Pi Day 2023

Today's pussy willows 

Walking home from the bus today, I spied these pretty pussy willows bursting out of their coverings. It won't be long before I'll figure out what they are going to become, but for now their pretty, soft fuzzy resemblance to a kitty's paw is good enough. And soon I'm going to the store and most likely will be confronted with actual pie to consider buying. I probably won't, since neither I nor my hubby need the calories. My dad used to say, "a moment in the mouth, an hour in the stomach, and a lifetime on the hips." 

However, if I were to choose a pie, it would probably be apple with lots of cinnamon, or maybe even lemon meringue. I'm telling myself to stop with the pi reminders. Do you know why 3/14 is considered Pi Day? Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it:

Pi Day is an annual celebration of the mathematical constant π (pi). Pi Day is observed on March 14 (the 3rd month) since 3, 1, and 4 are the first three significant figures of π. It was founded in 1988 by Larry Shaw, an employee of the San Francisco, California science museum, the Exploratorium.

The link has plenty more to say and explain about the meaning of the day. I didn't realize that it's also Einstein's birthday! Or that some people celebrate Pi for the entire month of March. Just because there is no end to pi and the number goes on forever... I suppose it would be nice to have a pie that never ended.

It would be nice to find a reason to help yourself to a piece of pie, and today might give you that reason. I'm off to the store, and I do hope I am able to contain myself from buying a pie. I hope you have a good day, whatever you do! (Maybe just a tiny little piece...)

:-)

Grey winter skies gone for awhile

Frosty lawn

Well, we finally had a hard freeze. My friend Melanie took this picture yesterday morning: it was 24°F and about that cold again this morning. For the entire coming week, our temperatures are going to be frigid, because of a high pressure dome over the region. It means no rain and sunny skies (not even clouds), making it very cold. Not only overnight, but the temperatures during the day will continue to be below normal.

Considering how mild it's been up until now, our first real wintry blast has been a bit of a shock. I've stopped watering my front porch flowers, and they all look a little worse for wear. But hey, last I checked, it's December and it's supposed to happen!

In some ways, it makes it a little easier to hear the constant Christmas music everywhere I go. Now the holiday seems imminent. It was crazy to hear that same music before Thanksgiving had even occurred, but now... I'm going to be fine with three more weeks of it. Our Trailblazers holiday festivities are a week from Thursday, which is the only party I never miss. It's a good thing, too: my waistline can't take too many, since my ability to resist delicious goodies goes way down at this time of year.

:-)

Finding my way forward

Romanesco broccoli

Isn't this a beautiful plant? It's a fairly new (at least to me) cross between cauliflower and broccoli, called Romanesco broccoli and looks like a fractal to me. That link from Wikipedia tells me this:

The pattern is only an approximate fractal since the pattern eventually terminates when the feature size becomes sufficiently small. The number of spirals on the head of Romanesco broccoli is a Fibonacci number.

I find that to be incredibly interesting, and since I've actually eaten this plant, I can also tell you that it tastes a little more like cauliflower to me than broccoli. I took this picture last Saturday at the Farmers' Market. Since I tried to grow this plant during our springtime warmth, I was sure impressed with these guys. Mine almost immediately bolted, and I've since learned that it doesn't like a lot of heat and direct sunlight, so farmers around here grow it in the fall.

A week has passed since the election, and I'm feeling less fragile, but still can find myself weeping at unexpected times. It's part of the grieving process, and I'm pretty good at learning how to cope on a daily basis. I have decided not to allow myself to be bitter. Maya Angelou said this:

You should be angry. You must not be bitter. Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. It doesn’t do anything to the object of its displeasure. So use that anger. You write it. You paint it. You dance it. You march it. You vote it. You do everything about it. You talk it. Never stop talking it.

So I'm talking to you right now. I've decided to start giving a monthly allowance to two deserving organizations that I hope will help to mitigate the denial of climate change, which is a real threat to our world stability. Although I'm old enough that I won't see the worst of it, I fear for the young ones.

And I'm wearing a safety pin on my clothes. I read in another blogger's post about the first effect she experienced of wearing her safety pin. She is an elementary school teacher, and one of her students asked her about it. She said that it is to let people know that they can talk to her about anything and feel safe. The child said to her, shyly, "I didn't want anybody to know, but I haven't eaten anything since yesterday, and I have no money." The teacher suddenly realized why this student had been struggling in class, and she immediately took him into the cafeteria and bought him lunch. She also arranged to get him into the program for disadvantaged kids. Maybe he's homeless, I don't know, but that safety pin gave him a chance to talk about his hunger.

But it's just a tiny little symbol that means little in the scheme of things. Actually giving money to those organizations made me feel a whole lot better!
:-)

Kernels of truth

Corn on the cob

Many of us enjoy corn on the cob during the summer, especially now when it is fresh out of the garden. A couple of days ago my friend John gave me a bonanza of it from his garden, and I shared it with my neighbors and then came home with the rest. 

I am not a huge fan of corn at any time, but this way is probably my favorite way to eat it. As SG and I sat down to dinner to enjoy our lovely feast, we noticed immediately that we don't eat it the same way at all! I like to start from the middle, eat a nice little section around, and then start eating the rest from right to left, on one side only, then the other.

He, on the other hand, eats it like it is a typewriter, starting on the right end and eating the entire row, does a carriage return and goes to the top and eats the next row, right to left.

Well, this morning it was the topic of conversation at the coffee shop. It turns out that all my buddies are typewriter eaters, sometimes left to right, other times right to left. I have never eaten an ear of corn that way. I think the best corn is in the middle of the ear, and so I get that and then eat the rest in an orderly fashion. I don't always finish an entire ear.

I got online and found this interesting article from the LA Times, titled "Kernels of Truth Come Out When You Eat Corn." So I decided to find out what my readers do. Nowhere have I found anybody who eats it like I do. What about you?

:-)

Leo is seven

Leo blowing out his seven candles

Last night I went to my friend Leo's birthday party. As hard as it is to believe, he is now seven years old, reads books, and is almost too old to consider playing with me any more. We now are developing a new relationship with one another, since he's got new interests. His parents allow him to decide what kind of birthday cake he wants, and this one was chocolate, vanilla and strawberry. Here's a closeup.

Cake with dinosaur eggs on top

The dinosaur eggs were filled with creme and quite tasty, but nowhere near as tasty as the cake itself. He also wanted calamari to decorate the top (that's squid) but his mom talked him into serving it separately, and it was perfect that way (whew!). Mixing calamari with chocolate would have been tough to take. Although come to think of it, everything ends up in the same place anyway.

John reading Leo's new book

Leo received this present, "The Dangerous Book for Boys," and John said he wished they had made books like this one when he was a kid. It was fun to look through it, even though I've never been a boy myself. I bought Leo a book about birds of the Puget Sound region.

The birthday boy

And here's Leo mugging for the camera, with two finger snakes in his hair. He told me he received over one hundred dollars in gift certificates, which will give him plenty of fun in the stores once he gets to them. I enjoyed myself but am still a  bit in shock at how much my friend has grown in the past year!
:-)

Weight, weight, don't tell me

Last week's attempt at losing weight

You know, it's never over, when you want to keep to what you consider to be your ideal weight, and life gets in the way. It's not like I can stay away from food, or if I would even want to, so every day it's a struggle to keep myself from overeating.

My latest problem started after I returned from my trip to southern California. I was not weighing myself, and I'd been busy with skydiving and eating whatever I wanted while there. That included beer, pizza, and pasta. When I returned home, I began to eat my normal diet, but I wasn't willing to get on the scales. I also noticed that I didn't feel quite satisfied, and I craved more variety. Lulled into complacency by having maintained my ideal weight for a couple of years, I figured it would be a simple matter to lose any extra pounds and get back on track.

No, I just didn't want to get on those scales, as I noticed my clothes beginning to fit a bit tighter. On one of my Saturday morning walks, a conversation with a friend who inquired about whether I'd been able to keep the weight off (she was celebrating a full year after having lost thirty pounds), and I confessed that I had been backsliding and was unwilling to weigh myself. She said she learned that weighing oneself every day was the only sure way to maintain weight loss.

Okay. After that conversation, I got on the scales the next morning and found that I had gained four pounds. Well, that won't be hard to lose, I thought to myself. I went into my handy "Lose It!" app that I use to track my calorie consumption and confessed I had four pounds to lose. The app immediately cut 250 calories out of my daily ration, and I tried to keep inside those bounds. You can see, above, that I was unsuccessful last week, at least.

The week before I was also under curtailed calories, but I realized I hadn't been honest with the record of what I had eaten. Forgotten were the things that entered my mouth between meals, and portion sizes had increased but what I recorded was the same as before. I decided last week to get real, and as you can see, I was over every day, except Thursday when I exercise enough that I get to eat an extra 1,000 calories. 

This post is to give myself yet another boost to lose those extra four pounds. I thought it would be easy, but again I must change my attitude and think of it in terms of a lifetime of vigilance. I really like being thinner and don't want to go back to wearing those extra sixteen pounds again!

:-)

It's spring all right

Achoo!

As you can see, this tree is covered with catkins, those little cylindrical hanging things that cause people like me to sneeze. I believe this is an alder tree but I'm no expert. I do know that the ground underneath the tree is covered with these things, and if it weren't for allergy medicine, I would be miserable. But fortunately for me, I treat the symptoms and once everything is nice and green, I'll be able to stop taking it.

I just learned from this link that catkins are usually on male trees; cones form on the female trees. And the name "catkin" comes from the Dutch word "katteken," meaning "kitten" because they look like kitten's tails.

Because I've recently started feeding a real cat during the day, in exchange for some petting and purring privileges, I decided to go to PetsMart to see about finding a substitute for milk that the cat might like. He loves cream but it's not good for him, so I bought a substitute. Once I got home and looked at the ingredients, it will be the last time I do that; I wouldn't drink that stuff myself; it's full of all kinds of unpronounceable additives! Not to mention expensive. Oh well, live and learn.

I'm off to the movies with Judy; we're going to see Tim's Vermeer at our local independent theater. It was either that or Noah. Anybody seen that one yet?
:-)

Diet, exercise, and Blogger

Treadmills at the Y

Those of you who have been following me for awhile know that I am addicted to exercise. Five years ago, I retired from working every day, and we moved from Colorado to Washington State. And now instead of working, I work out on an almost daily basis. It's not like I didn't exercise before, but it was not the center of my day. Today, it is. I wake in the morning, have breakfast, dress and take the bus to town. After a leisurely latte at the coffee shop, I leave fifteen minutes before my class starts, walk to the Y, change into exercise clothes, and make it to class by 9:00am.

Exercise class, instructor Joanne on the right

I see the same people there every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Another Tuesday-Thursday class is also held at 9:00am, and I'm there on Tuesdays but hike with the Trailblazers on Thursdays. I wrote a blog post back in 2009 where I talked about seeing all the overweight people here in the Pacific Northwest and how different it seemed from Boulder. (I just re-read that link and was pleasantly surprised to find it is still relevant and interesting.)

What triggered this post was a recent visit to the mall and again noticing all the really overweight people in the Food Court. Notice in the above picture, not one person is overweight. The thing we all have in common is consistent exercise. I have had a lifelong struggle with my weight, as some of you know. I wrote a post here about having gained ten pounds in 2011, which was brought home to me at my annual doctor visit. They weigh you every time you come in, and I had been avoiding the scales at home, because I knew I had put on weight and wasn't ready to acknowledge how much.

I read a very good book about Mindless Eating in April of that year, and then I read The End of Overeating. Little by little I was able to lose that extra weight; in fact, I lost more than my goal weight. But I knew I had to maintain it, and that is always the hard part. My sister Norma Jean introduced me to Lose It!, an app available for the web or a smartphone, and I use it religiously. It has helped me know how much I'm actually putting in my body every day.

On another note, a couple of blogging buddies have wondered what those of us dependent on Blogger's Reader are intending to do when the first of July comes and it goes away. I tried Feedly and then The Old Reader, and I am very very happy with the second one. It's really easy to use, and I was able to import all the blogs I follow into it without any trouble. In fact, I like it much better than the one that is being discontinued. It was created when Reader was changed a while back and people preferred the old version, and here it is. There's no advertising or annoying ads, either. Let me know if you've found any other solutions in your comments, so others can know what else might be available.
:-)

Anniversaries and new beginnings

Gene is lifting up his beard so we can read the t-shirt

This picture was taken yesterday morning when Gene came to the coffee shop before heading to the airport. Every June and July he fishes for salmon with his crew in Alaska. His shirt is from a saloon called the Salty Dawg in Homer Spit, Alaska. We all gave him hugs and lots of wishes for a good season and a safe return. We will all miss him until he comes home, especially Paula, since they have spent the last year or so together, either at his place or hers. This means we won't see her until he comes back, since she's not an early riser on her own.

Leo and his dad on the bus

Last week on my way to get a massage, I saw these two get on the bus, and the seat in front of me had just been vacated, so guess who came to mug my camera? Leo said they were on their way to a different coffee shop than the one we frequent, so he could have a biscotti. And his dad Robert could have an espresso, I suspect. I had a wonderful massage and then caught the bus home.

Roses outside the public library

Yesterday as I was returning a very interesting book to the library, I saw these pretty roses and after sniffing and appreciating them, I snapped their portrait. The book is Pandora's Lunchbox: How Processed Foods Took Over the American Meal. I saw the author, Melanie Warner, interviewed on some talk show not long ago and mentioned the book to Norma Jean. She of course got on the list at her library and read it when it became available, and I forgot to. She was reading it during our last video chat and I immediately snagged it from my library. The link above will take you to an interview on Grist with Melanie, where she is asked some questions about what she discovered during her 18 months researching the fast food industry.

I was not learning much that I didn't already know, until I discovered where my vitamins are processed, and how. Did you know that Vitamin D3, essential for those of us who live so far north, is processed in China from Australian wool? Yes! The lanolin is shipped there and irradiated to create the vitamin. I checked my own brand of D3, and it says it is processed from wool oil. Eeewww! But once I got over the initial shock, I also learned that very few of the vitamins I consume are processed in this country, because of the environmental damage to land and air. China doesn't have those same regulations, so there you are. How revolting.

I also learned about GRAS (generally recognized as safe). From that article linked above, here's a quote from Melanie:

In a glaring regulatory loophole that dates back to 1958, the GRAS system also happens to be voluntary. It’s perfectly legal for companies to keep the FDA in the dark about new additives, and consequently there are some 1,000 ingredients the FDA has no knowledge of whatsoever, according to an estimate done by the Pew Research Center.

 The closer one can get to eating food that has not become processed Frankenfood, the better. I think I've eaten my last bit of brand-name foods that I thought, once upon a time, were GRAS. And reading labels has become my thing. Not that I didn't read them before, but I wonder when I ate my last French fry? They will never pass my lips again.

I wondered why today's date kept nagging at me. Not only is it my grand-niece's birthday (she's three), it's the thirteenth anniversary of my terrible skydiving accident. And I'm still doing it (skydiving, that is). Sunday I made four wonderful skydives with my friends, and we were gifted with a fantastic day where everything worked just as it should. I had even forgotten the upcoming anniversary, until today's post needed to be written and I pondered the date.

We have a few days of rain in our forecast, and unfortunately one of them looks like Thursday, so the next post is likely to be soggy. Until then, however, I'll be enjoying the afterglow of Sunday and obsessively reading food labels.
:-)

One more birthday gift

Taken by Theresa, our excellent waitperson

I received a $20 off coupon in an email from Anthony's Restaurant, where we have celebrated various birthdays before. It needed to be used during my birthday month, December, so off we headed last night to Anthony's to enjoy a four-course meal. Although I didn't really want to eat that much, I figured it was such a good deal (appetizer, salad, entree, dessert) that I couldn't pass it up, just $19.95 for the entire thing. Fortunately for me, I was able to eat a few bites of the incredible crème brûlée and leave the rest.

I had the choice of a shrimp cocktail or another appetizer (I chose the cocktail), three different salads (the bleu cheese salad was delicious), several entrees (rainbow trout was my choice), and that luscious dessert or ice cream (how could I pass up such an elegant dessert for pedestrian ice cream?). It was a wonderful meal and I enjoyed myself immensely. Today, however, I am feeling just the tiniest bit of guilt for my overindulgence. I'm remembering the good time we had instead.

I guess I've milked this special birthday for all I can, and now it's time to settle in to becoming an exuberant septuagenarian. The years go by so quickly these days that it won't be very long before I'm looking back at the decade and wondering where it went! What wonders lie around the next corners of time? Hopefully I'll find out...
:-)

Birthday girls

Twenty years apart in age only

When your parents decide to have kids and forget to stop, you end up with wide differences in ages. Today my dear sister Fia is fifty years old, and in a few short days I will turn seventy. Last night all six of us siblings got together to celebrate. Ten years ago we gathered for the same event, rented a karaoke machine and all made fools of ourselves, having a great time doing it.

Last night we went to Fia's apartment clubhouse, a place large enough for us to have a gathering for us all to share a pre-Thanksgiving feast. I guess it's necessary to start stretching your stomach for the Big Day. (smile) Actually, since not everyone could celebrate Thanksgiving together, we had it early. It was wonderful, but of course I ate too much. It's a family tradition, not to mention it's almost un-American NOT to overeat on that one day out of the year. Unfortunately we are extending it out over several days.

Me, Norma Jean, PJ, Buz, Markee, Fia

Whenever we are together, we have the obligatory photo placing us in birth order, oldest to youngest. You might notice a little gremlin behind PJ; that's Chad, Fia's son. It was wonderful to see everyone again. Norma Jean and I talk on video chat frequently, so we didn't have to catch up.

PJ (whose name is really Patricia June but she's always been PJ to the family) is my sister who loves to tell jokes, so she had us all laughing (or groaning) for hours. Buz's name is really Norman Francis, but he has always been Buz or Buzzy to the family. He and his lovely wife Phyllis are hosting both Norma Jean and me for the duration. Markee (which is a contraction of Mary Katherine) lives with her family in Alberta, Canada and is very close to Fia (short for Sofia). They see each other more often than any of the rest of us.

It's only Monday and already there is talk about going to a restaurant for dinner tonight to celebrate Fia's birthday. More food, but at least a restaurant meal is finite, rather than huge mounds of food like last night's dinner, which consisted of turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, green beans almondine, three different salads, and three kinds of pie with actual heavy whipped cream. Even if you eat a tiny amount of each one, you end up groaning at the end of the meal.

Buz just said that since Thanksgiving is Thursday, we need to plan a couple of big dinners to keep keep up our regimen. One-two-one-two-CHOMP!
:-)

Mood swings

I wonder sometimes what causes my mood swings. On October 25, I went up in the High Country and got this picture of Iceberg Lake. I was in a good mood that day, partly because I was with my trekking friends and we were on an adventure. We didn't know if this would even be possible so late in the year, and I think it was the very next day that the road to Heather Meadows (the start of this hike) was closed for the season. If you enlarge this picture, you can see there's already a fair bit of snow on the trees, the mountains, and on the path in the foreground. Now it's probably an entirely different scene as the snow has been flying almost nonstop up there ever since.

Murr Brewster left a comment on my last blog post that got me to thinking. She said she had heard that going wheat-free can affect one's mood, and to pay close attention and let her know, since she's not "giving up my olive bread with slabs of butter for nothing." Her blog is one of my favorites, because I can count on having at least some giggles and maybe even some fall-over-laughing fits when I read it.

The weather certainly has a strong effect on my mood. I notice that walking out to the bus when it's raining hard and the gloomy skies show no signs of lifting, I'm not usually smiling and singing. One thing about this part of the country: when the sun comes out, everybody I see around me sheds their outer clothing and walks around with bare heads. The opposite happens when it's raining: dark faces obscured by hoods and rain gear are the norm. Of course, how could it be otherwise?

Three weeks wheat free now, a head cold and then an unexplained sore throat during that time, and I'm still feeling pretty sunny most of the time. It's impossible to tell what is causing what, because the sun is out right now and I'm feeling great. But our hike this Thursday is not supposed to be so nice. We were blessed with two Thursdays in a row with wonderful weather, surrounded by the days before and after filled with rain and wind. This week's hike is looking like it's going to have a bit of both, with some snowflakes possible as well.

I'll get the first good chance to see if my new expensive raincoat works as advertised. I'll be prepared, and it will also be a test to see if my good mood continues. Of course, mood swings might be much the same as the weather: how can I tell if I'm in a good mood if I don't have down days?
:-)

Hospital food

From Now That's Nifty

I just read (link goes to ABC News) that Gabrielle Giffords has spoken; she asked for toast to be added to her breakfast. Her husband apparently has put this information on his Facebook page, along with the comment, "Gabby's appetite is back and – even though it's hospital food – she's enjoying three meals a day." The link under this picture of hospital food goes to a very interesting blog site displaying funny and nifty things from across the Internet. I found this picture there, and really, I do wonder about hospital food myself. Is it invariably terrible?

I was in Boulder Memorial Hospital for two days in 2005, and I can still remember the difference between the menu offerings and what I was presented. When you are supposed to get well from either illness or surgery, do they figure you won't have an appetite so they serve you this kind of food? The only thing on the plate above that I would be having on my own plate is the minuscule serving of broccoli, and I suspect it's overcooked. Wonder what that orange block is: sweet potato maybe? Surely that's chicken under the gravy. I remember ordering from the menu some "homemade stew with peas, carrots, and potatoes." What showed up was obviously from a can and everything in the little plastic bowl was incredibly unappetizing.

The link under the picture also takes you to scenes of hospital food from 11 different countries, and some of it looks pretty good. I guess it's not always terrible, but usually it is. Fortunately for Gabby, she's got family who must be helping and supplementing the hospital offerings, and, as I understand it, she's in the best facility in the country for brain injuries. Makes me wonder if there is a hospital somewhere known for having the best hospital food.

Oh, and I have to announce that I've lost another half pound as of this morning. In three weeks, it's been almost five pounds of weight loss, and I am now in the single digits of weight to lose. Giving myself plenty of time to get there, the real test will be to figure out, once I get to my goal weight, how to stay there. Having broken my taboo about getting on the scales, I now weigh at the same time every day when I go to the gym, just before showering.

Sometimes I realize how much less I'm actually consuming than I was before. I bought myself a food scale, and weighing out portions has been a real eye-opener. ("What?? THAT is 200 grams of potatoes? Is that all?") Where before I would open the fridge and unthinkingly take out a hard-boiled egg as a between-meal snack, now I count out 6 or 7 dried apricots and 24 almonds, put them into a baggie and carry them around as my snack allotment for the day. It really helps to have something to eat whenever I feel like it, except that when it's gone... well, tomorrow is another day.
:-)

Counting calories

Well, it's official. I did really gain those extra ten pounds over the last thirteen months since I was last at the doctor's office. And now that Dr Whitehead has given me a "prescription" to lose the extra weight before I see him next year, I'm thinking about exactly how to do that. Fortunately, I've got new tools on the Internet that were not available to me last time I went through this weight loss thing.

The beautiful 12-oz latte you see in the picture was today's "snack" consisting of skim milk and one shot of espresso (just under 100 calories). I have discovered the espresso is almost calorie free, and the skim milk is high in some nutrients I am just now discovering. After looking for a calorie counter on line that would help me log my food intake, I found an amazing website called Calorie Count. (This link should take you to the main site.) They also have a very interesting blog. If you look at the menu bar at the top of the blog, you'll find links to the food log and calorie counter that are helping me to understand the reason for my weight gain. Who knew that there are so many calories in almonds and walnuts? I realize now that a little handful of these raw nuts contains enough fat to keep my jeans tight all by themselves!

I was in denial about the weight gain at first, since I am pretty much of an obsessive exerciser, so after my workout at the Y yesterday I got on their upright scales. Oh. Although I weighed three pounds less, I was also unclothed. I always figure your regular clothes weigh about that much. I stood there and studied the number but it didn't change. No wonder my cholesterol numbers are high.

After registering on the Calorie Count website and entering my age, weight and activity level, I realized that I maintain my weight at about 1,800 calories a day. That's really not all that much food, and as I began to learn how to use the Food Log, I saw where some extra calories can be shaved off without too much pain or difficulty. That's what I'm telling myself after using the Log for two days now. It was quite a shock to realize that one slice of my favorite Great Harvest Bread (spelt) has 130 calories! Just one, with nothing on it!

The Food Log, once you have entered all the food you've eaten for the day and marked it complete, analyzes the breakdown of your diet, telling you where you are over or under in nutrients. I got an overall "A" for both days, but I discovered I am also low in dietary potassium and don't eat as many carbohydrates as I should. I got into that habit from following low carb diets for years. The problem with those diets is that they don't work if you eat more carbs than allowed. So, here goes an attempt at counting calories. I'll let you know about the results. It does help to have a doctor's "scrip" to lose weight.
:-)

Good news

Dr. Whitehead

I wasn't kidding when I said my new doctor looks fourteen, don't you think? And what a lucky gal I am, that I like him so much. He's smart, has a sense of humor and gave me a very thorough examination, asked all the right questions. I found out that he is actually 36. The older I get, the younger that seems, but he's very competent and likable.

The PeaceHealth Medical Group is also located in a bright and cheerful building, unlike the Center for Senior Health where I have been going for the past three years. It helps to have people of all ages in the waiting room, rather than everyone elderly like me!

We discussed my family history of heart disease and my cholesterol numbers. He was able to see the results from the past three checkups, as well as last Friday's numbers, which had increased since last year. I was all ready for him to tell me that I would need to take a stronger dose of statins, but no, he said the numbers were elevated a little from last year but not enough to cause much concern. I was flabbergasted. Although my numbers are higher, my good-to-bad cholesterol ratio puts me in the category of one-half normal risk for heart disease. It turns out that the culprit is likely to be the ten pounds I have gained since my last checkup, and he assured me that if I would lose them, I wouldn't need any further medication. That will give me incentive to lose the weight. I hope, anyway.

He does want to see what shape my coronary arteries are in, so I will have an ultrasound on Tuesday of the carotid arteries in my neck. He said that what the ultrasound shows for the carotids will give him a good indication of the condition of my coronary arteries. Sounds good to me, and it's the first time anyone has suggested this test. My son died at 40 of coronary artery disease, my father at 62, and my mother at 69. So he isn't taking this lightly, and I appreciate this thoroughness.

I knew I had gained weight; I was not thrilled about being weighed and never step on the scales when I know they will not show me good news, but I was surprised at how much more I weigh than I did last year. I am right at the cusp of overweight on the BMI (body mass index), at 24.8. If you want to figure your own, here is a good link to check out. It not only helps you figure it out, but it also tells you where you are in relation to others of your age and gender. I'm in the 25th percentile for women my age (meaning that three-quarters of others have a higher BMI than I do). That's heartening.

Here's a picture of the soup I had for lunch today, filled with kale, miso, tofu, some beans and some leftover forbidden rice. I learned about this rice from Arkansas Patti on The New Sixty. Smart Guy read about it and I came home to see this weird black stuff on the kitchen counter. Trust me, it's my latest favorite thing! Hoping that I will be able to lose these pounds, I am happily eating more soup and eating smaller portions. I'll let you know how I'm doing and can use any tips that my faithful readers might have. Getting enough exercise is not my problem, obviously.
:-)

Food, Inc.

Yesterday, Smart Guy and I watched our latest Netflix movie, Food, Inc. I missed this when it came to our local art venue, so I put it on the queue and when it came, rather than watch the one I had received earlier, we both settled down to watch this one.

This was an eye opener, even for those of us who consider ourselves well informed about our food choices. I had read Michael Pollan's books (all three of the latest ones) and had already been introduced to Joel Salatin at Polyface Farms, and it was great to actually meet him and see his farm as it functions in the world.

In the past few years, I have eaten chicken a few times, very few, and turkey only at Thanksgiving. I've never felt too bad about poultry, but after seeing what happens to them in a "normal" packing environment, I was shocked. One statement that stood out to me is that if we treat our food animals like this, it's only a short step to treating other human beings like things rather than people. From the website linked above:

In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment.

 If you rent the movie, you will learn a lot about our food industry. I suggest you do it after dinner, or at least a distance away from a meal. It turned my stomach. But there ARE things each of us can do, and the link above (just in case you don't visit it), gives us five things we can do right now:

1. Visit the official Food, Inc. website (here).
2. Support healthy school lunches and sign the Child Nutrition
   Act Reauthorization petition.
3. Learn 10 simple things you can do to change our food system.
4. Read the Food, Inc book.
5. Read the Hungry For Change blog.

It was well worth watching and learning how to make a difference in your food choices. Every small thing we do for the planet also we do for ourselves and our neighbors.

:-]

Silence of the yams

I've been reading Michael Pollan's latest book, Food Rules, when I'm on the bus or sitting quietly at home. It's entirely different from his last two books that I have read, The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food. Both of those books are long and involved, with lots of references and places to go for more information. That is not to say I didn't enjoy both of them immensely. This one is based on his seven words about how to choose what to eat:

Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much.

The book is divided into those three parts, with little sayings at the top of each of 64 Food Rules. The title of this blog is from Rule #8:

Avoid food products that make health claims.

He says that really good foods don't need to make health claims, because they are not usually in a package. Only the big food manufacturers have enough money to get FDA-approved health claims for their products. From p. 19 of the book:

The healthiest food in the supermarket -- the fresh produce -- doesn't boast about its healthfulness, because the growers don't have the budget or the packaging. Don't take the silence of the yams as a sign they have nothing valuable to say about your health.

Another thing I like about the book is that he isn't an absolutist, he just asks that you read the book and take at least one thing from each of the three sections. The book takes only a short while to read, but it's a lovely thing to carry around with you to start conversations. Plus it helps to be chuckling at some witty thing Pollan wrote to lighten up your day. Eating well doesn't need to be a grim business!
:-)