For the record, I do not think that Olive Garden is Italian any more than I think that Taco Bell is Mexican. I've lived in Philly too long to mistake it for real Italian. That being said, I love it! My old employee Lisa, the girl from England, used to love Olive Garden too... we'd eat there when we were on the road. Made me miss her to be there, and even more so to be in Scranton.

Today was a more normal day, even though I'm on the road. Breakfast was a whey protein shake with skim milk and flax oil while I drove here from Reading from 5 am to 7 am. Lunch was a garden salad with a cup of the cottage cheese that I brought from home, plus a teaspoon of the flax oil so lovingly packed by MR in multiple ice packs and a cooler bag. Dinner was a Subway Club salad. After my last meeting, which starts at 7:30 pm, I plan to enjoy a nice glass of wine in my room and go to bed! It's been a long day: two hour sunrise drive, meetings at 7:30 am, 1:30 pm, 4 pm and 7:30 pm, and I took Bikram yoga in between the morning meetings! It was an amazing class... a guy taught it, one I'd never met, and I got to contemplate the fact that the one time a cute guy is teaching my yoga class, I am wearing the most hideous yoga outfit I've ever put on. Apparently the sky blue yoga top one size too large was a Poor Life Choice. I'm sure it would look good on someone... else. Oh well, no matter, I got an incredible workout, and learned a lot in the process. I was still sore from Monday and probably didn't drink enough water beforehand, so I wasn't very good, but I'm extremely accustomed to looking like an idiot in front of attractive men, so it was no big deal.

Okay, back to work... home tomorrow: work during the day, advanced vinyasa at night! When it's difficult, I just remind myself: it's not 108 degrees in here!

Check this out:

http://www.olivegarden.com/menus/garden_fare/nutrition_information.asp

Marinate the eggplant in the soy sauce with ginger and garlic and lemon juice. Add broccoli, steamed beforehand if you prefer it a bit more cooked, or just add it to the hot eggplant if you like it nice and crunchy. Stir and leave to marinate in the fridge until chilled. Top with a squeeze of fresh lemon and some fresh ground pepper and serve.

Great for a hot summer day!

A lot of people, myself included, don't really notice when we're not drinking enough fluids until the problem gets pretty bad. Thirst isn't a good indicator, as it seems one is often not thirsty enough. I notice that when I'm dehydrated, I get symptoms that one wouldn't necessarily realize are connected, like a headache, fatigue, irritability (no, I'm not naturally that way!) and puffy eyes/face, as well as more pronounced circles under my eyes and a bit of tightness in the skin right under the eyes.

Taking Bikram (hot) yoga at Steamtown Yoga in Scranton really brought home the dehydration issue to me. I probably hadn't had enough water in advance of the class -- they recommend drinking 3 liters of water the day before you take a class, and one liter in the hour in advance, as well as an entire liter during class. I was so dehydrated after class that I found myself thinking, "If I need IV fluids, at least I know all the nurses at the hospital!" Of course after drinking more water I felt fine, but I really noticed the immediate symptoms of dehydration. They say that your first three classes are the hardest and then you adjust to the heat and it gets much easier. I found the class very challenging but I really liked it, and I felt so much better afterwards that I was determined to come back as soon as possible. This time I'm going to drink enough in advance, and I'm hoping to go to class tomorrow at 9 am in Scranton (hitting the road at 4:30 am for meetings starting at 7, but hopefully I'll make it to class between meetings!) so right now I'm working my way through a 1.5 liter bottle of iced white tea.

One of the unexpected benefits of Bikram yoga that I experienced right away was a dramatic improvement in my skin. I looked like I'd had a facial, and the benefit continued all through the day I took class and throughout the following day. If you were to practice three times a week, you could stay in a continuous state of looking like you just emerged from the spa -- all for $15 a class instead of $90 or more for a facial! Pretty good deal!

I loved Bikram, but it was really, really hard. I don't think I'd recommend it to anyone who hasn't already taken some yoga or practiced another kind of hard physical discipline. I felt like I was going to die at certain points in the class, and I've been practicing for over a year. The room is 105 degrees with 60% humidity, and it causes you to pour what seems like gallons of sweat. It's amazingly cleansing though, like a 90 minute detox. I noticed that my body felt after one Bikram class the way it feels after about four days in a row of my regular vinyasa flow classes, and those are not easy classes. It's awesome. If you haven't tried it and you're in pretty good shape and not afraid to feel some discomfort at first, give it a shot. For the rest of your life you may find yourself thinking, when confronted with a challenging situation: "Hey, at least I'm not in a 105 degree room!"

It's so much easier to stick to my calorie goals now that I'm no longer locked in a conference room with high calorie food. Even in spite of several going out and celebrating post-campaign events, I'm still losing weight again, and have been back at yoga almost every day this week. I'm investigating yoga studios in the places I travel to, and it's fun to practice in different locations and different styles of yoga. I bought a beautiful mat bag, and it encourages me to take my mat with me when I hit the road.

Here's a quick recipe for a hot summer day:

Black Bean Nacho Coleslaw

2 parts green cabbage, 1 part red cabbage, chopped
1/2 cup black beans (canned is fine)
Cider vinegar
Cumin, garlic and chili powder
Nonfat cheddar cheese, shredded, 2 oz
2 tablespoons store-bought taco sauce, I used Ortega
2 tablespoons nonfat sour cream

Mix up, serve cold. You could even top with a dash or two of your favorite hot sauce. It's what happens when my potluck favorite, Nonfat Nacho Black Bean Dip, makes friends with the cabbage in the fridge.

Off to yoga... happy Sunday to all!

My fear for others' safety is not completely unrealistic... as the terrible train crash yesterday reminded us, health and safety are not to be taken for granted. And I have been known to hang out with a rather dangerous crowd. Lately I've spent some time hanging out with a guy who has 11 years of training in martial arts, and I can feel him constantly scanning the environment for danger. This makes me feel safe, but I do find myself wondering at times if he's wearing his seat belt when driving to work. My friend Davy Arizona, whom I used to refer to Asparagus-Phobe before he became a close enough friend to merit a name that is about more than just his fear of a certain vegetable, is a great driver... we rode together to the hospital on a very dangerous road for six months, and on many occasions he saved us from crazy other drivers by knowing how to drive with a heightened awareness of what the others were doing, and sometimes even swerving a bit when putting on the brakes to signal to drivers behind him that they should stop quick. He's another Jersey boy, and has been in enough fights to know how to look out for danger, and he's another person with whom I feel incredibly safe. I remember once when I mentioned my martial artist friend to him, he said, "You know, I know that kind of guy could beat the crap out of me. But when I see a guy like that at a bar, I think to myself, 'I could hit him over the head with that chair while he's talking to her.'" Just goes to show, none of us are immune from danger. It's around us all the time, and I think it's a balancing act to live consciously and carefully without become paralyzed by fear to the point where one's quality of life is compromised.

I've always been a pretty adventurous person. I went off to boarding school for high school at fourteen. It wasn't that many years ago that I flew off to Chicago at a moment's notice to spend a weekend with a guy I had just met... at the Republican National Convention protests! I spent weeks picking up protesters from jail and working on their legal defense, housing anarchist kids and feeding them vegan stews while they waited to see if they would go to jail for the simple exercise of their American rights to free speech.

I've been much more emotionally adventurous than physically adventurous. I won't ski (high school roommate had a terrible ski accident, and I hate the cold anyhow. Why would anyone want to volunteer to be cold and wet? Strikes me as just as bad as those poor rats with their feet in cold water experiments, but that's just me) but I have a very high stress, high emotional investment job, and having two elections in two weeks of each other feels a lot like being in two car accidents back to back. Being back in Scranton (yes, I am! All that clicking my heels and saying "There's no place like Scranton" worked!) reminds me of the high risk that workers take when they choose to organize a union, to stand up for themselves, their families, a decent standard of living, and in the case of my nurses and techs, their patients. No matter how many years I do this work (yikes we are coming up on fourteen!) I never cease to be in awe of the courage of my nurses.

I've been a pretty high risk person in matters of the heart as well. Most of you were around for the tension filled, misunderstanding-riddled beginning of my relationship with MR. The email where I put my cards on the table, that he didn't read for a week, while I sat around feeling alternately stupid and miserable. The whrilwind weekend in Calgary, when he called me on Tuesday to tell me he felt similarly, and I hopped on a plane on Friday morning. He was quite amazed by that. I've never understood why. I mean, he knew about air travel! Girl likes boy, boy is in Calgary, girl gets on plane. Distance is a logistical problem, and as my friend Francis and I always say, logistical problems are easily solved. Organizers are not deterred by logistical problems.

You can't get to 34 without getting your heart broken a couple of times, but I find these days that I form really healthy relationships. I was peering out over the psychic lines with my closest friends the other day, and noticed that I have the most uncomplicated, non-dramatic relationships I've ever had. Some friendships have faded out a bit, but I know that we'll always be there for each other, even if we don't always hang out or talk as much as we used to. And I've forged some new relationships in the last six months that seem to be extraordinarily good for me. I find myself saying, "I really just want you to be happy," and meaning it. And I've been able to accept love, care, and the occasional good (metaphorical) kick in the head from close friends who really do have my best interest at heart.

These days, campaigns over and new ones beginning, amazing new friendships in full bloom, and summer beginning (we all know how I am a summer person!) I find that I value life and health more than ever. It's been oddly easy to slip back into my healthy habits. The first couple of days post-campaign I didn't do well, but come Sunday I was back to my quotidian diet, and I don't feel all that hungry now. This morning I had my cottage cheese and flax oil, and didn't eat again until after 7 when I was a) done with my meetings b) done with fighting with my computer to figure out where the wireless internet switch was. Then I had a salad with grilled chicken and kalamata olives. Took my supplements, took a bath, chatted with a friend on the phone, went to bed. It's nice to be away from the conference room, the conference room food, the stress of the campaign. By the end of the campaign we all look and feel like the walking dead, and post-campaign is usually very rough, but I think this time it will be easier. I am very old in organizer years, and have mostly learned how to deal with it.

My old friend Francis, who has organized as long as I have, says that the best way to deal with post-campaign stress syndrome is to get into the physical. Exercise like a maniac. I am taking his advice. Tomorrow morning I am taking hot yoga in Scranton. Steamtown Yoga -- isn't that cute??? On July 7 I have a lesson scheduled with my martial artist friend's teacher... here's the website, I don't want to screw up the spelling. I've always wanted to try martial arts, but you know that's not the kind of thing girls did when I was growing up, and I doubt that I'd have the confidence to even take a lesson if it weren't for more than a year of yoga practice. I am excited.

But back to the topic of safety. I worry a lot when I think MR is in an acutely dangerous situation, but he worries when he sees me doing things that will hurt my health years down the road. I used to find this annoying, but I understand more now. He wants to be with me forever, or at least as long as possible, and when he sees me engaging in behaviors that will shorten my life, he gets really upset, the same way I would feel if he drove the car without a seat belt. My sense of danger is acute and focused on the present, but his is more long term. He can imagine a future in which we are together fifty years from now and healthy, and he can imagine a future where I am dead due to some mostly preventable disease.

The last six months have been incredibly stressful, but like Persephone returning from the Underworld, I feel like I am coming back to life, and with more enthusiasm for life than ever. It seems so much easier to jump back into healthy habits now, and I've had just enough of those moments when life is so unbearably sweet that it feels like preserving. Being back in Scranton reminds me of why I do my work, and how much I love it. And that in turn reminds me of why I don't want to trade laziness and going along with the crowd for life and health. I will never be the kind of CR practitioner who never goes out. I'll go out and drink beer and eat all kinds of fun foods... to me, being able to go out with friends and eat wild boar tacos is part of having a good quality of life... but most days, I'll eat eggwhites and cottage cheese and flax oil and veggies. I was an easy breezy fairly simple CR practitioner for years, and though the last year has been hard, I'm finding it easy to pick up again.

My sense of danger may be heightened by the recent tragedies in our world, by some tragedies I've been close to. Or perhaps it's that my love of life is just more apparent to me right now as I have gotten to spend time with people I love, and I'm now back in one of my favorite towns on earth. There's nothing selfish about eating less to live longer... I am always perplexed by those who think there is. My consumption of an eggwhite omlette for breakfast hinders none other in doing their will.

It's a brand new day, and I'm off to take hot yoga, do a lot of work, meet with some new nurses, and (YAY!) see one of my favorite nurse leaders of all time at our favorite lunch place! A salad awaits me... and the rest of my life!

Plenty of time to live long and healthy after Thursday!

So all you organizers and nurses who've been through a campaign know that the last week before the vote is very, very difficult. Usually, one alternates between stress not-eating and stress eating of junk.

I don't want to do that. A) Because I want to live long and young and make it to escape velocity and not die of something stupid B) Because after the campaign, I am starting taking a martial arts class that I have trouble spelling and I know that the easiest way to gain strength is to lose weight while you're working out. There was a point in my original weight loss when I could do tons of push ups because I was used to lifting twenty more pounds that I had very quickly misplaced. Now don't get me wrong, I don't advocate overly fast weight loss. But if I lose about five pounds between now and a month from now when I take my first lesson, I will be a lot stronger, and five pounds a month is not excessive at my current weight.

So: I can not give in to pre-vote junkfood munching. I have had my last conference room food.

Here is the challenge: 1400 a day between now and June 18. Every day. Measured.

Here are the advantages: I'll be too busy with work to go out, and the person I have the most fun going out with will be out of town the entire time anyhow. My best friend and I are both up to our ears in this campaign, so our usual Thursday night post yoga date is off anyhow. I eat really low cal when I'm at home or packing food, it's just going out that gets me.

Here's the disadvantage: There is a ton of crappy food available at times like this, and stress makes everything difficult. But if one makes a firm decision, it's not that hard to stick to it.

So I am making a firm decision, and if there are any of you out there who are wondering what you can do to help out on the campaign, here's my suggestion:

There is a ton of psychic energy or good karma or whatever you want to call it that is generated when you make a commitment and stick to it. I don't know why it works, only that it works. So come up with your own health commitment for this week and two days, and join me in challenging yourself to do something difficult. Put some of the energy of your practice into feeding our little baby nurses' union that is just about to take shape at one of the largest hospitals in Philadelphia.

Who's in?

I have another election, much bigger, on the 17 - 18 of June.

That's why I'm not writing much.

I am eating cottage cheese with flax oil.

Be well. More when I can.

I am still drinking green tea, which is very low in caffeine, but I don't think I would have more than one cup at a time. I strongly urge anyone who has anxiety problems to try cutting back on caffeine. I suffered my entire life with anxiety and it's been almost eliminated simply by cutting out caffeine. If you don't have anxiety and you love your coffee, drink up! I don't think it has negative health effects, I just find that it causes anxiety for me.

Meanwhile, work is crazy, life is wonderful, and I am cooking with rhubarb while making get out the vote calls for the election that is Wednesday!

Well, now I'm really having twins. I have two elections within three weeks of each other: June 3, and June 17 - 18. That means I'm not doing anything other than working, so I apologize for the bloggie silence, and I warn you that there may be more blog silence for the next three weeks.

I'm still CR'ing, trying to fight off conference room food and avoid weight gain with the twin campaigns. I've developed a quotidian diet of cottage cheese, flax oil, salad, yogurt, almonds, and my superfood bag o'veggies cooked in eggwhites casserole that I'm pretty much sticking to five days a week, then when I go out with non-CR'd friends (is that what the kids are calling it these days?) I can eat a bit more liberally. Also keeping up with my yoga practice because I have noticed that if I don't, I rapidly start to go nuts. It's hard because the work time pressures are near impossible, but I'm doing the best I can.

So expect vigorous blogging in late June, after I pick myself up from the dead sleep I plan to be in for at least a day.

And look for the next chapter... we have three new campaigns beginning...

microwave the eggwhites and veggies in a pyrex covered dish for as long as it takes to cook the eggs most of the way through. It's good to thaw the veggies in advance and drain them. Then let the eggs sit, then cook a little longer till firm. Top the part you want to eat with one oz cheese, microwave till the cheese melts. Eat half at a time. Super high protein and if you use broccoli, cauliflower and carrots like I do, super-cruciferlicious.

This is my new superfood. I can eat it for any meal, anytime, and it re-microwaves really well.

In chicken-free chicken stock. In beef stock. In pseudo clam chowder with a can of clams and a can of fire roasted tomatoes. Or just on a plate, covered with two tbsps Lewis Labs brewers yeast and a teaspoon of flax oil. In a casserole with eggwhites and Campbell's low fat cream of mushroom soup.

Almost everyday now.

Definitely healthier for me than conference room food, Lean Cuisines or even the long lost South Beach Diet wraps.

The strange thing is that I never was much of a volume person. I didn't need large amounts of food, as long as the calories weighed in right. In fact, I couldn't eat the huge plates of veggies that MR so joyously consumes.

But now, for some reason, I require a bag of frozen vegetables on a daily basis.

Quite a good thing. Lin will be glad that I'm getting my cruciferous veggies in. MR is glad I'm overdoing it on the veggies. The makers of generic frozen veggies are lining their pockets with the profits from my fro-veg addiction.

In a world where there are so many mysteries to ponder, this is a minor issue, I realize. But since the blog is about food, I figured I'd better write something food related. And I haven't been doing that much creative cooking, so fro-veg it is.

I have not given up CR, though conference room food has been a challenge.

MR's father and step-mother were over this weekend, and though I had to work more than I would have liked to, I did manage to spend some time with them, and we had a great time.

I made:

carrots and celery with spinach artichoke dip
scallops in white wine with garlic and lemon
arugula salad with homemade salsa, guacamole, tomatoes, green peppers
hazelnut pear dessert pizzas

veggie dip with carrots and celery
a pinwheel of portabella pizzas: regular pizza, taco mushroom, and mushroom cheeseburger
Caesar Quorn arugula salad
mangos in white zinfandel with cinnamon

My sleep schedule is messed up due to flipping from early morning meetings to late night shifts at the hospital, so I've been up since 2 am but now it's almost half past four and I'm going to try to get a nap before Pilates class and another day of work.

More reflections and recipes soon!

I am trapped on a day long arbitration conference call.

1 can clams
1 can Campbell's 98% fat free Cream of Mushroom Soup
1 can Campbell's 98% fat free Cream of Celery Soup
1.5 cups water

Heat, mix, add a ton of black pepper.

It's really, really yummy. 475 calories for a whole big vat of it.