100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 30

Breakfast:  Nothing
Lunch:  A frozen low-calorie dinner thing, chicken (I think it was chicken, hard to tell), rice, carrot shreds, peas and some lemony or lemon-like sauce
Dinner:  Two hot dogs, buns, brown mustard, jalapeno, dill pickle slices, cherries

I was surprised to not be hungry this morning, given the single glass of wine that I had for dinner.  I guess the bacchanalia that was lunch kept me going.  Granted, lunch yesterday was all pretty healthy, and not huge portions, but there was a stunning variety of smaller bits of this and that.  Still, skipping breakfast is not a good idea.   The frozen thing for lunch was a left-over from when I was buying only frozen things because I was so disgusted about wasting so much food.

Speaking of which, I bought only two smoked pork chops last week and still tossed one of them, along with some cauliflower, iceberg, and a half each of onion and zucchini.  Man.

So, now that a month has passed, I am wondering what healthy eating, as in life-long food is going to be.

I am thinking about adding a couple of foods to my regular schedule.  Well, it is not exactly a schedule, but I am trying so very hard to not use the word diet, you know?

Anyway, I am thinking about the following foods.

Hard cooked eggs - You can eat them on the run, they travel well, they are cheap and, most importantly, I like them.  It may be that I like them too much, which is why I have started to cook them several times and just stopped myself.  Since this is partly about learning new portion control stuff, I should at least give them a try.  If it turns out that I eat all six at a single sitting  (And, that could really happen), then this is probably not such a good idea.  But, I should at least try it.  It would be great for the long days at work when I have not given any advance thought to what to take for lunch.

Nuts - I like nuts, all nuts, especially those that are high in fat, like macadamia and pine.  If I stick to walnuts, almonds and peanuts, I should be fine.  They are also good travelers and keep well.  Not cheap, though.  I always take them along on trips, but never really thought about daily or occasional use here at home.


Nut butters - I have been looking for those individual portion size packs of peanut butter, but despite assurances that they are on the next truck, they never seem to be on the shelf at the two markets where I usually shop.  I have a 35 year old Salton peanut butter machine around here, somewhere.  It is a stunningly simple machine.  Just a plastic housing for an electric powered grinder.  Easy to use, easy to clean, just need to find it and buy nuts and grind them and find tiny containers in which to put the butters and then remember to make some whole grain crackers and then actually take them along with me.  Should be a snap.

Chickpeas - Now, you cannot eat the dried ones, nor can you eat them right out of the can (shudder), but you can drain the canned ones, toss them with spices like turmeric, chili powder, garlic powder, spicy paprika, salt, pepper, or any combination, spread out on a pan and roast them until they get dry and a little crispy on the outsides.  They do not keep long, about a week in the refrigerator, but they are cheap and easy to tote around. 

Looking at that list, it is all about the protein, which is good, because protein-rich foods are excellent for the whole diabetes thing.  I am digressing, but I just ordered refills on the three meds I take, and the diabetes med is the only one that did not triple in price.  One of them is now more than $150 per refill.  Yikes!

So, anyway, I still almost always have crispy apples in the house for taking along.  Sometimes a bell pepper or two.  I just planted two tomato plants last night.  A Roma and a Black Krim.  The rhubarb is doing very well, especially since it has not yet been trampled this year.  I am going to try to sneak in some bell pepper and chili plants in between the bushes at the front of the house and maybe some green beans where the magic iris grow.  Those things will help with easy to grab and eat foods, as well.  

I will have to use Google to find more to help diversify what I am eating.  I am kind of wondering if my recent fails have something to do with not enough variety.  The only problem with variety is waste.  Just trading one issue for another.

I have pretty much given up on Weight Watchers.  By the time I figured out what I was going to do, I had lost interest.  I suspect that I might still give it a try, but not likely until this project is over.  I know that I could benefit from some kind of structure and guidance.  It is just that they are so disorganized over there, no one person seems to know about all of the financial stuff and I have had to cobble the stuff together for myself.  That said, I still think that I would find something helpful within a group dynamic of some kind, but I need to find some people who are less messed up than I am.  Should be a snap.  Ack.

What else.  I think that I have a solution for the lunch-going-out-for-problems with my ss friend.  I am going to propose that we alternate choosing a place to eat each time we get together.  I never really got into the problems we encounter each time I take her somewhere, but this should be a good solution for that problem.  This one should not be a snap, but it might be forward movement, especially if I intentionally choose places that she would not like to go.

Then, there would not be the whole changing her mind issue on the drive to wherever she initially chose, which, in actuality, turns into the drive to hell and no place in particular.  It is mean of me to do it this way, but every other way, advance planning, menus, letting her always choose, discussing, discussing and discussing it...until I just want to grab a fork and stab myself...might become a distant and less-heartbreaking memory.  I am willing to be mean in the desire to hold on to the remaining shreds of my sanity.

O.K., I just reread this next part and I have no idea where it came from or what it is doing in my head.  It is like this overwhelming heaviness just dropped down on me and brought a whole shitload of sadness with it.  So, I am going to make it really tiny so that no one reads it.  I would delete it, but it seems to be needing expression, you know?  For any hapless person who stumbles on this, just ignore me.  Ahhh, better.  You know, I am really not such a downer person.  Really.  It is true.  I swear.


One last thing is safe to share here because I am the only person who ever comes here and reads this dreck.  I mean, I wish that I could say even a bit of this to my friends, but, honestly, no one wants you to ever change or to share this sort of thing.  They just do not want to hear it.  Ever.
I am sorry for no longer being the person that you want me to be.  It is too difficult to always be the girl in who's world it is always high noon, the sun is always shining, the birds are singing and the unicorns are eating wildflowers and pooping rainbows.  It is too hard.  
It is also too hard to be the person that makes everyone laugh, soothes hurt or injured feelings and mediates between the rest of you.  I am not Switzerland.  I cannot do it anymore.  Well, maybe I can once in a while, but I cannot be that ray of eternal bliss and bandages that makes everything nice.  Not anymore.  You can want it, but I am no longer able to do it.
The truth is that I am sad, sad about a lot of things.  I might even be in a medium or serious depression.  There are parts of my life that are totally not wonderful.  My sadness is legitimate.  You are not the only ones who get to share the crap about your lives.  I am not the only method of transportation for those of you who have chosen to not spend your money on cars or bus passes or taxicabs, preferring to use that money for travel, fancy restaurants and travel.  
And, you, you in particular, if I have to listen to you tell me how much money you have saved over the past forty years by not having a car, whilst I am driving you all over the kingdom so that you can do your errands in the city where you live, which is a forty-five minute drive from the city where I live, and doing it on my day off, well, I do not know what I might do, but it certainly would not be driving you all over the damn place.
I am not anyone's ray of sunshine,  I am a busy person who has problems of my own, but you do not want to hear that, preferring only smiles, jokes and happy stories, and I understand that you have come to expect that from me. 
I have pulled back from a relatively significant number of my volunteer jobs.  I am not calling or calling on most of you, even my family, been staying home a lot, trying to be well or at least the kinds of not-well that I have been for months now.  I have cleared the decks, so to speak, and am coming back a bit. 
It is just that I am coming back as a bit of a different person.  You might not like me as much; I am not so happy-go-lucky and carefree.  But, I like myself better this way, I think I do, I think I could.  And, I am not sure where this came from all of a sudden.  Whatever.  So be it.

I do have a GP, but it is kind of weird.  It was supposed to be another coffee thing, but something happened.

Not just weird, kind of creepy, too.  Wonder what it is saying about my internal process

Slowing down

I have to begin eating more inexpensively.  Groceries are just too darn expensive.  I have been trying to have a garden here for nearly three years.  I had one, a nice large one for decades, but you know how it is, you get busy with family stuff and then someone plants grass and there you are.  But, I want another garden space.  Interestingly enough, I can plant all the flowers that I want, which I do not want, and that is fine.  I want a food garden, but I need permission.  Those who give permission are not.  Giving it.  I do have this small patch of rhubarb, crowns from my daughter's garden and next summer they will be old enough to harvest.  I am so looking forward to rhubarb preserves.  Lots for me and lots to share.

I tried this year to plant food crops around the ornamental plants in the front yard, but they did not grow and some of them completely disappeared.  We used to have a lovely garden in the back, but the preferred plantings there are turf grasses.

This is not about the darn gardening, but not being able to grow my own food is at the core of the whole grocery problem, or at least part of it.  We have all of this outstanding space and nothing but grass growing there.  I do not get to choose.  Were there a committee who decides these things, I would not be on it.  Actually, I think that there is a committee, but there seems to be room for only one person.  And, that ain't me.

I do have this plan for next year, though.  There is this thing that you can do with pairs of big, plastic tubs that you cut up and put together and use an indirect watering system, like, ummmmm, where you use textiles or ropes or some damn thing to wick the water into the soil.  Damn, I wish I could remember what that was called.

Anyway, if I haunted the charity shops and found suitable containers, I could totally do that next year.  They, the containers, would be on the patio, which no one uses, although I used to when I smoked, so I would not be damaging any turf and I could grow a lot of food in them, maybe even beets and carrots and onions.  Oh, yeah, baby, that could so work.  I would just have to haul in some soil and buy seeds.  I am also thinking that they could look kind of cool and decorative, as well.   Well, that is my hope so that I do not find myself on the wrong side of someone's opinion.  Lordy.

So, anyway, got to save money on vittles.

No more convenience foods, although I do not know how I will survive without my Progresso chicken noodle soup. It is my budget and I can make that exception.  Whew!  That was a close one.

No forgetting to take food with me when I am out and about and then having to grab something at the drive-through.  That does not often happen, but every little bit helps.

I do not think that I can give up Saturday morning coffee with the friends, so that is off the table.

Plus, I am not eating enough flesh.  Really.  I have diabetes and a vegetarian diet is simply not working well for me.  Besides, I am always so hungry and that inevitably leads to extra snacks and meals.

So, I dragged out the slow-cooker and used it on Monday.  Three days later I am still enjoying the lovely soup that I made.  It was supposed to be stew, but it would not thicken, so it is soup.  Really lovely soup, and there is a huge chunk of meat that has not been shredded into the broth.  It was a sandwich this morning for breakfast, but I have to noodle around and find more things to do with it.

I will also be going back to making a week's worth of oats and rice again.  If it is already there, waiting for me in the refrigerator, then I have no excuse for wanting something quick and not-so-great.

I also have to start meal planning.  Man, I am so bad at that.  I used to do it, like decades ago, when my daughter was still little and even later when she was still living here, although I was already slacking off then.  But, it has to be done.  Oh, gods, I am going to be so cranky about this. 

Part of the problem is that I am too busy to make recipes.  Since I retired, I am busier than ever.  I sometimes wonder how I had time for a paying job, but I did, although I was always exhausted after a day of being on my feet and trying to satisfy customers.  I was pretty darn good at that, but it takes a lot out of your energy bank account.  And, I like plain food, like the soup.  I do not like fussing with more than a couple of ingredients or making anything that takes more than a few minutes to throw together.  That is why the slow-cooker will be nice.  You just toss everything in there and forget it for a few hours or overnight.

That is my inner slacker talking.  Well, truth be told, I am a fully invested outer slacker as well for things that do not excite me, get me all juicy and motivated. 

So, food.  Easy and healthy food.  The lovely beefy and vegetable-y soup will last through the weekend, but I am going to have to come up with something to buy for the next go-round.  I am thinking that a nice chicken curry would be nice.  Yum, nice.  And, I have to keep looking on the Internet for more slow-cooker recipes, but ones that do not have soup mixes or salad dressing or other convenience ingredients, all full of salts and sugars.  That would be such a huge step backwards.  There have to be healthy recipes out there, right?

Oh, rats, it just occurred to me that if I am going to do this here, that I will have to, or should, take pictures of the stuff I make, as in keeping a decent visual record in addition to all of the spewing.  I do not know if I should do that.  The food I make is delicious, but kind of ugly.  I do not want to look back on this project and unintentionally disgust myself.   Maybe there is some kind of photo resource that I could join and pay for beautiful food images.  I would not pass the images off as photos of my own food, but could say that this is what my food would look like, were it not so freaking ugly.

Aw, crap, I have to do labels, too.  Man.

Sheesh, already messed up.  Forgot the recipe.  I am too tired.  Maybe tomorrow.