I need to lose one damn pesky pound more to have lost half my weight... 231 right now.

This is impossible to answer without knowing the job. You mention a lab so are suits out because you will be doing stuff that would dirty / destroy suits? I'm a fan of wearing suits if you live in a metropolitan city otherwise I would just go with dress shirt and dress pants. If that is not an option for work then you should consider having separate clothing for going out and work.

The most important criteria is location. When I moved to Ottawa I started off by identifying that 70-80% of socializing happens in two areas that are minutes apart. There are little clusters all over the city but these two are the main areas. Toronto the same thing although the two areas are a little further part. Based on that I was not willing to look at any housing outside of a ten minute walk for these two sections. If you live far from venues you are both less likely to go out and it is harder to pick up.

Beyond that it really depends on budget. Nice housing is expensive. I had a whole list of requirements so it was pretty easy to pick a place as by the time I was done there wasn't many options that had everything I wanted.

Just don't. I do drink at home now but I used to have a rule of no drinking at home alone so if I wanted to drink I had to go out. I also found that not having food in the house works well since hunger is a pretty good motivation to go out. There is nothing wrong with going to dinner by yourself and you'd be surprised how quickly you meet people -- it was very rare for me to go out to eat alone and not meet someone new.


Wow that is impressive. Good work.

Definitely agree with this. There's way too many people who are phobic about eating out alone.

holy ****, awesome work on the weight loss JP.

http://jezebel.com/5902718/creepy-fi...o-be-organized

Reading this yesterday I thought there was a decent chance this might be a 2P2er.

Sending her the spreadsheet is way weirder than actually keeping one, IMO.

I can understand the merits of going out when you wanna drink but not keeping food in the house seems kind of silly

Cooking is time consuming and when you factor in spoilage the cost is likely more than a decent restaurant. Factor in the social aspect and for single people / couples there is not reason to ever cook. The only reason I've started cooking now is because PR's business keeps her their till most of the kitchen's are closed.

Fair reasoning

I just couldnt and wouldnt want to eat out every day at all meals

PM'd

Depending on what kind of restaurants you are talking about I would argue that restaurants are MORE time consuming, and much more expensive, at least if you are talking the restaurants I imagine you going to.

At some cheaper/chain like places/fast food places I can see the merit to your argument

And eating out isn't? Unless you are going to get fast food, then you'll likely spend more time eating out.

Cooking is much more time consuming if we are talking about actually cooking. When you factor in going to the grocery store and clean up it is a lot of time. I can be in the elevator and ordering from one of a few dozen restaurants in a few minutes -- which brings us back to why location is so important when picking housing.

What is actually cooking? I can easily prepare pasta spending about 5 minutes of my own time doing it. The only thing that takes time is waiting for it to cook, but you don't need to stand there for most of the time. Clean-up takes about 2 minutes.

Waiting at a restaurant is different since you can't do a lot of things that you can do at home while waiting.

For me cooking doesn't involve opening jars for the sauce when making pasta. I also don't consider a meal complete unless it has meat so just pasta wouldn't cut it.

Typically I'd say 15-20 minutes of prep time is pretty much the minimum for any of the stuff I cook. Then there is another 20-90 minutes of cooking which you are correct in that it does not require your complete attention. Clean up depends on the meal.

Then there is going to the grocery store. Meat, bread, and vegetables have very short periods where they are good so at best you have trips to the grocery store every other day and I find it ends up that you go daily.

As for stuff to do I'm not sure what I can do at home that I can't do out but that would vary depending on the individual. This tangent started because we were discussing how to be more social and that is something you can't do at home. The whole point is that the time you are out waiting for your food isn't wasted because you are socializing while if you were cooking at home you'd likely be on the internet or watching tv.

Do you eat out for all meals?

Thanks, I appreciate it. After all the positive responses I probably will start a blog.

Haha, I figured out that mistake later yes. I quick-read through the book, and while it is somewhat vague for my tastes it makes some good points. I'm not sure if it will be as life-changing for me though (and I already have pretty short hair) but as I re-read it slower this weekend it might sink in more.

I wouldn't destroy a suit, but it is impractical for the work I do as I need to be able to roll up my sleeves to almost my elbows. Wearing a suit to and from work would be possible, just not át it. Pantswise everything goes, and a dress shirt would work. On weekends I always change clothes before going out obviously, but on weekdays I have to manage with my workclothes, but dress shirts would be good. Sadly I only have one right now, and not much of a clue about them.

Due to budget issues I probably will have to choose between being in the right location with roommates or being far away on my own. I think I prefer the good location, and I could probably find a place where I only share a common kitchen, and we'll get to that point later.

I used to never drink at home (one of the reasons for going out 6 nights a week) but in the last few months I had to accommodate pre-gaming at my place, and it is hard to stay away from the fully stocked bar in your own house. Preferably I would keep nothing at all in my house, but that is usually not an option.

And I am one of them. I honestly don't know why, but I'm legit scared of going to dinner alone. The few times I actually did it turned out that nothing special happened obviously, but I don't know what to do. Do you bring something to read for when you're not eating or what?

Along with being cheaper, I can cook very well so I always enjoyed making my own food. However, as you said, it's not a social experience at all and especially now I'm finally going to earn some money I want to change that, so I guess I just have to man up and go out to eat on my own.

you are crazy

eh. Henry is talking about making restaurant-style meals at home which is definitely more time consuming and also probably more expensive unless you are making the same meal multiple times per week.

I can make myself chicken stir fry in like 15 minutes including prep but that's not the kind of cooking he's referring to.

Wait Henry, are you "dating" a 2p2er?

The person he's dating became a 2p2er

Cooking for yourself is easy because you just don't buy much to do it. I buy enough food to cook 2-3 meals for myself in a week and go out for the others. When you know how much you need to buy, spoilage isn't a problem. When you know where to buy it from and how to cook it, it's going to be better for the price than any restaurant and often better than food five times the price.

I seem to recall that Henry mostly eats steak and chicken and I'm pretty similar. But I can cook a better steak in less time for £10 than I could get in a restaurant until I'm spending £50. I can also cook a better roast chicken than I'd get in many restaurants, but I concede that that might be worth going out for because it takes so long.

Edit: next big purchase is a sous vide cooker with timer. It'd be great to get home and have your steak ready bar the searing the minute you walk in the door (or the minute you can get all the other stuff ready)

I bring a book, yeh. I imagine it's easier these days with kindles/ipads if you're into this pretend-book thing.

Hi JP!

Used to. Would like to get back to that but most kitchens close before too early for my current schedule. I also went over a decade with no fast food but the last year and a half unfortunately circumstances have made it do that I've had more fast food in the last eighteen months than I did my entire life.

I think that is a good idea because a change is difficult and having people watching is motivational aid and makes it less likely that you'll give up.

If I was doing something like this there would be four main areas I would focus on.

1) Physical Appearance
a) Working out
b) Skin Care / Teeth Whitening / Hair
c) Dressing
2) Social Circle
3) Money
4) Car and Housing

There is obviously an order to some of these. Going out and spending money on nice clothing if you plan to change your body shape makes no sense. Get the body you want first then invest in nice clothing.

Just go shopping and try stuff on. It is all about fit. Different designers / lines are made with certain body types in mind so when you find something that works for you other stuff from the same label will also likely work for you.

Sometimes I would read the paper but very sporadically so that it would be be mostly not reading unless it was completely dead. The idea is to be social and if you are reading you look engaged and people will be less likely to come talk to you. Same if you bring a laptop or spend the time on your phone. I'd use the time to people watch and think. Summer is better for this than winter and you want venues on high walking traffic and also that are frequented by people you know.

She wasn't a 2P2er when I met her but she did start posting here.



Sciolist,

Part of the problem is grocery costs in Canada-- especially for chicken-- are quite high. I'd say cooking a meal for two at home is about $25-30 without wine and the same meal at a decent restaurant would be $15-17 a plate.

Spoilage is pretty high but most of the stuff that spoils is cheap. Two weeks ago I made tomato sauce so needed fresh basil but I didn't cook anything with basil again so I used maybe $0.30 worth of basil but I threw out $2.00 worth of basil so that has to be included in the cost.

My main issue with spoilage is that it makes you go to the grocery store daily. Chicken after 48 hours starts to have this egg smell to it so you can't really buy it in advance. Now that I go out to PR's office it isn't a big deal as there are plenty of grocery stores in suburbia but I live downtown so going to a grocery store is a drive pre-PR while I can walk to countless restaurants in a few minutes.

I do delivery groceries so don't have to worry about that much. I also don't mind freezing steak or chicken, though I know a lot of people think that's akin to defiling my parent's graves.

Even if I didn't, I guess this kind of thing is a bit easier in a pedestrian-centric city like London, particularly if you're working. It's easy to walk home past a supermarket without wasting any time you wouldn't already be spending.

Point still stands...it's still crazy b/c nobody in their right mind cooks restaurant style meals every day at home or eats out at restaurants. Not many people can afford to drop $1200+/month on food. Henry needs to step out of the fantasy world some times.

I know a baseball game is an awful first date idea but if the girl mentions it would it still work? I threw out drinks and she came back with "Team A" is playing that night, we could do that!

My thoughts are that it will probably be cold so bringing a blanket would work, the team sucks and the attendance is usually awful so it won't be too loud to talk and we will probably be able to sit fairly isolated or at least not with people draped on us and oh they serve alcohol. Definitely very far from optimal but I think I can make it work.

FWIW, I am currently in probably the worst city in the world for entertainment for the next few months (as this thread confirmed about 5 months ago) so a Major League Baseball game is probably about the most entertaining thing.