April's CR Diary

A diary of a 30 year old woman following CRON, or Caloric Restriction with Optimal Nutrition, for health and life extension.

Friday, August 13, 2004

Time Is a Thief, When You're Undecided

Very early eighties song I heard on the way into work. I don't know what I'm going to do for blog headlines when I move in September and I don't sit in traffic flipping radio stations for an hour or more every morning. As usual, the song has nothing to do with CR. If anyone can find me a pop song that actually does have something to do with CR, I will be quite shocked. But I think you'll see the point... if you're serious about dramatic life extension, not just "healthy" living, small measures won't do it.

Last night turned out well. I discovered that my meeting location was about a block away from a good restaurant that I hadn't been to in years, so I stopped in for a salad. I had a mixed green salad that came with some diced red onion and a few slices of cucumber. The greens, alas, included no arugula, but one can't exactly expect to be overwhelmed by arugula every day of the week, can one? They were the bitter greens that are so in fashion right now. I ate them with (are you sitting down? Especially you, Mary Rose, you will be shocked!) full fat salad dressing! It was a nice restaurant, and I checked to make sure that the balsamic vinegarette was made with real olive oil, not some crappy fake oil like in packaged salad dressings. It was, and I put a tablespoon on my salad, so cals for that were 120. The greens themselves could not have been more than 30 cals in a small salad, and I suspect they were even less than that. So total salad of 150, added to my earlier total of 720, didn't add up to my calorie target, so I treated myself to a glass of beer, since I was eating at a great brew pub that makes some of the area's best beer. Yes, I am a Girl Who Likes Beer. That is the only thing I have in common with the Cameron Diaz character in _There's Something About Mary_. She likes to eat meat on a stick... I do not want to eat meat in any form (I would not like it in a house. I would not like it with a mouse. I would not like it on a train. I would not like it in the rain. Yes, I can recite Green Eggs and Ham.)

Anyway, the total for yesterday was 980. Pretty good!

This weekend I am very excited because I am going to a little CRON meetup in my little town! It will be so much fun to meet a real live CR person!

I am back in the CR Zen groove today, even though I worked superlate last night and got little sleep. Keeping below 1000 seems to be enough to produce the calm, and I am feeling so happy in my body that I almost feel guilty... women are so programed to hate our bodies that there's something scandalous about actually feeling good in your own skin. Yesterday, I felt like a big dork because I was wearing a suit that is three sizes too big. I think it's time go buy new clothes. I hate to spend the money with an impending move in Sept, but I can't go to work looking like a child playing dress up. Today I'm wearing a skirt leftover from my lowfat vegan years when I was quite thin, along with a blouse that I bought second hand when I first started CR. It fits well, and I feel much more comfortable wearing clothes that fit. On Wednesday I got a size 2 Ann Taylor (I have no financial interest in Ann Taylor, I just love their clothes, so apologies for the product placement) skirt back from a friend to whom I had loaned it while I was too heavy to wear it. I am now officially size 2.

It is ironic that CR women get to reap all the benefits of a culture that idolizes thinness in women. It's one more example of everything I ever thought was bad turing out to be good. Of course, I still believe that women are beautiful at any size and I don't advocate women killing themselves to be thin. But it's interesting that I am actually saving my life, feeling healthier than I ever have, and becoming closer to society's ideal of beauty in the meantime. It also seems unfair that so many CR women really don't have serious hunger issues, while the men, with more lean body mass to support, sometimes report battling hunger. My struggle is much more about eating the right foods than about eating fewer calories. I mean, I was fairly comfortable at 800 calories, but it was not well distrubuted in terms of getting enough protein and fat, and I was eating too many junkie carbs to sustain that low a calorie level with optimal nutrition. It would be interesting to talk to other CR folks about what you find more difficult: The CR, or the ON? Which came first?

Today I am going to out to lunch with a friend, so I didn't have breakfast in an attempt to save my calories for lunch. I was thinking of having a piece of fish, which would more than make up for the protein I usually have at breakfast now.

So glad I got my nutritional software. Some time this weekend, probably during those hours from 4 am to 7 am when I'm up because I'm programmed to get up that early for work but there's not much I can do on weekends, will be used to play with the software. Yea yea yea! I hope I am about to take my next step in my continuing CR evolution.

"There were tears in her eyes as she kissed her little sister goodbye..."

1 Comments:

  • At 9:00 AM, Blogger fruitydog said…

    Band: Sarah McLachlan
    Album: Fumbling Towards Ecstasy
    Song: Ice Cream
    Lyrics: your love is better than ice cream,
    better than anything else that i've tried.....

    how's that for a cr song?

     

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