Walking at Sunup, Photography at Sundown

For the first time in a little while, I went for a walk in the neighborhood this morning. The summer birds are here. Mockingbirds and House Finches abound. I love listening to the mockers on my walk, especially.

I was nice to get back out there. I had a little cold two weeks ago. Last week, the gym at work held a special "Mind/Body" week, and held yoga classes of different kinds each morning. Great fun, and great exercise, but I couldn't walk and go to the classes. Then I whacked my little toe on something...thought I'd broken it. That kept me off walking for a few days.

I'm convinced that those little toes are God's way of slowing you down, and reminding you to walk mindfully. For something that doesn't stick out much at all (mine angle in, actually), they sure catch on passing obstacles often.

For fun, I've been messing around with our digital camera. You know all those mystical symbols on the controls? And all the deep, dark recesses of the Function menus? I found the owner's manual for our camera online, and have been slowly working my way through it. This evening, the sun was heading to bed for the evening and I took a few minutes out in the yard to see if I'd learned anything.

Here's our young son, goofing off and having fun. The sun was behind me a bit, hence the "one eye closed, with assistance" pose. Nothing says "lazy days of summer" like PJ's and vampire teeth.

This nice flower is one of our Agapanthas. I was trying to find an exposure that blurred the background beyond recognition, to put all the attention on the bloom. Couldn't quite get it, but I rather like the shadows the late afternoon sun brought out in this pretty blossom.

Here's my favorite from this afternoon. My wife and the kids went to the beach this afternoon. These sandals were left on the front porch, still dusted with fine grained happiness. I'll admit that the shoes were "posed," to get interesting shadows. I really like the way the composition came out. I tried a few different options on the exposure. This is the best of the lot.

Think I'll bring the camera to work tomorrow and see if I have time during lunch to take some more shots.

Food log:

Breakfast: granola with bananas, 1% milk

Lunch: roasted pork tenderloin, grilled asparagus, barley salad

Snacks: small handful of cashews

Dinner: leftover pork with leeks, leftover grilled veggie stack...ALMOST as good re-heated as it was the first night. Yummy.

Weight Loss, and Weaning

Today was a big day for me. I got on the scale in the morning and found that, after weeks of plateau and struggles with lapses and relapse, I'd hit a new low! I now weigh 217.8 pounds!

The most obvious, tactile indicator of my progress is my jeans. I've been wearing 38" waist jeans for a couple of months now. But they're getting loose on me. I haven't worn 36" pants since High School. Frankly, I didn't think I would again. I figured that my waist...at least the part the belt goes around...wouldn't be getting much thinner. But maybe not...

I also went in to the doctor's office this morning, for a checkin and a checkup. After going over my weight loss and diet changes, and checking my blood pressure a couple of times, my doctor and I decided to start cutting back on my blood pressure medications. We're dropping the Triamterene now. In a month, I'll get some blood work done, to check my Potassium levels (Triamterene lowers Potassium, while my other medication, Lisinopril, raises it). If they look good, and my blood pressure is still under control, we'll cut back on the Lisinopril too. Maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to get off the meds altogether.

As I said, it's been a good day. I feel fantastic about my progress. The bummer of the plateau is behind me.

Food log:

Breakfast: granola with organic strawberries and 1% organic milk

Lunch: leftover veggie lasagna, leftover collards with brown rice.

Snacks: one Hershey's dark chocolate single, chips and guacamole, cheese and crackers at a social event at work this afternoon.

Dinner: leftover spaghetti with meat sauce, steamed corn and green beans.

Dinner and Movie

Another good day. Church this morning, followed by a run to the local farmer's market. Grapes are in at our favorite stand, and we stocked up. Add in blueberries, strawberries, peaches, squash and a watermelon and I call that a successful morning spree.

After lunch, the kids blazed through their clean up, so we'd have time to continue the Star Wars marathon with The Empire Strikes Back. They really, really liked this one. Me too, though I've seen it many times. The storytelling is solid, solid, solid. I'd forgotten how much of a cliffhanger it leaves off with. The kids BEGGED me to put Jedi on, but we'd run out of time for the day. Next weekend...

For lunch today, I tried something new; a kippered herring sandwich spread, the recipe for which I found in Andrew Weil's "Eating Well for Optimum Health" (see links). Basically, it's sardines or herring, with some Dijon mustard, diced onion and a little lime juice added. On toasted whole grain bread, it was scrumptious. Looking forward to leftovers tomorrow.

Dinner tonight was wonderful too. We chopped up some roasted peppers, eggplant and zucchini, left over from our vegetable stacks of a few nights ago, and my wife whipped up some pizza dough. Add tomato sauce, grated mozarella and a hot oven and you've got PIZZA! A little basil from the garden, chopped up and sprinkled over the top, and it's ready to eat. We added some leftover cole slaw to round out the meal. Aaah.



Another week starts tomorrow. I'm hoping to get a walk in tomorrow morning, but we stayed up late watching The Kite Runner (good movie, GREAT book). We'll see.

Food log:

Breakfast: whole grain bagel with cream cheese, bananas

Lunch: kippered herring sandwich on whole grain bread, watermelon from the market, half an avocado sprinkled with salt and pepper, a Diet Coke.

Snacks: a few pita chips, a small bowl of ice cream

Dinner: roasted veggie pizza, cole slaw of cabbage, apples, cilantro and peanuts.

Lazy Saturdays of Summer

It's been a good day.  This morning I took the girls over to the pool and we spent a couple of hours practicing their swimming and diving, and just having a lot of fun.  The pool is way too warm, and tastes really strange, but spending time with them in the water is great fun.

After lunch, I introduced the kids to the formative movie of my own childhood: Star Wars.  I saw that movie fourteen times in the theater, in the year it came out.  I was Luke Skywalker for at least three Halloween's running.

I hate to admit it, but they weren't blown away.  I expected amazement.  I expected awe.  I expected them to see it the way I saw it, in 1978.  But no.  OK, they liked it.  They want to see it again.  They want to see the rest of the series.  Sure.  But to them, this movie will not be the iconic picture it was for me.  Maybe it's the dated effects.  Maybe it's the way so much is left implied and unstated.  Or maybe they just didn't like it as much.  Whatever the case, it left me a little deflated.  But we did have fun together.

I spent some of the afternoon cooking; one of my favorite pastimes, as you readers will know.  Tonight's dinner is called, in the cookbook at least, "Lombo di Maiale Coi Porri."  We just call it pork loin with leeks.  Couldn't be simpler, really.  Cut up the soft parts of four leeks, and braise until wilted in a little water, butter, salt and pepper.  Once that's done, brown the loin in a little butter for a few minutes, add some white wine, salt and pepper, to de-glaze the dutch oven and gather all those lovely brown nibbly bits on the bottom into the sauce.  Add the leeks back in, put on the lid and simmer for two hours.  Done.  The leeks go all buttery and sweet, the pork stays tender.  So, so good.

Here's the finished dish. The leeks, all reduced and scrumptious, are just left of the pork.  We've added a slaw of cabbage, apples and cilantro, dressed with lime juice and olive oil, and topped with roasted peanuts. The pork dried out a little, but otherwise, YUM.


We took advantage of the cool summer evening, and had dinner outside tonight.

Two nights ago, we made one of our other summer favorites: grilled vegetable stack.  You can make this with any vegetable that will grill up nicely.  That night, we used red peppers, zucchini, eggplant and green beans.  For the eggplant, it helps to slice it, salt it, let it stand 10-15 minutes, then rinse well.  This removes a lot of the bitterness, and tenderizes it a bit.  Then brush everything with olive oil, season to taste, and grill it until it gets those nice scorch marks, softens and sweetens.  We add a sauce made of reduced red wine, balsamic vinegar and brown sugar, then add dollops of goat cheese spiked with oregano and basil.  Delicious, and easy.  Make enough of it, and you've got a meal.  Or add something else, like spaghetti with meat sauce, as we did.

The kittens are passing the day in their usual way.  Nap, scamper, wrestle, purr, eat, repeat.

They've grown very tolerant of our little boy, thank God.  He has a tendency to hold them in his lap and pet them, and hold them some more, until they're squirming and meowing to be released, and then hold them a little longer.  But they don't bite or claw him, and the next time he goes to pick them up they usually stay put and let him.

Thor is learning, through extensive, untiring practice, to use his paws in new and creative ways.  His latest feat (pardon the pun) is opening cabinet drawers, in order to build himself a ladder up to the countertops.  We're training him to stay down, through liberal application of a squirt bottle's stream, but he's a determined little puss.

So, swimming, watching movies, and cooking, and eating outdoors.  Spending time with the kids on this clear, warm, beautiful afternoon.  It's been a GOOD day.

Food log:

Breakfast: oatmeal, with cinnamon, brown sugar, cashews and dried cranberries.

Lunch: Peanut-butter-and-honey sandwich on whole grain bread, baked chips, bananas.

Snacks: granola bar, a Dove single.

Dinner: pork with braised leeks.  Slaw of cabbage, apples, cilantro and peanuts.  Half a piece of whole grain bread.

Day 1 - redux

Back on the wagon, and feelin' good.  OK, it's just one day.  But a lifetime is made up of single days, and this was a good one.

I did miss Yoga this morning, as I bashed my pinkie toe into a step stool last night.  I heard a snap, and I'm hoping it was just the "knuckle" popping, but the toe hurts a lot today.  No swelling, no bruising, so it might well not be broken.  Here's hoping.

So, yes, I missed Yoga.  But I stayed away from chocolate and other sweet snacks today, except for one little "medicinal" piece.  I feel really good about that, after days of slippage.

Hopefully my toe will feel well enough tomorrow morning that I can go for my walk.  Time to rev up the exercise again!

And here's an odd bit of news.  As I mentioned, I've been snacking too much.  Lapsing.  I got on the scale this morning, expecting to have put a pound (or three) back on.  But I was down.  Down to JUST over 220 pounds.  I don't get it, but there it is.

My wife and I had a "date night" tonight, thanks to some good friends who added our kids to theirs for the evening.  We went to a (relatively) new burger place in town (The Burger Lounge).  This sidewalk cafe features grass-fed organic beef, organic produce and buns.  The burger was TASTY.  If you haven't tried grass-fed beef (wow...how WIERD is it to have to put THAT caveat in there?), please do yourself a favor and go find someplace that has it.  The taste is much more intense.  Much better.

We had a nice meal, and spent a long hour or two talking.  And nobody interrupted us.  Aaaaah.

We spent the rest of the evening shopping for home furnishings.  End tables and table lamps for our living room, and a mirror for our kids' bathroom.  Shopping on a date night?  A waste of time, you say?  Not at all.  We hit five stores in about an hour, and never once had to say "don't touch that," "come over here," or "we're leaving now!"  Aaaaah.

We love our kids, and love spending time with them, but sometimes it's wonderful to just be together, even if all we do is go shopping.

Food log:

Breakfast: fresh fruit, with some yogurt and granola on it.

Lunch: stir-fried rice with veggies and tofu, a Diet Coke.

Dinner: out tonight with my wife!  A rare treat.  We went to Burger Lounge, a (relatively) new place nearby, which features organic produce and grass-fed, naturally raised beef.  I had a hamburger and a diet soda, and split an order of fries with my wife.  YUMMY!  We'll be back.

Snacks: one little Hershey's Nuggest dark chocolate truffle, a Nature's Choice granola bar.

OK, really this time

On the way to work the other morning, I was listening to NPR as usual.  They featured an interesting story about tobacco addiction.  And it was sounding very familiar.

No, not the part about tobacco and cigarettes.  I've never smoked, thanks to great advice from Mom and Dad.  But I do know, I think, what addiction feels like.

Addiction is the itch of poison oak.  It's checking Facebook just one more time before bed.  And, for me, it's that little piece of chocolate.  And the next one.

It's the moment of weakness, that feels so good, but that adds up to a big problem.  Scarring, sleep deprivation, or obesity.

On that radio show, I heard something new to me.  Relapse starts with a lapse.  One moment of lost commitment that, if left to germinate, becomes another, and another.

Lately, I've been lapsing.  I've been in relapse.  I'm trying very hard to resist the temptations.  To get back on the wagon.  To put down the chocolate, or just not pick it up at all.  To get back to the state of mind and health that felt so, so much better than the momentary pleasures of a snack.

It's hard.  It means choosing long term pleasures over what can, in the moment, seem like something so small and so good.  Life, and health, over "just one more."

It's also been hard to admit the relapse.  To write about it here.  I'm hoping that, by doing so, I'll find the recommitment I need.  Maybe, some day, someone else in the same boat will read this, jump overboard, and swim away from their own relapse regatta.

Wish me luck.

Letting History Be My Guide

I started this blog in order to record what I was eating, how and how much I was exercising, and what I was learning about food, fitness and myself.

Over the past two or three weeks, the commitment has been fading for some reason.  Maybe it was coming so close to the threshold of 220 pounds.  Maybe I was getting tired of watching everything I eat.  Maybe I was letting this turn into an exercise in discipline and denial, instead of a positive, life-enhancing experience.  Maybe the stress at work has been getting to me.  Whatever the reason, I've been flagging, and my weight loss has stalled.

Last night, I read this blog again from the beginning.  To my friend Cynthia, who suggested this blog as a reminder and inspiration for just this moment, I say thank you.  You were right.  I was going to need this.

So this morning, recommitted, I hit the gym.  I had a long, fast walk on the treadmill, did two sets of upper body weight lifting, crunches for the abs, and lunges for the legs.  I watched what I ate very carefully today.  OK, we had pizza for dinner, but that was balanced out with a load of fruits and vegetables throughout the day.

Tomorrow morning, the new old program continues.  A long walk around the neighborhood is on the agenda.

It's good to be back.

Food log:

Breakfast: fruit with yogurt and granola

Lunch: vegetarian cassoulet with wild rice

Dinner: two slices of pepperoni pizza, watermelon

Snacks: one mini peppermint patty, a granola bar