When you Eat, Move as Little as Possible
Posted: September 26, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cars, drive thrus, trains Leave a commentMy first job out of college was selling mail opening and extracting machines. Since it was not an item that the average person wanted I had a rather large territory, Delaware to North Carolina to cover, selling to major companies and banks. This all meant I spent a lot of time in my car. I think I knew every exit of I-95 and where all the pay phones were to give you a time period reference.
Spending so much time trying to get between one customer is Washington DC and another in Wilmington Delaware on the same day meant that I ended up eating a lot of meals in my car. You really can’t call eating something from a drive through while going 65 miles per hour between two big trucks a meal.
Years later when I was a consultant for BT in the UK I was often on the train traveling from London to Bristol, or Manchester, Doncaster or Warrenton or any of the other lovely British cities I frequented, eating my breakfast in the restaurant car, which was still a car. Although I was not doing the driving, I was usually working while I ate, especially if I was traveling alone.
All that mindless eating in cars was no way to be healthy. First the food available to drivers should be limited to football playing fourteen-year-old boys who just can’t seem to consume enough calories no matter what. The rest of us, and that really is most of the world, should just skip anything that is available to be passed out of a window.
The second thing is driving an actual car should take most of the brainpower we have. Not that driving itself is so difficult, but watching for out for idiot drivers is a full time job. If you are trying to dip some fries into a small container of ketchup while going 35 miles per hour in a 25 you quickly become one of those idiots you are supposed to be on the look out for.
The third thing about eating in your car is you are sure to spill something on yourself. I know that the invention of straws has helped keep liquids in your cup or in your mouth, but I personally don’t drink hot drinks with straws, something about scalding the roof of my mouth I shy away from. The telltale sign that someone was eating in their car is they have a stain on the upper thigh of their pants. Women who have a stain on their breast area might not have spilled in the car, but it is a possibility.
Add all these things to the fact that eating as your secondary activity does not seem to register in your brain and thus your hunger department never gets the memo you have eaten, I made a rule for myself that I will not eat in the car. I made this “rule” about nine years ago and for the most part have tried to follow it. Granted I no longer have a traveling job and don’t commute anywhere, but I do feel like I became more conscious of my food when it really became a meal.
Now if I could just give up watching TV while I eat. My worry is that if I stop in the middle of a show I really love I will just eat more quickly so I can find out who is not getting a rose. None-the-less, I think sitting still is the best way to eat.
My Least Favorite Word
Posted: September 25, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bad words 4 CommentsMany people have words they do not like. I know many mothers who forbid their children to use the word “stupid.” “Shut up” is another popular non-favorite with the pre-school crowd. “Suck” probably tops the list for middle school mothers.
My least favorite words is “Plateau” as in “a state of little or no change following a period of activity of progress.” Yeah, plateaus really suck.
I am in a stupid plateau and have been for the last three weeks. It is normal for me to lose weight at a fairly good clip and then just skid to a halt. I know this to be my normal, but come-on, shut up; I would like to reap some benefits from my hard work.
I am trying hard not to use all the bad words when I get on the scale in the morning and it is basically the same thing everyday. I know this too shall change and that I have to keep at it. I know that my body has caught on to the fact that I am not giving it as many calories to live on and it has said, “Whoa. We are going to go into that caveman, non-starvation mode and learn to live on what you are eating so as not to die.”
See I am one of those humans who should have been alive 500 years ago when the food supply was not so constant. My body is brilliant at holding onto fat for just that time of year when food was scarce. You naturally skinny people who need to eat constantly just to keep going, you would have never made it through one drought season, let alone a little old famine.
So if I seem a little more grouchy than usual it must mean that I am still stuck on this darn plateau. But I know from experience that eventually I will walk off a cliff and drop a few more pounds. If it doesn’t happen soon you might have to bleep out my whole blog.
What We Need is a Hormonal Traffic Signal
Posted: September 24, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: hormones 1 CommentOne night when my daughter was about night years old I heard her crying in her bed. I quickly opened her bedroom door to see what was wrong and there I found her sitting up in bed sobbing uncontrollably. “I don’t know whats wrong. I just can’t stop crying,” she squeaked out.
Unfortunately I knew it was the beginning of the girl up and downs. I looked her square in the face and said, “Oh honey, its just hormones.”
With the wisdom of a much older woman she asked between sobs, “Why do hormones always win?” It was one of the greatest truths ever uttered and it came from a child who was yet to really understand how powerful those hormones really are.
I am in no way as astute when it comes to hormonal cycles as either my daughter, or my husband. One of my husband’s best traits is being able to track with NASA quality preciseness when a hormonal swing is about to take place. When I am beginning to act insane somehow even after all these decades of having hormones I do not immediately know the cause for my insanity, but my husband does.
It would be so helpful to me if he would just go ahead and erect a hormonal signal that would clue me in. Green would mean all clear, Yellow would mean insanity was on it’s way and Red would give me a warning that my full on B%tch is here.
My daughter is still better than I am at reading the signals. One day I got a tragic text from her about something that had gone terribly wrong at school that morning. That triggered my hormonal reaction and worry. By the time I got to school for afternoon pick-up I was a mess waiting for her. As she got in the car I asked her if everything was all right and she said without a care in the world, “Oh yeah Mom, no problem. It was just hormones.” Disaster adverted, but just for her, my maternal hormonal reaction had yet to clear.
Not only do I want a traffic signal, but maybe even an indicator light right in the middle of every woman’s forehead, that way I would know if it was a good time to ask someone a huge favor, or perhaps I should just give her a piece of chocolate and wait for a green light day.
For me I would like the light system so when I want to eat something more than my “I’m being really good food” I could weigh whether I was really hungry or just hormonal. Currently I figure out the hormonal part only after I have eaten something forbidden, which is just too late.
For now, I just feel sorry for my husband who lives with two women on opposite ends of the hormonal teeter-totter. I don’t know how he does it, but thank God he does because otherwise I might never know what is going on with me.
Can I Lick the Yolk Off My Plate
Posted: September 23, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Belcher's, new Canaan, The village Market, Wilton 1 CommentWhen I was a kid my mother was “off duty” on Saturday mornings and my father, who us kids did not see much on the weekdays due to his long work commute, was in charge of us. Back in the “olden days” of the 60’s and 70’s Saturdays were not the day parents drove their kids to various sports or arts activities, for me and my sisters it was the day that my Dad made us breakfast before we got in the car and went to do his errands with him before we were conscripted into child labor.
The breakfast was almost always the same thing. A fried egg on toast cut into a tic-tac-toe board pattern. It is still one of my favorite things to eat. The little toast squares soaking up the runny yellow yolk, paired with one perfect bite of not crispy fried egg. Today since I don’t eat toast often I am wishing that it were lady like to pick up my fried egg plate and lick the yolk, which lays languishing on it. I have tried using a sliced tomato as my toast replacement and although it is a tasty is does not have the same absorbent qualities and plenty of delicious yolk goes to waste
The errands were almost always the same thing. First we had to go to the liquor store to cash a check and sometimes buy liquor. See, it was the days before ATM’s and 24 hour banking. We almost always went to New Canaan Liquors for this chore since our town of Wilton was dry and New Canaan had more liquor stores per person than any other town. Just for the record, New Canaan also had Silver Hill a really fancy dry-out place that movie stars used to come to when they had visited one too many of New Canaan’s 142 liquor stores.
The big woman who owned New Canaan liquors was a good marketer. She always gave any kids that came in the store lollypops so we would beg our father to go back there to cash his check. Liquor store loyalty started early in our family.
Once we were at the liquor store it was only steps to my father’s second most popular errand, a visit to Belcher’s the lawn mower and chain saw store. Belcher’s was fine with us kids too, because they also sold bikes so we always got to sit on the newest Schwinn bikes as my father discussed the sharpening of one blade or another.
After Belcher’s we drove through the car wash and then back to Wilton to one of the two hardware stores in our town. Hardware stores back then were like a cross between a small Home Depot and a down market William Sonoma because they sold everything from replacement screen to lobster pots. There was always something fun to play with there while my father bought the needed supplies for us to work on the house as our afternoon activity.
The errands ended with a visit to the Village Market, Wilton’s grocery store that was way ahead of Whole Foods in the “If we prepare it, you will pay through the nose, but you will love it” way of selling food.
After the fun of errand time we knew we would have to pay by doing the chores my father had on his list for the afternoon. Our most constant task was mowing and raking the grass as well as raking the leaves, but scraping paint off the 200 year old clapboards or crawling up on the roof to clean out the gutters was often included in the child labor department. Although we did complain we never seemed to opt out of those Saturdays.
As mundane as those days sound it was what we lived for as kids. Time with my Dad, the same food, the same errands, the same chores, but lots of time for him to tell us stories about his childhood and tell us the exciting things that were happening at work. Oh how I miss mundane.
Nantucket Inspired Crab Cocktail
Posted: September 22, 2012 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: cocktail sauce, crab, Nantucket Leave a comment
I’ve spent the last two weekends going to too many fun events while out of town. That means too little lack of control over what I was eating, but lots of yummy ideas for new food.
I had lunch in Nantucket on the wharf with friends Susan and Jane and had a crab cocktail that was so good. I don’t know what they put in theirs but here is my rendition of it.
For one serving
Lettuce cut into strips
2 T. Non-fat cream cheese
Couple of drops of milk
2t. Horseradish- divided in half
2 T. chili sauce
Couple of drops of limejuice
3 T. crabmeat
Mix the cream cheese, milk and half the horseradish together. In a separate container mix the chili sauce, remaining horseradish and limejuice together (you could use pre-made cocktail sauce if you have it.)
In a ramekin or small jar, place all the lettuce, the cream cheese mixture, the cocktail sauce and top with the crabmeat.
To really guild the lily add some avocado cubes between the cream cheese and cocktail sauce layers.
Visit First, Text Last
Posted: September 21, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: email, facebook, text, tweet, visit 4 CommentsLast night I had an acquaintance tell me that she loved reading my blog and that now she feels like she knows me as well as she does a very close friend. She told me this as a cautionary tale because she said that someday she might be diagnosed with some horrible disease and she is going to call me up and tell me to get right over to her house to care for her children while she leaves home for treatment.
She is not the first person to tell me this. Another acquaintance said she felt somewhat like a voyeur reading the blog since she really did not know me that well.
You people need to stop worrying. If I write it and post it, you are allowed to read it. People who know me will attest to the fact that I will talk to almost anyone about anything. The fact that I am writing about losing weight, a subject almost no one wants to broach should be proof enough.
I am not an expert in much, but I do have a passion for making community, and I don’t mean community coffee. I love meeting new people, finding common links, learning new things from them, introducing them to others, blah, blah, blah.
But in our Tweet first, Facebook second, text third, email fourth, call on the phone fifth, actually go see a person face-to-face last world it is harder and harder to actually become a community. All this isolation communication has got to be contributing to our unhealthy lifestyles.
This is all rich coming from someone who is communicating to you through a blog. I would greatly prefer you all to come and sit in my kitchen and let me talk to you and tell you stories there. But since this community of readers is spread far and wide it makes it more impossible.
What these acquaintances that have some sort of guilt about reading my personal musings do not see is that, all you people who read the 500 words I write everyday, are acting as my collective therapist. I don’t need to pay someone $250 an hour for me to tell him how screwed up I am. I have you. And if you recognize any hint of yourself in what I write maybe it helps you too.
Most of what I write is too true to make up. It is my real life, crazy as it is. Once in a while I do fabricate an example person so that I don’t out some actual horrible person. My friend Mary Eileen and her family read the posting “It’s great not to get recognized” where I described a woman who always said, “Nice to meet you” even though we had met many times. Mary Eileen said they sat around the dinner table saying they knew exactly who she was. When she asked me I said, “OMG, is there really someone matching that terrible description? I made her up.”
So if you are that person I described, I don’t know who you are. If you recognize yourself in my postings you are not alone, you are just human. It is OK if you feel like you know me; I have posted 136 blogs about my struggles and myself for the last 136 days. Please know that you are my community. If you want to come and sit in my kitchen you are welcome to do that. I may blog, but in my world I go to visit someone first, call them on the phone second, e-mail them third, text fourth, Facebook fifth and almost never tweet.
Not the Smartest Person in the Room
Posted: September 20, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Dr. Gerald Bell, goals, Leadership, Smart 1 CommentLast night I attended a Trustee retreat where we had Dr. Gerald Bell, a leadership specialist as our guest speaker. The organization I was there for is undergoing a long planned search for a new head and our speaker was there to help us prepare for our eventual change in leadership. The group of about 25 people who attended last night is made up of people who are all much more brilliant than I am. None-the-less the exercises we were put through appeared to be both eye opening and informative for almost everyone in the room.
Dr. Bell told us that when we were setting goals for our eventual new head we should use the S.M.A.R.T. system, An acronym not all of us knew.
SMART in goal setting stands for making goals that are
S – Specific
M – Measurable
A – Attainable
R – Resources
T – Timely
As I thought about my own goal setting I realized that once in a while I was using the SMART system, this weight loss challenge being a good example of that. I have a specific goal of losing 50 pounds. I can clearly measure it, as I get on the scale everyday. It is attainable because it is a 25-week timeline and it is realistic to lose an average of two pounds a week. I have the resources to do it because I actually use fewer resources by eating less. It is timely because there is no better time to get healthy.
Since I was not the smartest person in the room I would misspell it and call it SMAART. Personally, publicly announcing my intention to try and reach a goal is by far the best motivator for succeeding, therefore my newly added “A” would stand for Accountable.
It is amazing the amount of support I get from people because they know I am working on losing weight. People are not afraid to talk with me about it because I write about it everyday. My being out there gives people permission to talk about a subject that is often taboo. No one is embarrassed to say, “You look like you’ve lost weight” because they know I am trying and not that I have some terrible illness which is causing me to get thinner.
At the end of program Dr. Bell challenged us to come up with 15 goals we wanted to personally attain in the next year. He said that you needed to think of 15 because the best ones come at the end of your brainstorming after you have already written down all the easy ones. Once we had thought of 15 we should pick 10.
I am going to do this and share them with my husband so I can be accountable to him. If I don’t share them it would be very easy for that exercise to be just that, an exercise. I’m sure you have goals, lists and wishes of things you would like to accomplish. So join me in adding an extra “A” to being SMAART and be bold in your accountability. You might find that extra push to finish what you started and even if you don’t, it is so much more fun to have others share in your journey.
My Failed One Bite Rule
Posted: September 19, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cravings, one bite, sweets 3 CommentsSome years ago I lost a huge amount of weight, actually twice before this I have lost lots of weight, so this is my third time. You naturally thin people often wonder why in the world I gain weight back after working so hard to lose it the first time. Trust me, I ask myself the same thing. Just as I am a self-taught expert on losing weight now, I am a self inflicted pro at gaining weight too.
My friend Maricella brought me an article from yesterday’s Wall Street Journal titled, “How to Fend Off a Food Craving.” Google it to read the whole thing, but there was one paragraph I want to share with you and give you my learned opinion of…
“What is the best way to fight food cravings? Many studies have shown the more subjects try to restrict food, the more they may crave it. So some experts suggest embracing and controlling the urge instead.”
I am here to attest that as a food addict this is not a technique that has ever worked for me. In fact I have done a multi year study and proven the opposite.
I love sweets and the longer I go without sweets the easier it is for me to not crave them. After four months of being off sugar I can be around cupcakes, smell brownies, even have a box of chocolate turtles on my counter that I have not looked at or craved.
The last time I lost a significant amount of weight I created what I thought was a brilliant way to deal with unhealthy foods. I called it “the one bite rule.” If I really wanted pasta I gave myself one-bite of it, the same with coconut cake, pizza etc. But then the size of my “one bites” got a little larger, until I practically was using a serving spoon to gouge out my one bite of cheesecake. Before I knew it, one bite gave way to three to right back to eating the amounts and the types of foods that my body clearly does not need.
So I would like to refute Mr. Murdoch’s crown jewel the Wall Street Journal and say don’t give into cravings, fight them. The article does go on to say delaying, distracting yourself and exercise are all other ways of dealing with a craving. Those are techniques I endorse. In fact the article says smelling a strong smell such as “Jasmine helps occupy the same aroma receptors that are a key part of food cravings.”
Now I have a new scheme to start growing jasmine and selling whiffs of it as a food alternative, for a premium price. If it works I may be opening a jasmine smelling truck right near the next Food Truck Rodeo.
What to Make for a Church Luncheon?
Posted: September 18, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: church supper, covered dish 6 CommentsNot that long ago I saw a news piece that said Protestants in America were the heaviest group when dividing America up by religion. It is not really that important statistics because Americans in general are overweight and more American’s are Protestant than any other one group, so no news there.
The reporter went on to say that perhaps it was all the covered dish suppers that Church goers went to which were full of macaroni and cheese and hash brown casserole that was the reason Christians were so fat. If you go to a place of worship are you having a meal there everyday? Not at my church. We may eat at church a couple times a year max.
My friend Sara and I are charged with providing an all-church lunch in 12 days. We did this last year and served a top-your-own baked potato bar. It satisfied many different constituents. For Vegetarians we had broccoli and cheese, for vegans we had just broccoli, for meat lovers we had ham and for folks that don’t like much we had sour cream and butter. What we did not have was any main course for dieters, just a green salad, not really a meal. For the frugal the meal only cost about two dollars a person to make and that included a giant sheet cake from Sam’s. Maybe there is something to that obesity tie to Church.
This year I want to make something that even I can eat, that will be easy to make, cheep to pay for and satisfy all they various eating groups. So I am reaching out to you, the world of church and non-church goers for ideas for a lunch for about 200 people.
It is not that I can’t come up with a menu, but I figure that each of you might have attended a big event and thought, Wow, that was a good menu. Tell me, tell me now.
One more thing, I don’t have much time to actually cook it. Both Sara and I are busier than Santa’s elves two days before Christmas so we need to be able to shop and cook the whole thing on Saturday and serve it Sunday at noon. So no whole pig ideas, ain’t got the time.
If we can come up with a healthy church meal perhaps we can stem the fat tide believers are riding. Now that would be a Jesus worthy miracle.
No Grinding Please
Posted: September 17, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: ground meat, Meat, steak Leave a commentI am no scientist, but my weight loss program is a study that is worthy of two Johns Hopkins researchers and one Richard Simmons. I eat a fairly steady diet everyday and about the same amount of exercise every week. I have cut out all real sugar, because sweets are my drug of choice and I hardly ever eat flour of any kind.
So in my vegetable, fruit and protein diet I have stumbled upon what I consider to be a major medical break through. Before I reveal my ironclad findings to you I must report that I have scoured the Internet and have not found any medical or anecdotal information that even mentions the discovery I have made. There can be many reasons for that. First, this food interaction may only effect me or other WASPs with my identical genetic make up, or secondly, this finding can be completely false.
I know by now you are dying to know what this break through discovery is in weight loss and I will not keep you in suspense any longer. I lose more weight if I eat a solid piece of meat as opposed to eating the exact same amount of ground meat.
Now before you say that I must be eating ground meat with more fat than say a solid piece of pork tenderloin let me give you some information on the controls I have used in my testing. First I have ground meat myself and eaten one dinner of ground beef and the next of a whole steak cut from the same larger piece of meat. I have also tried this with chicken, pork and beef.
If you are a scientist and know why my body processes the same basic food in different ways please let me and the rest of the world know. Some of my hypothesis are that by grinding meat we must turn it into a more soluble form so that more stays with me when I eat it. Perhaps I am a very poor chewer and I am swallowing such large chunks of meat that my body can’t break it down before it leaves me. Maybe meat is like corn on the cob and just goes in for the ride. Who knows.
After all my years of Weight Watchers lectures, diet doctor visits and Atkins books read I do no recall anyone ever saying don’t have the burger, but instead have the steak. So let me be the first to tell you. Like the whole grain craze that started some years ago I am going to be the whole meat guru. And when I say meat I mean meat, fish and poultry in their closest to life size you can get it.
I do not lose weight on days I eat only fruits and veg. So sorry all you vegans, I have no help for you. I am not advocating an Atkins/South Beach diet, just that when you do have a meal eat mostly veggies and some protein that is not ground, mashed, shredded or pulverized. Give your body something to do once you’ve swallowed and report your results back to me. If it works for more people than just me we are going to have to come up with a catchy name for this diet too. Suggestions are welcome.
A Cautionary Tale
Posted: September 16, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: clerks, Shopping 1 CommentIt is no wonder that the Internet has made huge inroads in the fashion business because stores could hardly do a worse job of having great employees and creating spaces that make it easy, comfortable and attractive to try on clothes.
I hate to shop in stores. This is not a new thing. That is unless the store is run by the owner who has a vested interest in actually helping me, sells enough that the store is profitable so it does not have merchandise all crammed together and has beautiful dressing rooms, with someplace to sit down and most importantly great lighting.
One of the only bad things about dieting is that you have to buy some clothes to wear while going down, but you don’t want to buy many because the hope is you will shrink out of them. When changing sizes you really need to visit a store to see what fits so it makes Internet shopping out of the question. You see, the only thing I hate more than visiting a clothing store is having to go to my local post office to mail a package of wrong sized clothes back to the seller.
I am sure this hatred of shopping is genetic on my paternal side. My father told me of his childhood horror of going to Montaldo’s, the nicest woman’s store in Winston-Salem with his mother when he was five. He says he would go immediately to the circular ladies night gown rack and hide in the middle because my Grandmother would run out of patience about ten minutes into her visit and stamp her foot and in a loud, smoked-too-much, scratchy voice say, “Who is going to wait on me?”
As much as father claims it scared him, he too wants to be helped at stores, just as I do. I am almost worst than my Grandmother, which my relatives all know is a really high bar to hurdle.
One December years ago I was in a Gap-like store trying to buy Christmas presents. There was one main check-out desk manned by the only person who apparently could run the cash register. There were three other “sweater folders” working in the store who did not ever proactively interact with the customers. Their sole purpose was to fold and refold clothes so the store always looked perfect, not so they actually helped sell something.
I had single handedly found four items to buy as presents and went up to the desk to pay. I was third in a line of six people all trying to keep our Christmas cheer while waiting an endless amount of time to give these people our money for the over-priced items and get the hell out of there.
Even though there appeared to be three cash registers and four employees, only the one who passed fifth grade math was allowed to use it. As I became the next customer to be checked-out the phone rang. Right in the middle of scanning my items the clerk helping me stopped, answered the phone, talked for at least a minute to the person on the phone and then, laying the receiver on the counter walked away from the register and me, money in hand.
“Wait,” I called out, the genetic twin of my Grandmother, “Can’t one of the sweater folders help the person on the phone and you keep ringing me out?”. The bored clerk, who was making the same amount of money whether they had any customers or not replied, “No.”
Quickly realizing I was about to be left I said, “The person on the phone is only inquiring about possibly spending money in your store. I am actually trying to spend money here. Please finish with me first.”
As the clerk slowly sauntered off to the back of the store she said, “The phone takes priority.”
This is when I am glad I do not carry a weapon, instead I carry a big mouth and a short temper. I did the only thing I could do at that moment. Turning to the other, much too patient, customers who were waiting behind me I said, “This store is not interested in us or our business, I suggest you leave with me now.”
I felt very empowered as two of the three other customers dumped their items on the front desk in a heap for the sweater folders to restock and walked out into the mall with me.
It was a real pain-in-the-ass because I had to do more shopping to find replacement gifts for the ones I did not buy there, but I was damned if I would patronize such an idiotic store again.
So this post is a cautionary warning that if you see me out about town and I’m naked, I have not lost my mind, I just did not have any clothes that fit and I could not bring myself to enter another store.
Nantucket Memories
Posted: September 15, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Nantucket, restaurants, Wauwinet 3 CommentsI am writing today from a deck chair on the porch of a house in Nantucket that my friends Rich and Susan have rented for the week. Rich is my oldest friend, having known each other since he was four and I was five as well as being my husband’s business partner. Rich is kind of like my brother as well as my husband’s work spouse.
They know each other so well that they often show up for events dressed in matching outfits.
This morning Russ and I went into town before Rich and Susan. Russ bought himself a pair of Nantucket Red shorts and decided to wear them out of the store. Rich had been wearing his Nantucket Reds when we left the house, but when they joined us in town he had changed into khaki’s and a blue shirt. I noted that for once they were not matching. Rich’s response was he knew that Russ would not only buy the shorts, but that he would wear them so he changed so they would not match. Now that is a friend who knows you well.
We are all in Nantucket together for a business meeting that starts tomorrow evening, but until then we are enjoying a little vacation. Since we have been here many times before, my first time as a teenager with Rich’s family and again as the first vacation Russ and I took Carter on when she was just five months old, we are spending time reminiscing between either planning where and what to eat or actually eating.
We went to the Wauwinet Inn for lunch and ran into CBS Sunday Morning corespondent Bill Geist and his wife Jody whom I had flown in from Boston with. Jody and I had sat with each other on the tiny plane and talked the whole time so she was happy to meet Russ. She remembered his name since it is the same name as her daughter’s new son. They were here for a wedding and encouraged us to crash it or any of the other 43 weddings Bill said were on the island this weekend. We said we had a good dinner reservation so we would have to crash during the dancing.
I don’t know how people went on vacation before the Internet. I sit here listening to Russ and Rich discuss the ratings and menu’s of various restaurants and try and balance out the offerings versus what they have planned for the next day’s meals. If we go to Galley Beach do they have enough meat when we are going to seafood tonight, or if we go to Langedoc is it too fancy? So many decisions to be made.
This is not a new travel activity. I can remember being on vacation as a child with my parents and having my mother get furious with my father because he wanted to discuss lunch and dinner while eating breakfast. As Rich said earlier we just need to find things to do between meals since they are the big highlight of the day.
And there you have it. What to do when not eating and how do you make food less important when you are on vacation? I have decided that the best thing to do is try and eat at regular times, never waiting too long between meals so that I am not so hungry that I make bad decisions and that, when possible, I split dishes with anyone who will do that with me, even if it the diner at the next table.
One of the joys of travel is learning about and enjoying local cuisine but that does not mean sampling island fudge or giant slabs of coffee cake, but raw oysters and steamed lobster is just the thing to splurge on, if only with money and not with calories.
In the moments I have written this the sun has dipped below the tops of the scrub trees, bringing on the cool air that I have not felt for months. The setting sun must indicate that soon it will be time to prepare for dinner and another meal with great friends and new memories to add to our lifetime of Nantucket times together.
Being At Other People’s Mercy
Posted: September 14, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: airline, fax, Phone, restaurant 2 CommentsI hate being at other people’s mercy. I like to be the driver, the planner, the get-it-done-myselfer and in the words of someone I never quote, the decider. It is not necessarily an attractive quality and one that I try and mask to the outside world very unsuccessfully.
This week all my masking skills failed me when in the space of two days I was tested over and over again.
The first situation came at 10:00 the night before a surprise birthday party I was throwing with some friends. I was in charge of the restaurant and menu. Coconut cake was featured in the invitation and was expected. I had gone to the restaurant weeks in advance and reserved the space and the cake.
The manager told me to email him the exact menu a week ahead, which of course I did. I called him the next day to confirm his receipt of my detailed instructions. He was not in so I requested he call me back. The next day no call back. I phoned him, not in, no call back. And again. Then I went away for the weekend.
Upon my return home I had to cook for the clothing show at my house, reconnect with my 13 year old daughter who almost did not realize that her father and I had been away for three days and do all the laundry from our hot weekend where we changed our clothes four times a day.
As I fell into bed dead tired after the clothing show and started thinking about the next day’s party it dawned on me that I had never heard from the restaurant manager. In a panic I picked up the phone and called them and asked for him by name. I felt as if I was going to throw up when I was told that he was not in and would not be in until Friday, two days after my party.
The poor man who answered the phone. I went into full on bitch and asked who was in charge at that very moment. Another manager came to the phone and I begged him to tell me that he knew all about the party, the email for the menu and more importantly the coconut cake. NO. He knew nothing about it. We worked out the menu, and he thought he might have enough staff, but the cake was going to be a problem. He only had half as much as I needed!
It eventually worked out, but not until I completely micromanaged the staff, bussed plates, poured drinks and cut the cake slices myself, serving the skinniest of servings. In the end the birthday girl was completely surprised, celebrated and happy.
My second pain-in-the-ass event this week was my call with a national phone company I won’t out here. We have way too many phone lines for a family of three. Three months ago I gave up long distance service on one of the six lines, I told you it was too many. Somehow I inadvertently kept paying on the account of the line I gave up and not on one of the lines I still had.
I was receiving automated calls from this rotten phone company saying that I needed to call them about my phone line. Since I had been sending them more than enough money I assumed they wanted me to call them so they could sell me something, so I never called them back.
It was not until I received a letter saying they were going to cut off my long distance that I realized there was a problem. It took 15 phone calls to figure out that they had my money in one department, but would not transfer it to the correct department until I sent them a FAX, and even then it would take two weeks.
What century is this company in, a FAX! When I asked the poor customer service rep why in the world they had not alerted me that I was sending them money for an account which had been closed months ago he was silent for a whole minute. When I said, “Well?” His response was, honest to god, “I’m trying to think of a good excuse.”
Even after that admittance of guilt he could not transfer my credit, nor could he refund me without a fax. When I asked if I could send an email, the answer was no. “We can’t take your word over the phone that you are who you say you are and we need a paper trail.”
I could just as easily impersonate myself by fax as by phone and since when was email not a paper trail? I just imagine that fax I sent falling on the floor and rolling under the fax table because it is still printed on slick continuous fax paper of 1988.
I write this as I sit at the airport at the mercy of an airline, no surprise there. My 11:45 flight is not taking off until 1:15 now it is yet to be seen if I will make my connection on a tiny 12 seat prop plane. I would love to know what my normally low blood pressure is now.
The good news is that I did not turn to eating as the way to deal with my frustrations, instead I turn to ranting via blog. Blogging now an official diet tool for me. So thank you to all you unknown readers I imagine I am complaining to. I know I am still at the mercy of others, but at least I hope you have gotten a chuckle out of my frustrations and you have a stress free weekend.
Roasted Pears – Master Recipe
Posted: September 13, 2012 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: blue cheese, pizza dough, roasted pears Leave a comment
Roasted pears can be used for good, like in a fall salad with grilled chicken and a little blue cheese, or used for evil like in this pizza I made for Russ.
I like to buy a bunch of pears and roast them to keep in the fridge. Once roasted, they will last a couple weeks in an airtight container.
Pears
Pam
Preheat oven to 425º.
Cover a cookie sheet with foil and spray with Pam. This is very important because the pears will stick without the foil.
Slice the pears into ¼ inch slices and lay them flat on the cookie sheet. They can touch, but not overlap. Spray the pears with Pam and place in the oven. Cook for about 30 minutes and turn the oven off and leave them in another 15 minutes.
For those of you who can afford to eat the pizza here is how I made it. I just bought pizza dough at the store and stretched it out and pre-cooked it on the grill by heating the grill up to very hot and lay to dough directly on the metal grill closing the lid and cooking it for 3 minutes and flipping it over and cooking for a minute and a half on the other.
I lay the following on top of the cooked crust- roasted pears, caramelized onions, a little mozzarella and blue cheese. Then put in a 400º oven until the cheese melts. The pizza is great served with a little arugula salad on top.
Measuring Methods
Posted: September 12, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: meauring, scale Leave a comment
There are lots of ways that I measure my progress in the weight loss journey; the scale is the obvious one, but the more obscure ways are so much more fun. In descending order of obvious ways here are some measurement tools that I have come across.
Following a very close second to the scale are clothes. How do my clothes fit and how many smaller sizes am I able to wear. Almost more importantly how many clothes should I not be wearing because they are just too big? There is nothing more comfortable than a pair of jeans that feel like pajamas because you swim in them. But having your clothes feel that great usually means they are too big to be worn outside of your house.
The worst thing for me is when losing weight I find an old beloved pair of pants in my closet that I have not been able to fit into for a while and put them on only to discover that I have missed my opportunity to wear them because I am smaller than those pants now. OK, that is not the worst thing, but with limited clothing choices I wish I had found those pants earlier.
Chairs with arms are another great barometer of skinny success. The other day I sat down in a chair and was unable to have both my elbows on the arms of the chair comfortably because they were too far apart. I found I had to put my purse in the seat next to me to rest my arm on. I can’t remember the last time I sat next to my purse in a chair.
Another pair of arms I use for measurement are those of my husband. It is wonderful to dance with him and have him be able to wrap his arms around me and dip me. Now if we could do something about rhythm.
Our king size bed is looking much larger these days. As I lie on my side writing this blog I can no longer reach out and pet our dog sleeping on the opposite corner.
My favorite new measurement marker is that I got in my car the other day and I could not really reach the steering wheel. I had to move the seat forward because I must have lost enough off the backside of me thus falling further away from the wheel.
I have to keep all these measuring apparatus in mind in case I start to go the other way. If I find I have to move the seat back there are no excuses that the washer shrunk my car. What goes down can go back up; even though that is not exactly the law of nature it certainly is the law of weight management.
Great Closet Advice
Posted: September 11, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: black pants, closets, clothing 5 CommentsToday my friend Hannah and her business partner Suzanne had their Doncaster show at my house and are donating 10% of all their sales to the Food Bank. Thanks to all the wonderful ladies who came out, stripped down and decided they had to have a new skirt, sweater or suit.
I heard lots of funny and useful information about people’s clothing and closets while they pondered between the lilac and the olive sweaters. One friend, Kathi, found a couple of pieces of clothing that looked great on her, which was no surprise because everything looks great on her. She said that she could not buy them right there and then because first she had to go home and see if she already had anything like them and find an equal number of things to weed out of her closet before she added anything new.
WOW! What a concept. She says she only needs so much and this way everything she keeps is up-to-date and in great condition. “How many black shoes does a person need?” she said.
I don’t know about you, but most women tend to buy the same thing over and over again, because that is what they are drawn to at the store. I have friends who only wear one color, say black, or taupe, you know who you are, which is great because that is what they look good in. But if you are only going to buy one color, how many multiples of the same items do you need?
I remember when a friend built a new house, she was showing us her closet and she said, “Here is the dress hanging section and the shirt hanging section and the shoe section and the black pants section.”
Kathi’s plan of only having one of anything works for her because she has remained the same size for her whole adult life. Kudos to her for that hard job, but it does make closet management easier.
Another friend Lucy asked us if we had ever seen the “Home Improvement” episode where Tim Allen built his wife her dream closet. She described what was needed in a dream closet, “A place for thin clothes, fat clothes and the just five fewer pounds clothes.” Tim then holds up a tiny slinky dress and asks his wife, “What section would this go in? The In-Your-Dreams-Section?”
I remember once my mother, who hates to ever part with any of her clothes, tried to do a weeding out. I happened to come to visit her after she had spent three days removing every item of clothing and trying it on and deciding if it should go in the keep, donate or throw pile. I walked in the door and was horrified to see she was wearing a 30 year old L.L. Bean wrap around skirt that did not quite meet the wrapping minimum, paired with a thread bare Shetland sweater which had been my sister Janet’s in boarding school that was at least three inches too short for my mother. As she tugged on the front of the too short sweater she said with a big grin, “Look at these great clothes I found.” Great has a different meaning for my mother and me.
When I asked if that was representative of the things she was keeping what in the world was she throwing away or donating. That was when she pointed to three ratty t-shirts on the dining room table that I had thought were dust rags and said, “I’m giving those away.”
I am going to try and break any genetic connection I have to my mother when it comes to my closet and somehow become adopted by Kathi. I am embracing the nothing-new-in-the-closet-until-something-old-comes-out rule and I will make sure that I am not purchasing a duplicate item unless I have worn out or ruined the first one. Now, if I could just do something about the In-Your-Dreams-Section.
Doncaster Flash Backs
Posted: September 10, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Doncaster 2 CommentsWhen I was a kid both my Grandmother and my mother sold Doncaster clothes. In fact, my grandmother was the East Tennessee Regional manager for 35 years and when she retired at the age of 80 someone else had the opportunity to be the oldest employee, a title she had held for at least ten years.
I was about ten or eleven when my mother started selling. Four times a year I would come home from school and there would be half naked women trying on clothes in our playroom. I always loved playing store with my sister when the clothes were at our house.
Well some things never change. My good friend Hannah and her partner Suzanne are selling Doncaster now and they brought the clothes to my house this evening so that all out Durham friends could come and shop here. They have some really gorgeous stuff that I am coveting.
Hannah made a great deal with me, if I would have the show one day, 10% of anything she sold here would be donated to the “Less Dana, More Good” campaign. Don’t tell her I would have done it for free.
So I have cooked a bunch of yummy things for all you hungry shoppers who want to stop by anytime tomorrow. Frittata, zucchini bread and pineapple in the morning. Smoked salmon pizza, pimento cheese, corn and tomato salad and gazpacho in the afternoon. I’m sure I’ll need to bake something after lunch.
No appointment necessary. Breakfast will be served at 8:00 AM. The best news is that I have plenty of private places you can try clothes on just in case you don’t want to run around my house half naked.
Wedding Hangover
Posted: September 9, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: michelle, richard, wedding 4 CommentsI am hung over. I’m not talking about the way one feels from enjoying too much bubbly or one too many Bloody Marys, just the bone weary way I feel from packing as much fun as possible into a wedding weekend.
My Georgia native friend Michelle wed her great British love Richard is what was hands down the most spectacular, sweet, surprise filled wedding ever. Ninety friends and family came from all over the world to eat, drink and be merry as if they were representing their countries in some wedding Olympics.
Not to be outdone I did my fair share of competitive bocce playing, sunset marsh boat riding, low-country-boil eating, new friend making, Cajun dance doing’, getting-to-and-fro bike riding, muscle torture massage getting, “Oh-Happy-Day” gospel choir listening, teenage-son-giving-his-mother-away sobbing, groom kissing the bride watching, great old friend enjoying, cocktail reception hors d’oeuvre eating, lasting memories photo taking, torrential downpours umbrella carrying, luxurious dinner conversating, one bite of wedding cake tasting, surprise fireworks gazing, Sleeping Booty boogying, dessert bar by-passing, dead tired room returning feet-drag walking, farewell brunch partaking, long goodbye hugging, six hour home driving.
After all that you might understand my excitement when we passed a hand painted sign on the side of the road near Bennettsville, South Carolina that read, “Used Body Parts Ahead.”
For more than a moment I thought that I could trade-in my dog-tired feet for a fresher, even if used, pair. Kind of like buying a retread. It took me more than a minute to realize the sign was for auto body parts. They should have said that. Please tell me I’m not the only one who ever made that mistake.
Whatever damage I did to my diet from eating or body from dancing it was all worth it to witness the joining together and celebrating the love of two fabulous people.
Growing Up and Liking It
Posted: September 8, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: growing up. bike riding, inn at palmetto bluff, wedding 4 CommentsAs if Russ and I have not had enough great travel already this year, today we are enjoying the best place we have been in a long time, the Inn at Palmetto Bluff. As I write this I am sitting in an Adirondack chair under the shade of a three hundred year old live oak tree draped in Spanish moss, overlooking the wide expanse of the May river and it’s tidal marsh.
We are here as guests of our great friends Michelle and Richard who are getting married tonight in the darling waterside chapel, an occasion of great celebration. After yesterday afternoon’s croquet and bocce tournaments and Cajun dance dinner party complete with moan inducing oysters it is hard to imagine how it can get any better, but I am sure it will exceed my wildest imagination for the perfect wedding.
Breakfast this morning was at a place called Buffalo’s where you had your choice of the biscuit bar or other even more fattening items made to order. When one of the categories of offerings is “Sticky” you know I had a hard time finding something low calorie to eat. Russ had the best grits on earth, which I can verify because I had a one orgasmic bite.
Between breakfast and my upcoming massage Russ, my friend Hannah and I rode our cottage assigned one-speed bikes through a good portion of the 20,000-acre property. Thank goodness for this exercise to help counteract the intake portions of the day.
As we peddled the winding paths through the forest, me in my white linen shirt, hiked-up so as not to catch in the chain, I had a strong flash back to a movie I saw in fourth grade called “Growing Up and Liking it.”
One day, late in the school year the boys were taken from our classroom and sent to another room while the girls remained in our classroom with all the blinds drawn. Our teacher, Miss Stoelting, turned on the projector to a movie that opened with a girl, much older than our 9 year-old selves, maybe she was 12, riding a one-speed bike in the dappled sunlight wearing a cute white culottes.
The music played and the male announcer started talking about how girls grow up and change… the movie, made by the Kotex company, was all about getting your period. As fourth graders, we were horrified. It was all news to us. We were a test class to see if fourth graders needed to know this information. We did not.
A soon as the movie was over we all ran to the girl’s room, filling every stall. I remember pulling my underpants down to see if I was bleeding and calling out to my friends to see if theirs had started, sure that it was eminent because that was why they had showed us the movie.
When we returned to the classroom our upstanding teacher told us to lie to the boys and tell them we had seen a movie about dolls. Upon their return the boys told us they had seen a movie about cars and we told them our grown-up sanctioned lie.
I so badly wanted to know if the boys really saw a movie about cars, but never had the nerve to ask them. If you happen to be one of those boys please call and let me know.
Once the shock about the growing-up part subsided my big take away from that movie was that you could still ride your bike when you have your period. I still laugh about the 1960’s propaganda title, and the fact that the narrator was a man.
During those adolescent years there was no liking growing up. You just wanted to be grown up. But man, today enjoying another great rite-of-passage, a wedding, I am so glad that I am a grown up and can still ride a bike whenever I want.
“You Must Feel So Much Better”
Posted: September 7, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a commentMany fat and thin friends alike say the same thing to me about losing weight. “You must feel so much better.”
The answer is actually, “No.” See, I did not feel badly before. My knees are good, thanks to not much overuse since childhood. My big bones are strong and have been highly developed from having to carry my body around all these years. My hips are fine, not a click or hitch in any of my giddy-up.
My internal numbers are good too. I have unbelievably low cholesterol and blood pressure. My only bad number was the one on the scale.
When you feel good to start and lose about 2 pounds a week you don’t really notice the change. Now if I strapped a forty-pound bag of flour on me and had to run around I am sure I would say it was harder, but I know I could still do it. I lift much more than 40 pounds at the gym.
I am sure it makes people feel better to look at me, but the view and feel from the inside of me is the same. I am not discounting the fact that eventually something would give way on my body and I would feel worse, but as of right now I feel the same lighter as I did heavier.
Perhaps if something did hurt I might have not gotten in this position. All this is to say, even if you feel great it is better for you to be closer to an ideal weight. You don’t have to wait until you feel bad to lose weight. That day might not come in time to do anything about it.
Appliance Love
Posted: September 6, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: appliances, green stamps, stick blenders, washers 5 CommentsI have always loved appliances. When I was an adolescent I started asking my parents to give them to me for Christmas. My thinking was I no longer wanted toys and I was going to need all those appliances someday, why not start collecting them now when my parents were paying.
I think I was eleven when I got a tiny Sony black and white TV. I never had to leave my room again. My father learned his lesson from the TV and gave me a sewing machine the next year and on Christmas afternoon brought me four pairs of pants he needed mended.
When I was in college the Weis Market in Carlisle, PA gave out green stamps. I started saving freshman year, volunteering to do the shopping when my Pi Phi pledge class was having a function. Eventually I moved off campus and shopped weekly with my roommates pasting the stamps in the little books after every trip to the store.
After three years I had amassed enough green stamps, 62 books, to get the second most expensive thing in the catalogue, a Cuisineart. Only a canoe took more books. When I went to the redemption center to turn in my hard licked stamp books the other patrons clapped for me. The clerk told me I was the first Cuisineart she had ever awarded. That appliance served me well through 10 years of catering and hundreds of dinner parties. It was 25 years old before I retired it.
This appliance love might be somewhat genetic because my daughter, Carter likes appliances too. When she was about six years old the two of us were leaving the mall late in the evening. I asked her if we could go out through Sears because I wanted to look at the new washer and dryers.
Since we were the only customers in the white goods department we had a number of salesmen descend upon us. I will never forget the starry look in Carter’s eyes when the clerk asked if there was something he could help us with.
At six, she was sure he was talking to her, so she responded in a sing-songy voice, “No thank you, we are just dreaming.”
That salesman must have thought one of two things, that Carter was his ideal life-time customer or that we were too poor to own a washer and spent hours at the laundry mat, otherwise a small child would never dream of a new front loading set.
Today I love my stick blender with it’s 8 different attachments for whisking, chopping – both rough and fine and blending of all sorts. It is a dieter’s best friend. I can make smoothies, soups, sauces and purees all without dirtying another bowl, pitcher or appliance. You just put the stick in the pot of tomatoes sitting on the stove, flick it on and within seconds I have whirled up a soup for dinner.
So in case you do not have the appliance gene, or you are looking for the perfect gift for your mother for Christmas, think of a stick blender and dream of all she will do with it.
Roast Cauliflower with Raisins, Pecans and Capers
Posted: September 3, 2012 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: capers, cauliflower, pecans, raisins Leave a comment
I love cauliflower, but the rest of my family thinks they do not, so I am always attempting to find ways they might change their minds. Unfortunately I made the calorie laden cauliflower au gratin once and so that is the high bar mark for a vegetable they would rather not have at all.
Today’s recipe is a much healthier use that also encompasses sweet, tart and salty flavors with a little crunch.
1 head of cauliflower broken into bite size florets
¼ c. golden raisins
2 T. capers drained of brine
2 T. chopped green herbs – I used chives, Italian parsley and thyme because that is what I had in the garden, but you could use any combo you like
2T. Sherry vinegar
Salt and pepper
¼ c. toasted pecans
Preheat the oven to 400º
Cover a cookie sheet with foil and spray with pam. Place the cauliflower in a single layer on the cookie sheet and place in the oven to roast for about 30 minutes it should get a little brown.
Mix everything else except the pecans together in a small bowl and let flavors marry together.
Roughly chop the toasted pecans.
When cauliflower is done. Place it on a platter and sprinkle the vinegar mixture over it and then the pecans. Serve.
You can also eat it cold, but save the pecans and put on right before you eat it.
It a Long Weekend- Sleep late
Posted: September 2, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: mutt, sleep Leave a commentThis is no news – the more and better quality sleep you get the better you are at either losing weight or maintaining your healthy weight. You don’t have to believe me, there are tons of medical articles on the subject.
I am a good sleeper. I don’t take this for granted. I come from a family full of bad sleepers and I am also married to one.
As a child my youngest sister Janet had the nickname inside our family of “Mutt.” She earned this unattractive name not because she was not cute, but because of her nightly sleeping ritual.
Long after everyone in the house had gone to sleep, Janet would drag her red Snoopy sleeping bag from her bed and walk the very long distance from her room down the hall, up the stairs through both the big and the little living rooms and into my parents bedroom. Silently she would curl up on the sleeping bag at the foot of my parent’s bed, much like a trusted family dog, thus the “Mutt” moniker.
In the night my parent’s bedspread usually fell to the floor covering my sister completely. My mother was already not sleeping well and my father’s snoring did not help.
My mother’s best sleep came after 4:30 when my father would get up to make his long commute to New York City. As he would try to silently leave their room he would invariably kick Janet at the foot of the bed, never learning that she was going to be there for many years.
My husband is a broken sleeper too. He starts in one bed and sleeps for about four hours then wakes up and spends about two or three hours awake and is sometimes able to fall back to sleep, usually in a different place in the house.
I am proof that just being a good sleeper will not make you thin. Russ, as a bad sleeper is thin so it is not making him fat. I think it helps that he does not eat when he is awake in the middle of the night. But if you are sleeping you can’t be eating. And being tired lowers your defenses against boredom or binge eating.
If you are hungry late at night, go to sleep rather than eat. It will keep you from eating that night and if you got a good night’s rest it might keep you from over eating the next day.
Weigh In Day
Posted: September 1, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: pounds lost, weigh in 8 Comments
May 13, 2012
Sept. 1, 2012- had to add the belt so you could see the change
Happy September! I love September, back to school, cooler evenings, both my sister’s birthdays. Two birthday cakes in the house must have sealed my love of September.
Since I have been off sugar for the last few months I really can say that I am honestly not interested in birthday cake. As long as I don’t have a bite and send my body back into sugar love.
I was worried that August was going to be a poor weight loss month. Not because of the heat, but because of the vacation. Russ took me to the Pacific Northwest and San Francisco for two weeks and we had a fabulous holiday.
But two weeks of living in hotels and eating every meal out had me worried. I was hoping that if I could just maintain my weight I would be happy. Especially when I was in Portland. Russ had planned the whole trip and when we woke up our first morning there I asked him what the Portland plan was. I kid you not; he looked right at me and said, “We came to Portland for the food.”
I know I made some kind of “What the…” face, then remembered he had started planning this trip long before I planned my weight loss challenge. We had some of the best food in Portland, so I suggest visiting it for your self.
Thanks to Russ for splitting dishes with me, eating a lot of seafood and hiking, making vacation was a huge success. My first morning home I got on the scale and I had lost 4 pounds!!
I was lucky that I had been on vacation on the half of the month that I usually lose weight. I have been a serial dieter enough of my life that I know there are weeks I lose and weeks I don’t even though all the inputs of calories and outputs of exercise are exactly the same. It is a hormonal fact of life. Even though I know this sometimes it can be discouraging to work and work and have no tangible scale success. But I keep persevering because the good week is coming.
So now for the number most people care about…how much weight have I lost in total? The answer is 40 pounds! August was a great month, losing 8 pounds. So the quest continues. I have until November 1 to lose as much as possible for this challenge.
My goal to raise $1,000 for every pound I lose still stands. I have pledges for $615.25 as of today. I want to thank all the people who increased their pledge. My plea now is that you spread the word for me. If you enjoy my blog please forward it on to anyone you think might also like it.
If you have not been reading it you missed some funny stories this month and a couple of good recipes. You can always subscribe to get it on e-mail. Just visit www.lessdana.com and on the right hand side halfway down is a place to “Follow blog via e-mail.” If you read nothing else two popular posts, according to the stats, were “No way to Lose Weight” and “Happy 100 to Julia.”
As always I love to hear from you. Any requests for recipes that you want me to lighten up or comments about stories are welcome. I like two-way conversations and blogging is a little too one way for me. Even if you just send me a “ha-ha” I love to know you are out there.
For the Love of Sleeves
Posted: August 31, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: sleeveless, sleeves 1 CommentThis is an open letter to all you fashion designers, clothing manufacturers, retail fashion buyers and fashion editors. You know who you are, the ones who decide what is going to be “in” each season.
Since fashion is decided months in advance I am begging you please to make women’s clothing with some sleeves for next spring and summer.
I know that I am not the only woman who does not like her arm fat to flap in the air. Even women who I consider to be very skinny sometimes have beautifully toned upper arms on one side and some chicken gobbler flab on the other side.
If you are having trouble picturing this hold your arm up in the air as if you are making a Popeye fist, upper arm perpendicular to your body, elbow bent at a right angle with your fist above your head level. While looking in the mirror, make a fist and look at your beautiful muscles on the top of your arm. Now shake that arm back and forth, did the bottom wobble at all?
I don’t mean to insinuate that your arms are anything but gorgeous. But mine are not. No matter how much I work out and diet only one side really improves. Not the end of the world. The answer is sleeves. They cover a multitude of issues, if I could find summer clothes with them.
My proof that I am not the only one looking for clothes with some semblance of sleeves is that all the summer clothes available in store now are sleeveless. Granted it is the end of the season, but even with prices slashed to 25% of their original cost most of the items are sleeveless and no one is buying them.
I asked a sales clerk in the dress department at Belk if she had any dresses with sleeves and I swear to God this is what she said, “Honey, if you wanted to sleeves you had to be here in March. All those dresses sell out fast.”
The pashmina has been the answer to so many women trying to find ways to cover those naked arms, but sometimes you don’t want to have an extra thing wrapped around you. So fashion deciders, vote yes for sleeves. Those dresses sell.
It’s Not My Hair
Posted: August 30, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: hair, marsha Brady, peggy lipton 1 CommentThe absolute worst thing anyone can say to a person who is trying to lose weight is, “Your hair looks great today.”
I have horrible hair, so you would think I should be happy if anyone thinks my hair looks great. Which I have to say is almost never. I have mousey brown, thin, lifeless hair. I am also a hairstyle moron. Meaning that I can hardly hold a round brush and a hairdryer at the same time without needing to revert to scissors to free myself from my appliances.
I grew up in the Marsha Brady era of straight hair, parted in the middle. I was thankful as a young teen that my lackluster, no style, no body hair just happened to be in Peggy-Lipton-Style back then. Alas, those hippie days only lasted long enough for me to get into the 80’s and be small hair styled in the big hair times.
But I digress. Today when someone I don’t see often runs into me and they say, “Wow, your hair looks great.” I want to say, “It’s not my hair. It’s the fact that my face is thinner thus making my hair look better on my head. But the hair it’s self, still not so great.”
Next time you see someone and think, did they change their lipstick color, don’t say that. Instead say, “You look great.” The person will either say, thank you or tell you what is different about themselves. If it is the lipstick, you can silently pat yourself on the back for being so observant.
There is nothing worse than not getting credit for hard work. I have been dieting like crazy. I would hate for someone to look at me and say, “You must have gotten a good night’s sleep last night.” That could be grounds for strangulation. I don’t want credit for lying in bed, but I do want credit for upping my intensitiy on the elliptical.
So if you really want to give someone a compliment and want them to love you for it, make it open ended and over the top. Now you can’t do that with me now, because I will just think you got the idea from my blog. So go ahead and compliment my hair and my wink back to you will let you know we are both in on the joke.
No Way To Lose Weight
Posted: August 29, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: CBN, Mail opening, OPEX, sick, Throwing up 2 CommentsMy great friend Lynn has had a terrible week. First she got food poisoning so bad that she had to go the emergency room where they kept her for six hours. Then last night her cat had a heart attack right in front of her and is now in kitty heaven.
Lynn is a world-class animal lover so she has taken this loss harder than the average pet owner and still being weak from the food poisoning has not helped.
To try and help her take her mind off her beloved cat I picked Lynn up and whisked her off to the place that makes her happier than anyplace on earth, Starbucks. While there enjoying her Venti Green tea latte, with two pumps and no foam (I know her order by heart, but don’t really know what it means) we got to discussing how much weight you lose when you are sick. Although Lynn has nary an ounce to spare, food poisoning can really do a number on your number on the scale.
This conversation brought back to mind the worst time I ever was sick. Back in the 80’s when I was selling mail opening and extracting machines, yes, reread that last thing, I sold machines that opened envelopes and took the contents out. So, back then I used to travel four states selling and then installing these big machines.
They were called OPEX machines and the kind of companies that bought them were ones who were getting lots of mail everyday full of money. Places you pay your bills to… think banks, utilities and mail order houses. My territory, being in the south, also had the majority of televangelists as clients too; Jerry Falwell, Jim and Tammy Faye Baker and Pat Robertson.
One week when I was about 25 years old I was spending four days at Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) campus installing twelve new OPEX machines. CBN needed so many machines because the 700 Club TV show received hundreds of thousands of envelopes a week all with money in them.
I will never forget the sweet woman Gail, who ran the donations department. She was a calm Christian woman who was one of my nicest clients.
Installing new equipment meant that I had to train her whole department of three shifts of workers how to run the machines. Running a mail-opening machine is about the easiest job on earth, but teaching people to do it day, evening and midnight shifts was not. My first day there went fine, but by the second day I was not feeling well, and I mean really rough.
Gail came out on the shop floor and could see by the gray color I had taken on that I was not well. I told her I thought I needed to go back to the hotel and she said she had a better place to take me first.
CBN was Christian Broadcasting Network University (Now known as Regent University), so I thought Gail was taking me to a nurse or the infirmary. Practically delirious with a fever she guided me down long hallways until she opened a door of a giant room that was bright and full of people. At first I thought I had died and this was heaven because there was beautiful music playing and the light was blinding.
Before I knew where I was Gail had led me down an aisle and up to a stage. When then music stopped I heard her voice, strangely amplified, ask someone to heal me that I was sick. I felt people touching me and just then I threw up all over the floor.
As horrible as it was to throw up I felt suddenly better for just a moment and in that brief second I realized I was not at an infirmary, but I was on a television set. Gail had brought me to be “healed” and I had thrown up on live TV. I saw the cameras and the audience and turned and ran, somehow finding my way out.
I have little memory of driving myself back to my Hampton Inn where I stayed holed up in my room for two days sick, as could be. I eventually improved enough to drive myself back home to Washington D.C. My service tech finished the install at CBN without me.
A month later I had to return to CBN and see Gail. She was said I looked much better. I asked her if I was the first to throw up on the TV show and she said yes, as far as she knew. I told her the only good part was that I had lost 9 pounds that week from being sick. We both agreed that it was the worst possible way to lose weight.
Balsamic Vinegar Peaches
Posted: August 28, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: balsamic vinegar, peaches 1 Comment
I bought some beautiful to look at, yet somewhat hard peaches at the Farmers Market. I left them on the counter to ripen and they did not quite get to that juicy peach stage I wanted. So to help them along I peeled them and sliced them and cooked them a few minutes. I love how this recipe turned out. Almost like having a peach pie, but easier and oh-so-much healthier.
5 peaches peeled and sliced
2 T. Balsamic vinegar
5 packets of Splenda
Breakfast cereal for garish – I used protein plus special K since that is all I ever have.
Put the peaches, vinegar and Splenda in a saucepan and heat on medium heat for five minutes, stirring every so often.
Good served warm or cold.
I put a few peaches in a ramekin and sprinkled a little cereal on top for crunch.
Dana’s Bra Strap Shortening Station
Posted: August 27, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Bras 2 CommentsThis morning while at a meeting with a group of female friends we invariably got off subject and turned the discussion to bras. I know that you men will be thrilled to learn that women are sitting around talking about bras, but get your minds out of the gutter. We were not sitting around in only our bras talking.
The topic was the importance of the right bra and how it makes you look thinner and therefore younger. For those of us for whom support was an issue we quickly narrowed the conversation from bras in general to bra straps.
For those of you who either don’t wear a bra or are so young and nubile that your breasts are where you would like them here is a glimpse into the future.
Everyone who has ever seen “What not to wear” or “Oprah” has heard about the importance of the right fitting bra. No news there. So when you go to Nordstrom’s and shell out $70 for that perfect bra, fitted by an expert who exclaims that this four hook-underwire-molded cup model is just right you buy it and three or four of the same style in different colors.
All is good in the world. That is until that bra gets a little tired of hauling your girls up where they have not been in decades. The answer is to tighten those tired ‘ole straps a little more. This works until you reach the point that the little tightening do-hickey will not shorted anymore because your strap is at its shortest place.
The worst part about this happening is that by now you love this bra. It is has molded itself into your actual shape and other than it not lifting as the lift and separate company Playtex told us a bra should do, you would like to keep it.
After much female coffee-klatch discussion on this problem the solution came to me. A drive thru-bra-strap shortening station. You could just pull up in your car and a gruff Eastern European woman with a hand held sewing machine could just take those straps up an inch and you will be back at attention.
No more is your belt acting as a bra. People will notice you have an actual waist and you will not have to hell out multiple $70’s to get new bras whose straps have not given way.
So as soon as I invent the hand-held-bra-strap-sewing machine and hired a bunch of Ukrainians you will see Dana’s Bra Strap Shortening Stations popping up beside 7-11’s around the country.
My Wish – Fruit Cutting Super Power
Posted: August 26, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cutting, fruit, super power 1 Comment
Anyone who has ever tried to lose weight knows that fruit is one of the good things to eat. Not only is it yummy and usually sweet, but most fruit is juicy. Ok not bananas, but melons, peaches and pineapple are all wet chin inducing. And all that juiciness is somehow satisfying.
Weight Watchers finally woke up last year and changed their diet program to allow people to eat as much fruit as they wanted. In their old plan an apple was worth the same number of points as a Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich, crazy huh? Everybody ate ice cream sandwiches and wondered why they were not losing very much weight.
If I had known about this change Weight Watchers was going to make I would have shorted Skinny Cow’s stock because not only was fruit a “free” food, but the Skinny Cows were now three points instead of two. A change they had to make to account for all this fruit everyone was going to be eating.
Not so fast. Buying, cleaning, peeling, cutting fruit is a huge pain in my proverbial A*&. Not to mention the cost. Although I am not going to Weight Watchers, I am so well versed in the program from years of sitting through meetings, that I still look at all food and count the point values in my head.
Long before Weight Watchers made fruit free I was choosing blueberries over a graham cracker slathered with cool whip because I knew that eating fruit helped me loose more weight.
But if I were a super hero and could have one super power, other than the ability to eat what ever I liked and be skinny, I would chose the ability to point at fruit and turn it into fruit salad.
No more cutting the ends off pineapples, then the skin, then coring and chopping it into bite sized pieces. Not another melon would need to be washed on the outside then dried thanks to Lysteria hysteria, then cut in half and had the seeds scooped out then the flesh scored into chunks and removed from the rind. I love eating it, just hate prepping it.
But as far as I know no one is granting me a super power. So if you ever get invited to my house for dinner and you want to ensure you will be invited back. Leave the bottle of wine at home. Bring me a fruit salad instead.
Cucumber Water – Are You Kidding Me?
Posted: August 25, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cucumber, water 2 CommentsI hate drinking my calories. It is one of the reasons I don’t drink alcohol, that and I still have not found those underpants I lost in Miami in 1984, the last time I drank too much.
To my mind and stomach drinks do not register as food, even thick drinks like smoothies. Well, maybe a milk shake might register, but I can’t figure that out now.
So I stick to non/low calories drinks, but not soda. I drink tea and now to really give me variation I make regular tea and ginger tea, which is just regular tea with a ginger root steeped in the water too. I also drink water, both regular tap water and San Pellegrino. That’s four big drinks.
This summer I discovered a new love, a taste so good that is practically feels like food, cucumber water. Yes, water that has s few big slices of cucumber floating in it. Actually I don’t even have the cucumber in my individual glass. I just fill up a pitcher with cold water and drop about five half inch slices of peeled cucumber in and put it in the fridge.
In no time at all the water has taken on a crisp taste that hardly resembles water at all. The best part…ZERO calories. How can something so good have zero calories and I know exactly what’s in it. In fact I grew what’s in it.
Drinking the cucumber water comes close to sipping a cool soup it’s that satisfying. Have I lost my mind? If you know me you know that this is a little out of character. I must be so calorie deprived that I have started hallucinating. There is no way that water and cucumber could bring me to such a state of nirvana. I don’t really even like cucumbers alone that much.
Perhaps I have stumbled on the next drug craze. The government is going to have to outlaw cucumbers because teenagers are going to sit around in groups drinking this and feeling some out of body experiences.
I guess I should have kept this secret to myself and just started bottling it. If I marketed it as the next great tasting diet inducing high I could easily charge $10 a bottle.
So make it yourself. Try it. If you hate it you are only out a quarter of a cucumber, but if you love it, send me $9. You get to keep $1 for buying your own cucumber.
The Garden is Over Flowing with Peppers- Stuffed Peppers
Posted: August 24, 2012 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: chili sauce, ground turkey, peppers Leave a comment
When I was a child my mother made four meals; hamburgers, spaghetti, baked chicken and stuffed peppers. Three of the four involved ground meat. I have to say the stuffed peppers were the best.
So now with my garden in full-on pepper production I thought I would revisit a taste of the 60’s.
4 large sweet peppers – or in my small pepper case, 8
1 lb of ground meat- I used whole food ground turkey thigh which has no skin ground into it
1 large yellow onion
1 cup of cherry tomatoes halved
2 eggs -beaten
½ c. Chili sauce (or ketchup)
3 T. Dijon mustard
1 t. salt
1 t. black pepper
Preheat oven to 350º.
Cut the peppers in half, lengthwise and scoop out the seeds and pull the stem off.
Mix all the other items together. Fill each half of pepper with meat mixture and place in a baking dish.
Bake for 45-mins to an hour depending on the size of your peppers. Do I need to say small peppers take less time?
If you like things spicier add a few chili flakes to the meat mixture. Serve with chili sauce. (It’s near the ketchup at the grocery store.)
It Is Great to NOT Get Recognized
Posted: August 23, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized 7 CommentsOne of my major pet peeves is when someone introduces me to a person I have met many times before and the person acts like they have never seen me. You know how that conversation goes.
“Mary, have you met Dana?”
Mary (name has been changed) looks at me dead in the face and says, “No. Nice to meet you.”
What are you kidding me? We have met like 13 times before. I know you have three children, the last one who was a surprise, your husband hates his job and you walk the Duke trail Tuesdays and Thursdays.
My smiling response is “Nice to SEE you.” I am southern. I have met you before and if I responded “Nice to meet you,” it would imply I think it is the first time we have ever met.
Even if it really is the first time to meet someone I always say “Nice to see you” just in case I don’t remember meeting them. There is no way we can remember every person we ever meet, but after three or four introductions you are running out of excuses. If you are really bad with names just say, “I know we’ve met, but I am terrible with names.”
But now I have created a situation where people have the best excuse to not remember me. I have lost enough weight that this last week three different people did not know who I was.
I am not famous so there is no reason for people to know me, but I am talking about real friends and colleagues who when I walked right up to them they looked at me like they had no idea who I was. It was not until I spoke in my distinctively low, loud voice that tipped them off that they knew me.
One friend looked over my head and when I called her by name she said, “OMG, I was looking for Dana behind you.”
To me I have not changed that much, but I must look enough different to people who have not seen me all summer. So for a while I will be excited when people don’t recognize me. But if you ever get introduced to me just say, “Nice to SEE you.” Even if you don’t mean it.
Better Than a Snack in the Snack Bar
Posted: August 22, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: snack Leave a commentToday while playing Mah Jongg a friend of mine reminded of an interaction she had with her then six year-old son. Her son and my daughter Carter have been in school together their whole lives and now at thirteen would be horrified about this story.
My friend was taking her son to our club to go swimming. While in the car on the way there they had this conversation:
Mother: “Maybe some of your friends will be up at the pool.”
Son: “Maybe”
Mother: “Maybe some of your swim team mates will be up at the pool.”
Son: “Maybe”
Mother: “Maybe when we get there you can get a snack at the snack bar.”
Son: “Maybe.”
Pause
Son: “Maybe Carter Lange will be up at the pool and she is better than a snack at the snack bar.”
When my friend could get to a phone she called me and told me this word for word and we both roared because first of all our kids were six years old and second, nothing on earth is better than a snack in the snack bar to any kid. Except maybe to her son on that day.
It got me thinking about how much American’s snack. Everyday after school it’s the same question…Can I have a snack? The answer is almost always yes. But why? Do other cultures all snack after school?
I watch these commercials for weight loss plans that send you the food you are supposed to eat. They say things like, “We send you three meals plus two snacks a day.” Eat, eat, eat, all through the day.
I have to say that I have cut snacking out of my routine during this challenge and not only do I not eat as much at meals and I don’t think about food as much. I am just eating breakfast lunch and dinner and don’t eat anything after 8:00 unless I am at a party where they have not given me dinner until 8:00.
You can bet I don’t miss a meal, but I never have. I certainly have not changed personalities and become one of those people who just eats to live, but I also am not sitting around waiting for a snack because I know I am going to get a whole meal soon, not a snack. My friend’s son got part of the equation right. A meal is better than a snack in the snack bar anytime.
No Dill Gravalax
Posted: August 21, 2012 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: salmon Leave a comment
My mother started calling me Dana-feed-the-5000 long before I knew there was a biblical reference for that name. I have the affliction of making too much food whenever I cook. My reasoning was not just for larger portions, but also for efficiency. I still contend that leftovers are better than the first eating so let’s make enough to have leftovers.
For a while this summer there was just Russ and myself at home. My frugal nature caused me to still buy a side of salmon for the two of us. Even with leftovers a whole side of salmon is too much for two people. After grilling a portion I decided to cure the other half. This is an easy process, but it takes a couple of days. The result is salmon that will keep much longer to stretch out the enjoyment and not cause me to have to throw salmon away.
Gravlax is a Scandinavian salt cured salmon. Lox is now the generic term for smoked salmon. I could have made a smoked salmon but it is way more work. Traditionally Gravlax uses lots of dill. I have a dislike of dill that is a carryover from my mother’s love of dill in potato salad. You decide if you want to include it if you want.
Piece of skinless salmon fillet
2 T. kosher salt
2 T. brown Sugar
1 T. whole peppercorns
1 T. fennel seeds
Fresh dill is optional
Grind the peppercorns and fennel up. I use a mortar and pestle, but you can use a spice grinder or the bottom of a heavy frying pan. You want to crush them to a large grind. Add the salt and the sugar and mix the spices together.
Lay out a large sheet of plastic wrap on the counter. Sprinkle half the spice mixture on the plastic wrap as close to the size of the salmon as you can. If you like dill, lay fresh chopped dill on top of the spices here. Lay the salmon on top of the spices. Sprinkle the remaining spices on top of the salmon (And dill if you want) and then fold the plastic wrap up around it.
Place it in a plastic container that has a lid. Place in the refrigerator. Every 12 hours open the container and flip the plastic wrapped salmon over. Lots of liquid will accumulate in the container. After two day unwrap the salmon and discard the liquid and wrap. Wash any spice mixture still on the salmon off. The more you rinse the salmon the less salty it will be.
Slice it very thinly on the bias to serve it. I like it with scrambled eggs and tomatoes.
Grilled Japanese Eggplant Vietnamese Style
Posted: August 20, 2012 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: eggplant, green onions Leave a comment
Russ and I went to a fabulous Vietnamese restaurant in Palo Alto called Tamarine. I had this wonderful eggplant, which I have done my best to recreate and lighten up. It could not be easier and I think I came somewhat close to my memory of it. Even if I got it totally wrong, it is still yummy.
8 Japanese eggplants (They are the long skinny ones. You can use purple or white)
1 T. limejuice
1 T. Fish Sauce
2 t. Siracha (Chili garlic sauce)
2 T. canola oil
1 scallion – white and green parts cut into ½ inch pieces
Cut the stem end off the eggplant and place on a medium high grill. Cook on one side for five minutes and then flip them over and cook the other side for 3 minutes.
Remove from hear and piece the skins with a fork. Set on platter.
Mix the limejuice, fish sauce and Siracha together in a small bowl.
Put the canola oil in a small saucepan and heat up on medium high heat. When it is very hot put the scallions in the oil and stir them around, cooking for 2 minutes.
Slit the eggplant down the center and spoon the fish sauce mixture and the green onions with a little of the oil over them. Serve hot or cold. I think they are better after they have sat and had the flavors married together for a while.
The Scale is Your Friend – No Matter What It Says
Posted: August 19, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: scale 1 CommentWhen I was a kid we had the kind of bathroom scale most people had. It had a dial of numbers and a little black line in the window. When you stood on it the number circle would spin to the right and then sometimes swing back to the left a little until it settled on the final tally. Sometimes you could switch your stance and make the dial back down a pound or two.
The other feature of this scale was the adjustment dial. It was a little finger wheel you could roll to make sure that the black line was right on zero before you stood on the scale. Although I know this was to help make sure it was accurate, it also caused some doubt in my mind as to the validity of its measuring capability. My thinking went, if I have to tell the scale where zero is, then how can I be certain it is telling me exactly what I weigh. A built in excuse.
There was one thing about our family’s childhood scale which I am certain was unique to ours. Written in red nail polish, right on the dial above the numbers was the number 115 in one inch digits. This was the number my mother was always looking for.
I have a very skinny mother and I think that the 115 written right on the scale was an excellent reminder of what her goal was. I think that now, but as a younger person I could not imagine how she could not remember what the goal was without having it flash red at her everyday.
This morning at 2:00 AM my thirteen year-old daughter called me from Vancouver. She was two legs down on a four-leg trip home from Taiwan and I had not talked with her for the last three weeks while she was away at Chinese school living with a family I do not know. Normally I am not happy to be awoken from my sleep at any hour, but last night I was thrilled.
After talking for 20 minutes she had to get on her next flight leaving me home wide awake, so excited thinking about seeing her today. Since I was up I did my normal morning routine. I got on the scale as I do everyday. My scale today is so much more reliable than the one of my childhood. Giving my weight down to the tenth of a pound with no ability for me to adjust it either by finger wheel or shifting stance.
As I stood on the scale I was horrified that I was up a pound and a half. But was I? What exactly was yesterday’s number? It was not written in red nail polish on the scale for comparison purposes.
I decided I should force myself to go back to sleep since I had twelve hours to kill until we got to go to the airport. Sleep worked to pass the time and shed the pounds my body was using to keep me alive through the night. When I awoke at a more reasonable time this morning I went back to the scale. The same number as the morning before. Not down, as I would like it to be, but not up.
For me I know that I don’t lose weight evenly. I can go a week of good eating and exercise and not lose a pound, but then the next week lose 4 on the same regimen. Oh the joys of hormones.
What I do know is that weighing myself everyday is important for me. You would think I could have learned that earlier from my mother. The scale is the only true way to know how I am doing. Clothes stretch upon wearing and shrink upon washing, husbands who love you are not good recognizers of your actual weight, great friends are good liars, only your scale will tell you the truth.
Last of Summer Squash Curried Soup
Posted: August 18, 2012 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: curry, summer squash Leave a comment
Yesterday and today I pulled out much of my spring/summer garden. This always makes me sad because some plants look like they still might produce. These plants are like children to me throwing out fruit like grandchildren. I hate to give up on a still good-looking tomato plant even though I know any tomatoes it might give up will be small, may never ripen and will just be inferior to their preceding siblings.
The real reason to pull out the summer garden is to make room for the fall garden, which I planted today. So all you squash haters may like the fall palette of vegetables better.
I have sweet potatoes that have been growing for some time. The plants have be denuded of leaves twice by my deer foes, but they seem to grow back and hopefully the potatoes underground are not as bothered by the deer as I am. I planted arugula by seed and everything else by transplant, which includes: butter crunch, romaine and red leaf lettuces, Chinese and red cabbages, Kale and cauliflower. I mistakenly bought two flats of cauliflower when I wanted one of broccoli and one of cauliflower. I hope to get the broccoli later this week.
This will be the last summer squash recipe until next year. Farwell to my best bumper crop, I grew over a quarter ton of squash which sounds so much more impressive than 500 pounds.
1 big yellow onion- diced
2 medium yellow squash- diced
2 cups of chicken stock
2 t. curry powder
1t. Cumin
½ t. smoked paprika
1 cup of light coconut milk
Pam
Salt and pepper
Spray Pam in a big stockpot and add the onions. Cook on medium high for about five minutes, stirring every so often. Add the squash and continue cooking for one minute. Add the spices and cook another minute. Add the chicken stock and bring to boil and reduce to simmer. Cook until the squash is tender, about 8 minutes. Add the coconut milk and then puree with a stick blender. Taste and season with salt and pepper.
Friends and Family
Posted: August 17, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: friends and family Leave a commentMy Dad is one of the great marketers in America. Life as his child was always like ”Let’s Make a Deal.” He used to make my sisters and me work in his beloved yard raking leaves or picking up apples in the orchard. He would keep us entertained by telling us stories about his work at Avon Products.
One of my favorite schemes he dreamed up at Avon was called “Operation Smile.” The deal was that Avon would sell a customer a new lipstick for 5¢ if she would trade-in an old lipstick. I know my Dad had to have gotten the idea from the pile of bad lipstick colors my mother kept on her dresser but refused to throw away. The operations guys at Avon asked my Dad what in the world they were supposed to do with all the old lipsticks. I promise the response was, “S#*T, I don’t care what you do with the lipsticks.”
Operation Smile was the most successful campaign in Avon’s history. Millions of new customers were gained and so were their old lipsticks. I know this for a fact because the operations guys sent many of them to our house in Connecticut and dumped them right on my father’s beloved yard.
Another example of my Dad’s brilliant marketing mind was his invention of MCI’s Friends and Family. It was first big social marketing. If you are not at least 45 years old you might not remember this, so here is how it worked.
I grew up in the olden days of long distance. I can remember my North Carolina Grand Parents calling our house on Sunday afternoon, the cheapest calling time and when I answered the phone the first thing I heard was not “Hello.” My Grand Father would say, “Quick, run, go get your father. I’m calling long distance.” It never helped that my Dad was always way out in yard cutting the grass of cutting a tree down.
Since long distance was still a big ticket item in the late 80’s he came up with the idea that if your were a MCI customer you could create a “calling circle” of ten people. If any of those ten people were also MCI customers you would get something like 20% off the long distance calls you made to them. This of course had customers convincing their loved ones to switch long distance carriers to be MCI customers to save the 20% and thus social marketing was born.
I remember when my Dad came up with this plan. He called it “Friends and Family” as a code name, always worried about the AT&T spy lurking around him. He said that the normal vernacular was “Family and Friends” so by switching the order no one would think any thing about it. The code name stuck and became the product name. It changed the parlance in America. Everyone says friends and family now, not family and friends.
So in the marketing spirit that was bred into me I have a deal for you. I am trying to raise $1,000 for every pound I lose. Right now I am at $584.75. If you would consider raising your pledge by at least $2 per pound or passing my blog to anyone else that would pledge at least $2 per pound I will give you your choice of either a loaf of home-grown-Dana-made Zucchini bread or a quart of Dana-made gazpacho. I am sorry to say only local deliveries are available, but I really appreciate all you far-flung friends and family.
You can go to the pledge page and make another pledge and write me note upping your current pledge, send me an e-mail at Dana@onelangegroup.com, writing me a Facebook comment, Blog comment, or be really old fashioned and call me. If you pass on the information to your Friends and Family make sure they let me know you are the connection so you can get your free goodies.
If I have not said it enough, let me say it again. Thanks to all of you great Friends and Family who have supported me in this weight loss challenge and are thus feeding hungry people. You are the best.
Behind the Scenes at “Less Dana”
Posted: August 16, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: laughing 4 CommentsLaughing is my favorite thing to do. Amazingly I would rather laugh than eat and it is really hard to laugh and eat at the same time. My college dog Beau, (Yes, I mean a real dog and not my beau in college who was a dog) Beau was a really smart mutt I got from the pound. He was eternally grateful for being rescued and never forgot the feeling that he might not get another meal.
Beau used go and sit beside the person at the dinner table who was laughing the most in hopes of getting food that would fall out of their mouth while they were laughing…True Story. I am not admitting here to having food fall out of my mouth while laughing, but in college it could have happened one or two times.
I guess I really should admit that making people laugh is my favorite thing to do. If I could start over again I would try and be a stand up comic. By the time I realized that I had too big a mortgage so I just tell stories at dinner parties instead.
Writing a blog is a frustrating form of comedy for me because I really like a live audience. There is one form of feedback I get from this blog that brings me endless pleasure and now that I have completed 100 posts I thought I would share some of the funny stats with you.
Everyday I see how many times people have viewed the blog and exactly which posts they are reading. I can tell when a new person has stumbled upon it because something like 30-40 different posts are read that day and not just the new one that I posted. I take that as a good sign that they are laughing because they keep reading.
I also can see which countries people are in when they are reading the blog. I have actual friends in America, Canada and the UK so those places are a given for readers, but here is a partial list of some of the other countries logging in: Australia, India, Italy, Spain, United Arab Emirates, Ireland, Pakistan, New Zealand, Cyprus, Turkey, France, South Africa, Latvia, Indonesia, Estonia, Bahrain, Israel, Egypt, and 22 others so far.
One might ask how in the world any of these random people find my little known blog? Oh, the beauty of the Internet and the wonders of search terms. I get a list each day of what search terms people have entered into Google or Yahoo that led them to my blog which they amazingly then clicked on. Of course there are many variations on the words “Less” and “Dana” and “More” and “Good” – those searches were looking for me. My favorite of that variation was “Less Good, More Dana.”
But I am certain that all the people who typed into Google any of the following: “Underwear sizes 5 6 7”, “Ok to wear a padded bra TSA”, “If I wear a size 16 pants then what size underwear”, or “Panties less in street” were not looking to read my blog “The problem with underpants” or “Advice for dieting travelers” (both funny ones you might have missed.)
Then there are days when I see the search term “What you want independence from” and one of the countries listed that day was Bahrain or Pakistan. I am feeling like the State Department might come after me for causing some international incident because my humor does not translate well. In the case of these searches I am almost certain that those people who have been misdirected to my blog actually read it because I get the stats that show that someone in Bahrain viewed 9 or 10 different pages that day.
Here is my plea. When reading this blog think of laughing first. Please don’t be offended by anything you read here. It is light hearted except for the information I give you every once in a while about the hungry people who need to be fed not just here in North Carolina, but all around the world. Even though I always go for the joke, please don’t ever think I am glib about how much your reading my posts eventually will help raise money for the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina.
So to keep the theme of this blog going here is my diet tip for the day: Laugh loud and often – you can’t eat while doing it.
Happy 100 to Julia!
Posted: August 15, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Anne WIllan, eggs, Greenbrier, Julia Child 2 Comments
Here I am with Julia. Pictured from left to right Anne Willan, a famous cooking teacher herself, Julia Child, Riki Senn of the Greenbrier, some woman I can’t remember and ME in Pink.
If Julia Child were still alive today she would be 100 years old. She made it to 92 years old with great style. I was lucky enough to take a cooking course from her at the Greenbrier in 2000, which was one of her last classes she taught.
Even though she was 88 years old she was still sharp as a tack, according to the notes in my scrapbook. She came into the demonstration kitchen where twelve of us sat in rapt attention waiting to hear what fabulous thing she was going to teach us that day. She sat down at the counter and just started a conversation with us like she was an old friend in our home kitchen.
She said that she was going to teach us “EGGS.” We were all fairly accomplished cooks and one woman in the room made an audible sigh of disappointment. That was the last time anyone in the room felt dismay.
With the help of her assistant who just fetched things so Julia could stay seated while cooking, she was 88 for goodness sake; she made 15 egg dishes from soufflés to custards, talking all the while.
I have never learned so much about cooking so quickly. She answered questions and let us try to flip omelets one handed, which despite most peoples posturing about their cooking skills, they could not do. She never made anyone feel badly by telling us that if you don’t make mistakes in the kitchen you aren’t learning anything new.
One person asked Julia a question about eggs she did not know the answer to. It was, “If eggs are sold based on size, Jumbo, extra-large, large, etc. what does the grade, AA, A or B mean?”
Julia quickly said she had no idea. I raised my hand and she said, “Do you know?” Julia Child was asking me a question. I answered in my best not-always-correct-but-never-in-doubt voice that eggs are graded on the quality of the shell thickness and the yolk to white ratio that can be seen when holding eggs to a light.
“Wonderful,” Julia bellowed, “I learned something new about eggs today.”
I have never been so proud of my vault of often considered useless knowledge. I felt a little pat on my back as one of the other cooks whispered to me, “Wow, you taught Julia something.”
So today on her birthday I think back on what a thrill it was to meet her, learn from her and teach her too. I still may not be able to flip an omelet one-handed but I will keep practicing. I can always say that Julia encouraged me to make mistakes.
Dieter Food Club
Posted: August 14, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Arugula, Harris Teeter Leave a commentWhen you are doing your best to lose weight there are entire aisles of the grocery store you have no business visiting. In fact, you hardly ever go down any aisle in the middle of the store and tend to hug the outside walls hunting for exciting fruits and vegetables and maybe a new yogurt or fish.
Despite the many recipes as I create to keep the food boredom at bay and to have something new to post on this blog I still have a few standby foods that I eat often. For instance, when I am home I eat the same breakfast everyday, High Protein Special K with berries or peaches and skim milk from our local dairy Maple View Farms. The next most popular meal is Arugula salad with chicken, blue cheese and balsamic vinegar.
I am practically religious in my stocking of these food items in my kitchen. The Special K is usually not a problem because it goes on sale every 12 weeks like clockwork and I buy 8-10 boxes every time it does. All the other items are fresh foods which means I am doing a real balancing act to buy enough to have around and not too much that it goes bad before I can eat it. I can’t exactly eat more just because it will spoil soon.
So this week arugula was on sale at my local grocer, which meant that it has been sold out all week. I have visited the store everyday with no luck of finding any. The produce manager and I are practically dating since I am there so much discussing the delivery schedule from Earthbound Farms. Insider word is that the entire grocery chain is out of arugula and won’t be getting any before the sale is over.
At this point I don’t give a wink about the sale. I am just in need of my staple item. I think that dieters should be allowed to register 5 must-have foods with their store with the promise to always have them on hand if the dieter agrees to buy them every week.
The store can have a kind of secret backroom for these items, or a password the dieter would whisper over the deli counter. Maybe dieters could have a signal like Paul Newman gave Robert Redford in The Sting. One swipe on the side of your nose with your pointer finger means bring out my secret skim milk, even though you are sold out of it in the milk case.
It seems like the humane thing to offer. Its not like I can say, “What no chicken, I guess I’ll have pasta instead.”
If you own a grocery store, especially if your name is Harris Teeter, be the first to start the Dieters Food Club and ensure the calorie deprived among us get what little we are shopping for.
My Lightened Up Version Romesco Sauce
Posted: August 13, 2012 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: red peppers, Romesco, tomato 1 Comment
My favorite restaurant we went to in the Pacific Northwest was Toro Bravo in Portland. We had a Tortilla Española with Romesco sauce. Calling the Tortilla a Spanish potato omelet does not do it justice. My favorite part was the Romesco Sauce that was served with it, so I have recreated it with a lot less oil, nuts or bread to cut down on calories. I served it here on grilled salmon.
1 cup of canned fire roasted tomatoes
2 fire roasted red peppers (I used jarred ones)
1 head of garlic
1 slice of sour dough bread
1/3 c. almonds
5 Mexican red chilies (I used dried and rehydrated them in warm water)
2.T. sherry vinegar
1 T. olive oil
½ Smoked paprika
Salt and Pepper
Preheat the oven to 350º
Cut the top off the head of garlic to just reveal the cloves. Place the garlic in a piece of foil and drizzle the top of it with three drops of oil. Close the foil up around the garlic and place in the oven for 30 minutes. Place the piece of sour dough bread in the oven, placing it on the rack to toast for about 8 minutes. Spread the almonds on a cookie sheet and place in the oven just long enough for them to toast, about 4 minutes.
After the garlic is cooked, squish all the garlic cloves out of the head. Put all the ingredients in a cuisineart and pulse it on and off until it is well chopped, but stop before it turns into a complete paste.
This sauce is good on chicken, fish as pasta sauce on a frittata or as a dip.
Down Home Green Beans and Stewed Tomatoes
Posted: August 12, 2012 Filed under: Recipes | Tags: green beans, onions, stewed tomatoes Leave a comment
After traveling and eating in restaurants for two weeks straight it is great to make some down home healthy comfort food. I added a little twist of allspice, which was an idea that came from Russ’ Lebanese driver Sammy.
1 big sweet onion- sliced
1 can stewed tomatoes
1 lb. green beans washed and trimmed
3 garlic cloves minced
½ cup chicken broth
3 dashes of Allspice
Salt and Pepper
In a big pot put the canned tomatoes juice and all and add the onions and garlic and bring to a boil and cook for 3 minutes. Add the chicken both and green beans. Bring to boil and reduce to simmer with a lid on. Cook for about 15 minutes, stirring every few minutes. Add allspice, salt and pepper to taste. This recipe is good hot or cold.
Home Again
Posted: August 11, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: dog, home Leave a commentAfter a wonderful two week trip with nothing but fabulous memories there is still nothing better than coming home. And it is not the home that makes it the best, but coming home to our sweet dog Shay Shay.
As soon as we dropped our suitcases in the garage, Russ and I walked to our neighbor Mary’s house where Shay Shay had spent her own holiday blissfully playing with her other four-legged playmates. But as soon as she saw us she jumped into Russ’ arms and wiggled and kissed us for a good ten minutes without stop.
While Carter is still in Taiwan, Russ and I get to have Shay all to our selves. Such devotion and love is better than any trip could ever be.
So back to reality is not so bad. Back to arugula, roast chicken and home made pickles for dinner. Back to our own quiet house, with no trolley cars rumbling outside our window. Back to snuggling with our puppy, home again.
The Big Valley
Posted: August 11, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: artichokes, frye boots, The big Valley Leave a commentWhat do Barbara Stanwyck, Frye boots and artichokes have in common? Well probably nothing to you, but today I had flashbacks of my ten year old self as Russ and I left San Francisco and traveled down the Pacific Coast Highway to Monterey for dinner.
You see when I was ten my parents took their first big trip without the kids to San Francisco with their good friends John and Mary Anne. It was traumatic for my sisters and me because my grandparents came to take care of us. Granettes, my grandmother, was a notorious drinker and baby-sitting was not really her thing.
Proof of this was that one day when we were under her care my middle sister Margaret, who was seven years old, got off her school bus just as I was walking home from mine. I took one horrified look at her dressed in a pair of Danskin tights and a shirt and asked her where her skirt was?
She calmly replied that she did not have one on, that was what Granettes had dressed her in. This was long before the days of leggings or skinny jeans, when the crotch of tights came up only as high as the middle of your thighs, which made it a little difficult to walk and her big white cotton underpants stuck out the top of her tights for all the world to see.
My sisters and I awaited the return of our parents whiling away the hours watching Linda Evans as Audra Barkley dressed in her gauchos riding her horse on the dry brown hills of the Big Valley on TV.
When my parents finally did arrive home it was like Christmas all over again. They had brought purple paper parasols from Chinatown, and long necklaces of hippie beads, which were way ahead of their time in 1970 Wilton, Connecticut, for us kids.
For my mother they bought a case of giant artichokes that we cooked every night for dinner for days and days and still wanted more when they were all gone. I know that became the beginning of our family’s love affair for the green globes.
But the wildest items brought back from this very foreign land of California were the three items my father bought for himself. The first was a pair of Frye Boots, the same kind they make today, brown with a big heel, a squared off toe and a strap that ran across the front anchored by a large metal ring on the side of the ankle. Those boots were very cool and my sisters and I would stand our tiny feet inside them and shuffle around the playroom.
The second item was equally as cool and a little out there for my non-hippie, big bald southern father; a suede leather rust colored jacket with long fringe all around it. We knew it was hip because Mike Brady wore a similar on the Brady Bunch.
The last item was the most disturbing and something that made such an impression of wrong on me that I vowed to always think not just twice, but three times before I buy apparel or the like on vacation. Just because something looks good in it’s native land does not mean it will look good in yours. The thing my bald father bought was a hairpiece.
Now when I say hairpiece, I don’t mean just a little toupee. This was more like an auburn Little Lord Fauntleroy wig that was 1970’s long. It looked a lot like my hair with bangs. I think when my Dad put it on my sister Janet who was still a baby burst into tears and screamed until he took it off. The good news was it made my Dad so hot to have so much hair where none had been for the previous 15 years that he never wore it again.
So today Russ and I stopped in Half Moon Bay and I walked past a store selling Frye Boots in exactly the same style as my father had. We continued driving down the coast passing fields upon fields of beautiful artichokes growing right next to the road. I ordered one for dinner and it was so tender and sweet since it did not have to travel more than a mile from its birthplace. I know my mother will be furious that I did not bring an extra suit case to carry home some artichokes especially since I saw signs to buy them, 12 for a dollar.
After our artichoke and seafood dinner on the wharf of Monterey Bay we drove north to San Jose on the inland route of brown rolling hills with big valley’s of fruit trees and vegetable fields between the mountains. There were horses grazing on the sides of the hills and in the twilight of the evening I was almost sure that I saw Jarrod and Heath riding home to see their mother, Victoria just like on TV when I was ten.
The Blessing of Small Joys
Posted: August 9, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: blessings Leave a commentOne of the hardest things about loving food is that when it is time to dial it back you can feel deprived and then depressed and then you throw in the towel and eat the chocolate. No, I have not thrown in the towel nor eaten the chocolate, but yesterday I had a little epiphany. Something small, non-food related made me as happy as chocolate.
If you have never had any food addiction just stop reading now, because this really will sound ridiculous to you, but for anyone for whom food holds some power in your life continue on.
Yesterday Russ and I took a very long walk through a somewhat grungy part of San Francisco. We were on the quest to find the perfect incognito I-pad case for Russ. Russ is not very materialistic. We rarely do any shopping for him. If he mentions he likes something I always try and write it down because he certainly won’t buy it for himself and if you ask him what he would like for a gift occasion he says something like, just cook me some bacon.
So on this cold and windy August afternoon when Russ mentions there is a store, in the Mission district that might have something he wants I jump all over it. After all he had sat patiently on the men’s sofa of the needlepoint shop for what had to feel like a millennium while I looked at thousands of canvases.
After finding success at the I-pad accessories store, we headed back towards the hotel and passed what could only be described as a boutique liquor store. Russ loves really peaty, single malt scotch and the Alcohol Control Board of North Carolina is not made up of the best connoisseurs of such. We stopped in and got a great education on who was making the dirtiest scotch. Russ was happy.
Back out in the wind with a good distance still to go we walked back to the hotel. I felt very grimy and my feet were sore. I got undressed, turned the shower on very hot and got in. As the warm water rushed over me washing away all the city, my feet started to feel like when I was a kid again. It was right then that I realized that this shower, at that moment, was better than food.
Now I know there are a lot of things better than food. Like when your teenager hugs you and thanks you for something so minor or the way your puppy jumps up on it’s hind legs to greet you when you come home, but I don’t always accept those blessings as all that I need to feel satisfied. So the lesson of the day is to keep my eyes wide open for the little things that make me happy, especially if they make my feet feel good.
San FranBLOGcisco
Posted: August 8, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Aerobics, San Francisco Leave a commentToday we arrived in San Francisco so Russ could work and I could be in San Francisco. And why not, it is one of the best cities in the world. As we flew in one of my favorite stories came to mind so since it has just the slightest connection to dieting I thought I would share it with you.
Back in the mid 80’s my Dad got a job at the soon to become Sprint telephone company. It was the merger of two existing phone companies, one based in San Francisco the other head quartered in Kansas City.
Part of my Dad’s job was to assess where the new headquarters would be and who were the smartest people in the various Sales and Marketing teams from both companies. Not everyone was going to get to keep his or her jobs, a fact that seemed obvious to my Dad.
When getting to choose where to live in the “accessing stage” my Dad chose San Francisco, wouldn’t you? He arrived in his normal big personality way and called a meeting of all his direct reports for three o’clock that very day.
It was a request he did not feel was unreasonable since it was the first time for everyone to get a chance to make a good impression on the guy who was going to determine his or her fate. At about ten in the morning a very friendly man, let’s call him Kevin, who was like a senior director or higher came into my Dad’s new office and introduced himself.
After the normal how-do-you-dos, Kevin told my Dad that he was really sorry he was going to have to miss his three o’clock meeting because he had a “make-up aerobics class.”
My father had spent fourteen years working at Avon so his first question was, “Is that a class where you put on make-up quickly or is that an Aerobics class you are going to in place of one you missed?”
“It is a workout that if I don’t go to the three o’clock class I lose the $10 I pre-paid for it,” Kevin casually responded.
My Dad had never met anyone who told their boss they would leave work in the middle of the day for anything, especially not Aerobics. That was Kevin’s last day at that telephone company.
Eventually the two merged companies headquartered in Kansas City where the mid-western work ethic was strong. Very few San Franciscans made the journey East. I think they worried that aerobics had not made it there.
Less Dana, More Good 