April's CR Diary

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January 31, 2006

We Are Having Fun. We're Changing Our Lives.

That was what one of the medical lab technologists said this afternoon as she smiled for a group picture after the Labor Board Hearing. It was one of those "Ah, I love my work," almost brings me to tears moments. After fifteen years of languishing in a union that held these folks back instead of helping them mobilize and do better for themselves, a group of 700 health care professionals are in the process of leaving that union and joining our union. It hasn't been easy... it never is. But today at the Labor Board they started to feel how much power they really do have when they're united. It goes beyond wages, benefits, and working conditions. It's about respect, about feeling like you have a voice in your job -- and actually having one! About knowing you can speak up if you see an unsafe practice, one that might hurt a patient, without fear of losing your job. About knowing that you'll retire with some dignity after a lifetime of caring for others. Not too much to ask, but so hard for American workers to get.

It was a good day for an "I love my work" moment because today was the three year anniversary of the only strike our union has had. It was up in coal mining country in northeast Pennsylvania, and the main issue was mandatory overtime. Yes, in the US it is perfectly legal (in most states, but not New Jersey, thanks to the work of my previous union! Jersey Girls know how to fight.) to force a nurse to stay for a double shift, even if she's already worked eight, ten or twelve hours. Even if she has children at home and a husband who has to leave for work and no childcare. Even if she has no one to pick up her kids from school, or no one to make dinner for her elderly mother, or even if she's just so tired she can't think straight. Yes, that nurse could be forced to keep taking care of patients, not just under threat of losing her job, but in far of losing her nursing license. A nurse can't abandon her patients, and if her employer won't provide another nurse to relieve her, she's trapped.

It was a very cold winter that year, much colder than this year. The nurses had had enough: they knew their employer wanted to not just win on the issue but to break their spirit and break their union. They said no, and they gave notice and walked out. Management paid millions of dollars to a scab nursing company from Colorado to fill the hospital -- heaven forbid they lose revenue by ceasing to do business!

I was fairly new to my union at that point, having just returned from Vermont three months before. I had known my boss for years, but had never been close friends with him. But the strike threw us together, and he knew instantly that he could depend on me to do whatever needed to be done, without asking idiotic questions or complaining about being tired. When 400 people are putting their livlihoods on the line, it's not a good time to argue or whine. He had led many strikes, but they're always scary, and the responsibility is awesome.

I had just come off leading that giant campaign in Vermont, so I knew what it felt like to have hundreds of people's hopes, dreams and paychecks riding on your ability to think clearly and lead. He is one of very, very few people who are willing to shoulder the entire weight of a real fight. And he never ceases to amaze me with how good he is.

I remember calling Francis (who was in the process of having his epiphany, but hadn't quite busted out with it yet) to tell him about the strike. "You know how arrogant I am," I said to Francis, "But this dude I'm working with just blows me away. I am honored to be in the same room with him." I think Francis was just a tad jealous... not because of any sexual tension (my boss is both not my type and also very married) but because I was passionately admiring another organizer's work.

Scenes I will never forget... the nurse coming in crying because a friend of hers who was an LPN (and not in the bargining unit on strike, so she had to go into work) had been fired for "not being nice enough" to a scab nurse. I held her and we talked about it until she was ready to get up and walk the picket line again. After the strike, she wrote me a letter saying how much she appreciated it... "It was like you appeared out of nowhere for us. You were truly a Godsend." I still get weepy when I re-read it.

The moment when my boss (let's call him Edward, because that's not his name) stood up at a meeting of 400 nurses who were voting to reject management's lame offer and stay out in the cold, without a paycheck. "I will never apologize for having passion!" he shouted. He talked about how the coal miners, many of them the ancestors of the nurses in the room, had shed blood to make this land safe for regular workers. The nurses knew that they were part of something much bigger than just their hospital or their job. Their spirits were joined with those workers who had fought and even died for the rights we have now, the rights we have to fight to protect.

Watching Edward's two sons, then 6 and 10, marching at the front of a rally procession, carrying our union's banner proudly, with their mom, a radical nurse herself, beaming at them. Watching a 30 year nurse get up in front of 2000 people at a rally, speaking in public for the first time, and tell her community members why she was standing out on a picket line when she'd rather be inside caring for sick patients. Just being there while so many people stood up for themselves, for their families, for their patients and their profession, and for what's right. Being able to be a part of that.

I have a video that we took during the strike, and I showed it to MR the first time we came into contact with a VCR. I broke down crying halfway through, unable to believe that I had even for a couple of months been able to leave the work I love. Edward says "That was about MR," but he's wrong about that. He chalks it up to being unhinged by love... Edward can understand being unhinged by love, but he didn't quite get the anti-aging thing. (I would like to point out however that he is an Mprize donor!) He found it hard to believe that I could believe so strongly in another cause that I would walk away even for a moment from the movement we've fought so hard to keep alive. It is a testament to how strongly I do believe in the work of Aubrey de Grey, the Mprize, the SENS project, and my Orange Angel, that I was willing to, as P Diddy sayeth, "Trade it all." I eventually realized that I am not me if I'm not organizing workers -- after all, being around to see a better day for labor was my original motivation for getting into life-extension! Well, that and not wanting to look like crap. But anyhow.

As it turns out, I can do both... I love my volunteer work for the Mprize, and I feel like it makes a tiny bit of a difference. But organizing isn't a part time job, so I've got to pour my whole heart, soul, day and night, into it. My Orange One is extraordinarily supportive. He's got good politics himself, and he too is not one to apologize for having passion. In fact, it is his passion for what he believes in, and his willingness to stand by it no matter what it costs him, that constantly amazes and awes and attracts me.

You can see why my work is so important to me, so much so that for years I let it be more important than my health. I was so happy to be in such a good environment when I got back from Vermont, so overjoyed to be surrounded by some of the most amazing people on earth, that I thought it was too much to ask for fulfillment outside of work too. I really felt like I had to work 24/7 to be worthy of the gift of this meaningful calling that pays me. Sure, I sorta wanted a partner, but it was hard to imagine a man who would put up with me and would be able to not just handle but share my crazy passions.

When I think about how I let my health go in the immediate lead up to my conversion to CR, I think a lot of it was motivated by the sense that any time I spent doing anything other than working would cause me to lose the happiness I had found at my union. Rather silly, but I was so grateful, so glad to be out of the hell I was in in Vermont that I was a bit nuts. I was re-feeding on the spiritual level, and I just took it a little too far on the physical level.

When I started to read the CR Society list, I was in some ways exactly where those nurses were when they went on strike. I was fed up, and I had to make things better, even if it meant taking drastic action. The changes I made in the beginning made me feel so much better that I was hooked, and the CR Society archives became my new addiction. I felt like I was sneaking around... I'd come into the office at 4 in the morning to archive search and blog. I'd carry MR's posts with me when I went to meet nurses outside their hospital at 6 am. I remember sitting outside a hospital in Philly, watching the sun come up over the skyline while reading The Rant, my all time favorite post. Sure, MR was just a fantasy then, but my experience with Francis had taught me to believe that dreams do come true, and I had a sense that I wasn't wrong about this one. I turned out to be more right than I even imagined.

CR taught me that I can love myself without taking away from the love I feel for others. Today, after an exceedingly long day in an exceedingly long week in an exceedingly long month of work, I realized that I could go home and make calls for hours. But I also realized that I was dead exhausted, and that since tomorrow will start with a meeting at 6:15 am for which I'll need to be up at 4 (again!), that I needed some rest and rejuvenation time. So I came home, invented a new game to play with my cat where I run across the living room floor dragging a yarn scarf and he chases and grabs it. Then I drag him across the hard wood floor by the scarf, all the while blasting Gwen Stefani. This is very silly looking and made me feel great. Then I needed to write, because writing this blog is like therapy for me. In the morning I will meditate before I leave for my early early day. I was worried that while MR was out of town, I would forget to take care of myself, and I have had some moments, to be sure. But the combination of CR and MR have taught me that I do better all around when I stand up for me too!

As it turns out, it is possible to have meaningful work, close friends and comrades, and true love. Sometimes I feel so overwhelmed with gratitude that I run around the house setting out little offerings for our household gods. As of late, I've been leaving grapefruit about (whole, not peeled) because I think they like that. Every morning I heat my coffee to almost boiling and bring it into my meditation/prayer session... I figure God(s) like the smell as it wafts up, and I sure do find it helps me focus.

Work/life balance is never easy, especially when you love your very demanding work. But it is essential, because I love life itself, and I want to squeeze every drop out of it that I can. Maybe I am unhinged by love, but I've come to believe that taking a few minutes to myself every day is worth the effort.

And you know what? It's fun. Changing my life has been hard, but it's fun. In the same way that feeling the power of their unity today uplifted my health care professionals, feeling the power of CR regenerating my cells lifts me up every day. Everyone in the office has a cold -- I don't. I feel a bit godlike. I may be meditating too much.

It's going to take a long time to finish the project of changing the political economy of this country to one that is more fair, more just, and more equitable. Sometimes I despair of living long enough to see it... even if everything we do works! The other day Edward said something about not living to see what we've worked so hard for, and I just about cried. I have to live longer to make his life's work come to fruition, to make a better world for his kids. I thank Goddesses every day that I have MR to journey with me into the unknown, someone to hold onto as we face the unfathomable future. The inevitable loss of close friends is horrible, but bearable, knowing my Orange One will be at my side. I constantly remind him to be careful, and I hope he looks both ways before crossing the street. In fact, I don't see why he has to cross the street at all -- certainly everything one needs is accessible without walking out onto roads?

I keep going because I don't know how to end... I'm waiting for the snappy line, the bang of a finish that I so often spit out to close an entry. And yet I keep going over the last year, and all the blessings I have received. My Orange One, the end (mostly) of my anxiety, the campaigns I'm working on with all their nuttiness and business, the growth of my father's ministry, my mother and me being able to add MR to our little family, and be included in his family at the holiday, the development of my own spiritual life to a higher point than I've ever been at, the invention of the eggwhite fritatta. It's too much to be believed, and yet I do believe it because I may be a Gnostic but I don't suffer from much Gnostic rage. I do suffer from Gnostic inconvenience fairly frequently, but that's something else all together. That's like when you know the great truth is there, but a bus is parked in front of it. That's Gnostic inconvenience.

I know there are horrible things in the world. All day I have workers download their pain and the pain of those they care for onto me. Today one of my workers told me about an abused woman she sees over and over again in the hospital, but who won't leave. There are gunshots, drug addicts, orphaned children, war, and just the everyday madness of people prevented by economics or circumstances or chance from accomplishing their true wills. I do everything I think I can to fight it... and I'm not content to put up with suffering, death, or crap: not from the American health care system, not from my body, not from my wireless telephone company.

"Of those to whom much has been given, much is expected."

Those words have haunted me all my life. I've always felt compelled to do something... something to make things better. No doubt it's hideous arrogance to believe that I can, but hey, sometimes it works, and I don't have a better idea.

Thanks be to God.

Long live the tatta!

Posted by april at 7:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 30, 2006

Scallops, Advice

Just made dinner for a good friend of mine who comes to me for relationship advice. I am better with nutrition advice, but I am fairly good at decoding the behavior of girls. It always makes me feel so relieved that I am straight... girls are so complicated! How do lesbians do it? They are clearly much smarter than I am, cause I have all I can handle with the much simpler male.

Here was dinner:

Salad:
50 g kale
69 g grapefruit
39 g tomato
10 g almonds
sake wasabi vinegarette with red wine vinegar

Entree:
scallops cooked in fire roasted tomatoes
(100 g scallops for me, twice that much for my friend)
artichokes, 60 cals for him, none for me
64 g olives, more for him
1 teaspoon flax oil

Dessert:
Apple Cinnamon pizzas!

I am exhausted from a long day, and tomorrow will be no less tiring. Day long hearings before the Labor Board, and I have to come up with something to pack for lunch. Am thinking I will throw a megamuffin, a Quorn dog, or both, into my handbag to eat for lunch.

My friend says a friend of his says that you shouldn't settle till you find someone whose baggage matches yours.

Here's my relationship advice:

Don't settle until you've found someone who considers your baggage either neutral or cute. Don't settle until you've found someone who loves you the way you are. Don't settle until you find someone who shares your core beliefs... and is willing to fight for them.

Don't settle until you've found someone slightly orange... or maybe that's just me. I think there is nothing sexier than beta carotene.

Posted by april at 9:58 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

January 29, 2006

Berry Not-Cannollis

I just served the best potluck food ever! Vegetarian chili with light and dark kidney beans, Quorn grounds, soy sausages (decided to get rid of them), peppers, stewed no salt added tomatoes, and Carolina Treet Carolina barbeque sauce! It went over very well.

The real hit of the night was the berry cannollis! I took Trader Joe's low carb tortillas and filled them with a tablespoon each of fat free ricotta mixed with just a touch of Splenda and tons of cinnamon. Then I added Trader Joe's very cherry berry mix, plus more cinnamon. I sealed them with toothpicks and speared two fresh blueberries on top for garnish. They were so delicious that I ate two, but at under seventy-five calories each, I could afford it. The potluck was a late lunch, so I didn't bother having dinner.

I ate a little of my own chili, and quite a bit of the celery with spinach dip and homemade hummus that the woman who had been convinced to bring a vegetable dish brought. I also had eight ounces of wine (very early in the event and on a full stomach, so it had plenty of time to dissolve before I had to drive.) I even had one of the 3 for 95 calories flatbreads that one of my fellows brought, but I skipped the cheese, cake, and beer.

Now I'm off to bed early... exhausted from a long day of meeting with nurses, cooking potluck food, and hanging out with potlucking friends. Up at 4 am again tomorrow to leaflet a hospital at 6:30. Then we have a going away luncheon for a co-worker at the Gypsy Saloon. Can someone pick me out something to eat? I don't have the energy to think about it.

Night night!

Posted by april at 9:17 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

January 28, 2006

Fancy Dinner With Mom

My day:

Up at six (slept in!)
Take supplements, pet giant cat, take shower.
Eat breakfast.
Meditate (Zeynep -- Sting is calling you to meditate!)
Be one of first customers at Whole Foods.
Call MR to find out if roasted almonds are bad (answer is yes, buy raw)
Buy organic things.
Home: listen to NPR, cuddle cats, do some housecleaning.
Eat:
1 cup cottage cheese with 1 tablespoon Carolina Treet.
Lots of olives.
Go to gym. Last workout with trainer. Very good.
Eat almonds: 28 g.
Hit Target for batteries for scales.
Go home, cook dinner.

Dinner for Mom:

Spicy grapefruit salad:
100 g grapefruit with 100 g organic tomatoes, sake wasabi vinegarette mixed in -- weird and delicious! Will make for Orange.

Scallops and cauliflower:
Steam organic cauliflower, 150 g each, in water.
Add 2 oz red wine and 15 g chopped shallots, continue to steam.
Add 150 g bay scallops (on sale for $5.99 a pound)
Allow to boil in wine till cooked, add half salt and garlic powder to taste.

Dessert:
100 g organic blueberries (fresh and on sale) and 100 g organic kiwi, skin on, in little glass dishes.

Mom brought over some Texas late harvest Riesling (sounds weird, but is great!) so I drank six ounces of that and two ounces of pinot noir. We listened to my new Windham Hill CD, which I bought for $1.99.

A very delicious dinner. Here's the crunch du jour:

NUTRIENT TOTALS:

Abs. Values %RDA/SA

Calories 1191.49__cal 60%
Protein 95.53__gm 174% RDA
Total Fat 37.10__gm 57%
Sat. Fat 9.96__gm 50%
Mono. Fat 18.17__gm 63%
Poly. Fat 5.30__gm 79%
Carbohydrate 89.36__gm 30%
Fiber 21.87__gm 73%
Cholesterol 90.41__mg 30%
Vit. A 2199.73__IU 44% RDA
Vit. B6 1.13__mg 71% RDA
Vit. B12 4.38__mcg 219% RDA
Vit. C 240.67__mg 401% RDA
Vit. E 12.23__mg 153% RDA
Thiamine 0.40__mg 37% RDA
Folacin 249.46__mcg 139% RDA
Riboflavin 2.09__mg 161% RDA
Niacin 6.02__mg 40% RDA
Panto. Acid 3.09__mg 62% SA
Calcium 655.36__mg 55% RDA
Copper 1.35__mg 67% SA
Iron 14.25__mg 95% RDA
Magnesium 334.38__mg 119% RDA
Manganese 2.89__mg 96% SA
Phosphorus 1048.06__mg 87% RDA
Potassium 2851.88__mg 143% RDA
Selenium 107.33__mcg 195% RDA
Sodium 3335.82__mg 139% SA
Zinc 5.28__mg 44% RDA
Tyrosine 5.34__gm 557% RDA
Lysine 10.42__gm 1448% RDA
Phenylalanine 6.46__gm 673% RDA
Leucine 11.59__gm 1207% RDA
Valine 7.51__gm 895% RDA
Methionine 3.65__gm 1218% RDA
Cystine 1.95__gm 650% RDA
Tryptophan 1.68__gm 932% RDA
Threonine 6.08__gm 1267% RDA
Isoleucine 6.92__gm 961% RDA

P:C:F = 32:40:28

Rather light on some nutrients I'm usually high on... no kale, so no kale induced vitamin A. Low on calcium, as I had cottage cheese instead of yogurt. Hmmm... well, I get so much of those most days that I won't worry about it. It just goes to show how relatively useless fruits are as compared to veggies. I had tons of fruit: grapefruit, kiwi, blueberries, but would have been better off with kale. My mom doesn't care for raw kale, so I skipped it.

Correction: last night I served black kale, not dino kale. I apologize for any inconvenience this misreporting may have caused.

Wow, scallops are so good. Kieffer ate one. And I have enough left over to cook for dinner on Monday night when my birthday friend comes over. His girlfriend leaves for a work assignment in Germany today, so we can complain together about having our significant others in different countries. At least I can see the end now... in just over two weeks, my Orange angel will be sitting at his place at the table, where he belongs, being fed CR treats...

Off to bed, then up to go to a meeting with nurses. At a McDonald's, no less. I assure you, I will be drinking black coffee.

Posted by april at 9:56 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

What Exactly Do You Do?

I remember the first time I ever heard Liz Phair's "Extraordinary," from which the line that is our headline is lifted. I was in the car driving back from lunch at the Mexican place with my best friend. I thought about how much I wished the song had been around back when I was engaged in a long-term low-level stalking project. The seven year quest that had begun my senior year in college had come to an end when the object of my affections, the remarkable Saint Francis, student labor leader, son of an ex-priest and ex-nun, long-haired hippie freak who looked a lot like depictions of Jesus as a white guy, had discovered that he was crazy about me after all and demanded that I cancel my planned trip to the Dominican Republic with a dude I was seeing off and on to fly out to California and visit him. I did... and paid off the dude I dumped in the process. $2000 total for the cost of both trips -- major relationship exit fee. Anyhow, I had been chasing Francis for seven years, ever since his belief in me gave me the courage to become a union organizer. We were involved together in the monumental Yale strike of 1996 -- I had been a student dining hall worker, Francis was just a kid from a working class background who got it. He taught me much of what I know about organizing, in long arguments standing outside in the cold after Student Labor Action Coalition meetings. He led us in the most successful action I have ever seen pulled off -- a student sit-in in the Yale president's office. I just found the t-shirt my friend Jon Z made me commemorating the day: on the back was written the speech I had said over and over again as lead spokesperson. I don't remember exactly when I fell for Francis, but it was somewhere between watching him plan the sit-in with meticulous attention to detail, hearing him speak to a crowd of students with his hair flying in the wind and his eyes shining like he might just be nuts, and praying with him over a supper of collard greens, rice and beans (I have always had a thing for men who can combine food and religion.) Alas, Francis had a girlfriend. I knew that he would never cheat on her, nor would I have wanted him to... I wanted Francis all to myself. When it became clear that pursuing him could only lead to disaster and dissent in our small group of radicals, I hopped on a train for Boston to drown myself in MIT computer geeks and crash out on my old roommate's couch. (In times of great stress, I have always found myself on a train to Boston.)

During all the events, a recruiter from the Organizing Institute of the AFL-CIO gave me a call and asked me to interview for the program that trained organizers. I thought myself unworthy, but with Francis cheering me on, I set out on a quest to become a great organizer, organize thousands of workers, slay dragons and capture the heart of the handsome prince.

Oddly enough, this strategy worked. I started out organizing in the South: first, construction workers in West Palm Beach, Florida (Imagine me in a hard hat. When you stop laughing, please continue to read.) Then people who took phone calls for UPS, people who made hospital gowns, cotton mill workers, people who made ziplock bags (I will never look at a baggie the same way again.) The first year was miserable. Driving from house to house, visiting workers for twelve or more hours a day, most of whom slammed the door in my face, yelled curses, or worse. Anti-union attitudes are so embedded in the American consciousness that people making minimum wage with no benefits and no job security, people working in dangerous environments where the management skirts safety laws, people who have lost multiple fingers on the job, still would rather go on like they are than join with their co-workers to do something about it. Not a happy sight, day after day.

And the exhaustion was unbelievable. I went six months with no days off except for one weekend off when I flew back to New Haven to see Francis -- who was still with his girlfriend. I had fantasies of being a normal girl, working at the Gap and going on dates and having fun. I missed cooking, since I was living in hotels with no kitchen. I did well with the workers, but the staff people on my internship didn't like me, one woman in particular (whom I later found out tried to get rid of several other young women I knew, all of whom became kick-ass organizers) told me that I had no business being in the labor movement.

I sat in my car every night and cried. The work ethic out there on the road is that you work until you put yourself in danger of crashing your car, then you go drink yourself into oblivion or do drugs or sleep with random people to kill the pain. I did none of the above, though I did almost fall asleep at the wheel one early morning on the way to a construction site. I've always been too scared of drugs to try them (I figure my grip on reality is tenuous enough as it is!) and I hadn't yet figured out how to drink much. Sleeping with random folk was out of the question... none of the guys were skinny enough for me, and I was too scared of being perceived as a slut to take any chances. Out on the road, that kind of lifestyle is called dedication and hard work... in the real world, it's called insanity.

Finally, on Labor Day of 1997, I was saved. I got a call at 8 am in my hotel room in Jacksonville, Illinois, telling me that I was laid off. We had lost a big election at a cotton mill, so all the newer staff were being let go with two days notice. Yup, laid off from a labor union on Labor Day. Do I win a prize?

Apparently, I did. It was just a couple of days before I had job offers from all over. This one guy from a nurses' union in New Jersey kept calling me... we hit it off immediately on the phone, talking about ways to organize that involved the workers actually doing something (like setting up meetings in their homes) instead of just banging on the doors of people who don't want to talk to us all day. I wasn't that interested in organizing nurses... still suffering from the juvenille delusion that it is more important to organize poor people... but I liked this guy, Larry, a lot, and the job would get me off the road, and into a place of my own.

I met Larry in early October of 1997, and for six years we didn't go a day without talking, except for the two weeks he took a vacation in England. We became close friends as well as boss and employee, and I set about organizing nurses.

Larry gave me tons of freedom to do whatever I thought best, and he was extremely supportive of young women, which many senior men in the labor movement were not. I met nurses in diners all over New Jersey, before shift, after shift, at all hours of the day and night, weekday and weekend. I worked all the time, but I was happy. The process of organizing unions is difficult and bordering on impossible because management has the right to lie to employees 24 hours a day, and while they can force employees to attend anti-union meetings, be subjected to one-on-one harassment from their direct supervisors, and watch films about coal miners' strikes in West Virginia, employees have to meet with us on their own time. Organizing is the process of convincing people that they have power, then pushing them to do something with the power. Anyone who has tried to talk to another person about changing their diet and met with tons of resistance has had a glimpse of the difficulty of what I do every day. But imagine that twelve hours a day, the people you're trying to get to eat healthier are served Dunkin Donuts and cheeseburgers and are afraid they'll lose their jobs if they don't eat them. Then you've got what I'm up against. Only the strongest survive.

The pressure that workers are under during an organizing campaign is unbelievable until you've been there. Management hires consultants who specialize in union busting, and these consultants sit down with each front line supervisor and go over each nurse's employee file in depth, looking for a way to persuade her to be against the union. For example, I worked with one nurse who was active in the union campaign, but had a child who was very ill and had to re-arrange her work schedule frequently to take him to his doctor's appointments. Her supervisor was told to tell her that if they organized the union, management would no longer be flexible with her schedule so she couldn't take her son to the doctor. Is that true? Of course not! It's just silliness -- if management really thought it would somehow be easier to do bad things to employees if they organized the union, then why are they spending millions to fight the organizing campaign? But they'll say and do anything to stop workers from getting a voice on the job, including stooping to trying to make a nurse choose between a voice on her job and her child.

Why, you may ask, does management fight so hard? Well, here in the US, workers have very few rights. All management has to do is pay minimum wage and not discriminate on the race, religion, national origin and sex grounds. Even those are hard to prove. Workers have no right to vacation, holidays, sick time. Workers can be fired at any time for any reason or no reason at all, with no notice. Management can cut salaries, change hours, take away pension contributions... and the worker's only recourse is to leave. Or to fight the battle to organize a union. By organizing and winning guarantees in a legally binding contract, workers can protect the salaries and benefits they have, guarantee their right to speak up for the quality of care without being fired, and be sure that they will get a fair slice of the pie, not just the crumbs. Our culture has trained the ruling class to be greedy, so alas, most employers (and there are exceptions!) aren't fair to workers until the workers force them to be. This is particularly scary in the case of nurses, where critically ill human beings depend on the work that nurses do, and not having enough nurses can be the difference between life and death.

My work is not glamorous. Most of what I do takes place in diners or in nurse's suburban homes, talking new groups of nurses through the process of realizing that by joining together, they can have the power to change things for themselves and their patients. It involves confronting people's class prejudices and stereotypes at every turn. No one in this country wants to think of themselves as working class, and they associate unions with uneducated blue collar workers. Showing nurses that joining together with other nurses to stand up for themselves and their patients (these days, the main issue is staffing -- just having enough nurses there to make sure that when you need life-saving care, someone is available to give it to you) is the most professional thing they can possibly do is never easy. But over the years I have seen the power of organized health care professionals. I've seen nurses secure nurse to patient ratios, that holy grail of nurse organizing, in a first contract. I've seen health care professionals win domestic partner benefits so that their partners could have health insurance. I've was there when nurses at our largest hospital won the best pensions for health care workers in Pennsylvania. While unorganized nurses see their pensions cut, their raises delayed, and their sick time taken away (do you really want your nurse to come to work sick because she fears she'll lose her job if she stays home with the flu?), organized nurses can protect what they have and win even better.

Organizing nurses is the intersection of labor organizing, health care reform, and women's rights. Most nurses are still women (and I don't expect them to get a sex-change any time soon), and many are single parents. Your nurse is the one who advocates for you when you're in the hospital, and if she's tired, stressed, or afraid that she'll be fired if she speaks up against unsafe practices, you're as good as dead. Professionals are the new forefront of labor organizing. They are the people who vote, the people who have leadership roles in their communities. When they become radicalized at the workplace, it changes the way they look at everything. Much like the experience of taking control of your health through CR changes the way you look at everything, taking control at work changes relationships to all power structures.

I fell in love with organizing nurses, won some big campaigns, lost a small one, and built a life based on caring for those who care for others. Problem was, I didn't spend much time caring for me. By the time I heard Liz Phair's song that afternoon, I was firmly entrenched in the lifestyle of meeting nurses at the hospital at 6:30 am as they were going into work, working all day as Director of Organizing, and then being on the phone with nurses until 9 at night or out at meetings with nurses coming off the 7 am - 7:30 pm shift until as late at 10. Due to the demands on their time and the essential importance of meeting everyone in person and almost constant follow-up by phone or in person, we have to be available 24/7. So that was my life... loving my work, loving working for an independent nurse's union founded by some of the strongest women on earth, but not taking time to eat right, consuming way too many bagels, coffees with cream and sugar, and once we were finally done with work, eating nachos and washing them down with a margarita. We were understaffed in my union for a lot of the time... even though we had the money to hire, it's very, very difficult to find good people. So I did all the work myself, and once I finally had VLC the work expanded so we both worked all the time!

After my big win at the largest hospital in Vermont in 2002, Francis had the epiphany I had waited seven years for... and I flew to California for a great weekend. But we quickly realized that we were better off as friends than as lovers, and we continue to be close friends to this day. In fact, he gave me some of the best advice about MR in the days when I couldn't figure out what was going on! Trust one genius boy to be able to decode the bizarre behavior of another.

So by the time I heard Liz Phair's "Extraordinary," my quest was done, and I was working myself into oblivion trying to do everything I could to bring about the day when the nurses in my major metro area would be ready to organize. (Only 15% of nurses in the US are organized.) And I thought to myself, "Ah, for a quest..."

About a week later I subscribed to the CR Society list, sent email to the CR Study, got a cute message back from a frequent poster whose writing I loved, and became one of the many list-girls with a crush on MR. I thought of the Liz Phair song because one of my dear readers (readersmu?) asked me what exactly do I do because that's a line from the song!

I've blogged many times about how CR helped me find greater life balance, and I think I am an even better organizer now that I have things in my life other than just work. I am better able to distance myself from the emotional side of the work to make good decisions. I am better able to absorb the anger, frustration and turmoil that the workers inevitably throw at us as they're under fire from their bosses. That's why I'm so good at absorbing large amounts of negatiity -- it's my job! Most organizers burn out because they never figure out a way to live with all the pain they have to absorb from the workers as they fight their way free. And the disappointment when you lose is devastating, especially when you have nothing else in your life.

My daily life consists of meeting health care professionals near their hospitals or in their homes, talking with them about how they can organize a union, and then following up with them to get them to do the hard work of talking to their co-workers and getting more and more people involved and committed. Most of the time there are National Labor Relations Board elections where the workers vote "yes" or "no." Management fights hard for a no vote, and spends millions on anti-union consultants. They even give big raises, figuring they can buy off the workers once and not have to worry about the workers having power in the long term. It's more about control than money, and anyone who has ever been in an abusive relationship knows how hard the abusers fight when they think they're losing control.

Some days I hand out flyers to nurses as they walk into work... lately, we've gotten some calls from a system of hospitals where the nurses' just had their pensions cut by 40%! Sick time slashed, and raises delayed too. Of course, they're too scared at first to do much about it... but we build hope gradually, and from hope springs power. They have the example of several strong groups of nurses and other health care professionals in our city to inspire them.

Tomorrow morning at 8 I'm meeting with some nurses who want to organize as they come off the night shift. We work weekends, holidays, whenever. My hours can be crazy, and while I've tried to make space in my life now that I have a relationship, there are times when I'm not around much. Remember the months of Denny's shift change meetings? I'm trying to learn greater balance, and to train my staff so that I don't have to do absolutely everything. But there are times when I have to run out at 6 on Saturday morning on short notice to meet some nurses coming off of work, and times when I work 14 hour days for weeks on end. My Orange One is extremely supportive, and very self-sufficient... he is just fine with doing his work, cooking his tatta, and feeding the cats while I'm away.

I remember one early morning a few years ago when I met a nurse at 6:15 and she said, "You're not married are you?" I checked the ring finger of my left hand to be sure, and said, "No, I'm not." "I didn't think so," she said, "No man would put up with your schedule!" Well, MR has proven her wrong!

I love my work... I couldn't leave it if I tried. I actually did try once, and failed! I can't stay away from the thing that I know really makes a difference. And the friends I've made through this work are like sisters and brothers to me. Comrades, even. :)

It's a little weird, I know. But what did you expect? Most people who do CR aren't the last word in normality. And if I was, the blog would be pretty boring, now wouldn't it?

Well, you asked...

Posted by april at 12:11 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

January 27, 2006

Introducing: The Low Carb Apple Cinnamon Pizza!

Had a couple of friends over for dinner tonight for the first time. Wow, I had missed cooking so much! It was wonderful to have a receptive audience for my cuisine. I made:

kale salad with 50 g dino kale, 30 calories artichoke hearts, 100 g tomatoes, 50 g olives, and a dressing of sake wasabi mustard (5 cals per tablespoon) plus red wine vinegar to make a sake wasabi vinegarette.

Quorn tenders with bell peppers and Carolina Treet Carolina barbeque sauce -- food of the goddesses -- served over green beans with flax oil

dessert: a masterpiece! Apple Cinnamon Pizzas!
Trader Joe's low carb tortilla topped with 1/8 cup (that's two tablespoons -- I had to call MR's mom to find ot for sure that half of one fourth cup of fat free riccota would be two tablespoons -- yes, I did call my boyfriend's mother in Canada instead of doing a simple Google search. What can I say, I like to talk to people!) of fat free ricotta, dusted with Splenda and cinnamon, then topped with 100 g chopped green apples and cinnamon, then baked at 350 for a little while, cut down to 200 after about 20 mins, and baked till brown. After removing from the oven, I added 12 g almonds to the top of each tortilla. They were fantastic! A definite dessert success!

Friends brought over an excellent bottle of white, of which I had six ounces. I also had a Magic Hat Number Nine beer while cooking, so I had a higher calorie day due to alcohol... total of 1193. As I said earlier, I'm going to let my calories get a little higher on days when I'm drinking since I seem to be able to drop them so low when I'm not. 1193's not bad. Here's the crunch:

NUTRIENT TOTALS:

Abs. Values %RDA/SA

Calories 1193.39__cal 60%
Protein 76.31__gm 139% RDA
Total Fat 34.02__gm 52%
Sat. Fat 12.37__gm 62%
Mono. Fat 11.10__gm 38%
Poly. Fat 4.11__gm 62%
Carbohydrate 111.95__gm 37%
Fiber 23.24__gm 77%
Cholesterol 55.22__mg 18%
Vit. A 15378.55__IU 308% RDA
Vit. B6 1.03__mg 65% RDA
Vit. B12 1.52__mcg 76% RDA
Vit. C 272.00__mg 453% RDA
Vit. E 9.63__mg 120% RDA
Thiamine 0.54__mg 49% RDA
Folacin 234.72__mcg 130% RDA
Riboflavin 2.14__mg 164% RDA
Niacin 6.58__mg 44% RDA
Panto. Acid 2.14__mg 43% SA
Calcium 1167.41__mg 97% RDA
Copper 1.21__mg 60% SA
Iron 10.39__mg 69% RDA
Magnesium 246.53__mg 88% RDA
Manganese 2.87__mg 96% SA
Phosphorus 708.03__mg 59% RDA
Potassium 2581.23__mg 129% RDA
Selenium 60.89__mcg 111% RDA
Sodium 2485.64__mg 104% SA
Zinc 4.16__mg 35% RDA
Tyrosine 4.12__gm 430% RDA
Lysine 8.66__gm 1203% RDA
Phenylalanine 5.15__gm 537% RDA
Leucine 9.08__gm 945% RDA
Valine 6.33__gm 753% RDA
Methionine 2.96__gm 988% RDA
Cystine 1.64__gm 548% RDA
Tryptophan 1.32__gm 735% RDA
Threonine 4.84__gm 1008% RDA
Isoleucine 5.55__gm 771% RDA

Off to bed now, with visions of low carb tortilla desserts dancing in my head...

Posted by april at 9:11 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

You CAN Make Elaborate Dinners For Yourself

So said MR when I complained about having no one to cook for. He will soon return to his status as daily victim of my cooking... it's kinda like Prometheus, except that every night I show up and feed him, and every day he gets hungry again so I come feed him again. Much more pleasant than having your liver eaten by an eagle all day (which I always thought was a metaphor for alcoholism, but anyhow.)

The problem with this theory is that I simply don't find it as much fun to cook for myself as to cook for others. I enjoy my extremely simple cuisine when I'm alone, and I don't feel like taking the time to create something fancy that no one else will appreciate. It would be kinda like getting dressed up in fancy lingerie to go to sleep alone. It's not beyond the realm of possibility, but it does seem rather silly. When I'm alone, I'm much more likely to eat a simple vegetable soup and go to sleep in one of my leopard, tiger or other cat type print nightgowns (the cats like that... I fit in better.) When I have MR to cook for... well, you read about the food, and the question of what I wear to bed need not detain us here.

So while MR is still away, for just couple of short weeks, I have decided to recruit people to cook for. I took the first step by inviting a couple I've never had over for dinner to come by tonight. They're interested in CR, so it should be fun. Not 100% sure what I'll make -- I never am until the food is on the table -- but here's what I'm contemplating:

appetizers: CR quesadillas

salad: organic dino kale with organic tomatoes, artichoke hearts, olives, and a tomato-balsamic vinegarette

entree: Quorn tenders with roasted peppers and broccoli and some kind of sauce that I have yet to make (perhaps cream of leek sauce?) over a bed of green bean "pasta"

dessert: something apple-y or berry-y

On Saturday, my mom is coming for dinner. On Sunday, I have a potluck with the potluck feeder friends. On Monday, I've arranged to have that friend whose birthday party I missed come for dinner. On Thursday, it looks like my two best friends in town are coming, and one is bringing her fiance. That should satisfy my need to cook for others for the time-being.

More soon... I got the computer hooked up to the cable modem without causing a massive power outage, so I should be able to go back to posting DWIDPs tonight.

Posted by april at 8:13 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

January 26, 2006

"You're Eating Two Cruciferous Vegetables In One Meal!"

So said my boss as we ate lunch at Ruby Tuesday's yesterday. We once again had our weekly lunch out at the RT, since they have a calorie controlled menu. But it turned out to be more like dinner, since he had a meeting beforehand that went really, really late. I was so hungry, since I had eaten breakfast at about five am before heading out for my morning leafleting. So I ate a huge lunch/dinner at the RT, and spent pretty much my entire calorie budget for the day. White bean chicken chili followed by the roast chicken with a side of mashed cauliflower and a side of steamed broccoli. Hence the double crucifer comment.

We've been doing these weekly lunches out for about as long as I can remember... it's a great opportunity for the two of us to catch up on work related things that we don't want to discuss in front of our entire staff. I used to use these lunches as my "meal out," and go a little crazy with the food. I would then usually skip dinner but still feel a little carb-bombed at the end of the experience. These days I'm watching every bite, so we've been limited to the RT and Applebees. My boss is getting sick of these choices, so I suspect we'll be heading out to other restaurants come February. However, as he's working on eating healthier too, I think I can steer him away from the Mexican place with the margaritas and nachos and towards places like the Gypsy Saloon that have excellent salad choices with grilled chicken and scallops and shrimp.

To answer Drea's question re: exercise: I do twenty to thirty minutes on the treadmill, walking at about four miles an hour at an incline of 3 or 4, 5 days a week. I also do two weight lifting exercises per day that my trainer designed to add impact in order to strengthen bones. I only like to do two weight lifting exercises (three sets of each) a day because I don't want to use a ton of energy one day and then none the next. Rotating my exercises through all five days (upper body, lower body, abs and back, etc.) instead of doing all on one day and then none on the other helps me have more energy for each exercise and not confuse my body with up and down energy output. I enjoy the stress reduction benefits of exercise, but I've never been an athletic type, so I don't feel it's a sacrifice to have a pretty modest exercise program. If you like to exercise and find you need to do more, than by all means, do so. You may decide as you get older that you would rather cut some exercise and cut some calories to get more CR type benefits, but it sounds like you're eating very healthy, and at 21 I definitely was not thinking about slowing down biological aging. For people who love exercise or sports, cutting calories can be quite a sacrifice, and it might not be worth it. We have a CR brother who is a surfer, and he goes to great lengths to make sure he keeps his cals low while having enough energy to surf.

Unfortunately, my internet connection at home isn't working so I may not be able to post my DWIDPs until I get it up and running again. My customized DWIDP is on my machine at home, so if I can't connect I can't post my text file. I'll keep DWIDPing though, and I'll make you aware of any nutritional revelations that come my way.

Posted by april at 9:41 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

January 25, 2006

Conscious Imbalance

Sam posed a fascinating question in a comment: Am I able to tackle long, busy days any better now after a year (actually, it's coming up on two years) of CRON?

First, let me say that I LOVE COMMENTS!!! I check for blog comments before I check for personal email! I just love hearing what my readers have to say! Keep 'em coming!

Sam's question is a hard one for me to answer. Physically, yes, I am definitely better able to handle long hours, lack of sleep, exhaustion better than I did pre-CR. But the question is complicated by the fact that I was a serious workaholic in my twenties, and I was so used to being in a state of exhaustion that I didn't think anything of it. I lived for my work -- organizing unions -- throughout my twenties, and I rarely did anything for *me*. My lovers would be jealous of my work, my friends were all fellow organizers, and my cats meowed a lot. I felt guilty if I took time to read!

My cats still meow a lot -- what can I say, they're meowy! But CR was the first step in a process of beginning to recognize that *I* matter. My first change was in my diet: taking more time to prepare my food, allowing myself to read amusing and edifying posts to the CR Society list, and refusing to indulge in quite as much gak as my friends were prepared to consume. Over time, the process that started with dietary change led to many changes in my life: I fell in love, I began exercising, I took up meditation, I started cooking dinner at home most nights, and I realized that the rest of the world -- the rest of the staff of my organization, to be exact -- was living life while I was working all the time.

Now I'm not one of those work/life balance people. I find my work so meaningful that work is life, and I don't regret a moment of my twenties and very early thirties when I barely did anything but work. I had more success in my twenties than most organizers have in an entire career, and it came at a price. Fact is, I didn't really want to be out dating, dancing, going to clubs at all hours of the night. I didn't need time to find myself -- I knew who I was the first time I walked a picket line in 1996.

But by the age of 29, having logged many hours and many campaigns won, I was starting to see lines on my face, dark circles under my eyes, and weight I didn't want to be carrying. Fact is, I was getting older, and I didn't feel like it. So I did that now-infamous Google search and found the CR Society and it's List and Archives -- complete with information about how to change my diet, save my life, get the body I always wanted and find the man of my dreams. (Results not typical!) I decided that *I* was worth the effort of figuring out how to eat better, even if it took time and energy.

The results have been amazing. My life has changed. I've reached a level of health and happiness that I don't think I would have believed possible.

My perspective has changed. I have become much more attuned to what my body needs, and thus I have become more sensitive to when it is being abused. I realize that I need adequate nutrition, sufficient rest, and lots of love and cuddling -- whether it be from the Orange One or from the Giant Grey Tabby or the Calico Howler -- to be the happiest I can be. When I hit phases in my work where I go into what Roger and Rebecca Merrill, authors of Life Matters, call "Conscious Imbalance," I feel it. I am definitely physically able to do more now that I practice CR and never get sick, no matter what. But I am now more likely to respect my body and mind in a way that I didn't think I could before I started CR.

A lot of people who do CR find it an empowering experince, with effects that stretch beyond the boundaires of diet and nutrition. Taking control of your life on the cellular level is bound to have consequences on many different planes. For me, CR caused a re-evaluation of my priorities. I still value my work tremendously, as you can tell from the blog! But I also value my love, my cats, my family, my cooking, my volunteer work with the Mprize, and my spiritual life. I no longer feel like a failure as a human being if I spend one hour a day doing something other than organizing nurses. CR -- that "extremist" lifestyle -- has helped me to find a better life balance.

It takes courage, especially if you are a woman, to stand up for yourself and your needs. There are plenty of people who would prefer that you dedicate all your energies to serving them. And the fact is, nuturing others can be a valuable and life-giving experience. Ask anyone who has kids or pets. I know that the bliss I get out of fixing delicious meals for my Orange One is up there with the greatest pleasures I've experienced in my life. I am having tons of fun planning a Valentine's Day dinner... but anyway, point is, it's important to always remember that *you* deserve to take care of *yourself.* My old friend Lisa, the best organizer I ever knew, used to say, "Your boss will never tell you that you're working too hard." She had a point.

So when I have these long days, I am physically very well able to handle the pressure. I know that I can stand out in the cold leafleting for hours, work without sleep, and never get sick even if the avian flu is walking through my office building. CR has made my immune system nearly invincible -- I can't call out from work because I've spent too much time bragging about how I never get sick! But when I go into a period of conscious imbalance, I am now much more aware of what I'm missing. I keep up my CR, of course, but I am aware that there is more to me than just my work. I am happiest, and most effective in all my roles, when I am not just eating well, but also sleeping well, exercising well, meditating well, and loving and cuddling well. My cats are definitely happiest when I am cuddling them at full speed.

The CR journey has led me to a place of greater peace, not just with my body but with my entire life.

I can't promise that you will experience the same thing -- we are all different here -- but I do hope that you will find CR a liberating lifestyle, one that helps you pursue your dreams and do your true will, whatever that may be.

Posted by april at 5:56 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Picture Menu Available Upon Request

That was the sign on the menu at the Burger King I dropped into to grab coffee and use the bathroom after leafleting in the cold outside a hospital from 6:15 - 7:45 this morning. My question is: if you need a picture menu, how are you going to read the sign that says "Picture Menu Available Upon Request?"

Needless to say, I had nothing but black coffee at Burger King, and went on about my merry way.

Back to work... another long and busy day.

Posted by april at 9:04 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

January 24, 2006

Busy Busy Day

From my 4 am start to just now finishing my work calls at 9 pm, it's been a non-stop day. I did manage to fit in a very quick trip to the gym (which is on my way home from work) between working at work and working at home, but all in all it's been work work work.

I did a lot of nibbling during the day instead of eating a big lunch. Here's the day:

breakfast:
same as always

lunch and afternoon snacks:
102 g kale
1 cup nonfat plain organic yogurt with 4 tbsps salsa verde
10 g almonds
98 cals olives
1 Babybel Light cheese (50 cals)
another 10 g almonds
one of those low carb low sugar 60 cal chocolate candies I bought at the drugstore with the reading glasses and need to throw out
32 cals organic celery with organic mustard
green tea, chamomile tea, diet coke, coffee

Dinner:
brewers yeast soup with 85 g brussels sprouts
another babybel light cheese
4 oz wine (felt like it and thought I'd see how I liked a tiny amount -- it was just as satisfying as my old 6 - 8 ounce glass!)
50 more g olives

Crunch: (this is somewhat low because I haven't custom entered my new yogurt or my babybel light, so the calcium should be even higher than it is -- the babybel's are 20% of the RDA per mini -- 50 cals)

NUTRIENT TOTALS:

Abs. Values %RDA/SA

Calories 1042.85__cal 52%
Protein 74.54__gm 136% RDA
Total Fat 33.61__gm 52%
Sat. Fat 10.01__gm 50%
Mono. Fat 17.20__gm 60%
Poly. Fat 4.56__gm 68%
Carbohydrate 102.15__gm 34%
Fiber 24.79__gm 83%
Cholesterol 36.73__mg 12%
Vit. A 11679.62__IU 234% RDA
Vit. B6 0.98__mg 61% RDA
Vit. B12 1.70__mcg 85% RDA
Vit. C 238.22__mg 397% RDA
Vit. E 12.51__mg 156% RDA
Thiamine 0.92__mg 83% RDA
Folacin 280.36__mcg 156% RDA
Riboflavin 2.15__mg 166% RDA
Niacin 9.07__mg 60% RDA
Panto. Acid 2.42__mg 48% SA
Calcium 1215.36__mg 101% RDA
Copper 1.79__mg 89% SA
Iron 18.27__mg 122% RDA
Magnesium 298.62__mg 107% RDA
Manganese 3.14__mg 105% SA
Phosphorus 917.65__mg 76% RDA
Potassium 3462.08__mg 173% RDA
Selenium 109.29__mcg 199% RDA
Sodium 4239.46__mg 177% SA
Zinc 5.93__mg 49% RDA
Tyrosine 4.03__gm 420% RDA
Lysine 7.40__gm 1028% RDA
Phenylalanine 4.94__gm 514% RDA
Leucine 8.45__gm 880% RDA
Valine 5.99__gm 713% RDA
Methionine 2.62__gm 874% RDA
Cystine 1.48__gm 493% RDA
Tryptophan 1.23__gm 685% RDA
Threonine 4.24__gm 884% RDA
Isoleucine 5.25__gm 729% RDA

P:C:F = 29:42:29

Yup, the wine makes it harder to hit Zone ratios... I remember that from my early days. Close though, close!

Gotta eat some mushrooms for panto acid, whatever that is (I know, I know, it's a B vitamin!) Didn't have the energy to dig them out of the freezer.

Don't have much energy at all, and back at it at 4 am sharp as I am meeting a physical therapist as she's going into work at 6:15 am, and then heading to another hospital to stand outside handing out leaflets to nurses during am shift change. Then a long day followed by an entire evening of phone calls. I was supposed to go to a friend's birthday gathering tonight but couldn't due to work craziness... the organizer bunny goes on and on and on.

Now I have to go feed the kefir monsters before bed... and tell them that their father will be home soon! They will be so happy!

Posted by april at 8:47 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

You're My Living Proof

I heard Edwin McCain's "I'll Be" on my way back from meeting a nurse at six this morning, and this line made me think of all the wonderful new CR bloggers who keep popping up!

There's Aaron, Willie, Stirred Apart, Amy, and now Jamie! In addition to the all-present, all-powerful Little MR, of course, who started her blog a good twenty-four hours before I started mine. It makes me so happy to see new CR bloggers, eating healthy and writing about it. Welcome!!!

Of course I miss Liz, Wandering Feet and Jessica. Will they ever come back?

But the sight/site of many new sisters and brothers joining us on our journey warms my heart, and makes me think there's a point to all this evangelizing. Not that I'd stop, even if there weren't!

Have a great day, all.

Posted by april at 7:50 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

January 23, 2006

Courage Is Letting Go of the Familiar

That's what the sign at my local firestation said today. That could be the title for an entry about giving up my quotidian glass of wine. But it's not.

No, courage is taking on the gak-at-potluck folks.

Great news, all! My email exchange turned out fruitful, or vegetable-full, because the friend is all excited about bringing a healthy raw veggie side dish(es)! Isn't that, as Aubrey de Grey would say, fab?

I am so excited. I am eagerly planning my potluck fruit dessert... more on that soon.

In the meantime, here's my food day:

Breakfast:
you know what I eat for breakfast

Lunch:
100 g kale with 1 cup (75 cal organic brand) nonfat plain yogurt and 4 tablespoons salsa verde
69 calories olives!
10 g almonds

Afternoon snack:
198 g Star Ruby grapefruit
11 g almonds

Dinner:
Brewers yeast soup with 2 tbsps Lewis Labs in free range organic chicken broth plus 85 g broccoli florets
1 cup nonfat magic 140 calorie per cup cottage cheese
1 tsp flax oil
1 tbsp Carolina Treet

Crunch:

NUTRIENT TOTALS:

Abs. Values %RDA/SA

Calories 1049.01__cal 52%
Protein 95.43__gm 174% RDA
Total Fat 33.20__gm 51%
Sat. Fat 5.01__gm 25%
Mono. Fat 17.05__gm 59%
Poly. Fat 7.75__gm 116%
Carbohydrate 101.35__gm 34%
Fiber 24.44__gm 81%
Cholesterol 57.84__mg 19%
Vit. A 11736.29__IU 235% RDA
Vit. B6 1.10__mg 69% RDA
Vit. B12 2.82__mcg 141% RDA
Vit. C 302.31__mg 504% RDA
Vit. E 9.35__mg 117% RDA
Thiamine 1.40__mg 127% RDA
Folacin 263.70__mcg 146% RDA
Riboflavin 2.22__mg 171% RDA
Niacin 12.24__mg 82% RDA
Panto. Acid 3.11__mg 62% SA
Calcium 964.76__mg 80% RDA
Copper 2.21__mg 110% SA
Iron 15.47__mg 103% RDA
Magnesium 267.80__mg 96% RDA
Manganese 2.14__mg 71% SA
Phosphorus 742.32__mg 62% RDA
Potassium 3425.78__mg 171% RDA
Selenium 142.54__mcg 259% RDA
Sodium 4971.04__mg 207% SA
Zinc 6.01__mg 50% RDA
Tyrosine 3.44__gm 358% RDA
Lysine 5.54__gm 769% RDA
Phenylalanine 4.23__gm 440% RDA
Leucine 7.04__gm 733% RDA
Valine 4.90__gm 583% RDA
Methionine 2.18__gm 727% RDA
Cystine 1.19__gm 395% RDA
Tryptophan 0.91__gm 506% RDA
Threonine 3.39__gm 707% RDA
Isoleucine 4.32__gm 600% RDA

P:C:F = 36:35:29

Somewhere between the Zone and Kurzweil.

I think that calcium number is low because my 75 cal cup of nonfat organic plain (perfect for making Zeynep's newest recipe... that sounds excellent!) has just the same 40% of the RDA o' calcium as the 110 calorie cup of regular stuff. I'll have to create a tailor-made DWIDP entry for the new magic lower calorie yogurt, as well as the new magic nonfat cottage cheese. As Sting said in one of my favorite songs of all time, "Every day another miracle."

Meanwhile, I am overwhelmed by Zeynep's generous offer of real olives and homemade olive oil! How fabulous! Will send my address. Does anyone know about the customs regulations? I bet they'll let the olive oil through, though I would fear for the olives. Perhaps if in a jar. Any world travellers out there know?

I was trying to think of what to send Zeynep in return that you can't get where she lives... I thought of lots of things, but was having a terrible time thinking of something that would travel well. Then it hit me. I have a great idea... but it has to be a suprise. Don't guess! You'll spoil the suprise.

My day was wild and crazy... got up at 4:30 to go leaflet a hospital at 6, then discovered that it was pouring rain so called my staff to postpone the leaflet till a brighter day. I feel a moral obligation to protect my staff from standing outside in near freezing weather getting soaked, and I don't much feel like doing it myself. Did plenty of that in my younger days. Anyhow, got some work done around the house, in spite of a very hurt finger that I cut washing out cat dishes.

Went to the office, showed everyone my hurt finger, demanded sympathy. Received sympathy, they are used to this sort of thing. Worked. Went to appointment with accountant. I love going to the accountant. It's just because my first trip to her was the day that MR called me and told me he was infatuated with me as well... after I had written him an email laying my cards on the table in no uncertain terms. So the experience of driving to the accountant's office always reminds me of that most wonderful day. No matter how much I owe the IRS, which this time it seems may be not much or even none at all.

Then back to work, then pet my mother's cat (mom gets home tomorrow!) then to the gym. 25 minutes treadmill followed by three sets each of two different weight lifting exercise. Then home to make dinner and make tons of work calls. Now I'm going to relax a bit and go to bed... up again at 4 to meet a nurse at 6 with flyers... and on it goes...

Posted by april at 8:27 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Blatant Attempt to Use Other Group's Resources to Promote CR

Don't tell anyone, but I'm very consciously hijacking another group's events in an attempt to convert the members of the group to healthy eating. Not necessarily to CR, though there many be hope for one or two. But I'm spreading the gospel of healthy, delicious, low carb, low cal, high nutrient eating without regard to what people think they want.

I got myself appointed Potluck Mistress (that means person in charge of potlucks, in case that's not obvious) for a social group in which I am involved, and I have the power to list what vague category of foods should be brought to events. For instance, entrees, salads, etc. Here is a reproduction (edited to protect the innocent) of an email that I sent to the group list re: upcoming potluck. Note my clever hijacking of the potluck and carefully forcing people to bring healthy food:

So that we may fortify our bodies and minds appropriately, it is again time to think about your potluck contribution for Sunday, Jan. 29. We have a hot plate now, so I'll bring vegetarian chili in a big pot with assorted hot sauces on the side. I will also bring a fruit dessert of some kind. Who wants to bring:

-- appetizers ('s vegetable tray sure was good last time!)
-- side dishes
-- soda
-- wine/beer
-- tea/coffee
-- another vegetarian entree or a meat entree

Thank you! Looking forward to seeing all.

Hehehe. I'm bringing a healthy entree, so I avoided the dessert monster by offering to bring a dessert myself. Of course, my dessert will be fruity and low calorie and so delicious that no one will miss the cookies and chocolate. Note the not so subtle praise of the woman who brought the vegetable tray last time... I just went nuts filling myself with celery and cauliflower.

The members of this group have accused me, only half-jokingly, of attempting to convert them to my cult. Is CR a cult? Depends on how you define cult, I suppose. I'm not really trying to convert people to CR, but I am trying to encourage healthy eating. Many, many members of this group have complained to me about their weight and told me that they are making an effort to eat healthier. Shouldn't we make that easier by providing good food choices at potluck gatherings?

So far, my attempt is failing. Here's a message I just got back (names purged to protect the dessert providers):

What side dishes are needed? I will be glad to bring any sweets that are needed.

Oh dear. I felt so frustrated... how are people going to get healthy if they're constantly confronted with cookies and brownies (and I don't mean Sherm's megabrownies) at social events with their friends? It all goes back to that nurturing issue: are you really doing your friends any favors by serving them "treats" that will make them fat and unhealthy? Especially when they're already unhappy with their weight?

I wrote to her off-list mentioning that I was planning to bring the dessert. Hopefully she will volunteer another dish. I don't think I would mind the gak-feeding so much if it weren't for the fact that many of the people in the group are overweight, and they're not happy about it. If someone really wants to eat cookies and doesn't care about the health effects -- or at least doesn't complain in my presence -- then I don't pay too much attention to what they're eating. But the constant eating and serving high carb, high saturated fat, high sugar, super high calorie gak, added to the complaints about weight and body image, really gets to me.

Okay, now we're making progress. I just got this back:

Well since you are bringing the dessert, what other side dishes are needed? Veggies? Some kind of dinner rolls?

and I responded:

Veggies would be fab!

I hope I'm not a total pest for trying to steer things in the direction of healthy foods. Several (group) members have recently mentioned to me that they're trying to lose weight/eat healthier, so I'm hoping to make that easier on folks by providing a lot of healthy, delicious potluck foods. I don't want to ruin everyone's fun, but I know that the excellent cooks in the group like you and (blank) can make great food that's healthy too, and that will make it easier for the folks who are working on the food issue to be successful without having to resist too much temptation.

Am I an evangelist? Am I a low cal crusader? An apostle of the Eggwhite? It's a far cry from the Priestess of the High Carb Darkness.

You could argue that I bring food into everything, but food is already in everything. We use food to bind together our communities, to celebrate our love, to comfort ourselves and others in hard times. Food is never neutral -- it's either nourishing you or poisoning you. Like any poison, unhealtful foods in small doses may not hurt you, and sometimes it's worth the risk. But these days, I choose to nurture those I love and care about or just like or even can barely stand with food that will fortify them in body and mind, not just numb their tastebuds with gak and bomb their brains with blood sugar spikes.

So everywhere I go, with every tool I have available, I try to spread the good news. You don't have to be unhealthy, unhappy, and obese. Anyone can be thin, healthy, and a lover of leeks (unless you don't like leeks.) We come to it in different ways, but we all have power over our own choices. Anything I can do to make it easier for the people I love, care about, just like, or can barely stand to make healthier choices, I will do.

I hope I don't lose my post as Potluck Mistress over this.

Posted by april at 4:39 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

1000?

Hi Victoria, welcome to the blog. If you're wondering what's going on, check out the Calorie Restriction Society to find out why we practice Calorie Restriction with Optimal Nutrition. I just checked out your blog, over at http://www.stumblingtobethlehem.blogspot.com. Congratulations on the weight loss, wow! 60 pounds on Atkins. Another low carb success story. I am always concerned about the saturated fat that many people eat on Atkins, but it's easy to do low carb without so much saturated fat, especially if you love eggwhites! What's your low carb pizza recipe?

Up until this month, I was averaging 1300 calories a day or a little more. This month I've been gradually lowering my calories, all the while carefully monitoring my nutrition on my nutritional software and making sure that I don't lose too much weight too fast. Becoming skinny is a side-effect of CR, but not the goal. The goal is to slow down biological aging, and CR is the only intervention currently known that actually does that in mammals. Check out Luigi Fontana's study for the latest.

Cautions: I am a very small person, at under 5' 2', and I have been gradually lowering my calories for almost two years. I very, very carefully monitor my nutrition to make sure I am getting everything I need. I also get a whole bunch of blood tests every year to make sure I'm getting everything I need and staying healthy. No one should attempt to eat as little as I do unless you're willing to take the responsibility for tracking your nutrition and visiting your doctor. Doing CR is a long term self-experiment, and it requires discipline, research, knowledge, and attention to detail. If you just want to lose a few pounds, you don't need to drop your calories as low as mine. Don't just drop calories... you have to improve your nutrition at the same time. Also, animals who lose weight too fast actually increase their chances of dying young, so you must make sure that you lose weight at a very slow rate. For those whose main concern is losing weight without feeling hungry, I recommend cutting out unnecessary carbs like bread, pasta, and anything with sugar in it. Getting rid of fried foods is just a given. Making those two changes will cause significant weight loss in most people. While I prefer Zone and South Beach diet type of eating, I have tons of respect for the Atkins folks. If you actually read the Atkins books (which a lot of people who say they're doing Atkins don't) you'll find that especially after the first two weeks, low calorie vegetables are encouraged in large amounts. My ideal diet, as you can see from the blog, is high protein, lower carb (40% or thereabouts) and very little saturated fats but lots of unsaturated fats, especially almonds, flax oil, and these incredible Greek olives I got at Whole Foods. I could live on them, but I promise I won't! Zeynep... I bet you can get the best olives where you live, and really good olive oil too. I am jealous. I only like really good, really expensive olive oil, and I could spend a very large portion of my income on olives trying to get just the right ones, if I didn't have to do things like pay the gas bill. They are among my favorite foods.

Pre-CR, I weighed 137. Today, I weigh 102. I have tons of energy, never get sick, and feel great about my body, my relationship with food, and delicious meals I prepare for myself and my lover (who also does CR, and has been for eight years.) As Zeynep points out, I love food. I just channel my love for food into cooking and eating healthy foods.

I've discovered since I stopped drinking a glass of wine with dinner as part of my daily diet that I can eat fewer total calories while maintaining my weight, so I'm lowering my calories again. CR seems to be linear -- fewer calories, more life-extension benefits. So if I'm feeling great, not losing weight too fast, and not feeling hungry or suffering other quality of life problems, I may as well take my calories a bit lower. If I start to get too hungry or lose too much weight too fast at 1050, I'll go back up. At the risk of repeating myself, the goal is to live longer, not to lose weight. I was thin enough ten pounds ago... but I want to be younger, longer, and this is the only thing that actually works.

Back to Victoria... I'll leave religion and politics alone, as I fear we would find areas of disagreement, but I am wondering if you might be one of very few people who gets almost all my jokes.

Greetings to our travelling public health expert, one who actually eats well herself! Hi Emma!!! Thanks for checking in!

Posted by april at 5:03 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

January 22, 2006

Cauliflower Head

No, it's not my pet name for MR. It's what I got on sale, organic, at Whole Foods today, and cooked up for dinner. I made an incredible dish with 255 g cauliflower, 67 g red onion, and 47 g leeks, simmered until tender in 15 calories of free range organic chicken broth. Then I removed from heat and added 1 cup of nonfat plain yogurt. Didn't need any spices at all, though you could add rosemary if you wanted. Delicious! More ways to love your leeks!

Today has been a back to basics food day, with most of the familiar old favorites. The olives I bought this morning are amazing, so I've had a ton of them. Here's the day:

Breakfast
You know what I had for breakfast.

Lunch:
50 g kale with 20 cals salsa verde mixed into 1 cup nonfat plain yogurt
102 g olives

Afternoon snack:
20 g almonds

Dinner:
Leek cauliflower onion yogurt dish
side order of broth with 2 tbsps (116 cals, 16 g protein) Lewis Labs
more olives :) Wow, they are expensive, but soooo good!

Chamomile tea, green tea, coffee, water. Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper first thing in the am with my cranberry and supplements.

Here's the crunch:

NUTRIENT TOTALS:

Abs. Values %RDA/SA

Calories 1033.73__cal 52%
Protein 81.33__gm 148% RDA
Total Fat 34.77__gm 53%
Sat. Fat 5.08__gm 25%
Mono. Fat 21.22__gm 73%
Poly. Fat 6.40__gm 96%
Carbohydrate 109.30__gm 36%
Fiber 24.40__gm 81%
Cholesterol 28.34__mg 9%
Vit. A 5358.01__IU 107% RDA
Vit. B6 1.26__mg 79% RDA
Vit. B12 3.02__mcg 151% RDA
Vit. C 234.06__mg 390% RDA
Vit. E 8.52__mg 107% RDA
Thiamine 1.39__mg 126% RDA
Folacin 278.13__mcg 155% RDA
Riboflavin 2.49__mg 192% RDA
Niacin 11.27__mg 75% RDA
Panto. Acid 5.10__mg 102% SA
Calcium 1279.57__mg 107% RDA
Copper 2.23__mg 112% SA
Iron 12.54__mg 84% RDA
Magnesium 299.61__mg 107% RDA
Manganese 1.86__mg 62% SA
Phosphorus 1003.19__mg 84% RDA
Potassium 3624.97__mg 181% RDA
Selenium 127.63__mcg 232% RDA
Sodium 3248.46__mg 135% SA
Zinc 8.12__mg 68% RDA
Tyrosine 2.66__gm 277% RDA
Lysine 4.61__gm 640% RDA
Phenylalanine 3.49__gm 364% RDA
Leucine 5.61__gm 584% RDA
Valine 4.37__gm 520% RDA
Methionine 1.79__gm 597% RDA
Cystine 1.11__gm 369% RDA
Tryptophan 0.73__gm 404% RDA
Threonine 2.73__gm 570% RDA
Isoleucine 3.43__gm 476% RDA

P:C:F = 31:38:31

A few notes on comments:

Nutritional yeast: there's some reason why I stopped eating that after I read something about brewers yeast being more effective or bioavailable or something, but I forget what. MR, care to comment on the topic? I adore the taste of Lewis Labs, but freely admit that all others are disgusting. I fixed the entry in DWIDP today, so my totals are definitely correct now.

Anorexia: Thank you for your concern, which I can tell is genuine. The problem with blogs is that if they focus on one aspect of your life, you can seem quite obsessed with that aspect since that's what you talk about. This blog is about my CR, so no doubt I seem food obsessed. If I wrote a blog about my work, I'd seem like I'm obsessed with organizing. If I wrote a blog about my sex life, I'd seem sex-obsessed. But since the topic is CR, food is going to come up a lot.

I've addressed the anorexia question many times, and will refer you to my ultimate treatise on body image, the Women's Magazines entry from last Thanksgiving. I know what it's like to struggle with body issues, and CR has set me free from that. Now I am totally, abidingly happy with my body. In fact, I think you could call me vain (back me up here, Zeynep!) I look in the mirror and think, "She's so hot!" It is my understanding that anorexics look in the mirror and see fat that isn't there, and hate their bodies. That's no doubt an oversimplification, but I doubt that many anorexics think as highly of their bodies as I do of mine. I wasn't always happy with my body... in fact, when I was poisoning it with margaritas and nachos and bagels and cream cheese, I didn't like the way I looked at all. But I've been very, very happy with my body for a long time now.

My CR lifestyle does take time, and when you caution me to "Be careful," I think you should take the fact that I monitor my nutrition daily and my blood work once a year as evidence that I am very, very careful. Most women spend a lot of time thinking about food, but unfortunately not in ways that make them happy. The time I spend thinking about food helps me eat better. Also, I just love to cook. Cooking has been my hobby for over ten years, and I probably enjoy it a whole lot more than most people. Cooking and nutrition are like a sport for me... I could make baseball cards with vegetables and their nutrition info. Wow, wouldn't Little MR love that game??? I love my body and I want to keep it young and healthy, so I put quite a bit of attention into what I put into it. Most of the anorexics I've known have been much more concerned with losing weight than with nutrition... I doubt that many anorexics monitor their nutrition on software and get the RDA of all their essential nutrients. A wise woman once said, "There's a fine line between a hobby and mental illness," and I can see how my lifestyle would not be for everyone. But for me, it's life-giving and life-affirming.

If I were anorexic, I'd be looking for ways to lose weight, not ways to drop my calories while *not* losing. For example, by eating more food and skipping the wine, I can consume fewer calories, more nutrients, and still seem to be holding onto my gorgeous sexy curves. (This is how I really think, but I try to keep a lid on it most of the time. In context, I think I can be honest about just how beautiful I think I am. I trust Zeynep to remind me that I'm not everyone's cup of tea.) Total opposite of anorexic thinking. For more info on *why* I want to take my calories lower, check out the CR Society or Dr. Walford's books.

My best friend from high school had a terrible battle with anorexia, and I'm glad to report that for the most part she has recovered, but she spent over six years in and out of the hospital. So I know up close and personal how horrible anorexia is. You know Marya, of Wasted? I went to high school with her, we were good friends. So I take anorexia very seriously. I think it's very brave of you to identify yourself as anorexic, and I appreciate your concern and not wanting anyone else to go through the hell of one of the world's most destructive diseases. I'll add you to my morning prayers... so if your ears twitch a bit at approximately 7:30 every morning, you'll know it's me. Anyone who has the courage to face anorexia is a brave soul indeed, and should be commended. I hope you're getting help that works for you and making progress towards feeling great about your body and your health. Don't worry about me... I am far from anorexic.

Zeynep, I have no idea why alcohol gives me anxiety attacks. I think it might be the carbs, but that's not all cause it's worse than just plain sugar. Totally bizarre, I know, but I doubt that I'm unique. It's never seemed to depress me, only to make me anxious. But wow, I feel so great when I'm drinking chamomile tea instead! I'm going to turn into one of those tea freaks who owns stock in Celestial Seasonings. Four cups today. All chamomile, all the time. Okay, one was peppermint. And one was green. But the point remains: tea hits the spot without stressing the liver, adding calories, and making me feel nutty. Does anybody have any info, anecdotal or otherwise, on alcohol and anxiety?

Marc -- hi! Raw veggies: there are some that you really need to buy organic, like red peppers and celery. The others, we wash carefully with soap. We tend to buy almost all our produce organic, and I think these days that it's worth it if you can afford. Some veggies, like tomatoes, need to be cooked to get the most out of their nutrients. Lycopine (sp?) is only released in cooked tomatoes.

Meanwhile, back to Zeynep, you're probably right that I should have argued with the dude. An occupational hazard of being Southern is that we're passive agressively polite. It would be pretty lame if they discontinued the fabulous low carb tortilla. MR found a brand that you can mail-order in Canada... I wonder if you could get it in Istanbul? We could have a worldwide Day of the Low Carb Tortilla. We could get Willie in Spain to do it, Paul in Hong Kong, Kara and Christina in B.C., Lindsay in England, and I even had an Australian reader at one point... all of us eating low carb tortillas at one time. The earth would move... but then again, it does that every day.

I just packed my pills for the week. It's going to be a busy one, with early morning leaflets at hospitals that require me to leave my house before 6 am. I've packed kale, yogurt with salsa, olives (how I love olives! Blessed be the day I read the Albatross and realized I could eat olives!), fruit yogurt, almonds, organic celery, organic mustard for the organic celery, and two little Babybel light cheeses, 50 cals and 20% of the RDA of calcium each.

Are you getting bored with my quotidian diet? I'm not, as I have entered a phase of my life where kale monogamy is more satisfying than all that cheap romaine and iceberg I ate in my younger days before I fell in love with the real woman's green. But I am missing having MR to cook for. I find myself contemplating 629 calorie dinners, thinking of ways to make eggwhite steaks, and fondling fruits in the Whole Foods, wondering if MR would enjoy them with hazelnut oil. I've been thinking a lot lately about food and nurture/nourishment, more on that soon. For now, suffice it to say that I am planning some incredible meals for my Orange One's return.

Posted by april at 7:43 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Fight At Trader Joe's

I headed out to do my shopping at Whole Foods and Trader Joe's before the crowds get heavy. I picked up organic dino kale, organic green kale, organic kiwi, Star Ruby grapefruit (alas, no LBRP grapefruit), and organic cauliflower on sale for $1.99 a head! I headed over to pick up the Lewis Labs Brewers Yeast I had meant to pick up a few days ago.

My heart figuratively stopped as I approached the spot on the shelf where THE ONLY BREWERS YEAST THAT TASTES GOOD is supposed to live. They weren't there. They had only LL Brewers Yeast Flakes.

Hmmm. Flakes. That's not the same thing. I paniced. Was this my divine punishment for going drinking that Skinny Bitch on Friday night? My theology was suffering and my nightly soup was about to get bad. I knew I needed help, support, love to get through this crisis. So I called MR in Canada.

"Are flakes the same as non-flakes?" I asked. He grabbed his container and we compared nutrition info. Same nutrition info. Good. He seemed to think that the stuff we have is rather flaky. I bought the flakes, but had the regular stuff special ordered. Crisis averted.

I bought some delicious olives, all kinds from Greek and Italain to Morocco, and thought happy thoughts about the role that fat now plays in my life. All those lowfat vegan years of avoiding the majestic olive. Thanks be to fat. Unsaturated, that is.

Then onward to Trader Joe's. I grabbed some nice organic brussels sprouts, some nonfat cottage cheese (if I'm dropping my cals, I'm going to go for the 140 cals per cup cottage cheese vs. the 200 cals per cup organic lowfat) and lowfat organic yogurt. Then I stopped over to the customer service desk to inquire about ordering nonfat organic yogurt and cottage cheese, armed with the knowledge that there are other places in the world where Trader Joe's carries these things, thanks to my helpful bloggiefriends!

During my pleasant chat with the customer service rep, I mentioned how much I love Trader Joe's low carb no transfats whole wheat tortillas.

"We might stop carrying those, now that the low carb trend is dying down."

My heart began to race. I felt the rage coming on, the rage I used to feel as a lowfat vegan when people would ask me if I got enough protein.

"But they have half the calories of the regular tortillas," said I.

"But the low carb things aren't good for you," said the customer service dude. "They have ingredients to make them low carb that aren't as good as the other kind."

"But they have no transfats," said I.

"But they have other bad things." He went on in this fashion for a moment, citing no evidence whatsoever but making lots of noises about "bad" and "things."

Oh no dude. Don't go lecturing me about nutrition. I decided to walk away before the conversation devolved into me shouting, "Yeah, okay, well, you're fat." Which would have been true but rather rude of me to point out.

I was sufficiently freaked out at the threat of low carb tortilla extinction that I bought a whole bunch of them to replenish the supply in our freezer. I have eaten quite a few out of our supply, so it made sense to get more, but mostly, I had to hang onto them as a security blanket. I love these critters... at 50 calories, no transfats, low carb, they make a fun treat to be enjoyed with calcium-rich no fat cheese, veggies, Quorn, whatever. They can't go away!!! The kinds at the regular grocery store have transfats, and we're not going to eat that.

I decided to write Jimmy Moore of Livin La Vida Low Carb to suggest that we join forces to save the low carb tortilla from extinction. I really hate it when people smugly suggest that low carb is just a trend, and I know that they look at me as a young, thin woman and think I'm just a stupid girl who's dieting to lose weight and doesn't know anything about nutrition. Lower carb, for me, is a life-saving revolution. Keeping my carbs lower (around 40%) has killed my anxiety, given me the freedom and flexibility to lower my calories, and liberated me from sugar cravings that encouraged me to fill my calories with nutrient-free foods rather than the high nutrient veggies, fruits, lowfat dairy and protein sources that I eat. Low(er) carb rocks!

And while we're on the topic of smug people who assume that I don't know much about nutrition: I may attempt to channel my Orange One next time this happens and argue with these people instead of pleasantly closing the conversation and walking away to buy organic almonds. I was most irked by the condescending tone of this dude as he talked about low carb being unhealthy. Sure, you can do low carb in an unhealthy fashion, but you can do almost anything in an unhealthy fashion! The whole reason why I'm buying low carb tortillas from Trader Joe's is that they have a much healthier ingredient list than any other kind. I strongly suspect that if I had been a man with grey hair, I would not have been met with the condescending tone. And I strongly suspect that if you crunch this dude's diet on my nutritional software, I am eating a whole lot healthier!

I am nice, or at least I like to pretend to be, so I walked away and bought my almonds. I really should make up those little index cards about CR to hand out in these situations. Something along the lines of, "No, I am not a 21 year old anorexic trying to lose more weight, I am a 31 year old professional woman attempting to live longer and healthier by practicing Calorie Restriction with Optimal Nutrition. Here's what it's about..."

When I go out with my best friend and order off the calorie controlled menu or ask questions to determine the exact content of a sauce or a soup, he comments, "They probably think you're a neurotic woman obsessed with losing weight." He doesn't say this to discourage me, but rather to point out how stupid people are. Ever since he started trying to eat a little healthier, he's started asking for vegetables with no butter and such too, and we observe how we get different reactions. A guy with grey hair in a suit asks for a dish of broccoli with no butter, and he's health-conscious, responsible, probably takes good care of his children and pays his mortage on time and trims the hedges weekly in the summer. A younger girl who looks even younger cause she does CR asks for broccoli with no buttter and she's neurotic, uptight, no doubt self-obsessed, not spontaneous, and probably drives her boyfriend crazy by refusing to eat hotdogs at the ballpark when they go to a baseball game.

Again, I review my miraculous good fortune at finding a man to share my life with who is even more exacting about nutrition than I am. And who doesn't care for baseball or force me to endure any form of professional sports. Thanks be to grapefruit!

Chow down Trader Joe's dude. I'll be walking on the beach covered in sunscreen and looking sexy in a string bikini, accompanied by an orange man in a floppy hat, long after ad lib eaters are in the nursing home.

I mean that in a nice way.

Posted by april at 12:51 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Going Lower

Or: If you want to lose weight, drink more, eat less!

This might be mind-numbingly obvious to some of you, but I found that when I stopped making wine a part of my quotidian diet and replaced those calories with food, even though I lowered my calories to 1150 (a number that previously had led to rapid weight loss and hunger) I wasn't particularly hungry, and my weight loss has been very slow. In fact, accounting for hormonal changes, it's hard to tell if I've lost weight at all. I may have gained a tiny bit of muscle from working out and lost a little fat -- the plain old scale doesn't know. The point being, I'm not in danger of losing weight too fast, and I'm not feeing uncomfortably hungry, so I'm going to take my calories even lower.

This is a classic example of how the CR mentality parts company with the weight loss mentality. The good news is: I'm not losing weight! So I can eat less! Yippie! For someone who wanted to lose weight, the consistent numbers on the scale would be frustrating, and having to cut calories would be miserable. For us who do CR, we want to be able to take our calories lower to maximize the life-extension benefits of the only intervention currently known to extend health and youth in mammals. Funny, eh? I am *pleased* to be able to eat less without losing too much weight too fast.

I think I'll chop 100 off the total for now. That will bring me down to 1050. That's pretty low, but when it's all food it's do-able. However, on days when I'm going out or having a dinner party and therefore drinking wine, I'll go back up another 100 calories or so to make up for the alcohol. Part of being able to take the calories down is being able to make them all food, and I don't want to eat so little on days that I have a drink that I set myself up for big hunger. But I'm thinking of limiting my alcohol consumption to just weekends or just days when I'm going out for some other reason (for instance, a friend is throwing a birthday party this Tuesday at one of my favorite brewpubs, so I may have a glass of beer.) So on all other days, I'll try keeping my calories below 1050. Wow, I'm getting lower and lower, below the levels that used to be my low days. And I'm exercising. And I'm not all that hungry. Ladies and gentlemen, that's downright bizarre.

I honestly think it's the fat. I notice such a huge difference when I start my meals with fat, chow down on 27 grams of almonds, and worship daily at the altar of flax oil. And my skin is so much better. During those under 30% fat days, I was starting to get the cracked winter hands I used to have. Eat fat: no cracked hands. It's that simple. MR is amazed at how rapidly I respond to dietary changes.

Here's one for the "Don't try this at home" files. Yesterday I was planning to go to a staff member's housewarming party. She loves to cook and I knew she'd be cooking all day to prepare food for the party, so I wanted to be able to taste her food. But I can't go over my calories. Meanwhile, I was so scared of the extra alcohol from Friday night triggering an anxiety attack that I used the anti-anxiety drug that makes MR downright wiggy every time I do it: I skipped breakfast. I ate nothing all day until 3 pm, at which point I ate my eggwhites and flax oil breakfast (no carbs.) DO NOT TRY THIS UNLESS YOU ARE USED TO FASTING AND NOT PRONE TO BINGE EATING. Believe me, hunger is better than an anxiety attack. Facing a pack of hungry lions is better than an anxiety attack. For me, the ultimate anti-anxiety drug is a morning's worth of fasting, followed by a no carb meal. I'm not particularly prone to binging, so I can return to eating normally afterwards with relatively little trouble.

Having eating only 225 calories prior to leaving the house, I figured I could sample a few of the party foods without going over calories. Like I said, this strategy wouldn't work for most people, so don't try it if you know you'll eat the entire cheese tray. For most people it's safer to eat beforehand and not be hungry, but for me this stuff sometimes works. I had a little bit of goat cheese, a deviled egg, a bite of the homemade salsa, some of the hummus with organic celery that I brought. I passed up the carrot cupcakes, even though they looked fantastic. I was glad that I could enjoy my hostess' food, and I didn't over do it. I am quite certain that I went under calories, but of course I am very hungry today after eating comparatively little yesterday. I would not do that often... in fact, I hope that the necessity of fasting to knock out anxiety does not come up again any time ever again. Unless I have a pressing reason to skip breakfast, I don't want to start the day without my darling eggwhites. Eating just a small amount at a party is hard, and most people would overeat and not even know it. But between my now intimate knowledge of calorie counts and the tiny-ness of my stomach now that I am used to eating less, it's not too hard for me to stop at not full at all when I put my mind to it.

Thank appropriate dieties or lack thereof that today I am back to real April food. I can almost taste the lunchtime kale, and it's only 9:15 am. I'm seriously considering another 7 day not drinking holiday, though I may make an exception for a freshly brewed beer on Tuesday. I just feel so much better when I don't have any alcohol in my system. I hate to be the one to say it, and my body chemistry is very likely very different from yours, but I value freedom from anxiety and ability to drop my calories more than I value resveratrol. I may eventually adopt the quotidian 3 ounces that MR drinks, if I feel like I can do so without wanting more ounces. I could buy us doll-sized wine glasses for our baby wine pours. But for now, I think I'll stick to chamomile tea.

Posted by april at 8:52 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

January 21, 2006

Beware of Buddhists Bearing Tequila

Last night I had planned to make dinner for two friends at the apartment of one of the friends, and we were going to do work on the script for a dramatic ritual (that's kinda like a funny little play) that we'll be performing in spring. The friend lives conveniently near a Whole Foods, so I had planned exactly what I was going to purchase and cook, and I was saving up calories all day for a big dinner. The plan was to serve hummus and carrots as an appetizer, a variation on MR's CR'd Zoned pizzas on Trader Joe's Low Carb Tortillas with Quorn tenders, tomato paste, olive oil and red peppers and part skim organic mozzarella, a side order of broccoli with lemon and olive oil, and Stoneyfield Farm organic vanilla maple yogurt with almonds for dessert. Sounds like a giant feast, but neither of these friends are CR'd and I wanted to present a plentiful meal, so I ate very little during the day. I had to sit in a smoke-filled bar from 11 am - 5 pm meeting with nurses as they came in and out, so I drank innumerable cups of tea and ate one of MR's brownies (there are still tons of them in the freezer, don't worry) for 260 calories and 26% of the RDA of everything. The brownie is so satisfying that I wasn't very hungry even though I consumed so few calories over the course of the day, which is a testament to the power of the Megabakedgood.

Anyhow, I showed up at friend A's apartment, and friend B had called to cancel due to not feeling well. So friend A and I proceeded to do some work in preparation for the ritual, putting off shopping for dinner until afterwards. It was about 7 by the time we hit the Whole Foods, and by this time we were getting pretty hungry, so we decided to simplify dinner and not go to the trouble of making the whole fancy several course spread. We picked up hummus and grape tomatoes, and then I said we needed to grab some Quorn.

Friend A (let's call him Evil Drinking Buddhist, for reasons that will soon become clear) headed for the produce section.

"No, in the freezer section," said I.

Evil Drinking Buddhist headed for the frozen vegetables section.

"No, not corn, QUORN!"

"Can you spell the word you're saying?"

So I spelled it, and marveled that a vegetarian who lives right next door to Whole Foods had never tasted Quorn. I purchased the tenders, and we headed back to his place, where I whipped up a two second feast of Quorn tenders in simple tomato sauce wrapped in low carb tortillas. We skipped the cheese, cutting tons of calories out of the meal, had no dessert, and snacked on a few "baby" carrots (I put them in quotes because they're obviously not really baby carrots, they're adult carrots chopped in smaller pieces and packaged and sold for higher prices) and hummus while I cooked. The meal was delicious and satisfying while simple and low calorie... much lower than I had planned on.

Evil Drinking Buddhist suggested that we hit a nearby bar for a drink before I took the train, and I agreed as I didn't have to drive (I always take the train into the city when I go, and we live a block and a half from the station so I walk home) and had lots of calories left.

I regret to report that I consumed a very large portion of the day's calories in alcoholic beverages. I started with pinot noir, but Evil Drinking Buddhist got it in his head that it would be fun to buy me my first (and only) tequila shot. Yes, I reached the age of 31 having never had a tequila shot. And I hope that, counting on CR to keep me healthy enough to take advantage of the first generation of radical age reversing biotechnologies, I will reach the age of 945 without ever having another tequila shot. One shot, btw, has 110 calories. Not worth it. I didn't quite get through the whole thing, and it was pointed out to me that you're not supposed to sip it. The Evil Drinking Buddhist finished it for me and I switched to vodka with diet Coke and a lime, a relatively low carb low cal drink I have heard referred to as a "Skinny Bitch." I suppose that's better than a vodka cranberry, my pre-CR favorite cocktail, but still, not a great use of calories or a nice thing to do to my liver. The alcohol hit me very hard after my seven day not drinking holiday, and made me feel like taking another seven day not drinking holiday. I felt fine this morning... I have an incredible ability to not be hung over, but I felt really stupid for consuming that many calories in nutrient-free carbs.

While we were hanging out, Evil Drinking Buddhist and I had a fascinating conversation about the way that people can play the role of symbols in our lives. That can be a good thing, as long as you recognize it. For example, before I met him when I was just reading his posts on the List and in the Archives, MR became a symbol to me of many things I wanted: health, self-discipline, Canadian-ness. Now that he is in my life as a real person, I interact with him as much more than a symbol, but the symbolic MR still functions as a psychological lighthouse, shining in the distance and showing me the way home. The real MR doesn't have to dress in black and white stripes and put a lightbulb on his head to make the symbolism work, and it's important with friends, family, colleagues and lovers to distinguish between what people symbolize to us and who they really are as people. But if you can keep track of the difference, people can function as powerful symbols in the narrative of your life.

I think that Evil Drinking Buddhist functions in my life as great reminder that I'm not perfect. Every time I hang out with him, I end up feeling stupid for drinking more than I really should or normally would. Then I take awhile to beat myself up for not being perfect, to wonder why I sometimes have trouble saying, "No, thank you," and to feel like a horrible inadequate person because I sometimes enjoy drinking dessert instead of eating it. Of course in the lower points of this process I completely forget what a great week I had of keeping my calories below 1150, my nutrition most excellent, and drinking not at all, including turning down a glass of wine that a friend really pushed me to drink when I was out earlier in the week.

I think I was starting to get too arrogant about my week of dietary near-perfection. All that moral pirouetting is really quite disgusting, and Evil Drinking Buddhist can remind me from time to time that while I may be doing well and have tons of self-discipline these days, I too can be tempted by the lure of the Skinny Bitch at the corner bar.

Moralizing about food or drink, I find, doesn't help. I start to think to myself, "I've been so good, don't I deserve to be bad?" That's not a healthy way to think about food, and it sets you up for indulging in unhealthy eating or drinking just to feel free and fun. A few drinks on a Friday night aren't going to kill me or damage my health, but I've found that I'm happier when I drink less and that my anxiety tends to spike in response to any giant infusion of carbs, be they chocolate or alcohol. I'd be better off to have one carefully measured drink and eat more food!

Evil Drinking Buddhist says he enjoys pushing people's buttons by tempting them with things they don't think they should have. He offered me some fancy chocolate, and was downright disappointed when I said I didn't like it enough to blow calories on it. Many people enjoy getting other people to be "bad" -- in fact it's a common phenomenon among groups of women -- but most people won't admit to it. I find Evil Drinking Buddhist's honesty refreshing. I think that the desire to get others to do something "bad" often arises out of a wish to nuture the other, not to harm. If someone enjoys something but usually abstains from the behavior, it might seem like doing them a favor to encourage them to give up their usual inhibitions and go ahead. That's no big deal with the thing isn't harmful, or is even helpful, for example, encouraging a workaholic to take a vacation. But eating too much and drinking too much will eventually, now or later, make you sick. A little here and there won't hurt, but for me, a carb overload almost always leads to anxiety spikes. So I should learn to stick to my guns and say no to the next round of drinks, even though I'm having a great time and I love both being and drinking a Skinny Bitch. If I'm feeling a psychological need to rebel, I can always wear white shoes before Labor Day.

When I get stuck in the morally good vs. morally bad way of thinking about my food choices, I am more likely to make poor choices. When I keep my eyes firmly fixed on the goal -- that's living as long as possible as healthy as possible and enjoying every minute of living at peace with my body -- I make chocies to accomplish that. While it's great to congratulate myself on feats of self-discipline, and postive reinforcment is very good (I was so proud after I turned down that glass of wine, in spite of social pressure, on Wednesday, and that's a perfectly reasonable way to feel) I can get carried away by thinking that I am a better person because I make these choices, and even looking down my nose a bit at those who don't make as healthy food choices. Evil Drinking Buddhist can be a symbol that I have to constantly strive to meet my goals, and I can't sit back and rest on my laurels while sipping tequila.

Reflecting upon the evening also gives me more compassion for those who struggle with their food choices. Because I so recently conquered my weight issues, I find myself exceedingly frustrated with people in my life who do nothing about their own weight problems. On the flip side, I am extremely excited when anyone I know takes positive steps of any sort to address weight and health issues. I just flip out when my readers tell me about their successes... it's like re-living my winning battle every time. But watching others ignore their weight problems and eat gak makes me nutty, in a way that is most unbecoming. A Friday night meeting with my nemisis, the urge to drink too much while socializing, is no doubt a healthy slap on the wrist.

It's also a good example of how the people you're around influence you, no matter how strong and self-disciplined you are. My diet and lifestyle have improved since MR moved in, and not just because he packs my lunch and my thermos of green tea. Having someone to eat dinner with who loves my CR cooking and doesn't feel deprived when we eat in instead of going out has helped me cut back on high calorie restaurant eating. When he's just as excited as I am when I cut back on my calories or give up old habits that are counterproductive, it encourages me to keep journeying forward. Sometimes I feel like I have a long way to go, and it's a bit lonely to sail alone when my Orange One is so far away. But the thought of a very long future together propels me forward, even when the tequila-filled waters of my metaphorical CR journey get a bit choppy.

Posted by april at 10:21 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

January 19, 2006

A Quick Note About Supplements

As you can see from reading the numbers on my nutritional software crunch, I get all or more than all of the RDA of almost every essential nutrient from my diet alone. I get way more nutrition from my diet alone than almost anyone... CR'd or not. Most "normal" eaters are actually malnourished. So why do I still take supplements? I supplement for three reasons, so my supplements fall into these categories:

1) Things that are hard to get from diet without getting other things you don't want. For instance: zinc. I could get the RDA of zinc from my diet by eating raw oysters every day. That would be really yummy, but it would add a whole lot of cholesterol to my diet that I don't want or need. Same with iron: I could eat red meat, but then I would get a whole lot of saturated fat that I don't want. Supplemental zinc is just as effective as zinc in the wild, but doesn't have the drawbacks of eating many zinc rich foods. There are some things that it's essential that you get from your diet: my understanding is that plant phytochemicals are among these, and that synthetic beta-carotene can be downright toxic but you want all the natural beta-carotene you can get. You'll notice that I always get way over the RDA of A and C from the vegetables and fruits I eat. Lots of multi-colored plant phytochemicals. Do you suppose that if I eat enough grapefruit, I could turn pink? That would be pretty, but would it clash with the Orange?

Some folks, like vegetarians, avoid animal foods for ethical reasons, and are therefore missing some nutrients that they could get from meat. They should supplement with Vegetarian Booster, and get the nutrients they would have gotten from animal foods from a well-designed supplement. No dead animals, no saturated fat, no cholesterol, and no messy dishes to wash.

I supplement with D because it improves calcium absorbtion, and I don't want to get skin cancer from baking myself in the sun all the time, especially when it is below freezing outside. I look terrible with a tan, and skin cancer runs rampant in Scottish families who move to the New World.

2) I have a specific health condition that a particular supplement has been shown effective at curing. I-3-C was designed based on studies that showed it can reverse cervical dysplasia. And here we are: in reversal. Yippie! I linked in my previous post to the article about it... read on if you're interested, I don't feel like reposting the link because for some reason it won't copy/paste from the pdf url and I don't feel like re-typing the whole darned thing.

Or take the cranberry pills. I take them to control chronic urinary tract infections. I could drink several vodka cranberries a day, and I would probably be a more entertaining person, but I'd a) consume a whole lot of unnecessary calories b) have no liver c) consume a whole lot of sugar d) be unable to function. I do drink unsweetened pure cranberry juice, the kind that is so tart that you can't drink it straight, but even that has calories, whereas the pills are just as effective and are calorie-free and take almost no time to consume. But a quick note for any fellow UTI sufferers out there: alcohol makes the cranberry flavanoids more bioavailable, so it's not your imagination, it really is better to have a vodka cranberry than just a cranberry juice alone when you feel a UTI coming on. Better yet, have a glass of pinot noir with two cranberry pills. Resveratrol and UTI protection all in one! Or mix unsweetened cranberry with pinot noir and raspberry flavored seltezer or diet cranberry Canada Dry Ginger Ale. CR Sangria!

3) I take a few supplements that are very likely to improve my long term health. All the bone builders (K2, Strontium) are in this category. I get over the RDA of calcium most days from my food, but I still take Strontium and K2 for my bones, just like I still do bone building exercise at the gym. There are many ways to care for yourself, and while diet may well be the most important, there's no reason to neglect other ways in which you can improve your long term health. While a supplement program can never take the place of a well-designed diet (and nutritional software is a must!) it can improve an already excellent plan, and give you the flexibility to skip the oysters and dead cows.

As to cat breath... the only solution I've ever found is feeding them a leaf of fresh catnip right before bedtime. That makes them smell nice and minty. The problem is, you can't grown the catnip in the house because the cats will eat the entire plant at one sitting. And you can't grow it outside because the neighborhood cats will eat the entire plant and come back for seconds. When we received a catnip plant as a housewarming gift and set it on the back deck, we quickly made the acquaintance of all the neighborhood cats. For awhile, a gorgeous white girl kitty was in love with MR and rubbed up against him while he hung out the laundry. This is what happens when you grow catnip -- you attract kitty stalkers. So for now, I'll deal with Philomena's night time cat breath. She means well.

Posted by april at 9:20 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Some Questions From a Sister

Amy, our newest CR blogger on the block, wrote me today with some questions about nutrition. Here are questions and answers:

1. What do you do about food items whose nutrient values as listed on the package don't match that provided in the USDA database?
Take cottage cheese. I buy the low fat variety, and when I compare the nutrients on the nutrition label, they don't match the calories or nutrient breakdown given for the item in the USDA database that Fitday uses. I've been largely using my own custom food entry with the nutrition label values, but as I mentioned in the previous paragraph, I'm positive that this means that lots of the important nutrients don't get tracked that way. This is actually an issue for me even when using frozen veggies as I tend to buy the bags of mixed veggies, which makes it tricky to track exactly how much of each veggie I eat, but I hate that the bags don't list anything but the major nutrients. So what do the long-time CRONnies do in this situation? Use the USDA values, and just assume that they're the most accurate, even if they don't match the food label?

On really important things, I change the entry in DWIDP to fit the food. For example, I entered Carolina Treet as Treet instead of using "barbecue sauce." That reminds me... I need to replace the entry for "Brewers Yeast" in DWIDP with a customized Lewis Labs entry, and that might change my values a bit. My DWIDP had to be replaced when it went psycho a few months ago, and so I had to re-enter all my quotidian foods. For bags of veggies like broccoli, cauliflower and carrots, I just take the number of calories in my serving, divide it in thirds, and entery 1/3 as broccoli, 1/3 as cauliflower, you get the idea. You may as well make custom entries this way for things you use frequently.

2. I've noticed in my nutrient tracking so far that I'm almost always short on iron. I looked at your crunch from yesterday, and I saw that you were too. I know you take some supplements, because I remember reading that MR set you up with a regimen - I guess my question is whether your supplements make up for shortages in the minerals that you're low on occasionally.

I am frequently low on iron, so I got an iron test when I went for my bloodwork. Sure enough, my iron was on the low end of normal, which is exactly where I want it to be. Too much iron is just as dangerous as too little, so I don't supplement with extra iron as my diet seems to be providing me with enough iron to meet the target in my bloodwork. That's why it's important to get your blood tests done in addition to using nutritional software.

3. It looked from your crunch summary yesterday that DWIDP doesn't track Vit. D - what's up with that? If not, do you take a supplement for this? I've been eating cottage cheese and some yogurt (but not daily on the yogurt), but my brand isn't fortified with Vit. D. I'm getting mine in my calcium supplement, but I'm curious how you're making sure you have enough.

I have no clue why DWIDP doesn't track D, but I do supplement. There's quite a bit in my AOR multi (I don't know how much exactly but perhaps MR could comment?) and I also take 400 IU a day with dinner in little softgel pills that look a lot like fish eyes.

4. Are you getting your B Vitamins and Vitamin E from the Brewers Yeast? I ask because I've appeared to be short on a lot of things, even though when I compare my diet to yours, they really don't seem to be that different - I eat more meat and fish, I'd say, but otherwise they're quite similar.

Largely, yes. Lewis Labs rocks my world. It really is the only brewers yeast that tastes good. The GNC brand is okay, but Lewis Labs is really yummy. Tastes vaguely like miso. I can't stand regular health food store brewers yeast, I only buy the LL.

I'm still taking a multivitamin (Centrum Brand - plain jane multivitamin w/ 100% of most vitamins and minerals) and a calcium supplement that has Vit. D w/ it (though when I run out of these, I'm think I'm going to buy one like Mary takes, with extra minerals included w/ the calcium as well).

I know from MR that a lot of standard multis have toxic levels of this and that, but I don't know more than that.

I guess items 2, 3, and 4 all relate to your supplement regimen - would you mind sharing exactly what you take? And if you've done this already in a blog entry, just point me to it.

I'd be happy to... and it will give MR an opportunity to review it and make sure I'm still doing everything I should be. But before I do, remember, we're all different, and there is no one-size-fits-all supplement regimen. It depends on your diet, your health risks and concerns, your lifestyle, exercise, and what you want to achieve with your supplement program. I take supplements mostly as "diet insurance," filling in holes in my diet and addressing my specific health concerns.

Here's what I take:

upon waking up, preferably with a beautiful red-headed boy sitting by the side of the bed serving them with a glass of unsweetened cranberry juice mixed with Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper (though I can get them myself if I must.)

-- 2 cranberry pills (protection against chronic urinary tract infections that are completely under control with cranberry)
-- Strontium Support, by AOR, a bone builder
-- 2 capsules Veggie Booster, a supplement designed by someone I know well to fill in all the holes in a vegetarian diet, without all the saturated fat and calories of meat. This takes the place of a bunch of supplements we used to take.

With breakfast:
-- I-3-C, a supplement that addresses my now in regression former cervical dysplasia.
-- Three A Day, which I don't think you can get yet. It's the world's most perfect multi, and unlike Essential Mix, AOR's powdered multi, it's in capsules so I don't risk snorting it up my nose like an unsuccessful cocaine addict.

Between meals:
-- 1 more Veggie Booster
-- 1 lysine (mops up AGEs, or advanced gylcation end-products, which are bad and will eat you for dinner)

With Lunch:
Two things that MR says take the place of my B vitamins and folate. Not quite sure what they are or how to spell them, and can't get up to find out from the medicine cabinet because there is a giant tabby cat on my lap

With Dinner:
-- 400 IU Vitamin D
-- 1 more cranberry
-- Orthominerals, I think, which has calcium in it. I get A TON of calcium from my diet, but I take more anyway.

We also put K2, a bone builder, into our flax oil. (Note to MR: I haven't done that since I bought a new bottle last week... do I need to take K2 in pill form until you get home to mix the K2 into the flax oil?)

I think, I think, that's it. But MR may be able to fill in anything I've forgotten or screwed up.

Don't just take what I take... analyze your diet, lifestyle, etc. Figuring out what supplements to take requires just as much effort as figuring out what to eat... unless you can get someone else to do it for you. Before I met MR, I took Hello Kitty Chewable Vitamins. That didn't kill me and was no doubt better than nothing, but things are clearly better now.

Speaking of, here's today's food and crunch:

Breakfast:
Same as always
Lots of black coffee (Thank you Robert and Ingrid!)

Lunch:
100 g kale with 1 cup nonfat plain organic yogurt mixed with 20 cals salsa verde
1 carton organic vanilla maple lowfat yogurt
27 g almonds (and I ate about half of them before the meal, the rest mixed into the yogurt)

Dinner:
Soup with 85 g organic broccoli, 85 g mixed bell peppers, 1 tablespoon Lewis Labs, and 1 cup vegan organic no salt vegetable broth
1 cup lowfat organic cottage cheese with 1 teaspoon flax oil and 1 tablespoon Treet
91 g organic kiwi, with skin (the skin is really quite good)

NUTRIENT TOTALS:

Abs. Values %RDA/SA

Calories 1147.08__cal 57%
Protein 94.94__gm 173% RDA
Total Fat 37.12__gm 57%
Sat. Fat 10.90__gm 54%
Mono. Fat 15.71__gm 54%
Poly. Fat 6.97__gm 105%
Carbohydrate 117.37__gm 39%
Fiber 14.37__gm 48%
Cholesterol 70.97__mg 24%
Vit. A 11031.61__IU 221% RDA
Vit. B6 1.51__mg 94% RDA
Vit. B12 3.72__mcg 186% RDA
Vit. C 357.74__mg 596% RDA
Vit. E 7.26__mg 91% RDA
Thiamine 3.80__mg 346% RDA
Folacin 1054.90__mcg 586% RDA
Riboflavin 3.57__mg 274% RDA
Niacin 13.77__mg 92% RDA
Panto. Acid 5.85__mg 117% SA
Calcium 1139.20__mg 95% RDA
Copper 2.28__mg 114% SA
Iron 9.14__mg 61% RDA
Magnesium 349.82__mg 125% RDA
Manganese 2.32__mg 77% SA
Phosphorus 1526.09__mg 127% RDA
Potassium 3275.06__mg 164% RDA
Selenium 97.17__mcg 177% RDA
Sodium 4069.12__mg 170% SA
Zinc 8.76__mg 73% RDA
Tyrosine 4.28__gm 446% RDA
Lysine 7.11__gm 988% RDA
Phenylalanine 5.15__gm 537% RDA
Leucine 8.61__gm 897% RDA
Valine 6.19__gm 737% RDA
Methionine 2.42__gm 807% RDA
Cystine 1.31__gm 436% RDA
Tryptophan 1.14__gm 633% RDA
Threonine 4.26__gm 887% RDA
Isoleucine 5.30__gm 736% RDA

P:C:F = 33:38:29

Lookie there! Zoning! Over the course of the day, but still.

Very quotidian, but I love my everyday food. Still holding off on the wine, as it saves a whole lot of calories to skip it. But tomorrow I'm meeting friends and cooking dinner, so no doubt I will have a carefully measured amount then. Sipping chamomile tea even as we write.

Zeynep's marinade recipe sounds great -- I love cooking with wine! Sometimes I even put in in the food! (Okay, so I stole that quote off an apron I saw at a gourmet shop a year or so ago.) Here's the problem: I don't like salmon. Is there something else you might put it on? I found that salon for me was ruined when my cat started licking my face immediately after eating pink salmon in a can -- her absolute favorite treat. So now salmon just makes me think of cat breath. Perhaps shrimp or scallops? I do love shellfish. I also have a rosemary tree that my mom bought us for Christmas, so I have fresh rosemary any time I want. Very yummy stuff!

Posted by april at 6:11 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

January 18, 2006

The Anti-Anxiety Lifestyle

A commenter asked about CR and anxiety. I've been meaning to write about it for awhile, since as of late I've made even more discoveries on the anti-anxiety lifestyle front.

Here are my basic suggestions for beating anxiety, based purely upon my own experience:

1) Eat a breakfast with almost no carbs but lots of protein:
1 cup eggwhites scrambled, 1 teaspoon flax oil, salsa for flavor if you want. No cereal, bread, oatmeal, or any kind of grain.

2) Cut back on both calories and carbs. Make vegetables your primary, if not only carb. When you eat fruit, be sure to eat it with a protein-rich meal.

3) Include adequate omega 3 sources. I eat 2 teaspoons of flax oil a day. This appears to be an anti-depressant.

4) Keep calories consistent. Doesn't have to be exact, but I find that eating about the same amount every day keeps my anxiety much lower than my previous eating very little with one day of eating lots. I always felt an anxiety spike after those big eating days.

5) Alcohol makes it worse. Small amounts probably won't make it worse, but beware that the lighter you get, the more any amount of alcohol will effect you. Red wine is one of my favorite things, and as you know, I'd much rather have an extra glass of wine than, say, a rich chocolate dessert. Red wine can be a very healthy part of an over-all CR diet, and the health benefits of red wine are well-documented. But if you suffer from anxiety and you drink, cutting back may really help.

I had already cut my alcohol consumption way back from pre-CR days, but was still drinking a six ounce glass of red wine a day, more on weekends or dinner parties. Then last Friday when I decided to drop my calories down to 1150, I cut my glass of wine out of my quotidian diet. That doesn't mean I'm giving it up... I'm not not having it every day. I think there's enough resveratrol in my system for now. :)

I've noticed a stark decrease in my anxiety. In the past I've noted that drinking more than about eight ounces in a night causes an anxiety spike the next day, just like eating a whole lot of sugary carbs. But cutting out all together seems to be even stronger than just cutting back.

Don't get me wrong... I'm not against red wine, I'm for it. If you don't suffer from carb-induced anxiety, then drink up! But measure the calories, they do add up. I'm just letting you know what seems to keep my anxiety at bay. I suspect that a whole lot of us have similar experiences.

6) Meditate every day.
This doesn't have to be fancy. It could be traditional Christian or Jewish prayer. You could do really complicated rituals. You could do yoga. I prefer walking meditation: I pace in a circle and mentally transfer all of my concerns, worries, hopes, etc. into the center of my circle. Doing this every day helps me focus on my goals, CR and otherwise, for the day. It also seems to take a massive chunk out of my anxiety, even when my life is stressful.

7) Exercise, most every day, but not a whole lot. You don't have to be athletic, just walking for twenty minutes a day at a comfortable pace will do it. I've actually known this much longer than I've known about CR.

8) Disengage with negative people. This is another fun thing I've done recently. You can't always disengage from negative people (for example, you probably can't just ditch your boss) but you can emotionally disengage your mood from the actions of others. Most of the time, it's *their* problem. Don't make it yours. Easier said than done, I know, but I've recently discovered a whole lot of areas of my life where I simply have no obligation to spend time or energy with people who make me unhappy. There are so many wonderful people out there who contribute positively to the world. Why not hang out with them? Moving on!

9) Eat leeks. Not sure if this has any effect on anxiety, but they're yummy! I loved Zeynep's leek recipe!

Again, all of this is based on my anecdotal experience, and a lot of it is just common sense. I've definitely found that between cutting overall calories and cutting carbs, I can make myself a much happier, less anxious person. If we have this kind of power over our mental state, simply by choosing different foods, why not use it?

Here's the crunch from yesterday. It was a pretty good day... usual breakfast, snack of a non-fat, sugar free yogurt with almonds in the morning because I had a lunch time doctor's appt and didn't want to be starving. Had left my organic yogurt at home, so I grabbed one at Starbucks (thank you Robert and Ingrid) along with a coffee. Lunch was a salad of kale and dandelion greens with a cup of nonfat plain yogurt seasoned with Trader Joe's salsa verde, plus almonds and a fourth of a grapefruit. Afternoon snack of Trader Joe's chocolate yogurt -- higher calorie but oh so good! Dinner was brussels sprouts and brewers yeast soup, plus Zeynep's leeks (no rice, just leeks, carrots, and red onion, sauteed in water, oil added afterwards. Carrots go great with leeks! I think it would also be good simmered in white wine.) I had finally picked up a red onion at the produce store, something I realized I was missing on Monday night. The day was low in fat but very high in nutrition. The only suboptimal part was when I ran out to the drugstore to grab some reading glasses (after realizing that I had left both my glasses and my phone at my mother's house... MR will understand what a major crisis this was!) I couldn't read a thing, so I went next door and asked my neighbors if they had any drugstore reading glasses lying around. They said no, but suggested that instead of driving all the way back to my mom's (it was already late because I had run some errands after work) on a dark stormy night, I run up a couple blocks to the drugstore to buy a pair of reading glasses. I did, and while they're not perfect they got me through the night. I was so excited about my sudden ability to read that I read all the nutrition information on the sugar free chocolates right next to the reading glasses (I was in the diabetic demographic aisle, I think.) By this time I was starving, since the glasses crisis had put off dinner preparation. So when I found a low-carb, sugar free chocolate peanut butter candy with only 60 calories per bar, I grabbed it and ate one on the way home. Not a terrible treat, though not a great use of calories. Still got excellent nutrition in the day.

Calories 1149.76__cal 57%
Protein 88.19__gm 160% RDA
Total Fat 25.63__gm 39%
Sat. Fat 5.52__gm 28%
Mono. Fat 11.15__gm 39%
Poly. Fat 6.71__gm 101%
Carbohydrate 152.53__gm 51%
Fiber 17.49__gm 58%
Cholesterol 57.38__mg 19%
Vit. A 25386.36__IU 508% RDA
Vit. B6 1.64__mg 103% RDA
Vit. B12 3.36__mcg 168% RDA
Vit. C 312.92__mg 522% RDA
Vit. E 5.72__mg 71% RDA
Thiamine 4.00__mg 363% RDA
Folacin 1196.02__mcg 664% RDA
Riboflavin 4.03__mg 310% RDA
Niacin 12.99__mg 87% RDA
Panto. Acid 6.90__mg 138% SA
Calcium 1279.21__mg 107% RDA
Copper 2.00__mg 100% SA
Iron 10.20__mg 68% RDA
Magnesium 341.72__mg 122% RDA
Manganese 2.32__mg 77% SA
Phosphorus 1473.66__mg 123% RDA
Potassium 3881.10__mg 194% RDA
Selenium 102.43__mcg 186% RDA
Sodium 3580.08__mg 149% SA
Zinc 8.92__mg 74% RDA
Tyrosine 3.91__gm 408% RDA
Lysine 6.30__gm 875% RDA
Phenylalanine 4.68__gm 488% RDA
Leucine 7.50__gm 781% RDA
Valine 5.93__gm 706% RDA
Methionine 2.23__gm 743% RDA
Cystine 1.40__gm 467% RDA
Tryptophan 0.97__gm 541% RDA
Threonine 3.90__gm 813% RDA
Isoleucine 4.79__gm 666% RDA

Posted by april at 6:11 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

January 17, 2006

Livin' La Vida Low Carb

I checked out Livin' La Vida Low Carb after I read about his entry on Luigi Fontana's study over on the CR list. Jimmy mentions a few common misconceptions about CR, but overall, I love his blog.

Lots of entertaining commentary on low carb living, diet books, the gak that one is confronted with in ordinary life (check out the entry on Girl Scout Cookies!) The fact is, most people could benefit a whole lot from cutting their carbs. My standard diet advice for those who just want to lose weight is a) cut out grains b) up your protein to above 70 grams per day c) stop eating stuff with sugar in it (sodas, candy, etc.) That's all most people neeed to lose quite a bit of weight without hunger, dieting, etc. I do get concerned about people who eat giant amounts of saturated fat (four eggs for breakfast?!! Yikes! Eggwhites? Try them and you'll like them!) But cutting carbs is a good way to lose weight, and it's quite possible to do a low carb diet without massive amounts of saturated fat.

It sounds like Jimmy's main interest is in losing weight and maintaining weight loss. For him, the lifestyle of pushing calories lower and tracking calories isn't appealing. That would be true for most people, and it's important to understand that CR isn't a lifestyle for those who are just interested in losing weight. If I wanted to just be thin, I wouldn't bother weighing and measuring my food, tracking my calories, or monitoring my nutrition every day (though I would occasionally check in with the software to make sure no hidden deficiencies had arisen.) I'd just keep up with my high protein, low carb breakfasts, my flax oil, my calcium-rich nonfat dairy, and eating lots of veggies (hello kale!) But for those of us who pursue CR, we either never cared about weight loss (many of us started at a normal weight) or we stopped worrying about our weight many pounds ago. We're in it for life-extension, not just for health improvements that you can get from obesity avoidance. Now don't get me wrong... I'm all for obesity avoidance. If even half the American population were to get their weight down to even the top of the height and weight chart numbers, the world would be a much better place. There might not be a nursing shortage cause there would be a whole lot fewer people in the hospital with heart attacks, strokes, and complications from diabetes.

But for those of us who do CR, especially the hardcore among us, an unusual level of self-discipline is assumed. Our priorities are different from people who just want to lose weight and keep it off. We're willing to put more effort into our diets, nutrition, and even occasionally feeling hungry, because our goal is staying younger longer. It would be silly for someone who was just interested in losing weight to keep up my current lifestlye... it's just much easier to lose weight than to push your calories well below the level where you're thin! But alas, the biggest benefits from CR appear to come at the lower calorie levels. It's a sliding scale -- any reduction of calories (without compromising nutrition) will improve health. But the more the better.

For those whose main goal is weight loss, I think the low carbers have a lot of good advice. Low fat diets can work for weight loss, especially if the dieter is transitioning from a high fat, fast food diet. But as Jimmy says, "Hunger, irritability, deprivation, cravings, and more will overcome you and bring you to your knees begging for the pain to go away (can you tell I was suffering on my low-fat, high-carb diet?!)"

I was a lowfat vegan for years, and I felt like I ate all the time! I was thin... between 110 and 115 most of the time... but I was anxious, hungry (hence the constant eating), had insane sugar cravings, and lacked the mental focus I have now. Eating enough protein (okay maybe more than enough) and a decent amount of unsaturated fat has totally changed my life, not just my diet. It was easy to lose weight once I made those changes, and maintaining takes no effort whatsoever. My first changes on CR were cutting out bread and pasta, cutting all drinks except for red wine, and ceasing to put sugar in my coffee. Now, I rarely leave the house without 29 grams of eggwhite power protein in my body. And it has made all the difference.

However, I'm interested in the life-extending benefits of CR. Therefore, I am willing to put more effort into my daily diet and nutrition, plan my exercise carefully, and hang out with strange, geeky people in pursuit of this goal. It's a question of priorities. If your priority is getting thin and staying thin, cutting out unnecessary, nutrient-less carbs and upping your protein and unsaturated fats will probably get you there. If you're interested in looking forty at seventy, you'd better look into CR.

I mean, if you're interested in living to see the dawn of radical age-reversing biomedicine. But really, if you're going to be there, shouldn't you look fabulous?

Posted by april at 6:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 16, 2006

Don't Be A Wimp!

I was supposed to be off today, but I ended up doing some work because as often happens, a situation arose that had to be dealt with immediately. I wrote a draft of a leaflet last night, and was planning to meet with my executive director at the office today to edit it and discuss our grand plan.

But as it turned out, our office was being re-painted and carpeted today, due to that flood of a few months ago. So my boss suggested that we meet for lunch. I said sure, and when he called me back to fix a time he said he didn't really feel like going to the RT (home of a calorie-controlled menu) and could we go to Houlihan's instead. I said sure.

As soon as I got off the phone, I started to regret my easy agreement. I looked up Houlihan's online and saw that there is no nutrition info anywhere on their website. Ugh! I sat becoming more and more resentful as visions of sitting watching someone else eat while I sat sipping a diet coke and eating nothing danced in my head. Finally, I decided that I was being a passive aggressive wimp.

So I picked up the phone, called him back, and said, "Do you mind terribly if we go to the Applebee's just down the street from the Houlihan's? They have a calorie-controlled menu, so I could eat."

He said sure. No problem.

That was easy.

I felt better. In fact, I felt empowered, a tower of CR strength, a pillar of self-discipline. I felt like I was going to eat some really good 150 calorie onion soup.

For lunch, I had the Weight Watcher onion soup for 150 calories and the shrimp skewer salad for 210. I considered eating the 230 calorie raspberry chocolate cake, but decided that would be a silly indulgence bereft of nutrition, and that I'd rather have a post-gym yogurt and almonds snack instead.

Lunch meeting went well, and my boss even ate off the calorie-controlled menu! He's been working on eating healthier, and I think that my insisting on places with calorie-controlled menus is helping.

After that I went to the gym, then dropped by my mother's house to visit her cat Amber. We had a chat while I ate my fruit on the bottom yogurt (my Trader Joe's and Whole Foods don't have either nonfat organic cottage cheese or yogurt! It's so irksome. I will make a request, and point out that other WF's and TJ's carry the items -- thanks commenters!) and 11 g almonds. Now I'm home and taking a short break before returning to work on my flyer. It has to get to the graphic designer tonight so it can get to the printer tomorrow morning.

I continue to be amazed at how good I feel when I go ahead and stand up for my little calorie-controlled self. I hate to inconvenience others, but the fact is, most of my friends don't much care if they eat at Houlihan's or Applebees. It's important to me, and if I just have the guts to voice my preferences without fearing that I'll be perceived as evil and selfish, it's usually a non-issue. Still, life would be easier if every restaurant published their nutrition info. I almost feel like not publishing nutritional information is similar to putting out a menu with no prices. You don't know how much this meal is going to cost you, so how can you budget? If people paid as much attention to their calorie counts and nutrition as they did to their bank accounts, the world would be a different place. Lots of people would still be obese, no doubt, just like lots of people are drowning in debt. But if we were to actually confront calories the way we confront price tags, it would be a step in the right direction.

Posted by april at 4:56 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Exercise and Weight

Now that I am keeping my calories carefully consistent and tracking every morsel, my opportunities for self-experimentation have multiplied. It's quite a bit of fun, in a geeky way. It does take quite a bit of discipline to consume nothing that is not accounted for, but it's more than worth the trouble.

My new factoid of fascination is just how much my weight has gone up as I've started exercising. I knew that would happen: long before you actually build any heavy muscle, the exercise makes the muscles retain much more water, which can weigh quite a bit. I suppose if I ate no carbs for a day I could flush out all the water but then I would fall over dead and that would defeat the purpose. When I started exercising, I weighed 102, and then I would notice that the morning after I lifted I would weigh 105. Three pounds of water weight! This morning, after three days of calories well under 1150 but an especially intense workout yesterday and a week of more intense cardio, I weighed 107! Yet my clothes are loose, and I look thinner in the mirror.

Part of that is accounted for by hormonal changes. But for the most part, that's exercise induced water weight. I also had an unusual amount of salt yesterday, as I was out of my no-salt broth so consumed some regular broth. Now that I've replenished the no-salt, organic vegan broth from Whole Foods, that problem should be eliminated.

Salt, exercise, and hormonal changes can add up to a ton of water weight. If weight is what you care about, you can easily crash off water weight by either a) doing Atkins and having no carbs in your body b) just fasting c) completely eliminating salt, lowering carbs, and eating diuretic foods like asparagus. But why would you want to do that? A huge advantage to monitoring your weight every day, sometimes several times a day, is that you realize just how huge water weight fluctuations can be. So who cares? I have learned the difference between losing five pounds of water weight and losing five pounds of real weight. The water is nothing to worry about, but when a large amount of weight falls off and stays off, in spite of conditions that wouldn't ordinarily lead to massive water weight loss, then you have to worry about losing weight too fast.

I went to Weight Watchers for a couple of months back before I converted to CR. I enjoyed the meetings... it's fun to hang out with other women and chat about food, weight, relationships, etc. But I was frustrated by the once a week weighing system because it was more about what I had eaten the day before than the entire week. For lots of people it works just fine, and over the long term, you can track your weight that way. I find it more informative to track my weight daily, find the water weight fluctuations entertaining, and move forward with my day.

This is one of the many ways in which it seems that men are very different from women. Men tend to lose weight in a consistent straight line. Walford's description of how to lose weight when beginning CR is very male-focused: a pound at a time. Women just aren't like that. If we're pre-menopausal, we're going to have massive weight fluctuations every month. We seem to react much more to water weight. Lots of women get frustrated and fear that they're doing something "wrong" if they gain a pound or two or five overnight, but without the knowledge that water weight is not real weight, it would be easy to wonder what's going on.

I've heard from lots of exercise instructors that women begin an exercise program, see the scale go up, and quit. "It's not working," they say. So many women are so afraid of the number on the scale that they aren't able to process the changes that their bodies are undergoing with the onset of exercise. Since doing CR makes you focus on calories and nutrition, not weight, those weight fluctuations aren't so scary.

Funny how the main use for a scale in a CR household is to make sure that you're not losing weight *too fast*!

And to weigh the cat. Do you know how to weigh the cat? Weigh yourself, pick up the cat, subtract your weight with cat from your weight without cat. Everytime I do this I am amazed that I used to weigh almost two Kieffers more! And my mother lost three and a half Kieffers! How did I carry Kieffer around all the time? No wonder I felt terrible.

Posted by april at 8:01 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

January 15, 2006

Obviously I Don't Need To Lose Weight

That's what I said to the guy at the gym who signed me up. I think that gym staffers are confused when they meet a woman who doesn't think she's fat. I had a very unusual set of reasons for joining the gym: I'm on a calorie-restricted, nutritionally-optimized, leek-enriched diet (actualy this was a few weeks before my leek phase but I've always been a fan of the noble leek) and it sure would be silly to be in great health but to fall and break a hip because I hadn't taken care of my bones. So there I was.

Got a great deal on the gym. Just $37.95 a month, and three personal training sessions thrown in at the beginning to get me started. This was a good idea, since the last time I seriously worked out my goals were very different. I lifted weights pretty rigorously in my early and mid-twenties, but back then I always wanted to lose weight, tone up, and build muscle. These days, I just want to have respectable bones and to get the stress-reduction benefits of exercise. I find my treadmill workout particularly thraputic, but I also want to do some weight lifting so that I'm not losing too much muscle mass as I take my calories lower, and because of the benefical effects of weight lifting on bones that I've read about in Miriam Nelson's books.

So I met with my personal trainer, Lisa, the first time, and again we went over my goals. She was very sweet, but seemed a bit confused. Are there any particular parts of my body I'd like to tone up? No, not really, I'm perfectly happy with how my body looks now. As it turns out, Lisa had lost a whole lot of weight too, so we were able to bond about how weird it still can be to look in the mirror and realize that *you're* the skinny person on the other side. I described my concerns with bone health, and she immediately suggested running.

I informed her that I don't like running, I tend to get shinsplints, and that the only times I run are a) if I am in imminent danger of missing a bus, train or airplane b) if a wild animal is chasing me.
Though I will walk fast on the treadmill, at high inclines, and I will happily skip to increase the impact.

[You should really try skipping on the treadmill at the gym. It's tons of fun and makes the serious exercise people look at you like you've lost all sense of gym decorum.]

Lisa has been fabulous, and has designed for me a series of exercises that I can do in small chunks, just two or three exercises each day after my cardio workout, that are specifically for the purpose of building bone. She added in all these clever weight-bearing impact moves, like jumping with a weighted ball from a step to the floor. I've worked out with lots of trainers before, and I still miss my first trainer, Chris at Bally's Total Fitness at Franklin Mills in Philadelphia, but I have to hand it to Lisa. She took a very complex set of requirements and made a sensible exercise plan out of them.

One of my concerns about starting an exercise program at the same time as lowering my calories was that I didn't want to throw myself into too much of a calorie deficit, or to shock my body with big long workouts a few days a week and nothing on the others. Since my gym is just down the street from my office, it's easy for me to work out at least five days a week. So we've created a workout where I do my cardio (twenty to thirty mins treadmill) and then I do three sets of two to three exercises she picked out for me, most of which I do with free weights. That way I spread out the activity fairly evenly over the week, and I don't do too much in any given day. Most of the exercises use free weights, which is really fun for me because I am so short that the weight machines often don't fit me quite right. Instead of spending half my time in the gym fiddling with weight machine settings, I can just grab my little free weights and a clear space on the floor and do my exercises.

I am so glad I am beyond the point in my life of being self-conscious at the gym. Sure, there are tons of super-fit, strong men lifting weights. They could all bench press me, though I am glad they choose not to because I would have to charge them with assault. But I just don't care! I'm there to accomplish my own specific goals: I don't care about the amount of weight I can lift. As long as those guys don't drop one of their giant dumbells on my foot, I can happily co-exist.

It's downright weird to go to the gym and not hate what I see in the mirror. You can't walk around a gym without being confronted by your own reflection, and I was so used to thinking that the girl in the mirror was a fat cow (even during the years when I wasn't, to be fair, particularly bovine) that it's a shock to see a person who really doesn't need to lose any weight. The gym clothes are much tighter, of course, than my work clothes, so I look much skinner than I do in normal life. I still don't look like Kate Moss, thank goddess, but I do look in the mirror and think, "There's not that much left."

I'm so glad I made the decision to start lifting again. It's important for my health, and it's an almost meditative activity. I'm even starting to make "gym friends" -- those people you say hi to at the gym but never have a substantive conversation with. Modern life is filled with such folk. Not nearly as close as "salon friends," whom you really get to know while you're both letting your manicure and pedicure dry, or as fleeting as "bank friends," with whom the only thing you have in common is that your expense checks are drawn on PNC. Gym friends are a comforting in between.

Working out at the gym also gives me an opportunity to reflect on my unusual taste in men. Everyone there is way, way too giant for me. Not a skinny guy in sight. Not even a skinny guy who is strong and all muscle, bone and brain like my MR (he can pick me up and carry me around with ease, which is convenient when I am injured or just don't feel like walking.) Good thing I found MR, even though I had to venture to a remote corner of Canada to get him... that type is quite hard to come by in the wild.

I was afraid that adding in more exercise might make it harder to stick to my calorie goals, but so far so good. I was down at 1116 again today with no problem, no doubt thanks to the utter nutritional satisfaction provided by those dandelion greens. Tomorrow I'm going to try Zeynep's leek recipe, and more of the dandelions. I am turning oranger all the time, and soon I hope to resemble my little calico. Who, as it happens, is meowing at me to join her in the bed for some pre-sleeping reading. Happy workouts to all, and to all a good night!

Posted by april at 7:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Dandelion Greens, Forgot the Lewis Labs, Organic vs. Non-fat?

Make a list. Even if you have an excellent memory. Make a list.

Luckily, I am going to Whole Foods again on Friday night before a little dinner party for which I am cooking. Because I got everything I needed: flax oil, organic veggies, Quorn. Except Lewis Labs brewers yeast. OOOOPS! I think I have enough to make it through the week. Make a list!

I was so excited about the appearance of organic dandelion greens, which MR says is one of the highest nutrient greens, that I walked out forgetting all about the Lewis Labs. I was the first person at the Whole Foods after dropping my mom off at the airport for an early flight. Whole Foods is so lovely when there's almost no one there. I sipped my coffee and communed with organic veggies of all kinds, including more leeks! I love leeks! Don't you love leeks?

I just put together a kale and dandelion greens salad with 1 cup yogurt + salsa and almonds to eat for lunch after spending an hour or so working on the basement. I figured it would be best to make lunch *before* I got hungry so I wouldn't be tempted to grab something quick out of the fridge. I also have brewing a brussels sprout and brewers yeast soup, and a half a kiwi (organic kiwi on sale $1 for 3 at WF!) Giant lunch, I know, but I am trying to eat about 450 calories at lunch at about 450 at dinner to even out my meals so I'm not hungry at weird times. That plus my just over 200 calorie breakfast + cranberry juice for supplement shooting upon waking will add up to right around 1125 per day. Even with all this food, the lunch is still way under 450.

Here's the nutritional info on breakfast + lunch:

NUTRIENT TOTALS:

Abs. Values %RDA/SA

Calories 606.80__cal 30%
Protein 54.39__gm 99% RDA
Total Fat 16.41__gm 25%
Sat. Fat 5.56__gm 28%
Mono. Fat 6.06__gm 21%
Poly. Fat 2.65__gm 40%
Carbohydrate 66.76__gm 22%
Fiber 10.25__gm 34%
Cholesterol 25.91__mg 9%
Vit. A 9365.49__IU 187% RDA
Vit. B6 1.09__mg 68% RDA
Vit. B12 1.35__mcg 68% RDA
Vit. C 238.71__mg 398% RDA
Vit. E 5.57__mg 70% RDA
Thiamine 3.62__mg 329% RDA
Folacin 1002.93__mcg 557% RDA
Riboflavin 2.69__mg 207% RDA
Niacin 12.28__mg 82% RDA
Panto. Acid 4.26__mg 85% SA
Calcium 593.77__mg 49% RDA
Copper 1.73__mg 87% SA
Iron 7.65__mg 51% RDA
Magnesium 253.11__mg 90% RDA
Manganese 1.63__mg 54% SA
Phosphorus 850.83__mg 71% RDA
Potassium 2617.88__mg 131% RDA
Selenium 69.98__mcg 127% RDA
Sodium 3435.05__mg 143% SA
Zinc 5.27__mg 44% RDA
Tyrosine 2.32__gm 241% RDA
Lysine 3.82__gm 530% RDA
Phenylalanine 2.90__gm 302% RDA
Leucine 4.48__gm 467% RDA
Valine 3.49__gm 416% RDA
Methionine 1.27__gm 424% RDA
Cystine 0.89__gm 296% RDA
Tryptophan 0.69__gm 382% RDA
Threonine 2.46__gm 513% RDA
Isoleucine 2.96__gm 411% RDA

P:F:C = 36:40:24

I'll eat some grapefruit and almonds as a pre-gym snack right before I run out this afternoon to work out. The evening's dinner will probably have another tablespoon of brewers yeast, some more calcium sources, more fat and protein of course, and whatever veggies I feel like. Perhaps some mushrooms for Panto Acid, whatever that is. I know, I know, it's a B vitamin.

I do love playing with my DWIDP. Unembarassed geekiness... no wonder I am a reader of Technology Review.

Here's something annoying: I've been switching to all-organic dairy, since I want to avoid the hormones in non-organic fed cow products. But I can find no organic non-fat fruit yogurt (though I can find plain) and no organic non-fat cotttage cheese. I settled for lowfat, figuring that lowfat would be better than non-organic, considering the very low saturated fat content of my diet. But how irksome!

Looking forward to trying out some Stoneyfield Farms organic fruit yogurt, and a new flavor: vanilla maple! Reminds me of Vermont, but in a good way. Speaking of Vermont, I was crossing the street to leave Whole Foods this morning, and a car with a Vermont license plate stopped to let me scurry by. A good sign, I thought. Redemption is all around.

Or maybe it's just the chamomile.

Posted by april at 10:29 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Dinner With Mom

My mother came over last night for dinner, and here's what I made:

salad with mixed baby greens, red peppers, mixed Greek olives, and balsamic vinegarette

green bean "pasta" (that's when you use a bed of green beans as though they were pasta) with fire-roasted tomatoes and Quorn grounds combined to form a "meat" sauce

I had almonds and a CR quesadilla for dessert because I had so many calories left. My mom had hazelnuts. We both drank herbal tea: chamomile for me, peach for her.

Here's my whole day:

Breakfast:
Same as always

Lunch 1:
Cream of Leek Soup
104 g grapefruit

Lunch 2:
cup of cottage cheese with flax oil and Treet
62 g olives

Dinner:
See above.

Here's the crunch:

NUTRIENT TOTALS:

Abs. Values %RDA/SA

Calories 1123.55__cal 56%
Protein 97.49__gm 177% RDA
Total Fat 36.51__gm 56%
Sat. Fat 7.15__gm 36%
Mono. Fat 15.16__gm 52%
Poly. Fat 8.33__gm 125%
Carbohydrate 113.66__gm 38%
Fiber 24.12__gm 80%
Cholesterol 64.83__mg 22%
Vit. A 8297.92__IU 166% RDA
Vit. B6 1.27__mg 80% RDA
Vit. B12 2.80__mcg 140% RDA
Vit. C 247.64__mg 413% RDA
Vit. E 8.83__mg 110% RDA
Thiamine 0.67__mg 61% RDA
Folacin 267.23__mcg 148% RDA
Riboflavin 2.29__mg 176% RDA
Niacin 6.79__mg 45% RDA
Panto. Acid 3.29__mg 66% SA
Calcium 1370.32__mg 114% RDA
Copper 1.33__mg 67% SA
Iron 13.31__mg 89% RDA
Magnesium 249.23__mg 89% RDA
Manganese 2.38__mg 79% SA
Phosphorus 843.40__mg 70% RDA
Potassium 2751.41__mg 138% RDA
Selenium 79.41__mcg 144% RDA
Sodium 6785.75__mg 283% SA
Zinc 4.48__mg 37% RDA
Tyrosine 3.21__gm 334% RDA
Lysine 5.27__gm 732% RDA
Phenylalanine 3.93__gm 409% RDA
Leucine 6.57__gm 685% RDA
Valine 4.55__gm 541% RDA
Methionine 2.10__gm 701% RDA
Cystine 1.18__gm 393% RDA
Tryptophan 0.84__gm 465% RDA
Threonine 3.20__gm 667% RDA
Isoleucine 3.99__gm 554% RDA

P:F:C = 35:29:36

Off to take mom to the airport for a business trip, then onward to Whole Foods to restock my supply of the essentials and hopefully pick up some interesting veggies to cook up. I am hoping for heirloom eggplant, and I am inspired by Zeynep's recipe to pick up more leeks. I wonder though if it could be done by sauteeing in something other than oil and adding the oil at the end? I try not to cook in oil so that it doesn't oxidize. Could I sautee in water and then add oil after removing from heat?

Posted by april at 6:26 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 14, 2006

Toccata

I was feeling a bit lethargic and bored this afternoon... it's a rainy day, and I had been cleaning out the basement all morning. I decided to take a walk up to the little coffee shop a few blocks away and I continued my walk in the lovely little neighborhood we live in. It started to drizzle, then it started to pour. I found this more amusing than annoying, since I don't mind getting wet and my cat was most puzzled when Mommy came home looking like a drowned rat. I made myself a cup of cottage cheese with flax oil and Treet and re-warmed my coffee in the microwave. Still feeling blah, I watered my rosemary tree and inspected my CD collection for something soothing to listen to. I picked up my Felix Hell CD, the child prodigy organist I had followed around like a groupie a few years back. "Harry Potter plays the organ," VLC had called him. I thought of skipping the first song, Charles Marie Widor's "Toccata" from some symphony or other, but I didn't hit the fast forward button in time and the familiar notes rung out from my cheap old boom box.

The melancholic fog was blasted away. All of a sudden I saw everything we are doing -- CR, the Mprize, the long term plans for an all-out assault on aging -- not as the day to day struggle to lower calories and find a better source of zinc, not as the endless frustration with a public that thinks "anti-aging" must refer to a face cream -- but as a quiet, subtle prelude to a loud toccata: the psychic noise of millions of people rejuvenated in body and brain. The sound of fear and resignation blasted out by the loud noise of life made new again.

"We're going to make it," I said aloud to myself.

You probably have to hear the piece of music to understand what I am talking about. It's the piece that is played at Duke Chapel every year on Easter to signify Christ's resurrection. It is the piece I always imagined would be the recessional at my ordination, back when I thought I would have an ordination, or at my wedding, back when I thought I would have a wedding. You can not listen to this piece of music and not be certain.

I, for one, will dare to be certain. I am sick of pandering to naysayers who pretend they'll face aging and death with grace and equanimity, and who claim, usually with *no evidence whatsoever* that to attempt to end aging as we know it is a useless pursuit. I am a union organizer, I am a thin woman over thirty -- I am used to believing in what most think is impossible, and living my life accordingly!

Ani de Franco once said, "Everyone harbors a secret hatred for the prettiest girl in the room." Too true... which is why I always attempt to hang out with women who are prettier than myself! But it's also true that everyone harbors a secret or not so secret hatred for the most optimistic person in the room. If you believe that a better future is possible, you'd better be prepared to a) keep your mouth shut or b) have criticism heaped upon your little head. Especially if your vision of the future calls people to act. And what vision of a better world doesn't call others to action? There will be no improvement without change, and change, as we all know, is scary and hard and not nearly as much fun as drinking pinot noir and complaining about everything.

I just sent off an email to the other Mprize volunteers about communications strategy, mentioning a criticism that is frequently leveled at life-extensionists: that we pursue our goals with a religious-like zeal.

So what, say I? I am not one of those people who is ashamed of my religion -- in fact, I am very proud of both of them! And I refuse to be silenced by people who would literally rather die than actually do something about aging!

We can argue about what we should do, or how we should do it. In fact, I simply adore watching my lover argue with people about that subject! But let us never hide behind defeatism masquerading as realism. Our own inaction could damn us to not just failure but actual, literal, physical death. We wouldn't put off going to the hospital if we were coughing up blood: nope, we'd go get some antibiotics and thank our personal gods that we live in the twenty-first century and have such niceties as life-saving drugs. We wouldn't ponder whether or not it was just our time to die. We'd deal with the problem!

No one dies of consumption anymore... but millions of people are dying of over-consumption as they eat themselves to death. And even if all of North America were to instantly adopt CR, it would still only add 20 years by the very most optimistic predictions to our lifespans. We need something better, and the good news is: people are working on something better!

But it's going to take money. And more than anything, it's going to take a change in belief systems... dare I say it, a conversion? We have to decide, as a society, that death at the age of seventy or eighty or ninety of "old age" and its related ailments is no more acceptable than death at 24 in childbirth, or infant mortality due to unclean drinking water, or the plague.

It's so hard to keep sight of the goal of all this work when you're in the middle of a long day and everyone around you a) eats gak b) thinks that aging and death are just a part of life c) shops at Wal-mart. But as I feel my body spring to life in response to my new, harder-core CR practice, as I feel the limitations on my willpower that once seemed immovable falling away, I have a heightened sense of hope. I believe in the power of human beings to improve our own lives, even on days when the only evidence I see of that is in my own life.

Aging is tacky, and it's got to be stopped. Many of the people I care about won't make it. But some will. And the faster we work: the more we donate to the Mprize, the more public attention we bring to the idea that age-reversing biotechnology really is in the foreseeable future, if we're willing to open our eyes and foresee it -- the more people will make it.

Don't just sit there... do something!

Posted by april at 1:37 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Easy "Cream" of Leek Soup

There's a new CR blogger on the block! Check out Amy's CRON Diary!

Amy mentioned in a recent entry that she was playing with some leeks. I happened to have picked up leeks the other day when I stopped by my local Asian produce store in search of a respectable bunch of kale. Today I cooked up my leeks for lunch. Here's my recipe for easy leek soup. You can vary the amount of leeks: I just used what I had from the bunch I purchased.

120 grams bulb section of leeks, thinly sliced
1 cup nonfat plain yogurt
1 cup nonfat chicken or veggie broth
pepper to taste

Bring the broth to a boil in a sauce pan. Add the thinly sliced leeks and allow to boil until soft and translucent. Remove from heat, stir in yogurt. Garnish with pepper, serve immediately. Serves one in a very large bowl or mug, serves two as an addition to a meal.

Yogurt is a great substitute for cream, but be sure to always add it after removing the dish from the heat, otherwise it seems to curdle a bit. To make an extra creamy version, try using part fat-free sour cream.

Here's my nutrition info on the soup. I used my freakish low calorie organic yogurt, so it has fewer calories (75 vs. the usual 110) than regular fat free plain yogurt.

Calories 178.57__cal 9%
Protein 11.39__gm 21% RDA
Total Fat 2.16__gm 3%
Sat. Fat 0.59__gm 3%
Mono. Fat 0.67__gm 2%
Poly. Fat 0.71__gm 11%
Carbohydrate 29.42__gm 10%
Fiber 2.17__gm 7%
Cholesterol 3.88__mg 1%
Vit. A 180.16__IU 4% RDA
Vit. B6 0.36__mg 23% RDA
Vit. B12 0.86__mcg 43% RDA
Vit. C 15.77__mg 26% RDA
Vit. E 1.13__mg 14% RDA
Thiamine 0.15__mg 13% RDA
Folacin 97.31__mcg 54% RDA
Riboflavin 0.40__mg 31% RDA
Niacin 0.93__mg 6% RDA
Panto. Acid 1.10__mg 22% SA
Calcium 359.91__mg 30% RDA
Copper 0.16__mg 8% SA
Iron 2.77__mg 18% RDA
Magnesium 65.75__mg 23% RDA
Manganese 0.60__mg 20% SA
Phosphorus 271.32__mg 23% RDA
Potassium 594.58__mg 30% RDA
Selenium 9.19__mcg 17% RDA
Sodium 2215.31__mg 92% SA
Zinc 1.46__mg 12% RDA
Tyrosine 0.46__gm 48% RDA
Lysine 0.83__gm 115% RDA
Phenylalanine 0.52__gm 55% RDA
Leucine 0.95__gm 99% RDA
Valine 0.74__gm 88% RDA
Methionine 0.26__gm 86% RDA
Cystine 0.11__gm 36% RDA
Tryptophan 0.06__gm 36% RDA
Threonine 0.42__gm 87% RDA
Isoleucine 0.52__gm 72% RDA

Love your leeks!

Posted by april at 12:10 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Every Day

One of my favorite songs by the Dave Matthews Band, which I found recently on a mix tape I made back in 2000. Cheerful song, have you heard it?

I have been listening to it as I drive around in my car, and I frequently think about how doing something EVERY DAY changes your relationship to that activity and to the thing it represents in your life.

For example, I have started to meditate EVERY DAY, no matter what. Even if it's for a short period of time, but for longer and longer periods of time. It's become a part of me, a quiet moment in my day that I count on. And I have become much, much calmer. Inner peace, Zen, all the inadequate words we use for what happens to us when we spend less time fighting with ourselves and more time being ourselves.

My new CR practice is the same way. I thought at first that it would be a huge sacrifice to *not* go out for a big meal once a week. I've enjoyed my restaurant meals: good food, spending time with friends, and feeling free of restrictions on my eating. At first I didn't miss it at all, since I had tons of enthusiasm and was still feeling overfed from the holiday season. But a few times last week I found myself thinking, "I can't wait till this is over and I can go out and eat something crazy!"

The moment seems to have passed. In fact, I have even found 1300 so easy that I am dropping my calories. The constant attention to nutrition and the consistency is convincing my body that it will get what it needs. I am not planning a big dinner out on Feb. 1. Now it will be convenient to be able to occasionally go out to non-calorie counted restaurants and order something healthy but of indeterminate calories. That makes socializing and work easier. But I don't think I'll look at these occasions as a chance to feel free from restrictions, because I am no longer feeling restricted. If anything, I feel much freeer (is that a word? more free?) than I did before. I used to fear my food cravings, and worry that I would never get my total average calories lower because I would eat so much on my seventh day out. My calories stayed low enough, as evidenced by my weight. And my health was certainly excellent: no more getting sick, ever, etc. etc. etc. All the benefits of moderate (if just to the hardcore side of moderate) CR. But this is quite different. Weighing and measuring everything, EVERYDAY, makes CR easier! I am slipping into a lower calorie level with almost no stress... look at last week where my calories kept dripping down when I wasn't really paying attention. EVERY DAY works!

The effects on my mental state of a consistent calorie level are even more remarkable. I really think that with my six days low, one meal out system, I was keeping my body in a feast and famine mentality, and preventing myself from ever really getting accustomed to the low end of the calorie scale. This was an important step in my process, and I still recommend it as a way to transition from an ad lib diet to a CR lifestyle. It's so hard to "give up" too much at once. I had to work the old system until changing didn't feel like "giving up," but rather like embracing a whole new kind of freedom.

All disciplines aim to provide the practitioner with a new level of freedom. I think it's important to choose carefully and for yourself what you want to be free from. Desires are good... I have a great deal of fun with mine. But so many people feel enslaved to desires that don't really serve them: for too much or the wrong kinds of foods, to addictive substances, to wearing unfortunate shoes. We all have our addictions; it's a matter of choosing your own instead of letting them be chosen for you by chemicals, social pressure, or biological programming.

I, for instance, am working at getting addicted to herbal tea. It seems to give me a very similar kick to the feeling I get from red wine, but it has no calories and does no liver damage. It is also cheaper, and since I drink Celestian Seasonings a great deal of the time, I can look at the pretty pictures on the box which I find so charming. I have been rotating between Almond Sunset, Peppermint, Chamomile, and a variety of fruit teas that a co-worker brought into the office. Yum! I am starting to count on my evening cup of tea, and on an afternoon cup at the office. If I am very good, I will reward myself with some True Blueberry tea.

I am also reviving my addiction to working out. I joined a gym as soon as I got home from Canada after the holiday, and I've been every day except one. I've been doing thirty minutes of cardio a day (treadmill, for bone health) and light weight lifting both for bone health and to help me develop the strength I need to carry my cat around for longer periods of time. I love the time at the gym to just think... especially treadmill time.

It's funny how I've spent so much of my adult life feeling guilty for doing anything other than work, ever. Now I spend time in meditation, exercising, and even reading. It all started with CR, and deciding that my own health was worth paying attention to, even if it took ten minutes a day away from my work. My declining health was going to take more time away from my work in the end, so it seemed like a fair trade.

I have decided that I have time to take care of myself, EVERY DAY. It really beats the alternatives.

Posted by april at 7:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 13, 2006

Fighting Broccoli

I am very tired, and just wanted to scribble a quick note before bed time. I glanced at the CR Society email list and saw something about "broccoli fights..." something or other, and decided that The Fighting Broccoli will be the name of a rock band I will some day found. The great thing about life-extension is that you might have time to sing in a band called The Fighting Broccoli.

I had a lovely food day, 1115 total.

Breakfast:
same as always

Lunch:
1 carton apricot mango nonfat yogurt
other half of yesterday's vegetable soup
26 g almonds
134 g grapefruit

Pre-gym snack:
10 g almonds

Dinner:
Soup of veggie broth (nonfat, organic, no salt) with 170 grams brussels sprouts and 1 tablespoon brewers yeast
(quick advertisement for Lewis Labs brand brewers yeast: it really does taste good!)
1 cup cottage cheese, 1 teaspoon flax oil, 1 tablespoon Carolina Treet
90 g grapefruit
62 g olives

Skipped my quotidian glass of wine. I've decided to experiment with taking my calories down to 1150 or below, so the easiest way to do that today was to skip my glass of wine. Substituted chamomile tea.

Here's the crunch:

NUTRIENT TOTALS:

Abs. Values %RDA/SA

Calories 1114.77__cal 56%
Protein 97.22__gm 177% RDA
Total Fat 39.68__gm 61%
Sat. Fat 7.35__gm 37%
Mono. Fat 19.45__gm 67%
Poly. Fat 9.00__gm 135%
Carbohydrate 103.04__gm 34%
Fiber 25.85__gm 86%
Cholesterol 64.69__mg 22%
Vit. A 8543.93__IU 171% RDA
Vit. B6 1.44__mg 90% RDA
Vit. B12 3.43__mcg 172% RDA
Vit. C 243.52__mg 406% RDA
Vit. E 8.32__mg 104% RDA
Thiamine 3.97__mg 361% RDA
Folacin 1190.12__mcg 661% RDA
Riboflavin 3.54__mg 272% RDA
Niacin 13.98__mg 93% RDA
Panto. Acid 6.36__mg 127% SA
Calcium 967.89__mg 81% RDA
Copper 2.04__mg 102% SA
Iron 11.09__mg 74% RDA
Magnesium 336.19__mg 120% RDA
Manganese 1.82__mg 61% SA
Phosphorus 1505.41__mg 125% RDA
Potassium 3148.71__mg 157% RDA
Selenium 119.46__mcg 217% RDA
Sodium 5446.37__mg 227% SA
Zinc 8.60__mg 72% RDA
Tyrosine 5.00__gm 520% RDA
Lysine 7.69__gm 1068% RDA
Phenylalanine 5.66__gm 589% RDA
Leucine 9.58__gm 998% RDA
Valine 6.94__gm 827% RDA
Methionine 2.64__gm 881% RDA
Cystine 1.44__gm 479% RDA
Tryptophan 1.30__gm 723% RDA
Threonine 4.79__gm 998% RDA
Isoleucine 5.97__gm 830% RDA

P:C:F = 35:33:32

Now that's odd. A low carb day?

I am exhausted and now to bed. More philosophy in the morning.

Posted by april at 9:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 12, 2006

Peppered Alito

You know you're way too into cooking when you hear the phrase, "They peppered him..." followed by, "with questions" wafting from your local NPR station and the only thing you can think of is how to properly season the nominee for his confirmation hearings. Perhaps the juice of a fresh lemon with that pepper? Just a dash of curry, or basil? Dried or fresh? Justice sauteed in white wine, peppered and served with fresh cilantro, the way I like to do shrimp?

I was wondering if I was the only one who thought "Judge Alito" sounded a whole lot like "Judge Ito" of the infamous O. J. Simpson trial, so I wrote my college roommate, who has become a very successful lawyer. Sure enough, she kept wondering when they were going to ask the Judge about his handling of the Simpson case. I remember when she sent me a joke about how Judge Ito meant "Little Judge" in Spanish. We were seniors in college at the time. We used to throw dinner parties for ten and dessert parties for forty. We nursed each other through heartbreak and learned how to mince garlic. We created a house salad that had no cucumbers or celery because she hated cucumbers and celery. "Those," she would say, were days." Not "Those were *the* days," because that would imply something spectacularly good about them. No, "Those were days." But still, we had fun. We've continued to be close, finding that our lives weave similar plots on very different stages. She introduced me to raw oysters, that fabulous source of zinc. I've kept her entertained with forwards from the CR Society email lists.

I came home from work and assembled a delicious dinner of vegetable soup with Harvest Hodgepodge (that's carrots, broccoli, water chestnuts, snap peas, red peppers, and onions) and veggie broth. Frozen veggies are just as healthy as fresh, as long as they're frozen with no additives. Trader Joe's are quite pure and often organic. And my veggie broth is made from organic veggies with no salt, so it's good stuff as well. I ate that along with a half cup cottage cheese, a teaspoon of flax oil, and two teaspoons of my one high-salt treat, Carolina Treet. I enjoyed my quotidian glass of wine with dinner.

I counted my calories at just under 1200 today. I'm thinking of going down to around 1200 because 1300 seems too easy. As long as I'm not losing weight too fast, I should be able to take my calories down safely. I'm monitoring my weight carefully, so I know I'm safe on that score. I didn't bother DWIDPing because I ate out at lunch, so while I know the calorie info due to the calorie controlled menu, I can't be sure of the macronutrients or the specific nutrients.

For the record, I do not advocate cooking or eating Supreme Court Justice nominees. However, one does wonder if being appointed to the Supreme Court means the addition of sour cream to one's ingredients... that is what "supreme" means on the Taco Bell menu. I figured this out at the age of approximately 10 when I asked my mom the difference between a burrito and a burrito supreme, and she told me that choice b contained sour cream. Now I know... but does the High Court know?

I can only hope that our new Justice will opt for fat-free sour cream.

Posted by april at 6:48 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Wawa Roast Pork Hoagie, or Guy Who Likes Cats?

Which is hotter? asked a radio ad that I heard on my way into work this morning.

Interesting, I thought. Marketing for Wawa (that's a convenience store here) hoagies aimed at young single women with cats who want to date men who like cats. This is such a complicated marketing strategy that I think I need to make a whole lot more spiritual progress before I can fully understand it and all its implications. In the meantime, I do not care for a Wawa roast pork hoagie, or any other Wawa hoagie, or any other dish with roast pork. Even pre-CR I wasn't into that kind of thing. And while the man of my dreams may not love my cats, he certainly co-exists with them and feeds them when I'm not home. He has even added wheat bran to Kieffer's diet to improve his, uh, digestion. All goes well.

Went out today for my weekly lunch with my boss. This time we hit the Ruby Tuesday, where they have a calorie controlled menu, so he didn't have to watch me weigh my salad. I had the white bean chicken chili (218 calories) and the mashed cauliflower (166 calories), he had the smart eating sirloin with sides of mashed cauliflower and broccoli, no butter. The Smart Eating menu at the RT is actually quite good, and I enjoyed my food. It had been ages since I had a white bean. The mashed cauliflower was good, but not nearly as good as mine, and I'm sure mine is lower calorie. But not bad for restaurant food.

Then we popped by the Starbucks because I needed a new pound of Fair Trade coffee. We got a free tall coffee with that so I'm happily sipping my post-lunch coffee. But now back to work... and home tonight to check on the kefir beasties which have hopefully warmed up enough to eat. After reading our last gas bill, I cut the heat back further, and I hope it's warm enough for the kefir monsters to get excited about food. I wonder if I should wrap them in MR's sweatshirt when I'm not at home, or cuddle with them in the bed at night for warmth? Better yet, could I train Kieffer to sleep on top of the kefir? A twenty pound cat could warm a jug of milk.

Posted by april at 1:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Accidental Zone

Don't tell me, "I told you so." That's almost always annoying. It's sometimes cute, but only under specific circumstances. a) If you're Little MR, and you're right, as you always are, which is why you're my CR Mom or b) If you're Tall MR, who never says "I told you so," even though he frequently could.

If you're neither of these MRs, then I don't want to hear about it.

So I wasn't even trying, but that brownie put me in such a groove of ultimate nutritional satisfaction that I must have just stayed in the Zone all day. Macronutrients du jour: 30:40:30. I am not making that up. That's what it was.

After my quotidian breakfast, I enjoyed a lunch of Sherm's brownie, 4 Morning Star Farms vegetarian sausages, and some carefully measured pickles and pepperocinis. After my dinner guests cancelled, I proceeded to eat a simple dinner of romaine lettuce with fat free salad dressing and 47 grams of Greek olives (purchased for the Greek salad for guests,) 1 CR quesadilla, 85 g steamed broccoli with just a dash of half-salt, 90 calories Quorn tenders with 1 tbsp Treet, and my quotidian glass of wine. I was still under calories and hadn't had my flax oil, so I added an evening snack of 1/2 cup cottage cheese with 1 teaspoon flax oil and 1 tablespoon Carolina Treet. 1272 calories, perfect Zone macronutrient ratios.

I could have even done without the late evening snack of cottage cheese, etc., but I didn't want to go too far under calories for fear of setting off extreme hunger tomorrow. In other times, I might have gone under and made up for it tomorrow, but I've decided to stay consistently under 1300, so consistent I will be!

Here's the crunch:
Calories 1271.89__cal 64%
Protein 94.95__gm 173% RDA
Total Fat 42.69__gm 66%
Sat. Fat 11.15__gm 56%
Mono. Fat 10.56__gm 37%
Poly. Fat 14.64__gm 220%
Carbohydrate 96.41__gm 32%
Fiber 24.77__gm 83%
Cholesterol 79.08__mg 26%
Vit. A 9209.91__IU 184% RDA
Vit. B6 1.61__mg 100% RDA
Vit. B12 1.59__mcg 80% RDA
Vit. C 169.05__mg 282% RDA
Vit. E 10.18__mg 127% RDA
Thiamine 2.25__mg 205% RDA
Folacin 400.96__mcg 223% RDA
Riboflavin 2.26__mg 174% RDA
Niacin 13.90__mg 93% RDA
Panto. Acid 3.41__mg 68% SA
Calcium 1021.18__mg 85% RDA
Copper 1.06__mg 53% SA
Iron 14.20__mg 95% RDA
Magnesium 325.67__mg 116% RDA
Manganese 6.39__mg 213% SA
Phosphorus 980.41__mg 82% RDA
Potassium 2760.44__mg 138% RDA
Selenium 77.40__mcg 141% RDA
Sodium 4493.62__mg 187% SA
Zinc 5.34__mg 44% RDA
Tyrosine 5.44__gm 566% RDA
Lysine 11.27__gm 1565% RDA
Phenylalanine 6.86__gm 715% RDA
Leucine 12.14__gm 1265% RDA
Valine 7.99__gm 951% RDA
Methionine 3.78__gm 1261% RDA
Cystine 2.15__gm 715% RDA
Tryptophan 1.76__gm 978% RDA
Threonine 6.44__gm 1341% RDA
Isoleucine 7.31__gm 1015% RDA

Ah, the Zone. Bye bye Pritikin. Bye bye Ornish. Bye bye sugar cravings and late night gumdrops. Hello, olives. Hello flax oil. Hello soft skin in the dead of winter and blissfully happy contemplation of the wonders of hotel conference rooms (the free tea! the little pens! the charming free note pad! the comfy chairs, designed for people twice my size!) at executive board meetings.

Well, the chamomile helps too.

Posted by april at 5:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 11, 2006

Free Chamomile, Brownie, Dinner Guest Cancelled, Confusion

Executive board meeting for the union at the Conshohocken Marriott. You know what that means? Free tea!!! The "coffee tea and decaf" set up includes seven varieties of tea bags! English Breakfast, Mango, Chamomile, Afternoon Darjeeling, Green, Decaffienated, and I'm forgetting one but there was another. Yippie! I had about four cups of tea over the course of the meeting and took the other bags home. We've already paid for them... I know because I have often set up these events myself. I love chamomile tea. I don't know if it's just that I heard an ad on my local NPR show about an experimental anti-anxiety drug based on chamomile, but I felt so calm all day. Quite amazing. A long board meeting and I was still feeling calm, cool and collected. I observed the soft light through the windows on the faces of the other participants. I contemplated the free pen and notepad at my place. I rejoiced in the beauty of hotel meeting set up. I was clearly drugged out on chamomile. I've gotta get more. I'm sure MR is going to tell me it's toxic.

I didn't want to pack a complicated lunch since I knew everyone else would be chowing down at the hotel catered buffet, so I packed one of Sherm's brownies (260 calories, 26% of the RDA of everything!) and 160 calories of veggie sausage, Morning Star Farms brand. The brownie was somehow still frozen by lunch time, but I prevailed upon a hotel employee to microwave it. I ate it with a fork, like a giant piece of meat. Delicious! I also helped myself to pickles and pepperocinis, weighed on my baby scale, from the deli tray. My nurse leader friend who has changed his diet in reaction to a health crisis ate a giant salad for lunch -- yea!!! Most everyone else ate deli sandwiches and cream of mushroom soup. I averted my eyes and ate my brownie. Oh so yummy, so satisfying! I felt good all afternoon.

I was planning to have guests for dinner, as I wrote last time, but shortly after I arrived home I was informed that one of my guests was very ill, so I am alone. I think I'll tell you what I was going to cook just so you can enjoy the thought of it:

Appetizers:
CR quesadillas with salsa verde

Salad:
Greek salad of romaine, kale, eggwhite "feta" (that's eggwhites marinated in red wine vinegar, olive oil and oregano), red pepper and Greek olives

Entree:
Green bean "pasta" with Quorn Grounds "meat" sauce: that's french cut Green beans served as though they were pasta with Quorn grounds marinated in tomato sauce, garlic and red wine

Side Dish:
Steamed broccoli with flax oil and juice of fresh lemon

Dessert:
half a Sherm's brownie (there are a lot of them in the freezer, and MR would want me to spread the Gospel of the Sherm brownie)

Wouldn't that have been delicious? Oh well. We will reschedule.

Now I am going to use the time I would have spent entertaining my guests to do some work for both the Mprize and the CR Society. I've volunteered to re-draft the CR Society "Quick Start Guide," (I am using so many quotation marks in this entry that it's starting to look like one of Patrick T.'s posts!) and I need to respond to some email Aubrey de Grey sent a few days ago. Create gourmet CR cuisine... end aging as we know it... reform America's health care system... liberate large amounts of hotel tea... just another day in the life of the tiny one.

Posted by april at 3:47 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Bad Cat Eats No Fat

That rhymes. My cat actually eats everything... except cat grass, he doesn't care for that.

No, these last few days I have been the bad cat. My fat percentages per day have been in the low twenties, and there's a very predictable result to that: sugar cravings.

When I was a lowfat vegan, I used to have horrible sugar cravings. I ate a lot of grapefruit, which was good, but I frequently found myself eating hard candies and jujubees. I knew those were not good, but I thought they were better than eating fat.

Now I am wiser, and I carry a small bag of almonds with me at all times. So why have I not been eating them? I keep getting scared about hitting my calorie goal and still being hungry, so I'm eating too many high volume, low fat foods and not enough high fat foods to feel satisfied and keep the sugar cravings at bay. There's nothing wrong with low fat, high volume foods: that describes most vegetables! And veggies are exactly what I've been eating, along with lowfat and nonfat dairy, protein sources of various non-fat kinds, and some grapefruits. But fat is satisfying, and without enough of it, I reach for the gumdrops.

Yesterday I had my usual breakfast of 1 cup of eggwhites with one teaspoon flax oil and 2 tablespoons of flax oil. I also had a half cup cottage cheese with a tablespoon Carolina Treet. So I was very full until lunch. Lunch was a yogurt salad with red peppers (that's just red peppers diced into a cup of organic nonfat plain yogurt) and four vegetarian sausage links, the Morning Star Farms kind, 160 calories total. I didn't want to eat too much as I was having company for dinner and wanted to save calories.

My old friend VLC came over after work, and another friend joined us for a drink. We had pinot noir and CR quesadillas (she loved the low carb, whole wheat, no transfat tortilla!) and chatted about VLC's engagement, work gossip, etc. Then our other friend had to leave to take his son to a basketball game, so VLC and I hung out in the kitchen while I assembled our dinner. A giant kale salad with salsa verde, Quorn with Carolina Treet and flax oil, and broccoli with brewers yeast. VLC had missed my cooking, and I enjoyed having an audience that is appreciative and "gets it!"

I really should have had some almonds, but I didn't... seemed like too much energy to get them out and weigh them while I was enjoying sitting on the couch with VLC, sipping wine and watching Kieffer sit on her lap (he loves Aunt VLC), so I didn't. I walked VLC to the train at around 8 and came home to catch up on the email, etc. I was sitting next to our gumdrop tree.

These gumdrops are rather ancient. We don't know how old, but they're not exactly fresh. But I was having such a sugar craving that I ate a few of them anyway. Not many, and not over my calorie goal, but still... yuck! Gumdrops from the gumdrop tree? That's a low fat induced sugar craving. Why not grapefruit???

Now a few gumdrops (fewer than 30 calories) at the end of a nutritionally perfect day is not going to kill me instantly... though I do wonder if those things stay in the system, gummily attached to internal organs, for seven years, the way they used to say would happen if you swallowed chewing gum. But I take the sugar craving as a sign that I've got to get serious about fulfilling my deep inner needs for unsaturated fats. Perhaps I'll even get closer to Zoning my meals... note that breakfast was closer than ever to Zoned.

I remember how in the beginning of CR, it was a major struggle to get enough protein. I'd slurp whey protein shakes while scrambling eggwhites in an effort to jam protein into my body. Now getting protein is easy. Perhaps I'll get that way with fat sources too.

Tonight I'm having our friend who took those pics for Technology Review and his girlfriend over. She's a dietician... you know how much I love dieticians. They're both very healthy eater types, so I am really looking forward to the event.

Posted by april at 6:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 10, 2006

Freedom from Iceberg Lettuce as the Main Course

That was a pop up ad for Weight Watchers that I saw this morning as I checked my computer. I generally approve of Weight Watchers: I practically grew up on their foods because my mom was a WW leader, and then thirty years later my mom lost seventy pounds (three and a half Kieffers!) on Weight Watchers, slowly and healthily over two years. While there are people who do it wrong -- using all their Points on junk food -- that's actually against the program. You're supposed to eat a certain number of servings of protein, vegetables, fruits, milk or milk substitutes, etc. If you do it according to the program, it's healthy. I just find straight up calorie counting and doing my nutrition on software easier.

Yesterday was a very busy day at work. In addition to rescuing a salad, I ran back and forth to a hospital we're working with twice, and I ended up running home at midday because I had left my cell phone by the bed. Our graphic designer lives around the corner from me, so I stopped by home on my way to her house to pick up a draft. It was about 11 am, and I realized that I wasn't going to be able to eat the lunch I had packed for lunch until approx. 2 pm, so I had an early mini-lunch of 1 cup of cottage cheese and a teaspoon of flax oil, tablespoon of Carolina Treet, and 89 grams of pink grapefruit. Then back to the hospital.

Eventually I ended up back at the office, and after giving a presentation at a meeting I finally ate my lunch of red pepper and yogurt salad, steamed broccoli with a tablespoon of brewers yeast, a whole bunch of almonds (22.8 g) and a nonfat fruit yogurt (strawberry). Lots of water. Big late lunch. When I finally got home at night, carrying the rescued salad, I wasn't all that hungry, so I measured the salad and ate it with Trader Joe's salsa and red wine vinegar. Glass of wine. Also had a fat free cheddar single -- tons of calcium, though a bit oddly textured. I meant to eat another fifty calories of almonds, but I was tired, got to talking with a nurse on the phone, and forgot all about it. That means I'm low on fat for the day -- 21% -- and low on calories at 1231. I did have my two teaspoons of flax oil though and quite a few almonds at lunch. How funny that my dinner did turn out to be almost all lettuce. Rather filling stuff, lettuce. Not as good as celery, of course, but I was quite stuffed after consuming two large plates of rescued greens. I'm sure it would have been different though if I had not eaten such a big late lunch. I was almost to my calorie limit for the day before dinner even started.

Here's the crunch. Very good today.

NUTRIENT TOTALS:

Abs. Values %RDA/SA

Calories 1230.79__cal 62%
Protein 104.29__gm 190% RDA
Total Fat 29.05__gm 45%
Sat. Fat 9.33__gm 47%
Mono. Fat 10.34__gm 36%
Poly. Fat 5.87__gm 88%
Carbohydrate 116.30__gm 39%
Fiber 30.60__gm 102%
Cholesterol 62.96__mg 21%
Vit. A 21216.34__IU 424% RDA
Vit. B6 2.61__mg 163% RDA
Vit. B12 2.78__mcg 139% RDA
Vit. C 840.78__mg 1401% RDA
Vit. E 16.17__mg 202% RDA
Thiamine 4.21__mg 383% RDA
Folacin 1655.90__mcg 920% RDA
Riboflavin 3.78__mg 290% RDA
Niacin 14.61__mg 97% RDA
Panto. Acid 6.69__mg 134% SA
Calcium 1352.87__mg 113% RDA
Copper 1.97__mg 98% SA
Iron 12.36__mg 82% RDA
Magnesium 373.64__mg 133% RDA
Manganese 4.16__mg 139% SA
Phosphorus 1541.74__mg 128% RDA
Potassium 4710.34__mg 236% RDA
Selenium 100.62__mcg 183% RDA
Sodium 2278.45__mg 95% SA
Zinc 8.60__mg 72% RDA
Tyrosine 6.08__gm 633% RDA
Lysine 11.92__gm 1656% RDA
Phenylalanine 7.29__gm 759% RDA
Leucine 12.98__gm 1352% RDA
Valine 8.99__gm 1070% RDA
Methionine 3.89__gm 1296% RDA
Cystine 1.99__gm 664% RDA
Tryptophan 1.84__gm 1020% RDA
Threonine 6.93__gm 1444% RDA
Isoleucine 8.01__gm 1113% RDA

P:C:F = 34:45:21

Doesn't that sat fat number look wrong? The only thing I'm eating with any saturated fat whatsoever is lowfat cottage cheese, 1 cup. All of my other fat is un. I do enter the fruit yogurt, which is nonfat, as lowfat, since DWIDP doesn't have an entry for nonfat fruit yogurt. Maybe I should change that. That number just doesn't look right to me.

I seem to end up at 21 - 25% fat if I don't absolutely stress myself out about it. Years of lowfat programming, or just trying to get the most volume out of fewer calories? I prefer low fat foods. All of my favorite foods are low or no fat, of things I cook and eat myself. I still don't find that oil adds flavor, unless it's flax oil, and I'm only supposed to have that twice a day. How funny that a lot of people don't care for flax but it's the only oil I really have a use for. Olive is fine, I guess, but I treat it more like a supplement than a food. "Gotta take my oil..." and I pour it on something. I do genuinely enjoy almonds, and I find that eating a big bunch of them (weighed, of course!) when I'm feeling very hungry holds off the hunger until meal time. No wonder people eat handfulls of them!

Time to get ready for work. Another busy day, and then VLC is coming over. I'm making her favorite foods to celebrate her engagement: Quorn tenders with bell peppers and Carolina Treet and flax oil, brewers yeast soup, and red wine. Yum!!!

Posted by april at 5:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 9, 2006

What's It Gonna Take?

I had a rather sobering experience today. Well, not nearly as sobering as the times I've gone out with my old friends and discovered that a 102 pound girl can't drink nearly as much as the 137 pound girl could. But that's a story for another day.

One of the nurse leaders of the union for which I am honored to work as the director of organizing popped in for a meeting. I hadn't seen him since his heart surgery. He hadn't had a full blown MI (that's nurse talk for heart attack) but his coronary arteries were 99% blocked, and it's a miracle that he went to the doctor in time, had a cath, got surgery, and is alive.

He had lost 40 pounds. He had been 265 pounds before the heart attack, but he is a very tall, powerfully built man so he didn't seem fat, just normal for a man of his age. Amazing how we come to accept overweight as normal, isn't it? His doctor had told him that he had to a) quit smoking and b) lose weight. He threw out his pipes and cigars immediately. He changed his diet. He eats salmon instead of steak now; he watches his portion sizes to make sure no piece of meat is larger than the palm of his hand; he's met and made friends with the salad. He exercises on the treadmill that had for years served as a clothes drying rack.

He is lucky to be alive.

He is back at work, taking care of critically ill patients in one of the roughest urban hospitals on the east coast. He is back at the union office, fighting for justice for his colleagues and his patients.

This remarkable man -- a man with an incredible sense of humor, one of the warmest people I have ever met -- almost died at a tragic young age. I'm not sure how old he is, but I'd guess late fifties. I know he's not 62 or over because he would have taken the early retirement package the nurses at his hospital in their last contract. He's decided to change his life, after the doctors and nurses and other caregivers saved his life. It's a miracle that it's not too late for him.

One of his co-workers isn't so lucky. She's alive, all right, but she had a full blow MI (that's a heart attack, for those of you who were skimming) and she'll never come back to work. She's over 300 pouunds, she has bad knees and walks with assistance. Her career is over. She's in her fifties. She's an unbelievably funny woman: tough, hard-edged, dedicated to her co-workers, a tireless fighter for justice at the bedside and the bargaining table. She has retired from her union office because she is too sick to come back to work.

I am furious. It is all I can do to keep from screaming at everyone around me, "What's it gonna take????"

A heart attack? An illness so severe that it robs you of your career or the activities you're passionate about? Losing the ability to walk? What's it gonna take?

Not being able to make it up the stairs without feeling winded? Hating how you look in the mirror? Feeling sick so often that you forget what it felt like to feel well?

What's it gonna take?

I'm out of patience. Without the calming influence of my Orange One, I much more quickly become a tower of rage. Our staff had ordered a catered lunch for a meeting of about thirty nurses at our office and the only leftover, of course, was a gorgeous green salad, a spring mix with as many pretty colors of lettuce as you can imagine. It sat all afternoon on our conference table with no takers, so I said I'd take it home. But apparently our administrative manager didn't hear me because when I began to pack to go home the salad was nowhere to be found. I located it in the trash. I started screaming, "Who threw out the salad???"

Luckily, a) I am one two directors b) I wasn't screaming very loud, so chances are the only person who heard me was my executive director, who is like a brother to me and used to my food-related rage and c) the staff knows that while I am almost always a mild-mannered, cheerful person, I really have a thing about nutriton.

I managed to rescue almost all the salad, since thank heaven the trash bag was new and pristine and the salad had for the most part remained in its clean bowl, and I had a delicious plate of it with my dinner. But it just seemed to prove my point: these nurses are killing themselves with their diets, and the salad is in the trash. I can't stand it anymore. I am sick of the complaining. Change, or shut the (&(*)9 up.

Change or die.

Mary had some great advice for people who want to lose weight and be healthy. Anyone can lose weight, but you have to accept that calories count. One of my readers had a story to illustrate this point. She and her husband have both been successfully losing weight, gradually and healthfully, following a Zone diet. This week, she lost but her husband gained. Then he looked at the bread he had purchased for his work sandwiches. Not the 90 calorie per two slices Weight Watcher bread, but 270 calories per two slices! So he gained weight! A good lesson learned. I think that many people are successful losing weight once they shift their focus to CR because they actually pay attention to calories! No gimmicks, no fads: just reducing calories and eating more nutritious foods. No more hiding behind "slow metabolism" or bad genes or "I'm too busy to eat healthy." Just a decision to stop living a life that's killing you quick.

People I care about are dying, and not just because there isn't enough research being done into real cures for aging. They're dying of their own choices. They're dying of a lack of information: there's tons of misinformation out there on healthy eating. But the fact is, they know it's not healthy to smoke cigars and eat ribs and chicken fingers and pizza and steaks and huge pasta dishes with creamy sauces. They may not know as much as I now know about nutrition, but they know enough to do better.

It makes me so sad to imagine a world where so many of my friends will have died of slow self-inflicted suicide. Yet I rejoice in the fact that I have made new friends who care enough to fight for their own lives. And that my family and my Orange One's family are both working hard at being healthier. And that I have a partner with whom to travel the years as we watch a future unfold that only Ray Kurzweil can predict.

I'm grateful for the life of my friend the nurse who made it back from a near-death experience to take care of his patients, play with his grandchildren, and go to a union meeting. I'm grateful for every positive change made by the people I love. I'm grateful for the example of those brave men and women who stand up to social pressure and eat healthy, take their supplements, and don't just dream of a better world: they fight to make it a reality. I'm inspired every day to fight for my own life and the lives of others. That's why I organize nurses, and that's why I'm a member of the Mprize Three Hundred. That's why I'm a CR practitioner and a member of the CR Society.

As that actress who played Blair in "The Facts of Life" when I was a kid would say on the Loreal hair color commercials, "I'm worth it."

So are you. So are we all.

So shut up and eat your vegetables.

Posted by april at 7:53 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Bad Kale

I stopped by the grocery store yesterday after meeting my mom for coffee (thanks again to MR's dad and step-mother!) to pick up various necessities like cat liter, and I needed to grab some kale. I was horrified by what I confronted in the produce aisle: tiny sprigs of kale, barely even leaves on stems. Unreal! How dare they call that kale? The majestic green, that which turns my orange one orange (the beta carotene is masked by the chlorophyll) is disgraced, disrespected. I turned on my heel and left the store in disgust.

Well, after paying for my cat liter.

So instead of kale for lunch, I have an Indian-ish yogurt concoction with 178 grams of red pepper diced into a cup of nonfat plain organic yogurt, with garlic powder and a dash of half salt and some chipoltle Tabasco. Here's a mystery: the organic yogurt we bought has 75 cals per cup, whereas the non-organic always has 110. How does that work??? I also have 170 g broccoli with a tablespoon of brewers yeast on top, safely contained in one of MR's jars so I can microwave it come lunch time, and 146 grams of celery. I threw a fruit yogurt into my bag just to be safe, as I have some errands to run after work and don't want to be starving. I also have my bag of almonds and my cute as a button (are buttons cute? if so, why?) baby scale so I can add fat appropriately.

I'm going to have to go to Whole Foods soon... I am running out of everything, including the all important Lewis Labs brewers yeast. And now that I know that the organic yogurt has 75 calories per cup, I am even more determined to convert my dairy sources to organic.

Posted by april at 7:14 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

January 8, 2006

CR and the Single Girl

As MR is away, I find myself making simple, quick dishes and eating like a single CR'd girl once again. Today:

Pre-breakfast supplement wash:
25 cals unsweetened cranberry juice

Breakfast:
1 cup eggwhites with 1 tsp flax oil and 1 tbsp Carolina Treet
1 tbsp wheat bran, soaked and drained

Lunch:
128 g kale with 4 tablespoons salsa verde
1/2 cup cottage cheese
3 CR quesadillas
10.4 g almonds
2 small gumdrops (5.8 g -- yes, I weighed them! and they're in DWIDP!)

Dinner:
1 cup cottage cheese
1 teaspoon flax oil
85 g broccoli with one tablespoon brewers yeast
17 g almonds
1 glass wine -- 6 oz

Here's the nutritional crunch:

NUTRIENT TOTALS:

Abs. Values %RDA/SA

Calories 1279.03__cal 64%
Protein 115.49__gm 210% RDA
Total Fat 40.19__gm 62%
Sat. Fat 10.58__gm 53%
Mono. Fat 12.34__gm 43%
Poly. Fat 5.54__gm 83%
Carbohydrate 97.08__gm 32%
Fiber 15.26__gm 51%
Cholesterol 70.84__mg 24%
Vit. A 13043.61__IU 261% RDA
Vit. B6 1.34__mg 83% RDA
Vit. B12 2.82__mcg 141% RDA
Vit. C 268.94__mg 448% RDA
Vit. E 5.74__mg 72% RDA
Thiamine 3.62__mg 329% RDA
Folacin 967.91__mcg 538% RDA
Riboflavin 3.03__mg 233% RDA
Niacin 11.64__mg 78% RDA
Panto. Acid 4.26__mg 85% SA
Calcium 2022.23__mg 169% RDA
Copper 1.98__mg 99% SA
Iron 8.85__mg 59% RDA
Magnesium 264.71__mg 95% RDA
Manganese 2.91__mg 97% SA
Phosphorus 1180.02__mg 98% RDA
Potassium 2468.21__mg 123% RDA
Selenium 96.92__mcg 176% RDA
Sodium 2470.91__mg 103% SA
Zinc 6.06__mg 51% RDA
Tyrosine 5.66__gm 590% RDA
Lysine 10.28__gm 1428% RDA
Phenylalanine 6.62__gm 690% RDA
Leucine 11.76__gm 1225% RDA
Valine 7.75__gm 923% RDA
Methionine 3.50__gm 1168% RDA
Cystine 1.74__gm 582% RDA
Tryptophan 1.62__gm 902% RDA
Threonine 6.02__gm 1254% RDA
Isoleucine 7.16__gm 994% RDA

I am becoming a calcium monster. To answer Tami's question in brief: I do think calcium is important, and I also supplement with Vitamin D and some bone building supplements. I get tons of calcium from food, and I am just lucky that some of my favorite foods like yogurt and cottage cheese are calcium rich. More on calcium soon, but I do suggest that you try to get as much as possible from food, and from organic dairy if you're worried about hormones in milk products (which would be wise to be worried about if you eat a lot of dairy.)

As usual, I am a bit low on zinc. This is okay because I supplement with a new product from AOR called Vegetarian Booster that has all the supplements a vegetarian needs to balance out her diet. I used to have to take creatine, taurine, choline and carnitine and zinc all separately, and it took up a lot of space in my pill boxes. But no more, thanks to AOR! Zinc isn't something that you have to get from food cause it's not hanging out with a bunch of phytochemicals that might be valuable for their own sakes, apart from the specific substance. So I don't have to eat an oyster a day (though I'd really like to) because I can supplement effectively. My iron number is a bit low too, but when I do bloodwork and get my iron checked it comes out on the low end of normal, which is exactly where we want it to be, as excess iron can be harmful. I should eat a mushroom tomorrow to bring up the Panto acid. It's a B vitamin, I'm told, and I know it's found in mushrooms.

I am really missing having someone to cook for, so it's a good thing that at least twice this week I will be entertaining CR friendly friends! Good old VLC is coming over Tuesday and I am cooking a fancy dinner to celebrate her engagement! Then later in the week one of my readers and his girlfriend, who is a dietician, are coming over! I'm very excited! My mom also will be visiting at some point this week. Lots of good cooking occasions.

Off to do the dinner dishes, pet the cat, and veg out for awhile before starting yet another incredibly busy week!

Posted by april at 7:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

National Measure Your Wine Day

Ever since I started carrying my baby measuring cup around (we have this adoreable Good Grips brand two ounce measuring cup with a little pouring spout. We loved it so much that we bought a mate for it, and now the mate is living with MR in Canada so the one at home is lonely. I can't leave it at home alone all the time, so I take it with me everywhere I go. Like a small dog.) I've discovered that "wine creep" is no joke. It has often been observed that portion sizes have grown dramatically, and wine is a good example. The average wine pour I've measured at restaurants is eight ounces! That's a lot more than the four ounce pour that used to be considered a wine glass, or even a six ounce pour that would be a generous glass to drink through an entire meal. If you weren't measuring, you might drink two glasses of wine and end up with 16 ounces, all the while thinking you were consuming between eight and twelve total. For those of us with no sense of spatial relationships, the measuring cup is an essential tool.

I'd like for all of you readers, if you are brave enough, to join me in my experiment. Go to your favorite bar or restaurant that serves wine. Bring a measuring cup with fractions of ounces marked (another plug for Good Grips -- they have tons of these in all sizes.) Order a glass of wine but with an extra empty glass. After your glass is poured, pour it into your measuring cup (you may have to do this in stages, hence the need for the extra empty glass) and record your results. Leave a comment with your findings and where you live. If you have the energy, try this at several bars.

No wonder wine is so expensive out! They're killing a bottle in less than three glasses! I wonder if, as people have gotten fatter, their alcohol tolerance has increased, so they feel like they need more wine to get the same relaxed buzz that a four ounce glass provides to a thinner person. The extra wine adds more and more calories, making the customers fatter and fatter, then they want more wine. Pretty soon we'll be seeing 20 ounce mega-wine glasses, just like the giant sodas you can buy at convenience stores. Bars will out do each other with their giant wine glasses, filled to the brim. At this rate, it won't be long till the bartender hands you a giant wine glass and a straw.

Posted by april at 6:51 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 7, 2006

I'll Eat It Like A Steak

said the panhandler as I gave him my M2 Brownie, nutritionally engineered to have 10 percent of the RDA of every essential nutrient per one hundred calories. When people on the street in Philly ask me for money to buy food, I always ask them if they would like the food I am carrying if I in fact am carrying food. This gentleman was very excited about the brownie, and tore into it immediately. That was satisfying... even more satisfying than eating the delicious brownie would have been. "Did you make it?" he asked. "No, but my boyfriend did," I said. Close enough.

The next panhandler I ran into asked me for money to buy something to eat, and I asked if he would like my yogurt. He asked what kind it was, and I said strawberry, though we discovered upon inspection that it was raspberry. He said he'd love it, and I even had a plastic spoon in my Hello Kitty backpack, so he was all set. "It's fruit on the bottom, so you have to stir," I said. "Yeah, I know what to do with it," he said, and a conversation ensued about how we first figured out that you have to stir the yogurt.

In short, I gave away my entire dinner. I had been to a discussion group meeting with a bunch of friends where someone brought a huge veggie tray, and with the aid of my trusty scale I measured and ate 300 grams of celery and 28 grams of grape tomatoes. I wasn't that hungry aftewards, and so I didn't mind giving away my dinner to people who clearly needed the nutrition more than I did. I am always ranting about how horrible it is when people feed gak to the poor (MR's Mom told us about a radio contest in Canada where people competed against each other to see who would donate the most Kraft macaroni and cheese dinners to a food bank. Ugh! Why dump food on poor people that will give them heart disease, type two diabetes, and no nutrients whatsoever?) so I'm glad I was able to provide some decent food for people who asked for help.

Then I went to meet my college roommate for a drink, and we went to my favorite wine bar called Tria. We had a bottle of red of which I drank a carefully measured twelve ounces (that's less than two glasses... I've been measuring restaurant pours, and they average eight ounces!) and she had some appetizers, but I had none as they would have been impossible to calculate. We had a fascinating talk about self-discipline. She has decided to give up TV, an old addiction of hers, for the New Year. She says she is not even tempted. The trick, we agreed, is in deciding what you are going to do, then doing it. Making the decision is hard. You have to face all the advantages but the disadvantages as well. Once you've firmly committed yourself, follow-through is easy.

Needless to say, when I got home I was hungry! So I had a cup of cottage cheese with a tablespoon full of Carolina Treet BBQ sauce. I ended the day about 150 low on calories, but I'm all full and don't want to stuff myself before bed.

Off to sleep now, with visions of calcium dancing in my head.

Posted by april at 11:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Kale Induced Euphoria

I just had one of my favorite lunches: a giant plate of kale with 1 cup of lowfat cottage cheese, topped with salsa verde and a teaspoon of flax oil. 145 grams of kale. That's a lot of kale. It takes awhile to chew.

Not much time to write today... running out the door to a bunch of events with friends. More tomorrow!

Posted by april at 12:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 6, 2006

Beastie Sitting

MR makes kefir, a yogurt-like drink that's filled with tons of pro-biotic goodies, with a little kefir-making floater of small organisms that eat milk and then ferment it or something to turn it into kefir. It's similar to the process of making yogurt, and the little beasties that make the kefir are very delicate: they have to be fed once a week, stored just right in the fridge, and talked to very softly, else they might die. So while we were away, my mother came over to the house and gave the beasties their once a week feeding. Then she took them to her house to ferment, since they have to hang out in a warm-ish place for 18 - 24 hours while they eat their milk. They stayed at Mom's place until Wednesday night, when my mother met me at the neighborhood Starbucks as I was leaving work to give them back to me so I could take them home and feed them. When she put them on the table, I asked how they were doing. She said they seemed fine, but how could you tell, really?

"Yes, these are our pets," I said to a fellow Starbucks patron.

So I took them home, fed them fresh organic nonfat milk, and put them in their little place upstairs where it's warmer to eat for 24 hours. Then last night I went to put them back in fresh milk and in the fridge to sleep for another week until it's time to eat again. The milk seemed to have fermented nicely, and the little monsters went back into their clean jar without a fight. I hope they're happy. It seems like a nice life... sleep for a week, eat for 24 hours, sleep for a week. And you can't say it's low on meaning and purpose, since they are providing the Orange One with probiotics. They have a very service-oriented job, if you think about it.

Today is a busy day at work. I had to be out the door early so I ate breakfast a bit before six. I was very hungry by 10 so I ate a snack of 10.2 grams almonds with a cup of strawberry nonfat yogurt. I love the fruit on the bottom yogurt. It gives one such a sense of agency to stir one's own yogurts. Just like the women in the fifties who wouldn't by the cake mixes with everything included, just add water. They didn't feel like they were *doing* enough, so the cake mix companines started making the mixes so you add eggs and oil and water. Then it felt like cooking.

For lunch I have broccoli with brewers yeast and cottage cheese. Yum! My trusty measuring cup is in my bag. Then tonight, to the art museum with my mom for art, music, and pinot noir. My trusty measuring cup will accompany me, and I doubt anyone will even notice.

Posted by april at 10:12 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 5, 2006

This Is Not As Traumatic As A Strike

I said to my boss as I got out my mini-scale to weigh the various elements of my salad at our favorite restaurant.

We had decided to go out for lunch to discuss some important items, and while we had first planned to go to Ruby Tuesday's, which has a calorie-controlled menu, as we were walking down the stairs he suggested we go to another favorite local restaurant that has a salad bar. I said that would be fine, as long as he didn't mind that I used my baby scale to weigh all my food. He's used to my eccentricties, but this was almost too much.

"Can't you just guess?" he said.

"No," said I. "I've decided to be exact and under 1300 for a month, and I'm not going to mess that up. That's what self-discipline is all about. If you decide to do something and then you don't do it, it messes with your character."

That was the right button to push... this dude is all about self-discipline, so he understood my perspective once I put it that way.

I proceeded to weigh my salad. I also asked the waitress to check out what kind of cottage cheese is on the salad bar: full fat, 1%, 2%, or what. She came back with the info that it's 1% fat, and she was also gracious enough to bring me a measuring cup. So I ate a salad of lettuce, grape tomatoes, cucumbers, chickpeas, a cup of cottage cheese, black olives, baby corns, and fresh honeydew for dessert. Measured the whole darned thing. 501 calories! P:C:F = 33:50:17. And that was a little smaller than the salad I would have normally eaten: I know I get more than just a cup of cottage cheese when I'm not weighing, and I often eat much more fruit than the small serving of honeydew only I consumed. So it is no suprise that when I go out to eat, even when I'm eating relatively healthy foods like salad veggies and cottage cheese, I can end up with way more calories than I eat when I am carefully measuring everything. This is an important lesson, and the exact kind of information that I am trying to gain by doing this one month of weighing absolutely everything experiment.

The other interesting thing was the relatively little attention generated or discomfort caused by my little weighing operation. I told the waitress I was involved in a medical experiment (which is true in so far as it goes!) and she asked, "You're not on a diet, are you?" When I assurred her that I am not trying to lose weight (while weight-loss may be a side-effect of CR, it is not the goal!) she was perfectly happy and found a measuring cup for me with no problem. The other restaurant patrons didn't even notice (though it probably helped that I did the actual weighing at my table, not at the salad bar.) My boss was a bit frightened at first, but I just talked to him the way I talk to my giant tabby cat when he's upset: "You're all right. It's okay. You're all right," and he calmed right down, much faster than the cat usually does. As I pointed out, watching me weigh all my food is a lot less traumatic than leading a nurses' strike, and he's done that many times, so how hard can it be to witness the weighing of chickpeas?

Posted by april at 2:06 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Fat Free Singles

Sounds like an ad for the CR Society Conference.

In my brief trip back into CR bachelorette life while my Orange One is out of town, I seem to be relying more and more on the CR'd "grilled cheese," the Trader Joe's no transfats low carb whole wheat tortilla with a fat free cheddar single. It's not the best of CR cuisine, to be sure, but it's quick, easy, and yummy. I got home at about seven and wanted to eat something quick... didn't feel like cooking or even chopping anything. So I ate the remainder of the bag of Trader Joe's Harvest Hodgepodge with a teaspoon of flax oil, and then I made three CR quesadillas/grilled cheeses. Each one has 80 calories (50 in the tortilla, 30 in the cheese) and 15% of the RDA of calcium. I am getting A LOT of calcium!

Here's the crunch for yesterday:

Food List : fl0000.fls
DATE : 01/04/06
Num. Foods : 13
Food #1 : Egg, white, raw, fresh 1 cup
Food #2 : Flax oil 1 teaspoon
Food #3 : Vegetables, mixed, frozen, 156 calories
Food #4 : Soup, vegetable broth cubes, dehydrated, dry 1 cube
Food #5 : Brewer's Yeast 2 tablespoons
Food #6 : Yogurt, fruit, low fat, 11 grams protein per 8 ounce 130 cals
Food #7 : Nuts, almonds, dried, blanched 9.9 g
Food #8 : Nuts, almonds, dried, unblanched 10 g
Food #9 : Nuts, almonds, dried, unblanched 17 g
Food #10 : Alcoholic beverage, wine, table, red 162.8 g
Food #11 : low carb tortilla 3
Food #12 : fat free cheddar singles 3
Food #13 : Flax oil 1 teaspoon

NUTRIENT TOTALS:

Abs. Values %RDA/SA

Calories 1225.22__cal 61%
Protein 92.60__gm 168% RDA
Total Fat 37.92__gm 58%
Sat. Fat 8.15__gm 41%
Mono. Fat 13.98__gm 48%
Poly. Fat 6.02__gm 90%
Carbohydrate 117.39__gm 39%
Fiber 23.25__gm 78%
Cholesterol 51.11__mg 17%
Vit. A 11394.87__IU 228% RDA
Vit. B6 1.73__mg 108% RDA
Vit. B12 1.17__mcg 59% RDA
Vit. C 9.67__mg 16% RDA
Vit. E 6.31__mg 79% RDA
Thiamine 9.14__mg 831% RDA
Folacin 2247.72__mcg 1249% RDA
Riboflavin 4.19__mg 323% RDA
Niacin 26.04__mg 174% RDA
Panto. Acid 8.18__mg 164% SA
Calcium 1922.94__mg 160% RDA
Copper 3.70__mg 185% SA
Iron 13.85__mg 92% RDA
Magnesium 365.06__mg 130% RDA
Manganese 3.04__mg 101% SA
Phosphorus 1522.83__mg 127% RDA
Potassium 2593.24__mg 130% RDA
Selenium 91.15__mcg 166% RDA
Sodium 2020.68__mg 84% SA
Zinc 10.14__mg 85% RDA
Tyrosine 4.20__gm 438% RDA
Lysine 8.30__gm 1153% RDA
Phenylalanine 5.22__gm 544% RDA
Leucine 8.90__gm 927% RDA
Valine 6.42__gm 764% RDA
Methionine 2.32__gm 773% RDA
Cystine 1.39__gm 463% RDA
Tryptophan 1.40__gm 780% RDA
Threonine 5.08__gm 1058% RDA
Isoleucine 5.66__gm 787% RDA

AND CHECK THIS OUT:

Protein: 30%
Carb: 42%
Fat: 28%

Almost Zoned... over the course of the day but still, pet me on the head!

(No, pet ME on the head, says my giant tabby purring next to me!)

That was all the almonds... I entered them separately since I had them in three servings. I had 17 grams worth before I left the office so I wouldn't get wiggy with hunger as I did my errands on the way home. That really works... nuts satisfy. But don't just shovel handfulls into your mouth... never eat nuts without controlling the portions, or else you're throwing your CR out the window.

Now before you start picking on me for my CR'd grilled cheese dinner, I'd like to point out that my nutrition absolutely rocks. And how many people do you know who eat an entire bag of frozen vegetables every day? Who knows, maybe I'll cook a "real" dinner tonight. But I'm doing pretty well with the devoting 10 minutes total to food preparation a day plan. If I can monitor every single calorie in 10 minutes a day, then anyone can do this. With the assistance, of course, of the baby portable scale.

Posted by april at 6:16 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 4, 2006

Embracing the Geek Within

I had two opportunities today to embrace my own inner geek. Well, I had many, but bringing along the baby scale to work presented me with new and unusual opportunities to be a big geek.

First, as I finished my lunch, I got out my scale to measure my dessert almonds. All at the lunch table were curious as I began to weigh almond by almond to determine the average weight. 1.5 grams, in case you're curious.

Then this afternoon I took out my two staff organizers for drinks to talk about some projects we have coming up in the next few weeks. I took along the baby scale and a light paper cup so that I could measure the exact grammage of my glass of red wine. 162.8 grams! They were very polite as I executed this operation, even commending me on pouring the wine from the wine glass into the paper cup and back again without spilling. 162.8 grams of wine is 117 calories... quite a bit! Glad I measured it instead of guestimating. It's funny how once you make the jump of saying, "I am going to weigh and measure all my food and drink," it just comes naturally and doesn't seem all that odd. Especially with the help of the itsy bitsy baby scale. Best Christmas present ever!

Posted by april at 8:37 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

CR In A Hurry

People are always asking about how to do CR when you don't have much time. Since we're a nation of people who think we're too busy, it seems like an important question to address. This morning I got to address it very directly in my own personal CR life.

I'm beginning to think there's something to the getting up at the same time no matter what cure for insomnia, because now that MR is in Canada and I slept in a bit on Sunday and Monday ("sleeping in," for us, is anytime past 5:30 am) I have had trouble sleeping again. Grrrr. I thought I'd gotten over the insomnia. I didn't fall asleep until after ten last night, but I set my alarm for 5:30 to make sure that I got bck on track, having learned my lesson.

But alas, little miss meow, aka Philomena the hungry-in-the-middle-of-the-night calico, decided to howl to wake the dead at 2 am. It was clear there there would be no rest until the cat was placated, so I got up and fed her (the background is that the cat is old and sick so I give her whatever she wants.) "What happened to 'good kitties?'" I thought, remember how before MR moved in, I'd tell the cats that they had to transform into "good kitties" by the time the Orange arrived. And they were fairly good for quite some time. Usually even if I feed Philo in the middle of the night I can go back to sleep. But this time I couldn't get back to sleep post cat-feeding (Philo went back to sleep with no problem, purring as I petted her soft and furry tummy) so I got up and answered some email. I finally got back to sleep at around 4 am, and sure enough, when my alarm went off on radio I just kept sleeping with NPR drizzling into my subconscious. Until 7!!! Ugh!!! And today I had an early meeting, so I had to get out the door by 8. And I had to make lunch!

I got up, took my supplements with my shot of cranberry juice (non-sweetened) mixed with Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper. Then I jumped in the shower after changing the cat boxes (some chores can't wait.) Then I looked at the clock to realize that I had twenty minutes before I had to run out the door. And I had not yet found anything to wear, eaten breakfast, or made lunch. Yikes! I scrambled up my traditional cup of eggwhites and poured on a teaspoon of flax oil, didn't even take time to measure out two tablespoons of salsa. Realizing that I had to think fast if I was to create a lunch I could take to work, I pulled down two of MR's glass jars from the top shelf (this requried standing on my toes and jumping a bit... probably not a great idea when you're handling glass but I was in a hurry), and while boiling a cube of no salt organic veggie broth into a cup of water in the microwave, I measured a tablespoon of brewers yeast into each of two jars, and then opened a package of Trader Joe's Harvest Hodgepodge, a giant veggie mix with peppers, broccoli, carrots, waterchestnuts, and all sorts of Asian like things such as baby corn. I crammed as much of the veggie mix as I could into the two jars, then poured the boiling broth over them, which made room for more veggies. After cramming in as much hodgepodge as I could, I drizzled a few drops of low sodium soy sauce on top, grabbed two nonfat yogurt cartons out of the fridge, the entire bag of almonds and the baby scale, sealed the jars, and walked out the door with all in my lunch bag. Success! I now have a large, nutritious, veggie filled lunch, all made in minutes! There's a little of the hodgepodge left in the bag but I'll finish it tonight so I can just count the calories for one whole bag.

Pre-CR, I would have used the running late in the morning as an excuse to go out and eat an unhealthy lunch. Earlier in CR, I might have used the running late as an excuse to go out for a healthier lunch. But now that I'm doing this 1300 thing, I can't eat anything I don't measure, which cuts out almost (though not quite all) restaurant food. I'm also trying to save money, so I wanted to eat the food I already own rather than buying overpriced restaurant food. What do people do without frozen veggies? I have no idea. They are a staple of my CR existence.

In the midst of my insomnia last night, I pondered what people without Trader Joe's and Whole Foods do. Some have excellent local markets, but I remember how Liz said she had no good stores anywhere near her in rural Louisiana. I remember when I was on the road organizing in the South, there would be no good Whole Foods type store for miles and miles. And Trader Joe's is so cheap... while some of their food is gak, you can get a whole lot of good, often organic, usually healthy stuff there without killing your whole budget. It occurred to me that Trader Joe's should send out missionaries to areas of the country where there is no store. They could set up little tent revivals where people could eat Harvest Hodgepodge and Very Cherry Berry Blend. I can see it now... "May the low-carb tortilla be with you," "And also with you." Amen.

I tried to interest my staff in taking the average weight of an almond, but no one seemed to get it. How I miss VLC... she would have loved playing with the baby scale. She loved Quorn, and flax oil, and Carolina Treet. She would listen to me quote MR for hours on end... well, often she was trapped in a car on the PA Turnpike with me so she had to, but still, she was nice about it. My new staff are quite competent, pleasant and charming, but alas, no interest at all in CR. So I huddle with my little space heater since they think it's too hot when I jack the heat up the way VLC and I used to do. And I'll weigh my almonds by myself. At least when MR gets home I'll have someone to join me in playing with the baby scale... I wonder what the average weight of a hazelnut is...

Oh, did I mention that my early morning meeting was delayed? As I drove to the Starbucks where we were supposed to meet (my boss and I often meet at Starbucks as we are both coffee fiends) he called to say he was running fifteen minutes late. So I was on time and he was late. Oh well... I feel like I get some karmic credit for making it out the door on time.

Out the door on time with CR'd lunch. I'll be so happy to open my hodgepodge soup when lunchtime rolls around. I'm also feeling much less hungry today... yesterday was so nutrient packed that I'm probably feeling satisfied on the cellular level.

Posted by april at 7:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 3, 2006

Craving What's Good For You

Well my plans to come home and cook a fancy dinner changed when I was struck by an uncontrollable craving for kale. I must have been missing my breakfast salad for lunch because all of a sudden I was consumed by the desire for those curly green leaves. After meeting my mother for coffee at the neighborhood Starbucks, where I enjoyed a cup of decaf courtesy of my Starbucks gift card from FoMR and SMoMR, I stopped by the grocery store to pick up the all important cat liter, distilled water for the coffee maker, and kale. By this time I was very, very hungry, so I carefully drove home, trying not to let my lust for kale overwhelm my need to arrive at the house safely.

While I prepared my kale feast, I ate another cup of the amazing Trader Joe's nonfat cottage cheese. It's amazing because a) it tastes almost as good as lowfat b) It has 140 calories per cup, as opposed to 160 calories per cup of every other brand I've ever seen. How do they do it? I know not. But I enjoyed my cup of cottage cheese with a teaspoon of flax oil and a tablespoon of Carolina Treet. Then I ate 72 grams of kale, raw, including more stem than MR would consume, topped with three tablespoons salsa verde and some red wine vinegar, as well as a low carb tortilla with a fat free cheddar single planted firmly in the middle (my nod to CR bachelorette living whilst the Orange is in Canada... I can have a low carb tortilla every night if I want to!) Planned to finish off the meal with some more almonds, but am not sure how many because DWIDP crapped out on me and won't re-open my file so I have to re-calculate the remaining calories as fat and then plug that back in to find my destination almond grammage.

In the meantime, here's the crunch du jour. Pretty good, though I don't really need this much dairy and I'm about to drown in calcium and protein. Funny that my favorite foods would be high protein, high calcium creations after all those years as a low fat vegan.

Food List : 1-3-06.fls
DATE : 01/03/06
Num. Foods : 18
Food #1 : Egg, white, raw, fresh 1 cup
Food #2 : Cheese, cottage, nonfat, uncreamed, dry, large or small curd 1 cup
Food #3 : Flax oil 2 teaspoons
Food #4 : Treet 1 tablespoon
Food #5 : Salsa, med. chunky 4 tablespoons
Food #6 : Yogurt, fruit, low fat, 11 grams protein per 8 ounce 130 cals
Food #7 : Brussels sprouts, raw 142 g
Food #8 : Celery, raw 149 g
Food #9 : Nuts, almonds, dried, unblanched 19 g
Food #10 : Brewer's Yeast 1 tablespoon
Food #11 : Yogurt, fruit, low fat, 10 grams protein per 8 ounce 190 cals
Food #12 : Cheese, cottage, nonfat, uncreamed, dry, large or small curd 140
Food #13 : Treet 1 tablespoon
Food #14 : low carb tortilla 1
Food #15 : fat free cheddar singles 1
Food #16 : Kale, raw 72 g
Food #17 : Salsa, med. chunky 3 tablespoons
Food #18 : Nuts, almonds, dried, unblanched ???

NUTRIENT TOTALS:

Abs. Values %RDA/SA

Calories 1283.56__cal 64%
Protein 128.17__gm 233% RDA
Total Fat 32.26__gm 50%
Sat. Fat 6.01__gm 30%
Mono. Fat 13.73__gm 48%
Poly. Fat 6.04__gm 91%
Carbohydrate 128.23__gm 43%
Fiber 16.19__gm 54%
Cholesterol 58.32__mg 19%
Vit. A 8236.25__IU 165% RDA
Vit. B6 1.57__mg 98% RDA
Vit. B12 4.74__mcg 237% RDA
Vit. C 240.56__mg 401% RDA
Vit. E 4.70__mg 59% RDA
Thiamine 3.77__mg 343% RDA
Folacin 1029.00__mcg 572% RDA
Riboflavin 3.45__mg 266% RDA
Niacin 12.15__mg 81% RDA
Panto. Acid 5.66__mg 113% SA
Calcium 1469.21__mg 122% RDA
Copper 2.16__mg 108% SA
Iron 9.47__mg 63% RDA
Magnesium 306.05__mg 109% RDA
Manganese 2.13__mg 71% SA
Phosphorus 1464.36__mg 122% RDA
Potassium 3181.19__mg 159% RDA
Selenium 109.24__mcg 199% RDA
Sodium 1535.95__mg 64% SA
Zinc 8.86__mg 74% RDA
Tyrosine 5.72__gm 596% RDA
Lysine 8.92__gm 1239% RDA
Phenylalanine 6.36__gm 662% RDA
Leucine 11.00__gm 1146% RDA
Valine 7.59__gm 904% RDA
Methionine 3.18__gm 1061% RDA
Cystine 1.51__gm 502% RDA
Tryptophan 1.37__gm 762% RDA
Threonine 5.27__gm 1099% RDA
Isoleucine 6.69__gm 929% RDA

It was lowfat and high protein: 40% protein, I think (though who knows now cause DWIDP shut down my flie -- grrr!) and 37% carb so that leaves... 22% fat? Almost Kurzweilian... must Zone better tomorrow!

Can everyone take a quick look at the sat fat number? Does that seem off to you? I did eat enter lowfat yogurt twice, since one time I ate nonfat but DWIDP doesn't have nonfat fruit yogurt as a listing, so I entered lowfat fruit yogurt and put the measurement in as calories. That organic lowfat Trader Joe's caramel yogurt had 190! I discovered this *after* eating it. Sure was good though... and apparently, I can afford the calories in my 1300 calorie a day diet. The stuff really is delicious though.

You may have noticed the absence of my quotidian serving of wine. I decided to skip it tonight because I was very hungry and felt like saving all my calories for solid food. I doubt that I'm in danger of becoming resveratrol-deficient any time in the near future, so don't worry too much about that!

Now I'm home and relaxing on the couch with a giant tabby. He had much excitement today when the electricians came over to re-wire our house! Yes, my landlady decided to bite the bullet and give the place the re-wire it rather desperately needed. Perhaps I shall have lights from now on! Kieffer's grandmother came over to babysit him so that he wouldn't a) run out the house b) eat the electricians. He had a lovely day reading The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil while sitting on my mom's feet. She was reading the book, and Kieffer was of much help.

I think it's a good sign that I'm craving healthy foods... I have for a long time, but as I become more consistent in my calories, the kale and cauliflower cravings (never come between a girl and her cauliflower!) have intensified to the level at which I used to crave a bagel and cream cheese. I feel like keeping my calories consistent is giving my body the chance to adjust to a lower calorie level without craving high carb, sugary foods, or their little saturated fat friends. This is a good thing.

Meanwhile, I'll cook something nice for lunch tomorrow. One of my dear readers has requested quick, easy, healthy, Zoned lunch suggestions that can be portable for work. I'd love to hear from readers on this topic... send us your recipes!

Posted by april at 8:48 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

The Case of the Missing Almonds

I'm doing well with my 1300 program... was a bit under yesterday, so this morning I was very hungry and in addition to my eggwhites and flax oil I ate a cup of nonfat cottage cheese (140) with a tablespoon of Carolina Treet (20.) Then I packed my lunch (as MR is in Canada, I have to pack my own lunch... poor me!!!) of brussels sprouts soup with a tablespoon of brewers yeast, two yogurts (blueberry and caramel) and 21 grams of almonds, in addition to 149 grams of celery. I drank my white tea this morning (as MR is in Canada, I have to make my own tea, but luckily his parents gave us some wonderful white tea in teabags so I don't have to suffer too much!) and ate my celery just before a staff meeting that threatened to go into my lunch time.

What I didn't anticipate was just how far into my lunch time the staff meeting would go. I like to lunch at 12 noon, and usually my work schedule can accomodate that. But this meeting droned on and on... in spite of my boss' insistence that other staff give the "readers' digest version, please" of their reports. My own report was concise as always: one thing you learn in ten years of organizing is how to get to the point and be done with it. But as the clock approached 1 pm I was starting to feel like knawing on my legal pad, so I went to the kitchen to grab my ziplock baggie of carefully measured almonds. Took them back to the meeting and began choping away happily, congratulating myself on eating a healthy fat.

Then my co-worker picked up the bag and helped himself to three almonds. Hmmmm, thought I. Those were carefully weighed and measured, and almonds are such high calorie food that a little goes a long way. I knew exactly where I was calorie-wise, and now I didn't. It was way too late to retrieve the almonds... my co-worker had already chewed and swallowed them, and even if he hadn't, I'm not the kind of person who would take almonds out of a friend's hand.

So what to do now? I'm working hard at tracking every morsel, and I'm not tempted to eat any extra morsels. But what about when someone else eats calories that were meant for me?

I'm thinking I may go home and weigh a few almonds on the new accurate to the .1 gram scale that MR's parents gave him for Christmas (that I am borrowing since my home scale is without batteries and I have been using his for yes, six months) and take the average, then figure out how many calories three average almonds would have and subtract that from my previous calculations. I am such a geek. At least no one could accuse me of lacking seriouness of purpose. Besides, it's really fun to play with the baby scale. Day before yesterday my mom and I took gumdrops from our gumdrop tree and weighed gumdrop after gumdrop to determine the average weight of a gumdrop. 2.8 grams, for those of you who are longing to know.

Tonight I think I will make myself a nice dinner... I've been living a bit like a CR bachelorette, eating cottage cheese, frozen veggies (yes, I thaw and heat them first) brewers yeast soup, and eggwhites. Last night I had a CR quesadilla with a low carb tortilla and a fat free cheddar single. But I'm missing the act of cooking, and just because my Orange is far away doesn't mean that I can't cook. I'll just whip up something nice for myself! Perhaps I'll create a new recipe... something easy and fun and warm for a cold winter's night.

Posted by april at 2:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 2, 2006

But Save Ourselves When All Portents Point to Fail

I am a huge fan of a show on my local NPR station, WHYY, called "Voices in the Family." The host is Dan Gottilieb, a local psychologist (or is he a psychiatrist? I really should know...) and while my best friend and I have been known to kill an entire lunch hour making fun of his views on what makes a person emotionally "healthy," I really enjoy the show. He often has insightful guests, and he has one of those soothing radio voices that even my giant howling tabby cat finds restful.

Today, appropriate for New Year's, his show was on how and why and if people change. His guest talked about people she sees in her psychology private practice who want to change, and they surveyed psychologists and psychiatrists about whether or not they thought change was really possible.

Their prognotstications, I'd have to say, were rather dim. They were very negative about the potential for real change, and a considerable portion of the show was dedicated to blaming the urge to change, the feeling that we are imperfect as we currently are, for the discomfort felt by so many people in our society.

"Hmmmm..." thought I. Anyone who has lived with me can attest to the fact that I frequently think, "Hmmmm..." This is a giant step up from my cats, who frequently think, and articulate, "MEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!" This is tons of fun at two am, I assure you.

Real change, lasting change, is hard. I have meditated a great deal upon the fact that most of the successful CR practitioners I know came to CR through a crisis of some sort. For the president of the CR Society, Brian Delaney, author of The Longevity Diet, it was a crisis around severe food poisoning that made him contemplate his own mortality. For another long term CR practitioner I know well, it was a health crisis brought on by malnutrition that he misdiagnosed at the time as aging.

For me, it was an intersection of crises. At 29 I weighed more than I ever had in my life. You've heard the stories: feeling winded upon climbing the two flights of stairs to my office; seeing dark circles under my eyes for the first time; trading in my size fours for size eights. It was also a spiritual crisis: realizing that for ten years, my entire adult life since graduating from college, I had put my work as a union organizer so far ahead of any other aspect of my life that I had neglected my health in order to care for the caregivers, the nurses I organize.

Real, lasting change takes commitment. And a genuine knowledge that the alternatives are much, much worse. I knew that it would be worse to gain weight and feel terrible than it would be to turn down the nachos at the Mexican restaurant. There is nothing more powerful than a firm decision.

Our culture stigmatizes self-discipline. The inner power to resist a "treat" is considered odd, un-American, even pathological. And yet, why should we eat things that don't nourish our bodies? I often do so in order to fit seamlessly into social situations... I am such a Southerner and such a girl that I fear offending my hosts more than I fear a gruesome death of aging. Yet I admire my Orange One, who eats exactly what he thinks he should, no matter what. Erica Jong once wrote that we are attracted to men because we want to be like them, and this is certainly the case for me and my Orange... I seek to imitate many of his qualities, from his legendary self-discipline to the orange color of his skin. Who wouldn't want to be a highly self-disciplined carrot? I ask you.

These waters are hard to navigate: the needs of family and friends, the constraints of budget, the time pressure that we all face as we try to get through the day, make a living, and provide for our families. I put on my make up at traffic lights and say my prayers in the shower. And I don't even have kids... I don't know how you moms do it! If I wore a hat, it would be off to you. These choices aren't easy, and one of my main purposes in writing the blog is to provide you with options, short cuts, and just plain clever ideas to solve your "I have to have a healthy dinner on the table in five minutes" problems. I hope it's working. Nothing makes me happier than seeing my readers take control and get healthy. One of my readers has lost twenty pounds since January, and you can bet I'm thrilled. We're all in this together... and isn't it time that we women helped each other?

It was almost two years ago now that I began the process of saving myself, and it has been riddled with mistakes, disasters, some comical, some just sad. I am so far from perfect that I often despair of being even passable. But I remind myself that I am on the right track, I am trying, I am not content to live with the ill-health and destruction of my vitality that an ad lib diet would cause. I have a choice, and I make it every day. The most effective method I've ever found of making change is to make a firm decision and stick to it. Every day, I decide how many calories I will eat, in what form, and I stick to it. This month, I'm eating no more than 1300 a day. There is no "if" once a decision is made... as Yoda so memorably said, "Do or do not do: there is no 'try.'"

I believe that human beings are capable of change. My work as a union organizer is predicated upon the belief that people can claim the power that is theirs as workers and make positive changes for themselves and their families and those they serve. As a CR practitioner, I believe that I have control over what I put into my body, and that through my eating and lifestyle I can exercise some control over my aging process. And as a member of the Mprize Three Hundred, I believe that my small but steady contribution, when combined with the small and steady contributions of many like-minded people, will eventually provide the inspiration that scientists and those who fund them need to study the real causes and cures of aging.

I've dealt with a lot of what I can only call "survivor's guilt" as I have gone about the process of taking control of my life and health. Contemplating a world in which my friends who refuse to take such steps will no longer be alive is hard. I am constantly, abidingly grateful for the presence of my Orange One in my life -- a fellow-traveller to the coming age -- and more importantly, someone who enjoys my cooking! But I am saddened by the plight of those who still struggle with the demons of addiction: to cigarettes, alcohol, overeating, etc. I've always thought that we're all addicted to something, but better to have it be cruciferous vegetables and coffee and some plant that will slowly kill you like tobacco.

Like the widow in Suzanne Vega's "Widow's Walk," I saved myself when all portents pointed to fail. I had to make a decision: and in doing so, I quoted a Tracy Chapman song that influenced so much of my young life:

Leave tonight or live and die this way.

There comes a point when you have to make a choice. You can be a prisoner of your appetites, the needs of others, and convenience. Or you can fight your way free. It's not simple, it's time-consuming and hard and you might be hungry or frustrated or feel weird when everyone else is behaving differently. But really... how do you want to feel in twenty years? I decided that I could not go on the way I was, so I changed. The inspiration of a strange orange Canadian man's writing carried me forward as I changed my life and gained a level of health I had never known. Eventually, I lost forty pounds, took the boy home, and learned how to make an excellent eggwhite frittatta. This is my fairy tale; yours will be different.

But don't stop believing in your own fairy tale. It's New Year's -- let's indulge the part of ourselves that believes in change! If I can do it anyone can. Let 2006 be the year when you become the person you know you really are... wouldn't that be fun?

I prefer to live in a universe filled with possibilities. If it weren't for believing in possibilities, I would never have pursued my Orange One, would never have changed my diet in hopes of slowing my own aging process, and would never have bothered putting my giant cat on a calorie-restricted feeding plan. Change takes a leap of faith, but really, what else are you going to do?

I'm off to make something with brussels sprouts... go eat something cruciferous, would you?

Posted by april at 3:07 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

January 1, 2006

A Quick Review

It's a new year, and time for a quick review of why and how we do CR.

So far, calorie restriction is the only method of retarding biological aging that's been proven in mammals. While no long term studies have been completed in humans (it takes quite awhile to see if humans live longer, as we have relatively long lifespans to begin with) several are underway now, including one being done by Dr. Luigi Fontana at Washington University in St. Louis. We do know that calorie restriction *with adequate nutrition* lowers risk of heart diesase, type 2 diabetes, and strokes. Anecdotally, it increases energy, lowers needs for sleep, improves moods, decreases anxiety, and washes your dishes.

The key is adequate nutrition... you can't just eat less and expect to see positive health effects or increased lifespan. Most of us CR practitioners take it one step farther and pursue optimal nutrition, using nutritional software to analyze our diets and make sure we're getting everything we need in the most healthful form. I use Dr. Walford's Interactive Diet Planner, or "DWIDP," which you can order here.

There are as many ways to do CR as there are CR practitioners. Some are vegetarians, some eat lean meat and fish, some are vegans. Some eat one meal a day, others eat three or five times a day. Some focus on organics, some don't worry about it. I am mostly vegetarian, but I eat lean chicken, turkey, and shellfish from time to time. I eat three meals a day, about six hours apart. I eat about 1300 calories a day. Up until this month, I was strictly adhering to 1200 calories for six days of the week, and then going out for a non-calorie counted meal with friends or colleagues once a week, bringing up my average. This month, I'm experimenting with keeping a consistent calorie level for 31 days to see what effect this has on my hunger, mood stability, etc. Should be fun! CR practitioners tend to enjoy self-experimentation, and are always playing around with new tweaks to our diets.

I love to cook, and you can see some of my food and the person I cook for most here in an article in Technology Review on a CRON Christmas! My quotidian diet consists of fairly predictable breakfasts and lunches, with a lot more variety at dinner, when I cook a meal most days and sit down to eat with my also CR'd partner.

Here's what a sort of "normal" eating day for me looks like:

Breakfast:
1 cup eggwhites, scrambled, topped with 1 teaspoon flax oil and 2 tablespoons salsa, black coffee 175 calories

Lunch:
Salad of mustard greens, arugula, kale, napa cabbage, bell peppers, tomatoes, topped with 1 teaspoon olive oil, 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar, and two tablespoons salsa mixed with 1 cup plain non-fat yogurt and 50 calories eggwhites (cubed and marinated in the salad dressing.) This is a smaller version of the huge salad that my partner eats for breakfast: he packs my lunch for me and sends me off to work with tupperwares and a thermos of fancy Japanese green tea that I drink mid-morning.
10 grams almonds 351 calories

Dinner:
Sometimes a vegetable soup with brewers yeast and cruciferous veggies plus a cup of cottage cheese, sometimes a vegetable dish like my caulliflower soup along with a protein source such as eggwhites, shrimp, scallops, or lowfat or nonfat dairy. Dinner varies a lot as it's the meal where I spend the most time cooking and enjoy exercising some creativity. Lately we've enjoyed eating all sorts of variations on frittattas made with eggwhites and non-fat plain yogurt, including just about any vegetable you can think of. In fall I made a lot of pumpkin dishes, including a curried pumpkin soup with lemon. In summer I eat as many fresh ripe tomatoes as I can find in everything from homemade gazpachzo to "pasta" sauces that I pour over veggies or eggwhites instead of using empty calorie-laden pastas.

Tonight I'm going over to my mother's to watch the 60 Minutes episode featuring Aubrey de Grey, and I'm planning to do something fun with the fresh organic brussels sprouts I bought at Trader Joe's yesterday.
I try to get some protein, carb, and unsaturated fat at every meal, adhering very vaguely to Zone ratios, though I generally come up a little below 30% fat for the day. Pre-CR, I spent years as an Ornish-worshipping lowfat vegan, and it's still a struggle to include fat as anything more than an afterthought in my diet, but I know it's healthy so I do. I can tell the difference in how I feel: my skin, which was always dry before, now remains soft even in the dead of winter. I fell much less hungry now that I eat more protein and fat than I did in my high-carb, no fat days. I also feel calmer, an almost Zen-like effect that many CR practitioners report.

A few basics about me:

I'm 31 years old and I've been practicing CR for just under two years. Pre-CR, I weighed 137 pounds at 5 feet 2 inches. Now I weigh an average of 102... from 99 to 104, depending on time of the month and what I ate the night before. I live with my partner who is also CR'd and my two cats, who are not.

If you'd like more info about CR, please check out the CR Society website. And if you'd like to do something to combat aging more effectively than CR or any lifestyle intervention ever could, donate to the Mprize and encourage scientists to find the real cure for age related disease and disability!

Have a healthy, happy New Year!

Posted by april at 2:11 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

How To Start CR: A Guide for Girls (and some guys too)

This is a repost of an entry I made back in April... I thought it might be helpful to those who are just discovering CR and the blog!

[DISCLAIMER: I am not a medical professional, a scientist, or anyone who has every handled a live mouse. This advice is based purely on my own experience and what I have learned from others in the CR Society and what has helped my friends work CR into their lifestyles. There is no one way to do CR -- you have to find what works for you. But if you're a girl and you're starting out, this might help you get on the right track.]

I get a lot of questions about how to start CR, and I've come up with a basic set of principles that helped me, but that took me for darned ever to figure out. So maybe if I write them down, you can use them as a shortcut, adapting and fitting them into your lifestyle so that your very own CR practice evolves over time. This advice will be of the most use to women, especially women who start CR with a few pounds to lose, and who are serious about life-extension. But if you're just a guy who likes eggwhites, this might work for you too.

BEFORE YOU TRY TO START CR:

1. Buy yourself some nutritional software. You can get it at http://www.walford.com, at http://www.nutribase.com, for free at http://www.nutritiondata.com. You can also get some useful info at http://www.myfoodbuddy.com, including calorie counts. Use the nutritional software to figure out (honestly!) how many calories you're eating now.

2. Buy yourself a good food scale, accurate to the gram, and a good people scale. Some people say that they don't need to track their calories anymore, or that they track by body weight. I suppose this is possible, but these people have for the most part been practicing CR for a very long time, or they eat almost the same thing every day. Remember, it's total calories, not weight, not BMI, not macronutrient ratios, that seem to cause the mammals to live longer when on CR. So you can't just exercise to make up for extra calories and expect to get any life extension benefits. Lots of people are naturally skinny -- that doesn't mean they'll live to be over 100 looking fabulous. Lots of marathon runners die of heart attacks. So track your calories as carefully as you can, I'd say for at least a year. One thing I've found is that the CR practitioners who track their calories very closely are almost all reporting higher calories than those who don't -- but at much lower weights and BMI's. That tells me that people who don't very carefully track -- especially those who eat out at all -- are grossly underestimating their calories. So buy yourself a scale and use it with your nutritional software to find out how many calories you're eating and what nutrients you're missing.

3. You probably think that hunger is going to be the biggest challenge you face on CR. Almost everyone on CR finds that, especially for the first few months to a year, hunger really isn't that big a deal if your nutrition is well-managed. No, the biggest problem you'll have will be stress with social situations: going out for meals, holiday dinners, work events that involve food, or even just food around your house.

Be ready for this. Sit down with the people who are most important in your life, especially anyone you eat with regularly, and explain CR to them. Don't expect them to think it's a good idea or join you in it, but explain to them that it's very important to you, and that you need their support. You may want to provide them with the link to the CR Society webpage or a good book or article about CR. One of my favorite articles that offers a good introduction (yes it is by MR) is here in AOR's magazine.

This was one of the most critical steps for me. Enlisting the help of those closest to me helped me get through tough stages early on when I felt weird eating differently from how I had before.

4. Don't set any artificial weight goals. CR is not about weight. You can be really skinny and not be CR'd at all (see my college boyfriend Andrew who ate crap all the time and weighed 118 pounds at 5'10"... yes, I have always liked skinny guys, even pre-CR.) I don't look particularly skinny, yet pre-CR I weighed 32 pounds more, so we can assume that ad lib, I eat a whole lot more!

WHEN YOU'RE READY TO START:

I think Walford is wrong about "Clean up your diet first, then cut calories." That's boring for most people, and doesn't get you the kind of visible dramatic results that motivate you to stay on CR. I'm not just talking about weight loss, though if you start CR overweight and are looking forward to that side effect you'll like it. I mean an immediate improvement in how you feel. My advice is to clean up your diet and cut calories at the same time, but cut calories gradually, so that you don't lose more than one to two pounds a week. If you're not feeling good, something's wrong. Most of us feel almost euphoric at the start of CR, especially those of us with weight to lose. If you're feeling bad: tired, lightheaded, starvingly hungry, then try these two things: eat more protein, eat a little more fat, just plain eat more, but don't add carbs.

Here's what I say to do: this advice applies only to women.

1. Up your protein to 70 grams or more a day. There's a forumla that says to eat 1/2 to 3/4 of a gram of protein for each pound of body weight. I find this totally misleading because if you're overweight, that's going to tell you to eat more than you really need. And besides, I find it optimal for my mood and hunger control to eat a lot more protein than the forumla says I should. So I ignore the forumla and do what's right for me. Give a shot at 70+ g protein per day and see what happens to you. Try to get most of that protein through non-meat lowfat sources. Some of my favorites are: eggwhites, non-fat or lowfat cottage cheese, non-fat or lowfat yogurt, skim milk, shrimp, scallops, whey protein powder. Eating more protein will make you less hungry, combat carb cravings, and make you less likely to call vegan ex-boyfriends. You'll thank me for this someday.

2. Never leave the house in the morning without at least 25 grams of protein in you. For me, that's one cup of eggwhites scrambled, 125 cals, 29 g of protein, every morning. Whey shakes work well too. Protein loading in the morning makes you less likely to have carb cravings later in the day, and I find it has a very beneficial effect on my mood. I am less anxious, more calm, etc.

3. Cut out all grains. No bagels, pasta, rice, etc. Just stop. Stop putting sugar in your coffee -- if you must have something sweet, use Splenda. If you are addicted to chocolate, find the most expensive, fabulous chocolate you can afford, and eat a small piece when you really, really want it. Count the calories and enter them into your nutritional software.

4. Try out the "weekdays on, weekends less strict" or "five days on, one day less on" strategy at first. I started out CR by dropping my calories from probably 1800 a day to 1200 a day on weekdays. Then when I would go out on weekends with friends, I would eat restaurant food and not worry about it too much. That way, I didn't feel deprived, I got to socialize in food-centered situations, and I got stuffed sometimes. You *will* underestimate the calories you eat in restaurants -- it's amazing how many calories they pack into restaurant food. But most people find that if you try to stop going out all together, you'll be sad and feel deprived and be tempted to eat gak. So go out -- just plan around it by keeping your calories low and tracking your calories and nutrition most days.

5. Drop your calories on "weekdays" to just enough so that you're very, very hungry right before meals and pleasantly satisfied but not stuffed after meals. Eat your protein and as many veggies as you can. We'll deal with the rest in step two. Monitor with your nutritional software how many calories that is. Set your calorie goal for normal weekdays at just below that. I mean just below. Like fifty calories below. If you start to get freaky with hunger, throw a little more protein and a little more fat into your diet. Fat keeps you from going wiggy. I don't know why, I just know it does.

6. Find an unsaturated fat source you can deal with. If you're a refugee from the lowfat diet days, this may feel really bizarre. Nuts? Olive oil on your salads? Measure it. Eat a little fat. Note that lightning does not strike you, and Dean Ornish does not show up on a cloud of thunder and wisk you off to the nearest ICU. Unsaturated fat is good.

6. Figure out what you're not willing to give up. Is it chocolate? Popcorn at movie dates? For me, it was red wine. At first, I resolved to give up all alcohol other than red wine (bye bye margaritas!) I eventually loosened up a bit, but not until about thirty pounds later.

STEP TWO:

By this time, you should be losing weight. Don't lose too fast: if you're already thin, try not to lose more than a pound every two weeks or so. If you're starting on the heavier side (I was!) up to five or six pounds a month is fine.

If you're a woman, don't expect your weight loss to be linear. I can show 105 in the morning on the scale and 111 in the afternoon, after eating lunch. Women have tremendous water weight fluctuations based on salt intake, time of the month, food intake, time of day, and many other factors that I never quite understand. Weigh yourself first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. Don't pay attention to zig zags -- it's the total picture you're looking at. If you can, graph your weight. You know you look good in your new jeans. Take a moment to feel sorry for the CR brothers, who are always whining that they are too skinny.

It's important during this phase to measure your calories as carefully as possible. Use your scale when you're at home -- don't guestimate. When you go out, you will have no clue how much you're eating. So be sure on regular days.

Tasks for this phase (about a month in):

1. Balance your omega 3's and omega 6's. These are fats and if you get them in balance, you'll feel a whole lot better. Flax oil is a great source of omega 3's -- I eat one teaspoon at breakfast with my eggwhites and one teaspoon at lunch mixed with one teaspoon of olive oil on my salad.

2. Learn to eat new greens: kale, arugula, amaranth greens, various Chinese greens -- give it a try. Make big salads. If you don't like salads, forget I said anything about it. If you're getting your RDA's (which you know because you use nutritional software) then eat whatever you want. I just happen to really like raw kale, and I never would have known it had I not eaten it first at MR's house. So try raw kale and see what you think.

3. Try to get 30% fat in your diet, almost all of it unsaturated. That means olive oil, flax oil, nuts. Find a nut you like, but measure them -- they're very high calorie!!!

4. Check in with your friends/family and see how they're doing with your progress. Are they starting to hate you because you're losing weight and feeling fantastic? Do they think your diet is a big pain? Are they supportive because you're happier and healthier?

4. Take this time to remember that it's your life. You and only you live with the consequences of your decisions.

5. Find someone you can talk to about CR, even if it's a friend you make over the CR Society email list (you're more likely to make friends on the Community list, where the cynical old curmudgeons like MR rarely venture. Read about both lists here.) Someone who isn't bored with talking about food and science and someone who won't be jealous of you when you lose weight and live longer. Well, chances are, your jealous friends will be dead long before you.

6. Figure out what nutritients you're usually missing. Most people don't eat a very big variety of foods, and we're consistently missing this or that. Use your nutritional software to figure out what you're usually low on, and to find the foods that will help you correct this deficiency.

STEP THREE: THE LONG DROP

Depending on where you start, you may be in weight loss phase for awhile. This is a good time to start figuring out what your CR personaility is. Do you enjoy keeping a consistent calorie level every day? Do you like eating very little, getting hungry, and then eating more all at once? Do you need volume to be satisfied, and therefore gravitate towards massive salads and stir-fries of low-calorie vegetables? Is eating on the go important to you? Is eating out at restaurants a problem?

Play with your CR style. Try hitting a consistent calorie level for about ten days, skipping your going out meals. See how you feel. Are you happily buzzing along, or are you going wiggy with boredom and hunger? There's no one way to do CR -- you might be an every other day faster! I like to eat three meals a day, keep my calories very low, and then on about the fifth or sixth day go out for a bigger meal. When I do go out, I skip the grains and focus on the protein foods.

Start to think about your designer diet. If you were to make up your daily or weekly menu plan, what you would eat when you were working as usual, what would it be? Put 70 g of protein or more in there, put your omega 3's and your omega 6's in there, and some generous servings of veggies. Make sure you have room for that thing you don't want to give up. Do you want a glass of wine with dinner? A piece of chocolate on Friday afternoon? Pancakes at Sunday breakfast with your family? Find out how many calories it has and put it in, but make up for it elsewhere. You can eat ANYTHING you want on CR -- in the right amounts. You just have to control your total Calories. Deal with your nutritional deficiencies. Is there a food you can eat maybe once a week to make up for something your missing in your regular diet pattern? For example, I tend to be low on zinc, so I eat oysters when I go out to make up for it.

No matter what, don't stop tracking.

Most of us find that CR is a lot easier when we develop a list of things we eat on a regular basis. The fact is, most people do that whether they're on CR or not. Most people just don't have much variety in their diets, so it's important to make sure that what you do eat, you're getting maximal nutrition out of.

My CR is an ever-evolving practice, and I imagine yours will be to. The social struggles, the weirdness of being thin (some of us love it, some of us hate it, mostly breaks down on gender lines.) The change in how you relate to food. Lots of things about CR change over time, and I expect my CR style to keep on changing. If you're interested in trying CR, I hope these concrete instructions are of some use to you. If you don't like them, throw them in the recycle bin and find your own way... there's no one way to do CR! My way works for me, but let me know what you do and I can learn something from you too!

And don't call your vegan ex-boyfriend. Eat some eggwhites instead. Trust me. It works every time.

Posted by april at 10:27 AM | Comments (10)

New Year's In the Dark This Year

Hi all... apologies for the long bloggie absence. After flying all night Thursday from Calgary to Miami to attend a friend's wedding reception (did I mention that Air Canada neglected to check my bags through to my final destination, so I had to pick up my bags in San Francisco, run the entire length of the terminal to the United counter, only to be told that my flight was a United flight *operated* by US Air, so I had to run BACK to the other end of the terminal (carrying two very heavy bags) at about midnight Calgary time and almost missed my flight... had to go through security again and didn't even have time to put my shoes back on before running to make the final boarding call??? NIGHTMARE! Especially for a person who is always early to airports to avoid this sort of thing. Anyway...)

So I got home on Saturday morning after catching a 7 am flight out of Miami and took a little nap. Very nice. Then I tried to hook up my computer to our cable modem, since M is in Calgary with his computer which had been hooked up previously, providing me with wireless access. Problem! I turned on the surge protector and SPARK! And out when the power in most of our house, just like happened the very first weekend M was in town! Waited all evening for the electrician, who won't be able to come out and fix it until tomorrow morning. Ugh!

Just remembered, however, as I am sitting in my favorite Starbucks checking email, that there used to be a random wireless hotspot in our living room, no doubt picking up someone else's connection. Will try that later.

Off to a friend's party, carrying my own food since I am doing the no more than 1300, perfectly weighed and measured, experiment this month. I come bearing cottage cheese, a measuring cup, eggwhites, and a Trader Joe's yogurt.

More soon... in the meantime, tune in to 60 Minutes tonight to see Aubrey de Grey!!!!! I kid you not. Check it out.

Posted by april at 9:35 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack