Snippy

Recently, I've had suffered a series of unfortunate events. My computer died. My car died. There are some not-delightful things going on with my lungs. And, I'm the sort of person who tries to deal with things as rationally as possible. For me, X happens. I come up with a series of steps to deal with X. And, that's just how it goes.

That being said, I'm still an incredibly emotional human being and while I may do my best to rein my emotions in, it does not always work. and, whether or not my "try to deal with things as rationally as possible" is a healthy strategy or not, it is my strategy and I tend to do a pretty good job of it.

Except, when many things break at once. Like right now. Times like these, I'm much more likely to punch a b*$%# in the face (see, even my language goes). Or, I just get really snippy. In particular, I get snippy with people who keep asking me how things are going. For example:

Colleague: So, your car still in the shop?
Me: It sure is. Since you're the one who has been giving me a ride to work, don't you think you'd be one of the first people I'd tell when it isn't?
Colleague: I was just asking.

And, then I apologize. I know people are just asking but I also know that part of me is working really hard to not explode or cry or punch someone to deal with the massive amounts of frustration and having the things I'd relegated to the "can't work on until X is resolved" brought back up just adds to my frustration.

Maybe I need a new strategy. :/ Or, maybe I really should make meditation one of my health month rules next month.

Journaling

In a previous post I mentioned that it may be a good idea to note in my food journal not just what I've eaten, but how I feel half an hour after I eat. I made it a rule on Health Month to food journal because for the past two years I've bought a daily planner so that I could do this and then I've only done it sporadically. My object in the daily exercise is to just bring more awareness to what I do. But, it is one thing to be aware of what you are eating, it is another thing to be aware of the effect food can have on you.

So, I've been trying to add that in to my entries. And, I've noticed a few things. First off, lean meats and vegetables make me feel calm half an hour after I've eaten. And, it has been really nice to observe this sense of evenness a couple of times a day. The second thing I've noticed is that if I have a bunch of carbohydrates, I feel so sleepy half an hour later. This makes me think that one of two things is happening: Either I'm eating the wrong kind of carbohydrates (to be fair, there have been a few spicy thai kettle chips in the mix this week) or that I'm eating too much of them.

I'm not really one for portion control. This isn't because I don't think its important, it is more because when I really focus on it I find myself in terrible cycles of going over the allotted size and then seriously punishing myself for it, sort of in a sneaky hate spiral kind of way. And, I'm trying to avoid that sort of behavior from myself. That being said, I think I'm going to investigate this over the weekend (the plan is to make my favorite dish: home made mac and cheese!) and see if smaller servings cut into the sleepiness.

Wine Party

So, last night I had a few friends over for some wine. I try to do this thing every month or so (this gives me a good reason to clean my apartment) where we all pick a variety of wine and then everyone brings a bottle and we all get to try several different kinds of the type of wine. It works out pretty well. I keep forgetting that I want to stop by the dollar store and buy little notebooks so that people can keep track of their favorite wines from the evening, but I still think people get a good sense of what they like. At the very least, you'll hopefully remember the label so that when you're at the store and thinking, "Oh, I need some wine" you can also think, "Oh, I remember liking that one."


Last night we tried Cabernet Sauvignon. There were some that were okay in my opinion and some that were not particularly nice. There was one (luckily the first of the evening) that was just beautiful. It had strong cherry overtones and it was just really, really nice.

Even though I'm tracking my food as one of my rules on Health Month, I relaxed last night and didn't stress tracking every single piece of cheese and every last pickled garlic clove (which are so delicious.) My big deal isn't about tracking calories or what I eat because I'm trying to hit specific targets, my object is to be aware of what I'm doing and how it makes me feel. I have come to wonder if I use food as entertainment or comfort or to alleviate boredom and if I'm ignoring how I actually feel because of the intake of food. Now that I'm thinking about it, I wonder if it wouldn't be better to not only write down what I eat, but also write down how I feel half an hour after. Huh.

Defining the Rules

I've been thinking and I've come to the conclusion that in order to really move forward with my health (and, part of playing Health Month is about getting into the habit of being more healthy, which is to say moving forward with my health, that I need to be as explicit as possible with my rules. I'm going to take a moment today to explicitly set out what it is that I want to count as completing a rule today and my goals in doing so.

Last things first. My long term goal with all of this is to just learn to be more mindful. I feel a lot of my bad habits come out of letting myself get so bogged down with things and stressed out that I let the little things slide. In essence, I fill my plate so full that I just stop paying attention to details. This is detrimental and incredibly disconcerting because I feel many of life's good things are little details and many of the details can serve as flags on whatever path you're on. It is easy to lose the way when you're not paying attention.

Okay, so the rules: the three from last month continued (drinking water, eating greens and taking a multivitamin.) I have as my definition of a glass of water a 6 ounce portion. I know everyone says "8 8ounce glasses a day!" but, I feel 6 ounces is more manageable. In addition to water, I feel that I non-caffeinated herbal tea and the occasional vitamin water can count (if its less than a quarter of my water intake a day). My reasoning here is two fold: 1. every now and then you want something a little different and I don't want to deny myself something because "I *have* to drink so much water!" Secondly, I own a ton of tea and I don't want it to go to waste.

For the greens eating, I'd like it to only count if I eat half a cup. Now, this is going to require some planning so that I'm not sitting there, at 9.30, shoving down a salad. I am more than capable of planning my meals in advance so this shouldn't be a huge effort.

The new rules are about flossing, meditation and tracking what I eat. The only one I really want to put a stipulation on is the tracking what I eat. Every year I buy journal specifically to do this and I'd say I don't do it easily 75% of the time. I think the key to this is to get into the habit of writing things down right after I eat them. (For example, I just had a snack of celery sticks and cream cheese. So, I'm going to write that down right now.) As for the other two, I think just sitting still is going to be hard enough, but I'm going to have to plan it. With the flossing, ya, I don't take as good of care of my teeth as a should. Ya, that's gross. This is why I'm going to do something about it. Floss, ahoy!

Alright. So, that's the scoop.

Picking rules

So, I'm getting ready to start Health Month for February and I've picked my rules. In addition to the rules that I picked last month (drinking water, eating greens and taking a multi-vitamin) I'm adding meditation three times a week, flossing 3 times a week, and track my meals every day. I'm keeping the rules from last month because I feel like I've made some progress with these things and I want to build on them because I'm not really sure they're habits yet.

In particular, the water drinking habit. I'm getting the water in, but as I mentioned in a previous post I'm doing most of my water drinking late in the day and in the evening. I've had five glasses of water so far today and that is about half of what I want to drink (and I've been up for twelve hours.) Sure, I've had other things to drink, a big cup of coffee (which doesn't count) and some sweet tea (which also doesn't count) and an herbal tea (which I'm willing to count. Perhaps more on that later.) The same with the greens. I've been pretty boring in the different kinds of greens I've been eating: mostly having spinach and salad. (Of course, while I had a cold it didn't matter what I ate because I couldn't taste a thing.)

I've recently discovered that my grocery store has bags of pre-washed and cut kale and broccoli rabe (that counts as a green, right?). I'm super excited about getting adding these to quick meals that I'm going to plan as soon as I'm done posting. I have a complicated relationship with food but at the heart of that complicated relationship is that I absolutely love it. I love cooking. I love eating. I love planning what I'm going to eat. I love having people over to sample something I've cooked. And, part of my goal in doing this is to help establish healthy habits and work through some of my complications. It is just food, after all and I'm just a creature that needs food to survive.

Body Love Revolution!

Greetings, all. Golda Poretsky, who is a holistic nutritionist will be interviewing a number of women who are Fat Acceptance activists/Health At Every Size proponents/awesome human beings. The telesummit is free and the interviews are probably going to be awesome and full of interesting and useful information.

In case you are interested or even a little curious, you should sign up and see what Fat Acceptance and Health at Every Size are all about.

Body Love Revolution Telesummit

Health Month

Do you all know this website: Health Month? It is a health management website that is set up like a social game. You pick a couple of rules each month and you do your best to follow them. The thought behind it, at least for me, is that I have the opportunity to be mindful about a couple of little things all month and I have rewards set up for when I succeed and if I fail I've also got a non-reward set up because you start each game (a month is a game) by setting up a little contract for yourself.


I've not done it before; this is my first month giving it a go. I know it is only January 2nd, but so far, so good. I've set it up so that I have three rules: I have to take a multi-vitamin everyday. I have to drink 61 glasses of water a week and I have to eat greens everyday. I had a salad last night for dinner and it was very refreshing. (This is going to seem counter-intuitive as someone who has a CSA share, but getting enough greens is actually pretty hard for me.)

So far today, I've already taken my vitamin and I've got my trusty-rusty water bottle next me and it is already half empty. (It isn't actually rusty. It is a vapur water bottle that Santa brought me for Christmas.) I think things are going pretty well.

Did you know that French women don't get fat?

While I was on vacation, I read French Women Don't Get Fat. You read that right. I read a diet book. On vacation. On purpose. I find diet books to interesting and (often times) amusing, so yes, I occasionally read them for fun. (Actually, I read a lot of things while I was on vacation. Reading is fun.) And, I found that the book is actually full of some pretty good advice. The thrust of the book seemed to be, "slow down, be choosy, make time for yourself, and enjoy what you have." And, I think my life could use a little more of that. I think most people could probably use a little more of that.

I've been thinking about my life and about how stressful being a graduate student can be. I have school work, research, lab hours, and teaching responsibilities that I have to balance with the business of being a grown up, which luckily for me just means making sure that my cats and I eat, sleep and exercise and that the bills are paid on time. And, when push comes to shove the parts of my life that get dumped first when I'm busy are my eating, my sleeping and my exercising. But, I have thought about this a lot, over the last eight months or so and I have come to the conclusion that taking time away from the eating, sleeping and exercising doesn't help me get any of the other stuff any easier. In fact, it makes everything just a little bit worse, likely because I'm not getting the vitamins/nutrients/calories I need and I don't have a place to appropriately blow off steam.

So, before I even picked up the book, I was already on the look out for little changes that I could make that would just get more movement into my life. I have decided that starting on Monday, I am challenging myself to 30 days of 20 minutes of yoga in the morning and to 30 days of a stroll after dinner. I'm a little nervous that I won't be able to keep it up but I think these are necessary changes that need to be made so I'm going to make it happen.

Oh, fiber.

I have done a lot of thinking in the past week or so and I have reached a set of conclusions about the world that I think will better suit me and my current outlook on things. Some of these things have been interactional (I have a new rule in regards to people who use passive-aggression to get me to do what they want to do. My new response is basically going to be to say, "I'm sorry you feel that way" and then walk away.) but some of them have been about health.

The first health idea I had was that I am going to start training for a 5K. I figure, if I start now, in May, that buy October I should be able to at least walk 5K in a local race (maybe the Race to Cure Childhood Cancer.) The good people of Buffalo Runners have put up a website that lists all the local races. And, a friend of mine sent me a link to some software that is a nine-week training program called something like "from couch to 5K".

The second health idea I had was that I used to love eating healthy. And, there is no way I can't do that again. Especially now that it is summer and all the local farmers will be out at the Farmer's markets with their produce. To that end, at the Farmer's market recently, I bought a load of vegetables in order to make a chopped salad with a little bit of egg and cheese, too. (I also bought sausage that I'm going to grill up and I may toss in their, too.) I decided to chop about 3 meals worth and then when I finish that I'll chop a few more veg. That way everything stays fresh.

But, I'm remembering now the thing about eating a lot of vegetables: They are full of fiber. This is amazing. It is also...well, how do I put this delicately? When you go from eating a lot of junk food to eating a lot of fiber, you find that the first trip to the bathroom in the morning is much more of a necessity. Oh, fiber. This is good, though. Fiber comes in, fills you up and then goes right back out.

Snacks

So, I have a number in mind. It is a pretty high number, but not as high as I thought it was going to be. You see, I got on a scale yesterday.

I'm not proud of the number, but I'm not really that ashamed of it, either. I know how it happened. I'm not my priority. I know that I'm pretty much all I ever talk about here, but in the non-blog world, my priorities are my friends and family, my cats, my research, my students, the lab, making sure bills get paid on time, and that I'm doing all that I can to make sure that my PhD is worth something when I graduate. Oh, and for two and half years, my now ex, who provided me with opportunity and incentive to unlearn many of my good habits by making me feel like a piece of trash and only eating store-bought junk himself. On the surface, there are a lot of first-person singular possessive markers, so it still looks like I'm just talking about me. But what I'm trying to point out is, that when it comes to what my body needs and what I need to be healthy, happy and stable.


The number that I'm thinking about is what it is. So, if I want it to be something else, I have to work on it. Honestly, I've said this before and you might think this is just me trying to convince myself but, as long as I'm healthy and not miserable because my needs aren't being met, that number can stay put. The thing is, I know I'm not. I get winding walking up the stairs and my clothes fit weird.

In a previous post, I mentioned that my plan is to take lunch and snacks to school and to food journal. I've been doing really well at taking my lunch. And, remembering snacks. And, remembering to eat them. I have noticed a correlation between being hungry and not being able to get work done. And, thanks to my friend Annie I've discovered a new energy/nutrition bar. These things are kind of amazing. All of the ingredients are words I can pronounce (without resorting to a dictionary.) They are a little more calorie intense than the other granola bars I've been eating, but they are super tasty. And, well, its nice to exactly what you are eating.

Back in the Saddle.

Now that Coltrane is posting and has, if you will, thrown down the gauntlet it is time to start blogging and thinking about food again.

It is funny to put it that way, "thinking about food" because, honestly, I don't ever stop thinking about food. I love food. I love cooking. I definitely love eating. I even love reading diet books, as odd as that sounds. And, I feel that at this point in my life I have read too many of them and I'm old enough not to feed myself properly. Like a grown up. Healthy and such.

So, I bought a ham, some potatoes, loads of veg, and a bag of salad. (I also bought bacon and cinnamon rolls. It is my last weekend of freedom before the semester begins and I am going to enjoy it!) I feel like, what is important is that I just remain mindful of what I eat. If I am paying attention and trying to only eat at meal times or when I am hungry perhaps I can break some of my bad, couch potato habits.

In an effort to do this, to be mindful, I am going to do two things:

1. I have started food journalling. Every time something passes my lips, I make a note of it. I even bought a planner so that I'd have something all set to go. I've eaten a lot this weekend. True Story.

2. I am taking my lunch and two snacks with me to school every day. Additionally, I have V8 (don't make that face, I like the way it tastes and I am not you. :P), some Fiber One granola bars and a mess of tea bags that I am taking into my office. I am hoping that access to tasty snacks and my own tea stash will curb any "let's go to Starbucks or Tim Horton's" urges I have. I feel this will be good for my wasteline and my budget.

Long Days

So, all that progress I made over the summer when I had all that time to freak myself out about weight and other things has been partially undone in the last few weeks. The semester started. Tuesday starts week 5 (we don't have class tomorrow because of Yom Kippur). I'm taking four classes, I'm the president of my department's graduate student organization and I have a part time job. Needless to say, I'm a little busy.


And, my eating habits has gone to hell. To absolute hell. At least once a week in the past three weeks I've had a meal that consisted solely of dry toast (and at least once this has happened twice in one day). And, each time this came about by me opening the fridge, looking at the raw ingredients, considering the effort to make a quick stir-fry, closing the fridge and making toast. I've also eaten a lot of meat and cheese sandwiches. This is ridiculous because I have all these great fruits and vegetables in my fridge from my CSA share. Also, fruit and veg don't keep indefinitely, so I have to do something about them! So, today I am (despite the fact that in addition to my normal amount of work for this week, I just realized that the article I'm supposed to read for a lab meeting on Friday is seventy-one pages long.). I have a potato leek soup in my crock pot (made with whole milk instead of cream and with swiss chard added.) I have beets roasting in my oven, which will then by whipped into a soup as well. I have also pickled onions today and made zucchini bread. Most of these things will be going to straight into my freezer (or the cupboard), so that later in the semester when my CSA share is done for the season, I'm working on papers and I'm completely unhinged with stress all I have to remember how to do is thaw and microwave. At some point today, I'm heading out to a liquor store in order to purchase brandy. I'm then going to brandy some stone fruits I have. I've never done this before, and even though I've looked at recipes I'm going to wing it. My brandied fruit will probably only be good over ice cream or in brandied fruit smoothies, but whatever. The point is I'm not wasting the fruit and maybe this winter I won't be paying (completely) through the nose for vitamins. Maybe.

...and, then life happens.

This is the last week before school starts for me. I'm super excited about this coming semester. I'm going to learn Perl! But, of course, since its the last week before school, its not my last free week before school. We had a Welcome Party for the incoming graduate students (I made peach pie). There was a teaching conference (where we were served pizza for lunch every day.)


And, I've not written a damn thing down I've eaten since Breakfast on Tuesday. *sigh* I was on such a roll.


Here's the funny thing about this: writing everything down made me feel a little like I had some sort of disorder; that I was sliding down the slippery slope towards ED. Not writing things down makes me feel a little chaotic and out of control. (Also, I feel like I've lost three days because I don't have dated journal entries for them.) I don't know if this is a good thing, like I'm getting used to the notion of keeping track of things as part of my life or if its a bad thing. I suppose only time will tell. So, I'm back on the wagon again this morning (it was a morning of bacon and tea. Lots of tea.) . I suppose it will be easier once classes actually start as I will be bringing my own lunch. Which reminds me, I need to pick up some bread and lunch meat.

Obsessive Journaling

I have been food journaling this summer because I have read that the best way to really stay on top of your weight is to keep track of what you put in. I'm not going to say that I have been wildly successful with this tactic, but more often than not I remember to write stuff down and the general trend for the summer has been weight loss. This is good.


I have a problem, though.


I feel like I have a disease when I do this. Seriously. Writing down absolutely everything I eat makes me feel neurotic or like I'm trying to suss out an allergy or that I may be slowly skipping down the path to anorexia. It freaks me out a little. And, I don't know what to do about that.

I'm going to put one foot in front of the other, too!

So, even though I made all that great progress last month, according to my scale I've gone the other direction so far this month.

Also, I'm super stressed out and I hate the town that I live in and all my friends live somewhere else or aren't around for the summer because they are getting married or study cool things in which they get to play in the dirt. While this isn't exactly true and I'm really just kvetching it is certainly how I feel.

Anyway, it has occurred to me that perhaps I should follow Melissa's lead and start doing one (or more) of the many workout videos I have in my house and I much more regular basis. What could be better than expending some of my murderous, "I hate my life" energy while bouncing up and down on an exercise ball doing a lazy man's jumping jacks? (I mean, what could be better aside from not having murderous, "I hate my life" energy to begin with.) I have come to a decision. I am, starting today!, going to work out three times a week. If I can keep that going for a month, I think I may give myself a treat. Another orchid, perhaps? (Not that I can afford another orchid and another grow light so said orchid won't die during the winter, this is one of the source's for the murderous energy, but you know, I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. For now, Exercise ball ahoy!

Cravings.

I have been struck by an afternoon craving.

I was supposed to meet a friend for coffee this afternoon but she was then detained by the maintenance man in her building. The roof started leaking a while back and he came to fix it once already, but it didn't stay fixed. So, they waited for there to be some dry days so they could re-tar the roof and now that has been done her ceiling can be fixed. I am for apartments with complete, whole, and non-leaking ceilings, so I'm okay with the cancellation. Its just that I had it in my head that I was going to get to drink a tall, skinny, white mocha with just an itty, bitty bit of whipped cream and now I'm not. There is really no point in me going for coffee myself when the point, really, was to catch up with a friend I've not seen in a few weeks. Especially since there is nothing wrong with my coffee pot and I am not lacking in the skills necessary to make a good cup of joe.


Here's the thing, I promised myself this treat and now I'm not getting it. And, I feel denied. So, the part of my brain that likes treats and will not be denied is casting about looking for other options. And, it has presented me with an option that is appealing because it gives the illusion of doing something that is only moderately bad for me. I could walk to the doughnut shop that is kinda near my house and get that blueberry doughnut that they have been advertising a lot of late. It would be a nice walk. I would get out of the house. I would...being eating a doughnut that I don't need. (Also, it may rain. I'm not really in the mood for being rained on since its only 65 degrees Fahrenheit out.)

I don't know if I'm going to win this round with myself or not. I'm thinking that I might make myself a smoothie with the flavored decaf, ice and skim milk in my fridge. I am also pretty sure that I have some 100 calorie snack packs in my house. I'm hoping that will do the trick.

Putting One Foot in Front of the Other

I am genetically programmed to be a sloth, sitting around with my feet up reading a book, knitting, drinking tea, and/or feeding my face. If I want to live to see grandchildren (assuming I have children in the first place) I have to be active, end of story. I'm my father's child and, on the paternal side of the family, we're all short, barrel-chested, and prone to cardiovascular/cerebrovascular disease (my paternal grandfather stroked out at the age of 59; my father is turning 62 this year and is pretty proud of himself).

As noted by my personal blog URL, I'm a dancer and started when I was very little. That whole "short and stocky" thing makes a professional ballet career an impossibility, combined with a wonky back, a phooey knee, and a tendency to grind off the soft tissue between the bones of my left foot, but I can hold my own in a professional level class. Even now when I'm the oldest by ten years of the students on a given day. I'm naturally flexible and have a decent core but I'm also a lazy bones who has a little trouble bothering to go to the gym for additional exercise beyond ballet class.

Hence the flab that won't ever give up the ghost.

I sucked it up today (literally) and tried out a new Pilates DVD - Pilates Body Sculpting Workout with Ana Caban - that came with a little ball that you squeeze to activate certain muscles.

Ow.

I can generally do pretty well with a 20 minute mat class - I haven't had a formal class in years because no one has classes when I'm not at work - but this one had me dying after about 10 minutes. This is definitely a challenge. I also got a another DVD - Mari Windsor Pilates for Pink - so I might let Mari kick my gut tomorrow. I picked up some new therabands and a lightweight travel yoga mat so I can work on some knee exercises and foot exercises when I'm on-the-go.

Have I yet to mention that I have been slacking on my prescribed physical therapy exercises? I have and that does me no good either.

It's all about being consistent and consistency is a problem for me. I'm used to just going 110% percent everyday and that just doesn't work anymore because my body doesn't recover as quickly as it used to (combined with my current out-of-shape status).

Goal: Tomorrow do a bit of Pilates with Mari and then hit the gym for at least 30 minutes on the elliptical. Repeat Monday.

Off to have a soak in the bath.

Also improvements: I have been drinking more water of late (particularly at night when my fridge-forages urges become more apparent - currently foiled by there being no food in the fridge) and I also bought a new *aluminum* water bottle to have PBA-free water. Just watch - in a few years we'll have a report about how we're all ingesting aluminum with our water bottles.

Uh Oh. Really?

So, I'm sitting here, chilling out, drinking a beer (not on the South Beach diet, but always on my diet) and catching up on my reading list. I just finished a piece of salmon with an improvised citrus chili glaze (one spoonful of chili sauce from a jar in which nothing is written in English but the words "chili sauce" and a couple spoonfuls of homemade orange-cider marmalade) served over a bed of some of that great lettuce I got from my CSA share and I'm feeling pretty good about things.


That is, until I read what Vegan Dad has posted about meat. The National Cancer Institute has recently published a study that concludes the risk of heart disease and cancer goes up by 30 percent if you eat 125 grams of red and/or processed meat a day. Horrifying. Apparently, cutting that down to eating meat once a week can eliminate most of the risk. Vegan Dad suggests you just cut it out entirely, and I completely see his point.

Except, I really, really really like red meat. Really. Few things in this world are as tasty to me as a Kansas City strip steak grilled just right (read: rare) next to a whole mess of veg with a good beer or a great, light and slightly fruity syrah or merlot. Given that I'm a student, I don't eat that with any frequency. You know what I do eat with much frequency? Processed Turkey slices. During the school year, it is not uncommon for me to toss a couple slices of turkey lunch meat on a salad and to head out to class. Oh, and bacon. One can not forget my love of bacon.

Last Fall, when I first moved into my new place sans Ex-fiancee, I briefly experimented with weekday vegetarianism on the suggestion of a book I was reading at the time, Clean Up Your Diet. Since I was trying to stem the flat-tire tide and I was also trying to save money, it made sense that, for most of the week, I should try to plan meals without meat since it tends to be a big ticket item (at least good meat does.) I got back into meat eating because I adopted some stray kittens and I was trying to acclimatize them to people (at least that's what I told myself.) I have a vegetarian crock pot cookbook that has some pretty amazing sounding things in it that I haven't tried (including a recipe on how to make your Seitan.) The problem with that is that I have to keep up on what I'm freezing and what I'm thawing. Its great to make recipes that serve a family when you live alone, as long as you remember what you've frozen for later consumption. And, of course, as a part-time vegetarian that enormous bag of frozen chicken breasts will last me forever! I'm going to have to conisder this further because I'm trying to commit to things I can turn into good habits and I don't want to burden myself with a bunch of changes that won't stick and that will just interfere with each other.

Vegetables

So, some friends and I went into together and bought a share in a local farm (two farms, actually) through a Community Sustained Agriculture program. We have a fruit share and a summer vegetable share. (We're on the wait list for a winter share.) We got our first shares of veg yesterday. I have sweet onions, all different types of lettuce.

I bought bacon and eggs to go with my lettuces. I've had two sandwiches today. I'm pretty excited about the rest of the lettuce. Although, I don't imagine it will last as long as I think it will. The quart of strawberries we got last week lasted me four days. I love vegetables! I hope that this will help my efforts to help my health efforts!

Picking A Plan

I have decided to re-read The South Beach Diet and The Eat Clean Diet. While they might deny that they are the same thing, they are pretty similar. They are both plans that focus a life-long overhaul of how you eat focusing on complex carbohydrates like the ones found in whole grains and fruits and vegetables and lean proteins. I have also decided to cancel my eDiets subscription. In March, I signed up for their Glycemic Impact diet (which is, again, a diet focused on complex carbohydrates and lean proteins.)

I have made this decision for two reasons. The first reason is that I don't sign into eDiets frequently enough to justify the expenditure. While I can see how it would be a tremendous resource, I found that when I was following their menu I was buying way more food than I actually ate. This meant that I wasted a lot of food. And, when I was going through the menus and trying to decide what not to buy (because I knew I wasn't going to eat as much as they predicted I would eat) I would just end up creating my own menu anyway. And, the second reason? I feel like South Beach and Eat Clean are geared towards learning principles to live by. I would like to (re)learn some general principles as I hope to one day live in a world where I do not feel like my life is centered around food and eating. I'm hoping I'm not the only person out there who feels like this, but I feel like most of my day centers around what I can eat, what I should eat, and (sadly) what other people are thinking about what I eat. I know, its ridiculous but I probably spend as much time scrutinizing food choices for their social consequences as I do actually preparing and eating food. (If you're one of the people free of this affliction, let me just tell you that it takes pretty much all off the fun out of eating. It makes it impossible to really enjoy the things that are bad for you and it makes the things that are good for you, whether they are tasty or not, a chore.) I know this is crazy; I would like to someday be free of it. But, today is not that day. Today is a salad with peppers, tomatoes and grilled chicken breast served with a big glass of water day.