We got ready to go skating today and got a call first from Joan asking if Sharon was going to be there and then a call from Sharon warning us that school buses with 90 kids had just arrived.
We cancelled.
The ceiling lights Home Depot had run out of were supposed to be in yesterday, so we went there to get them and they hadn’t shown up.
Meanwhile the ‘do not overtighten’ warning on the new sink meant Jane did not overtighten the faucet connection to the metal sink. Now it’s loose and we’ll have to take everything out from below and try to work with a Big Wrench on a sink part that is supposed to be fully assembled before the sink is installed.
And after getting a nice new large tank for the two bichirs, (freshwater fish that look like stegosaurus) one of Jane’s fish died. We thought maybe ammonia, which can get stirred up during a move. But that was a bummer. I did some online research and it turns out they’re susceptible to a parasite and I got a recommended med. Which may or may not work, but we’re giving it a shot at saving our remaining one. This is touchy because they’re predatory and trying to get two to live together is iffy.
I, meanwhile, am working hard on the promised short pieces, and discovered a major technical glitch in one, ie, I misread a certain item which now causes me to have to go back to a total rewrite, but I’ll fix it. That’s annoying.
For weather, we get really cold weather, and frozen mud. If there’s one thing as bad as soppy squishy mud, its mud frozen in ridges.
And the downside of actually losing weight—I’m fighting a battle with my mirror: when you wait late in life to lose weight, you do go through a little phase of realizing you do have a few facial lines as your skin loses some of its padding. On the other hand, if you’re careful and use every miracle preparation known to vain humanity, you can diminish that. So I’m trying not to look like Boris Karloff, with a pound and a half of cold cream, as the song goes…Well, you change out every cell in your body after x-many years, and I am serving notice that the next ones to be recycled will be useless cells, thank you, which I do not wish refilled. Take note, procrastinators! Lose it before you join the cold cream club! And if you’re where I am, well, we can sympathize with each other.
No signs from the fish yet: the pond is mostly frozen but wouldn’t support a cat safely. We wake up with a dusting of snow and by noon it’s slush.
Jane’s in there serial-cooking a large purchase of Costco chicken: little ziplock bags of diced chicken mean I don’t have to cook much for supper, and it’s not been fortified with tons of fat and sodium, which is often the case with convenience foods. I made some cheese bread yesterday: we enjoyed a couple of slices and then I froze the rest. Cheese bread toasts wonderfully—but we have to hold back on how much bread we eat. Jane can have fruit, apparently, now that we’re this far along in dieting. I, alas, gain weight if I eat fruit the way she does. So she owns that nice batch of pear apples we have in the kitchen. I stick to cheese. Our metabolisms work mostly alike, but my system tends to love any fruit sugar way too much!
I’ll tell you, the way we eat now, both of us are feeling good and have no hunger pangs at all. Weight doesn’t fly off, but it does inch off, and clothes start getting loose. I should post exactly what we eat per person in a typical week.
Every day: breakfast—2 slices Canadian bacon, microwaved; 2 egg omelet with parmesan cheese, cooked in olive oil, in a very good Teflon pan, so no extra oil.
Every day: lunch—-2 cups of green salad, sometimes with a 1″ slice of mozzarella, vinegar and oil dressing for me, Salad Spritzer or Caesar for Jane.
Snacks (we no longer need them, but at first, sugar-free Jell-o with Cool Whip, string cheese, hummus with celery.
Supper: 1) cup of bean sprouts, cup of shredded broccoli stems, stir fried with House of Tsang Sezchuan sauce as per label, with cup of chicken bits. Dessert: ricotta creme with coconut, nuts, flavoring.
2) cup of bean sprouts, cup of shredded broccoli stems, stir fried with House of Tsang General Tso sauce as per label, with cup of chicken bits. Dessert: ricotta creme with cocoa, peanut butter, flavoring.
3) 2 cups of brussel sprouts, mole chicken (cocoa, peanut butter, enchilada sauce, cheese over chicken bits, microwaved, Dessert: ricotta creme with nuts, flavoring.
4) 2 cups broccoli, beef slices. Dessert: ricotta creme with maple, nuts, flavoring.
5) cup of bean sprouts, cup of shredded broccoli stems, stir fried with House of Tsang Sezchuan sauce as per label, with cup of chicken bits. Dessert: ricotta creme with raisins, nuts, chai tea flavoring.
6) 2 cups of shredded broccoli stems, stir fried with House of Tsang General Tso sauce as per label, with cup of chicken bits. Dessert: ricotta creme with coconut, nuts, flavoring.
7) cup of beans with jalapenos, cheese, Dessert: ricotta creme with coconut, nuts, flavoring.
You get the idea. You eat a LOT of veggies. You can always have dessert. Dinner is steak, chicken, or stir fry, no bread, no potatoes, but beans are allowable. Bread is a rare treat. All sweetener is Splenda; or very minuscule amount sugar or fruit like banana or apple.
pretty healthy diet, you SHOULD be feeling good on it!
If you are eating calcium at breakfast, I’ve learned the hard way that it’s best to wait FOUR hours after taking your thyroid meds before eating. I’ve fought the thyroid battle since 2000 and figured out a way to balance things out if TSH is the ‘goldstone’….but I still had elevated reverse T3 levels. That’s another thing to check as that nasty reverse T3 (inactive form) blocks the function of T3 (active) and your metabolism is suppressed. Now that I’ve potentially regained my leptin sensitivity and lost weight, my reverse T3 levels may be lower. It’s not like my doctor knew what to do with the results when I asked for that test (big sigh).
An anti-inflammatory diet works much better for me than the diet you have chosen (fewer processed foods/chemicals, more omega 3’s, less processed sugar, less red meat, carefully chosen organic fermented dairy for those without dairy sensitivities), but that’s a choice I made when I decided to work on my own weight situation (wink). I also have had an IgG antibody panel done so I can eliminate foods which can be potential inflammation triggers for me (almonds is a biggie in my case).
Bichirs: I haven’t read every single blog entry so may have missed something here. Were these fish you have had for awhile and were moving to a larger tank (new)? Unless you are feeding live fish, where would the ‘parasites’ have come from, especially if the fish were fine before the move? Had the tank cycled? You mentioned ammonia, so I’m assuming the tank hadn’t cycled yet. That’s quite easy to test for. I admit I’ve never kept Polypterus or ropefish but they are common in the tanks of my cohorts who like big fish and big tanks and they are usually kept in multiples. Hope your single bichir makes it….they are sensitive to medications so that’s a tricky approach. Without knowing the symptoms, it’s hard to suggest anything….but I’d go to the fish disease expert at your local aquarium society (if you have one) and they often can be quite helpful. I know when I was losing my recently imported Dario dario, a club member (I belong to the local fish society) came over, took samples and had some useful information for me by the next day. For free (he’s a nice guy).
Interesting, re the calcium: small amount in the eggs, small bit in the parmesan, but…
The bichirs: had them for 2 years, but—the upheaval in the area had them stressed. There’s no source of parasites within the past 2 years, but—sometimes you can have something lurking that gets a foothold because of stress. We’re treating with Metronidazole, which is curiously poised between anti-parasite and antibiotic, and it did help. The surviving fish is now behaving more normally, and after a week of not eating, has begun attacking tubifex offered on a bamboo k-bob skewer. He’s moving voluntarily, swimming more on even keel, instead of barrel-rolling, and over all, we have some hope for him.
They get quite tame, and will eat from your fingers, but they’re not a social fish, and tend to eat their tankmates. The one we have is a Senegal bichir. We had one years ago, an ornate bichir, that was really quite special. Their popularity has increased since the stores began calling them ‘dinosaur fish’ because of their backfin; and they are somewhat like the African ciclids in requirements. They breathe air like the labyrinth fishes, only in this case it’s a modified swim bladder functioning somewhat as a lung, as I understand it—and they use their fins to ‘walk’ with if they leave the water. Or just for propping themselves on and staring at you: very, very reminiscent of very primitive sea-life just before it went land-based.
Hmmmm….hemorrhagic septicemia? Broad-spectrum antibiotics ‘can’ work. Usually show loss of equilibrium/listlessness. Just from some of my superficial fish disease stuff here at work. But I’m no expert. Sounds good if symptoms are improving! Again, it’s too large a fish for me to even consider keeping myself so I’ve no personal experience. But I have enjoyed watching a big crowd of them in a neighbor’s 75 gallon planted tank. My largest ‘inside’ fish is an old Botia striata. Most of my fish struggle taking daphnia if it’s a large species of daphnia. I do mostly SE Asian and S American soft-water tanks (only ONE kind of water….big relief after juggling all those water chemistries!), ditched the cichlid thing ages ago and went for small rather than LARGE! Besides, if something goes wrong with a tank I need to be able to handle it on my own if I have to! That means nothing larger than a 29g glass tank and maybe 55g if it’s acrylic, although I CAN drag 150g Rubbermaid stock tanks around the yard on my own (grin).
Thyroid meds: The 4 hour wait is something to consider. I also have a 11-12 hour period between last meal of the day and taking thyroid meds, so that’s 15-16 hours between meals. I don’t even get hungry now that my leptin is doing it’s job and I’m less leptin resistant. The anti-inflammatory approach really helps with that! A lot of it has to do with omega 3 intake! And avoidance of chemical triggers. I brought my C reactive protein levels (measure of systemic inflammation…common in the overweight) down from 21 to the low 3’s in a month and now I’m at 1.3! And I’ve lost 32 lbs. But I did need to get my IgG antibody panel to fine tune and figure out the less typical inflammatory triggers (almonds, kidney beans, oysters).
Here’s a good example of what we were dealing with: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/polypdisfaqs.htm —if you’re squeamish, don’t. But our guy was headed there fast, without the hemorrhage in any but a minor way. Now his color is normal, his conformation and swimming nearly so, and he’s eating.