The RDA method

Never in the entire four years we've been together has he had even so much as a sniffle. Never sick. Not in eight years. He's never sick.

So last night when he got his first migraine in years, I was a little alarmed.

Before CR, he used to get them once a month, and they were debilitating. Horrible. Extreme pain, lasting more than 24 hours, with nausea, sensory disturbances, etc. His brother and father and sister get them too, but CR pretty much knocked out his. He had gotten only two in the approximately ten years he's practiced CR.

Until last night. At dinner he said he had a headache. Then it got worse and worse and he couldn't finish his food. MR ALWAYS eats all his food. I was scared. I put him to bed and hovered over him more than was helpful but I was freaked out! He never feels ill! And so soon upon Philomena's passing, I was worried he was going to die.

He recovered in record time, and in a few hours got up to finish his dinner do the dishes and go to bed (he did applaud my efforts to put the dishes in the dishwasher -- in our house, I cook and clean but he does dishes.) This morning he was fine, and he slept well.

It occurs to me that normal couples deal with one or the other being ill quite early in a relationship, and it is downright freakish that I had never seen my angel experience even the smallest amount of sickness in four years. CR does that -- it cures everything and what it doesn't cure it prevents. To me, that is worth just as much if not more than life-extension. Enjoying the life you have now, in a healthy body. Even with that one migraine (brought on I think by tremendous stress as I was needing so much support grieving for Philomena) he only felt extreme pain for a few hours, and mild pain for a day. No cold, no flu, nothing of the sort, ever.

More soon on weekend foods...

In spite of ongoing sadness over the passing of Philomena, we had a nice New Years. I made one of MR's 2008 favorites: curried pumpkin portabella mushroom pizzas. I also made a salad of collard greens and squash, plus a new creation: eggnog!

MR decided he wanted eggnog, so I synthesized it as best I could. 3/4 cup of kefir, 1/4 cup Eggbeaters (which we rarely use due to synthetic vitamin A but every once in awhile is okay) and a bit of rum extract, plus cinnamon, nutmeg, and a dot of sucralose (you could use Splenda.) It turned out well... he liked it.

This morning MR made us his special Sunday breakfast, even though it's not Sunday. That's our traditional eggwhite vegetable scramble with low-carb pancakes, though I rarely eat the pancakes anymore because the eggwhite scramble is sufficiently filling for my breakfast.

Today for New Years Day I'll be making a dish of collard greens and black eyed peas, to bring prosperity and good luck in the New Year. I'll post the recipe once it's done!

PS If you have a CR-related blog, please do drop me a note or a comment and let me know. I love to follow them!

Thank you so much to all for your sweet comments. It really does mean a lot to me. Especially the beautiful poem... I've cried a lot but now am crying more because I'm grateful that she had a peaceful, happy ending. It's hard to walk by the bedroom knowing that she won't be there to sit up and meow at me, and that I won't be able to walk in and give her a little scratch on the head and a kiss and cuddle, but I'm doing better. I promised her I'd be okay so I will be.

Meanwhile, many have asked if Kieffer will be allowed upstairs now. The answer is no. He's used to being downstairs cat, patrolling the first floor and the basement, and MR has no wish to sleep with Kieffer. He's also much stronger and more inquisitive than the elderly Miss Philomena ever was, so while we could easily keep her out of MR's office, Kieffer would be in there first thing, disturbing books and papers and howling all day at MR to feed him. So we will keep the current arrangement, just with humans upstairs and cat down. Kieffer is quite content, and grateful for the extra Christmas turkey that the passing of his feline colleague somehow awarded to him.

It's a windy, slightly snowy day today and MR and I are staying in tonight. We never go out on NYE: I am scared of drunk drivers. I'm making a special dinner tonight and we'll eat by candlelight, then we'll snuggle up and go to bed at our normal time.

This afternoon I made a fabulous stew, so yummy that I wanted to post the recipe. I made it with the homemade turkey broth that MR's mother put together while she was here from the remains of our Christmas turkey, and it's really the broth that makes the stew, so I suggest that if any of you are thinking of using up stock from your Christmas dinner, try this.

Turkey Leek Stew:

Homemade turkey stock
One long leek
Quorn (I used, you could use more turkey which would be even better!)
Button mushrooms
cauliflower
asparagus
garlic
black pepper
olive oil

Boil the broth and add the protein and the leeks and garlic. The leeks do best if they cook down for quite awhile so they can infuse the rest of the dish.

After the leeks had had about half an hour to simmer (I turned the heat down after they boiled for a few minutes) I added the mushrooms and the harder, lower parts of the asparagus, the parts that most people throw out. Let them steam for a few minutes, then added the cauliflower florets and asparagus tops so they steamed for just a minute or two before serving.

Added black pepper. Removed from heat and added olive oil.

The dish was amazing, mostly due to MoMR's brilliant turkey broth. I strongly recommend it. From now on I'm making stock anytime we eat a turkey.

A Happy New Year to all. May 2009 bring us health, happiness, and most importantly, love.

Philomena nearly died in February of 2004. She was already old (18 or 19) and she stopped eating the weekend after Valentine's. I was afraid she was diabetic, but I took her to the vet and they diagnosed her with kidney disease. She was on antibiotics and for awhile had to have fluids every day. I thought we were going to lose her. I was terrified for years when I had to be out of town that I'd come home to find a dead cat. I always had sitters, either my mom or a paid sitter or later MR stay with her, but I was scared.

Yet she lived for nearly five years. To be 22, an ancient age in kitty years. She lived in good health, enjoying every little snuggle and purr and can of Fancy Feast in her kitty life. I always considered those five years a miracle. Every night I spent with her cuddled up on my pillow was a blessing.

She was living on stolen time, really. It's extremely rare for cats to live to be so long. We stole the time with medical care and lots and lots of love.

We're all living on stolen time, if you think about it. A lot of it would never have survived childhood prior to antibiotics and basic sanitation. Many of our mothers would have died in childbirth. Some of us would have succumbed to infections were it not for vacinations. The fact that at 38 and 34 MR and I can consider our lives only just begun (with apologies I assure you to Karen Carpenter) is a miracle of modern medicine.

One of the lessons I learned from Philo's near death experience back in 2004 is to value every moment I have with those I love. MR would probably argue that I go overboard with this... I never go to bed angry, we tell each other we love each other about fifty times a day, and we like to check in when we get to our destinations when we go on trips. I want my loved ones to be safe and to know they're loved. I promised Philo when I adopted her that I'd never leave her, and I never did. I was with her to the final moment. It's very important to me to make sure the ones I'm close to, even when we fight, know how much I love and value them.

CR is an attempt to steal more time. I've never seen it as much different than all the others: antibiotics, sanitation, decrease in death in childbirth, etc. Ways we cheat the jungle of nature and make our lives as humans somewhat longer, somewhat more meaningful, than a pitched battle against bacteria on one end and giant beasts on the other. The quest for serious life extension is just the same, on a grander scale. The logic of those who argue that it's somehow immoral to want to extend your life falls apart so fast that I got bored with arguing with them.

There are, of course, ways in which we give away time. Yoga and meditation have taught me that when we sit quietly with ourselves, we win back time. We don't have to know why it works, only that it works. When we allow ourselves to experience pure awareness, completely in the moment, we win back time.

By the same token, when we allow others to dictate our path, when we respond rather than acting upon the universe, we give up time. I've given away a lot. I stopped media because I realized I was giving up time. My life was being sucked up in defending myself for no good reason, so I quit. I really do have better things to do.

There are so many ways to give up our valuable time... you don't need me to name them all. We can all think of ways we've wasted or given away our life energy in pursuits that really didn't get us any closer to those we love or anything we wanted.

I put to you that life-extension is about both the physical and the spiritual. What good would it do to extend my biological lifespan if I lacked a spiritual awareness of my world as so much more than flesh and bone? And what good would it do to achieve enlightenment in a body that I was abusing with food (or anything else) to the point where I would die young? For me there's a balance: yoga and CR, hard work and also deep meditation, a serious relationship. I expect the balance is different for everyone, but I believe it's there.

I miss Philomena something terrible. I don't know how I'll sleep tonight without her on my pillow. But I'm grateful for all the years of love and cuddles we stole together. And grateful to her for all the lessons she left me with when she so gracefully and delicately left this mortal world.

Some of you got this in personal email as well:

Most of you know Philomena Mariko, my 22 year old calico cat whom I've had since 1999. And most of you know that she's been ill recently. Today she passed away very peacefully at approximately 2:45 pm at the Chestnut Hill Cat Clinic. My mother and I were there holding her. She died of kidney and heart failure, but we are very blessed that while she became noticably ill on Christmas night, she suffered very little and was only in pain in the last twenty-four hours or so of her life. For the most part she just purred contentedly as we petted her, even as she was clearly fading away. She had battled kidney disease since 2004, and has been getting subcutaneous fluids since that time, but had done so well that the kidney disease was under control until just about two weeks ago. We're very grateful that she suffered almost none at all and was able to die quietly and at peace surrounded by the people who love her.

Philomena was already an older kitty when she came to live with me on July 3, 1999. We believe that she first lived with an elderly lady, as she was found at a vet's office in a paper bag stapled shut with a note that read, "This was Grandma's cat. We don't want her anymore." She was clearly raised by someone who loved her dearly, as she's always been extrarordinarily affectionate.

She then came to live with a friend of my friend Kate Mills, who loved her very much but had to give her up when she was evicted from her apartment. Then she came to be in Kate's care, and Kate was desperate to find her a good home because while Kate adored the kitty, Kate is deathly allergic to cats. She knew how much I loved my kitties so she asked me to take Philomena. So in July of 1999, two days after our election victory at Cooper Hospital in Camden, NJ, my friend Lisa, my mother and I drove up to Brooklyn to collect the kitty, then called Miss Peabody because she was so prim and proper, her owners said.

I wanted to give her a more graceful name than Miss Peabody, and I discussed the problem with two of our Cooper organizing committee members a few days before the vote. Their names were Philomena and Mariko, and I decided on the spot to name her after them. What better name for a stray cat survivor from Brooklyn than the names of two trauma ICU nurses from Camden? Though her name was Philomena, she was frequently still called Miss P or Philo.

For ten years she lived with me and was my great joy. She slept most nights on my pillow, purring with her little paw on my face. She loved to share my regular insomnia attacks with me, and we'd spend hours petting and purring in the night while I counted up votes on an election campaign in my head or planned strategy or just lay there being grateful for my sweet kitty.

She never did get along with Kieffer, my giant gray tabby, and they had to live separately. In recent years they've each owned their own floor of our house, leading to MR referring to them as "Upstairs Cat" and "Downstairs Cat" at times. She lived to to an incredibly old age, and while she took meds for kidney problems, thyroid disease and at the very end, anemia, she was happy and vigorous and loving right on through the very last days. She loved nothing more in life than to be petted, and would snuggle for hours on end. Her purr was so loud that friends could hear her loud and clear through the phone. She accompanied me to Vermont for eight months where I led the campaign at Fletcher Allen while she protected our little apartment from any intruder kitties who would dare to approach her screen door. While she never quite forgave MR for taking up so much space on her side of the bed, she was grateful for the consistency that his presence in our lives brought, with feeding anytime during the day and good care while I was away for long work days or out of town. He was especially kind during her last days, petting her and helping me give her fluids and holding me while I cried for what seemed like days on end as it was clear that the end was near. She loved pink salmon in a can and turkey, and had lots of those in her last months. She enjoyed our family Christmas turkey, and even had a few bites the morning that she died.

Philomena was a tremendous blessing, and will be terribly missed. I am so grateful that she was able to go in peace, with very little suffering. Would that we would all live such long and happy lives and die with so much grace.

I will be keeping a prayer vigil tonight in hopes that her spirit moves peacefully into the next life. I will also be making a donation to Big Cat Rescue in her honor.

I hope that you enjoy your New Year's celebrations, and please do raise a glass to little Miss Philomena.

thank you,
a

Last night Philomena took a turn for the worse. Her back legs started to give out and she is clearly in some pain. We have an appointment at the vet at 2:20 to see if they can help her or make her more comfortable. Of course if they can't and she's suffering terribly we will have to let her go, but I'd so rather she die peacefully at home if she can do so without suffering. Or maybe she'll rally one more time... this cat has had several near death experiences (she is after all 22!) and has made it through many trials.

She hardly slept at all last night so I petted her most of the night. This morning I've been petting and cuddling her, and as her head drooped and her eyes gradually closed I realized that the cat needs some sleep no matter what, so I came downstairs to prepare dinner in advance, in case I'm either at the vet late or just too sad to cook. The kitty needs her rest, and she was obviously too worried about me (as I've barely stopped crying) to rest.

So I made a dinner and put it away for MR. Eggplant stuffed with asparagus, portabella mushrooms and Walden Farms marinara topped with fat free mozza. A portabella cap topped with garlic, green peppers, Walden Farms marinara and ff mozza. A salad of asparagus, green, red and yellow peppers (we have a lot of left over peppers) and avocado in a chipoltle sauce of cider vinegar, garlic, chili, and chipoltle Tabasco. And a dessert of leftover cranberry sauce (my homemade no-sugar gingery tangerine cranberry sauce) over fat free ricotta topped with hazelnuts, and Walden Farms chocolate sauce. Everything gets oil, flax and olive.

Sounds like a ton of food, doesn't it? No wonder most people can't eat a whole MR meal. It's 621 calories, Zoned perfect -- 30% fat, 30% protein, 40% carb.

Ooooops. I just realized that I forgot his 3 oz of wine. No wonder this meal seemed to have endless available carbs. Oh well, he doesn't like wine that much anyway. I'll make it up to him tomorrow.

For the person who asked about the cauliflower mash without coleslaw dressing: absolutely! I never made it with coleslaw dressing, I just made it with nonfat plain yogurt and cauli. It would also be great with nonfat sour cream. Scallions are a wonderful addition too, and you can even top it with salsa.

Well, I'm going to tiptoe upstairs and check on my kitty princess. I fear that soon she will be my kitty angel, but she's had such a wonderful life that I should take comfort in that and pray that if it's her time, she goes in peace.

Thanks to all for your comments and your prayers.

I knew something was wrong when my 22 year old calico, Philomena, curled up in bed next to MR. She likes MR well enough, and is grateful that he feeds her when I'm out, but she's never stopped resenting him for taking so much space on HER side of the bed.

She started doing other confusing things. On Friday night I found her lying in the liter box, nothing in it, but just lying there confused. Saturday we made it out with the in-laws, shopping in town, and when I got home she was huddled under the shelves in the bathroom, lying on my shoes.

I've petted her almost nonstop. It's amazing that the cat has any fur left at all, with how much I've petted her. She's making a comeback now, and eating and purring and happy. She slept with us last night and cuddled nearly all day.

It's a miracle that she's lived as long as she has, yet I'm so sad at the thought of her leaving us. My eyes are nearly black and my face is puffy from crying. My in-laws, animal lovers themselves, have been extremely gracious. When I need to disappear to snuggle my kitty, they completely understand.

Meanwhile, we've had extreme joy. Our happiness together, MR and me, continues to strike us both as a miracle. We've had a wonderful time with his parents. Yesterday we went for lunch to the Marathon Grill in Philly, which I highly recommend. They let you create your own salad from a list of ingredients so huge that MoMR and I were puzzled for quite awhile deciding what to order.

More soon about our Christmas cooking because it really was fantastic. I'm tired now and want so spend time with my kitty. She may make it longer, but whatever time we have is a blessing.

Quick reply to Rad-tastic (great name!)'s question:

I<em> also have a question, since I know nothing about the human body, and you being a nurse probably does. So I know it's advised to start CR around 21 years or older and I'm wondering if hitting puberty early (10 years old) would make a huge difference. I'm 18, so would it still be too early? I'm just really excited about living longer, and I guess I'm jumping the gun. But any advice would be great, thanks.

Quick answer:the reason why we ask you not to start CR until you're 21 is that though the body may have developed as far as it will go, the brain continues to mature and appears to not reach its full growth until 21. You definitely would not want to compromise your brain, so do wait until you're 21 to lower your calories.

That being said, it's never too early to pay close attention to getting excellent nutrition. You can use the CRON-O-Meter or any other software to make sure you're training yourself to get the best nutrition you can, and also getting a sense for how many calories you eat now. Then once you're 21 you can lower your calories gradually based on an actual knowledge of how much you eat ad lib. It's always good to learn how to pack your day with the most nutrition possible.

Good luck and keep us posted on how you're doing!

By far, my favorite part of the Christmas meal is the mashed cauliflower. In fact this year I had 300 grams of it! MR makes it by blending cauliflower, yogurt, garlic, and a tiny bit of Walden Farms coleslaw dressing in the Vitamix. I think there are some chives in there too, not sure. Anyhow, they're amazing. Most people think they're too garlicky but I can't get enough of them.

So this morning, as a side dish to my breakfast cottage cheese and flax oil, I had a delicious dish of mashed cauliflower. Now my friend Lin in the UK can rest assured all day that I've had my cruciferous veggies!

Now I'm not trying to convert anyone to eating cauliflower for breakfast, but if you like mashed potatoes, you should really give mashed cauliflower a try. They are so very yummy.

Okay, off to work...

Hi all... a Merry Christmas to you (if applicable!)

Sorry for the delay in posting. I've been running around like a tofurkey with its head cut off getting things ready for Christmas, but as we are now finishing Christmas Day lunch I can pronounce the Christmas extravaganza done.

We've had a wonderful time. We're very blessed that MR's parents came down to visit us for the second year in a row. They arrived on Sunday night, or rather Monday morning at 5 as they suffered numerous airplane delays on their way here from Calgary (yes, they're Canadian!)

Monday night I cooked deGrey stew with CR friendly garlic bread! That's nonfat mozzarella on top of Trader Joe's low carb tortillas with garlic, microwaved and then topped with flax oil. On the side I served a romaine salad with red peppers and my CR vinegarette (red wine vinegar, capers, garlic, basil, oregano, dash of Worschtershire sauce, Z-trim, mixed in the blender.) Tuesday night I made a trio of stuffed mushrooms: mushroom Quorn "cheeseburgers," curried pumpkin stuffed mushrooms, and mushroom pizzas, with a hazelnut pear parfait for dessert. Yesterday I made Christmas lasagna for lunch with my dad's Bloody Mary's (Clamato, Worschtershire, Tabasco, lime, horseradish.) Dinner was the traditional Christmas dinner in our family: turkey, mushroom gravy, mashed cauliflower, Jack Daniels sweet potato, gingered tangerine cranberry relish, and pumpkin flan. For the recipes google April and Thanksgiving, you'll get them all.

This afternoon MR's mom made us a delicious Zoned recipe for a fritatta with tomatoes, olives, and all sorts of things, with a fruit salad on the side. I'll post the recipe asap, it was really delicious. Tonight we're going to the place where they're staying (Asparagus-phobe's house... he was very generous to lend it to us while he's on vacation out of town) for dinner.

That's the good news. The bad news is: I came down with a relapse of my illness last Friday night, and finally went to the doctor. She gave me antibiotics, and I am almost okay now. Apparently I got some kind of sinus infection/bronchitis. Thank God for modern medicine: the antibiotics worked fast. I feel almost normal now and should be well enough to attend Pilates class tomorrow morning. Main reason for sticking to serious CR: getting my immune system back! Having tried it both ways, I now know for sure that the invincible immune system is a side effect of CR. At over 108 I lose it. I'm 111 now. It may be a specific calorie level that does it, but I'm not sure. I'll let you know as I progress.

Other bad news: I was wearing my reading glasses after trying to rescue a tape from the tape player and forgot to change back to my regular glasses. I then managed to run into an end table and get a big bruise on my knee. OUCH. Big ouch. Big big bruise. Had to ice it for hours. Had trouble getting up and down the stairs. Ouch.

We've had a wonderful holiday, very relaxing all in all, and it's fabulous to be surrounded by family. My mother came in yesterday to join us for lunch and dinner and stayed the night and was here through lunch today. Now she's opening up the silverware that MR's parents got us for Christmas.

Tomorrow it's back to work of course, and work is about to get really, really busy. So busy that I'm looking forward to it eliminating the possibility of me going out with friends. Which should be great for my CR! Also, I'll be working near an awesome yoga studio in town that has classes practically on the hour, so I'll be working out hard.

Thanks to all for your comments... answers to your questions soon! Just have to look up a few studies for citations.

Merry Christmas to all!

There are a lot of sauces and marinades out there, but most of them have either a) a ton of sugar b) a ton of salt c) low quality oil d) all of the above. And they tend to be expensive, whereas you can whip up things just as good or better for next to nothing in your own kitchen.

Here are some standards at my house. All of these are great to steam broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, asparagus, squash, or whatever you want in. Just throw the cut veggies into a glass dish with the sauce, pop it in the microwave for a minute or two, and you're set!

Vaguely Italian Veggie Marinade:
- red wine vinegar
- lemon juice (fresh is best but bottled is fine)
- garlic or garlic powder
- flakes of dried: oregano, basil, parsley
- capers, if desired

I often use that one as a side dish to a stuffed eggplant.

Vaguely Southwestern Vegetable Marinade:
- apple cider vinegar
- garlic
- chili powder
- dash Chipoltle tabasco

Spicy Bloody Mary Veggies:
- no salt added tomato sauce, canned
- Worschtershire sauce
- horseradish (not horseradish sauce, which is creamy, but the real thing in a jar.)
- lime juice
- Tabasco

Vaguely Chinese food take out veggie marinade:
- low sodium soy sauce
- chopped scallions
- garlic
- ground ginger
- dash white wine vinegar

Citrus Special Marinade:
- lemon juice
- lime juice
- garlic
- chopped or dried onion

My weekday cooking has really evolved into a forumla: pick the protein, pick the spices, chop the veggies, put them together on a plate. Quick and easy, not too fancy, but always turns out well, and there are so many combinations that even if I have a pretty simple side dish, it still turns out well.

For Christmas, among other things, I am making MR some homemade salsas so we can cut down on the sodium in the jarred kind. I'll be sure to post the recipe!

There are a lot of sauces and marinades out there, but most of them have either a) a ton of sugar b) a ton of salt c) low quality oil d) all of the above. And they tend to be expensive, whereas you can whip up things just as good or better for next to nothing in your own kitchen.

Here are some standards at my house. All of these are great to steam broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, asparagus, squash, or whatever you want in. Just throw the cut veggies into a glass dish with the sauce, pop it in the microwave for a minute or two, and you're set!

Vaguely Italian Veggie Marinade:
- red wine vinegar
- lemon juice (fresh is best but bottled is fine)
- garlic or garlic powder
- flakes of dried: oregano, basil, parsley
- capers, if desired

I often use that one as a side dish to a stuffed eggplant.

Vaguely Southwestern Vegetable Marinade:
- apple cider vinegar
- garlic
- chili powder
- dash Chipoltle tabasco

Spicy Bloody Mary Veggies:
- no salt added tomato sauce, canned
- Worschtershire sauce
- horseradish (not horseradish sauce, which is creamy, but the real thing in a jar.)
- lime juice
- Tabasco

Vaguely Chinese food take out veggie marinade:
- low sodium soy sauce
- chopped scallions
- garlic
- ground ginger
- dash white wine vinegar

Citrus Special Marinade:
- lemon juice
- lime juice
- garlic
- chopped or dried onion

My weekday cooking has really evolved into a forumla: pick the protein, pick the spices, chop the veggies, put them together on a plate. Quick and easy, not too fancy, but always turns out well, and there are so many combinations that even if I have a pretty simple side dish, it still turns out well.

For Christmas, among other things, I am making MR some homemade salsas so we can cut down on the sodium in the jarred kind. I'll be sure to post the recipe!

Interesting. I never would have thought of this, I don't think, on my own.

As all are aware, I am a huge fan of Nancy's organic cottage cheese. It's amazing. But my grocery store that special orders it isn't always so good about getting it in a timely fashion, so I had a carton that was a bit old, and I didn't want to eat it. I have a rather profound aversion to eating food that might be turning even a bit bad, but MR has an aversion to wasting things and prefers that I feed him the food that I think has gone bad, as long as he smells it and determines that it has not, in fact, gone bad.

So tonight I made a stuffed eggplant with cottage cheese, instead of ricotta, as the stuffing. Garlic and asparagus. Giant sidedish of cauliflower and asparagus in lemon and capers and avocado. He liked it a lot.

Historically my CR-friendly pasta-less lasagna was made with cottage cheese, but lately I've been doing it with ricotta. Makes me wonder if I should go back to cottage cheese.

So we had our office holiday party last night at a restaurant where I frequently eat lunch but I rarely eat dinner. I looked at the dinner menu and found that I really couldn't figure out a healthy, low calorie option. But on the lunch menu, there is this salad that is one of my very favorite salads anywhere. It has arugula, cucumbers, beets, red and green and sometimes yellow peppers, little tiny onions (what are the little white round ones called? vidalias? -- no, pearl onions. Thank you Suzanne!) peas, romaine, tomatoes, radishes, and probably something that I'm forgetting but you get the idea: it's a huge, fabulous selection of veggies. How cool is it to serve radishes on a salad? You can get it with grilled chicken, steak or salmon and I usually get it with grilled chicken. This restaurant is also known for serving excellent vegetable purees (it's where I got the idea for the root vegetable puree soup) and they usually don't have any cream in them, though they are pureed so finely that they seem creamy. So I figured I'd call ahead and ask if it would be too much trouble to make me the lunch salad for dinner, and I'd have that with the soup of the day.

"We'll have to charge you a bit more for it," said the fellow I spoke with on the phone,"Just to keep the prices of the entrees even."

"No problem at all, that's perfectly reasonable," I said.

"It's like this: you make it work for us, we'll make it work for you."

Now that's a nice attitude, I thought. But it seemed kinda funny, especially the tone in which he said it. Like we were doing some sort of political deal, not arranging a salad.

Now about my Senate seat...

Tell me love isn't true
It's just something that we do
Tell me everything I'm not
But please don't tell me to stop.

-- Madonna, "Don't Tell Me"

Robin writes:

There's a disturbing trend in our society to assume that public figures somehow "belong" to everyone. It wasn't always so. At one time, people could discern a line between public and private, and they generally knew how to avoid crossing that line. This was also a time when being respectful meant keeping your random, uninformed opinions to yourself. Alas, those days are gone forever.

Oh, and by the way, Twinkie, just because April maintains a blog (like practically everyone else in the world) and has been kind enough to talk to the occasional reporter does *not* mean she's inviting every Tom, Dick and Harry to scrutinize and criticize her life. If you or other readers disagree with her choices or don't like what you read here, you should follow Ashley's admirable advice and "change the fucking channel." Or to put it another way, go get a life. Seriously. Your time on this earth is much too short to spend your precious time criticizing people you do not and probably never will know.

Thank you, Robin.

I agree with Robin that the goal of these comments is to make another human being feel ashamed of her body and her choices. And in the interest of honesty, I'd have to admit, it's working.

Perhaps, in the interest of honesty, we should re-title the blog as: "April's Diary of How She Did Really Well on CR for Three Years, Fell Off Briefly, And Is Climbing Back On While Maintaining Serious Yoga and Pilates Practice."

I thought I had been pretty clear about the fact that this year I had fallen off my serious CR practice and strayed into the realm of "healthy eating" obesity avoidance: still tons of good nutrition but maintaining a middle of the road healthy weight, not a calorie restricted one.

I've been doing well lately, losing weight and maintaining my exercise practice. It was hard for a couple of weeks when I was sick with a very bad cold, most likely a sinus infection, and I couldn't work out. But I've been steadily losing weight, working out, eating well.

I've attempted, in the blog, to share my journey, in hopes that it might be useful to others. And I just love to write... I wanted to be a writer when I was a kid, but I'm called to a profession that is very people-oriented and busy, and the opportunity to write to something that people read has been wonderful. I enjoy our conversations here. Comments are like little presents I open when I log on. Thanks so much to all who have written and enjoy the blog.

When things like this recent comment event happen, I think to myself, "Do I need this?" Should I go back to being a Person Without A Blog, and keep my recipes, reflections, and CR Journey (or as Vlada rightly points out, journey into non-CR land as well as CR) to myself?

I probably won't give up the blog. It's just such a wonderful creative outlet for me. But at the moment, I wonder if it's a good idea to subject myself to so much public attention.

MR looked up that statistic that Vlada quotes, re: "Ideal weight." It's been around since the late 1800's and is based on nothing scientific whatsoever. Yet it persists and is still in some dieticians' textbooks. I am apparently one to two pounds short of this "ideal weight" and am headed there quickly.

You know, I've always held my own example out as evidence that you can't just "give" someone an eating disorder. Scrutiny in the media: nope, still eating healthy. Comments on my blog simultaneously accusing me of having an eating disorder and of not being skinny enough: nope. People who meet me for the first time saying, "You don't look like you do CR!" when I weighed 102: nope. Still eating healthy. Lost control of the balance while on the road and working out a lot, so fell off CR, more like obesity avoidance, but still eating really healthy food and maintaining a weight that according to the actuarial tables is on the low end of healthy.

Now I'm not so sure. Skipping dinner again tonight, I thought to myself, "This isn't really going well." When I first did CR and lost 40 pounds, I discovered a love for my body that destroyed all that programming that women in our society have. I felt great, I looked great. I know intellectually that I look great and am very healthy now, but those numbers do stick in my head. 110, 104, under 100.

It does crack me up that people in the same post will wonder if one can do CR without having an eating disorder, then criticize me for being over their bizarre unscientific concept of "ideal" weight. If you don't want people to have eating disorders, I'd suggest that you not criticize their weight when they're obviously healthy.

I can look at myself in the mirror and know that I am healthy, in great shape, and while not in ideal CR calorie balance, headed there at what was a few days ago a very healthy rate of weight loss. But I am human. I am an American woman just like so many of you. I have the same messages that you do, that we are nothing but bodies, that thinner is better and that we should hate every inch of flesh that we could live without.

When I was at my best CR state, I felt so happy with my body. Even since then I've loved how I looked and felt as a developed a serious yoga and Pilates practice and discovered muscles that most people don't even know we have! Sure, I worked towards eating less and getting my weight down because that will improve my long term health. But I felt good while doing it, most of the time.

Now, not so much. I suspect it's just a last straw phenomenon, but I'd have to say, the haters are winning. I feel guilty about being one pound over some random person's concept of "ideal" weight. I look in the mirror trying to figure out how I could possibly be considered overweight and I don't see it, but I still skip dinner. This isn't going so well.

Now don't worry. The two most important things in my life: MR and my work, are going to win in the end. I have a major campaign coming up and I will do whatever I have to do to be healthy and strong enough to help those nurses get the voice on the job that they deserve. They are my love, my life, my constant inspiration. I am so grateful to be called to a profession where I help working people get the power to improve life for themselves, their families, and their patients. I am always aware of the patients who are scared and in pain and hit the call bell and wait too long because the profit-driven health care system has so understaffed hospitals that their nurse is busy saving the life of the patient in the next room and can't get there right away. I do CR in large part so I am healthy enough and live long enough to see the fruition of the change I have dedicated myself to. I will keep myself healthy because the thing that matters to me most in the world (other than my family and my angel MR) is that these nurses win.

And MR won't let me do anything unhealthy. He gets nervous when I skip one meal. He chases me around with my supplements and wheat bran. He loves me and reassures me that anyone who says I'm overweight is on glue. I wonder if people still sniff glue. Wasn't that an eighties thing?

I would just say to all you charming commenters: please remember that you are dealing with a real human being. I'm not trying to hold myself out as some sort of role model, and I'm not judging your lifestyle. I don't even know you! I am a real human, who lives in this world of messed up expectations and has for the most part done really well. I am grateful for all the advantages I've had and the love I've experienced, especially from friends I've made from the blog. I know I'm not perfect, and I never held myself out to be so. I'm a real person, just like you. I do well sometimes, and I make mistakes. Sometimes I publish my mistakes in hopes that others can save themselves some trouble and just learn from my mistakes instead of making their own.

Perhaps it was a mistake to publish those mistakes that at one point led me to weighing 115. In which case, I have now meta-published my mistakes! But I want people to understand the CR, and the health journey that we are all on, is not about being perfect. It's about doing the best you can, with the circumstances you're handed, and always looking to make better choices. Preferably with love and support from people who care about you and want you to be your happiest and healthiest.

We can do it. Yes we can.

Postscript: Bizarre fit of feeling awful has passed, and normal eating resumed, quite quickly really. I bounce back really fast. Meditating, yoga, and a really fun office holiday party will do that. I'm still definitely never doing CR-related media again though! Got bigger and better fish to fry. Or saute. Or grill. Or whatever.

I hope all of you enjoy your holidays.

MR has this habit which is either cute or annoying depending on a) whether or not you're in love with him b) how much of a hurry you're in of telling a very long story that leads up to a rather underwhelming punch line. I think it's cute but I a) am madly in love with him b) have learned to tell him to save it for later if I'm rushing to get out the door.

Well, today, I pulled an MR. I was trying to relate the story of how I've come to decide that I will include one piece of fruit per day into my diet, with four days of citrus per week, one of those grapefruit, the others tangerines or oranges, and the other three days pears, apples, banana, or kiwi or berries. Or whatever.

So I started to tell this story about how I happened to eat a pear today, but he got confused because I had been just before telling a story of how something really funny happened at work. MR didn't realize I had shifted gears and was talking about a pear.

"So somebody at the office received a package from Harry and David," I said, and proceeded to explain that Harry and David is a company that sends baskets of yummy food like fruits, nuts, and cheeses.

He was confused. "Somebody sent David a package?"

"No, I think it was Paul who got the package?"

"Well why were they sending the package to Paul?"

"It doesn't matter why. I'm trying to tell you about the pear."

"The pear? What has this got to do with a pear?"

Classic April and MR misunderstanding.

"Okay, back a step."

I explained that the package was a package of fruit from Harry and David which has really good fruit, and I had eaten a small delicous pear on my way home to have lunch, and this had cemented my decision to make room in my quotidian diet for a piece of fruit.

So there.

Here is one of my favorite uses for pears, which I wrote about long ago but many of my readers have joined me since then:

Hazelnut Pear Dessert Pizzas!

Trader Joe's low carb tortillas
Nonfat ricotta
Pears
Hazelnuts
Hazelnut oil
Walden Farms Chocolate sauce (optional)

Top the tortillas with 2 tbsps nonfat ricotta, approx 50 g pears (diced into chunks) and put in the oven till the tortillas are slightly browned. Just extremely slightly.

Remove from heat, add 3 hazelnuts each and a half teaspoon hazelnut oil. Add chocolate sauce if desired. Serve warm.

This is a wicked awesome dessert. I think I will serve it tonight!

I received this comment this morning on my "Reckless and Irresponsible" entry:

Dear April,

Respectfully,
Vlada

And my response:

First, I have never claimed to be doing serious CR while being 115 pounds. That weight is a fairly recent development. In hardcore CR mode I weighed 102. Above 108, I seem to lose the positive side effects, such as an invincible immune system. So I have no delusions that I have been in CR mode at 115, but I am working to get back on it and losing weight. In fact now I'm down to 111 and steadily losing.

a

And then I went to yoga. Hour and a half long vinyasa practice, super intense. Had a great practice, really felt like I was pushing myself in a good way.

And as I was in tree pose, balancing on one foot while bending over and supporting myself with my hard-earned core strength, I thought to myself: "Why am I defending my weight in a public forum?"

I mean seriously, how did we get to this point?

I looked back at an entry I wrote round Thanksgiving time but never published, feeling like it needed some work:

Lately It Occurs To Me:

What a long, hellish trip it's been.

Well it's that time of year again, isn't it? The time of year when I recall how in 2006 my Thanksgiving holiday with my family in North Carolina was ruined when a Salon.com column denounced me, my partner, and our food choices, by name. I was never contacted for comment. The negative comments, including death threats, started to pour in on my blog. I had no idea when I signed up to do an interview for New York Magazine that this was what I was in for.

What followed was a carnage of nasty articles, including those by Kate Taylor and two entries on the Rudd Center blog, and it was enough for me to swear off media forever. I had no idea that we would be so attacked for our food choices.

I've been sick for awhile now, about a week, and I remember how I never used to get sick when I was on proper CR, and less than 108 pounds. I felt my best then, and was by all objective measures the healthiest. And I was the happiest too. Until we started to be attacked in the media. Seeing my name and that of my partner dragged through all sorts of national media mud upset and scared me. So much so that I wanted to hide. And sure enough, I hid by largely giving up CR as a practice.

Oh how healthy I was! Those who prize eating out, stuffing their faces with whatever is available, and ignoring the health consequences of their indulgence would be proud! Way too many meals out. Sure enough, I didn't feel better, I felt worse. My once invincible immune system now failed me: I came down with whatever illness was passing through the office, whereas during my years of serious CR I had nothing to fear from the local bug. My energy was failing, as was my morale. But no doubt those who despise the idea of anyone having control over what they put into their mouths would rejoice at how very free I seemed with what I would eat.

If I could do it over again, I would turn down every media request. No interviews, no camera time. No chance to pin all the angst and expectation of an obese population and a bunch of angstful journalists on a deadline onto me. Sure, some people have found CR this way. I was never trying to convert anyone. I just wanted to live my life in peace in the healthiest way I found possible.

It took awhile to figure out...

That's where the half-written entry ended. It took awhile to figure out. What, precisely?

First, that my health decisions have nothing to do with other people's expectations. I'm terribly sorry if my height and weight fall one pound short of your conception of ideal, but come to my Pilates class and we'll see who's the most fit.

Second, that attempting to exist in the world of ad lib eaters in a very unhealthy food environment is damn near impossible, and that environment isn't going to change, so it requires an almost superhuman level of self-discipline to exist in the world while doing CR if you're not willing to give up going out and interacting with people all together. I never found my CR practice isolating but that's because I didn't isolate myself: I still enjoyed restaurant meals out, even at 102 (is that thin enough for you? just wondering...) but I made up for it with extremely low calorie days for the rest of the week. It's very hard, but it can be done. And it can be done with optimal nutrition. I did it for years and am actually doing it now as I lose weight. And I feel much, much better than when I was eating more on quotidian days.

Third: I don't want to retire the blog. I've seriously considered it on numerous occasions, but people seem to find the thing interesting and helpful, and I think it's good that I show the struggle of a real human being, not a robot, trying to practice CR in the real world. My life is so not about food, and that's part of the problem. I am not obsessive about my CR: my real life focus is my work, my relationship, and my family, not to mention my yoga and Pilates practice. At times I've wished I had focused more on food, but then sure enough people will say, "You're too obsessed with food."

Moral of the story is: damned if you do and damned if you don't. Too thin, too fat, too fit, not fit enough, too much attention paid to food or not enough. Do you really think you're helping?: That I really need the info that if I were thinner I'd be healthier? Thanks, but as I've written I can see that plainly from the fact that I caught a cold, something that never happened when I was on proper CR. Too thin and I get labeled as having an eating disorder, but move one step closer to "Normal" (and mind you the average American woman weighs 160) and I'm overweight!

Yes, friends, according to our commenter, 115 at 5'2" is overweight. I'm not even that heavy anymore, but I continue to feel outraged at the concept. I am in great shape, wear a size four, and could probably lift and throw said commenter across the room. Yet he/she categorizes me as above ideal weight.

Well, I'm sorry I don't conform to your ideal. Once I've lost all my weight due to full blown CR (already losing but ooooooooops, sorry, still one pound off from "ideal" at 111) you'll label me as too skinny and obsessive. And probably think that I have some sort of superiority complex because I'm thinner than you are.

I can't deal with it anymore. I never wanted to be a role model, and I have often written that I reject that casting. Enjoy the blog if you do, cook the recipes if you'd like. But don't consider me a role model. Grow a backbone and do your own thing. That's what I'm trying to do.

Lately it occurs to me
What a long, strange trip it's been.

Dave writes:

Why do you only eat the eggwhites? It seems that you are missing out on most of the nutrients in the eggs.

First, welcome Dave. It's not your fault that you're bringing up an issue that has been hashed and rehashed, fried scrambled and served sunny side up on the CR list and also on blog.

Luckily, MR put the reason why we eat eggwhites (which are packed full of protein) into a convenient email to me which I here reproduce:

All:

After a long period of suspicion, the egg marketing board (and others) have executed a very successful campaign to convince people that dietary cholesterol is basically harmless, since it has little impact on total serum cholesterol.

As I've documented in teh past:

********
Dietary Cholesterol and Egg Yolks
Posted by: Michael Rae (IP Logged)
Date: May 10, 2005 11:23AM
http://www.calorierestriction.org/archive/read.php?2,157322,157322#msg-157322
************
Re: Egg, Cholesterol and Food Faddism
Posted by: Michael Rae (IP Logged)
Date: June 27, 2005 10:57PM
http://www.calorierestriction.org/archive/read.php?2,158307,158328#msg-158328
***************
Whole eggs and cholesterol
Posted by: Michael Rae (IP Logged)
Date: January 22, 2007 12:33PM
http://www.calorierestriction.org/archive/read.php?2,174985,174988#msg-174988
*************

... this is really only true in people who are ALREADY overweight and/or insulin-resistant and hypercholesterolemic; in lean, insulin-sensitive people, dietary cholesterol does indeed increase serum cholesterol, depresses the HDL:TC ratio, and also raises systemic inflammation as indicated by the acute phase proteins serum amyloid A (SAA) and CRP.

Of course, those facts IMPLY, mechanistically, negative health outcomes -- but this kind of "make-the-case" argument is far from conclusive evidence, and should not be a strong basis for making dietaary changes (especially when, as with dietary protein and IGF-1, studies on actual health outcomes and mortality lead to the opposite conclusion).

Recently, several prospective epidemiological studies have found
that higher dietary cholesterol is, indeed, associated with negative health impacts -- some of them rather surprising.

In (1), already posted by Al Pater along with some of the tables, there was an association of relatively high (but, NB, well within the range that the egg marketing board says is healthy) egg consumption with a 20% increase in total mortality: in "a prospective cohort study of 21,327 participants from Physicians' Health Study I ... In an average follow-up of 20 y ... adjusted hazard ratios (95% CI) for mortality were ... 1.23 (1.11, 1.36) for the consumption of ... > or = 7 eggs/wk, respectively (P for trend < 0.0001). This association was stronger among diabetic subjects, in whom the risk of death in a comparison of the highest with the lowest category of egg consumption was twofold ". Note that the average BMI in all quintiles of egg consumption was ~25, right on the border of overweight; one would EXPECT a stronger effect in a leaner cohort (tho' surprisingly, here, the effect seemed stronger in diabetics).

In (2), in the same large, well-designed, well-funded study, "egg consumption of > or = 7 per week was associated with an increased risk of HF [heart failure]. Compared with subjects who reported egg consumption of < 1 per week, hazard ratios (95% confidence intervals) for HF were 1.28 (1.02 to 1.61) and 1.64 (1.08 to 2.49) for egg consumption of 1 per day and > or = 2 per day, respectively, after adjustment for age, body mass index, smoking, alcohol consumption, exercise, and history of atrial fibrillation, hypertension, valvular heart disease, *and hypercholesterolemia* " -- ie, the effect held even after eliminating any problem specifically mediated by elevated cholesterol. (NB that heart failure is usually caused by hypertension, not hypercholesterolemia).

And in (3), a separate prospective study in a cohort that is somewhat smaller, "2,160 multiethnic women, aged 42-52 years, from six geographic areas ... 4 years later, ... Women in the highest quartile of cholesterol intake had 40% greater odds (odds ratio = 1.4, 95% confidence interval: 1.1, 1.8) of being more limited [ie, having physical functioning limitations, defined by a set of standardized criteria] versus those in the lowest quartile. Women in the highest quartile of fat and saturated fat intakes were 50% and 60% more likely to be more limited, with respective odds ratios of 1.5 and 1.6 (95% confidence intervals: 1.2, 2.0 and 1.2, 2.1) versus those in the lowest quartiles. Lower fruit, vegetable, and fiber intakes were related to reporting greater functional limitations." I have not however seen the full text, and can't comment on what potential confounders were accounted for.

-Michael

1. Djoussé L, Gaziano JM.
Egg consumption in relation to cardiovascular disease and mortality: the
Physicians' Health Study.
Am J Clin Nutr. 2008 Apr;87(4):964-9.
PMID: 18400720
http://www.calorierestriction.org/archive/read.php?2,186516,186516#msg-186516

2. Djoussé L, Gaziano JM.
Abstract
Egg consumption and risk of heart failure in the Physicians' Health Study.
Circulation. 2008 Jan 29;117(4):512-6. Epub 2008 Jan 14.
PMID: 18195171 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

3. Tomey KM, Sowers MR, Crandall C, Johnston J, Jannausch M, Yosef M.
Abstract
Dietary intake related to prevalent functional limitations in midlife women.
Am J Epidemiol. 2008 Apr 15;167(8):935-43. Epub 2008 Feb 3.
PMID: 18250080 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Thank you, MR. Nicely done.

What specific nutrients in egg yolks do you fear I might miss? One of the advantages to doing my nutrition on free, easy nutritional software, in addition to the fact that I won't kill myself by attempting to do CR without adequate nutrition, is that I already know what nutrients I am getting in my diet, so need not speculate as to whether or not I might miss something that one would find in the yolk. For instance, I'm way over 100% on vitamin A in any given day.

The thing about nutrition is that it's much easier to figure out what you need if you just use the software rather than speculating, relying on "common sense," or trying to intuitively eat. If I were to intuitively eat, I'd end up on a diet of Subway Club salads and red wine. Nice enough for a treat, but not adequate for every day nutrition. However, my body tells me, consistently, that it *needs* Subway Club salads and red wine. Occasionally it claims that I need a Bloody Mary (no doubt for the vegetable juice I am so sure) and a Taco Bell bean burrito. Now don't get me wrong, I love my healthy foods that I eat on a daily basis like kale, yogurt, cruciferous veggies, eggwhites, cottage cheese, etc. etc. etc. But I developed my quotidian diet using nutritional software, then experimenting with my likes, tastes, what worked best with my super busy lifestyle, etc. precisely because I discovered that I wasn't getting adequate nutrition before using the software. You can't guess at this stuff. Plug your diet into CRON-O-Meter and you'll see.

In fact, before I plugged my diet into nutritional software, I was eating a hard boiled egg a day and thought I was getting plenty of protein. When I did it on the software, I realized I wasn't getting nearly as much as I need, so I changed my diet accordingly and that's when I discovered eggwhites.

I still love hard boiled eggs and have one occasionally as a treat, but I don't include them in my quotidian diet for the reasons MR addressed above.

But Dave, it's not your fault. Please do keep reading and commenting. I suspect others who are just joining us were wondering as well and are grateful that you've gotten their question answered for them.

The story of how I evolved my quotidian diet, complete with mistakes with tofu, putting vanilla whey powder into broccoli soup (ick!) and turning my kitchen into a scene of out Ghostbusters are all on my old blog at http://www.aprilcr.blogspot.com.

I don't think I post enough recipes. So here's one. I whipped it up in about fifteen minutes this morning and left it for MR to eat tonight while I'm out at a workshop that one of my friends is giving. It's a pick your own protein one dish supper!

Broccoli (I used 300 g)
Eggplant (100 g, sliced and precooked in the microwave to remove bitterness)
A yellow squash
1 tbsp soy sauce, low sodium
Garlic powder
Ginger powder
No-Salt to taste, if needed
your choice protein: I used eggwhites but you could use chicken, shrimp, Quorn, tofu, whatever
Nonfat mozzarella
40 g avocado
1 tsp flax, 1 tsp olive

Chop up, mix together. Heat when ready to serve. Cook your protein appropriately, if need be cook separately before adding to veggies so as not to overcook the veggies but not to get food poisoning either. Add avocado. Add cheese right before serving, so it melts on top just slightly. Or do it without the cheese. Add oils after removing from heat.

This can just sit all day pre-made and then be heated up right b4 dinner.

Another from the files of "I don't have time to cook... yes I do!"

I've gone back to not eating breakfast.

For years I ate a very high protein breakfast, usually eggwhites with one slice of nonfat cheddar, 1 tsp flax oil, and 1 tbsp brewers yeast, plus some salsa or hot sauce. Then for quite awhile I ate cottage cheese with flax oil. But lately I've stopped eating breakfast. I've been called upon to go out a lot for dinner or for lunch with work, and I've found that it's easier to just save the calories and not eat a bite till noon.

Is this difficult? Yes. Am I hungry all morning? Yes. But I find it easier than turning down work-related invitations out or skipping my dinnertime glass of wine. It's all a tradeoff. As I lower my calories in a desperate attempt to get my immune system back, something has got to go.

I still swear by the high protein breakfast for weight loss. Try it, I say. Get 28 g protein into you before you leave the house in the morning and your entire day will be different. If you don't have the battle-hardened self-discipline to exist from dinner till noon without a bite, I strongly suggest you eat a high protein breakfast.

I may go back to eating breakfast once work heats up again to the point where I never have time to go out. Then I will simply follow the "not one bite!" rule as goes partaking of the nurse-food at meetings, and will eat a quotidian diet every day. My social life will evaporate and I will be happier than a pig in *&it, if you've heard the expression before. I love my work.

Meanwhile, it's Christmas time and we're putting up our decorations and looking forward to a visit from MR's parents. And I've given myself a Christmas Pilates challenge: either a Pilates class or doing my Pilates videos every day until the new year! That should help me ring in the new year with style... or at least with rock hard abs!