April's CR Diary

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July 10, 2005

Closing In On A High of 93

CR Increased Heat Tolerance

The radio says that we're closing in on a high of 93, and I'm loving it. CR has so increased my heat tolerance that I actually enjoy taking a walk to town when it is 93 degrees outside. It's been chilly all week and rainy, so I am enjoying our first hot sunny day in awhile. Don't worry, I am wearing sunscreen.

I hate to admit it, but I enjoy the heat even more because others hate it. It's not that I want my fellow humans to suffer... it's just that it's so cool to be untouched by the heat while everyone else is melting like the Wicked Witch of the West.

Still, I hope that it is cool when MR arrives. I do not wish his Canadian blood to boil during his first week in the States.

Today's blog entry, in case you can't tell, will be a hodgepodge of random observations, none of which merits an entire entry.

Don't Eat That

She's eaten Walford. She's eaten Kurzweil. She's eaten Ornish, McDougall, and the complete works of MR. She's eaten de Grey. Yes, she's my calico cat Philomena. And she has now figured out how to knock over my alarm clock, remove a book from a the stack of books, and eat a page. Delicious! Maybe I'll put a box next to my bed for my reading material. I can't have my cat waking MR up in the middle of the night by eating one of his articles.

Real Men Don't Eat Quiche: But They DO Eat Eggwhite Fritattas

Here it is:

1 cup eggwhites
1 cup non-fat plain yogurt
50 g tomatoes, sliced
25 g mushrooms, sliced
garlic powder
half salt
Italian spices, dried (rosemary, oregano, etc.)

mix the eggwhites and yogurt with a dash or two of garlic powder, salt, and spices. pour about half into a non-stick pie pan. throw in the mushrooms. pour the rest in. bake at 375 for twenty minutes, then take out and put the tomatoes on top. bake another twenty minutes. serve hot.

This is good. You can use other veggies if you want. Just be careful to add veggies that don't have a lot of water cause they will cause the thing to be runny.

What Did I Eat Today?

You may well ask as this is supposed to be a blog about what I eat every day.

Breakfast:
1 cup eggwhites scrambled
1 teaspoon flax oil

Lunch:
salad of romaine, tomatoes, green peppers, green olives, red onions, 1 cup cottage cheese, hot peppers, pickles, vinegar, fat free tomato basil dressing
10 hazelnuts

Dinner:
entire bag of broccoli, cauliflower and carrots drizzled with 1 teaspoon flax oil, 1 teaspoon olive oil, and two tablespoons brewers yeast (avoiding excess salt in broth as feeling like face is puffy.)
four teaspoons black bean soup, while perfecting soup recipe.
amount of black cherry seltzer/cranberry juice/red wine cocktail equivalent to 3 oz red wine, aka an MR pour.

Bad Planning on Your Part

Have you ever seen that sign that says "Bad planning on your part does not constitute a necessary emergency on my part?" Well, bad planning is the reason for 99% of slips from a CR diet, at least in my experience. When one walks out the door without one's lunch... when one ends up trapped in the office with no food and is hungry... etc. This week I have work meetings or events every evening, so I am planning for both lunches and dinners for all week. Luckily, my brewers yeast, cruciferous vegetables and broth soup can be thrown into a jar and microwaved at any time. Yogurts and hazelnuts are also convenient at times like these. Plan ahead and avoid the waste of calories and money!

Cleaning Out My Closet

No, not like M and M! I'm cleaning out my closets to get ready to move! I've found almost an entire new wardrobe of clothes I hadn't unpacked since my last move this time last year. Quite a few are too big and have been bagged up neatly to go to goodwill, but there are quite a few finds of clothes I wore the first time I got really thin right after college, and they look great! Also found a fantastic black sundress from my lowest Vermont weight, and I plan to wear it for an upcoming special occasion. The cat has crowned himself king of the mountain of boxes, and has very much enjoyed the closet cleaning out process.

Finding Oneself

I've had a weird two weeks of watching my friends go through identity crises. Maybe we're hitting that age. Anyway, one of my friends told me he was taking some time to find himself. I reflected that I'm so grateful that when I set out to find myself, I was exactly where I had left myself. Merely misplaced, I suppose.

Another friend just left a message on my voice mail indicating that he is planning to "hang it all up and become a minister." Okay. This calls for further investigation. I left a return voice mail message, and will keep you posted.

To Be Real

That seventies disco song that goes "To Be Real" and has no other intelligible lyrics has always been one of my favorites. Makes me think about my ongoing struggle to be a "real" CRONie (though I rather detest that term). I often feel that I am not CR'd enough... I look like a normal girl, I am not that hungry all that often, and to add insult to injury, my white blood cells are high normal. At least my cholesterol is really, really good. 134. HDL 73. MR says that's just fab. Well, that's what Aubrey de Grey would say, but MR says it's really, really good. Still, I feel like a loser cause my white blood cells aren't seeming all that CR'd. It's good to have room for improvement, I suppose. Gotta live long enough to get that car insurance money. And to get my phone company to admit that they cashed my last check. And to have lots of time to... you get the idea.

I Won't Be Serving Fish

The only downside to our amazing new house is that the landlord is in a touch of a dispute with the neighbors over a matter of sidewalk repair, and the neighbors appear to be a bit hostile. I suspect this because when I went to see the place for the first time, someone had shoved a dead fish under the door. Yes, a dead fish. I think it was frozen, cause it didn't smell, but still! How juvenille. I have some friends coming over next weekend for dinner. I won't be serving fish.

American Baby

I absolutely adore the new Dave Matthew Band song "American Baby." Have you heard it? I like it because a) it sounds cool b) it's by Dave Matthews c) I am an American and at least one person frequently refers to me as "baby." I tend to like songs that I feel like apply to me, and dislike songs that do not. For instance, I love the song "Saint Augustine in Hell" because I am rooting for Augustine's lover. I love all the songs by The Cars because I passionately identify with the woman who seems to be the main character in most of them. I dislike the song "Brown Eyed Girl" because a) it is annoying b) one of my close friends, Helen Fessenden, was forced to listen to it on continuous repeat for an entire night while her next door neighbor in the college dorm was using it to drown out other noise c) I do not have brown eyes. My college boyfriend Andrew, who weighed 118 at 5'10", used to change the words of all songs to make them conform to me. He sang that one, "Green Eyed Girl." We stayed together for two years, and parted amiably. He married a pediatrician from Harvard two days before Sept. 11. I attended the wedding and gave them a very expensive bottle of champagne and a very generous Victoria's Secret gift certificate. I am a good ex-girlfriend.

He Doesn't Like Raw Tomatoes

I know a couple where the man doesn't like raw tomatoes, but the woman does. He doesn't like cooked greens, but likes raw greens. She doesn't like mushrooms or onions. He doesn't eat seafood or red meat. I'm cooking for them in a week, as well as for a bunch of our other friends. I wonder if they like beets? Raddishes? Yams? Turnips?

I appreciate that they are forthcoming with their food preferences. I hate it when people say, "I like everything," because NO ONE likes everything. Even I do not like alfalfa sprouts. I think they have the texture of hair, and if I wanted hair on my salad I could just brush my own hair into my salad and save the money. Gross!

My mother married two people (sequentially, not simultaneously) who did not like tomato products of any kind. Not tomato sauce. Not pizza. Not lasagna. She is no longer married to either of them. Let those of you who have ears, hear. The kingdom of heaven is like a pasta-less lasagna. It has tomato sauce. It is harder for he who dislikes tomato sauce to enter the kingdom of heaven than it is for an obese person to be comfortable in an airplane seat. Believe, and CR.

My mother does not like raw kale. Yet I am certain we are related. We look a lot alike and have a similar quirky sense of humor.

Wearing Orange

In my time travels through my closet, I found an old orange Ann Taylor skirt and blouse set. It's actually pretty, and looks nice with my hair. I am going to wear it. So for once, I will wear orange.

I am not orange yet, though my feet seem to acquire a blue tint from time to time. Might be hard, eventually, to match my toenail polish to it.

You Want a Recipe, Don't You?

Well, I gave you the eggwhite frittata! Aren't you happy with that? How about this berry parfait, submitted by MR's Mom, which is from Elizabeth's Blog:

CREAMY CHOCOLATE & BERRY PARFAIT

I like to divide this dessert into two or sometimes more servings; each one is just enough for a cool sweet satisfying way to finish a meal. To increase the fat, garnish with your favorite chopped nuts.

Ingredients (makes 2 servings):

1 cup plain nonfat yogurt
1 tbs. unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 cup unsweetened frozen blueberries
3/4 cup fresh raspberries
dash of grated nutmeg
1/8 tsp rum extract
Sucralose to taste

Mix the yogurt, sucralose, cocoa, nutmeg, and rum extract in a bowl. Stir until soft and creamy. Cover and refrigerate.

Puree the raspberries and one half of the frozen blueberries, then refrigerate for 15 minutes. Leave the other half of the blueberries in the freezer.

Using 2 parfait glasses or small glass dessert bowls: spoon a layer of the yogurt then a layer of the berry sauce into each dish, and keep alternating layers until used up, with yogurt as the top layer. Chill for another 15 minutes, then garnish with the remaining frozen blueberries. Optional garnishes: lemon zest, fresh mint leaves, almond slivers.

Total calories per serving: 130
Fat: 1 g (9%) (without the nuts)
Carbs: 23 g. (62%)
Fiber: 6 g.
Protein: 9 g. (29%)

Note from MR's Mom: MR & I found it needs 2 TBsp of cocoa powder, which will alter the crunch. Also, I have no sucralose, so used 2 TBsp Splenda.

Note from me: MR's mom does not actually call him MR. She calls him by his first name. But I have changed his name to protect his privacy.

My Mom Discovers Raw Fava Beans

She wrote this ode to them:

In Praise of Fava in Their Pods

I'm in love. Do you know how cute little
favas look in their pods? There they are nestled
in their snuggly pods still attached to the beanie
feeding tube. They pop out all shiny and new, ready to be soaked for
some good chili. What a wonder and joy to share in the gifts of nature.
Although I hesitate to ask, let me dare to ask what the nutrients are?
How many can I eat for dinner? Thanks for all our bloggie friends.

I Am Friends With A Celebrity Anorexic

Was cleaning out some old pictures and found some from high school. I went to Interlochen Arts Academy, where the teachers are crazy, the snow goes from November to May, and the kids are all on scholarship. I know I was. Everyone was a drama queen, and it didn't help that there were 60% girls, 40% boys, and of the boys remaining, about half were gay. So competition for a suitable boy to date was stiff to say the least. I used to sit in the study lounge and dream that someday a beautiful orange tinted man with bright blue eyes would appear out of a puff of smoke and take me away from all this. Anyway, I was pretty good friends with Marya, who wrote the book Wasted, which is something of an anorexic cult classic. I cried for days after reading it, both sad for Marya and feeling a lot of survivor's guilt that the anorexic monster never got me. I found a picture of Marya back in high school, reflected on what a pretty girl she was before the anorexia really got her. I hope she is better now. I pray for her, and for all of us, and I am allowed to do that because it's my religion and I'll pray if I want to.

Neat-o Mosquito

What a stupid phrase. What is so neat-o about a mosquito? I am all for the food chain and the circle of life and such, but I really prefer that other creatures only bite me if specifically requested to. Or if we're in the sort of relationship where the request is kind of a standing invitation. Like, help yourself to whatever's in the fridge. Bite me whenever you feel like it. That kind of thing.

So I'm pleased to see that another bizarre side-effect of CR is that the bugs no longer seem to want me. Now in the past, when I was much less secure about my own desirability, I might have been insulted by this development. But now I understand that mosquitoes are not the kinds of critters I want to attract, and I am just thrilled that out of a southern porch full of people wearing bug spray, I will be the only one who is not bitten, when not a driplet of OFF has touched my skin. Bug spray scares me and smells bad, so I avoid it. I don't even use Skin So Soft, though it does work as bug repellant. I don't need to, cause for whatever reason I am no longer attractive to our little biting friends.

Black Bean Soup

1 cup dry black beans, soaked, boiled and drained
1/2 cup of chicken broth (made from bullion or in a can or whatever)
1/2 cup salsa
2 tablespoons rice protein powder
1 pickled jalepeno

Mix the broth and beans. Stir in rice protein. Allow to cool a bit and add salsa. Garnish with jalepenos.

Yummy. You could even add some non-fat plain yogurt to get a creamy taste.

Enough already.

That's it. That's all. Go back to doing whatever you were doing.

Posted by april at July 10, 2005 9:59 AM

Comments

Posted by: Liz at July 10, 2005 6:16 PM

Posted by: Jacob at July 11, 2005 3:56 AM

Posted by: Judith at July 12, 2005 1:10 PM

Posted by: MR at July 12, 2005 6:36 PM

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