I've had what feel like a few none-too-good CRON days in a row. I've lost my focus a little since the wedding - I think because I am still living amid the chaos of the aftermath, trying to get the house back into some sort of order, finding places for all the wonderful gifts... and staring the leftover wine in the face all the time. Whatever the reason is, I am finding it difficult to settle down; people have talked about the zen of CRON and I've always been thinking what's that? I've never had that! What am I missing? and of course now I know what I'm missing - you don't know what you've had till it's gone! :-)
Yesterday I made a good effort on getting things tidy, and took a lot of stuff to the dump, and have more packed up to take to charity shops just to get it out of my way. I have a couple of wine cubes due to be delivered today, which will mean I can get the final boxes of wine out from under my feet and into something resembling storage, which should be an immense help. And the last of the bread I bought last week has gone - I need to say farewell to that for a while too; I can never stick with just one slice, it's always two - and if the calories for rye bread in CoM are to be believed, that's a lot of calorie buck for very little bang - and I don't think the extra carbs are doing much for my stability of mind either.
So hopefully things should be better for today. It's just a little trickier getting my discipline back when the focus is no longer on the immediate or short-term (ie, losing weight while maintaining optimum nutrition to get into my dress), but on the long term (increased longevity, decreased risk of disease). I've never been great at thinking long-term; it's a shift in mind-set I really do have to achieve or I will continue to drift along, dissatisfied with my eating habits and with my job, indefinitely. This must not happen.
On the literal bright side, there is sun today! It's fantastic.
Tuesday, 31 July 2007
Thursday, 26 July 2007
The Rain It Raineth Every Bloody Day
... except this last Tuesday, when the sun shone and the air was balmy and warm and I gave myself heatstroke by sitting in my courtyard reading "Sideways" and drinking several bottles of San Pellegrino. By 5pm I was stumbling around, slurring incoherently like Miles and Jack, and ne'er a drop of alcohol had touched my lips. This is a regular occurrence whenever P and I go abroad, because I adore the heat and the sun and forget totally, every time, that the heat and the sun do not adore me. But this is the first time it's happened on my home ground, while large parts of the UK lie under swathes of flood waters, suffering from cuts in power and rationing of drinking water.
Today it's back to the wind and the rain, and the rain and the wind, and the cold cold cold. Even the ducks are looking less than amused now, and I (frankly) am fed up with it along with the rest of the country, no doubt.
Am easing myself back into CRON with my usual foods - lots and lots and lots of veggies, low fat dairy, and the occassional few eggwhites or tofu. I've been drinking miso soup (26 cals the bowl) and adding spring onion and cubed Mori-Nu as a snack. Mmmm... sodium, but mmmmm. I've also been upping my calories over the last few days with toasted organic light rye bread. The sunstroke seemed to demand it, and breaking the bread habit is always hard for me to do... there's no real need for me to cut it out entirely, after all, as long as its unprocessed and wholegrain and organic. Still around 1200 cals a day (when I'm not eating out) and back to 110.4lbs on the scales this morning.
Today it's back to the wind and the rain, and the rain and the wind, and the cold cold cold. Even the ducks are looking less than amused now, and I (frankly) am fed up with it along with the rest of the country, no doubt.
Am easing myself back into CRON with my usual foods - lots and lots and lots of veggies, low fat dairy, and the occassional few eggwhites or tofu. I've been drinking miso soup (26 cals the bowl) and adding spring onion and cubed Mori-Nu as a snack. Mmmm... sodium, but mmmmm. I've also been upping my calories over the last few days with toasted organic light rye bread. The sunstroke seemed to demand it, and breaking the bread habit is always hard for me to do... there's no real need for me to cut it out entirely, after all, as long as its unprocessed and wholegrain and organic. Still around 1200 cals a day (when I'm not eating out) and back to 110.4lbs on the scales this morning.
Monday, 23 July 2007
Picture Post
Sunday, 22 July 2007
Back to life, back to reality
Back home and alone again... no, the marriage hasn't failed! P and I will continue to maintain our separate houses in city and country for a few years yet. It works well for us, and I'm very pleased (of course) that it does. Our ceremony has changed a balance in our relationship - as I knew it would. There is something about openly committing to someone that opens new doors and closes others, and forces readjustment and reassessment. After eight years together, P seems to have discovered a new seam of romantic impulses buried within his usual cynicism - and that is fantastic, and I am enjoying being openly loved. :-)
I turned 35 yesterday and when I woke up in the morning, there on my bedside table next to me was the new Harry Potter. He had gone out while I was sleeping and taken a cab to the nearest supermarket (sensibly not walking at midnight after having been mugged several yeards from his front door a few years back) and grabbed one of the last copies. Yay P. :-) Of course, this meant that he had at least 3 hours reprieve in which to sleep before I bounced at him demanding birthday treats during the day (our waking and sleeping hours do not coincide!) - and then that I spent most of the day stumbling around in a post-Potter haze. Fortunately I had little more planned for my day than a rare and precious visit to Borough Market, some lunchtime deliciousness, and cooking of huge plates of vegetables in the evening. I have so missed my veggies this week. I have, I suppose I have to admit, not been as CR'd as I would have liked to have been - and there has been bread and cheese and copious amounts of leftover wedding booze. We, er, seriously overcatered in that capacity and I still have crates of the stuff at my place and so does P. It's quality stuff though, so I am not too distressed. :-)
One slight hiccup over this week has been that P has become convinced that my CR pratice equates to an eating disorder. Oh dear. Yes, I have pointed him at the CR Society and shown him CoM which, as a software developer I expected him to respect and see as what it is - a nutritional tracking tool, not one for encouraging and maintaining obsession. But because I weigh my food when I can, and require a lot of veggies and leaves, and refrain from bread and pasta when I can and make an effort to monitor my nutrition, he sees this as obsessional behaviour. Oh dear. He promises to reserve his full judgement until reading and researching fully though.
I appreciate where he is coming from, I appreciate he sees my ribs and my hipbones and worries (somehow he didn't notice until this week!), I appreciate I have a past where I have not eaten as well or as much as I should have done - and I am suffering the physical consequences of that every month, apparently - and sometimes I wonder myself if I have slipped back into a mindset that is overly orthorexic and tending towards anorectic thinking... but then I think, no I have NOT. I eat huge amounts of healthy food, I want to eat huge amounts of healthy food, and when I eat too much of food that is healthy but not so in quantity (the bread, the cheese), I feel it horribly and so I restrain from it when I can. Is that wrong? No. Well, I think not. But poor P sees this as increasingly awkward eating behaviour for our lifestyle - and he is right, because we eat out loads and as a CRON-ing veggie it's not easy to find suitable meals in a restaurant that are veggie based and not carb-laden. I admit I won't eat a risotto, gnocchi, pasta, goat's cheese tart, if there is an option of double or triple salad, or the opportunity to order several side dishes. And of course pizza is out, and take-away... and ad-lib eating, grabbing a sandwich on the run, snacking on easily available snacks, that sort of thing. And when I get overly hungry, I get incredibly irritable almost beyond rational thought - and that is a problem and pisses me off as much as it does him.
So I am awkward. But I am not anorexic. And somehow I need to convince him of this, and soon. It must not become a conflict.
So. My first new challenge in this new life. There will be lots more. :-)
I might post some more wedding pics if anyone is interested? (*hears mutters of enough already*!)
I turned 35 yesterday and when I woke up in the morning, there on my bedside table next to me was the new Harry Potter. He had gone out while I was sleeping and taken a cab to the nearest supermarket (sensibly not walking at midnight after having been mugged several yeards from his front door a few years back) and grabbed one of the last copies. Yay P. :-) Of course, this meant that he had at least 3 hours reprieve in which to sleep before I bounced at him demanding birthday treats during the day (our waking and sleeping hours do not coincide!) - and then that I spent most of the day stumbling around in a post-Potter haze. Fortunately I had little more planned for my day than a rare and precious visit to Borough Market, some lunchtime deliciousness, and cooking of huge plates of vegetables in the evening. I have so missed my veggies this week. I have, I suppose I have to admit, not been as CR'd as I would have liked to have been - and there has been bread and cheese and copious amounts of leftover wedding booze. We, er, seriously overcatered in that capacity and I still have crates of the stuff at my place and so does P. It's quality stuff though, so I am not too distressed. :-)
One slight hiccup over this week has been that P has become convinced that my CR pratice equates to an eating disorder. Oh dear. Yes, I have pointed him at the CR Society and shown him CoM which, as a software developer I expected him to respect and see as what it is - a nutritional tracking tool, not one for encouraging and maintaining obsession. But because I weigh my food when I can, and require a lot of veggies and leaves, and refrain from bread and pasta when I can and make an effort to monitor my nutrition, he sees this as obsessional behaviour. Oh dear. He promises to reserve his full judgement until reading and researching fully though.
I appreciate where he is coming from, I appreciate he sees my ribs and my hipbones and worries (somehow he didn't notice until this week!), I appreciate I have a past where I have not eaten as well or as much as I should have done - and I am suffering the physical consequences of that every month, apparently - and sometimes I wonder myself if I have slipped back into a mindset that is overly orthorexic and tending towards anorectic thinking... but then I think, no I have NOT. I eat huge amounts of healthy food, I want to eat huge amounts of healthy food, and when I eat too much of food that is healthy but not so in quantity (the bread, the cheese), I feel it horribly and so I restrain from it when I can. Is that wrong? No. Well, I think not. But poor P sees this as increasingly awkward eating behaviour for our lifestyle - and he is right, because we eat out loads and as a CRON-ing veggie it's not easy to find suitable meals in a restaurant that are veggie based and not carb-laden. I admit I won't eat a risotto, gnocchi, pasta, goat's cheese tart, if there is an option of double or triple salad, or the opportunity to order several side dishes. And of course pizza is out, and take-away... and ad-lib eating, grabbing a sandwich on the run, snacking on easily available snacks, that sort of thing. And when I get overly hungry, I get incredibly irritable almost beyond rational thought - and that is a problem and pisses me off as much as it does him.
So I am awkward. But I am not anorexic. And somehow I need to convince him of this, and soon. It must not become a conflict.
So. My first new challenge in this new life. There will be lots more. :-)
I might post some more wedding pics if anyone is interested? (*hears mutters of enough already*!)
Thursday, 19 July 2007
Very Quickly...
Saturday was perfect. As perfect as I wished it to be. Just... perfect. :-)
I will be back posting properly next week. Lots of things to blog about... and I have also told P about CRON. He is more than dubious, so I need to point him at lots of the research and to the science behind this practice, and be more rigorous myself. Some of the point I've lost with the weight, and I've promised him I will get that back. Married life! :-)
Tuesday, 10 July 2007
The Calm Before The Storm
Well, CR could have been better the last few days but at least I am trying to keep on an even keel while I can. Over the weekend I ate far too much bread and cheese with neighbours, but I still managed to compensate overall and end most days under 1100 calories (in food, obviously) with almost full nutrition - shoving a bag of spinach in the microwave does wonders. On Monday I drove up to Cheltenham Spa to have dinner with a friend - we ended up in a pizza place and while I really wanted pizza (for the first time in an age), I had a spinach salad instead - it came dressed despite me asking for the dressing on the side (and then they brought extra dressing) and had mozzarella in it. Oh well. Yesterday morning I had to grab breakfast on the motorway - cereal, yoghurt and a banana. For half the price I could have had a "low carb" special - fried eggs, fried bacon, limp sausages, mushrooms. Um, no. So anyway, yesterday was a bit of a mixed bag for CRON as well. Still got good nutrition overall, but I am definitely feeling a lack of balance right now.
I've been reading a lot around raw food diets recently, and after the wedding I am wondering if I can manage to combine CRON and at least 75% raw. Shouldn't be too hard, but I need to do a bit more research. I think this all stems from having juices and veggie smoothies last week in London. They felt very pure to my system and I've even brought a smoothie maker so I can try to make my own green smoothies (heavy on the veggies, lighter on the fruit). My first experiment will be melon, kiwi, cucumber, spinach and celery. Once, that is, I actually remove the smoothie maker from its box. Currently it is buried under wedding cake.
So, P arrives today and all the organising I have to do for Saturday begins in earnest. We have to get everything to the venue - the wine, the linens, the crockery, the silverware, the flowers - and collect most of that from various outlying locations anyway. We are still missing deliveries of cider and perry and some beer glasses that P has had engraved with our names and the date and a picture of Tigsy - a sweet thought, if not entirely to my taste! :-) Oh yes, and we still need to finish off the vows and then have a run through with our friend J who has agreed to speak and tie the whole thing together.
Saturday I had my hair coloured (properly blonde again now, rather than parti-coloured) and was really pleased with it. While I was in the salon I tried once more to get the final price for the styling on the day that I had previously discussed with another stylist - one week before the day he decided to quote me one hundred and seventy pounds - so that's around, what, three hundred and forty dollars. For an updo. Needless to say I won't be paying that! So I still need to work out what to do with my hair on the day. But really, that's no big problem.
I am doing much better at chilling out and not obsessing on the small stuff, Robin! :-)
So. Well, apologies for this blog having gone all Bridezilla recently. It will be back on CRON and maybe some raw green smoothie experimentation soon enough. I'm not giving up on this, but I do need to get some more balance back and pay more attention to what I'm doing with it.
For now, I'll leave you with a picture of one of my table centrepieces (because of course you are all so interested! *grin*)... made by my good friend Pxxxx from flowers and foliage and herbs grown in our gardens and scavenged from hedgerows. I think it looks fantastic. Well done Pxxxxx!
I've been reading a lot around raw food diets recently, and after the wedding I am wondering if I can manage to combine CRON and at least 75% raw. Shouldn't be too hard, but I need to do a bit more research. I think this all stems from having juices and veggie smoothies last week in London. They felt very pure to my system and I've even brought a smoothie maker so I can try to make my own green smoothies (heavy on the veggies, lighter on the fruit). My first experiment will be melon, kiwi, cucumber, spinach and celery. Once, that is, I actually remove the smoothie maker from its box. Currently it is buried under wedding cake.
So, P arrives today and all the organising I have to do for Saturday begins in earnest. We have to get everything to the venue - the wine, the linens, the crockery, the silverware, the flowers - and collect most of that from various outlying locations anyway. We are still missing deliveries of cider and perry and some beer glasses that P has had engraved with our names and the date and a picture of Tigsy - a sweet thought, if not entirely to my taste! :-) Oh yes, and we still need to finish off the vows and then have a run through with our friend J who has agreed to speak and tie the whole thing together.
Saturday I had my hair coloured (properly blonde again now, rather than parti-coloured) and was really pleased with it. While I was in the salon I tried once more to get the final price for the styling on the day that I had previously discussed with another stylist - one week before the day he decided to quote me one hundred and seventy pounds - so that's around, what, three hundred and forty dollars. For an updo. Needless to say I won't be paying that! So I still need to work out what to do with my hair on the day. But really, that's no big problem.
I am doing much better at chilling out and not obsessing on the small stuff, Robin! :-)
So. Well, apologies for this blog having gone all Bridezilla recently. It will be back on CRON and maybe some raw green smoothie experimentation soon enough. I'm not giving up on this, but I do need to get some more balance back and pay more attention to what I'm doing with it.
For now, I'll leave you with a picture of one of my table centrepieces (because of course you are all so interested! *grin*)... made by my good friend Pxxxx from flowers and foliage and herbs grown in our gardens and scavenged from hedgerows. I think it looks fantastic. Well done Pxxxxx!
Friday, 6 July 2007
Today's Dose of Gratuitous Romance
It's all I have to bring today –
This, and my heart beside –
This, and my heart, and all the fields –
And all the meadows wide –
Be sure you count – should I forget
Some one the sum could tell –
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover dwell.
Emily Dickinson.
Isn't that just so pretty?
But alas, no space for it. A couple of good friends of mine have agreed to read the ee cummings as a "two parter", and it should be fabulous and will make me cry. P and I are also midway through creating our vows. Wonders will never cease!
Needless to say I am a completely stressed bunny, even for me. I set myself impossibly high expectations of how I want things to be, and always set myself up for a fall. It being mid-July, I had had (too optimistic) dreams of an outdoor wedding, balmy sunshine, gentle breeze, croquet on the lawn, afternoon tea served, gentle laughter, string quartet followed by soft jazz, rural bliss, and then a gentle amble (or stagger) off to the local public house where we could collapse into sofas and generally continue chilling out. Unfortunately the British weather, always (I admit) unreliable, has dashed all those dreams and I am now hurriedly trying to rethink housing and entertaining 100+ people in a tent in a field in the pouring rain with, potentially, gale force winds, thunder and temperatures more akin to March on a bad day. I'm not dealing well with the disappointment. In fact, I am being a ridiculously sulky child.
Still, deep breaths, get a grip and all that... Show will go on. :-)
CR is good. On is good, now I'm home. Wine consumption... hmm, could be better. As for the caffeine!
This, and my heart beside –
This, and my heart, and all the fields –
And all the meadows wide –
Be sure you count – should I forget
Some one the sum could tell –
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover dwell.
Emily Dickinson.
Isn't that just so pretty?
But alas, no space for it. A couple of good friends of mine have agreed to read the ee cummings as a "two parter", and it should be fabulous and will make me cry. P and I are also midway through creating our vows. Wonders will never cease!
Needless to say I am a completely stressed bunny, even for me. I set myself impossibly high expectations of how I want things to be, and always set myself up for a fall. It being mid-July, I had had (too optimistic) dreams of an outdoor wedding, balmy sunshine, gentle breeze, croquet on the lawn, afternoon tea served, gentle laughter, string quartet followed by soft jazz, rural bliss, and then a gentle amble (or stagger) off to the local public house where we could collapse into sofas and generally continue chilling out. Unfortunately the British weather, always (I admit) unreliable, has dashed all those dreams and I am now hurriedly trying to rethink housing and entertaining 100+ people in a tent in a field in the pouring rain with, potentially, gale force winds, thunder and temperatures more akin to March on a bad day. I'm not dealing well with the disappointment. In fact, I am being a ridiculously sulky child.
Still, deep breaths, get a grip and all that... Show will go on. :-)
CR is good. On is good, now I'm home. Wine consumption... hmm, could be better. As for the caffeine!
Tuesday, 3 July 2007
Oh dear
The CRON fairies are not with me today.
Still no batteries for my scales in London, and not much CRON friendly food in P's fridge. In fact, last week's leftovers are still in there, and making a break for freedom. I shut the door quite hurriedly after opening it this morning, and I'm trying not to think about it.
So I've been a bit lax so far. Breakfast was 3 fresh apricots with pumpkin seeds, gojis, cacao nibs, a brazil nut, 4 almonds and a dessert spoon of oats. And a bit of bread and honey. :-( I snacked on more almonds and gojis on the way into the office, and then stopped off at Whole Foods for a veggie juice which was a mistake - more fruit than veggies, unfortunately...
I'm getting really into the idea of veggie juices but not with a fruit base. I had a wonderful Green juice last week which had a cucumber base, and fennel and spinach in it. Mmmm. This morning's "Detox Delight" (because I might have been a little over-enthusiastic last night) had spinach and celery in it, but also pear and kiwi, and it was too sweet. I still drank the whole thing though.
Lunch was over-priced and over-sauteed broccoli with some other salad veggies, some hard-boiled egg white, and some strawberries and non-fat yoghurt. P just tells me we are going out to dinner again later on. Meh.
I'm trying not to let my mindset slip but it's tricky at the moment. I'm also constantly being told by people that I have got too thin, so part of me (in defiance) is thinking that being more undisciplined is ok. Of course it's not. If I *have* got too skinny (and I can't tell!), then I need to be more disciplined and pay more attention to my diet to keep it healthy and focused on the good things. Grabbing samples of yummy cheese is not going to help! :-)
In other news, I think I am in love with ee cummings...
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
not fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
Still no batteries for my scales in London, and not much CRON friendly food in P's fridge. In fact, last week's leftovers are still in there, and making a break for freedom. I shut the door quite hurriedly after opening it this morning, and I'm trying not to think about it.
So I've been a bit lax so far. Breakfast was 3 fresh apricots with pumpkin seeds, gojis, cacao nibs, a brazil nut, 4 almonds and a dessert spoon of oats. And a bit of bread and honey. :-( I snacked on more almonds and gojis on the way into the office, and then stopped off at Whole Foods for a veggie juice which was a mistake - more fruit than veggies, unfortunately...
I'm getting really into the idea of veggie juices but not with a fruit base. I had a wonderful Green juice last week which had a cucumber base, and fennel and spinach in it. Mmmm. This morning's "Detox Delight" (because I might have been a little over-enthusiastic last night) had spinach and celery in it, but also pear and kiwi, and it was too sweet. I still drank the whole thing though.
Lunch was over-priced and over-sauteed broccoli with some other salad veggies, some hard-boiled egg white, and some strawberries and non-fat yoghurt. P just tells me we are going out to dinner again later on. Meh.
I'm trying not to let my mindset slip but it's tricky at the moment. I'm also constantly being told by people that I have got too thin, so part of me (in defiance) is thinking that being more undisciplined is ok. Of course it's not. If I *have* got too skinny (and I can't tell!), then I need to be more disciplined and pay more attention to my diet to keep it healthy and focused on the good things. Grabbing samples of yummy cheese is not going to help! :-)
In other news, I think I am in love with ee cummings...
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
not fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
Sunday, 1 July 2007
Quick Post
You know what? I'd nothing better than for our little world wide clique of Cronies to converge chez Sara for a Cronie mezze as per previous post. :-) You'd be very welcome.
I'm very stressed and simulataneously busy and not as busy as I'd like to be. I can't organise much more for The Day now until the end of week after next, when it will be two days of endless chaos. Well, there is the small matter of writing the script for the ceremony but, hey - picking the words to bind you to your life's partner in front of your family and best friends is a breeze, right? Er, yes. Argh.
More in a couple of days. No chance of any more foodie writing for quite a time, Illiah! :-)
I'm very stressed and simulataneously busy and not as busy as I'd like to be. I can't organise much more for The Day now until the end of week after next, when it will be two days of endless chaos. Well, there is the small matter of writing the script for the ceremony but, hey - picking the words to bind you to your life's partner in front of your family and best friends is a breeze, right? Er, yes. Argh.
More in a couple of days. No chance of any more foodie writing for quite a time, Illiah! :-)
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