obsessing

 After almost a week of rain I'm back outside, stretched out in the dappled shade at the sofa end of the deck. The sun is about to pass to the blank space which means I'll have to go inside for an hour till the shade of the house descends onto that edge of the deck. I've been in the pool, briefly… the week of cold rain has dropped the temp to 20C - yikes!

The last week has been spent in a haze of inactivity… I have a mountain of zucchini to do something with, and the tomato plants are dragged to the ground with ripe tomatoes that need picking but I've had as close to zero motivation as you can get while still sitting upright. I might have slightly more energy today so hopefully the tide of tired is changing. 

I'll make some tomato sauce tomorrow… but the freezers have become black holes from which nothing is extracted… time to do a reorg and inventory!

Yesterday I went with Mom to her follow-up appointment with the surgeon - he seemed pleased with her recovery but also stressed that radiation side effects can last for years, and that new ones can pop up as time goes on… On a personal note, my skin is starting to show more effects from the radiation than even last week - some of the swelling has gone down but I've started a bit of a rash 😞  but I'm sure it will pass… (she said hopefully - I’m really tired of being tired!). 

We also went to a ‘celebration of life’ for the wife of an old co-worker of Carm's yesterday. It was pretty sad as she was only 70 and passed away suddenly in her sleep - a spouse's worst nightmare.

I've finished reading yet another book about eating for health… ‘Eat to Beat Disease’ by Dr. William Li, was super interesting - if I were young and starting out on my career this is a path I'd be interested in. Research on food is a new field but it makes so much sense to me - our bodies are constantly having chemical reactions so eating to either help or hinder those reactions just seems logical. The book gets into some detail about our bodies 5 defence systems and how certain foods boost each aspect. I'm already eating pretty healthily but with this new knowledge I can fine tune a bit for optimum nutrition and disease prevention.

I've had an interest in food for health for a long time although, unfortunately, COVID turned me from the path and I spent the whole pandemic making recipe after recipe of unhealthy food, with nary a vegetable or fruit in sight unless you could the pineapple in an upside down cake!… but disease is no longer a hypothetical possibility but is a certainty. It certainly changed my mindset. I'm going to take every care that I can to not have to go through this again… 

Broccoli sprouts are apparently some sort of super food to help fight against cancer, so I ordered a sprouting kit from Amazon and have started making them for my salad and to top sandwiches. Pumpernickel is the healthiest bread to eat (the sourdough feeds our biome), so I've been having my sandwiches on that. And green tea is almost a super food so I've upped my consumption of that. Mushrooms, broccoli, cherry tomatoes, blueberries, kiwifruit, kale, pumpkin seeds are all on the disease fighting list - I've been eating those consistently for the last few months.

So what does my food look like on a typical day? I start with a cup of blueberries, 2 kiwis, black coffee, and a vegan protein drink. Lunch is a giant salad with mixed greens, kale, roasted mushrooms & broccoli, tofu, pumpkin seeds, a beet, and half a cup of some sort of legume. Supper is a bit of a wild card - some days I'm tired and give in to my craving for a burger, but usually I keep to healthy. Lately we've been having lots of tomato sandwiches - tonight's was a fried egg on pumpernickel stacked with tomatoes from the garden with a drizzle of balsamic glaze and a heap of broccoli sprouts. I also had some parmesan cheese and a sliced up yellow pepper.  Dr. Li advocates for a mostly plant based diet with some exceptions, like the odd egg or bit of cheese… Tonight I'll have a banana with peanut butter and some dark chocolate! So I'm hardly deprived!

I'm still in the obsessive stage!

Awesome!

“good news at Mom's appointment”

“sunshine back again!”

“Lupa's new orange monkey toy”

“egg salad on pumpernickel with broccoli sprouts”