The storm is over, repairs are mostly done, and tomorrow morning will start back to full-throated work and school. I enjoy having my life disrupted by natural (non-life-threatening) events, but I'll enjoy being back to a routine as well. I only got one gym session in last week. My food was under control, in that I didn't eat any forbidden carbs, but I definitely under-ate in the leafy green department, as I yearned for hot satisfying comfort foods.
I'm fairly well prepared for meals for the coming week. It feels like I was in Whole Foods three times a day this weekend, but only for vegies and the food bar. Our big freezer is nearly full of stuff we had stockpiled, and we decided to mostly empty it before any more CostCo sprees. I've written down a meal plan, and I've got something defrosting in the fridge right now. I do have lunches for the week: tuna (most recent Consumer Reports says no more often than once a week), leftover steak and asparagus, chicken apple sausages to garnish a salad from the work cafeteria. Breakfasts will be cheese and olives, most likely.
I've reset the clocks; the coffeepot and alarm clock should work in the morning. One thing about the power being out: I stayed under the covers till it was light enough to move around. Not tomorrow- up before the sun to get a running start to work. Routine. I do like it.
- iPhone uPdate
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Off Topic: Enduring the outage.
I've been extremely distracted by the disruptions caused by our little snow storm and the subsequent power outages. I did manage to stay on my eating plan generally, but didn't have the time to track anything since I didn't have computers at home and wanted to save my iPhone battery. All planning went by the wayside, as we left the freezer doors shut and either ate or tossed everything in the fridges. It's astounding to me how simply time-consuming it was to be without power. All the angst, time spent on hold reporting conditions, checking email when I was away to hear if it had been restored or anybody knew anything, physical visits to houses with no working phones, all of this just sucked up too much of my days and nights. Soon I'll get back on track - it's now Sunday afternoon and I need to turn my thoughts toward planning the week ahead - but I wanted to check in on some overall thoughts about enduring the outage. Some of this comes from an email I sent my brother (who is a consultant to electric utilities), seeking information about statistics on utility performance.
Folks here are up in arms about the poor performance of our utility, Pepco, after our mere six inches of snow. They are outraged, and there is much testimony about how they never had any power outages before living here. I have to agree I've had a lot more interruptions in service here than ever before. On the whole, though, I'm much more philosophical about it than most - it was a heavy snow, I had three tree branches down in my own yard, on a tree that had been pruned just in December. And for me, three cold nights inside (42 degrees by morning!) and 67 hours total, was truly no more than inconvenient and annoying, not life threatening or dangerous. I've been camping in much worse conditions, I continued to have hot water, and I had enough blankets to sleep cozily. I would have been very cranky if I wasn't warm enough to sleep! The first night, we all played Risk together and really enjoyed it. We've got flashlights and candle lanterns and battery powered radios. It made us feel like hardy self sufficient pioneers. I know if I were very old, or had small children, or less money so I didn't have an iphone and the ability to go out to restaurants, it would have been a much bigger deal. And there were live lines, with sparks, down in wet streets for more than 24 hours before action. Very bad.
Folks here are up in arms about the poor performance of our utility, Pepco, after our mere six inches of snow. They are outraged, and there is much testimony about how they never had any power outages before living here. I have to agree I've had a lot more interruptions in service here than ever before. On the whole, though, I'm much more philosophical about it than most - it was a heavy snow, I had three tree branches down in my own yard, on a tree that had been pruned just in December. And for me, three cold nights inside (42 degrees by morning!) and 67 hours total, was truly no more than inconvenient and annoying, not life threatening or dangerous. I've been camping in much worse conditions, I continued to have hot water, and I had enough blankets to sleep cozily. I would have been very cranky if I wasn't warm enough to sleep! The first night, we all played Risk together and really enjoyed it. We've got flashlights and candle lanterns and battery powered radios. It made us feel like hardy self sufficient pioneers. I know if I were very old, or had small children, or less money so I didn't have an iphone and the ability to go out to restaurants, it would have been a much bigger deal. And there were live lines, with sparks, down in wet streets for more than 24 hours before action. Very bad.
It seems to me a lot like the airlines, which is something I know a great deal about. First and foremost, they can't control the weather, but they can and should predict it and get ready for it, and have thought through recovery plans ahead of time, rather than be surprised and reactive. News reports say Pepco didn't request help until after the storm was over and outages were widespread, by which time our neighbors had lined up all the adjacent states so our aid came in from Indiana. Second, providing information to those dis-serviced is totally crucial. After Hurricane Isabel several years ago, Pepco said "everybody will get power back within 8 days" and they did that, and acted surprised that wasn't considered sufficient. But of course no-one cares about "everybody" only themselves. Can you imagine an airline announcement "everyone will be moved within three days" with no other information? Now, Pepco has automated reporting and response, which tries to be more specific. Yet, they were just plain wrong and unhelpful several times over the past few days. They provided an initial outside estimate (11 pm Friday - this they said Thursday morning) and then extended that to 11 pm Sunday just before they hit the Friday deadline. They switched from automated reporting to live people at some point, but didn't leave the option to just do the automation - yet had twenty minute waits to talk to someone. Since I had to be protective of my cell phone battery life I wasn't going to wait, but could have punched buttons and gotten the info onto their map. I had a very rude and barely competent person on the phone Friday morning (had to spell my name three times, for example). Again, extremely annoying and inconvenient, but not dangerous. These things are management issues that can and should be handled better. But how about the issue of experiencing the outages in the first place? And the time to repair them? I can't judge how well they are doing.
After the airlines screwed up publicly a lot in the mid-nineties, the federal government required extensive reporting about their on-time performance, which is published, widely available for consumers to make comparisons, and the basis for a lot of subsequent regulation on passenger protections as well as federal investment decisions about expanding aviation capacity. Working with this data is a big part of my current job. I wonder, is there any similar set of easily accessible and comparable reliability data for electrical supply to consumers? Everyone here has anecdotes about how much worse we are than anywhere else. Airlines constantly complain that you can't compare performance in the snowy and thunderstorm prone northeast to performance in Honolulu, yet the data does get reported and used, with all of the nuances worked through when it matters. Getting the data in consistent and available formats would give us an idea of how much to be outraged, and our politicians some idea about who should pay to do better. We've got a lot of energetic activist neighbors here in the people's republic of Takoma Park, but I hate regulation by anecdote. Data would be so much better.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Camping out at home
The power has been out now for just over 24 hours and the house is very cold. The bedroom thermometer reads 48 degrees. Now that it is dark out, its harder to walk around and do things. I have an extensive collection of candle lanterns acquired for decorative purposes a few years ago. However, I must confess the collection grew, along with the candles and matches to light them, in advance of Y2K. They were decorative, but also part of my disaster preparedness. They were a way of feeling prepared without having everyone feeling I'd gone off the deep end. The family got a lot of camping essentials for Christmas that year, without my ever really explaining why.
These days, battery operated LED lanterns that are much brighter and safer and last longer are the way to go (for the au courant disaster-ready family) but I like my lanterns with their friendly little yellow flames. It's good to have a little light in each room when you are moving around. Such a drag to have to keep one hand full of a flashlight if you don't keep something going in different rooms.
Here's a bright side to how cold it is in here: for all practical purposes the kitchen is the same temperature as the fridge should be so we don't have to minimize the times we open the door. And for those teens that just can't seem to get the milk back in the fridge, they are finally off the hook.
More bright side: I went shopping for long underwear (excuse me, base layers) last weekend. It's winter camping sale time, and I was stocking up for my trip to the Arctic next July. So now I have a chance to try them out, along with the "array of fleeces" my packing list recommends.
I hate to be cold. I often need more layers than those around me. This is especially true when sitting still if I'm working, I'll shed layers as I go. So I dress to look like the Michelin man, or the Stay-Puft marshmallow man. Right now, I have on long johns, sweat pants, a camisole, a thermal base layer, a polar fleece sweatshirt, a polar fleece hoody (with hood up), and thick wool socks. The only reason it's so little is because I'm in bed, with my bottom half under two blankets and a down comforter.
I lent part of my disaster kit to the family, so they can listen to the radio by cheerful candlelight while playing board games. Some part of them is enjoying this time mostly unplugged, though charging up smart phones to stay connected is taking on some urgency.
I'm not worried about pipes freezing- it is predicted to dip below freezing tonight, but not by much. The way my kitchen faucet drips, there's no way the flowing water will freeze.
Tonight we ate out, and I brought home a large cup of coffee. I still have hot water, and I heated the thermos before loading it with the coffee. I think it'll be warm enough to drink in the morning, making me legal to drive to work.
Of course, the power could come back on at any time, but I'm figuring sometime during the day tomorrow is more likely.
7:30 am update (post failed last night) 44 in bedroom. Coffee tepid. Off to work. Was toasty under covers however.
These days, battery operated LED lanterns that are much brighter and safer and last longer are the way to go (for the au courant disaster-ready family) but I like my lanterns with their friendly little yellow flames. It's good to have a little light in each room when you are moving around. Such a drag to have to keep one hand full of a flashlight if you don't keep something going in different rooms.
Here's a bright side to how cold it is in here: for all practical purposes the kitchen is the same temperature as the fridge should be so we don't have to minimize the times we open the door. And for those teens that just can't seem to get the milk back in the fridge, they are finally off the hook.
More bright side: I went shopping for long underwear (excuse me, base layers) last weekend. It's winter camping sale time, and I was stocking up for my trip to the Arctic next July. So now I have a chance to try them out, along with the "array of fleeces" my packing list recommends.
I hate to be cold. I often need more layers than those around me. This is especially true when sitting still if I'm working, I'll shed layers as I go. So I dress to look like the Michelin man, or the Stay-Puft marshmallow man. Right now, I have on long johns, sweat pants, a camisole, a thermal base layer, a polar fleece sweatshirt, a polar fleece hoody (with hood up), and thick wool socks. The only reason it's so little is because I'm in bed, with my bottom half under two blankets and a down comforter.
I lent part of my disaster kit to the family, so they can listen to the radio by cheerful candlelight while playing board games. Some part of them is enjoying this time mostly unplugged, though charging up smart phones to stay connected is taking on some urgency.
I'm not worried about pipes freezing- it is predicted to dip below freezing tonight, but not by much. The way my kitchen faucet drips, there's no way the flowing water will freeze.
Tonight we ate out, and I brought home a large cup of coffee. I still have hot water, and I heated the thermos before loading it with the coffee. I think it'll be warm enough to drink in the morning, making me legal to drive to work.
Of course, the power could come back on at any time, but I'm figuring sometime during the day tomorrow is more likely.
7:30 am update (post failed last night) 44 in bedroom. Coffee tepid. Off to work. Was toasty under covers however.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Habits, Rituals, and Sprints
I've been reading a book at work, the newest flavor of the month in corporate training. Like all of these books, I see it as basically taking things I already know, but assembling the nuggets into a different order and stated as a philosophy that promises to completely change your life. This one has a number of clear statements on what to do that really ring true for me right now, enough that I've been reading no more than 3-4 pages a day at lunch but persisting on through the book and thinking about it in between.
So here are some of the nuggets I've been thinking about:
Every endeavor - physical, mental, emotional, spiritual - benefits from periods of pushing yourself hard to your limits followed by rest and recuperation. Interval training is clearly helping me advance in running, and the exhaustion followed by rest is basic to weight and strength training. But the authors argue this is true in other areas. "Think wind sprints, not marathons" they say. No-one can stay in a meeting for more than two hours without a mental break to recover, for example. Writers need to focus then take a break. Emotionally, sometimes you need to just watch American Idol with your girl rather than keep on trying to solve your problems.
Nothing really earth shattering there, is it? All makes sense. But then they go on to talk about what that actually looks like in your daily life - how to make the rest and recovery happen. They say you should construct rituals to ensure you get the recovery. A ritual, they say, is action that is imbued with meaning. Do it often enough, a ritual becomes habit. But it remains a ritual unless it loses its meaning and becomes empty gestures. (This chapter comes after the "values" chapter where they say to make sure your actions reflect your values.) So you thoughtfully construct your rituals, and make sure you practice them. They say, unlike the "3 weeks to become a habit" people, it talks a good eight weeks for a ritual to become part of yourself. When it does, it takes very little energy to perform it, but a ritual constructed around the rest and recovery principals is likely to enhance your energy, concentration, and commitment when you go back to whatever it was you interrupted for your ritual.
I would say by their definition, my lunch time walk is a ritual. It reflects my values about being fit and about taking time for myself. Talking to my girl while making dinner is a ritual. The holiday season is filled with rituals. I want to find a few more rituals to break up and manage my days and my energy. Something to ponder as I get ready for the week.
So here are some of the nuggets I've been thinking about:
Every endeavor - physical, mental, emotional, spiritual - benefits from periods of pushing yourself hard to your limits followed by rest and recuperation. Interval training is clearly helping me advance in running, and the exhaustion followed by rest is basic to weight and strength training. But the authors argue this is true in other areas. "Think wind sprints, not marathons" they say. No-one can stay in a meeting for more than two hours without a mental break to recover, for example. Writers need to focus then take a break. Emotionally, sometimes you need to just watch American Idol with your girl rather than keep on trying to solve your problems.
Nothing really earth shattering there, is it? All makes sense. But then they go on to talk about what that actually looks like in your daily life - how to make the rest and recovery happen. They say you should construct rituals to ensure you get the recovery. A ritual, they say, is action that is imbued with meaning. Do it often enough, a ritual becomes habit. But it remains a ritual unless it loses its meaning and becomes empty gestures. (This chapter comes after the "values" chapter where they say to make sure your actions reflect your values.) So you thoughtfully construct your rituals, and make sure you practice them. They say, unlike the "3 weeks to become a habit" people, it talks a good eight weeks for a ritual to become part of yourself. When it does, it takes very little energy to perform it, but a ritual constructed around the rest and recovery principals is likely to enhance your energy, concentration, and commitment when you go back to whatever it was you interrupted for your ritual.
I would say by their definition, my lunch time walk is a ritual. It reflects my values about being fit and about taking time for myself. Talking to my girl while making dinner is a ritual. The holiday season is filled with rituals. I want to find a few more rituals to break up and manage my days and my energy. Something to ponder as I get ready for the week.
The Party
I went to a large potluck dinner last night with old friends, and it was a particularly tough diet situation.
First, almost all diets say you have to plan out your eating in advance. Think things through carefully. Make your trade-offs ahead of time, not in the moment. Even, if you are counting and calculating, do some of those measurements ahead of time.
But with a potluck, that is particularly hard to do. I had no idea what would be there. So I followed one of the common sense rules: bring a dish you know you can eat. There was some light coordination going on, and so I was able to sign up for a salad. That also met my laziness target - I just bought stuff, and brought along my favorite cilantro-lime vinaigrette. So what ever else was being served, I'd be able to have a big plate of leafy greens.
I also ate a snack in the late afternoon before going. Rather than "save up" during the day expecting to eat big at the party, I decided to moderate my hunger with a new treat: crunchy almond butter on celery sticks. Yum! The idea is to fortify my will power by minimizing the actual need to eat. I also decided not to drink any alcohol. This is not a huge sacrifice at a winter party. I knew there would just be beer and wine, nothing luscious and daring.
So everything went very smoothly at first. I did pause for an instant at the array of micro-brews in the beer cooler, but only for an instant. They had a big pitcher of ice water and I made it my friend. Thirsty or not, I wanted something in my hand to sip from and keep me looking social with everyone else. Then, pleasant surprise, the appetizer table included a big plate of shrimp. So I was able to indulge. The cocktail sauce no doubt had the same sugar most commercial ones do, but the grand total volume attached to all my shrimp was probably no more than a teaspoon. Dinner, too, went well. Someone had said something about "lasagna" which made my heart sink, but there were other dishes as well. Pulled pork. Spiral cut ham. A truly luscious salad casserole - broccoli, peas, other small-cut vegies with a little bacon and mayonaise - and a baked dish with broccoli and cheese.
I ate well, felt no deprivation, enjoyed the company, and stayed away from the dessert table. But towards the end of the evening, I drifted back over to eye it while most people were in the other room. Nothing store-bought on it. Cakes that looked good, but full as I was, not so tempting. But some very intriguing looking small cookies - a hard lacy-caramelized cookie sandwich with a solid dark chocolate filling. Surely just one little cookie wouldn't throw everything off? They were terrific, a homemade version of a cookie I know not to buy any more at Trader Joes. And then the wall of resolve just disappeared.
I would take one, go out to where the other people were to eat it, then drift back to the table for just one more. I was stopped only because they were packing up to end the party. How many did I have? I honestly don't know. Five? Eight? Surely not as many as ten? No, definitely between four and nine, but even though each involved walking between rooms, I truly can't say. If each was twelve grams of carbs (an educated pure guess) that is between 48 and 108 grams. And me with a daily budget of 25 carb grams, certainly exceeded on volume of food alone before hitting the dessert table. Two to four days worth.
What to expect as a consequence? According to my understanding of sugar regulation, I am likely to be hungry and have more sugar cravings for the next few days. Like when I started, though without the incredible strength and optimism that always is present at the beginning of each endeavor. Be on guard, and make a plan. Atkins specifically says to drop back on the carb allowance after a slip, but never below twenty grams. Keep those leafy green volumes up, because fewer carbs and less fiber is not a good ideal. Also, both sugar and water regulation will be screwed up, so don't be surprised if the scale is unkind this week. (It already is-two pounds higher today than yesterday. That would be water, and what I do next determines whether it turns to fat stores.)
What could I have done differently? Besides the simple "just say no next time-firm up your backbone" resolve? What could I have done differently so that I would have been able to withstand the temptation? Why was I not able to manage this? What was I thinking?
I think it comes back to the subject of my previous post on Treats. I don't think I'm prepared to lead a life feeling I'm being deprived, just for the sake of weight loss. Some systematic form of rationed treats - genuine treats, not some horrible fake sugar diet form of so-called treat - is really necessary for the long run. I could have said no to all the desserts if there was a single jewel of a treat waiting for me at home. I might have been able to control the cookie intake better if I started the evening with a plan to allow a single precious treat right at the end. And one thing I did do right - I postponed the crumbling as late as possible in the evening, so the damage was limited purely by opportunity. Perhaps I should have surveyed the dessert table, decided on my single special jewel, and taken it then but not eaten it then, instead saving it for the very end just before departure. Truly, each cookie was very tasty, but the first taste is so much better and more important psychologically than the eighth, or even the second.
I think that "set aside" logic has promise as a future technique. See, the post-game analysis does add value - I think I've learned something here, not just beat myself up and moaned about it.
What do I do now? It's Sunday morning, and I do not yet have a plan for managing my food and my family's food for the week. I've got supplies in both houses, but I need to make a plan. I need to make it easy to stick to the plan by making sure I've got the ingredients and timing worked out for all the meals. And this week's challenges include some out of the office business lunches and sort-of social events. Time to look forward, not back.
First, almost all diets say you have to plan out your eating in advance. Think things through carefully. Make your trade-offs ahead of time, not in the moment. Even, if you are counting and calculating, do some of those measurements ahead of time.
But with a potluck, that is particularly hard to do. I had no idea what would be there. So I followed one of the common sense rules: bring a dish you know you can eat. There was some light coordination going on, and so I was able to sign up for a salad. That also met my laziness target - I just bought stuff, and brought along my favorite cilantro-lime vinaigrette. So what ever else was being served, I'd be able to have a big plate of leafy greens.
I also ate a snack in the late afternoon before going. Rather than "save up" during the day expecting to eat big at the party, I decided to moderate my hunger with a new treat: crunchy almond butter on celery sticks. Yum! The idea is to fortify my will power by minimizing the actual need to eat. I also decided not to drink any alcohol. This is not a huge sacrifice at a winter party. I knew there would just be beer and wine, nothing luscious and daring.
So everything went very smoothly at first. I did pause for an instant at the array of micro-brews in the beer cooler, but only for an instant. They had a big pitcher of ice water and I made it my friend. Thirsty or not, I wanted something in my hand to sip from and keep me looking social with everyone else. Then, pleasant surprise, the appetizer table included a big plate of shrimp. So I was able to indulge. The cocktail sauce no doubt had the same sugar most commercial ones do, but the grand total volume attached to all my shrimp was probably no more than a teaspoon. Dinner, too, went well. Someone had said something about "lasagna" which made my heart sink, but there were other dishes as well. Pulled pork. Spiral cut ham. A truly luscious salad casserole - broccoli, peas, other small-cut vegies with a little bacon and mayonaise - and a baked dish with broccoli and cheese.
I ate well, felt no deprivation, enjoyed the company, and stayed away from the dessert table. But towards the end of the evening, I drifted back over to eye it while most people were in the other room. Nothing store-bought on it. Cakes that looked good, but full as I was, not so tempting. But some very intriguing looking small cookies - a hard lacy-caramelized cookie sandwich with a solid dark chocolate filling. Surely just one little cookie wouldn't throw everything off? They were terrific, a homemade version of a cookie I know not to buy any more at Trader Joes. And then the wall of resolve just disappeared.
I would take one, go out to where the other people were to eat it, then drift back to the table for just one more. I was stopped only because they were packing up to end the party. How many did I have? I honestly don't know. Five? Eight? Surely not as many as ten? No, definitely between four and nine, but even though each involved walking between rooms, I truly can't say. If each was twelve grams of carbs (an educated pure guess) that is between 48 and 108 grams. And me with a daily budget of 25 carb grams, certainly exceeded on volume of food alone before hitting the dessert table. Two to four days worth.
What to expect as a consequence? According to my understanding of sugar regulation, I am likely to be hungry and have more sugar cravings for the next few days. Like when I started, though without the incredible strength and optimism that always is present at the beginning of each endeavor. Be on guard, and make a plan. Atkins specifically says to drop back on the carb allowance after a slip, but never below twenty grams. Keep those leafy green volumes up, because fewer carbs and less fiber is not a good ideal. Also, both sugar and water regulation will be screwed up, so don't be surprised if the scale is unkind this week. (It already is-two pounds higher today than yesterday. That would be water, and what I do next determines whether it turns to fat stores.)
What could I have done differently? Besides the simple "just say no next time-firm up your backbone" resolve? What could I have done differently so that I would have been able to withstand the temptation? Why was I not able to manage this? What was I thinking?
I think it comes back to the subject of my previous post on Treats. I don't think I'm prepared to lead a life feeling I'm being deprived, just for the sake of weight loss. Some systematic form of rationed treats - genuine treats, not some horrible fake sugar diet form of so-called treat - is really necessary for the long run. I could have said no to all the desserts if there was a single jewel of a treat waiting for me at home. I might have been able to control the cookie intake better if I started the evening with a plan to allow a single precious treat right at the end. And one thing I did do right - I postponed the crumbling as late as possible in the evening, so the damage was limited purely by opportunity. Perhaps I should have surveyed the dessert table, decided on my single special jewel, and taken it then but not eaten it then, instead saving it for the very end just before departure. Truly, each cookie was very tasty, but the first taste is so much better and more important psychologically than the eighth, or even the second.
I think that "set aside" logic has promise as a future technique. See, the post-game analysis does add value - I think I've learned something here, not just beat myself up and moaned about it.
What do I do now? It's Sunday morning, and I do not yet have a plan for managing my food and my family's food for the week. I've got supplies in both houses, but I need to make a plan. I need to make it easy to stick to the plan by making sure I've got the ingredients and timing worked out for all the meals. And this week's challenges include some out of the office business lunches and sort-of social events. Time to look forward, not back.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Treats
Most diets have some form of "controlled cheating" or saving up for "treats". The idea is to give yourself a safety valve for those cravings and special substances. Back decades ago on Weight Watchers, they had points you could save up and use for a beer on Saturday night. The Carbohydrate Addict's diet, which I followed during the Big Loss, every single evening had a Reward meal, where you could eat anything in moderation. I was a big fan of Why Women Need Chocolate, a fairly ineffective diet that emphasized exercise at a more vigorous level, and chocolate, of course.
Not so this version of Atkins I have. There are very strict food lists, and there is no deviating from them. As you move through the phases, a wider variety of foods are added, but it never gets to the Cream Cake with Chocolate Mousse Filling that is our office birthday staple (from CostCo, $20, incredibly good, serves 30). And moving through the food lists is supposed to be in specific order, with careful note taking. All references to sweets are in terms of "mistakes".
This is a bit too joyless for me. I totally understand the up front elimination of sugars and the gradual adding back foods that might trigger an insulin rush and follow on carb cravings. I also understand that even small amounts of the wrong thing at the wrong time can be the trigger. But I've got to figure out the right things at the right times.
I miss my treats. I think I miss my habit of treating myself, alone in my house before bed, as much as I miss the actual treat food: chocolate. The treats don't have to be chocolate or even sweet, but I think I need that little treat ritual. The truth is, I really focused on it too much. It both mattered to me a lot (I'd get in the car and drive to get those Dove Darks even if I was already in my jammies), and it often was getting out of hand (three Dove Darks is 100 calories, but nine or ten starts to get into serious calorie and sugar loading).
I've started to figure out some treats to fit within the current restrictive food lists I'm following. I had a third of a cup of blueberries (from Chile) mixed in with an equal amount of mascarpone as my after dinner treat on Sunday. It was absolutely terrific, very special and "treat-y". I bought some nice hard cheeses, and last week I had a small piece of pate de campagne. I'm stocking olives from the olive bar at Whole Foods. (Today's lunch of tuna salad was made special with the olives.) I've got an array of new teas to try from Whole Foods, and I buy these really terrific but ridiculously expensive flavored waters from Whole Foods.
This is all good stuff and will help keep me from getting bored and going off on a carb loading binge. But I do have to know I'll be able to work some of my favorite foods into the plan at some point. There is advice in the book on how to order and eat in restaurants, but its all about how to find the right foods, not how to incorporate some off-plan food into special occasions without throwing away weeks of work. The only mention of "chocolate" in the index has two recipes mixing unsweeted cocoa powder into ricotta cheese with sucralose. I actually did this once (its on the South Beach diet) and its not terrible, but its also not a chocolate treat.
One thought - the original Atkins had alcohol coming back in by the second week. Dr. Atkins allowed red wine nearly from the start. This newer version is more strict, but it does come back, because who would live without drinking? (They do suggest staying permanently away from regular beer. Not going to happen.) I'm going to read about their approach for that, and then figure the carb grams in Dove Darks can't be worse for me that an equal amount of alcohol carb grams. I'm going to postpone the chocolate, but I'm not going to say good-bye forever. However, I'm imagining tiny little perfect gems of sweets - a demitasse of hot chocolate, minimally sweet. A single Dove Dark. One slice of my boy's sour dough bread, toasted with farm fresh butter. Oy, I feel my insulin levels rising with these thoughts, so its time to turn to bed instead.
Not so this version of Atkins I have. There are very strict food lists, and there is no deviating from them. As you move through the phases, a wider variety of foods are added, but it never gets to the Cream Cake with Chocolate Mousse Filling that is our office birthday staple (from CostCo, $20, incredibly good, serves 30). And moving through the food lists is supposed to be in specific order, with careful note taking. All references to sweets are in terms of "mistakes".
This is a bit too joyless for me. I totally understand the up front elimination of sugars and the gradual adding back foods that might trigger an insulin rush and follow on carb cravings. I also understand that even small amounts of the wrong thing at the wrong time can be the trigger. But I've got to figure out the right things at the right times.
I miss my treats. I think I miss my habit of treating myself, alone in my house before bed, as much as I miss the actual treat food: chocolate. The treats don't have to be chocolate or even sweet, but I think I need that little treat ritual. The truth is, I really focused on it too much. It both mattered to me a lot (I'd get in the car and drive to get those Dove Darks even if I was already in my jammies), and it often was getting out of hand (three Dove Darks is 100 calories, but nine or ten starts to get into serious calorie and sugar loading).
I've started to figure out some treats to fit within the current restrictive food lists I'm following. I had a third of a cup of blueberries (from Chile) mixed in with an equal amount of mascarpone as my after dinner treat on Sunday. It was absolutely terrific, very special and "treat-y". I bought some nice hard cheeses, and last week I had a small piece of pate de campagne. I'm stocking olives from the olive bar at Whole Foods. (Today's lunch of tuna salad was made special with the olives.) I've got an array of new teas to try from Whole Foods, and I buy these really terrific but ridiculously expensive flavored waters from Whole Foods.
This is all good stuff and will help keep me from getting bored and going off on a carb loading binge. But I do have to know I'll be able to work some of my favorite foods into the plan at some point. There is advice in the book on how to order and eat in restaurants, but its all about how to find the right foods, not how to incorporate some off-plan food into special occasions without throwing away weeks of work. The only mention of "chocolate" in the index has two recipes mixing unsweeted cocoa powder into ricotta cheese with sucralose. I actually did this once (its on the South Beach diet) and its not terrible, but its also not a chocolate treat.
One thought - the original Atkins had alcohol coming back in by the second week. Dr. Atkins allowed red wine nearly from the start. This newer version is more strict, but it does come back, because who would live without drinking? (They do suggest staying permanently away from regular beer. Not going to happen.) I'm going to read about their approach for that, and then figure the carb grams in Dove Darks can't be worse for me that an equal amount of alcohol carb grams. I'm going to postpone the chocolate, but I'm not going to say good-bye forever. However, I'm imagining tiny little perfect gems of sweets - a demitasse of hot chocolate, minimally sweet. A single Dove Dark. One slice of my boy's sour dough bread, toasted with farm fresh butter. Oy, I feel my insulin levels rising with these thoughts, so its time to turn to bed instead.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Spaghetti Supper
I decided I wanted to give spaghetti a try. But after reading label after label, I realized I was going to have to work from scratch.
A lot of my motivation was digging through the big basement freezer and finding some sweet Italian sausages that really needed to be cooked. I thawed and fried them all up and set them aside. They were from Costco, they were pork, but the ingredients were pretty much pork and fennel and other spices - no bread filler. That was a start.
I had already settled on spaghetti squash. I've tried it before and it's ok. It doesn't taste like spaghetti, or have the texture of spaghetti, but at least it slightly resembles spaghetti visually. I was surprised to find it on the Atkins food lists fairly early on. But each half cup serving only has five grams of carbohydrate - really a bargain. The net carbs are even less, after deducting the fiber. The only problem is it takes at least an hour to prepare in the oven, so not a good weeknight choice. I didn't go to work today, so I had time.
The sauce was the unknown. I read label after label on spaghetti sauces, at Whole Foods and Trader Joes and the Giant. Carb grams for a half cup serving ranged from six to twelve. It seems to be driven by the sugar added. So I decided to go from scratch. Sauteed garlic and onions in olive oil, added matchstick zucchini to the pan, then a couple of cans of diced tomatoes. Plenty of spices to make it yummy. According to my MasterCook software, that should come out to only three grams of net carbs. How cool is that!
Even cooler is the fact that my kids liked it. As I push vegies on myself, they are starting to pick them up and try them, too. This is a real victory.
So the dinner in total was only twenty grams of carbs. Once the fiber was deducted, my breakfast spinach-egg casserole, steak salad for lunch and spaghetti supper only gave me twenty-one net carbs for the day. I'll have a club soda and lime apertif and call it a day.
A lot of my motivation was digging through the big basement freezer and finding some sweet Italian sausages that really needed to be cooked. I thawed and fried them all up and set them aside. They were from Costco, they were pork, but the ingredients were pretty much pork and fennel and other spices - no bread filler. That was a start.
I had already settled on spaghetti squash. I've tried it before and it's ok. It doesn't taste like spaghetti, or have the texture of spaghetti, but at least it slightly resembles spaghetti visually. I was surprised to find it on the Atkins food lists fairly early on. But each half cup serving only has five grams of carbohydrate - really a bargain. The net carbs are even less, after deducting the fiber. The only problem is it takes at least an hour to prepare in the oven, so not a good weeknight choice. I didn't go to work today, so I had time.
The sauce was the unknown. I read label after label on spaghetti sauces, at Whole Foods and Trader Joes and the Giant. Carb grams for a half cup serving ranged from six to twelve. It seems to be driven by the sugar added. So I decided to go from scratch. Sauteed garlic and onions in olive oil, added matchstick zucchini to the pan, then a couple of cans of diced tomatoes. Plenty of spices to make it yummy. According to my MasterCook software, that should come out to only three grams of net carbs. How cool is that!
Even cooler is the fact that my kids liked it. As I push vegies on myself, they are starting to pick them up and try them, too. This is a real victory.
So the dinner in total was only twenty grams of carbs. Once the fiber was deducted, my breakfast spinach-egg casserole, steak salad for lunch and spaghetti supper only gave me twenty-one net carbs for the day. I'll have a club soda and lime apertif and call it a day.
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