elkit in wonderland

Everybody's Workin' for the Weekend

It was a good week. I have the weekend off, yayy!, and my progress on the Quantified Diet is reassuring. I am down 4 pounds, and I'm not eating less, just better. Heck, I'm even drinking wine! (I picked the Whole Foods variant, if you're curious.)

18 days down, just 10 more to go.

Using the MealLogger app is fun, but this week I realized that my soup and salad bowls at home are DRAB. Same reddish-brown color as the table. They do not make for good photos.

So I bought two new bowls today, in order to make prettier pictures and have more fun looking at my food. I also bought a Lekué steam case - I'd been ogling these for a while in the "surly table" catalog. 

The last potato needed killing, so I started with the recipe for potato au gratin from the little booklet. Really easy - sliced potato, layered with a sauce of cream, egg yolk, grated cheese, salt and pepper; all put together right in the case, shoved in the microwave for 10 minutes, and DONE.

But the two major accomplishments for the week are this:

- I took the three delicious Italian chocolates that I got from a co-worker, stashed them in the desk drawer, and have not been tempted, even though I look at them regularly, and even though I think of them fondly.

- In the same vein, I bought the bowls at World Market, and marched right past all the Haribo gummy candy, again, without even being tempted.

Obstacles

Cross-posting from here, about how to get over and around obstacles:

I have found two things extraordinarily helpful when dealing with obstacles.

First, just know that there *will be* obstacles. If you anticipate them, you can plan for them and figure out how to deal with them. Make a plan. Then make a Plan B, and a Plan C. Where do I want to go? What might go wrong? How can I fix it?

Second — and this was a HUGE insight for me when I first realized it — tripping over an obstacle is normal. It is not a failure. It is not the end of your plan. It’s just another part of the plan. As I’ve been saying lately, you didn’t fall off the wagon, you just took a scenic route for a little bit.

Stray Observations

And of course as soon as I tell you I'm doing great with the Quantified Diet, I detour. (I'll call it detouring, rather than "falling off the wagon", because, you see, I was never off the wagon, it just took the scenic route for an hour or so.) Watching TV last night, the chocolate craving that had been whispering in the back of my head all afternoon, got louder and louder. FINE! I said, and finished off the six remaining Trader Joe's caramel truffles.

Oh well.

Stray observations:

• I reported yesterday that I am pleased I get to eat whole-grain bread and drink wine on the Whole Foods plan. However, I must admit, I feel guilty and like a cheater, especially with the bread, because low-carb principles have been gospel to me for a long time, no matter how closely I followed them or how far I strayed. Starches are THE ENEMY!
• While I keep insisting that the aim is to be healthy, not to lose weight, nevertheless I still hope that I will lose a fair amount of pounds. Just, you know, as a side effect instead.
• Questioning assumptions continues to be fun. What does "whole food" mean? What is "processed"? Is this sausage within the lines? How about the Turkish dried apricots? How important is it to keep fresh foods unaltered? Does making a stew ruin it all?
• I feel like I have more energy. Not sure if that is because I am eating more fresh foods or because it is the first flush of a new year and new plans. Today I kept getting up and DOING things instead of sitting back down. And then I sat back down and STILL DID MORE THINGS (namely, homework). 

The Quantified Diet

Cross-posting from here:

I Joined the Quantified Diet:

… because I saw Buster’s tweet about it, and respect his opinion. And I had used the lift app before and liked and trusted it.

… because it’s better to have facts than to guess what’s going on.

… because I do better with a whip cracked over me.

… because there is strength in numbers.

… because I want a better year.

Good Times. Good Times.

I'm having a good time with the Quantified Diet so far. Getting the hang of taking pictures before I eat anything (this is not strictly part of the Quantified Diet, but I find it helpful to keep track of my intake; I'm using MealLogger).

I was very happy to see these permitted items for the Whole Foods diet:

• dairy
• wine
• whole grain bread
• KIND bars

In the dairy department, I've switched back to whole milk (from the 2% variant that I used to drink), and I'm glad I am allowed to eat cheese - a little block of Emmentaler in the afternoon and some pear or apple slices make a great satisfying snack for me.

I went grocery-shopping this afternoon, at Sprouts. Probably spent an hour pushing my cart around the store. Parsley was on sale, two bunches for a dollar. Radishes were also two bunches for a dollar. In the cart they went! I picked one of the parsley bunches, and put in the freezer to use later. Most of the second one will go with stir-fried mushrooms, perhaps some bacon, and certainly a good splash of lime juice. 

I really wanted arugula, but there was none. Weird. I thought arugula liked the cold season. So I bought a bag of arugula-spinach mix as the next best thing. And tomatillos, yellow bell peppers, apples (organic Braeburn, also on sale), tangelos (look sorta like oranges, but taste like tangerines), and a bag of cooked chestnuts. And coffee. And eggs. And chicken thighs. And a can of salmon, a can of anchovies, and a can of diced green chiles.

The Turkish apricots were winking at me fiercely, but I wasn't sure if they were ok since they were dried with whatever sulfury thing they use. So I skipped them, and will eat fresh fruit instead. That'll learn em!

Two bags of goods for less than fifty bucks (the only item over $5 was the coffee at $5.57). Good going.

Tactics I Intend to Deploy

• order more fruit from the CSA and take it to work for snax
• roast veggies and eat them for not-too-sad desk lunch
• make largeish pots of soup and stew to freeze and keep
• put the slow cooker to work (for beans, caramelized onions, and  ... bread?)
• keep my stash of KIND bars around
• fall back on salads from the cafeteria if necessary
• enjoy that Pumpernickel whole grain rye bread
• and some cheeses
• nuts!

More food for thought from elsewhere:

• Sustainable Resolutions for Your Diet, from NYTimes
• 31 Delicious Things to Cook in January, from Buzzfeed
  of note:
  • roasted sweet potato wedges with chimichurri
  • sweet potato and pomegranate salad
  • cheater's duck confit
  • citrus pulled pork (uses lime zest) and citrus slaw (uses lime juice)
• food swaps, like avocado for mayo, and zucchini for French fries
• low-carb breakfasts, some great recipes in here like smoked salmon frittata, kale mozz egg bake, and eggs in clouds (yolks nested in whipped egg whites with cheese)

It's Valentine's, Valentine's Day

Yes, I know it's New Year's Day. But I've been listening to David Bowie quite a bit lately, and this song has been playing in my head.

 

Anyway, what I really came to tell you ("...and I alone escaped to tell you") is this: I signed up for the Quantified Diet project, where you follow one of ten diets for four weeks. The aim is to collect data to see what works best. I saw a tweet about it from Buster Benson a week or two ago, and it sounded intriguing. Plus, I trust his judgment (he developed Health Month, which I used for a long time).

So I signed up, read up a little more about the diets offered, and thought about what I wanted to do. You can go with the randomized approach and just follow what is chosen for you, but I wanted more control. I know I hate counting calories, and I wanted to pick something I could stick with after the four weeks of the project are done. I considered no sweets, paleo, and whole foods, vegetarian, and slow carb - but whaaaat, no cheese with the slow carbs? And cold showers? Brrrrrrr.

And then of course I worried. OMG it starts on January 1st, and they haven't published any additional detailed information a few days before the start date! How am I gonna get off to a good start? Then it occurred to me that the lift people are good at easing you into new things, one baby step at a time*, and I trusted them to give me what I need when I need it, starting on January 1st. 

I also did some more thinking, and some prep work, and got some support features set up. I settled on the "whole, no processed foods" diet because that is how I would like to eat anyway. I checked out the blog of the advising foodie, summer tomato, and like it well enough. And I decided that keeping a food journal would be a smart idea, so I poked around the App Store for a suitable app, and settled on MealLogger because it looks like a lot of fun and very little effort.

Also, here is what I'm NOT doing: I am not primarily interested in weight loss. While I am hoping that getting rid of my gut padding will be a side effect of eating healthier, it's not my primary motivation. I know I eat more sweets and starches when I am stressed and overworked, and I've tried to look at the extra weight as insulation. With the holiday craziness behind us, I assume that now is a good time to get into good habits and stick with them. 

* Today's baby step: read Everything You Need to Know about the Whole Foods Diet, fill in the introductory survey, and eat at least one meal on the whole foods diet today. (Two meals tomorrow, and all in on day 3).