Tag Archives: toast

A Life Without Toast

23 Replies


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.

Travel Woes and Cheese on Toast

9 Replies

 

Smoked Mackerel Pate on Toast

Was it really three days ago that I last blogged? In some ways it seems ages ago. In others it seems like the blink of an eye. Time passes in strange ways when you are busy.

Yesterday’s trip to Peterborough seemed to take twice as long as usual. That is easier to explain – it took approximately three hours, which is about twice as long as usual.

First there was the hold up to cross the Trent. As soon as I got into it I remembered there had been notices up about a cycling event. Probably a triathlon as they seem to be more popular these days. The queue was long, so we turned off and went via Newark. That added around 10 miles, and would have been Ok if it hadn’t been for the hold up at a roundabout while a motorcyclist and a van driver exchanged details and discussed their accident. Then, just as I was saying to Julia that I hoped we wouldn’t be held up again . . .

Welsh Rarebit on sourdough toast

According to the Internet there was a two vehicle crash near Grantham. So we took a detour through the town to go round it. Grantham was jammed up as it already had roadworks and the extra cars going through brought it to a standstill. Nobody seems to have been hurt, which is good.

After that it was fairly easy. To be honest, by the time we reached Grantham I would have been happy to go home, but we had a carful of stuff and didn’t want to have to unload it all again.

And that was my Sunday. Load car. Queue. Unload car.

We finally worked out how to use the new grill and made cheese on toast when we arrived as a (very) late lunch. We still don’t have the new toaster calibrated. I used it for the initial toasting, producing what was essentially warm bread. It’s on 3.5 now. On 4 it produces dry charred toast. I may nudge it up another quarter, or I may admit defeat. The margin between warm bread and burnt seems very small. I then put the cheese on and used the grill for the last bit.  It’s more powerful than our current grill and I just managed to catch it before it reached incenertion point.

There’s more to moving house than meets the eye.

Toasted Teacakes

This is my entire stock of toast photos.

 

An Internal Struggle

10 Replies

Really, I should have something like scrambled egg whites for lunch – carb free. nutritious and healthy. In addition, they aren’t the sort of thing that would have you queuing up for more.

In reality, I find myself thinking of bacon sandwiches, beans on toast, scrambled eggs on toast, and Welsh Rarebit. I really need to limit my bread consumption, but quick snacks always seem to feature it. Apart from the carbs, it’s also got quite  lot of salt in it, which is not good for blood pressure.

I’m seriously considering one of those weight loss systems where you just eat two meals a day. It would save time in the middle of the day and reduce my reliance on bread-based snacks.

Perhaps soup is the answer, as long as I can break the habit of eating bread with it. I have a variety of vegetables that are in the final stage of their life cycle (the one that hovers between usable and compostable) and that is natural soup territory.

There is still time to think about that.

Smoked Mackerel Pate on Toast

Meanwhile, I have just remembered that I need to  inject myself with the anti-arthritis drug with the long name. Even medical professionals have trouble with it. It would be much easier to have drugs with simpler names, as they would be easier to remember. When I go to hospital I always have to make a list as I can’t remember my medication properly. Sometimes I resort to taking the fronts of pill packets because the words are so long.

Now I have to go. I’d better give myself the injection before I drift off and do something else, as I should have done it yesterday, but forgot.

Then, after a challenge by Derrick Knight, I have a 42 word post to write on the meaning of life. I’m going to do it as a poem.

Toast and jam. Or salt and sugar, depending on your point of view.

Bits and Pieces and Fishing in the Spam Folder

15 Replies

It’s 10.39 and my day is about to begin. So far all I have done is the basics – dressed, had breakfast, answered comments, finalised tomorrow’s on-line grocery order and had a telephone consultation with rheumatology . It’s our day off today, though  most days are a day off for me at the moment,  so It’s now time to think about elevenses.

There’s something companionable about elevenses. Reading the link I was also reminded about second breakfast. We used to have second breakfast when I worked in Ireland – cup of tea and slice of toast at 6.30ish, work at seven, breakfast at 9.00. It’s much more civilised and it always feels better on the digestion.

From there I start wondering why toast seems like a meal but a slice of bread and butter doesn’t. I wonder when the change occurred. My grandparents ate bread and butter, my parents ate toast. I suspect that the invention of domestic grills and toasters holds the answer, as toast at my grandparents was usually preceded by a session with bread and toasting forks in front of an open fire.

Julia is approaching me with a hoover in her hand and menace in her eyes so I had better get the elevenses going. Music may have charms to soothe the savage beast, but tea and biscuits works better on Julia.

I now have a problem to ask you about. Derrick tells me that he has to give his details before he can post a comment. Is this happening to anyone else? And do you know how I can cancel it, as I hate it when that happens and I want to keep everything simple and easy.

Apologies to LA and GP Cox too, when I started looking through my settings I found several of your comments in Spam. It seems to select someone every so often and dump them in there on a slightly random basis as some have been allowed and some haven’t.