Countdown towards Health Day 2

I weighed myself this morning. I have a big, clunky scale that dates from the late 70s, or early 80s, not sure. I bought it at Sterling department store, when that still inhabited the building where the Half Price Books mothership sits now on NWHwy. It's made by the same people who make those balance beam doctor's scales, same mechanism inside, same size (except for the post) they assured me, only with a heavy spring and a dial. It's been the most accurate scale I've ever had. Only I guess I've never measured it against anything except the huge agricultural scale that was at the Hillcrest State Bank, that became a Texas Commerce Bank, that became a Chase Bank, and is now none of those things, since the branch moved, all the safety deposit boxes were drilled, and may be in the process of being torn down, for all I know. Now, that was a scale. It, too, had a spring.

Be that as it may. I weighed, as of this morning, 189 lbs. Which surprised me, as I was expecting 10 lbs. more. I feel fatter than a year ago, bigger, and that may well be true, loss of muscle, growth of fat, that kind of thing. Anyway, it's too much. I'm 5'6. The Fuhrman guide says that barring matters of individual composition, I should weigh in the neighborhood of 118-124 lbs. I don't think I've weighed that little since high school or before. I'm 52 now, so some time ago. In my 20s, I went though Weight Watchers, and got to 140... I think 138 was where I stopped trying to lose. I stayed at 145 for some time, then the weight crept on again, especially after the then boyfriend exited the scene. So I'm going to peg my goal at 130, and see how I feel when I get there. 50+ lbs is a respectable milestone. It's heavier than my godson.

This morning I woke up starving again, and there is still no food in the house. Let me explain that. I have not entered my kitchen in months, literally months. The dishwasher is broken, well, it works, but if I used it, a leak would overflow and ruin the hardwood floor. Why haven't I gotten it fixed? That has to do with my depression and procrastination issues. Dirty dishes litter both sinks, and most flat surfaces. So I went out to get food, as I did yesterday, and most of the days this year, frankly. Only I wanted to do better than I did yesterday. If the kitchen had allowed, I would have made oatmeal, and made coffee. But I don't have any oatmeal that isn't stale, with attendant moths. I threw out my coffee maker, and had started to rely on cold brewed coffee concentrate made in the refrigerator, but you need 5-12 hours in advance for that, so no coffee. I almost drove myself to IHOP to have a farewell to French Toast and greasy hash browns, but I don't want to give into the slippery slope this early. So I literally drove around for 20 minutes, with strong hunger pangs, pondering what I should do. Then I recalled the first McDougall workshop video, watched last night. He was describing what research topics he'd written about in his newsletters since the preceding study workshop. First, he'd said something about "trying to win the war." By which he meant, he was fighting for a bigger picture nutritional improvement, rather than focusing on elements that were not ideal, such as his old patients when he was a younger doctor, who refused to eat brown rice, because that was for peasants. He didn't fight them on that, because the bigger picture of rice based diet was much healthier overall. Another point he made later was that he'd reprised a study as a challenge in a later newsletter, the 12 slices of bread challenge. That no matter what you ate otherwise during the period of this study, you had to eat 12 slices of bread per day, and that the participants health improved dramatically anyway. So he'd offered that study to his readers as a challenge, in a spirit of fun. It's certainly not a standard McDougall practice. But, I thought, that would fix my problem of breakfast. I could eat bread, even though it wasn't ideal. Because I'm trying to trend towards better choices, even if my kitchen won't let me fix oatmeal and healthier food right this second.

So I drove to Whole Foods (which happens to be right down the street from me, it's not like I'm trying to be snooty with the food, it really is the closest grocery store), and bought half a loaf of a wheat arisan bread, which by its extensive ingredient label had whole wheat flour, sourdough culture, wheatberries, no fat, no added sugar, no dairy products, no eggs. And I got a pint container of fresh fruit from the salad bar, blueberries, watermelon and mandarin oranges. I had some illusion of taking that home and making a full breakfast of toast, tea, and fruit, but in fact, I snarfed the whole pint of fruit in the car. Then I went home and cut up the bread, and went to make some tea, when I discovered some unknown time ago I had left 3-4 inches of water in my beloved water toaster. It was cloudy, and fortunately the insides hadn't rusted out, but I was unsure of its potential bacteria content, and rinsing alone didn't seem adequate. That really bummed me out. No idea where my old revere tea kettle was. Then I remembered I could boil water in the mug in the microwave, so I did that and made tea from a teabag, because my loose tealeaf spoon was in the silverwear drawer... that turned out to be full of horrors. There was a baggy of brown slime in there, I have no idea what foodstuff that had been, and the baggy had tiny flies, and there were other things crawling around in the drawer, and when I pulled it out further, I saw that the huge waterbugs had obviously been lurking on the sides of the drawer inside the cabinet when it was closed, because they had left droppings behind of some size. So today instead of making the kitchen ready, I went to the hardware store to acquire weapons against creeping bugs, mostly boric acid, a new scrub brush,  chlorine disinfectant wipes and the like. And a hose connecter and another oscillating sprinkler, you know, things.

But for breakfast, I had bread, plain wheatberry bread (just baked, not even toasted, no topping), fresh fruit, and Lemon Lift tea, with a single squeeze of honey, and a spoon of vice, lite dry creamer. Which I had checked carefully for inhabitants, none. Because while not ideal, fresh bread is better than I would have done, and trending towards better choices. I watched some more study workshop videos, and went to Sweet Tomato's again. I don't know that I can stick with the Furhrman version of this lifestyle, so much salad. He'd like you to eat a salad every day something bigger than your head, preferably two salads. But then for you to get the bulk of your calories from starches in addition, agreeing with Dr. McDougall.... so far there's just not that much room inside the E for all that food. I like salad, fortunately... but I'd rather have it as a side rather than a main feature. Today I rationed even further my salad dressing, I had half a tiny paper tub of vinaigrette. I ate a baked potato with just tomato salsa and green onions on it. I'm not happy with the salsa at Sweet Tomatoes, I can tell it has oil in it. I also had a cup of minestrone. There's oil in the minestrone. And a piece of canteloupe and 9 grapes after. I rolled out of there. I'm still stuffed. If I get hungry before bed, guess what? I'm eating some bread.

After that I drove to Holley's Yarn Shoppe, and picked up a pair of metal No.7 circular needles with a 40" cord, since the cable on my interchangeable needles kept pulling out. So I can finish my current baby blanket.

I am somewhat dreading the kitchen clean up. It's icky in there. But I put the new batteries in the timer. If I just plug away at it 10 minutes at a time, it won't overwhelm me, and I can handle it.