Dietician

As anyone who has been reading this blog for a while will know, I am very overweight. My attempts to lose weight have gotten less and less successful over the years in the sense that even when I start all over again, I don’t seem to be able to keep it up for more than a week or two, if even that. 

Last May, when I was visiting my sister in France, I spoke briefly with my sister about this, telling her about an article I had read about this luxury fasting clinic (sounds like a contradiction in terms but I think it sounds absolutely heavenly, you can read that article here "Enemas, laxatives and one nut: my ten days at a German fasting clinic") and how I’d actually like to go there. She asked me why I didn’t go to the doctor and ask if there was any equivalent for less-well-off people covered by health insurance. I kind of brushed her off but inside could feel myself getting very defensive just even from her really quite innocuous question. As these things go, I firmly pushed the thought out of my head but by the time summer was drawing to a close and my own attempts had never made it past a day or two, the idea of going to the doctor had worked its way sufficiently through my subconscious. It took me a couple of weeks of thinking about it to actually screw up the courage to go to the doctor and ask for help but I did it. And he was on holidays. Typical. 

Rather than traipse across town (my town is small, it would have been about a ten-minute walk) to the doctor who was covering for him, I sort of heaved a sigh of relief and told myself I’d go and see him when he was back from holidays. Of course by then I had lost my nerve again and it took me another while to actually go to him. Then it was a month or so of sorting stuff out with the health insurance place, getting all the right forms filled, stamped and signed correctly and all that kind of thing. And then, it sort of seemed to happen very quickly and all of a sudden I had my first appointment with a dietician.*

That was on 7^th February and today I had my third appointment. I thought it was great that it was working out so well to blog about it today but as it turns out, today’s appointment ended up being incredibly emotional for me and I’m still feeling a bit vulnerable and not wanting to talk about it. Perhaps I’ll find a way to come back to the topic during this A to Z and be able to write something a bit more positive. :)

On the whole, she is being a big help and I have made some progress. I’m a bit caught between knowing how much better I could be doing if I were just a bit better organised and trying to learn how to deal with the situations that my disorganisation lands me in time and again. And, as has been the issue for the last year or two, it’s the keeping at it that is the hard part. I have not managed to keep at it consistently by any means but knowing that there’s another appointment coming up in a few weeks is helping me to at least always keep coming back to trying to do better. I’ve lost 2.6kg (just over 5.5lbs), which to me, is really not a lot to have lost in eight weeks but at least it’s going in the right direction and I know that it’s changing habits and improving my overall eating which is the most important thing for now. If I can get that stuff sorted a bit better, then the weightloss will happen one way or the other.

* I’m using the word dietician partly because it fits nicely into my A to Z. The literal translation of the German word would be “nutrition advisor”. Feel free to substitute whatever word is the appropriate word for the profession that is actually regulated by the government in your country.

Life is a bit of a slog

Really trying hard to keep going these days. Not getting a lot done but everything little thing take so much mental effort it's like a huge achievement when something does actually happen.

Last weekend got a big black bag (black bags are actually blue over here, but I still call them black bags) and went out to the balcony and dumped all of the dead plants into it. At the end of July last year I had access to a car so I took a detour on the way home and bought soil, compost and stones as well as a few small pots of herbs with plans to fill up all of my big pots, pot on the herbs and maybe plant some bulbs for the spring. And the herbs have been on the balcony dying ever since. Well, I kept them alive for maybe three months. Actually, the parsley still hasn't died, so all is not lost. And the soil and compost have been lying on the living room floor. So, the dead herbs from the balcony, as well as the two amarylis that I got for birthday and xmas presents from work and left outside once they started to die off, went into the bag. And I cleaned up the mess that the sap from the amarylis made when it was knocked over and then we had minus temperatures for a while. I moved the bags of soil and compost outside, which has helped with the little tiny fly problem I've been having, and hopefully, since they had a few days of freezing weather now, too, any remaining fly-offspring have been taken care of, too. Such a simple thing to just drag those bags outside but it honestly took me a couple of months of being really annoyed at those little flies to just do it.

Since I had the industrial strength cleaner (leftover from when I moved) out to take care of the frozen sap on the balcony, I also tried it out on the sap that leaked all over the inside windowsill last year when most of my aloe vera plants died. It was absolutely rock solid and nothing I had tried had worked and it had, quite honestly, added a good bit to my feeling bad over and over and worrying what my landlord would say when he found out. But the industrial strength cleaner, while terrible for the environment, actually managed to do the trick (after leaving it to soak for half-an-hour). So that was one more thing achieved. Today I took the approximately one minute I needed to turn around the butcher's block-style rack I have so that I can easily pull it in and out from under the tiny counter, giving me a bit of space to actually work with. Something that it occured to me might be a good idea probably a year ago. But at least it's done now.

Just about an hour ago, I actually took that black bag, added all the current rubbish to it, and brought it down to the big bin downstairs. Today I have also done a wash, which is now hanging to dry. On Thursday I brought the patchwork blanket downstairs and washed it (I told my brother at the start of February I was going to send it to him - that's how long it has taken me to get up the energy to do that task). Today I've made carrot and orange soup, with five portions waiting to go into the fridge for lunches next week. I ate the final portion of pasta bake that I made last weekend and the final portion (well, ok, two portions but they were small so it's now one very big portion) of the soup I made last week is heating up for me to eat for dinner soon. I've made egg muffins to have for breakfasts again. Last week was the second week I did this and I totally burnt them so I was really careful this week. I'm using six eggs and having three muffins every day for breakfast (Monday to Thursday). This week I added a small onion, half a small leek (both chopped very finely) and a very small carrot (grated) with just a bit of salt and pepper as seasoning. 

I have my second appointment with the dietician next week and am a bit nervous. I have not, to be perfectly honest, been following her plan very much. But I have, especially in the last two weeks, started to mostly eat "from scratch" food, even if it that has often meant bread and a slice of meat or cheese. I have lost some weight, although not a huge amount but it is just taking me a long time to get my head in the game and I really want to take as long as it takes. There is just no point in forcing myself to eat a certain way without changing my behaviour from deep within. One thing I have been relatively successful with was her advice to leave 4-5 hours between meals and not eat anything during that time. I have done this at least between breakfast and lunch on most days and between lunch and finishing work on slightly fewer but still most days. Evenings are most difficult at the moment. And weekends are a bit tricky, too. I haven't yet started to keep a proper food diary. I really need to work on increasing the amount of fruit and veg I eat. I have definitely not kept to the treats twice a week idea and am still eating some kind of chocolate every day. But generally just once a day and a drastically lower amount of rubbish then, too. It might shock some that that's a reduction but there you have it.

The health insurance company has approved a year-long program for me, which means (I think, need to double-check when I see her next week) monthly half-hour appointments with the dietician and eight activity appointments (I think to be able to try out different exercise classes to find one I like). They cover the bulk of the cost and I have to pay €273 for the year (in three instalments of €170, €58 and €45). I think realistically I'll need two to three years to lose the weight I need to lose but every day I do something that aims towards that goal, well, at the moment every instance of doing something feels like an achievement. One day at a time sometimes has to be one hour at a time and sometimes it feels like all of my strength is going into simply not giving up and actually trying again, with very little leftover to actually make any progress. But as long as I can still do even that much, I'll keep trying.

Fresh start

Carolyn over at The 1940's Experiment is starting afresh this week with both weight loss and budgeting. And so am I. I'd already been thinking about doing something like this for a while and just don't seem to get anywhere with it. I went to the doctor a few weeks ago and asked about getting help with losing weight and will hopefully have an appointment with a dietician early in the new year. It's not that I feel like they will be able to actually help me much in terms of teaching me about food (let's face it, I probably at least as much as they do on the subject of food and how to lose weight) but I need outside support to actually do something. I'm just not getting anywhere on my own. The place I'll be working with seems to be quite holistic as well, so hopefully the health insurance will also cover the cost of some basic exercise programms. I've also signed up for a new program my health insurance are offering which is a kind of mental health support scheme. Not sure exactly how that will work out but it's kind of like a step before therapy (there's a severe shortage of places with psychologists here and people can end up waiting for a long time before they can get an appointment). From what I understand it involves a weekly phone call with one of their counsellors to talk about whatever is going on and try and find ways for me to deal with everything that's going on. It was sheer coincidence that I got the leaflet for this program at the same time I was trying to get the cover for a dietician set up but I grabbed at the chance immediately. I am trying to be better at asking for help.

As for budget, well, barring one potentially crappy situation (I messed up a big translation job and am waiting to hear back from them - may have to pay them back, may have to cover damages they incurred if they ended up getting someone else to redo it), I'm actually starting to slowly get to a relatively stable place. I have enough money set aside to be able to pay my tax bill for 2016 whenever it comes in and when the rest of my outstanding invoices are paid, should have enough to cover 2017's tax bill as well. I have 450 set aside for annual expenses and 250 for travel/holidays. But, I should also be able to cover annual expenses and travels costs for the next two months directly without needing to touch the savings. Finally, I have 500 set aside in a separate savings account, which is the start of a proper emergency fund.

As I am now working full-time, I am earning almost 300 more per month than I was before. I will have a few expenses that I want to put this money towards over the first few months of the year (getting bike fixed, getting shelves put up in the kitchen and so on) but by June I want to be at the stage where I am living on my previous 75% salary and saving the extra. Will someone come back and ask me in June whether or not I've managed to do that? To be perfectly honest, I'm not really loving working 100% again and I'd rather not get used to the money so that if I can at all finagle my way to reducing hours, it won't be a difficult financial decision.

So much for the monthly stuff. On a more micro level, I'm going to start an envelope method again. I have signed up for a monthly Solawi* box (or at least, I'll be visiting tomorrow and plan to sign up) and that will provide the bulk of my food. Apart from that I will be withdrawing a very generous 60 euro per week from the bank in cash. That's actually how much I was planning on allocating every week before I took the Solawi box into account. I'm going to see how it goes. The idea is that I should be well able to not spend that amount of money every week and will be able to build up a bit of a buffer to start my envelopes off well.

I should think about what envelopes I want to have actually. Hmm. Here's a first list:

1. Birthdays/presents incl. postage
2. Clothes
3. Shoes
4. New coat next winter
5. Meals/drinks out
6. Exercise

So as these things come up over the first few months I'll just cover the cost from my weekly amount but I'll also be putting aside a small amount each week to build that buffer. I have a few birthdays in January and February but already have presents for those so will just need to cover the postage cost. I don't currently really need new clothes or shoes and won't really be going out much. The only exercise cost will be 10 euro per week for my back training course for about six weeks. After that the official course, paid for by work, will be starting up again.

I'm sure I'll end up changing this all a lot as time passes but it's a starting point at least. Need to just keep repeating to myself that a millionaire is made ten bucks at a time.

* Solawi is the name given to an organisation called Solidarische Landwirtschaft or literally solidary agriculture, and is similar to the CSA programs they have in the US. I pay a certain amount every month and for that get a box of food every week. Mostly veg but also meat, dairy and wheat (in the form of grain, flour or bread). Smaller amounts in winter, obviously, and if there is a disastrous harvest then it's tough luck and not a lot of food. The monthly amount paid remains the same. But it means I'll be genuninely back to having mostly local and organic food, as it really is just the one farm providing everything and that farm is located less than 7km from where I live and 15 km from where I work (my pick-up point will be close to work).

Lots of veg but have lost the enthusiasm

I went to the market yesterday and, even though it still bugs me that the one guy there selling veg mostly seems to buy stuff from a standard wholesaler and is not at all interested in my questions on what he has grown himself,* I bought a whole load of veg from him.

None of it is organic and he definitely seems to go for the sell lots for cheap mantra. Such a change from the farmers' market in Dusseldorf, where nothing could be sold that wasn't produced within an 80km radius and there were two organic farmers who were passionate about what they did and, if they did sell anything they hadn't grown themselves, were selling it on behalf of neighbour farmers who didn't grow enough to justify the cost of a market stall. Still, I suppose it did still make for a pretty picture.

I put a pencil in the shot so that you can get an idea of how huge those kohlrabi are, I only asked for two because the ones at the front of the pile were fairly small

That lot cost me €9.80, with the two cartons of free-range eggs and the turkey breast costing another €8.30. I only wanted one salad but he gave me two for the price of one. That made sense at the beginning of the summer when they were still very small but these ones are big enough that one barely fits into my salad spinner. So, as well as the salad there are onions, carrots, red cabbage, cauliflower and kohlrabi. I plan to slice the kohlrabi and fry it to eat with salad. Sometimes I get tired of just cold salad and like to have something warm to go with it. The turkey will mostly be used for the same thing, although I may use some of it to have a stirfry on Sunday. A couple of the carrots will be used to make kidney bean, carrot and cumin burgers and the rest will last for a whlie. That's just over a kilo of carrots, in case you were wondering.

I want to get some potatoes and do spicy potatoes and cauliflower. Had a real craving for it for some reason although now that I think about it, I must be mad. It's cooler this week but still hot and I want to put the oven on? Madness.

The red cabbage will become it's usual, braised cabbage with apples. There is a little place on campus that sells fruit and veg grown in a community garden not far from the university. I'm going to call in there on Monday and see if maybe that will offer a good alternative for me. And hopefully get some local apples and potatoes while I'm there.

And all of that was really an attempt to get me enthusiastic enough to want to do any of that. After a really excellent week in terms of food, where I actually cooked/prepared and ate good food for three meals a day, five days in a row, I went totally off the rails yesterday. And if I wasn't feeling a bit under the weather today, I think I'd be down the supermarket stuffing my bag full of more crisps and chocolate to do the same again today. But I think I'm starting a cold, I have a bit of a headache and am generally not feeling too good. So I think I'm going to have a duvet day and just stay put.

I worked very late yesterday and came up to find that there was a Seelsorger having a cigarette break outside my front door. A Seelsorger is a type of pastoral worker, literally a "soul carer" and they get called out when someone has died, for example. I didn't think it was appropriate for me to ask her what had happened so we just chatted for a minute or two when she asked me not to close the front door and that was it. But once I was in my apartment I realised that all the noise was coming from next door. I've never met the guy from that apartment. He uses it as his office and lives in another apartment downstairs. Or lived, I should say, as it turns out that he died yesterday. I peeked out the spyhole in my door once or twice to see what all the noise was about and saw them bringing the body out. So once they were gone I waited for a few minutes until I heard someone else and then I opened the door to ask what had happened. The policeman who was just locking up simply said that he had died but at least confirmed that it was the guy who rented the apartment that died. I didn't really have much of a reaction yesterday but it did keep me awake a bit last night and it's bothering me now that I don't know how he died because I'm finding myself dwelling on it a bit. September is, of course, suicide awareness month and in a couple of weeks it'll be my sister's third anniversary. So that's all mixing itself up in my head in strange ways. Would be something of a relief to just know exactly what happened to him, I think but given that I never met him, I'm not likely to ever know. It's very sad though, I don't think he was very old. Am trying hard to translate all of these thoughts and feelings into more impetus to get myself healthy!

*He does grow stuff himself and you'd think he'd want to sell more of that stuff but that doesn't seem to be the case. The most I can say for yesterday's purchases is that it's all German. Can't even say it's all regional. Really, I could have just gone to the supermarket.

Saturday randomness

• Have a vague feeling at the moment that I really want to get back to blogging regularly but don't really feel like I can be bothered putting the effort into composing posts. Which makes it sounds like I do put effort in normally, which isn't really the case. I normally just sit down and start typing. And while sometimes I do manage to take and post photos, not having any doesn't really ever hold me back either. I'm just in kind of a funny place as far as writing is concerned in general I think. Still toying with the idea of trying to write a romance novel, ideas of maybe digging out the chapters I wrote for the 3-day-novel contest a few years ago and working on that have started surfacing and I still think about actually trying to write properly researched essay-type things for the blog or just for myself sometimes. I think working in a college environment now is simultaneously inspiring and intimidating me, leading to a kind of paralysis. That's not the right word really, though. It's more like I feel somehow stifled. It's all a bit strange. 
• After a week or two where it seemed like the weather was cooling down and I had started to look forward to long autumnal walks it has gotten hot again. Heading for 35 degrees every day over the last few days. So today I decided I wasn't even going to pretend that I'd do anything or go anywhere. I closed the shutter on the east side of my apartment this morning and have only just re-opened it. And then once the sun started making its way around to the other side I closed the windows and the shutters. I know it's worth it, even though it seems a pity to shut out the light. Just can't handle it at the moment. 
• Having decided to not do anything at all today I did of cousre then get up and make myself a lovely brunch. Onions and tomatoes sauteed with a splash of balsamic vinegar, then a tin of tuna and three eggs added to make a very tasty omelette. Or at least it would have been an omelette if it hadn't all fallen apart. 
• And then for good measure I actually cut up the beef I bought the other day and prepared the marinade for the stir-fry dish I saw on 59 pounds to go. At nearly 13 euro!!! for enough for two people (albeit generous portions), I'm reminded of why I really quite rarely buy meat. And that was the cheaper of the cuts. So yep, reminded again of why I don't buy a lot of meat and why most of what I do buy is cheaper cuts for slow-cooking. And particularly glad that I didn't end up wasting the beef just 'cos it got too hot for cooking again. It's marinating in the fridge now and if I don't do it this evening, it'll still be fine for tomorrow. I have frozen beans and broccoli so apart from chopping up a couple of carrots and some onion, it'll be a minimal effort meal. I'm not even going to bother making rice, it really is too hot so I'll just pile on the veggies and enjoy it like that. 
• I've almost made it to the end of the month without spending a whole pile more than intended. Won't quite end the month without needing to pull a small amount from savings but that's because I forgot about the letter I know was going to arrive from the social welfare. Have to repay 320 euro from May (my last month of dole money) as I earned quite a bit in translation work that month. So if I don't spend anything for the next week I'll need to pull 60 from savings to pay that. It has left things tight the past week but I'm still glad I decided to just live with things being a bit tight for a week or two rather than pulling the whole lot from savings. I was paid for one big job I did at the end of June (new client and it took a while for me to be added to their database as a creditor) as well as a couple of other outstanding invoices and most of that money went straight to savings. I'm really trying to be conscientous about putting money aside for tax and will have a few more big annual bills to pay in September. And I'm trying to knock down the overdraft on my Irish account finally. Even if I only manage to pay 50 a month to that I really need to see it going down. 
• July and August brought almost no translation work so I will need to be careful to take account of that in the coming years. There are some industries that basically go on holidays for those two months in summer and translations seems to be one of them. I was starting to get really worried as I don't have any other outstanding invoices (except one, which it looks like I'm going to have to start down the legal route to try and recover) and I wasn't sure how I was going to come up with the money I need on top of my day-job salary to cover my expenses. And then on Tuesday I had two separate queries from potential new clients. One, I am happy to say, confirmed on Thursday that I had gotten the job and it'll be enough to cover the gap between salary and expenses for two months so that creates a bit of breathing space. The other was for an agency that wasn't offering a lot of money and I was in two minds about it as it would be a guaranteed three-years of continuing jobs for one particular client so even at a very low rate, it might be just what I need to keep things going. However, after two emails they haven't responded to the rest of my questions so I think I'm going to take it as a sign that I may be better off without that agency. They've also been banned from one of the big translator websites, which probably isn't a good sign anyway. 
• On the day-job front, there is a posting up for another half-day job in the university but it seems like it's for a permanent position. I'm in two minds as to whether to apply for it or not but I think I will go for it. If I did manage to get offered the position, I don't have to say yes. I don't really want to go back to working full time at the moment (full time and then some, if translating picks up again) but I think I would feel much better with the security of a permanent position. My boss is definitely working on trying to get our program funded long-term, bringing with it the possibility of a permanent or at least far longer contract than I have now but these things work very slowly. And of course he's on holidays at the moment so I can't even check in and find out how all of that is going. So I think I'll apply for it and then see what happens. It would scupper the possibility of increasing my hours to 75% at the current job, too, probably. Unless the new professor was willing to allow the 50% job to be shared among two. 
• There was a bird on my balcony railing for more than two hours earlier. I was worried it was injured but it didn't seem to be. I put some water out but I don't think it touched it. It has gone now so I hope it is alright and just needed a long rest.
• I've used the excuse of too much work and stress due to the summer school we held a week ago to eat far too many sweets and crisps. I think I've finished absolutely everything that's in the house now, though, so I may try the blood sugar diet again for a couple of weeks before going back to fasting properly. I've fasted for shorter periods on and off over the last few weeks of craziness and still find it remarkable how much better I feel when I manage to do it. I'm going to do a variation of the blood sugar diet though. Thinking about it I realised that one thing that kind of holds me back is using fats in cooking, or rather having to count the caloires of those fats. So, I think I'll do 800 calories plus oils/butter. I don't use a huge amont anyway and I think it's a restriction that was having more of an impact on my mind than I realised. Even if I'm going above 800 calories on most days, it will still be enough to be losing weight. 
• For years and years, ever since blogger introduced stats as a standard thing for people to see, I've checked on mine on and off. And for years and years, it was pretty normal for this blog to receive about 50 hits a day. I think about 15 of these were actual regular readers and the rest mostly as a result of google searches. Haven't ever really tried to do anything to increase readership or stats in any way and am perfectly happy with that. It gave me a bit of a thrill in April 2013 when I participated in the A-Z of blogging and saw a spike in numbers for that month but not so much of a thrill that I'd ever really be bothered chasing them again if you know what I mean. Still, it wsa nice to know that someone was reading. Since May this year I think I've been found by some kind of bot though. I now have bewteen 500 and 1,000 hits every single day. For absolutely no reason. And with no-one new commmenting, I think my impression of "fake" hits probably isn't too far off. It's mildly irritating as it means my stats are now completely meaningless.

• And finally, I bought a new red sheet a while ago and just before leaving for summer school I put it on the bed for the first time. Was worried about it looking a bit bordello-like but it's actually just really cheerful and I love it. Best impulse purchase for a long time.

Walking

It's funny writing in my tracking notebook and seeing that it is already day 9 of my blood sugar diet adventures. That means it's also day 9 of having managed to go for a walk every single day. Just as I planned to do starting in November as soon as I had finished work. But I've recovered from work enough now that I really do seem to be able to just get up and head out, without it requiring too much of a mental workout to get me there.

This morning I didn't really want to get up and was thinking I'd have a nice lazy morning and early afternoon in bed reading and then go for a walk in the late afternoon. For no particular reason, however, I checked the weather forecast. High likelihood of rain all day. Oh. So I checked the rain radar app on my phone and saw that within about three-quarters of an hour of so, pretty persistent rain was going to start. Instead of telling myself I'd go for a walk in the rain, I just got up and went straight away. I figured I'd get most of the way to the halfway point before it started and would be really glad once I got home. It did rain a bit on the way back but wasn't too bad and I really am glad that I've already done it. Apart from about half-an-hour of sunshine a little while ago it has been a very grey, drizzly and miserable day and it is lovely to be tucked up at home. I've lit a few candles and am bundled up in a cosy cardigan. Because I wanted to get out and beat the rain, I didn't eat so I was ravenous by the time I got home. I made vegetable soup yesterday and had a huge portion of that, with two eggs poached to perfection in it. It was just right.

This week will be a slightly different one as I have an interview in Heidelberg on Thursday so I'll be on the move all day. I'm thinking that I'll bring a big salad with me for lunch. I can leave a bag in a locker at the train station and pick it up after my interview. That way I could also bring my walking boots and get a walk in before heading back. Around the town and maybe up to the castle.

Apart from the obvious benefits of the exercise, I've always loved walking as an aid to pounding out whatever thoughts are circling in my head. Sometimes I might not be thinking about anything much but eventually whatever it is that's particularly on my mind will surface and I can get to grips with it a bit. It's so wonderful to have this time to do that without having to stress about only having an hour before I need to be doing whatever other thing is next. I am spending the best part of my day cooking, eating and walking at the moment but it feels good.

I'm using the mapmywalk app on my phone to keep track of how far I'm walking. At the moment I'm just focusing on that and not deliberately trying to increase my speed. They send an email with a summary of workout every week and this was the first time that I got an email with more than one or two walks. In fact, I'm even missing one from this summary as I forgot to switch on the app when I was walking home from the quiz on Friday. I had decided to make that my short walk day so just had the slightly more than 2km walk home, since I was running late and didn't manage to also walk there earlier in the evening. Other than that, here's what I did do from 20 to 26 March:

Total length of time: 11:39 (I pause the app when I stop for a break so this is just time spent actually walking)
Total distance: 50.1km

I'm really pleased with that. Long may it continue. Every day I manage to stick to the diet and every day I manage to go for a walk, is a day closer to the person I want to be.

Saturday shopping

A post not about BSDing and it's a boring shopping one. Don't worry, I'll find other things to ramble about soon I'm sure. Obsessing a little is helping me keep on track at the moment so I'm going with it. Luckily for me, if your eyes are glazing over at this stage, I can't see it and can continue on in happy obliviousness. :)

I had four things on my list when I headed out this morning and bought six. Not too bad. One of those two items was a packet of lentil for the storecupboard and the other some fish, as it turned out the supermarket was doing 50% off all fresh fish today. For this month and next, while I'll do my best to stick to my usual regional, organic, fairtrade, sustainable methods of choosing groceries, price will have to play a bigger role. I've been mostly avoiding fish for a while now, as it's such an environmental minefield. I did get some tins of tuna and sardines to stock up the storecupboard a while back but that has been about it. But for the duration of the BSD at least, I'll have to be a bit less discerning - when all is said and done, fish is a very good source of relatively low-calorie protein. I'm also trying to make sure that I have plenty of variety at the moment, which isn't something that's always at the top of my priority list.

Today, I even managed to remember to bring my empty bottles with me so after a quick stop at the bottle bank for the non-deposit ones, I continued on to the market.

I had taken €20 out of the bank and had 64c to put into my sealed pot and 50c for my 50c pot when I got back. For that, I got the following:







From Bio Thees
Oakleaf lettuce, 2 small heads (312g @ €10/kg): 3.12 (but the round down so only paid 3.10)
Red lambs' lettuce (100g @ €22/kg): 2.20

From Naturhof Etzold
Onions (1kg at €3.50/kg): 3.50

From SuperBIOMarkt
2 tins cannellini beans (€1.49 each): 2.98
1 packet yellow split peas, not lentils after all, I picked up the wrong packet. Sigh. (€4.98/kg): 2.49
Refund of 30c for two returned bottles

From Kaisers supermarket
2 salmon fillets (416g. normal price €19.90, today €9.95/kg): 4.14
250g butter: 75c
Refund of 30c for two returned bottles

I've already left the salmon poaching, will have a small bit now perhaps and them have the rest cold tomorrow or Monday.

Blood sugar diet - day 5

Well, after a difficult day 3, yesterday turned out really well. I was quite nervous as I have choir rehearsal on Wednesday evenings and wasn't sure how that would work out. My friend had to cancel lunch so that made my day a whole lot easier, I have to admit. I'd had porridge for breakfast an cleaning the floors and clearing up the sitting room were shelved. After a quick trip to the market for some salad (they had oakleaf lettuce! Small heads of it admittedly but that, more than anything, makes it feel like spring has truly sprung), eggs and quark, I chopped up some apples for my snack/lunch and headed off on the tram again for another long walk. Half an hour later, I got out and walked down towards the river, passing a small market which also had a fish stand. They're there every Wednesday so I might take a trip back next week to buy some fish.

I walked back home, this time pusing myself a little to walk to the bench past the big bridge before taking a break. It's not a big difference really but I want to try and push myself a little bit from time to time. Otherwise, I just walked along, enjoying the occasional ray of sunshine through the mostly white clouds. I walked the last bit a slightly different way simply because the traffic lights were against me and so I walked on to cross over at a later stage and I actually cut a short distance off the walk but it was still just over 11km and I am very pleased that I've done two long walks this week. I'll do another shorter one today. I wasn't really hungry by the time I got home, even though I hadn't even finished all of the apple. I rested for a while and then before going to choir I fried the chicken I had bought, as well as some bacon bits I wanted to use up (fried the entire packet but only used a small amount) and made up a huge salad with the meat on top. Totally delicious and it really filled me up. I even went for a drink after choir (water, obviously) and wasn't feeling too hungry at all. I was kind of glad that everyone decided to have an early night though. Once I got home I had the rest of the apple. It turned out to be a great day foodwise.

Today is presenting challenges once more. It's actually related to something I was contemplating the other day: I'm not sure how well I would be managing the blood sugar diet if I had to be going out to work every day. As it is, I have far more flexibility in when and what I eat at the moment, which is a big help. I did get in a translation job yesterday evening, however, which means that today, I'm at my laptop working. And within a few minutes of sitting down, I found myself getting something of a craving for sweets. Not a bad physical craving but more like a force of habit kind of thing. I'd just eaten a late breakfast of two scrambled eggs with cress and thought I just needed to let that digest properly and I'd be fine. But after a while (about forty-five minutes, I was keeping an eye on it to make sure) I was feeling hungry so rather than risk the craving getting worse, I decided to have the rest of the chicken. I just ate it cold as I was working, it was delicious and seems to have satisfied me better than just the eggs had. I suppose every day is different and I'm going to have to be careful to pay attention to what my body (and my psyche) needs at any point in time.

Browsing the Irish Times earlier I also noticed a photo of some Easter eggs and I'm glad I'm here and not in Ireland. I think resisting the type of Easter eggs I grew up with would be far more difficult than resisting the various things they have over here for Easter. Don't get me wrong. I love German Easter stuff, from the chocolate bunnies to the amazing pastries, breads and cakes. I just don't feel the same connection to it as to, for example, a Button's egg (Jesus! You really can find anything on youtube!).

So we'll see how the rest of the day goes. Dinner will be another big salad, although with fewer extras since I've already eaten the chicken. Perhaps I'll make another small portion of spiced dahl. I also want to put on some beans to soak so that tomorrow I can have beans and rice. Really looking forward to that.

And just to finish off so that I have written it down somewhere, yesterday and the day before I noticed a strange pain. Almost like the beginnings of stitch except higher up and more to the centre of my body. I wondered if I had strained something. For a brief second I was worried that maybe I've left it too late to lose weight and get fit and my heart was complaining. But it's too low down to be my heart. It has gone away today but if it comes back, don't worry, I will go and check with the doctor. What I thought was interesting though, is that I checked a diagram to see what exactly is in that part of my body. Biology lessons are a very long time in the past and never one of my best subjects and I really just couldn't remember. At any rate, it seems to be the area that my liver is in that was hurting. The interesting part is remembering the following from the BSD book: "Once your visceral fat levels start to drop (and this happens within days), the fat clogging up your liver will also beging to melt away like snow under a hot sun." It may be a bit fanciful but I'm wondering if my liver is protesting having to relinquish the warm and cosy layer of fat it has been encased in for years now (even though I don't think visceral fat is so much fat around the liver as it is in the liver, that just doesn't work as well for my fanciful image). So there you have it. I weighed myself yesterday on the way out. I had weighed myself in the early afternoon of day 2 (chemist that has the scales I use wasn't open on Sunday) and by yesterday late morning, I was 1.1kg down. That's pretty good going and was definitely good motivation to keep me walking yesterday.

Blood sugar diet - day 3

Just a quick one tonight as I want to try and keep a record of a few things. Third day today and although it felt like I cooked and ate a lot more food, I was hungry in the afternoon and again this evening. I did go to the cinema this evening though and although I ate not long before I left, not getting home until just after midnight means it's a later night than usual and enough time for me to have gotten hungry again. I walked home though and feel slightly better for that. I'm not so hungry that I won't sleep but definitely feeling some hunger. I'm going to leave porridge soaking overnight and have that in the morning. I'm enjoying eggs for breakfast but don't want to just keep having the same thing and I think the porridge will be a good psychological boost.

A friend is coming over for lunch tomorrow, which I had completely forgotten about. So, I need to get my ass in gear tomorrow to get the place cleaned up a bit. I decided to do a salad with chicken. I might buy a couple of bread rolls so that she can have that with her salad if she wants and if not, I can chop them up and pop them into the freezer for using as croutons at a later stage. That means that I do need to get up early tomorrow and get out to the market. My veg box delivery is coming a day early this week because of Easter, which would have worked out perfectly if I had remembered that that also meant the deadline for adjusting or adding to the order was a day early. Salad, unfortunately, wasn't one of the picks for this week so I'll get that from the market and need to be back in time for my veg delivery.

I'm curious to see how this plays out over the next few days. I was surprised that the first two days seemed to go relatively easily, with few cravings or hunger pangs. The book, or perhaps the website, mentions it taking a few days or even a couple of weeks for cravings to fade away so perhaps I'm just going through some of that. Regardless, for tonight, my plan is to keep going tomorrow. And then we'll see.

Blood sugar diet - day 2

After reading the book, The 8-Week Blood Sugar Diet (website here), at the end of January and thinking it was just what I needed to get kickstarted again, I've made it past the middle of March and only now actually started it in earnest. I decided yesterday was the day as I knew I'd be feeling very much like having some clean living following Paddy's Day last Thursday and the last day of the 6 Nations on Saturday. As it turned out, Thursday wasn't as late or as boozy a night as previous years and on Saturday, although I did spend the day in the pub and did drink a fair amount, I left at eleven and resisted the temptation for "just one more".

Detail from front of notebook

It took me a few hours to actually get out for the walk I had planned to really get me going yesterday morning, but I did it eventually. And I went to the pub quiz last night and stuck to drinking water. Had my dinner as late as possible before leaving for that so that I wouldn't be tempted to get pizza or chips during the break. I have to admit I did need to go outside for a few minutes during the break when someone else at my table got chips.

Today, I planned to go for a shorter walk but kept somehow getting delayed and then decided I really needed to finish some work and get it sent out before distracting myself from it with a walk. It was five o'clock before I actually got out but I'm thrilled that I did it. I'm hoping tomorrow to get out much earlier. I'm going to a friend's house at two o'clock so ideally I'll go out walking first thing and then come back and have a big brunch omelette to see me through the afternoon. We'll see.


I received a beautiful notebook as a birthday present last December and hadn't yet found a use for it so it has been called into service as my (very old-school) tracking device. I'm glad that I'm not working at the moment as it gives me plenty of time to look up calories and try and plan what I'll be eating. I wasn't quite organised enough to do a full meal plan and it will take me a couple of weeks to get used to not deciding which starch (potatoes, rice, pasta, bread) I want most and planning my meal around that. Although a small amount of alcohol is included in the BSD guidelines, I'm going to go off it completely until June. I never feel good drinking alcohol on a regular basis and I think in future I'll probably continue with some variation of abstaining completely for a couple of months at intervals throughout the year. One thing I'll be doing is using up some things that I have already prepared (bolognaise yesterday, and bean burgers I have in the freezer, for example) and I will be guessing calories there to a certain extent. But I'm also not going to stress too much if I don't quite make it to just 800 calories in a day. I haven't managed it in the first two days but I still think I'm doing pretty well.



It's half-nine now so I think I can safely say that the first two days are done and, while it hasn't been easy-peasy, it hasn't been too difficult either. I was hungry yesterday at the quiz, or seemed to be, but actually, it was mostly the fact that I knew I needed to have a difficult conversation with somebody afterwards that had my stomach in knots. I ate a Silvermint and that was enough. The conversation went off okay - I didn't get any response I really wanted but I was glad that I had brought it up rather than allowing something to fester and potentially destroy a friendship. Whether that friendship will survive the breaking of trust, I'm not really sure but at least I was able to say my piece. I wonder if I'll ever get over feeling like honesty is the most important thing there can be.




At any rate, this afternoon, because I left for my walk so much later than planned and am currently walking a bit slower than I used to, which meant I took longer than planned, I was hungry by the time I got home and sort of starting to feel a bit panicked that I'd get too hungry and derail myself before I managed to get dinner ready. Then I remembered I'd bought a new jar of bouillon powder recently and when I got in the door I just put the kettle on immediately and a couple of minutes later I had a steaming hot cup of something tasty to tide me over. It was more than enough to see me through sitting down and resting for a while and then preparing dinner. I haven't really drunk enough water today but I'm going to go and make myself a herbal tea now and that will be that. There's trying to drink plenty of water in a day and there's having to get up three times in the night to pee and I know which of those things annoys me most!

Start the new year off right

Having had a late night on 30th (but a fantastic one, catching up with most of my old group from school and laughing till we cried for hours on end), during which I may also have drunk way more wine than is good for you, I flew back home yesterday evening and more or less collapsed into bed. Stopping only to let the friends who had invited me to their new year's eve celebration know that I wasn't going to make it.

I've had a very easy day today as well, reading and catching up on sleep whenver I felt my eyes closing. About an hour ago I started thinking about food and what to cook for dinner. There are frozen chips in the freezer but I kind of wanted to eat something healthy after all the indulgence over the holidays. So I thought of the curry paste I also have in the freezer and thought maybe with a tin of chickpeas, that would do the trick. I was still thinking it'd be a bit bland though, with no vegetable or meat component. And then I looked in the freezer (actually, I had gone as far as opening the freezer to get out the chips after all) and remembered I had two small containers of cabbage. Sorted. Then I remember there was also a bag of green beans in there. Even better. And then my eye caught on the two sweet potatoes that have been languishing in my kitchen since some time in October. And so a curry is born.

I've added tumeric to the rice (tumeric is supposed to be good for your liver, isn't it? I need that after the past few days). And I sauteed the sweet potatoes in cubes before adding the curry paste discs. Of course then it all went a bit pear-shape because I came into the sitting room to start my laptop and for some reason began to look at photos on an old memory card. I was looking for the cable to attach my phone to the computer to get the photos off and saw the card in the box and the next thing you know... ... ...

So this became a bit burnt before I got back to it. Oh well. I've added some water, the chickpeas and cabbage - don't think it was so badly burnt that it'll be inedible. Smells good actually. Beans will go in in a minute and hey presto, a healthy dinner to start the year off right. Might not have managed a walk today (yet) but at least one aspect is covered.




Year in Books 2015 is still to come. And I never posted about my Sealed Pot opening either. I'm half thinking of trying to post every day in January so might see how that goes. For now, I wish you all a very happy, peaceful and joyous new year, something I'm planning on doing my best to have for myself as well.

Saturday shopping

I spent a lot of money today. Most of it in the form of lunch vouchers. This is one of the perks I get in work which I will really miss when I leave. Every day that I spend at least an hour in the office, I get one voucher. Since the value of these vouchers went up a couple of months ago from 3.07 to 4.50 each, it's a sizable chunk of change, especially for those months where I have no holidays. Normally I use these vouchers for going out to lunch or buying unplanned for stuff at the supermarket. Most supermarkets take them, some of the bakeries near work, most of the restaurants near work and so on. Yesterday, I remembered that one of the butchers on my road also takes them and since I had seen a sign outside there yesterday for a special offer on pork belly and my sister sent me a packet mix of spices to make Chinese red pork something or other last week, I decided adding a bit of meat into one or two of my meals this week might be nice. And since my vouchers had arrived last week it really felt a bit like the pressure was off and I went into Edeka and stocked up on some rubbish, too.

It was a bit of a running hither and thither afternoon though. I had hoovered and tidied up a bit before leaving the house so that was something. And I had a shower and washed my hair, even though we're having the kind of weather again that makes it feel like it's a waste of time, since two minutes after getting out of the shower you start sweating again. Still, at least it's not raining, I suppose.

First off I popped across the road to throw a bottle into the recycling and then I went into Rossmann to print out some passport size photos. Since I was there I also got a packet of washing soda. Then it was into the butcher to get some pork belly and chicken pieces and I threw in a couple of the nice spicy dried sausages they have, too. Round the corner to hop onto the scales in the chemist (5.5 kg down in the four weeks I've been properly back to doing the 5:2 fast diet) and then I jumped onto the tram to head to the other end of my street as I had a package I needed to drop off at the Hermes shop (sending my broken Kindle back - I miss my old Kindle, but that's for another post). Once that was done I stopped into the small shop with lovely meats and cheese and treated myself to 50g of a French salami with hazelnuts. And then finally it was off to Aldi and Edeka, stopping only on the way to bring two letters to the post office. One a form for my health insurance place informing them that I'll be finishing work at the end of October and so my status will change to "voluntarily" insured rather than "employed". And the other my application to join the German Association of Interpreters and Translators (which was what I needed a passport photo for). So that's two big things ticked off the list. Oh, I also found time to stop into the opticians to get my glasses adjusted, they weren't sitting quite right and it was just enough off to be a bit annoying. So it took all afternoon but I feel like I got a good bit done. And now for the food - I squished everything in but I think most of it is visible, although the buttermilk seems to have been covered by the crackers. Oh well.

Rossmann (€2.94 cash)
8 passport photos - €1.95
Washing soda - 99c

Brosi (€9 vouchers and €1.25 cash)
Pork belly (598g @ €7.50/kg) - €4.49
Turkey pieces (218g @ €13.90/kg) - €3.03
2 spicy sausages (124g @ €22.00/kg) - €2.73

Tischdame (€2.10 cash)
Salami with hazelnuts (50g @ €42.00/kg) - €2.10

Aldi (€15.40 cash via debit card)
1 lt. milk - 99c
1 kg museli - €1.49 (looking back I bought this on 25th July so looks like a kilo lasts me three weeks)
500g organic lentils - €1.55 (special offer this week is a whole load of organic stuff - not sure Aldi normally sell lentils so good to get them)
500g organic white beans - €1.55 (same special offer)
Yoghurt - 45c
Labello - 99c (near cash register - I know I'll need one soon so grabbed it)
6 fair trade organic bananas - €1.31 (you can just see one at the top of the photo - very green bananas but in the heat at the moment, these should be just nice by Monday)
1 tin tuna - 99c
1 tin tomatoes - 39c
Organic mozzarella - 89c (after taste testing both the organic and non-organic I prefer this one. The other is a bit creamier, which is nice, but this one just has more flavour, even if it is a bit firmer)
Quark - 45c
1 A4 folder - 99c
2 packets 8 wraps - 99c each (these were a special offer a few weeks ago and only seem to be selling very slowly but since they're delicious and in date until December, I grabbed another couple of packets)
2 x feta - 69c each

Post office (23c cash)
23c (one of the letters I was sending was over the standard weight so I had to add to the stamp I already had)

Edeka (€13.50 vouchers and €4.48 cash - annoyingly she wouldn't just take another voucher and keep the 2c - the till wasn't programmed to allow her to do that and if the till won't allow it there's no flexibility. I would have put stuff back but there was already a long queue behind me so I just paid the cash for the rest and moved on - no point in annoying everyone else just 'cos I was hot and bothered.)
1 lt. cider vinegar (for hair) - €1.69
1 large tin coconut milk - €1.29
Washing-up liquid - €1.49
1 lt. white vinegar (for cleaning) - 39c
1kg frozen green beans - €1.69
Buttermilk - 39c (special offer - so I think there's some soda bread on the menu for next week)
1 large packet maltesers - €2.79
Riffels crisps - €1.99
Sensations crisps - €1.69
Chips crackers - 99c
Dark chocolate - €1.09
Spray bottle - €2.49 (want to make my own cleaners to spray on tiles and so on so will be stocking up on a couple more of these over the next while)

So all told, I make that €45.31, which is a lot of money. I've gotten quite a few things for the store cupboard and enough rubbish to easily see me through two weeks, I think. Next week I should only need milk and yoghurt. In fact, I think I'm going to give myself a little challenge to not spend anything more than one €4.50 voucher next weekend. It means buying slightly more expensive milk and yoghurt (Aldi don't take the vouchers) but I have more than enough otherwise to get good food on the table every day.

Discipline

Have I mentioned yet that I found a quote on mortgagethreeinfree recently that really resonated with me?

Discipline is just choosing between what you want now and what you want most

I started reading MFin3 last year and for some reason I never added it to my list of links and then forgot about it. I revisited in the run-up to christmas and got a great recipe for advocat cake, which became the most popular thing I baked all winter. And it had been on my mind to go back and have a look again for a while. So, for the past week or two I've been making my way through the archives and getting lots of inspiration. And a tutorial for making a thermal cooking bag, which I can't wait to try and make.

But that quote, which I printed out and have sitting propped up against the wall in my sitting room, is ringing in my head every day. No more excuses, if I want to take a month off in November I need to start saving big time. I don't have enough time to do anything other than scrape every cent together that I can. And if I want to lose weight, then eating large packets of crisps every day won't get it done. If I don't want to have to face piles and piles of washing up at the weekend then ignoring the couple of things that need to be washed every day will not help.

Last week, on Friday no less, I had my first proper fast day. The 5:2 fast diet did work really well for me when I started it way back in summer 2013 and although life got derailed a couple of months later, I've only ever half-heartedly gotten back to it. But that won't get it done. So, Wednesday was my second and so far it's going well. Didn't do one today for a couple of different reasons but I think I'll go back to my old pattern of Sundays and Wednesdays being my fast days.

This week, despite being very tired, work being pretty crap and feeling in general kind of overwhelmed, I have been managing to spend very little money and cook proper meals, using up all of the veg that has been sitting around for a couple of weeks. Or months, in the case of these sweet potatoes.

Terrible photo, I know but it looks lovely in real life, I promise

So I've been getting home from work so wrecked I don't want to do anything. It's a constant battle in my head on the way home to not stop in the supermarket to buy something frozen to throw into the oven or at a fast food place to buy chips or a kebab. And it has been warm. Not terribly, usually around the mid-20s but really, really humid and stuffy all that time. I have been making it home without giving in every day though and then I've just been collapsing on the couch. After half-an-hour or an hour, by which time it has started to cool down, I've gotten up and headed into the kitchen.

On Tuesday I used up baguette from the freezer, half a jar of my own passata from last year, a grated courgette, the last of some grated cheese and a couple of slices that were in the fridge begging to be used up as well as the other half of the very big tomato that I'd gotten to have with my salad at lunch time. Delicious French bread pizzas - more nutritious, tastier and more filling than the frozen version. While they were cooking I sliced the remainder of the courgettes and sauteed them (buying me a couple more days time to do actually use them up) and got the washing-up done.

On Wednesday morning I managed to be slightly organised in the morning and had time to mix up some quark with some tuna and a "lemon curry dip" spice I have. Half of that into a Tupperware container along with a couple of sliced up scallions became lunch when it was added to the last of my lettuce and a wrap. In the evening, I just went into the kitchen to get the washing up done and then since I was there I decided to cook the cabbage I'd meant to do at the weekend anyway. That cabbage is one I got two weeks ago and I did not want any more veg going to waste. And so, although I wasn't going to, at half-ten at night, cook the full meal as planned (red split lentils with cabbage from Smitten Kitchen), I thought at least I could get a headstart and make the cabbage part of it. Oh my is all I can say. I used four times as much cabbage as given, added bacon bits, increased the spices, used dried chilies instead of fresh and ended up cooking it for longer than the recipe says (because I was doing the washing up. Yay me!). But it seems to be a forgiving recipe and was absolutely spectacular, if I do say so myself. I wasn't even going to eat any, being on a fast day and not actually particularly hungry but it smelled so good I couldn't resist a small plateful. The rest went into the fridge in Tupperware to wait for me to do the lentils.

On Thursday then I took the rest of the quark and tuna mix to work for lunch, buying a couple of bread rolls on the way to work to have with it. And when I got into the kitchen on Thursday evening, I ended up just heating up the rest of the cabbage and eating the whole lot of it. Okay, I was very full (had some garlic bread with it) but if you had told me a few years ago I'd happily sit down to a very large plate of cabbage and not much else, I'd have called you mad. While that was cooking I threw together a quick pastryless quiche, using up the courgettes, the rest of the sliced cheese, some more of the bacon bits and the remaining eggs along with a good sprinkling of herbs. Half of that became my lunch today and I'll have the rest tomorrow. And I even got the washing-up done before sitting down to eat.

Pastryless quiche. Still not quite sure why I don't just call it baked omelette. 

So, now I have some chard and some bread beans in the fridge (they've been there since last Thursday and I haven't checked to see if they're actually surviving) and I have some carrots and celery as well. Then there's the remaining quarter packet of bacon bits, the rest of the jar of passata and another container which has the other half of the quark, which I mixed up with an Italian herb mix. This evening, although I did end up eating the frozen pizza baguettes I had in the freezer (really, not a patch on the homemade ones from earlier in the week), I used the time they were in the oven to do the washing up. And then decided that since I had the oven on, I really should cook those sweet potatoes. So I peeled and chopped them, added a glug of oil and then mixed cumin and salt (a la the Ottolenghi recipe from Plenty that I have made several times in the last couple of years) with the addition of a little bit of coriander, cayenne and cinnamon. Then into the oven with them. That'll be a quick and easy lunch tomorrow then.

In the same way that Mr. Money Mustache talks about exercising your frugality muscle, I'm slowly trying to build up my disciple muscle again. It's all just the normal stuff that millions of people do all the time all over the world but to be honest it has taken every bit of energy I've had spare this week. This week it seems like taking a break and sitting (or lying) quietly for a while after getting home has been the key to getting the food side of things sorted. We'll see how next week turns out.