Monday Morning Musings
Posted on March 4, 2019 under Monday Morning Musings with no comments yet
The raw facts
“I like bread and butter,
I like toast and jam”
Bread and Butter – The Newbeats
You are what you eat (Part 2).
Occasionally (but rarely!), I’m at a loss coming up with an idea for my upcoming Monday and Thursday posts. I mean, you can’t talk about nothing for ever. I was tempted today to talk about The JWR interview (Canada) and the Cohen interview (U.S.) but decided I couldn’t start off a new month writing about things that make most of us distraught.
So, when in doubt, I fall back on the one topic that never gets stale. Food. Besides the weather, political follies and our aches and pains, food is a topic that everyone has something to say about.
So let’s see how your math skills are these days. If a person walks 20 kilometres a day for a month and gains 5 pounds, how much weight would he/she gain if they walked 8 kilometres a month? Factoring in “seasonally adjusted averages” and wind chill, one might come up with something like 12 pounds. Even the late Sister Cordeau, my high school math teacher would be puzzled with the answer. How does -7 pounds sound? Is this the “new math” that we heard so much about in the 1970s?
Hardly.
A short time ago (Feb.11th), I wrote a piece about my addiction to sugar, a malady suffered by many of my readers, it would appear, according to some of the messages I received. Sugar is insidious and may be a silent killer. When I came back from the west coast in early February, I decided that I had to do a sugar purge for at least one month. I immediately stopped eating desserts (you saw a list of 50 of my favourites) and replaced these with fresh fruit. For one month, I ate a banana, an apple and an orange every day.
As a replacement for snacks (can you say potato chips?), I subbed in with raw carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, cucumber and mushrooms using one of the many delicious low calorie dips that you can make or pull off the shelves at the grocery store. I also reduced my carbs by about 50%. My other addiction besides sugar is bread.
I’m sure everyone of you knows this. You can beat your brains out in the gym, you can run or walk marathon distances and do Zumba till your butt falls off but none of these things will result in any significant weight loss unless matched with sensible eating habits. It is SO difficult to maintain consistency when it comes to eating. I told someone the other day that when I’m good (eating healthily), I’m very good but when I’m bad, I’m f…ing awful.
Speaking of f…ing. Get your minds out of the gutter! You can call it flatulence, its polite name, or you can just come out and say farting. (Put the art in farting!). I noticed that when I started eating raw veggies, I was perpetually gassy. I’m even less fun to be around than usual. Of course, the lentil soup I made, along with a big pot of split pea and ham soup, also contributed to the “breaking of wind.” Actually, the wind inside has been almost as brisk as the wind outside lately. I Googled “raw vegetables that cause flatulence” and the first three on the list were broccoli, cauliflower and mushrooms. While possibly a little less nutritious, I now steam these vegetables much to the relief of household occupants.
Can I maintain this regime? I don’t now but I’m going to try. Being overweight is hard on the heart and the rest of your body.
I find that I am doing embarrassing things more frequently in my 68th year. Yes. I often head into a room in our apartment and forget why I went there. Sound familiar? The other day, I was in the Credit Union. It was one of those bitterly cold days which is no excuse for what happened next. As I was exiting the front doors leading to Main street, I wasn’t paying close attention and walked into a very thick plate glass window beside the front doors… face first. I didn’t break my glasses nor did I draw blood from my nose being pressed up against the glass. Mercifully, there was no one in the lobby of the building to witness my foibles. I didn’t suffer any injuries other than a bruised ego.
Have a great week and watch where you’re walking.
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