You've Fought the Fight So Long -- Don't Surrender to Temptation
Great line from the ancient Simple Minds song, "All The Things She Said," and the title of this post, whose alternate title could be "The Perils of Cooking for Non-CR Folk When You're Really, Really Hungry."
But to pick up where I left off... Friday was fairly good. After my 4:30 am eggwhite triumph, I went to the hospital, got my flyers in with zillions of nurses, went to the office, ate a 90 cal cottage cheese, made plans to have important meeting over lunch out with a co-worker. We went to a place that has a good salad bar, so I had a salad of romaine, grape tomatoes, black olives, chick peas, and a tablespoon of full fat balsamic vinegarette (look at me, eating fat! You know the rest. I am disappointed that no one as of yet has actually petted me on the head.) I had a plate of fruit, mostly honeydew and strawberries with a touch of fresh pineapple for dessert, along with more grape tomatoes and black olives, sprinkled with a touch of shreadded romano cheese. I felt pretty much done with eating for the day, but ate a salad for dinner with romaine, tomatoes, and red pepper, and light Caesar dressing, along with about a third of a bunch of asparagi (there they are again! they are so cute! who can resist?) also topped with about a teaspoon of the Caesar dressing. Glass of wine with dinner. Not a bad day... I remember the calorie count coming in at right around 990, but I'm at Kinkos now and away from my software so I'm not quite quite sure. Low protein day, but would have been a disaster of a protein day had I not had the Great Eggwhite Triumph of 2004 earlier in the day.
Saturday was looking like it would be great. Didn't have to be at the hospital till later, so slept in until 6:30 am! Wow! Went for four mile walk, drank niacin coffee, went to the Farmers' Market, managed to avoid running over a co-worker and his two adoreable children with my car in the parking lot (they just walked right in front of traffic, but I am so paranoid that I drive slowly in parking lots.) Farmers' Market was absolutely delightful. I have this terrible habit of striking up a conversation with the growers/producers, and then feeling obligated to buy some of their wares, so I walked out of there with all my veggies, plus some homemade Fra Diavlo sauce (only 50 cals per 1/2 cup and very spicy looking!), some vidalia onion vinegarette (no oil, but I figured I'd add my own good olive oil), and a jar of spicy mustard. I went home and ate a late breakfast of eggwhite scramble, then began working on the refreshments for coffee hour at my mom's church today. My mother commissions me to do the refreshments any time it's her turn for coffee hour, since I'm sorta a wannabe vegetarian caterer. (In fact, in my circle's version of what we will do "after the Revolution," I am a vegetarian caterer. Other common answers include "rockstar" "baseball player" and "marine biologist.") I was making some of my mom's favorites, including chickpea pesto, which is chickpeas, fresh basil, garlic, fresh lemon juice, and lemon thyme olive oil. I made up some of that and sampled about 200 calories worth, so that was pretty much lunch. I also had a snack of cottage cheese, plus a glass of skim milk. Protein wise I was doing not terrible, calcium wise I was on my way to a good day. I ate the rest of the asparagus, which were equally fantastic on day two. I wanted to save my appetite for the delicious dinner I was planning to make for company: fresh zucchini (how do you spell that???) and yellow squash from the Farmers' Market with the Fra Diavlo sauce (I almost always make my own sauces but this was too good looking to pass up): over pasta for dinnerguest, just plain in all its squashy glory for me. Salad of romaine, tomato, and peppers, and baked Asian pears in Vermont maple syrup with cinnamon for dessert. Bottle of cabernet-like French wine from my wine store, that sells only small producers from France, Germany, and Italy that no one has ever heard of, but that are totally amazing.
Then disaster struck. I was beginning to make the last of my creations for mom's coffee hour, my world famous olive cream cheese dip. It's the easiest thing on earth to make -- you take a bunch of pitted olives and a block of cream cheese, put them in the food processor, and watch a beautiful, delicious dip emerge in about two minutes of hard processing. I used to love this stuff, but since cream cheese is my arch-nemesis, I usually avoid it now. I was only making it because it's easy and I knew the people at church loved my cream cheese creations last time.
I made the mistake of sampling a bite. Then another. Then another. I was really hungry, and I've discovered that eating just one bite of something not so CR friendly when I'm really hungry is a bad idea. I ate four bites, which unfortunately added up to right around 300 calories (cream cheese and olives? You do the math.) Ick ick ick. As I've discussed before, I don't mind eating out and eating quite a bit, it often serves as a good correction for the days when I go under target, and it gives good nutritional variety, fun, etc. But it seems like such a waste to eat 300 calories worth of stuff that wasn't even fun!
The worst part about it was that it destroyed my appetite for the delicious and healthy dinner I had planned. I walked four more miles, thinking that would make me hungry again, but it just made me feel sickish, so I called my dinner guest and said:
"Are you all that hungry?"
"No, not really, had a big late lunch."
"Okay, well, we're just having salad then."
Dinnerguest was totally fine with that, and I didn't even feel up to eating salad. Seemed like a waste to open a nice bottle of wine, so for my wild and crazy Saturday night dinner drink I drank a vodka cranberry with mostly unsweetened cranberry (I forgot to mention that I had been drinking water flavored with unsweetened cranberry most of the day, probably about 2 liters. All that walking and all.) and gave up on the day for food.
If you add up the calories, you'll see that I didn't go over target (the unsweetened cran has only 15 cals in the serving I drank.) But I had a pretty bad day nutritionally, and I missed the opportunity to eat some great vegetables.
I also felt terrible physically, and I was thinking that I just can't do the stuff to my body that I used to be able to do. CR has made me much more sensitive to foods, so if I feed myself well, I feel great, but if I feed myself badly, I feel really, really bad. "Super-icky," I believe, is the techincal term, though I may have to check the CRS glossary for confirmation of that.
It's a learning process, and today should be better. I just got back from shift change at the hospital, and now I'm running to the store to pick up the last of the foods for coffee hour. Then to my mom's church to help her serve the coffee hour. I will definitely eat before... don't want to run the risk of another sneak attack by any cream cheese related items.
But to pick up where I left off... Friday was fairly good. After my 4:30 am eggwhite triumph, I went to the hospital, got my flyers in with zillions of nurses, went to the office, ate a 90 cal cottage cheese, made plans to have important meeting over lunch out with a co-worker. We went to a place that has a good salad bar, so I had a salad of romaine, grape tomatoes, black olives, chick peas, and a tablespoon of full fat balsamic vinegarette (look at me, eating fat! You know the rest. I am disappointed that no one as of yet has actually petted me on the head.) I had a plate of fruit, mostly honeydew and strawberries with a touch of fresh pineapple for dessert, along with more grape tomatoes and black olives, sprinkled with a touch of shreadded romano cheese. I felt pretty much done with eating for the day, but ate a salad for dinner with romaine, tomatoes, and red pepper, and light Caesar dressing, along with about a third of a bunch of asparagi (there they are again! they are so cute! who can resist?) also topped with about a teaspoon of the Caesar dressing. Glass of wine with dinner. Not a bad day... I remember the calorie count coming in at right around 990, but I'm at Kinkos now and away from my software so I'm not quite quite sure. Low protein day, but would have been a disaster of a protein day had I not had the Great Eggwhite Triumph of 2004 earlier in the day.
Saturday was looking like it would be great. Didn't have to be at the hospital till later, so slept in until 6:30 am! Wow! Went for four mile walk, drank niacin coffee, went to the Farmers' Market, managed to avoid running over a co-worker and his two adoreable children with my car in the parking lot (they just walked right in front of traffic, but I am so paranoid that I drive slowly in parking lots.) Farmers' Market was absolutely delightful. I have this terrible habit of striking up a conversation with the growers/producers, and then feeling obligated to buy some of their wares, so I walked out of there with all my veggies, plus some homemade Fra Diavlo sauce (only 50 cals per 1/2 cup and very spicy looking!), some vidalia onion vinegarette (no oil, but I figured I'd add my own good olive oil), and a jar of spicy mustard. I went home and ate a late breakfast of eggwhite scramble, then began working on the refreshments for coffee hour at my mom's church today. My mother commissions me to do the refreshments any time it's her turn for coffee hour, since I'm sorta a wannabe vegetarian caterer. (In fact, in my circle's version of what we will do "after the Revolution," I am a vegetarian caterer. Other common answers include "rockstar" "baseball player" and "marine biologist.") I was making some of my mom's favorites, including chickpea pesto, which is chickpeas, fresh basil, garlic, fresh lemon juice, and lemon thyme olive oil. I made up some of that and sampled about 200 calories worth, so that was pretty much lunch. I also had a snack of cottage cheese, plus a glass of skim milk. Protein wise I was doing not terrible, calcium wise I was on my way to a good day. I ate the rest of the asparagus, which were equally fantastic on day two. I wanted to save my appetite for the delicious dinner I was planning to make for company: fresh zucchini (how do you spell that???) and yellow squash from the Farmers' Market with the Fra Diavlo sauce (I almost always make my own sauces but this was too good looking to pass up): over pasta for dinnerguest, just plain in all its squashy glory for me. Salad of romaine, tomato, and peppers, and baked Asian pears in Vermont maple syrup with cinnamon for dessert. Bottle of cabernet-like French wine from my wine store, that sells only small producers from France, Germany, and Italy that no one has ever heard of, but that are totally amazing.
Then disaster struck. I was beginning to make the last of my creations for mom's coffee hour, my world famous olive cream cheese dip. It's the easiest thing on earth to make -- you take a bunch of pitted olives and a block of cream cheese, put them in the food processor, and watch a beautiful, delicious dip emerge in about two minutes of hard processing. I used to love this stuff, but since cream cheese is my arch-nemesis, I usually avoid it now. I was only making it because it's easy and I knew the people at church loved my cream cheese creations last time.
I made the mistake of sampling a bite. Then another. Then another. I was really hungry, and I've discovered that eating just one bite of something not so CR friendly when I'm really hungry is a bad idea. I ate four bites, which unfortunately added up to right around 300 calories (cream cheese and olives? You do the math.) Ick ick ick. As I've discussed before, I don't mind eating out and eating quite a bit, it often serves as a good correction for the days when I go under target, and it gives good nutritional variety, fun, etc. But it seems like such a waste to eat 300 calories worth of stuff that wasn't even fun!
The worst part about it was that it destroyed my appetite for the delicious and healthy dinner I had planned. I walked four more miles, thinking that would make me hungry again, but it just made me feel sickish, so I called my dinner guest and said:
"Are you all that hungry?"
"No, not really, had a big late lunch."
"Okay, well, we're just having salad then."
Dinnerguest was totally fine with that, and I didn't even feel up to eating salad. Seemed like a waste to open a nice bottle of wine, so for my wild and crazy Saturday night dinner drink I drank a vodka cranberry with mostly unsweetened cranberry (I forgot to mention that I had been drinking water flavored with unsweetened cranberry most of the day, probably about 2 liters. All that walking and all.) and gave up on the day for food.
If you add up the calories, you'll see that I didn't go over target (the unsweetened cran has only 15 cals in the serving I drank.) But I had a pretty bad day nutritionally, and I missed the opportunity to eat some great vegetables.
I also felt terrible physically, and I was thinking that I just can't do the stuff to my body that I used to be able to do. CR has made me much more sensitive to foods, so if I feed myself well, I feel great, but if I feed myself badly, I feel really, really bad. "Super-icky," I believe, is the techincal term, though I may have to check the CRS glossary for confirmation of that.
It's a learning process, and today should be better. I just got back from shift change at the hospital, and now I'm running to the store to pick up the last of the foods for coffee hour. Then to my mom's church to help her serve the coffee hour. I will definitely eat before... don't want to run the risk of another sneak attack by any cream cheese related items.
posted by April @ 7:57 AM
2 Comments:
At 10:06 AM,
Anonymous said…
You ~ a Marine Biologist? Why’s that? I had considered that as a profession for some time, too. We surfed today at “Taco Bell Reef” in Huntington Beach, which is about 100 yards across the sand from my 5th floor condo LR & BR windows. My twin bro caught a 7’ perfect wave and he surfed it with a huge (7-8’ long) DOLPHIN who even “jumped” and flew out of the top of the wave at one point during the wave. It was Sea World in my own back yard!!
The Eggwhite Triumphs are splendid! Keep in mind better absorption (e.g., more than 25-30g protein) “may” result from spreading your protein consumption out @ least between 2 meals during the day. That’s just what I heard when I used to body build, and should not be relied upon but rather treated as an excuse for you to feed that CRS Archive Addiction!!
On drinking all of that water (generally a good thing), you may want to consider drinking some of that as distilled water to reduce fluoride (a bad thing, for bones) intake.
Don't give yourself too much grief on the ON part as at least you're bulls-eying the CR which is no small feat ~ I totally hear yah on wasting calories on food that's no fun, though. Veggies are the amusement park of the veritable-cornucopia buffet every time for me. For those who love them, CRON is that much easier. Thus, you appear to have the taste buds to be a smashing CRON success. Kudos!
I have the same problem with opening an entire bottle of nice wine, and have recently ordered those little 4 packs of Merlot from Ernest & Julio Gallo. Does anybody know of any other brands of individually packaged descent red wine? It’d be nice to find 4 packs of Pinot Noir or Cabernet!! Of course, since the resveratrol in a regular bottle of red wine is allegedly oxidized & vanishes within a few days of opening the bottle, the great thing about single-serving bottles is that the wine comes out fresh, er, "potent," with each drink. Hmm, what would happen if the unused part of an open regular-sized bottle of wine were frozen (& the bottle didn’t crack)? Also, does anybody know of a means of nitrogen sealing (or vacuum sealing) an opened bottle?
On the topic of wine, drinking of which has pros and cons, see the recent post at:
http://calorierestriction.org/post/?a=ind0409&p=R3315
which pontificates on potential precautions.
April, is there any way to receive notifications by email when your blog is updated with a post or a comment? In the interest of staying current, one finds oneself not wanting to wait ;0)
Kenton
P.S. Pet on the head for eating your MUFA (fat).
At 10:06 AM,
Anonymous said…
You ~ a Marine Biologist? Why’s that? I had considered that as a profession for some time, too. We surfed today at “Taco Bell Reef” in Huntington Beach, which is about 100 yards across the sand from my 5th floor condo LR & BR windows. My twin bro caught a 7’ perfect wave and he surfed it with a huge (7-8’ long) DOLPHIN who even “jumped” and flew out of the top of the wave at one point during the wave. It was Sea World in my own back yard!!
The Eggwhite Triumphs are splendid! Keep in mind better absorption (e.g., more than 25-30g protein) “may” result from spreading your protein consumption out @ least between 2 meals during the day. That’s just what I heard when I used to body build, and should not be relied upon but rather treated as an excuse for you to feed that CRS Archive Addiction!!
On drinking all of that water (generally a good thing), you may want to consider drinking some of that as distilled water to reduce fluoride (a bad thing, for bones) intake.
Don't give yourself too much grief on the ON part as at least you're bulls-eying the CR which is no small feat ~ I totally hear yah on wasting calories on food that's no fun, though. Veggies are the amusement park of the veritable-cornucopia buffet every time for me. For those who love them, CRON is that much easier. Thus, you appear to have the taste buds to be a smashing CRON success. Kudos!
I have the same problem with opening an entire bottle of nice wine, and have recently ordered those little 4 packs of Merlot from Ernest & Julio Gallo. Does anybody know of any other brands of individually packaged descent red wine? It’d be nice to find 4 packs of Pinot Noir or Cabernet!! Of course, since the resveratrol in a regular bottle of red wine is allegedly oxidized & vanishes within a few days of opening the bottle, the great thing about single-serving bottles is that the wine comes out fresh, er, "potent," with each drink. Hmm, what would happen if the unused part of an open regular-sized bottle of wine were frozen (& the bottle didn’t crack)? Also, does anybody know of a means of nitrogen sealing (or vacuum sealing) an opened bottle?
On the topic of wine, drinking of which has pros and cons, see the recent post at:
http://calorierestriction.org/post/?a=ind0409&p=R3315
which pontificates on potential precautions.
April, is there any way to receive notifications by email when your blog is updated with a post or a comment? In the interest of staying current, one finds oneself not wanting to wait ;0)
Kenton
P.S. Pet on the head for eating your MUFA (fat).
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