Tag Archives: diet

The Blog of an Old Friend Pops Up to Torture Me

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Healthy Breakfast

I’m now on an 8 Day Streak according to WP. It’s always tempting to see how far I can extend it, but it also doesn’t really mean much and I am tempted to break it deliberately. Yes, I’m feeling iconoclastic, and much better.

Apart from the last post, what did I do today? Well, I published before I had all the bits and pieces added, so had to add tags and photos after the event. Not that the photos were much good – just a a dull bronze medal from several angles.

I had an email turning down a haiku submission, but that’s par for the course. I only send them to show willing and to ensure I stay tough in the face of repeated rejection. They were good enough to be polished and used again, so that’s all for the good.

It was a two injection night, so those are still stinging as I write this. They aren’t bad, but sometimes they are painless, so this is not quite as good as it could be. However, it’s a long way from the days when I used to have ten pills that upset my stomach and an injection fro something like a stirrup pump tipped with a six inch nail. In other words, things are going well, but I do love a good moan. It’s the sorry of modern life – things are really quite good for those of us who have a roof and four walls, the trick is appreciating it.

Sunday fades, the sound of snoring is heard and night passes. It is now Monday morning and I am up and eager. I had a welcome arrival in my WP today – a post from a man who appreciates breakfast. He also used to be part of the Bread Group on the farm.

Proper Breakfast

So there you have it, a Monday morning blog containing a bit of dislocated Sunday and Sunday and a touch of Monday morning. I’m hungry now, and thinking about potatoes for breakfast (an idea my new focus on weight control quickly quashed) and soda bread (ditto). I may well do soda bread later, but it will be to go with the ratatouille for tea, not just because I’m peckish.

If my new plans for weight control go well there’s a possibility that I may merely be overweight by the end of the year. Who can tell? At the moment I have the desire for a full English, I have the ingredients for half of one (ran out of bacon and black pudding over the weekend) and the sort of calorie target that will allow me to have five flakes of cereal and a sniff of the toaster. It’s going to be a long, hard year.

McDonald’s Breakfast – my downfall

One Man and his Menu

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That’s the title I thought of yesterday as I blogged. It’s proof, if proof is needed, for the fact that I can get very pleased about small things, and that once you start having ideas, you have more. That’s the Theory of Creativity – you start and you keep going. Stop and your creativity stops. It’s like those sharks that have to keep swimming.

I also have an idea for the next title. Unfortunately, as I wrote that, I forgot it. That happens a lot.

Yesterday (which is only just an hour away – I’m typing in the early hours) I had beans, tomatoes and mushrooms for breakfast, which lifted me to 21. We didn’t have lunch until 4pm. It was a McDonalds. I had a wrap and claim lettuce as my 22nd plant. In the evening we didn’t feel hungry, so ate the corned beef as sandwiches rather than in hash. I had some tinned pineapple and yoghurt afterwards, upping my intake to 23 plant-based items. Small steps, but not particularly difficult. In this case I do wonder if I’d have been better missing out the pineapple, and the calories. It could be that I’m using the target to make excuses for eating more.

Meanwhile, I am still waiting for the results of several of last month’s submissions. I submitted eight and have had three answers – two acceptances and a rejection. Four of them will probably reply in the next week. It’s just two magazines, but different forms of poetry and different editors. They have all changed recently and are less willing than the previous editors to accept my work. It could be a blood bath. It’s a strange thing – but this reluctance seems to be a regular feature of editorial changes. I suspect I have managed to become old-fashioned, despite being a relative newcomer. It feels a bit like I’m writing for a different generation. I may have mentioned that before.

It’s my age, you know . . .

A Life Without Toast

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The starting point for today’s post is that everything is going well.

I managed to take my antibiotics without mishap (yes, although I haven’t written about it yet, I even had a problem with antibiotics on my return from hospital), am well-rested, and am looking forward to a breakfast of scrambled eggs. I’d bee looking forwards to a breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast even more, but one of the first casualties in my war on weight is toast. It’s always been a target, but it has to be eliminated ruthlessly. My previous successful attempts at weight loss have not been through fancy diets, just through simple stuff.

A couple of years ago I stopped having toast at breakfast and cut down to one sandwich at lunchtime. Even without exercise, I managed a small but steady weight loss. Part of my problem is that I used to have active days featuring a lot of walking and lifting and, as I became more managerial (as in chair and car-based) I carried on with the calories and reduced the burning. Same for leisure. I reduced the walking and increased the TV. But mentally, I didn’t make the shift.

Same when I gave up smoking. I felt my metabolism shift, but I didn’t alter my intake.

So, when you strip away all the Hollywood glamour, the miracle cures, the avocados and the steaks, you are left with the truth. If you want to lose weight you have to burn more calories than you eat.

And if you can’t walk far you are going to have to achieve the rebalancing by eating a lot less. That’s why targeting bread is always good – it also cuts out the cheese, the McDonalds and the snacks.

It’s a bleak picture of a spartan retirement, but after the last few days I’ve had to ask myself a few questions about how I want the rest of my life to be, and that starts with a very simple question – long or short? I can work on the details later.

Meanwhile, whilst hovering round Death’s garden gate recently (it’s the one where you enter and dawdle along Death’s garden path until you actually reach Death’s Door) I had to make an official decision for medical purposes. I went for resuscitation, partly because it’s a new spelling to learn, and partly because my bed was in the corridor outside the resuscitation room, which seemed like a sign. Or a hint.

And that, in my weakened state, is enough for now.

Quinoa Salad – health on a plate

Pictures of salad are harder to find than pictures of fish and chips or cake.  I will let yuo draw your own conclusions.

Another Senior Moment/Forgotten Title

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Julia, South Pier, Lowestoft, Suffolk

The day started with porridge, fruit and toast. I’m really trying to give toast up on weekdays but Julia keeps making it. Eventually, I suppose, I will have to start refusing it, but I like toast and I don’t like to waste food. I could, I suppose, just scrape off the marmalade but without marmalade there is little point in toast so I may as well just give it up. Really it’s just a delivery system to facilitate the eating of melted bitter, cheese or marmalade. Nobody I know would want a piece of dry toast, though if any of you, I’d be happy to know.

It continued with a trip to the dentist to drop Julia off, followed by a twenty minute interlude writing notes in the car park at the surgery before it was time for my blood test. This went well – two attempts on one arm with no success, but the first attempt on the second arm struck blood and we soon had three full tubes. It was a big day today, I had a special envelope from my last trip to Rheumatology and that needed two tubes. It had red writing on it, so it must be important. I got weighed while I was there. I’ve lost 8 lbs in the last eight weeks. Not spectacular, but a useful loss. No stupid diet, just ate a little less. I make no grandiose claims, and may yet disappoint myself, but at this point I am happy with this loss.

Julia on the patio

I’m writing this to the accompaniment of whistling, clattering scaffolding and the low annoyance of a radio. Yes, it’s building season again. The young couple next door are having something done, though I don’t know what. They are always having something done. The people diagonally across the road are having a loft extension. I sometimes wonder why people buy houses in this street if they need so much changing.

Julia just rang. She just bought an advance ticket for her Canada trip. Nottingham to Norwich and then on to London is just £28. Yes, £28. She was amazed. The man in the ticket office was so surprised he double checked it. It seems that there’s an offer on. At least part of the Canada trip is going to be cheap. She’s on her way home from town now. I am going to do the washing up. Then I expect we will sit in the front room, watch TV and (in my case) nap. There are worse ways to spend my time.

Love Locks at Bakewell

 

 

Poetry and Vegetables

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Despite the arrival of British Summer Time, and the consequent loss of an hour, I woke feeling ready to work, and although I did waste time surfing the web and watching TV, and “resting my eyes”, I have knocked a fair amount of poetry into shape and have sent off four submissions.

I had another rejection yesterday. It was good because it was quick, and because if I intend to be serious about aiming for 100 rejections a year I need more of them. The rejected poems, with a few minor changes, are already out with someone else. They will probably be rejected but it doesn’t matter as I need the numbers, and the second submission needed little work. I feel that each time I edit a work, even if it’s only one word, I am learning how to write better.

I’m sure that I have more than this to write but I can’t remember it. In truth the stuff I forget generally isn’t that important, and would make dull reading if I wrote it all down.

We are starting to list the plants we eat in a week – one recommendation is that you should aim for 30 a week. It’s good to have a variety and I have found that shopping online encourages me to buy the same stuff each week – it’s easier to order and easier to plan the menus.

Brace yourself for a boring list.

Mushrooms. Tea. Yes, tea counts. We eat 50/50 bread so it doesn’t really count, though wholemeal would. Julia says that although brown sauce does contain spices (which do count) she is fairly sure it doesn’t count. Nor does the cereal content in black pudding. Ah well, two isn’t a bad start.

We had coffee, which counts, and green tea with mint, which is debatable. Then we had lettuce, rocket, celery, spring onions, green olives, cucumber and tomatoes.

I’m excluding chocolate because it’s full of sugar, and white flour because it’s processed, so I can’t count the crust of the quiche. Ah well . . .

That’s 10, It’s not a bad start. Only 20 more to go.Looking at the list, it shouldn’t be too hard, though it’s a case of remembering to use them. I meant to add nuts and peppers to the salad tonight, but I forgot by the end of the preparation. It’s a bit like the times I forget I’m not supposed to eat fried potatoes – they just seem to slide down. My bad memory is a cause of many of my problems.

Orange Parker Pen – a shameless attempt to get review samples.

17 Saturdays

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Sausage and Egg McMuffin. They know the secret to attract fat people. Why doesn’t someone reverse it?

A quick count indicates I have 17 Saturdays to work before I retire. I may  start a Saturday Series to mark their passing. Or, as usual, I may talk about starting a series and do nothing about it. Who can tell?

The irony is not lost on me. I started off with  Saturday job, I have ended up with one. Working Saturdays is one of those things that tells you success has eluded you.

Julia has just come down and offered me toast. I was going to leave, but the lure of toast is too strong, despite my commitment to losing weight. If I remove six slices of toast and marmalade from my diet each week, it is around 1,500 calories, which is a lot of calories. If I don’t remove them, I enjoy toast and marmalade, though some of it may be rushed and the rest may be spoiled by guilt. It’s a balancing act, but on Saturdays the toast tends to win.

My recommended daily calorie intake is 2,500 calories. If I want to lose a pound a week they recommend 2,100. Taking out the toast and marmalade and a few more tweaks (no more second sandwich for lunch) should do the trick.

It sounds so easy.

If only . . .

What these diets don’t include is the sitting at work feeling bored and eating that single sandwich for elevenses. What happens then? Dieting is about more than simply cutting back on food, or we would all do it.

In retirement I may concentrate on making meals from cardboard. That should do the trick – zero calories, no enjoyment, plenty of fibre and chewing. What more could you want? I suppose there must be more to it than that or we would all be doing it. On the other hand, having just had a bowl of bran flakes I am left with the impression that it would have been much the same if I’d just cut the packet into small squares and forced them down.

Other breakfasts are available, or not, in the case of the much missed Olympic Breakfast. Other waistlines, and coronaries, are also available.

Olympic Breakfast – much mourned

Day 184

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Well, I spent last night planning what I was going to do today. It was quite a list. Today was slightly different in tone and I did very little apart from avoid doing anything on the list. That is, I suppose, an achievement in itself, but not quite the outcome I was hoping for.

Breakfast, which hadn’t been on the list, was quite pleasant, as was lunch. We had bacon sandwiches for breakfast, with mushrooms, fried tomatoes and black pudding. Nutritionally I could have finished after tomatoes. I was tempted to leave the black pudding out of the list and appear more virtuous and sensible, but I am fairly truthful in the blog, and the black pudding presents a more rounded picture of both my character and my figure.

Lunch was fancy cheese on toast. I chucked some eggs and finely chopped spring onions in the grated cheese before toasting. We have been using thick-sliced malty wholemeal, which has been good.

We had vegetable curry for tea. Tomorrow we will be having vegetable curry for tea. Julia hasn’t quite mastered the art of portion control since the kids left home. It’s something I have struggled with over the years. I can still picture myself in the late 1970s with a pressure cooker full of vegetables – enough to feed  a family of four, to be precise.

At that point I realised that I had left home, but was still using the portion size I was used to seeing. Four days later, finally free of vegetables, I started to cut back on portion size. I should really have cut back a lot more, but that is a different story.

I have just been reading about a diet that could help me lose a lot of weight. Breakfast is a banana, lunch is chicken, rice and broccoli and tea is a protein shake. It’s a diet developed by someone who has more self-control than I do.

On the one hand I’m looking at a short, increasingly unhealthy life. On the other I’m looking at chicken, rice and broccoli. It’s a tough choice. Well, actually it isn’t. Chicken, rice and broccoli is not a winning combination.

Meanwhile, in a different part of the family (and one where I suspect that chicken, rice and broccoli is a winning combination) Number One Son just did his first Ultra-marathon.  Eighty miles in 24 hours. No, I don’t know why either, but I am glad he’s found a sport he enjoys.

 

Day 180

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Teetering on the slide into winter . . .

Started the day with bacon croissants. I was thinking of getting up and making them but Julia got up quicker and read my mind. There are some benefits to moving slowly.

Completed my jury service form online. I still wonder why they need to threaten me with a £1,000 fine all the time. I suspect it is because the sort of people who draft these letters like the feeling of authority given by the ability to bend others to their will. I’ve  noticed this in other people over the years, particularly since lockdown gave encouragement to petty tyrants.

They are generally people of low intelligence who have been frustrated by their inability to rise in their chosen career, or any career. Their parents didn’t love them. They never learned to say please and thank you. I could carry on, but I feel I have conveyed the essence of my contempt.

Marmalade Hoverfly

Marmalade Hoverfly

As a result of completing the form on line I now have a pre-paid envelope addressed to the Jury Central Summoning Bureau. I am seriously tempted to send them a letter querying their whole approach to jurors.

In the waiting room at the surgery I was privileged to witness four different complaints against practice staff. One women wouldn’t name her complaint – she wanted the practice manager.

One man was complaining about the late arrival of his drugs. He had clearly ordered them late. And he also clearly needed help with anger issues, and possibly with voices in his head, as he muttered and swore under his breath.

Another woman was complaining that she had rung for help in treating the skinned knee of her daughter and didn’t like the answer she had been given by another receptionist (get some ointment from the pharmacy). “She’s not properly qualified.” she kept repeating. If you need a medical qualification to treat a skinned knee there is something wrong with the world, and If a parent can’t cope with a skinned knee there is something wrong with the parent.

Finally we had the man who was trying to make an appointment. You can’t make appointments these days – you have to ring in and hope you get through and then hope that the doctor has a free slot to ring you back. He ended up confused and asked “What would happen if I walked out of here and collapsed?”

Wheatear

Him, I sympathise with. Though I also sympathise with the receptionist, who is forced into a corner such as this by the people who run the NHS. In the end she had to give the obvious answer – “I’d call you an ambulance.”

We went for lunch (we actually ate in the restaurant as part of my return to normal), Julia went to Hobbycraft, who have now emptied their top floor, and I went for tea in the back room at the jewellers.

Back home, I filled in my pain survey and, with painful, clumsy fingers, folded the A4 sheets of paper in three and put them in the (to small) envelope provided. I had assumed that “Page 6 of 6” on the last sheet meant it was the final sheet. But no, as I rifled through the remaining pages (they do tend to include a load of junk too) I found “Page 7 of 6”. What logic is there behind that? I’m afraid that as I completed the final two questions I added a rather terse note a\bout page numbers and envelope sizes.

Heron

These people have doctorates, research budgets, staff and big wage cheques (to name but three things I don’t have) and they come up with “Page 7 of 6”.

A light tea followed, to make up for the burger and chip lunch, and I am currently feeling hungry but virtuous as I type.

And that has been my day . . .

Day 142

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In the end we had sausages for breakfast. It would have been more economical, and probably healthier, to have had them for tea, but it just seemed like the right thing to do. What better way is there to start a week than eating a surprise gift of sausages?

That’s right, following them up with marmalade on toast. Julia bought some nice mixed grain bread yesterday and I allow myself toast and marmalade on Sundays.The rest of the week, I do without it as part of my cheerless diet routine. There are a varying number of calories in a slice of toast and marmalade – let’s go for 150 as an average figure.  Cut out toast and marmalade for 6 days and that’s 900 calories. Cut it out for 48 weeks (allowing myself a little leeway for weakness and holidays) and that’s 43,200 calories if my mental arithmetic is reliable.

As my daily intake is supposed to be around 2,500 calories cutting out a slice of toast and marmalade a day is the same as fasting for two and half weeks (17.28 days). I did that on the calculator, and double checked it all, as that seems a lot. Tootlepedal has told me several times that dieting is all about making small, almost imperceptible cuts in consumption. If a slice of toast and marmalade a day comes to this, you can see how it works.

Lunch was home made mushroom soup and a sandwich made from smoked mackerel pate. Julia likes fish, I am less keen. As a compromise I bought smoked mackerel last week. She ate some of it and I mixed the rest with soft cheese, black pepper and lemon juice to make the smoked mackerel pate. It made two good sandwiches for lunch and will make two more for lunch tomorrow. I normally make it using the small blender (we don’t have a big one these days) but was feeling lazy today so just whizzed it together using a fork. There is less washing up that way. I’m going to add some chopped spring onion tops and sliced cucumber for tomorrow so I can pretend I am on an elegant Edwardian picnic tomorrow rather than sitting in the windowless back room of a coin shop.

Today’s picture is the tank traps at Gibraltar Point. Strange to think how things have gone – Julia’s grandfather was one of the first tank drivers. I grew up seeing tank traps along the coast (and still do) and on the news from Ukraine it seems that the tank is no obsolete on the modern battlefield. A century of ingenuity went into designing a weapon that is now outdated, but we still don’t have a safe and satisfactory way of opening a can of corned beef.

Makes you wonder about the human race.

Day 66

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I changed yesterday’s menu slightly, but as some people read it I won’t go back and change it in the post. I will, however, add a couple of items to the list – I used some leeks to bulk out the onions (I’m using ready chopped onions to save effort for my hands and didn’t want to open a new pack). I also did stir-fried greens to give us a better selection of vegetables.

Greens are one of those things that are a problem when you take Warfarin as they contain a lot of Vitamin K, which is the antidote to Warfarin. That’s why I had a problem a few months ago (the nurse spotted the problem immediately – seems they always see it around Christmas time when the Brussels sprouts start). I’m now trying to keep up my consumption of greens because I need to be consistent with my diet, and because they are healthy and low carb.

I really should start counting the number of different types of fruit and vegetables we eat in a week. It’s vey easy to get into a rut when you order online from the menu headed “My  Favourites”.

It appears that you really need a diet based on 30 types of fruit and veg if you are to achieve optimal gut health. That’s quite a lot.

Prawn linguine with rocket, tomato (and spaghetti)

Last week we had leeks, onion, garlic, carrots, parsnips, swede (rutabaga), sweet potato, celery, tomato, mushrooms, cauliflower, oranges, apples, pears and figs. I’m not sure if you are allowed to count potatoes and rice, you can’t for your five a day, so I won’t count them. That’s fifteen. You can count fresh herbs, so that’s coriander and thyme (though I’m not clear if adding it then removing it before serving counts). You can count spices so that adds ginger. I’m pretty sure that stuff sprinkled from a jar doesn’t count, so just the one. The article counts oats in muesli, so oats in porridge must count, as does the wheat in Weetabix, I suppose. Blue berries and bananas – nearly forgot them. We don’t eat enough chillies to qualify, I’m sure. I think that’s it. And peanut butter – it’s nuts.

We didn’t have any seeds, nuts or pulses, partly because I’m not a natural eater of seeds and partly because Julia mutters every time I used chick peas, lentils or beans. She will have to get used to it, because if we are going to have 30 a week we will need them.

That’s 24 because I just remembered I had avocados on Wednesday. I’m actually quite pleased with that.

Nasi Goreng

It leaves six extra to find but if I add chick peas, beans and lentils, plus peas in the soup I just need to add broccoli, peppers, courgettes (which are all easy enough) and we’re on  – thirty one.

Time for me to confess now – though I blame Julia for the lack of pulses, I’m to blame for the lack of Mediterranean style vegetables as I don’t like them roasted and got fed up of ratatouille because we ate so much of it as we transferred to a semi-vegetarian diet in lockdown.

Avocado and Wild Garlic on Sourdough

If I were to use a subtitle for this post it would be – I can cook and I can eat vegetables – I just prefer takeaways and cake! And that, in one sentence, is the reason why I weigh too much.