Enough with the rice and beans

So Feministe puts this very interesting post linking to a New York Times slideshow about what $1 will buy you. It's interesting and sad to see that you can buy a crappy meal with processed food or you can buy...ten organic blueberries. Should be eye opening for folks to see how your money goes and how badly supported non-conventional farming is because they need to charge that much.

BUT THEN....the comments. Oh the comments. The first comment brings out the tired tired tired point that rice and beans are cheap and nutritious. I just have to say. SHUT UP ABOUT THE RICE AND BEANS. Fine they got you through that two week stretch between paycheck entitlement asshole but please, once you got paid, I'm sure you went out for sushi or the Whole Foods salad bar. Because seriously, noone's gonna live on rice and beans for the rest of their lives. And condemning poor people to a life of rice and beans is a pretty asshole move.

There were time where I did live on a food stamp budget and I ate really well. But few people were in my position. I lived in a group house where we shared food. We shared chores so the same person shopping for groceries was not the person cleaning toilets. We had a list that the grocery person check the fridge and pantry to see what we were missing. Most of the folks had a car we could use to get the groceries. AND the prices at the Chevy Chase Safeway was like 30% cheaper than the SE Safeway.

For people of privilege to give these rice and beans prescription to low-income folks is just insulting. Folks may be poor but they deserve more than rice and beans. Oh and by the way, as a diabetic, rice and beans suck because they are high on carbs. So suck it clueless people.

Sugar free along zabaglione

My biggest fear about being diabetic (apart from losing a limb or going blind) was having to eat sugar substitutes. As someone who believes in healthy eating and not eating chemicals, that kind of bugged me to the core. It took about a week to get over that because I like sweets and I like my eyesight and my limbs. So Splenda it is!

I wouldn't recommend sugar substitutes for everything. Basically because a lot of desserts have so much flour in them that they end up being crazy high in carbs even with a sugar substitute. So that leaves things that don't require much flour. I've had massive success with pavlovas and now I've made a pretty kicking zabaglione.

For those of you know familiar with them, a zabaglione is the base for a tiramisu - egg yolks beaten with sugar until they are pale yellow and the consistency of cake batter. I think the traditional zabaglione is made with marsala wine but you can change up the liquor. The zabaglione is then given more structure with mascarpone and lightened with whipped cream. Splenda is a great substitute and the tang of the mascarpone really covers up the icky aftertaste. I will say though, with egg yolks and whipped cream, this is not diet food.

Sugar Free Almond Zabaglione

3 egg yolks
2 tablespoons of almond liqueur
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup of baking Splenda (this is lightened to be a 1 to 1 substitute for sugar)

8 oz mascarpone (or cream cheese if you are in a pinch) at room temp
1 cup of heavy cream, whipped

With the paddle attachment on your stand mixer (or use your regular handheld), mix the first four ingredients until it's a pale yellow and looks like cake batter. Add the cheese and mix until perfectly blended. Add 1/3 of the whipped cream to the cheese mixture to lighten and then fold in the rest. Serve with flaked almonds on top.

Tip of the Week - Work events

Ok. Here's a quickie. Never go into a work event hungry. So if you've got that fundraiser at 7:00 pm. Go to your stash of fruit and nuts and have some. Because going to a buffet of appetizers hungry is as bad news as going to the supermarket hungry.

Tip of the Week - Pizza

When I was first diagnosed, I thought pizza was out. But pizza has come back to my life. The key is portion control. And as a diabetic, starch is never the center of my meal. I will have a SIDE of rice pilaf or a SIDE of mac 'n cheese (often in a tiny cast iron skillet) but no, there will not be a plate of pasta in front of me. I still eat things like polenta and grits but I make sure my plate is divided into quarters - one quarter protein, one quarter starch, two quarters veggies. No deprivation at all.

Here's the tip: Don't order delivery pizza. Go to a restaurant with friends. The more expensive the better. There's an awesome place that serves wood oven pizzas. I split one as an appetizer with three other people and I get one slice, two slices max. Pizza is never the center of my meal. And believe me, pizza with proscuitto, shaved Parmesan and asparagus -HEAVEN!

New Segment - Tip of the Week

You know, living the lifestyle, you can take a lot of the changes for granted. That's the point isn't it? What used to be a huge effort is now a natural part of your routine. So to capture some of the ongoing things that are becoming almost subconscious, I am instituting the Tip of the Week. We're all learning something, so if you have something you've incorporated into your routine, feel free to share in the comments.

Here's my tip of the week - Restaurant Eating

When you've eaten your portion of food, put a napkin on top of your plate. I am finding my meal is DONE. Like I would totally be embarrassed if I had to unearth my food from a napkin. It also indicates to a server you are done so that the food is outta there.

What are things you all do to keep on track in restaurants?

Dear God, Whole Foods

Seems like Whole Foods is getting on the fat shaming bandwagon. Check it. Y'all know how much i think BMI is a load of crap as a health measure, but this is some seriously effed up thinking. If you do buy the idea that we should encourage more people to eat healthier, should you offer the discounts to the people with HIGHER BMIs so that they take advantage of the all of those fruits and vegetables?

Don't Cry for Me Stef...

I get to eat plenty of sweets. Ever since I've gotten over my fear of Splenda and learned about almond flour, the sweet are pretty plentiful in my household. Given the fact I am replacing flour for ground almonds, the fat content will be high, but that's why I run 18 miles a week.

But here's my list of sweet stuff:

Fruit cobblers
Pavlovas
Brownies
Peanut butter cookies
Dark chocolate
sugar free ice cream
almond flour pancakes
Hot chocolate with almond milk and splenda (and a shot of sugar free hazelnut syrup)

All of them are less than 15 grams of carbs and taste pretty awesome. In fact, the sugar free pancakes are 1 gram of carbs per pancake. I can only eat five before I'm full.

Here's a recipe for the pancakes
Ingredients:

* 1 cup almond flour
* 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
* 2 eggs
* 1/4 cup water (for puffier pancakes, you can use sparkling water)
* 1 tablespoons oil
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1 tablespoon sweetener
* 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon

Preparation:
Mix ingredients together and cook as you would other pancakes. I like to use a nonstick pan with a little oil. The only real difference is that they won't "bubble" on top the same way as regular pancakes. Flip them when the underside is brown. Serve with sugar free maple syrup.

Caitlin Flanagan = Asshole

So Caitlin Flanagan wrote an article in the Atlantic criticizing Alice Waters Edible Schoolyard. While I have plenty of criticisms of the Alice Waters/Michael Pollan crowd, I can only point my finger at Ms. Flanagan and yell - douchebag! First of all, Caitlin Flanagan is the same "journalist" who decided to excoriate feminists with nannies in the selfsame pages of the Atlantic in 2003. This lady who is pretty damn surrounded with rich privileged white folks gets to sit on her high horse and feel sorry for those brown people who take care of rich folks kids.

This time around she feels sorry for those brown people's kids who are forced to pick organic vegetables as part of the school curriculum. Rich white lady worries about those poor brown folks whose education are getting shortchanged because they have to learn about vegetables. "Will this help them pass Algebra?" she asks.

Here's the thing. The HUGE criticism about No Child Left Behind is that it focuses too much on test scores. Those "fluffy" subjects like art and sports and anything that isn't covered on a scan tron teach skills that are really necessary in the working world - cooperation, problem solving etc. None of which will be measured on a scan tron. Same with raising organic vegetables. You learn a whole lot of biology gardening. As a quilter, I've had to use the Pythagorean theorem more in a month of designing a quilt than in a semester's worth of geometry.

On top of that, there is tons and tons of research that shows that eating well balanced meals and BREAKFAST boosts brain capacity and helps with test scores. Watch Supersize Me to see a real life example. These types of programs have a huge impact on classroom performance even if there isn't a direct correlation to test scores.

For all of her concerns about these poor brown children, she really does seem to advocate for shortchanging their education. So shut it Flanagan.

Easy and Elegant weeknight dinner

So B, our favorite restaurant serves these awesome California style pizzas. V, our favorite server always makes a recommendation to add arugula and a fried egg on top of their mushroom pizza and truly it's sheer heaven. Being diabetic, I can only have one slice, although I totally poach more than my share of yolky arugula.

Color be delighted when J found an Alsatian tart with bacon and caramelized onions at Trader Joes. For some magical happenstance, there's only 11 grams of carbs for 1/4 of a decent size tart (bigger than a personal pan pizza). That means I can eat the whole damn things and only ingest 44 grams of carbs. Now with bacon and cheese and onions the fat content is off the charts but that's why I run 18 miles a week.

As an experiment this weekend, I decided to top the tart with arugula and a fried egg. My twist was to toss the arugula in a meyer lemon vinaigrette. And OH MY GOD. Arugula salad and Alsatian tart is a better flavor combination of chocolate and peanut butter. The sharp pepperiness of the arugula and the tang of the vinaigrette are in perfect harmony with the salty sweetness of the tart. I've had this twice this week and could have it every night if I had my druthers. This is a total cheap eat because the tart is like $3.99 and the arugula is like $2.99.

And the Meyer lemons come from my tree.

crossposted at: bayareafoodblog.wordpress.com

Giving Thanks for Running

The theme for this Thanksgiving should be the Olympian - stronger! higher! faster! because I ran my ass off that weekend. Along with eating a truckload of food.

Eating
On the eating side of things, I did a sorta stupid/sorta smart thing - I barely ate anything leading up to Thanksgiving dinner. You see, I would be having real food professionals over for Thanksgiving. We picked up a maple and rosemary-brined turkey from Cheffie Mark. We would be having a cheese plate selected by the cheesemonger at the wine bar where Bellisima works. And a trio of soup shooters. And that's before we even sit down for dinner. So leading up to the big meal (and I mean BIG meal), I ate a grand total of 30 grams of carbs. 15 grams from a roasted pepper frittata and 15 from an apple. I also had a salad during the day. While I am sure it was playing havoc with my body and my metabolism, I wanted to eat my Thanksgiving meal with abandon. And I did. It was spread out over the course of six hours and all of it was delicious. The great thing about this meal (where we had a summit to plan the menu!) was that we all floated in an out of the kitchen. Noone was slaving over anything because we all contributed.

So yes, we started with the cheese and pate (homemade!) platter with onion jam, fig and raison compete and a red currant gelee. That was followed by soup shooters of tomato soup with a quark dollop, beet and carrot soup with a coriander sour cream, and a cauliflower soup with a bagna cauda drizzle. And then everything settled in our stomachs and we were already full. But we plowed on to eat mashed potatoes, mashed acorn squash, the aforementioned turkey, green beans, homemade rolls, and a kale and sweet potato casserole. We sent everyone home with dessert bags because noone could touch the pumpkin tarts or the apple cobblers. We spent the post dinner part of Thanksgiving nibbling on J's homemade truffles and cheese and pears.

The great thing about this was the bounty of vegetable dishes and the fact that J made truffles with dark chocolate which are intrinsically low-carb (although high fat). by the next morning my glucose level was a surprisingly low 97.

Running

Thanksgiving weekend also entail a good amount of running. On Thanksgiving day, Muffin and June actually found out about a 5K that was within walking distance of our house. It was a great way to start the day. This was a totally informal race set up my a neighborhood gym. No big clock or starting gun. To keep my ankles and knees ok, I run on a gym treadmill. It was definitely different (and more exhausting run on cold, hard concrete. And definitely exhausting to run uphill for a quarter of the race. But all in all, I ran strong and had a good time.

The Sunday after Thanksgiving, I ran the Run Wild for a Child race in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. It was very interesting to run because I thought there were part where I was running pretty slowly. But in the end I ran the entire 6.2 miles in 51:41 minutes which is an 8:19 minute pace. This is well ahead of the 9:11 pace I ran for the Presidio 10K in March. Yay me! It's interesting to see how much I hate running up hills and how badly I am about gauging my pace.

I'm very Thankful I have this disease under control and am I very thankful I am in a position to get stronger, higher and faster. And, of course, thanks to all of you out there, especialyl stef, who's been an invaluable sounding board.

Special Delivery

I'm really happy with my Washington's Green Grocer deliveries. I just got my 2nd delivery of the "small organic box" of produce - for only $36.50, delivered to my door. It's so worth it! Tonight I got a head of red butter lettuce, spinach, 2 giant yams, Granny Smith apples, pears, bananas, red grapes, green beans, 2 carnival squash, and a whole golden pineapple.

So what does home delivery of organic produce mean?

It means that I'm learning a lot and trying new things. In the last 2 weeks, I've seen, peeled, roasted, and cooked my first parsnips. I made homemade apple sauce. I learned how to peel and dice a butternut squash. I have made and frozen THREE homemade soups.

My kitchen looks totally different than it did a year ago. I now have a big bowl of fresh fruit on the counter, next to squash and an actual pineapple. My fridge is filled with bright green, red, and yellow things. My freezer is filled with bags of veggies and containers of soups and sauces. And everything tastes GOOD.

Fun!

The Plant Challenge

So this past week I tried to eat 10 servings of fruits and vegetables a day. I learned a few things. First is that salad is your friend and a great way to get your veggies in. I have an enormous capacity to eat and when you pair that with eating a salad the size of a mixing bowl, then it's a recipe for healthy eating. I can make a salad that equals four servings of vegetables and plow through it easily. The hard thing is eating servings of vegetables that aren't salads. The hard thing is that I can live on salads all day long. The other salad related revelation is to find a good salad dressing. J and I bought this AMAZING strawberry-chipotle balsamic and a kickass fig syrup that makes the most divine salad dressing. Seriously, a salad with that stuff is like candy. Finally, I am learning I really hate cooking greens like kale. I don't know why I can totally love eating salad but hate eating kale but there it is.

Anyway, in terms of results, I consistently ate more than 5 servings a day but dear god, ten was an act of god. I hit ten servings twice, both on weekends when I had the time to go to the farmer's market. The hard part is the fruit because there are only so many carbs I can eat and I am reluctant to eat fruit that have carbs. But that is solely dependent on what fruit is available because a perfectly ripe apple is like candy.

Here's how it shook out:

Day 1 - 8 servings
Day 2 - 9 servings
Day 3 - 10 servings
Day 4 - 10 servings
Day 5 - 6 servings
Day 6 - 7 servings
Day 7 - 6 servings

The Challenge

I work at an organization that promotes healthy living and I get to interview someone on their project to get members of their community to eat 5-10 servings of fruits and vegetables a day. It's really fascinating because they are working with a low-literacy, limited English proficient, immigrant population. The learning is very experiential and visual. What I find to be a great success story was the person running the program felt like she had to actually eat 5-10 servings of fruits and vegetables a day so she wasn't spewing hypocriticial bs. And after six months on the program she lost 30 pounds. She didn't do anything else. In fact she was telling me about how she's also be eating nachos and steak. But she was eating a heck of a lot less nachoes and steak because she had to get her 10 servings in. So here's my challenge - eating 10 servings of fruits and vegetables a day.

Here's a handy guide for those of you who are unfamiliar with serving sizes for fruits and vegetables.

In this challenge I have amended the rules:

1. Canned fruits and veggies don't count (although frozen does as long as it's not packed in syrup)

2. Beans and legumes don't count. They are the great superfood but they are like loaded with carbs. Great if you are a hunter who hunts and forages all day. Bad if you are diabetic.

3. Hell to the no with juice. It's not a fruit, it's sugar.

So here goes. I'll check in weekly about this but I am curious to see how realistic 10 servings is.

Frank Bruni Interview in Salon - Thoughts?

So I'm reading the Frank Bruni interview in Salon. He gave this little piece of insight to his own challenges with eating.

I think people with eating issues can't imagine the constant temptation of being a restaurant critic. You work out a fair amount. But really, what was the trick in keeping off weight?

Being a restaurant critic helped me maintain weight and not gain weight, because I think my problem is the same as that of a lot of many people whose eating gets out of control in that I really kind of rode a sort of binge-purge roller coaster, and that roller coaster was facilitated by my ability to tell myself the lie that I was going to be really bad today and tomorrow and maybe even the next day because the next week I was going to do a cleanse or a fast. As a restaurant critic, I had to keep eating at a certain pace. By never being able to tell myself with any degree of convincing honesty that I was going to be great and do an ultra-ultra-extreme deprivation next week, I never allowed myself to binge the way I had in the past, because I couldn't tell myself with any convincing honesty or authority that sort of purge was coming up on the far end of it.

I think it does affirm a piece of what we try and say here - it's about the eating and deprivation isn't a great way to approach living healthy. It's a fascinating interview and really makes me want to go out and buy his book.

What are your thoughts?

Now I'm Getting Back in the Groove

I haven't really been eating as well as I should the last few weeks. I've been mostly good while with Mom and my brother - Mom always has tons of fruits and veggies in the house, and we ate a lot of them. My brother grilled a lot, so we had tasty outdoor meals with healthy sides. But, I did indulge a bit - popcorn or candy at the movies, some chocolate treats, lots of chips and salsa.

And once I got back home this past week I definitely slipped... chips with onion dip, a big old mayo-dripping tuna sandwich, several cookies. Of course, this is still no pizza-and-wings slip like I've done in the past, but enough of a relaxing of the rules that I'm sure I'll see it on the scale. I'm not beating myself up, though, I recognize this has not been a normal or easy time.

And even though I thought I would do it weeks ago, I hadn't started back on my food journal - until today. Today is exactly one month since Dad died. I figured this is as good a time as any to get back into the swing of things. So, I'm writing things down and feeling good having a fully stocked kitchen again.

So here's the one thing I haven't decided yet... whether or not I will be going back to the nutritionist. I had to cancel an appointment while I was away and haven't rescheduled it yet. She has been VERY helpful to me and I've learned a lot, and the things she has taught me has really helped me turn things around. But, frankly, this decision will be purely financial. I am reprioritizing my finances now in many ways and have to make some tough decisions. The $80 I've been spending each month for a 20-minute visit is a tough call, especially since with each subsequent visit it's been a diminishing return as she mainly reads my food journal and says "good job." Is it supposed to be an indefinite arrangement? We've never talked about any duration of the relationship or plan, and I know some people just go every month for years.

This is going to be a tough call. I think I'm going to take the next few weeks to return to my routine, including journaling every day, and see how I do. I have an appointment with my doctor coming up, and will get my blood work done again this fall to see if there's any effect. I'll make another appointment if I feel like I need it, but if I keep doing well on my own, that money could be spent on some of my other personal priorities. Plane tickets are not cheap.

Pavlova – Two Ways (or Damn you Barefoot Contessa!)

It’s been intimated that J and I have some eating restrictions, me with the diabetes and J with dairy allergies as well as an allergy to artificial sweeteners. That makes dessert a huge challenge. I’ve resolved this challenge by making the same desserts two ways – one with Splenda and dairy (for me) and the other with sugar and dairy substitutes (for him). A good example of this is my cobbler recipe. I make a cobbler with almond flour in ramekins. I do a ¼ cup of almond flour with ½ teaspoon of baking powder and 1 tablespoon of sugar and then mix in 1 tablespoon of melted butter, 1 tablespoon of almond milk and a dash of vanilla. Spoon on top of about ½ a cup of chopped fruit (stone fruit like cherries and nectarines work best) and bake for half an hour at 350 degrees. For myself, all I need to do is replace the sugar with the equivalent amount of Splenda and I’m set.

Sunday, J and I were going to Muffin and June’s for a BBQ with Bellisima and West Coast Rebecca. Being summertime in the bay area, I decided to try my hand at pavlova. For those of you who don’t know palvova, it’s a meringue shell that is mashmallowy in the middle. It’s cratered in the middle as well so people traditionally pile it high with fruit and whipped cream. Perfect dessert to highlight summer fruit. Like the cobbler, I decided to make a version for me (whipped cream and splenda) and a version for J (lemon curd and sugar). Because you can freeze the pavlova ahead of time, I tried my hand at pavlova on Friday night. For the first time Ina Garten did me WRONG. I made her Back to Basics it failed. What I got was a gloppy mess of a meringue that was more the consistency of a meringue topping for a lemon meringue pie. Never a waster, I decided to fold in the lemon curb to the failed meringue to lighten the lemon curd.

The next morning I did a little research (Nigella!) and saw that every OTHER cookbook was saying to bake the pavlova at 300 degrees as opposed to the 180 that Ina instructed. I did the whole shebang again using the Barefoot Contessa recipe but using the oven temperature of Nigella Lawson (preheat to 350 and when you put it in, immediately drop temp to 300). It was a huge success. I tried it again using baking Splenda, and another HUGE SUCCESS! So in one pavlova there were raspberries and blackberries over lemon curd and another pavlova there were the same berries over whipped cream sweetened with Splenda. In fact, Muffin, who ate both versions, liked the Splenda version. SCORE!

So here’s my sugar-free version of a pavlova. To make it low-fat, simply use low-fat (or even nonfat cool whip).

• 2 extra-large egg whites, at room temperature
• Pinch kosher salt
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoons cornstarch
• 1/2 teaspoon white wine vinegar
• 1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Place a sheet of parchment paper on a sheet pan. Draw a 5-inch circle on the paper, then turn the paper over so the circle is on the reverse side. (This way you won't get a pencil mark on the meringue.)
Place the egg whites and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Beat the egg whites on high speed until firm, about 2 minutes. With the mixer still on high, slowly add the sugar and beat until it makes firm, shiny peaks, about 2-3 more minutes.
Remove the bowl from the mixer, sift the cornstarch onto the beaten egg whites, add the vinegar and vanilla, and fold in lightly with a rubber spatula. Pile the meringue into the middle of the circle on the parchment paper and smooth it within the circle, making a rough disk. Place in oven, immediately turn down to 300 dgrees and bake for 1 1/2 hours. Turn off the oven, keep the door closed, and allow the meringue to cool completely in the oven, about 1 hour. It will be crisp on the outside and soft on the inside.
Invert the meringue disk onto a plate. There will be a cracked crater of delciciousness that is perfect for lemon curd, whipped cream or just fruit and a dash of some old balsamic.

Eating

It’s been hard trying to write anything about the health stuff. One thing I am learning more and more is how dependent I am to routine. When I was in Phoenix for a conference, my glucose level really fluctuated. While I was working out regularly, I wasn’t eating enough. I never was able to get a late night snack in. For those of you who don’t know, late night snacks are a key part of keep my blood sugar low. It was a great piece of advice my nutritionist aunt gave to me. What happens is if you don’t get a late night snack your body decides to dump even more sugar into your system while you are asleep. That’s definitely one thing The Biggest Loser has right – eating. I love the episodes where Bob or Jillian goes and see what they are making themselves on the ranch and get all preachy about the contestants needing to eat more. It’s totally true. I’m finding the eating part (as opposed to not eating) is as important as the cutting back. Eating means I will have enough energy to run 7 miles. I can’t do morning workouts any more because I need to run longer distances and I don’t have time to eat. It does mean I won’t be burning more calories or building muscle which burns more calories. My nutritionist set a floor of how many carbs I need to eat at minimum. When I’ve gone under it’s really been hell. So lesson learned.

As a tip, I offer up string cheese. It's a great snack to address mid afternoon munchies without going into a sugar crash.

NOT ATKINS - Carbs

I was going to respond in the comments stef but this warrants a full post. I am right there will your nutritionist on watching the carbs. Once again, don't go all Atkins about it because that's just crazy-talk. But making sure you have enough carbs but not too much is a good thing.

For most people, they should have around 180 grams of carbs per day. 45 per meal for 3 meals and 15 per snack for two snacks. So what does 45 grams of carbs look like?

1 cup of white rice or pasta
3 cups of yogurt
3 apples
3 cups of berries
1/2 cup of flour
1/4 cup of white sugar
1 slices of whole wheat bread.
3 corn tortillas
2 flour tortillas (not burrito sized)
1 cup of beans

Looking at the list for me, I've come to love vegetables, yogurt, and corn tortillas. On top of that, whole wheat is awesome because you subtract the fiber content form the number of carbs. What has been surprising to me (and to J) is how easily 1 cup of pasta can fill you up. The thing is, vegetables (aside from root style vegetables like butternut squash) have negligible carb content. When you do a fried rice and even do 2/3 a cup of brown rice but with chopped carrots, tofu, shredded chicken or shrimp, onions, red peppers and bean sprouts, that's a meal that will make you loosen your belt. Last night, I made a great pasta dish from leftover turkey cutlets that I simmered in a tomato sauce. I did 2 cups of cavatappi (2 servings of the dish) and sauteed spinach, carrots and onions and added about four cutlets worth of lean turkey. That was a filling to the brim pasta bowl serving of pasta. With a salad, that was a filling meal.

Like stef's nutritionist said, do eliminate carbs. They are good. But It's useful to be conscious about how much. While I monitor my carb intake through grams of carbs, other diabetics I know do it through glycemic index numbers. If anyone has any advice on how that works, feel free to chime in.

The Spa Staycation

I'm nothing if not a trend followerer and in this economy the staycation makes a lot of sense. Stef, in her other blog asked her readers about what they would do for a staycation in DC. The idea of a weeklong staycation sounds awesome. So I am giving stef my idea of a spa staycation in DC.

Here's some guidelines. That money you were going to spend on hotel and travel, use a tiny chunk of it and get someone to clean your apartment. No, seriously. The first time I had Shirley, my cleaning woman, clean my apartment with J, I giggled at the sight of a spotless apartment that I had no hand in cleaning. One assumption I am making is that you will have an easy morning and nothign really will be happening until 11:00 am at the earliest.

Here's the schedule:

Friday - Get the house cleaned!

Saturday - Get provisions: fruit from the farmer's market. Some good fresh bread from Marvelous Market. Hummus, tzatziki, carrots, and grape tomatoes. A small bottle of good olive oil.

Sunday - The fun begins
Sleep in and informal breakfast
Lunch at Teaism
Walk from Teaism to Dunbarton Oaks and look at the most beautiful garden in DC
Dinner at Dino (they have a great prix fixe for $25)

Monday - Spa day. Take advantage of the fact you'll get an appointment because everyone else will be working
Sleep in and brunch at home
Half day at Serenity Day Spa in Tenleytown (since it's affiliated with Sport and Health Club, you all get a one day pass there)
1 hour of exercise at Sport and Health
Dinner at Lebanese Taverna

Tuesday - Veg out day
Grocery run for snacks
Stay in during the day and watch one season of Buffy
Beginning modern dance improv class at Joy of Motion Dance studio
Take out sushi from Spices (also the Wafu salad is to die for!)
More Buffy

Wednesday - Feeding your mind
Lunch at the Museum of the American Indian Food court (avoid the Fry Bread!)
Look up at http://www.si.edu/events/onetime.htm the Smithsonian one time events. they have tons of stuff going on every day
Dinner in - perhaps broiled tilapia and roasted asparagus?
After dinner: Take the bus up to Politics and Prose and go browsing

Thursday - back to Nature
Morning walk into Rock Creek park (there's a trailhead right in between Van Ness and Cleveland Park)
Lunch at home
The National Zoo
Dinner at home - Salad with a lemon vinaigrette and sauteed shrimp. With bread on the side.

Friday - Day of Beauty
Lunch at home
Spa day at Elizabeth Arden in Friendship Heights
Dinner at Central

Saturday - Yum!
Ok Stef. It's time to step up to the plate and do some entertaining! But I'll make sure you are well supplied and give you a menu where the only cooking is slicing some tomatoes and cooking a steak!

A visit to the Cheverly Farmer's market in the morning to get provisions for a dinner for four
- bread
- salad greens
- grape tomatoes
- cucumbers
- sugar snap peas
- red onions
- fresh fruit in season
- cheese for a cheese plate
Stop by Eastern Market to get a nice flank steak (1 1/2 pounds)
Lunch at Cafe Atlantico where you will get their Latin Dim Sum
Chill out for the afternoon and recover form the enormous lunch
Dinner at home
- cheese plate with bread, grape tomatoes and cheeses (I'd suggest a nice aged gouda, stilton, and a goat cheese
- steak salad (salt and pepper the flank steak, grill in a super hot pan for 4 minutes on either side, let rest under foil and slice as thinly as possible agaisnt the grain). Salad with a balsamic vinaigrette, salad greens, cucumber and sugar snap peas.
- sliced fruit over ice cream for dessert.

Sunday - Feel refreshed yet?

I Am a Snacker

And that's been the downfall of so many of my failed dieting attempts in the past. But, so far, I seem to be doing pretty well with my nutritionist-approved snacking habits. What am I reaching for in the afternoon doldrums or to keep me company while watching tv at night?

- my homemade snack mix. This stuff is like CRACK. With protein and that little bit of sweet that I crave in the afternoons.

- string cheese. I used to turn my nose up at this stuff, but lately I've found that 2 reduced fat string cheese sticks are great snacks. They are really filling and are great at battling the 4 pm "I'm so hungry I could scream!" crises.

- veggies and dip. I've long been a baby carrot fan, but lately I've also been buying zucchini and yellow squash and slicing it up, then dipping into a reduced fat dill or onion dip. It's the same craving as potato chips and dip, but much healthier.

- Cheerios, in moderation. I've measured out 1/2 cup portions into little snack-size baggies, so I totally look like a toddler pulling these things out. When at the conference, I assured my co-workers I wouldn't smoosh them into the carpet. :-)

- Activia yogurt. My nutritionist told me to switch my yogurt from being breakfast (when it wasn't nearly filling enough) to being a sweet, light afternoon snack. Good stuff. And the Activia does wonders to help my IBS.

These little snacks are really helping me get through the days, and I've grown to really like all of them. Even, yes, the string cheese.