Do you know how to tell? Well, you see, I was feeling all uber headachy and oh so tired. Then, I ate a very purposeful piece of chocolate, deep and dark with some peanut butter for added loveliness, and, a wee short time later, I feel oodles less headachy.
Yes, really, that is how you tell. If I had the flu or a bad cold, then eating the chocolate would not have helped. The reason it did alleviate the symptoms is that the same bacterium that is being killed by the acv happens to thrive on sugar, among other things. So, by ingesting the sugar, I lessened their dying off, therefore lessened the die-off reaction.
It is not a good thing, in the respect that the quick they die, the quicker I shall be rid of them; but, it is valuable knowledge to have, in case one is in the midst of a die-off reaction and one is suddenly called to work, court, the hospital due to a familial accident or some other thing that cannot be put off and which one needs to be highly functional for.
Right now, it is also simply valuable knowledge, since it leads to the other valuable knowledge that it is doing me some good, this apple cider vinegar, and of that I am glad.
I felt it was, as my sense of smell has cleared up quite a bit and when I can smell things better then I know that my allergies are affecting me less. This is all to the good, for the obvious reasons that allergies make one feel all huffety; but, also, as I mentioned near the beginning of this book, persons who are overweight tend to enjoy food less and aroma has a great deal to do with the enjoyment of food.
Right now, I am not enjoying the odors of me, as I do not have a working hot water heater and I have not bathed properly yesterday or today; nor, am I enjoying the smell of the garbage can, in the kitchen, which needs to be taken out. I am, however, enjoying the fact that I can smell that things need improving around here.
First you smell it, then you know where it has all gone wrong, then you fix it. Yes? Yes.
I took my stew and added some canned alleged spaghetti sauce to it, and a can of some ravioli soup by Monsieur Wolfgang Puck, as well as first sauteing some chopped onions, yellow squash and mushrooms in a little olive oil and garlic powder and basil to which the stew, etc. was added. Oh, and some spaghetti noodles were thrown in, for good measure.
It's not wonderful, but, it is okay and instead of wasting a bowl of stew, I made two large bowls of a pasta dish. Had one for lunch, I guess you'd call it, and the other one is back in the refrigerator for later tonight or tomorrow.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Upping the ante ...
This morning, I decided to go ahead and put two teaspoons (still not with measuring spoons) of apple cider vinegar into the 42 oz bottle of water. It is tolerable. I really would not want to go stronger than this, though I could, if I had to.
By the way, I did not eat my stew, last night. What did I eat? Oh, close to but less than 1/4 of a Special Dark chocolate bar and the rest of my son's malted milk balls, which had been sitting around taking up room in the refrigerator forever.
I really did not feel good last night, nor actually hungry, and I gave in to that feeling, which is usually false, that a little sugar and chocolate will wake me up and snap me out of it.
It seems to me that I am experiencing a die-off reaction. In case you don't know what that means, a die-off reaction is where you have done something that causes bacterium or yeasts in your body to die, and, as they die, they release poisons. Presumably, because they do not like to die and so they think it best to take you with them. The "die-off reaction" is literally the reaction that one suffers from the dying off of these bacteria and yeast beasties.
Now, I am not sure that I am experiencing it. Sometimes it is hard to tell in what direction one is traveling, when one is having an experience, but, one knows that movement is occurring. It is not until one reaches a landmark that one is sure.
For instance, sometimes, I feel fatter and floppier, I look worse to myself and I think I have gained 20 lbs. Then, I weigh myself and find I have lost 10 lbs. Sometimes, the opposite happens. Until one does it some more, or takes a proper measurement, it is simply impossible to tell what is going on, at times.
This could be me having a reaction to the apple cider vinegar that is increasing my yeastiness. There are people who think you should avoid it like a plague, for just that reason. Or, it could be that I am experiencing a die-off reaction, and, since I was sipping it all day long, I experienced it all day long and am still doing so.
Either way, that would explain the headache and general, slightly itchy feeling of blah, which I have been and am still experiencing. It would also explain why I am tired but have trouble sleeping, more than usual.
Anyway, this morning, so far, I have had some of the acv water and two stalks of celery. I believe I shall also eat the rest of the guacamole chips. This is a 5 oz bag and I would say there is approximately half the bag left.
Allegedly, there are 5 servings in the bag, at 140 calories per serving. That's 700 calories per bag. Not that I am counting calories. Just thought you might be interested to know. Here goes approximately 350 calories. Tally ho!
By the way, I did not eat my stew, last night. What did I eat? Oh, close to but less than 1/4 of a Special Dark chocolate bar and the rest of my son's malted milk balls, which had been sitting around taking up room in the refrigerator forever.
I really did not feel good last night, nor actually hungry, and I gave in to that feeling, which is usually false, that a little sugar and chocolate will wake me up and snap me out of it.
It seems to me that I am experiencing a die-off reaction. In case you don't know what that means, a die-off reaction is where you have done something that causes bacterium or yeasts in your body to die, and, as they die, they release poisons. Presumably, because they do not like to die and so they think it best to take you with them. The "die-off reaction" is literally the reaction that one suffers from the dying off of these bacteria and yeast beasties.
Now, I am not sure that I am experiencing it. Sometimes it is hard to tell in what direction one is traveling, when one is having an experience, but, one knows that movement is occurring. It is not until one reaches a landmark that one is sure.
For instance, sometimes, I feel fatter and floppier, I look worse to myself and I think I have gained 20 lbs. Then, I weigh myself and find I have lost 10 lbs. Sometimes, the opposite happens. Until one does it some more, or takes a proper measurement, it is simply impossible to tell what is going on, at times.
This could be me having a reaction to the apple cider vinegar that is increasing my yeastiness. There are people who think you should avoid it like a plague, for just that reason. Or, it could be that I am experiencing a die-off reaction, and, since I was sipping it all day long, I experienced it all day long and am still doing so.
Either way, that would explain the headache and general, slightly itchy feeling of blah, which I have been and am still experiencing. It would also explain why I am tired but have trouble sleeping, more than usual.
Anyway, this morning, so far, I have had some of the acv water and two stalks of celery. I believe I shall also eat the rest of the guacamole chips. This is a 5 oz bag and I would say there is approximately half the bag left.
Allegedly, there are 5 servings in the bag, at 140 calories per serving. That's 700 calories per bag. Not that I am counting calories. Just thought you might be interested to know. Here goes approximately 350 calories. Tally ho!
Friday, December 30, 2011
First day, what I've done so far
I told you about beginning to drink a mixture of apple cider vinegar and water. The bottle is 42 oz, so it is a pretty light mixture. I've been sipping away at it, though, and I can honestly say I feel some good effect.
Other than that, I have not had any real plans. For breakfast, this morning, I poured some orange juice and have utterly failed to drink it; but, I think I still shall. I, also, toasted up an English muffin and cooked a couple of medium-sized eggs, though the whole of neither made it to my plate, a few blackberries from the 99 Cent Only store, and had an apple and two clementine teeny tiny oranges.
Later on, I had two blueberry toaster pastries. The kind from the 99 Cent Only store, which are smaller than other ones; and, just now, I had some guacamole tortilla chips, also from the 99 Cent Only store.
In other words, I have made no attempt to not eat what sounds good, but, I did allow myself the indulgence of fruit, despite the nagging feeling that it is too expensive.
Where I grew up, when I grew up, fresh fruit was far too expensive, especially for a family of six. We had apples, oranges and bananas, sometimes and on very rare occasions we might have some sort of melon, grape, or berry. For fresh vegetables, it was pretty much iceberg lettuce, salad tomato, cucumber, onion, potato, and carrot. Everything else was canned or something we grew ourselves.
Beans and rice were normal, as was bologna and homemade bread, for the sake of cheapness. Cheese was bought in huge, economical bricks and bologna was bought in huge, economical rolls.
It really was not bad, mind you, as I look back on it. Too much milk, but, otherwise, a mostly healthy form of eating that probably is the reason I did as well as I did. Certainly, my health deteriorated after I stopped eating that way, but, then, my stress levels went way up and I gave birth to four children after that, too, and I imagine all that had something to do with my decline.
Never mind all that, for now. My point was to tell you what I am eating like, today. Tonight, I shall probably eat a stew that I made the other day, which is the same stew that I ate two days hence, with my sister.
If I have not told you already, I shall tell you now, that it has apple cider vinegar in it, and many yummy vegetable bits, with only a smattering of pork. If I have told you, already, it still is so.
It is my intention to move toward cooking more food that has more spice and is more from scratch, because, it will make me healthier and happier to do so. There is too much yeast and other leavening agents, too much sugar, too much weird stuff that I don't know what it is, in the boxed or otherwise prepackaged foods. Not enough taste.
Plus, food should never be something to be got out of the way, to be hurriedly prepared, at the sacrifice of good taste, good health and good familial relations.
We should revel in the aroma, taste, texture .. the slice of a knife and the different shapes that a thing can be chopped, diced, sliced or carved into. I want to make my own unleavened bread and feel the pride of creation. It is not onerous labor, but, sweet entertainment, in it's finest, most useful form.
We are all living wrong, those of us who live some other way. Remember, life is a celebration. What good is a celebration, if you are not seeing, tasting, touching, smelling or moving anything or in anyway that makes one happy.
This is a progression for me. I started out by ceasing to buy myself cheap bread for $1, which is thoroughly unsatisfying by taste or nutrition, when I can get two loaves for $5 that are so much more satisfying that they are worth the price.
Remember, a good lot of what makes the difference in how much you eat, is whether or not your body lets you know that it has what it needs. If you eat things that do not have enough vitamins and minerals, then you are going to want to eat more to make up for the lack. That is on top of, as I previously mentioned, the need for satisfying taste.
Well, I recently read about some place where they mostly eat unleavened bread and it was supposed to be a very healthy little town, or country, or whatever it was. Sorry, but, I was not taking notes! What I came away with was a desire to look into the making of unleavened bread, so I did a quick Googling and found there are many fine recipes, some which are basic and sound boring and some which are only slightly more complicated but sound quite yummy.
See, any leavening agent at all, not just yeast but baking soda and baking powder, can potentially help cause yeast overgrowth, arthritis and related issues. That's what the article said, anyway. I combined this, in my head, with whatever remains of the memory of my reading of the Yeast Overgrowth Cookbook, its companion and a book called Back To Health, along with some other words, that is also about yeast overgrowth. It made sense.
Unleavened bread appears to take hardly any preparation time, too cost very little and have great potential benefit. I have been considering making it for some time, now, but, have yet to do so.
Soon, I shall do so. In time, if it seems to be working for me, I shall switch over to almost entirely unleavened bread made by my own hand. Before I can do that, however, I have the other bread to finish eating, and a very large bag of pancake mix to get through.
My thinking, which is still in the negative range, tends toward "Oh, I have to wait until it is all gone and then .." But, I don't have to wait to start. It doesn't have to be perfect conditions or an immediate cutting out of everything "bad" and replacing it with everything "good". A little change here and there is enough to make great progress, so long as one does not stop trying.
So, I could pop into the kitchen, right now, and make unleavened bread. I don't have to wait for the other bread to be gone. All that does is leave me at the grocery store, another month, going "I still am not ready, so .." and buying more of what I have already decided that I don't want, instead of at home making what I am sure I do want. Silly!
By the way, no, I am not popping into the kitchen, right now, to make unleavened bread. Tonight, I will eat my stew and a couple of pieces of the oh-so-leavened bread from the store, most likely. It is good bread and is already out. I won't waste it. I simply have no interest in purchasing more.
The same goes for my cans of soups. I have lovely cans of soup and they are not as good as homemade soup, but, not some gross evil, taking in small quantities at least, so that I should throw them out. Eating them is fine. I have no interest in purchasing more, however.
I am working toward having my own garden, growing mostly my own fruits, berries and vegetables and making my own soups and stews. Will I get there? I don't know. At the very least, I can learn to do my own canning and to buy vegetables and such in bulk, methinks.
Again, because it would help me to be healthier and happier.
It occurred to me that I have not, yet, given you my measurements. I was not going to, as far as weight and such goes, as I intend to scan the GNC printouts and show you a big batch of progressive proof, later on; but, I may as well do, since I am going to tell you other things. Besides which, if I lost the GNC thing and I didn't type this out, not only would I lose proof for your sake, but, I would lose proof for mine. Now, my typing them out won't prove a thing to you, but, it will to me, so, here I go!
Just took my measurements of my upper bust, bust, ribcage at its widest bit, waist and hips/lower abdomen region. Have not taken measurement of my thighs, calves or arms and not sure I will.
For me, the biggest bit of me is my middle, anyway. The majority of my legs are more like a size 14/16, whereas my upper body is more a 16/18, whereas the middle of my body is more like a 22/24. Actually, my arms and upper thighs are somewhere in between those sizes, as well. It's mad!
I've read up enough to realize that the reason for some of this imbalance of size is because quite a bit of my weight gain has been from thyroid issues and from stress. And, no, I do not mean stress-related eating, I mean from stress itself and the things it does to the human body, under extreme conditions. Perhaps we can discuss more of that, later. For now, I need to type in the measurements.
Upper chest: 52"
Bust: 55"
Ribcage: 49"
Waist: 51"
Hips/lower abdomen: 56"
Weight: 300.9 lb
B.M.I. 48
Body Fat %: 44
Body Fat Mass: 131.8 lbs
Now, keep in mind that the BMI number is under the assumption that I should weigh between 118.2 lbs - 155.5 lbs. However, 300.9 lbs minus 131.8 lbs equals 169.10 lbs. And, that's me having lost a good bit of muscle, through illness and the general lack of movement that came with it.
Still, I have always figured I should weigh around 155 lbs - 175 lbs, depending on if I was lifting weights or not. So, the end of the B.M.I. related suggestion and what my actual weight says falls within that. Besides, it could very well be that some of what is not fat is also not anything I'd want to keep, what with such things as bloating, infection, impacted or sluggish bowels and endometriosis being possibilities I've had most of those, if not all, so I make no assumption. Just saying, for now, the actual weight I need to reach is approximately 170 lbs. As time goes on, I shall continue to calculate; because, its fun.
Other than that, I have not had any real plans. For breakfast, this morning, I poured some orange juice and have utterly failed to drink it; but, I think I still shall. I, also, toasted up an English muffin and cooked a couple of medium-sized eggs, though the whole of neither made it to my plate, a few blackberries from the 99 Cent Only store, and had an apple and two clementine teeny tiny oranges.
Later on, I had two blueberry toaster pastries. The kind from the 99 Cent Only store, which are smaller than other ones; and, just now, I had some guacamole tortilla chips, also from the 99 Cent Only store.
In other words, I have made no attempt to not eat what sounds good, but, I did allow myself the indulgence of fruit, despite the nagging feeling that it is too expensive.
Where I grew up, when I grew up, fresh fruit was far too expensive, especially for a family of six. We had apples, oranges and bananas, sometimes and on very rare occasions we might have some sort of melon, grape, or berry. For fresh vegetables, it was pretty much iceberg lettuce, salad tomato, cucumber, onion, potato, and carrot. Everything else was canned or something we grew ourselves.
Beans and rice were normal, as was bologna and homemade bread, for the sake of cheapness. Cheese was bought in huge, economical bricks and bologna was bought in huge, economical rolls.
It really was not bad, mind you, as I look back on it. Too much milk, but, otherwise, a mostly healthy form of eating that probably is the reason I did as well as I did. Certainly, my health deteriorated after I stopped eating that way, but, then, my stress levels went way up and I gave birth to four children after that, too, and I imagine all that had something to do with my decline.
Never mind all that, for now. My point was to tell you what I am eating like, today. Tonight, I shall probably eat a stew that I made the other day, which is the same stew that I ate two days hence, with my sister.
If I have not told you already, I shall tell you now, that it has apple cider vinegar in it, and many yummy vegetable bits, with only a smattering of pork. If I have told you, already, it still is so.
It is my intention to move toward cooking more food that has more spice and is more from scratch, because, it will make me healthier and happier to do so. There is too much yeast and other leavening agents, too much sugar, too much weird stuff that I don't know what it is, in the boxed or otherwise prepackaged foods. Not enough taste.
Plus, food should never be something to be got out of the way, to be hurriedly prepared, at the sacrifice of good taste, good health and good familial relations.
We should revel in the aroma, taste, texture .. the slice of a knife and the different shapes that a thing can be chopped, diced, sliced or carved into. I want to make my own unleavened bread and feel the pride of creation. It is not onerous labor, but, sweet entertainment, in it's finest, most useful form.
We are all living wrong, those of us who live some other way. Remember, life is a celebration. What good is a celebration, if you are not seeing, tasting, touching, smelling or moving anything or in anyway that makes one happy.
This is a progression for me. I started out by ceasing to buy myself cheap bread for $1, which is thoroughly unsatisfying by taste or nutrition, when I can get two loaves for $5 that are so much more satisfying that they are worth the price.
Remember, a good lot of what makes the difference in how much you eat, is whether or not your body lets you know that it has what it needs. If you eat things that do not have enough vitamins and minerals, then you are going to want to eat more to make up for the lack. That is on top of, as I previously mentioned, the need for satisfying taste.
Well, I recently read about some place where they mostly eat unleavened bread and it was supposed to be a very healthy little town, or country, or whatever it was. Sorry, but, I was not taking notes! What I came away with was a desire to look into the making of unleavened bread, so I did a quick Googling and found there are many fine recipes, some which are basic and sound boring and some which are only slightly more complicated but sound quite yummy.
See, any leavening agent at all, not just yeast but baking soda and baking powder, can potentially help cause yeast overgrowth, arthritis and related issues. That's what the article said, anyway. I combined this, in my head, with whatever remains of the memory of my reading of the Yeast Overgrowth Cookbook, its companion and a book called Back To Health, along with some other words, that is also about yeast overgrowth. It made sense.
Unleavened bread appears to take hardly any preparation time, too cost very little and have great potential benefit. I have been considering making it for some time, now, but, have yet to do so.
Soon, I shall do so. In time, if it seems to be working for me, I shall switch over to almost entirely unleavened bread made by my own hand. Before I can do that, however, I have the other bread to finish eating, and a very large bag of pancake mix to get through.
My thinking, which is still in the negative range, tends toward "Oh, I have to wait until it is all gone and then .." But, I don't have to wait to start. It doesn't have to be perfect conditions or an immediate cutting out of everything "bad" and replacing it with everything "good". A little change here and there is enough to make great progress, so long as one does not stop trying.
So, I could pop into the kitchen, right now, and make unleavened bread. I don't have to wait for the other bread to be gone. All that does is leave me at the grocery store, another month, going "I still am not ready, so .." and buying more of what I have already decided that I don't want, instead of at home making what I am sure I do want. Silly!
By the way, no, I am not popping into the kitchen, right now, to make unleavened bread. Tonight, I will eat my stew and a couple of pieces of the oh-so-leavened bread from the store, most likely. It is good bread and is already out. I won't waste it. I simply have no interest in purchasing more.
The same goes for my cans of soups. I have lovely cans of soup and they are not as good as homemade soup, but, not some gross evil, taking in small quantities at least, so that I should throw them out. Eating them is fine. I have no interest in purchasing more, however.
I am working toward having my own garden, growing mostly my own fruits, berries and vegetables and making my own soups and stews. Will I get there? I don't know. At the very least, I can learn to do my own canning and to buy vegetables and such in bulk, methinks.
Again, because it would help me to be healthier and happier.
It occurred to me that I have not, yet, given you my measurements. I was not going to, as far as weight and such goes, as I intend to scan the GNC printouts and show you a big batch of progressive proof, later on; but, I may as well do, since I am going to tell you other things. Besides which, if I lost the GNC thing and I didn't type this out, not only would I lose proof for your sake, but, I would lose proof for mine. Now, my typing them out won't prove a thing to you, but, it will to me, so, here I go!
Just took my measurements of my upper bust, bust, ribcage at its widest bit, waist and hips/lower abdomen region. Have not taken measurement of my thighs, calves or arms and not sure I will.
For me, the biggest bit of me is my middle, anyway. The majority of my legs are more like a size 14/16, whereas my upper body is more a 16/18, whereas the middle of my body is more like a 22/24. Actually, my arms and upper thighs are somewhere in between those sizes, as well. It's mad!
I've read up enough to realize that the reason for some of this imbalance of size is because quite a bit of my weight gain has been from thyroid issues and from stress. And, no, I do not mean stress-related eating, I mean from stress itself and the things it does to the human body, under extreme conditions. Perhaps we can discuss more of that, later. For now, I need to type in the measurements.
Upper chest: 52"
Bust: 55"
Ribcage: 49"
Waist: 51"
Hips/lower abdomen: 56"
Weight: 300.9 lb
B.M.I. 48
Body Fat %: 44
Body Fat Mass: 131.8 lbs
Now, keep in mind that the BMI number is under the assumption that I should weigh between 118.2 lbs - 155.5 lbs. However, 300.9 lbs minus 131.8 lbs equals 169.10 lbs. And, that's me having lost a good bit of muscle, through illness and the general lack of movement that came with it.
Still, I have always figured I should weigh around 155 lbs - 175 lbs, depending on if I was lifting weights or not. So, the end of the B.M.I. related suggestion and what my actual weight says falls within that. Besides, it could very well be that some of what is not fat is also not anything I'd want to keep, what with such things as bloating, infection, impacted or sluggish bowels and endometriosis being possibilities I've had most of those, if not all, so I make no assumption. Just saying, for now, the actual weight I need to reach is approximately 170 lbs. As time goes on, I shall continue to calculate; because, its fun.
It begins ...
Today is the first official day of my bid to change my life through positive additions and positive reinforcement.
This means that the rule is that I shall live life by choosing what gives positive consequences, including what needs to be done and what is a pleasure to do and, hopefully, finding a way to bring them together. I will be concentrating on adding elements to my life that help me to be healthier and happier, because healthier and happier is what I want to be. It is my choice.
I will not dwell on the negative. Such as, last night, my sister told me "We have to stop eating candy." She was feeling very guilty about the candy we just ate, plus I mentioned to her how much I now weigh.
Do we have to stop eating candy, though? No, we do not. Why should we? Candy is enjoyable. However, we can be more selective and moderate in our candy eating, choosing to eat only the candies we really enjoy and only a piece or two at a time, so as to leave more for later and make what we eat more enjoyable.
Well, I can. She doesn't think she can. If you, like her, do not think you can enjoy something in moderation, then, perhaps you need to change your views on enjoyment. Because, obviously, if you are eating candy and feeling guilty, later, over the amount, you are not truly enjoying the experience.
Do you want to enjoy the candy or eat a whole lot of it? Is there an alternative to eating it in the same amount and in the same situation that you usually eat it?
I can think of many alternative situations to bringing a bag of candy home and munching it while watching some HGTV, as we did.
We could have made a game of it. Turned off the HGTV and said that after every bite, we must run around the couch three times.
We could have said we will do 15 minutes of an exercise program before eating it.
When I was at the store, I could have chosen to only buy one piece for each of us, instead of three pieces and a bordeaux bar. However, I knew I was going to be starting this journey today, having finally gotten to GNC to do my measurements,, which is all I was waiting for. I wanted to have one night of gorgeous, tasty candy loveliness from See's Candy. It was my special treat to the both of us, because, we are both about to leave the old lives we were living not quite successfully and move onto better things. She doesn't know that, yet; but, she'll notice, eventually.
When I say that, about the special treat and all, by the way, this does not mean I will never go to See's Candy again, or that I am now making up rules as to how much candy I will or will not eat, directly after I said that those sort of rules will not exist. It only means that I purposely bought a very pleasurable treat of that candy, as a celebration of what is to come.
This morning, I started the apple cider vinegar. I do not know where my measuring spoons are. Why? Let me show you something! These are photos, from a few months ago, of various bits of my home.
Not much has changed in the meantime. I mean, yes, it is less cluttered and therefore a little less messy, but, it is still something that would make many people cringe and run away in fright. Plus, part of the reason it got to looking that way is that someone broke in, repeatedly, and they stole many things and then I had some roommates that stole things, too. Yes, even kitchen stuff. For all I know, my measuring spoons were taken down to the recycling center. I hope not, but, I have not seen them in months. I also have not dismantled the whole kitchen to look for them, either.
So, I do not know where my measuring spoons are and I could have said "Oh, I do not have a correct measuring spoon, so I may not start, until I get one." However, I chose to, instead, say "I want to start and I can. I'll just use this regular spoon." That is positive decision making!
So, I have this nice, sturdy Arizona tea bottle (99 cents on sale) and a regular teaspoon, as in a smaller spoon of a regular silverware set, and here I go.
I added one scant teaspoon (meaning it was not in danger of overflowing) to the bottle and filled the bottle with water. Now, I shall sip it throughout the day, regardless of what else I eat or drink.
Why shall I do this? It is a positive step that I can afford to make, if experimental. Why is it a positive step? There is much anecdotal evidence that apple cider vinegar helps many problems that I experience, health-wise, and almost none that it would be bad for me in small quantities. It is something that is used for cooking and making drinks. It is not a poison and has no known side effects beyond those which might be experienced by any other food that is generally considered good for you. As in, I might find I am allergic to it, but, otherwise, there is not much to worry about. Let's explore some of the benefits it is alleged to have.
Vinegar, even just the regular white vinegar, is an ancient folk remedy, said to relieve many ailments, as well as being good for gardening and household cleaning uses. Apple Cider Vinegar is considered, by many, to be "ever so much more so" helpful, for health uses, than other vinegars, though the white is still preferred for other household uses.
What is vinegar? In French, the word vinegar means "sour wine". Vinegar is primarily acetic acid, with other acids, mineral salts, amino acids and vitamins.
Vinegar is created through fermentation, as the sugars in a food are broken down by bacteria and yeast. Alcohol is the first result, and further fermentation produces vinegar.
According to Web MD, there are scientifically proven uses which apple cider vinegar may be put to, for your benefit:
"
Scientific Evidence of Apple Cider Vinegar Benefits
But there are some medical uses of vinegar that do have promise, at least according to a few studies. Here's a rundown of some more recent ones.
- Diabetes. The effect of vinegar on blood sugar levels is perhaps the best-researched and the most promising of apple cider vinegar's possible health benefits. Several studies have found that vinegar may help lower glucose levels. For instance, one 2007 study of 11 people with type 2 diabetes found that taking two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar before bed lowered glucose levels in the morning by 4%-6%.
- High cholesterol . A 2006 study showed evidence that vinegar could lower cholesterol. However, the study was done in rats, so it's too early to know how it might work in people.
- Blood pressureand heart health. Another study in rats found that vinegar could lower high blood pressure. A large observational study also found that people who ate oil and vinegar dressing on salads five to six times a week had lower rates of heart disease than people who didn't. However, it's far from clear that the vinegar was the reason.
- Cancer . A few laboratory studies have found that vinegar may be able to kill cancer cells or slow their growth. Observational studies of people have been confusing. One found that eating vinegar was associated with a decreased risk of esophageal cancer. Another associated it with anincreased risk of bladder cancer.
- Weight Loss . For thousands of years, vinegar has been used for weight loss. White vinegar (and perhaps other types) might help people feel full. A 2005 study of 12 people found that those who ate a piece of bread along with small amounts of white vinegar felt fuller and more satisfied than those who just ate the bread.
While the results of these studies are promising, they are all preliminary. Many were done on animals or on cells in a lab. The human studies have been small. Before we will truly know whether vinegar has any health benefits, much larger studies are needed."
One of the things that apple cider vinegar has in it is chromium. Now, when I was lucky enough to see a naturopath- and I do mean lucky, because I had some money and because he cut me a break - I was informed that my intense cravings for steak and sweets, which alternate or come on all at once but are almost always present to some degree and are extremely present when I feel most worn out, are most likely the results of a need for chromium.
He suggested I take 400 mcg of Chromium per day. I did, for a while and during that time I not only ceased to suffer from intense cravings for sweets, but, I started to actively feel a sort of apathy with regards to them, and it began to turn to loathing.
I am a person who can, sometimes, drink tea without sugar and enjoy it and only drink it with sugar as a special treat. Yet, for the first time in my life, I went past that, to the point where I viewed tea with sugar in it as disgusting, and the sugar as something that destroyed the beautiful, natural flavor of the tea. It was weird! I liked it, though!
I could not afford to keep taking the chromium, even though it is quite possible to get it at a very reasonable price in many places. I can afford to use apple cider vinegar, even though a bottle of unpasteurized apple cider vinegar can cost a pretty penny, because, once it is saved up for and purchased, it lasts a very long time. I bought two bottles for less than $20 in food stamps. I no longer remember how much less, but, definitely less. Now, they had bottles of the same size that would have costed more like $32 for two bottles, but, I didn't buy those. They had ones that were even cheaper than I bought, but, they were not unpasteurized and so would have not been near as good for my health, so I did not purchase them. I made the choice to purchase the right thing at the best price possible, instead of allowing myself to feel guilty for this self indulgence that may just mean someone gets less snack treats for themselves for one month.
According to Earth Clinic, "Apple Cider Vinegar, that wonderful old-timers home remedy, cures more ailments than any other folk remedy -- we're convinced!"
One benefit, is its affect to one's PH balance. The average western diet, filled with dairy, meat and grains, is highly acidic, while apple cider vinegar is alkaline. That is, unpasteurized apple cider vinegar is alkaline. Chemically pure vinegar, just acetic acid, is neither alkaline or acidic.
There is a theory that our blood has a normal pH level between 7.35 - 7.45 and that our diet should reflect this pH level and that a diet high in acid-producing foods leads to excessive mucous production, irritability, headache, infections, lack of energy, anxiety allergies, gout and arthritis. Therefore, according to theory, the intake of more alkaline food and drinks can only be to the good, in reversing any of those disorders, assuming that this is the cause of them and that moderation of food intake is employed.
My goal is to take the 2 tsp or organic apple cider vinegar in 16 oz of water, sipped throughout the day, at least one or two glasses, as is recommended on the Earth Clinic site, for now. However, as I have no measuring spoons, I am settling for what I can do and am very happy to have gotten started.
I shall tell you that I have tried taking apple cider vinegar straight up, once and in water, once, since I bought it this last time and I very much appreciate the addition of the water. It takes it from being a strong, flowery, sour almost gag-inducing drink to a delightfully weird beverage.
I'm pretty sure that I could brew up some nice, strong tea and then, after cooling, add in some water mixed with apple cider vinegar, to make a very tasty drink, indeed.
Also, I am thinking that the basic Master Cleanser Diet Plan drink -which is basically a lemonade made with cayenne pepper and maple syrup, of a grade that has much to recommend it by way of nutrients, for sweetener - enhanced with apple cider vinegar could really give one a great kick. Err .. in a good way!
For now, it is enough that I have started and this, at least for this week, is all the major life change I intend to purposely make. Everything else that may happen, such as if I accidentally get some dishes washed, will be based on how I feel, time I have, and whatever else transpires. This is my addition to my life, this week.
Just so you know, when I tried the apple cider vinegar, both times as mentioned above, I had two different things happen. One, my sinuses started feeling a bit less stuffy, fairly immediately. Two, I had a fairly immediate need for a bowel movement, but, it was not anything that was painful or which indicated diarrhea, constipation or came with any ill feeling; which, I am sorry to inform you -because I'm sure you don't want to know this information but it might benefit you to, anyway - is very much different from most times I need to use the facilities in that manner.
I have been quasi-diagnosed with IBS. Quasi, I say, because I reject that diagnosis firmly. When a doctor says "IBS.", to my mind what they really mean is "I don't want to deal with further tests and arguing with your insurance carrier, so take this pill, feel slightly better and be quiet, you mangy cattle, you!"
Why do I think this? For one thing, because every time they have attempted to diagnose me with IBS, they have always said "I don't know what's wrong with you." or "It doesn't appear to be any of the normal reasons." even though they have never tested for any of the things medical journals insist doctors should test for, nor have they gone out of their way to do further research past whatever the normal reasons are.
I have been told, many times, however, by general practitioners, that I have to be wrong about any of my gut problems being related to Fibromyalgia, because Fibromyalgia does not exist; injuries to the abdominal region at various times in my life and untreated bouts of food poisoning, because there is no way that those things would not have been treated; allergies, because allergies cannot cause affects beyond a difficulty in breathing; and, a lot of other related rubbish, which is highly refuted by other practitioners of western medicine, practitioners of alternative medicine, and the evidence of what I have actually found to be helpful and why.
This is not me telling you not to see a doctor or not to put your trust in them, however. Some doctors are very good and very helpful, and, even if your doctor is not the most peachy keen doctor around, they can be useful for monitoring your health as you start making positive changes, to make sure it all stays positive.
Just don't assume that your doctor knows everything. I had a doctor who insisted that the Yeast Overgrowth diet was absolute bunk. Yet, as we dug deeper into her reasons for this belief, what emerged was the fact that she had attempted to follow it, had failed to follow it, and was now rejecting it out of hand due to her own negative feelings about herself.
Doctors are not gods. They are only human and utterly capable of failure, envy, jealousy, greed, shame and every other negative emotion that we are all capable of. They are also persons who are trained only in certain methods and ideals. However, they are trained and they do have their uses.
Now, this IBS or possible IBS means that I spend much time with my gut hurting. I'm a very gassy individual and it is usually accompanied by great pains that make me wistful for the feeling of the onset of labor. Loose bowels, diarrhea and constipation are the norm for me. Therefore, this having had a normalish bowel movement after taking apple cider vinegar, both times, is a very good sign.
I mentioned the Yeast Overgrowth diet, above, regarding a doctor's disdain for it. The reason I mentioned it is that the diet helped me a lot, even though I could only follow it in a limited fashion.
It involves the use of medicines that you need a doctor to prescribe for you or the use of supplements that you have to be able to afford, the concentration on cutting out many different kinds of foods and a lot else that I, in my current state of feeling lousy and being so far beyond just broke, cannot deal with. So, I retain a few good ideas from it, put a pin in it as something I might get back to, and move on.
One of the good things that I started, back when I was doing the Yeast Overgrowth diet - though I cannot tell you how much of this was in the diet plan and how much of it was me modifying things to suit my needs and abililties - was oatmeal, with various dried fruits, nuts and seeds.
I love to make oatmeal, for instance, with some craisins and cashews cooked into it, maybe with ginger and cinnamon as well; then, I will sprinkle some pumpkin seeds on top, add a little butter and maybe some honey or agave nectar, stevia, sugar or a combination of sugar and another sweetener. It is so good tasting and it makes me feel good, both in that I am eating breakfast and in that, it is true what they say about oatmeal leaving one feeling full for longer and having more energy throughout the day, because of how long it takes to digest. Hardy is exactly the right descriptive for it!
Now, I often have failed to cook such oatmeal, because I feel bad cooking something that others will not enjoy; bad for spending that sort of money dried fruit and nuts just for me, because I hate buying dried fruit and nuts and then having other people eat them, so that I am afraid to take them out and let them be seen, lest they all disappear and then I won't be able to do it, again; because I have a horrible habit of buying things and then "saving" them out of fear of losing everything which is a result of having been poor too long and robbed or stolen from too often; and, because it feels like it takes too long and is too much effort, which is partially because of living in a society where one must always feel rushed, it seems, and partially because I don't feel good!
None of those reasons are particularly logical. Yet, all of them affect the way I live my life, every day.
The fruit and nuts are not that big of expense, as, even eating that sort of oatmeal dish, every day, I would not use that much. A package of dried raisins or craisins cost relatively the same amount as a two 2-litre sodas, on sale. Yet, I feel good about having got the sodas, because it is a bargain price compared to normal, and I feel bad about buying the much more nutritious dried fruit, because it is self-indulgence and so expensive. What crap!
Right now, I am living with just me and my son. Now, it is sometimes true that there are other people around who eat up all the craisins, raisins or whatever other dried fruit are around and nuts are a target for them, as well. However, those sort of people also tend to go through cabinets and find where things are hidden, and, if these foods are not going to benefiting me, because I cannot access them, there is no point in having them in the first place. That also answers the next concern on the list, please note.
That leaves us with this feeling of being rushed, it taking too long. Do you know how long it takes to make a bowl of oatmeal in a microwave oven. I think it's something like two minutes,cooking time. It probably takes about 1 more minute to mix everything together and then it has to sit for a minute or two. During the cooking and sitting time, one can brush one's teeth, wash a few dishes, sweep a floor, apply mascara, go to the restroom, put on one's clothing for the day or many other activities. It's not a time consuming meal to create and the benefits far outweigh the loss of a few minutes, even if you do nothing else but stand there and stare blankly at a wall. Especially as staring blankly at walls can also be beneficial to your health, if done at the right time.
As to my not feeling well, it is true; however, I feel more well when I force myself to do something that is so good for me. Especially this eating oatmeal thing, because, I really like oatmeal with dried fruit and nuts. I'll even enjoy it, sometimes, with sesame oil instead of butter and no sugar at all, or with not even any oil at all and no sugar. It's all very yummy to me. So, no more letting my fears keep me from doing what I enjoy, which will benefit me.
Well, that is the rule. It is a rule I must learn to obey, now!
Monday, December 26, 2011
No startling advice, just photos
It is my intention to get to GNC and take my height, weight and BMI measurements every couple of weeks, for the sake of evidence, and to post that as well as some photos every now and again.
Today, I can show you photos that were taken last week, of me and my sisters. That would be the 20th or 21st and the 22rd of December, 2011.
Oh, I guess that would be the 20th, then. Nice to know.
In order, that is me, my sister Roberta, my sister Letha and my nephew Mitch. Unless, when all is said and done, one or more of them makes me crop someone out. In that case it is me, whomever, someone else, and question mark.
That's it, for now. Hopefully, I shall have interesting photos or information to share with you, vis a vis measurements, soon. If it helps you to know, last time I weighed out at Mom and Dad's I weighed 280 lbs. According to GNC, that was the correct weight and also according to them, my BMI was 48 or 49, but, that is with the understanding that I should weigh less for my height than I should.
What? Yes, well you should ask. You see, the BMI tells you how much too high or low on the index you are compared to what most people who are your height and sex are, or, more to the point, what the insurance companies think they should be. This can be helpful to know, but, it is not strictly accurate, for not everyone has the same bone size or muscle mass.
Granted, I am overweight. However, because I have lovely thick bones and pretty good muscle mass still - though not nearly as good as it should be - I am not as overweight as the BMI indicates. For it says that this is in comparison to what would be normal, which is something like 115 lbs - 130 lbs in range.
Yet, when I do the actual fat analysis, what I find is that approximately 163 - 168 lbs of me, depending on how much walking I was doing before I got measured, is not fat. Which means, I should weigh at least 30 lbs more than the index says I should.
Except, I'm guessing part of that is water. Really, I've always figured that if I am lifting weights, 150 lbs - 175 lbs is about right, and if I am not lifting weights, then 130 bls - 150 lbs is about right. I'd prefer to lift weights, though, if I can swing it, because I enjoy doing so.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Food: the good, the bad and the ugly
No, that does not mean I am offering to serve you up Clint Eastwood films with your dinner. If you have any, though, and live nearby, maybe we could make an arrangement!
Just a wee few minutes ago, I put together a new dish, which answered, for me, a very old question "Why don't people use cucumbers in hot dishes?"
The dish involved, not surprisingly, a cucumber. This one had its ends cut off, then it was drawn (cut in half), quartered, and chopped into wedges.
The rest of the dish was comprised of leftover pork roast, two roma tomatoes, the usable bits off the end of a bok choy remnant, some green onions, asparagus tips and middles all chopped up, lemon pepper, sea salt, garlic powder, a little Italian Seasoning and some olive oil to sautee most of that in. Oh, yes: and some peach pineapple chipotle salsa purchased from Walmart.
I specifically mention Walmart, not because I am getting paid for it, but, because it is their store brand that puts out this salsa, from what I can tell, and, Walmart happens to sell a great many delicious salsas that are enjoyed by more than one member of my family. I like to use most of them, in the same way that I used this one, as an addition to a dish just to give it that added and unexpected kick of flavor - without a lot of effort.
The dish was cooked fairly quickly and I find it rather tasty, in fact; but, the cucumbers would be ever so much better if they were made out of zucchini or eggplant. They aren't bad! They just aren't good.
My son will probably come home and promptly not eat any of it at all. This used to worry me and I used to go out of my way to cook to please other people first and me second. I have too many allergies and too much food has been wasted, and I have eaten too many meals that had a disappointing lack of something I want or too much of something I don't, to keep living life on those terms.
Now, when I make a meal, I do, of course, take whomever else might eat it into consideration, to a certain extent. As in, I don't put things into it that I know will make them ill. That's more consideration than most people ever gave me.
I'll even consider certain things, such as if I am making spaghetti and the person hates mushrooms, I might go out of my way to make chicken noodle soup, instead. Hahaha! I will leave out the egg plant chunks, if I want to put those in, and they hate it. Usually. I will not leave out mushrooms or onions, unless I just want to. Nor will I leave out tomatoes, as a general rule, no matter how they feel about them.
Blah blah blah ....
Okay, let me tell you a little of my history with food and what I learned from it.
Many foods I grew up eating and so did not think about much. I learned how to cook some very simple things, by the age of four. Steak, jello, rice and something else I can no longer remember. That's on top of helping mom with the bread, to whatever extent I could, helping other people with preparation of meals, accurately making powdered milk and tang and a few other simple things that, later in life, I was always shocked to discover that teenage and adult friends had no clue how to do.
A few things I had no experience with, or only limited experience, so I remember my reaction to them.
I first tasted sour cream on some nachos at the Pizza Ria Delphi. This is unusual for more reasons than one, since Pizza Ria Delphi is an Italian restaurant, owned by Greek brothers, in Alaska and it did not, at the time, have nachos on the menu. It is also the restaurant at which I first tasted good quality black olives.
Now, I first tasted butter at Safeways, way back in time when they had a really great bakery department that they had every right to brag about. However, I did not know that, at the time. All I knew was that I bit into a butter cookie and it tasted really freaking weird. That's because it had butter on it, and I had never, in my life, eaten butter before.
The fact that I had not eaten butter, because my family did not buy butter, all of my childhood years and that I didn't start using butter, at all, in my cooking, until the government started handing out butter in our area around 1992, and that I only used it, up until fairly recently, for less than a year of my life, makes me uniquely qualified to point a big raspberry directly at anyone who dares to say that changing from butter to margarine will help you lose weight.
See, I grew up with margarine, skim milk, eating beans and rice, eating vegetables with most every meal, and while we would sometimes have huge desserts, we mostly had no desserts at all. Yet, everyone in my family, minus my brother, was overweight. Obviously, then, there is more to losing weight than eating less fat.
In the case of both butter and sour cream, I had a reaction to them. Different reactions to each, though, and it is the difference in those reactions which gives clue to whether or not to include or exclude something.
See, with the butter, in the butter cookie, I bit into it and I wasn't sure if I liked it or not. I considered it, tried another one, and decided that, yes, it's good. It's so good that sometimes I want it with a roll or a baked potato. I don't generally crave it, though, and I don't like it when people put it on spaghetti, use it as sandwich spread, or otherwise use it in ways that just seem to be overkill.
With sour cream, I tasted it and I flinched in horror and wanted to spit it out. I hated it! Yet, something made me want to eat more. I couldn't stop myself, and I finally learned to like it. It took me years of using it on tacos, where I would have a small dollop and just sort of do my best to cut the taste by getting ground beef, tomatoes, and whatnot over it. In other words, I wanted the sour cream and I somewhat, sort of, got used to the taste.
Down the road, many years later, I started to like it. That's also around the time I realized I have an allergy to milk. It's only in recent years that I have come anywhere close to kicking my addiction to milk, cheese and sour cream.
Close, I say, because, let's face it, cheeseburgers, lasagna, pizza, ice cream, milk chocolate, bread, cake .. all sorts of food has milk in their make up. I love many of those foods and there are no substitutes for some and only very expensive substitutes for others and, even then, most of the substitutes are soy-based. I am allergic to soy. (sigh)
Wait? But, is not butter also made from milk? Right? Is that what you want to ask? Well, as I said, I use it very sparingly. Like, I might use it for a baked potato or a roll, which I seldom eat. I might use it for tuna and rice, which is one of my favorite dishes, but, I sometimes use sesame, safflower or olive oil for that, instead and I can't afford tuna most of the time, now, so I don't often eat that dish, either. That's why I can still have butter. It doesn't give me as strong of a reaction as cheese or milk does, and I hardly ever am near it.
The black olives, in case you were wondering, were things that I didn't really either like or hate, at first, until I got to the buttery aftertaste. They went very well with the salad I was eating, at the time, too. I do not crave them, most of the time, and I cannot afford the high quality ones. If canned black olives are on sale for a good price, I will buy several cans and occasionally use them in spaghetti or as part of a vegetable tray if there is a family gathering, but, I don't need them. Sometimes I want them.
There is a green and leafy weirdness, that looks like a cross between romaine lettuce and celery, called bok choy. Did you see me mention it, above? Yeah .. that was the second time in my life that I used bok choy in cooking and this is the second time in my life that I had ever purchased bok choy. The first time, I didn't use it. It stayed in the drawer and rotted.
Bok choy annoyed me. I would read about how great it was to use and how trendy it was and just want to find the bok choy fields and burn them down. I avoided it like the preppy plague that it appeared to be.
Then, one day, I was with someone I thought I liked, who ordered me a chicken noodle soup from the Sweet Pink Pepper in Anchorage. This greatly affected my thoughts on whether or not I liked him, because, he knew what the ingredients were and he went ahead and ordered it anyway, because it was the cheapest thing on the menu that could be considered a meal.
The thing is, though, I was quite ill and that was also affecting my thoughts on whether I liked him, and, it affected my thoughts on whether I liked the soup. Oh my, did I like the soup!
Oh, not on the first day. The first day, even though it tasted moderately okay, I fairly well hated it. It was too hot, there were weird green things floating in it which I suspected of being bok choy related, the chicken was in huge chunks and the noodles were big and unruly. It was weird. I was not happy. The base, however, tasted a lot like won ton soup with a lot of garlic and that thrilled me a bit.
Later on, I loved the soup, because I felt so much better the next day. I would only order the soup when I was ill, though. I suspected that green crap was part of what was helping, but, I still wanted nothing to do with bok choy, more than could be helped.
Now, I miss the soup and wish I could have access to it. Still, even feeling that way, it took me until last week, from 1996 when the soup was first bought for me or back in 1986 or thereabouts when people first started trying to force bok choy on me, to purchase and use some to make my own chicken noodle soup.
That chicken noodle soup that I made was very spicy and I shared it with my sister. We both felt better afterward. I enjoyed the bok choy. It must be a fungus, because, despite my probable oppositional defiance disorder, that makes me want to hate whatever you tell me I HAVE to love, it has grown on me.
Okay, bok choy! I give up! You got me. I shall buy you again, if God is willing. Now, I know you taste good with spinach noodles and chicken, or pork and cous cous. Darn you!
Chicken is one of those things that I was forced to think about, even though it was a fairly normal part of our lives, because, people would tell me "I just love chicken!" and beef was something I was forced to think about because, while beef had been a fairly normal part of our lives, it became a rarity.
It was all that chicken loving going on. The price of beef went up, everyone wanted to be healthy and chicken, chicken, chicken was all around.
Here is what I learned. I love chicken. I just don't love the way you cook it. Haahaha! Well, I might, but, my point is, I love it the way I cook it and sometimes the way my sister and my nephew's girlfriend cook it. Chicken is very boring when wrongly spiced and fantastic when the spicing is done well.
Beef is not awful when wrongly spiced. At least, not to the same degree. I mean, do you know what chicken with no season tastes like? It tastes like a giant mouthful of boring! Beef without spices tastes like boring beef.
Nectarines I considered, because, I was trying to figure out why the peaches were more pleasant, that day, and were not burning my face off with their fuzz. I do not love them more than peaches, though. In truth, I love the taste of peaches more than the taste of nectarines. At least, when they are both ripe, I do. An unripe nectarine is more tasty than an unripe peach.
Now, here is what I have not told you about the bok choy. See, I would wonder about it and consider it, and once I had access to the internet, I would occasionally look it up to determine if that's what is in the chicken soup, indeed. Along the way, I learned a great deal about how good it is for the human body. That's why I started ordering the soup on purpose.
Over the years, I have looked up other foods and learned about them, as well. Some of that is directly linked to my curiosity regarding bok choy. For instance, watercress, which is something else where a majority of women went through bouts of trying to force into everyone else's lives and which I often heard men ask about "How can women stand that stuff? I hate it and my wife says she loves it! How can she love it?"
Watercress is amazingly good for you. Specifically, it has high iron content and that is why women, who tend to have low iron content, love it.
This all ties in, because, by observation, consideration and occasionally blundering into, or being forced into, trying new things, I have come to a point in my life where I not only think about experimenting with food, but, I do it.
Oh, there were brief times I did it, before, but, it's not the same. This is more open and joyful and about broadening my horizons, where, before, it was about having to make do and sneaking changes in, more.
There is a world of spices, veggies, meats, fruits and herbs out there, waiting to be tested, tasted, combined and consumed.
The celebration of life needs color and a buffet, to tease and please the palate Let's keep it to the left of the dance floor and visit it when we need refreshment, instead of celebrating at a sit down dinner, though!
Just a wee few minutes ago, I put together a new dish, which answered, for me, a very old question "Why don't people use cucumbers in hot dishes?"
The dish involved, not surprisingly, a cucumber. This one had its ends cut off, then it was drawn (cut in half), quartered, and chopped into wedges.
The rest of the dish was comprised of leftover pork roast, two roma tomatoes, the usable bits off the end of a bok choy remnant, some green onions, asparagus tips and middles all chopped up, lemon pepper, sea salt, garlic powder, a little Italian Seasoning and some olive oil to sautee most of that in. Oh, yes: and some peach pineapple chipotle salsa purchased from Walmart.
I specifically mention Walmart, not because I am getting paid for it, but, because it is their store brand that puts out this salsa, from what I can tell, and, Walmart happens to sell a great many delicious salsas that are enjoyed by more than one member of my family. I like to use most of them, in the same way that I used this one, as an addition to a dish just to give it that added and unexpected kick of flavor - without a lot of effort.
The dish was cooked fairly quickly and I find it rather tasty, in fact; but, the cucumbers would be ever so much better if they were made out of zucchini or eggplant. They aren't bad! They just aren't good.
My son will probably come home and promptly not eat any of it at all. This used to worry me and I used to go out of my way to cook to please other people first and me second. I have too many allergies and too much food has been wasted, and I have eaten too many meals that had a disappointing lack of something I want or too much of something I don't, to keep living life on those terms.
Now, when I make a meal, I do, of course, take whomever else might eat it into consideration, to a certain extent. As in, I don't put things into it that I know will make them ill. That's more consideration than most people ever gave me.
I'll even consider certain things, such as if I am making spaghetti and the person hates mushrooms, I might go out of my way to make chicken noodle soup, instead. Hahaha! I will leave out the egg plant chunks, if I want to put those in, and they hate it. Usually. I will not leave out mushrooms or onions, unless I just want to. Nor will I leave out tomatoes, as a general rule, no matter how they feel about them.
Blah blah blah ....
Okay, let me tell you a little of my history with food and what I learned from it.
Many foods I grew up eating and so did not think about much. I learned how to cook some very simple things, by the age of four. Steak, jello, rice and something else I can no longer remember. That's on top of helping mom with the bread, to whatever extent I could, helping other people with preparation of meals, accurately making powdered milk and tang and a few other simple things that, later in life, I was always shocked to discover that teenage and adult friends had no clue how to do.
A few things I had no experience with, or only limited experience, so I remember my reaction to them.
I first tasted sour cream on some nachos at the Pizza Ria Delphi. This is unusual for more reasons than one, since Pizza Ria Delphi is an Italian restaurant, owned by Greek brothers, in Alaska and it did not, at the time, have nachos on the menu. It is also the restaurant at which I first tasted good quality black olives.
Now, I first tasted butter at Safeways, way back in time when they had a really great bakery department that they had every right to brag about. However, I did not know that, at the time. All I knew was that I bit into a butter cookie and it tasted really freaking weird. That's because it had butter on it, and I had never, in my life, eaten butter before.
The fact that I had not eaten butter, because my family did not buy butter, all of my childhood years and that I didn't start using butter, at all, in my cooking, until the government started handing out butter in our area around 1992, and that I only used it, up until fairly recently, for less than a year of my life, makes me uniquely qualified to point a big raspberry directly at anyone who dares to say that changing from butter to margarine will help you lose weight.
See, I grew up with margarine, skim milk, eating beans and rice, eating vegetables with most every meal, and while we would sometimes have huge desserts, we mostly had no desserts at all. Yet, everyone in my family, minus my brother, was overweight. Obviously, then, there is more to losing weight than eating less fat.
In the case of both butter and sour cream, I had a reaction to them. Different reactions to each, though, and it is the difference in those reactions which gives clue to whether or not to include or exclude something.
See, with the butter, in the butter cookie, I bit into it and I wasn't sure if I liked it or not. I considered it, tried another one, and decided that, yes, it's good. It's so good that sometimes I want it with a roll or a baked potato. I don't generally crave it, though, and I don't like it when people put it on spaghetti, use it as sandwich spread, or otherwise use it in ways that just seem to be overkill.
With sour cream, I tasted it and I flinched in horror and wanted to spit it out. I hated it! Yet, something made me want to eat more. I couldn't stop myself, and I finally learned to like it. It took me years of using it on tacos, where I would have a small dollop and just sort of do my best to cut the taste by getting ground beef, tomatoes, and whatnot over it. In other words, I wanted the sour cream and I somewhat, sort of, got used to the taste.
Down the road, many years later, I started to like it. That's also around the time I realized I have an allergy to milk. It's only in recent years that I have come anywhere close to kicking my addiction to milk, cheese and sour cream.
Close, I say, because, let's face it, cheeseburgers, lasagna, pizza, ice cream, milk chocolate, bread, cake .. all sorts of food has milk in their make up. I love many of those foods and there are no substitutes for some and only very expensive substitutes for others and, even then, most of the substitutes are soy-based. I am allergic to soy. (sigh)
Wait? But, is not butter also made from milk? Right? Is that what you want to ask? Well, as I said, I use it very sparingly. Like, I might use it for a baked potato or a roll, which I seldom eat. I might use it for tuna and rice, which is one of my favorite dishes, but, I sometimes use sesame, safflower or olive oil for that, instead and I can't afford tuna most of the time, now, so I don't often eat that dish, either. That's why I can still have butter. It doesn't give me as strong of a reaction as cheese or milk does, and I hardly ever am near it.
The black olives, in case you were wondering, were things that I didn't really either like or hate, at first, until I got to the buttery aftertaste. They went very well with the salad I was eating, at the time, too. I do not crave them, most of the time, and I cannot afford the high quality ones. If canned black olives are on sale for a good price, I will buy several cans and occasionally use them in spaghetti or as part of a vegetable tray if there is a family gathering, but, I don't need them. Sometimes I want them.
There is a green and leafy weirdness, that looks like a cross between romaine lettuce and celery, called bok choy. Did you see me mention it, above? Yeah .. that was the second time in my life that I used bok choy in cooking and this is the second time in my life that I had ever purchased bok choy. The first time, I didn't use it. It stayed in the drawer and rotted.
Bok choy annoyed me. I would read about how great it was to use and how trendy it was and just want to find the bok choy fields and burn them down. I avoided it like the preppy plague that it appeared to be.
Then, one day, I was with someone I thought I liked, who ordered me a chicken noodle soup from the Sweet Pink Pepper in Anchorage. This greatly affected my thoughts on whether or not I liked him, because, he knew what the ingredients were and he went ahead and ordered it anyway, because it was the cheapest thing on the menu that could be considered a meal.
The thing is, though, I was quite ill and that was also affecting my thoughts on whether I liked him, and, it affected my thoughts on whether I liked the soup. Oh my, did I like the soup!
Oh, not on the first day. The first day, even though it tasted moderately okay, I fairly well hated it. It was too hot, there were weird green things floating in it which I suspected of being bok choy related, the chicken was in huge chunks and the noodles were big and unruly. It was weird. I was not happy. The base, however, tasted a lot like won ton soup with a lot of garlic and that thrilled me a bit.
Later on, I loved the soup, because I felt so much better the next day. I would only order the soup when I was ill, though. I suspected that green crap was part of what was helping, but, I still wanted nothing to do with bok choy, more than could be helped.
Now, I miss the soup and wish I could have access to it. Still, even feeling that way, it took me until last week, from 1996 when the soup was first bought for me or back in 1986 or thereabouts when people first started trying to force bok choy on me, to purchase and use some to make my own chicken noodle soup.
That chicken noodle soup that I made was very spicy and I shared it with my sister. We both felt better afterward. I enjoyed the bok choy. It must be a fungus, because, despite my probable oppositional defiance disorder, that makes me want to hate whatever you tell me I HAVE to love, it has grown on me.
Okay, bok choy! I give up! You got me. I shall buy you again, if God is willing. Now, I know you taste good with spinach noodles and chicken, or pork and cous cous. Darn you!
Chicken is one of those things that I was forced to think about, even though it was a fairly normal part of our lives, because, people would tell me "I just love chicken!" and beef was something I was forced to think about because, while beef had been a fairly normal part of our lives, it became a rarity.
It was all that chicken loving going on. The price of beef went up, everyone wanted to be healthy and chicken, chicken, chicken was all around.
Here is what I learned. I love chicken. I just don't love the way you cook it. Haahaha! Well, I might, but, my point is, I love it the way I cook it and sometimes the way my sister and my nephew's girlfriend cook it. Chicken is very boring when wrongly spiced and fantastic when the spicing is done well.
Beef is not awful when wrongly spiced. At least, not to the same degree. I mean, do you know what chicken with no season tastes like? It tastes like a giant mouthful of boring! Beef without spices tastes like boring beef.
Nectarines I considered, because, I was trying to figure out why the peaches were more pleasant, that day, and were not burning my face off with their fuzz. I do not love them more than peaches, though. In truth, I love the taste of peaches more than the taste of nectarines. At least, when they are both ripe, I do. An unripe nectarine is more tasty than an unripe peach.
Now, here is what I have not told you about the bok choy. See, I would wonder about it and consider it, and once I had access to the internet, I would occasionally look it up to determine if that's what is in the chicken soup, indeed. Along the way, I learned a great deal about how good it is for the human body. That's why I started ordering the soup on purpose.
Over the years, I have looked up other foods and learned about them, as well. Some of that is directly linked to my curiosity regarding bok choy. For instance, watercress, which is something else where a majority of women went through bouts of trying to force into everyone else's lives and which I often heard men ask about "How can women stand that stuff? I hate it and my wife says she loves it! How can she love it?"
Watercress is amazingly good for you. Specifically, it has high iron content and that is why women, who tend to have low iron content, love it.
This all ties in, because, by observation, consideration and occasionally blundering into, or being forced into, trying new things, I have come to a point in my life where I not only think about experimenting with food, but, I do it.
Oh, there were brief times I did it, before, but, it's not the same. This is more open and joyful and about broadening my horizons, where, before, it was about having to make do and sneaking changes in, more.
There is a world of spices, veggies, meats, fruits and herbs out there, waiting to be tested, tasted, combined and consumed.
The celebration of life needs color and a buffet, to tease and please the palate Let's keep it to the left of the dance floor and visit it when we need refreshment, instead of celebrating at a sit down dinner, though!
Apple Cider Vinegar initialized!
Last month, I bought some apple cider vinegar, raw (unpasteurized). This morning, I took some. I slept late, for me and felt bad this morning. It helped me feel a little better, but, man, did it taste nasty.
So, I Googled up a few things and found a site, which I will mention more on later, which had suggestions on making it more palatable.
More, I say! It will never be truly palatable to me. It's got all the wrong sweetness to tartness ratio, with that flowery apple taste. I could see where it might be okay, in an actual baked apple dish or something. Might, I say!
Yesterday, I spent most of the day washing dishes. No, there really were not that many dishes, but, I am tired all of the time, because of Fibromyalgia, allergies and some sort of thyroid problem, which is bad enough to hurt and help make me fat and tired but not so bad the insurance is ever going to pay to have it treated. Plus, we only have cold water, and, even though we are in a land that claims to be warm (and was blisteringly hot all summer!) it has been cold enough to freeze the last few days.
I feel very good about the amount of work I got done and am working on being positive about that, rather than looking negatively on all that still needs to be done.
That's an aspect of this book and why I am writing all this and sharing it with you. I want to help me be more positive, straighten out my life and lose weight; and, I want to help you do any or all of those that you need to, as well.
So, I will not necessarily be giving you a daily play-by-play, because, I am tired and because the process of change can be quite tiring and distracting. Obviously, it will involve some form of exercise because we all need exercise and, for me, it will involve detoxification because I have been ill for quite some long time and that involves systemic imbalances of bacteria.
What I will do is share with you the things that I have done to alter my life, some of the theories and concepts and other information as to what makes it a good idea to do what I have done, and, some basic personal information as to how my progress has gone. That way, you can see what steps were taken and what the results were and, even if you don't want to do exactly the same things, you might be inspired to find what suits your own needs.
One of the main reasons I am writing this, too, is that almost all diet plans and life changing programs involve a great deal of expense. Well, maybe not that much expense, some of them, for your average middle class or higher living person, but, certainly way out of the honest, hard working just barely keeping off welfare or actually on welfare type.
It does little good to read instructions for what you cannot afford to do.
Well, right now, I am working a job where I make approximately $1,000 - $3,000.00 per year, and I live in a home that costs approximately $500 - $800 per month to pay the bills on. Which means, minus when I need to buy toilet paper or shampoo and that sort of small thing, all my money is going into the house and then my parents' money is making up the rest.
This is not a lifestyle choice, by the way. I am racking up quite the debt, because I do owe them everything they pay out to keep the roof over my head and the utilities on. I'm not proud of it, but, it is the way life is, for now.
I share this information with you, so that you will fully understand, you who think you do not have the money or knowledge or time or energy to make a difference in your life, that, yes, you do.
As long as you have money or food stamps to buy groceries, the ability to make choices over what you buy, something to cook with/in, and enough freedom of movement that you can be said not to be incarcerated, you can make a difference, starting with where you are, right now. Even if you don't have all those things, you can probably do something.
Watch me - the 43 year old woman, with one deformed foot and one leg shorter than the other, who suffers from Fibromyalgia and severe allergies to dust, mold (including yeast, to some degree) and milk, who makes almost enough money per year to pay for 1/4 year of living, who can barely see now even while wearing high strength reading glasses, who has tendons that flare up and stiffen so that she can barely move and muscles that cramp up at random moments, and who could go on and on and on with symptoms - and I shall prove it to you.
What do I have? A stove, a microwave, $363 in food stamps to feed two people, a few ill-sorted pans, a partial box of tin foil, and the food I have already purchased. Which, last month, included two bottles of unpasteurized apple cider vinegar that was on sale and, this month, two jars of unprocessed coconut oil that was on sale.
By the way, if you are like me, where it is hard to get things and you have a tendency to hang onto them out of fear of running out, stop it!
If you decide to do the things that I have done, remember, there is no reason to wait until you have all the correct "ingredients" to start. If you can get a hold of one thing you need, start with that and then work your way from there.
I hope this book helps you. Actually, I hope it only helps you a little bit, because you won't need more than that; but, secondly, I hope, if you do need more help, that it will help you a lot.
Now, obviously, I am writing this book and hoping it will sell. As previously mentioned, I am excessively poor, so I need the money. Therefore, if you can afford it and find it helpful, please purchase it and take it home with you. If you have a friend who would benefit and you can afford it, purchase a separate copy for them, if they can't buy their own.
However, if you can't afford it and are reading someone else's copy, that's perfectly understandable. My first concern is not the money, but, to share and hopefully, by sharing, to help.
I felt that needed to be said, as I read some truly awful things from authors, over the years, as to their opinions of second hand book stores, lending books out and libraries. Granted, it might mean they are losing money; but, equally, it might mean that if only people who could afford the price of a new book read it, that they would be losing millions of readers. So, there is a balance.
Now, pardon me, whilst I stop rambling and start painting. Painting what, do you ask? Well, this book is going to need a cover.
This is the image I have already done, which was created a year or two ago:
Now, I like this image quite well, but, it is not how I envisioned the painting I was attempting to make. I want something which shows the good and bad of the dance that goes with the love and hate of food.
That's what Fat Girl Refrigerator Mambo means. Take a step forward in health, take a step back with a twinkie in hand, spin around with a salad, run towards the refrigerator, shrink back in horror at what you have done.
Here is what it also means: Life is a celebration and in a celebration, there should be certain elements, which make for happiness balanced with safety.
Right now, if you are like I am now, at the beginning of writing this book, you are a fat girl who is dancing to music she doesn't understand, taking steps she has not learned.
Free form dancing can be fun, but, the most beautiful dances which test your bodily endurance and leave you feeling accomplished and joyful are those which you must learn the steps to. Then, once you have mastered the steps, you move on to adding in your own flair as the artist you have become.
Or, you go back to free form dancing, but, you do it with a better understanding of how your body works and why you should move this way, instead of that.
There are no rules on exactly how you should dance, when you are doing the dance of celebration, except two.
1. It must make you feel good.
2. You must learn to dance.
And, if you haven't guessed, yes, dance is going to be involved in this whole debacle. Why?
I always loved to dance. Then, I got to having more health problems and being picked on in school, because I was bigger than other girls. They said I was fat, but, I wasn't, not back then. I had problems with what is now referred to as IBS and broad shoulders, giant bones and astoundingly large muscles for a wee girl.
Over the years, as things became increasingly hard for health reasons and as more people picked on me, I have given up on dancing. It has taken a lot of joy out of my life. It is very hard to do, though, for me, because one leg is longer than the other, which means one hip is jammed up too high and, on that same side, one leg is very weak and so is the buttock, and that is the same leg that has the knee which I injured quite badly when I was around 9 years of age.
It has never recovered from it and now has definite arthritis, as in separate from the Fibromyalgia. That knee and my knuckles both get that red band that says bad things are on the horizon, indeed.
That is also the same side of my body wherein the foot is deformed and that causes my ankle to turn in quite badly and balance is an unobtainable dream, at present.
So, dancing will not be easy. For this, I will need enough money saved up to purchase a new pair of shoes, have the sole built up on one of them and possibly get some very good arch supports, like the kind I have seen at Good Feet, which were $175.00 but came with a lifetime guarantee.
I really need those things for walking, anyway. Right now, I have a few loose quarters in my wallet, if my son hasn't gotten them and a check for $117.00 and some odd cents, which the $100.00 of will immediately go to pay (down) bills.
Hopefully, there will be a tax refund and I will be able to do the shoe thing from that. In case there will not be, I will start saving money, though.
Does it all sound hopeless? Well, I believe in God, which gives me someone to talk to and someone to hope on. It makes life not so lonely and makes many things seem more possible.
It is possible. It will work. Here I go!
So, I Googled up a few things and found a site, which I will mention more on later, which had suggestions on making it more palatable.
More, I say! It will never be truly palatable to me. It's got all the wrong sweetness to tartness ratio, with that flowery apple taste. I could see where it might be okay, in an actual baked apple dish or something. Might, I say!
Yesterday, I spent most of the day washing dishes. No, there really were not that many dishes, but, I am tired all of the time, because of Fibromyalgia, allergies and some sort of thyroid problem, which is bad enough to hurt and help make me fat and tired but not so bad the insurance is ever going to pay to have it treated. Plus, we only have cold water, and, even though we are in a land that claims to be warm (and was blisteringly hot all summer!) it has been cold enough to freeze the last few days.
I feel very good about the amount of work I got done and am working on being positive about that, rather than looking negatively on all that still needs to be done.
That's an aspect of this book and why I am writing all this and sharing it with you. I want to help me be more positive, straighten out my life and lose weight; and, I want to help you do any or all of those that you need to, as well.
So, I will not necessarily be giving you a daily play-by-play, because, I am tired and because the process of change can be quite tiring and distracting. Obviously, it will involve some form of exercise because we all need exercise and, for me, it will involve detoxification because I have been ill for quite some long time and that involves systemic imbalances of bacteria.
What I will do is share with you the things that I have done to alter my life, some of the theories and concepts and other information as to what makes it a good idea to do what I have done, and, some basic personal information as to how my progress has gone. That way, you can see what steps were taken and what the results were and, even if you don't want to do exactly the same things, you might be inspired to find what suits your own needs.
One of the main reasons I am writing this, too, is that almost all diet plans and life changing programs involve a great deal of expense. Well, maybe not that much expense, some of them, for your average middle class or higher living person, but, certainly way out of the honest, hard working just barely keeping off welfare or actually on welfare type.
It does little good to read instructions for what you cannot afford to do.
Well, right now, I am working a job where I make approximately $1,000 - $3,000.00 per year, and I live in a home that costs approximately $500 - $800 per month to pay the bills on. Which means, minus when I need to buy toilet paper or shampoo and that sort of small thing, all my money is going into the house and then my parents' money is making up the rest.
This is not a lifestyle choice, by the way. I am racking up quite the debt, because I do owe them everything they pay out to keep the roof over my head and the utilities on. I'm not proud of it, but, it is the way life is, for now.
I share this information with you, so that you will fully understand, you who think you do not have the money or knowledge or time or energy to make a difference in your life, that, yes, you do.
As long as you have money or food stamps to buy groceries, the ability to make choices over what you buy, something to cook with/in, and enough freedom of movement that you can be said not to be incarcerated, you can make a difference, starting with where you are, right now. Even if you don't have all those things, you can probably do something.
Watch me - the 43 year old woman, with one deformed foot and one leg shorter than the other, who suffers from Fibromyalgia and severe allergies to dust, mold (including yeast, to some degree) and milk, who makes almost enough money per year to pay for 1/4 year of living, who can barely see now even while wearing high strength reading glasses, who has tendons that flare up and stiffen so that she can barely move and muscles that cramp up at random moments, and who could go on and on and on with symptoms - and I shall prove it to you.
What do I have? A stove, a microwave, $363 in food stamps to feed two people, a few ill-sorted pans, a partial box of tin foil, and the food I have already purchased. Which, last month, included two bottles of unpasteurized apple cider vinegar that was on sale and, this month, two jars of unprocessed coconut oil that was on sale.
By the way, if you are like me, where it is hard to get things and you have a tendency to hang onto them out of fear of running out, stop it!
If you decide to do the things that I have done, remember, there is no reason to wait until you have all the correct "ingredients" to start. If you can get a hold of one thing you need, start with that and then work your way from there.
I hope this book helps you. Actually, I hope it only helps you a little bit, because you won't need more than that; but, secondly, I hope, if you do need more help, that it will help you a lot.
Now, obviously, I am writing this book and hoping it will sell. As previously mentioned, I am excessively poor, so I need the money. Therefore, if you can afford it and find it helpful, please purchase it and take it home with you. If you have a friend who would benefit and you can afford it, purchase a separate copy for them, if they can't buy their own.
However, if you can't afford it and are reading someone else's copy, that's perfectly understandable. My first concern is not the money, but, to share and hopefully, by sharing, to help.
I felt that needed to be said, as I read some truly awful things from authors, over the years, as to their opinions of second hand book stores, lending books out and libraries. Granted, it might mean they are losing money; but, equally, it might mean that if only people who could afford the price of a new book read it, that they would be losing millions of readers. So, there is a balance.
Now, pardon me, whilst I stop rambling and start painting. Painting what, do you ask? Well, this book is going to need a cover.
This is the image I have already done, which was created a year or two ago:
Now, I like this image quite well, but, it is not how I envisioned the painting I was attempting to make. I want something which shows the good and bad of the dance that goes with the love and hate of food.
That's what Fat Girl Refrigerator Mambo means. Take a step forward in health, take a step back with a twinkie in hand, spin around with a salad, run towards the refrigerator, shrink back in horror at what you have done.
Here is what it also means: Life is a celebration and in a celebration, there should be certain elements, which make for happiness balanced with safety.
Right now, if you are like I am now, at the beginning of writing this book, you are a fat girl who is dancing to music she doesn't understand, taking steps she has not learned.
Free form dancing can be fun, but, the most beautiful dances which test your bodily endurance and leave you feeling accomplished and joyful are those which you must learn the steps to. Then, once you have mastered the steps, you move on to adding in your own flair as the artist you have become.
Or, you go back to free form dancing, but, you do it with a better understanding of how your body works and why you should move this way, instead of that.
There are no rules on exactly how you should dance, when you are doing the dance of celebration, except two.
1. It must make you feel good.
2. You must learn to dance.
And, if you haven't guessed, yes, dance is going to be involved in this whole debacle. Why?
I always loved to dance. Then, I got to having more health problems and being picked on in school, because I was bigger than other girls. They said I was fat, but, I wasn't, not back then. I had problems with what is now referred to as IBS and broad shoulders, giant bones and astoundingly large muscles for a wee girl.
Over the years, as things became increasingly hard for health reasons and as more people picked on me, I have given up on dancing. It has taken a lot of joy out of my life. It is very hard to do, though, for me, because one leg is longer than the other, which means one hip is jammed up too high and, on that same side, one leg is very weak and so is the buttock, and that is the same leg that has the knee which I injured quite badly when I was around 9 years of age.
It has never recovered from it and now has definite arthritis, as in separate from the Fibromyalgia. That knee and my knuckles both get that red band that says bad things are on the horizon, indeed.
That is also the same side of my body wherein the foot is deformed and that causes my ankle to turn in quite badly and balance is an unobtainable dream, at present.
So, dancing will not be easy. For this, I will need enough money saved up to purchase a new pair of shoes, have the sole built up on one of them and possibly get some very good arch supports, like the kind I have seen at Good Feet, which were $175.00 but came with a lifetime guarantee.
I really need those things for walking, anyway. Right now, I have a few loose quarters in my wallet, if my son hasn't gotten them and a check for $117.00 and some odd cents, which the $100.00 of will immediately go to pay (down) bills.
Hopefully, there will be a tax refund and I will be able to do the shoe thing from that. In case there will not be, I will start saving money, though.
Does it all sound hopeless? Well, I believe in God, which gives me someone to talk to and someone to hope on. It makes life not so lonely and makes many things seem more possible.
It is possible. It will work. Here I go!
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Last night ...
Okay, actually, it started in the afternoon, as I was typing to you. My sister called, to see if I wanted to go to a close-out type store.
On the way out the door, I grabbed a bag of Lime flavored potato chips that my son had been given a few days ago, tasted, decided he didn't like and then gave to me. I ate some as we were driving. So did she. She didn't like them. Eventually, I put them in the back seat of the car, so they would stop being distracting.
We ate at a chicken place, that we had both wondered about from time to time. It was disappointing, but, edible. Mostly, edible because we are too poor to throw food away and, plus, that's rude to the chicken that gave its life for a mediocre sandwich. However, if we were not ever so hungry, or if we had more money, and there was a homeless person nearby, they would have been the proud recipient of a chicken quesadilla, chicken sandwich, a large quantity of french fries and enough salt to make Utah jealous.
None of that was so bad. In the case of the chips, which I finished later, I did enjoy them and I did share more of them with my sister. The french fries? Well, I was really hungry, so I'm relatively okay with that, too. It was not the best choice for a meal, but, it was a choice, it happened, and I have moved on.
However ...
Later that night, after many hours of my sister continually bringing up candy and then dismissing the idea, we went to a very cheap store and I ended up getting some peppermint bark. She also bought us a much smaller chicken sandwich and a side salad from some fast food place.
It was too late for that sort of eating, for me, and I should not have eaten the peppermint bark. Why? Not because it is wrong, as a general rule, but, because, it was wrong for me, at the time. Apparently, she was enjoying it. I really was not, after the first piece.
Mind you, it tasted okay. It was just that I was working under a few different feelings of desperation. 1) It's there and I hate clutter. I like to get things over with and put in their proper place. The proper place for candy is in the human body, apparently. 2) If I don't eat my share, now, someone else will eat it so I can't have it when I do want it. 3) If I stopped eating it, so would my sister. Then, there'd be this bad feeling between us, as if I was telling her what to do.
Well, guess what? When I got home, I ate the lemon cookies and chocolate drops, for the same basic reason, that I hate clutter, and because my son was upset, and because I had put sugar into my body in an unsatisfying manner and now I wanted more to help make up the difference. They were unsatisfying too, but, closer.
What would have been satisfying? One piece of really good quality peppermint bark. Or, something to counteract it, like, say, an olive, a pickle, a jalapeno, a piece of candied ginger. Something with a very strong taste, that would have blasted out that desire for a big, strong taste.
Now, in my defense, I had no idea of the quality of that peppermint bark. Some candy from that cheap store is actually quite good and high quality. However, if I had looked at the brand name on the package, I would have known it was not going to be spectacular, but, only just passable.
In other words, I did several things that I have either already told you not to do or which I am likely to tell you not to do.
I ate at the wrong time for me, I ate lackluster food. I ate for reasons of social pressure or training. As a result, I have taken in extra calories and I received no satisfaction from the food of that day.
I will not do this thing, which I told you not to do. I will not berate myself, insult myself or pity myself. They were all choices I was capable of making better. I didn't do it. That was yesterday. This is today.
Today, for dinner, we are supposed to be having chicken with rice, and to do something with my various squashes, too. I have some yellow squash, zucchini squash and eggplant. I might save the eggplant for spaghetti, though, and just use the rest of the yellow squash and zucchini for tonight. Maybe lightly sauteed with some onion and spices would be good. Sometimes I don't even use even a smidgen of olive oil. I just move the veggies around in the pan a lot, until they get a bit brown and weird, as veggies do in a hot skillet.
Now, pardon me, as I am done writing, for now. I have recently come back into contact with an art program, for making digital art that is, and it is installed on my computer. I am used to the basics of it, up to an extent, as I have gone through different versions of the same basic program over the years, but, it does have new means and methods of doing things and, so, I am going to do something odd, in keeping with what will be my basic advice to you.
I am going to go through the tutorials they have provided me, instead of, as I had done last time I tried to use the same exact program, waffling about, trying to figure it all out for myself and being frustrated.
Remember, everything is connected together. Your sex life is connected to the cleanliness, happiness and functionality of your home. The happiness of your home is connected to the happiness of the individuals. The happiness of the individuals is connected to their home life and health. Their health is connected to having a place that is clean enough to be able to cook healthy foods in, and, your sex life is connected to your health.
So, if you want good health, great sex, good food or a clean house, keep reading. I'm going to show you how to do that dance, that starts with the fat girl refrigerator mambo, with you swaying toward the refrigerator, with thoughts of naughty sounding foods dancing in your brain, and ends with you dancing the wild fandango through life.
How will I show you? Me, the fat chick with the horrible messy house"? The best way anyone can show you anything, by being and doing. Watch and learn!
On the way out the door, I grabbed a bag of Lime flavored potato chips that my son had been given a few days ago, tasted, decided he didn't like and then gave to me. I ate some as we were driving. So did she. She didn't like them. Eventually, I put them in the back seat of the car, so they would stop being distracting.
We ate at a chicken place, that we had both wondered about from time to time. It was disappointing, but, edible. Mostly, edible because we are too poor to throw food away and, plus, that's rude to the chicken that gave its life for a mediocre sandwich. However, if we were not ever so hungry, or if we had more money, and there was a homeless person nearby, they would have been the proud recipient of a chicken quesadilla, chicken sandwich, a large quantity of french fries and enough salt to make Utah jealous.
None of that was so bad. In the case of the chips, which I finished later, I did enjoy them and I did share more of them with my sister. The french fries? Well, I was really hungry, so I'm relatively okay with that, too. It was not the best choice for a meal, but, it was a choice, it happened, and I have moved on.
However ...
Later that night, after many hours of my sister continually bringing up candy and then dismissing the idea, we went to a very cheap store and I ended up getting some peppermint bark. She also bought us a much smaller chicken sandwich and a side salad from some fast food place.
It was too late for that sort of eating, for me, and I should not have eaten the peppermint bark. Why? Not because it is wrong, as a general rule, but, because, it was wrong for me, at the time. Apparently, she was enjoying it. I really was not, after the first piece.
Mind you, it tasted okay. It was just that I was working under a few different feelings of desperation. 1) It's there and I hate clutter. I like to get things over with and put in their proper place. The proper place for candy is in the human body, apparently. 2) If I don't eat my share, now, someone else will eat it so I can't have it when I do want it. 3) If I stopped eating it, so would my sister. Then, there'd be this bad feeling between us, as if I was telling her what to do.
Well, guess what? When I got home, I ate the lemon cookies and chocolate drops, for the same basic reason, that I hate clutter, and because my son was upset, and because I had put sugar into my body in an unsatisfying manner and now I wanted more to help make up the difference. They were unsatisfying too, but, closer.
What would have been satisfying? One piece of really good quality peppermint bark. Or, something to counteract it, like, say, an olive, a pickle, a jalapeno, a piece of candied ginger. Something with a very strong taste, that would have blasted out that desire for a big, strong taste.
Now, in my defense, I had no idea of the quality of that peppermint bark. Some candy from that cheap store is actually quite good and high quality. However, if I had looked at the brand name on the package, I would have known it was not going to be spectacular, but, only just passable.
In other words, I did several things that I have either already told you not to do or which I am likely to tell you not to do.
I ate at the wrong time for me, I ate lackluster food. I ate for reasons of social pressure or training. As a result, I have taken in extra calories and I received no satisfaction from the food of that day.
I will not do this thing, which I told you not to do. I will not berate myself, insult myself or pity myself. They were all choices I was capable of making better. I didn't do it. That was yesterday. This is today.
Today, for dinner, we are supposed to be having chicken with rice, and to do something with my various squashes, too. I have some yellow squash, zucchini squash and eggplant. I might save the eggplant for spaghetti, though, and just use the rest of the yellow squash and zucchini for tonight. Maybe lightly sauteed with some onion and spices would be good. Sometimes I don't even use even a smidgen of olive oil. I just move the veggies around in the pan a lot, until they get a bit brown and weird, as veggies do in a hot skillet.
Now, pardon me, as I am done writing, for now. I have recently come back into contact with an art program, for making digital art that is, and it is installed on my computer. I am used to the basics of it, up to an extent, as I have gone through different versions of the same basic program over the years, but, it does have new means and methods of doing things and, so, I am going to do something odd, in keeping with what will be my basic advice to you.
I am going to go through the tutorials they have provided me, instead of, as I had done last time I tried to use the same exact program, waffling about, trying to figure it all out for myself and being frustrated.
Remember, everything is connected together. Your sex life is connected to the cleanliness, happiness and functionality of your home. The happiness of your home is connected to the happiness of the individuals. The happiness of the individuals is connected to their home life and health. Their health is connected to having a place that is clean enough to be able to cook healthy foods in, and, your sex life is connected to your health.
So, if you want good health, great sex, good food or a clean house, keep reading. I'm going to show you how to do that dance, that starts with the fat girl refrigerator mambo, with you swaying toward the refrigerator, with thoughts of naughty sounding foods dancing in your brain, and ends with you dancing the wild fandango through life.
How will I show you? Me, the fat chick with the horrible messy house"? The best way anyone can show you anything, by being and doing. Watch and learn!
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Adding spice to your life
Yes, that is a double entendre, at least. Can I make it a triple? Let's find out!
One: In keeping with the talk of aroma, there must be a consideration of spice and other tasty bits.
Do you know why these lemon cookies are still here? I love the smell of lemon! I love the smell of fresh lemons, uncut; lemon juice that is fresh and the grated fresh peels of lemons; I love the smell of lemon juice from concentrate; and I love the smell of lemon mixed with sugar.
Do you know what else? I love the taste! How convenient for me, then, that lemons are good for me and relatively inexpensive. Guess what? There is a lot of that going around, in the produce aisle!
I like to cook roasts with potatoes of varying sorts, onions and apples. Now, I used to core the apples, mix sugar and raisins and stuff the little apple holes then put some butter on them and cook them that way and they were good. Then, one day, in a fit of laziness, and after many years of having failed to bake apples so that I no longer really remembered what I was doing, I just stuck the apple in the pan with no preparation at all. The result was delicious. It was a Red Delicious apple, so, perhaps that was to be expected. In the intervening years, however, I have tried that with several different kinds of apples and I found most of them are quite delicious, baked in their own skins and there is no need of butter or sugar. They also smell really good.
No, don't worry. I am not about to make demands that you eat apples or lemons. These are things I like to eat and like the smell of, so it benefits me, especially, to eat them.
You need to find the things that give you more enjoyment than others and which are healthy for you. If you love avocados and you are not allergic to them, for instance, there is no reason not to eat them. Yes, that is true even if they are fairly expensive where you are or if you have high cholesterol.
Think about it this way. Are you going to eat the avocado, now - after sniffing it for good measure - or, eat the five secret fast food hamburgers later on, which you are snarfing down in secret and shame, trying to alleviate that feeling of want? Which will cost you less in health, self esteem and pocket change?
Eat what you love, that is good for you. Consider, when I say that, that if you are allergic to it, if it will affect your medication adversely, if you really cannot afford it so it's going to stress you out, or if it is overly processed, it is not good for you.
*ahem* That doesn't mean never eat anything processed. We'll get into that later. This is about flavor. I know I said spices, but, bear with me. It will all make sense and help you to feel better before, during and after a meal, if you keep on reading and considering how it relates to you, I'm pretty sure.
P.S: It's now been about two hours, and, yes, they all five are still here.
One: In keeping with the talk of aroma, there must be a consideration of spice and other tasty bits.
Do you know why these lemon cookies are still here? I love the smell of lemon! I love the smell of fresh lemons, uncut; lemon juice that is fresh and the grated fresh peels of lemons; I love the smell of lemon juice from concentrate; and I love the smell of lemon mixed with sugar.
Do you know what else? I love the taste! How convenient for me, then, that lemons are good for me and relatively inexpensive. Guess what? There is a lot of that going around, in the produce aisle!
I like to cook roasts with potatoes of varying sorts, onions and apples. Now, I used to core the apples, mix sugar and raisins and stuff the little apple holes then put some butter on them and cook them that way and they were good. Then, one day, in a fit of laziness, and after many years of having failed to bake apples so that I no longer really remembered what I was doing, I just stuck the apple in the pan with no preparation at all. The result was delicious. It was a Red Delicious apple, so, perhaps that was to be expected. In the intervening years, however, I have tried that with several different kinds of apples and I found most of them are quite delicious, baked in their own skins and there is no need of butter or sugar. They also smell really good.
No, don't worry. I am not about to make demands that you eat apples or lemons. These are things I like to eat and like the smell of, so it benefits me, especially, to eat them.
You need to find the things that give you more enjoyment than others and which are healthy for you. If you love avocados and you are not allergic to them, for instance, there is no reason not to eat them. Yes, that is true even if they are fairly expensive where you are or if you have high cholesterol.
Think about it this way. Are you going to eat the avocado, now - after sniffing it for good measure - or, eat the five secret fast food hamburgers later on, which you are snarfing down in secret and shame, trying to alleviate that feeling of want? Which will cost you less in health, self esteem and pocket change?
Eat what you love, that is good for you. Consider, when I say that, that if you are allergic to it, if it will affect your medication adversely, if you really cannot afford it so it's going to stress you out, or if it is overly processed, it is not good for you.
*ahem* That doesn't mean never eat anything processed. We'll get into that later. This is about flavor. I know I said spices, but, bear with me. It will all make sense and help you to feel better before, during and after a meal, if you keep on reading and considering how it relates to you, I'm pretty sure.
P.S: It's now been about two hours, and, yes, they all five are still here.
Aroma
While I was sitting here, typing up the Foreword for this book, there were three lemon cookies and two chocolate drops sitting beside me.They are there, still.
Several times, now, I have picked up the same lemon cookie, which is of the cheap little Kroger brand lemon sandwich cookie variety, and smelled it. It smells lovely.
Now, when I had picked it up, I had intended to bite into it. That is what my arm told me was going on and my mouth seconded it. Every part of me was getting ready to bite into that cookie. Yet, there it is, still beside me and here I am still not having eaten it. Why?
Kroger brand lemon sandwich cookies smell really good! And, I am alone. There is no one to scowl at me and act like I am crazy, just because I am picking up a cookie and smelling it, rather than indulging in gluttonous behavior. The aroma of the cookie is very satisfying. I'm not actually hungry. So, I smell it. Later on, I shall probably eat it.
It will not be wrong, when I eat it. I will not be a bad person. This is not a time for negative thought. I have chosen, of my own free will, to smell the cookie, instead of eating it. I am enjoying this time and when I eat it, as I probably will, that will also be a choice made with my own free will.
The difference between eating it now and eating it later is that, if I ate it now, it would not be of my own free will. I would eat it because society has taught me that if you bring food up toward your face or if you are in possession of it - if it is near you -and you smell it and it smells good, you must eat.
I say "Pffft!" to society and choose to sit here, alone, smelling my own cookie, as I please.
This is one of the most important things to learn about life, if one is to celebrate it: life is for living, and no one else can live it for you.
This is one of the most important things to learn about food, if one is to include it in the celebration: food is a gift from God (if you don't believe in God, you may substitute the word nature). Accept it thankfully, share it joyfully, and never, ever fail to appreciate all the facets of its make up. It has sight, sound, texture, taste and smell.
Find what is healthy for you and then make it pleasing to you; and, make sure you are the one in charge of deciding if, when, and how much you shall eat.
Don't let the smell tell you that you must open your jaw and let the food in, if your belly is not telling you that you need food. Aroma can be deceptive that way. It makes you think you will find some great pleasure in that bite.
Well, guess what? According to Eric Stice, lead author and a psychology researcher at The University of Texas, recent findings of two studies wherein scientists from Yale and Oregon scanned the brains of 76 volunteer women as they drank chocolate milkshakes, suggested that obese individuals may experience less pleasure when eating than thinner persons.
Now, the talk, of various persons, is of using that evidence as a jumping off point in research to help pinpoint who is more likely to become obese. Presumably, so that the thin people of the world can put us all in concentration camps and make sure that, while we are receiving less pleasure from food, we are also receiving less pleasure from life, without ruining their vacations to the seaside.
Please take that last part as a joke - especially you thin people!- but, also, please take it to be more than nonsense. My point is, different people have different agendas. To many thin persons, the most horrible, unimaginable thing in the world is to gain weight. However, to me, I would rather be fat and be myself, then be thin and running scared every time a fat person walks too close, worried that the fat will fly off them and infect me! Seriously!
While they may see the research as a good way to eliminate obesity, I view it as a good way to understand yourself and make good life choices. In either case, it sort of leads to the same place, but, one way it is all negative and insulting, whereas the other way is all positive and full of bits of sunshine and mirth.
You see, what they think they have discovered, is a basic fact of life. Some people enjoy one aspect of something more and some enjoy a different aspect.
Chances are, if you are obese, you are more geared toward being a cook than a diner. Those thin people, they like to eat. It gives them something wonderful. When they say, "I really enjoyed that salad." they mean it. They don't need a lot, because it makes them so happy, and one only needs so much happiness from a meal.
If it is not making you happy, then, you are doing it wrong. If you are eating a hamburger and the hamburger is giving you no real pleasure, then eating two hamburgers is not going to help you. It feels like it will, but, it won't.
Sure, maybe, eventually, you'll reach this critical dopamine level and feel a little better, temporarily, but, then, you'll gain weight and feel very negatively about yourself to make up for it. Don't do it!
Instead, order some ingredient on the hamburger that will make you feel satisfied, or go home and make one with spices and veggies that you like. Make it something that you can be proud of. Now, smell it. Feel the way the salt tickles your nose? The slight burn of pepper? The wonderful smell of beef? The lettuce, both the hot and cold bits? Take a deep whiff.
And, when you are ready, take a small bite. Breathe in that smell again, and chew, slowly and thoroughly. Keep breathing in that wonderful aroma.
While you are at it, notice the texture, the colors. This is how you should be eating. Food is a big part of celebrations, and life is a celebration. Don't celebrate by inviting boredom to your table, but, do try to keep the party to a moderate guest list!
P.S: I still have three lemon cookies and two chocolate drops beside me, and it's been around an hour, maybe even a little more, since I decided I wanted them.
Several times, now, I have picked up the same lemon cookie, which is of the cheap little Kroger brand lemon sandwich cookie variety, and smelled it. It smells lovely.
Now, when I had picked it up, I had intended to bite into it. That is what my arm told me was going on and my mouth seconded it. Every part of me was getting ready to bite into that cookie. Yet, there it is, still beside me and here I am still not having eaten it. Why?
Kroger brand lemon sandwich cookies smell really good! And, I am alone. There is no one to scowl at me and act like I am crazy, just because I am picking up a cookie and smelling it, rather than indulging in gluttonous behavior. The aroma of the cookie is very satisfying. I'm not actually hungry. So, I smell it. Later on, I shall probably eat it.
It will not be wrong, when I eat it. I will not be a bad person. This is not a time for negative thought. I have chosen, of my own free will, to smell the cookie, instead of eating it. I am enjoying this time and when I eat it, as I probably will, that will also be a choice made with my own free will.
The difference between eating it now and eating it later is that, if I ate it now, it would not be of my own free will. I would eat it because society has taught me that if you bring food up toward your face or if you are in possession of it - if it is near you -and you smell it and it smells good, you must eat.
I say "Pffft!" to society and choose to sit here, alone, smelling my own cookie, as I please.
This is one of the most important things to learn about life, if one is to celebrate it: life is for living, and no one else can live it for you.
This is one of the most important things to learn about food, if one is to include it in the celebration: food is a gift from God (if you don't believe in God, you may substitute the word nature). Accept it thankfully, share it joyfully, and never, ever fail to appreciate all the facets of its make up. It has sight, sound, texture, taste and smell.
Find what is healthy for you and then make it pleasing to you; and, make sure you are the one in charge of deciding if, when, and how much you shall eat.
Don't let the smell tell you that you must open your jaw and let the food in, if your belly is not telling you that you need food. Aroma can be deceptive that way. It makes you think you will find some great pleasure in that bite.
Well, guess what? According to Eric Stice, lead author and a psychology researcher at The University of Texas, recent findings of two studies wherein scientists from Yale and Oregon scanned the brains of 76 volunteer women as they drank chocolate milkshakes, suggested that obese individuals may experience less pleasure when eating than thinner persons.
Now, the talk, of various persons, is of using that evidence as a jumping off point in research to help pinpoint who is more likely to become obese. Presumably, so that the thin people of the world can put us all in concentration camps and make sure that, while we are receiving less pleasure from food, we are also receiving less pleasure from life, without ruining their vacations to the seaside.
Please take that last part as a joke - especially you thin people!- but, also, please take it to be more than nonsense. My point is, different people have different agendas. To many thin persons, the most horrible, unimaginable thing in the world is to gain weight. However, to me, I would rather be fat and be myself, then be thin and running scared every time a fat person walks too close, worried that the fat will fly off them and infect me! Seriously!
While they may see the research as a good way to eliminate obesity, I view it as a good way to understand yourself and make good life choices. In either case, it sort of leads to the same place, but, one way it is all negative and insulting, whereas the other way is all positive and full of bits of sunshine and mirth.
You see, what they think they have discovered, is a basic fact of life. Some people enjoy one aspect of something more and some enjoy a different aspect.
Chances are, if you are obese, you are more geared toward being a cook than a diner. Those thin people, they like to eat. It gives them something wonderful. When they say, "I really enjoyed that salad." they mean it. They don't need a lot, because it makes them so happy, and one only needs so much happiness from a meal.
If it is not making you happy, then, you are doing it wrong. If you are eating a hamburger and the hamburger is giving you no real pleasure, then eating two hamburgers is not going to help you. It feels like it will, but, it won't.
Sure, maybe, eventually, you'll reach this critical dopamine level and feel a little better, temporarily, but, then, you'll gain weight and feel very negatively about yourself to make up for it. Don't do it!
Instead, order some ingredient on the hamburger that will make you feel satisfied, or go home and make one with spices and veggies that you like. Make it something that you can be proud of. Now, smell it. Feel the way the salt tickles your nose? The slight burn of pepper? The wonderful smell of beef? The lettuce, both the hot and cold bits? Take a deep whiff.
And, when you are ready, take a small bite. Breathe in that smell again, and chew, slowly and thoroughly. Keep breathing in that wonderful aroma.
While you are at it, notice the texture, the colors. This is how you should be eating. Food is a big part of celebrations, and life is a celebration. Don't celebrate by inviting boredom to your table, but, do try to keep the party to a moderate guest list!
P.S: I still have three lemon cookies and two chocolate drops beside me, and it's been around an hour, maybe even a little more, since I decided I wanted them.
Foreword: (Why I am writing this)
Yesterday, my sister - whom you may refer to as Ms. Butts and not just because she is my sister and I like calling her things like that, but, because it is her name - referred to a digital painting that I had been working on, in the last year or so, called 'Fat Girl Refrigerator Mambo'.
She had initially sounded less than pleased with it, most especially as I had used a photo of her standing in her kitchen as the model, but, yesterday, she told me she had considered it and decided it was the most ultra-fabulous kewl thing, ever!
No, she did not say that, really. I can't remember the exact words anymore, though. They were along the line of "You could really do something with that. Like, stuff it up your backside."
No, wait! That wasn't it, either, quite. More like, "You could really do something with that. Put it on t-shirts ..." and there were other items listed, but, I forget what they were.
Somehow, between here and there, except in reverse, that combined with my love of reading up on and occasionally employing natural health ideas and recipes; my love of writing; and, yes - sorry to be crass,but -my need for money. Not to mention that the way my butt squishes out to the side, in thoroughly unpleasant ways, when I sit, now, as factoring in.
That combination, along with some prayer and a little conversation with Jehovah, and some conversation with my other sister yesterday, as well, led to the realization that I want to write a book of a certain type.
Ostensibly, it is a diet book that I wish to write. That is to say, I want to address concerns, concepts, ideas and plans related to eating habits and interesting recipes, food as medicine and food as pleasure. However, I don't want to give you a specific eating plan, tell you to stick to it, and then call you bad names - or let you call yourself bad names - when you fail to adhere to every last little rule.
See, I don't like diet books, even the nicer ones, specifically because they are very cookie cutter like. Most diet plans involve ingredients that I cannot eat or cannot afford, or meals that I do not have time, or sometimes the skill, to prepare. I shall not bash them, though, because, apparently, many diet plans work for several people, as long as they manage to keep following it.
Anyway, I said "ostensibly", up above, for a reason. This book is not a diet book, in the traditional sense of diet books as I know them, but, I won't get mad if that's what you want to call it.
This is, though, a book about the celebration of life. Specifically, it is geared toward fat women, who are tired and poor, because, that is a large part of what I am.
Did I say fat? Yes I did. I'm not here to lie. Saying that I am fat is not an insult. I am not saying it is all that I am. Quite the opposite is true. I am so many more things than just the extra fat that is stored in my body. I am talent, thought, feeling, strength of will and strength of bone and muscle. Therefore, knowing that I am so much more, I have no fear of using the word fat. It is not a horrible label of discrimination as some would use it, but, a commonly understood way of expressing a basic statement of fact.
I have more fat than I should. I am overweight. I am obese. I am fat. Such is life!
Let's celebrate life as it is lived in truth, together.
She had initially sounded less than pleased with it, most especially as I had used a photo of her standing in her kitchen as the model, but, yesterday, she told me she had considered it and decided it was the most ultra-fabulous kewl thing, ever!
No, she did not say that, really. I can't remember the exact words anymore, though. They were along the line of "You could really do something with that. Like, stuff it up your backside."
No, wait! That wasn't it, either, quite. More like, "You could really do something with that. Put it on t-shirts ..." and there were other items listed, but, I forget what they were.
Somehow, between here and there, except in reverse, that combined with my love of reading up on and occasionally employing natural health ideas and recipes; my love of writing; and, yes - sorry to be crass,but -my need for money. Not to mention that the way my butt squishes out to the side, in thoroughly unpleasant ways, when I sit, now, as factoring in.
That combination, along with some prayer and a little conversation with Jehovah, and some conversation with my other sister yesterday, as well, led to the realization that I want to write a book of a certain type.
Ostensibly, it is a diet book that I wish to write. That is to say, I want to address concerns, concepts, ideas and plans related to eating habits and interesting recipes, food as medicine and food as pleasure. However, I don't want to give you a specific eating plan, tell you to stick to it, and then call you bad names - or let you call yourself bad names - when you fail to adhere to every last little rule.
See, I don't like diet books, even the nicer ones, specifically because they are very cookie cutter like. Most diet plans involve ingredients that I cannot eat or cannot afford, or meals that I do not have time, or sometimes the skill, to prepare. I shall not bash them, though, because, apparently, many diet plans work for several people, as long as they manage to keep following it.
Anyway, I said "ostensibly", up above, for a reason. This book is not a diet book, in the traditional sense of diet books as I know them, but, I won't get mad if that's what you want to call it.
This is, though, a book about the celebration of life. Specifically, it is geared toward fat women, who are tired and poor, because, that is a large part of what I am.
Did I say fat? Yes I did. I'm not here to lie. Saying that I am fat is not an insult. I am not saying it is all that I am. Quite the opposite is true. I am so many more things than just the extra fat that is stored in my body. I am talent, thought, feeling, strength of will and strength of bone and muscle. Therefore, knowing that I am so much more, I have no fear of using the word fat. It is not a horrible label of discrimination as some would use it, but, a commonly understood way of expressing a basic statement of fact.
I have more fat than I should. I am overweight. I am obese. I am fat. Such is life!
Let's celebrate life as it is lived in truth, together.
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