Fighting the Good Fight- Eating in Thailand

Someone has got to do it

It's not easy, but someone had to travel to Thailand and share all the foods there with you! Maybe that wasn't the whole purpose of the trip but it turns out we came home with a lot of food photos to share with you. In reality, we had been planning for a year how to escape to another country for an entire month. That is a topic for another blog, but we were successful in saving our money and got to enjoy Thailand (and its food) for an entire month!

When we considered traveling for an entire month, we though maybe it was not the best idea just to eat and drink all day, each day, for 30 days. While it might have been fun, I'm guessing we would have come back pretty unhealthy. In order to give us some semblance of a healthy schedule, we decided to work out at AKA Thailand each morning learning Muay Thai and doing some strength/conditioning. 

There is a reason I didn't post a video of myself! I worked hard, but might not be the most coordinated person in the world. But Mindy was rocking it from day 1. Since we were there every morning we were very lucky they had a great cafe right at the gym!

It's tough to beat a 4-egg meat omelette and salad or some chicken and eggs (I'll share my egg secret later) for breakfast after a hard workout!! Not long into our stay we discovered that dining out is one of the great pass times in Thailand. You could not walk half a block without coming across a restaurant, food stand, or more creative food options (as you will see).

For the OFM diet, there is one major enemy that is lurking everywhere in Asia. You guessed it- rice. At the grocery store, it is very common to see folks buying 50lb bags of rice for use in their homes! 

Lucky for us, that rice is often accompanied with other delicious items such as this this basil chicken. Traditional thai food is already extremely inexpensive compared to what American or Europeans are used to, but you can get fried eggs with almost anything for about $.30 an egg! As time went on, I learned to order without rice and just order a few extra fried eggs. 

You do need to keep an eye out for those bright red peppers in dishes like this though...they are like putting liquid magma into your mouth. And it only gets hotter as time goes on. There are so many wonderful spices and peppers available, a trip through the grocery store is an assault on your senses. 

For those of us who are carb conscious, a thai meal is filled with possible land mines but there are a lot of low carb options.  In this photo, left to right: omelet (acceptable at any time of day and always low carb), spring rolls (very tasty, you can try one but don't eat the whole plate), larb/laab (ground chicken or beef with spices and an awesome low carb option- get it with cucumbers or raw cabbage), pad thai (leave that for your carb eating friends). 

It is no surprise to any who reads this blog that I love bbq. It took us a while, but we did track down some BBQ in Thailand. Some of it was very good....some not so great.

I thought I had found the greatest place ever on Trip Advisor- all you can eat BBQ! Turns out it was not false advertising, you just had to cook everything yourself on your table. They brought out a big pile of hot coals and a cover to cook on. Let's just say it was not the quickest cooking method ever. The concept was interesting, much like the Melting Pot. But I just didn't have the patience for this method, much like the Melting Pot. At least it only cost us about $10....unlike the Melting Pot. 

After a few weeks eating Thai food and the before mentioned 'all you can eat bbq' I was pretty cautious when we saw this sign. The good news, the cook was actually cooking the food in the front of the restaurant and it was surprisingly good. We did find out throughout the trip that each place has a different definition of ribs. They range anywhere from ribletes to full St. Louis style rack of ribs, but you never know what you are going to get. So I felt it was my duty to try as many places as possible. And we did find a few that were outstanding!! (Did I mention cheap too?!?!)

There were a few interesting food carts we came upon. These are generally everywhere, so you know these were unique if they made the blog. The first, was a pimped out Moped food cart. So the food cart is basically a side car on the scooter, but this one was special. It has a high power sound system bumping the tunes, led lights throughout and a tremendous amount of cheap grilled food cooked fresh on the grill- also on the scooter. Grilled meats on a scooter side car...I'm in!!

This final selection from our tour of Thai food, was not the best tasting (I think that is the polite way to say it) but it was the most unique. Probably not the most OFM friendly item ever. Your guess as to what is in this thing is as good as mine! Don't try this at home kids......

Overall we had an amazing month in Thailand, with the exception of biting into the creation directly above. I ended up completing 27 separate workouts at the gym...and these workouts were no joke in the Thai heat. We also managed to get about a dozen massages each (who can pass up an $8 massage?). I wasn't super strict sticking to my OFM diet, but much, much better than the Italy Trip. At the end of the trip I didn't lose a lot of weight, simply due to the massive amount of food I was trying, but it was great to see my waist thin down again and some of that mass move up to my shoulders and chest. You know what is great about OFM- even through I had taken a long break from working out, and gotten terribly out of shape, I had not have gained a lot of weight. That makes it so, so much easier to get back in shape when the time comes!