I think our second summer is over. The temperatures are falling, and more to the point, we’re settling into more frequent rains, which means the wind has shifted from south to northwest, and once the weather starts rolling in from Vancouver, BC, and from off the San Juans, we get a different pattern. The koi are on wheat germ, to keep their guts emptying before they sleep, and though they’re still keen on eating… once that water cools, the hunger trigger will switch off.
The couple who wanted the trees has taken the trees, and promised us rocks in repayment. They have access to rocks, and we gave them two handsome Canadian Hemlocks, which will do well on their acreage, and which are deer-resistent as well.
We did a job on the kitchen lighting: Jane and me trying to mount a 4′ fluorescent kit was quite a sight: it would have helped if we’d had ladders the right height. Try holding a weight over your head while standing on tiptoe while your partner hunts for a screwdriver…but she did all the up-and-down and I did the stand here and hold it part. The new instant on superwhite CFLs that screw into an ordinary lamp and T8 long-tube fluorescents have made a huge difference: and they serve as grow-lights, so they’ll keep the tropicals nourished through the winter.
And we’ve changed diets: we’re tired of Atkins, so we switched to South Beach, and I found some interesting data. 1) South Beach made a deal with Kraft to market this line of frozens—BUT some of the content of those meals is forbidden on the South Beach diet. So don’t get the frozens. Go from scratch. This is a diet that works with several factors. 1) portion size: they tell you, and you measure. 2) variety —they have thousands of recipes. 3) allergies —you can dodge what you shouldn’t have. 4) you do get a greater variety of foods, including veggies, it’s cheaper than Atkins, using more veggies than meat, and it is a balanced diet. The downside is — you do have to cook, in the sense of measuring, using ingredients you’re not used to, and you have to plan ahead, because you’ll run into “this should have been marinated overnight” and “this should be chilled in the fridge all day.” Well, when you’re cooking supper it’s a little late, unless you read the next day’s menu. So…I’m cooking things that get every dish in the kitchen dirty, sometimes, as with the measuring cup, 4 times in one session; and since we have a small kitchen—this means we have to run the dishwasher after every prep, or I have no bowls. Using the same small glasses where I can eyeball 6 oz of juice is a time saver.
We’ll let you know how this goes. If you want to try it, do not buy the frozen dinners without reading the labels very carefully. It’s just crazy they’d violate the rules, but they do. Especially for the phase 1, which is a lot like Atkins.
Anyway, we now are launched. You know we’re serious, because Jane is drinking V-8, which she really, really, really hates, I am doing without coffee (I’m a 2-pot a day coffee drinker), and both of us are giving up alcohol for 2 weeks.
I just have the see food diet. Of course, it’s not a regimented menu, just whatever happens to be in the pantry, fridge, etc.
Too bad Bret wasn’t there to help with the light fixture. Or me, I would have been glad to have helped. I’ve installed a light fixture a time or two.
It’s Murphy’s law that the toggle bolt holes for the old fixture are never the same distance apart for the new one.
South Beach diet has worked well in our house. My husband has lost 20 pounds in two months. I found once we got past phase I that it was easy to tweak recipes from many sources to bring them in line with the diet and going out to dinner is pretty easy too. I hope it works as well for you two.
Well, it’s good to eat things you ordinarily wouldn’t touch or venture to try. And this one has a long list of those. We have, in house, Laughing Cow Cheese, balsamic vinegar, radishes, cucumbers—know how to avoid gastric upset from cucumbers? Peel and de-seed them. And odder things. We’re going to try garlic tonight: we have been able to eat it in the past, and we think we can. We’re very allergic to onions, so we’ll see if we suffer from it. They have you eating actually more than we’re accustomed to eating, but of different things. I’ll just be anxious to get into a phase that lets us have bread and pasta.
I cook, but I haven’t ‘cooked’ from recipes in decades. And these are per-snicity. So Ms. Splash and Estimate now is measuring things, and trying to figure out how to make an ordinary grater render up the zest of a lime. I thought I could avoid buying one of those bar-thingies. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to convince Jane that the offering this evening is a dessert, since it involves ricotta cheese, and she is not keen on ricotta. But she’s soldiered on with V-8, which she loathes, a real Mediterranean salad—she hates vinegar—and dubious cheese in a stick of celery. Wait til this afternoon, when we try pine nut flavor hummus with celery.
I have to suggest if you want pasta and bread, you’ll probably find you need to measure blood sugar to figure out how much you can get away with. The whole insulin/fat storage system kicks in when sugar is high, and those things are JUST the way to kick them up, but people will vary widely in tolerance. I don’t recall if you have mentioned glucose testing or not, but most people think you can test one hour after a meal and that’s the story – it isn’t. If you decide to test, then you should test at 1, 2 and 3 hours after a particular food to see if it spikes you or not. And insulin sensitivity improvements after low-carb eating tend to be consistently impermanent. I find that my sensitivity fades if I push it.
A friend is now using a low/no carb noodle –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirataki_noodles
Her boyfriend ate them not knowing they were “weird” and didn’t complain, maybe they are OK. They are not cheap, they do not come dried like pasta. I have no bread suggestions, though.
Best wishes on South Beach! It’s more important to find a diet you can live with than anything else.
There is one other alternative: Dreamfields Pasta. It’s a low-carb pasta that cooks and tastes just like regular pasta. I’ve heard of those noodles, too: they’re from some sort of vegetable. I’m going to see if I can find them.
They’ll be in the ‘fridgerated section, they come in several different shapes. My friend LOVES them. I’ve heard a lot about Dreamfields, but while I could conceivably eat the shirataki I have the “cannot touch with 10’ pole” blind spot on Dreamfield’s since they are made of wheat.
Because of that, I avoid pretty much all bread or pasta, the gluten-free breads just aren’t worth the carb hit I’m so sensitive to “indigestible carbs” (fiber. IBS, TMI) I just compensate with extra bacon. 😉
I’m surprised you had to give up coffee, I thought the author said that 1 cup of coffee or tea a day is fine in phase 1. The diet works great for me but I keep falling off the wagon because either I can’t keep up with the cooking or I get sick and get hooked on starches again. Reading your post inspired me and I think I’m going to get back to phase 1 this week. I just need to make sure I have enough unsweetened cocoa powder and Splenda!
Neither Jane nor I likes chocolate much, so that helps. I do have one—one—(sob) cup of coffee in the morning, but that’s it. Usually I’m not even conscious until I’ve drunk my third cup in a row. It’s been water all day long.
But it’s only 2 weeks. You can last any diet for 2 weeks. Then we get a little more concessions.
My folks do South Beach: it’s cardiac disease and diabetes friendly. My husband and I each went down a belt notch when we last visited them, in two weeks, and that was without the V-8 (I also loathe it) or the first two phases, though we did combine the diet with the clean-out-the-basement-and-do-deferred-yard-work exercise plan. Hope it works as well for you.
This is one diet that I tell everyone to READ THE BOOK! Don’t listen to what people tell you about it. The book only has about 50 pages of information, if that many, and the rest is menus and recipes. The copy I have of the book doesn’t say to measure anything, your body will let you know, but ignore the recipes. I paid attention to the concepts of more raw food, a glass of orange juice is the juice of ONE orange, not 20 oz., things of that nature. Giving up potatoes half killed me till I saw the glycemic index of a potato or a banana which the Diabetes Assoc. said 1/2 of a small banana. When I’m being good, I try to combine the two. One for portions sizes and So Beach for what to eat.
A noodle substitute is Spaghetti Squash, a truly wierd veggie. Just don’t cook it in the microwave even it you pierce the skin thoroughly. It tends to explode!!! (been there, done that, and had to clean up the mess).
+1 on the Spaghetti Squash. I’ve eaten it with spaghetti sauce, or even with salsa. Good stuff. Sometimes I just put a bit of butter and pepper on it. Also good.
Add another “Yum” vote for spaghetti squash. I have successfully cooked it in the microwave: cut it in half first (good exercise, just be careful with that sharp knife!), clean out the seeds, and either turn it upside down on a plate or cover the cut sides with wax paper. Hmmm, I wonder if I can find some for dinner this week…
Lots of squash in the stores right now. I’ve got a nice little striped one, deliciosa (I think), ready to quarter lengthwise and bake.
One of my favorites is patty-pan squash, which I used to think of, in my childhood, as flying saucer squash. It’s a white summer squash shaped, yes, like a flying saucer with fluted edges like a little meat pie. Butter, salt and pepper and these little guys—but you just rarely see them in stores. I don’t know why they’re not more popular than zucchini, because for me the flavor is far better.
Also the little yellow and green pattypans. Same size and shape as the white ones but a nice yellow colour with green where the stem joins. We used to be able to get them in the stores but I haven’t seen them for a couple of years and if they were there they were old and going black around the edges. Pity. I didn’t realise until you mentioned them that I hadn’t seen them around.
“…Ms. Splash and Estimate now is measuring things…”
I recall you got a scale: they can make measuring very convenient, especially if the scale is metric and traditional, the way packages switch back and forth. If it has enough capacity, you can even do things like put a trivet on it, then a hot pot or pan, and tare. Put in as many grams or ounces of whatever. Tare again, and add the next ingredient. Repeat as needed. No hunting measuring spoons or cup–or cleaning them later.
Even if you have a light-duty scale, you’ve probably used something in a disposable dish or container. Put the disposable on the scale; tare and add an ingredient; repeat as needed; dump the ingredients into the pot or pan, and toss the disposable. (Of course, don’t use the plastic dish the chicken came in etc.)
I have postage scales that go up to about five lbs/ two and a half kg. for both kitchen and studio. Battery operated and turn off automatically after a few minutes.
Yes fall seems to be here. Proge has finished the rocks around the pool. There is very little left to do this year. It looks gorgeous. Next spring we will redoing a lot of the yard. Nothing like one new project to make it obvious that updates are needed. We have several tree frogs and one resident bigger frog. He seems quite content in his new home.
I got a great Oxo scale at Williams-Sonoma. Five kg/eleven lbs. capacity, “hot” switching of traditional/metric, and the control panel is on a cable so you can extend it away from the scale, allowing an 18″ whatever onto the scale. Also, it uses AA batteries, so it’s not difficult to replace them. It turns off automatically, and for some unknown reason, has a backlight for the 3/4″ numbers.
@Walt, you never know when you might need to weigh something in the dark…..or perhaps an emergency night light?
Or snacks when you’re watching a movie or getting a midnight snack and don’t want to turn on the kitchen’s overhead, overbright, tanning lights!