3/24/2013: Change of Plans

The snow changed my plans.  Denver got hit hard yesterday and we are getting hit hard now.  Because of the snow, my 11:45am flight to Denver was canceled.  There was a chance to get out on a flight that was scheduled for 5:00pm but was already delayed to 7:45pm with no guarantees it would make it out of Kansas City and to Denver.  Considering the fact that this was a one and a half day visit, there were no promises I was going to make it to Denver even if I did spend the entire day in the airport, and that I had a two hour drive to get to Vail, after dark, on snow covered highways after I got to Denver, I opted for changing my plans.  I thought maybe I would get to go to Vail next weekend to see Carla, but that may not work out for her and Christian.  So I am not sure when I will go.  It turns out the evening flight left here are 8:45pm.  I'm glad I chose to come home.  Spending all day at the airport waiting to see if our flight was actually going to take off would have driven me nuts.  In addition to that, Jack and I saw a crazy wreck on the news, just outside of Denver, last night.  The roads looked terrible.  I would have been a mess trying to drive to Vail on those roads.  I am very disappointed that I don't get to spend the day with Carla and Christian skiing today, I was really looking forward to that.  But I think I made the right decision to come home.  I hope they are having a good day.  I hope I get to see them soon.

It's March 24th and there is a crazy amount of snow out there.  I haven't measured the snow in our front yard yet, but I am guessing 8 inches, maybe.  Wow.  I guess Jack and I will be shoveling snow again today.

Yesterday was a weird food day.  I didn't break any of my Food Plan for Life rules, exactly, but it wasn't a great day.  I had a big, wonderful breakfast with plenty of veggies and three eggs, knowing it would be a while before I had lunch.  On the way to the airport I received a text message saying my flight had been delayed until 1:50.  OK...first change of plans.  We decided to do a little shopping.  We stopped at Walmart, the only store we can find that sells the intermediate light bulbs we need for the ceiling fans in our family room.  Then we stopped at Coldwater Creek and I found a couple more spring tops and another pair of spring pants, for 30% off.  From there we were going to grab some lunch, but then I got another text message saying the flight was moved up to 1:10.  OK, no time for lunch, we headed straight for the airport.  Jack dropped me off, I checked the monitor and it still said scheduled departure for 1:10.  It was about noon.  I made it through security and headed to the gate, to make sure everything was still going according to plan, and then I was going to grab a light lunch at the Pork and Fork (or whatever that restaurant at KCI is called).  By the time I got to the gate the flight was canceled.  After waiting in line forever, getting my flights changed to next weekend, and waiting for Jack to come back to the airport to pick me up, it was about 1:00.  Larry and Luz had invited us over for the afternoon, which Jack was going to do on his own, since I was scheduled to be in Denver.  We debated whether or not we should stop somewhere for lunch first, but decided to head straight to Larry's. 

Larry and Luz were making dinner for us, so we hung out and visited while they did their thing.  I snacked on almonds, cherry tomatoes, a cutie, and an apple.  All within the range of normal for my Food Plan, but no protein to speak of.  We ate at about 3:45 or 4:00.  Luz had made ceviche, with shrimp in it, but mostly it was veggies in a light broth with a little bit of shrimp.  To give it a little substance I put dried plantain chips in it.  My choices were dried plantain, popcorn, white rice, or corn nuts.  The plantain chips seemed like the best option.  Dinner then consisted rice, sausage, and quinoa patties.  The quinoa patties were made with bread crumbs, so they were out.  I don't eat pork or beef, so the sausage was out.  So I ate a few more plantain chips.  Then it started to snow and Jack and I headed home.   We needed to go grocery shopping for the weekend and a lot of snow was predicted so we decided to stop at the store before settling in for the evening.  The snow was coming down hard, so we stopped at the store and switched cars.  I took advantage of that opportunity and grabbed the last cooked chicken breast out of the fridge for a little quick protein, then we headed to the store.

When we got home I ate some hummus and carrots.  Then things took a turn for the worse.  The one sweet thing I still allow myself is my 85% cocoa dark chocolate.  Both Jen from "Thinner This Year," and Dr. Davis from "Wheat Belly" say the 85% cocoa dark chocolate is a good thing.  One bar is 2.5 servings.  I am usually pretty good at having a serving or less per day.  Last night, at the end of a very strange food day that was more or less beyond my control and being severely disappointed about not getting to go to Vail and see Carla, I managed to work my way through an entire chocolate bar.  That was probably not the best thing I could do for myself.  Ah well, it does sort of prove my point about my Food Plan for Life, though.  My Food Plan is pretty cut and dry.  No Dead Foods (including, and perhaps most importantly, no wheat) except for special occasions.  I think the special occasions will still be Wheat Free, by the way.  Prior to implementing my Food Plan about a week ago, I would justify little diversions into junk food because I counted the calories.  The result was intense food cravings from about 2:00 - 6:00 in the afternoon that were just driving me nuts.  All I would think about for four hours was finding something sweet to eat.  "Thinner This Year" convinced me to give up the Dead Foods.  "Wheat Belly" led me to believe that wheat may be the worst Dead Food of them all.  So instead of slicing and dicing calories and rationalizing my dalliances into junk food, I drew a line in the sand and said, "None."  Unless there is a celebratory special occasion.  Then I can eat or drink whatever I want.

This has helped me so much.  First of all, the food cravings are GONE.  I no longer start looking for sweet treats at 2:00 in the afternoon.  Second of all, I just walk on by the donuts on the counter at work.  I actually experienced a revulsion when I walked by the snack machine at work the other day, very similar to the revulsion I feel when I see a pack of cigarettes.  A sort of, "Ew, that stuff is poison," moment, without even taking the time to process what I was thinking.  The more I read about what happens inside my body when I eat crap, the easier it is for me to see it for what it is, addictive junk food that ravages the cells of my body when I eat it.  This isn't harmless stuff that may just cause me to weigh a little more.  It is poison that causes an incredible chain reaction of negative events to occur within my body.  It's not an inane substance that causes me to gain a little neutral fat, it's a negative agent that causes insulin spikes, inflammatory agents to get released, damage to my cells and arteries, and to gain fat which is an active organ in my body that continues to release inflammatory signals long after the food I ate is gone from my body.  This is how I see Dead Foods, now.  It helps a lot of to have a cut and dry rule, no Dead Food. 

Ah, but that brings me back to my dark chocolate.  The Docs all say dark chocolate is good for you, go ahead and enjoy it.  85% cocoa dark chocolate, to be specific.  It has just enough sugar in it to be palatable.  Below are some excerpts from an article on Web MD explaining some of the health benefits of dark chocolate.  Here is the link to the full article:

http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20030827/dark-chocolate-is-healthy-chocolate?page=2

Dark Chocolate Lowers Blood Pressure

Dark chocolate -- not white chocolate -- lowers high blood pressure, say Dirk Taubert, MD, PhD, and colleagues...

Antioxidants in Dark Chocolate

Dark chocolate -- but not milk chocolate or dark chocolate eaten with milk -- is a potent antioxidant, report Mauro Serafini, PhD, of Italy's National Institute for Food and Nutrition Research in Rome, and colleagues.  Antioxidants gobble up free radicals, destructive molecules that are implicated in heart disease and other ailments.

The Studies

Taubert's team signed up six men and seven women aged 55-64. All had just been diagnosed with mild high blood pressure -- on average, systolic blood pressure (the top number) of 153 and diastolic blood pressure (the bottom number) of 84.

Every day for two weeks, they ate a 100-gram candy bar and were asked to balance its 480 calories by not eating other foods similar in nutrients and calories. Half the patients got dark chocolate and half got white chocolate.

Those who ate dark chocolate had a significant drop in blood pressure (by an average of 5 points for systolic and an average of 2 points for diastolic blood pressure). Those who ate white chocolate did not.

In the second study, Serafini's team signed up seven healthy women and five healthy men aged 25-35. On different days they each ate 100 grams of dark chocolate by itself, 100 grams of dark chocolate with a small glass of whole milk, or 200 grams of milk chocolate.

An hour later, those who ate dark chocolate alone had the most total antioxidants in their blood. And they had higher levels of epicatechin, a particularly healthy compound found in chocolate. The milk chocolate eaters had the lowest epicatechin levels of all.

Chocolate for Blood Pressure: Darker Is Better

What is it about dark chocolate? The answer is plant phenols -- cocoa phenols, to be exact. These compounds are known to lower blood pressure.

Chocolates made in Europe are generally richer in cocoa phenols than those made in the U.S. So if you're going to try this at home, remember: Darker is better.

But the doctors due caution you not to overdo it.  They say:

"But that's no license to go on a chocolate binge. Eating more dark chocolate can help lower blood pressure -- if you've reached a certain age and have mild high blood pressure, say the researchers. But you have to balance the extra calories by eating less of other things.  And if health is your excuse for eating chocolate, remember the word "moderate" as you nibble."

That word, moderation, is difficult.  It's so much easier to look at a food and say, "Yes," or "No."  It is much more difficult to look at a food and say, "Just a little bit."  Particularly when that food is your one and only, "Treat," and when you've had a bad day, and when your food for the day has been so messed up already.  I consider what I did yesterday, eating that entire chocolate bar, a binge.  It makes me wonder if I should just eliminate dark chocolate completely, just like the Dead Foods and the wheat.  I'm not quite ready to do that, however.  For now my plan will allow a serving or less of dark chocolate a day, but I will be careful to measure it.  On the other hand, If I can't consistently limit it to one serving a day (by consistent, I mean always), then I will eliminate dark chocolate from my diet.  We'll see how it goes.

I'm glad yesterday is over.  It was a rough day, full of disappointment and frustration and with a lack of control over my food.  Today should be more or less normal, in spite of the 8 or so inches of snow on the ground on March 24th.

By the way, I weighed 151.0 this morning, for those of you interested in that sort of thing.