April's CR Diary

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March 29, 2007

No More Grilled Chicken Please

If I see one more salad with grilled chicken, vinegar on the side, I am fairly sure I will scream.

I have at this point eaten way too many of those. It seems to be the only CR-friendly thing one can order in a restaurant in Scranton.

Sunday night: salad with grilled chicken.

Monday morning: eggwhite omlette at the hotel restaurant with mushrooms, green peppers, tomatoes, and onions. While I very carefully requested that the chef remove all oil and butter from the pan, the thing still seemed quite greasy to me. Tomato juice and a small bowl of fruit with that, and the obligatory coffee.

Monday morning snack while waiting for the hearing to finally take a break for lunch: megamuffin.

Monday lunch: we all went out with the nurses for lunch on the lunch break from the hearing. I got... drum roll please... a salad with grilled chicken! After I had negotiated with the waitress to remove the egg, blue cheese, and bacon from the Cobb salad, Edward joked that it was no longer a Cobb salad. Luke ordered the peel and eat shrimp for the table, and I asked everyone to please collect their shells and tails for my "cat." Luke and Edward knew what I meant by "cat," but the others actually thought i was talking about the tabby.

Monday evening we got out late, not until close to 7 pm, and I was so hungry that I ate one of my little dehydrated veggie and brewers yeast soup mixes DRY in the jury room! It was actually quite delicious that way.

Monday night dinner, as all dinners on the road, wasn't until nine pm, when we were finally done with calls for the night. I had a dish of grilled shrimp and the gazpachzo, which was quite excellent.

Tuesday morning: megamuffin. Wasn't feeling like trusting the eggwhite omlette in grease again.

Tuesday lunch: Subway Club salad.

Tuesday second lunch, with the nurses at the hotel lunch buffet: big salad from the salad bar with greens, peppers, tomatoes, onions, hot peppers, vinegar.

Tuesday dinner: salad with grilled chicken. I wanted gazpachzo but they didn't have it. I also, unfortunately, ate fries off of one of the nurse's plates and mashed potatotes off of Luke's plate. Exhaustion plus a second glass of pinot noir combined to lower my resistance.

Wednesday breakfast: hard boiled egg. Wasn't feeling like eating much, and didn't trust the omlette. A little extra saturated fat and cholesterol... ugh. But a fairly reliable 70 ish calories.

Wednesday lunch: Subway Club salad.

Wednesday on the way home: dehydrated soup mix dry in the car. Again.

Wednesday dinner: finally, finally, my very own salad with yogurt and salsa and flax oil. I have rarely been so happy to see kale.

Overall the trip wasn't as bad as it could have been, foodwise. I didn't have anything truly crazy. I did drink more wine than I should have... hard to tell how much as Jim was pouring most nights, and while I didn't drink nearly as much as I would have pre-CR, I definitely drank more than a glass per night. I even had a rum and diet Coke, a kinda diet Cuba Libre, on Tuesday night with our new staff member.

I didn't manage to work out. The nights went so late that I kept thinking I needed to get sleep, then I'd wake up at 5 anyway and just lie in bed trying to go back to sleep until the phone would invariably start ringing at 6. That's bad... I need my exercise.

I had a great time with my co-workers and the nurses. We're doing well in the hearing, and while we're afraid it's going to be much, much longer than it should be (the employer wants delay, so they're putting on a zillion witnesses) we're still confident we'll win the issue.

I had to run back to Philly last night because fires were erupting on the campaign we have going here, and Susan, my staff member assigned to that campaign, is on vacation! So this morning shortly after 6 am I was meeting nurses there to get flyers into the hospital.

Our annual convention starts this Sunday and I have to go write my speech... more soon.

Posted by april at 2:54 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

March 25, 2007

I Can't Tell The Difference Between My Girlfriend and the Cat!

You might be thinking that in spite of his limiting soy to once a month, MR is already suffering from some form of dementia.

It's almost our lunch time and I'm hungry, so I said, imitating Kieffer's frequent (though meowed) rant:

I'm so hungry! Nobody ever feeds me, ever ever ever!

MR responded with the headline. Kieffer likes to try to convince MR that I haven't fed him when I have, or to tell mommy that daddy never feeds him when I'm gone. To hear the cat tell it, nobody ever feeds him, ever ever ever! I asked MR why it is that the cat is so big if no one ever feeds him. "He perfoms some limited photosynthesis," said MR.

As they say, leave him in a sunny window.

Anyhow, Robin and I had a wonderful time last night. It was amazing to hang out with a real CR sister, someone who is just as serious (maybe more so!) as I am and understands all the difficulties and triumphs and such. We're close to the same age, both happily partnered, and though she has kids and I don't, I still feel like we're so much more on the same wavelength than I am with most of my other female friends. Truth be told, I don't have that many girl friends... most of my friends are happily married men, gay or straight, who think of me as a sister. And none are CR'd, except for Brian Delaney who lives way too far away and has never yet come through on his promise to come visit us at CR Summer Camp.

I am really wishing that Robin lived near by. We had so much fun.... walking around Center City looking for a place to eat, both of us looking at menus posted outside and saying, "Nah..." It's so different from being with normal people where I say, "Okay, I'll figure something out," or realizing that I'll end up eating way over my calorie target and have to make up for it by going slightly lower for days.

We ended up at the Philadelphia Fish Company, where I had a grilled shrimp appetizer as my entree and Robin had a beautiful grilled red snapper that came with a tiny heart of palm salad and braised leeks. I had two glasses of pinot grigio, she had a glass of merlot. We both turned down the bread and the dessert menu. Wow.

I'd have to admit that after hanging out with our own Skinnybitch (who is just so nice!) for a weekend I am now deeply disturbed that she lives so far away. It's like I didn't know what I was missing until I had a real live CR girl to hang with!

Now, in addition to my grand plan to get Allswellinhell... to move here, I must also recruit Skinnybitch. Imagine our CR girl posse: Allswellinhell, Skinnybitch, and... April? That's lame, I clearly need a new name. Everybody write in with your suggestion for my cool CR chick name.

Posted by april at 11:40 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

March 24, 2007

CR Saturday

This morning Gloria, Robin and I headed out to Whole Foods and Trader Joe's. We managed to get there just before the crowds, and picked up all the necessary items for the party and for the week.

For the party I made some simple fare: a large kale salad with optional Magic (Butterworks Farms) yogurt, bell peppers, tomatoes, a variety of salsas, evoo and balsamic vinegar. Then I made a CR fun food favorite: chili cheese Quorn dogs. They're just Quorn dogs wrapped in TJ's low carb tortillas and nonfat cheese, with a liberal sprinkling of my fancy chili powders, heated so they're gooey. Almonds on the side. Our new friend Gregg from New Jersey brought an Indian chana dal dish that I think may have had more calories than I thought, since now I am feeling quite stuffed even though I ate a very small portion, in addition to my salad and half a Quorn dog. We broke out the bottle of Pinot Noir that Gloria brought us, but unfortunately not until Gloria had had to leave to head back to NYC! It was delicious. Our friend Josh joined us to talk CR and evolutionary biology, and my mom joined us with an Easter basket, two Easter bunnies, and a large basket of apples and pears. All seemed to have a wonderful time.

We're taking a short rest now and then Robin and I are going out on the town! Looks like it will be just the two of us, though I'm still hoping that Cat will make it from DC. Either way, we'll have a lovely time. I doubt that either of us will be very hungry after the large lunch, but the great thing about hanging out with other CR folks is that no one cares if you eat or not! We might just go for small salads in a Center City cafe. I'll update you when I get home!

Looking forward to the CR Conference when we can hang out with even more of our CR brothers and sisters!

Posted by april at 4:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

CR Saturday

This morning Gloria, Robin and I headed out to Whole Foods and Trader Joe's. We managed to get there just before the crowds, and picked up all the necessary items for the party and for the week.

For the party I made some simple fare: a large kale salad with optional Magic (Butterworks Farms) yogurt, bell peppers, tomatoes, a variety of salsas, evoo and balsamic vinegar. Then I made a CR fun food favorite: chili cheese Quorn dogs. They're just Quorn dogs wrapped in TJ's low carb tortillas and nonfat cheese, with a liberal sprinkling of my fancy chili powders, heated so they're gooey. Almonds on the side. Our new friend Gregg from New Jersey brought an Indian chana dal dish that I think may have had more calories than I thought, since now I am feeling quite stuffed even though I ate a very small portion, in addition to my salad and half a Quorn dog. We broke out the bottle of Pinot Noir that Gloria brought us, but unfortunately not until Gloria had had to leave to head back to NYC! It was delicious. Our friend Josh joined us to talk CR and evolutionary biology, and my mom joined us with an Easter basket, two Easter bunnies, and a large basket of apples and pears. All seemed to have a wonderful time.

We're taking a short rest now and then Robin and I are going out on the town! Looks like it will be just the two of us, though I'm still hoping that Cat will make it from DC. Either way, we'll have a lovely time. I doubt that either of us will be very hungry after the large lunch, but the great thing about hanging out with other CR folks is that no one cares if you eat or not! We might just go for small salads in a Center City cafe. I'll update you when I get home!

Looking forward to the CR Conference when we can hang out with even more of our CR brothers and sisters!

Posted by april at 4:11 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 23, 2007

CR Girls Get Together!

It is so much fun to hang out with other CR people, and even more so when it's CR girls. We had a very relaxing, low key evening of fun, food and conversation, CR-related and other. Robin arrived at 5 and Gloria shortly thereafter, and we put together CR pizzas (low carb no transfats Trader Joe's tortillas, eggplant, shiitakes, green peppers, tomatoes, tomato paste, fat free mozzarell and olive oil) plus kale salads topped with nonfat plain yogurt, Quorn tenders, flax oil, salsa verde. Hazelnuts on the side. It was fun to work in the kitchen with other folks who are used to cooking with software and a scale.

Tomorrow morning we're off to Whole Foods and Trader Joe's... I'm picking up the ladies at 8 am so as to beat the crowds. Then at 1 we're having the official party, followed by going out in the city (Philadelphia, that is) for a light dinner in the evening. We're having a great time so far... wish you all were here!

Posted by april at 9:36 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

March 22, 2007

Appetite and Exercise, Resveratrol

Just a quick one before I dash into another meeting.

Short answer on resveratrol: MR isn't convinced that just the resveratrol in wine is what gives it its health benefits. He is convinced of the very good epidemiology on red wine, so we drink it. But he's not convinced that resveratrol itself is responsible, in the absence of other ingredients. The recent study on overweight animals and resveratrol doesn't help us out much as we're not overweight. Can't extrapolate to CR people. MR is very conservative about what we take, so until he's quite convinced, we don't take the stuff. He has a very open mind about resveratrol and is following the evidence as it comes in, but as yet, we're not taking it. I'll let you know if that changes. Like all supplement decisions, all factors including diet and lifestyle must be taken into consideration.

I'm sure MR will write in if I've screwed that explanation up somehow... I haven't run it by him, so until he gives the final okay, keep in mind that I may have gotten something wrong.

In other news, I have definitely increased my calories since increasing my exercise. I am averaging more like 1500 these days I think, since my quotidian days are 1300 or so and I've been out to eat quite a few times. I notice that on days when I take Pilates, I am much, much hungrier than on days when I don't. And the difference between 20 minutes on the treadmill and 40 minutes on the treadmill really is about 100 calories worth of appetite. A few days last week when I didn't go to the gym I noticed that my appetite went back to normal, and that I was easily eating 1200 calorie days. But those workouts up my calorie requirement! That's just common sense, but those of you starting an exercise program or veteran exercisers need to think about it as you decide on target calorie levels. We must avoid setting ourselves up for excess hunger, binges, or overly quick weight loss by setting calorie targets that make sense. Even those of you who are very active outside of a formal exercise program (active jobs, hiking, walking to work or biking, etc.) should think about how many calories you need to eat to sustain your activity. All of us need exercise, preferably the bone building kind as well as cardio and flexibility. So we have to plan for it!

Once I stabilize a bit I'm going to gradually lower my calories again, but for now I'm focusing on making exercise a consistent part of my life and keeping my calories stable, as low as possible while avoiding hunger freak outs, and my nutrition high.

More soon on my bad kid friend week upcoming. Sara will understand my mixture of gleeful anticipation and terror as I contemplate not one, not two, but three days out of town with my wine wonk friend. I do adore the guy, but he keeps refilling my glass and I've got to find a way to deal!

Meanwhile, the good kids are coming to town! SOOOO excited re: our CR weekend!!!

Posted by april at 7:53 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

March 21, 2007

What Supplements Do I Take?

CRWilliam asks about supplementation. I've written about my supplement program in various places, . I'm running to Pilates class, to the grocery store and then to Scranton. I'll write more tonight if I can. I haven't updated my list of supplements in awhile, partly because I haven't had time, but partly because I want to make sure that people understand that what I take isn't necessarily right for you: you have to analyze your own diet and lifestyle, as well as your long term goals, to figure out what you want to be taking. Still, if you'd like the info on what I'm taking I'll provide it... as soon as I have time!

Preview: I do not take resveratrol.

Posted by april at 4:11 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 20, 2007

Stop Eating All Those Carbs

Okay Jen, there's a fairly easy answer to your difficulties. Stop eating all those carbs! Cereal, brown rice, and bread, are getting you very little in terms of nutrition, putting you on a blood sugar roller coaster, and adding a lot of calories to your diet. If you cut them out (or cut way back) you'll have room for more satisfying foods like proteins and good fats, as well as high volume, low calorie, nutrient dense veggies.

Also, I'm not sure why you would want to eat smaller meals more frequently. While this works for some people, it can lead to insulin resistance and it doesn't work for most people I've ever known. I far prefer eating satisfying portions at breakfast, lunch and dinner and being done with it. If you eat enough at meals, you're unlikely to be hungry between.

Four suggestions (and you probably already know what they are):

-- eliminate bread, rice, cereal, any sort of starchy sugary carb
-- eat a large-ish breakfast made of protein and unsaturated fat, maybe a bit of non fat dairy if you like a whey protein smoothie or some sugar free yogurt
-- eat enough calories that you don't get extremely hungry and set yourself up for a binge.
-- eat a lot more protein. count protein grams and don't leave the house in the morning with less than 25 g in you. get at least 70 g a day.

So take the day you had yesterday. Instead of cereal, substitute eggwhites and almonds.

If you get hungry before lunch time, grab another 10 g almonds or hazelnuts and a carton of nonfat yogurt (need calcium for bones!). Don't eat the carbs without fat... keep that blood sugar calm by starting each meal with the protein and fat.

Lunch: slice of turkey, no bread, salad with olive oil and vinegar, nonfat yogurt or glass of skim milk, a few nuts

Dinner: same steamed veggies, but a piece of anything with protein: chicken, seafood, turkey, scrambled eggwhites. Olive or flax oil on the veggies.

When I was a single girl optimizing my food preparation so that it took maybe 10 minutes a day, I ate:

Breakfast: 1 cup eggwhites scrambled with 1 teaspoon flax oil and hot sauce
Lunch: 100 g kale, 1 cup nonfat yogurt or cottage cheese, 10 - 20 g almonds, salsa on the salad.
Snacks (if I have a snack, which most days I don't): nonfat fruit yogurt and 10 g almonds, or latte with skim
Dinner: 1 cup free range organic low sodium chicken broth with 2 tablespoons brewers yeast, half a bag of frozen broccoli mix of some kind (carrots, cauliflower, whatever), 1 teaspoon flax oil, maybe another few almonds. glass of wine.

Super easy and quick, takes almost no preparation, and doesn't involve having anything in the house I'd rather not be tempted by!

I suspect that if your body is recovering from giving birth and nursing, you might need a lot more calories than you did pre-baby. I'd suggest that you cut only very gradually, paying tons of attention to getting your omega 3s and calcium. Mommies need strong bones too!

You sound like the ideal candidate for Miss Tenacity's mail order megamuffins! Perfect, delicious nutrition, shipped right to your door. Doesn't get more convenient than that! Miss Tenacity has also developed a new product for us: the MEGA Mix! For those who want to make the muffins at home but either can't get the fancy weird ingredients or don't have time to run all over town finding them. Yippie!

But seriously, cut back on the grains and I think you'll find it's a lot easier to keep calories low while remaining satisfied and un-hungry. Being hungry every four hours reminds me of the lowfat vegan roller coaster I was on in my twenties when I ate oatmeal for breakfast, salads and sandwiches for lunch, and veggies with rice for dinner. I was hungry, crazy, and anxious. I was not fun. Now, I eat eggwhites, and I am fun.

Or at least, my cats think I'm fun. I'm not taking a chance on asking anyone else!

Posted by april at 8:07 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

March 19, 2007

Simultaneous Release

I've been waiting to use that line from the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Dani California.

So we just filed for two union elections. To most of you, this is nothing but inside baseball, and it won't make any sense. To say that we filed for one election on March 9 and a second on March 16 is like saying, "I have to do some garbly goop -- it's time consuming and stressful!"

Let me help with an analogy that may be more familiar.

Many of you have children, and wanted them, and like them a lot. They're cute and cuddly and they may support you in your old age (not that you'll need it, between CR and radical anti-aging biomedicine, but at least they'll buy you nice presents) But they are a lot of work, stress, heartache, and they can turn out very badly, sometimes through no fault of your own. When you contemplate having a child, you look forward to it with eager anticipation, and you may spend years trying to get pregnant, but you know that bringing up that child is going to be a huge, soul-consuming, life-destroying effort. (note to all you parents who are getting touchy about that phrasing: I mean that for a time, you give up a lot of your identity and put another's needs ahead of yours in order to take care of someone who needs you! Rewarding, but difficult!)

Then you find out you are carrying quadruplets.

That's what filing for two elections at the same time is like.

It's all so good... all the work we've been doing for years is paying off, and I'm so proud of my hard-working, sweet and cute staff who have sweat blood to bring about this day. They have no idea what's about to hit them, but my colleague in running the union and I do because we've both been organizers for years and have seen it all. It's a bloody battle, and we're walking into two of them at once.

Rather energizing, really.

On Friday we filed for the second, then our friend took the three of us out for lunch at Matyson, a fabulous French-ish restaurant in Philly. I had a lentil soup that was probably spiked with narcotics it was so good, followed by a shrimp, arugula and grapefruit salad with a citrus vinegarette. My friend the wine wonk brought along an elegant Oregon pinot noir and a fab Frenchy cab. The meal was divine.

Then we got caught in a storm, but luckily we weren't driving, we took the train, so I got home safely and skipped dinner due to large lunch.

Saturday MR and I had thought we would have a film crew at the house to do an interview with Aubrey, but thanks to the winter storm they cancelled. In the evening we had a potluck event with friends, to which I brought that black bean soup.

Sunday was a low key food day... half my usual Sunday breakfast because I wasn't very hungry, regular lunch, light dinner of Quorn roast with veggies. Spent most of the day working, with the exception of a very intense workout at the gym.

Today a colleague brought in his famous burritos, overstuffed California style, to work. He used to bring them all the time but hasn't in ages. Black beans, chicken, a little rice, avocado, lettuce, salsa, tomatoes. I'm guessing 500 calories. I ate that plus my salad and almonds, but had a light breakfast (megamuffin eaten on the road at 6:30 am on the way to a 7:30 am meeting) and light dinner (mashed cauliflower, flax oil, grape tomatoes: total: 150 cals. 6 oz glass of wine.)

I am exhausted and likely to remain so for awhile, but it's the good kind of exhaustion from good work done well. This going to be one of those times when I need my CR more than ever, and no doubt it will be a struggle to maintain it with all the stress + going out with non-CR'd folk, but it's what I've learned I have to do.

Meanwhile, I am SOOOO excited about next weekend! Who else is coming?

Jen -- thanks so much for your comments! What are you eating? When are you feeling hungry? We'll all do the best we can to help!

Yikes, this just in: my dad just called and said that some good friends of his, members of his old Sunday school class, are the parents of the missing boy scout who has been lost in the mountains of NC for three days now. Everyone out there who does so should please keep this boy in your prayers. I can think of nothing worse than being a parent and knowing that your baby was missing and possibly hurt. Their church pastor is up there with the family, and there was a vigil with 500 people at the church last night.

Makes me want to stay in and hold on tight to my sweetie and my kitty cats. We should never take those we love for granted, not for a minute.

Posted by april at 7:29 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

March 18, 2007

World's Easiest Black Bean Soup

Potluck dish, easiest in world:

However many cans of black beans, dumped, with liquid, into a crockpot or stew pot.

A few pickled jalepenos, diced, as many as your audience can handle.

Garlic powder.

If you're feeling wild, add salsa or cilantro. Or just don't.

Serve piping hot. The longer it sits, the spicier it will become.

Thanks to all for your comments... great to hear from you Caroline!

Off to the grocery shop.

Posted by april at 7:58 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

March 15, 2007

Being Skinny Does Not Solve All Your Problems

Our CR sister Emily eloquently writes today about how many women buy into the myth that once you're skinny, all your problems go away:

They're holding on to the myth that being skinny solves all your problems and all your body insecurities. And it doesn't. If you're self-critical, there will ALWAYS be something to dislike, and let's not even get into how being thin will not make life automatically easy.

That is so true. While being thin does solve some of your problems, especially health problems, it's definitely the case that those of us who are self-critical will always find something to criticize.

For instance, I am really bothered by the state of my carpet. It wasn't new when we moved in, and now that it's lived with two cats since October, it has lots of pale, faded stains. With a bunch of CR sisters and brothers coming in a couple of weeks, I regard my carpet with shame. Will they think less of me because I need new carpets? Sure, I'm thin, but my carpet looks like someone barfed on it! And sure enough, someone did! Kieffer and Philomena, the barfy cats!

The constant negative self-talk loop that plays in our female heads may occasionally have to find something to say other than, "You're so fat," but if you're in the habit of negative self-talk, the loop will find a topic. I've always found it hard to break the cycle of self-talk without a very conscious effort. I have to say to myself: "These people are not attending a conference on how to steam clean carpets. They are coming to have fellowship with like minded CR folk. Most of them will not even notice the stupid carpet. Those who do probably won't think the stains are nearly as bad as I think they are. They may have tips on how to get the stains out!"

Four years ago, I had a great job, great friends, excellent cats, and a life I loved. But I had some debt, some weight to lose, and I didn't have a boyfriend.

So I constantly beat myself up about my unworthiness.

These days, I have all of the above, minus the debt, minus the weight, plus the boyfriend.

It's still so easy to find something to beat myself up about. I just raise my standards higher. For instance:

I'm thin now but I'm not as hardcore CR as I'd like to be and I keep forgetting to take my in-between meal supplements! How can I be so committed to life-extension and yet forget my supplements, share a dessert, and have stains on my carpet???!!!

Then I just tell myself to shut the f*&^ up, cause that's stupid.

Even if I never shared dessert, steam cleaned my carpet daily, and took my supplements on the dot of the appropriate hour, I'd still find *something* to feel bad about!

And don't even get me started about how I need to organize my closets, which I have never properly put together since we moved in. Maybe I need to attend a support group for people who are irrationally afraid of closets. What's in there? A scary monster? The big bad wolf? Or just some clothes that really should go to the dry cleaner?

I still get really happy when I pay my credit card bill in full every month, or when I remember that my student loans are paid off. I still feel great about my body and love the way I look in the mirror. But I find things to complain about, ways to feel incompetent. We all do.

Even MR, the paragon of CR perfection and a great saver of money, feels bad about stuff. It's just *other* stuff. At least he has two loving cats to cheer him up all day. They're constantly telling him what a wonderful father he is.

Actually, they're telling him that they're starving and need Fancy Feast. But same difference.

Posted by april at 8:26 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

Female Fat Talk Mandatory

Calling all you skinnybitches (and all you girls, skinny, not skinny or somewhere in between, who show love and respect to your bodies, instead of the classic female self-hatred) out there...

No wonder we feel a lot of social pressure to pretend to hate our bodies even when we don't.

This just in:

Female ‘fat talk’ socially mandatory, study finds

Also, here's a very large cat.

Posted by april at 7:13 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Finally, Something To Do With Our Cupcake Tins!

MR and I use big long square pans to make our megamuffins in, since it's much easier to divide them into proper calorie portions with a tape measure that way. And since we don't bake otherwise, I haven't had a use for my cute little cupcake tins for ages! Well, now I have one!

A reader sent in the brilliant sounding recipe for "Green Cakes!" I am so excited.

-Green cakes (really a variation of frittatas, but in mini form): Steam finely diced broccoli, peas, or whatever other green veggies you want just until tender (10 minutes). Combine together with lots of chopped green onions, pepper, spices (anything you want), and enough egg whites to just hold the whole thing together. Spoon into cupcake tins. I usually spray with nonstick spray, but it seems like you don't use like to use it. Bake for 10 minutes. These are great for serving as healthy appetizers, finger foods at parties, or to take with you for lunch at work. Garnish with chopped green onions, a dollop of fat free sour cream, and/or a sprinkling of fat free cheese.

Yesterday I went out for lunch with VLC, who was in town for a one day only special appearance, and another of our good friends. We went to Blackfish, and I had the arugula salad with grilled chicken. When they announced that the soup was celery root again, I shouted "Yea!!!" a bit too loudly for a small restaurant... a little bit more appropriately for a football game. Yes, to me, vegetable purees are like touchdowns. We did split a dessert three ways, but the other two ate a good deal of the vanilla beignets so I wasn't too worried about it. Still, all this eating out is getting to be a bit much. I think March is just the month of eating out in my life. It was last year too. There seem to be a great number of special occasions.

Perhaps April will be boring. I know I am.

Posted by april at 6:58 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 14, 2007

What Are You Doing For Calcium?

Very uneventful.

She looked at my letter from the CR Society study explaining what I'm doing, and at first she said, "It sounds a little BS-ish," but as soon as she read the second paragraph she said, "Now this makes sense."

She seemed perplexed that there wasn't a specific "diet."

But she agreed that I'm in great health and she says she'll order my bloodtests next year again.

My favorite part was when she asked what I was doing for calcium. As you know, I could talk about that all day.

Posted by april at 9:32 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

March 13, 2007

I Will Not Apologize For My Weight

I read Cat's entry today with interest, as I have a doctor's appointment scheduled for tomorrow.

Cat writes, re: her doctor's appointment today:

besides that, we just awkwardly discussed my weight. actually, i have to admit that i kind of had trouble talking to her because she is overweight. foremost, i have issues with accepting nutritional advice from someone who is most likely not taking the best care of him or herself -- medical professional or not. also, lately i've been paranoid about coming off as a "mean thin person." i don't know if it's a rising trend or just popping out at me lately due to life circumstances, but i feel bombarded with silly women's magazine articles with titles like "the scary size zero trend." i guess in the past, those pieces made me feel better about my body (they're usually part of some "accept your body" special), but now they occasionally make me feel guilty.

Wow. This really hit home with me. A) I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow, which after that kerfuffle over the bloodtests, I am dreading B) My doctor is obese, and the last time I saw her she asked me for weight loss advice, which was good in a way, but also disconcerting C) I am so sick of being put down for being slim.

I read the scary article cited in Miss M's blog re: Marya Hornbacher's husband. This really creeped me out because I was friends in high school with Marya. It makes me so sad to learn that this many years later, she still struggles with a life threatening illness. I will be praying for her, and for all who suffer from eating disorders. What a horrible waste of a brilliant woman's life. She was an incredible writer, a genius, a great wit and a wonderful storyteller. In so many ways she reminded me of Allswellinhell, my Jedi writer goddess friend who wields the written word like the blade of a brand new Cuisinart. Marya was so talented, so good... and to read that she's still trapped by anorexia (not to mention bipolar disorder) really upsets me. Thank heaven she's managed to make a great career in spite of it, and written a fabulous book. Her writing talent could never remain hidden, even by the most merciless of diseases. But still, it makes me sad that one day of her life would be taken up in the fight against anorexia.

But frankly, it makes me furious that people like us, who are healthy and becoming more so all the time, have to deal with media images and stupid, jealous friends and acquaintances painting us with the same brush they use to paint anorexics. Just one quick look at the habits of those with eating disorders will quickly show you that we're not like them.

Unlike anorexics, we don't feel a compulsion to not eat. Rather, we feel the same compulsion to eat as much as possible that every normal person feels... however, we make rational choices, based on scientific information and our own priorities and goals about when, where and how much to eat. We're not just robots following our biological programming for good or for ill: we're rational actors, making our own decisions about our life and health.

I know, it's weird.

I think the fetishization of anorexia has a lot to do with the search for justification for those who can't control their own eating habits. The overweight and obese can point to celebrity anorexics and say, "They're sick! At least I'm healthy! I can eat as much as I want!"

Why else are there pictures of Mary Kate and Lindsay Lohan looking like skeletons in every checkout aisle in America, right next to supersize Butterfinger bars?

So someone like me shows up at the doctor's office, with fabulous bloodtest results, a body that is clearly toned, in shape, and glowing with health (in spite of my insanely stressful job and a demented cat who wakes me up three times a night) and because I am technically "underweight" based on some chart that is adjusted to fit the vanity sizing of the 90's and 2000's, I will be greeted with suspicion by my obese medical professional.

I should give her the benefit of the doubt. She was cool last time. But I've gotten a bit battle weary since this time last year, thanks to Rebecca Traister and her goose fat eating ilk. Apparently, we thin folk can't possibly be healthy... or that's what this about as scientific as my dining room lighting fixture article in Slate magazine says.

So I approach this doctor's appointment with trepidation. And I wish that I could be there as support for all my bloggergirlfriends (and guy friends!) who are setting out on the path towards greater health, the obeseogenic environment be damned.

I will not apologize for my weight.

I will not apologize for my kitchen food scale, for my flax oil and my kale, for my healthy foods and my refusal to eat crap in a convenience store.

I will never, ever pretend that I am "naturally" skinny just to avoid upsetting those who are "naturally" fat.

I will boldly proclaim that better health is possible, and that we humans (unless we are severely injured or in prison) have control over what we put into our bodies.

And when this appointment is over, I will order a Venti Starbucks coffee, black, and give thanks to God, Goddess, and anyone else who happens to be standing around that I was saved from the horrors of the American diet long before I could develop heart disease, diabetes, or any of the maladies that bring most of my doctor's patients to her office.

Then I will go to work. Because as J-Lo's backup singer says in "Jenny From The Block,"

Everyone's got to make a living.

Posted by april at 10:40 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

The Wax Museum?

I just had the funniest interaction with a nurse's family member (who clearly doesn't hear well) over the phone.

I said, "Hi, it's April from the nurses' union. Is ___ home?"

"From the what?"

"From the nurses' union."

"The wax museum?"
You know, sometimes I feel like it, but I am not actually in the wax museum. At least, not yet!

Posted by april at 8:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 12, 2007

And I Know All The Games You Play, Because I Play Them Too

Do you want to know the single fastest, easiest way to lose weight?

Stop eating out.

I've been working with a good friend of mine who is a man in his early sixties. He wants to lose about 20 pounds, and anticipates huge health benefits from doing so. His diet at home is quite good: lean meats, veggies, unsaturated fats like olive oil, nonfat dairy. But he eats out. A lot. And he eats at work events where his clients bring food, so he feels obligated to eat it. It's going to be tough. We just can't lower his quotidian calories enough to make up for uncontrolled high calorie events three or more times a week.

I have another good friend who has lost about thirty pounds on our RDA magic diet. She weighs and measures her food pretty carefully, but not always. She eats plenty, loves her food, and doesn't feel hungry much, except for on the occasions when she's taken her calories too low then had a bit of a correction. She almost never eats out.

If you want to lose weight, I suggest you do two things:

-- Clear your house of all junk food, including bagels, pasta, breads, candy, sugary soda, and anything ready-to-eat besides veggies and fruits. If you need a snack, eat a piece of celery, an apple, or a grape tomato. Or if you're me, you'll eat your weight in grape tomatoes. But that's another story.

-- Severely, drastically cut back on your eating out. When you do eat out, order a salad with grilled chicken and no dressing, just vinegar on the side. Confine your ad lib restaurant eating to once a month until you've lost most of the weight you want to lose. Remember, the restaurants will still be there once you have more flexibility in your calorie goals. But no one, NO ONE can estimate restaurant food. You just can't. You can't see a tablespoon of oil (120 calories) that is floating on top of that piece of fish. You can't know how many calories are in that salad dressing, or the piece of bread that you dipped in olive oil, or the dessert that you split three ways.

And don't even get me started talking about unmeasured wine or mixed drinks.

One of my hardest lessons to learn with CR is that you really do, at some point, have to make some difficult choices. I lost all the weight I wanted to lose, looked and felt great, and captured the man of my dreams* all without giving up restaurant eating. But over time, I've learned that it's those meals out that throw me off, that destroy my CR-equilibrium, and that make it very difficult for me to take my calories lower to any kind of level that I believe might result in actual life-extension.

Sometimes that means going to a restaurant and ordering a salad with grilled chicken when what you'd really like is the chicken in rosemary sauce with roasted red pepper coulis and a side of pommes frites (that's French fries...) and an espresso creme brulee. And half the breadbasket. And half the bottle of wine. But you can't because you want to live long and healthy and not wake up with giant circles under your eyes.

About a year ago, I went through a time when my social and work life involved a lot of eating out. I let my CR slip quite a bit, and while at my highest I weighed 108, which is actually one pound "underweight" by the height and weight tables, I knew I wasn't at my best. I had huge, huge circles under my eyes. I felt sluggish and anxious all at once. At just the time when I needed stress reduction, I was more stressed than ever, and my chemical state was hurting, not helping.

I got my diet back under control, and with various ups and downs, I've been doing well since. In the last month or so I've been doing extremely well, but that just makes me more sensitive to bumps in the road.

For instance, I have a month chock full of eating out. Wednesday: out with VLC (the old friend/co-worker who once, back in 2004, threatened to jump out of a moving car onto the Pennsylvania Turnpike if I mentioned MR's name once more!) and Edward to Blackfish. Guess what I'll be having: the soup, if it's a non-cream based vegetable puree, plus the arugula salad with grilled chicken. No dressing.

I've already had my nutritional disaster with the fries... and I'm not about to shortchange my nutrition or my peace of mind by going too low on calories to "make up for it." CR doesn't work that way. You don't buy indulgences for excesses.

Alas, nor are we saved by faith alone (sorry, little Reformation joke there. At least my parents and my partner will get it.) We don't slow our biological aging process by just feeling good... we slow our aging process by eating fewer calories while maintaining adequate, nay optimal, nutrition.

So I look at my eating out events and think to myself: what is more important: looking, feeling and living as healthy as I can, as long as I can, or the cheese plate?

Hmmmm...

I do love that cheese plate.

But I love my life, and my body, and my feeling of optimal health, a lot more.

So maybe I order the cheese plate... twice a year. But not once a week.

When you start to get below your set point weight, it gets much, much harder. Burning off the tank of extra fat that many of us had when we first started leads to CR-induced euphoria and all sorts of fun times. But going lower requires much more discipline, and the ability to plan in advance to avoid situations where you're either a) tempted to overeat b) not overeating, but wiggy and miserable with hunger.

If you plan right, like MR does, and eat a consistent amount of calories on a regular schedule, hunger can be a non-issue. MR is hungry for meals, but satisfied afterwards. I usually am too, but as I try to take my calories lower and my exercise higher, I find that hunger is a genuine concern. As a person who generally seeks to maximize pleasure and minimize pain, I am not thrilled. I want to order my life in such a way that I rarely feel all that hungry, while still keeping to a strict CR plan. This is difficult, since the easy way (a l'Orange) is to go for ultimate consistency, and train the body to expect a certain number of calories at a certain time every day, without fail.

My social and work life just don't allow for that. MR is a writer who works from home, and he never much liked eating out anyhow. I spend tons of time on the road and meeting with people, and I can't imagine giving up the Philly restaurant scene.

That seems to point to one thing: I need more self-discipline than MR. Because to make allowances for the life I want to lead, I'll have to occasionally deal with hunger.

Without eating my co-worker's fries.

I took the headline from one of my favorite George Michael songs, "Faith." He's talking about the strength to say no to another kind of compulsion, but I think it fits the food context even better.

I know all the games all you newbies and dieters out there play, because I've played them too.

I've played the "I know I'm eating way too much but I'll make up for it by eating 800 calories for a week" game. I caught on pretty quickly to the fact that it doesn't work, and it's almost impossible to get optimal nutrition, and it's a never-ending cycle. It wasn't until I committed to raising my daily total calories to a reasonable level (this was a couple of years ago now) that I was able to curtail the huge meals out, and turn them into more sensible, enjoyable but not huge feasts.

And sometimes I still have a huge feast, but I don't attempt to fast to make up for it. If it's at lunch, I just skip dinner and go back to the quotidian, light side of it, for the next day.

Quick re-cap of my quotidian diet (at the request of a reader):

5 am:
Pre-breakfast: diet Dr. Pepper with 1.5 oz unsweetened pure cranberry juice to wash down my supplements: 1 Strontium Support, 2 Vegetarian Boosters, 2 Cranberry pills.

6:30 am:
1 cup eggwhites scrambled with 1 slice nonfat cheese, 1 teaspoon flax oil, and often 2 tablespoons salsa, coffee, water

between breakfast and lunch: giant thermos green tea

Lunch: (12 noon or thereabouts):
salad of kale, napa cabbage, romaine, grape tomatoes and green pepper topped with 1 cup nonfat plain yogurt, Butterworks Farms brand (75 cals per cup), 60 cals almonds, salad usually topped with either vinegar, salsa, or Walden Farms calorie free dressing

Either with lunch or afternoon snack, or as part of dinner:
Megamuffin, April sized (209 cals), either savory or cherry berry, sometimes with mustard or nonfat cream cheese

Dinner:
300 calories of something. Tonight it was the Megamuffin Cheesesteak, which is a savory muffin with a slice of nonfat cheese melted on top, plus 75 cals of MR's excellent mashed cauliflower with a teaspoon of flax oil. Plus a six ounce glass of wine. Sometimes a second glass when out, on weekends, or special occasions.

Snacks: sometimes grapefruit, sometimes dried blueberries, sometimes dried apricots or mangoes. Hmmmm... dried mango. If you haven't tried it, don't. It's addictive.

I don't eat the same thing every day, and on weekends I indulge my love of cooking with fun fancy dishes for myself and MR. This weekend saw stuffed mushrooms, tomato tofu, "cream" of mushroom soup, and other fun treats. But I have settled on foods that I love that pack a great nutritional punch and satisfy me body and soul... and I eat those most days, as a foundation for everything else I do or eat.

When I eat out, I try to use it as an opportunity to get some nutrients that are lower in my quotidian diet. B vitamins, iron, zinc. Seafood, fish, meat. But I don't even attempt to count calories when I eat out. I enjoy the experience of eating fine food (oh how I love the Philly restaurant scene!) and I know that I can get just as much pleasure from a lighter dish as from a heavier dish. And that skipping the bread, saying no to an extra glass of wine, and splitting a dessert four ways instead of two can turn a calorie disaster into a large, but passable feast.

It's still not easy. I feel thrown off when I eat out too much, and I do find myself wondering... what would that cheese plate taste like?

But I know that the cheese plate will be there if I ever want it. And in the meantime, I prefer the way I look and feel when I'm eating optimally. A little extra zinc here and there... no problem. A slightly lower day after eating out... no problem. But just slightly. I refuse to set myself up for unhealthy binges, or to think of fasting or eating less as punishment for eating more. Food, at the risk of repeating myself, should not be a moral issue.

Still, it's a tad bit stressful to contemplate these upcoming out eating events, in light of my recent struggles with exercise-induced hunger and a general lack of equilibrium. I'll have to exercise more careful planning and self-discipline than usual.

And a greater attention to George Michael songs.

Before this river becomes an ocean...

* Results not typical. Falling in love is not a side-effect of CR. In my case, there is a correlation, but hard to prove causation. Eat less, love more? Hmmmm...

Posted by april at 8:38 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Will MR Leave Me For A Heavier Woman?

Nerissa sent me this article re: hungry men preferring heavier women.
Luckily, I know from experience that MR likes me thin. He's seen pics of the heavier version, and while he might have liked my personality, he's much more physically attracted to me now.

I was scared for a minute though...

Posted by april at 6:56 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 11, 2007

Stuffed Mushrooms

I have always loved mushrooms. Portabellas, shiitakes, and even the regular old buttons.

Yesterday I saw a sale on "stuffing mushrooms," big ones of the perfect size to be hollowed out and stuffed. So I brought them home (after paying for them) and cooked them for dinner. There are millions of ways to stuff mushrooms, and mine was not particularly exciting, but it did make a yummy and cute little dish, one with more protein than your average vegetarian mushroom dish. All I did was stuff the mushrooms with finely diced zucchini, cooked eggwhite chunks, garlic, and oregano, then I topped them with no salt tomato sauce and nonfat mozzarella. Baked for about forty five mins at 350 ish (baked the mushrooms for 25 mins then added the cheese at the end so it would melt and not burn.

I have a ton of mushrooms left, so I'm thinking of many ways to stuff them. Suggestions welcome!

Posted by april at 5:51 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 10, 2007

Another Perfect Storm

Do y'all remember the entry a couple of months back when I got attacked by hummus at a particularly vulnerable moment?

Well, it's been about two months, and I've been doing very well. Taking my calories lower, dramatically increasing my exercise, scrubbing the bathroom with a bizarre mixture of vinegar and real cleaning products (constant source of argument between me and my environmentalist boyfriend: cleaning products. I love Tilex... he does not!) I've felt great, I look great (the boy notices that I look much slimmer and more toned, even though the scale says I'm heavier... that's muscle and water, less fat.) But overconfidence is never a good thing.

I had Friday all planned out. I was going to hit the gym at 8, do some warm up cardio before my 8:30 am Pilates class, come home and change before Luke and Susan picked me up to drive to Harrisburg to file for an election on our latest campaign, then we were all coming back to Blackfish to finally have the birthday lunch we'd been putting off for months (my birthday was August, Susan's was October, but we've all been too busy to celebrate!) I called Blackfish in the morning to find out what the soup would be. Carrot. Yum! More veggie purees!!! I was all set to order carrot soup, and the arugula salad with grilled chicken.

I got the gym, did my cardio, went to Pilates.

No teacher. Apparently she was on vaca and no one thought to tell us or set up a sub. I know she will be mad when she returns, as she is always on time and very good about showing up.

So I did more cardio. 40 mins total, hard treadmill workout, fast walk plus skipping up to 4.6 miles an hour at an incline of 4. Then I lifted light weights for twenty mins.

Then I went home to change. I was already hungry. It was quarter of ten. Yikes, thought I. But I knew I was going to have an excellent lunch at Blackfish at 1:30 so I was prepared to hang on.

Except that the trip to Harrisburg took much longer than we had planned. We were delayed at various points. Now luckily I got a skim latte on the way up, so I had a little calcium, protein, and a few nice B vitamins in me. But as we ran later and later, I got hungrier and hungrier.

Finally, at half past two, we arrived at Blackfish (at this point I have had breakfast at 6:30 and a skim latte at like 10.)

They're not serving lunch past two.

We try two more places... no lunch.

We finally end up at a steak and sushi place that I like a lot, and that i never get to go to cause my best friend who is my usual lunch companion hates it.

I read the menu. I think of Shelia, and order the sashimi lunch. Brilliant, think I. Miso soup, green salad, and raw fish, no rice. Perfect!

I eat my soup and salad. My sashimi plate arrives. It's about the size of a pea. I eat it in one bite.

I am freakin starving.

I forgot to mention that the night before, which was at the end of an intentionally light day since I'd gone out for din din on Wednesday, I had actually forgotten my megamuffin (remember, I was planning to eat my megamuffin on the way to my late evening meeting) and so gone without dinner, since I didn't want to eat right before bed when I got home.

So at this point, I've gone without dinner the night before, eaten a light breakfast (225 cals) at 6:30, had a skim latte at 10, and now it's after 3 and I've just been served a lunch the size of coaster. I am starving.

Then the afternoon took a turn for the grotesque.

I had a bite of my friend's spider roll (soft shell crab, avocado, rice.) That part wasn't too bad... in fact, it was delicious. I love sushi.

I had a California roll. Again, not perfect but not too bad.

Then Luke's plate of fries was served.

Beer battered spicy fries.

When I was a senior in college, I ate fries every night at 10 pm. I knew every fry place in New Haven. I am a French Fry fanatic, and I probably hadn't had an order of fries in over a year.

I ate about a third of Luke's plate. He had some, Susan's husband had some, Luke's wife had a few.

Wow, they were good. But not planned. And not a good use of calories.

But I was just so hungry.

The moral of the story is: pack emergency megamuffins. When you're at my calorie level and already in calorie deficit from exercise, you do not need to play around. Pack muffies! If I had eaten something healthy before lunch, I could have subsisted on the delicious yet pea sized sashimi. And still had room for dinner.

I got home and was sad. Told MR about the event. He was, as always, right there with the pep talk.

"You've been doing so well! Don't worry about it! You'll get back on the horse tomorrow!"

But I was despondent. Irrationally, absurdly sad.

Then we observed that I was in major PMS mode.

Right.

Let's see: skipped dinner the night before, ate a light breakfast, delayed lunch till after 3, had the plan for where and what we would eat switched on me at the last minute, then was confronted with an old favorite gak food. A perfect storm. Much like the hummus.

Last month, I got through PMS food cravings with careful planning and Keith Olbermann fantasies. But this month, no such luck.

Today was a good food day: quotidian breakfast, big salad for lunch, and dinner was a small serving of the stuffed mushroom dish I made MR plus a 100 g kale salad with yogurt and flax oil and salsa. Hmmmm... rockin out that calcium and B vitamins today!

It's about time for us all to go to bed... remember to set your clocks forward!

0

Posted by april at 10:51 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

March 8, 2007

It's A Very Large Cat.

I shocked my co-workers this evening at our meeting when I announced, as a shrimp appetizer was placed on the table, "Please save your shrimp tails... my cat loves them."

Susan and Luke know that "my cat" is really MR. I mean, Kieffer will get a shrimp tail or two, but MR is the one who gets serious tail about here.

"It's a very large cat," said Susan, as she attempted to keep a straight face and not choke on her diet Coke.

I just came home with a huge "kitty bag" of shrimp tails. MR is very happy.

Kieffer might get one too.

Posted by april at 10:02 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Blueberry Muffin

No, it's not something I ate. It's the Strawberry Shortcake doll I fear I may eventually ressemble.

First, there was the blue lips from the blueberries on Tuesday in Scranton. Then, this morning while I was drying my hair upside down (that gives it more body... not that my hair needs more body, it's huge!) I noticed something odd.

My legs looked vaguely blue.

I made MR charge up the stairs and look. He assurred me that they weren't really blue, and that it was just that I could see my veins a little more clearly than usual. They're not varicose veins or spider veins or really huge bulging veins, they're just veins that are move visible than before. This is probably a result of having less body fat than I used to. There's not much fat for the veins to hide in.

Wow, the results of exercise + CR just get more and more interesting all the time.

Last night's dinner was amazing. They didn't have blackfish... apparently the blackfish aren't running this season, but they had substituted Striped Bass, so I ate that, and it was good. The highlight of the meal, however, was the beet soup. Presentation was quite a production. First, the waiter came out with two shallow bowls (we both had the beet soup) with just a small slice of beet topped with a tiny dollop of creme fraiche (max a teaspoon) and a sprig of watercress. That was all. No soup, just a beet.

When do we all start to laugh at the funny joke? thought I.

Then the other waiter came up with a kettle, and proceeded to pour beautiful magenta beet soup into our bowls on top of the beet slices. Wow, the beet soup was likely one of the top five best soups I've ever tasted.

The Silverado cab was pretty amazing too, a 2002. Even the waiter was impressed. He took it to open and said, "Ah, a good producer." Then he gave it a nice sniff. We loved it... had a long conversation about the labor movement, the state of US healthcare, the obesity epidemic and what is to be done, and the difference between California cabs and French reds that taste like dirt. I prefer French, but I do love a good California.

Tonight I have a late meeting. There will be tons of food at the restaurant but I will be eating none of it... just my megamuffin in the car on the way there. I'm going light again today since yesterday was a heavy day. Usual breakfast, usual lunch of salad but cottage cheese and flax since a) they're still out of yogurt b) I'm on the road for dinner so I won't be getting flax then. Large grapefruit and 10 g almonds for afternoon snack. Then I'll just eat my megamuffin as dinner and call it a day... except for my glass of wine when I get home, before bed. 1117 total. Light for me, but restaurant food is way higher than what I'm used to, so it'll definitely be balanced out by last night's dinner.

If I turn blue, I will clash with my kitchen. But I sure will go well with the living room.

Posted by april at 12:12 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

March 7, 2007

Blackfish

I have a bottle of Silverado cabernet that I bought on an amazing sale a few months ago, and I've been waiting for an occasion on which to drink it with one of my favorite wine drinking friends. So tonight we've finally gotten our schedules together to go out for dinner. We're going to Blackfish, the new BYO in my little town that is walking distance from my house! It's a great restaurant where the chef used to work at Le Bec Fin (widely regarded as Philly's best restaurant.) In fact, last week while I was there with my other friend we saw Georges Perrier, the owner of Le Bec Fin, eating at Blackfish! The chef/owner came out to say hello, exchange those little kissies in the air next to both cheeks, and talk about the food. He was with a gorgeous woman with long wavy black hair, and a lovely looking bottle of wine. We had tons of fun watching.

My meal last time we went was excellent: I had the soup of the day, which was a celery root soup, not cream based. Vegetable purees seem to be all the rage in Philly restaurants right now, a trend I heartily endorse. Then for my entree I had the arugula salad with grilled chicken, about 3 oz, on top. It was all fabulous.

I was looking at today's menu for dinner and after looking up nutrition info on several items, I think I'm going with the title track: blackfish! Here's the entry in nutritiondata.com. Looks good, doesn't it? When they called to confirm my reservation, I asked about the soup, and sure enough, it's another veg puree, this time roasted beet! I love beets! Needless to say, I'm very excited.

I'm eating light today to save calories for dinner. I had my eggwhites with flax, cheese and salsa, then for lunch I only had my salad and almonds, no yogurt, no megamuffin, for a total of 160 calories. I will be very hungry by dinner, but we're eating early (5:15) so I should be fine.

I feel I can go muffin-less today because yesterday turned out to be a double muffin day. I headed up to Scranton after hitting the gym in the morning, and on my way up I ate my muffin du jour, along with my salad and cottage cheese and flax oil (we're out of my favorite brand of yogurt till the Giant gets the special order in Saturday.) Then as I drove into the parking garage I ate the 20 g of almonds and 28 g of dried blueberries that MR had packed for me.

Then I went into the bathroom at the Scranton office to put on my makeup before the meeting and noticed something odd: my lips were blue!

Now it was very cold yesterday, 0 F with wind chill, and I was up in the mountains. I was cold pre-CR and I'm even colder now (though I love summer!) But I didn't think I was THAT cold! Blue lips? Isn't that supposed to happen right before you die of hypothermia?

Oh, right. The blueberries. Good to know.

Thanks to the miracle of modern makeup, I managed to look like other than a doll from the early eighties Strawberry Shortcake collection by the time the nurses arrived.

I had been planning to say overnight as our last meeting wasn't supposed to end until around nine, but a co-worker called to say that a snow storm was heading in and that they were talking about cancelling Philly schools. Then my other co-worker, the one working in Scranton, said that no one was confirmed for the later meeting, so the turnout would be at most one or two. I decided to hit the road at about 7, but due to a kerfuffle with my car, didn't make it home till after 10. I hate being out late, but I was so happy to be home in my warm bed with my soft cuddly kitty and my orange one. It was worth the drive. Sure enough, it snowed overnight and the roads were a mess. People here really freak out at the slightest hint of snow. I know I do, but I'm from North Carolina -- what's their excuse?

I had packed a Lean Cuisine to eat between meetings (we have a microwave in the office in Scranton) but since I hit the road early, I ended up eating my megamufin that MR had packed for me to have for breakfast today. Double muffin day.

Got up and went to my Pilates class this morning, even though I was quite exhausted. I really have to get up early no matter what, since MR gets up at 5 and the cat starts howling for his mommy. He's trained that I get up and feed him, and then I lie down with him on the couch, sometimes for just a few minutes but often until breakfast just after six. So even if MR feeds him, he still comes to the bottom of the stairs and howls for his mama cuddle time. I like to absord NPR while MR makes breakfast salad and the cat purrs on top of me. My mother has done the same thing with her cat for years, minus MR and the breakfast salad, of course. There's a lot of purring in our house. And a lot of howling. And a lot of fur.

This time of year I sometimes wish I had fur. I am currently wearing a long skirt with my gym pants underneath it for warmth, plus a camisole, a long sleeved shirt, a wool sweater, and a polarfleece jacket. I am sipping my third cup of tea. I need to order some of the extra warm silk understuff that a reader sent me a link to recently... being cold is no fun. Of course it doesn't help that there's a caulking problem with my office window, so on cold days it's about sixty degrees in here. We keep calling the building management... they keep saying they're going to fix it... nothing happens. I freeze.

I'm glad I went to Pilates, even though I was a bit stiff and tired from five hours of driving yesterday and not getting much sleep. I found out that my teacher is from Scranton! She's adoreable. I so enjoy the exercise.

Can't think of any snappy lines to end with, so I'll just say thanks to all for your kind comments on the last few entries and I'll talk to you soon!

Posted by april at 12:28 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

March 6, 2007

On Way to Scranton

Hi everyone... I'm out of town today and not sure when I'll have internet access, so don't worry if I don't respond to emails or publish comments till tomorrow or later tonight!

Have a great day!

a

Posted by april at 6:16 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

March 5, 2007

Re-Creation

Hazel wrote a beautiful post recently in which she talked about engaging in recreation activities and rest as a way of taking care of herself. She wrote:

But actually, the reason I'm doing so well emotionally and physically and in my CRON practice and relationship and having time for recreational activities, etc, is because I take care of myself, I give myself plenty of free time, and I "listen to my body" and respect that I have "needs" etc.

You go girl, I say, unreservedly.

This is a concept I've been experimenting with in my life as of late. For most of my life, I've been chronically sleep-deprived, working myself into constant exhaustion, and likely destroying though stress any life-extension gains I may have made through diet. Last year was particularly bad. MR watched in horror as I lived without adequate sleep for weeks on end, and even when I was at home and supposedly relaxing, I was still thinking about work all the time.

I am so very grateful to have been blessed with a partner who was willing to live with me through these times and still remain steadfast in his support. But more than anything, I have come to appreciate as of late how little time any of us has, even if CR and biomedical interventions into the aging process really do give us more years of healthy life.

Lately I've been sleepy. Very sleepy. Since I increased my exercise, I've been noticing a certain floppiness about myself... I love to catch a nap on a weekend afternoon, and I go to bed earlier and sleep later. Still only sleeping until 6:20, but this is late for us.

I think this is really, really important. When I'm very tired, it's my body's way of telling me that it needs to re-create itself. By spending time in recreational pursuits, like exercise, meditation, and sleep, I'm re-creating my very body and soul. What could be more important?

For eleven years, probably longer, I lived my life as though energy were a fuel to be used up, like you could just go to the gas station and fill up with more later. Lately I've begun to realize that's not how it works. The toll of my last few campaigns has been more than just some missed sleep and a few stressful days.

As Shawn Colvin said in the wonderful song, "Diamond in the Rough" off her "Steady On" album:

I have lost too much sleep
I'm gonna find it.

A few months ago one of my most loyal readers warned me that all that I was doing for life-extension was going to go to waste if I didn't address the extreme stress in my life. I want her to know that I've been addressing that stress, scaling back, and learning what makes me feel good. Lots of good food, rest, exercise, time with friends, and love from my orange are what makes me feel re-created every day.

It's tempting to sink back into the grind of caring about nothing but work, but I fight it. And lately, I've been making progress. It's an uphill climb, but what else are you going to do? I love my nurses, my job, the movement, and the feeling of helping workers get a voice on the job. But if I destroy my own health, it's not going to be worth it in the end. You'd think that a CR practitioner and life-extensionist would have figured that earlier, but sometimes I'm a little slow. It tooks tons of meditation for me to realize that I have to be there for myself before I can truly be there for others.

So I will, with dedication and commitment (which I can spell thanks to A DNJ d G), continue to work out, do Pilates, get lots of sleep, spend time with my friends and family, and indulge in early morning and late night cat cuddles.

At least I have some great socks to wear to the gym.

Posted by april at 6:56 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Seasonal Inappropriateness Disorder

Well, it was warm for a few days and sunny, and all over the east coast sufferers from Seasonal Affective Disorder rejoiced. I am very lucky not to be one of them, but I've known quite a few people with severe cases, including one woman who got so depressed in winter that she had to drop out of Cornell. Some folks I know have had huge success kicking SAD with a combination of fish oil and melatonin. I'm so glad this is a problem I've never had.

I do, however, have another problem I wish to discuss with you now.

I think it all started last year when we loved our Christmas lights so much that we never took them down. They were just so pretty! As you know, I love to decorate for holidays, and why stop just because the holiday is over?

I am also a huge fan of holiday themed socks. This year my mom gave me some great Halloween socks. MR was particularly infatuated with the little orange pumpkin socks. He also loved the green socks with the black cat sporting a green crystal eye. At Christmas, he got really attached to my little red Christmas socks with Christmas cats and little rubbery sticky paws on the bottom. I got my mom a couple of pairs for the hospital and got myself some at the same time.

When I bought some Christmas underwear, that went over well too. I'll spare you the details.

Anyhow, it seems absurd to stop wearing all these socks because it's no longer holiday time. I mean, they're perfectly good socks. And since I wear boots all winter, I've just kept wearing the seasonal socks even though 'tisn't the season.

Which brings us to the problem of the gym. I wear little capri style yoga pants type of things to work out in, so my socks actually show peeking out of my sneakers. For awhile, I was sticking to little white ankle socks in an effort to fit in at the gym. But this weekend I did a lot of laundry and washed all my holiday socks, and was once again enraged that we live in a culture where one could be shunned for wearing seasonally inappropriate socks.

So I packed my gym bag with cute little black pants, cute little purple t-shirt, and bright green Christmas socks with Christmas cats. (holidays... cats... you get the idea.)

Then the unthinkable happened.

I saw an attractive man at my gym.

Actually, I saw him in the parking lot. He was taking off his suit jacket and putting it back in his car before going into the gym. He was wearing a dark grey suit and a blue shirt, blueish tie. Glasses, skinny, forties. I adore men in their forties. I am so glad I got MR at 35 so that I can watch him ripen. Just leave 'em in a sunny window...

Meanwhile, I'm a bit of a flirt. I see nothing wrong with noticing attractive men (the one or two times a decade I meet one skinny and geeky enough for me) and engaging in light flirtation, as long as one makes it quite clear that one means no disrespect to the wife, children, planetary seniority, professional accomplishments, or armed guards surrounding the dude. I don't mean anything by it... I just like to appreciate a sexy man when I see one. Men are usually not offended, and MR is not at all jealous... he knows I worship the ground he walks on, and as long as I'm only checking out skinny guys, he's fine with it. He's very secure that way. (He also wants you to know he wasn't mad about the tomatoes... he thinks it's cute, if a little scary.)

So I'm figuring I'll strike up a brief convo with the cute dude at the gym. After all, I've only ever seen like one other guy I thought was cute at my gym. Beefy guys who weigh more than myself and my partner combined don't do it for me. So on this rare occasion, a brief chat might be in order. And these days I no longer hate how I look in gym clothes, so I may as well enjoy it.

Then I remembered. Seasonally inappropriate socks.

How can I flirt with the sexy dude when I'm wearing Christmas socks on March fifth???

I left well enough alone and disappeared into fantasies of Keith Olbermann in a hotel bar and my own Orange One on the... (details omitted to save his parents the "EEEK!" factor.)

Clearly, I have a problem. I am seasonally inappropriate, and it's keeping me from engaging in activities that I used to enjoy.

What am I going to do? Just sit at home and eat grape tomatoes all day?

Posted by april at 5:58 PM | Comments (14) | TrackBack

March 4, 2007

What's Going To Happen When... ?

When MR realizes that I've eaten all the grape tomatoes?

I just polished off my third pint. Yes I'm still at just under 1300 cals for the day, but a lot of that was tomato. Maybe that's why I don't eat much traditional fruit... I'm too busy eating tomatoes.

I'm hoping that there are a few more grape tomatoes, somewhere. MR often hides them out on the back porch since it's cold enough to be just like refrigeration out there.

The problem is, they're expensive. And we're working on cutting back our costs since tax time is coming up and we bought a house and blah blah blah. I can not eat our entire savings in grape tomtatoes.

But I love them so. And when I'm alone in the kitchen with them, it's so hard to resist. Knowing that they're so low in calories and so nutritious does not help. If only they were cheaper!

I can't wait till summer when the famers' markets overflow with tomatoes and all sorts of produce, super cheap, all ready to come to my house and entertain me.

Do you think I should just go upstairs to his office and tell him now? Is it better to be up front about the missing tomatoes, instead of living in denial until tomorrow morning when he'll reach for them as he's making my lunch salad and realize they're gone? It's not like I had an affair, or drank a bottle of wine, or ate one of his lunch stews.

Oh no, I hear him coming down the stairs.

Later...

Here's how the conversation went:

"Honey, I have to tell you something."

"You ate all the grape tomatoes in the house?"

"YES!"

"Oh no! I was making a joke!"

Nutritionally and calorie-wise, this is a good investment. Financially, it is a poor use of resources. With the money I am spending on grape tomatoes, I could probably support a starving child in a poverty-stricken nation. Or pay someone to clean my house.

But no, I eat grape tomatoes. A lot of them.

Should I just stop? I mean, if I don't buy them, they won't be here and I won't eat them.

But I do love them so... and they're so low cal and nutritious... and I love them.

Life is full of compromises. I know that I am very lucky to have a job that I love that pays me enough to afford grape tomatoes. I know that I am blessed to share my life with a man who can understand the importance of the tomato in my life. This incident will not lead to divorce, a) because we're not married b) because MR is very understanding even when I spend large amounts of money on grape tomatoes (but for anyone who is considering divorce, you should read this post from our friend Al -- it could save you a lot of stress and money!) But I need them. If they're here, I'm going to reach for them. It doesn't matter if they're $3.49/pint, I'm still going to eat them all up.

It's probably a good thing the grocery store isn't in walking distance.

Posted by april at 10:10 PM | Comments (14) | TrackBack

March 3, 2007

A Magnificent Obsession

One of the predictable results (should we call it a side effect?) of writing a CR blog is that one is constantly accused of being obsessed with this or that. Obsessed with weight, obsessed with health, obsessed with the weight of an eggwhite patty... you name it, I'm no doubt obsessed with it. Obsessed with the color orange, with skinny men, with giant howling cats... the list goes on.

The one thing I have not yet been acused of being obsessed with is the thing with which I am actually obsessed. Can you guess what it is?

MR knows, cause he has to live with the addiction.

Are you still guessing?

MR knows because he's walked into the kitchen way too many times to see me consuming the item.

Need a hint?

In the summer, it can be down to $2 a pint, but this time of year, it's often $3.99 to buy a pint of the quality that I require.

My mom knows by now.

Grape tomatoes.

I've eaten two pints today. Nature's Promise, Giant's organic brand. They're amazing, almost as good as Lady Moon Farms organic. Of course they can't compare to the sungold tomatoes of Full Moon Farm in Burlington, Vermont, but for store bought tomatoes, they're great.

Of course, they come at a price. But here's the thing: whenever I get very, very hungry, a pint of grape tomatoes satisfies me. They're usually about 282 grams a pint, which means that they're less than 90 calories per pint (about 27 cals per hundred grams, though the counts we read vary a bit. 27 is the highest one.) I have this theory that if I could just eat two pints of grape tomatoes a day, I could drop my calories even lower without any hunger. Just give me my tomatoes!

I tried a few other strategies to combat hunger today. I drank a cup of free range organic low sodium chicken broth a half hour before lunch because MR usually eats at 12:30, so while I eat at 12 noon when I'm at work (assuming I'm not out meeting with nurses), I wait to eat with him when I'm home on the weekend. I was quite hungry, and the chicken broth defiitely tided me over.

Before dinner I ate 100 g celery with about a teaspoon of spicy mustard. I love celery, I love mustard, and I love the two together.

I've done pretty well today food wise, though I forgot about my megamuffin and ate only half of it as dessert with dinner. I'm still just barely under 1300 for the day because in addition to my quotidian breakfast, I ate an entire cup of cottage cheese with Carolina Treet! That's an extra 200 calories added on at the start of my day. I was really, really hungry. I don't feel like I'm working out *that* much, but maybe I am. I'll have to come to some sort of equilibrium agreement, but for the moment I'm upping my target and letting my body figure itself out. The exercise is such a tremendous stress reducer/mood improver/bone builder/attractiveness increaser (MR loves the toned look) that I don't want to give it up. I just have to find a balance over time, and I'm confident I will.

I loved Haesel and Robin's entries today. This is one of those days when I feel like we're all heading in the right direction.

Posted by april at 9:01 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

The Salad Has Gone To A Better Place

The moral of the story is: be careful when lowering your calories at the same time as dramatically increasing your exercise.

As we are all aware, I've been gradually lowering my calories, and also cutting back on occasions where I go out and eat a lot more than usual. I've also DRAMATICALLY increased my exercise: between Pilates, cardio and lifting, I'm both burning more calories every day and also putting on muscle that burns calories itself.

Since I monitor my weight carefully, I know that I'm not losing weight too fast... in fact, most likely as a combination of water weight gain (which I always have initially with exercise) followed by a little bit of muscle weight gain, which weighs more than fat, the numbers on the scale have actually gone up. MR has pointed out that he's shocked at how quickly my body has responded to this increase in exercise, and that I *look* much thinner and more toned. My mom agreed when I saw her on Wednesday. I know my clothes are fitting more losely. So I figured I was probably in some kind of calorie deficit, but yesterday it became quite clear that I may be in too much calorie deficit.

After a busy day, at the end of which I drove out to Northeast Philly to meet a nurse, and then sat in horrible rush hour traffic on the way home, I walked in the door at about 5 pm and I was SOOOOO HUNGRY! I'd had an extremely nutritious day: eggwhites with nonfat cheese, flax oil and salsa for breakfast, big salad of kale, napa, arugula and romaine with nonfat yogurt, almonds, and Walden Farms Sun dried tomato basil dressing, plus an entire savory megamuffin with one of the fancy mustards that Luke gave me for Christmas. I even had a six ounce glass of V-8 juice after my morning Pilates class, so I was already higher in calories for the day than normal. We eat dinner at 6:30, but as soon as I walked in the door, I knew I had to eat something.

I searched the fridge for my usual snacks: grape tomatoes or celery. But as it was the day before grocery day, we were out of both. So I opened the salad MR had packed for the next day for me. At first I was just going to eat the grape tomatoes off the top. But as soon as I ate the first one, I knew I'd eat the entire thing. So instead of just standing there shoveling at the fridge, I put the salad on the plate, added a teaspoon of flax oil, and topped it with some salsa verde. Black Cherry seltzer on the side.

Once I ate my salad, I felt fine. It was just 155 calories for the entire package, and made my already nutritionally good day even better. For dinner, I steamed up 100 grams of brussels sprouts in some free range organic chicken broth and ate that along with my glass of wine (Ravenswood Red Zin -- I'm out of the Frenchy stuff for now). My total calories were only 100 above the day's target, which makes me think that I'll just raise my calorie target for the time being, while my body is adjusting to the exercise. I can go back to dropping it 50 at a time once I'm in more equilibrium.

Meanwhile, I'm loving all the effects of exercise, from being able to carry more cat liter and open the salsa jar more easily to sleeping better and feeling much less stressed.

We had a lovely Friday night. I made MR a pumpkin Quorn curry, with a side of brusses sprouts with lime. I basically just take no salt veggie broth and dissolve a cup of canned pumpkin in it, then stir in Quorn, any veggies I'm adding, a ton of curry and garlic, a little half salt, and a few eggwhites to up the protein.

Today I'm off to do the weekly grocery shop. Lately we've cut our Whole Foods and Trader Joe's trip back to once a month, and I've been shopping at the Giant store just a couple of miles away. They have a good organic section, they're very willing to special order things like my magic yogurt for us, and it's so close by that it's both convenient and cuts down on our use of the car. Other than trips I have to make for my work and my every two weeks trips to visit my mom, we barely use the car at all. We take public transit whenever we go into the city, and now that we've cut out the weekly trip into town for groceries, the car spends a lot of time sitting at home. She seems happy.

Time for breakfast... gotta run!

Posted by april at 6:22 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

March 1, 2007

Talking Back To Those Negative Voices

Our CR sister Emily wrote a beautiful post the other day in which she mentioned talking back to the negative voices about food and body image that haunt us all. In it, she said:

Because as it turns out, until writing this right now, I still have these thoughts in my head that I'm weak for eating more than 1000 calories every day, that if I were really strong, I'd be able to fast and exercise and drop this extra weight right away. And that is just not true. I would not be morally stronger, I would not be a better person if I'd eaten less. It is an accomplishment to not give in to the thoughts telling me just to lose the weight first and then get healthy, not a weakness. Eating less than my target number of calories is NOT an accomplishment. I need to learn to really, truly believe that.

Wow. YOU GO GIRL! Way to go, talking back to those destructive voices! Tell them where to go!

Controlling our calories in an obesogenic environment is hard. Monitoring our nutrition in a world where that's considered obsessive is hard. But the hardest task of all, I think, for the CR'd, especially for the CR'd woman, is talking back to those negative voices about food and body image in our heads. We spend so much of our lives absorbing the message that our weight = our worth that even as we get skinny the healthy way, it's still hard to keep perspective and realize that we are NOT a number on the scale.

It's hard even for me. I've been quite happy with my weight since the summer of 2004 when after spending ten years struggling to maintain a weight in the 120's with everything from lowfat veganism to weight lifting, then taking a short but horrific journey into the upper 130's (I am less than 5'2") I finally learned the CR tricks of the trade and got my weight down to 115. As it dropped gradually lower... 110, 108, 106 for a long time, followed by 104, 102, a brief spell at 99 and these days around 104 until I started putting on muscle through intense exercise and lately hit 107. I feel great in my body, enjoy the many health benefits of moderate CR, and shop with confidence for bikinis in the Victoria's Secret catalogue. But even I have moments when I hear the negative voices about food and body image in my head.

Take for instance these media appearances. I've grown accustomed to the look that reporters get when they finally meet me after reading the articles and the blog. There's a split-second look me up and down, followed by an almost tangible disappointment, and I see them mentally striking the word "emaciated" from their article. Sure enough, I'm not Kate Moss. I've still got the girly stuff, and lots of it. I can see them thinking, "I was expecting someone... thinner." And while I am extremely pleased with my persistent feminine curves, wouldn't want to give them up, and very happy in my body, even I find it rather frustrating to have to explain for the millionth time that I've lost forty pounds, CR isn't about looking like a skeleton, etc.

Luckily, I can produce someone who is as thin as these media folks want us to be. MR walks down the stairs and fulfills their sterotype of the CR'd male, but the fact is, even pre-CR, he was plenty skinny enough to do that. It's not about weight! Lots of skinny people are unhealthy and not CR'd! I know that and you know that, but I still experience the moment of frustration and self-doubt when I realize again that I'm not as skinny as people think I should be.

MR reminds me that "You're not skinny at all!" is usually a compliment. Especially when coming from a male. But I get sick of hearing it, and while I (with the help of my partner) always talk myself out of the negative thoughts, they still cross my mind every time someone exclaims that I'm really quite ample for someone on a calorie restricted diet.

Sometimes I am tempted to lose some weight before these media appearances, to become more of the skin and bones look that people expect from CR-bloggie girl. After all, I know all the tricks. I know how to lose weight the healthy, safe way, and I also know how to lose weight the fast and dangerous way, the way that leads to binges and self-hatred and wacky blood sugar roller coasters and unnecessary fights with one's best friend.

But I always talk myself out of these negative feelings, with the help of MR and my own internal survival instinct. I check in with my goals. Am I doing this to impress the media? NO! Am I doing this to live as long and healthy as I can in a youthful body and brain? YES!

And how can I best set a good example for my friends who are working to implement healthy change in their own lives? By sticking to healthy CR principles: no fast weight loss, no starving, nothing but good, nutrient dense food, enjoyed with the people I love (and the cats I love) and treated with the respect that our sustanance deserves. Yes, I am lowering my calories gradually. But when I find that I've gone too low, or implemented too much change at once (increased exercise plus decreased calories threw my body for a loop) I've got to readjust and find a balance that will keep me on the right track. I'm done with detours into the land of self-hatred, bad habits, and punishing my body for behaving the way it's biologically programmed to behave. I'm in it for the long haul, and that means that talking back to those negative voices is a matter of life and death. I've had to make peace with them, but it's an ongoing process... I just know that if I don't do what's right and healthy, I'll end up squandering years of health that I otherwise might have enjoyed. It's not worth the trade off.

I'm so happy to see my CR girls talking back to those n