Over the last few days, P's father seems to have been making gradual, positive progress towards a recovery. It appears that he had a stroke after his heart surgery. However, today he was able to open his mouth of his own volition to have his teeth cleaned, and he is sitting in a chair rather than lying in bed. As yet he can neither see nor speak, but we are hopeful that the system will continue to reboot and he will be back with us, fully compos mentis, very soon. Thank you for your good wishes.
INO, I found Robin's latest post today fascinating, setting as it does a hypothetical non-CRON day against a CRON one. It reminds me, not that I really need to reminding, that getting one's RDA's on a CRON diet without using software is really impossible. It's ironic that when I was using CRON-O-METER regularly, P would chastise for me disordered eating, but when I do not, and sit down with him and eat my way through a plateful of romaine quietly, he doesn't comment at all. Yet I know that that plateful of romaine really doesn't do it for me! Often I am in danger of eating unhealthily-healthily.
Today I have eaten (in order, as far as I can remember) fat-free yoghurt, LLBY, pumpkin seeds, goji berries, flax seeds (4am insomnia); a mug of hot soya milk some of which was poured on 10g of puffed spelt, almonds, and a brazil nut (2nd breakfast, like a hobbit); more yoghurt, LLBY and cinnamon (after gym); salad of romaine, cavalo nero and mustard greens with eggwhites (back to shelling my own); cooked beetroot, the kind that comes vacuum packed (because it needed eating up); some more gojis, a few more almonds, a couple of walnut halves and some more pumpkin seeds; and a baby cauliflower and a baby romanesco cauliflower with two chopped tomatoes and a little feta. I don't know the calorie count or the nutritional profile of any of that lot, because I can't get CRON-O-METER downloaded onto my new PC (something to do with the settings of IE, which I just cannot change; it keeps wanting an Active-X script running and it won't have it - any tips welcome). But as far as calories go, knowing there is no bread in there, I'd estimate it to be just under or just over 1000 cals and the nutrition to be around 80-85% vitamins and minerals. I imagine I'd be low on iron and E, and certainly on D because I've stopped taking my supplement after the latest scare. I might have some broccoli later to bump things up, but I'm about to head out to a friend's place for a movie so if she did insist on feeding me, I have room for it.
Where am I going with this? Well, I guess I would just like the reassurance that C-O-M gave me that my healthy diet was healthy, and not just pseudo-healthy, lacking in nutrients. It's not bothering me too much; I'll get C-O-M installed somehow, sometime... The other thing was that I try very hard to get P to eat healthy food when I am with him, but not my food. Quite often I make a large salad, cook greens, and we share those, but I will do meat for him - steak, or lamb, or something that looks as though it could look nice if I wasn't a rampant veggie. I'm a little distressed to find that what I thought was healthy - good steak, for instance - isn't! Still, the nutritional profile of all of the meals on R's posts could be bumped up by 200g of steamed spinach whacked on each plate, I would have thought. A small difference, but a crucial one... At least P is usually more than willing to eat his greens even if he does draw a line at a plate of kale. :-)
More off-the-cuff ramblings from me... Golden Compass now (a disappointing adaptation of a fabulous book if there ever was one).
Thursday, 28 February 2008
Monday, 25 February 2008
Update
I've been wanting to find the time, inclination, motivation and words to update for a while... but the four never seem to arrive when I want them to, let alone together. Imagination seems to have done a bunk as well, along with all ability to stick to a proper CRON regime. Or, in fact, any regime at all, since I have rarely been in the same place for more than 48 hours for several weeks now.
So here I am, stuck in DTBIC land, which would be much more of the BIC if I managed to stop drinking as much wine as IC. Gah, as Bridget Jones would say.
Still, that's pretty trivial.
P's dad is in hospital right now, having undergone heart surgery on Friday. And he's not waking up, or rather, waking very very slowly indeed. Which is really, really concerning.
We've spent quite a lot of time at the hospital these last few days; it's the specialist centre for heart ops in the UK, so he's really in the best place. Well, I say we've spent time in the hospital. Personally I've spent it in the canteen with endless cups of coffee and books while P's family watch his father sleeping around the clock. And having spent time in the canteen, I have just been horrified, horrified, horrified by the catering available. I mean, here we are, in a hospital, and what can visitors get to eat while their nearest and dearest languish on their wards?
Sweets. Chips. Crisps. Cake. Biscuits. Fizzy drinks. Practically everyone who came in yesterday ate a full Sunday roast dinner. There were, admittedly, some unappetizing salad options and some diet yoghurts which I did take advantage of (and I bought my own salad box up with me yesterday), and there was some fresh fruit available. Now I know that people with their relatives in hospital really couldn't give the slightest what they put in their mouths; it's sustenance, it's comfort, it's something to do. But I wish that the hospital included, under its duty of care to the patient, duty of care to the relative. Because all they are doing by serving that kind of food is lining up the next tranche of cardiac arrest victims. :-( Just don't offer it. Take the crap away.
I know it's not that simple but it really upset me. Shoot me for a cold, callous, unsympathetic food nazi. Guilty as charged.
P's father, incidentally, is not, to my knowledge, ill now because of his diet in his past. There is a history of weak hearts in his family.
I just don't ever want to see P in his place.
I don't want to see me in one of those places. I won't get there because of the food. And I know why I will be there if I am. So why am I so hasty to criticise the bad food habits of others when I have terrible habits of my own? I know I have no right.
Hell. I just wanted to ramble. Move on please, nothing to see here.... That's if anyone is still reading anyway!
So here I am, stuck in DTBIC land, which would be much more of the BIC if I managed to stop drinking as much wine as IC. Gah, as Bridget Jones would say.
Still, that's pretty trivial.
P's dad is in hospital right now, having undergone heart surgery on Friday. And he's not waking up, or rather, waking very very slowly indeed. Which is really, really concerning.
We've spent quite a lot of time at the hospital these last few days; it's the specialist centre for heart ops in the UK, so he's really in the best place. Well, I say we've spent time in the hospital. Personally I've spent it in the canteen with endless cups of coffee and books while P's family watch his father sleeping around the clock. And having spent time in the canteen, I have just been horrified, horrified, horrified by the catering available. I mean, here we are, in a hospital, and what can visitors get to eat while their nearest and dearest languish on their wards?
Sweets. Chips. Crisps. Cake. Biscuits. Fizzy drinks. Practically everyone who came in yesterday ate a full Sunday roast dinner. There were, admittedly, some unappetizing salad options and some diet yoghurts which I did take advantage of (and I bought my own salad box up with me yesterday), and there was some fresh fruit available. Now I know that people with their relatives in hospital really couldn't give the slightest what they put in their mouths; it's sustenance, it's comfort, it's something to do. But I wish that the hospital included, under its duty of care to the patient, duty of care to the relative. Because all they are doing by serving that kind of food is lining up the next tranche of cardiac arrest victims. :-( Just don't offer it. Take the crap away.
I know it's not that simple but it really upset me. Shoot me for a cold, callous, unsympathetic food nazi. Guilty as charged.
P's father, incidentally, is not, to my knowledge, ill now because of his diet in his past. There is a history of weak hearts in his family.
I just don't ever want to see P in his place.
I don't want to see me in one of those places. I won't get there because of the food. And I know why I will be there if I am. So why am I so hasty to criticise the bad food habits of others when I have terrible habits of my own? I know I have no right.
Hell. I just wanted to ramble. Move on please, nothing to see here.... That's if anyone is still reading anyway!
Saturday, 9 February 2008
I am still here...
... but not blogging about CR because, for all intents and purposes and no matter what, it is - unfortunately - not happening.
However, it is February in Great Britain and today I lunched in the sun in a village that really deserves a much better website with a friend and no jacket. Bright blue skies above scored with vapour trails; bright white spring sun beating down; snowdrops white and quiet and damp in the shadows on the banks, folding up their secrets into their silent, seemingly-eternal selves.
Tonight the sky is dark and silver studded, ripped open like a book I could read if I could. So clear, I can see the whole dark moon, bone-white-curved shyly into the fractional-caress of the sun.
:-) And I wonder why CR isn't happening?
As ever, xxx to all.
However, it is February in Great Britain and today I lunched in the sun in a village that really deserves a much better website with a friend and no jacket. Bright blue skies above scored with vapour trails; bright white spring sun beating down; snowdrops white and quiet and damp in the shadows on the banks, folding up their secrets into their silent, seemingly-eternal selves.
Tonight the sky is dark and silver studded, ripped open like a book I could read if I could. So clear, I can see the whole dark moon, bone-white-curved shyly into the fractional-caress of the sun.
:-) And I wonder why CR isn't happening?
As ever, xxx to all.
Wednesday, 30 January 2008
So that's how it works!
A year and several days on, and I finally work out how to microwave a package of eggwhites.
(Slightly excused by the fact that we've only had packaged eggwhites on shop shelves here for a few months to my knowledge, and even then I've only seen them in Selfridges and Wholefoods).
Yes, prior to this, if I've been eating eggwhites I've been hard-boiling eggs and burning my fingers separating them out. It hasn't encouraged me to use them often. This 500g package though, after 10 mins in the microwave in my lasagne dish, has cut up into little cubes like tofu or quorn - far more appetizing than scraps with shell.
So, that's me sorted for protein for the next few days then.
(Slightly excused by the fact that we've only had packaged eggwhites on shop shelves here for a few months to my knowledge, and even then I've only seen them in Selfridges and Wholefoods).
Yes, prior to this, if I've been eating eggwhites I've been hard-boiling eggs and burning my fingers separating them out. It hasn't encouraged me to use them often. This 500g package though, after 10 mins in the microwave in my lasagne dish, has cut up into little cubes like tofu or quorn - far more appetizing than scraps with shell.
So, that's me sorted for protein for the next few days then.
Monday, 28 January 2008
I never learn!
Last week I came up to town wearing my new jeans (admittedly a size up from the ones I was wearing with comfort back in July 2007, but temporarily so, surely) and feeling sexy and slinky. I might not have looked it but I felt it and that's always good.
Today those very same jeans are mumsy and frumpy and too tight.
It's a mystery.
(Oh, okay, so it's not a mystery at all. Damn my lack of self-restraint with calories in liquid form, and an over-fondness for expensive white burgundy. It's never the food.)
Still, no use beating myself up about it. Onwards and upwards... I can see lots of soup in my immediate future.
Today those very same jeans are mumsy and frumpy and too tight.
It's a mystery.
(Oh, okay, so it's not a mystery at all. Damn my lack of self-restraint with calories in liquid form, and an over-fondness for expensive white burgundy. It's never the food.)
Still, no use beating myself up about it. Onwards and upwards... I can see lots of soup in my immediate future.
Sunday, 20 January 2008
Hello World
Not much of CR interest going on in the life of Sara right now, but Arturo has reminded me it's too easy just to vanish back into the ether unless I keep posting here (I'm always reading the blogs, lurking away). I'm still plugging away at trying to lose the New Year pounds; I guess I need to remember that my body hangs onto weight, and while other people seem fine to drop 2 or so in a week, it will take mine at least a month of being fairly (or more) rigorous with watching what I eat. So much easier said than done when I socialise so much. Still, I'm eating well, and these last few days I've been experimenting with a version of Hilary's breakfast suggestion (300g Total 0%, 10g LLBY, 10g pumpkin seeds, 5g flaxseed, 5g gojis); at around 300 cals, it's certainly filling, and the sheer OMGIAMAGLUTTON feeling I get from eating 2 pots of yoghurt in a row first thing in the morning is enough to send me to the gym afterwards so... I guess that's a good thing! :-) Seriously though, it packs over 30g protein and yes, finally, I think this is making things feel a lot less edgy. So good.
Outside of CR considerations, I've eaten in a couple of really fabulous places in London over the last couple of weeks. We went to the new champagne bar in St Pancras station; freezing cold, but right next to all the Eurostar trains rumbling off for more glamorous, if not warmer, climes. Followed by a visit to Acorn House, where I ate the veggie accompaniments (scraping amaretti crumbs off the butternut squash - why, why??), and argued with P (who had ordered the veggie dish) about why veggie dishes in restaurants need always be so boring and pastry/pasta/rice based... Except when they are eaten in 32 Great Queen Street, however, where last Tuesday I had a fabulous salad with fine shavings of raw Jerusalem artichoke and pomegranate seeds and chicory and raddiccio and walnuts, followed by a comforting, earthy broth of wild and field mushrooms with barley. Mmm, mmm, mmmm. Maybe there's a reason it takes more than a week... :-)
The other thing of note that has happened this week is that I applied for a job a couple of weeks ago; sent off my old CV, slightly tweaked, and a cover letter and then basically forgot about it. On Thursday I got a technical telephone interview out of the blue, and then another with the head of personnel. My confidence is so shot right now that both calls left me in floods of hysterical tears, torn between fear that I had messed it up entirely and fear that I haven't and will therefore have to have a proper interview where (my shot confidence says) I am certain to embarrass myself and have my total uselessness at IT held up for all, including me, to scrutinize. I hadn't realised I had got this low and down on myself and that's a shock. I seriously need to work on rebuilding my self-esteem. But I am not sure that moving into another IT job, which is likely to be more stressful if ultimately more rewarding, is that right thing to do. When my back is to the wall I will get the job done - but I need to work out if putting my back to the wall is really what I want to be doing every day.
On a brighter note, I was talking to A Young Person (30) in the pub the other night who, when questioned, genuinely believed me to be aged around 27/28. Cool. I might feel old and knackered then, but perhaps I don't look it (even through beer googles). :-)
Right, it's 6.30am and I must take my yoghurt-filled self off to the gym for the daily stagger on the treadmill.
Love to all!
Outside of CR considerations, I've eaten in a couple of really fabulous places in London over the last couple of weeks. We went to the new champagne bar in St Pancras station; freezing cold, but right next to all the Eurostar trains rumbling off for more glamorous, if not warmer, climes. Followed by a visit to Acorn House, where I ate the veggie accompaniments (scraping amaretti crumbs off the butternut squash - why, why??), and argued with P (who had ordered the veggie dish) about why veggie dishes in restaurants need always be so boring and pastry/pasta/rice based... Except when they are eaten in 32 Great Queen Street, however, where last Tuesday I had a fabulous salad with fine shavings of raw Jerusalem artichoke and pomegranate seeds and chicory and raddiccio and walnuts, followed by a comforting, earthy broth of wild and field mushrooms with barley. Mmm, mmm, mmmm. Maybe there's a reason it takes more than a week... :-)
The other thing of note that has happened this week is that I applied for a job a couple of weeks ago; sent off my old CV, slightly tweaked, and a cover letter and then basically forgot about it. On Thursday I got a technical telephone interview out of the blue, and then another with the head of personnel. My confidence is so shot right now that both calls left me in floods of hysterical tears, torn between fear that I had messed it up entirely and fear that I haven't and will therefore have to have a proper interview where (my shot confidence says) I am certain to embarrass myself and have my total uselessness at IT held up for all, including me, to scrutinize. I hadn't realised I had got this low and down on myself and that's a shock. I seriously need to work on rebuilding my self-esteem. But I am not sure that moving into another IT job, which is likely to be more stressful if ultimately more rewarding, is that right thing to do. When my back is to the wall I will get the job done - but I need to work out if putting my back to the wall is really what I want to be doing every day.
On a brighter note, I was talking to A Young Person (30) in the pub the other night who, when questioned, genuinely believed me to be aged around 27/28. Cool. I might feel old and knackered then, but perhaps I don't look it (even through beer googles). :-)
Right, it's 6.30am and I must take my yoghurt-filled self off to the gym for the daily stagger on the treadmill.
Love to all!
Sunday, 13 January 2008
A stuttering start
Hmm. Rather ashamed to admit that despite the best of intentions, I don't seem to have got my second CRON year off to a good start - I've gained a pound if not two since the beginning of the year (*shame* (It could just be water retention though... *hopes*)), and I keep being ambushed by hunger and the close proximity of starchy carbs, aka delicious breads. Someone said (what I think of as) the dreaded words to me the other day - "Oooh, you are looking well". I always translate this as "My, haven't you put on weight lately...", while knowing of course that my friend means anything but. But it's true. 115lbs this morning which is in no way a disaster, but irritating because I really don't want that insidious creep to 120 and beyond happening again, and even more so because I was hovering just over 112-113lbs at Christmas. I am much better and much more myself at 112, and 110 is where I want to be. So, same goal as last year then. But I'll settle for 112.
This morning I managed a gym session (urgh, so boring), and an extremely blustery and cold walk on Salisbury Plain with friends and dogs. Benefits of which were all off-set by pub lunch (butternut soup, bread) and the necessity of getting calories back into me asap because I was frozen. This afternoon I have nothing more planned than huddling up with the papers, hot drinks, and Jazz FM. Dinner will be little gem lettuce and the remains of a huge pot of low-fat cottage cheese that I foolishly opened the day before going to London and now am trying to finish off before it goes fizzy and climbs out of the fridge by itself.
Then a day at home, two more days in London, and then a week (thankfully) at home to make a second/third/fourth start on cutting the carbs and upping the protein and making gym exercise an every day thing. And shaking up my diet a bit. I am planning to cut the fruit out at breakfast and replace it with extra protein and fats (yoghurt, seeds AND nuts), and see how that goes. If nothing else it's an easy way of reducing my calories and I get all essential vitamins / minerals that my servings of fruit provide in my veggies anyway. I'd like to get my carbs down this year and see if that helps the stupid blood sugar problems I have. Also need to cut the caffeine and, obviously, resist eating bread when I am eating out.
I think it's fair to say this is now, as April described it the other day, more weight-watchers with an eye on nutrition than CR.
This morning I managed a gym session (urgh, so boring), and an extremely blustery and cold walk on Salisbury Plain with friends and dogs. Benefits of which were all off-set by pub lunch (butternut soup, bread) and the necessity of getting calories back into me asap because I was frozen. This afternoon I have nothing more planned than huddling up with the papers, hot drinks, and Jazz FM. Dinner will be little gem lettuce and the remains of a huge pot of low-fat cottage cheese that I foolishly opened the day before going to London and now am trying to finish off before it goes fizzy and climbs out of the fridge by itself.
Then a day at home, two more days in London, and then a week (thankfully) at home to make a second/third/fourth start on cutting the carbs and upping the protein and making gym exercise an every day thing. And shaking up my diet a bit. I am planning to cut the fruit out at breakfast and replace it with extra protein and fats (yoghurt, seeds AND nuts), and see how that goes. If nothing else it's an easy way of reducing my calories and I get all essential vitamins / minerals that my servings of fruit provide in my veggies anyway. I'd like to get my carbs down this year and see if that helps the stupid blood sugar problems I have. Also need to cut the caffeine and, obviously, resist eating bread when I am eating out.
I think it's fair to say this is now, as April described it the other day, more weight-watchers with an eye on nutrition than CR.
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