April's CR Diary: February 2008 Archives

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February 29, 2008

Katy Tried...

Katy tried
I was halfway crucified
I was on the other side of no tomorrow
You walked in
And my life began again...

All night long we would sing that stupid song
And every word we sang I knew was true

Are you with me, Dr. Wu?
Are you really just a shadow of the man that I once new
Are you crazy, are you high?
Or just an ordinary guy?
Have you done all you can do?
Are you with me Dr. Wu?

The other day my best friend was on the phone with a colleague and said, "Are you with me, Dr. Wu?" I had never heard him quote Steely Dan in casual conversation.

To say that I am under the weather would be an understatement. I am about to go back to bed. I am running a fever. I am fairly sure I have the flu. It's hit us very bad here, and my CR being uh not CR, I have lost my fanatical immune system. Ugh. Motivation in spades. I hate being ill.

Danny C apparently is feeling sick as well. He'd better get over it.

Luckily, the CR perfect MR will not get sick no matter what. I want my CR back! It's hard but who cares, I will do anything to get back that zinging feeling where my entire body is alive, more alive than I ever thought possible pre-CR.

I've been hungry lately, no doubt as a result of my workouts and building hungry muscle. My body fat precentage is dropping, so I am clearly losing fat. I love working out. I want to teach Pilates.

I have to go back to bed. Hopefully will feel better soon.

Posted by april at 6:55 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

February 26, 2008

When I Am Staring Into Space...

I am doing one of three things:

a) Counting calories. I keep a running total all day.

b) Counting yes and no votes on my current union campaign.

c) Composing Pilates routines to my favorite music. This evening, while walking in a driving rain to meet our new accountant for our tax appointment, I composed what I suspect is the first and only Pilates ab routine to Leonard Cohen's "Lover Lover Lover." It is a relentless, energetic ab routine. It has no rest at all during the entire song. It is supposed to put the participant into a kind of ab work trance, punctuated by occasional screams of pain. It's a good kind of pain, though, the "Pain is fear leaving the body" kind of pain. It won't hurt afterwards. I can do this routine and feel no soreness whatsoever the next day. When you're in the trance, in the headspace, in the zone, the very relentlessness, the lack of a release or a rest, is experienced as heightened pleasure. It's just like fasting, or like a forty-five minute build up to an orgasm... there's a whole other way of experiencing life that you can't get to until you've built up some strength, but trust me, it's worth it.

If anyone has ever taken a Pilates class with Leonard Cohen music, please let me know.

So I'm decorating my upstairs temple meditation space to double as a Pilates studio. My Pilates is a meditation, and I am thinking of designing a Pilates class for magicians. I'm getting carpets and candles and pillows and blankets. The blankets are just for decoration. I'm really excited about it.

Food is going well. Today my best friend brought in one of his homemade burritos, which I ate and counted as 600, but then later he and Susie wanted to go out to lunch and I went with them to be social but ate nothing. Amazing how easy it is to not eat when you're not hungry. Compulsion-ology. I've spent years studying the compulsion. To eat, to drink, to have sex, to fulfill all those biological urges that may or may not be convenient. I've found that exercising choice and control over when and how and with what or whom I satisfy them makes the eventual release, the inevitable moment when I eat my organic cottage cheese or make love to my blue eyed angel so much sweeter, so much more powerful than the experience of simply shoveling in whatever to satisfy the craving, as though the craving in itself were life and death. Deferred gratification is not death: it's an expression of confidence that you will eventually get all you need. The difference between us, human conscious CR practitioners, and the animals in the experiments, is that we know for sure we will feed ourselves, when we so choose. We can choose to wait because we're not afraid of starvation. We can eat less because we know that the famine our bodies have been programmed to survive just isn't going to happen. There is no famine, there is no reason to be afraid of starving to death. Satisfaction is always just around the corner, but the act of waiting, of moderating, or eating as little as possible has rewards far beyond just eating whatever, whenever.

Not to say that I do this all the time. Lately I've eaten too much, been out too much, exercised so much that my hungry muscles cry out for food and I ate a cup of my chick pea chili and a half cup of cottage cheese last night before bed. Perhaps I am working out too much. At the moment I need the clarity that I feel in my body, and it's worth a few extra calories. Once I'm done losing weight and calorie stable, I may cut back my exercise. At the moment I'm just reconnecting with my body and I need the Pilates binge... I love to sit in the V-sit pose and do scissor legs until I get bored. The end of my Leonard Cohen ab workout involves a version of the V-sit with scissor legs and it gets harder with every chord.

I've always had an addictive personality: can it be any surprise that I've gotten addicted to Pilates?

Now I'm going to hit the floor and work out to some Anjani and Leonard Cohen till bed time.

Y'all are welcome to come to my class!

Posted by april at 6:47 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

February 24, 2008

Approach this workout wholistically...

That's what the teacher on my Pilates video says in the beginning. Hilary Burnett's Pilates Intermediate: I highly recommend. MR gave it to me for Christmas and I adore it. Amazing workout in half an hour.

Anyhow, I was doing the video in the living room and just after we were urged to approach the workout wholistically, my cat barfed right in front of the computer.

That's wholistic if anything is.

Anyhow, I adore Pilates. My workouts are going great, and if I could just stop eating out my CR would be rocking as well. I have no trouble keeping to goal while at home or eating measured food, it's the pressure to go out and the genuine compulsion to eat more when it's available at restaurants.

Workout wise, I am doing 35 mins a day on the elliptical machine, Pilates 5 - 7 days a week between class and video, and some arm and ab weight lifting in there too. Danny C and I often talk about how I have offensive toughness and he has defensive toughness: I feel like my ability to proactively work out but difficulty with saying no to eating out is an example of this. He is very good at saying no; I am very bad at saying no but very good at going on the offensive. Somewhere between the two of us is a sane person.

I have this vision of becoming a Pilates instructor. I know, keep dreaming. But if I really work at it and study and practice everyday, maybe someday? I've already pledged to create a 15 minute class for MR, focusing solely on core strength and flexibility, as the man clearly doesn't need to lose weight or tone up his thighs for bikini season. So I'm making up a super intense, short class for him. Every night after dinner I get one the floor and do my Pilates exercises... MR is still eating for about half an hour after I finish, due to differences in volume in our preferred foods. So I demonstrate Pilates exercises. Today I got him to get on the floor and try some exercises. Sure enough, it's hard. There is something really satisfying for me about watching men who are truly in better shape than I struggle over Pilates. No doubt this is indicative of a pretty serious character flaw on my part.

Anyhow, tomorrow morning is Pilates class + cardio all before work, so I'm off to bed!

Posted by april at 8:37 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

February 23, 2008

Curried Potluck Chili

I'm going to a potluck tonight, and it's the constant struggle to make something healthy that will appeal to ad lib eaters, in the midst of the chips and sodas and cookies.

So here's what I'm bringing:

Curried Chili

2 cans organic chickpeas
1 can no salt added generic tomato sauce
half salt to taste
curry powder (a whole lot)
dried onion
garlic powder
chili powder
cinnamon!
Texas Pete (Tabasco would do)
Quorn grounds for a meaty feel/flavor
Lemon juice

It's quite hearty and delicious for a cold winter's night. Hope it goes over well.

Posted by april at 2:45 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Do It Like You Do It With Me

One of the hardest parts of training organizers is teaching them to be natural, be themselves, while they're interacting with workers. There's this tendency to put on the "organizing voice," to seem a bit like they're performing, and of course that gets in the way of making a connection.

I hire people who impress me on first meeting with their ability to connect... with me! If they can connect instantly with me, plus they can prove that they have a deep ideological commitment to the cause and a work ethic, I can teach the rest. But sometimes when you get them in front of a group of nurses, they go all weird. So I try to bring them back to how they interacted with me upon first meeting.

"Do it like you do it with me," I said the other day.

Then I realized that I have so internalized the Nelly Furtado song "Do It" that I damn near quote it when I'm teaching.

Yikes.

I even meditate to the song. Nine out of ten Buddhist monks affirm that you reach enlightenment 60% faster if you meditate to Nelly Furtado.

Posted by april at 10:31 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

February 20, 2008

Tech

A friend of mine who is a professional sorcerer and I were exchanging notes about various kinds of magickal technique. "If I steal any tech from you," he wrote, "I'll give you credit."

Earlier in the day I'd been working with Danny C on an area of his organizing where he has some problems, and I said, "It's just tech at this point."

Tech... short/code for technique... what you are left with, or left looking to find, when you've made up your mind what to do and now you just need to know how to do it.

A lot of this blog is CR tech. Eat more protein, especially for breakfast. RDAs as a tactic, not an ideology. Eat fat with your meals, eat flax oil to make your skin silky soft and improve your interpersonal relationships. Use portabella mushrooms as pizza crusts. Use zucchini as the "pasta" in your lasagna. Yogurt is better in a soup than cream, just add it after removing from heat.

Among magicians, tech can mean a lot of things. How you do what you do can vary a lot, based on who you are and what you're doing. A traditional New Orleans witch is going to do things differently from a Kabalistic sorcerer. There's nothing more fun than when magicians meet, especially magicians/witches/sorcerers of different traditions. I had that happen to me recently when I met someone who is either a classically trained Kabalistic sorcerer, or just really works like one. I'm somewhere between a Chaos magician and a lazy American Christian witch, but I do seem to get my stuff done.

How you do what you do all hinges on what you really want to do. A lot of my entries here aren't tech -- they're polemics, designed to make you make a choice about whether or not you want to take control of your own health. Of course, in the course of so doing I'm constantly talking myself into doing it for myself. CR is hard, but the rewards are amazing. I've figured out most of the tech, and I attempt to share it with you so that you may take what you will and leave the rest. But knowing what it is that you want to do, and knowing what you want to do is an extension, ever so subtly, of knowing who you are.

A lot of my blog has been a journey into the middle of who I am, then out again, then back in. Tech, whether it be magickal, organizing, or CR, served as a series of tools to better articulate who I am and live in my body/mind/psyche/career in a way that was wholly consistent with my ideals and goals.

And then there are those months when everything just goes to hell and I'm lucky to spend five minutes meditating and eat one tablespoon of brewers yeast. And I'd have to admit that during some of those months I've had the months I've had the most enlightening, empowering discoveries of all. Not that I'd want to stay there, but sometimes the chaos and the dark undertow of passion that ends in eating fries off of someone else's plate and staying out way too late drinking that last glass of pinot noir and knowing that I shouldn't is exactly precisely what I needed to take everything to the next level, where everything is organizing, CR, exercise, love, the whole package.

I was saying to MR tonight over dinner (a nice eggplant dish with cauliflower and asparagus, plus basil, oregano, roasted garlic, eggwhites, flax and olive oil, and capers) that I've never been a person who could compartmentalize. Life is all of one piece to me. Love, fitness, magick, organizing, and scrubbing the kitchen floor are all stirred together in my psyche. I've become rather addicted to Pilates as of late, and I'm working on a class for all my co-workers to take. I was role-playing some work scenarios with Danny C today and I was tempted to hit the floor and do some Pilates crunches, but decided that it would be unfeasible in my professional clothes. But sure enough, just post dinner, I changed into my workout clothes and proceeded to do another demonstration class while MR finished his eggplant. My body is zinging from the alive feeling of being truly engaged and focused with the exercise, and it spills out into everything else I do.

This morning I took Pilates class, and while I felt exhausted from doing a whole lot of cardio and practically teaching a class the night before, I felt like I was taking my workout to the next level. Nearly shaking as the energy exploded inside me, I felt like I was learning how to rely on my own internal balance, not intellectualizing it or seeing my body, but allowing the natural balance to take over without interference from my own head. Much like how I teach organizing: destroy the ego, stop thinking, act directly from the heart and the instinct with no fear of rejection, and if you can't do that, go get yourself rejected until you can handle it.

And then this afternoon, after much work, one of my organizers made a definite breakthrough. I love teaching, and I love the moment when I see the light come on and it's there. Some of it is tech, but there's something deeper, the realization that what we're doing isn't just a means to an end, it's the only means to the only end that matters to us: that of workers gaining real power in a world where they're usually exploited and way too often with their implicit if not explicit consent. Organizing is hard, and you have to do it from the heart, not from some sort of intellectual commitment. The brainwork needs to be there, but you can't do it from the head alone.

So the tech has to be there. But more fundamentally, there is the decision to employ that tech to the result that you've committed yourself to.

I can't make that decision for you... I have trouble making that decision for myself! There are so many conflicting forces that swirl around us, not the least of which are the simple biological programmings that tell us to eat eat eat and carry triplets through a famine.

Decide for yourself... use the tech if it suits you.

Hope this helps. :)

Posted by april at 8:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Please Don't Comment On What I Eat

Wow, what a stressful day.

A bunch of crises were going on at work today, and so several friends went out after work to talk and hang out. I was already pretty stressed by the time we left, and it was closing in on dinner time.

We were at a friend's house, had a glass of wine, and looked in her fridge to find something to eat. There wasn't much, as this was a friend who is fundamentally opposed to cooking. But we did find some low carb tortillas, which I proceeded to microwave. I sat down at the coffee table and ate some of the low carb tortillas with a little of that Smart Balance butter-like stuff. My ideal snack? Absolutely not. What I would have eaten under normal circumstances? Nope. But I was hungry, it was a stressful situation, and for heaven's sake, they were low carb and I had read the calorie count on them.

One of my other friends said, "April, you can't eat that. Stop!"

And I kinda freaked out on him. I was mad.

I know that this entry could come straight out of "Every Woman Has An Eating Disorder," but I don't think you need to have an eating disorder to be angry when people try to tell you what to eat and what not to. Especially in a social situation, but really, anywhere.

This is a super-good friend of mine, and I'm quite sure (now that I've cooled off!) that he wasn't trying to be hurtful. He was no doubt trying to be a) funny b) helpful c) just make conversation.
And perhaps if I were in a state of utter enlightenment, having meditated and CR-Zenned myself to spiritual perfection, I would think it's funny if someone tells me to stop eating a low carb tortilla with Smart Balance.

Perhaps he wasn't commenting on my weight. Perhaps he wasn't thinking of the low carb tortilla as a moral issue. Perhaps he just thought it was an unappetizing combination.

The point is: to me, it feels judgmental and hurtful when someone comments negatively about what I'm eating. And I suspect that most people, especially most women, feel the same way. There's so much judgment attached to food in our culture that I think it's hard to feel any other way.

So here is my most respectful request of everyone I come into contact with:

Please do not make negative comments about what I eat.

It's not my job to be a role model of anyone else's idea of CR perfection, or of any other sort of perfection. It is very stressful and upsetting to me when people express shock, horror, or dissatisfaction when I eat this or that. As I've said about a gazillion times, I do not practice the "give up x y or z foods" version of CR, nor do I care to at this point. Perhaps someday I will. Even then, it will be my business what I put in my mouth, not anyone else's. Unless of course well that's a topic that need not detain us here.

I am religious about not commenting on what others eat. If they want my opinion (and often they do) they'll ask for it. If they don't, then I most certainly don't want to give it. It's just an invasion of boundaries. Even if someone has come to me asking for weight loss advice, I only talk about it specifically when they bring it up. If they want to order fries, that's their business.

Comments that all should feel free to make about what I am eating:

"Wow, that looks good! Can I have the recipe?"

"Wow, that looks yummy! If it's not perfectly calorie counted to the point where you will miss essential calories and nutrients if you comply with my request, may I have a bite?"

"Wow, what a cute little salad container! Is that really a trap door for the dressing? Did your partner give that to you? How sweet!"

"What's the name of the vegetable you're eating? I couldn't pick it out of a lineup!"

"There's nothing sexier than a beautiful woman eating raw kale."

Get the idea?

Thanks, to all, in advance, for your respect for my wishes in this matter.

Posted by april at 12:52 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack

Little People

Minicronnie is so cute!

She actually has a reasonable calorie count: 1200, if you are only slightly taller than my cat! :)

I am really enjoying reading her adventures in CR, and it's just so exciting to know that someone out there is shorter than I am!

I've been thinking a lot lately about how sexy, cool, beautiful, come in so many different shapes and sizes. I happen to have a fetish for super skinny guys, but there are quite a few men I find beautiful who are the tall and strong type. Keith Olbermann comes to mind, but there are other, less famous (as yet) examples.

More than anything, beauty comes from who you are inside, what you do, what you stand for, where you've been and where you're willing to go.

Of course, everyone is more beautiful when they eat kale. And B vitamins. I find I look so much better when I'm rocking out my B vitamin intake. Is it just me?

I have a friend who is one of those very short guys who tend to get overlooked for attention, promotions, etc. Short people often have to be more aggressive, more competent, just to compete with the tall folk. As a short girl, I learned early how to dress conservatively and well, wear heels (always -- there are people whom I've known for years who have never seen me without heels!) and stand up very straight. My friend is a very good looking guy, but will definitely have to dress better, work harder, and be somewhat more assertive if he is to overcome the prejudice folks seem to have against the short, especially short men. I took him the other night to buy clothes, and it was so much fun to shop for a boy, like having a doll! Perhaps I retired my Barbies too soon, but I love playing dress up with boys! Danny C, who is quite the fashionista if truth be told, came along and was extremely helpful with the boy-specific stuff, like how to get measurements for shirts and such. I am mostly good at saying, "You look good in that color. Put down that tie. Buy basic black. White shirt, good." Short people have a harder time buying clothes, I think. I've never bought a pair of pants I didn't have to hem. I almost always wear skirts, and they're often too long. For short, slim men, it can be impossible to find clothes that fit. And wearing clothes that fit and look professional can be essential to being taken seriously.

For women, I think it's easier. Though for extremely short women, like my high school best friend who used to rail at being treated like a doll and picked up without her permission, it's still hard.

And of course, there is so much weight bias in our society, something I have written about extensively

It really is hard to get all your nutrients into a small package. I find myself envying the tall, skinny beasties like MR who can eat much more than I can. He eats beans everyday! Now I know that I could eat a legume or two if I were to give up my red wine, but the day that happens is the day you should call the little men in the white suits to carry me away because I will have lost my mind.

Speaking of mind, I am reading with much enjoyment Oliver Sacks' The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. I wonder if I will ever become the woman who mistook her partner for a carrot. He is quite tall and orange, but not nearly as crunchy as one might expect or even hope.

Anyhow, I must now conclude this late night insomnia-induced fit of blogging and try to get some sleep... leaving at 6:30 am for the morning meeting, and going till well after 9 p.

Life of an organizer... and I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Posted by april at 3:47 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

February 18, 2008

The Woman Who Ate Her Own Subtext

"Sometimes I think my blog knows more than I do," I said to my lover, partner, salad of the essential beta-carotene of life MR a little over a week ago. After that long rant about fasting, I suddenly decided to eat three meals a few days later, starting with a huge breakfast of scrambled eggwhites *plus* my lunch salad with yogurt and flax oil. Quite the dramatic reversal. Once again, it's time to point out that there is no one CR-diet, no one way to structure the day's meals, as many ways to do CR as there are CR practitioners. No two are alike, as far as I know, and I'm in an almost constant state of experimentation.

I've been on the fence about breakfast. Sometimes I feel like starting out my day with a big shot of eggwhite protein, complete with cheese and salsa and brewers yeast, or sometimes the magnificent Texas Pete, is just what I need to feel strong and focused and healthy all day. When I'm feeling a little foggy or out of it or unwell, this always helps me. Even a nice whey shake with organic skim milk like Danny C and I drank heading up to Scranton the other day can make me feel really grounded and satisfied. I feel more like my usual self when I eat breakfast.

But there's something so seductive about fasting that I find myself skipping breakfast more often than not these days. Going without eating until lunch or sometimes later, even when I'm quite hungry, gives me an incredible kind of Zen-like clarity. Is it brain-derived neurotrophic factor? Is it CR induced euphoria? Is it just my imagination? Either way, it makes me happy, and it's fun to play with. I love playing with brain chemicals, yet I've spent my entire life being terrified of drugs (except for alcohol, which I should be terrified of but am not.) So playing with food combinations and fasting is my only way to turn my body into a chemistry lab. Also, if I know I'm going to have a big feast (like sushi day!) skipping breakfast is both a good way to keep my calories down and I appreciate my feast more after a bit of a fast. Which is not to say that I don't adore a sushi feast under any circumstances (heaven help that double negative) but the level of ecstasy (ever notice how hard it is to spell that word? I always think it's ecstacy, but it's not. And it would be really cool if it were exstacy, as though one had an ex named Stacy. I don't happen to have one, but I might be willing to acquire one just to make the joke. In fact, from now on, I think that all problematic exes should be referred to as Stacy. But I digress.) induced by a sushi fest after a bit of a fast is enough to just about kill me, which would be entirely contrary to the point of doing CR but would almost be worth it. And that which doesn't kill one makes one stronger, or at least that's the hormesis hypothesis, which has pretty much been disproven as a mechanism for why CR works, though people keep quoting it as though it's correct, further proving that Masoro is right that the only thing that never dies is an incorrect theory of aging, that being said, I'll take my chances that several weeks in a row having a sushi fest after skipping breakfast has in fact made me a stronger person, if not a younger one.

I'm not really interested in every other day fasting, that's just too much for a little girl like me, and I fear I'd have trouble getting in all the nutrition I need in one day's worth of food. It might be interesting to try one day a week fasting, but the nutrition concern remains. I'd have to really have my nutrition be perfect every other day of the week, and I'm getting there but not there yet.

Today I was feeling a little out of sorts, not quite all here, and so I ate breakfast and felt much better. Giant protein shot: 150 grams eggwhites, non-fat cheese, flax oil, brewers yeast, Trader Joe's salsa verde (my favorite!), flax oil. There's nothing that cures that spacey feeling like a giant shot of protein, at least for me. No wonder I stayed in a bad relationship for so long when I was a lowfat vegan. I have no brain without protein. Not to mention fat. Flax oil: for omega 3's, soft skin, and healthy relationships!

Lately I've developed an interest in neurological disorders, and I'm planning to buy and read Oliver Sacks' The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat. And along the lines of "When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail," I've started seeing symptoms of neurological disorders everywhere. Perhaps I'll start a blog entitled "Every Woman Has a Neurological Disorder," though I wouldn't leave it to just women, I'm convinced that half the men I know are suffering from a head injury, which would explain a lot. Anyhow, that's how I came up with the title, the Sacks stories floating around in my head.

For my next trick: "The Woman Who Mistook Her Lover for an Eggwhite Omlette."

Ouch!

Still, after all the complaining that this blog has become so much about my organizing work and so riddled with subtext that it sometimes seems to be merely a vehicle for me to make in-jokes with myself, so much so that in fact it's really not about Calorie Restriction with Optimal Nutrition, the ostensible topic, you finally get an entry that really is just about CR.

Posted by april at 7:15 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

February 17, 2008

Hope She's Making Up for the Calcium Elsewhere

More stupid nutrition superstition:

The Skinny at Starbucks

I haven't yet had time to read Michael Pollan's new book, In Defense of Food, though I did enjoy hearing him speak and I find that I agree with a large percentage of what he has to say. That makes things like this even more frustrating.

The columnist has decided that because it is complicated to order her non-fat, sugar-free Cinnamon Dolce latte (now called Skinny) she should not order it.

But in giving my coffee order a new, easier-to-pronounce name, Starbucks has also given me food for thought. If I can’t pronounce it easily, should I really be drinking it?

Hmmmmm.

This is such stupid crap that I can't help but say that it's such stupid crap, even though I am usually very nice.

From Pollan's advice that led her to this decision:

1. Don’t eat anything your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.

2. Avoid food products containing ingredients that are a) unfamiliar, b) unpronounceable, or c) more than five in number, or that include d) high-fructose corn syrup.

3. Avoid food products that make health claims.

1. MR points out that his grandmother wouldn't have recognized an eggplant as food.

2. If most Americans were to avoid ingredients that are unfamiliar or unpronounceable, they'd eat nothing but hamburgers and fries. But I'm with him on the avoid high-fructose corn syrup though.

3. Avoid foods that make health claims. Okay, that would mean avoiding broccoli because even veggies claim to be high in A and C and antioxidants. Just because a food has a PR machine doesn't mean it's bad. We don't think pomegrante juice will save us from aging and death and cancer and having to mop the kitchen floor, but we drink it because it's yummy, a great source of many vitamins, and it helps the morning creatine supplement go down. It's not our fault, or its, that it's been very aggressively marketed. We can figure out what's hype and what's not.

I hate nutrition superstition because it discourages people from thinking for themselves. A lot of people are really stupid, but not a columnist for the New York Times. Not usually, anyhow. Not most of Michael Pollan's friends, I dare assume. This woman says that she's giving up her sugar free latte, which is 130 calories, and just drinking coffee instead, since she's worried about drinking something complicated and oh gosh artificial! As though people haven't been skimming the fat off of milk for hundreds of years. How do these people think their beloved butter is made? But whatever... entry for another time.

Most women don't get nearly enough calcium. I have no idea what the rest of this columnist's diet consists of, but I suspect that

a) She will make up for the 130 calories elsewhere.
b) She will not make up for the calcium and B vitamins that are in the skim milk in her latte.

Pollan would no doubt call that "nutritionism." He blames "nutritionism" for the fact that Americans are obese. That makes me wonder if he knows any actual Americans, at least other than upper class ones, especially science journalists. The people I see in the grocery store filling their carts with chips, sugary sodas, cookies, and frozen pizzas are not doing so because they've just gotten so frustrated with all the conflicting nutrition information that they've thrown up their hands in exasperation, or because they are convinced by a "No Trans Fats!" label that chips are really health foods. They're eating that because they for whatever reason either a) don't understand the link between calories and obesity b) don't care c) do care, but for whatever reason feel compelled to buy and eat the foods anyhow.

I shop at a regular middle class grocery store that happens to have a kick-ass (and very affordable) organic section and be willing to special order some stuff for us in organic dairy. I watch regular, not rich but not poor, people shop every single week. I do not see people obsessing over health labels. I see people buying crap and wondering why they're all fat.

I agree with Pollan on so very much. Eat processed food with care: but I wouldn't say avoid it all together. Focus on vegetables: by all means! Rock on brother! Eat less. Yes! But to blame nutrition information for the fact that Americans are obese is just goofy.

What's even more goofy is that a well-educated, sensible woman who is a health columnist for heaven's sake is engaging in nutrition superstition to the point where she just gave up 20 - 30% of the RDA of calcium, 8 - 12 g of protein, and a whole bunch of B vitamins, for no good reason. Cutting calories is great, but when cutting, wouldn't it be more reasonable, even more healthy, to look for ways to cut nutrient-free while continuing to eat healthy foods?

Oh no, that would entail us *thinking* about nutrition. And dear God, that would ruin our experience of eating.

That's just such bullshit. You'd be hard pressed to find people who enjoy our food more than MR and I do, and we eat a huge variety of veggies. Yes, we are conscious of what these foods do to our body, and not because we've bought the latest stupid medical "journalism," but because we're able to do a little research and think for ourselves.

I don't drink many lattes anymore, largely because they are expensive and I prefer to get my calcium and B vitamins from yogurt, cottage cheese (yes, non fat!) and whey shakes (yikes! Something processed!) But I didn't just cut the lattes and ignore the fact that my bone health depends on getting enough calcium. Nor did I, in the process of having this thought, develop an eating disorder, become obese, eat compulsively, or lose all sense of enjoyment of food.

I just made a rational decision and went on with my day.

Posted by april at 6:23 PM | Comments (17) | TrackBack

Night In All-Suites Hotel Proves Relaxing for Local CR Practitioners

I read this article about how doing something new together, as opposed to just having a date per week, is a good way to keep a long term relationship interesting. MR and I have been religious about keeping a weekly date, in our case we spend Sunday lunch and afternoon together, and we do all kinds of interesting things, none of which need detain us here. But yesterday we decided to do a special Valentine's Weekend event. We hadn't gotten to do anything on the actual day since I had negotiations in Scranton and Danny and I didn't even get home till after eight. So this weekend, after hitting the King of Prussia Mall to buy my Valentine's Day present, we checked into the Marriott Residence Inn just a few blocks away from our house! It's the perfect vacation: suites hotel with full kitchen (minus oven) just a short drive away. No need to go through security, buy a ticket, or do any pesky sightseeing. Yea!

We had a lovely time. I packed up our dinner in advance, salad with yougurt and flax for me, and an interesting dish for me containing mushrooms, cauliflower, and Quorn (and a little eggwhite) marinated in tarragon vinegar with garlic and a few dashes of chipoltle Tabasco. On the side I steamed some yellow squash in tarragon vinegar with tarragon on top. High volume feast, made with love. Other years I've made Valentine's dinner pink and red, but I just wasn't up for that this year.

After dinner I soaked in the hotel jacuzzi. We needed a relaxing weekend... I haven't been home for dinner all week, and rarely home before 9. This week will be wild as well, but aren't they all?

Posted by april at 11:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 16, 2008

Blogger Comments

For all you folks out there on Google's Blogspot, it hasn't let me write comments for days.

Is anyone else having this problem?

Posted by april at 1:02 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

February 14, 2008

Look at That Giant Tower of Cheese!

This was really funny, though I wonder if it was a "You had to be there" moment.

The management attorney, one Robert C. Ufberg (what does the C stand for? Curtis?) was in our negotiating room on his way out but still standing in the door checking a few details with Edward. My committee (Danny C most of all) had been waiting eagerly for the cheese plate that the Radisson always provides for our negotiations. When it arrived on a cart just behind Ufberg, with two giant wheels of chevre standing upright in the center, I exclaimed, "Look at that giant tower of cheese!"

Ufberg, however, didn't know that the cheese plate was directly behind him. So he was quite confused, thinking that I was referring to him.

It's not often that a union representative confuses Ufberg. Edward does it more than Ufberg is used to. But being called a tower of cheese? That's a bit much for Bob.

We all had a tremendous laugh about the whole thing. "I don't think I've ever been called a tower of cheese," said Ufberg.

He had to think awhile about how he had been called both better and worse. I told him we'd try to do better next time.

Meanwhile, I got through the day eating nothing but my weighed and measured food. MR packed my salad, I had cottage cheese for breakfast, I resisted the cheese plate with no trouble, and I even resisted when Danny C ate dinner on the way home. He had an eggwhite omlette at a Perkins on the way back to Philly and I was starving but I ate nothing. I knew there would be food at home. I've gained some weight in the last few weeks of parties, and I have to stay strict for awhile. He's totally supportive: Danny C is actually one of the easiest to get along with people I've ever met. He just does his thing and expects others to do theirs. It's a blessed relief.

MR and I didn't get to have a real Valentine's Day dinner because I was working in Scranton till late, but we've planned a special weekend. Film at eleven... just kidding!

Posted by april at 9:09 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

February 13, 2008

Beautiful Surprise

It's everybody's second favorite side effect: CR-induced Zen.

Cause baby I missed it then but I can surely see it now
Right here before my eyes
It's a beautiful surprise

Seriously, I don't quite know what to do with my inner peace. I haven't felt this good in as long as I can remember. I felt great around this time last year, February 23rd to April 1, to be exact.

The bizarre thing is that I'm not that far along in improving my CR as yet, I'm just in a positive trajectory. I've given up on eating anything that isn't weighed and measured, and I feel like I weight has been lifted off my shoulders. The struggle is over: the guessing is done, I know what I'm eating and if I don't know I'm not eating. Now of course I'll still go out about once a month and eat like a "normal" person, and I know the calorie count on my beloved sushi so I'm not giving that up (ever, unless I am in prison.) I guess a bit at wine when out because I have measured so many times that I actually am pretty good at estimating pours.

I had been thinking for awhile that I was done with the trying to fit in in an ad lib world battle. It's almost impossible for me to have just one bite: please see last night, when I got stuck in an ice storm with friends ordering bruschetta and cheese, and I ate olive and cheese topped bread for dinner. Felt awful afterwards. Realized that it just has to be over... I can't live this way. Like Marianne, who is back!!!! yea! I can't just live with accepting my body when I feel like crap. I know I'm beautiful, but being less healthy than I know I can be really sucks. Yes, that takes sacrifice. But sacrifice of stuff that just isn't worth it. Is the bruschetta with feta and carmelized onions worth feeling like I want to jump out of my skin? Not really. I love the healthy food that MR and I cook... I don't need anything else. If you can't understand that, if that seems like too much of a sacrifice to you, that's fine. I'm not trying to tell other people what to do, I'm saying what works for me. Marriage sounds to me like an unbearable sacrifice, yet lots of people seem to want to do it. Different priorities.

Other people don't make me eat... or drink, for that matter. I am way stronger than any mild social pressure to eat. I can let other people make their own decisions and still stay strong in my own. Last night Susie and Edward and Lisa choose to eat a whole bunch of stuff I wouldn't have eaten if I hadn't been starving with it right in front of me. But I could have chosen to not eat it, and they'd still be my friends. And frankly, if they wouldn't, I wouldn't want them for friends. I can throw a South Beach diet bar in my bag for emergencies and not feel the hunger compulsion that leads me to eat stuff that makes me feel awful. It's just planning.

Yeah, it takes some discipline. But seriously, it's nothing compared to the discipline I have to exercise just to do my job, and doing my job is kinda second nature after twelve years.

Youth and health are worth it. I have someone I want to be with for a long time.

It's the eve of Valentine's Day, and I am happily, desperately, contentedly in love with an angel. He's been with me through all manner of hell that you can barely even imagine, he's refused to give up on me in spite of the most severe of provocations. He didn't give up on me even when I wanted to give up on myself. He's kept packing me salad and tea and being there for me in the middle of the night anxiety attack and re-assuring me even when I'm crazy. He deserves many good years of me not being crazy, and I have a feeling he's about to get them. What if he gets bored??? :)

That being said, I am also extremely grateful for my wonderful friends.

I spend so many late nights thinking that I have lived so much, and so well, that I really don't need to live much longer. But being happy only makes me want to be keep feeling good. My grandmother is in better shape at 90 than most people are at 65. Why? Cause she never ate much. I can do much better with my knowledge of nutrition. I have so many advantages that she didn't have. She's beautiful and fun and we love to sit around exchanging stories of people that the other will never ever meet. She's amazing. She and my grandfather used to say that the best years of their lives were 65 on. I don't think they would have said that if they hadn't been in excellent health for those twenty five years.

I was sitting on the floor outside the men's dressing room at Macy's (an unusual place for an epiphany, I grant you) waiting for Danny to try on suits when I realized that I am completely, perfectly happy. What the hell happened? The tortured, stressed out April vanished. It's been a process, to be sure, and it will continue, but I am happy. At some kind of bizarre peace that isn't at all about accepting myself as I am or was, but is rather about accepting that I can become whatever I want. With that right comes a certain degree of responsibility: like my nurses, I can't whine, I have to do something about it.

It's not CR-induced euphoria: my CR has not been consistent enough for that, though on the days when my CR is really on, it certainly induces euphoria. Manic, I tell you. But anyhow, it's more the good nutrition and the realization that I'm done with figuring it out, I've figured it out. I've figured out what works for me. And I can see the way clear.

That's just what works for me. I'm not telling you what to do. Do what thou wilt, my friends. And good luck with it.

Now back to downloading bad music to my Ipod...

Posted by april at 8:09 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

"That Looks Healthy."

That's what one of the nurses at our seminar said to me as she watched me eating my yogurt covered salad out of my cute little Allswellinhell-matching salad container with an ice pack and a built in dressing compartment with a trap door.

"Yes, yes it is," I said. What, was I supposed to offer an explanation? An excuse? It's healthy... deal!

Other than that no one noticed.

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

February 11, 2008

Thank Heaven I Packed My Lunch!

MR packed up my lunch in my cute little container with the baby freezer pack and the trap door for dressing: releases into the salad when you turn the crank. I sure was glad, because I walked into the room where the buffet lunch was set out and there was nothing but gak. Seriously.

First, a decent bowl of romaine lettuce, but no, come closer and you can see (or maybe you could have seen it better, I didn't have my glasses on) that the lettuce is covered in a gaky creamy Caesar-like dressing, and I am guessing it's not Walden Farms. Then there are the "salads," a coleslaw drowning in mayo, followed by a potato salad drowning in mayo.

Next, a potted plant. I take it we are not to eat that, but I am as likely to eat it as either of its two predecessors. Seriously folks, I can understand eating a creme brulee or a Kobe beef slider. But mayo covered lettuce at a hotel? Glad I brought my lunch!

Then there was the cold cut tray, which did to its credit include turkey. Then a sad bowl of sliced under-ripe tomatoes, but a cheering dish of pickle spears, to which I helped myself.

I'd had a whey shake (choco banana) for breakfast in the car (thanks to Danny C for driving!) and a nonfat no sugar Light and Fit Dannon yougurt courtesy of the breakfast buffet and then I had my delicious salad with salsa verde, yogurt, and flax oil. I happily munched on yogurt covered collard greens (raw) and no one said a thing. "I always bring my own food to these things cause you never know," I said to one of our nurses, who didn't bat an eye. No one did, actually. I am starting to think that no one really cares what one eats, except for those few who have their own personal issues that they project onto you. When I am well fed and not in the grip of the compulsion, I can ignore so-called social pressure cause the truth is: nobody is paying attention to me. They're too wrapped up in their own issues and their own cookies to notice if I'm eating or not. Sure, it's not always true. But overall, it is. And when it's not, it's still my own right to eat what I want.

I really don't know what I'm going to do with all this inner peace. I'm suddenly so happy, feeling absurdly free. Huh? Making up a whey shake for Danny for the morrow, he needs protein.

Meanwhile, the day long seminar was a huge success. It was great to see some friends who have done truly incredible work, and to meet up with some awesome unorganized nurses who are doing the best they can in their own workplaces. Danny and Lisa and Susie came away with a lot of new info, good background on the work. I was proud of how they interacted very naturally, not a hint of nervousness. It was indeed a charming gala.

And on to another one today... also with a safely packed lunch.

Posted by april at 8:04 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

February 10, 2008

Perfection Is the Enemy of Progress

Didn't Chris have an entry about this?

[FYI, blogger isn't letting me post comments, so to Chris: I'm so sorry for your loss. Virtual hugs! To Mary: thank you so much for your entry re: my entry. I'm so happy it spoke to you. You've long been a role model to me!]

And to Sara: I love your new headline under the title of your blog:

If it works the first time, you've probably missed something.

I am not a perfectionist. I seem to be attracted to perfectionists... have any of you met my boyfriend? But I am not one. MR and I have said that he believes in doing everything right, whereas I believe in doing everything. I get more done. I am very, very good at my work, in a field where being flexible, responding quickly to every changing facts on the ground, and the ability to adapt adapt adapt is the difference between winning and losing. You can't be a perfectionist and an organizer. You have to make snap decisions and follow through on them. You don't have time to revise much.

MR is frustrated by the fact that knowing what is "right' re: my CR practice, I don't just do it. He and I had both hoped, even assumed, that back when we got together three years ago (wow!) the holes in my CR perfection would be plugged and I'd be a mini version of him, perhaps with a few meals out (which he would never have) but overall an ultra-disciplined CR goddess.

I have fallen so far from that.

I put other things in my life ahead of CR, and I very easily gave into the temptation to hang out with the bad kids and do what they do: eat, drink, not smoke but secondhand smoke. I used them as excuses for my own lack of self-discipline. There is no law that says that I must eat off my friends' plates, or order another drink when they have another round. These days I've been quite a bit better. But I don't blame MR for occasionally despairing of me ever making it to escape velocity. At times I didn't seem to care.

I always cared though. About him, about the project, and more importantly, about my own health. I look in the mirror these days and feel like I am older than I need to be. 113 isn't exactly a crisis for most people, but it's not CR for me. Not even close.

I have not been perfect in this last week, most of which I spent in Scranton on the road with my co-workers. I have eaten bites off of other people's plates. I shared a flatbread pizza appetizer with co-workers. I had more wine than I'm supposed to.

But here's what I did well:

1. I worked out no matter what. Even though I had minutes between meetings, I made myself hit the treadmill every day for 30 minutes. I was tired, I was slow, but I got it done.

2. I've nearly perfected the art of fasting for much of the day. I'd decide not to eat and just not. Fasting for nearly 24 hours when you're sitting in a room with a gorgeous fruit and cheese plate and the man next to you is on his third serving is hard! But when I make a firm decision, I stick with it. It's all about being clear, specific. If I say, "I will not eat until we go for dinner after negotiations," I can do it. The trick for me has always been to be specific about *everything*, leave nothing to the compulsion at the last minute.

3. I didn't give into the "I'm on the road so whatever" mentality that got me to 115 post-twins.

Keeping up with my exercise has been a tremendous victory. I am extremely busy now, but I drag myself to the gym anyhow. I find that on days when I work out, good things happen. On days when I don't, bad things happen. Superstition? Perhaps. If it makes me drag myself to the gym, fine.

In a lot of ways I feel like I am starting CR all over again, but it's harder this time. The initial twenty pounds falling off that motivated me so well the first time weren't there this time. I'm already thin, and now I'm getting thinner, but that's not the issue: it really is about slowing the degenerative process of aging that I'm already feeling.

Yet I am tempted to focus on what I didn't do well. Why don't I just stop eating off other people's plates? I know it's the main downfall of my CR practice, yet I still do it. Why don't I exercise the same discipline at 9 pm that I can at 11 am? I can face down a cheese plate in a state of serious hunger at negotiations, but I feel compelled (hello, compulsion) to eat a mushroom ravioli off Danny California's plate. He even revealed in not so many words that he feels a bit of pressure to order unhealthy things so that I can sample them from his plate. That's not cool. I re-iterated that I don't want to pressure him to eat this or that or anything... whatever he wants to do is his business. I've taught him a few tricks (eggwhite omlette, flax oil) and he's been eating healthier (in addition to keeping quit on the smoking!) and he looks fabulous. Of course he looked fabulous before. But he certainly shouldn't order something unhealthy so that I can eat it.

Then yesterday was the day of parties. I'd been out late the night before, after a marathon in Scranton, with Fifi. Then I had to get up, drive to Baltimore for a good friend's baby shower, drive back, shower, change, and go to Susie's husband's 30th birthday party. I was in such a hurry that I didn't eat dinner.

Sure enough, I ate the food at the party. Heaven only knows how many calories. A lot. I was exhausted, both physically and emotionally, and hungry. Ate a bunch. Felt awful. Drank a bunch too. Very not CR goddess. Very tired.

Slept in this morning then jumped right back on track. There's no point in wallowing in despair because I ate a crabcake at a party. Life is too short.

I am realizing more than ever though that if I am going to live as a CR girl in an ad lib world, I have to just give up on ever eating the way they do. It won't work to eat mini cheeseburgers at a party and then fast it off... there's no nutrition there, and it's crazy making to mainline saturated fat and carbs. I am becoming more and more convinced that MR is right: you just can't maintain hardcore CR unless you're willing to weigh and measure everything. That's a sacrifice. I'm glad that I know the calories in the sushi at my favorite sushi place, cause I can't give up my sushi. But other than that, and perhaps the once a month or two night out, I think the eating or random unmeasured food has got to go.

I don't even want to eat half the crap out there that I end up eating. For example: I'm at a day long meeting, I eat the catered lunch. It's awful. I would so prefer to eat my quotidian lunch salad. But yet I just give into the social pressure + compulsion and eat the crap served.

Well, perhaps no more. MR is packing my salad in this adoreable little container he got me for Christmas, and I am taking it to a day long meeting tomorrow. Hitting the gym at 5:30 am, Danny C and Lisa picking me up at 6:45 am, driving to a day long event in Bethlehem, drinking a whey shake on the way, followed by my very own salad for lunch. Why not? If my co-workers wonder how I can eat the crabcake on Saturday night and then insist on eating my own food on Monday at noon, I'll have to point out that it's really nobody's business to tell me what to eat. I can choose, at any given moment, to eat whatever I want. Or not.

I could be discouraged by all the ways in which I have not been perfect. The kitchen floor is mopped, but the living room is not yet vacuumed. The laundry is done, but a few of the bills remain to be paid. I attended both of the super-important social events this weekend, but I am exhausted. We have an extraordinarily busy week, and I have to not just hold it together but actively be energetic, engaging, lead my staff in interacting with unorganized nurses, set a good example. Get to the gym.

I am going to bed early tonight, content in the knowledge that I am feeling stronger every day. (yes, it's a Chicago reference.) MR is super supportive, packing my lunch and my breakfast and making his own dinner and putting up with me when I'm too tired to talk and not much fun at all.

When I fixate on perfection, I fail. I am tempted to use the smallest slip as an excuse to throw everything up in the air, eat everything in sight, drink more than I need to, and temporarily give up. If I look at it as progress, I can take the small slips in stride and get right back on track. That's what I need.

This is a long race, and it's not about being good. It's about making it. And for me, these days, it's largely about being the person I want to be: free, not paralyzed by others' expectations, tough enough to withstand the fear that the people I love may leave, but tough enough that they don't really want to leave.

Perfection is impossible, at least for me. But progress is right here, right now. And progress may eventually lead to perfection, but only through a series of entertaining twists and turns that I can only vaguely imagine right now.

Thanks for coming along for the ride.

Posted by april at 7:25 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

50% Sugar By Weight

I bought the wrong Jello. That will teach me to go grocery shopping without my glasses.

We usually get fat free sugar free, but I somehow screwed up. MR got the box and thought, "Gee, this is unusually heavy!" Then he read it, and it was regular sugary Jello. Ooooopps.

Sure enough, it's 50% sugar by weight. Not by calories, by weight. Wow.

Posted by april at 4:20 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

February 9, 2008

Technical Difficulties

Hello faithful readers, friends, family members, trolls, etc.

Technical problems with the MF server have prevented me from posting. I assure you that I am alive, well, not in Scranton (I was most of the week) and on my way to a party. I will write more tomorrow!

Posted by april at 8:03 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

February 4, 2008

He Said I Locked You In This Body. I Meant It As A Kind of Trial

I can't be a role model anymore.

When you become the public face of something, you take on a responsibility to model its proper practice. You have no idea (unless you were on the CR Society list) how much criticism MR and I received from inside the CR community about every one of our media appearances, especially New York Mag. "You made Quorn??? You don't seem normal!!! You should have made something normal!'' "Don't tell them that MR eats 1913, it seems too weird. Just say it's around 1900." "Don't show them how you weigh and measure everything... it makes us seem like freaks."

Dudes, we are freaks. Being a) interested in slowing our aging process b) willing to go against the food environment, capitalist machine, and hardwired biological programming is pretty darned freakish. Let he or she who is normal throw the first nasty email message.

I stopped doing media awhile back because I was sick of having to represent. I'm sick of being a punching bag for snarky "journalists" who have a looming deadline and nothing better to write about. I am sick of wondering if the fact that I don't look like a supermodel means that my partner doesn't get an interview that would launch his book sales into the stratosphere. I am sick of feeling like I had to live up to everyone's expectations. I never meant to be an icon, I never meant to become the designated media spokesperson, I just did interviews when I was asked to.

I am sick of being accused of promoting anorexia. How many times have I told people to EAT MORE!!! I am living proof that you can't just catch anorexia... believe me, if social pressures alone could make you anorexic, I'd be there. How many times have I heard, "You're not skinny enough to be on CR." I'm not what the media wants to look at... they want a freak show. I'm a slim, healthy looking girl with a more than full time job and a couple of demented cats. Boring!

When you do media and become the public face of something, there is a lot of pressure to make it acceptable to the masses. I've accentuated the positive, easy aspects of CR. And to be quite frank, moderate CR (which is really just obesity avoidance) is not that hard. With tools and information and support and access to a grocery store, most people can lose weight and lower disease risk. Not be Kate Moss, but who wants to be Kate Moss? Other than, I assume, Kate Moss. What's she up to these days anyway? Not slow biological aging, likely, but certainly dramatically lower risk of heart disease, stroke and cancer, and look and feel better too.

I want all of my wonderful readers to know that I am so happy to have helped you in any way I can. You've kept me going through all of this hellish stuff, and far more than you know. I don't want you to go away, and I want you to take from the blog what you can and leave what you can't use there on your computer screen. I may be going to places where you don't want to go. It's okay! We can be friends! Make my recipes, read my entries, laugh at the ongoing sagas in my life. When I started this blog I had no idea that it would ever help anyone, and it has been one of the most gratifying experiences of my life to be a person who helped you realize that you have power over your own health. You have no idea how much every one of your comments means to me. They are little shiny sparkly treasures that I wear in a psychic necklace around all the time, defending me against the snark and nastiness.

Moderate CR is easy. But hardcore CR is not. It's not for everyone. I'm not trying to recruit anyone. I am only telling the story of my own journey, both physical and spiritual. I'm not trying to tell you want to do. If you feel like you have an eating disorder that can be triggered by what you read here, stop reading! I do not have an eating disorder. I may have an organizing disorder: I definitely put organizing above everything in my life, with the possible exception of my partner, and at crunch time he definitely wonders who comes first, him or the nurses? But I do not have an eating disorder. If you are too threatened by the very concept of someone eating less than you do to read about it without freaking out, please go somewhere else. Your problems are not my problems. Don't project.

I am only speaking of and from my own experience.

Hardcore CR is hard, especially if you are not willing to lock yourself in a box away from the temptations of the world and give up things like wine and going out and occasionally being in the same room as the cheese plate. Not that anyone I know would ever do that. :)

MR's version of CR is that he perfectly consistently eats the same number of calories, each meal, each day, at the exact same time. Consistency spares him hunger, and yet even with him it varies quite a bit. There was a period of involuntary weight loss in early CR when his metabolism did it's inevitable jump up after a period of CR-induced slow down he was hungry almost all the time. Sometimes he feels unusually hungry earlier before a meal than usual. But these days he's pretty content.

He lives a life that I'm not willing to live. He works from home, he doesn't go out socially much, he never much liked restaurant eating anyhow. I want to have my CR and my sushi too. So super-consistency is out. If I'm going to ever eat out (and keep my red wine) I have to balance it out with extra lower calories and extra high nutrition at all other times. I know from experience that that means being hungry sometimes.

Hunger, true hunger, is something that most people in our affluent society never experience. Getting down to the bottom, in calorie deficit, where the body is screaming, "You can't carry a baby in a famine if you don't eat the cheese!!!" and you're screaming back, "There is no famine and I don't want a baby!" is not a normal situation. But if I want to do real CR, without giving up most of my treats, that's what I have to learn to live with, at least from time to time.

I find it funny how most people are just horrified by the concept of hunger. As though they'll die if they're just a shade past peckish. What a limiting world view that is, I think. Like the world view of my friend who is such a chain smoker that she won't take an airplane ride because she can't handle the thought of being trapped without a cigarette. Being hungry is just not that big a deal. It's not something to be afraid of. It doesn't mean that you'll never be fed again. I think that the fear comes from some biological programming that says, "If I don't eat now, I may never eat again and I'll starve to death and die!" Yet I know with absolute certainty that at a time certain I will have my lovely cup of organic low fat cottage cheese with flax oil and a few drops of Texas Pete. There is nothing to fear but fear itself, and doing the dishes.

Lately, I've been experimenting with hunger. Last week I set a goal of being hungry for a total of six hours a day. Usually three hours in the morning, then I have lunch, then three in the afternoon. I've stopped eating breakfast as it seems to be easy calories to cut. I still endorse the high protein no carb breakfast: if you are in the weight loss phase, eat your eggwhites! But I am very long into CR and now trying new things to take it to the next level.

My CR practice is not just physical, it's spiritual. Fasting has long been a method for reaching higher states of consciousness, and I've been playing with it a lot lately. From Thursday night to Friday night I fasted for 24 hours, in part to get my calories down, but mostly to clear my head. It worked.

CR for me isn't just about living longer: it's about living better in the here and now. It's the only drug that works for me. It's the only thing that truly cures my anxiety, the only thing that seems to return me to the space of inner peace that I so long for. Some speak of emotional deadening, but to me it is like being alive without the screaming pain that is too much passion, impossibly directed. "I will never apologize for having passion," said Edward to a meeting of nearly 400 nurses during a strike in coal mining country many years ago. I, however, will apologize for having too much passion. I used to make these apologies at least once a week, but lately I'm down to closer to once a month. It's progress.

I'm not willing to lock myself in a box, so I've decided to confront hunger and the compulsion to eat on its own terms, on its own turf. On Friday I walked through a mall food court with a Taco Bell (my favorite!) having not eaten for 24 hours with my friend who ate Subway, and I confronted those thoughts that said, "You could eat a Subway Club salad, you know the calories, it's healthy." I didn't eat because I had decided to fast for 24 hours and I knew I needed to do so to clear my head. I stepped into the ring with hunger, and I won. Over and over again. Six hours a day of hunger is not what you have to do to do CR: it's what you need to do it you're April CR working on enlightenment at the same time as you're tweaking your diet. You don't have to follow me to the place I'm going, but you're welcome to come along for the ride.

As of late I've felt locked in my body. That's why Leonard Cohen's lyrics from "Lover, Lover, Lover" quoted in the headline jumped out at me. I never really felt like this before, even when I was overweight. The consciousness of the compulsion was never there before. It was back around the time of the New York Mag article that I suddenly recognized how much the biological compulsion to eat creates all these wacky rationalizations in one's head. It was like a filter was removed from my consciousness, and though I still obeyed the compulsion way too often, I could see it at work in my and others' "reasons" why we eat x y or z foods at a b or c times. Now that the filter has been removed, I can see the compulsion working ("It's a social event... you have to eat!" Yet if I've already eaten my food, the 'social pressure' is gone. Go figure.) I've decided to face down the hunger at its most elemental level, and to set up challenges where I can prove to myself over and over again that I don't have to obey my biological programming. I am a rational agent, with my own will. The hummus does not control me. (Yes, I am being a little bit funny. I'm not really a hummus addict. But I do adore it.)

The quest for hardcore CR has somehow managed to do what anyone who has known me since I was twelve and first got interested in medieval philosophy would think impossible: I am becoming a dualist. I want to escape my body, or at least pay somewhat less attention to its whining. I play games with hunger, and it's fun. I set up situations where I know I will be hungry, intentionally, voluntarily, so as to learn how not to be afraid of hunger, and how to stop letting the compulsion make my decisions for me. I know I am not really starving, it's an illusion created by the biological compulsion to eat as much as I can. I find myself for the first time in my adult life doing something that can be vaguely described as renouncing the flesh. Saint Paul is saying, "I told you so." Saint Augustine is cackling. Saint Augustine is in hell.

[That was an obscure Sting reference, btw, not an attempt to offend the entire Catholic Church.]

Don't worry, I'm not renouncing my status as a card-carrying hedonist. I'm still planning on going out, drinking wine, etc. But I want to do so on my terms, in ways that don't interfere with my long term health goals, instead of just obeying biological programming and applying post-facto rationalizations to explain why. Everybody knows how much I hate my own excuses. If I want to have my hedonism and my CR too, I've got to learn to deal with *some* hunger on the other days.

So I am doing the experiment. I am stepping into the ring with hunger and I am winning most of the time. My weight is going down slowly because I am careful.

Now you see why the long rant at the beginning about not being a role model. I'm going in directions that you may not want to follow. That's fine! I didn't start this blog to tell people what to do, though if you ask what worked for me to lose weight and get control of my health, obviously I'll tell you. If I want to tell people what to do, I can go to work. I'm just sharing, and musing, and hopefully at times amusing. You don't have to fast for 24 hours or be hungry 6 hours a day to do CR... it's just something I'm playing with. Don't take it personally.

I am tired of being locked in a body... a body that I have loved, that I use to love others, but that certainly does complain a lot. I am bored with its needs, I want a little break. So I am exercising self-discipline in a way that gives me a sense of freedom. Enlightenment may not be right around the corner, but at least a psychic reading lamp seems to be switched on.

The difference between fasting and starvation is that you know that fasting is going to come to an end. Well, that and you don't drop dead. Trust me, if you die, you're doing it wrong. A little bit of fasting, in the context of a low calorie, high nutrient diet, can be quite liberating. I don't think I'd want to do it for very long, but having been a three meals a day plus some snacks sometimes kinda person for like ever, it's a refreshing change.

I really should take up yoga. It would no doubt help with the spiritual discipline end of things, and would be an excuse to buy cute new workout clothes.

April's CR Diary