Fine Wine a mouth-ful at a time

After a brief roller-coaster, I hit 179 solidly this a.m. I had last weekened been on a business trip-honest- to Maine, which involved fishing and sampling fine wines--there were hundreds of bottles. I had a mouthful here and a mouthfull there, as if I were in a winery. I savored each taste more than I would have if I had been freely imbibing. I never got that nice buzz, however, which makes me envious of the astrounauts, spaced out into space. I also cheated on a dessert--I had strawberry shortcake on shortbread, my reward for hitting 180 pounds. Otherwise, I avoided carbs.
When I returned home three days later, I hit 181! I fasted from carbs an entire day and rode my bike six miles after work. The next day I was at 180. I had two pieces of bread that day and a bud of dark chocolate along with the omlette for breakfast, salad for lunch and a salad and chicken breast for dinner.
The bread, by the way, is whole grain. The slices are thin. I cut it myself. In any event, I have four more pounds to go to hit my target of 175, at which point I might establish a new goal of 170! I want my gut to go flat. I also want expenditures for food to go flat to down. Food inflation only will get worse, due to the boneheads in Congress and their fixation on ethanol as a substitute for oil. Shrink your belly, fatten your wallets!

The Road of Life

The Road of life twists and turns and has highs and lows. Dieting is a part of life and therefore is no different. I was at a fishing retreat with a delightful group of financial experts who brought lots of fine wines and engagend in several days and nights of robust dining. I tried holding the line on carbs, but could not resist a half of glass of wine here and there and one dessert- strawberries and cream on short bread. I gained a pound to 181.
It's frustrating because even though I am 17 poiund lighter than when I started the diet, I am not yet satisfied. Today, no carbs. I had a small, egg beater omleytte for breakfast with onions, mushrooms, and an ouce of cheese; 8 ounces of ham for lunch, with a package of cashews (2 oz.). Talapia is on the menue for dinner.
I walked a mile to the train and will walk a mile back. Later this week, Ii'll also go for a bike ride, since the ehat wave has broken.
As for that wine-- a little is better than a lot because you savor your small ration more than a big ration.

The last five are the most difficult

I had a couple glasses of wine Friday night while boating with friends. I shot up the next day to 180 from 179. I went total meat and cheese on Sat., including dinner at a nice restaurant and dropped to 180. I also went for a short five-mile bike rise. Sunday, it was too hot to do anything. I read, played the guitar, had half-slice or bread-- woke up Monday at 181!
Man, it's tough after the first 20 pounds to drop an additional five pounds. I plan to ride hard tonight after work. I'm also eatiung less. Sunday, I reached for the cheese or turkey bacon every time I had a hunger pain. That's no good. Atkins be damned, it's all about portion size and exercise now. You cannot eat without restraint, regardless if the food has no carbos, and expect to shed pounds forever. There comes a day of reckoning when you have to eat less to lose additional weight and I have reached it. Bummer.

Back on Track

It was a relief yesterday afternoon to resume the low-carb diet after two days on liquid. Even a forbidden milk shake during that period did not assuage the nastiness of that two-day, all liquid regime, which was in anticipation of a colonoscopy. I passed, a solid A, so to speak. I expected this. More remarkable to me was my blood pressure, which was perfectly normal. The last time I had my blood pressure taken, it had been high. It would seem to me, a non-scientist, that the weight loss and my walking and biking regime are delivering additional health benefits.
I had a salad for lunch yesterday, though I was not hungry. I felt badly in need of nourishment. I had some trail mix immediately after the proceedure and frankly, my appetite had become so diminished that I could have refrained from food the rest of the day.
For dinner, I had salad and two hot dogs-- a feast. This stuffed me. I had nothing else for the rest of the night. This morning, however, I had a craving for eggs and bacon and so I indulged, making myself three strips of turkey bacon and an egg-white omlette with a chicken chipoltle sausage from Trader Joe's--it was exquisite. I am satiated.
Oddly, though I had little appetite yesterday, I dreamed of food last night! I've never, ever before dreamed of food. In the dream, I was at a film-party eating handfulls of giant blueberries and nibbling on a confection that coosnsited of cream within a thin, glazed cup of carmel, which tasted rather nasty. I returned to the blueberries.
At the film party I was discussing Will Ferrell as if he were an important motion picture artist and commenting that when he scored a comedic hit, he immediately produced another film in practically the same genre to preempt any immitators, which my dream self thought was a marvellous economic scheme. In reality, I 've seen just one of his films--the spoof of race driving. I laughed just once, when he drove his car down the street while blindfolded. I found most of the film to be excrutuatingly juvenile and was very sorry that I had spent the four bucks to rent it at Blockbuster.
What are my favoirte comedies? The original Pink Panther; Road to Morrocco; Monty Python and the Holy Grail; Cactus Flower; Caddy Shack; The Three Amigos; Ghostbusters; Stripes; Uncle Buck; Some Like It Hot; and The Odd Couple.

Life on Liquids: I feel Awash.

How many of us in the West experience genuine hunger, the gnawing, persistant pain that accompanies us when we are uncertain where our next meal will come from if it comes at all? We are awash in food. Stroll down an avenue in Washington, D.C. and there are vending carts on every corner staffed by immigrants from Viet Nam, Africa, Egypt, festooned with brightly-packaged goodies. It lends our stately avenues the atmosphere of the midway, which is more true to the soul of the place than suggested by the imposing, weighty, sombre, architecture that shelters the governing establishment. The moment our stomach whimpers, we rush to appease it because food is plentful and hardly dear.
Imagine what it was like in earlier times when food--even junk food- was not easily accesible. You can appreciate the desperation of hunger through books if you are a careful, immaginative reader. I can get lost in the thicket of words--so submerged that the events in the real world around me, like the arrival of my Metro train at my destination go totaly unnoticed.
For experiences of hunger, I'd first suggest Patrick O'Brian's brilliant Master and Commander-- his first volume or overature of a series that is as majestic and monumental as a Bethoven Symphoney. Here we meet the brilliant Stephen Maturin, a doctor and naturalist gifted with uncommon curiosity and reasoning abilities (based on O'Brian himself) who is unemployed at the moment and famished. Try reading the first few chapters on an empty stomach. You become fast friends with Stephen!
University English Departments (or History Departments) should teach courses in historic fiction. O'Brien would be taught alongside Shakespeare. Will is the undisputed master, of course, a man who was no small gift from the heavens, an Einstein of the written word, and so on. O'Brian is as skilled a writer--I would venture more skilled a writer than Charles Dickens. See for yourself.
If you don't lie O'Brian and would prefer a more contemporary story with fine plotting and fine psychological drama if not the highest caliber of writing, try King Rat by James Clavell, which describes life in a Japanese-administered, prisoner-run detention camp near Singapore during WW2.
My liquid diet, which is richer in carbs than I prefer because I bought some Hunt pre-packaged pudding snaks, 23 grams of carbs each, had not been damaging after all. I weighed 179 on the medical-grade scale this a.m.
I was more famished than usual upon airising--I surmise it is the sugars. One day to go on this ghastly regime.
I went to an outdoor concert last night and listened to the Alexandria Symphony. New to the city, I was unaware we had one! They were quite good, commensurate with one I heard in Hartford not to long ago though certainly not as grand as the BSO.
This morning as I peck away with five fingers(my style. my hands are complete)I've had a cup of hot tea, with the blue stuff for sweetener. Red Rose is my preferred brand. I shall have some yogurt now, also sweetened with the blue stuff (refers to packaging of the white powder.) For lunch, 15 ounces of plain yogurt, sweetened with blue stuff and a pinch of Vanilla extract. No dinner. I feel like Stephen.

You can eat too much even on Atkins. In preparation for my two days of liquid only, I loaded up on organic hot dogs last night-- two of them, in addition to three that I had for lunch, without rolls, of course. For dinner I had two piecs of chicken--no salads or vegitables becuase of the pending colonoscopy on Monday. For a snack, I had half an ounce of milk chocolate and three taco chips. When I awoke this morning, I was up two pounds to 182!
I slept late too--until 8:45 a.m. I got up and took the bike out for a leisurely seven-mile ride. I rode up Royal Street through Old Town. It links up to the Mount Vernon bike tail south of town. The trail was packed. Today it is a multi-use trail as opposed to a bike trail. You have the usual overweight walkers hogging the path, plus kids on training wheels, moms pushing those jogging strollers, bird watchers, biking families, bike clubs, girls on roller blades, and the crazies who think they are in the Tour De France. The park service had two rangers on bike patrol, but they are helpless to enforce any rules.
The speedsters remind me of the kids on motorcycles on Route 95 going 100 mph in heavy traffic. They are exclusively male--late 20s, early 30s, whom I suspect have no wives or lovers or children or close friends. They are entirely self-centered with utter disregard for others. I also suspect they have no sex lives and the frustration builds to an inner rage that must be vented by endangering other human beings on the bike trail.
The temperature was soaring toward the nineties, which turned me back home. I took two water breaks on the return trip. I don't think it's macho to risk a stroke. On the trip out, the Potomac River tide was low and mud flats stretched for nearly half a mile. On the return trip, the tide had reversed. The inflow must be rapid and I must make a point of watching it some day.
There are still ducklings on the river. I thought that I saw a perching bald eagle, but in closer inspection it was some sort of white-headed vulture.
For lunch today, I will have a vanella milkshake--very un-Atkins. But I need something substantial while on this liquid diet. Then I'll pick up some power shake mix at the grocery.

Gullible America Swallows Anything!

Few things are more revolting than an uniformed opinion; and yet we are awash in them. Everyone has a bag of soundbites. Careful, reasoned responses are as rare as rain in the west.
Right wing nuts are more like yeah-saying bobble-heads than ditto-heads. Left wing nuts are like spiritualy starved primatives ever willing to worship the newest idol.
I was perplexed when a crowd cheered Bill Clinton on Thursday when he urged the US to ban incandescent light bulbs and to imitate the energy policies of Denmark. They should have been booing. Bill's was a premeditated, cynical suggestion designed to play on the child-like scientfic fantasies of the most mentally vulnerable members of our society--the electorate. How can I make such a charge? Bill has an astronomically high IQ and thus is too smart to have committed an inocent mistake.
Ban the bulb? Reasonable persons see the negative market consequences of such a policy. Imagine the cost of cars circa 1908 if Congressional fiat had banned the horse. The car triumphed because the market perceived it was a superior product. Beware of politicians who grow find of the word "ban."
Denmark? They have 5.5 million citizens. They rely on windmills for 20% of their power. They also have very high taxes and very high energy costs and very high employment--no underclasses, few immigrants. Talk about apple and orange comparisons! Would Bill also adopt Denmarks 28% corporate tax rate, it's streamline regulatory regime which allows businesses to launch at minimal cost in days, not weeks or months? Would he adopt Denmark's policy of a single language, a narrow culture? No one in the crowd raised any question of any sort. Again, we swallow just about anything.
Today for breakfast I had two egg-white omlettes with chicken chipotle sausage from Trader Joe's. I cannot eat bread today because I must diet in advance of a colonoscopy. Saturday and Sunday, I am permitted nothing but liquids! No dinner Sunday night-liquid included.
The prep is terrible. But it is well worth it in the end (excuse the miserable pun, please). I did this five years ago. I had no polyps. One never knows. I know too many people who have develped colon cancer to pass on the exam (I can't help myself--I love administering pun-ishments).

You can't merely diet; you must change your lifestyle.

The pathetic irony about fat people on the bike trail who are eitherpower-walking or biking or jogging is that they are trying to get into shape and insteaqd are likely killing themselves. The human heart is not equipped for such stress;nor are the knees;the hips;the ankles. I often feel like dismounting my bike everytime I see one of these poor, lumbering souls to preach to them the merits of the low-carb life.
This life takes the commitment of a monk as well as considerable patience, and grit. When you go cold turkey and commit to zero carbs for two weeks, you suffer agonizing withdrawal symptoms; plus after a week of the cravings for bread or cerial pr pretzels or some other poison, the diet doesn't seem worth the effort because your weight pretty much remains the same. After two weeks, however, you begin to drop two or three pounds suddenly and the cravings moderate. This is when you alolow yourself a single piece of bread a day. After two months, you are down 15 pounds. Celebrate. You new may have three glasses of booze a week and, occasionally, a small portion of desert, provided you don's exceed 75 grams to 100 grams of poison carbs on any given day and provided you walk a mile or two each day as well. (I said it wasn't easy. Anything worthy achievement takes effort).
Patience is an attribute that is hard to come by in my family. I began to appreciate patience on Christmas day, 2006 when my wife bought me, a non-musician, a guitar and two-months worth of classical guitar lessons!
I looked at that thing , turning it uneasily in my hands, and said, "I am going to master you!"
My marvellous teacher, Zoe Johnstone, who lives near Baltimore, demanded that I learn to site-read music! I began one string at a time. Within two weeks, I could do it! (with the help of a book by Jason Waldron) I've been practicing 20-minutes-per day for a year and a half now. My 58-year-old fingers can make choords that were impossible for them in the pre-guitar era. I'm a plodding pupil, but a determined one. Now trying to learn on my own--having moved too far from Zoe's classroom to get there every week-- I've managed to simultaneously get halfway through two classical guitar manuels for beginners. Younger students or more gifted ones no doubt cover twice the ground in the same period it has taken me to go this far. Age has its disadvantages. I still struggle to place my fingers perfectly before the fret, a physical challenge given my small hands. But I am determined to become proficient on the guitar even if it takes ten years.
I see progress each day. This delightful experience in music has has given me the ability to stick to my new lifestyle of low carbs and exercise.
Remember the anxiety ridden character whom Bill Murray played in the film "What about Bob?"(Hint: Bob). Bob's psychiatrist, played by Richard Dreyfus, urged Bob to proceed each day with "baby steps." It's another version of the adage, "You must first learn to creep before you can crawl." For most of us, this is true. So prepare yourself for a campaign that lasts months, not weeks; and for incremental results that add up to major weight-loss in a quarter of a year; and then for a maintenace diet that lasts a lifetime.

A New Life

It's 5:45 a.m. The sun is peeking over the roofs of the townhouses in Old Town. The birds are making a racket. I'm up and waiting for an incoming phone call from the Middle East, and feeling a bit woozy. I've just read an article in the Washington Post that says most diets are temporary fixes that will help you shed 15 pounds but fail to keep it off. If the article is correct, the 15 pounds I've recently shed should return gradually within five years.
I've had this happen once before, and it had nothing to do with the diet aned everything to do with me. I went off the diet when I achieved my targeted weight. This time, I am making the diet part of my permanent lifestyle. I do not want to get fat again. I feel too good at a lower weight and will feel even better when I drop from 180 to 170, where the charts say a 5-foot, 9-inch man should be.
I have more energy. My bad knes feel much better with less weight to carry. My stomach, which looked like a sack, is flattening. My face has become sculpted. I look much better on TV.
I must confess that it was TV that spurred me on. I appeared on a local show to discuss some event of the day. I saw the clip. It was startling. There is something much more frank about a video image of ones self than the image in the mirror. For some reason, you are hyper-sensitive to every personal flaw when you view the video. Perhaps its because you realize that it has been seen by thousands of others and that it will define you in their eyes. You notice the quirks you have when speaking, the foolish way that you smile, the slouch of your back, the jowls on your jawline. TV was my inspiration for dieting. I would advise you all to get out the old video camera or borrow a friends and tape yourself playing pundit, discussing the days great issue--terrorist physicians in London; the pardon of Scooter Libby as opposed to the border agents who shot a fleeing Mexican in the buttocks; middle-class angst. I suspect that a video of myself taking a stroll, shot from the rear, also would be disturbing. One of my favorite pasttimes is to analyse the silly walks of the tourists who frequent our city.
What a silly herd the tourists are, attired for a beach town, not the Capital City. Granted, the weather here can be sultry, the humity turning your cloths into sweaty rags; but there should be some sense of decorum, some exhibit of personal pride. Older men and women in shorts are hardly a treat for the eyes. And ladies, please cover your garrish tatoos. The children in their tees and flip flops look like survivors of a ship wreck. The Capital never will be mistaken for a fashion center, that's for certain.
Went for a bike ride last night and some speeding clown came flying around a hairpin in my lane, braked, skidded into me like a soccer player taling the legs out from under an opponent--the so-called tackle. My front tire went up over his rear tire, sending me airborn. I caught onto a fence rail on the way down, which saved me. My chain flew off, but otherwise the bike was undamaged. The other rider had no identification and looked ready to flee when I produced my cell and threateened to call the cops. He fixed my bike, apologized profusely and politely endured my lecture about consideration for ones fellow man. As we were dusting ourselves off, trying to determine if either one of us had suffered a serious injury, some stubble-faced gray head came tearing around the same hair-pin turn and nearly coliided with us. Instead of stopping to offer assistance, he cursed us for being in his way. Pumped with adreniline, I shouted a nasty insult at the man (that I later regretted--I felt ashamed ) and would have charged into him with my fists if he had stopped to defend his "honor." Thank God he kept going. I parted amicably with the man who crashed into me. I must find a section of the bike trail free from the speed freaks. I don't believe there is such a place in this city of self-absorbed, career-climbing, A-type personalites! I must retain a cooler head next time this happens and and a more compassionate "first response." Our entire being must constantly be under review and tweaked to make us better persons. We must weigh our consciences each day, not just our physical mass. Today, I will strive to be a better person.

I wake up hungry.

"Hunger is good. Being hungry is better than being satiated and fat. I never, ever want to be fat again. "

I repeat this every morning--my mantra. I don't want to become one of the cattle I see on the sidewalks of Washington, D.C., with rear ends that remind me of a lumbering semi-wide trailer panting up an incline. I've lost 20 pounds since Easter in a modified, low-carbohydrate diet. I look better, I have more energy, and I have a superiority complex when it comes to overweight persons. You can have all of this too.

Breakfast this morning: An egg-white omlette with mushrooms and sharp chees and a ice-heaped glass of Crystle Light ice tea.

I'm JAM--James Aloysius McTague. Jam, by the way, is not a part of the diet-- to many carbs. Carbs in quantity are a poison. You think that the Chinese are the only ones trying to poison you and your pets? Look at the labels. Any serving size with more than 25 grams of carbs is as bad as fish laced with mercury in the House of JAM!

I limit myself to 75-100 grams of carbs a day. I have one slice of whole-grain, seeded bread from Trader Joes--that's a dessert; three mini-pretzels; and ocassionally, one piece of unsweetened gourmet chocolate, which can be very delicious, dark chocolate lovers, if you buy the premium stuff. I have a two-pack of Fig Newtons for a snack.

I have a chef's salad for lunch. Chicken and fish and a salad for dinner, except for tonight. I'm home alone for a few days. I made an egg-white omlette with Canadian bacon and mushrooms and cheese. The pounds fall off like bricks the first few months and your appetite diminishes.
I started on Easter Sunday at 198 pounds, size 38 waist. Today I hit 180. My size 36 pants are a bit loose. My goal is 170 pounds and a size 34 waist.
The last ten pounds no doubt will be the hardest because I will reward myself with a piece of strawberry shortcake at a local restaurant if I can maintain 180 pounds for a week. You can stray ocassionally--once a month. As for booze, I'm sorry to say that I'm down to three glasses of wine a week. On the other hand, my acid reflux seems to have retreated!

The diet creates a virtuous circle. Your energy levels increase and you get more from exercise. I used to walk two miles per day and I lost no weight. I still walk two miles per day. But now I also bike several times a week. I live near one of the most beautiful bike trails in the world.
My normal rise is about eight miles, and I lollygag, taking an hour. I don't pretend to be an aspirant for La Tour, though many bikers do so, creating hazards similar to those you find on the interstate. Friday evening a week ago I set off from Alexandria along the Potomac for a short jaunt and I felt great. Before I knew it I came across a sign that read "3.5 miles to Mount Vernon," the home of George Washington. I went for it. The distancre out was 11 miles, so round-trip was 22! I'm age 58! I had never ridden anywhere near this in my life.
I arose early Sunday and set out north a;long the river for an eight-mile trip, up and back, which takes me past the Jefferson Memorial and the Washington Monument. I figured there would be little bike traffic at that hour on the path, which is only about five-feet wide, if that. What I did not expect was an army of walkers, most of them obese, walking two abreast and totally blocking one side or the other pf the pathway. They will not yield. There's something obstinate in their refusal to step aside momentarily and share the path.
A ride becomes like a giant game of Parcheesi with fat persons at time straddling the pathway fpour abreast, two headed north, two headed south, nearly causing the Greg LeMonde wannabees to pile up. I generally go off on the grass and peddal around the great land-bound whales. I feel like stopping and preaching the merits of the low-carb diest. obviously these poor people have arisen early to exercise, to begin a regemine that they believe will help them shed copious amouns of weight. It won't work! CARBS IN LARGE AMOUNTS ARE POISON! America's food manufaturers are killing you off. You ever wonder why people go off to slaughter without a fuss? You are those people going off to slaughter. That omlette I just consumed with a teasponn of organic ketchup was superb. I think I'll have another glass of Crystal Light, change, and go for a leisurely bike ride