Diet Relaxation

As I get more used to my diet, I'm noticing that certain things are more important to me than others, and certain things are getting to be reliably well-established.

So, I'm good about not snacking between meals, and about turning down food that isn't on my diet. That seems to be fairly reliable at this point.

At the same time, I think I do a fairly decent job guessing at the number of calories that are in a given meal.

And, I'm realizing that as long as I get the right nutrition overall, it doesn't much matter whether any given meal is particularly nutritionally balanced, so long as it doesn't include much forbidden foods (chiefly sugar, salt, and grease).

So for example, last night I had Indian food with my friend Alexandra. I haven't gone to an Indian restaurant in a long time, mainly because the food they serve is very iffy with respect to my diet.

But I went. First they brought us papadum, which is made of lentils. So I felt OK eating that.

Then I ordered a sort of minced vegetable appetizer, which turned out to be a bit more grain-like than I wanted, and probably a bit more salted than I wanted, and probably a bit greasier than I wanted. But really it didn't have a ton of those things, and it was a small dish of food.

Then I ordered a vegetables-in-cream-sauce dish, with no rice. It came in a small metal bowl, and wasn't a large meal at all.

As I cast my eye over the whole meal including everything, I guessed it was probably less than 1200 calories. I would have guessed lower, but restaurant food is always higher in calories.

So, what happened? Clearly this is food that normally I wouldn't consider part of my diet. I wouldn't eat like that every day. But the calorie count was right for a dinner entree, it didn't seem to have too much of the specific foods I avoid; and my lunch had been a very abbreviated vegetable dish.

In terms of nutrition, yesterday was probably a big bust. but not a total bust; I probably got a lot of what I needed. Nutritional "daily requirements" are mainly average requirements, so it made sense to consider the Indian food as part of an overall diversity of eating.

Then this morning my weight was lower than the day before, which is at least partly encouraging.

I think what's happening is that I'm gradually recognizing that as long as I make sure I get the nutrients I need in general, and avoid snacks and 'trigger' foods, and make sure my regular meals are appropriately sized, it may possibly be OK for me to eat a more normal-seeming diet than what I have been eating.

But I haven't made a decision about it yet, and for now I'm just going to continue focusing on the vegetable/fish regime. I want any changes to be introduced slowly, and tested out in terms of how I feel and what I weigh. I don't want to start acting like I can just eat any old thing. I'm just considering the possibility that a slightly less hard-line approach in certain areas might be OK.

New Yoga Teacher

Jessica, my yoga teacher, decided to move out to California. Boom, just like that! I'm sad, but I have to admire her ability to unconstrainedly head off to a new adventure. If I didn't feel some roots in NYC that I don't want to break, I'd probably head out to Europe for awhile, and see what I could see; or maybe to various parts of this country that I've never seen before; New Orleans, the Gulf states. Or Asia, where I've never been and would like to go.

But off she went, without a job or a prospect, to see what she could see. Before she left, she set me up with a friend of hers named Keisha, to take over the yoga lessons. Keisha seemed great when I met her, and today we had our first lesson. In some ways it was different from the way Jessica taught me. They emphasize different aspects of each pose, which I found very interesting. But in a lot of ways it was very similar. Lots of encouragement, lots of clear explanations of what was intended. And Keisha hit the right difficulty level for me, which turns out to be about 3 notches underneath 'beginner' level.

I'm really lucky, because both Jessica and Keisha were willing to come to my apartment to teach me. It's a lot harder to slack off when the teacher is coming to my home at 7:00 AM. The usual excuses don't seem to work as well for that situation. "Oh, I just couldn't get there today. Had a million things going on." Yeah.

I really like taking the yoga lessons. I can feel it improving my posture and flexibility. Some day I might be healthy!

Umbrella Review: Senz Vs. Gustbuster

I recently got a Senz umbrella to see how it compared with the Gustbusters I already own.

Basically, there's no comparison. Gustbuster is entirely the winner.

The Senz has an interesting design, it's basically a regular umbrella, with most of the fabric cut away. The remaining fabric just doesn't have enough diameter to suffer from the wind. So sure, it can withstand 70 mile-per-hour winds, but that's because the part that covers you is almost the size of a dinner plate. It didn't protect me from the rain at all, except maybe for a bit of my face.

The Senz also has one small portion of itself that's like the brim of a baseball cap, sticking out. This is its claim to fame. Unfortunately, that little flap is so flexible it whips around in the wind, gouging unsuspecting eyes, and letting the rain pass freely down from above.

The Gustbuster, on the other hand, is a full-sized umbrella, in fact the ones I have are larger than full-sized. Its design uses holes in the main area of fabric, so the wind can blow upwards and out the top of the umbrella. But on its top side, the holes are covered by flaps that can lift up on elastic bands to let the air out from below, but that are immediately closed by the elastics when each gust ends. They don't flap down into the holes, so no air or rain will go down onto you, but plenty will blow upwards.

There are other umbrellas with this type of design, but those are very cheap imitations that have not been really tested (at least that's been the case with all the ones I've seen). Gustbuster umbrellas really withstand the wind. The rain slashes down, the wind crashes from all directions, and the umbrella is really undisturbed. It's only when I look around and see how much difficulty everyone around me is having with their umbrellas, that I realize it's actually a very windy storm. The Gustbuster stays stable and calm. And it's a really large umbrella. I stay dry. And the two people under the umbrella with me also stay dry. And the people passing by say, "wow, that's a big  umbrella. Why isn't it flying down the street? Or laying inside-out on the ground?" And I reply, "it's a Gustbuster."

They really are great. I do give props to the Senz folks for coming up with an interesting idea. But the umbrella problem has really already been solved. I've never seen an umbrella that comes even remotely close to Gustbuster for withstanding windy days, and keeping me and my friends dry and comfy.

Here's an ad-type video about it, masquerading as news. It's still right though:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZQuhrftV-M

Eating At Special Events

I just got back from Floating World, which was really great, but I've discovered that trying to live on lettuce with a little chicken and tuna is sub-optimal. I also discovered I could do it. So, cool! But it's sub-optimal. On the other hand, I now know what it feels like to be nutritionally deficient for several days. It felt as though the vitamins and minerals that normally would be making my body go, were being leeched out of me by a strange and unpleasant process.

Floating World itself was excellent. I had one very lovely session of play with one of the people I'm dating. It was perfect. And I got to hang out with a lot of other wonderful people. I also didn't over-purchase toys; instead I got a single thin cane, because my last one was breaking and wasn't meant to be used as a cane (by which I mean a pain stick).

I just got home a few minutes ago with one of the other people I'm dating, and she's over with my apartment-mate hanging out and researching trains, because I mentioned I was curious about all the different ways out of New York City by train. And I'm in here catching up on news, doing Labanotation, considering whether to watch Netflix in spite of the delays; and generally being tired.

Oh - also, I'm apparently no longer on a weight plateau. Even before Floating World I had lost about another 5 lbs. I now weigh approximately 185. In 15 more pounds, I'll be at the high end of 'normal', according to the BMI charts.

If the BMI charts could only look inside my mind, it would just give up right then. And I don't mean it would give up on me. It would give up on its entire approach to other people; then it would go to Paddles and start learning what life can really be like.

One more thing. While I was browsing through toys for sale, I said something that made everyone around me immediately stop everything and tell me it was the best thing they'd heard all day. Here it is: "Have you seen 'The Passion Of The Christ'? It's a snuff film about Jesus, and they whip him with a chain very similar to this one." Apparently that was a win.

Weight Plateau

I haven't lost any weight in the past week and a half. The only change in my diet has been the addition of two hard-boiled eggs per day, which significantly mitigated my cravings and exhaustion. (Thanks, everyone who suggested eggs!)

I'm not planning to do anything about the weight plateau. My diet is extremely healthy right now, in spite of the added cholesterol. If my body wants to hang out where it's at for now, I'm fine with that. I'm still 20 lbs overweight, but I don't see how the diet I'm on could support me staying overweight long-term. I'll drop the weight over the natural course of events, but probably just more gradually than I have been so far.

If I start gaining weight with this diet, on the other hand, in addition to being very surprised, I'll probably try to cut something back to stop that.

So that's where that's at.

The thing about the eggs is, I don't love them. They mess with my digestion, and have 72% of the RDA for cholesterol (RDA in this case meaning 'recommended upper limit', I suppose), so I'd rather do without them if I can. But I'm not sure what a real substitute would be, i.e. something that would have the same effect on my cravings and tiredness.

Anyway, for now I'm sticking it out.

FOIA

I'm submitting some Freedom Of Information Act requests to various government agencies, asking for all materials that pertain to me. The agencies are:

• The CIA
• The Defense Department
• Homeland Security
• The FBI

Last time I tried this, they bounced the requests right back to me, but this time I'm having my Lawyer do the paperwork, and handle any resistance. Not that I expect there's a lot of material on me in government offices, but I've always wanted to know, and FOIA exists partly to let me do this.

20 lbs Gone. 20 More For A "Normal" Weight

I think I may be reaching some sort of complacency phase in my diet. Partly this is because my hard-line approach makes a lot of decisions pretty straightforward, so I often don't have to think very much about any given choice. Is it a between-meal snack? Then no. Does it use processed flour? Is meat or grain the main ingredient? Then no.

But then I've also started relying on certain 'feelings' that I'm choosing to interpret as my body beginning to starve. Tiredness, mainly, and a feeling of being run down. Then I'll take the opportunity to add a little something to a meal; even a second entrée in some cases, telling myself that this way I can be sure I'm getting enough nutrients.

That doesn't happen very often, maybe once or twice a week; but it's the thought process that concerns me. I can feel myself potentially making excuses to just eat more. And because most of my eating decisions are made almost automatically these days, I'm concerned I might just automatically start responding to hunger as a symptom of starvation, by eating a lot.

But overall, I seem to be doing OK. I still need to get used to the idea that my current diet isn't just an expedient for weight loss, it's the way I actually want to eat from now on. So, we'll see how that goes. I'm definitely in some kind of relatively easy phase; but I'm still expecting very hard times up ahead.