Thanksgiving Punt

It's that kinda punt.

This was to be a weigh in post, short n' snappy, but this month my last-Friday weigh-in fell on the morning after Thanksgiving dinner. Due to (what I hope is) an inaccurate reading, I'm going to punt and do my weigh in one week late. Y'know, for ego's accuracy's sake.

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I've been keeping a blog in one form or another since 2006, and regardless of the topic, whenever Thanksgiving comes up, I get a case of the sads and pretty much write the same thing every year. Rather than trying to say the same thing with different words, I'll go all vacation-style and quote myself from the first year of blogging:

Thanksgiving in Andover, a suburb of Boston, this year is the first time in my life I've spent this holiday away from my hometown, NYC. Though I guess I should of saw it coming a million miles away, I'm missing my parents horribly today.
Different wings of the extended family took different holidays, and our wing was Thanksgiving. This was the only time of year my mom would 'cook', and by cook I mean coordinate. My dad would be responsible for the turkey and the salad, my mom would put the potatoes in the oven to bake, I would be responsible for the stuffing. My mom would make a big deal about how I 'made' the stuffing, but in reality it was from a box of Stouffers. I remember one year I suggested we actually stuff the turkey with it before cooking, I think the level of complexity it entailed was beyond the pale for my mom. My Brazilian uncle would bring really good homemade chocolate mouse, a trendy thing in the 70s. Aunts would bring booze and other pies. My mom could NOT go to sleep unless ALL the dishes were washed and set up to air-dry. The house (and in later years the apartment) was always full of people on Thanksgiving, and it was always a home-cooked meal. My mom would buy the turkey at least a week in advance, the table would be set at least 48 hours in advance, the nervous tension she had the day of, hours before anyone were to come and the entire home was scrubbed clean and there was just nothing left to do other than lie down and watch TV.
I look forward to the day of regularly hosting a holiday in my home with family and friends, with homemade food and days of preparation.

Its 6 years later, my family has arrived, and Thanksgiving brings a lot more to be grateful for this year. However, I'm still not getting to really do the meal like my parents did. Maybe in another 6 years....but for now, things are pretty great. I love and miss you, mom & dad!
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WEEKLY AVERAGE: ----

I knew this would be a challenging week, so rather than force the issue, I retired poppa salad for the week, so there would be less waste and less beating myself up. Sucks that I weigh in the morning after Thanksgiving. Went off the rails slowly but surly starting Thursday, so didn't record my eating....

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MONDAY COUNT: 1975

SLEPT: 8:30pm-4am, 7.5 hr
After the horrible eating weekend, good to have a good day. Despite the excessive calories the day before, I still was quite hungry after dinner….the body doesn't bank calories against habitual cyclical hunger, unfortunately. Still, it wasn't overwhelming, and motivated me to get to sleep, or perhaps I would have given in.

AM SNACK: 4:15 am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 6:45am,apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber juice, 160 cal
Thought I bought ginger but got lost on the way from the market to home.

BREAKFAST 2: 10am, steel cut oatmeal, 415

LUNCH: 12:45pm, falafel, butternut squash soup, roasted broccoli, 850

PM SNACK: 4 pm, momma salad, hummus, 150 cal

DINNER: 7:30pm, hake loins, asparagus, kimchi, 400 cal

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ROLLER CREDIT: 30 cal
TUESDAY COUNT: 2245

SLEPT: 8:30pm-3am, 6.5 hr
First attempt at riding on rollers instead of a ride, due to cold weather. I thought I'd automatically do 2.5 hours on the rollers, but I quickly discovered there is a learning curve -- riding on rollers is a LOT different than riding normally, despite being on the same exact bike. I was able to do it for about 30 minutes, most of it holding on to a wall, with lots of breaks as my arm would start to hurt. Towards the end, I forced myself to let go of the wall and hang on for dear life, almost crashing off the rollers several times but got it. After a brief pause, I tried again and had to grab a side table because I got so wobbly -- I realized my core was getting tired quickly. So rather than make myself miserable and learn to hate it, I stopped and moved on. Today, maybe 15 minutes with only 3 minutes with both hands. Next week, we'll try to move on from that number. AND I'll not eat the granola bar until AFTER the calories are burned, he he.

AM SNACK: 3:15 am, iced green tea, granola bar, 575 cal

BREAKFAST: 7am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber juice, 160 cal
Too much fiber residue in today's juice, had to strain it. Maybe because I've amped up the kale? Hmmm.

LUNCH: 12pm, chicken meatballs, steamed string beans, Madras lentils, 630 cal
Busy at work, helpful to keep the hunger at bay.

PM SNACK: 3:30 pm, momma salad, hummus, 150 cal

DINNER: 7:30pm, sauteed chicken breast, roasted brussel sprouts, quinoa, kimchi, 760 cal
The grain pushed me over budget, but it was a calculated risk -- I was so damn hungry and tired, I knew I needed something extra to slow that train down. It worked.

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WEDNESDAY COUNT: 2070

SLEPT: 8:15pm-2:45am, 6 hr
Was aiming to wake at 4, but got up and couldn't fall back asleep. Felt surprisingly mildly sore in the midsection from yesterday's brief roller experiment. Despite it being relatively unpleasant, I'm very happy with this result, definitely going to keep trying.

AM SNACK: 3 am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 7am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 9:30am, whole fage with almonds, agave and vanilla, 310 cal

LUNCH: 12:15pm, chicken sausage, sofrito black beans, roasted brussel sprouts, 650 cal

PM SNACK: 3:30 pm, momma salad, hummus, 150 cal

DINNER: 8:15pm, arepas, vegetable chips & guac, +/-800 cal
Out to dinner with a friend who I don't see enough due to her brave career choices. Thanksgiving gives us time to check in, too bad it's usually over food!

I Was Fat, Sick, Nearly Dead and Juicing Before It Was Cool

Juicing, man. People treat it like religion. Over the weekend, I caught the documentary, Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead on streaming Netflix. At first I almost walked away from it, since it seemed like an ego-driven vehicle for some rich guy to share his wondrous views for a few hours. But I couldn't stop watching. He goes on a 60-day juice-fast and loses close to 100 lbs while ruminating on what led him (and other fat Americans & Australians) to such a crazy obese place.

The lead guy doesn't go too much into the magical thinking that juicing inspires (toxicity cleansing! mental clarity! never get sick ever again!) but there is a bit of a cultish, this-is-the-answer-you've-been-looking-for vibe going on. Did some internet thinkin' looking for skeptics and, lo and behold, no one in the science world seems to think juicing is a bad thing, just not a magic bullet. Found a nice short piece on the PBS website which nicely summarized the current nutritional science around juicing. Italics mine:

1. There’s room for debate.

Fans of green juicing, or juicing raw vegetables, say that you can drink more vegetables than you can eat, and that juicing allows your body to more easily absorb the vitamins and antioxidants extracted from fresh produce. Juicing has been credited with alleviating everything from skin diseases and immune disorders to cancer and high blood pressure.

But skeptics claim that the detox and cleansing benefits attributed to juicing may be more psychological than physical. There’s also a lack of scientific evidence that proves that juicing your vegetables is significantly healthier than just eating them. If you’re not eating enough vegetables, drinking them might be one way to up your intake. The bottom line is, juicing certainly can’t hurt. 

2. Your digestive system will thank you.

Juicing proponents believe that your digestive system can function more efficiently when drinking raw vegetables. Although you lose the benefits of consuming fiber when drinking your produce, it takes less energy to digest food in liquid form. Heating and cooking vegetables also reduces or destroys some of their enzyme content, which some say can impede digestion. With juicing, it’s believed that these food enzymes are not only preserved, but your digestive system also gets a “rest.” If you juice for enzymes, you might also believe that the right food combinations can help with digestion. Food combiners believe that eating a protein like meat or cheese, which requires one type of enzyme to be digested, with a carbohydrate, which requires another kind of digestive enzyme, can result in bloating and indigestion. When you juice, you only eat one type of food at a time, so digestion is speedier. 

3. Moderation is key.

Despite what some raw foodists and “juicearians” might say, it’s probably not best to live on juice alone. A juice fast, in which one consumes only juice and no solid food for a day or more, can have healthy benefits, but it’s not entirely necessary. Drinking green juice can still have healing effects when combined with a regular, healthy diet.

For best results, drink green juice on an empty stomach, and make sure it’s as fresh as possible. More extreme measures, like the lemonade-and maple syrup-only Master Cleanse, or juice fasting as a quick-and-easy weight loss method, are not recommended. 

4. Not all juices are created equal.

You can get your green juice at a juice bar, health food store, or through a delivery service, but be wary of bottled and pasteurized juices. And read the labels carefully: Too much fruit or fruit concentrate can increase the sugar level, and heating and processing can lessen nutritional value. Buying a home juicer and doing it yourself can pay off in the long run, although the juicer you buy might also make a difference. Centrifugal juicers, which grind and strain produce at high speeds, are the most affordable machines, but also less efficient – some say the high speed generates heat, and decreases the amount of enzymes in the resulting juice. Masticating juicers “chew” produce and can make more juice out of the same amount of vegetables, while triturating juicers, the most expensive and efficient option, “press” produce and retain more nutrients.While juicers extract only juice from produce and remove the fiber, blenders retain all of the content by simply mashing everything together. Fiber aside, the blender versus juicer debate might come down to a matter of taste: drinking celery juice mixed with carrot juice will probably taste better than drinking a celery and carrot smoothie. 

5. The possibilities are endless.

If you make your own juice, experiment with combining different kinds of fruits and vegetables for taste and nutrition. Popular combinations include mixing leafy vegetables like spinach or kale with celery or cucumber, and adding beet, carrot, or apple for sweetness. 

Just like bariatric surgery, juicing will turn you into a fetching white woman in her early 20s!

As it turns out, I have an old, high-end centrifugal juicer sitting in the back of the shelves in my kitchen, last used before I had a dishwasher machine, before I had children, before I had a wife -- I know because I put it away dirty, something my wife would never do! I did some juicing for a year, mostly apple and apple-ginger juice, and I got bored of it and the hassle of cleaning the machine. I also didn't see any magical results -- this was before I was food-conscious, before I went to culinary school, before I seriously figured I really needed to lose weight if I'm going to live well.

I'm fat, but I'm not morbidly obese like the people in the movie. I've been sick from poor diet, as recently as last week, but that's getting better, and I'm not on any medications. I'm far from nearly dead, so I don't think I need to get all starry-eyed and dedicate myself to a juice fast. I see adding one or two juicing sessions a week to increase the amount of vegetables in my diet, in addition to the amount I'm taking in now. Unlike when I first juiced it will not be just fruit, but enough fruit to make the drinks palatable. Perhaps taking in sugar this way will help me control the sugar-lust that has been having me consume sweets on a daily basis for the last few weeks.

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Actual scene from my childhood Thanksgiving. I watched the hell out of Peanuts every holiday, so yes, an actual scene, actually. Gen X in the HOUSE!

Thanksgiving has been depressing me every year for almost a decade now. Growing up it was the holiday that belonged to my family -- different aunts and uncles had Hanukkah, Passover, New Year's, the 4th of July, etc. But Thanksgiving was OURS. In our big, warm house on Staten Island, my mom would set the table days in advance, so much so that on the day-of it would need to be dusted. Dad would always make his vegetable crudite with onion-soup sour cream dip, roast chestnuts in the toaster oven, have a big turkey. I'd be "in charge of the stuffing," which was made from a damn box of Stouffer's, but even when I was well into my 20s my mom would would still boast about my making it. Steamed string beans with garlic, baked sweet potatoes that I never ate, cranberry sauce from a can presented in the shape of the can. Different families would bring wine, salad, desserts. It was a big, big to-do, and my mom would always get upset when people would gather in the kitchen and wash most of the dishes for her. By the time the last family would leave, I'd be exhausted and happy and loved.

The tradition continued when my parents moved to an apartment on the LES when I went to college, but every year it would get smaller. The kids were now adults starting families, the older folks either moved too far away or passed. I guess the last real Thanksgiving was in 2004, because the next year my father passed away a few days before the holiday after an extended illness. I now join my wife's family for their Thanksgiving tradition but that seems to be on the edge of flux for the same reasons my family's was. I really hope Thanksgiving comes back to my home someday, and that I can help start a new tradition where my kids can feel exhausted, happy, and loved as well.

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Saw this poster in the window of a restaurant near my mother-in-law's home, on the edge of Harlem. Save Half for Later is a government-backed, hospital-sponsored outreach program in this historically poor, black, unhealthy neighborhood. The gist is if the restaurant is participating in the program, you tell your server that you'd like to "save half for later,"and half of your meal will be placed in a branded, reusable container that is delivered with your check at the end of the meal, and the other half is served to you, plated like a whole meal. The materials stress the healthfulness, as well as the economic advantage of getting two meals for the price of one.

I guess there is no harm in this, but it's such a timid public-health measure that I think it's a contradiction in terms -- the restaurant industry's own thrust is to sell more regardless of the effect it has on its customers, and that is a root cause, not people's laziness in saving food for later. There should be a law that says any one can order a half portion of any dish for half the price, or half the price + a dollar or percent. Or the program should officially advertise that any one meal can be purchased and then split in two servings, Florida early-bird style. The fact that this initiative has to pussyfoot around the economic interests of the restaurants involved is so compromised.

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WEEKLY AVERAGE: 2532

Took Friday off from counting, as Thursday was Thanksgiving and I ate relatively well. I didn't treat Friday as a weekend, I ate carrots and limited my eating, felt good. Average is too high, but not unreasonable. Eating too much sugar.

I ate horrendously last weekend, really indulged my cravings for fat and sugar -- mini cheesecakes and three deserts a day were involved. And Sunday night and Monday morning I paid for it in a way that is inappropriate to discuss on this blog, he he. A similar, more extreme version of these symptoms knocked me out for 2 weeks around Xmas time last year, and up until now I thought it was the result of a long and progressive pattern of poor eating. Now I see all it takes is a couple of days of self abuse to bring me right back there, wow.

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MONDAY COUNT: 2570

Lifted weights this morning, felt good. Left wrist fine, right wrist still twinges when turned. While doing standing curls with 35lb weights, had to modify to prevent pain, but all other activities were fine.

AM SNACK: 7:45am, iced green tea, 25 cal

BREAKFAST: 10am, steel cut oatmeal, 375 cal

AM SNACK: 11:45am, momma salad, 100 cal

LUNCH: 1pm, Shake shack burger, half an order of fries, 20oz diet coke, 700 cal

Not my idea of a healthy lunch, but me n' Milli were meeting a friend who had jury duty, and I don't get to see her often enough. Fortunately, Shake Shack has their nutritional info online and my friend was willing to split an order of fries.

DINNER: 6:30pm, chicken sausage, steamed string beans, plain quinoa, a pickle, 7oz diet sprite, 670 cal

EVENING SNACK: 9pm, dark chocolate chops & almonds, 400 cal

EVENING SNACK: 10pm, 2 slices wholewheat potato bread with hummus, 300 cal

Surprisingly hungry, an honest hunger, so I satiated it despite going over budget.

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TUESDAY COUNT: 2365

Cooked Thanksgiving lunch with the kids, a lot of work, felt really worn down at the end. Passed out when I got home a little after 9, which prevented me from eating more, he he.

AM SNACK: 7:30am, iced green tea, 25 cal

BREAKFAST: 9am, kolon bloe with whole milk, 300 cal

PM SNACK: 12:15pm, momma salad, 100 cal

LUNCH: 12:30pm, Stouffer's Frenchbread pizzas, 740 cal

SCHOOL SNACK: 2:30PM, slice of birthday cake, +/- 500 cal

SCHOOL DINNER: 7:30pm, 1 slice of streetza, 2 cups of soda, +/-700 cal

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WEDNESDAY COUNT: 2870

Thanksgiving eating in effect -- got to school at 7am to get turkeys in the oven, nibbled through lunch. Not sure exactly how many cal I took in, but rather than throwing my hands up and eating like its a weekend, kept it pretty conservative for dinner. This past weekend's eating already threw me for a wobbly, another wobble too soon and I could get sick-sick.

Felt really hungry in the evening, unfortunately I had brought some brownies home from school, -sigh-. Did the math the next morning to figure out how many calories were in them. I hope I over-estimated my lunch calories!

BREAKFAST: 5:30am, iced green tea, chocolate covered espresso beans, rice crispies with whole milk. +/- 400 cal

SCHOOL AM SNACK: 7:30am, birthday cake, +/- 200 cal

SCHOOL LUNCH: 1pm, roasted turkey, cornbread stuffing, brownie, lemonade, sweet tea, +/- 800 cal

Didn't sit down and eat, but nibbled a lot.

PM SNACK: 5:30pm, baby carrots, 80 cal

DINNER: 6:45pm, chicken sausage, whole wheat couscous, roasted broccoli with chili powder, 7oz diet sprite, 830 cal

EVENING SNACK: 9pm, 2 wedges of school-made brownies, 560 cal

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THURSDAY COUNT: 2325

Blurg, Thanksgiving. Kept it tight in the morning, with a good fruit smoothie and a round of weight lifting. Right wrist still hurts, starting to concern me. Ate heavily at the family meal, which was early by T-day standards, and when I got home to put the baby to sleep, hunger never came back. Fell asleep at 9:30, which helped as I would have eaten again if I was up late.

AM SNACK: 7am, iced green tea, 25 cal

BREAKFAST: 9am, fruit smoothie, 350 cal

PM SNACK: 12:30pm, whole wheat bagel with cream cheese, 7oz diet coke, +/-350 cal

THANKSGIVING LUNCH: 2:30pm,  sliced turkey breast, sweet stuffing, overcooked string beans, a little salad, mashed potatoes, pumpkin knish, half a glass of wine, ginger ale, birthday cake & 2 scoops of vanilla ice cream, +/- 1300 cal

EVENING SNACK: 9pm, chocolate chips & almonds, +/- 300 cal