w00t! It’s raining! A lovely, slow, deliciously drenching rain. The dog is furious. The plants are vibrating with vegetative joy.
Today’s the first performance of the fall choir season. Yay! Life finally restarts. 🙂 I love choir and the weekly rehearsals, because they insert some structure into my daily routine. Without those two signal events, I just kind of float along like a yellow wasp skating on the surface of a slow stream.
This morning I went to find some sort of clothing adequate to the task of showing up in church. Nothing, other than a couple pairs of new Costco jeans, fits anymore! Pairs of slacks that were so tight I had to sew the pockets shut so they wouldn’t gap as I was waddling along last spring are now four inches too big in the waist. Finally found an old pair of black woolen slacks that I haven’t been able to wear in years…and they not only fit, they look amazing! An expensive belt that barely stretched around my capacious gut is actually a little too long now, but this pair of pants has belt loops, so it worked.
Even though I still need to lose another three or four pounds, because the pants are black they create the illusion that the belly is stone flat like a 20-year-old girl’s! LOL! Imagine that!!
With a black cami, a sheer silk blouse over the top jacket-style, and a flashy hand-made sterling silver cross, I actually looked almost human!
Amazing.
Last night the choir had a kick-off potluck (what could be more classically churchish, eh?). I took a large vegetable salad so as to have something to eat. People brought a lot of really delicious-looking goodies, notably some spectacular smoked barbecued ribs. But when you’re off salt, off sugar, off potatoes, off breads, off pasta, and off all processed food, a potluck doesn’t offer a lot to eat. 😉 That was OK: the salad is what I would’ve had for dinner, anyway, and it was pretty darn good.
As we were sitting at the table, though, I started to get an ocular migraine. Goddamn.
At first I didn’t realize what it was…I’m sitting there wondering if a retina is detaching, or maybe I was having a stroke? For awhile, about a third of my field of vision was gone. But while I was trying to figure out how the hell I was going to get home and whether I should try to get to the ER instead of the house, the tell-tale pinking-shears zig-zag line appeared, and then I knew it was a migraine.
And so, in characteristic style, it subsided after about 20 or 30 minutes, to be replaced by a mild headache and a runny nose. Most people who get ocular migraines don’t get the excruciating headache that normal migraine sufferers enjoy, mercifully. I usually get an unremarkable headache that hangs on for awhile…it was still around this morning, followed, as it faded, by an uncontrollable spate of the yawns.
At any rate, at least it explains the tingling fingers that came visiting while I was in Yarnell on Friday. SDXB thought that was a heart attack symptom. Lovely.
Honest to God! If it’s not one damnfool thing, it’s another!
Migraines are NO fun. Years ago when wife was pregnant with DD1 I had what was later diagnosed as a “classical migraine”. At the time I and others thought I was having a stroke despite being in my 20’s. It truly is scary…hope this passes soon. And do you think your weight loss is because of your change in not consuming meat..sugar..starches? MAN losing 4 inches on my waist would be great…
It’s a combination all of the above:
a) Exercising daily (to the extent possible: in 110-degree heat or most recently, all-day rainstorms, there’s a limit): walking and swimming, with some stretching exercises for the back pain. None of this is very vigorous, but I’ve tried to walk 2 to 3 miles a day and, when possible, also get in 20 or 30 laps of the pool.
b) Easing up on the amount of food. I started serving up meals on smaller plates, so it looks like a I’m chowing down on the usual feasts but in fact the mound is significantly smaller.
c) Avoiding salt. This means eschewing almost all kinds of canned foods, all processed meats (including my favorite, bacon — plus salami, pastrami, sausages, etc.), almost all cheeses (especially the aged variety), and most restaurant foods. It also means avoiding most commercially farmed poultry, which is soaked in and sometimes injected with salt water. Almost all bread products contain salt, too…it’s probably safe to say that all commercially produced bread contains salt.
d) Avoiding sugar. This also means cutting out almost all processed foods (read the labels!!!) and restaurant foods. Most restaurant food is processed food, and it’s chuckablock full of salt and sugar. Even things that do not taste sweet contain sugars (not just sucrose, but a variety of other industrial sugars). Even things that do not taste salty contain various kinds of sodium. Taking time to read the labels on the various food-like products we eat will send you straight to the produce department!
e) Cutting out breads and pasta. Substitute whole grain cereals, in moderation. I occasionally eat oatmeal and farro, for example. Since the latest confirmation about the amounts of arsenic in rice products, I’ve stopped eating that stuff, unfortunately — brown rice contains some of the highest ratios of arsenic: higher than the amount allowed by the state of New Jersey in drinking water.
f) Cutting out potatoes and sweet potatoes. Eating other starchy veggies, such as corn and peas, in moderation.
g) Enjoying lots of salads and including larger proportions of vegetables with each meal. Keeping a stock of cold soup in the fridge (such as xergis or gazpacho), that can be eaten on the run and that tastes exceptionally good. Seeking out real food: stuff that’s as fresh as possible and contains as few additives as possible.
h) Eating LESS MEAT BUT BETTER MEAT. Buying fresh wild-caught fish (avoid farmed fish — nutritional levels are higher in wild fish). Buying chicken, beef, and lamb that have never been fed hormones or antibiotics and whose meat is “air-cooled”: i.e., it has not been soaked in dirty, salty water and has not had salt water added. Restricting meat consumption to two or three times a week, and eating it in modest portions.
i) Preferring a single shot of hard liquor to wine, which has more calories than bourbon or gin. Using water or club soda as a mixer, rather than tonic water (read the label!), juices, or soda pop.
I have not cut out wine. I usually have one or two glasses of wine, or bourbon and water, or gin & tonic a day. However, since I can’t get off the 133-pound plateau, yesterday I started a booze fast to see if reducing that number of empty calories will jump-start another brief reduction…only need to get rid of three more pounds to reach the ultimate goal!
I have not cut out olive oil or butter. Every salad is dressed with olive oil and fresh lemon or lime juice, and I cook in olive oil. Most veggies have olive oil or butter on them.
Nor have I cut out salt 100% — I still grind a little over most things I eat. Generally I season food with ground pepper and with plenty of fresh and dried herbs, garlic, and onion. The trick is to avoid foods that have a lot of salt added at the factory…that is, avoid factory-made food-like products.
I never go hungry. And, except for the difficulty of ordering food in restaurants (which are truly food deserts if you’re trying to stick to real food), I’m never uncomfortable in any way.