Of Apples, Tea, and Willpower

Juiciest apples ever!

Whole Foods has these pre-bags of Organic Gala apples. You get about 5 apples in the bag, 2.99 for the bag (maybe 3.99, not sure). They're small apples, but oh my gods they are tasty! I like Gala's and similar types for out of hand eating because they are sweet, but still have a slight tartness. The flesh is usually firm and juicy, and the skin is easy to bite through.

These apples are so juicy, the juice runs down my chin when I take a bite, and the flesh practically dissolves in my mouth. If I didn't have to chew because of the skin...wow. They're just amazing. They also pair fantastically with my new tea, which has licorice and fennel, among other items. Who needs doughnuts and coffee? Apples and tea are sooooo much better!

Since I'm talking food porn, I'll mention my next recipe attempt. I have a recipe for a curried lentil soup with homemade lentil crackers. The only issue I have with it is the cook/prep time. It's going to be a 2 plus hour project. However, it should make enough to feed me for several days. >_> I hope I like it. If it comes out well, I'll post the recipe here. On that note, if I ever post something in the Food Diary that sounds nummy to you, ping me and I will attempt to post the recipe. I say attempt, because I have a habit of just winging it in the kitchen.

So, I've not been totally faithful to the whole Detox Diet thing. Without a nutritionist to actually plan out/give me recipes, I do have food cravings. I wasn't eating enough salt oddly enough. I had cut back considerably, and while I still cook with it, I'm not adding it to my meals at the table, so to speak. However, a lot of what I've been eating didn't require salt in the cooking. Hence the butter and crackers the past few days. Not the best choice (and boy did my GI tract let me know that) but there are worse. I've determined it's better to give into the cravings, but only if they last past my attempts at derailing it (drinking water, eating fruit, etc). And even then, I'm not giving in to excess.

Now, tomorrow, I'm baking my famous chocolate chip cookies. I'll be taking some to coven for snack, and the majority of the rest will go to work. A very small amount will stay here, because I will want a few. I won't lie. There will be at least one breakfast of cookies and milk. I know there will. But that's ok, because I'm paying attention to what and how much I eat, and will adjust the rest of my food intake to account for that splurge.

Of Health and Wellbeing

Other than the sudden sinus/allergy attack last week, I've been feeling all around pretty well, physically at least. The sinus issue stemmed from the sudden cold turn the weather took, and the resulting need to turn on the heat in the house. Moving from cold to warm makes my sinuses run like crazy, and usually down the back of my throat. Which just makes me feel overall not well. That's mostly cleared up, though, and I hope to be back on my bike tomorrow. I was going to give it a try this morning, but I still had some slight drainage and didn't want to push it.

Of course, knocking out the mess means taking four different meds, and that plays havoc with my Gi tract. It'll likely take another week for that to settle back down. But I'll muddle through.

I can now confirm a loss of 15lbs since I started the Food Diary, which brings me to 244lbs. Now, I do weigh myself every day, twice a day. This is not so I can agonize over the scale. It is so I know what my normal weight fluctuation in a day is. I can fluctuate as much as 2.5 lbs over the course of the day. If I see a larger fluctuation than that, and it happens more than one or two days, I need to look back over what I took in and see what is causing the extra water retention. Or if I've not been eliminating properly. That kind of thing. I realize that people say don't fixate on the scale, don't weigh yourself every day. But I am the type that if I only weigh one a week and there has been and I gained instead of maintaining or losing, I will beat myself up over it. Catching a problem as it starts to trend is much easier for me than playing catch up. And I know well enough that health is not about the numbers on the scale.

Here's a random tidbit. Fully clothed, I weigh 3lbs more than nude.

Mentally...I'm better. I had a breakdown the other day, thanks to a very disturbing dream, and oddly enough, it seemed to help. I've been so busy worrying about people and things, I forgot to worry about me. I am still overwhelmed, still a bit lost. But I've got an anchor now, and that makes all the differance.

Birthday wishes

And a very merry birthday to moonstone_fae!

5 happy things 11/10/08

Five things that made me smile today.

1) It was moonstone_fae's birthday, and that's worth smiling about!
2) New soup recipe is yum!
3) Picked up and extra shift at work.
4) Snuggling the puppy
5) A glass of milk, and cookies hot from the oven.