEETAH in that car!”
We love cheetah. Anyone who has ever seen a cheetah in the wild knows the awesome measure of God’s creativity and wonder. The cheetah is a speed machine, a glorious hunter, born to run. The cheetah is a glorious creation.
AdventureMan didn’t believe me, not for two or three full seconds and then – he saw it, too:
The man with the very young cheetah on a leash under very loose control was having a ball. The cheetah looked very happy to be out in the car with him, even on a leash.
It is a shame, and it should be a crime.
A cheetah, even when snatched away from his mother early in life, is not a toy, not an accessory. A cheetah can eat your innocent babies. A cheetah can bite you or scratch you badly, and think it is just playing. Taking a cheetah out of the wild is probably not a really good thing for the cheetah. How long with this man find him novel and fun and pay attention to him? And then what?
This is what a cheetah is meant to do, and this is how a cheetah is meant to live:
My friends, if you love wildlife, no matter how rich you are, leave the wildlife in the wild. Please.
Baby Shower Diaper Cake
I wasn’t there. AdventureMan and I would have loved to be there, but it wasn’t possible. We spent Thanksgiving apart from our son and his wife. We also missed the BABY SHOWER! Her sweet aunts arranged a wonderful shower for them, and sent me a photo of the “diaper cake.” I don’t think this is a real cake . . . but I am not sure entirely what it is. I know only that it is adorable!
Brass Band Concert Tomorrow, Suq Al Waqif
Thanks, Grammy! If you have ever had an interest in exploring the Souqs, now is the time. The weather is perfect, nights are breezy and warm but not hot, there are a zillion good restaurants to choose from, AND tomorrow night is a very cool concert:
Garden Saga
This has provided us with an ongoing burble of amusement, every time we drive into our compound.
Someone wants the name of the compound in the garden. It seemed a simple enough request, doesn’t it?
The first try I saw, was a perfect ‘A’ followed by a second ‘A’. I started laughing. It was being put in by laborers who are probably illiterate in their own language, much less have any idea about western letters. To them, these are just meaningless shapes, not symbols for sounds. The second ‘A’ was gone the next day, torn out, and replaced with the appropriate letter.
But concrete blocks are big and unwieldy. When the name was finished, it was big, with no spaces between words, and no ‘s’ on the end.
They tore it out, too.
Now, working with smaller bricks, working with templates, working with a diagram, the name is finally being completed accurately. It is actually lovely, so we can’t laugh anymore.
I wonder how we would do, trying to lay out the same in Arabic . . .
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