No Free Lunch

Did y'all know I like to write about things that irritate me? No? That's not possible, because I barely write about anything else. In fact, I'm pretty sure I exist so that I can tell the world what's irritating me and thus make that world a better place.

So as a part of my new job (btw life challenges/changes = nutrition challenges, but I bet you knew that) I have to go to a lot of trainings, curriculum sessions, etc. For instance, I got to go to new teacher training even though I'm not new to teaching at all!! The district wide day of new teacher training occured at a campus that some of us refer to as North San Antonio, in one of those bizarre parts of Austin that seem like suburban, where there are practically no bike riders or people wearing a jester hat for no reason. So because the campus is surrounded by houses and apartments and 900 teachers drove into the little parking lot that morning, the district provided us "lunch." The conversation I had about that "lunch" is what is inspiring this rant.

In exchange for not paying us what we are worth, and so that it seems like our jobs contain semblance of the perks sometimes provided to professionals, they often feed us in education. Donuts provided by student councils or dance teams, bagels and cream cheese paid for by the administrative team, occasionally breakfast tacos which teachers devour like raptors. Side story-- this one time, they brought us these little chicken mini biscuits from Chick-Fil-A and nobody could really tell how many you were eating so some teachers who are not me ate a bunch cause...yeah. What? Where was I? Anyhow, I used to eat all the crap, because it is very nice of whomever in a way, and we are supposed to be super-grateful, and we are usually broke around this time. At some point though, I started charting how much my weight changed at the beginnings and ends of school years-- the heavy free food times. Average weight gain was 5 lbs. So that's 10 lbs a school year if you don't do anything about it. Have you seen a teacher's butt lately?

So I finally decided that free wasn't really free of costs to me, and I stopped eating that shit. Its easy enough till I get trapped where I'm expected to eat what they provide. On district wide day at the North San Antonio school, I got thrown off by the email that said "lunch provided" and forgot to prepare. I thought they meant lunch, but they meant "lunch." Grr...It was a box lunch from Scholtzky's that included a sandwich with their gigantor bread, chips, a pickle, and a cookie. Or as I like to call it "gluten, carbs, sugarcrack, and chemicals." I ended up eating the inside of the sandwich and the pickle and then making a decision to go to Starfucks and get a protein plate, even if it made me late for my next session. I spoke to one of the Teacher Induction Program people hanging out near the sandwiches and she told me that they "can't possibly think about each person's special nutrition." Pfft. First, what nutrition? There are very few people, especially in the big butt world of teaching, that are ideally nourished by a meal of bread, cookies, and chips with a tiny amount of protein. I'm gonna say, that based on the average American butt size, never mind teacher butt size, that many people see detrimental effects from that, ranging from getting the yawns to the 'betes. I'm not saying that everybody has to be doing something about it during that exact meal time, but I don't think it should be outta the question to replace one of those things with an apple for crying out loud.  I mean we can think about who wants turkey or roast beef, but not who wants a salad?

Rant over. I should have prepared better. I've had a few other situations like that in the past week where I was prepared when I showed up to a bagel and juice breakfast or donuts, and it was fine. Nonetheless, here are a few guidelines I'd like to offer the world:

Do tell people what kinda lunch or breakfast is provided. So not "breakfast provided" but "shitty stale bagels" or "semi-drinkable coffee provided." Even "box lunch" is somewhat informative.

If you are a big organization that prides itself on technology integration, why not send out a survey? Then you can order close to the right amount-- rather than running out of roast beef and having dozens of veggie sandwiches left. And then you could order up some chicken salads because I could have told you on the survey that I would indeed eat that.

Get with the times, dammit. Never mind the many fallacies of dieting fads, the past decade or so has included Atkins and South Beach and paleo eatins-- plenty of things that advocate protein. Are people really missing this? Some people prefer protein and veggies. Some people prefer veggies and no gluten. Especially in a place like Austin. Gah.

Donuts are not breakfast. Please indicate that morning dessert will be provided instead of calling this breakfast.

Thank you. Carry on.

Eatings:

August 13th
Breakfast: Eggs w/ ?
Snack: Larabar
Lunch: Bowl full of turkey, hummus, guacamole, carrots, tomatoes
Dinner: Salmon burger with gorgonzola and cranberries...actually based on how sinful it tasted and how it made me feel...I describe it as more of a salmon cake...definitely more bread crumbs. On top of greens with tomatoes.
Snack: I suspect I had a banana with peanut butter. I feel like a nectarine happened on this day as well.

August 14th
Breakfast: Eggs, bacon, steel cut oats with blueberries
AND COFFEE with a drop of cream
Lunch: About 1 oz of turkey from the inside of a sandwich with a lame tomato and some shredded lettuce. Pickle. Miss Lady MAD! Then coffee happens again.
Snack: Starbucks protein plate sans muffin or sugary pb (ooh future rant!) so really just the cheese and egg and fruit
Dinner: Cranberry gongonzola salmon business on greens again.

August 15th:
Breakfast: Tacodeli Otto with the tortilla. Yes, I'm starting that again. It gets me outta bed? AND COFFEE.
Snack: None really, but this lady in my training gives me her coffee because they forgot to give her sugar.
Lunch: Central Market Cafe Hatch Chile burger with avocado and bacon, no bun. Side salad with many colors.
Dinner: Chicken with Dona Sauce (from Tacodeli) and hatch pico, baked. Served on green with tomatoes and guacamole.
Snack: Two whole beers.

August 16th
Breakfast: Eggs, bacon, steel cut oats with blueberries. Coffee.
Lunch: Turkey and cranberry salad from HEB (came unprepared and was loaned lunch. Delicious but full of chemical ingredients. Why HEB?) Apple. Coffee.
Snack: Peanut butter and banana. Turkey and hummus with bananas and carrots. Maybe guacamole.
Dinner: Taco in a bowl from Cherrywood: Eggs, avocado, bacon.

August 17th
Breakfast: Tacodeli Otto. With the tortilla? Fraid so.
Lunch/Snack: Chicken with guac
Dinner: Salad from Black Star Coop-- Beets, Chicken, Greens, Candied (yeah) pecans, goat cheese
Snack: Beers, 2 giant Waterloos, 1 Lonestar. Lots of water!

August 18th
Breakfast: Eggs, bacon, steel cut oatmeal with blueberries
Lupper: Chipotle bowl with lettuce, chicken, pico, brown rice, guac, black beans
Snack: Brown rice salmon sushi from WF, some cocktail from Highball. Sugar was not listed as an ingredient on the menu...but I saw it go in the drink. Grr.

August 19th
Breakfast: Eggs, bacon, and steel cut oats with blueberries. Yes it is good. Why do you ask?
Lunch: Double Carnitas Chipotle bowl. The usual otherwise.
Dinner: Banana with PB.

Eatings

August 6th
?

August 7th
Breakfast: Eggs + oatmeal and blackberries
Snack: deviled eggs
Lunch: WF salad bar with chopped beef
Dinner?

August 8th
Protein powder, peanut butter, banana.
Meatloaf + salad
burger with tomatoes and real sugar ketchup

August 9th
2 eggs + bacon, coffee
Chipotle: barbacoa, brown rice, lettuce, pico, avocado. Coffee

August 10th
Breakfast: Eggs + bacon
Caveman Cuisine: "Chinese" "Fried" "Rice"-- meh on their chicken, yay on the cauliflower rice
Salami, sweet potato hummus, tomatoes, greens
Paramount movie: wine, Makers on the rocks

August 11th
Eggs, oatmeal plus blackberries
Lunch picnic on San Marcos river: Hatch chile chicken salad, plantain chips, strawberries, tomatoes, WF lemon hummus
Snack: coffee, beef jerky, plantain chips
Snack: Sample from Peruvian trailer-- arroz con pollo, aji de gallina
Dinner: Arroz con pollo sans arroz. Yes I know I mixed up my languages. 1 Pearl Snap beer.




August 12th
Tacodeli: Refried black beans, avocado, bacon, and chicken in a cup--no tortilla
Snack: Coffee, Kind bar
Lunch: turkey, tomatoes, hummus
Book club: beef, chicken, >10 tortilla chips, lettuce, tomatoes, mango and jicama salad, 1 glass red wine


August 13th
 2 eggs, oatmeal with blueberries, coffee
Cherrywood Coffeehouse: 2 egg taco, avocado, bacon, corn tortilla. Coffee.
Peanut butter w banana
Hopdoddy: Salad with burger patty, spinach, argula, apples, beets, goat cheese, pecans.
San Jose Hotel: 1 Pearl Snap Beer


Hmmm...these days must be off. Minus 1 on all dates?

Not Falling Off the Regimens-- for a year.

Uh...so my new plan is this: Instead of cleansing up my eating for 10 days or eating well until a special occasion comes along, I'm just going to eat well for 365 days, pretty much without exception. I know I don't have to explain myself, but I don't mind. See: this blog.

• 80/20 rule works for most people, but has been remarkably ineffective for me.
• I still plan to investigate medically for further reasons/solutions concerning the above.
• Yeah, I'm probably not going to drink...or will only drink a bit of wine here and there. Eating less carbs makes every drink super potent anyhow, so its for the best. This might suck too much, such I'll let you know.
• So it's the usual: little/no gluten, little/no sugar, lots o protein, veggies galore, not so much processed, little/no cow dairy. No undereating.
• A few concessions to make life manageable: Not worrying about small amounts of sugar in condiments, wine (yes I wrote this again), coffee for now, 1 smmalll dairy item per day...like a drop of cream or sprinkles of cheese in a salad...also goat cheese! Also, if some BBQ happens,and that meat is sugary, that's okay. (I'll revisit this, if somehow I have BBQ everyday).
• I'm starting a new job, that's somewhat in a food desert relative to the amount of time I have for lunch. I have a fridge and a willingness to burn through plastic containers though.
• Don't worry if you are really attached to having a lot of Miss Lady to love. I'll always have muscle. And this may not work!

This actually already started. I always start some sorta healthy refresher after my birthday, for healthy reasons and fear of getting older reasons. Funny, its always supposed to start on the 3rd but doesn't happen until the 4th because I need a bday recovery day. So let's say that I'm doing this for 364 days at least, so that I can have something decadent, like wheat bread, on my 38th birthday. Here's what I've eaten so far:

August 4th
Breakfast: 3 eggs with onions, tomatoes, and red bell peppers. Someone else cooked before I could tell them not to use milk or cheese...so there's milk and cheese too. Failure already! But I'm not worried.

Snack: Larabar-- Peanut Butter and Jelly

Lunch: Carrots with guacamole. Greens with sausage, tomatoes, and berries.

Snack: Peanut butter with banana

Dinner: Catfish panfried with olive oil. Mango pico de gallo, greens, tomatoes.


August 5th
Breakfast: 3 eggs with mango pico de gallo..

Snack: Larabar-- chocolate something?

Lunch: Chipotle salad with brown rice, black beans, guacamole, pico, and barbacoa.

Snack: Fake ice cream: Frozen bananas, coconut milk, blackberries. Delicious...but a tad sugary.

Dinner: Catfish panfried with olive oil-- except actually microwaved today. Mango pico, tomatoes, guac.

Falling Off the Regimens

Here's my obligatory apology for not posting in a while: oops.

I recently had a visitor in town. A fellow healthy eating hopeful from the land of the north. (Crap, I've been watching too much Game of Fucking Thrones.) Anyhow, since I had been eating pretty healthy after a spell of not eating healthy after a spell of eating healthy, I was determined to continue to eat mostly healthy for my sake and the sake of my visitor. So when I picked her up I told her that I would need her help in this. She looked at me, puzzled as to what could possibly distract such a determined person from her goal. "Austin," I told her, "is basically a series of falling off of your regimens."

As in, whatever your regimens be, Austin make it easy to eff up. One minute its "I'm gonna cut back on drinking" followed by "oh, but there's a bloody mary bar at this brunch place that we are going to tomorrow because my friend who used to live here is going to be in town. Oh and she wants us to go out and see this band tonight and they might be bad, so I'll probably wanna drink, but after this weekend I can stop, unless we get tickets to Blah Blah Blah fest cause they will have free Golden Zipper beer which is this microbrew that my friend who used to be in a band makes. Do you wanna go right now and also later to this awesome food trailer that's behind this bar that used to be cool?"

Speaking of food trailers, eating plans are even more subject to revision in my experience. One minute I'm like "blah blah paleo diet, ethical meat, oh and dairy causes inflammation, and I don't eat carbs, and I'm working on being a locavore because industrialized food business is what's wrong with America. The Western diet is bullshit and so is high fructose corn syrup and other redundant things." But then. Twenty hairdos and five nights later, and I've forgotten to go to the grocery store, and I need to go to this other benefit show so there's no time to cook anyway, which is okay because they opened a new trailer yard near my house and the menu at this one trailer was designed by the last winner of Iron Asshole. And Willie Nelson will be there so it's okay if I eat there just this once. "Mmm pig anus with enriched bleached flour and rotten high fructose corn syrup tomatoes sauce!"

If you are curious how it turned out, regimens got falled off of.* We started off the week with Whole Foods and by cooking whole foods, with a few planned exceptions for Tacodeli and Indian food, but before we knew it, there was queso, and Whataburger, and pants not fitting. It was a lot like what I described above, but with no Willie Nelson.

I'm not saying it's impossible or even that it's Austin's fault, but I'm pretty sure that if I lived in a town where my own cooking was the most exciting thing, or where I'd already done all the good stuff a million times, it would be easier. I have a new(ish) plan though, that involves NOT falling off my regimen. I'll write about it in my next post, provided I don't fall off that again. Or again again. Crap.

More Game of Thrones!

*How do you like that Joan Jolt? Double prep ending, passive construction, and...also something wrong with my verb, all in one clause. It actually requires more talent than good grammar.

Salad Dressing-- Free at Last.

No, not like fat free or stolen. I don't do that shit anymore. I mean free from the damn salad dressing, which at some point, had placed a chokehold on like my entire nutritional system!*

Giving up salad dressing has been awesome for my lifestyle. Here's why:

• No salad dressing shopping. So, though I don't do fat phobia diets anymore, as you probably know, I did. Trying to find a low-fat or fat-free (almost impossible) dressing that tasted passable consumed a large portion of my food thoughts in the 1990s and beyond. Way too much. Do you ever hear people speak in hushed but excited tones about salad dressing? Like, "You have got to try this new vegetable glue dressing. It only has 7 grams of fat per droplet and you can always just dip your fork in it!" Ridiculous. Plus who the fuck wants to eat something passable? "Mmm...this food is so passable!"
• No fatty chemical sauce concerns. As much as I don't want to avoid fat, I don't think I can get on board with the blantant sluttery of say...ranch dressing. I certainly know there are dressings that avoid this, but most of them are just the worst ills of industrialized food all concentrated up in a bottle. I want fat in my diet, but I'd rather get something of substance, like a whole chicken, out of the deal. Maybe that's why I put it on pizza in college? (In addition to the reason of being drunk.)
• No salad dressing transport logistics. Thank God. I remember that for many years this was a significant barrier to taking a salad for lunch. Since you generally can't put the dressing on the salad hours ahead of time (see what an asshole dressing is?) due to wilting, matters get complicated. Over the years I tried keeping extra bottles at work (quite a financial investment), putting dressing in little baggies inside the salad dish, placing the bottle at home on top of the salad so that I wouldn't forget it even though I always did, and even buying plastic lunch containers with a built-in salad dressing cup-- which is cool till you lose the little lid, and various other bullshit. It was all way too much trouble. Not to mention the general logistics involved in having fresh salad dressing in general. WTF does spoiled blush wine vinegar dressing smell like? I dunno. Anyhow, the net result was a reduction in salad eating.
• Tasting vegetables. Here's what happened. At some point, I realized that I didn't need dressing if I had other items, like salsa or guacamole. Somewhere between 1-2 years ago, during some sort of cleanse, the acceptable other items started to be fruit and meat or almonds. Before I knew it, I was enjoying the taste of the vegetables alone. It's fucking amazing! Some veggies taste better than others, but they all taste good. Raw and on their own. My nutritionist even advised me that she wanted me to use some sorta oil dressing, but I still mostly don't bother.

So there you go. It's easier and it tastes better. Oh, I guess I could have just said that, but it's not my style.*

Here are a few salad combos that I love without dressing:

• Green stuff (spinach, baby greens, whatever) with strawberries, blueberries, and/or black berries (whatever is on sale), turkey or something, almonds. Oh I also do this with smoked salmon sometimes.
• Green stuff, salami, olives and other items from olive bar. Sometimes hummus.
• Green stuff, black beans, salsa or pico or just tomatoes, chicken.

*You know, some of my students from this year, told me that I'm dramatic about everything. I was like, "whatever, I just speak with flair," but I'm starting to see their point. Also, "speak with flair"-- who says that?

Adrenal Exhaustion

So I'm gonna write about this, just so people know this is possible...because I didn't. You could easily just google this (I'm actually about to so I can be sure to get the details right) but how would you know to if it isn't even on your radar.

Well...getting a straight story was harder than I thought...so I'll just do my best to capture my understanding. If I have a detail wrong, please forgive.  So, your adrenal glands make a few hormones to deal with stress of various sorts. One of them, cortisol, you may have heard of on those commercials where they scream about STUBBORN BELLY FAT, because an overload of cortisol causes STUBBORN BELLY FAT.  Anyhow, it is supposed to be released intermittently as a response to stress, but if you have too much stress...side effects occur like STUBBORN BELLY FAT. Yeah. Adrenaline, another hormone, problem isn't a surprise to anyone, but if you find yourself calling upon the flight-or-fight hormone too often, the glands wear out and you can't make it when you need it. My understanding too is that cortisol and adrenaline operate in balance, so if too much cortisone is released, adrenaline will be driven down lower. According to my understanding, DHEA also steps in here somewhere to try to fix the problem. When it gets called on too often...yes, its gets worn out. Side-effects of low DHEA can be high LDL, decreased energy, and a reduced ability to deal with stress...which just contributes to the cycle.

In my quest to figure out why weight loss is so much more difficult than it should be for me, I've had a FEW hormone tests. My adrenals turned out to be low, and I was given a supplement. I haven't had another blood test done, so we will see if it improved. However, I also took a few steps to reduce stress in my life.

So, there was the normal American pasttime of job stress. The problem with my job as a teacher is that it is a maze of deadlines, with every possible way out blocked by understaffing, high-stakes, and fucking guilt over never doing enough. At key times, like the end of the year or a particulary full grading period, I now realize that the crazypants feeling that I had was probably a flood of adrenaline or cortisol. Sometimes I was in the state for weeks at time. I don't have perfect control over it, but I have worked to arrange things so that feeling doesn't happen, either through making different instructional or assessment choices, or by just damn relaxing when I feel it coming on. Anyhow, that couldn't have been healthy.

Other types of stress weren't so obvious to me. One was undercalorie dieting, which I did for like a lifetime. I didn't think of that as stress, but to my body it was ill and needed to work hard to buffer me...even though it was often just a matter of a few hundred calories. Anyhow, this is part of why I won't do that again ever.

The last was over-exercise. So for all kinds of reasons...like loving a challenge...and wanting to lose weight but finding it difficult...and having an active dog...I became the sorta person who does marathons, half-marathons, and triathlons. The sort of endurance exercise I engaged in, only sometimes with appropriate rest periods, is exactly the sort of thing that can lead to adrenal exhaustion, especially when you aren't fuel properly.

So, I still haven't figured out what role this is exactly playing in my body chemistry, though it seems clear that it somehow effects my metabolism. It makes sense that I would be affected now that I see that I triple-fucked myself. I wrote this blog so you wouldn't triple fuck yourself.

True Confessions

Of an over-dramatic over-eater? Yep. Pretty much.

So I want to write down what I've been up to so that I can both see and change it, and so I can memorialize its awesomeness. Sick? Probably.

So, here's a victory. Part of the reason my daily nutrition blog has been not so daily is that I was closing out the school year. Always a busy time of year...and usually a stress filled time of weight gain. For a number of years I was gaining weight at the end of the school year and at the beginning a few months later. NOT good for dress fitting. Anyhow this time I managed to only gain weight right after school was out. Or maybe I'm just bloated. Who would know.

Anyhow, on Friday I ate at the Black Star Coop with the Duchess. I ordered a shrimp aguachile appetizer...but it came with bread and I ate it. Then had mucho dranks with her.

Saturday included my friend Laura's wedding rehearsal. I ordered the salmon dish, but the people next to me left before dinner, so I ate some of their frites and steak. Hmm...seems like I'm better at ordering than eating. I also ate Amy's ice cream in flavor "the dude" since it was their special dessert. How could I not?! Seriously.

Sunday was her wedding and it was awesome in all ways. Here's some stuff about the food: Passed apps like catfish bites and shrimp crisp deliciousness and eggrollish stuff. I drank some dranks. There were many lovely choices for dinner; I chose the snapper, which was delicious, but I'm pretty sure the cream sauce did me in. Or was it the cake or cookies? Doesn't matter, I have no regrets, but its important to remember that was special occassion eating...and right now isnt special.

Monday was special though. To memorialize fallen solidiers I had to have a cookout at my house...and eat all the gelato and sausages and potato salad.

That would have been fine, but I also ate inappropriately on Tuesday, and today I finished the gelato so that I wouldn't have to worry about it tomorrow. I feel sluggish and inflammed, and I plan to end it tomorrow. Dammit.