In Lieu Of Content

I don't feel much like blogging about my CR; it feels trivial. Of course, it is anything but - if it contributes to my health and longevity. If I feel so bereft without my feline companion, I can't even imagine the emotional state of my grandparents at the moment. My grandmother has been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour and after almost sixty-six years of marriage, they are facing their final separation within months if not weeks.

Life is very sad at the moment. But it's life, and I want it.

The Long Goodbye

My girl, my baby, my Tigsy, is gone.

It's such a beautiful day; warm sunshine, clear blue skies. The kind of spring day that she loved, and would beg to be allowed outside to roam in, and lie in the damp grass, looking at the wind.

I am just so upset - naturally. I hardly want to be in this house without her. I feel very alone.

It's never, ever the right time.

Shoot me

Oh for heaven's sake. It's far too early on a Saturday morning to be fretting about EFA's, but I started doing some googling with an early breakfast and now I am all confused.

- Omega 3 to Omega 6: ideal ratio 1:2.
- Most diets deficient in Omega 3 with too much Omega 6

How have other CRONies set up CoM to monitor lipids? I cannot get a grip on it at all. Numbers! Ratios! MATHS! :-(

Simple spoon-feed guide please!

Although looking back over my CoM reports, now I've adjusted minimum Omega 3 to be 1.1g and minimum Omega 6 to be 2.2, I'm actually more or less on 1:2 even though I am over those minimums on each so why on earth am I obsessing?!

This is just too tragic. It's a weekend, dammit. Chill, woman!

I am also very stressed and sad because I think I am losing my Tigsy. She won't eat, hasn't eaten all the time I've been in London, and all she will do is lie on her pillow with her head on her paws and sleep and purr very, very quietly when I pet her. I took her to the vets on Wednesday and she spent some time there having not very nice things done to her, so maybe she's in some kind of feline mega-sulk, but... I'm going to go and find some tempting catty treats in a while, and see if I can make those purrs louder. It's very sad. I love my girl to pieces.

I shall CRON to the ball

I am in the throes of post-shopping-splurge-binge comedown, after having purchased not one, but two, dresses from the collection at H&M designed by Madonna. I just wandered in for a look and was really unimpressed by the whole lot until I saw this and was smitten. And they had it in black too. And.... well, I tried them on. And I just had to. They are lovely and timeless and as long as I don't put weight on (because they are both a very, very small UK 10 (US 6)), I think I will be wearing them for many years to come. So, another vanity reason to keep up and step up the CRON and to cut down the wine. Again.

Speaking of which, of course I indulged again in that with my friends last night, but the food wasn't a disaster - I ate rocket and parmesan salad, round courgette stuffed with a small amount of gorgonzola and stuff, carrots with rosemary and garlic and salad leaves. I also ate a little bit of cheese from my friend's cheese plate, but to be honest everything was just that little rich for my CRONed palate and I was full after the rocket.

So it's April's CR gathering this weekend. I hope there will be pictures, and tales on blogs later on next week. Hilary Grace and I will be having our own CRON get together the week after next when she visits the UK. By coincidence she will be staying about 10 miles from where I live, so it would be rude not to extend hospitality to a fellow CRONie! How exciting! Also, she might be bringing me mega-muffin mix - if we can work the logistics. Cool... :-) So... what to cook, what to cook. I day-dreamed my way through a really dull training course this morning, creating yummy CR meals in my head. There may very well be chocolate pudding involved...

The Eating Out

Last night I met up with a friend whose schedule is almost as packed as mine; we have to book ourselves months in advance. She is currently renting a fantastic flat, right on the river just down from Greenwich Palace, on the north side. We sat in her darkened living room, with its wall of glass facing onto the river, drinking sauvignon blanc and watching the play of lights and reflections on the water, and in the air as the planes came in on their approach routes to Heathrow. It was totally stunning. I wish I had been able to take pictures.

She is Canadian and says living in such a place is the only way she can handle living in London. I can certainly appreciate that; it was very quiet and peaceful and yet wonderfully dramatic. I'm jealous!

Then we went to the Thai restaurant which is part of her apartment complex and had the most delicious meal which just had to be almost perfect for CR. We had lettuce wraps as appetizers (the best use I can imagine for iceberg, really!), and I had Tom Yum Hed (clear ginger and lemongrass soup with mushrooms and chilli), and then a few bites of Morning Glory with green beans (yes, the name made me giggle like a loon). I took the rest home for P. Fantastic evening. I do love Thai food.

Tonight we are meeting friends and eating here. Oh dear. Not good for CR. Last time we went they had a wonderful dish of steamed purple sprouting broccoli with chilli and garlic and the freshest buffalo mozzarella (but I wasn't CR-ing then). I guess I will have the salad, and hope the soup is reasonably CR-friendly and vegetarian. Or maybe I could have the peppers without the anchovies and hide the bread under the table. :-) Or perhaps today's menu will be totally different and perfect for me. I am saving my calories up for it, which is going to make for some tricky lunchtime eating... Maybe today, I won't be getting the near perfect nutrition I've been managing recently.

Or think I am managing... I'm not sure I am doing the fats right. I am still very fat phobic, and 1tsp of flax oil is about all I can manage in terms of straight oil a day. I've got my almonds and pumpkin seeds down pat though. Any suggestions for improvement? I've been thinking about it because the skin on my hands is getting very very dry. In fact so much so yesterday, they looked like the hands of someone in their sixties or seventies (it was very cold) and this is not good! Hands age faster than any other part of the body, I know, but even so; I'm not ready to go there yet!

Warning! Threat to CR Discovered!

And the threat is the demon drink...

No, not wine, in all its Frenchy cab deliciousness. The other one.

Green and Black's Organic Cocoa.

Because it tastes totally decadently divine made with just water and one cup is only around 13 calories!

Of course, it's when you're on your 4th or 5th cup of the day that you realise you have been seduced by the dark side.

I wonder if I bought super-expensive, super-food chocolate from Shazzie, if I would gulp it down quite as quickly.

***********

Today's Food and CoM

Breakfast
Chopped strawberries and plums
Total 0%; pumpkin seeds, a brazil nut, a few almonds, Fibre Plus Cereal, cinnamon
Cocoa!

Snack
Almonds, cottage cheese with tsp Brewer's Yeast

Lunch
Spinach salad with beetroot, mushrooms and eggwhites; balsamic, thyme and flax

Snack
Cottage cheese
Cocoa!

Dinner
Veggie stew / soup thing with leek, onion, broccoli, zucchini, tomatoes. Cinnamon, paprika, oregano and a little marmite. Baked butternut squash.

2 glasses of wine not inc. in report bringing me to just under 1400. Argh.

===========================================
Nutrition Summary for 20 March 2007
===========================================

General (84%)
===========================================
Energy | 1003.9 kcal 84%
Protein | 80.4 g 89%
Carbs | 128.6 g 107%
Fiber | 31.6 g 105%
Fat | 27.0 g 68%
Water | 1640.2 g 61%

Vitamins (99%)
===========================================
Vitamin A | 39385.5 IU 1688%
Folate | 976.4 µg 244%
B1 (Thiamine) | 1.4 mg 128%
B2 (Riboflavin) | 3.0 mg 272%
B3 (Niacin) | 21.6 mg 155%
B5 (Pantothenic Acid)| 5.7 mg 113%
B6 (Pyridoxine) | 2.3 mg 178%
B12 (Cyanocobalamin) | 2.1 µg 86%
Vitamin C | 281.7 mg 376%
Vitamin D | 427.3 IU 214%
Vitamin E | 14.6 mg 97%
Vitamin K | 1145.3 µg 1273%

Minerals (97%)
===========================================
Calcium | 834.7 mg 83%
Copper | 2.3 mg 257%
Iron | 19.3 mg 107%
Magnesium | 542.7 mg 170%
Manganese | 5.2 mg 291%
Phosphorus | 1194.6 mg 171%
Potassium | 5218.8 mg 111%
Selenium | 133.1 µg 242%
Sodium | 1263.0 mg 84%
Zinc | 8.5 mg 106%

Lipids (44%)
===========================================
Saturated | 5.2 g 26%
Omega-3 | 3.3 g 303%
Omega-6 | 5.6 g 47%
Cholesterol | 8.7 mg 3%

Chained to the kitchen sink

I've seem to have spent most of the day in the kitchen.

I got my long night's sleep after dinner last night and woke up just before 6 this morning. Got up, pottered about, went for a walk to get the Sunday papers, had coffee and pineapple with the neighbours, had another walk, and then decided to make a start on the sack of freshly dug jerusalem artichokes that I wanted to turn into soup...

Anyone who has attempted to deal with Jerusalem artichokes will understand why two hours later I was still washing and scrubbing the little bastards (all the goodness is just under the skin, so peeling is a waste of time and nutrients). I hadn't realised that there were just under three kilos there. And let me tell you, that is a lot of soup. Actually, not all of them made it into the soup because I just don't have a pot big enough, nor enough room in the freezer to store it all. So eventually I made it with a kilo and a half of artichokes, some onion (about 150g), some garlic, some butter (50g) - I find jerusalem artichokes really need butter in soup - and several litres of water. Each serving will probably be around 150 - 200 cals, with lots and lots of iron (which was rather the point of the exercise).

I also baked butternut squash, and beetroot, to eat over the next couple of days. I am thinking of maybe getting some reduced fat feta and making a beetroot and feta salad, with some walnuts and some walnut oil and balsamic; or perhaps make a yoghurt and horseradish dressing... but knowing me, I'll probably just eat them plain - straight out of the fridge, onto the scales, and into my mouth.

Today's food was consumed in bits and pieces again; foraging. A plate of spinach here; eggwhites eaten as I peeled the shells off, that sort of thing. I kept thinking I just wanted someone to cook me a decent meal and serve it to me! I haven't managed to up the food calories yet. I thought I would, but right now I am not hungry for anything else. Typical. Maybe some fruit... but I am already over on carbs. We shall see.

So, today's CoM. I'd like to post pictures of the interface like Deborah does but I eat so many things a day, the screen scrolls down too far to show them all! I'm tired of chasing B12, so I've ordered some supplements, to take twice a week. Manganese today is very high... pineapple. I also had ground flaxmeal with my breakfast yoghurt rather than taking flax oil, but I don't think I will make it an every day thing.

===========================================
Nutrition Summary for 18 March 2007
===========================================

General (85%)
===========================================
Energy | 1028.6 kcal 86%
Protein | 80.2 g 89%
Carbs | 142.4 g 119%
Fiber | 36.7 g 122%
Fat | 26.8 g 67%
Water | 1915.4 g 71%

Vitamins (99%)
===========================================
Vitamin A | 56168.8 IU 2408%
Folate | 1219.3 µg 305%
B1 (Thiamine) | 1.6 mg 146%
B2 (Riboflavin) | 4.0 mg 366%
B3 (Niacin) | 27.8 mg 198%
B5 (Pantothenic Acid)| 7.9 mg 159%
B6 (Pyridoxine) | 3.7 mg 282%
B12 (Cyanocobalamin) | 2.1 µg 88%
Vitamin C | 646.7 mg 862%
Vitamin D | 445.0 IU 222%
Vitamin E | 22.8 mg 152%
Vitamin K | 1825.6 µg 2028%

Minerals (98%)
===========================================
Calcium | 1194.2 mg 119%
Copper | 2.5 mg 281%
Iron | 19.5 mg 109%
Magnesium | 569.1 mg 178%
Manganese | 8.9 mg 492%
Phosphorus | 1323.4 mg 189%
Potassium | 5489.5 mg 117%
Selenium | 117.9 µg 214%
Sodium | 1167.0 mg 78%
Zinc | 13.8 mg 173%

Lipids (41%)
===========================================
Saturated | 3.2 g 16%
Omega-3 | 2.1 g 192%
Omega-6 | 5.4 g 45%
Cholesterol | 3.0 mg 1%