Diet

OK, I have gone a bit crazy with the new Ice Cream Machine and have made far more ice cream than I think I can eat. As a result, Miche and I would like to throw an Ice Cream Social here at our place this coming Saturday. If you are in the area (or might be on Saturday) feel free to come by. I’m thinking it will probably be Saturday afternoon between 2pm and 6pm. Drop in any time in that range, stay as short or as long as you want. Watch this space for directions: OK directions are here: click me. ...

We made a modified version of Alton’s Melon Sorbet on Sunday. It turned out wonderfully. This sorbet meets with the misty_shadows seal of approval. Our modified version contained: 1 lb 10 oz diced melon 10 oz sugar 2 Tbs peach schnapps All ingrdients into bar blender. Pulse until visible chunks are gone, then blend low for about 30 more seconds. Chill mixture for about 30-60 min in fridge. Process in ice cream machine (with our machine we broke it into 2 batches at about 20 min each) until it is slushy and holds its shape. Relocate the mixture to the freezer for 2 hours. ...

I am officially off the low-carb diet, due to the attack of gout and other concerns. It did what it was supposed to do, though… I lost 9 pounds on it in 3 weeks. That rate is probably too aggressive, though. The directions from my doctor(*) are to follow a low-calorie, low-fat diet. Which sort of leaves the door open to any number of diets. The deciding factor for me is that I want something that’s easy to figure out. That is, I want to be able to eat a sensible breakfast and lunch, and then instantly (or at least quickly) figure out what would be best for dinner in order to balance things out. ...

OK, there is now no doubt in my mind that what’s happening to my toe is gout. Last night, the pain was bad enough to wake me up, so I took more advil and went back to sleep. Today I took some alleve, which really did work for about 12 hours, and is now starting to wear off so I took another. I’m going in to the doctor tomorrow morning at 9:45 (yes, saturday) so we’ll see what he has to say. He will probably say to keep taking the alleve and change my diet. Apparently, burning fat on the low-carb diet also contributes to uric acid in the blood, so that compounds the effect of eating more meats. I have been making sure to drink lots of water. ...

Good news… I have lost about 8 or 9 pounds, after being on the low-carb diet for a little over 3 weeks. Bad news… I developed some excruciating pain in my big toe. I can’t think what I might have done to bruise or strain it. What does a painful toe have to do with my diet? Hopefully nothing, but it could be gout. According to wikipedia: Gout is a form of arthritis caused by the accumulation of uric acid crystals in joints. It is an immensely painful disease, which in most cases affects only one joint, most commonly the big toe. ...

Tonight we had esmerel, merlinofchaos, and da_zhuang around for dinner. Everything turned out well, I think. And, I think just about everything was low-carb, which was good for my diet. I probably had more food than I planned to, but I think I’ve done reasonably well the last week or so, so I’m not going to feel guilty. Salad with arugulla, butter lettuce, radicchio, cucumbers, tomato, avocado, green onion. Two salad dressings (soy-mayo and honey mustard) made with the homemade mayo. Merlin made the honey mustard… turned out good Artichokes, a little tiny bit overdone but I don’t think anyone noticed. Dipping sauce, about 3 parts mayo to 1 part vietnamese “chili garlic sauce” - this was a hit I think. Meat, which I thought was filet mignon, but was probably some other loin cut. Salt, garlic, pepper. Broiled 5 min each side. (Supermarkets don’t seem to sell filet much anymore.) Broccoli, steamed, which was probably overkill but I wanted something else in case the ‘chokes didn’t work. ...

[oops, this was supposed to go to good eats, but I’ll leave it in here too :] Thanks for all the advice. I wanted to share my latest mayo experience… My last attempt at mayo was reasonably successful. It was a stable emulsion, but it was syrup-consistency and didn’t stand up. Someone suggested adding more oil, and that did the trick. It was very nearly mayo-like. This time, I ended up with “broken goo” but I was able to save it. The first whip attempt never really got to the “frothy” stage, so I started with an empty bowl and 1 whole egg, whipped until frothy (or at least foamy) and then poured in the broken goo :) It seems like once you get to the foamy stage, it’s smooth sailing from there out.

I believe I have lost roughly 3 pounds over the last 2 weeks. According to the medical-style scale downstairs, I currently weigh 255 with shoes on, 252 with shoes off. The same scale put me at 258 two weeks ago, and still at 258 one week ago. So, three pounds lighter or so. On advice from a friend, I decided to “make the food boring and get it over with”. So, for the next couple weeks I will be on the “lunchmeat and salad” diet. ...

I wrote down my foods but I won’t copy them all here. The short version is that I have been sticking to the low-carb diet (as described in Atkins “Induction phase”). It’s been a lot easier than I thought. I haven’t really been missing my bread, pasta or sugar. The real difficulty for me is finding interesting things to eat, but that is an intellectual and logistical problem for me, and not one that causes me much distress. ...

I’m going to try and record everything I eat for the next 30 days, whether I am able to stay on the low-carb plan or not. I don’t expect anyone to read the entries. But, if you happen to notice that I’m counting carbs wrong, OK to let me know :) Monday 3/14 I wanted to use a one-day fast to start things off, but M wanted to have sushi, so we went to Tokyo Sushi. I had: salmon sushi and Phillidelphia rolls without the rice (salmon, small amount of cream cheese), soy sauce, miso soup, small salad with a sweetish vinegar dressing, mussels, and soybeans. The mussels had some sort of dressing on it that was mayo-like… I scraped most of it off and squeezed on lemon juice. ...