Bizarre Cauliflower Craving
That sounds like magnetic poetry.
Yesterday (Tuesday) was pretty good. I think I was still full from the day before because I wasn't very hungry all day. I seem to be getting hungry after a few days at 800, going over 800, then being happy at 800 for a few more days. Yesterday I had an egg (100) at about 11 am, followed by a lunch at about 12:30 of lettuce topped with fat free dressing (10 on the lettuce, 20 on the dressing), a salad of fresh tomatoes and green bell peppers marinated in this delicious key lime, kiwi, tangerine marinade (fat free... I'm working on it but I'm still drawn to fat free marinades) that was 30 calories a tablespoon. I put two tablespoons in a large salad of which I ate half, so I imagine it was 30 calories on the marinade and maybe 50 total on the tomato and peppers. I also ate my cottage cheese: 90 this time, it was the lowfat kind.
I stayed at work until about seven (still rather early for me but things have been slow lately) and then drove home... which takes an hour. The good news is I put a deposit down on an apartment! Five minutes from the office, gorgeous balcony, huge living area and nice big kitchen, also large dining area. Perfect for having friends over for dinner. A cute little open window from the kitchen into the living room on which I could proudly display my vinegar collection and I guess my (gasp!) new olive oils! It's on hold till Thursday so I still have time if I decide I'd rather live somewhere else. It's right on a lake and has a fitness center that's open at 6 am and did I mention that it's less than five minutes from the office? Traffic has ruled my life for so long that it will be confusing to have so much more time. What will I do? Chop more vegetables?
When I got home I ate more of the swiss chard, leek and broccoli soup. It was a bit salty and would have been better with lemon but it was still delicious. I had cherries for dessert and a 4 ounce glass of red wine. Let's see... about 200 on the soup because it had a full tablespoon of oil in it plus the veggies which are very low calorie. Then cherries were probably about 75 -- my online calorie counter says 50 for ten raw and I ate fifteen. 85 on the wine... yes, I measured it. So the total for the day was: 700. That's too low, I know, but I was making up for an excess the day before and I just wasn't any hungrier. I had plenty of food around if I needed to eat more, but I don't want to eat when I'm not hungry. My body seems to adjust naturally, being hungrier sometimes and less hungry at others. I'm sure today I'll either hit or slightly exceed 800. I already ate my egg and it's not even 11 am yet.
Which brings me to my bizarre cauliflower cravings. On my long drive home, I started to think about cauliflower. I was wondering what kinds of foods might be available at the CR conference in November. With the extreme variety of dietary habits, what could everyone agree on? Cauliflower sprung to mind, and I spent the rest of the drive considering cauliflower. I even got some, but I was too sleepy to steam it last night so I have a gorgeous head of cauliflower waiting for me when I get home tonight. Suggestions on what I should do with it? I'll probably just steam it with a squeeze of lemon and a few dashes of lemon pepper, but if anyone has any ideas, please comment. Perhaps I'll.. gasp...put a tiny bit of olive oil on it. Do people put olive oil on cauliflower?
I also read a Sears book over the weekend, _The Omega Rx Zone_. Funny that in the hundreds of pop nutrition books I've read in the last eight years, I'd never read one of his. It actually helped explain a lot of what I read on the CR list.
I think he's a little more dismissive of Ornish than is strictly necessary to prove his point, but that could just be my lowfat vegan -> CR with eggs and olive oil identity crisis talking. It's so odd to completely change my attitude towards fat. I had known the blood sugar/insulin response stuff forever, but I had eaten vegan on the low end of the glycemic index. Anybody ever read _The Good Calorie Diet_? It's all about insulin control and it suggests avoiding all animal protein. I used to eat brown rice for breakfast. For awhile, I ate spinich noodles for breakfast. Now I eat no breakfast at all, and I am a much happier person. Sears would not approve of the long spaces between my meals. I am wondering if I should change that. I just really like eating the way I do right now. "Calories, calories, calories" is such a frequent refrain on the list that it makes me think that if I can eat 800 or so happily the way I'm doing it, there's no need to worry about meal spacing. Sears seemed to present the meal spacing as a tactic for controlling insulin and by extension appetite so that a normal person *could* practice CR (I love the way he actually uses the term calorie restriction! It just warms my little heart!) without undue discomfort. If I like the way I feel now, I can keep doing what I'm doing re: meal spacing, right?
I definitely need to get my nutritional software, and I assure you, I'm on it. I spilled water on my laptop last week and a new one has been ordered for me (it made a terrible sizzling noise!) so I'm a computer nomad right now, but hopefully this will all get straightened out by next week. In the meantime, on some advice from a long term CR practitioner, I'm cutting back on fruit and upping the veggie consumption. For a long time in my vegan life (I sound like a born-again, don't I?) I tried to hit three fruits a day, one of them citrus, as well as a red, green, and yellow vegetable once a day. I was eating so many calories and staying a nice weight on the low end of normal, but as I mentioned yesterday, it was a lot of work. And while it had obesity avoidance and (I believe... but I'm willing to listen to other views) heart disease avoidance benefits, it wasn't slowing aging. I think that I should try to hit the fruits on different days, instead of trying to pack so many calorie dense fruits into every single day. The vegetables are easy since they are not as calorie dense.
Enough for now... more soon.
Yesterday (Tuesday) was pretty good. I think I was still full from the day before because I wasn't very hungry all day. I seem to be getting hungry after a few days at 800, going over 800, then being happy at 800 for a few more days. Yesterday I had an egg (100) at about 11 am, followed by a lunch at about 12:30 of lettuce topped with fat free dressing (10 on the lettuce, 20 on the dressing), a salad of fresh tomatoes and green bell peppers marinated in this delicious key lime, kiwi, tangerine marinade (fat free... I'm working on it but I'm still drawn to fat free marinades) that was 30 calories a tablespoon. I put two tablespoons in a large salad of which I ate half, so I imagine it was 30 calories on the marinade and maybe 50 total on the tomato and peppers. I also ate my cottage cheese: 90 this time, it was the lowfat kind.
I stayed at work until about seven (still rather early for me but things have been slow lately) and then drove home... which takes an hour. The good news is I put a deposit down on an apartment! Five minutes from the office, gorgeous balcony, huge living area and nice big kitchen, also large dining area. Perfect for having friends over for dinner. A cute little open window from the kitchen into the living room on which I could proudly display my vinegar collection and I guess my (gasp!) new olive oils! It's on hold till Thursday so I still have time if I decide I'd rather live somewhere else. It's right on a lake and has a fitness center that's open at 6 am and did I mention that it's less than five minutes from the office? Traffic has ruled my life for so long that it will be confusing to have so much more time. What will I do? Chop more vegetables?
When I got home I ate more of the swiss chard, leek and broccoli soup. It was a bit salty and would have been better with lemon but it was still delicious. I had cherries for dessert and a 4 ounce glass of red wine. Let's see... about 200 on the soup because it had a full tablespoon of oil in it plus the veggies which are very low calorie. Then cherries were probably about 75 -- my online calorie counter says 50 for ten raw and I ate fifteen. 85 on the wine... yes, I measured it. So the total for the day was: 700. That's too low, I know, but I was making up for an excess the day before and I just wasn't any hungrier. I had plenty of food around if I needed to eat more, but I don't want to eat when I'm not hungry. My body seems to adjust naturally, being hungrier sometimes and less hungry at others. I'm sure today I'll either hit or slightly exceed 800. I already ate my egg and it's not even 11 am yet.
Which brings me to my bizarre cauliflower cravings. On my long drive home, I started to think about cauliflower. I was wondering what kinds of foods might be available at the CR conference in November. With the extreme variety of dietary habits, what could everyone agree on? Cauliflower sprung to mind, and I spent the rest of the drive considering cauliflower. I even got some, but I was too sleepy to steam it last night so I have a gorgeous head of cauliflower waiting for me when I get home tonight. Suggestions on what I should do with it? I'll probably just steam it with a squeeze of lemon and a few dashes of lemon pepper, but if anyone has any ideas, please comment. Perhaps I'll.. gasp...put a tiny bit of olive oil on it. Do people put olive oil on cauliflower?
I also read a Sears book over the weekend, _The Omega Rx Zone_. Funny that in the hundreds of pop nutrition books I've read in the last eight years, I'd never read one of his. It actually helped explain a lot of what I read on the CR list.
I think he's a little more dismissive of Ornish than is strictly necessary to prove his point, but that could just be my lowfat vegan -> CR with eggs and olive oil identity crisis talking. It's so odd to completely change my attitude towards fat. I had known the blood sugar/insulin response stuff forever, but I had eaten vegan on the low end of the glycemic index. Anybody ever read _The Good Calorie Diet_? It's all about insulin control and it suggests avoiding all animal protein. I used to eat brown rice for breakfast. For awhile, I ate spinich noodles for breakfast. Now I eat no breakfast at all, and I am a much happier person. Sears would not approve of the long spaces between my meals. I am wondering if I should change that. I just really like eating the way I do right now. "Calories, calories, calories" is such a frequent refrain on the list that it makes me think that if I can eat 800 or so happily the way I'm doing it, there's no need to worry about meal spacing. Sears seemed to present the meal spacing as a tactic for controlling insulin and by extension appetite so that a normal person *could* practice CR (I love the way he actually uses the term calorie restriction! It just warms my little heart!) without undue discomfort. If I like the way I feel now, I can keep doing what I'm doing re: meal spacing, right?
I definitely need to get my nutritional software, and I assure you, I'm on it. I spilled water on my laptop last week and a new one has been ordered for me (it made a terrible sizzling noise!) so I'm a computer nomad right now, but hopefully this will all get straightened out by next week. In the meantime, on some advice from a long term CR practitioner, I'm cutting back on fruit and upping the veggie consumption. For a long time in my vegan life (I sound like a born-again, don't I?) I tried to hit three fruits a day, one of them citrus, as well as a red, green, and yellow vegetable once a day. I was eating so many calories and staying a nice weight on the low end of normal, but as I mentioned yesterday, it was a lot of work. And while it had obesity avoidance and (I believe... but I'm willing to listen to other views) heart disease avoidance benefits, it wasn't slowing aging. I think that I should try to hit the fruits on different days, instead of trying to pack so many calorie dense fruits into every single day. The vegetables are easy since they are not as calorie dense.
Enough for now... more soon.
posted by April @ 7:45 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home