* - As soon as I am done writing this, he wrote self-referentially, I will put a link to CFE up to the right. Beck has a perma-link to my blog under the subsection "Fun Blogs" (to distinguish it from "Food Blogs!"), which puts a lot more pressure on me to be a fun individual with cool, engaging content, rather than the snarling / spiking negative-nellie yang of the two-headed Sprawl captainship I've been of late. So much pressure! I'll do my best...
My initial temptation was to parody a CFE post here and have just a picture of a lean pocket or something*, but my culinary adventure this afternoon steered me away. Allow me to explain... they say people don't change, but maybe Beck will back me up here - I really have been making a concerted effort to eat new things and in more variety of late. We tried to figure out the other night from what this stemmed - whether it was one night where Beck inspired me to try the tart froyo, or whether two solid months of the same breakfast / lunch combo finally drove me to seek out some spice-of-life. But lately, I've been eating hot sauces, pepper, yogurts, pineapple, strawberry-shakes, etc., all kinds of things you never would have guessed in the past. I've always had an "I'll try anything once" attitude - again, Beck can attest - but more of them have been sticking lately. I even ate some onions (begrudgingly) out of a tortilla soup (another thing I probably would not have tried in the past) recently, and did not die. So hooray for making changes in my middle age; whether it was weight-loss-inspired** or no, I've been living with gustatory gusto lately, and I'll take it.
* - I'll cut Frank off here by reiterating that I just love me some Lean Pocket; they served me really well in my weight-loss program, and they're tasty, protein-rich meals that couldn't be easier to prepare / savor. I'm not under any pretense that they're great food - they could certainly use less sodium, among other things - but for what they are, they mos def*** get the job done. I actually wrote my friends at LP inc. recently and thanked them for their effective product, and they rewarded me with what ended up being coupons for three free boxes of LPs. Woohoo! And I've rediscovered my love of the Mexican-Style Chicken & Cheese LP (not to be confused with the Ween-style Chocolate & Cheese LP). Even on sale at 2 for $1.99, it's not quite as good of a deal as the 12 pepperoni LPs for $9.99, but I'll take the sixteen cent hit for the, hey, whaddyaknow, variety.
** - Some things I neglected to mention in the recent self-congratulatory narci-fest post on weight-loss. Skip this if you're tired of hearing / thinking about this topic, which I am pretty sure I am thinking about too much (more on that below):
1. Substitution helped, too - I know I noted that I "ate the same stuff," but upon reflection, I did make some significant changes. I put sorbet and frozen yogurt strictly in place of ice cream, burrito bowls in place of burritos, egg whites in place of eggs, turkey in place of beef, cheese pizza in place of pepperoni, low-sugar oatmeal in place of regular,etc. It took some doing, but I relatively quickly got to the point where my tastes were oriented towards the substitute. I.e., regular oatmeal tasted very sugary; ice cream seemed too thick. (I've had a couple of milkshakes at zinburger lately that, while extraordinarily delicious, just struck me as indulgent - I enjoy my homemade protein shakes at home almost as much, and they have to be half the calories). I bring this up here because the "trying new things" phase as has been brought about in part by my efforts to substitute, which I suppose makes sense. And it really does seem like once one thing fell - hey, vanilla yogurt isn't bad at all! - lots of other "exotic" things that I would not necessarily have been drawn to previously started making headway, too. Like mango tangerine sorbet. Who am I anymore?
2. I mentioned this, but "do not self-deny" served as a good guide, too. Paul asked me recently something to the effect of "didn't you get hungry?," and the short answer is yes, originally, but I got past that by just controlling the situation. If I got hungry, I could eat chips or whatever, I just had to dole them out in rationed fashion beforehand and be careful. And again, the routine breakfast / lunch combos left me plenty of margin for error in the afternoons, so even if I got hungry, I could play the "just wait until you get home game" and then dive into a caloric snack.
3. Speaking of chips... don't eat chips. No, really, nonchalant munching was a habit I just had to break - those free chips and salsa at the Mexican joints add up quickly. It is very hard to count tortilla chips, so this was one thing I just had to outlaw. And oddly enough, I haven't really had the heart to go back to them... sadness.
4. I'll shut up about this - but I used the word "discipline," and that probably only gets at part of what I mean. Adhere to a set of rules and be disciplined about it, sure. But also have the self-knowledge that you will undoubtedly screw up at times, too. So make the dietary attack an all-out attack - do little things in almost every aspect of eating / exercising. More exactly, try to, because you will goof on occasion. It's better to goof on 10% of the mutlitude of things you are trying than to goof 10% of the time on the singular change, as the latter - it seems to me - can devolve into a relapse, whereas the former is just one mistake against a background throng of improved behaviors.
Example - a player who will remain nameless was talking to me about weight-loss before the scrimmage the other morning, asking for advice and strategies. And I mentioned all of this, including this last point - make the changes broadly, in everything that you're doing, particularly when you can control it. Fast forward... we're at pizza later, and said player skips on the cheese pizza in favor of the meaty "man" pizza. Not to indict him, but the difference between a cheese slice and a fully loaded meat-lover's slice is not insignificant, and it's an easy change to make relative to some of the other ones. This little event just re-emphasized the need to be holistic in approach - details will get dropped, but if you embrace the "reduce calories" mantra in all aspects, your disciplined moments will more tightly compensate your lapses.
** - Why yes, we are watching The Wire, why do you ask?
These things come with a price, of course. I just tried to cook corn on the stovetop. I put a smattering of olive oil on the top to avoid singing the corn too badly, but I got distracted by a Sparkle, and next thing I knew I had burned the olive oil onto the pan. D'oh. The corn eventually turned out okay, but there's a Cajun style frying pan in our sink that I have thus far failed to clean. So, um... the adventure has its consequences, good and bad. Sorry to the Cooking For Elaine webmaster.
Sticking with the food motif, I continue to struggle to recalibrate my diet in the maintenance phase - I feel like I'm going up and down a lot, and probably not eating enough during big periods of exercise. So there's more work to be done. But a line that was kinda buried in the weight-loss post stands out to me now:
"I do have lots of energy most of the time, though I definitely crash now and then."
This crashing has been worse and more frequent than usual over the past month or so. Before I go on, don't get all alarmed - nothing all that serious can possibly be going on, as I'm still routinely playing lots and lots of frisbee, and running long distances, and even attending tournaments at 7,000+ feet in Flagstaff with absolutely no energy problems whatsoever. So this can't be something globally or even generally wrong with the Nyet-machine. It's just that some days - including today, actually (I tried to rally and get to school today, but just couldn't do it - I'll see how I feel in a bit and perhaps head back to the doctor if some food and drinks don't make me feel better) - I feel drained, get to the gym and am not just tired but can't even get a workout going at all - just nothing in the tank. Given the shape I'm in, that I feel like I am eating enough, etc., this was a little worrisome, so I checked in with the docs on campus, had blood work, blah blah blah, etc. Predictably, nothing is wrong. Actually:
My resting pulse is back down at 41.
My BP is a nice 108/68.
My cholesterol is 168 (HDL: 79, LDL: 81).
All of the obvious stuff - anemia and relateds (rbc's, reticulocytes, hemoglobin, hematocrit, iron, b12, folate), thyroid, hydration, etc., was normal. Again, as expected; you can't exactly be crazy anemic and suddenly perform better at altitude. So the docs had little to help me. In their defense, the problem seems 1, weird, and 2, difficult to isolate: I probably haven't been getting enough sleep, drink too much caffeine, don't eat enough / the right things, have been stressing about things school and Sprawl, and am maybe working out too much. Any or all of these could be contributing, so it's probably just a situation where I need to improve things across the board and will hopefully see improvements. Which is good, because, you know, autoimmune anemia would have been annoying.
The biggest, most obvious thing, just to keep rambling about the same topic, is my food - I've lost weight and have started having a problem that I didn't have before. I relayed all of this, and the recommendation was to see a nutritionist. So, begrudgingly - you've seen a bit of my thoughts on popular notions of "health" as well as the seemingly always changing recommendations of professional dietitians - I adopted a good attitude and yesterday went in to see if a nutritionist could help.
She could not.
I'll cut this would-be rant* short - she showed me the same charts and formulas for calculating calories that I've seen online, told me things about glucose and glycogen that aren't entirely true, and recommended a GPS / heart monitor if I wanted to get detailed about calorie counting. (The one she rec'ed retails at roughly $350 - SOLID!). She recommended more fruits and veggies, and when asked what they would provide that I was missing in my currently detailed diet, she had nothing other than that they were "natural." She also recommended organic products as they "don't have so many chemicals in them." I.e., she pulled off an extraordinarily stereotypical nutritionist act and spoke in effective platitudes throughout. This was hella frustrating, and did not enlighten me in any way. UGH.
* - Okay, okay - as the Beck noted, I've got to cut her some slack, as I am perhaps in the 99th percentile of knowledgeable = annoying patients. I came in with this to cut off talk of a food journal or such:
* - Okay, okay - as the Beck noted, I've got to cut her some slack, as I am perhaps in the 99th percentile of knowledgeable = annoying patients. I came in with this to cut off talk of a food journal or such:
AND I showed her the e-mails of food records, gave her examples of protein / fat / carb breakdowns, fiber intake, etc. Like I've noted a thousand times, Nyet = big nerd, so I gave her a ton of detailed data to work with. And this is on the one hand good, as it gives her an opportunity to get past the usual first-stages data-gathering process of deciphering a problem because all of the info is already there. On the other hand, it completely put her on the spot - she thought she was doing an initial consult, but I came in with five months worth of data for her to analyze and devise a responsive plan to on the spot. So I was probably unfair. Still... see below.
What *killed* me, though, was the final recommendation. She gave me this story about my glycogen stores being overly-depleted (when I asked her why the same routine didn't give me any trouble when I was carrying more weight and eating fewer calories than now, speculating that my lack of fat now leaves me with less reserves, she replied that "fat doesn't matter for working out." Right...). So the $300 (probably) consultation got me the advice to "eat more carbs." Note my quote from the previous weight-loss post:
"Of course, 3000 calories is now WAY more than I'm accustomed to eating, so I find myself just tossing on cereal and sorbet at the end of the day to compensate for my now-screwed sense of pace."
You'll note that cereal and sorbet are almost entirely carbs. Or you could just note the food diary entry which I showed her (breakdowns are calories (fat/non-fiber carbs/protein)):
foc - 120 (2/50/4)
milk - 135 (0/20/12)
ewpc - 60 (0/3/10)
pbg - 190 (7/28/5)
g2 mini - 45 (0/12/0)
clif (p) - 270 (8/30/20)
choc mousse - 60 (3/9/1)
lp - 260 (8/35/12)
MoJo - 675 (2/160/19)
lemonade - 30 (0/1/0)
Dinner - 575 (9/76/54)
Corn x 2 - 250 (4/54/9)
Broc - 30 (0/6/2)
Chicken - 230 (5/0/43)
Pineapple - 65 (0/16/0)
mango tangerine - 200 (0/53/8)
hnc + milk - 400 (5/76/15)
popsicle - 15 (0/4/0)
------------------------
total - 3230 (46/601/166) - (414/2404/664:3482) - (12/69/19)
And note that on this fairly typical day, I got 69% of my calories from carbohydrates. 69%! I'll spare you the chore of digging through the internet to learn that the recommended diet for a full-time athlete is, yep, 70% carbs. I'm not a full-time athlete!
So really, she told me nothing. Or she told me something weird: to add carbs onto an already carb-intensive diet. So I suppose I'll try it, but the visit was disappointing at best. The thing that offends is the pretense of expertise which, as far as I could gather, turned out to be familiarity with a series of quips, all of which are either easily accessible "knowledge" or things that don't necessarily seem to apply to my particular situation. She was plenty nice and eager to help, and I shouldn't really blame her if it's nutrition science that's lacking and/or my weird symptoms that are defying an easy dietary fix. My well-ingrained skepticism gives me an itchy trigger finger in these domains, I suppose.
Of course, this bring us back to the beginning - Beck, Cooking For Elaine crafter, foodie, perpetual voice of more optimistic reason, SLF-extraordinaire - urged me to forgive the nutritionist, just take her advice on face, and try to eat more generally, and more carbs in particular. Fair enough; I'll give it a go. Beck also notes that nutritionists are probably like psychiatrists in that it's more important than with, say, a surgeon, to find one that shares your worldview. Solid point. In the meantime, I'll continue to play with my diet AND benefit from Beck's awesome cooking. SCORE. Actually, the plan is to eat at the local, recently-opened Two Hippies Pizza tonight, so I'll ask for extra crust or something. Sorry, Elaine; unless you're coming to PHX, apparently you're on your own for food for Thursday night... :)
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