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March 8, 2006
Evangelist
I just hired another staff member. I really like him. He has some solid experience, he went to Harvard, he's about 36, he's a philosophy PhD but we'll try not to hold that against him, and he seems dedicated and hardworking. Between him and the new woman I hired, I feel like I have a great staff. It's amazing how much of a difference that makes in my everyday life. My entire work world has been re-formed in less than a week. As Aubrey de Grey would say, "Fab!"
My new staff member, let's call him Luke, has made a terrible mistake. He has expressed interest in CR. I met him for the first time the day before the reporter came over for dinner so I happened to mention it. He said that he had recently done a fast of some kind (I never figured out if it was a juice fast or water fast) and that while he found it beneficial, he was also shocked at the horrified reactions of family and friends. I am used to horrified reactions to our dietary habits, so we discussed that for a moment. Then this week he's had a bad cold, so at one point I mentioned that I can't get sick anymore since CR. He said, "I have to learn more about this CR thing." Hahaha!
I have always been the kind of person who wants to spread the word. If I think something is good, and it's worked for me, and I have reason to believe it will work for you, I'm going to tell you about it. I try not to be a pest, but I'm sure I often fail. My rule in work circles has been that unless someone expresses interest, I don't tell them about CR in detail. It tends to come up at some point (like when I'm measuring my almonds at lunch on the baby scale) and I give a very brief summary of what I'm doing. Then I drop the subject unless I am asked. Susan, my wonderful new staff member who started last week as an organizer but was working as our administrative person before hand for a few years, has rarely expressed any sort of interest in CR, so I don't talk about it at length. But Luke strikes me as a prime target for conversion, and I find myself contemplating the days of VLC when I had a fellow healthy eater person following me around all day, from Philadelphia to Scranton to Pittsburgh, raiding vegetable trays, charting the locations of conference hotels with free fruit baskets, and discussing the merits of different brands of brewers yeast. Luke and his wife also live in our neighborhood, so I'm thinking that after a month or so when he gets used to working with me, I could invite him and his wife over for dinner and he could ask MR all the science questions he might have by that time. And of course we could impress them with my version of CR cuisine. I have high hopes for converting another organizer -- someone who lives the wild and crazy meeting to leaflet to meeting to phone calls to Scranton type of life and can weigh in on the side of getting healthy food when we're in charge of ordering lunch. I'm also hoping that having another healthy eating person around will shift the balance in our office and make the others eat a bit healthier. Peer pressure is so powerful, even when it's example not exhortation. I've never seen Luke eat anything -- the two times I've met him have been non-eating situations -- but he starts Monday, so we shall see.
I finally got some sleep last night. I've been up at 4:30 all week and had very stressful, non-stop days every day. I haven't had time to go pick up the results from the blood tests I got week before last, and I haven't had time to do much exciting cooking. I did get home last night in time to make dinner, and I made MR a very quick and easy weeknight pumpkin curry with eggwhites. Just threw a cup of pumpkin into about a half a cup of no salt organic veggie broth and added curry, garlic and some chipoltle Tabasco sauce, along with cubed eggwhites for protein and 100 grams tomatoes. Stirred in a cup of nonfat plain organic yogurt after removing from heat to lend a creamy taste and texture, then served with a teaspoon of flax oil and steamed brussels sprouts on the side. I ate my brewers yeast and broth soup for dinner with brussels sprouts as my vegetable, plus a cup of nonfat cottage cheese with Carolina Treet and flax oil. My nice quotidian diet: easy to prepare, nutritious, and exactly what I feel like eating after a long day at work. It's nice that MR doesn't mind eating different foods when we sit down at the table together for dinner. I enjoy cooking for him, but my nutritional needs would often not be satisfied by a smaller portion of what I'm cooking for him. It's much harder to pack all necessary nutrition into a calorie package the size of my daily target, so on weekdays I usually stick to the diet I have carefully engineered to come close to meeting all my needs. Recently I've added a megamuffin (find recipe here) half as my afternoon snack, replacing a carton of organic yogurt and some almonds. The megamuffin is engineered to be perfectly Zoned and have 10% of the RDA of everything per 100 calories. My half megamuffin is 130 calories, so cheaper calorie-wise than my previous yogurt and almond combination, and much better nutrition.
I was so exhausted last night that I fell into bed shortly before nine. Getting up before 5 am for days and then working like crazy till late will do that to you. Even though I left the office after 5:30, I had still worked an 11 hour day. Today I have the incredible luxury of eating breakfast at home (I've been leaving so early that I've grabbed a megamuffin to eat out and about between meetings) and then heading off to work at a more reasonable hour. Tonight I'll be home by 7, so I'll be able to eat dinner at home though I won't have time to make dinner. MR has been doing a lot of his own cooking lately, and I miss cooking for him, but work is what it is. I still manage to cook his dinner more days than not, as long as you count the weekends when I always cook.
Off to get ready for another day!
Posted by april at March 8, 2006 5:52 AM
Comments
I don't exactly understand why you don't eat the dinner you prepare for MR. It seems perfectly CR'd and delicious. I am sure you have a good reason for it. What is it?
Posted by: zeynep at March 8, 2006 4:45 PM