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December 27, 2005
CR-Friendly Family Holidays
My first Christmas with MR's family turned out beautifully, thanks to the efforts of his entire family to accomodate our weirdness! Our first family event was Christmas Eve drinks and snacks at the home of his uncle and aunt, who are not known for their low calorie cooking. In fact, they have a history of producing delicious but very high calorie, high saturated fat foods. However, this year, they provided a gorgeous vegetable tray with lightly steamed asparagus, cauliflower, radishes (people really don't eat enough radishes) olives, and other assorted colorful veggies with a spicy mustard on the side. I also ate two of the tempura scallops, shrimp, and mushrooms that his aunt had carefully prepared. MR's Mom was surprised that I ate the non-vegetable food, but I explained that as a cook, I just can't stand to see people slave all day to prepare food and then not even taste it. It seems intolerably ungrateful to me, and I know how upset I get when people don't even try a dish I've worked hard to prepare. A few small appetizer bites won't throw off my CR, and the rest of my day had been so light (no dairy with my breakfast, no extra eggwhites or almonds with my lunch) was so light that I had a few calories to spare. His uncle also stood over me at the appetizer table insisting that I take another scallop, shrimp and mushroom, and the Southerner in me could not refuse a direct order from my host.
Then we headed home to MoMR's house, where we made a fantastic chicken in Thai green curry sauce dinner. MR had his with quorn, but wishing to maximize protein and minimize carbs, I ate mine with chicken like the rest of the family. January will be an all-vegetarian month, as I've had quite a bit of meat this holiday season. MoMR made adoreable little apple sweet potato souflees, CR friendly, in cute little tiny dishes. Those were my favorite part of the meal. MR and I made our curry in separate pots, and MoMR made the same dish for herself, MR's step-father, and my mother (there are a lot of parents in this holiday, but one can never have to many!)11 I enjoyed some excellent red wine that S-FoMR had made himself, and MR drank some pinot noir... 3 oz as always.
Christmas morning MR and I rose at the traditional hour of 5 and made our breakfasts, then waited for all to get up and open Christmas presents. Among my many favorite presents was a Billy Joel CD from MR, so you can expect a whole lot of Billy Joel quotes in the blog for the next little while. MoMR and S-FoMR gave me a gorgeous dress, handpainted flowers on a black background, girls' size 16. It made me realize that shopping in the girls' department may be a logical next step for me, especially since the Banana Republic size 0's I tried on the day before (did I mention that my luggage didn't come till Christmas afternoon? I went out and bought myself something decent to wear Christmas Eve morning, fearing that I might never see my bags again!) were mostly too big. After Christmas present opening, we made brunch, which consisted of MR's CR-engineered low carb buckwheat pancakes with whey protein powder to lower the carbs and up the protein, plus eggwhite scrambles with tons of multi-colored vegetables.
Christmas dinner was quite an extravaganza. I started cooking almost as soon as the brunch dishes were put away, and enjoyed hanging out with MoMR and their very well-behaved dog Maxine while I made cranberry sauce, Jack Daniels sweet potatoes (cut with pumpkin to lower the total cals), mashed cauliflower, ginger ricotta cheesecake, and pumpkin flan. MoMR roasted a turkey (that turned out to be the best turkey I think I've ever had) and made turkey gravy, while MR made vegetarian gravy for us. I made red pepper and arugula Christmas salad, just like the TR pictures, with hazelnut oil and balsamic vinegar, but forgot the nutmeg. MR took on the stressful task of dividing the cranberry sauce, mashed cauliflower, and JD sweet potatoes by volume and weighing our servings for the two of us. Dinner was a little later than we had planned and there was a bit of tripping over each other in the kitchen, but we had a great time and MR and I were extremely grateful that his family was willing to put up with our weighing and measuring everything and creating lots of extra dirty dishes in the process.
MoMR was shocked at how much turkey both MR and I ate, but since it was our protein source in the meal, it had to be a lot. I had miscalculated though: I kept my calories so low earlier in the day in anticipation of a big dinner that I alotted too many calories for dinner. I had eaten fewer than 500 calories between breakfast and lunch combined, so even with two six ounce glasses of wine (one while I was cooking -- I realized upon dumping tangerine juice that was meant for the cranberry sauce into the JD sweet potato that cooking without wine was making me absent-minded, so I rapidly acquired a medicinal glass :) I still couldn't eat enough food to reach my calorie target for the day. And I ate a HUGE plate of food! I left some cranberry and sweet potato on my plate, and completely failed to eat my pumpikin flan, but never fear, I ate it the next day as a snack and enjoyed every pumpkin-y bite.
It was a lot of fun to eat a CR friendly Christmas meal with family that is very sympathetic to our goals. MoMR has been cooking Zoned for quite awhile now, and she has decorated her fridge with a Zone diagram. We all found it a bit confusing to have so many cooks in the kitchen... we're used to doing everything ourselves, and there was a bit more confusion and clean-up. But considering that we produced a very complex dinner for five, two of whom had everything weighed and measured and calorie-counted exactly, it's remarkable how easily it all came together. MR was the only one who had room for his dessert -- the rest of us couldn't eat another bite after the main dishes were served. MoMR didn't care for the mashed cauliflower, but MR loved it. Everyone loved the cranberry sauce. The turkey was amazing, and the JD sweet potatoes were a bit dry and not as smooth as I would have liked, but still quite good.
The next day we headed over for drinks and snacks to MR's dad and step-mother's house. I packed MR a simple dinner to eat at feeding time (7 pm) since we would be at their house, and I ate a small snack beforehand but left lots of calories for whatever healthy-ish snacks would be on offer and some wine. I was very glad I had left most of my dinner calories for the event, because MR's dad and step-mother served shrimp! I LOVE SHRIMP! I practically danced around the room singing, "Shrimp shrimp shrimp!" My mother, my giant cat and I are all huge fans of cocktail shrimp, and while my cat prefers it raw and naked, my mom and I love steamed shrimp with a bit of seafood cocktail sauce. MR encouraged me to consume them for protein, as shrimp are almost pure protein, though he did caution me about the considerable cholesterol. I will have to make January an all-vegetarian month to make up for the a mount of meat I've eaten over the holidays. I think I ate ten or twelve shrimp, maybe even fifteen! I had many tails to show for it. MR's step mother made it quite clear that she would not be in the least bit offended if I removed the bacon from the bacon wrapped scallops she served and ate the scallop underneath, so I ate three scallops. Shrimp and scallops... two of my favorite foods! She also had some Babybel cheeses, which my friend Myrna Perez swears by as a low calorie, high calcium treat, so I ate two of those. I also had a tiny slice of the brie (but no crackers) and some excellent cabernet. It was a delicious dinner!
MoMR had cooked dinner for herself, her husband, and my mom, so they were already mostly full of Zoned, healthy food. She had made steelhead, a fish I've never had, with (IIRC) a side of broccoli and a spinach and blueberry salad, so they ate only light bites of the snacks. I pondered the fact that between MR, his mom, and me, you had three different styles of handling holiday party eating, all of which can be very healthy. MR just brought his own perfectly calorie-controlled nutrient dense food (Quorn, broccoli with lemon, a megamuffin, and flax oil.) I ate a small snack beforehand and then ate the majority of my dinner calories in the healthy, protein rich options offered at the party. MoMR ate a healthy, Zoned dinner beforehand, and then just had a bite or two at the party. All good ways of handing party eating, and all well-suited to our eating personalities.
The holiday eating provided the perfect occasion for pondering about my eating personality. While I'm planning to make an experiment out of January and weigh and measure every morsel I consume to be sure I don't go above 1300 per day, I don't plan to permanently take up an MR lifestyle where I never, ever go out, eat at others' houses, or vary my calorie intake. I enjoy being able to have a bite here and there of unusual foods, and I don't mind making up for the calories in other meals. For instance, if I know I'm having a big dinner, it doesn't bother me to eat lighter versions of breakfast and lunch. I like being able to fit in socially when others are eating, and I can't stand to offend a fellow cook. MR's lifestyle works very well for him, but socializing is much more important to me than it is to him.
People often think that CR is about denial... for me, it is not at all. Making choices, day by day, to maximize my health and life and fun and pleasure is what CR is about for me. I am much happier eating a bunch of cocktail shrimp, some unwrapped scallops, and two lower calorie cheese bites than I would have been had I eaten the way I would have pre-CR: a plate full of crackers, huge amounts of cheese, and high calorie desserts. I enjoy the social aspect of eating, I get to eat very tasty foods, and I still leave feeling satisfied, but not stuffed. My weight has remained remarkably consistent over the last year since I lost the majority of my pre-CR weight (35 pounds in seven months, for those of you who are new to the blog) gradually dropping from 106 to 102. My mental state is much, much better than it was pre-CR when I would bomb my brain with carbs and drinks and blood-sludging saturated fats.
I also find it incredibly heart-warming how graciously MR's family has accomodated our bizarre diet. From the vegetable tray at his uncle and aunt's, to the way his mother went to great lengths to provide everything we needed, give us the run of the kitchen, and cook family meals such that we could all eat the same meal while MR and I measured our portions, to the fact that his step-mother bought shrimp since she knew we could eat it and made it clear that it was okay for me to peel the bacon off the scallops, everyone has been extremely kind, generous, and accepting of us. So many CR practitioners have terrible problems with their family's lack of support for their lifestyle -- MR and I are very lucky. My side of the family has been equally supportive... no one batted and eye when MR and I weighed all of our food at Thanksgiving. I know it isn't always easy to put up with us, and sometimes the Southerner in me recoils in horror at the thought that we are putting people to trouble. Then I make a mental note to write especially good thank-you notes and go on with weighing MR's dinner.
Meanwhile, I suspect that the highlight of this CR-friendly holiday is yet to come. MoMR is throwing a party tonight, and she has crunched the nutrition information on all the food and printed it up on little cards! While this will probably be a curious conversation piece for most of her guests, for MR and me, this is essential information. I plan to walk around with my calculator eating appetizers and adding them up until I hit my calorie goal for the day. Won't that be fun? Maybe if we're very nice, she'll let us post some of the recipes to the blog!
Posted by april at December 27, 2005 9:18 AM