Happy New Year! And Another Acceptance

Aoife's Kiss, a print magazine, has accepted my story "Going West."


The editor said:

Good call. A very good story for Aoife's Kiss. I'm accepting "Going West" for the December 2010 issue, which is the earliest I could get it in.

It's probably all in a day's work for an editor, but for a writer it's a lovely way to begin 2010.


Cheers,


Breanna

Day Two Plan

DAY TWO


7:30 - A glass of warm water. A ginger tea I'm having coffee, spank you very much (Ha! Ace Ventura reference)

7:45 - Brisk 20-minute walk To where?  It's been below zero every mornign for a week.  We will just "shake our sillies out", a la Miss Boo

8:15 - A bowl of soaked prunes Erm.  I think I'll just have a couple unsoaked Dried Plums, if it's all the same.

8:45 - Soaked muesli or as we like to call it in this house, "two fried eggs and a bowl of oatmeal".

10:30 - A small handful of mixed seeds

12:00 - A brisk 20-minute walk or "chase the children and try to keep them from killing each other with the toy trucks while you construct lunch"

12:30 - Bean soup (made yesterday) with a green salad I have no bean soup made yesterday, as we had tuna melts; but I DO have a lovely new bean soup recipie from Mothering magazine that calls for, among other things, a chipotle chile.  Which I don't have.  But I do have a can of them green chile dealies, so I'll use that.

Mid pm - Bean dip (made yesterday) with vegetable crudités Also no bean dip made yesterday, but I have some storebought hummus that will work just fine to dip my baby carrots in.

6:00 - Skip or rebound for 15 minutes, followed by 10 minutes of stretching Again, this is dinner time, so I won't be exercising here.  I'll once again be trying for belly dancing in the early afternoon; if all else fails, I will throw on VH1 Classic and Miss Boo and I will dance around to the Totally 80s video show, while Brother yells at us from the pack n' play.

6:30 - Salmon with herbs, peas and red cabbage, sesame and spinach blanched As I mentioned in the previous post, this will have to be, in reality, "chicken-bean-and-rice enchiladas, sesame and blanched spinach, and corn".

9:00 - A small pot of yoghurt

Put some apricots, nuts and seeds in soak for tomorrow morning

Breanna's note: does "a pot of yoghurt" sound exceedingly gross to anyone else?  Don't they have cups or bowls in Britain?
 
Cheers,
 
Breanna

How Did The Plan Go?

Eh.

("Gasp!")

My plan went fine; I didn't even try to follow Gillain McKeith's.  (See this?  Wasabi Sauce.  My new best condiment ever.  We had it on burgers last night and I didn't even tell you.)

(This is the burgers in the process of becoming.  I don't put any crumbs in, just an egg, onion, salt and peppa, and Worchestershire sauce--the sauce is un-whole foods of me.)

It's not that Gillian didn't have a good plan, and it's not that I won't try to do "day two" tomorrow on what is actually day three.

(Oven Fries.  Mmmm.  Weight Watchers oven fries, so there.  They are crispy and good.)

The lesson is to be flexible.  We didn't have anything today that was unhealthy or unreasonable--just because I didn't have the time or sanity to stick to my 7:30 lemon-water dealie, doesn't mean I had to give up and eat M&Ms for lunch.

(OK, I am ridiculously proud of getting a picture of the steam curl rising off the burgers.  Like in a cartoon, yo!  Now I just need to make a round cake, ice it, and put a cherry on top, and make one of those eight-inch high sandwiches with swiss cheese and an olive on a toothpick.  Oh, and swallow it whole and have it hold its shape on the way down my esophagus.)

(Toddler version of last night's meal.)

I stuck with the things I know are right: it's better to eat breakfast, even if you don't get to it until 10am.  It's better to have protein at meals.  It's better to eat real food and not frozen/delivered/unwrapped food.

(My plate last night.  Note spinach!  For that matter note the cocktail in the glass next to my water... tsk.  Bad.  But if you ever want to have a cocktail, ask for a Cuba Libre--rum, Coke, and lime juice.  Very delicious.  And what I needed last night to still my aching back quicker than a speeding tyelenol.)

(I just took this picture because I thought it was funny that my folded cheese wrapper says "Mook.")

We managed, even though I still haven't belly-danced this week.  I haven't weighed yet, of course, so maybe all this optimism is sheer self-delusion, but I think we will work out ok.  I just took today and followed my own plan instead of Gillian's, that's all.

(Sadly this is the only picture I remembered to take of tonight's dinner, which was Lime Pepper Chicken, Mexican Black Beans and Rice, and Broccoli.  Note the Cool Steamer Thing I was given as a wedding present.)

A lesson is here somewhere for perfectionist-types: internalize the reasons why you are choosing the food you are choosing.  (Note: "Because Bob from The Biggest Loser said so" is not a reason you can internalize.)  I.e., so you're eating cauliflower instead of mashed potatoes--why?  Because you need cruciferous vegetables to bring down your cholesterol?  Because your mashed potatoes always include a half stick of butter?  Because the simple starch in mashed potatoes sends your blood sugar whirling?

(The lentils are sprouting!)

If you know the Why of your food choices, you can roll with it a lot better than if you are just trying to blindly follow a list of Thou Shalt Nots and Thou Shalts.

("Ah, you've reassured me greatly, Mama.")

Then you can rest assured that your lunch of skinny tuna melts on whole wheat (use half yogurt and half mayo in the tuna and lots of celery, and thinly sliced cheese) is probably just as healthy for you as Gillian's planned lunch of bean soup and green salad.

("Mama, I'm a crawlin' dinosaur!" -- actual quote)

It's all about flexibility, at least in my house, where the two-year-old pretty much decides whether she'll allow me to shower that day.  I'm not sure whether the Geneva Convention knows that I'm being treated like this, but I'm pretty sure even people in POW camps get to shower.

("Mama, I'm a STOMPIN' RUNNIN' DINOSAUR!" -- actual quote)

When your house has been invaded by extinct reptiles, it would seem flexibility is a virtue, in diet as well as in other things.  The other huge help in Deciding What to Eat When the Plan Goes to Crap is the whole Just Don't Buy Crap strategy.  I.e., if there are no M&Ms in the house, you can't easily have them for lunch.

("Buddy's a dinosaur!  Buddy's a crawlin' dinosaur! Big silly dinosaurs! Yaaaaaaaay!" --actual quote)

Of course, sticking to my aforementioned schedule should make it so that tomorrow, Another Day, is a day when I can stick to an eating plan.

Except, of course, now I need to have chicken-bean-rice enchiladas for supper tomorrow, because of the leftovers from tonight.  They're actually very healthy enchiladas; not a bit of sour cream in 'em and a very moderate use of cheese.  I'll try to take a picture.

("DINOSAURS IN THE HALLWAY!" - actual quote)

Cheers,

Breanna

A New Day

In which Breanna decides that it's better to become the Schedule Nazi of the house again.

First of all, here is a funny year-in-review by Dave Barry.  Since it's the season for year-in-review, and even decade-in-review stuff.  So make yourself laugh, so you won't want to punch all the other decade-in-review people who can only remember things that happened in the last three years.  You've got to love anything that includes the paragraph:

"In the Middle East, hopes for peace soar when Iran announces that it will allow U.N. inspectors to visit its nuclear-enrichment facility. Hopes plunge soon after when the inspectors report that they were taken to what appears to be a hastily abandoned kebab stand with a hand-painted sign that says ``NUCLEAR ENRICHMENT,'' as well as what the inspectors describe as ``numerous health-code violations.''"

So, getting to my day--we are on track, mostly, with our diet, although we had eggs with no porridge for breakfast because I didn't get us out of our jammies until 10am.  Which brings me to the main point of the blog today: schedules.

I like them a lot.  I just sometimes forget to like, actually use them.  I normally have a functioning Non-Written-Down Schedule, but occaisonally that all goes to crap--like when we are returning from a week-long trip, all sick, and used to flinging toys with wild abandon around Grandma's house.

Here is my schedule.  For now.  I think it probably needs to be tweaked.

Cheers,

Breanna

It's 3:28 - Have I Belly-Danced?

No.

In fact, I'm altering Da Plan wildly as I go, since today has turned out to be a Logan's Run sort of a day (i.e., move as fast as you can, hoping only to achieve bare survival).  We did eat quinoa porridge for breakfast, though.

(Toddler version--with a fried egg on the side and a quarter of a pear.)

--BUT I added to my quinoa some maple syrup, since I think it is gross without a flavoring of some kind.  I should have used applesauce, but I only had one hand to do anything with.  I also ate half a pear and two eggs, because I was hungry as a horse.  They were all healthy foods, however.  I do not regret them.

(Baby version-- an old, washed-out scoop from the laundry soap.)

We had "Tuscan Bean Soup", also somewhat wildly altered, for lunch--we threw in spinach instead of cabbage, extra pepper, and celery because we like celery.  And we used the cleverly repurposed carrot slaw from last night as the side.

At like 2-something I had a piece of cheese for a snack.

Water all day, except for a cup of juice I made myself drink at 11am because the plan said to.  I don't like juice.  (Miss Boo would say, "No Mama!  Don't say I-don't-like-it!  Makes food very sad!"  Everything has feelings now, we're finding, from food to the dog to the fridge to the pillows on the bed.  The inanimate objects are frequently offended.  Perhaps this is why my house is never clean.)

For supper we are having hamburgers on whole-wheat buns with veggie trimmings/sides and oven fries.  See?  I told you I was wildly altering; the hamburgers were supposed to be for later in the week, but I switched them to today because I have the beef thawed and I don't have any chicken thawed.

Fails today? Belly dancing--no, vitamin--no, although I'll try to take it before bed.

Sucesses? On track with the food, lentils seem to be sprouting instead of rotting, I called and argued with the insurance company (who has been sending things to our old address), and I filled in a bunch of forms for our HSA that have to be turned in before the end of the year.  Phew.

I chalk today up as a win, even sans-shimmying.

Cheers,

Breanna

P.S. In passing, I realized I do this.  Who knew it was, like, a method?

Today's Plan

(A very old picture.  This is just here to get you to read about food.)

...I'll be posting pictures and updates as we go.

Da Plan:

This plan was adapted from the "You Are What You Eat" menu plan favored by Gillian McKeith, Food Nazi Emetrius.  I think she goes too far, but then she has extreme cases to work with on TV.  (Non-extreme cases on TV would be boring--like watching your neighbors out the kitchen sink while you do dishes.  Not that I ever do that.)  Here's the plan:

DAY ONE


7:30 - A glass of warm water with lemon juice. A nettle tea
7:45 - Brisk 20-minute walk No, I won't be doing that
8:15 - One pear
8:45 - Quinoa porridge. For two servings, into a saucepan put 1 cup of quinoa, 1 cup of rice milk, 1-2 cups of water and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon then cook on a medium heat with the lid on until all the liquid is absorbed I think I'll just eat the pear WITH the porridge
10:15 - Vegetable juice.
12:00 - Brisk 20-minute walk Won't be doing that either
12:30 – White bean soup with grated carrot salad. Make enough soup for tomorrow
Mid pm - Bean dip with vegetable crudités. Make enough dip for tomorrow
6:00 - Dance for 20 minutes to loud music This is dinner time.  I think I'll actually belly dance around 2pm
6:30 – Sauteed chicken with barley and steamed vegetables
9:00 - A small handful of almonds
Put some prunes and muesli in soak for tomorrow. Soaking the muesli makes it easier to digest
Soak some chickpeas, alfalfa, mung beans and lentils for sprouting I think I will call them "dried plums" because "put some prunes in soak" sounds very dreadful.


I also changed the food a bit--she called for Nut Loaf or something for dinner and, as I am carnivorous, I changed it to chicken.  I think it's easier to get high-quality protien from meat than from weird nut/soy-based meat analogues, anyway.  I'm using whole milk instead of rice milk, because I have nothing against dairy (though if lactose bothers you, you could consider rice milk).  And, while I like nettle tea, I'm going to drink coffee.  Because I like it and I can.

Also: for Pete's sake, the times are suggestions.  I'm not spending my day going, "Oh no! Now it's 8:15--I haven't had my lemon water yet!"  To me, it's more an order for things to be done in than a strict schedule.

A recipe from Gillian (why is it that food Nazis are always called Gillian/Jillian?):


Tuscan bean soup

Ingredients


1 tbsp gold of pleasure oil* or olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
half a savoy cabbage, finely shredded
2 carrots, diced
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 can of borlotti beans, drained and rinsed
1 can of butter beans, drained and rinsed
0.5 litres vegetable stock or 2 tsp vegetable bouillon
1 tsp dried mixed herbs
1 bay leaf
1 tbsp tamari
nori flakes


Method

Heat the oil in a large pan and sauté the onion until soft. Add the garlic, bay leaf, cabbage and carrots and sweat them for 5 minutes.

Add the beans and the vegetable stock or water and bouillon. Bring to the boil, add the herbs and tamari and simmer for 10 minutes.

Remove the bay leaf and serve. Season with nori flakes.

(*What the heck do you suppose "gold of pleasure oil" is?)

How I would change this recipe:
I'd use dried beans (pintos or navy, most likely)
Regular green cabbage
Olive oil
Salt instead of nori flakes
And chicken bullion cubes/water, unless I had chicken stock laying around for some reason

Anyhoo this is the soup I'm going to make today.  I imagine I'll add a few more specific spices, too ("dried mixed herbs"?  Maybe she means "Italian Seasoning"?  These Brits are soooo confusing sometimes...).

Cheers,

Breanna

A Short Political Foray

Apparently PBO doesn't please everyone who used to hate us back when Bush was President.

I'm just sayin'.

Cheers,

Breanna

What Do I Do With Beans?

May I offer a suggestion?

Look at Peggy's Kitchen recipies here; these are somewhat foofy but always very good.  Not necessarily cheap, but it gets you in the right ballpark thinking about what to put with beans.

For cheap, and tasty, try Maggie's "Frugal Abundance" recpies here.

You can always fry in a scambled egg and a bit of meat for pork/chicken/shrimp/alligator fried rice.  Veggies would make it healthier.

And finally, you must make this dahl, which will blow the top of your head off, so make some plain rice to go with it.  (Try for brown rice-- complimentary protien so you won't get kwashikor.)

I think they'd let you take curry powder into Honduras, wouldn't they?

Just think of things (like spices or smoked meat) that add a lot of flavor for a tiny volume.  Not sure what is cheap in Honduras.  Please take a bottle of multivitamins for personal use with you, though, ok?  No scurvy?  And take care of your teeth and feet.

Cheers,

Breanna

Some Christmas Pics, A Recipe, and A Plan

Alright, I'll admit it now.  In the crazy package-opening-paper-tearing-glut of Christmas, I did not take any pictures of the presents from the aunts, uncles, or grandparents.  EXCEPT for these pictures, which are pictures of things bought with Christmas money from Oma.  So here are the pictures I have.  I will post more pictures as we play with things.  Sorry.

This is her set of cutable wooden food, a wooden cutting board, and a wood "knife" that only cuts cutable food.  Handy knife for a toddler, that way.  Her serious expression here belies how much she loves cutting and then putting her food back together.  I sort of wish sometimes that my carrots had velcro inside.

(The real feeling for the cutting board.)

At the same time we bought the food, we also bought a tiny set of metal pots and pans, a set of bamboo spatulas and spoons that are nicer than mine that I use in the *real* kitchen,  and a set of baking tools including a whisk (the wires are string), a rolling pin, a pan scraper, and "meshaging spoons".  I'll let you guess what those are for.

"Excuse you, Mama."

"Oh!  I didn't know it was for the blog.  Yes, I love the Magna-doodle, even though I keep chewing on the magnetic stamps and can't really doodle yet.  It's fun to body-surf on."

(For the record, the children also got clothes with their Christmas bounty, books, crayons and craft supplies, a truck, and a set of wooden sorting/stacking blocks.  AND there was still some left to go in their respective savings accounts.  See?  After Christmas sales rock.)

This is the only Christmas picture I took while we were on our week-long Oddessy to the respective grandparents.  Sorry.  She has a dirty face here, but isn't she gorgeous anyway?

And now...

Did you eat too much over Christmas?  Like, enough for seven people from India to live for three weeks?  Yeah, me too... I didn't gain any weight, thanks to a voracious nursing baby, but I deserved to.  So here is what we're doing, starting with supper tonight.  (With recipies!)

Supper tonight was tilapia filets with Moroccan Spice seasoning, white rice (because I'm out of brown), frozen peas, and carrot slaw.  Here is how to make it:

(Toddler version.)

1. First start your rice.  If you use brown rice, barley, or some other weird grain like quinoa or millet or something, start it a LONG time before you start anything else, because everything else is fast.  White rice only takes 10 or 15 minutes, though, so if using that, you can get dinner done in, like, 30 minutes flat.  If using brown rice, what you ought to do is put it in a covered dish in the oven with 2.5 times as much water as rice and bake it for about an hour.

2. Microwave your peas.

3. Put in your fish, with Moroccan Spice (recipe below).  Melt about 2 T butter in a frying pan (or oil of your choice, but please real oils and not like, Crisco or something) and  then put your filets in.  (Or you could do a chicken breast/thigh, or a boneless pork tenderloin chop, all are good.)  Then sprinkle the spice on one side, and as soon as your fish is ready to turn, flip it and sprinkle spice on the other side.  Takes about 5 minutes on a side for the fish to cook.

4. Wash carrots, cut off the tops, and grate them (preferably in your food processor--otherwise this should be step one.)  In the bowl in which you will serve the salad, mix a dressing I made up:

3 T olive oil

2 T lime juice

a good shake of pepper

a good shake of garlic powder

a good shake of oregeno

(Remember, lime juice is a wee bit sweet anyway and you're dressing basically just carrots, which are sweet by themselves, so don't need any sugar.)

Once that's mixed up, dump in your grated carrots, a nut of your choice (walnuts, almonds, sunflower seeds, etc.) and I put in sesame seeds because I had some.  This is an excellent salad that I made up.

5. Make sure your peas are hot and your peas are done.  Your rice is done now.  Dish up.

Here is the Moroccan Spice recipe, which I got from my wonderful Mother-in-Law, who is really too nice to hold that title.  Anyway:

2 T Cumin

2 t ginger or cinnamon (I like cinnamon)

2 t paprika

2 t tumeric

1/2 t cayenne or black pepper (full disclosure: we double or even triple this one)

1 t salt

You mix these all together.  The note she included with my recipe says this is good on potatoes (yum, haven't tried that yet...) chicken, and fish, and that it can be mixed with yogurt for what would seem like a really delicious alternative to tartar sauce.

Moving along with The Plan...

This isn't, despite its looks, a piece of someone's gallbladder; it's lentils being sprouted into...uh, sprouts.  Because we all know that lentils by themselves are... well, lentils; they're okay in Indian cooking because they combine them with so many spicy things that eating tiny pieces of cardboard is mostly okay.  Lentils are full of vitamins and fiber and all that jazz, of course, so this is my way of eating them.  You can put anything on a sandwich or in a salad and make it better.

And this is a blurry picture (Miss Boo grabbed my arm) of a bowl of quinoa, water, and yogurt, soaking on the counter overnight.  Believe it or not, this actually makes a difference (you can do it with oatmeal too, or any grain you're going to eat as hot cereal).  I use 1/2 cup of the grain, 1/2 cup of water, and 2 T of yogurt.  Stir it all up, then cover it with a towel and leave it on the counter all night.  In the morning the grain has absorbed all the liquid.  You put this in your pan with enough water to cover, and your grain comes out soft and creamy and delicious.  AND the yogurt doo-dads have had a chance to start digesting your cereal for you, which isn't as bad as it sounds; it makes it so the fiber in the cereal does not wreak its bloody vengeance on your GI tract.

So this is the plan: follow an uber-healthy menu plan I have written out (with some help from a BBC website--links tomorrow), belly dance every day, take my vitamin (I'm bad at that), drink my water, and see what happens.

I'm starting at 179.  Let's see what we can do in a week, eh?

Cheers,

Breanna

We're Home...

...and we've got pictures and a whole lot of unpacking to do.  I have also some cool posts for you, including an answer to a comment ("what suggestions do you have for beans?", or to that effect) and an account, with results, of my post-Christmas food recovery plan.  So.

Now I have to start laundry.

Cheers,

Breanna

Like A Monkey Without a Spatula

In honor of my new washer and dryer, here's a song.  Arr.

Cheers, Breanna

Recipies, For the Interested

A blog with an embarassing name is a place I go when I have ingredients I'm not sure how to use.  The author is the same woman who wrote "Feeding the Whole Family", a cookbook I love because all the recipies have mods for babies and toddlers.

I came across Lair's work while reading my pinko commie parenting magazine (which I read mainly for the recipies and the surprisingly helpful tips), in an article where she shared her frustration at nutritional advice that gives you a long list of eat-and-do-not-eat foods, but gives you no guidance to go about planning a satisfying meal from the "eats".

Lair's solution was to offer two frameworks, one for a well-balanced vegetarian meal and one for a well-balanced animal-protien meal.  (One of the things I appreciate about Lair, a vegetarian, is that she is very undogmatic about protien sources.  In her cookbook she admits that she believes some people are born vegetarian and some people are born carnivorous, and that it's probably useless to try to convert either.)

A well-balanced vegetarian meal goes in this order:

1. A whole grain
2. A legume or soy food
3. A vegetable (green)
4. Another vegetable (any)
5. What Lair calls a "digestive" - something raw, fermented, cultured, pickled, or bitter.

Incidentally as a carnivor, I have mae some of Lair's vegetarian recipies and I found them very satisfying, with the right amount of chewyness to feel like I'd had a main course.  An example of a meal incorporating the above ideas would be black bean chili with brown rice, tomatoes, and either a topping of lettuce and salsa or a salad on the side.  (See how easy it is to get two vegetables?  You could also put kale or spinach in the chili if you really don't want to wash any other dishes.)  The salsa is your digestive.

A well-balanced animal protien meal includes:

1. Fish, eggs, chicken, pork, or beef (probably in that order)
2. Whole grain or starchy vegetable
3. Vegetable (green)
4. Vegetable (any)
5. Digestive - something raw, fermented, cultured, pickled, or bitter.

An example of a meal utilizing the above would be meatloaf, potatoes, spinach salad with mandarin oranges or dried cranberries.  (Starchy vegetable is used, Lair explains, when the meat is heavy enough that a grain would be unpleasant with it-- i.e., steak and brown rice.  A nice piece of fish with brown rice salad, on the other hand, might be lovely.)

(Raw: raw vegetables or nuts.  Fermented: like sauerkraut.  Cultured: like yogurt.  Pickled: well, like pickles.  Bitter: like a vinegrette.  You need these things regularly to have a healthy gut.)

Lair uses a lot of whole grain salads in her cookbook, including one lovely quinoa salad with a lemon-garlic dressing that I adore but that I can't eat too much, because quinoa increases breast milk production (for me, noticably).  I should just make it with brown rice instead... then the Husband couldn't keep saying it looks like birdseed.

One thing I appreciate about her recipies is the idea that grains, fruits, vegetables, and legumes are the centerpieces, with meat, dairy, sea vegetables, and nuts and seeds as flavorings or components of the meal.  This is a really easy way to cut calories without losing enjoyment of the food--not to meniton that it's cheaper to build a meal around a pot of beans with a few bits of meat for flavoring than it is to build a meal around a pot roast.  (Much as I love pot roast.  Yum.  And there's even a recipie for pot roast in the "Feeding the Whole Family" cookbook... it just calls for about six kinds of veggies to be roasted alongside the meat!)

Without a doubt one of our favorite recipies is the sweet yam corn muffins, which I make as cornbread.  They are not on the website, sadly; what you do is you add a whole can of yams/sweet potatoes/leftover orange squash to your cornbread recipie in place of some of the liquid (and some of the sweetener) and mix the whole thing in the food processor.  Then you bake it like normal cornbread.  This is so moist you don't even get crumbs when you cut it.

I suppose I'm trying to be encouraging-- eating healthy isn't all lentils and edamame, when you do it right.  Spices are your friend!

Cheers,

Breanna

Interesting

Climate stuff.  Read it.  'Nuff said.

Cheers,

Breanna

OK, Speaking of Losing Weight

Here is one reason that you may be having a hard time with that.  My friend with metabolic syndrome said "you should really put that on your blog..." so here it is: Cortisol.

See the kidneys?  Sitting on top of them like little fatty hats are the adrenal glands, which are small and surly for something so powerful.  The adrenal glands make, among other things, cortisol, which is a very useful chemical.... if you're running from a bear.

A surprising number of things in the human body are honed for the running-from-a-bear scenario.  You get a cocktail of chemicals that make your heart race, stop your digestive system from working (because you don't have time to stop and go to the bathroom when you're running from a bear), send painkillers running through your body, and release a sudden burst of sugar into your bloodstream.

All of these are great things if you need a sudden burst of energy to throw a punch or run away.   They are not so good long-term, when the stress you're experiencing is not from mortal danger but just from Mort, the annoying fart at the DMV.

Let's talk about Cortisol, the chemical that makes a sudden burst of sugar go into your bloodstream and the chemical that acts like a painkiller.  Over time, continual bursts of cortisol are bad for you, because of a cycle that goes like this:

1. You are in pain/stressed.
2. Cortisol is released.
3. Your blood sugar surges, a painkiller effect happens, and your digestive system (and your metabolism) slows down.
4. Your pancreas wakes up and says, "Hey, who dumped all that sugar in the bloodstream?" and responds with a surge of insulin.
5. Your blood sugar plummets.
6. You eat--usually in a cortisol craving, you want something salty, crunchy, and fatty.
7. The salty crunchy fatty thing you ate spikes your blood sugar again.
8. High blood sugar causes your pancreas to send out another surge of insulin and your blood sugar plummets.
9. You're hungry.  You eat something salty, crunchy, fatty.
10. The stress of wildly fluctuating blood sugar and a sluggish digestive system registers as actual pain or distress in your body; you get headaches, joint aches, upset stomach, heartburn, etc.
11. You release cortisol.

Over time the swings and surges of cortisol in your body cause you to gain weight, and consistently having high blood sugar causes you to be more vulnerable to infection, which causes your body to be more stressed, and on and on and on it goes.  When you pair it with high emotional stress and lack of sleep, you have a perfect recipie for metabolic syndrome-- or, as I like to think of it, cortisol poisoning.

So, what do you do about this?

Well, first of all, simple and commonsense things.  Cortisol is meant to be burned up in physical activity--burn it off.  Cortisol damage is repaired when you sleep--go to bed.  And a healthy, high-functioning, humming-along-at-a-good-clip metabolism is much more resilient to cortisol than a sluggish, already-wrecked-through-bad-eating metabolism.  So get your metabolism running on all cylinders: eat every couple of hours during the day and have a snack before bed.  (Graham crackers and milk, half a sandwich, a bowl of cereal, that kind of thing.)

By bad eating I mean: lotsa calories, hours and hours of absolutely no calories, and then a whole lot of calories again before bed.  By good eating I mean: whatever you put in your mouth has some use to it--it's got vitamins, minerals, and you can pronounce everything in it.

By physical activity (see the I-hate-exercise-I-really-do remarks in the previous post) I mean something like a walk or some yoga or even just parking further away from the store.  By going to bed, I mean really going to bed and getting sleep--get medication to get to sleep if you have to, do all the nighttime hygiene things like making your room dark, avoiding alcohol, etc.

But whatever you do, don't use the pills that promise to reduce your cortisol levels from off the TV.  If they work (which I doubt) they're dangerous--too little cortisol can make your heart up and stop.  It's not something to screw with.  If they don't work (which I suspect) they are a waste of money.  Take care of your body and let it fix itself.

Cheers,

Breanna

Eating Healthy... and did I mention I hit goal?

...My first weight goal, that is.

I'm geekishly excited about the number.  I won't tell you where I started, but I'll tell you I'm at 179 now (which is only 9 pounds above my pre-pregnancy weight, before I got pregnant with Brother) and I'll tell you I've lost 20 pounds since he was born (legitimately, it's not fair to count the weight you lose by having a baby) and you can draw your own conclusions.

That said, I still need to lose those 9 pounds and I want to lose 10 pounds after that to get to my pre-Miss-Boo-pregnancy weight.  Having children does this to you.  I also got word this week that a friend's doctor told her she has Metabolic Syndrome, a nasty cocktail of pre-diseases (pre-diabetes, pre-heart disease, pre-kidney disease... pretty much controlled by diet and stress).  So I have been thinking about this whole eating healthy thing, and how someone might start who doesn't have six million dollars.

I found this post at  Kitchen Stewardship that I think sums up a good way for anybody to begin.  I don't particularly like her formatting (gah, why have white AND gray and make a big ol' break in the text?) but she makes good points.  I'll tell you guys what I have done and you can do as much as makes sense for you.

1. Eat (mostly) Quality Food

This doesn't mean fresh-local-organic.  It means food that's recognizable as what it is: vegetables (fresh, frozen, or canned), fruit (ditto), meat, milk, yogurt, oil, butter.  No margarine, because it's been altered significantly from what it started out as (vegetable oil).  Nothing neon--pretty safe bet that's been altered.  No storebought cookies, cakes, or candy (although some homemade stuff).  If I ate something non-quality, I made sure to eat one-- i.e., one piece of cake, one serving of non-homemade pizza, etc. etc.

2. Eat Frequently

Sounds counter intuitive, but it kept me from getting so hungry that I munched indiscriminately and it (important for metabolic syndrome) kept my metabolism up.  Also I need to, with a gigantic baby boy nursing.

3. Move

I picked up bellydancing, because we get the FitTV channel and there's a bellydancing show and it's fun, albeit I have to close the curtains and make sure nobody can see me while I do it.  But yoga or gentle aerobics work good too.  I say gentle, because frankly I hate things that make me feel out of breath and miserable, and I'll only repeat things that make me feel good.  I hate exercise, I really and truly do, so it has to be at least marginally fun or relaxing for me to do it.  I like yoga, and I like bellydancing.  I put up with aerobics.

4. Don't Worry, Just Start Over

Because of floods and various other things, we ate out more during the month of November than we ever normally do.  This is not a good strategy for losing weight, but you can minimize the impact of eating out.  For instance, I try to order water instead of Coke (much as I like Coke) and I try to order a meal that isn't too horrendus.  (The smaller burger, for instance, or the one with only one kind of cheese... I still can't bring myself to order a salad at Chili's.)  Also (ahem) I don't order a cocktail.  Most of the time.  But when I mess up, I am careful not to beat myself up about it.  It's done, feeling bad won't change it or make it better, so you just have to move on and do better the next day.  Really, one meal with extra calories won't derail you if you don't let it make you depressed.

That's all I got for right now, except--oh! I nearly forgot the best part.

5. Reward yourself when you hit a goal.

Not THE goal, A goal.  I got a new pair of jammies. :)

Hope everyone has a (mostly) healthy holiday season.

Cheers,

Breanna

It's Up!

My short story,"Remember", is finally live at The Abset Willow Review. Enjoy-- and take a look around; they have some interesting stuff.

Cheers,

Breanna

Pictures and Thoughts on Heresy

First the pictures, so that anybody who doesn't want to hear me ruminate about the latest heresy I've run across can just enjoy the Christmasyness.

This is a present that is very, very, very difficult to resist poking.  Miss Boo has been trying manfully (womanfully?) but it's hard.  It's also hard not to pull on the pretty, pretty tree.

So she has her own tree, which she decorates and undecorates regularly.

This is the Brother Barricade.  It's so far about as sucessful at keeping him from grabbing the presents as the Maginot Line was at protecting France, but at least it's cheaper and we're not relying on the Polish to keep the plans safe.

Speaking of Brother, he believes he likes rice cereal.  I say believes, because every time I try to get him to actually eat it he just happily spits it out and guggles at me.  But at least we're trying.  He's got to start using those teeth on something other than mama.

"HUUUUUUUUUG Buddy!"

(Miss Boo has taken to calling Brother "Buddy", or, for variety, "Baad" which I think means "Bud", because she doesn't pronounce it quite "bad".)

Do you think we are supposed to be standing here?

Answer: no, but Mama took a picture before getting us out of CD-player range, because we were looking at the snow and it was so very, very cute.

End of pictures, start of rambling theological discourse.  The disinterested may stop reading: now.

Some of you may be aware of a movement called "Quiverfull", and another related movement called "Patriarchy".  Before I start discussing them I should say I'm a Christian, and I believe several things that opponents of these two movement might not.  For instance:

1. The Bible is the literal word of God, and has authority over how Christians live their lives.
2. Men and women are different, and in a marriage the wife is to submit to the husband and the husband is to cherish the wife (BUT see my discussion below).
3. Children are a blessing from God and life is utterly precious.

So here is my thinking on Patriarchy, and also Quiverfull.

Patriarchy is a movement that takes the second proposition above and words it this way: "Men and women are DIFFERENT, and in marriage the wife is to SUBMIT TO THE HUSBAND and the husband is to cherish the wife."  You may wonder why I even read/know/am discussing this movement.  The same reason I read "The Feminine Mystique", although I knew before I started it that I probably would disagree with it.  I find the "politics of gender", as they are sometimes called by people who doubt gender exists, fascinating.

Here are the problems I see with the teachings of the Patriarchy movement:

1. The idea that the primary thing wrong with humanity/America/the world is feminism.  This is just not true, and it's not Biblical.  The primary thing wrong with humanity, according to the Bible, is sin.  All sin--lying, stealing, adultery, covetousness, blasphemy, all of it.  Feminism is, in comparison to, say, Baal worship, pretty tame.  Am I saying that Andrea Dworkin was right?  Of course not, but I am saying that focusing all your attention on combating feminism to the exclusion of preaching the Gospel is flat wrong.  Although feminism (in the Dworkin/Freidan/Ireland model) is a lie, it's nothing to be afraid of.  Just tell the truth, and the lie looks pretty hollow.

2. The idea that the primary factor in bad marriages, apostate children, and the sorry state of the world is unsubmissive wives.  There is a logic problem here.  According to what I've read of Patriarchy books and websites, the husband/father is supposed to be The Leader in the home, and he controls the direction of his house.  (Even down to really stupid things like what colors of clothes people wear, what time dinner is, and how the day's time is organized--even if he's gone all day.)  Ok, not for me, but whatever.  The logic problem occurs when a bad marriage/apostate child/sorry state of the world is, in spite of the husband's Leaderly responsibility, attributed to a wife's unsubmissiveness.  It seems like there would be at least a 50-50 split here--like husbands are at least as likely as wives to make mistakes that would produce bad marriages.  Since the Patriarchy movement looks with distrust on wives correcting their husbands for any reason, it seems like the husbands would be even more likely to make mistakes than the wives, because they lose the benefit of their wives' input.

3. The misuse of Scripture.  This is the biggie.  There is a lack of respect for the depth and complexity of the Bible.  I am typing with a baby on my lap and am unable to reach my Bible for the references, but many verses in Scripture are balanced by the tension of another verse (or the second half of the same verse).  For instance, in James it says "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" - which sounds like you do a lot - and then "for it is God who works in you" which sounds like you don't do much.  Likewise, the verses about the differences between men and women are balanced by the tension in the verses about how all humans are the same in God's eyes--male and female, Jew and Greek, rich and poor.  The Patriarchy (and the Quiverfull, too) movement tends to quote the same verses over and over, out of context, without allowing Scripture to interpret Scripture.  ANY MOVEMENT THAT DOES THIS SHOULD BE HIGHLY SUSPECT.

(Yes.  That was me cyber-yelling.)

4. The tendency to use name-calling during arguments.  I mean serious name-calling-- calling your opponents "Jezebels", "wimps", "demon-possesed" and worse.  Ad hominem attacks reveal a lack of factual arguments.  'Nuff said.

5. The use of fear of the World and the Devil as a tactic.  Christians get afraid because we're human.  Christians should not, however, be motivated by fear.  Listen to me, because this is a very serious accusation I'm going to make: anyone who uses fear as a primary motivator and consciously sets out to produce fear--of anything other than God--in their audience is a terrorist and an idolater.  Did you hear me?  That's right--Idolater.  God is the only person or thing we are to fear.  Got it?

Had enough yet?  This is a looooooong post.  My thoughts on Quiverfull will do for another day. ;)

Cheers,

Breanna

In Case You're Curious,

I Am A: Neutral Good Human Cleric (3rd Level)


Ability Scores:

Strength-12

Dexterity-10

Constitution-11

Intelligence-15

Wisdom-14

Charisma-15


Alignment:
Neutral Good A neutral good character does the best that a good person can do. He is devoted to helping others. He works with kings and magistrates but does not feel beholden to them. Neutral good is the best alignment you can be because it means doing what is good without bias for or against order. However, neutral good can be a dangerous alignment because it advances mediocrity by limiting the actions of the truly capable.


Race:
Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.


Class:
Clerics act as intermediaries between the earthly and the divine (or infernal) worlds. A good cleric helps those in need, while an evil cleric seeks to spread his patron's vision of evil across the world. All clerics can heal wounds and bring people back from the brink of death, and powerful clerics can even raise the dead. Likewise, all clerics have authority over undead creatures, and they can turn away or even destroy these creatures. Clerics are trained in the use of simple weapons, and can use all forms of armor and shields without penalty, since armor does not interfere with the casting of divine spells. In addition to his normal complement of spells, every cleric chooses to focus on two of his deity's domains. These domains grants the cleric special powers, and give him access to spells that he might otherwise never learn. A cleric's Wisdom score should be high, since this determines the maximum spell level that he can cast.


Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus.

Cheers,

Breanna

Appended

Here is the guy who wrote the original song for the ukelele kid:


For a skinny boy who's part rat Jason Mraz is really pretty cool and funny...

Breanna

Get Eddie a Ukelele!

...Is my advice for Aunt Kenny.  She'd be way better than this kid:




I think his nose keeps itching him.  What do you think?  I also can't decide if he's speaking some other language, or just not quite there in his pronunciation of English yet.

Cheers,

Breanna

Women's Work

While I disagree with Sharon Astyk on a whole host of things, the woman weilds a mean pantry and is literate, funny, and smart.  Her article on "women's work" and the way societies devalue it makes sense, I think, whether you are a feminist or (in her words) a wackjob anti-feminist.

I particularly liked some of the comments-- like, "in a fast food society, cooking is a positive and radical act."

How do you suppose the grammas feel about being radical? ;)

Cheers,

Breanna

Advent

The first Sunday was "Waiting."  It was hard to wait to blow out the candle on the advent wreath.

This week we couldn't remember for sure what the candle was (although we know next week is Joy), so we said it was Hope.  As  in, "we hope we can get through church without anybody pooping out of their outfits, because it's very cold and these are the warmest things we own." 

We made it, by the way.

Miss Boo is still deciding whether she likes fruitcake.  This year I made a German version, with no neon fruit (which we don't like anyway).  It includes figs, raisins, dried tart cherries, candied orange peel, almonds, and walnuts.  (It called for hazelnuts but they are not to be had this year.)  I also made some crunchy nut/macaroon/cinnamon dealies called Zimtsterne.  They are very good too, but Miss Boo doesn't like them as well because they're hard to chew.  Later this week I'll make a batch of gingerbread boys (ours are gendered) and chocolate chip, and we'll be set for Christmas.  I may even get ambitious enough to make pulla or that candy-cane bread thing that Grammy makes.  Maybe.

("Can I please have some fruitcake, Mom?  I'm a poor starving orphan dog."

"No.  There's raisins in it."

"But I want fruitcake."

"Raisins will kill you dead.  They're bad for your liver."

"Can I have liver?"

"No."

"Then can I have some fruitcake?")

Brother is sooooo mobile since he learned to use his knees that he's been invading his sister's space.  You see him here playing with the bag of wooden train parts....

...and trying to get into her play oven.

Christmas is coming!

Cheers,

Breanna

It's That Time...

...I'm making Christmas cookies, so I need a weird and whiny song to go with it.


Dear Happy Gilmore...I mean, Adam Sandler.  Too bad you tried to do the serious-acting/Spanglish thing and then got condemned to start playing the dad.  That Steve Martin/Chevy Chase/Jim Carey curse will getcha every time.

Cheers,

Breanna

This is Awesome!

Baba let me know about this:

http://www.shelfari.com/

It's Facebook for smart people!  And all the dorks you are glad have lost track of you won't find you!

(I hate to say it but there are some people I knew in college or at various jobs I've had that I don't want to get back in touch with.  There was, for instance, the guy who always wanted me to help him cheat on tests.  Or the nurse who refused to orient me at a new job because she was sure I was going to be a burden.  These are not the sort of people who think Shelfari is a cool idea.)

Anyway.  I haven't gotten many books on my shelf yet, because 2009 is almost over and I can't remember everything I've read.  But 2010 should be awesome.

(I am a geek.  I like to keep track of what I've read in a year.  My best year so far was 104 books.  Since I've had kids my lists keep getting lost.)

See you there!

Breanna

Da Pictures

So we spent Thanksgiving with Opa and Grandma, and Uncle Deeve and Aunt Anna, whose name is too simple to be corrupted.  The boy enjoyed:

...sleeping on Opa...

...chewing on various things while awake...

Miss Boo was still recovering from a cold.  She slept on Daddy.

She slept in Mama's chair, with all her babies, before we left home.

She slept on Grandma's couch.

Uncle Deeve was our intrepid Dungeon Master, which will allow you to...

...guess what we did over Thanksgiving in lieu of puzzles and Monopoly.

This is a picture I took out the windshield of the Salvation Army santa in front of our Albertson's. Don't look now, but he's wearing a fur-lined cape and has a ginger-colored beard.  I think. He may be.  Really St. Nicholas.  As in the saint who is always depicted washing kids in a tub and who is the patron saint of shoemakers.  Who knew he was from around here?  All this time I thought he was from Bynthia.

Cheers,

Breanna

Not A Baby Picture, But...

... this is so funny from the genuises responsible for MST3K:



Never liked "Twilight" anyway... "Sweet Valley High" but with abusive, bloodsucking boyfriends that sparkle.

Cheers,

Breanna