Tag: Food

Super Monday

If we were measuring life segments on a 0-10 scale, the weekend was a -10*

Today, in contrast, was a super Monday. It started at 5, quickly climbed to 8, stayed high all day, and finished at 10.

The day started well. I made the morning coffee manually for the first time since 13th October, when we bought the coffee machine. The return of this morning routine helped. Gave me a few minutes to walk around, smell the brewing coffee, and prepare for work.

I had no meetings or chats all day, other than the 10 minute morning standup. A full day of coding, reviewing, and studying with no distractions. Completed a good PR, merged two, and reviewed one.

I had a good walk with Chewie and Dudley in the afternoon. Didn’t meet any humans. FTW!

Lunch was more comfort food. Alu-methi parantha with chicken curry, and some Chewie cuddles.

Thanks to no meetings, I even finished work at 6. With a smile.

Then I went for a run. My first since early October. It was short, slow, and hard. But, I ran! Win!

A very good day, indeed**.

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Momos!

Watching The half of it on Netflix. Ellie Chu’s dad is making delicious looking momos in his kitchen. Reminds me of a family in Auli who used to make momos at their (tiny) home, sell to us visitors for income, and have the rest for their meals.

Those momos were delicious—little, warm morsels of heaven on the freezing mountain. I was jealous of them, and of Ellie’s dad—they can just make delicious momos at home any time they want!!

That brought a delayed realisation. This is why my white British acquaintances have that look on their face (and that tone) when they talk about us having ‘Indian food’. For them, it’s a special treat they order in/out. But we can/do have it at home any time we want!

Good momos make me happy. The thought of having them anytime at home makes my heart flutter.

The smell of dosa-sambhar or chicken curry or rajmah or mutter paneer from our kitchen into the alley must trigger similar feelings in others.

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No Carb Thurs… Wednesdays & Mondays

No Carb Thursdays have been a success.

But I now need to change the no-carb day of the week. My Paris marathon training plan has tempo runs planned on all Thursdays. I don’t want carbs not being available on the day when I have to run 10 miles at faster than marathon race pace. So, I’m moving no-carb day of the week. While at it, I am also tentatively increasing the number of days without carbs.

Wednesday and Monday* will be no-carb days hereon, at least till the marathon training gets over. Wednesday is the weekly rest day in the training plan, and Monday is one of two short, easy run days.

*Sunday is the long run day, and Tuesday is long intervals day. So, if I need more energy on Tuesdays, I may cancel no-carb days on Monday.

I would have liked Friday, the other easy run day to be the no-carb day. But Friday is pizza dinner night, and R wants to keep that going, so she vetoed it.

Aside:

So far, food intake on no-carb Thursdays has been mostly baked fish (cod/haddock), with an occasional omelette, or Jyoti’s sabzi/daal—all with large sides of freshly cut cucumber and carrot batons.

I want to include more food options on no-carb days. Please do share any easy to make/get no-carb food suggestions (preferably vegetarian).

No Carb Thursdays

Latest life tweak is ‘No Carb Thursdays’.

Why ‘No carbs’? Because I love carbs but they also make me feel bloated and lazy. And avoiding them all, all the time, unnecessarily taxes my will power. I have reduced the usual intake, but it still spikes occasionally (actually more frequently than I admit).

Also because I’ve gained nearly 1.5Kg in last week—76.6 last Thursday, 77.9 today. And I hadn’t run in four days. And I’m not happy—about a few things in particular, but also that low-intensity background unhappiness in general.

So I decided to try a new thing.

Why ‘Thursdays’? Because today is Thursday, and I didn’t want to put this off till tomorrow.

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81.4

The weighing scale read 81.4 Kg on Saturday, 10 Aug. Last time I weighed this much was on 26th February, more than five months ago.

As recently as a month ago, on 5th July, I weighed just 78 Kg. I gained 3.4 kilos in a month!

That 81.4 isn’t a single spike. My average weight last week was 80.3 Kg. A month ago it was 78.3 Kg. Even the weekly average increased by 2 kilos​ :(

Based on BMI (25.4), that makes me officially overweight.

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Eating rules

1. No screens

No TV, no phone, no laptop, no kindle. No, not even a book. When eating, eat. Listening is allowed, as long as it is to other people in person, not a podcast, radio, etc.

While eating, stay with eating. Taste and enjoy the food, not what’s happening on the screen while absentmindedly dumping the food down the throat.

This rule also helps with the next one. If the screens are off, the mind has more space to think about food and eating. Which allows us correct ourselves when we slip into the assembly line mode of eating.

2. Idle hands till the bite has been swallowed

Once a bite is in the mouth, keep the hands idle till it’s been chewed and swallowed. Keep the fork and the knife down. Keep the sandwich down. Don’t break the next bite of the roti.

Keep hands idle till the previous bite has been swallowed (repeating). Then prepare the next bite, put it in the mouth, and make the hands idle again.

Eating is not an assembly line job. There’s no need to maximise throughput. There is a need to taste, enjoy, chew and digest all that is going in. Rushing a bite because the next is ready in the hands makes a fast eater, doesn’t make a good, happy, healthy one.

This rule also helps stay on course with Michael Pollan’s advice on not eating too much. Keeping hands idle while chewing slows down the eating rate. This means that the food hits the tummy while we are still eating, making us feel full earlier.

On the other hand, the assembly line mode of eating is an invitation to overeat. The high turnover of bites means we can eat a lot more before the first morsels hit the tummy. Result: we’ve already overeaten before the tummy can tell us its full.

3. More greens and fresh vegetables than the rest

Greens + fresh vegetables on the plate >= everything else (bread, cheese, meat)

Remember Michael Pollan’s advice:

Eat food.
Not too much.
Mostly plants.

This rule helps stay on course with the third statement.

Just the fresh vegetables ought to be more than the carbs on the plate (bread, roti, dosa, rice…).
Fresh vegetables + greens + cooked vegetables ought to be more than everything else combined (meats, cheeses, fat, beans, dals, et al).

That’s all for now. Might update these rules in the future as I learn/discover more.

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The siesta / the coffee nap

Today was an 8/10 day.

I had a productive morning of work, and a good round of ankle exercises, stretching and wobble board (~4 mins nonstop). Then the boys and I went for a brisk walk in the woods. The wind was blowing from the north, so the wheat husk didn’t bother me much on the walk today. Did a few more stretches on return, then the boy and I had lunch.

If the day had ended there, it’d have still been a 6/10 day1.

Lunch was two courses—a toast with egg mayo and some bhaji (minus pav), and two pieces of oven cooked chicken fillet. It was heavy. By the time I finished lunch, made and drank coffee, my brain was shutting down and eyes were closing. I put on British F1 practice session on the TV but could barely keep my eyes open.

With the boy snuggled up next to me, there was no point fighting the sleep. So, I set an alarm for 15 mins later, took off the specs, and lay down next to him on the (sleep corner) of the sofa. 15 mins later I snoozed the alarm. 9 more mins. Next time the alarm rang, I was already partly awake. I stayed on the sofa, enjoying the boy’s hug, and read the latest Stratechery article (It’s about Shopify—one of the new tech companies I quite admire). By the time the article finished, I was wide awake, full of energy and raring to go.

If the morning work session was productive, the evening session was doubly so. I wasn’t just getting a lot of work done, I was even enjoying it—both the work and the feeling. It was awesome. I took a break midway to walk around a bit. I also cut and diced some apples during the break—treats for me and the boys. Then it was back upstairs for more work. Finally, I had to stop working and tear myself away from the desk at 19:30, an hour after my ‘stop work’ alarm.

R had gone to get the cold pizza for dinner, so the boy and I spent 10 mins walking around in the backyard—smelling the flowers, the clean breeze, and making sure I achieve my step target.

It was a good day.

Continue reading The siesta / the coffee nap

Today in food fusion experiments

Wholemeal toast (warm, medium toasted), egg mayo (cold), Indian style spicy beans (cold)
Wholemeal toast (warm, medium toasted), egg mayo (cold), Indian style spicy beans (cold)

It didn’t taste bad, but the strong flavours of egg mayo and the beans sort of cancelled each other out. I got a bit of both flavours, but neither was too distinct.

Based on experimentation: Indian style vegetable dishes go better with humous, while egg and mayo does better with my usual cucumber-tomato-onion-rocket combo.

Achievement of the day: meals without screens

Ate both meals without screens.

No phone, no TV, no laptop, no kindle,… nothing.

Yesterday’s lunch—the first fully screen free (alone) meal—was a bit of a mess. I was anxious, itching to either pick up the phone or switch on the news.

It took a bit, but by the end of the meal I was calmer. I also took longer to finish the meal—spending more time on every bite, chewing better, putting the fork/spoon down between the bites,…

Today’s lunch was easier. Yesterday’s experience comforted me that any anxiety was unwarranted.

Dinner was harder in the usual aspect—R was home and watching TV1. It was easier in another way—there was a beautiful sunset outside. I placed the rocker facing the sunset (back to the TV), and slowly ate my dinner watching the orange sky and the green canopy.

It was quite pleasant. Slow, tasty, pleasant 🙂

Continue reading Achievement of the day: meals without screens